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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy\r
+\r
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost\r
+no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it\r
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this\r
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org\r
+\r
+\r
+Title: War and Peace\r
+\r
+Author: Leo Tolstoy\r
+\r
+Translators: Louise and Aylmer Maude\r
+\r
+Posting Date: January 10, 2009 [EBook #2600]\r
+\r
+Last Updated: March 15, 2013\r
+\r
+Language: English\r
+\r
+\r
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAR AND PEACE ***\r
+\r
+An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+WAR AND PEACE\r
+\r
+By Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi\r
+\r
+CONTENTS\r
+\r
+BOOK ONE: 1805\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVIII\r
+\r
+BOOK TWO: 1805\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+BOOK THREE: 1805\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+BOOK FOUR: 1806\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVI\r
+\r
+BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+BOOK NINE: 1812\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+BOOK TEN: 1812\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIX\r
+\r
+BOOK ELEVEN: 1812\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIV\r
+\r
+BOOK TWELVE: 1812\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+SECOND EPILOGUE\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+BOOK ONE: 1805\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the\r
+Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war,\r
+if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that\r
+Antichrist--I really believe he is Antichrist--I will have nothing more\r
+to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful\r
+slave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened\r
+you--sit down and tell me all the news."\r
+\r
+It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pavlovna\r
+Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya Fedorovna. With\r
+these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man of high rank and\r
+importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna Pavlovna\r
+had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering from la\r
+grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by the\r
+elite.\r
+\r
+All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered\r
+by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:\r
+\r
+"If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the\r
+prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible,\r
+I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10--Annette\r
+Scherer."\r
+\r
+"Heavens! what a virulent attack!" replied the prince, not in the least\r
+disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an\r
+embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on\r
+his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that\r
+refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and\r
+with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance\r
+who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pavlovna,\r
+kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head,\r
+and complacently seated himself on the sofa.\r
+\r
+"First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend's mind\r
+at rest," said he without altering his tone, beneath the politeness and\r
+affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony could be\r
+discerned.\r
+\r
+"Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times like\r
+these if one has any feeling?" said Anna Pavlovna. "You are staying the\r
+whole evening, I hope?"\r
+\r
+"And the fete at the English ambassador's? Today is Wednesday. I must\r
+put in an appearance there," said the prince. "My daughter is coming for\r
+me to take me there."\r
+\r
+"I thought today's fete had been canceled. I confess all these\r
+festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome."\r
+\r
+"If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have been\r
+put off," said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force of habit\r
+said things he did not even wish to be believed.\r
+\r
+"Don't tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosiltsev's\r
+dispatch? You know everything."\r
+\r
+"What can one say about it?" replied the prince in a cold, listless\r
+tone. "What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has\r
+burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours."\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale\r
+part. Anna Pavlovna Scherer on the contrary, despite her forty years,\r
+overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had\r
+become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel\r
+like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the\r
+expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it\r
+did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed,\r
+as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect,\r
+which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to\r
+correct.\r
+\r
+In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pavlovna burst\r
+out:\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don't understand things,\r
+but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She is\r
+betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign\r
+recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one\r
+thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform\r
+the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will\r
+not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of\r
+revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of\r
+this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just\r
+one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her commercial\r
+spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander's loftiness\r
+of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to find, and\r
+still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer did\r
+Novosiltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot\r
+understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for\r
+himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what have they\r
+promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they will not\r
+perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is invincible, and\r
+that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don't believe a word\r
+that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian\r
+neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty\r
+destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!"\r
+\r
+She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.\r
+\r
+"I think," said the prince with a smile, "that if you had been sent\r
+instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King of\r
+Prussia's consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me a\r
+cup of tea?"\r
+\r
+"In a moment. A propos," she added, becoming calm again, "I am expecting\r
+two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who is\r
+connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best\r
+French families. He is one of the genuine emigres, the good ones. And\r
+also the Abbe Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been\r
+received by the Emperor. Had you heard?"\r
+\r
+"I shall be delighted to meet them," said the prince. "But tell me," he\r
+added with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred to him,\r
+though the question he was about to ask was the chief motive of his\r
+visit, "is it true that the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke to be\r
+appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts is a poor\r
+creature."\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were\r
+trying through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna to secure it for the\r
+baron.\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor\r
+anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was\r
+pleased with.\r
+\r
+"Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her sister,"\r
+was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.\r
+\r
+As she named the Empress, Anna Pavlovna's face suddenly assumed an\r
+expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with\r
+sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious\r
+patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke\r
+beaucoup d'estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.\r
+\r
+The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and\r
+courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pavlovna wished\r
+both to rebuke him (for daring to speak as he had done of a man\r
+recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she\r
+said:\r
+\r
+"Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out\r
+everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly\r
+beautiful."\r
+\r
+The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.\r
+\r
+"I often think," she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer to\r
+the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political and\r
+social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate\r
+conversation--"I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life are\r
+distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children? I don't\r
+speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don't like him," she added in a tone\r
+admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows. "Two such charming\r
+children. And really you appreciate them less than anyone, and so you\r
+don't deserve to have them."\r
+\r
+And she smiled her ecstatic smile.\r
+\r
+"I can't help it," said the prince. "Lavater would have said I lack the\r
+bump of paternity."\r
+\r
+"Don't joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I am\r
+dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves" (and her face\r
+assumed its melancholy expression), "he was mentioned at Her Majesty's\r
+and you were pitied...."\r
+\r
+The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly,\r
+awaiting a reply. He frowned.\r
+\r
+"What would you have me do?" he said at last. "You know I did all a\r
+father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools.\r
+Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That\r
+is the only difference between them." He said this smiling in a way more\r
+natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round his mouth\r
+very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and unpleasant.\r
+\r
+"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a father\r
+there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna Pavlovna,\r
+looking up pensively.\r
+\r
+"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my\r
+children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That\r
+is how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped!"\r
+\r
+He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a\r
+gesture. Anna Pavlovna meditated.\r
+\r
+"Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?" she\r
+asked. "They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I\r
+don't feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who is\r
+very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess Mary\r
+Bolkonskaya."\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and\r
+perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of\r
+the head that he was considering this information.\r
+\r
+"Do you know," he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad\r
+current of his thoughts, "that Anatole is costing me forty thousand\r
+rubles a year? And," he went on after a pause, "what will it be in five\r
+years, if he goes on like this?" Presently he added: "That's what we\r
+fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours rich?"\r
+\r
+"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is the\r
+well-known Prince Bolkonski who had to retire from the army under the\r
+late Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is very clever\r
+but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She has a\r
+brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately. He is an\r
+aide-de-camp of Kutuzov's and will be here tonight."\r
+\r
+"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna Pavlovna's\r
+hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange that affair for\r
+me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-slafe with an f, as a\r
+village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich and of good\r
+family and that's all I want."\r
+\r
+And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the\r
+maid of honor's hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro as\r
+he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.\r
+\r
+"Attendez," said Anna Pavlovna, reflecting, "I'll speak to Lise, young\r
+Bolkonski's wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can be\r
+arranged. It shall be on your family's behalf that I'll start my\r
+apprenticeship as old maid."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna's drawing room was gradually filling. The highest\r
+Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age\r
+and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged.\r
+Prince Vasili's daughter, the beautiful Helene, came to take her father\r
+to the ambassador's entertainment; she wore a ball dress and her badge\r
+as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess Bolkonskaya, known as la\r
+femme la plus seduisante de Petersbourg, * was also there. She had been\r
+married during the previous winter, and being pregnant did not go to any\r
+large gatherings, but only to small receptions. Prince Vasili's son,\r
+Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart, whom he introduced. The Abbe Morio\r
+and many others had also come.\r
+\r
+\r
+* The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.\r
+\r
+To each new arrival Anna Pavlovna said, "You have not yet seen my aunt,"\r
+or "You do not know my aunt?" and very gravely conducted him or her to a\r
+little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her cap, who had come\r
+sailing in from another room as soon as the guests began to arrive; and\r
+slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her aunt, Anna Pavlovna\r
+mentioned each one's name and then left them.\r
+\r
+Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not\r
+one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of them\r
+cared about; Anna Pavlovna observed these greetings with mournful and\r
+solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of them in\r
+the same words, about their health and her own, and the health of Her\r
+Majesty, "who, thank God, was better today." And each visitor, though\r
+politeness prevented his showing impatience, left the old woman with a\r
+sense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty and did not return\r
+to her the whole evening.\r
+\r
+The young Princess Bolkonskaya had brought some work in a gold-\r
+embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a delicate\r
+dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her teeth, but it\r
+lifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming when she\r
+occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always the case\r
+with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect--the shortness of her\r
+upper lip and her half-open mouth--seemed to be her own special and\r
+peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty\r
+young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life and health, and\r
+carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull dispirited young ones\r
+who looked at her, after being in her company and talking to her a\r
+little while, felt as if they too were becoming, like her, full of life\r
+and health. All who talked to her, and at each word saw her bright smile\r
+and the constant gleam of her white teeth, thought that they were in a\r
+specially amiable mood that day.\r
+\r
+The little princess went round the table with quick, short, swaying\r
+steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her dress sat\r
+down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was doing was a\r
+pleasure to herself and to all around her. "I have brought my work,"\r
+said she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all present.\r
+"Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick on me," she\r
+added, turning to her hostess. "You wrote that it was to be quite a\r
+small reception, and just see how badly I am dressed." And she spread\r
+out her arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed, dainty gray dress,\r
+girdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast.\r
+\r
+"Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than anyone else,"\r
+replied Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+"You know," said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in\r
+French, turning to a general, "my husband is deserting me? He is going\r
+to get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?" she\r
+added, addressing Prince Vasili, and without waiting for an answer she\r
+turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Helene.\r
+\r
+"What a delightful woman this little princess is!" said Prince Vasili to\r
+Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with\r
+close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable\r
+at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout\r
+young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov, a well-known\r
+grandee of Catherine's time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man\r
+had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had only\r
+just returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this was his\r
+first appearance in society. Anna Pavlovna greeted him with the nod she\r
+accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room. But in spite of\r
+this lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and fear, as at the sight\r
+of something too large and unsuited to the place, came over her face\r
+when she saw Pierre enter. Though he was certainly rather bigger than\r
+the other men in the room, her anxiety could only have reference to the\r
+clever though shy, but observant and natural, expression which\r
+distinguished him from everyone else in that drawing room.\r
+\r
+"It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor\r
+invalid," said Anna Pavlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her aunt\r
+as she conducted him to her.\r
+\r
+Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look round as\r
+if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to the little\r
+princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate acquaintance.\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna's alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the\r
+aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty's health. Anna\r
+Pavlovna in dismay detained him with the words: "Do you know the Abbe\r
+Morio? He is a most interesting man."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very\r
+interesting but hardly feasible."\r
+\r
+"You think so?" rejoined Anna Pavlovna in order to say something and get\r
+away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now committed a\r
+reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady before she had\r
+finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak to another who\r
+wished to get away. With his head bent, and his big feet spread apart,\r
+he began explaining his reasons for thinking the abbe's plan chimerical.\r
+\r
+"We will talk of it later," said Anna Pavlovna with a smile.\r
+\r
+And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave, she\r
+resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch, ready\r
+to help at any point where the conversation might happen to flag. As the\r
+foreman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands to work, goes\r
+round and notices here a spindle that has stopped or there one that\r
+creaks or makes more noise than it should, and hastens to check the\r
+machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna Pavlovna moved about her\r
+drawing room, approaching now a silent, now a too-noisy group, and by a\r
+word or slight rearrangement kept the conversational machine in steady,\r
+proper, and regular motion. But amid these cares her anxiety about\r
+Pierre was evident. She kept an anxious watch on him when he approached\r
+the group round Mortemart to listen to what was being said there, and\r
+again when he passed to another group whose center was the abbe.\r
+\r
+Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna Pavlovna's\r
+was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all the\r
+intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like a child\r
+in a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of missing any\r
+clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the self-confident and\r
+refined expression on the faces of those present he was always expecting\r
+to hear something very profound. At last he came up to Morio. Here the\r
+conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an opportunity\r
+to express his own views, as young people are fond of doing.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna's reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed\r
+steadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt,\r
+beside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn face\r
+was rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company had\r
+settled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed round the\r
+abbe. Another, of young people, was grouped round the beautiful Princess\r
+Helene, Prince Vasili's daughter, and the little Princess Bolkonskaya,\r
+very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump for her age. The third\r
+group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and polished\r
+manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out of\r
+politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in\r
+which he found himself. Anna Pavlovna was obviously serving him up as a\r
+treat to her guests. As a clever maitre d'hotel serves up as a specially\r
+choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in the\r
+kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pavlovna served up to her\r
+guests, first the vicomte and then the abbe, as peculiarly choice\r
+morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the\r
+murder of the Duc d'Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d'Enghien had\r
+perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular reasons\r
+for Buonaparte's hatred of him.\r
+\r
+"Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte," said Anna Pavlovna, with a\r
+pleasant feeling that there was something a la Louis XV in the sound of\r
+that sentence: "Contez nous cela, Vicomte."\r
+\r
+The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness to\r
+comply. Anna Pavlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone to\r
+listen to his tale.\r
+\r
+"The vicomte knew the duc personally," whispered Anna Pavlovna to one of\r
+the guests. "The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur," said she to another.\r
+"How evidently he belongs to the best society," said she to a third; and\r
+the vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest and most\r
+advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef on a hot\r
+dish.\r
+\r
+The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile.\r
+\r
+"Come over here, Helene, dear," said Anna Pavlovna to the beautiful\r
+young princess who was sitting some way off, the center of another\r
+group.\r
+\r
+The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with which\r
+she had first entered the room--the smile of a perfectly beautiful\r
+woman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss and\r
+ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling\r
+diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her, not looking\r
+at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each the\r
+privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and shapely shoulders, back,\r
+and bosom--which in the fashion of those days were very much exposed--\r
+and she seemed to bring the glamour of a ballroom with her as she moved\r
+toward Anna Pavlovna. Helene was so lovely that not only did she not\r
+show any trace of coquetry, but on the contrary she even appeared shy of\r
+her unquestionable and all too victorious beauty. She seemed to wish,\r
+but to be unable, to diminish its effect.\r
+\r
+"How lovely!" said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte lifted his\r
+shoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by something extraordinary\r
+when she took her seat opposite and beamed upon him also with her\r
+unchanging smile.\r
+\r
+"Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience," said he, smilingly\r
+inclining his head.\r
+\r
+The princess rested her bare round arm on a little table and considered\r
+a reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited. All the time the story was\r
+being told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful round arm,\r
+altered in shape by its pressure on the table, now at her still more\r
+beautiful bosom, on which she readjusted a diamond necklace. From time\r
+to time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and whenever the story\r
+produced an effect she glanced at Anna Pavlovna, at once adopted just\r
+the expression she saw on the maid of honor's face, and again relapsed\r
+into her radiant smile.\r
+\r
+The little princess had also left the tea table and followed Helene.\r
+\r
+"Wait a moment, I'll get my work.... Now then, what are you thinking\r
+of?" she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte. "Fetch me my workbag."\r
+\r
+There was a general movement as the princess, smiling and talking\r
+merrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily arranged herself in her\r
+seat.\r
+\r
+"Now I am all right," she said, and asking the vicomte to begin, she\r
+took up her work.\r
+\r
+Prince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined the circle and\r
+moving a chair close to hers seated himself beside her.\r
+\r
+Le charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary resemblance to\r
+his beautiful sister, but yet more by the fact that in spite of this\r
+resemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features were like his\r
+sister's, but while in her case everything was lit up by a joyous, self-\r
+satisfied, youthful, and constant smile of animation, and by the\r
+wonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the contrary was\r
+dulled by imbecility and a constant expression of sullen self-\r
+confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes, nose, and mouth\r
+all seemed puckered into a vacant, wearied grimace, and his arms and\r
+legs always fell into unnatural positions.\r
+\r
+"It's not going to be a ghost story?" said he, sitting down beside the\r
+princess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if without this\r
+instrument he could not begin to speak.\r
+\r
+"Why no, my dear fellow," said the astonished narrator, shrugging his\r
+shoulders.\r
+\r
+"Because I hate ghost stories," said Prince Hippolyte in a tone which\r
+showed that he only understood the meaning of his words after he had\r
+uttered them.\r
+\r
+He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure\r
+whether what he said was very witty or very stupid. He was dressed in a\r
+dark-green dress coat, knee breeches of the color of cuisse de nymphe\r
+effrayee, as he called it, shoes, and silk stockings.\r
+\r
+The vicomte told his tale very neatly. It was an anecdote, then current,\r
+to the effect that the Duc d'Enghien had gone secretly to Paris to visit\r
+Mademoiselle George; that at her house he came upon Bonaparte, who also\r
+enjoyed the famous actress' favors, and that in his presence Napoleon\r
+happened to fall into one of the fainting fits to which he was subject,\r
+and was thus at the duc's mercy. The latter spared him, and this\r
+magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by death.\r
+\r
+The story was very pretty and interesting, especially at the point where\r
+the rivals suddenly recognized one another; and the ladies looked\r
+agitated.\r
+\r
+"Charming!" said Anna Pavlovna with an inquiring glance at the little\r
+princess.\r
+\r
+"Charming!" whispered the little princess, sticking the needle into her\r
+work as if to testify that the interest and fascination of the story\r
+prevented her from going on with it.\r
+\r
+The vicomte appreciated this silent praise and smiling gratefully\r
+prepared to continue, but just then Anna Pavlovna, who had kept a\r
+watchful eye on the young man who so alarmed her, noticed that he was\r
+talking too loudly and vehemently with the abbe, so she hurried to the\r
+rescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbe about\r
+the balance of power, and the latter, evidently interested by the young\r
+man's simple-minded eagerness, was explaining his pet theory. Both were\r
+talking and listening too eagerly and too naturally, which was why Anna\r
+Pavlovna disapproved.\r
+\r
+"The means are... the balance of power in Europe and the rights of the\r
+people," the abbe was saying. "It is only necessary for one powerful\r
+nation like Russia--barbaric as she is said to be--to place herself\r
+disinterestedly at the head of an alliance having for its object the\r
+maintenance of the balance of power of Europe, and it would save the\r
+world!"\r
+\r
+"But how are you to get that balance?" Pierre was beginning.\r
+\r
+At that moment Anna Pavlovna came up and, looking severely at Pierre,\r
+asked the Italian how he stood Russian climate. The Italian's face\r
+instantly changed and assumed an offensively affected, sugary\r
+expression, evidently habitual to him when conversing with women.\r
+\r
+"I am so enchanted by the brilliancy of the wit and culture of the\r
+society, more especially of the feminine society, in which I have had\r
+the honor of being received, that I have not yet had time to think of\r
+the climate," said he.\r
+\r
+Not letting the abbe and Pierre escape, Anna Pavlovna, the more\r
+conveniently to keep them under observation, brought them into the\r
+larger circle.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+Just then another visitor entered the drawing room: Prince Andrew\r
+Bolkonski, the little princess' husband. He was a very handsome young\r
+man, of medium height, with firm, clearcut features. Everything about\r
+him, from his weary, bored expression to his quiet, measured step,\r
+offered a most striking contrast to his quiet, little wife. It was\r
+evident that he not only knew everyone in the drawing room, but had\r
+found them to be so tiresome that it wearied him to look at or listen to\r
+them. And among all these faces that he found so tedious, none seemed to\r
+bore him so much as that of his pretty wife. He turned away from her\r
+with a grimace that distorted his handsome face, kissed Anna Pavlovna's\r
+hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned the whole company.\r
+\r
+"You are off to the war, Prince?" said Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+"General Kutuzov," said Bolkonski, speaking French and stressing the\r
+last syllable of the general's name like a Frenchman, "has been pleased\r
+to take me as an aide-de-camp...."\r
+\r
+"And Lise, your wife?"\r
+\r
+"She will go to the country."\r
+\r
+"Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?"\r
+\r
+"Andre," said his wife, addressing her husband in the same coquettish\r
+manner in which she spoke to other men, "the vicomte has been telling us\r
+such a tale about Mademoiselle George and Buonaparte!"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew screwed up his eyes and turned away. Pierre, who from the\r
+moment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him with glad,\r
+affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before he looked round\r
+Prince Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance with whoever was\r
+touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre's beaming face he gave him an\r
+unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile.\r
+\r
+"There now!... So you, too, are in the great world?" said he to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"I knew you would be here," replied Pierre. "I will come to supper with\r
+you. May I?" he added in a low voice so as not to disturb the vicomte\r
+who was continuing his story.\r
+\r
+"No, impossible!" said Prince Andrew, laughing and pressing Pierre's\r
+hand to show that there was no need to ask the question. He wished to\r
+say something more, but at that moment Prince Vasili and his daughter\r
+got up to go and the two young men rose to let them pass.\r
+\r
+"You must excuse me, dear Vicomte," said Prince Vasili to the Frenchman,\r
+holding him down by the sleeve in a friendly way to prevent his rising.\r
+"This unfortunate fete at the ambassador's deprives me of a pleasure,\r
+and obliges me to interrupt you. I am very sorry to leave your\r
+enchanting party," said he, turning to Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+His daughter, Princess Helene, passed between the chairs, lightly\r
+holding up the folds of her dress, and the smile shone still more\r
+radiantly on her beautiful face. Pierre gazed at her with rapturous,\r
+almost frightened, eyes as she passed him.\r
+\r
+"Very lovely," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Very," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+In passing Prince Vasili seized Pierre's hand and said to Anna Pavlovna:\r
+"Educate this bear for me! He has been staying with me a whole month and\r
+this is the first time I have seen him in society. Nothing is so\r
+necessary for a young man as the society of clever women."\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She knew his\r
+father to be a connection of Prince Vasili's. The elderly lady who had\r
+been sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and overtook Prince Vasili\r
+in the anteroom. All the affectation of interest she had assumed had\r
+left her kindly and tear-worn face and it now expressed only anxiety and\r
+fear.\r
+\r
+"How about my son Boris, Prince?" said she, hurrying after him into the\r
+anteroom. "I can't remain any longer in Petersburg. Tell me what news I\r
+may take back to my poor boy."\r
+\r
+Although Prince Vasili listened reluctantly and not very politely to the\r
+elderly lady, even betraying some impatience, she gave him an\r
+ingratiating and appealing smile, and took his hand that he might not go\r
+away.\r
+\r
+"What would it cost you to say a word to the Emperor, and then he would\r
+be transferred to the Guards at once?" said she.\r
+\r
+"Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can," answered Prince\r
+Vasili, "but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I should advise\r
+you to appeal to Rumyantsev through Prince Golitsyn. That would be the\r
+best way."\r
+\r
+The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskaya, belonging to one of the\r
+best families in Russia, but she was poor, and having long been out of\r
+society had lost her former influential connections. She had now come to\r
+Petersburg to procure an appointment in the Guards for her only son. It\r
+was, in fact, solely to meet Prince Vasili that she had obtained an\r
+invitation to Anna Pavlovna's reception and had sat listening to the\r
+vicomte's story. Prince Vasili's words frightened her, an embittered\r
+look clouded her once handsome face, but only for a moment; then she\r
+smiled again and clutched Prince Vasili's arm more tightly.\r
+\r
+"Listen to me, Prince," said she. "I have never yet asked you for\r
+anything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my\r
+father's friendship for you; but now I entreat you for God's sake to do\r
+this for my son--and I shall always regard you as a benefactor," she\r
+added hurriedly. "No, don't be angry, but promise! I have asked Golitsyn\r
+and he has refused. Be the kindhearted man you always were," she said,\r
+trying to smile though tears were in her eyes.\r
+\r
+"Papa, we shall be late," said Princess Helene, turning her beautiful\r
+head and looking over her classically molded shoulder as she stood\r
+waiting by the door.\r
+\r
+Influence in society, however, is a capital which has to be economized\r
+if it is to last. Prince Vasili knew this, and having once realized that\r
+if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him, he would soon be unable\r
+to ask for himself, he became chary of using his influence. But in\r
+Princess Drubetskaya's case he felt, after her second appeal, something\r
+like qualms of conscience. She had reminded him of what was quite true;\r
+he had been indebted to her father for the first steps in his career.\r
+Moreover, he could see by her manners that she was one of those women--\r
+mostly mothers--who, having once made up their minds, will not rest\r
+until they have gained their end, and are prepared if necessary to go on\r
+insisting day after day and hour after hour, and even to make scenes.\r
+This last consideration moved him.\r
+\r
+"My dear Anna Mikhaylovna," said he with his usual familiarity and\r
+weariness of tone, "it is almost impossible for me to do what you ask;\r
+but to prove my devotion to you and how I respect your father's memory,\r
+I will do the impossible--your son shall be transferred to the Guards.\r
+Here is my hand on it. Are you satisfied?"\r
+\r
+"My dear benefactor! This is what I expected from you--I knew your\r
+kindness!" He turned to go.\r
+\r
+"Wait--just a word! When he has been transferred to the Guards..." she\r
+faltered. "You are on good terms with Michael Ilarionovich Kutuzov...\r
+recommend Boris to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at rest, and\r
+then..."\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili smiled.\r
+\r
+"No, I won't promise that. You don't know how Kutuzov is pestered since\r
+his appointment as Commander in Chief. He told me himself that all the\r
+Moscow ladies have conspired to give him all their sons as adjutants."\r
+\r
+"No, but do promise! I won't let you go! My dear benefactor..."\r
+\r
+"Papa," said his beautiful daughter in the same tone as before, "we\r
+shall be late."\r
+\r
+"Well, au revoir! Good-bye! You hear her?"\r
+\r
+"Then tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?"\r
+\r
+"Certainly; but about Kutuzov, I don't promise."\r
+\r
+"Do promise, do promise, Vasili!" cried Anna Mikhaylovna as he went,\r
+with the smile of a coquettish girl, which at one time probably came\r
+naturally to her, but was now very ill-suited to her careworn face.\r
+\r
+Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit employed all\r
+the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone her face\r
+resumed its former cold, artificial expression. She returned to the\r
+group where the vicomte was still talking, and again pretended to\r
+listen, while waiting till it would be time to leave. Her task was\r
+accomplished.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+"And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at Milan?"\r
+asked Anna Pavlovna, "and of the comedy of the people of Genoa and Lucca\r
+laying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte, and Monsieur\r
+Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions of the\r
+nations? Adorable! It is enough to make one's head whirl! It is as if\r
+the whole world had gone crazy."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew looked Anna Pavlovna straight in the face with a sarcastic\r
+smile.\r
+\r
+"'Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touche!' * They say he was very fine\r
+when he said that," he remarked, repeating the words in Italian: "'Dio\r
+mi l'ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!'"\r
+\r
+\r
+* God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!\r
+\r
+"I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run\r
+over," Anna Pavlovna continued. "The sovereigns will not be able to\r
+endure this man who is a menace to everything."\r
+\r
+"The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia," said the vicomte, polite but\r
+hopeless: "The sovereigns, madame... What have they done for Louis XVII,\r
+for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!" and he became more\r
+animated. "And believe me, they are reaping the reward of their betrayal\r
+of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are sending ambassadors\r
+to compliment the usurper."\r
+\r
+And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.\r
+\r
+Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time\r
+through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the\r
+little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing the Conde\r
+coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much gravity\r
+as if she had asked him to do it.\r
+\r
+"Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules d'azur--maison Conde," said he.\r
+\r
+The princess listened, smiling.\r
+\r
+"If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year longer," the\r
+vicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a matter with which he\r
+is better acquainted than anyone else, does not listen to others but\r
+follows the current of his own thoughts, "things will have gone too far.\r
+By intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French society--I mean\r
+good French society--will have been forever destroyed, and then..."\r
+\r
+He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre wished to\r
+make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pavlovna,\r
+who had him under observation, interrupted:\r
+\r
+"The Emperor Alexander," said she, with the melancholy which always\r
+accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family, "has declared\r
+that he will leave it to the French people themselves to choose their\r
+own form of government; and I believe that once free from the usurper,\r
+the whole nation will certainly throw itself into the arms of its\r
+rightful king," she concluded, trying to be amiable to the royalist\r
+emigrant.\r
+\r
+"That is doubtful," said Prince Andrew. "Monsieur le Vicomte quite\r
+rightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I think it will\r
+be difficult to return to the old regime."\r
+\r
+"From what I have heard," said Pierre, blushing and breaking into the\r
+conversation, "almost all the aristocracy has already gone over to\r
+Bonaparte's side."\r
+\r
+"It is the Buonapartists who say that," replied the vicomte without\r
+looking at Pierre. "At the present time it is difficult to know the real\r
+state of French public opinion."\r
+\r
+"Bonaparte has said so," remarked Prince Andrew with a sarcastic smile.\r
+\r
+It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming his\r
+remarks at him, though without looking at him.\r
+\r
+"'I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow it,'" Prince\r
+Andrew continued after a short silence, again quoting Napoleon's words.\r
+"'I opened my antechambers and they crowded in.' I do not know how far\r
+he was justified in saying so."\r
+\r
+"Not in the least," replied the vicomte. "After the murder of the duc\r
+even the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some\r
+people," he went on, turning to Anna Pavlovna, "he ever was a hero,\r
+after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one\r
+hero less on earth."\r
+\r
+Before Anna Pavlovna and the others had time to smile their appreciation\r
+of the vicomte's epigram, Pierre again broke into the conversation, and\r
+though Anna Pavlovna felt sure he would say something inappropriate, she\r
+was unable to stop him.\r
+\r
+"The execution of the Duc d'Enghien," declared Monsieur Pierre, "was a\r
+political necessity, and it seems to me that Napoleon showed greatness\r
+of soul by not fearing to take on himself the whole responsibility of\r
+that deed."\r
+\r
+"Dieu! Mon Dieu!" muttered Anna Pavlovna in a terrified whisper.\r
+\r
+"What, Monsieur Pierre... Do you consider that assassination shows\r
+greatness of soul?" said the little princess, smiling and drawing her\r
+work nearer to her.\r
+\r
+"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed several voices.\r
+\r
+"Capital!" said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began slapping his knee\r
+with the palm of his hand.\r
+\r
+The vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked solemnly at his\r
+audience over his spectacles and continued.\r
+\r
+"I say so," he continued desperately, "because the Bourbons fled from\r
+the Revolution leaving the people to anarchy, and Napoleon alone\r
+understood the Revolution and quelled it, and so for the general good,\r
+he could not stop short for the sake of one man's life."\r
+\r
+"Won't you come over to the other table?" suggested Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+But Pierre continued his speech without heeding her.\r
+\r
+"No," cried he, becoming more and more eager, "Napoleon is great because\r
+he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses, preserved all\r
+that was good in it--equality of citizenship and freedom of speech and\r
+of the press--and only for that reason did he obtain power."\r
+\r
+"Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself of it to commit\r
+murder he had restored it to the rightful king, I should have called him\r
+a great man," remarked the vicomte.\r
+\r
+"He could not do that. The people only gave him power that he might rid\r
+them of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a great man. The\r
+Revolution was a grand thing!" continued Monsieur Pierre, betraying by\r
+this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme youth and his\r
+wish to express all that was in his mind.\r
+\r
+"What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?... Well, after that... But\r
+won't you come to this other table?" repeated Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+"Rousseau's Contrat Social," said the vicomte with a tolerant smile.\r
+\r
+"I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas."\r
+\r
+"Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide," again interjected an\r
+ironical voice.\r
+\r
+"Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is most important.\r
+What is important are the rights of man, emancipation from prejudices,\r
+and equality of citizenship, and all these ideas Napoleon has retained\r
+in full force."\r
+\r
+"Liberty and equality," said the vicomte contemptuously, as if at last\r
+deciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish his words were,\r
+"high-sounding words which have long been discredited. Who does not love\r
+liberty and equality? Even our Saviour preached liberty and equality.\r
+Have people since the Revolution become happier? On the contrary. We\r
+wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from Pierre to the\r
+vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first moment of\r
+Pierre's outburst Anna Pavlovna, despite her social experience, was\r
+horror-struck. But when she saw that Pierre's sacrilegious words had not\r
+exasperated the vicomte, and had convinced herself that it was\r
+impossible to stop him, she rallied her forces and joined the vicomte in\r
+a vigorous attack on the orator.\r
+\r
+"But, my dear Monsieur Pierre," said she, "how do you explain the fact\r
+of a great man executing a duc--or even an ordinary man who--is innocent\r
+and untried?"\r
+\r
+"I should like," said the vicomte, "to ask how monsieur explains the\r
+18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was a swindle, and not at\r
+all like the conduct of a great man!"\r
+\r
+"And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!" said the\r
+little princess, shrugging her shoulders.\r
+\r
+"He's a low fellow, say what you will," remarked Prince Hippolyte.\r
+\r
+Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them all and smiled. His\r
+smile was unlike the half-smile of other people. When he smiled, his\r
+grave, even rather gloomy, look was instantaneously replaced by another-\r
+-a childlike, kindly, even rather silly look, which seemed to ask\r
+forgiveness.\r
+\r
+The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw clearly that this\r
+young Jacobin was not so terrible as his words suggested. All were\r
+silent.\r
+\r
+"How do you expect him to answer you all at once?" said Prince Andrew.\r
+"Besides, in the actions of a statesman one has to distinguish between\r
+his acts as a private person, as a general, and as an emperor. So it\r
+seems to me."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, of course!" Pierre chimed in, pleased at the arrival of this\r
+reinforcement.\r
+\r
+"One must admit," continued Prince Andrew, "that Napoleon as a man was\r
+great on the bridge of Arcola, and in the hospital at Jaffa where he\r
+gave his hand to the plague-stricken; but... but there are other acts\r
+which it is difficult to justify."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down the awkwardness of\r
+Pierre's remarks, rose and made a sign to his wife that it was time to\r
+go.\r
+\r
+Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to everyone to attend,\r
+and asking them all to be seated began:\r
+\r
+"I was told a charming Moscow story today and must treat you to it.\r
+Excuse me, Vicomte--I must tell it in Russian or the point will be\r
+lost...." And Prince Hippolyte began to tell his story in such Russian\r
+as a Frenchman would speak after spending about a year in Russia.\r
+Everyone waited, so emphatically and eagerly did he demand their\r
+attention to his story.\r
+\r
+"There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very stingy. She must\r
+have two footmen behind her carriage, and very big ones. That was her\r
+taste. And she had a lady's maid, also big. She said..."\r
+\r
+Here Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his ideas with\r
+difficulty.\r
+\r
+"She said... Oh yes! She said, 'Girl,' to the maid, 'put on a livery,\r
+get up behind the carriage, and come with me while I make some calls.'"\r
+\r
+Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing long before his\r
+audience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the narrator. Several\r
+persons, among them the elderly lady and Anna Pavlovna, did however\r
+smile.\r
+\r
+"She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl lost her hat and\r
+her long hair came down...." Here he could contain himself no longer and\r
+went on, between gasps of laughter: "And the whole world knew...."\r
+\r
+And so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why he had told\r
+it, or why it had to be told in Russian, still Anna Pavlovna and the\r
+others appreciated Prince Hippolyte's social tact in so agreeably ending\r
+Pierre's unpleasant and unamiable outburst. After the anecdote the\r
+conversation broke up into insignificant small talk about the last and\r
+next balls, about theatricals, and who would meet whom, and when and\r
+where.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+Having thanked Anna Pavlovna for her charming soiree, the guests began\r
+to take their leave.\r
+\r
+Pierre was ungainly. Stout, about the average height, broad, with huge\r
+red hands; he did not know, as the saying is, how to enter a drawing\r
+room and still less how to leave one; that is, how to say something\r
+particularly agreeable before going away. Besides this he was absent-\r
+minded. When he rose to go, he took up instead of his own, the general's\r
+three-cornered hat, and held it, pulling at the plume, till the general\r
+asked him to restore it. All his absent-mindedness and inability to\r
+enter a room and converse in it was, however, redeemed by his kindly,\r
+simple, and modest expression. Anna Pavlovna turned toward him and, with\r
+a Christian mildness that expressed forgiveness of his indiscretion,\r
+nodded and said: "I hope to see you again, but I also hope you will\r
+change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre."\r
+\r
+When she said this, he did not reply and only bowed, but again everybody\r
+saw his smile, which said nothing, unless perhaps, "Opinions are\r
+opinions, but you see what a capital, good-natured fellow I am." And\r
+everyone, including Anna Pavlovna, felt this.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew had gone out into the hall, and, turning his shoulders to\r
+the footman who was helping him on with his cloak, listened\r
+indifferently to his wife's chatter with Prince Hippolyte who had also\r
+come into the hall. Prince Hippolyte stood close to the pretty, pregnant\r
+princess, and stared fixedly at her through his eyeglass.\r
+\r
+"Go in, Annette, or you will catch cold," said the little princess,\r
+taking leave of Anna Pavlovna. "It is settled," she added in a low\r
+voice.\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna had already managed to speak to Lise about the match she\r
+contemplated between Anatole and the little princess' sister-in-law.\r
+\r
+"I rely on you, my dear," said Anna Pavlovna, also in a low tone. "Write\r
+to her and let me know how her father looks at the matter. Au revoir!"--\r
+and she left the hall.\r
+\r
+Prince Hippolyte approached the little princess and, bending his face\r
+close to her, began to whisper something.\r
+\r
+Two footmen, the princess' and his own, stood holding a shawl and a\r
+cloak, waiting for the conversation to finish. They listened to the\r
+French sentences which to them were meaningless, with an air of\r
+understanding but not wishing to appear to do so. The princess as usual\r
+spoke smilingly and listened with a laugh.\r
+\r
+"I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador's," said Prince Hippolyte\r
+"-so dull-. It has been a delightful evening, has it not? Delightful!"\r
+\r
+"They say the ball will be very good," replied the princess, drawing up\r
+her downy little lip. "All the pretty women in society will be there."\r
+\r
+"Not all, for you will not be there; not all," said Prince Hippolyte\r
+smiling joyfully; and snatching the shawl from the footman, whom he even\r
+pushed aside, he began wrapping it round the princess. Either from\r
+awkwardness or intentionally (no one could have said which) after the\r
+shawl had been adjusted he kept his arm around her for a long time, as\r
+though embracing her.\r
+\r
+Still smiling, she gracefully moved away, turning and glancing at her\r
+husband. Prince Andrew's eyes were closed, so weary and sleepy did he\r
+seem.\r
+\r
+"Are you ready?" he asked his wife, looking past her.\r
+\r
+Prince Hippolyte hurriedly put on his cloak, which in the latest fashion\r
+reached to his very heels, and, stumbling in it, ran out into the porch\r
+following the princess, whom a footman was helping into the carriage.\r
+\r
+"Princesse, au revoir," cried he, stumbling with his tongue as well as\r
+with his feet.\r
+\r
+The princess, picking up her dress, was taking her seat in the dark\r
+carriage, her husband was adjusting his saber; Prince Hippolyte, under\r
+pretense of helping, was in everyone's way.\r
+\r
+"Allow me, sir," said Prince Andrew in Russian in a cold, disagreeable\r
+tone to Prince Hippolyte who was blocking his path.\r
+\r
+"I am expecting you, Pierre," said the same voice, but gently and\r
+affectionately.\r
+\r
+The postilion started, the carriage wheels rattled. Prince Hippolyte\r
+laughed spasmodically as he stood in the porch waiting for the vicomte\r
+whom he had promised to take home.\r
+\r
+"Well, mon cher," said the vicomte, having seated himself beside\r
+Hippolyte in the carriage, "your little princess is very nice, very nice\r
+indeed, quite French," and he kissed the tips of his fingers. Hippolyte\r
+burst out laughing.\r
+\r
+"Do you know, you are a terrible chap for all your innocent airs,"\r
+continued the vicomte. "I pity the poor husband, that little officer who\r
+gives himself the airs of a monarch."\r
+\r
+Hippolyte spluttered again, and amid his laughter said, "And you were\r
+saying that the Russian ladies are not equal to the French? One has to\r
+know how to deal with them."\r
+\r
+Pierre reaching the house first went into Prince Andrew's study like one\r
+quite at home, and from habit immediately lay down on the sofa, took\r
+from the shelf the first book that came to his hand (it was Caesar's\r
+Commentaries), and resting on his elbow, began reading it in the middle.\r
+\r
+"What have you done to Mlle Scherer? She will be quite ill now," said\r
+Prince Andrew, as he entered the study, rubbing his small white hands.\r
+\r
+Pierre turned his whole body, making the sofa creak. He lifted his eager\r
+face to Prince Andrew, smiled, and waved his hand.\r
+\r
+"That abbe is very interesting but he does not see the thing in the\r
+right light.... In my opinion perpetual peace is possible but--I do not\r
+know how to express it... not by a balance of political power...."\r
+\r
+It was evident that Prince Andrew was not interested in such abstract\r
+conversation.\r
+\r
+"One can't everywhere say all one thinks, mon cher. Well, have you at\r
+last decided on anything? Are you going to be a guardsman or a\r
+diplomatist?" asked Prince Andrew after a momentary silence.\r
+\r
+Pierre sat up on the sofa, with his legs tucked under him.\r
+\r
+"Really, I don't yet know. I don't like either the one or the other."\r
+\r
+"But you must decide on something! Your father expects it."\r
+\r
+Pierre at the age of ten had been sent abroad with an abbe as tutor, and\r
+had remained away till he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow his\r
+father dismissed the abbe and said to the young man, "Now go to\r
+Petersburg, look round, and choose your profession. I will agree to\r
+anything. Here is a letter to Prince Vasili, and here is money. Write to\r
+me all about it, and I will help you in everything." Pierre had already\r
+been choosing a career for three months, and had not decided on\r
+anything. It was about this choice that Prince Andrew was speaking.\r
+Pierre rubbed his forehead.\r
+\r
+"But he must be a Freemason," said he, referring to the abbe whom he had\r
+met that evening.\r
+\r
+"That is all nonsense." Prince Andrew again interrupted him, "let us\r
+talk business. Have you been to the Horse Guards?"\r
+\r
+"No, I have not; but this is what I have been thinking and wanted to\r
+tell you. There is a war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for\r
+freedom I could understand it and should be the first to enter the army;\r
+but to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world is\r
+not right."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew only shrugged his shoulders at Pierre's childish words. He\r
+put on the air of one who finds it impossible to reply to such nonsense,\r
+but it would in fact have been difficult to give any other answer than\r
+the one Prince Andrew gave to this naive question.\r
+\r
+"If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars,"\r
+he said.\r
+\r
+"And that would be splendid," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew smiled ironically.\r
+\r
+"Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about..."\r
+\r
+"Well, why are you going to the war?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"What for? I don't know. I must. Besides that I am going..." He paused.\r
+"I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit me!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+The rustle of a woman's dress was heard in the next room. Prince Andrew\r
+shook himself as if waking up, and his face assumed the look it had had\r
+in Anna Pavlovna's drawing room. Pierre removed his feet from the sofa.\r
+The princess came in. She had changed her gown for a house dress as\r
+fresh and elegant as the other. Prince Andrew rose and politely placed a\r
+chair for her.\r
+\r
+"How is it," she began, as usual in French, settling down briskly and\r
+fussily in the easy chair, "how is it Annette never got married? How\r
+stupid you men all are not to have married her! Excuse me for saying so,\r
+but you have no sense about women. What an argumentative fellow you are,\r
+Monsieur Pierre!"\r
+\r
+"And I am still arguing with your husband. I can't understand why he\r
+wants to go to the war," replied Pierre, addressing the princess with\r
+none of the embarrassment so commonly shown by young men in their\r
+intercourse with young women.\r
+\r
+The princess started. Evidently Pierre's words touched her to the quick.\r
+\r
+"Ah, that is just what I tell him!" said she. "I don't understand it; I\r
+don't in the least understand why men can't live without wars. How is it\r
+that we women don't want anything of the kind, don't need it? Now you\r
+shall judge between us. I always tell him: Here he is Uncle's aide-de-\r
+camp, a most brilliant position. He is so well known, so much\r
+appreciated by everyone. The other day at the Apraksins' I heard a lady\r
+asking, 'Is that the famous Prince Andrew?' I did indeed." She laughed.\r
+"He is so well received everywhere. He might easily become aide-de-camp\r
+to the Emperor. You know the Emperor spoke to him most graciously.\r
+Annette and I were speaking of how to arrange it. What do you think?"\r
+\r
+Pierre looked at his friend and, noticing that he did not like the\r
+conversation, gave no reply.\r
+\r
+"When are you starting?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't speak of his going, don't! I won't hear it spoken of," said\r
+the princess in the same petulantly playful tone in which she had spoken\r
+to Hippolyte in the drawing room and which was so plainly ill-suited to\r
+the family circle of which Pierre was almost a member. "Today when I\r
+remembered that all these delightful associations must be broken off...\r
+and then you know, Andre..." (she looked significantly at her husband)\r
+"I'm afraid, I'm afraid!" she whispered, and a shudder ran down her\r
+back.\r
+\r
+Her husband looked at her as if surprised to notice that someone besides\r
+Pierre and himself was in the room, and addressed her in a tone of\r
+frigid politeness.\r
+\r
+"What is it you are afraid of, Lise? I don't understand," said he.\r
+\r
+"There, what egotists men all are: all, all egotists! Just for a whim of\r
+his own, goodness only knows why, he leaves me and locks me up alone in\r
+the country."\r
+\r
+"With my father and sister, remember," said Prince Andrew gently.\r
+\r
+"Alone all the same, without my friends.... And he expects me not to be\r
+afraid."\r
+\r
+Her tone was now querulous and her lip drawn up, giving her not a\r
+joyful, but an animal, squirrel-like expression. She paused as if she\r
+felt it indecorous to speak of her pregnancy before Pierre, though the\r
+gist of the matter lay in that.\r
+\r
+"I still can't understand what you are afraid of," said Prince Andrew\r
+slowly, not taking his eyes off his wife.\r
+\r
+The princess blushed, and raised her arms with a gesture of despair.\r
+\r
+"No, Andrew, I must say you have changed. Oh, how you have..."\r
+\r
+"Your doctor tells you to go to bed earlier," said Prince Andrew. "You\r
+had better go."\r
+\r
+The princess said nothing, but suddenly her short downy lip quivered.\r
+Prince Andrew rose, shrugged his shoulders, and walked about the room.\r
+\r
+Pierre looked over his spectacles with naive surprise, now at him and\r
+now at her, moved as if about to rise too, but changed his mind.\r
+\r
+"Why should I mind Monsieur Pierre being here?" exclaimed the little\r
+princess suddenly, her pretty face all at once distorted by a tearful\r
+grimace. "I have long wanted to ask you, Andrew, why you have changed so\r
+to me? What have I done to you? You are going to the war and have no\r
+pity for me. Why is it?"\r
+\r
+"Lise!" was all Prince Andrew said. But that one word expressed an\r
+entreaty, a threat, and above all conviction that she would herself\r
+regret her words. But she went on hurriedly:\r
+\r
+"You treat me like an invalid or a child. I see it all! Did you behave\r
+like that six months ago?"\r
+\r
+"Lise, I beg you to desist," said Prince Andrew still more emphatically.\r
+\r
+Pierre, who had been growing more and more agitated as he listened to\r
+all this, rose and approached the princess. He seemed unable to bear the\r
+sight of tears and was ready to cry himself.\r
+\r
+"Calm yourself, Princess! It seems so to you because... I assure you I\r
+myself have experienced... and so... because... No, excuse me! An\r
+outsider is out of place here... No, don't distress yourself... Good-\r
+bye!"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew caught him by the hand.\r
+\r
+"No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind to wish to deprive me of the\r
+pleasure of spending the evening with you."\r
+\r
+"No, he thinks only of himself," muttered the princess without\r
+restraining her angry tears.\r
+\r
+"Lise!" said Prince Andrew dryly, raising his voice to the pitch which\r
+indicates that patience is exhausted.\r
+\r
+Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression of the princess' pretty\r
+face changed into a winning and piteous look of fear. Her beautiful eyes\r
+glanced askance at her husband's face, and her own assumed the timid,\r
+deprecating expression of a dog when it rapidly but feebly wags its\r
+drooping tail.\r
+\r
+"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" she muttered, and lifting her dress with one hand\r
+she went up to her husband and kissed him on the forehead.\r
+\r
+"Good night, Lise," said he, rising and courteously kissing her hand as\r
+he would have done to a stranger.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+The friends were silent. Neither cared to begin talking. Pierre\r
+continually glanced at Prince Andrew; Prince Andrew rubbed his forehead\r
+with his small hand.\r
+\r
+"Let us go and have supper," he said with a sigh, going to the door.\r
+\r
+They entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious dining room.\r
+Everything from the table napkins to the silver, china, and glass bore\r
+that imprint of newness found in the households of the newly married.\r
+Halfway through supper Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the table and,\r
+with a look of nervous agitation such as Pierre had never before seen on\r
+his face, began to talk--as one who has long had something on his mind\r
+and suddenly determines to speak out.\r
+\r
+"Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's my advice: never marry till\r
+you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of, and\r
+until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen her\r
+plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable\r
+mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing--or all that is\r
+good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles.\r
+Yes! Yes! Yes! Don't look at me with such surprise. If you marry\r
+expecting anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every\r
+step that for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing room,\r
+where you will be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an\r
+idiot!... But what's the good?..." and he waved his arm.\r
+\r
+Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face seem different and\r
+the good-natured expression still more apparent, and gazed at his friend\r
+in amazement.\r
+\r
+"My wife," continued Prince Andrew, "is an excellent woman, one of those\r
+rare women with whom a man's honor is safe; but, O God, what would I not\r
+give now to be unmarried! You are the first and only one to whom I\r
+mention this, because I like you."\r
+\r
+As he said this Prince Andrew was less than ever like that Bolkonski who\r
+had lolled in Anna Pavlovna's easy chairs and with half-closed eyes had\r
+uttered French phrases between his teeth. Every muscle of his thin face\r
+was now quivering with nervous excitement; his eyes, in which the fire\r
+of life had seemed extinguished, now flashed with brilliant light. It\r
+was evident that the more lifeless he seemed at ordinary times, the more\r
+impassioned he became in these moments of almost morbid irritation.\r
+\r
+"You don't understand why I say this," he continued, "but it is the\r
+whole story of life. You talk of Bonaparte and his career," said he\r
+(though Pierre had not mentioned Bonaparte), "but Bonaparte when he\r
+worked went step by step toward his goal. He was free, he had nothing\r
+but his aim to consider, and he reached it. But tie yourself up with a\r
+woman and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom! And all you\r
+have of hope and strength merely weighs you down and torments you with\r
+regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and triviality--these are\r
+the enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I am now going to the war,\r
+the greatest war there ever was, and I know nothing and am fit for\r
+nothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic wit," continued Prince\r
+Andrew, "and at Anna Pavlovna's they listen to me. And that stupid set\r
+without whom my wife cannot exist, and those women... If you only knew\r
+what those society women are, and women in general! My father is right.\r
+Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything--that's what women are when\r
+you see them in their true colors! When you meet them in society it\r
+seems as if there were something in them, but there's nothing, nothing,\r
+nothing! No, don't marry, my dear fellow; don't marry!" concluded Prince\r
+Andrew.\r
+\r
+"It seems funny to me," said Pierre, "that you, you should consider\r
+yourself incapable and your life a spoiled life. You have everything\r
+before you, everything. And you..."\r
+\r
+He did not finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he\r
+thought of his friend and how much he expected of him in the future.\r
+\r
+"How can he talk like that?" thought Pierre. He considered his friend a\r
+model of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the highest\r
+degree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which might be best\r
+described as strength of will. Pierre was always astonished at Prince\r
+Andrew's calm manner of treating everybody, his extraordinary memory,\r
+his extensive reading (he had read everything, knew everything, and had\r
+an opinion about everything), but above all at his capacity for work and\r
+study. And if Pierre was often struck by Andrew's lack of capacity for\r
+philosophical meditation (to which he himself was particularly\r
+addicted), he regarded even this not as a defect but as a sign of\r
+strength.\r
+\r
+Even in the best, most friendly and simplest relations of life, praise\r
+and commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary to wheels\r
+that they may run smoothly.\r
+\r
+"My part is played out," said Prince Andrew. "What's the use of talking\r
+about me? Let us talk about you," he added after a silence, smiling at\r
+his reassuring thoughts.\r
+\r
+That smile was immediately reflected on Pierre's face.\r
+\r
+"But what is there to say about me?" said Pierre, his face relaxing into\r
+a careless, merry smile. "What am I? An illegitimate son!" He suddenly\r
+blushed crimson, and it was plain that he had made a great effort to say\r
+this. "Without a name and without means... And it really..." But he did\r
+not say what "it really" was. "For the present I am free and am all\r
+right. Only I haven't the least idea what I am to do; I wanted to\r
+consult you seriously."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew looked kindly at him, yet his glance--friendly and\r
+affectionate as it was--expressed a sense of his own superiority.\r
+\r
+"I am fond of you, especially as you are the one live man among our\r
+whole set. Yes, you're all right! Choose what you will; it's all the\r
+same. You'll be all right anywhere. But look here: give up visiting\r
+those Kuragins and leading that sort of life. It suits you so badly--all\r
+this debauchery, dissipation, and the rest of it!"\r
+\r
+"What would you have, my dear fellow?" answered Pierre, shrugging his\r
+shoulders. "Women, my dear fellow; women!"\r
+\r
+"I don't understand it," replied Prince Andrew. "Women who are comme il\r
+faut, that's a different matter; but the Kuragins' set of women, 'women\r
+and wine' I don't understand!"\r
+\r
+Pierre was staying at Prince Vasili Kuragin's and sharing the dissipated\r
+life of his son Anatole, the son whom they were planning to reform by\r
+marrying him to Prince Andrew's sister.\r
+\r
+"Do you know?" said Pierre, as if suddenly struck by a happy thought,\r
+"seriously, I have long been thinking of it.... Leading such a life I\r
+can't decide or think properly about anything. One's head aches, and one\r
+spends all one's money. He asked me for tonight, but I won't go."\r
+\r
+"You give me your word of honor not to go?"\r
+\r
+"On my honor!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+It was past one o'clock when Pierre left his friend. It was a cloudless,\r
+northern, summer night. Pierre took an open cab intending to drive\r
+straight home. But the nearer he drew to the house the more he felt the\r
+impossibility of going to sleep on such a night. It was light enough to\r
+see a long way in the deserted street and it seemed more like morning or\r
+evening than night. On the way Pierre remembered that Anatole Kuragin\r
+was expecting the usual set for cards that evening, after which there\r
+was generally a drinking bout, finishing with visits of a kind Pierre\r
+was very fond of.\r
+\r
+"I should like to go to Kuragin's," thought he.\r
+\r
+But he immediately recalled his promise to Prince Andrew not to go\r
+there. Then, as happens to people of weak character, he desired so\r
+passionately once more to enjoy that dissipation he was so accustomed to\r
+that he decided to go. The thought immediately occurred to him that his\r
+promise to Prince Andrew was of no account, because before he gave it he\r
+had already promised Prince Anatole to come to his gathering; "besides,"\r
+thought he, "all such 'words of honor' are conventional things with no\r
+definite meaning, especially if one considers that by tomorrow one may\r
+be dead, or something so extraordinary may happen to one that honor and\r
+dishonor will be all the same!" Pierre often indulged in reflections of\r
+this sort, nullifying all his decisions and intentions. He went to\r
+Kuragin's.\r
+\r
+Reaching the large house near the Horse Guards' barracks, in which\r
+Anatole lived, Pierre entered the lighted porch, ascended the stairs,\r
+and went in at the open door. There was no one in the anteroom; empty\r
+bottles, cloaks, and overshoes were lying about; there was a smell of\r
+alcohol, and sounds of voices and shouting in the distance.\r
+\r
+Cards and supper were over, but the visitors had not yet dispersed.\r
+Pierre threw off his cloak and entered the first room, in which were the\r
+remains of supper. A footman, thinking no one saw him, was drinking on\r
+the sly what was left in the glasses. From the third room came sounds of\r
+laughter, the shouting of familiar voices, the growling of a bear, and\r
+general commotion. Some eight or nine young men were crowding anxiously\r
+round an open window. Three others were romping with a young bear, one\r
+pulling him by the chain and trying to set him at the others.\r
+\r
+"I bet a hundred on Stevens!" shouted one.\r
+\r
+"Mind, no holding on!" cried another.\r
+\r
+"I bet on Dolokhov!" cried a third. "Kuragin, you part our hands."\r
+\r
+"There, leave Bruin alone; here's a bet on."\r
+\r
+"At one draught, or he loses!" shouted a fourth.\r
+\r
+"Jacob, bring a bottle!" shouted the host, a tall, handsome fellow who\r
+stood in the midst of the group, without a coat, and with his fine linen\r
+shirt unfastened in front. "Wait a bit, you fellows.... Here is Petya!\r
+Good man!" cried he, addressing Pierre.\r
+\r
+Another voice, from a man of medium height with clear blue eyes,\r
+particularly striking among all these drunken voices by its sober ring,\r
+cried from the window: "Come here; part the bets!" This was Dolokhov, an\r
+officer of the Semenov regiment, a notorious gambler and duelist, who\r
+was living with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking about him merrily.\r
+\r
+"I don't understand. What's it all about?"\r
+\r
+"Wait a bit, he is not drunk yet! A bottle here," said Anatole, taking a\r
+glass from the table he went up to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"First of all you must drink!"\r
+\r
+Pierre drank one glass after another, looking from under his brows at\r
+the tipsy guests who were again crowding round the window, and listening\r
+to their chatter. Anatole kept on refilling Pierre's glass while\r
+explaining that Dolokhov was betting with Stevens, an English naval\r
+officer, that he would drink a bottle of rum sitting on the outer ledge\r
+of the third floor window with his legs hanging out.\r
+\r
+"Go on, you must drink it all," said Anatole, giving Pierre the last\r
+glass, "or I won't let you go!"\r
+\r
+"No, I won't," said Pierre, pushing Anatole aside, and he went up to the\r
+window.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov was holding the Englishman's hand and clearly and distinctly\r
+repeating the terms of the bet, addressing himself particularly to\r
+Anatole and Pierre.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov was of medium height, with curly hair and light-blue eyes. He\r
+was about twenty-five. Like all infantry officers he wore no mustache,\r
+so that his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was clearly\r
+seen. The lines of that mouth were remarkably finely curved. The middle\r
+of the upper lip formed a sharp wedge and closed firmly on the firm\r
+lower one, and something like two distinct smiles played continually\r
+round the two corners of the mouth; this, together with the resolute,\r
+insolent intelligence of his eyes, produced an effect which made it\r
+impossible not to notice his face. Dolokhov was a man of small means and\r
+no connections. Yet, though Anatole spent tens of thousands of rubles,\r
+Dolokhov lived with him and had placed himself on such a footing that\r
+all who knew them, including Anatole himself, respected him more than\r
+they did Anatole. Dolokhov could play all games and nearly always won.\r
+However much he drank, he never lost his clearheadedness. Both Kuragin\r
+and Dolokhov were at that time notorious among the rakes and scapegraces\r
+of Petersburg.\r
+\r
+The bottle of rum was brought. The window frame which prevented anyone\r
+from sitting on the outer sill was being forced out by two footmen, who\r
+were evidently flurried and intimidated by the directions and shouts of\r
+the gentlemen around.\r
+\r
+Anatole with his swaggering air strode up to the window. He wanted to\r
+smash something. Pushing away the footmen he tugged at the frame, but\r
+could not move it. He smashed a pane.\r
+\r
+"You have a try, Hercules," said he, turning to Pierre.\r
+\r
+Pierre seized the crossbeam, tugged, and wrenched the oak frame out with\r
+a crash.\r
+\r
+"Take it right out, or they'll think I'm holding on," said Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"Is the Englishman bragging?... Eh? Is it all right?" said Anatole.\r
+\r
+"First-rate," said Pierre, looking at Dolokhov, who with a bottle of rum\r
+in his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of the sky,\r
+the dawn merging with the afterglow of sunset, was visible.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov, the bottle of rum still in his hand, jumped onto the window\r
+sill. "Listen!" cried he, standing there and addressing those in the\r
+room. All were silent.\r
+\r
+"I bet fifty imperials"--he spoke French that the Englishman might\r
+understand him, but he did not speak it very well--"I bet fifty\r
+imperials... or do you wish to make it a hundred?" added he, addressing\r
+the Englishman.\r
+\r
+"No, fifty," replied the latter.\r
+\r
+"All right. Fifty imperials... that I will drink a whole bottle of rum\r
+without taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window on this\r
+spot" (he stooped and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the window)\r
+"and without holding on to anything. Is that right?"\r
+\r
+"Quite right," said the Englishman.\r
+\r
+Anatole turned to the Englishman and taking him by one of the buttons of\r
+his coat and looking down at him--the Englishman was short--began\r
+repeating the terms of the wager to him in English.\r
+\r
+"Wait!" cried Dolokhov, hammering with the bottle on the window sill to\r
+attract attention. "Wait a bit, Kuragin. Listen! If anyone else does the\r
+same, I will pay him a hundred imperials. Do you understand?"\r
+\r
+The Englishman nodded, but gave no indication whether he intended to\r
+accept this challenge or not. Anatole did not release him, and though he\r
+kept nodding to show that he understood, Anatole went on translating\r
+Dolokhov's words into English. A thin young lad, an hussar of the Life\r
+Guards, who had been losing that evening, climbed on the window sill,\r
+leaned over, and looked down.\r
+\r
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" he muttered, looking down from the window at the stones of\r
+the pavement.\r
+\r
+"Shut up!" cried Dolokhov, pushing him away from the window. The lad\r
+jumped awkwardly back into the room, tripping over his spurs.\r
+\r
+Placing the bottle on the window sill where he could reach it easily,\r
+Dolokhov climbed carefully and slowly through the window and lowered his\r
+legs. Pressing against both sides of the window, he adjusted himself on\r
+his seat, lowered his hands, moved a little to the right and then to the\r
+left, and took up the bottle. Anatole brought two candles and placed\r
+them on the window sill, though it was already quite light. Dolokhov's\r
+back in his white shirt, and his curly head, were lit up from both\r
+sides. Everyone crowded to the window, the Englishman in front. Pierre\r
+stood smiling but silent. One man, older than the others present,\r
+suddenly pushed forward with a scared and angry look and wanted to seize\r
+hold of Dolokhov's shirt.\r
+\r
+"I say, this is folly! He'll be killed," said this more sensible man.\r
+\r
+Anatole stopped him.\r
+\r
+"Don't touch him! You'll startle him and then he'll be killed. Eh?...\r
+What then?... Eh?"\r
+\r
+Dolokhov turned round and, again holding on with both hands, arranged\r
+himself on his seat.\r
+\r
+"If anyone comes meddling again," said he, emitting the words separately\r
+through his thin compressed lips, "I will throw him down there. Now\r
+then!"\r
+\r
+Saying this he again turned round, dropped his hands, took the bottle\r
+and lifted it to his lips, threw back his head, and raised his free hand\r
+to balance himself. One of the footmen who had stooped to pick up some\r
+broken glass remained in that position without taking his eyes from the\r
+window and from Dolokhov's back. Anatole stood erect with staring eyes.\r
+The Englishman looked on sideways, pursing up his lips. The man who had\r
+wished to stop the affair ran to a corner of the room and threw himself\r
+on a sofa with his face to the wall. Pierre hid his face, from which a\r
+faint smile forgot to fade though his features now expressed horror and\r
+fear. All were still. Pierre took his hands from his eyes. Dolokhov\r
+still sat in the same position, only his head was thrown further back\r
+till his curly hair touched his shirt collar, and the hand holding the\r
+bottle was lifted higher and higher and trembled with the effort. The\r
+bottle was emptying perceptibly and rising still higher and his head\r
+tilting yet further back. "Why is it so long?" thought Pierre. It seemed\r
+to him that more than half an hour had elapsed. Suddenly Dolokhov made a\r
+backward movement with his spine, and his arm trembled nervously; this\r
+was sufficient to cause his whole body to slip as he sat on the sloping\r
+ledge. As he began slipping down, his head and arm wavered still more\r
+with the strain. One hand moved as if to clutch the window sill, but\r
+refrained from touching it. Pierre again covered his eyes and thought he\r
+would never open them again. Suddenly he was aware of a stir all around.\r
+He looked up: Dolokhov was standing on the window sill, with a pale but\r
+radiant face.\r
+\r
+"It's empty."\r
+\r
+He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it neatly. Dolokhov\r
+jumped down. He smelt strongly of rum.\r
+\r
+"Well done!... Fine fellow!... There's a bet for you!... Devil take\r
+you!" came from different sides.\r
+\r
+The Englishman took out his purse and began counting out the money.\r
+Dolokhov stood frowning and did not speak. Pierre jumped upon the window\r
+sill.\r
+\r
+"Gentlemen, who wishes to bet with me? I'll do the same thing!" he\r
+suddenly cried. "Even without a bet, there! Tell them to bring me a\r
+bottle. I'll do it.... Bring a bottle!"\r
+\r
+"Let him do it, let him do it," said Dolokhov, smiling.\r
+\r
+"What next? Have you gone mad?... No one would let you!... Why, you go\r
+giddy even on a staircase," exclaimed several voices.\r
+\r
+"I'll drink it! Let's have a bottle of rum!" shouted Pierre, banging the\r
+table with a determined and drunken gesture and preparing to climb out\r
+of the window.\r
+\r
+They seized him by his arms; but he was so strong that everyone who\r
+touched him was sent flying.\r
+\r
+"No, you'll never manage him that way," said Anatole. "Wait a bit and\r
+I'll get round him.... Listen! I'll take your bet tomorrow, but now we\r
+are all going to ----'s."\r
+\r
+"Come on then," cried Pierre. "Come on!... And we'll take Bruin with\r
+us."\r
+\r
+And he caught the bear, took it in his arms, lifted it from the ground,\r
+and began dancing round the room with it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili kept the promise he had given to Princess Drubetskaya who\r
+had spoken to him on behalf of her only son Boris on the evening of Anna\r
+Pavlovna's soiree. The matter was mentioned to the Emperor, an exception\r
+made, and Boris transferred into the regiment of Semenov Guards with the\r
+rank of cornet. He received, however, no appointment to Kutuzov's staff\r
+despite all Anna Mikhaylovna's endeavors and entreaties. Soon after Anna\r
+Pavlovna's reception Anna Mikhaylovna returned to Moscow and went\r
+straight to her rich relations, the Rostovs, with whom she stayed when\r
+in the town and where her darling Bory, who had only just entered a\r
+regiment of the line and was being at once transferred to the Guards as\r
+a cornet, had been educated from childhood and lived for years at a\r
+time. The Guards had already left Petersburg on the tenth of August, and\r
+her son, who had remained in Moscow for his equipment, was to join them\r
+on the march to Radzivilov.\r
+\r
+It was St. Natalia's day and the name day of two of the Rostovs--the\r
+mother and the youngest daughter--both named Nataly. Ever since the\r
+morning, carriages with six horses had been coming and going\r
+continually, bringing visitors to the Countess Rostova's big house on\r
+the Povarskaya, so well known to all Moscow. The countess herself and\r
+her handsome eldest daughter were in the drawing-room with the visitors\r
+who came to congratulate, and who constantly succeeded one another in\r
+relays.\r
+\r
+The countess was a woman of about forty-five, with a thin Oriental type\r
+of face, evidently worn out with childbearing--she had had twelve. A\r
+languor of motion and speech, resulting from weakness, gave her a\r
+distinguished air which inspired respect. Princess Anna Mikhaylovna\r
+Drubetskaya, who as a member of the household was also seated in the\r
+drawing room, helped to receive and entertain the visitors. The young\r
+people were in one of the inner rooms, not considering it necessary to\r
+take part in receiving the visitors. The count met the guests and saw\r
+them off, inviting them all to dinner.\r
+\r
+"I am very, very grateful to you, mon cher," or "ma chere"--he called\r
+everyone without exception and without the slightest variation in his\r
+tone, "my dear," whether they were above or below him in rank--"I thank\r
+you for myself and for our two dear ones whose name day we are keeping.\r
+But mind you come to dinner or I shall be offended, ma chere! On behalf\r
+of the whole family I beg you to come, mon cher!" These words he\r
+repeated to everyone without exception or variation, and with the same\r
+expression on his full, cheerful, clean-shaven face, the same firm\r
+pressure of the hand and the same quick, repeated bows. As soon as he\r
+had seen a visitor off he returned to one of those who were still in the\r
+drawing room, drew a chair toward him or her, and jauntily spreading out\r
+his legs and putting his hands on his knees with the air of a man who\r
+enjoys life and knows how to live, he swayed to and fro with dignity,\r
+offered surmises about the weather, or touched on questions of health,\r
+sometimes in Russian and sometimes in very bad but self-confident\r
+French; then again, like a man weary but unflinching in the fulfillment\r
+of duty, he rose to see some visitors off and, stroking his scanty gray\r
+hairs over his bald patch, also asked them to dinner. Sometimes on his\r
+way back from the anteroom he would pass through the conservatory and\r
+pantry into the large marble dining hall, where tables were being set\r
+out for eighty people; and looking at the footmen, who were bringing in\r
+silver and china, moving tables, and unfolding damask table linen, he\r
+would call Dmitri Vasilevich, a man of good family and the manager of\r
+all his affairs, and while looking with pleasure at the enormous table\r
+would say: "Well, Dmitri, you'll see that things are all as they should\r
+be? That's right! The great thing is the serving, that's it." And with a\r
+complacent sigh he would return to the drawing room.\r
+\r
+"Marya Lvovna Karagina and her daughter!" announced the countess'\r
+gigantic footman in his bass voice, entering the drawing room. The\r
+countess reflected a moment and took a pinch from a gold snuffbox with\r
+her husband's portrait on it.\r
+\r
+"I'm quite worn out by these callers. However, I'll see her and no more.\r
+She is so affected. Ask her in," she said to the footman in a sad voice,\r
+as if saying: "Very well, finish me off."\r
+\r
+A tall, stout, and proud-looking woman, with a round-faced smiling\r
+daughter, entered the drawing room, their dresses rustling.\r
+\r
+"Dear Countess, what an age... She has been laid up, poor child... at\r
+the Razumovski's ball... and Countess Apraksina... I was so\r
+delighted..." came the sounds of animated feminine voices, interrupting\r
+one another and mingling with the rustling of dresses and the scraping\r
+of chairs. Then one of those conversations began which last out until,\r
+at the first pause, the guests rise with a rustle of dresses and say, "I\r
+am so delighted... Mamma's health... and Countess Apraksina..." and\r
+then, again rustling, pass into the anteroom, put on cloaks or mantles,\r
+and drive away. The conversation was on the chief topic of the day: the\r
+illness of the wealthy and celebrated beau of Catherine's day, Count\r
+Bezukhov, and about his illegitimate son Pierre, the one who had behaved\r
+so improperly at Anna Pavlovna's reception.\r
+\r
+"I am so sorry for the poor count," said the visitor. "He is in such bad\r
+health, and now this vexation about his son is enough to kill him!"\r
+\r
+"What is that?" asked the countess as if she did not know what the\r
+visitor alluded to, though she had already heard about the cause of\r
+Count Bezukhov's distress some fifteen times.\r
+\r
+"That's what comes of a modern education," exclaimed the visitor. "It\r
+seems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do as he\r
+liked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible things\r
+that he has been expelled by the police."\r
+\r
+"You don't say so!" replied the countess.\r
+\r
+"He chose his friends badly," interposed Anna Mikhaylovna. "Prince\r
+Vasili's son, he, and a certain Dolokhov have, it is said, been up to\r
+heaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it. Dolokhov has\r
+been degraded to the ranks and Bezukhov's son sent back to Moscow.\r
+Anatole Kuragin's father managed somehow to get his son's affair hushed\r
+up, but even he was ordered out of Petersburg."\r
+\r
+"But what have they been up to?" asked the countess.\r
+\r
+"They are regular brigands, especially Dolokhov," replied the visitor.\r
+"He is a son of Marya Ivanovna Dolokhova, such a worthy woman, but\r
+there, just fancy! Those three got hold of a bear somewhere, put it in a\r
+carriage, and set off with it to visit some actresses! The police tried\r
+to interfere, and what did the young men do? They tied a policeman and\r
+the bear back to back and put the bear into the Moyka Canal. And there\r
+was the bear swimming about with the policeman on his back!"\r
+\r
+"What a nice figure the policeman must have cut, my dear!" shouted the\r
+count, dying with laughter.\r
+\r
+"Oh, how dreadful! How can you laugh at it, Count?"\r
+\r
+Yet the ladies themselves could not help laughing.\r
+\r
+"It was all they could do to rescue the poor man," continued the\r
+visitor. "And to think it is Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov's son who\r
+amuses himself in this sensible manner! And he was said to be so well\r
+educated and clever. This is all that his foreign education has done for\r
+him! I hope that here in Moscow no one will receive him, in spite of his\r
+money. They wanted to introduce him to me, but I quite declined: I have\r
+my daughters to consider."\r
+\r
+"Why do you say this young man is so rich?" asked the countess, turning\r
+away from the girls, who at once assumed an air of inattention. "His\r
+children are all illegitimate. I think Pierre also is illegitimate."\r
+\r
+The visitor made a gesture with her hand.\r
+\r
+"I should think he has a score of them."\r
+\r
+Princess Anna Mikhaylovna intervened in the conversation, evidently\r
+wishing to show her connections and knowledge of what went on in\r
+society.\r
+\r
+"The fact of the matter is," said she significantly, and also in a half\r
+whisper, "everyone knows Count Cyril's reputation.... He has lost count\r
+of his children, but this Pierre was his favorite."\r
+\r
+"How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!" remarked the\r
+countess. "I have never seen a handsomer man."\r
+\r
+"He is very much altered now," said Anna Mikhaylovna. "Well, as I was\r
+saying, Prince Vasili is the next heir through his wife, but the count\r
+is very fond of Pierre, looked after his education, and wrote to the\r
+Emperor about him; so that in the case of his death--and he is so ill\r
+that he may die at any moment, and Dr. Lorrain has come from Petersburg-\r
+-no one knows who will inherit his immense fortune, Pierre or Prince\r
+Vasili. Forty thousand serfs and millions of rubles! I know it all very\r
+well for Prince Vasili told me himself. Besides, Cyril Vladimirovich is\r
+my mother's second cousin. He's also my Bory's godfather," she added, as\r
+if she attached no importance at all to the fact.\r
+\r
+"Prince Vasili arrived in Moscow yesterday. I hear he has come on some\r
+inspection business," remarked the visitor.\r
+\r
+"Yes, but between ourselves," said the princess, "that is a pretext. The\r
+fact is he has come to see Count Cyril Vladimirovich, hearing how ill he\r
+is."\r
+\r
+"But do you know, my dear, that was a capital joke," said the count; and\r
+seeing that the elder visitor was not listening, he turned to the young\r
+ladies. "I can just imagine what a funny figure that policeman cut!"\r
+\r
+And as he waved his arms to impersonate the policeman, his portly form\r
+again shook with a deep ringing laugh, the laugh of one who always eats\r
+well and, in particular, drinks well. "So do come and dine with us!" he\r
+said.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+Silence ensued. The countess looked at her callers, smiling affably, but\r
+not concealing the fact that she would not be distressed if they now\r
+rose and took their leave. The visitor's daughter was already smoothing\r
+down her dress with an inquiring look at her mother, when suddenly from\r
+the next room were heard the footsteps of boys and girls running to the\r
+door and the noise of a chair falling over, and a girl of thirteen,\r
+hiding something in the folds of her short muslin frock, darted in and\r
+stopped short in the middle of the room. It was evident that she had not\r
+intended her flight to bring her so far. Behind her in the doorway\r
+appeared a student with a crimson coat collar, an officer of the Guards,\r
+a girl of fifteen, and a plump rosy-faced boy in a short jacket.\r
+\r
+The count jumped up and, swaying from side to side, spread his arms wide\r
+and threw them round the little girl who had run in.\r
+\r
+"Ah, here she is!" he exclaimed laughing. "My pet, whose name day it is.\r
+My dear pet!"\r
+\r
+"Ma chere, there is a time for everything," said the countess with\r
+feigned severity. "You spoil her, Ilya," she added, turning to her\r
+husband.\r
+\r
+"How do you do, my dear? I wish you many happy returns of your name\r
+day," said the visitor. "What a charming child," she added, addressing\r
+the mother.\r
+\r
+This black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not pretty but full of life--with\r
+childish bare shoulders which after her run heaved and shook her bodice,\r
+with black curls tossed backward, thin bare arms, little legs in lace-\r
+frilled drawers, and feet in low slippers--was just at that charming age\r
+when a girl is no longer a child, though the child is not yet a young\r
+woman. Escaping from her father she ran to hide her flushed face in the\r
+lace of her mother's mantilla--not paying the least attention to her\r
+severe remark--and began to laugh. She laughed, and in fragmentary\r
+sentences tried to explain about a doll which she produced from the\r
+folds of her frock.\r
+\r
+"Do you see?... My doll... Mimi... You see..." was all Natasha managed\r
+to utter (to her everything seemed funny). She leaned against her mother\r
+and burst into such a loud, ringing fit of laughter that even the prim\r
+visitor could not help joining in.\r
+\r
+"Now then, go away and take your monstrosity with you," said the mother,\r
+pushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and turning to the\r
+visitor she added: "She is my youngest girl."\r
+\r
+Natasha, raising her face for a moment from her mother's mantilla,\r
+glanced up at her through tears of laughter, and again hid her face.\r
+\r
+The visitor, compelled to look on at this family scene, thought it\r
+necessary to take some part in it.\r
+\r
+"Tell me, my dear," said she to Natasha, "is Mimi a relation of yours? A\r
+daughter, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+Natasha did not like the visitor's tone of condescension to childish\r
+things. She did not reply, but looked at her seriously.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile the younger generation: Boris, the officer, Anna Mikhaylovna's\r
+son; Nicholas, the undergraduate, the count's eldest son; Sonya, the\r
+count's fifteen-year-old niece, and little Petya, his youngest boy, had\r
+all settled down in the drawing room and were obviously trying to\r
+restrain within the bounds of decorum the excitement and mirth that\r
+shone in all their faces. Evidently in the back rooms, from which they\r
+had dashed out so impetuously, the conversation had been more amusing\r
+than the drawing-room talk of society scandals, the weather, and\r
+Countess Apraksina. Now and then they glanced at one another, hardly\r
+able to suppress their laughter.\r
+\r
+The two young men, the student and the officer, friends from childhood,\r
+were of the same age and both handsome fellows, though not alike. Boris\r
+was tall and fair, and his calm and handsome face had regular, delicate\r
+features. Nicholas was short with curly hair and an open expression.\r
+Dark hairs were already showing on his upper lip, and his whole face\r
+expressed impetuosity and enthusiasm. Nicholas blushed when he entered\r
+the drawing room. He evidently tried to find something to say, but\r
+failed. Boris on the contrary at once found his footing, and related\r
+quietly and humorously how he had known that doll Mimi when she was\r
+still quite a young lady, before her nose was broken; how she had aged\r
+during the five years he had known her, and how her head had cracked\r
+right across the skull. Having said this he glanced at Natasha. She\r
+turned away from him and glanced at her younger brother, who was\r
+screwing up his eyes and shaking with suppressed laughter, and unable to\r
+control herself any longer, she jumped up and rushed from the room as\r
+fast as her nimble little feet would carry her. Boris did not laugh.\r
+\r
+"You were meaning to go out, weren't you, Mamma? Do you want the\r
+carriage?" he asked his mother with a smile.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, go and tell them to get it ready," she answered, returning\r
+his smile.\r
+\r
+Boris quietly left the room and went in search of Natasha. The plump boy\r
+ran after them angrily, as if vexed that their program had been\r
+disturbed.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+The only young people remaining in the drawing room, not counting the\r
+young lady visitor and the countess' eldest daughter (who was four years\r
+older than her sister and behaved already like a grown-up person), were\r
+Nicholas and Sonya, the niece. Sonya was a slender little brunette with\r
+a tender look in her eyes which were veiled by long lashes, thick black\r
+plaits coiling twice round her head, and a tawny tint in her complexion\r
+and especially in the color of her slender but graceful and muscular\r
+arms and neck. By the grace of her movements, by the softness and\r
+flexibility of her small limbs, and by a certain coyness and reserve of\r
+manner, she reminded one of a pretty, half-grown kitten which promises\r
+to become a beautiful little cat. She evidently considered it proper to\r
+show an interest in the general conversation by smiling, but in spite of\r
+herself her eyes under their thick long lashes watched her cousin who\r
+was going to join the army, with such passionate girlish adoration that\r
+her smile could not for a single instant impose upon anyone, and it was\r
+clear that the kitten had settled down only to spring up with more\r
+energy and again play with her cousin as soon as they too could, like\r
+Natasha and Boris, escape from the drawing room.\r
+\r
+"Ah yes, my dear," said the count, addressing the visitor and pointing\r
+to Nicholas, "his friend Boris has become an officer, and so for\r
+friendship's sake he is leaving the university and me, his old father,\r
+and entering the military service, my dear. And there was a place and\r
+everything waiting for him in the Archives Department! Isn't that\r
+friendship?" remarked the count in an inquiring tone.\r
+\r
+"But they say that war has been declared," replied the visitor.\r
+\r
+"They've been saying so a long while," said the count, "and they'll say\r
+so again and again, and that will be the end of it. My dear, there's\r
+friendship for you," he repeated. "He's joining the hussars."\r
+\r
+The visitor, not knowing what to say, shook her head.\r
+\r
+"It's not at all from friendship," declared Nicholas, flaring up and\r
+turning away as if from a shameful aspersion. "It is not from friendship\r
+at all; I simply feel that the army is my vocation."\r
+\r
+He glanced at his cousin and the young lady visitor; and they were both\r
+regarding him with a smile of approbation.\r
+\r
+"Schubert, the colonel of the Pavlograd Hussars, is dining with us\r
+today. He has been here on leave and is taking Nicholas back with him.\r
+It can't be helped!" said the count, shrugging his shoulders and\r
+speaking playfully of a matter that evidently distressed him.\r
+\r
+"I have already told you, Papa," said his son, "that if you don't wish\r
+to let me go, I'll stay. But I know I am no use anywhere except in the\r
+army; I am not a diplomat or a government clerk.--I don't know how to\r
+hide what I feel." As he spoke he kept glancing with the flirtatiousness\r
+of a handsome youth at Sonya and the young lady visitor.\r
+\r
+The little kitten, feasting her eyes on him, seemed ready at any moment\r
+to start her gambols again and display her kittenish nature.\r
+\r
+"All right, all right!" said the old count. "He always flares up! This\r
+Buonaparte has turned all their heads; they all think of how he rose\r
+from an ensign and became Emperor. Well, well, God grant it," he added,\r
+not noticing his visitor's sarcastic smile.\r
+\r
+The elders began talking about Bonaparte. Julie Karagina turned to young\r
+Rostov.\r
+\r
+"What a pity you weren't at the Arkharovs' on Thursday. It was so dull\r
+without you," said she, giving him a tender smile.\r
+\r
+The young man, flattered, sat down nearer to her with a coquettish\r
+smile, and engaged the smiling Julie in a confidential conversation\r
+without at all noticing that his involuntary smile had stabbed the heart\r
+of Sonya, who blushed and smiled unnaturally. In the midst of his talk\r
+he glanced round at her. She gave him a passionately angry glance, and\r
+hardly able to restrain her tears and maintain the artificial smile on\r
+her lips, she got up and left the room. All Nicholas' animation\r
+vanished. He waited for the first pause in the conversation, and then\r
+with a distressed face left the room to find Sonya.\r
+\r
+"How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their sleeves!"\r
+said Anna Mikhaylovna, pointing to Nicholas as he went out. "Cousinage--\r
+dangereux voisinage;" * she added.\r
+\r
+\r
+* Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said the countess when the brightness these young people had\r
+brought into the room had vanished; and as if answering a question no\r
+one had put but which was always in her mind, "and how much suffering,\r
+how much anxiety one has had to go through that we might rejoice in them\r
+now! And yet really the anxiety is greater now than the joy. One is\r
+always, always anxious! Especially just at this age, so dangerous both\r
+for girls and boys."\r
+\r
+"It all depends on the bringing up," remarked the visitor.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you're quite right," continued the countess. "Till now I have\r
+always, thank God, been my children's friend and had their full\r
+confidence," said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who\r
+imagine that their children have no secrets from them. "I know I shall\r
+always be my daughters' first confidante, and that if Nicholas, with his\r
+impulsive nature, does get into mischief (a boy can't help it), he will\r
+all the same never be like those Petersburg young men."\r
+\r
+"Yes, they are splendid, splendid youngsters," chimed in the count, who\r
+always solved questions that seemed to him perplexing by deciding that\r
+everything was splendid. "Just fancy: wants to be an hussar. What's one\r
+to do, my dear?"\r
+\r
+"What a charming creature your younger girl is," said the visitor; "a\r
+little volcano!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, a regular volcano," said the count. "Takes after me! And what a\r
+voice she has; though she's my daughter, I tell the truth when I say\r
+she'll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an Italian to\r
+give her lessons."\r
+\r
+"Isn't she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to train it\r
+at that age."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, not at all too young!" replied the count. "Why, our mothers used\r
+to be married at twelve or thirteen."\r
+\r
+"And she's in love with Boris already. Just fancy!" said the countess\r
+with a gentle smile, looking at Boris and went on, evidently concerned\r
+with a thought that always occupied her: "Now you see if I were to be\r
+severe with her and to forbid it... goodness knows what they might be up\r
+to on the sly" (she meant that they would be kissing), "but as it is, I\r
+know every word she utters. She will come running to me of her own\r
+accord in the evening and tell me everything. Perhaps I spoil her, but\r
+really that seems the best plan. With her elder sister I was stricter."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I was brought up quite differently," remarked the handsome elder\r
+daughter, Countess Vera, with a smile.\r
+\r
+But the smile did not enhance Vera's beauty as smiles generally do; on\r
+the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore unpleasant,\r
+expression. Vera was good-looking, not at all stupid, quick at learning,\r
+was well-brought up, and had a pleasant voice; what she said was true\r
+and appropriate, yet, strange to say, everyone--the visitors and\r
+countess alike--turned to look at her as if wondering why she had said\r
+it, and they all felt awkward.\r
+\r
+"People are always too clever with their eldest children and try to make\r
+something exceptional of them," said the visitor.\r
+\r
+"What's the good of denying it, my dear? Our dear countess was too\r
+clever with Vera," said the count. "Well, what of that? She's turned out\r
+splendidly all the same," he added, winking at Vera.\r
+\r
+The guests got up and took their leave, promising to return to dinner.\r
+\r
+"What manners! I thought they would never go," said the countess, when\r
+she had seen her guests out.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+When Natasha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as the\r
+conservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the conversation\r
+in the drawing room, waiting for Boris to come out. She was already\r
+growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not coming\r
+at once, when she heard the young man's discreet steps approaching\r
+neither quickly nor slowly. At this Natasha dashed swiftly among the\r
+flower tubs and hid there.\r
+\r
+Boris paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a little\r
+dust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror examined\r
+his handsome face. Natasha, very still, peered out from her ambush,\r
+waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before the\r
+glass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natasha was about to\r
+call him but changed her mind. "Let him look for me," thought she.\r
+Hardly had Boris gone than Sonya, flushed, in tears, and muttering\r
+angrily, came in at the other door. Natasha checked her first impulse to\r
+run out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching--as under an\r
+invisible cap--to see what went on in the world. She was experiencing a\r
+new and peculiar pleasure. Sonya, muttering to herself, kept looking\r
+round toward the drawing-room door. It opened and Nicholas came in.\r
+\r
+"Sonya, what is the matter with you? How can you?" said he, running up\r
+to her.\r
+\r
+"It's nothing, nothing; leave me alone!" sobbed Sonya.\r
+\r
+"Ah, I know what it is."\r
+\r
+"Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!"\r
+\r
+"So-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like that,\r
+for a mere fancy?" said Nicholas taking her hand.\r
+\r
+Sonya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natasha, not stirring\r
+and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes.\r
+"What will happen now?" thought she.\r
+\r
+"Sonya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are everything!"\r
+said Nicholas. "And I will prove it to you."\r
+\r
+"I don't like you to talk like that."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, I won't; only forgive me, Sonya!" He drew her to him and\r
+kissed her.\r
+\r
+"Oh, how nice," thought Natasha; and when Sonya and Nicholas had gone\r
+out of the conservatory she followed and called Boris to her.\r
+\r
+"Boris, come here," said she with a sly and significant look. "I have\r
+something to tell you. Here, here!" and she led him into the\r
+conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.\r
+\r
+Boris followed her, smiling.\r
+\r
+"What is the something?" asked he.\r
+\r
+She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had thrown\r
+down on one of the tubs, picked it up.\r
+\r
+"Kiss the doll," said she.\r
+\r
+Boris looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not\r
+reply.\r
+\r
+"Don't you want to? Well, then, come here," said she, and went further\r
+in among the plants and threw down the doll. "Closer, closer!" she\r
+whispered.\r
+\r
+She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity and\r
+fear appeared on her flushed face.\r
+\r
+"And me? Would you like to kiss me?" she whispered almost inaudibly,\r
+glancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and almost crying from\r
+excitement.\r
+\r
+Boris blushed.\r
+\r
+"How funny you are!" he said, bending down to her and blushing still\r
+more, but he waited and did nothing.\r
+\r
+Suddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced him so\r
+that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and, tossing\r
+back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.\r
+\r
+Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the tubs\r
+and stood, hanging her head.\r
+\r
+"Natasha," he said, "you know that I love you, but..."\r
+\r
+"You are in love with me?" Natasha broke in.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I am, but please don't let us do like that.... In another four\r
+years... then I will ask for your hand."\r
+\r
+Natasha considered.\r
+\r
+"Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen," she counted on her slender\r
+little fingers. "All right! Then it's settled?"\r
+\r
+A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.\r
+\r
+"Settled!" replied Boris.\r
+\r
+"Forever?" said the little girl. "Till death itself?"\r
+\r
+She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the adjoining\r
+sitting room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave\r
+orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to\r
+dinner all who came "to congratulate." The countess wished to have a\r
+tête-à-tête talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from\r
+Petersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face, drew\r
+her chair nearer to that of the countess.\r
+\r
+"With you I will be quite frank," said Anna Mikhaylovna. "There are not\r
+many left of us old friends! That's why I so value your friendship."\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna looked at Vera and paused. The countess pressed her\r
+friend's hand.\r
+\r
+"Vera," she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a\r
+favorite, "how is it you have so little tact? Don't you see you are not\r
+wanted here? Go to the other girls, or..."\r
+\r
+The handsome Vera smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all hurt.\r
+\r
+"If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone," she replied as\r
+she rose to go to her own room.\r
+\r
+But as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples sitting, one\r
+pair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully. Sonya was\r
+sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses for her, the\r
+first he had ever written. Boris and Natasha were at the other window\r
+and ceased talking when Vera entered. Sonya and Natasha looked at Vera\r
+with guilty, happy faces.\r
+\r
+It was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love; but\r
+apparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Vera.\r
+\r
+"How often have I asked you not to take my things?" she said. "You have\r
+a room of your own," and she took the inkstand from Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"In a minute, in a minute," he said, dipping his pen.\r
+\r
+"You always manage to do things at the wrong time," continued Vera. "You\r
+came rushing into the drawing room so that everyone felt ashamed of\r
+you."\r
+\r
+Though what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no one\r
+replied, and the four simply looked at one another. She lingered in the\r
+room with the inkstand in her hand.\r
+\r
+"And at your age what secrets can there be between Natasha and Boris, or\r
+between you two? It's all nonsense!"\r
+\r
+"Now, Vera, what does it matter to you?" said Natasha in defense,\r
+speaking very gently.\r
+\r
+She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to\r
+everyone.\r
+\r
+"Very silly," said Vera. "I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!"\r
+\r
+"All have secrets of their own," answered Natasha, getting warmer. "We\r
+don't interfere with you and Berg."\r
+\r
+"I should think not," said Vera, "because there can never be anything\r
+wrong in my behavior. But I'll just tell Mamma how you are behaving with\r
+Boris."\r
+\r
+"Natalya Ilynichna behaves very well to me," remarked Boris. "I have\r
+nothing to complain of."\r
+\r
+"Don't, Boris! You are such a diplomat that it is really tiresome," said\r
+Natasha in a mortified voice that trembled slightly. (She used the word\r
+"diplomat," which was just then much in vogue among the children, in the\r
+special sense they attached to it.) "Why does she bother me?" And she\r
+added, turning to Vera, "You'll never understand it, because you've\r
+never loved anyone. You have no heart! You are a Madame de Genlis and\r
+nothing more" (this nickname, bestowed on Vera by Nicholas, was\r
+considered very stinging), "and your greatest pleasure is to be\r
+unpleasant to people! Go and flirt with Berg as much as you please," she\r
+finished quickly.\r
+\r
+"I shall at any rate not run after a young man before visitors..."\r
+\r
+"Well, now you've done what you wanted," put in Nicholas--"said\r
+unpleasant things to everyone and upset them. Let's go to the nursery."\r
+\r
+All four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room.\r
+\r
+"The unpleasant things were said to me," remarked Vera, "I said none to\r
+anyone."\r
+\r
+"Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!" shouted laughing voices through\r
+the door.\r
+\r
+The handsome Vera, who produced such an irritating and unpleasant effect\r
+on everyone, smiled and, evidently unmoved by what had been said to her,\r
+went to the looking glass and arranged her hair and scarf. Looking at\r
+her own handsome face she seemed to become still colder and calmer.\r
+\r
+In the drawing room the conversation was still going on.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my dear," said the countess, "my life is not all roses either.\r
+Don't I know that at the rate we are living our means won't last long?\r
+It's all the Club and his easygoing nature. Even in the country do we\r
+get any rest? Theatricals, hunting, and heaven knows what besides! But\r
+don't let's talk about me; tell me how you managed everything. I often\r
+wonder at you, Annette--how at your age you can rush off alone in a\r
+carriage to Moscow, to Petersburg, to those ministers and great people,\r
+and know how to deal with them all! It's quite astonishing. How did you\r
+get things settled? I couldn't possibly do it."\r
+\r
+"Ah, my love," answered Anna Mikhaylovna, "God grant you never know what\r
+it is to be left a widow without means and with a son you love to\r
+distraction! One learns many things then," she added with a certain\r
+pride. "That lawsuit taught me much. When I want to see one of those big\r
+people I write a note: 'Princess So-and-So desires an interview with So\r
+and-So,' and then I take a cab and go myself two, three, or four times--\r
+till I get what I want. I don't mind what they think of me."\r
+\r
+"Well, and to whom did you apply about Bory?" asked the countess. "You\r
+see yours is already an officer in the Guards, while my Nicholas is\r
+going as a cadet. There's no one to interest himself for him. To whom\r
+did you apply?"\r
+\r
+"To Prince Vasili. He was so kind. He at once agreed to everything, and\r
+put the matter before the Emperor," said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna\r
+enthusiastically, quite forgetting all the humiliation she had endured\r
+to gain her end.\r
+\r
+"Has Prince Vasili aged much?" asked the countess. "I have not seen him\r
+since we acted together at the Rumyantsovs' theatricals. I expect he has\r
+forgotten me. He paid me attentions in those days," said the countess,\r
+with a smile.\r
+\r
+"He is just the same as ever," replied Anna Mikhaylovna, "overflowing\r
+with amiability. His position has not turned his head at all. He said to\r
+me, 'I am sorry I can do so little for you, dear Princess. I am at your\r
+command.' Yes, he is a fine fellow and a very kind relation. But,\r
+Nataly, you know my love for my son: I would do anything for his\r
+happiness! And my affairs are in such a bad way that my position is now\r
+a terrible one," continued Anna Mikhaylovna, sadly, dropping her voice.\r
+"My wretched lawsuit takes all I have and makes no progress. Would you\r
+believe it, I have literally not a penny and don't know how to equip\r
+Boris." She took out her handkerchief and began to cry. "I need five\r
+hundred rubles, and have only one twenty-five-ruble note. I am in such a\r
+state.... My only hope now is in Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov. If\r
+he will not assist his godson--you know he is Bory's godfather--and\r
+allow him something for his maintenance, all my trouble will have been\r
+thrown away.... I shall not be able to equip him."\r
+\r
+The countess' eyes filled with tears and she pondered in silence.\r
+\r
+"I often think, though, perhaps it's a sin," said the princess, "that\r
+here lives Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov so rich, all alone... that\r
+tremendous fortune... and what is his life worth? It's a burden to him,\r
+and Bory's life is only just beginning...."\r
+\r
+"Surely he will leave something to Boris," said the countess.\r
+\r
+"Heaven only knows, my dear! These rich grandees are so selfish. Still,\r
+I will take Boris and go to see him at once, and I shall speak to him\r
+straight out. Let people think what they will of me, it's really all the\r
+same to me when my son's fate is at stake." The princess rose. "It's now\r
+two o'clock and you dine at four. There will just be time."\r
+\r
+And like a practical Petersburg lady who knows how to make the most of\r
+time, Anna Mikhaylovna sent someone to call her son, and went into the\r
+anteroom with him.\r
+\r
+"Good-bye, my dear," said she to the countess who saw her to the door,\r
+and added in a whisper so that her son should not hear, "Wish me good\r
+luck."\r
+\r
+"Are you going to Count Cyril Vladimirovich, my dear?" said the count\r
+coming out from the dining hall into the anteroom, and he added: "If he\r
+is better, ask Pierre to dine with us. He has been to the house, you\r
+know, and danced with the children. Be sure to invite him, my dear. We\r
+will see how Taras distinguishes himself today. He says Count Orlov\r
+never gave such a dinner as ours will be!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+"My dear Boris," said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna to her son as Countess\r
+Rostova's carriage in which they were seated drove over the straw\r
+covered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril\r
+Vladimirovich Bezukhov's house. "My dear Boris," said the mother,\r
+drawing her hand from beneath her old mantle and laying it timidly and\r
+tenderly on her son's arm, "be affectionate and attentive to him. Count\r
+Cyril Vladimirovich is your godfather after all, your future depends on\r
+him. Remember that, my dear, and be nice to him, as you so well know how\r
+to be."\r
+\r
+"If only I knew that anything besides humiliation would come of it..."\r
+answered her son coldly. "But I have promised and will do it for your\r
+sake."\r
+\r
+Although the hall porter saw someone's carriage standing at the\r
+entrance, after scrutinizing the mother and son (who without asking to\r
+be announced had passed straight through the glass porch between the\r
+rows of statues in niches) and looking significantly at the lady's old\r
+cloak, he asked whether they wanted the count or the princesses, and,\r
+hearing that they wished to see the count, said his excellency was worse\r
+today, and that his excellency was not receiving anyone.\r
+\r
+"We may as well go back," said the son in French.\r
+\r
+"My dear!" exclaimed his mother imploringly, again laying her hand on\r
+his arm as if that touch might soothe or rouse him.\r
+\r
+Boris said no more, but looked inquiringly at his mother without taking\r
+off his cloak.\r
+\r
+"My friend," said Anna Mikhaylovna in gentle tones, addressing the hall\r
+porter, "I know Count Cyril Vladimirovich is very ill... that's why I\r
+have come... I am a relation. I shall not disturb him, my friend... I\r
+only need see Prince Vasili Sergeevich: he is staying here, is he not?\r
+Please announce me."\r
+\r
+The hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, and turned\r
+away.\r
+\r
+"Princess Drubetskaya to see Prince Vasili Sergeevich," he called to a\r
+footman dressed in knee breeches, shoes, and a swallow-tail coat, who\r
+ran downstairs and looked over from the halfway landing.\r
+\r
+The mother smoothed the folds of her dyed silk dress before a large\r
+Venetian mirror in the wall, and in her trodden-down shoes briskly\r
+ascended the carpeted stairs.\r
+\r
+"My dear," she said to her son, once more stimulating him by a touch,\r
+"you promised me!"\r
+\r
+The son, lowering his eyes, followed her quietly.\r
+\r
+They entered the large hall, from which one of the doors led to the\r
+apartments assigned to Prince Vasili.\r
+\r
+Just as the mother and son, having reached the middle of the hall, were\r
+about to ask their way of an elderly footman who had sprung up as they\r
+entered, the bronze handle of one of the doors turned and Prince Vasili\r
+came out--wearing a velvet coat with a single star on his breast, as was\r
+his custom when at home--taking leave of a good-looking, dark-haired\r
+man. This was the celebrated Petersburg doctor, Lorrain.\r
+\r
+"Then it is certain?" said the prince.\r
+\r
+"Prince, humanum est errare, * but..." replied the doctor, swallowing\r
+his r's, and pronouncing the Latin words with a French accent.\r
+\r
+\r
+* To err is human.\r
+\r
+"Very well, very well..."\r
+\r
+Seeing Anna Mikhaylovna and her son, Prince Vasili dismissed the doctor\r
+with a bow and approached them silently and with a look of inquiry. The\r
+son noticed that an expression of profound sorrow suddenly clouded his\r
+mother's face, and he smiled slightly.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Prince! In what sad circumstances we meet again! And how is our\r
+dear invalid?" said she, as though unaware of the cold offensive look\r
+fixed on her.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili stared at her and at Boris questioningly and perplexed.\r
+Boris bowed politely. Prince Vasili without acknowledging the bow turned\r
+to Anna Mikhaylovna, answering her query by a movement of the head and\r
+lips indicating very little hope for the patient.\r
+\r
+"Is it possible?" exclaimed Anna Mikhaylovna. "Oh, how awful! It is\r
+terrible to think.... This is my son," she added, indicating Boris. "He\r
+wanted to thank you himself."\r
+\r
+Boris bowed again politely.\r
+\r
+"Believe me, Prince, a mother's heart will never forget what you have\r
+done for us."\r
+\r
+"I am glad I was able to do you a service, my dear Anna Mikhaylovna,"\r
+said Prince Vasili, arranging his lace frill, and in tone and manner,\r
+here in Moscow to Anna Mikhaylovna whom he had placed under an\r
+obligation, assuming an air of much greater importance than he had done\r
+in Petersburg at Anna Scherer's reception.\r
+\r
+"Try to serve well and show yourself worthy," added he, addressing Boris\r
+with severity. "I am glad.... Are you here on leave?" he went on in his\r
+usual tone of indifference.\r
+\r
+"I am awaiting orders to join my new regiment, your excellency," replied\r
+Boris, betraying neither annoyance at the prince's brusque manner nor a\r
+desire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly and\r
+respectfully that the prince gave him a searching glance.\r
+\r
+"Are you living with your mother?"\r
+\r
+"I am living at Countess Rostova's," replied Boris, again adding, "your\r
+excellency."\r
+\r
+"That is, with Ilya Rostov who married Nataly Shinshina," said Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna.\r
+\r
+"I know, I know," answered Prince Vasili in his monotonous voice. "I\r
+never could understand how Nataly made up her mind to marry that\r
+unlicked bear! A perfectly absurd and stupid fellow, and a gambler too,\r
+I am told."\r
+\r
+"But a very kind man, Prince," said Anna Mikhaylovna with a pathetic\r
+smile, as though she too knew that Count Rostov deserved this censure,\r
+but asked him not to be too hard on the poor old man. "What do the\r
+doctors say?" asked the princess after a pause, her worn face again\r
+expressing deep sorrow.\r
+\r
+"They give little hope," replied the prince.\r
+\r
+"And I should so like to thank Uncle once for all his kindness to me and\r
+Boris. He is his godson," she added, her tone suggesting that this fact\r
+ought to give Prince Vasili much satisfaction.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikhaylovna saw that\r
+he was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezukhov's fortune,\r
+and hastened to reassure him.\r
+\r
+"If it were not for my sincere affection and devotion to Uncle," said\r
+she, uttering the word with peculiar assurance and unconcern, "I know\r
+his character: noble, upright... but you see he has no one with him\r
+except the young princesses.... They are still young...." She bent her\r
+head and continued in a whisper: "Has he performed his final duty,\r
+Prince? How priceless are those last moments! It can make things no\r
+worse, and it is absolutely necessary to prepare him if he is so ill. We\r
+women, Prince," and she smiled tenderly, "always know how to say these\r
+things. I absolutely must see him, however painful it may be for me. I\r
+am used to suffering."\r
+\r
+Evidently the prince understood her, and also understood, as he had done\r
+at Anna Pavlovna's, that it would be difficult to get rid of Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna.\r
+\r
+"Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna Mikhaylovna?"\r
+said he. "Let us wait until evening. The doctors are expecting a\r
+crisis."\r
+\r
+"But one cannot delay, Prince, at such a moment! Consider that the\r
+welfare of his soul is at stake. Ah, it is awful: the duties of a\r
+Christian..."\r
+\r
+A door of one of the inner rooms opened and one of the princesses, the\r
+count's niece, entered with a cold, stern face. The length of her body\r
+was strikingly out of proportion to her short legs. Prince Vasili turned\r
+to her.\r
+\r
+"Well, how is he?"\r
+\r
+"Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise..." said the\r
+princess, looking at Anna Mikhaylovna as at a stranger.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you," said Anna Mikhaylovna with a happy\r
+smile, ambling lightly up to the count's niece. "I have come, and am at\r
+your service to help you nurse my uncle. I imagine what you have gone\r
+through," and she sympathetically turned up her eyes.\r
+\r
+The princess gave no reply and did not even smile, but left the room as\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position she had\r
+conquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasili to take a\r
+seat beside her.\r
+\r
+"Boris," she said to her son with a smile, "I shall go in to see the\r
+count, my uncle; but you, my dear, had better go to Pierre meanwhile and\r
+don't forget to give him the Rostovs' invitation. They ask him to\r
+dinner. I suppose he won't go?" she continued, turning to the prince.\r
+\r
+"On the contrary," replied the prince, who had plainly become depressed,\r
+"I shall be only too glad if you relieve me of that young man.... Here\r
+he is, and the count has not once asked for him."\r
+\r
+He shrugged his shoulders. A footman conducted Boris down one flight of\r
+stairs and up another, to Pierre's rooms.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+Pierre, after all, had not managed to choose a career for himself in\r
+Petersburg, and had been expelled from there for riotous conduct and\r
+sent to Moscow. The story told about him at Count Rostov's was true.\r
+Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He had now been\r
+for some days in Moscow and was staying as usual at his father's house.\r
+Though he expected that the story of his escapade would be already known\r
+in Moscow and that the ladies about his father--who were never favorably\r
+disposed toward him--would have used it to turn the count against him,\r
+he nevertheless on the day of his arrival went to his father's part of\r
+the house. Entering the drawing room, where the princesses spent most of\r
+their time, he greeted the ladies, two of whom were sitting at\r
+embroidery frames while a third read aloud. It was the eldest who was\r
+reading--the one who had met Anna Mikhaylovna. The two younger ones were\r
+embroidering: both were rosy and pretty and they differed only in that\r
+one had a little mole on her lip which made her much prettier. Pierre\r
+was received as if he were a corpse or a leper. The eldest princess\r
+paused in her reading and silently stared at him with frightened eyes;\r
+the second assumed precisely the same expression; while the youngest,\r
+the one with the mole, who was of a cheerful and lively disposition,\r
+bent over her frame to hide a smile probably evoked by the amusing scene\r
+she foresaw. She drew her wool down through the canvas and, scarcely\r
+able to refrain from laughing, stooped as if trying to make out the\r
+pattern.\r
+\r
+"How do you do, cousin?" said Pierre. "You don't recognize me?"\r
+\r
+"I recognize you only too well, too well."\r
+\r
+"How is the count? Can I see him?" asked Pierre, awkwardly as usual, but\r
+unabashed.\r
+\r
+"The count is suffering physically and mentally, and apparently you have\r
+done your best to increase his mental sufferings."\r
+\r
+"Can I see the count?" Pierre again asked.\r
+\r
+"Hm.... If you wish to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see\r
+him... Olga, go and see whether Uncle's beef tea is ready--it is almost\r
+time," she added, giving Pierre to understand that they were busy, and\r
+busy making his father comfortable, while evidently he, Pierre, was only\r
+busy causing him annoyance.\r
+\r
+Olga went out. Pierre stood looking at the sisters; then he bowed and\r
+said: "Then I will go to my rooms. You will let me know when I can see\r
+him."\r
+\r
+And he left the room, followed by the low but ringing laughter of the\r
+sister with the mole.\r
+\r
+Next day Prince Vasili had arrived and settled in the count's house. He\r
+sent for Pierre and said to him: "My dear fellow, if you are going to\r
+behave here as you did in Petersburg, you will end very badly; that is\r
+all I have to say to you. The count is very, very ill, and you must not\r
+see him at all."\r
+\r
+Since then Pierre had not been disturbed and had spent the whole time in\r
+his rooms upstairs.\r
+\r
+When Boris appeared at his door Pierre was pacing up and down his room,\r
+stopping occasionally at a corner to make menacing gestures at the wall,\r
+as if running a sword through an invisible foe, and glaring savagely\r
+over his spectacles, and then again resuming his walk, muttering\r
+indistinct words, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating.\r
+\r
+"England is done for," said he, scowling and pointing his finger at\r
+someone unseen. "Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to the rights\r
+of man, is sentenced to..." But before Pierre--who at that moment\r
+imagined himself to be Napoleon in person and to have just effected the\r
+dangerous crossing of the Straits of Dover and captured London--could\r
+pronounce Pitt's sentence, he saw a well-built and handsome young\r
+officer entering his room. Pierre paused. He had left Moscow when Boris\r
+was a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten him, but in his usual\r
+impulsive and hearty way he took Boris by the hand with a friendly\r
+smile.\r
+\r
+"Do you remember me?" asked Boris quietly with a pleasant smile. "I have\r
+come with my mother to see the count, but it seems he is not well."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it seems he is ill. People are always disturbing him," answered\r
+Pierre, trying to remember who this young man was.\r
+\r
+Boris felt that Pierre did not recognize him but did not consider it\r
+necessary to introduce himself, and without experiencing the least\r
+embarrassment looked Pierre straight in the face.\r
+\r
+"Count Rostov asks you to come to dinner today," said he, after a\r
+considerable pause which made Pierre feel uncomfortable.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Count Rostov!" exclaimed Pierre joyfully. "Then you are his son,\r
+Ilya? Only fancy, I didn't know you at first. Do you remember how we\r
+went to the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot?... It's such an age..."\r
+\r
+"You are mistaken," said Boris deliberately, with a bold and slightly\r
+sarcastic smile. "I am Boris, son of Princess Anna Mikhaylovna\r
+Drubetskaya. Rostov, the father, is Ilya, and his son is Nicholas. I\r
+never knew any Madame Jacquot."\r
+\r
+Pierre shook his head and arms as if attacked by mosquitoes or bees.\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, what am I thinking about? I've mixed everything up. One has so\r
+many relatives in Moscow! So you are Boris? Of course. Well, now we know\r
+where we are. And what do you think of the Boulogne expedition? The\r
+English will come off badly, you know, if Napoleon gets across the\r
+Channel. I think the expedition is quite feasible. If only Villeneuve\r
+doesn't make a mess of things!"\r
+\r
+Boris knew nothing about the Boulogne expedition; he did not read the\r
+papers and it was the first time he had heard Villeneuve's name.\r
+\r
+"We here in Moscow are more occupied with dinner parties and scandal\r
+than with politics," said he in his quiet ironical tone. "I know nothing\r
+about it and have not thought about it. Moscow is chiefly busy with\r
+gossip," he continued. "Just now they are talking about you and your\r
+father."\r
+\r
+Pierre smiled in his good-natured way as if afraid for his companion's\r
+sake that the latter might say something he would afterwards regret. But\r
+Boris spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly, looking straight into\r
+Pierre's eyes.\r
+\r
+"Moscow has nothing else to do but gossip," Boris went on. "Everybody is\r
+wondering to whom the count will leave his fortune, though he may\r
+perhaps outlive us all, as I sincerely hope he will..."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it is all very horrid," interrupted Pierre, "very horrid."\r
+\r
+Pierre was still afraid that this officer might inadvertently say\r
+something disconcerting to himself.\r
+\r
+"And it must seem to you," said Boris flushing slightly, but not\r
+changing his tone or attitude, "it must seem to you that everyone is\r
+trying to get something out of the rich man?"\r
+\r
+"So it does," thought Pierre.\r
+\r
+"But I just wish to say, to avoid misunderstandings, that you are quite\r
+mistaken if you reckon me or my mother among such people. We are very\r
+poor, but for my own part at any rate, for the very reason that your\r
+father is rich, I don't regard myself as a relation of his, and neither\r
+I nor my mother would ever ask or take anything from him."\r
+\r
+For a long time Pierre could not understand, but when he did, he jumped\r
+up from the sofa, seized Boris under the elbow in his quick, clumsy way,\r
+and, blushing far more than Boris, began to speak with a feeling of\r
+mingled shame and vexation.\r
+\r
+"Well, this is strange! Do you suppose I... who could think?... I know\r
+very well..."\r
+\r
+But Boris again interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"I am glad I have spoken out fully. Perhaps you did not like it? You\r
+must excuse me," said he, putting Pierre at ease instead of being put at\r
+ease by him, "but I hope I have not offended you. I always make it a\r
+rule to speak out... Well, what answer am I to take? Will you come to\r
+dinner at the Rostovs'?"\r
+\r
+And Boris, having apparently relieved himself of an onerous duty and\r
+extricated himself from an awkward situation and placed another in it,\r
+became quite pleasant again.\r
+\r
+"No, but I say," said Pierre, calming down, "you are a wonderful fellow!\r
+What you have just said is good, very good. Of course you don't know me.\r
+We have not met for such a long time... not since we were children. You\r
+might think that I... I understand, quite understand. I could not have\r
+done it myself, I should not have had the courage, but it's splendid. I\r
+am very glad to have made your acquaintance. It's queer," he added after\r
+a pause, "that you should have suspected me!" He began to laugh. "Well,\r
+what of it! I hope we'll get better acquainted," and he pressed Boris'\r
+hand. "Do you know, I have not once been in to see the count. He has not\r
+sent for me.... I am sorry for him as a man, but what can one do?"\r
+\r
+"And so you think Napoleon will manage to get an army across?" asked\r
+Boris with a smile.\r
+\r
+Pierre saw that Boris wished to change the subject, and being of the\r
+same mind he began explaining the advantages and disadvantages of the\r
+Boulogne expedition.\r
+\r
+A footman came in to summon Boris--the princess was going. Pierre, in\r
+order to make Boris' better acquaintance, promised to come to dinner,\r
+and warmly pressing his hand looked affectionately over his spectacles\r
+into Boris' eyes. After he had gone Pierre continued pacing up and down\r
+the room for a long time, no longer piercing an imaginary foe with his\r
+imaginary sword, but smiling at the remembrance of that pleasant,\r
+intelligent, and resolute young man.\r
+\r
+As often happens in early youth, especially to one who leads a lonely\r
+life, he felt an unaccountable tenderness for this young man and made up\r
+his mind that they would be friends.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili saw the princess off. She held a handkerchief to her eyes\r
+and her face was tearful.\r
+\r
+"It is dreadful, dreadful!" she was saying, "but cost me what it may I\r
+shall do my duty. I will come and spend the night. He must not be left\r
+like this. Every moment is precious. I can't think why his nieces put it\r
+off. Perhaps God will help me to find a way to prepare him!... Adieu,\r
+Prince! May God support you..."\r
+\r
+"Adieu, ma bonne," answered Prince Vasili turning away from her.\r
+\r
+"Oh, he is in a dreadful state," said the mother to her son when they\r
+were in the carriage. "He hardly recognizes anybody."\r
+\r
+"I don't understand, Mamma--what is his attitude to Pierre?" asked the\r
+son.\r
+\r
+"The will will show that, my dear; our fate also depends on it."\r
+\r
+"But why do you expect that he will leave us anything?"\r
+\r
+"Ah, my dear! He is so rich, and we are so poor!"\r
+\r
+"Well, that is hardly a sufficient reason, Mamma..."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Heaven! How ill he is!" exclaimed the mother.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+After Anna Mikhaylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count Cyril\r
+Vladimirovich Bezukhov, Countess Rostova sat for a long time all alone\r
+applying her handkerchief to her eyes. At last she rang.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter with you, my dear?" she said crossly to the maid who\r
+kept her waiting some minutes. "Don't you wish to serve me? Then I'll\r
+find you another place."\r
+\r
+The countess was upset by her friend's sorrow and humiliating poverty,\r
+and was therefore out of sorts, a state of mind which with her always\r
+found expression in calling her maid "my dear" and speaking to her with\r
+exaggerated politeness.\r
+\r
+"I am very sorry, ma'am," answered the maid.\r
+\r
+"Ask the count to come to me."\r
+\r
+The count came waddling in to see his wife with a rather guilty look as\r
+usual.\r
+\r
+"Well, little countess? What a saute of game au madere we are to have,\r
+my dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Taras were not ill-\r
+spent. He is worth it!"\r
+\r
+He sat down by his wife, his elbows on his knees and his hands ruffling\r
+his gray hair.\r
+\r
+"What are your commands, little countess?"\r
+\r
+"You see, my dear... What's that mess?" she said, pointing to his\r
+waistcoat. "It's the saute, most likely," she added with a smile. "Well,\r
+you see, Count, I want some money."\r
+\r
+Her face became sad.\r
+\r
+"Oh, little countess!"... and the count began bustling to get out his\r
+pocketbook.\r
+\r
+"I want a great deal, Count! I want five hundred rubles," and taking out\r
+her cambric handkerchief she began wiping her husband's waistcoat.\r
+\r
+"Yes, immediately, immediately! Hey, who's there?" he called out in a\r
+tone only used by persons who are certain that those they call will rush\r
+to obey the summons. "Send Dmitri to me!"\r
+\r
+Dmitri, a man of good family who had been brought up in the count's\r
+house and now managed all his affairs, stepped softly into the room.\r
+\r
+"This is what I want, my dear fellow," said the count to the deferential\r
+young man who had entered. "Bring me..." he reflected a moment, "yes,\r
+bring me seven hundred rubles, yes! But mind, don't bring me such\r
+tattered and dirty notes as last time, but nice clean ones for the\r
+countess."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Dmitri, clean ones, please," said the countess, sighing deeply.\r
+\r
+"When would you like them, your excellency?" asked Dmitri. "Allow me to\r
+inform you... But, don't be uneasy," he added, noticing that the count\r
+was beginning to breathe heavily and quickly which was always a sign of\r
+approaching anger. "I was forgetting... Do you wish it brought at once?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes; just so! Bring it. Give it to the countess."\r
+\r
+"What a treasure that Dmitri is," added the count with a smile when the\r
+young man had departed. "There is never any 'impossible' with him.\r
+That's a thing I hate! Everything is possible."\r
+\r
+"Ah, money, Count, money! How much sorrow it causes in the world," said\r
+the countess. "But I am in great need of this sum."\r
+\r
+"You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift," said the count,\r
+and having kissed his wife's hand he went back to his study.\r
+\r
+When Anna Mikhaylovna returned from Count Bezukhov's the money, all in\r
+clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the countess'\r
+little table, and Anna Mikhaylovna noticed that something was agitating\r
+her.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear?" asked the countess.\r
+\r
+"Oh, what a terrible state he is in! One would not know him, he is so\r
+ill! I was only there a few moments and hardly said a word..."\r
+\r
+"Annette, for heaven's sake don't refuse me," the countess began, with a\r
+blush that looked very strange on her thin, dignified, elderly face, and\r
+she took the money from under the handkerchief.\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be ready\r
+to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment.\r
+\r
+"This is for Boris from me, for his outfit."\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The countess\r
+wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were\r
+kindhearted, and because they--friends from childhood--had to think\r
+about such a base thing as money, and because their youth was over....\r
+But those tears were pleasant to them both.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+Countess Rostova, with her daughters and a large number of guests, was\r
+already seated in the drawing room. The count took the gentlemen into\r
+his study and showed them his choice collection of Turkish pipes. From\r
+time to time he went out to ask: "Hasn't she come yet?" They were\r
+expecting Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, known in society as le terrible\r
+dragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but for common\r
+sense and frank plainness of speech. Marya Dmitrievna was known to the\r
+Imperial family as well as to all Moscow and Petersburg, and both cities\r
+wondered at her, laughed privately at her rudenesses, and told good\r
+stories about her, while none the less all without exception respected\r
+and feared her.\r
+\r
+In the count's room, which was full of tobacco smoke, they talked of war\r
+that had been announced in a manifesto, and about the recruiting. None\r
+of them had yet seen the manifesto, but they all knew it had appeared.\r
+The count sat on the sofa between two guests who were smoking and\r
+talking. He neither smoked nor talked, but bending his head first to one\r
+side and then to the other watched the smokers with evident pleasure and\r
+listened to the conversation of his two neighbors, whom he egged on\r
+against each other.\r
+\r
+One of them was a sallow, clean-shaven civilian with a thin and wrinkled\r
+face, already growing old, though he was dressed like a most fashionable\r
+young man. He sat with his legs up on the sofa as if quite at home and,\r
+having stuck an amber mouthpiece far into his mouth, was inhaling the\r
+smoke spasmodically and screwing up his eyes. This was an old bachelor,\r
+Shinshin, a cousin of the countess', a man with "a sharp tongue" as they\r
+said in Moscow society. He seemed to be condescending to his companion.\r
+The latter, a fresh, rosy officer of the Guards, irreproachably washed,\r
+brushed, and buttoned, held his pipe in the middle of his mouth and with\r
+red lips gently inhaled the smoke, letting it escape from his handsome\r
+mouth in rings. This was Lieutenant Berg, an officer in the Semenov\r
+regiment with whom Boris was to travel to join the army, and about whom\r
+Natasha had teased her elder sister Vera, speaking of Berg as her\r
+"intended." The count sat between them and listened attentively. His\r
+favorite occupation when not playing boston, a card game he was very\r
+fond of, was that of listener, especially when he succeeded in setting\r
+two loquacious talkers at one another.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, old chap, mon tres honorable Alphonse Karlovich," said\r
+Shinshin, laughing ironically and mixing the most ordinary Russian\r
+expressions with the choicest French phrases--which was a peculiarity of\r
+his speech. "Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l'etat; * you want\r
+to make something out of your company?"\r
+\r
+\r
+* You expect to make an income out of the government.\r
+\r
+"No, Peter Nikolaevich; I only want to show that in the cavalry the\r
+advantages are far less than in the infantry. Just consider my own\r
+position now, Peter Nikolaevich..."\r
+\r
+Berg always spoke quietly, politely, and with great precision. His\r
+conversation always related entirely to himself; he would remain calm\r
+and silent when the talk related to any topic that had no direct bearing\r
+on himself. He could remain silent for hours without being at all put\r
+out of countenance himself or making others uncomfortable, but as soon\r
+as the conversation concerned himself he would begin to talk\r
+circumstantially and with evident satisfaction.\r
+\r
+"Consider my position, Peter Nikolaevich. Were I in the cavalry I should\r
+get not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even with the\r
+rank of lieutenant; but as it is I receive two hundred and thirty," said\r
+he, looking at Shinshin and the count with a joyful, pleasant smile, as\r
+if it were obvious to him that his success must always be the chief\r
+desire of everyone else.\r
+\r
+"Besides that, Peter Nikolaevich, by exchanging into the Guards I shall\r
+be in a more prominent position," continued Berg, "and vacancies occur\r
+much more frequently in the Foot Guards. Then just think what can be\r
+done with two hundred and thirty rubles! I even manage to put a little\r
+aside and to send something to my father," he went on, emitting a smoke\r
+ring.\r
+\r
+"La balance y est... * A German knows how to skin a flint, as the\r
+proverb says," remarked Shinshin, moving his pipe to the other side of\r
+his mouth and winking at the count.\r
+\r
+\r
+* So that squares matters.\r
+\r
+The count burst out laughing. The other guests seeing that Shinshin was\r
+talking came up to listen. Berg, oblivious of irony or indifference,\r
+continued to explain how by exchanging into the Guards he had already\r
+gained a step on his old comrades of the Cadet Corps; how in wartime the\r
+company commander might get killed and he, as senior in the company,\r
+might easily succeed to the post; how popular he was with everyone in\r
+the regiment, and how satisfied his father was with him. Berg evidently\r
+enjoyed narrating all this, and did not seem to suspect that others,\r
+too, might have their own interests. But all he said was so prettily\r
+sedate, and the naivete of his youthful egotism was so obvious, that he\r
+disarmed his hearers.\r
+\r
+"Well, my boy, you'll get along wherever you go--foot or horse--that\r
+I'll warrant," said Shinshin, patting him on the shoulder and taking his\r
+feet off the sofa.\r
+\r
+Berg smiled joyously. The count, by his guests, went into the drawing\r
+room.\r
+\r
+It was just the moment before a big dinner when the assembled guests,\r
+expecting the summons to zakuska, * avoid engaging in any long\r
+conversation but think it necessary to move about and talk, in order to\r
+show that they are not at all impatient for their food. The host and\r
+hostess look toward the door, and now and then glance at one another,\r
+and the visitors try to guess from these glances who, or what, they are\r
+waiting for--some important relation who has not yet arrived, or a dish\r
+that is not yet ready.\r
+\r
+\r
+* Hors d'oeuvres.\r
+\r
+Pierre had come just at dinnertime and was sitting awkwardly in the\r
+middle of the drawing room on the first chair he had come across,\r
+blocking the way for everyone. The countess tried to make him talk, but\r
+he went on naively looking around through his spectacles as if in search\r
+of somebody and answered all her questions in monosyllables. He was in\r
+the way and was the only one who did not notice the fact. Most of the\r
+guests, knowing of the affair with the bear, looked with curiosity at\r
+this big, stout, quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest fellow\r
+could have played such a prank on a policeman.\r
+\r
+"You have only lately arrived?" the countess asked him.\r
+\r
+"Oui, madame," replied he, looking around him.\r
+\r
+"You have not yet seen my husband?"\r
+\r
+"Non, madame." He smiled quite inappropriately.\r
+\r
+"You have been in Paris recently, I believe? I suppose it's very\r
+interesting."\r
+\r
+"Very interesting."\r
+\r
+The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikhaylovna. The latter\r
+understood that she was being asked to entertain this young man, and\r
+sitting down beside him she began to speak about his father; but he\r
+answered her, as he had the countess, only in monosyllables. The other\r
+guests were all conversing with one another. "The Razumovskis... It was\r
+charming... You are very kind... Countess Apraksina..." was heard on all\r
+sides. The countess rose and went into the ballroom.\r
+\r
+"Marya Dmitrievna?" came her voice from there.\r
+\r
+"Herself," came the answer in a rough voice, and Marya Dmitrievna\r
+entered the room.\r
+\r
+All the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very\r
+oldest rose. Marya Dmitrievna paused at the door. Tall and stout,\r
+holding high her fifty-year-old head with its gray curls, she stood\r
+surveying the guests, and leisurely arranged her wide sleeves as if\r
+rolling them up. Marya Dmitrievna always spoke in Russian.\r
+\r
+"Health and happiness to her whose name day we are keeping and to her\r
+children," she said, in her loud, full-toned voice which drowned all\r
+others. "Well, you old sinner," she went on, turning to the count who\r
+was kissing her hand, "you're feeling dull in Moscow, I daresay? Nowhere\r
+to hunt with your dogs? But what is to be done, old man? Just see how\r
+these nestlings are growing up," and she pointed to the girls. "You must\r
+look for husbands for them whether you like it or not...."\r
+\r
+"Well," said she, "how's my Cossack?" (Marya Dmitrievna always called\r
+Natasha a Cossack) and she stroked the child's arm as she came up\r
+fearless and gay to kiss her hand. "I know she's a scamp of a girl, but\r
+I like her."\r
+\r
+She took a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings from her huge reticule and,\r
+having given them to the rosy Natasha, who beamed with the pleasure of\r
+her saint's-day fete, turned away at once and addressed herself to\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Eh, eh, friend! Come here a bit," said she, assuming a soft high tone\r
+of voice. "Come here, my friend..." and she ominously tucked up her\r
+sleeves still higher. Pierre approached, looking at her in a childlike\r
+way through his spectacles.\r
+\r
+"Come nearer, come nearer, friend! I used to be the only one to tell\r
+your father the truth when he was in favor, and in your case it's my\r
+evident duty." She paused. All were silent, expectant of what was to\r
+follow, for this was clearly only a prelude.\r
+\r
+"A fine lad! My word! A fine lad!... His father lies on his deathbed and\r
+he amuses himself setting a policeman astride a bear! For shame, sir,\r
+for shame! It would be better if you went to the war."\r
+\r
+She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly keep\r
+from laughing.\r
+\r
+"Well, I suppose it is time we were at table?" said Marya Dmitrievna.\r
+\r
+The count went in first with Marya Dmitrievna, the countess followed on\r
+the arm of a colonel of hussars, a man of importance to them because\r
+Nicholas was to go with him to the regiment; then came Anna Mikhaylovna\r
+with Shinshin. Berg gave his arm to Vera. The smiling Julie Karagina\r
+went in with Nicholas. After them other couples followed, filling the\r
+whole dining hall, and last of all the children, tutors, and governesses\r
+followed singly. The footmen began moving about, chairs scraped, the\r
+band struck up in the gallery, and the guests settled down in their\r
+places. Then the strains of the count's household band were replaced by\r
+the clatter of knives and forks, the voices of visitors, and the soft\r
+steps of the footmen. At one end of the table sat the countess with\r
+Marya Dmitrievna on her right and Anna Mikhaylovna on her left, the\r
+other lady visitors were farther down. At the other end sat the count,\r
+with the hussar colonel on his left and Shinshin and the other male\r
+visitors on his right. Midway down the long table on one side sat the\r
+grownup young people: Vera beside Berg, and Pierre beside Boris; and on\r
+the other side, the children, tutors, and governesses. From behind the\r
+crystal decanters and fruit vases, the count kept glancing at his wife\r
+and her tall cap with its light-blue ribbons, and busily filled his\r
+neighbors' glasses, not neglecting his own. The countess in turn,\r
+without omitting her duties as hostess, threw significant glances from\r
+behind the pineapples at her husband whose face and bald head seemed by\r
+their redness to contrast more than usual with his gray hair. At the\r
+ladies' end an even chatter of voices was heard all the time, at the\r
+men's end the voices sounded louder and louder, especially that of the\r
+colonel of hussars who, growing more and more flushed, ate and drank so\r
+much that the count held him up as a pattern to the other guests. Berg\r
+with tender smiles was saying to Vera that love is not an earthly but a\r
+heavenly feeling. Boris was telling his new friend Pierre who the guests\r
+were and exchanging glances with Natasha, who was sitting opposite.\r
+Pierre spoke little but examined the new faces, and ate a great deal. Of\r
+the two soups he chose turtle with savory patties and went on to the\r
+game without omitting a single dish or one of the wines. These latter\r
+the butler thrust mysteriously forward, wrapped in a napkin, from behind\r
+the next man's shoulders and whispered: "Dry Madeira"... "Hungarian"...\r
+or "Rhine wine" as the case might be. Of the four crystal glasses\r
+engraved with the count's monogram that stood before his plate, Pierre\r
+held out one at random and drank with enjoyment, gazing with ever-\r
+increasing amiability at the other guests. Natasha, who sat opposite,\r
+was looking at Boris as girls of thirteen look at the boy they are in\r
+love with and have just kissed for the first time. Sometimes that same\r
+look fell on Pierre, and that funny lively little girl's look made him\r
+inclined to laugh without knowing why.\r
+\r
+Nicholas sat at some distance from Sonya, beside Julie Karagina, to whom\r
+he was again talking with the same involuntary smile. Sonya wore a\r
+company smile but was evidently tormented by jealousy; now she turned\r
+pale, now blushed and strained every nerve to overhear what Nicholas and\r
+Julie were saying to one another. The governess kept looking round\r
+uneasily as if preparing to resent any slight that might be put upon the\r
+children. The German tutor was trying to remember all the dishes, wines,\r
+and kinds of dessert, in order to send a full description of the dinner\r
+to his people in Germany; and he felt greatly offended when the butler\r
+with a bottle wrapped in a napkin passed him by. He frowned, trying to\r
+appear as if he did not want any of that wine, but was mortified because\r
+no one would understand that it was not to quench his thirst or from\r
+greediness that he wanted it, but simply from a conscientious desire for\r
+knowledge.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+At the men's end of the table the talk grew more and more animated. The\r
+colonel told them that the declaration of war had already appeared in\r
+Petersburg and that a copy, which he had himself seen, had that day been\r
+forwarded by courier to the commander-in-chief.\r
+\r
+"And why the deuce are we going to fight Bonaparte?" remarked Shinshin.\r
+"He has stopped Austria's cackle and I fear it will be our turn next."\r
+\r
+The colonel was a stout, tall, plethoric German, evidently devoted to\r
+the service and patriotically Russian. He resented Shinshin's remark.\r
+\r
+"It is for the reasson, my goot sir," said he, speaking with a German\r
+accent, "for the reasson zat ze Emperor knows zat. He declares in ze\r
+manifessto zat he cannot fiew wiz indifference ze danger vreatening\r
+Russia and zat ze safety and dignity of ze Empire as vell as ze sanctity\r
+of its alliances..." he spoke this last word with particular emphasis as\r
+if in it lay the gist of the matter.\r
+\r
+Then with the unerring official memory that characterized him he\r
+repeated from the opening words of the manifesto:\r
+\r
+... and the wish, which constitutes the Emperor's sole and absolute aim-\r
+-to establish peace in Europe on firm foundations--has now decided him\r
+to despatch part of the army abroad and to create a new condition for\r
+the attainment of that purpose.\r
+\r
+"Zat, my dear sir, is vy..." he concluded, drinking a tumbler of wine\r
+with dignity and looking to the count for approval.\r
+\r
+"Connaissez-vous le Proverbe: * 'Jerome, Jerome, do not roam, but turn\r
+spindles at home!'?" said Shinshin, puckering his brows and smiling.\r
+"Cela nous convient a merveille.*(2) Suvorov now--he knew what he was\r
+about; yet they beat him a plate couture,*(3) and where are we to find\r
+Suvorovs now? Je vous demande un peu,"*(4) said he, continually changing\r
+from French to Russian.\r
+\r
+\r
+*Do you know the proverb?\r
+\r
+*(2) That suits us down to the ground.\r
+\r
+*(3) Hollow.\r
+\r
+*(4) I just ask you that.\r
+\r
+"Ve must vight to the last tr-r-op of our plood!" said the colonel,\r
+thumping the table; "and ve must tie for our Emperor, and zen all vill\r
+pe vell. And ve must discuss it as little as po-o-ossible"... he dwelt\r
+particularly on the word possible... "as po-o-ossible," he ended, again\r
+turning to the count. "Zat is how ve old hussars look at it, and zere's\r
+an end of it! And how do you, a young man and a young hussar, how do you\r
+judge of it?" he added, addressing Nicholas, who when he heard that the\r
+war was being discussed had turned from his partner with eyes and ears\r
+intent on the colonel.\r
+\r
+"I am quite of your opinion," replied Nicholas, flaming up, turning his\r
+plate round and moving his wineglasses about with as much decision and\r
+desperation as though he were at that moment facing some great danger.\r
+"I am convinced that we Russians must die or conquer," he concluded,\r
+conscious--as were others--after the words were uttered that his remarks\r
+were too enthusiastic and emphatic for the occasion and were therefore\r
+awkward.\r
+\r
+"What you said just now was splendid!" said his partner Julie.\r
+\r
+Sonya trembled all over and blushed to her ears and behind them and down\r
+to her neck and shoulders while Nicholas was speaking.\r
+\r
+Pierre listened to the colonel's speech and nodded approvingly.\r
+\r
+"That's fine," said he.\r
+\r
+"The young man's a real hussar!" shouted the colonel, again thumping the\r
+table.\r
+\r
+"What are you making such a noise about over there?" Marya Dmitrievna's\r
+deep voice suddenly inquired from the other end of the table. "What are\r
+you thumping the table for?" she demanded of the hussar, "and why are\r
+you exciting yourself? Do you think the French are here?"\r
+\r
+"I am speaking ze truce," replied the hussar with a smile.\r
+\r
+"It's all about the war," the count shouted down the table. "You know my\r
+son's going, Marya Dmitrievna? My son is going."\r
+\r
+"I have four sons in the army but still I don't fret. It is all in God's\r
+hands. You may die in your bed or God may spare you in a battle,"\r
+replied Marya Dmitrievna's deep voice, which easily carried the whole\r
+length of the table.\r
+\r
+"That's true!"\r
+\r
+Once more the conversations concentrated, the ladies' at the one end and\r
+the men's at the other.\r
+\r
+"You won't ask," Natasha's little brother was saying; "I know you won't\r
+ask!"\r
+\r
+"I will," replied Natasha.\r
+\r
+Her face suddenly flushed with reckless and joyous resolution. She half\r
+rose, by a glance inviting Pierre, who sat opposite, to listen to what\r
+was coming, and turning to her mother:\r
+\r
+"Mamma!" rang out the clear contralto notes of her childish voice,\r
+audible the whole length of the table.\r
+\r
+"What is it?" asked the countess, startled; but seeing by her daughter's\r
+face that it was only mischief, she shook a finger at her sternly with a\r
+threatening and forbidding movement of her head.\r
+\r
+The conversation was hushed.\r
+\r
+"Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?" and Natasha's voice sounded\r
+still more firm and resolute.\r
+\r
+The countess tried to frown, but could not. Marya Dmitrievna shook her\r
+fat finger.\r
+\r
+"Cossack!" she said threateningly.\r
+\r
+Most of the guests, uncertain how to regard this sally, looked at the\r
+elders.\r
+\r
+"You had better take care!" said the countess.\r
+\r
+"Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?" Natasha again cried boldly,\r
+with saucy gaiety, confident that her prank would be taken in good part.\r
+\r
+Sonya and fat little Petya doubled up with laughter.\r
+\r
+"You see! I have asked," whispered Natasha to her little brother and to\r
+Pierre, glancing at him again.\r
+\r
+"Ice pudding, but you won't get any," said Marya Dmitrievna.\r
+\r
+Natasha saw there was nothing to be afraid of and so she braved even\r
+Marya Dmitrievna.\r
+\r
+"Marya Dmitrievna! What kind of ice pudding? I don't like ice cream."\r
+\r
+"Carrot ices."\r
+\r
+"No! What kind, Marya Dmitrievna? What kind?" she almost screamed; "I\r
+want to know!"\r
+\r
+Marya Dmitrievna and the countess burst out laughing, and all the guests\r
+joined in. Everyone laughed, not at Marya Dmitrievna's answer but at the\r
+incredible boldness and smartness of this little girl who had dared to\r
+treat Marya Dmitrievna in this fashion.\r
+\r
+Natasha only desisted when she had been told that there would be\r
+pineapple ice. Before the ices, champagne was served round. The band\r
+again struck up, the count and countess kissed, and the guests, leaving\r
+their seats, went up to "congratulate" the countess, and reached across\r
+the table to clink glasses with the count, with the children, and with\r
+one another. Again the footmen rushed about, chairs scraped, and in the\r
+same order in which they had entered but with redder faces, the guests\r
+returned to the drawing room and to the count's study.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+The card tables were drawn out, sets made up for boston, and the count's\r
+visitors settled themselves, some in the two drawing rooms, some in the\r
+sitting room, some in the library.\r
+\r
+The count, holding his cards fanwise, kept himself with difficulty from\r
+dropping into his usual after-dinner nap, and laughed at everything. The\r
+young people, at the countess' instigation, gathered round the\r
+clavichord and harp. Julie by general request played first. After she\r
+had played a little air with variations on the harp, she joined the\r
+other young ladies in begging Natasha and Nicholas, who were noted for\r
+their musical talent, to sing something. Natasha, who was treated as\r
+though she were grown up, was evidently very proud of this but at the\r
+same time felt shy.\r
+\r
+"What shall we sing?" she said.\r
+\r
+"'The Brook,'" suggested Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, let's be quick. Boris, come here," said Natasha. "But where\r
+is Sonya?"\r
+\r
+She looked round and seeing that her friend was not in the room ran to\r
+look for her.\r
+\r
+Running into Sonya's room and not finding her there, Natasha ran to the\r
+nursery, but Sonya was not there either. Natasha concluded that she must\r
+be on the chest in the passage. The chest in the passage was the place\r
+of mourning for the younger female generation in the Rostov household.\r
+And there in fact was Sonya lying face downward on Nurse's dirty feather\r
+bed on the top of the chest, crumpling her gauzy pink dress under her,\r
+hiding her face with her slender fingers, and sobbing so convulsively\r
+that her bare little shoulders shook. Natasha's face, which had been so\r
+radiantly happy all that saint's day, suddenly changed: her eyes became\r
+fixed, and then a shiver passed down her broad neck and the corners of\r
+her mouth drooped.\r
+\r
+"Sonya! What is it? What is the matter?... Oo... Oo... Oo...!" And\r
+Natasha's large mouth widened, making her look quite ugly, and she began\r
+to wail like a baby without knowing why, except that Sonya was crying.\r
+Sonya tried to lift her head to answer but could not, and hid her face\r
+still deeper in the bed. Natasha wept, sitting on the blue-striped\r
+feather bed and hugging her friend. With an effort Sonya sat up and\r
+began wiping her eyes and explaining.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas is going away in a week's time, his... papers... have come...\r
+he told me himself... but still I should not cry," and she showed a\r
+paper she held in her hand--with the verses Nicholas had written,\r
+"still, I should not cry, but you can't... no one can understand... what\r
+a soul he has!"\r
+\r
+And she began to cry again because he had such a noble soul.\r
+\r
+"It's all very well for you... I am not envious... I love you and Boris\r
+also," she went on, gaining a little strength; "he is nice... there are\r
+no difficulties in your way.... But Nicholas is my cousin... one would\r
+have to... the Metropolitan himself... and even then it can't be done.\r
+And besides, if she tells Mamma" (Sonya looked upon the countess as her\r
+mother and called her so) "that I am spoiling Nicholas' career and am\r
+heartless and ungrateful, while truly... God is my witness," and she\r
+made the sign of the cross, "I love her so much, and all of you, only\r
+Vera... And what for? What have I done to her? I am so grateful to you\r
+that I would willingly sacrifice everything, only I have nothing...."\r
+\r
+Sonya could not continue, and again hid her face in her hands and in the\r
+feather bed. Natasha began consoling her, but her face showed that she\r
+understood all the gravity of her friend's trouble.\r
+\r
+"Sonya," she suddenly exclaimed, as if she had guessed the true reason\r
+of her friend's sorrow, "I'm sure Vera has said something to you since\r
+dinner? Hasn't she?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, these verses Nicholas wrote himself and I copied some others, and\r
+she found them on my table and said she'd show them to Mamma, and that I\r
+was ungrateful, and that Mamma would never allow him to marry me, but\r
+that he'll marry Julie. You see how he's been with her all day...\r
+Natasha, what have I done to deserve it?..."\r
+\r
+And again she began to sob, more bitterly than before. Natasha lifted\r
+her up, hugged her, and, smiling through her tears, began comforting\r
+her.\r
+\r
+"Sonya, don't believe her, darling! Don't believe her! Do you remember\r
+how we and Nicholas, all three of us, talked in the sitting room after\r
+supper? Why, we settled how everything was to be. I don't quite remember\r
+how, but don't you remember that it could all be arranged and how nice\r
+it all was? There's Uncle Shinshin's brother has married his first\r
+cousin. And we are only second cousins, you know. And Boris says it is\r
+quite possible. You know I have told him all about it. And he is so\r
+clever and so good!" said Natasha. "Don't you cry, Sonya, dear love,\r
+darling Sonya!" and she kissed her and laughed. "Vera's spiteful; never\r
+mind her! And all will come right and she won't say anything to Mamma.\r
+Nicholas will tell her himself, and he doesn't care at all for Julie."\r
+\r
+Natasha kissed her on the hair.\r
+\r
+Sonya sat up. The little kitten brightened, its eyes shone, and it\r
+seemed ready to lift its tail, jump down on its soft paws, and begin\r
+playing with the ball of worsted as a kitten should.\r
+\r
+"Do you think so?... Really? Truly?" she said, quickly smoothing her\r
+frock and hair.\r
+\r
+"Really, truly!" answered Natasha, pushing in a crisp lock that had\r
+strayed from under her friend's plaits.\r
+\r
+Both laughed.\r
+\r
+"Well, let's go and sing 'The Brook.'"\r
+\r
+"Come along!"\r
+\r
+"Do you know, that fat Pierre who sat opposite me is so funny!" said\r
+Natasha, stopping suddenly. "I feel so happy!"\r
+\r
+And she set off at a run along the passage.\r
+\r
+Sonya, shaking off some down which clung to her and tucking away the\r
+verses in the bosom of her dress close to her bony little chest, ran\r
+after Natasha down the passage into the sitting room with flushed face\r
+and light, joyous steps. At the visitors' request the young people sang\r
+the quartette, "The Brook," with which everyone was delighted. Then\r
+Nicholas sang a song he had just learned:\r
+\r
+\r
+At nighttime in the moon's fair glow How sweet, as fancies wander free,\r
+To feel that in this world there's one Who still is thinking but of\r
+thee!\r
+\r
+That while her fingers touch the harp Wafting sweet music o'er the lea,\r
+It is for thee thus swells her heart, Sighing its message out to thee...\r
+\r
+A day or two, then bliss unspoilt, But oh! till then I cannot live!...\r
+\r
+He had not finished the last verse before the young people began to get\r
+ready to dance in the large hall, and the sound of the feet and the\r
+coughing of the musicians were heard from the gallery.\r
+\r
+Pierre was sitting in the drawing-room where Shinshin had engaged him,\r
+as a man recently returned from abroad, in a political conversation in\r
+which several others joined but which bored Pierre. When the music began\r
+Natasha came in and walking straight up to Pierre said, laughing and\r
+blushing:\r
+\r
+"Mamma told me to ask you to join the dancers."\r
+\r
+"I am afraid of mixing the figures," Pierre replied; "but if you will be\r
+my teacher..." And lowering his big arm he offered it to the slender\r
+little girl.\r
+\r
+While the couples were arranging themselves and the musicians tuning up,\r
+Pierre sat down with his little partner. Natasha was perfectly happy;\r
+she was dancing with a grown-up man, who had been abroad. She was\r
+sitting in a conspicuous place and talking to him like a grown-up lady.\r
+She had a fan in her hand that one of the ladies had given her to hold.\r
+Assuming quite the pose of a society woman (heaven knows when and where\r
+she had learned it) she talked with her partner, fanning herself and\r
+smiling over the fan.\r
+\r
+"Dear, dear! Just look at her!" exclaimed the countess as she crossed\r
+the ballroom, pointing to Natasha.\r
+\r
+Natasha blushed and laughed.\r
+\r
+"Well, really, Mamma! Why should you? What is there to be surprised at?"\r
+\r
+In the midst of the third ecossaise there was a clatter of chairs being\r
+pushed back in the sitting room where the count and Marya Dmitrievna had\r
+been playing cards with the majority of the more distinguished and older\r
+visitors. They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long, and\r
+replacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ballroom. First came\r
+Marya Dmitrievna and the count, both with merry countenances. The count,\r
+with playful ceremony somewhat in ballet style, offered his bent arm to\r
+Marya Dmitrievna. He drew himself up, a smile of debonair gallantry lit\r
+up his face and as soon as the last figure of the ecossaise was ended,\r
+he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted up to their gallery,\r
+addressing the first violin:\r
+\r
+"Semen! Do you know the Daniel Cooper?"\r
+\r
+This was the count's favorite dance, which he had danced in his youth.\r
+(Strictly speaking, Daniel Cooper was one figure of the anglaise.)\r
+\r
+"Look at Papa!" shouted Natasha to the whole company, and quite\r
+forgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up partner she bent her\r
+curly head to her knees and made the whole room ring with her laughter.\r
+\r
+And indeed everybody in the room looked with a smile of pleasure at the\r
+jovial old gentleman, who standing beside his tall and stout partner,\r
+Marya Dmitrievna, curved his arms, beat time, straightened his\r
+shoulders, turned out his toes, tapped gently with his foot, and, by a\r
+smile that broadened his round face more and more, prepared the\r
+onlookers for what was to follow. As soon as the provocatively gay\r
+strains of Daniel Cooper (somewhat resembling those of a merry peasant\r
+dance) began to sound, all the doorways of the ballroom were suddenly\r
+filled by the domestic serfs--the men on one side and the women on the\r
+other--who with beaming faces had come to see their master making merry.\r
+\r
+"Just look at the master! A regular eagle he is!" loudly remarked the\r
+nurse, as she stood in one of the doorways.\r
+\r
+The count danced well and knew it. But his partner could not and did not\r
+want to dance well. Her enormous figure stood erect, her powerful arms\r
+hanging down (she had handed her reticule to the countess), and only her\r
+stern but handsome face really joined in the dance. What was expressed\r
+by the whole of the count's plump figure, in Marya Dmitrievna found\r
+expression only in her more and more beaming face and quivering nose.\r
+But if the count, getting more and more into the swing of it, charmed\r
+the spectators by the unexpectedness of his adroit maneuvers and the\r
+agility with which he capered about on his light feet, Marya Dmitrievna\r
+produced no less impression by slight exertions--the least effort to\r
+move her shoulders or bend her arms when turning, or stamp her foot--\r
+which everyone appreciated in view of her size and habitual severity.\r
+The dance grew livelier and livelier. The other couples could not\r
+attract a moment's attention to their own evolutions and did not even\r
+try to do so. All were watching the count and Marya Dmitrievna. Natasha\r
+kept pulling everyone by sleeve or dress, urging them to "look at Papa!"\r
+though as it was they never took their eyes off the couple. In the\r
+intervals of the dance the count, breathing deeply, waved and shouted to\r
+the musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and faster; lightly, more\r
+lightly, and yet more lightly whirled the count, flying round Marya\r
+Dmitrievna, now on his toes, now on his heels; until, turning his\r
+partner round to her seat, he executed the final pas, raising his soft\r
+foot backwards, bowing his perspiring head, smiling and making a wide\r
+sweep with his arm, amid a thunder of applause and laughter led by\r
+Natasha. Both partners stood still, breathing heavily and wiping their\r
+faces with their cambric handkerchiefs.\r
+\r
+"That's how we used to dance in our time, ma chere," said the count.\r
+\r
+"That was a Daniel Cooper!" exclaimed Marya Dmitrievna, tucking up her\r
+sleeves and puffing heavily.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+While in the Rostovs' ballroom the sixth anglaise was being danced, to a\r
+tune in which the weary musicians blundered, and while tired footmen and\r
+cooks were getting the supper, Count Bezukhov had a sixth stroke. The\r
+doctors pronounced recovery impossible. After a mute confession,\r
+communion was administered to the dying man, preparations made for the\r
+sacrament of unction, and in his house there was the bustle and thrill\r
+of suspense usual at such moments. Outside the house, beyond the gates,\r
+a group of undertakers, who hid whenever a carriage drove up, waited in\r
+expectation of an important order for an expensive funeral. The Military\r
+Governor of Moscow, who had been assiduous in sending aides-de-camp to\r
+inquire after the count's health, came himself that evening to bid a\r
+last farewell to the celebrated grandee of Catherine's court, Count\r
+Bezukhov.\r
+\r
+The magnificent reception room was crowded. Everyone stood up\r
+respectfully when the Military Governor, having stayed about half an\r
+hour alone with the dying man, passed out, slightly acknowledging their\r
+bows and trying to escape as quickly as possible from the glances fixed\r
+on him by the doctors, clergy, and relatives of the family. Prince\r
+Vasili, who had grown thinner and paler during the last few days,\r
+escorted him to the door, repeating something to him several times in\r
+low tones.\r
+\r
+When the Military Governor had gone, Prince Vasili sat down all alone on\r
+a chair in the ballroom, crossing one leg high over the other, leaning\r
+his elbow on his knee and covering his face with his hand. After sitting\r
+so for a while he rose, and, looking about him with frightened eyes,\r
+went with unusually hurried steps down the long corridor leading to the\r
+back of the house, to the room of the eldest princess.\r
+\r
+Those who were in the dimly lit reception room spoke in nervous\r
+whispers, and, whenever anyone went into or came from the dying man's\r
+room, grew silent and gazed with eyes full of curiosity or expectancy at\r
+his door, which creaked slightly when opened.\r
+\r
+"The limits of human life... are fixed and may not be o'erpassed," said\r
+an old priest to a lady who had taken a seat beside him and was\r
+listening naively to his words.\r
+\r
+"I wonder, is it not too late to administer unction?" asked the lady,\r
+adding the priest's clerical title, as if she had no opinion of her own\r
+on the subject.\r
+\r
+"Ah, madam, it is a great sacrament," replied the priest, passing his\r
+hand over the thin grizzled strands of hair combed back across his bald\r
+head.\r
+\r
+"Who was that? The Military Governor himself?" was being asked at the\r
+other side of the room. "How young-looking he is!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, and he is over sixty. I hear the count no longer recognizes\r
+anyone. They wished to administer the sacrament of unction."\r
+\r
+"I knew someone who received that sacrament seven times."\r
+\r
+The second princess had just come from the sickroom with her eyes red\r
+from weeping and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a\r
+graceful pose under a portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbow on a\r
+table.\r
+\r
+"Beautiful," said the doctor in answer to a remark about the weather.\r
+"The weather is beautiful, Princess; and besides, in Moscow one feels as\r
+if one were in the country."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed," replied the princess with a sigh. "So he may have\r
+something to drink?"\r
+\r
+Lorrain considered.\r
+\r
+"Has he taken his medicine?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+The doctor glanced at his watch.\r
+\r
+"Take a glass of boiled water and put a pinch of cream of tartar," and\r
+he indicated with his delicate fingers what he meant by a pinch.\r
+\r
+"Dere has neffer been a gase," a German doctor was saying to an aide-de-\r
+camp, "dat one liffs after de sird stroke."\r
+\r
+"And what a well-preserved man he was!" remarked the aide-de-camp. "And\r
+who will inherit his wealth?" he added in a whisper.\r
+\r
+"It von't go begging," replied the German with a smile.\r
+\r
+Everyone again looked toward the door, which creaked as the second\r
+princess went in with the drink she had prepared according to Lorrain's\r
+instructions. The German doctor went up to Lorrain.\r
+\r
+"Do you think he can last till morning?" asked the German, addressing\r
+Lorrain in French which he pronounced badly.\r
+\r
+Lorrain, pursing up his lips, waved a severely negative finger before\r
+his nose.\r
+\r
+"Tonight, not later," said he in a low voice, and he moved away with a\r
+decorous smile of self-satisfaction at being able clearly to understand\r
+and state the patient's condition.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Prince Vasili had opened the door into the princess' room.\r
+\r
+In this room it was almost dark; only two tiny lamps were burning before\r
+the icons and there was a pleasant scent of flowers and burnt pastilles.\r
+The room was crowded with small pieces of furniture, whatnots,\r
+cupboards, and little tables. The quilt of a high, white feather bed was\r
+just visible behind a screen. A small dog began to bark.\r
+\r
+"Ah, is it you, cousin?"\r
+\r
+She rose and smoothed her hair, which was as usual so extremely smooth\r
+that it seemed to be made of one piece with her head and covered with\r
+varnish.\r
+\r
+"Has anything happened?" she asked. "I am so terrified."\r
+\r
+"No, there is no change. I only came to have a talk about business,\r
+Catiche," * muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on the chair\r
+she had just vacated. "You have made the place warm, I must say," he\r
+remarked. "Well, sit down: let's have a talk."\r
+\r
+\r
+*Catherine.\r
+\r
+"I thought perhaps something had happened," she said with her unchanging\r
+stonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the prince, she\r
+prepared to listen.\r
+\r
+"I wished to get a nap, mon cousin, but I can't."\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear?" said Prince Vasili, taking her hand and bending it\r
+downwards as was his habit.\r
+\r
+It was plain that this "well?" referred to much that they both\r
+understood without naming.\r
+\r
+The princess, who had a straight, rigid body, abnormally long for her\r
+legs, looked directly at Prince Vasili with no sign of emotion in her\r
+prominent gray eyes. Then she shook her head and glanced up at the icons\r
+with a sigh. This might have been taken as an expression of sorrow and\r
+devotion, or of weariness and hope of resting before long. Prince Vasili\r
+understood it as an expression of weariness.\r
+\r
+"And I?" he said; "do you think it is easier for me? I am as worn out as\r
+a post horse, but still I must have a talk with you, Catiche, a very\r
+serious talk."\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili said no more and his cheeks began to twitch nervously, now\r
+on one side, now on the other, giving his face an unpleasant expression\r
+which was never to be seen on it in a drawing room. His eyes too seemed\r
+strange; at one moment they looked impudently sly and at the next\r
+glanced round in alarm.\r
+\r
+The princess, holding her little dog on her lap with her thin bony\r
+hands, looked attentively into Prince Vasili's eyes evidently resolved\r
+not to be the first to break silence, if she had to wait till morning.\r
+\r
+"Well, you see, my dear princess and cousin, Catherine Semenovna,"\r
+continued Prince Vasili, returning to his theme, apparently not without\r
+an inner struggle; "at such a moment as this one must think of\r
+everything. One must think of the future, of all of you... I love you\r
+all, like children of my own, as you know."\r
+\r
+The princess continued to look at him without moving, and with the same\r
+dull expression.\r
+\r
+"And then of course my family has also to be considered," Prince Vasili\r
+went on, testily pushing away a little table without looking at her.\r
+"You know, Catiche, that we--you three sisters, Mamontov, and my wife--\r
+are the count's only direct heirs. I know, I know how hard it is for you\r
+to talk or think of such matters. It is no easier for me; but, my dear,\r
+I am getting on for sixty and must be prepared for anything. Do you know\r
+I have sent for Pierre? The count," pointing to his portrait,\r
+"definitely demanded that he should be called."\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili looked questioningly at the princess, but could not make\r
+out whether she was considering what he had just said or whether she was\r
+simply looking at him.\r
+\r
+"There is one thing I constantly pray God to grant, mon cousin," she\r
+replied, "and it is that He would be merciful to him and would allow his\r
+noble soul peacefully to leave this..."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, of course," interrupted Prince Vasili impatiently, rubbing\r
+his bald head and angrily pulling back toward him the little table that\r
+he had pushed away. "But... in short, the fact is... you know yourself\r
+that last winter the count made a will by which he left all his\r
+property, not to us his direct heirs, but to Pierre."\r
+\r
+"He has made wills enough!" quietly remarked the princess. "But he\r
+cannot leave the estate to Pierre. Pierre is illegitimate."\r
+\r
+"But, my dear," said Prince Vasili suddenly, clutching the little table\r
+and becoming more animated and talking more rapidly: "what if a letter\r
+has been written to the Emperor in which the count asks for Pierre's\r
+legitimation? Do you understand that in consideration of the count's\r
+services, his request would be granted?..."\r
+\r
+The princess smiled as people do who think they know more about the\r
+subject under discussion than those they are talking with.\r
+\r
+"I can tell you more," continued Prince Vasili, seizing her hand, "that\r
+letter was written, though it was not sent, and the Emperor knew of it.\r
+The only question is, has it been destroyed or not? If not, then as soon\r
+as all is over," and Prince Vasili sighed to intimate what he meant by\r
+the words all is over, "and the count's papers are opened, the will and\r
+letter will be delivered to the Emperor, and the petition will certainly\r
+be granted. Pierre will get everything as the legitimate son."\r
+\r
+"And our share?" asked the princess smiling ironically, as if anything\r
+might happen, only not that.\r
+\r
+"But, my poor Catiche, it is as clear as daylight! He will then be the\r
+legal heir to everything and you won't get anything. You must know, my\r
+dear, whether the will and letter were written, and whether they have\r
+been destroyed or not. And if they have somehow been overlooked, you\r
+ought to know where they are, and must find them, because..."\r
+\r
+"What next?" the princess interrupted, smiling sardonically and not\r
+changing the expression of her eyes. "I am a woman, and you think we are\r
+all stupid; but I know this: an illegitimate son cannot inherit... un\r
+batard!" * she added, as if supposing that this translation of the word\r
+would effectively prove to Prince Vasili the invalidity of his\r
+contention.\r
+\r
+\r
+* A bastard.\r
+\r
+"Well, really, Catiche! Can't you understand! You are so intelligent,\r
+how is it you don't see that if the count has written a letter to the\r
+Emperor begging him to recognize Pierre as legitimate, it follows that\r
+Pierre will not be Pierre but will become Count Bezukhov, and will then\r
+inherit everything under the will? And if the will and letter are not\r
+destroyed, then you will have nothing but the consolation of having been\r
+dutiful et tout ce qui s'ensuit! * That's certain."\r
+\r
+\r
+* And all that follows therefrom.\r
+\r
+"I know the will was made, but I also know that it is invalid; and you,\r
+mon cousin, seem to consider me a perfect fool," said the princess with\r
+the expression women assume when they suppose they are saying something\r
+witty and stinging.\r
+\r
+"My dear Princess Catherine Semenovna," began Prince Vasili impatiently,\r
+"I came here not to wrangle with you, but to talk about your interests\r
+as with a kinswoman, a good, kind, true relation. And I tell you for the\r
+tenth time that if the letter to the Emperor and the will in Pierre's\r
+favor are among the count's papers, then, my dear girl, you and your\r
+sisters are not heiresses! If you don't believe me, then believe an\r
+expert. I have just been talking to Dmitri Onufrich" (the family\r
+solicitor) "and he says the same."\r
+\r
+At this a sudden change evidently took place in the princess' ideas; her\r
+thin lips grew white, though her eyes did not change, and her voice when\r
+she began to speak passed through such transitions as she herself\r
+evidently did not expect.\r
+\r
+"That would be a fine thing!" said she. "I never wanted anything and I\r
+don't now."\r
+\r
+She pushed the little dog off her lap and smoothed her dress.\r
+\r
+"And this is gratitude--this is recognition for those who have\r
+sacrificed everything for his sake!" she cried. "It's splendid! Fine! I\r
+don't want anything, Prince."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but you are not the only one. There are your sisters..." replied\r
+Prince Vasili.\r
+\r
+But the princess did not listen to him.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I knew it long ago but had forgotten. I knew that I could expect\r
+nothing but meanness, deceit, envy, intrigue, and ingratitude--the\r
+blackest ingratitude--in this house..."\r
+\r
+"Do you or do you not know where that will is?" insisted Prince Vasili,\r
+his cheeks twitching more than ever.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I was a fool! I still believed in people, loved them, and\r
+sacrificed myself. But only the base, the vile succeed! I know who has\r
+been intriguing!"\r
+\r
+The princess wished to rise, but the prince held her by the hand. She\r
+had the air of one who has suddenly lost faith in the whole human race.\r
+She gave her companion an angry glance.\r
+\r
+"There is still time, my dear. You must remember, Catiche, that it was\r
+all done casually in a moment of anger, of illness, and was afterwards\r
+forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to rectify his mistake, to ease his\r
+last moments by not letting him commit this injustice, and not to let\r
+him die feeling that he is rendering unhappy those who..."\r
+\r
+"Who sacrificed everything for him," chimed in the princess, who would\r
+again have risen had not the prince still held her fast, "though he\r
+never could appreciate it. No, mon cousin," she added with a sigh, "I\r
+shall always remember that in this world one must expect no reward, that\r
+in this world there is neither honor nor justice. In this world one has\r
+to be cunning and cruel."\r
+\r
+"Now come, come! Be reasonable. I know your excellent heart."\r
+\r
+"No, I have a wicked heart."\r
+\r
+"I know your heart," repeated the prince. "I value your friendship and\r
+wish you to have as good an opinion of me. Don't upset yourself, and let\r
+us talk sensibly while there is still time, be it a day or be it but an\r
+hour.... Tell me all you know about the will, and above all where it is.\r
+You must know. We will take it at once and show it to the count. He has,\r
+no doubt, forgotten it and will wish to destroy it. You understand that\r
+my sole desire is conscientiously to carry out his wishes; that is my\r
+only reason for being here. I came simply to help him and you."\r
+\r
+"Now I see it all! I know who has been intriguing--I know!" cried the\r
+princess.\r
+\r
+"That's not the point, my dear."\r
+\r
+"It's that protege of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskaya, that Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna whom I would not take for a housemaid... the infamous, vile\r
+woman!"\r
+\r
+"Do not let us lose any time..."\r
+\r
+"Ah, don't talk to me! Last winter she wheedled herself in here and told\r
+the count such vile, disgraceful things about us, especially about\r
+Sophie--I can't repeat them--that it made the count quite ill and he\r
+would not see us for a whole fortnight. I know it was then he wrote this\r
+vile, infamous paper, but I thought the thing was invalid."\r
+\r
+"We've got to it at last--why did you not tell me about it sooner?"\r
+\r
+"It's in the inlaid portfolio that he keeps under his pillow," said the\r
+princess, ignoring his question. "Now I know! Yes; if I have a sin, a\r
+great sin, it is hatred of that vile woman!" almost shrieked the\r
+princess, now quite changed. "And what does she come worming herself in\r
+here for? But I will give her a piece of my mind. The time will come!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+While these conversations were going on in the reception room and the\r
+princess' room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for) and\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him) was driving\r
+into the court of Count Bezukhov's house. As the wheels rolled softly\r
+over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikhaylovna, having turned with\r
+words of comfort to her companion, realized that he was asleep in his\r
+corner and woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre followed Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna out of the carriage, and only then began to think of the\r
+interview with his dying father which awaited him. He noticed that they\r
+had not come to the front entrance but to the back door. While he was\r
+getting down from the carriage steps two men, who looked like\r
+tradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in the shadow of\r
+the wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several other men of the\r
+same kind hiding in the shadow of the house on both sides. But neither\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who could not help\r
+seeing these people, took any notice of them. "It seems to be all\r
+right," Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikhaylovna. She hurriedly\r
+ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to Pierre, who\r
+was lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it was\r
+necessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had to go\r
+by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikhaylovna's air of assurance\r
+and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely necessary.\r
+Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by some men who,\r
+carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots clattering. These\r
+men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna pass\r
+and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them there.\r
+\r
+"Is this the way to the princesses' apartments?" asked Anna Mikhaylovna\r
+of one of them.\r
+\r
+"Yes," replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as if anything were now\r
+permissible; "the door to the left, ma'am."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps the count did not ask for me," said Pierre when he reached the\r
+landing. "I'd better go to my own room."\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna paused and waited for him to come up.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my friend!" she said, touching his arm as she had done her son's\r
+when speaking to him that afternoon, "believe me I suffer no less than\r
+you do, but be a man!"\r
+\r
+"But really, hadn't I better go away?" he asked, looking kindly at her\r
+over his spectacles.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have been done you.\r
+Think that he is your father... perhaps in the agony of death." She\r
+sighed. "I have loved you like a son from the first. Trust yourself to\r
+me, Pierre. I shall not forget your interests."\r
+\r
+Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had\r
+to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikhaylovna who was\r
+already opening a door.\r
+\r
+This door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the\r
+princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been\r
+in this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of\r
+these rooms. Anna Mikhaylovna, addressing a maid who was hurrying past\r
+with a decanter on a tray as "my dear" and "my sweet," asked about the\r
+princess' health and then led Pierre along a stone passage. The first\r
+door on the left led into the princesses' apartments. The maid with the\r
+decanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything in the house\r
+was done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna in\r
+passing instinctively glanced into the room, where Prince Vasili and the\r
+eldest princess were sitting close together talking. Seeing them pass,\r
+Prince Vasili drew back with obvious impatience, while the princess\r
+jumped up and with a gesture of desperation slammed the door with all\r
+her might.\r
+\r
+This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted on\r
+Prince Vasili's face so out of keeping with his dignity that Pierre\r
+stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his guide. Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed, as\r
+if to say that this was no more than she had expected.\r
+\r
+"Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests," said she in\r
+reply to his look, and went still faster along the passage.\r
+\r
+Pierre could not make out what it was all about, and still less what\r
+"watching over his interests" meant, but he decided that all these\r
+things had to be. From the passage they went into a large, dimly lit\r
+room adjoining the count's reception room. It was one of those sumptuous\r
+but cold apartments known to Pierre only from the front approach, but\r
+even in this room there now stood an empty bath, and water had been\r
+spilled on the carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer and by a\r
+servant who passed out on tiptoe without heeding them. They went into\r
+the reception room familiar to Pierre, with two Italian windows opening\r
+into the conservatory, with its large bust and full length portrait of\r
+Catherine the Great. The same people were still sitting here in almost\r
+the same positions as before, whispering to one another. All became\r
+silent and turned to look at the pale tear-worn Anna Mikhaylovna as she\r
+entered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre who, hanging his head,\r
+meekly followed her.\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna's face expressed a consciousness that the decisive\r
+moment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg lady she now,\r
+keeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room even more boldly than\r
+that afternoon. She felt that as she brought with her the person the\r
+dying man wished to see, her own admission was assured. Casting a rapid\r
+glance at all those in the room and noticing the count's confessor\r
+there, she glided up to him with a sort of amble, not exactly bowing yet\r
+seeming to grow suddenly smaller, and respectfully received the blessing\r
+first of one and then of another priest.\r
+\r
+"God be thanked that you are in time," said she to one of the priests;\r
+"all we relatives have been in such anxiety. This young man is the\r
+count's son," she added more softly. "What a terrible moment!"\r
+\r
+Having said this she went up to the doctor.\r
+\r
+"Dear doctor," said she, "this young man is the count's son. Is there\r
+any hope?"\r
+\r
+The doctor cast a rapid glance upwards and silently shrugged his\r
+shoulders. Anna Mikhaylovna with just the same movement raised her\r
+shoulders and eyes, almost closing the latter, sighed, and moved away\r
+from the doctor to Pierre. To him, in a particularly respectful and\r
+tenderly sad voice, she said:\r
+\r
+"Trust in His mercy!" and pointing out a small sofa for him to sit and\r
+wait for her, she went silently toward the door that everyone was\r
+watching and it creaked very slightly as she disappeared behind it.\r
+\r
+Pierre, having made up his mind to obey his monitress implicitly, moved\r
+toward the sofa she had indicated. As soon as Anna Mikhaylovna had\r
+disappeared he noticed that the eyes of all in the room turned to him\r
+with something more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that they\r
+whispered to one another, casting significant looks at him with a kind\r
+of awe and even servility. A deference such as he had never before\r
+received was shown him. A strange lady, the one who had been talking to\r
+the priests, rose and offered him her seat; an aide-de-camp picked up\r
+and returned a glove Pierre had dropped; the doctors became respectfully\r
+silent as he passed by, and moved to make way for him. At first Pierre\r
+wished to take another seat so as not to trouble the lady, and also to\r
+pick up the glove himself and to pass round the doctors who were not\r
+even in his way; but all at once he felt that this would not do, and\r
+that tonight he was a person obliged to perform some sort of awful rite\r
+which everyone expected of him, and that he was therefore bound to\r
+accept their services. He took the glove in silence from the aide-de-\r
+camp, and sat down in the lady's chair, placing his huge hands\r
+symmetrically on his knees in the naive attitude of an Egyptian statue,\r
+and decided in his own mind that all was as it should be, and that in\r
+order not to lose his head and do foolish things he must not act on his\r
+own ideas tonight, but must yield himself up entirely to the will of\r
+those who were guiding him.\r
+\r
+Not two minutes had passed before Prince Vasili with head erect\r
+majestically entered the room. He was wearing his long coat with three\r
+stars on his breast. He seemed to have grown thinner since the morning;\r
+his eyes seemed larger than usual when he glanced round and noticed\r
+Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (a thing he never used to do),\r
+and drew it downwards as if wishing to ascertain whether it was firmly\r
+fixed on.\r
+\r
+"Courage, courage, my friend! He has asked to see you. That is well!"\r
+and he turned to go.\r
+\r
+But Pierre thought it necessary to ask: "How is..." and hesitated, not\r
+knowing whether it would be proper to call the dying man "the count,"\r
+yet ashamed to call him "father."\r
+\r
+"He had another stroke about half an hour ago. Courage, my friend..."\r
+\r
+Pierre's mind was in such a confused state that the word "stroke"\r
+suggested to him a blow from something. He looked at Prince Vasili in\r
+perplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack of\r
+illness. Prince Vasili said something to Lorrain in passing and went\r
+through the door on tiptoe. He could not walk well on tiptoe and his\r
+whole body jerked at each step. The eldest princess followed him, and\r
+the priests and deacons and some servants also went in at the door.\r
+Through that door was heard a noise of things being moved about, and at\r
+last Anna Mikhaylovna, still with the same expression, pale but resolute\r
+in the discharge of duty, ran out and touching Pierre lightly on the arm\r
+said:\r
+\r
+"The divine mercy is inexhaustible! Unction is about to be administered.\r
+Come."\r
+\r
+Pierre went in at the door, stepping on the soft carpet, and noticed\r
+that the strange lady, the aide-de-camp, and some of the servants, all\r
+followed him in, as if there were now no further need for permission to\r
+enter that room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+Pierre well knew this large room divided by columns and an arch, its\r
+walls hung round with Persian carpets. The part of the room behind the\r
+columns, with a high silk-curtained mahogany bedstead on one side and on\r
+the other an immense case containing icons, was brightly illuminated\r
+with red light like a Russian church during evening service. Under the\r
+gleaming icons stood a long invalid chair, and in that chair on snowy-\r
+white smooth pillows, evidently freshly changed, Pierre saw--covered to\r
+the waist by a bright green quilt--the familiar, majestic figure of his\r
+father, Count Bezukhov, with that gray mane of hair above his broad\r
+forehead which reminded one of a lion, and the deep characteristically\r
+noble wrinkles of his handsome, ruddy face. He lay just under the icons;\r
+his large thick hands outside the quilt. Into the right hand, which was\r
+lying palm downwards, a wax taper had been thrust between forefinger and\r
+thumb, and an old servant, bending over from behind the chair, held it\r
+in position. By the chair stood the priests, their long hair falling\r
+over their magnificent glittering vestments, with lighted tapers in\r
+their hands, slowly and solemnly conducting the service. A little behind\r
+them stood the two younger princesses holding handkerchiefs to their\r
+eyes, and just in front of them their eldest sister, Catiche, with a\r
+vicious and determined look steadily fixed on the icons, as though\r
+declaring to all that she could not answer for herself should she glance\r
+round. Anna Mikhaylovna, with a meek, sorrowful, and all-forgiving\r
+expression on her face, stood by the door near the strange lady. Prince\r
+Vasili in front of the door, near the invalid chair, a wax taper in his\r
+left hand, was leaning his left arm on the carved back of a velvet chair\r
+he had turned round for the purpose, and was crossing himself with his\r
+right hand, turning his eyes upward each time he touched his forehead.\r
+His face wore a calm look of piety and resignation to the will of God.\r
+"If you do not understand these sentiments," he seemed to be saying, "so\r
+much the worse for you!"\r
+\r
+Behind him stood the aide-de-camp, the doctors, and the menservants; the\r
+men and women had separated as in church. All were silently crossing\r
+themselves, and the reading of the church service, the subdued chanting\r
+of deep bass voices, and in the intervals sighs and the shuffling of\r
+feet were the only sounds that could be heard. Anna Mikhaylovna, with an\r
+air of importance that showed that she felt she quite knew what she was\r
+about, went across the room to where Pierre was standing and gave him a\r
+taper. He lit it and, distracted by observing those around him, began\r
+crossing himself with the hand that held the taper.\r
+\r
+Sophie, the rosy, laughter-loving, youngest princess with the mole,\r
+watched him. She smiled, hid her face in her handkerchief, and remained\r
+with it hidden for awhile; then looking up and seeing Pierre she again\r
+began to laugh. She evidently felt unable to look at him without\r
+laughing, but could not resist looking at him: so to be out of\r
+temptation she slipped quietly behind one of the columns. In the midst\r
+of the service the voices of the priests suddenly ceased, they whispered\r
+to one another, and the old servant who was holding the count's hand got\r
+up and said something to the ladies. Anna Mikhaylovna stepped forward\r
+and, stooping over the dying man, beckoned to Lorrain from behind her\r
+back. The French doctor held no taper; he was leaning against one of the\r
+columns in a respectful attitude implying that he, a foreigner, in spite\r
+of all differences of faith, understood the full importance of the rite\r
+now being performed and even approved of it. He now approached the sick\r
+man with the noiseless step of one in full vigor of life, with his\r
+delicate white fingers raised from the green quilt the hand that was\r
+free, and turning sideways felt the pulse and reflected a moment. The\r
+sick man was given something to drink, there was a stir around him, then\r
+the people resumed their places and the service continued. During this\r
+interval Pierre noticed that Prince Vasili left the chair on which he\r
+had been leaning, and--with an air which intimated that he knew what he\r
+was about and if others did not understand him it was so much the worse\r
+for them--did not go up to the dying man, but passed by him, joined the\r
+eldest princess, and moved with her to the side of the room where stood\r
+the high bedstead with its silken hangings. On leaving the bed both\r
+Prince Vasili and the princess passed out by a back door, but returned\r
+to their places one after the other before the service was concluded.\r
+Pierre paid no more attention to this occurrence than to the rest of\r
+what went on, having made up his mind once for all that what he saw\r
+happening around him that evening was in some way essential.\r
+\r
+The chanting of the service ceased, and the voice of the priest was\r
+heard respectfully congratulating the dying man on having received the\r
+sacrament. The dying man lay as lifeless and immovable as before. Around\r
+him everyone began to stir: steps were audible and whispers, among which\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna's was the most distinct.\r
+\r
+Pierre heard her say:\r
+\r
+"Certainly he must be moved onto the bed; here it will be impossible..."\r
+\r
+The sick man was so surrounded by doctors, princesses, and servants that\r
+Pierre could no longer see the reddish-yellow face with its gray mane--\r
+which, though he saw other faces as well, he had not lost sight of for a\r
+single moment during the whole service. He judged by the cautious\r
+movements of those who crowded round the invalid chair that they had\r
+lifted the dying man and were moving him.\r
+\r
+"Catch hold of my arm or you'll drop him!" he heard one of the servants\r
+say in a frightened whisper. "Catch hold from underneath. Here!"\r
+exclaimed different voices; and the heavy breathing of the bearers and\r
+the shuffling of their feet grew more hurried, as if the weight they\r
+were carrying were too much for them.\r
+\r
+As the bearers, among whom was Anna Mikhaylovna, passed the young man he\r
+caught a momentary glimpse between their heads and backs of the dying\r
+man's high, stout, uncovered chest and powerful shoulders, raised by\r
+those who were holding him under the armpits, and of his gray, curly,\r
+leonine head. This head, with its remarkably broad brow and cheekbones,\r
+its handsome, sensual mouth, and its cold, majestic expression, was not\r
+disfigured by the approach of death. It was the same as Pierre\r
+remembered it three months before, when the count had sent him to\r
+Petersburg. But now this head was swaying helplessly with the uneven\r
+movements of the bearers, and the cold listless gaze fixed itself upon\r
+nothing.\r
+\r
+After a few minutes' bustle beside the high bedstead, those who had\r
+carried the sick man dispersed. Anna Mikhaylovna touched Pierre's hand\r
+and said, "Come." Pierre went with her to the bed on which the sick man\r
+had been laid in a stately pose in keeping with the ceremony just\r
+completed. He lay with his head propped high on the pillows. His hands\r
+were symmetrically placed on the green silk quilt, the palms downward.\r
+When Pierre came up the count was gazing straight at him, but with a\r
+look the significance of which could not be understood by mortal man.\r
+Either this look meant nothing but that as long as one has eyes they\r
+must look somewhere, or it meant too much. Pierre hesitated, not knowing\r
+what to do, and glanced inquiringly at his guide. Anna Mikhaylovna made\r
+a hurried sign with her eyes, glancing at the sick man's hand and moving\r
+her lips as if to send it a kiss. Pierre, carefully stretching his neck\r
+so as not to touch the quilt, followed her suggestion and pressed his\r
+lips to the large boned, fleshy hand. Neither the hand nor a single\r
+muscle of the count's face stirred. Once more Pierre looked\r
+questioningly at Anna Mikhaylovna to see what he was to do next. Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna with her eyes indicated a chair that stood beside the bed.\r
+Pierre obediently sat down, his eyes asking if he were doing right. Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna nodded approvingly. Again Pierre fell into the naively\r
+symmetrical pose of an Egyptian statue, evidently distressed that his\r
+stout and clumsy body took up so much room and doing his utmost to look\r
+as small as possible. He looked at the count, who still gazed at the\r
+spot where Pierre's face had been before he sat down. Anna Mikhaylovna\r
+indicated by her attitude her consciousness of the pathetic importance\r
+of these last moments of meeting between the father and son. This lasted\r
+about two minutes, which to Pierre seemed an hour. Suddenly the broad\r
+muscles and lines of the count's face began to twitch. The twitching\r
+increased, the handsome mouth was drawn to one side (only now did Pierre\r
+realize how near death his father was), and from that distorted mouth\r
+issued an indistinct, hoarse sound. Anna Mikhaylovna looked attentively\r
+at the sick man's eyes, trying to guess what he wanted; she pointed\r
+first to Pierre, then to some drink, then named Prince Vasili in an\r
+inquiring whisper, then pointed to the quilt. The eyes and face of the\r
+sick man showed impatience. He made an effort to look at the servant who\r
+stood constantly at the head of the bed.\r
+\r
+"Wants to turn on the other side," whispered the servant, and got up to\r
+turn the count's heavy body toward the wall.\r
+\r
+Pierre rose to help him.\r
+\r
+While the count was being turned over, one of his arms fell back\r
+helplessly and he made a fruitless effort to pull it forward. Whether he\r
+noticed the look of terror with which Pierre regarded that lifeless arm,\r
+or whether some other thought flitted across his dying brain, at any\r
+rate he glanced at the refractory arm, at Pierre's terror-stricken face,\r
+and again at the arm, and on his face a feeble, piteous smile appeared,\r
+quite out of keeping with his features, that seemed to deride his own\r
+helplessness. At sight of this smile Pierre felt an unexpected quivering\r
+in his breast and a tickling in his nose, and tears dimmed his eyes. The\r
+sick man was turned on to his side with his face to the wall. He sighed.\r
+\r
+"He is dozing," said Anna Mikhaylovna, observing that one of the\r
+princesses was coming to take her turn at watching. "Let us go."\r
+\r
+Pierre went out.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIV\r
+\r
+There was now no one in the reception room except Prince Vasili and the\r
+eldest princess, who were sitting under the portrait of Catherine the\r
+Great and talking eagerly. As soon as they saw Pierre and his companion\r
+they became silent, and Pierre thought he saw the princess hide\r
+something as she whispered:\r
+\r
+"I can't bear the sight of that woman."\r
+\r
+"Catiche has had tea served in the small drawing room," said Prince\r
+Vasili to Anna Mikhaylovna. "Go and take something, my poor Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna, or you will not hold out."\r
+\r
+To Pierre he said nothing, merely giving his arm a sympathetic squeeze\r
+below the shoulder. Pierre went with Anna Mikhaylovna into the small\r
+drawing room.\r
+\r
+"There is nothing so refreshing after a sleepless night as a cup of this\r
+delicious Russian tea," Lorrain was saying with an air of restrained\r
+animation as he stood sipping tea from a delicate Chinese handleless cup\r
+before a table on which tea and a cold supper were laid in the small\r
+circular room. Around the table all who were at Count Bezukhov's house\r
+that night had gathered to fortify themselves. Pierre well remembered\r
+this small circular drawing room with its mirrors and little tables.\r
+During balls given at the house Pierre, who did not know how to dance,\r
+had liked sitting in this room to watch the ladies who, as they passed\r
+through in their ball dresses with diamonds and pearls on their bare\r
+shoulders, looked at themselves in the brilliantly lighted mirrors which\r
+repeated their reflections several times. Now this same room was dimly\r
+lighted by two candles. On one small table tea things and supper dishes\r
+stood in disorder, and in the middle of the night a motley throng of\r
+people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly whispering, and\r
+betraying by every word and movement that they none of them forgot what\r
+was happening and what was about to happen in the bedroom. Pierre did\r
+not eat anything though he would very much have liked to. He looked\r
+inquiringly at his monitress and saw that she was again going on tiptoe\r
+to the reception room where they had left Prince Vasili and the eldest\r
+princess. Pierre concluded that this also was essential, and after a\r
+short interval followed her. Anna Mikhaylovna was standing beside the\r
+princess, and they were both speaking in excited whispers.\r
+\r
+"Permit me, Princess, to know what is necessary and what is not\r
+necessary," said the younger of the two speakers, evidently in the same\r
+state of excitement as when she had slammed the door of her room.\r
+\r
+"But, my dear princess," answered Anna Mikhaylovna blandly but\r
+impressively, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other\r
+from passing, "won't this be too much for poor Uncle at a moment when he\r
+needs repose? Worldly conversation at a moment when his soul is already\r
+prepared..."\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili was seated in an easy chair in his familiar attitude, with\r
+one leg crossed high above the other. His cheeks, which were so flabby\r
+that they looked heavier below, were twitching violently; but he wore\r
+the air of a man little concerned in what the two ladies were saying.\r
+\r
+"Come, my dear Anna Mikhaylovna, let Catiche do as she pleases. You know\r
+how fond the count is of her."\r
+\r
+"I don't even know what is in this paper," said the younger of the two\r
+ladies, addressing Prince Vasili and pointing to an inlaid portfolio she\r
+held in her hand. "All I know is that his real will is in his writing\r
+table, and this is a paper he has forgotten...."\r
+\r
+She tried to pass Anna Mikhaylovna, but the latter sprang so as to bar\r
+her path.\r
+\r
+"I know, my dear, kind princess," said Anna Mikhaylovna, seizing the\r
+portfolio so firmly that it was plain she would not let go easily. "Dear\r
+princess, I beg and implore you, have some pity on him! Je vous en\r
+conjure..."\r
+\r
+The princess did not reply. Their efforts in the struggle for the\r
+portfolio were the only sounds audible, but it was evident that if the\r
+princess did speak, her words would not be flattering to Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna. Though the latter held on tenaciously, her voice lost none\r
+of its honeyed firmness and softness.\r
+\r
+"Pierre, my dear, come here. I think he will not be out of place in a\r
+family consultation; is it not so, Prince?"\r
+\r
+"Why don't you speak, cousin?" suddenly shrieked the princess so loud\r
+that those in the drawing room heard her and were startled. "Why do you\r
+remain silent when heaven knows who permits herself to interfere, making\r
+a scene on the very threshold of a dying man's room? Intriguer!" she\r
+hissed viciously, and tugged with all her might at the portfolio.\r
+\r
+But Anna Mikhaylovna went forward a step or two to keep her hold on the\r
+portfolio, and changed her grip.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili rose. "Oh!" said he with reproach and surprise, "this is\r
+absurd! Come, let go I tell you."\r
+\r
+The princess let go.\r
+\r
+"And you too!"\r
+\r
+But Anna Mikhaylovna did not obey him.\r
+\r
+"Let go, I tell you! I will take the responsibility. I myself will go\r
+and ask him, I!... does that satisfy you?"\r
+\r
+"But, Prince," said Anna Mikhaylovna, "after such a solemn sacrament,\r
+allow him a moment's peace! Here, Pierre, tell them your opinion," said\r
+she, turning to the young man who, having come quite close, was gazing\r
+with astonishment at the angry face of the princess which had lost all\r
+dignity, and at the twitching cheeks of Prince Vasili.\r
+\r
+"Remember that you will answer for the consequences," said Prince Vasili\r
+severely. "You don't know what you are doing."\r
+\r
+"Vile woman!" shouted the princess, darting unexpectedly at Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna and snatching the portfolio from her.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili bent his head and spread out his hands.\r
+\r
+At this moment that terrible door, which Pierre had watched so long and\r
+which had always opened so quietly, burst noisily open and banged\r
+against the wall, and the second of the three sisters rushed out\r
+wringing her hands.\r
+\r
+"What are you doing!" she cried vehemently. "He is dying and you leave\r
+me alone with him!"\r
+\r
+Her sister dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikhaylovna, stooping, quickly\r
+caught up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom. The eldest\r
+princess and Prince Vasili, recovering themselves, followed her. A few\r
+minutes later the eldest sister came out with a pale hard face, again\r
+biting her underlip. At sight of Pierre her expression showed an\r
+irrepressible hatred.\r
+\r
+"Yes, now you may be glad!" said she; "this is what you have been\r
+waiting for." And bursting into tears she hid her face in her\r
+handkerchief and rushed from the room.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili came next. He staggered to the sofa on which Pierre was\r
+sitting and dropped onto it, covering his face with his hand. Pierre\r
+noticed that he was pale and that his jaw quivered and shook as if in an\r
+ague.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my friend!" said he, taking Pierre by the elbow; and there was in\r
+his voice a sincerity and weakness Pierre had never observed in it\r
+before. "How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? I am\r
+near sixty, dear friend... I too... All will end in death, all! Death is\r
+awful..." and he burst into tears.\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna came out last. She approached Pierre with slow, quiet\r
+steps.\r
+\r
+"Pierre!" she said.\r
+\r
+Pierre gave her an inquiring look. She kissed the young man on his\r
+forehead, wetting him with her tears. Then after a pause she said:\r
+\r
+"He is no more...."\r
+\r
+Pierre looked at her over his spectacles.\r
+\r
+"Come, I will go with you. Try to weep, nothing gives such relief as\r
+tears."\r
+\r
+She led him into the dark drawing room and Pierre was glad no one could\r
+see his face. Anna Mikhaylovna left him, and when she returned he was\r
+fast asleep with his head on his arm.\r
+\r
+In the morning Anna Mikhaylovna said to Pierre:\r
+\r
+"Yes, my dear, this is a great loss for us all, not to speak of you. But\r
+God will support you: you are young, and are now, I hope, in command of\r
+an immense fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you well\r
+enough to be sure that this will not turn your head, but it imposes\r
+duties on you, and you must be a man."\r
+\r
+Pierre was silent.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps later on I may tell you, my dear boy, that if I had not been\r
+there, God only knows what would have happened! You know, Uncle promised\r
+me only the day before yesterday not to forget Boris. But he had no\r
+time. I hope, my dear friend, you will carry out your father's wish?"\r
+\r
+Pierre understood nothing of all this and coloring shyly looked in\r
+silence at Princess Anna Mikhaylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna returned to the Rostovs' and went to bed. On waking in the\r
+morning she told the Rostovs and all her acquaintances the details of\r
+Count Bezukhov's death. She said the count had died as she would herself\r
+wish to die, that his end was not only touching but edifying. As to the\r
+last meeting between father and son, it was so touching that she could\r
+not think of it without tears, and did not know which had behaved better\r
+during those awful moments--the father who so remembered everything and\r
+everybody at last and had spoken such pathetic words to the son, or\r
+Pierre, whom it had been pitiful to see, so stricken was he with grief,\r
+though he tried hard to hide it in order not to sadden his dying father.\r
+"It is painful, but it does one good. It uplifts the soul to see such\r
+men as the old count and his worthy son," said she. Of the behavior of\r
+the eldest princess and Prince Vasili she spoke disapprovingly, but in\r
+whispers and as a great secret.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXV\r
+\r
+At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andreevich Bolkonski's estate, the\r
+arrival of young Prince Andrew and his wife was daily expected, but this\r
+expectation did not upset the regular routine of life in the old\r
+prince's household. General in Chief Prince Nicholas Andreevich\r
+(nicknamed in society, "the King of Prussia") ever since the Emperor\r
+Paul had exiled him to his country estate had lived there continuously\r
+with his daughter, Princess Mary, and her companion, Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne. Though in the new reign he was free to return to the\r
+capitals, he still continued to live in the country, remarking that\r
+anyone who wanted to see him could come the hundred miles from Moscow to\r
+Bald Hills, while he himself needed no one and nothing. He used to say\r
+that there are only two sources of human vice--idleness and\r
+superstition, and only two virtues--activity and intelligence. He\r
+himself undertook his daughter's education, and to develop these two\r
+cardinal virtues in her gave her lessons in algebra and geometry till\r
+she was twenty, and arranged her life so that her whole time was\r
+occupied. He was himself always occupied: writing his memoirs, solving\r
+problems in higher mathematics, turning snuffboxes on a lathe, working\r
+in the garden, or superintending the building that was always going on\r
+at his estate. As regularity is a prime condition facilitating activity,\r
+regularity in his household was carried to the highest point of\r
+exactitude. He always came to table under precisely the same conditions,\r
+and not only at the same hour but at the same minute. With those about\r
+him, from his daughter to his serfs, the prince was sharp and invariably\r
+exacting, so that without being a hardhearted man he inspired such fear\r
+and respect as few hardhearted men would have aroused. Although he was\r
+in retirement and had now no influence in political affairs, every high\r
+official appointed to the province in which the prince's estate lay\r
+considered it his duty to visit him and waited in the lofty antechamber\r
+just as the architect, gardener, or Princess Mary did, till the prince\r
+appeared punctually to the appointed hour. Everyone sitting in this\r
+antechamber experienced the same feeling of respect and even fear when\r
+the enormously high study door opened and showed the figure of a rather\r
+small old man, with powdered wig, small withered hands, and bushy gray\r
+eyebrows which, when he frowned, sometimes hid the gleam of his shrewd,\r
+youthfully glittering eyes.\r
+\r
+On the morning of the day that the young couple were to arrive, Princess\r
+Mary entered the antechamber as usual at the time appointed for the\r
+morning greeting, crossing herself with trepidation and repeating a\r
+silent prayer. Every morning she came in like that, and every morning\r
+prayed that the daily interview might pass off well.\r
+\r
+An old powdered manservant who was sitting in the antechamber rose\r
+quietly and said in a whisper: "Please walk in."\r
+\r
+Through the door came the regular hum of a lathe. The princess timidly\r
+opened the door which moved noiselessly and easily. She paused at the\r
+entrance. The prince was working at the lathe and after glancing round\r
+continued his work.\r
+\r
+The enormous study was full of things evidently in constant use. The\r
+large table covered with books and plans, the tall glass-fronted\r
+bookcases with keys in the locks, the high desk for writing while\r
+standing up, on which lay an open exercise book, and the lathe with\r
+tools laid ready to hand and shavings scattered around--all indicated\r
+continuous, varied, and orderly activity. The motion of the small foot\r
+shod in a Tartar boot embroidered with silver, and the firm pressure of\r
+the lean sinewy hand, showed that the prince still possessed the\r
+tenacious endurance and vigor of hardy old age. After a few more turns\r
+of the lathe he removed his foot from the pedal, wiped his chisel,\r
+dropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and, approaching\r
+the table, summoned his daughter. He never gave his children a blessing,\r
+so he simply held out his bristly cheek (as yet unshaven) and, regarding\r
+her tenderly and attentively, said severely:\r
+\r
+"Quite well? All right then, sit down." He took the exercise book\r
+containing lessons in geometry written by himself and drew up a chair\r
+with his foot.\r
+\r
+"For tomorrow!" said he, quickly finding the page and making a scratch\r
+from one paragraph to another with his hard nail.\r
+\r
+The princess bent over the exercise book on the table.\r
+\r
+"Wait a bit, here's a letter for you," said the old man suddenly, taking\r
+a letter addressed in a woman's hand from a bag hanging above the table,\r
+onto which he threw it.\r
+\r
+At the sight of the letter red patches showed themselves on the\r
+princess' face. She took it quickly and bent her head over it.\r
+\r
+"From Heloise?" asked the prince with a cold smile that showed his still\r
+sound, yellowish teeth.\r
+\r
+"Yes, it's from Julie," replied the princess with a timid glance and a\r
+timid smile.\r
+\r
+"I'll let two more letters pass, but the third I'll read," said the\r
+prince sternly; "I'm afraid you write much nonsense. I'll read the\r
+third!"\r
+\r
+"Read this if you like, Father," said the princess, blushing still more\r
+and holding out the letter.\r
+\r
+"The third, I said the third!" cried the prince abruptly, pushing the\r
+letter away, and leaning his elbows on the table he drew toward him the\r
+exercise book containing geometrical figures.\r
+\r
+"Well, madam," he began, stooping over the book close to his daughter\r
+and placing an arm on the back of the chair on which she sat, so that\r
+she felt herself surrounded on all sides by the acrid scent of old age\r
+and tobacco, which she had known so long. "Now, madam, these triangles\r
+are equal; please note that the angle ABC..."\r
+\r
+The princess looked in a scared way at her father's eyes glittering\r
+close to her; the red patches on her face came and went, and it was\r
+plain that she understood nothing and was so frightened that her fear\r
+would prevent her understanding any of her father's further\r
+explanations, however clear they might be. Whether it was the teacher's\r
+fault or the pupil's, this same thing happened every day: the princess'\r
+eyes grew dim, she could not see and could not hear anything, but was\r
+only conscious of her stern father's withered face close to her, of his\r
+breath and the smell of him, and could think only of how to get away\r
+quickly to her own room to make out the problem in peace. The old man\r
+was beside himself: moved the chair on which he was sitting noisily\r
+backward and forward, made efforts to control himself and not become\r
+vehement, but almost always did become vehement, scolded, and sometimes\r
+flung the exercise book away.\r
+\r
+The princess gave a wrong answer.\r
+\r
+"Well now, isn't she a fool!" shouted the prince, pushing the book aside\r
+and turning sharply away; but rising immediately, he paced up and down,\r
+lightly touched his daughter's hair and sat down again.\r
+\r
+He drew up his chair, and continued to explain.\r
+\r
+"This won't do, Princess; it won't do," said he, when Princess Mary,\r
+having taken and closed the exercise book with the next day's lesson,\r
+was about to leave: "Mathematics are most important, madam! I don't want\r
+to have you like our silly ladies. Get used to it and you'll like it,"\r
+and he patted her cheek. "It will drive all the nonsense out of your\r
+head."\r
+\r
+She turned to go, but he stopped her with a gesture and took an uncut\r
+book from the high desk.\r
+\r
+"Here is some sort of Key to the Mysteries that your Heloise has sent\r
+you. Religious! I don't interfere with anyone's belief... I have looked\r
+at it. Take it. Well, now go. Go."\r
+\r
+He patted her on the shoulder and himself closed the door after her.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary went back to her room with the sad, scared expression that\r
+rarely left her and which made her plain, sickly face yet plainer. She\r
+sat down at her writing table, on which stood miniature portraits and\r
+which was littered with books and papers. The princess was as untidy as\r
+her father was tidy. She put down the geometry book and eagerly broke\r
+the seal of her letter. It was from her most intimate friend from\r
+childhood; that same Julie Karagina who had been at the Rostovs' name-\r
+day party.\r
+\r
+Julie wrote in French:\r
+\r
+Dear and precious Friend, How terrible and frightful a thing is\r
+separation! Though I tell myself that half my life and half my happiness\r
+are wrapped up in you, and that in spite of the distance separating us\r
+our hearts are united by indissoluble bonds, my heart rebels against\r
+fate and in spite of the pleasures and distractions around me I cannot\r
+overcome a certain secret sorrow that has been in my heart ever since we\r
+parted. Why are we not together as we were last summer, in your big\r
+study, on the blue sofa, the confidential sofa? Why cannot I now, as\r
+three months ago, draw fresh moral strength from your look, so gentle,\r
+calm, and penetrating, a look I loved so well and seem to see before me\r
+as I write?\r
+\r
+Having read thus far, Princess Mary sighed and glanced into the mirror\r
+which stood on her right. It reflected a weak, ungraceful figure and\r
+thin face. Her eyes, always sad, now looked with particular hopelessness\r
+at her reflection in the glass. "She flatters me," thought the princess,\r
+turning away and continuing to read. But Julie did not flatter her\r
+friend, the princess' eyes--large, deep and luminous (it seemed as if at\r
+times there radiated from them shafts of warm light)--were so beautiful\r
+that very often in spite of the plainness of her face they gave her an\r
+attraction more powerful than that of beauty. But the princess never saw\r
+the beautiful expression of her own eyes--the look they had when she was\r
+not thinking of herself. As with everyone, her face assumed a forced\r
+unnatural expression as soon as she looked in a glass. She went on\r
+reading:\r
+\r
+All Moscow talks of nothing but war. One of my two brothers is already\r
+abroad, the other is with the Guards, who are starting on their march to\r
+the frontier. Our dear Emperor has left Petersburg and it is thought\r
+intends to expose his precious person to the chances of war. God grant\r
+that the Corsican monster who is destroying the peace of Europe may be\r
+overthrown by the angel whom it has pleased the Almighty, in His\r
+goodness, to give us as sovereign! To say nothing of my brothers, this\r
+war has deprived me of one of the associations nearest my heart. I mean\r
+young Nicholas Rostov, who with his enthusiasm could not bear to remain\r
+inactive and has left the university to join the army. I will confess to\r
+you, dear Mary, that in spite of his extreme youth his departure for the\r
+army was a great grief to me. This young man, of whom I spoke to you\r
+last summer, is so noble-minded and full of that real youthfulness which\r
+one seldom finds nowadays among our old men of twenty and, particularly,\r
+he is so frank and has so much heart. He is so pure and poetic that my\r
+relations with him, transient as they were, have been one of the\r
+sweetest comforts to my poor heart, which has already suffered so much.\r
+Someday I will tell you about our parting and all that was said then.\r
+That is still too fresh. Ah, dear friend, you are happy not to know\r
+these poignant joys and sorrows. You are fortunate, for the latter are\r
+generally the stronger! I know very well that Count Nicholas is too\r
+young ever to be more to me than a friend, but this sweet friendship,\r
+this poetic and pure intimacy, were what my heart needed. But enough of\r
+this! The chief news, about which all Moscow gossips, is the death of\r
+old Count Bezukhov, and his inheritance. Fancy! The three princesses\r
+have received very little, Prince Vasili nothing, and it is Monsieur\r
+Pierre who has inherited all the property and has besides been\r
+recognized as legitimate; so that he is now Count Bezukhov and possessor\r
+of the finest fortune in Russia. It is rumored that Prince Vasili played\r
+a very despicable part in this affair and that he returned to Petersburg\r
+quite crestfallen.\r
+\r
+I confess I understand very little about all these matters of wills and\r
+inheritance; but I do know that since this young man, whom we all used\r
+to know as plain Monsieur Pierre, has become Count Bezukhov and the\r
+owner of one of the largest fortunes in Russia, I am much amused to\r
+watch the change in the tone and manners of the mammas burdened by\r
+marriageable daughters, and of the young ladies themselves, toward him,\r
+though, between you and me, he always seemed to me a poor sort of\r
+fellow. As for the past two years people have amused themselves by\r
+finding husbands for me (most of whom I don't even know), the\r
+matchmaking chronicles of Moscow now speak of me as the future Countess\r
+Bezukhova. But you will understand that I have no desire for the post. A\r
+propos of marriages: do you know that a while ago that universal auntie\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna told me, under the seal of strict secrecy, of a plan of\r
+marriage for you. It is neither more nor less than with Prince Vasili's\r
+son Anatole, whom they wish to reform by marrying him to someone rich\r
+and distinguee, and it is on you that his relations' choice has fallen.\r
+I don't know what you will think of it, but I consider it my duty to let\r
+you know of it. He is said to be very handsome and a terrible\r
+scapegrace. That is all I have been able to find out about him.\r
+\r
+But enough of gossip. I am at the end of my second sheet of paper, and\r
+Mamma has sent for me to go and dine at the Apraksins'. Read the\r
+mystical book I am sending you; it has an enormous success here. Though\r
+there are things in it difficult for the feeble human mind to grasp, it\r
+is an admirable book which calms and elevates the soul. Adieu! Give my\r
+respects to monsieur your father and my compliments to Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne. I embrace you as I love you.\r
+\r
+JULIE\r
+\r
+P.S. Let me have news of your brother and his charming little wife.\r
+\r
+The princess pondered awhile with a thoughtful smile and her luminous\r
+eyes lit up so that her face was entirely transformed. Then she suddenly\r
+rose and with her heavy tread went up to the table. She took a sheet of\r
+paper and her hand moved rapidly over it. This is the reply she wrote,\r
+also in French:\r
+\r
+Dear and precious Friend, Your letter of the 13th has given me great\r
+delight. So you still love me, my romantic Julie? Separation, of which\r
+you say so much that is bad, does not seem to have had its usual effect\r
+on you. You complain of our separation. What then should I say, if I\r
+dared complain, I who am deprived of all who are dear to me? Ah, if we\r
+had not religion to console us life would be very sad. Why do you\r
+suppose that I should look severely on your affection for that young\r
+man? On such matters I am only severe with myself. I understand such\r
+feelings in others, and if never having felt them I cannot approve of\r
+them, neither do I condemn them. Only it seems to me that Christian\r
+love, love of one's neighbor, love of one's enemy, is worthier, sweeter,\r
+and better than the feelings which the beautiful eyes of a young man can\r
+inspire in a romantic and loving young girl like yourself.\r
+\r
+The news of Count Bezukhov's death reached us before your letter and my\r
+father was much affected by it. He says the count was the last\r
+representative but one of the great century, and that it is his own turn\r
+now, but that he will do all he can to let his turn come as late as\r
+possible. God preserve us from that terrible misfortune!\r
+\r
+I cannot agree with you about Pierre, whom I knew as a child. He always\r
+seemed to me to have an excellent heart, and that is the quality I value\r
+most in people. As to his inheritance and the part played by Prince\r
+Vasili, it is very sad for both. Ah, my dear friend, our divine\r
+Saviour's words, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of\r
+a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, are terribly\r
+true. I pity Prince Vasili but am still more sorry for Pierre. So young,\r
+and burdened with such riches--to what temptations he will be exposed!\r
+If I were asked what I desire most on earth, it would be to be poorer\r
+than the poorest beggar. A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the volume\r
+you have sent me and which has such success in Moscow. Yet since you\r
+tell me that among some good things it contains others which our weak\r
+human understanding cannot grasp, it seems to me rather useless to spend\r
+time in reading what is unintelligible and can therefore bear no fruit.\r
+I never could understand the fondness some people have for confusing\r
+their minds by dwelling on mystical books that merely awaken their\r
+doubts and excite their imagination, giving them a bent for exaggeration\r
+quite contrary to Christian simplicity. Let us rather read the Epistles\r
+and Gospels. Let us not seek to penetrate what mysteries they contain;\r
+for how can we, miserable sinners that we are, know the terrible and\r
+holy secrets of Providence while we remain in this flesh which forms an\r
+impenetrable veil between us and the Eternal? Let us rather confine\r
+ourselves to studying those sublime rules which our divine Saviour has\r
+left for our guidance here below. Let us try to conform to them and\r
+follow them, and let us be persuaded that the less we let our feeble\r
+human minds roam, the better we shall please God, who rejects all\r
+knowledge that does not come from Him; and the less we seek to fathom\r
+what He has been pleased to conceal from us, the sooner will He\r
+vouchsafe its revelation to us through His divine Spirit.\r
+\r
+My father has not spoken to me of a suitor, but has only told me that he\r
+has received a letter and is expecting a visit from Prince Vasili. In\r
+regard to this project of marriage for me, I will tell you, dear sweet\r
+friend, that I look on marriage as a divine institution to which we must\r
+conform. However painful it may be to me, should the Almighty lay the\r
+duties of wife and mother upon me I shall try to perform them as\r
+faithfully as I can, without disquieting myself by examining my feelings\r
+toward him whom He may give me for husband.\r
+\r
+I have had a letter from my brother, who announces his speedy arrival at\r
+Bald Hills with his wife. This pleasure will be but a brief one,\r
+however, for he will leave us again to take part in this unhappy war\r
+into which we have been drawn, God knows how or why. Not only where you\r
+are--at the heart of affairs and of the world--is the talk all of war,\r
+even here amid fieldwork and the calm of nature--which townsfolk\r
+consider characteristic of the country--rumors of war are heard and\r
+painfully felt. My father talks of nothing but marches and\r
+countermarches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day before\r
+yesterday during my daily walk through the village I witnessed a\r
+heartrending scene.... It was a convoy of conscripts enrolled from our\r
+people and starting to join the army. You should have seen the state of\r
+the mothers, wives, and children of the men who were going and should\r
+have heard the sobs. It seems as though mankind has forgotten the laws\r
+of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of injuries--\r
+and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing one\r
+another.\r
+\r
+Adieu, dear and kind friend; may our divine Saviour and His most Holy\r
+Mother keep you in their holy and all-powerful care!\r
+\r
+MARY\r
+\r
+"Ah, you are sending off a letter, Princess? I have already dispatched\r
+mine. I have written to my poor mother," said the smiling Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne rapidly, in her pleasant mellow tones and with guttural r's.\r
+She brought into Princess Mary's strenuous, mournful, and gloomy world a\r
+quite different atmosphere, careless, lighthearted, and self-satisfied.\r
+\r
+"Princess, I must warn you," she added, lowering her voice and evidently\r
+listening to herself with pleasure, and speaking with exaggerated\r
+grasseyement, "the prince has been scolding Michael Ivanovich. He is in\r
+a very bad humor, very morose. Be prepared."\r
+\r
+"Ah, dear friend," replied Princess Mary, "I have asked you never to\r
+warn me of the humor my father is in. I do not allow myself to judge him\r
+and would not have others do so."\r
+\r
+The princess glanced at her watch and, seeing that she was five minutes\r
+late in starting her practice on the clavichord, went into the sitting\r
+room with a look of alarm. Between twelve and two o'clock, as the day\r
+was mapped out, the prince rested and the princess played the\r
+clavichord.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVI\r
+\r
+The gray-haired valet was sitting drowsily listening to the snoring of\r
+the prince, who was in his large study. From the far side of the house\r
+through the closed doors came the sound of difficult passages--twenty\r
+times repeated--of a sonata by Dussek.\r
+\r
+Just then a closed carriage and another with a hood drove up to the\r
+porch. Prince Andrew got out of the carriage, helped his little wife to\r
+alight, and let her pass into the house before him. Old Tikhon, wearing\r
+a wig, put his head out of the door of the antechamber, reported in a\r
+whisper that the prince was sleeping, and hastily closed the door.\r
+Tikhon knew that neither the son's arrival nor any other unusual event\r
+must be allowed to disturb the appointed order of the day. Prince Andrew\r
+apparently knew this as well as Tikhon; he looked at his watch as if to\r
+ascertain whether his father's habits had changed since he was at home\r
+last, and, having assured himself that they had not, he turned to his\r
+wife.\r
+\r
+"He will get up in twenty minutes. Let us go across to Mary's room," he\r
+said.\r
+\r
+The little princess had grown stouter during this time, but her eyes and\r
+her short, downy, smiling lip lifted when she began to speak just as\r
+merrily and prettily as ever.\r
+\r
+"Why, this is a palace!" she said to her husband, looking around with\r
+the expression with which people compliment their host at a ball. "Let's\r
+come, quick, quick!" And with a glance round, she smiled at Tikhon, at\r
+her husband, and at the footman who accompanied them.\r
+\r
+"Is that Mary practicing? Let's go quietly and take her by surprise."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew followed her with a courteous but sad expression.\r
+\r
+"You've grown older, Tikhon," he said in passing to the old man, who\r
+kissed his hand.\r
+\r
+Before they reached the room from which the sounds of the clavichord\r
+came, the pretty, fair haired Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Bourienne,\r
+rushed out apparently beside herself with delight.\r
+\r
+"Ah! what joy for the princess!" exclaimed she: "At last! I must let her\r
+know."\r
+\r
+"No, no, please not... You are Mademoiselle Bourienne," said the little\r
+princess, kissing her. "I know you already through my sister-in-law's\r
+friendship for you. She was not expecting us?"\r
+\r
+They went up to the door of the sitting room from which came the sound\r
+of the oft-repeated passage of the sonata. Prince Andrew stopped and\r
+made a grimace, as if expecting something unpleasant.\r
+\r
+The little princess entered the room. The passage broke off in the\r
+middle, a cry was heard, then Princess Mary's heavy tread and the sound\r
+of kissing. When Prince Andrew went in the two princesses, who had only\r
+met once before for a short time at his wedding, were in each other's\r
+arms warmly pressing their lips to whatever place they happened to\r
+touch. Mademoiselle Bourienne stood near them pressing her hand to her\r
+heart, with a beatific smile and obviously equally ready to cry or to\r
+laugh. Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders and frowned, as lovers of\r
+music do when they hear a false note. The two women let go of one\r
+another, and then, as if afraid of being too late, seized each other's\r
+hands, kissing them and pulling them away, and again began kissing each\r
+other on the face, and then to Prince Andrew's surprise both began to\r
+cry and kissed again. Mademoiselle Bourienne also began to cry. Prince\r
+Andrew evidently felt ill at ease, but to the two women it seemed quite\r
+natural that they should cry, and apparently it never entered their\r
+heads that it could have been otherwise at this meeting.\r
+\r
+"Ah! my dear!... Ah! Mary!" they suddenly exclaimed, and then laughed.\r
+"I dreamed last night..."--"You were not expecting us?..." "Ah! Mary,\r
+you have got thinner?..." "And you have grown stouter!..."\r
+\r
+"I knew the princess at once," put in Mademoiselle Bourienne.\r
+\r
+"And I had no idea!..." exclaimed Princess Mary. "Ah, Andrew, I did not\r
+see you."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another, and he\r
+told her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess Mary had\r
+turned toward her brother, and through her tears the loving, warm,\r
+gentle look of her large luminous eyes, very beautiful at that moment,\r
+rested on Prince Andrew's face.\r
+\r
+The little princess talked incessantly, her short, downy upper lip\r
+continually and rapidly touching her rosy nether lip when necessary and\r
+drawing up again next moment when her face broke into a smile of\r
+glittering teeth and sparkling eyes. She told of an accident they had\r
+had on the Spasski Hill which might have been serious for her in her\r
+condition, and immediately after that informed them that she had left\r
+all her clothes in Petersburg and that heaven knew what she would have\r
+to dress in here; and that Andrew had quite changed, and that Kitty\r
+Odyntsova had married an old man, and that there was a suitor for Mary,\r
+a real one, but that they would talk of that later. Princess Mary was\r
+still looking silently at her brother and her beautiful eyes were full\r
+of love and sadness. It was plain that she was following a train of\r
+thought independent of her sister-in-law's words. In the midst of a\r
+description of the last Petersburg fete she addressed her brother:\r
+\r
+"So you are really going to the war, Andrew?" she said sighing.\r
+\r
+Lise sighed too.\r
+\r
+"Yes, and even tomorrow," replied her brother.\r
+\r
+"He is leaving me here, God knows why, when he might have had\r
+promotion..."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary did not listen to the end, but continuing her train of\r
+thought turned to her sister-in-law with a tender glance at her figure.\r
+\r
+"Is it certain?" she said.\r
+\r
+The face of the little princess changed. She sighed and said: "Yes,\r
+quite certain. Ah! it is very dreadful..."\r
+\r
+Her lip descended. She brought her face close to her sister-in-law's and\r
+unexpectedly again began to cry.\r
+\r
+"She needs rest," said Prince Andrew with a frown. "Don't you, Lise?\r
+Take her to your room and I'll go to Father. How is he? Just the same?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, just the same. Though I don't know what your opinion will be,"\r
+answered the princess joyfully.\r
+\r
+"And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the\r
+lathe?" asked Prince Andrew with a scarcely perceptible smile which\r
+showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he was\r
+aware of his weaknesses.\r
+\r
+"The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and my\r
+geometry lessons," said Princess Mary gleefully, as if her lessons in\r
+geometry were among the greatest delights of her life.\r
+\r
+When the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the old\r
+prince to get up, Tikhon came to call the young prince to his father.\r
+The old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor of his\r
+son's arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while he\r
+dressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in old-fashioned\r
+style, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and when Prince Andrew\r
+entered his father's dressing room (not with the contemptuous look and\r
+manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face with which\r
+he talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting on a large leather-covered\r
+chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, entrusting his head to Tikhon.\r
+\r
+"Ah! here's the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?" said the old\r
+man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tikhon was\r
+holding fast to plait, would allow.\r
+\r
+"You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like this\r
+he'll soon have us, too, for his subjects! How are you?" And he held out\r
+his cheek.\r
+\r
+The old man was in a good temper after his nap before dinner. (He used\r
+to say that a nap "after dinner was silver--before dinner, golden.") He\r
+cast happy, sidelong glances at his son from under his thick, bushy\r
+eyebrows. Prince Andrew went up and kissed his father on the spot\r
+indicated to him. He made no reply on his father's favorite topic--\r
+making fun of the military men of the day, and more particularly of\r
+Bonaparte.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Father, I have come to you and brought my wife who is pregnant,"\r
+said Prince Andrew, following every movement of his father's face with\r
+an eager and respectful look. "How is your health?"\r
+\r
+"Only fools and rakes fall ill, my boy. You know me: I am busy from\r
+morning till night and abstemious, so of course I am well."\r
+\r
+"Thank God," said his son smiling.\r
+\r
+"God has nothing to do with it! Well, go on," he continued, returning to\r
+his hobby; "tell me how the Germans have taught you to fight Bonaparte\r
+by this new science you call 'strategy.'"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew smiled.\r
+\r
+"Give me time to collect my wits, Father," said he, with a smile that\r
+showed that his father's foibles did not prevent his son from loving and\r
+honoring him. "Why, I have not yet had time to settle down!"\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, nonsense!" cried the old man, shaking his pigtail to see\r
+whether it was firmly plaited, and grasping his by the hand. "The house\r
+for your wife is ready. Princess Mary will take her there and show her\r
+over, and they'll talk nineteen to the dozen. That's their woman's way!\r
+I am glad to have her. Sit down and talk. About Mikhelson's army I\r
+understand--Tolstoy's too... a simultaneous expedition.... But what's\r
+the southern army to do? Prussia is neutral... I know that. What about\r
+Austria?" said he, rising from his chair and pacing up and down the room\r
+followed by Tikhon, who ran after him, handing him different articles of\r
+clothing. "What of Sweden? How will they cross Pomerania?"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, seeing that his father insisted, began--at first\r
+reluctantly, but gradually with more and more animation, and from habit\r
+changing unconsciously from Russian to French as he went on--to explain\r
+the plan of operation for the coming campaign. He explained how an army,\r
+ninety thousand strong, was to threaten Prussia so as to bring her out\r
+of her neutrality and draw her into the war; how part of that army was\r
+to join some Swedish forces at Stralsund; how two hundred and twenty\r
+thousand Austrians, with a hundred thousand Russians, were to operate in\r
+Italy and on the Rhine; how fifty thousand Russians and as many English\r
+were to land at Naples, and how a total force of five hundred thousand\r
+men was to attack the French from different sides. The old prince did\r
+not evince the least interest during this explanation, but as if he were\r
+not listening to it continued to dress while walking about, and three\r
+times unexpectedly interrupted. Once he stopped it by shouting: "The\r
+white one, the white one!"\r
+\r
+This meant that Tikhon was not handing him the waistcoat he wanted.\r
+Another time he interrupted, saying:\r
+\r
+"And will she soon be confined?" and shaking his head reproachfully\r
+said: "That's bad! Go on, go on."\r
+\r
+The third interruption came when Prince Andrew was finishing his\r
+description. The old man began to sing, in the cracked voice of old age:\r
+"Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre. Dieu sait quand reviendra." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Marlborough is going to the wars; God knows when he'll return."\r
+\r
+His son only smiled.\r
+\r
+"I don't say it's a plan I approve of," said the son; "I am only telling\r
+you what it is. Napoleon has also formed his plan by now, not worse than\r
+this one."\r
+\r
+"Well, you've told me nothing new," and the old man repeated,\r
+meditatively and rapidly:\r
+\r
+"Dieu sait quand reviendra. Go to the dining room."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVII\r
+\r
+At the appointed hour the prince, powdered and shaven, entered the\r
+dining room where his daughter-in-law, Princess Mary, and Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne were already awaiting him together with his architect, who by\r
+a strange caprice of his employer's was admitted to table though the\r
+position of that insignificant individual was such as could certainly\r
+not have caused him to expect that honor. The prince, who generally kept\r
+very strictly to social distinctions and rarely admitted even important\r
+government officials to his table, had unexpectedly selected Michael\r
+Ivanovich (who always went into a corner to blow his nose on his checked\r
+handkerchief) to illustrate the theory that all men are equals, and had\r
+more than once impressed on his daughter that Michael Ivanovich was "not\r
+a whit worse than you or I." At dinner the prince usually spoke to the\r
+taciturn Michael Ivanovich more often than to anyone else.\r
+\r
+In the dining room, which like all the rooms in the house was\r
+exceedingly lofty, the members of the household and the footmen--one\r
+behind each chair--stood waiting for the prince to enter. The head\r
+butler, napkin on arm, was scanning the setting of the table, making\r
+signs to the footmen, and anxiously glancing from the clock to the door\r
+by which the prince was to enter. Prince Andrew was looking at a large\r
+gilt frame, new to him, containing the genealogical tree of the Princes\r
+Bolkonski, opposite which hung another such frame with a badly painted\r
+portrait (evidently by the hand of the artist belonging to the estate)\r
+of a ruling prince, in a crown--an alleged descendant of Rurik and\r
+ancestor of the Bolkonskis. Prince Andrew, looking again at that\r
+genealogical tree, shook his head, laughing as a man laughs who looks at\r
+a portrait so characteristic of the original as to be amusing.\r
+\r
+"How thoroughly like him that is!" he said to Princess Mary, who had\r
+come up to him.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary looked at her brother in surprise. She did not understand\r
+what he was laughing at. Everything her father did inspired her with\r
+reverence and was beyond question.\r
+\r
+"Everyone has his Achilles' heel," continued Prince Andrew. "Fancy, with\r
+his powerful mind, indulging in such nonsense!"\r
+\r
+Princess Mary could not understand the boldness of her brother's\r
+criticism and was about to reply, when the expected footsteps were heard\r
+coming from the study. The prince walked in quickly and jauntily as was\r
+his wont, as if intentionally contrasting the briskness of his manners\r
+with the strict formality of his house. At that moment the great clock\r
+struck two and another with a shrill tone joined in from the drawing\r
+room. The prince stood still; his lively glittering eyes from under\r
+their thick, bushy eyebrows sternly scanned all present and rested on\r
+the little princess. She felt, as courtiers do when the Tsar enters, the\r
+sensation of fear and respect which the old man inspired in all around\r
+him. He stroked her hair and then patted her awkwardly on the back of\r
+her neck.\r
+\r
+"I'm glad, glad, to see you," he said, looking attentively into her\r
+eyes, and then quickly went to his place and sat down. "Sit down, sit\r
+down! Sit down, Michael Ianovich!"\r
+\r
+He indicated a place beside him to his daughter-in-law. A footman moved\r
+the chair for her.\r
+\r
+"Ho, ho!" said the old man, casting his eyes on her rounded figure.\r
+"You've been in a hurry. That's bad!"\r
+\r
+He laughed in his usual dry, cold, unpleasant way, with his lips only\r
+and not with his eyes.\r
+\r
+"You must walk, walk as much as possible, as much as possible," he said.\r
+\r
+The little princess did not, or did not wish to, hear his words. She was\r
+silent and seemed confused. The prince asked her about her father, and\r
+she began to smile and talk. He asked about mutual acquaintances, and\r
+she became still more animated and chattered away giving him greetings\r
+from various people and retelling the town gossip.\r
+\r
+"Countess Apraksina, poor thing, has lost her husband and she has cried\r
+her eyes out," she said, growing more and more lively.\r
+\r
+As she became animated the prince looked at her more and more sternly,\r
+and suddenly, as if he had studied her sufficiently and had formed a\r
+definite idea of her, he turned away and addressed Michael Ivanovich.\r
+\r
+"Well, Michael Ivanovich, our Bonaparte will be having a bad time of it.\r
+Prince Andrew" (he always spoke thus of his son) "has been telling me\r
+what forces are being collected against him! While you and I never\r
+thought much of him."\r
+\r
+Michael Ivanovich did not at all know when "you and I" had said such\r
+things about Bonaparte, but understanding that he was wanted as a peg on\r
+which to hang the prince's favorite topic, he looked inquiringly at the\r
+young prince, wondering what would follow.\r
+\r
+"He is a great tactician!" said the prince to his son, pointing to the\r
+architect.\r
+\r
+And the conversation again turned on the war, on Bonaparte, and the\r
+generals and statesmen of the day. The old prince seemed convinced not\r
+only that all the men of the day were mere babies who did not know the A\r
+B C of war or of politics, and that Bonaparte was an insignificant\r
+little Frenchy, successful only because there were no longer any\r
+Potemkins or Suvorovs left to oppose him; but he was also convinced that\r
+there were no political difficulties in Europe and no real war, but only\r
+a sort of puppet show at which the men of the day were playing,\r
+pretending to do something real. Prince Andrew gaily bore with his\r
+father's ridicule of the new men, and drew him on and listened to him\r
+with evident pleasure.\r
+\r
+"The past always seems good," said he, "but did not Suvorov himself fall\r
+into a trap Moreau set him, and from which he did not know how to\r
+escape?"\r
+\r
+"Who told you that? Who?" cried the prince. "Suvorov!" And he jerked\r
+away his plate, which Tikhon briskly caught. "Suvorov!... Consider,\r
+Prince Andrew. Two... Frederick and Suvorov; Moreau!... Moreau would\r
+have been a prisoner if Suvorov had had a free hand; but he had the\r
+Hofs-kriegs-wurst-schnapps-Rath on his hands. It would have puzzled the\r
+devil himself! When you get there you'll find out what those Hofs-\r
+kriegs-wurst-Raths are! Suvorov couldn't manage them so what chance has\r
+Michael Kutuzov? No, my dear boy," he continued, "you and your generals\r
+won't get on against Buonaparte; you'll have to call in the French, so\r
+that birds of a feather may fight together. The German, Pahlen, has been\r
+sent to New York in America, to fetch the Frenchman, Moreau," he said,\r
+alluding to the invitation made that year to Moreau to enter the Russian\r
+service.... "Wonderful!... Were the Potemkins, Suvorovs, and Orlovs\r
+Germans? No, lad, either you fellows have all lost your wits, or I have\r
+outlived mine. May God help you, but we'll see what will happen.\r
+Buonaparte has become a great commander among them! Hm!..."\r
+\r
+"I don't at all say that all the plans are good," said Prince Andrew, "I\r
+am only surprised at your opinion of Bonaparte. You may laugh as much as\r
+you like, but all the same Bonaparte is a great general!"\r
+\r
+"Michael Ivanovich!" cried the old prince to the architect who, busy\r
+with his roast meat, hoped he had been forgotten: "Didn't I tell you\r
+Buonaparte was a great tactician? Here, he says the same thing."\r
+\r
+"To be sure, your excellency," replied the architect.\r
+\r
+The prince again laughed his frigid laugh.\r
+\r
+"Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got\r
+splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans. And only\r
+idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began everybody\r
+has beaten the Germans. They beat no one--except one another. He made\r
+his reputation fighting them."\r
+\r
+And the prince began explaining all the blunders which, according to\r
+him, Bonaparte had made in his campaigns and even in politics. His son\r
+made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were\r
+presented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion. He\r
+listened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily wondered how this\r
+old man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and\r
+discuss so minutely and acutely all the recent European military and\r
+political events.\r
+\r
+"You think I'm an old man and don't understand the present state of\r
+affairs?" concluded his father. "But it troubles me. I don't sleep at\r
+night. Come now, where has this great commander of yours shown his\r
+skill?" he concluded.\r
+\r
+"That would take too long to tell," answered the son.\r
+\r
+"Well, then go to your Buonaparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne, here's\r
+another admirer of that powder-monkey emperor of yours," he exclaimed in\r
+excellent French.\r
+\r
+"You know, Prince, I am not a Bonapartist!"\r
+\r
+"Dieu sait quand reviendra..." hummed the prince out of tune and, with a\r
+laugh still more so, he quitted the table.\r
+\r
+The little princess during the whole discussion and the rest of the\r
+dinner sat silent, glancing with a frightened look now at her father-in-\r
+law and now at Princess Mary. When they left the table she took her\r
+sister-in-law's arm and drew her into another room.\r
+\r
+"What a clever man your father is," said she; "perhaps that is why I am\r
+afraid of him."\r
+\r
+"Oh, he is so kind!" answered Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVIII\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was to leave next evening. The old prince, not altering\r
+his routine, retired as usual after dinner. The little princess was in\r
+her sister-in-law's room. Prince Andrew in a traveling coat without\r
+epaulettes had been packing with his valet in the rooms assigned to him.\r
+After inspecting the carriage himself and seeing the trunks put in, he\r
+ordered the horses to be harnessed. Only those things he always kept\r
+with him remained in his room; a small box, a large canteen fitted with\r
+silver plate, two Turkish pistols and a saber--a present from his father\r
+who had brought it from the siege of Ochakov. All these traveling\r
+effects of Prince Andrew's were in very good order: new, clean, and in\r
+cloth covers carefully tied with tapes.\r
+\r
+When starting on a journey or changing their mode of life, men capable\r
+of reflection are generally in a serious frame of mind. At such moments\r
+one reviews the past and plans for the future. Prince Andrew's face\r
+looked very thoughtful and tender. With his hands behind him he paced\r
+briskly from corner to corner of the room, looking straight before him\r
+and thoughtfully shaking his head. Did he fear going to the war, or was\r
+he sad at leaving his wife?--perhaps both, but evidently he did not wish\r
+to be seen in that mood, for hearing footsteps in the passage he\r
+hurriedly unclasped his hands, stopped at a table as if tying the cover\r
+of the small box, and assumed his usual tranquil and impenetrable\r
+expression. It was the heavy tread of Princess Mary that he heard.\r
+\r
+"I hear you have given orders to harness," she cried, panting (she had\r
+apparently been running), "and I did so wish to have another talk with\r
+you alone! God knows how long we may again be parted. You are not angry\r
+with me for coming? You have changed so, Andrusha," she added, as if to\r
+explain such a question.\r
+\r
+She smiled as she uttered his pet name, "Andrusha." It was obviously\r
+strange to her to think that this stern handsome man should be Andrusha-\r
+-the slender mischievous boy who had been her playfellow in childhood.\r
+\r
+"And where is Lise?" he asked, answering her question only by a smile.\r
+\r
+"She was so tired that she has fallen asleep on the sofa in my room. Oh,\r
+Andrew! What a treasure of a wife you have," said she, sitting down on\r
+the sofa, facing her brother. "She is quite a child: such a dear, merry\r
+child. I have grown so fond of her."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was silent, but the princess noticed the ironical and\r
+contemptuous look that showed itself on his face.\r
+\r
+"One must be indulgent to little weaknesses; who is free from them,\r
+Andrew? Don't forget that she has grown up and been educated in society,\r
+and so her position now is not a rosy one. We should enter into\r
+everyone's situation. Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. * Think\r
+what it must be for her, poor thing, after what she has been used to, to\r
+be parted from her husband and be left alone in the country, in her\r
+condition! It's very hard."\r
+\r
+\r
+* To understand all is to forgive all.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew smiled as he looked at his sister, as we smile at those we\r
+think we thoroughly understand.\r
+\r
+"You live in the country and don't think the life terrible," he replied.\r
+\r
+"I... that's different. Why speak of me? I don't want any other life,\r
+and can't, for I know no other. But think, Andrew: for a young society\r
+woman to be buried in the country during the best years of her life, all\r
+alone--for Papa is always busy, and I... well, you know what poor\r
+resources I have for entertaining a woman used to the best society.\r
+There is only Mademoiselle Bourienne...."\r
+\r
+"I don't like your Mademoiselle Bourienne at all," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"No? She is very nice and kind and, above all, she's much to be pitied.\r
+She has no one, no one. To tell the truth, I don't need her, and she's\r
+even in my way. You know I always was a savage, and now am even more so.\r
+I like being alone.... Father likes her very much. She and Michael\r
+Ivanovich are the two people to whom he is always gentle and kind,\r
+because he has been a benefactor to them both. As Sterne says: 'We don't\r
+love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we\r
+have done them.' Father took her when she was homeless after losing her\r
+own father. She is very good-natured, and my father likes her way of\r
+reading. She reads to him in the evenings and reads splendidly."\r
+\r
+"To be quite frank, Mary, I expect Father's character sometimes makes\r
+things trying for you, doesn't it?" Prince Andrew asked suddenly.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary was first surprised and then aghast at this question.\r
+\r
+"For me? For me?... Trying for me!..." said she.\r
+\r
+"He always was rather harsh; and now I should think he's getting very\r
+trying," said Prince Andrew, apparently speaking lightly of their father\r
+in order to puzzle or test his sister.\r
+\r
+"You are good in every way, Andrew, but you have a kind of intellectual\r
+pride," said the princess, following the train of her own thoughts\r
+rather than the trend of the conversation--"and that's a great sin. How\r
+can one judge Father? But even if one might, what feeling except\r
+veneration could such a man as my father evoke? And I am so contented\r
+and happy with him. I only wish you were all as happy as I am."\r
+\r
+Her brother shook his head incredulously.\r
+\r
+"The only thing that is hard for me... I will tell you the truth,\r
+Andrew... is Father's way of treating religious subjects. I don't\r
+understand how a man of his immense intellect can fail to see what is as\r
+clear as day, and can go so far astray. That is the only thing that\r
+makes me unhappy. But even in this I can see lately a shade of\r
+improvement. His satire has been less bitter of late, and there was a\r
+monk he received and had a long talk with."\r
+\r
+"Ah! my dear, I am afraid you and your monk are wasting your powder,"\r
+said Prince Andrew banteringly yet tenderly.\r
+\r
+"Ah! mon ami, I only pray, and hope that God will hear me. Andrew..."\r
+she said timidly after a moment's silence, "I have a great favor to ask\r
+of you."\r
+\r
+"What is it, dear?"\r
+\r
+"No--promise that you will not refuse! It will give you no trouble and\r
+is nothing unworthy of you, but it will comfort me. Promise,\r
+Andrusha!..." said she, putting her hand in her reticule but not yet\r
+taking out what she was holding inside it, as if what she held were the\r
+subject of her request and must not be shown before the request was\r
+granted.\r
+\r
+She looked timidly at her brother.\r
+\r
+"Even if it were a great deal of trouble..." answered Prince Andrew, as\r
+if guessing what it was about.\r
+\r
+"Think what you please! I know you are just like Father. Think as you\r
+please, but do this for my sake! Please do! Father's father, our\r
+grandfather, wore it in all his wars." (She still did not take out what\r
+she was holding in her reticule.) "So you promise?"\r
+\r
+"Of course. What is it?"\r
+\r
+"Andrew, I bless you with this icon and you must promise me you will\r
+never take it off. Do you promise?"\r
+\r
+"If it does not weigh a hundredweight and won't break my neck... To\r
+please you..." said Prince Andrew. But immediately, noticing the pained\r
+expression his joke had brought to his sister's face, he repented and\r
+added: "I am glad; really, dear, I am very glad."\r
+\r
+"Against your will He will save and have mercy on you and bring you to\r
+Himself, for in Him alone is truth and peace," said she in a voice\r
+trembling with emotion, solemnly holding up in both hands before her\r
+brother a small, oval, antique, dark-faced icon of the Saviour in a gold\r
+setting, on a finely wrought silver chain.\r
+\r
+She crossed herself, kissed the icon, and handed it to Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Please, Andrew, for my sake!..."\r
+\r
+Rays of gentle light shone from her large, timid eyes. Those eyes lit up\r
+the whole of her thin, sickly face and made it beautiful. Her brother\r
+would have taken the icon, but she stopped him. Andrew understood,\r
+crossed himself and kissed the icon. There was a look of tenderness, for\r
+he was touched, but also a gleam of irony on his face.\r
+\r
+"Thank you, my dear." She kissed him on the forehead and sat down again\r
+on the sofa. They were silent for a while.\r
+\r
+"As I was saying to you, Andrew, be kind and generous as you always used\r
+to be. Don't judge Lise harshly," she began. "She is so sweet, so good-\r
+natured, and her position now is a very hard one."\r
+\r
+"I do not think I have complained of my wife to you, Masha, or blamed\r
+her. Why do you say all this to me?"\r
+\r
+Red patches appeared on Princess Mary's face and she was silent as if\r
+she felt guilty.\r
+\r
+"I have said nothing to you, but you have already been talked to. And I\r
+am sorry for that," he went on.\r
+\r
+The patches grew deeper on her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She tried to\r
+say something but could not. Her brother had guessed right: the little\r
+princess had been crying after dinner and had spoken of her forebodings\r
+about her confinement, and how she dreaded it, and had complained of her\r
+fate, her father-in-law, and her husband. After crying she had fallen\r
+asleep. Prince Andrew felt sorry for his sister.\r
+\r
+"Know this, Masha: I can't reproach, have not reproached, and never\r
+shall reproach my wife with anything, and I cannot reproach myself with\r
+anything in regard to her; and that always will be so in whatever\r
+circumstances I may be placed. But if you want to know the truth... if\r
+you want to know whether I am happy? No! Is she happy? No! But why this\r
+is so I don't know..."\r
+\r
+As he said this he rose, went to his sister, and, stooping, kissed her\r
+forehead. His fine eyes lit up with a thoughtful, kindly, and\r
+unaccustomed brightness, but he was looking not at his sister but over\r
+her head toward the darkness of the open doorway.\r
+\r
+"Let us go to her, I must say good-by. Or--go and wake and I'll come in\r
+a moment. Petrushka!" he called to his valet: "Come here, take these\r
+away. Put this on the seat and this to the right."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary rose and moved to the door, then stopped and said:\r
+"Andrew, if you had faith you would have turned to God and asked Him to\r
+give you the love you do not feel, and your prayer would have been\r
+answered."\r
+\r
+"Well, may be!" said Prince Andrew. "Go, Masha; I'll come immediately."\r
+\r
+On the way to his sister's room, in the passage which connected one wing\r
+with the other, Prince Andrew met Mademoiselle Bourienne smiling\r
+sweetly. It was the third time that day that, with an ecstatic and\r
+artless smile, she had met him in secluded passages.\r
+\r
+"Oh! I thought you were in your room," she said, for some reason\r
+blushing and dropping her eyes.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew looked sternly at her and an expression of anger suddenly\r
+came over his face. He said nothing to her but looked at her forehead\r
+and hair, without looking at her eyes, with such contempt that the\r
+Frenchwoman blushed and went away without a word. When he reached his\r
+sister's room his wife was already awake and her merry voice, hurrying\r
+one word after another, came through the open door. She was speaking as\r
+usual in French, and as if after long self-restraint she wished to make\r
+up for lost time.\r
+\r
+"No, but imagine the old Countess Zubova, with false curls and her mouth\r
+full of false teeth, as if she were trying to cheat old age.... Ha, ha,\r
+ha! Mary!"\r
+\r
+This very sentence about Countess Zubova and this same laugh Prince\r
+Andrew had already heard from his wife in the presence of others some\r
+five times. He entered the room softly. The little princess, plump and\r
+rosy, was sitting in an easy chair with her work in her hands, talking\r
+incessantly, repeating Petersburg reminiscences and even phrases. Prince\r
+Andrew came up, stroked her hair, and asked if she felt rested after\r
+their journey. She answered him and continued her chatter.\r
+\r
+The coach with six horses was waiting at the porch. It was an autumn\r
+night, so dark that the coachman could not see the carriage pole.\r
+Servants with lanterns were bustling about in the porch. The immense\r
+house was brilliant with lights shining through its lofty windows. The\r
+domestic serfs were crowding in the hall, waiting to bid good-by to the\r
+young prince. The members of the household were all gathered in the\r
+reception hall: Michael Ivanovich, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess\r
+Mary, and the little princess. Prince Andrew had been called to his\r
+father's study as the latter wished to say good-by to him alone. All\r
+were waiting for them to come out.\r
+\r
+When Prince Andrew entered the study the old man in his old-age\r
+spectacles and white dressing gown, in which he received no one but his\r
+son, sat at the table writing. He glanced round.\r
+\r
+"Going?" And he went on writing.\r
+\r
+"I've come to say good-by."\r
+\r
+"Kiss me here," and he touched his cheek: "Thanks, thanks!"\r
+\r
+"What do you thank me for?"\r
+\r
+"For not dilly-dallying and not hanging to a woman's apron strings. The\r
+Service before everything. Thanks, thanks!" And he went on writing, so\r
+that his quill spluttered and squeaked. "If you have anything to say,\r
+say it. These two things can be done together," he added.\r
+\r
+"About my wife... I am ashamed as it is to leave her on your hands..."\r
+\r
+"Why talk nonsense? Say what you want."\r
+\r
+"When her confinement is due, send to Moscow for an accoucheur.... Let\r
+him be here...."\r
+\r
+The old prince stopped writing and, as if not understanding, fixed his\r
+stern eyes on his son.\r
+\r
+"I know that no one can help if nature does not do her work," said\r
+Prince Andrew, evidently confused. "I know that out of a million cases\r
+only one goes wrong, but it is her fancy and mine. They have been\r
+telling her things. She has had a dream and is frightened."\r
+\r
+"Hm... Hm..." muttered the old prince to himself, finishing what he was\r
+writing. "I'll do it."\r
+\r
+He signed with a flourish and suddenly turning to his son began to\r
+laugh.\r
+\r
+"It's a bad business, eh?"\r
+\r
+"What is bad, Father?"\r
+\r
+"The wife!" said the old prince, briefly and significantly.\r
+\r
+"I don't understand!" said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"No, it can't be helped, lad," said the prince. "They're all like that;\r
+one can't unmarry. Don't be afraid; I won't tell anyone, but you know it\r
+yourself."\r
+\r
+He seized his son by the hand with small bony fingers, shook it, looked\r
+straight into his son's face with keen eyes which seemed to see through\r
+him, and again laughed his frigid laugh.\r
+\r
+The son sighed, thus admitting that his father had understood him. The\r
+old man continued to fold and seal his letter, snatching up and throwing\r
+down the wax, the seal, and the paper, with his accustomed rapidity.\r
+\r
+"What's to be done? She's pretty! I will do everything. Make your mind\r
+easy," said he in abrupt sentences while sealing his letter.\r
+\r
+Andrew did not speak; he was both pleased and displeased that his father\r
+understood him. The old man got up and gave the letter to his son.\r
+\r
+"Listen!" said he; "don't worry about your wife: what can be done shall\r
+be. Now listen! Give this letter to Michael Ilarionovich. * I have\r
+written that he should make use of you in proper places and not keep you\r
+long as an adjutant: a bad position! Tell him I remember and like him.\r
+Write and tell me how he receives you. If he is all right--serve him.\r
+Nicholas Bolkonski's son need not serve under anyone if he is in\r
+disfavor. Now come here."\r
+\r
+\r
+*Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+He spoke so rapidly that he did not finish half his words, but his son\r
+was accustomed to understand him. He led him to the desk, raised the\r
+lid, drew out a drawer, and took out an exercise book filled with his\r
+bold, tall, close handwriting.\r
+\r
+"I shall probably die before you. So remember, these are my memoirs;\r
+hand them to the Emperor after my death. Now here is a Lombard bond and\r
+a letter; it is a premium for the man who writes a history of Suvorov's\r
+wars. Send it to the Academy. Here are some jottings for you to read\r
+when I am gone. You will find them useful."\r
+\r
+Andrew did not tell his father that he would no doubt live a long time\r
+yet. He felt that he must not say it.\r
+\r
+"I will do it all, Father," he said.\r
+\r
+"Well, now, good-by!" He gave his son his hand to kiss, and embraced\r
+him. "Remember this, Prince Andrew, if they kill you it will hurt me,\r
+your old father..." he paused unexpectedly, and then in a querulous\r
+voice suddenly shrieked: "but if I hear that you have not behaved like a\r
+son of Nicholas Bolkonski, I shall be ashamed!"\r
+\r
+"You need not have said that to me, Father," said the son with a smile.\r
+\r
+The old man was silent.\r
+\r
+"I also wanted to ask you," continued Prince Andrew, "if I'm killed and\r
+if I have a son, do not let him be taken away from you--as I said\r
+yesterday... let him grow up with you.... Please."\r
+\r
+"Not let the wife have him?" said the old man, and laughed.\r
+\r
+They stood silent, facing one another. The old man's sharp eyes were\r
+fixed straight on his son's. Something twitched in the lower part of the\r
+old prince's face.\r
+\r
+"We've said good-by. Go!" he suddenly shouted in a loud, angry voice,\r
+opening his door.\r
+\r
+"What is it? What?" asked both princesses when they saw for a moment at\r
+the door Prince Andrew and the figure of the old man in a white dressing\r
+gown, spectacled and wigless, shouting in an angry voice.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew sighed and made no reply.\r
+\r
+"Well!" he said, turning to his wife.\r
+\r
+And this "Well!" sounded coldly ironic, as if he were saying,: "Now go\r
+through your performance."\r
+\r
+"Andrew, already!" said the little princess, turning pale and looking\r
+with dismay at her husband.\r
+\r
+He embraced her. She screamed and fell unconscious on his shoulder.\r
+\r
+He cautiously released the shoulder she leaned on, looked into her face,\r
+and carefully placed her in an easy chair.\r
+\r
+"Adieu, Mary," said he gently to his sister, taking her by the hand and\r
+kissing her, and then he left the room with rapid steps.\r
+\r
+The little princess lay in the armchair, Mademoiselle Bourienne chafing\r
+her temples. Princess Mary, supporting her sister-in-law, still looked\r
+with her beautiful eyes full of tears at the door through which Prince\r
+Andrew had gone and made the sign of the cross in his direction. From\r
+the study, like pistol shots, came the frequent sound of the old man\r
+angrily blowing his nose. Hardly had Prince Andrew gone when the study\r
+door opened quickly and the stern figure of the old man in the white\r
+dressing gown looked out.\r
+\r
+"Gone? That's all right!" said he; and looking angrily at the\r
+unconscious little princess, he shook his head reprovingly and slammed\r
+the door.\r
+\r
+BOOK TWO: 1805\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+In October, 1805, a Russian army was occupying the villages and towns of\r
+the Archduchy of Austria, and yet other regiments freshly arriving from\r
+Russia were settling near the fortress of Braunau and burdening the\r
+inhabitants on whom they were quartered. Braunau was the headquarters of\r
+the commander-in-chief, Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+On October 11, 1805, one of the infantry regiments that had just reached\r
+Braunau had halted half a mile from the town, waiting to be inspected by\r
+the commander-in-chief. Despite the un-Russian appearance of the\r
+locality and surroundings--fruit gardens, stone fences, tiled roofs, and\r
+hills in the distance--and despite the fact that the inhabitants (who\r
+gazed with curiosity at the soldiers) were not Russians, the regiment\r
+had just the appearance of any Russian regiment preparing for an\r
+inspection anywhere in the heart of Russia.\r
+\r
+On the evening of the last day's march an order had been received that\r
+the commander-in-chief would inspect the regiment on the march. Though\r
+the words of the order were not clear to the regimental commander, and\r
+the question arose whether the troops were to be in marching order or\r
+not, it was decided at a consultation between the battalion commanders\r
+to present the regiment in parade order, on the principle that it is\r
+always better to "bow too low than not bow low enough." So the soldiers,\r
+after a twenty-mile march, were kept mending and cleaning all night long\r
+without closing their eyes, while the adjutants and company commanders\r
+calculated and reckoned, and by morning the regiment--instead of the\r
+straggling, disorderly crowd it had been on its last march the day\r
+before--presented a well-ordered array of two thousand men each of whom\r
+knew his place and his duty, had every button and every strap in place,\r
+and shone with cleanliness. And not only externally was all in order,\r
+but had it pleased the commander-in-chief to look under the uniforms he\r
+would have found on every man a clean shirt, and in every knapsack the\r
+appointed number of articles, "awl, soap, and all," as the soldiers say.\r
+There was only one circumstance concerning which no one could be at\r
+ease. It was the state of the soldiers' boots. More than half the men's\r
+boots were in holes. But this defect was not due to any fault of the\r
+regimental commander, for in spite of repeated demands boots had not\r
+been issued by the Austrian commissariat, and the regiment had marched\r
+some seven hundred miles.\r
+\r
+The commander of the regiment was an elderly, choleric, stout, and\r
+thick-set general with grizzled eyebrows and whiskers, and wider from\r
+chest to back than across the shoulders. He had on a brand-new uniform\r
+showing the creases where it had been folded and thick gold epaulettes\r
+which seemed to stand rather than lie down on his massive shoulders. He\r
+had the air of a man happily performing one of the most solemn duties of\r
+his life. He walked about in front of the line and at every step pulled\r
+himself up, slightly arching his back. It was plain that the commander\r
+admired his regiment, rejoiced in it, and that his whole mind was\r
+engrossed by it, yet his strut seemed to indicate that, besides military\r
+matters, social interests and the fair sex occupied no small part of his\r
+thoughts.\r
+\r
+"Well, Michael Mitrich, sir?" he said, addressing one of the battalion\r
+commanders who smilingly pressed forward (it was plain that they both\r
+felt happy). "We had our hands full last night. However, I think the\r
+regiment is not a bad one, eh?"\r
+\r
+The battalion commander perceived the jovial irony and laughed.\r
+\r
+"It would not be turned off the field even on the Tsaritsin Meadow."\r
+\r
+"What?" asked the commander.\r
+\r
+At that moment, on the road from the town on which signalers had been\r
+posted, two men appeared on horse back. They were an aide-de-camp\r
+followed by a Cossack.\r
+\r
+The aide-de-camp was sent to confirm the order which had not been\r
+clearly worded the day before, namely, that the commander-in-chief\r
+wished to see the regiment just in the state in which it had been on the\r
+march: in their greatcoats, and packs, and without any preparation\r
+whatever.\r
+\r
+A member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had come to Kutuzov the day\r
+before with proposals and demands for him to join up with the army of\r
+the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutuzov, not considering this\r
+junction advisable, meant, among other arguments in support of his view,\r
+to show the Austrian general the wretched state in which the troops\r
+arrived from Russia. With this object he intended to meet the regiment;\r
+so the worse the condition it was in, the better pleased the commander-\r
+in-chief would be. Though the aide-de-camp did not know these\r
+circumstances, he nevertheless delivered the definite order that the men\r
+should be in their greatcoats and in marching order, and that the\r
+commander-in-chief would otherwise be dissatisfied. On hearing this the\r
+regimental commander hung his head, silently shrugged his shoulders, and\r
+spread out his arms with a choleric gesture.\r
+\r
+"A fine mess we've made of it!" he remarked.\r
+\r
+"There now! Didn't I tell you, Michael Mitrich, that if it was said 'on\r
+the march' it meant in greatcoats?" said he reproachfully to the\r
+battalion commander. "Oh, my God!" he added, stepping resolutely\r
+forward. "Company commanders!" he shouted in a voice accustomed to\r
+command. "Sergeants major!... How soon will he be here?" he asked the\r
+aide-de-camp with a respectful politeness evidently relating to the\r
+personage he was referring to.\r
+\r
+"In an hour's time, I should say."\r
+\r
+"Shall we have time to change clothes?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know, General...."\r
+\r
+The regimental commander, going up to the line himself, ordered the\r
+soldiers to change into their greatcoats. The company commanders ran off\r
+to their companies, the sergeants major began bustling (the greatcoats\r
+were not in very good condition), and instantly the squares that had up\r
+to then been in regular order and silent began to sway and stretch and\r
+hum with voices. On all sides soldiers were running to and fro, throwing\r
+up their knapsacks with a jerk of their shoulders and pulling the straps\r
+over their heads, unstrapping their overcoats and drawing the sleeves on\r
+with upraised arms.\r
+\r
+In half an hour all was again in order, only the squares had become gray\r
+instead of black. The regimental commander walked with his jerky steps\r
+to the front of the regiment and examined it from a distance.\r
+\r
+"Whatever is this? This!" he shouted and stood still. "Commander of the\r
+third company!"\r
+\r
+"Commander of the third company wanted by the general!... commander to\r
+the general... third company to the commander." The words passed along\r
+the lines and an adjutant ran to look for the missing officer.\r
+\r
+When the eager but misrepeated words had reached their destination in a\r
+cry of: "The general to the third company," the missing officer appeared\r
+from behind his company and, though he was a middle-aged man and not in\r
+the habit of running, trotted awkwardly stumbling on his toes toward the\r
+general. The captain's face showed the uneasiness of a schoolboy who is\r
+told to repeat a lesson he has not learned. Spots appeared on his nose,\r
+the redness of which was evidently due to intemperance, and his mouth\r
+twitched nervously. The general looked the captain up and down as he\r
+came up panting, slackening his pace as he approached.\r
+\r
+"You will soon be dressing your men in petticoats! What is this?"\r
+shouted the regimental commander, thrusting forward his jaw and pointing\r
+at a soldier in the ranks of the third company in a greatcoat of bluish\r
+cloth, which contrasted with the others. "What have you been after? The\r
+commander in chief is expected and you leave your place? Eh? I'll teach\r
+you to dress the men in fancy coats for a parade.... Eh...?"\r
+\r
+The commander of the company, with his eyes fixed on his superior,\r
+pressed two fingers more and more rigidly to his cap, as if in this\r
+pressure lay his only hope of salvation.\r
+\r
+"Well, why don't you speak? Whom have you got there dressed up as a\r
+Hungarian?" said the commander with an austere gibe.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency..."\r
+\r
+"Well, your excellency, what? Your excellency! But what about your\r
+excellency?... nobody knows."\r
+\r
+"Your excellency, it's the officer Dolokhov, who has been reduced to the\r
+ranks," said the captain softly.\r
+\r
+"Well? Has he been degraded into a field marshal, or into a soldier? If\r
+a soldier, he should be dressed in regulation uniform like the others."\r
+\r
+"Your excellency, you gave him leave yourself, on the march."\r
+\r
+"Gave him leave? Leave? That's just like you young men," said the\r
+regimental commander cooling down a little. "Leave indeed.... One says a\r
+word to you and you... What?" he added with renewed irritation, "I beg\r
+you to dress your men decently."\r
+\r
+And the commander, turning to look at the adjutant, directed his jerky\r
+steps down the line. He was evidently pleased at his own display of\r
+anger and walking up to the regiment wished to find a further excuse for\r
+wrath. Having snapped at an officer for an unpolished badge, at another\r
+because his line was not straight, he reached the third company.\r
+\r
+"H-o-o-w are you standing? Where's your leg? Your leg?" shouted the\r
+commander with a tone of suffering in his voice, while there were still\r
+five men between him and Dolokhov with his bluish-gray uniform.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov slowly straightened his bent knee, looking straight with his\r
+clear, insolent eyes in the general's face.\r
+\r
+"Why a blue coat? Off with it... Sergeant major! Change his coat... the\r
+ras..." he did not finish.\r
+\r
+"General, I must obey orders, but I am not bound to endure..." Dolokhov\r
+hurriedly interrupted.\r
+\r
+"No talking in the ranks!... No talking, no talking!"\r
+\r
+"Not bound to endure insults," Dolokhov concluded in loud, ringing\r
+tones.\r
+\r
+The eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general became silent,\r
+angrily pulling down his tight scarf.\r
+\r
+"I request you to have the goodness to change your coat," he said as he\r
+turned away.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+"He's coming!" shouted the signaler at that moment.\r
+\r
+The regimental commander, flushing, ran to his horse, seized the stirrup\r
+with trembling hands, threw his body across the saddle, righted himself,\r
+drew his saber, and with a happy and resolute countenance, opening his\r
+mouth awry, prepared to shout. The regiment fluttered like a bird\r
+preening its plumage and became motionless.\r
+\r
+"Att-ention!" shouted the regimental commander in a soul-shaking voice\r
+which expressed joy for himself, severity for the regiment, and welcome\r
+for the approaching chief.\r
+\r
+Along the broad country road, edged on both sides by trees, came a high,\r
+light blue Viennese caleche, slightly creaking on its springs and drawn\r
+by six horses at a smart trot. Behind the caleche galloped the suite and\r
+a convoy of Croats. Beside Kutuzov sat an Austrian general, in a white\r
+uniform that looked strange among the Russian black ones. The caleche\r
+stopped in front of the regiment. Kutuzov and the Austrian general were\r
+talking in low voices and Kutuzov smiled slightly as treading heavily he\r
+stepped down from the carriage just as if those two thousand men\r
+breathlessly gazing at him and the regimental commander did not exist.\r
+\r
+The word of command rang out, and again the regiment quivered, as with a\r
+jingling sound it presented arms. Then amidst a dead silence the feeble\r
+voice of the commander-in-chief was heard. The regiment roared, "Health\r
+to your ex... len... len... lency!" and again all became silent. At\r
+first Kutuzov stood still while the regiment moved; then he and the\r
+general in white, accompanied by the suite, walked between the ranks.\r
+\r
+From the way the regimental commander saluted the commander-in-chief and\r
+devoured him with his eyes, drawing himself up obsequiously, and from\r
+the way he walked through the ranks behind the generals, bending forward\r
+and hardly able to restrain his jerky movements, and from the way he\r
+darted forward at every word or gesture of the commander-in-chief, it\r
+was evident that he performed his duty as a subordinate with even\r
+greater zeal than his duty as a commander. Thanks to the strictness and\r
+assiduity of its commander the regiment, in comparison with others that\r
+had reached Braunau at the same time, was in splendid condition. There\r
+were only 217 sick and stragglers. Everything was in good order except\r
+the boots.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov walked through the ranks, sometimes stopping to say a few\r
+friendly words to officers he had known in the Turkish war, sometimes\r
+also to the soldiers. Looking at their boots he several times shook his\r
+head sadly, pointing them out to the Austrian general with an expression\r
+which seemed to say that he was not blaming anyone, but could not help\r
+noticing what a bad state of things it was. The regimental commander ran\r
+forward on each such occasion, fearing to miss a single word of the\r
+commander-in-chief's regarding the regiment. Behind Kutuzov, at a\r
+distance that allowed every softly spoken word to be heard, followed\r
+some twenty men of his suite. These gentlemen talked among themselves\r
+and sometimes laughed. Nearest of all to the commander-in-chief walked a\r
+handsome adjutant. This was Prince Bolkonski. Beside him was his comrade\r
+Nesvitski, a tall staff officer, extremely stout, with a kindly,\r
+smiling, handsome face and moist eyes. Nesvitski could hardly keep from\r
+laughter provoked by a swarthy hussar officer who walked beside him.\r
+This hussar, with a grave face and without a smile or a change in the\r
+expression of his fixed eyes, watched the regimental commander's back\r
+and mimicked his every movement. Each time the commander started and\r
+bent forward, the hussar started and bent forward in exactly the same\r
+manner. Nesvitski laughed and nudged the others to make them look at the\r
+wag.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov walked slowly and languidly past thousands of eyes which were\r
+starting from their sockets to watch their chief. On reaching the third\r
+company he suddenly stopped. His suite, not having expected this,\r
+involuntarily came closer to him.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Timokhin!" said he, recognizing the red-nosed captain who had been\r
+reprimanded on account of the blue greatcoat.\r
+\r
+One would have thought it impossible for a man to stretch himself more\r
+than Timokhin had done when he was reprimanded by the regimental\r
+commander, but now that the commander-in-chief addressed him he drew\r
+himself up to such an extent that it seemed he could not have sustained\r
+it had the commander-in-chief continued to look at him, and so Kutuzov,\r
+who evidently understood his case and wished him nothing but good,\r
+quickly turned away, a scarcely perceptible smile flitting over his\r
+scarred and puffy face.\r
+\r
+"Another Ismail comrade," said he. "A brave officer! Are you satisfied\r
+with him?" he asked the regimental commander.\r
+\r
+And the latter--unconscious that he was being reflected in the hussar\r
+officer as in a looking glass--started, moved forward, and answered:\r
+"Highly satisfied, your excellency!"\r
+\r
+"We all have our weaknesses," said Kutuzov smiling and walking away from\r
+him. "He used to have a predilection for Bacchus."\r
+\r
+The regimental commander was afraid he might be blamed for this and did\r
+not answer. The hussar at that moment noticed the face of the red-nosed\r
+captain and his drawn-in stomach, and mimicked his expression and pose\r
+with such exactitude that Nesvitski could not help laughing. Kutuzov\r
+turned round. The officer evidently had complete control of his face,\r
+and while Kutuzov was turning managed to make a grimace and then assume\r
+a most serious, deferential, and innocent expression.\r
+\r
+The third company was the last, and Kutuzov pondered, apparently trying\r
+to recollect something. Prince Andrew stepped forward from among the\r
+suite and said in French:\r
+\r
+"You told me to remind you of the officer Dolokhov, reduced to the ranks\r
+in this regiment."\r
+\r
+"Where is Dolokhov?" asked Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov, who had already changed into a soldier's gray greatcoat, did\r
+not wait to be called. The shapely figure of the fair-haired soldier,\r
+with his clear blue eyes, stepped forward from the ranks, went up to the\r
+commander in chief, and presented arms.\r
+\r
+"Have you a complaint to make?" Kutuzov asked with a slight frown.\r
+\r
+"This is Dolokhov," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Kutuzov. "I hope this will be a lesson to you. Do your duty.\r
+The Emperor is gracious, and I shan't forget you if you deserve well."\r
+\r
+The clear blue eyes looked at the commander-in-chief just as boldly as\r
+they had looked at the regimental commander, seeming by their expression\r
+to tear open the veil of convention that separates a commander-in-chief\r
+so widely from a private.\r
+\r
+"One thing I ask of your excellency," Dolokhov said in his firm,\r
+ringing, deliberate voice. "I ask an opportunity to atone for my fault\r
+and prove my devotion to His Majesty the Emperor and to Russia!"\r
+\r
+Kutuzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes with which he had turned\r
+from Captain Timokhin again flitted over his face. He turned away with a\r
+grimace as if to say that everything Dolokhov had said to him and\r
+everything he could say had long been known to him, that he was weary of\r
+it and it was not at all what he wanted. He turned away and went to the\r
+carriage.\r
+\r
+The regiment broke up into companies, which went to their appointed\r
+quarters near Braunau, where they hoped to receive boots and clothes and\r
+to rest after their hard marches.\r
+\r
+"You won't bear me a grudge, Prokhor Ignatych?" said the regimental\r
+commander, overtaking the third company on its way to its quarters and\r
+riding up to Captain Timokhin who was walking in front. (The regimental\r
+commander's face now that the inspection was happily over beamed with\r
+irrepressible delight.) "It's in the Emperor's service... it can't be\r
+helped... one is sometimes a bit hasty on parade... I am the first to\r
+apologize, you know me!... He was very pleased!" And he held out his\r
+hand to the captain.\r
+\r
+"Don't mention it, General, as if I'd be so bold!" replied the captain,\r
+his nose growing redder as he gave a smile which showed where two front\r
+teeth were missing that had been knocked out by the butt end of a gun at\r
+Ismail.\r
+\r
+"And tell Mr. Dolokhov that I won't forget him--he may be quite easy.\r
+And tell me, please--I've been meaning to ask--how is he behaving\r
+himself, and in general..."\r
+\r
+"As far as the service goes he is quite punctilious, your excellency;\r
+but his character..." said Timokhin.\r
+\r
+"And what about his character?" asked the regimental commander.\r
+\r
+"It's different on different days," answered the captain. "One day he is\r
+sensible, well educated, and good-natured, and the next he's a wild\r
+beast.... In Poland, if you please, he nearly killed a Jew."\r
+\r
+"Oh, well, well!" remarked the regimental commander. "Still, one must\r
+have pity on a young man in misfortune. You know he has important\r
+connections... Well, then, you just..."\r
+\r
+"I will, your excellency," said Timokhin, showing by his smile that he\r
+understood his commander's wish.\r
+\r
+"Well, of course, of course!"\r
+\r
+The regimental commander sought out Dolokhov in the ranks and, reining\r
+in his horse, said to him:\r
+\r
+"After the next affair... epaulettes."\r
+\r
+Dolokhov looked round but did not say anything, nor did the mocking\r
+smile on his lips change.\r
+\r
+"Well, that's all right," continued the regimental commander. "A cup of\r
+vodka for the men from me," he added so that the soldiers could hear. "I\r
+thank you all! God be praised!" and he rode past that company and\r
+overtook the next one.\r
+\r
+"Well, he's really a good fellow, one can serve under him," said\r
+Timokhin to the subaltern beside him.\r
+\r
+"In a word, a hearty one..." said the subaltern, laughing (the\r
+regimental commander was nicknamed King of Hearts).\r
+\r
+The cheerful mood of their officers after the inspection infected the\r
+soldiers. The company marched on gaily. The soldiers' voices could be\r
+heard on every side.\r
+\r
+"And they said Kutuzov was blind of one eye?"\r
+\r
+"And so he is! Quite blind!"\r
+\r
+"No, friend, he is sharper-eyed than you are. Boots and leg bands... he\r
+noticed everything..."\r
+\r
+"When he looked at my feet, friend... well, thinks I..."\r
+\r
+"And that other one with him, the Austrian, looked as if he were smeared\r
+with chalk--as white as flour! I suppose they polish him up as they do\r
+the guns."\r
+\r
+"I say, Fedeshon!... Did he say when the battles are to begin? You were\r
+near him. Everybody said that Buonaparte himself was at Braunau."\r
+\r
+"Buonaparte himself!... Just listen to the fool, what he doesn't know!\r
+The Prussians are up in arms now. The Austrians, you see, are putting\r
+them down. When they've been put down, the war with Buonaparte will\r
+begin. And he says Buonaparte is in Braunau! Shows you're a fool. You'd\r
+better listen more carefully!"\r
+\r
+"What devils these quartermasters are! See, the fifth company is turning\r
+into the village already... they will have their buckwheat cooked before\r
+we reach our quarters."\r
+\r
+"Give me a biscuit, you devil!"\r
+\r
+"And did you give me tobacco yesterday? That's just it, friend! Ah,\r
+well, never mind, here you are."\r
+\r
+"They might call a halt here or we'll have to do another four miles\r
+without eating."\r
+\r
+"Wasn't it fine when those Germans gave us lifts! You just sit still and\r
+are drawn along."\r
+\r
+"And here, friend, the people are quite beggarly. There they all seemed\r
+to be Poles--all under the Russian crown--but here they're all regular\r
+Germans."\r
+\r
+"Singers to the front" came the captain's order.\r
+\r
+And from the different ranks some twenty men ran to the front. A\r
+drummer, their leader, turned round facing the singers, and flourishing\r
+his arm, began a long-drawn-out soldiers' song, commencing with the\r
+words: "Morning dawned, the sun was rising," and concluding: "On then,\r
+brothers, on to glory, led by Father Kamenski." This song had been\r
+composed in the Turkish campaign and now being sung in Austria, the only\r
+change being that the words "Father Kamenski" were replaced by "Father\r
+Kutuzov."\r
+\r
+Having jerked out these last words as soldiers do and waved his arms as\r
+if flinging something to the ground, the drummer--a lean, handsome\r
+soldier of forty--looked sternly at the singers and screwed up his eyes.\r
+Then having satisfied himself that all eyes were fixed on him, he raised\r
+both arms as if carefully lifting some invisible but precious object\r
+above his head and, holding it there for some seconds, suddenly flung it\r
+down and began:\r
+\r
+"Oh, my bower, oh, my bower...!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, my bower new...!" chimed in twenty voices, and the castanet player,\r
+in spite of the burden of his equipment, rushed out to the front and,\r
+walking backwards before the company, jerked his shoulders and\r
+flourished his castanets as if threatening someone. The soldiers,\r
+swinging their arms and keeping time spontaneously, marched with long\r
+steps. Behind the company the sound of wheels, the creaking of springs,\r
+and the tramp of horses' hoofs were heard. Kutuzov and his suite were\r
+returning to the town. The commander-in-chief made a sign that the men\r
+should continue to march at ease, and he and all his suite showed\r
+pleasure at the sound of the singing and the sight of the dancing\r
+soldier and the gay and smartly marching men. In the second file from\r
+the right flank, beside which the carriage passed the company, a blue-\r
+eyed soldier involuntarily attracted notice. It was Dolokhov marching\r
+with particular grace and boldness in time to the song and looking at\r
+those driving past as if he pitied all who were not at that moment\r
+marching with the company. The hussar cornet of Kutuzov's suite who had\r
+mimicked the regimental commander, fell back from the carriage and rode\r
+up to Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+Hussar cornet Zherkov had at one time, in Petersburg, belonged to the\r
+wild set led by Dolokhov. Zherkov had met Dolokhov abroad as a private\r
+and had not seen fit to recognize him. But now that Kutuzov had spoken\r
+to the gentleman ranker, he addressed him with the cordiality of an old\r
+friend.\r
+\r
+"My dear fellow, how are you?" said he through the singing, making his\r
+horse keep pace with the company.\r
+\r
+"How am I?" Dolokhov answered coldly. "I am as you see."\r
+\r
+The lively song gave a special flavor to the tone of free and easy\r
+gaiety with which Zherkov spoke, and to the intentional coldness of\r
+Dolokhov's reply.\r
+\r
+"And how do you get on with the officers?" inquired Zherkov.\r
+\r
+"All right. They are good fellows. And how have you wriggled onto the\r
+staff?"\r
+\r
+"I was attached; I'm on duty."\r
+\r
+Both were silent.\r
+\r
+"She let the hawk fly upward from her wide right sleeve," went the song,\r
+arousing an involuntary sensation of courage and cheerfulness. Their\r
+conversation would probably have been different but for the effect of\r
+that song.\r
+\r
+"Is it true that Austrians have been beaten?" asked Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"The devil only knows! They say so."\r
+\r
+"I'm glad," answered Dolokhov briefly and clearly, as the song demanded.\r
+\r
+"I say, come round some evening and we'll have a game of faro!" said\r
+Zherkov.\r
+\r
+"Why, have you too much money?"\r
+\r
+"Do come."\r
+\r
+"I can't. I've sworn not to. I won't drink and won't play till I get\r
+reinstated."\r
+\r
+"Well, that's only till the first engagement."\r
+\r
+"We shall see."\r
+\r
+They were again silent.\r
+\r
+"Come if you need anything. One can at least be of use on the staff..."\r
+\r
+Dolokhov smiled. "Don't trouble. If I want anything, I won't beg--I'll\r
+take it!"\r
+\r
+"Well, never mind; I only..."\r
+\r
+"And I only..."\r
+\r
+"Good-bye."\r
+\r
+"Good health..."\r
+\r
+\r
+"It's a long, long way. To my native land..."\r
+\r
+Zherkov touched his horse with the spurs; it pranced excitedly from foot\r
+to foot uncertain with which to start, then settled down, galloped past\r
+the company, and overtook the carriage, still keeping time to the song.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+On returning from the review, Kutuzov took the Austrian general into his\r
+private room and, calling his adjutant, asked for some papers relating\r
+to the condition of the troops on their arrival, and the letters that\r
+had come from the Archduke Ferdinand, who was in command of the advanced\r
+army. Prince Andrew Bolkonski came into the room with the required\r
+papers. Kutuzov and the Austrian member of the Hofkriegsrath were\r
+sitting at the table on which a plan was spread out.\r
+\r
+"Ah!..." said Kutuzov glancing at Bolkonski as if by this exclamation he\r
+was asking the adjutant to wait, and he went on with the conversation in\r
+French.\r
+\r
+"All I can say, General," said he with a pleasant elegance of expression\r
+and intonation that obliged one to listen to each deliberately spoken\r
+word. It was evident that Kutuzov himself listened with pleasure to his\r
+own voice. "All I can say, General, is that if the matter depended on my\r
+personal wishes, the will of His Majesty the Emperor Francis would have\r
+been fulfilled long ago. I should long ago have joined the archduke. And\r
+believe me on my honour that to me personally it would be a pleasure to\r
+hand over the supreme command of the army into the hands of a better\r
+informed and more skillful general--of whom Austria has so many--and to\r
+lay down all this heavy responsibility. But circumstances are sometimes\r
+too strong for us, General."\r
+\r
+And Kutuzov smiled in a way that seemed to say, "You are quite at\r
+liberty not to believe me and I don't even care whether you do or not,\r
+but you have no grounds for telling me so. And that is the whole point."\r
+\r
+The Austrian general looked dissatisfied, but had no option but to reply\r
+in the same tone.\r
+\r
+"On the contrary," he said, in a querulous and angry tone that\r
+contrasted with his flattering words, "on the contrary, your\r
+excellency's participation in the common action is highly valued by His\r
+Majesty; but we think the present delay is depriving the splendid\r
+Russian troops and their commander of the laurels they have been\r
+accustomed to win in their battles," he concluded his evidently\r
+prearranged sentence.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov bowed with the same smile.\r
+\r
+"But that is my conviction, and judging by the last letter with which\r
+His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand has honored me, I imagine that the\r
+Austrian troops, under the direction of so skillful a leader as General\r
+Mack, have by now already gained a decisive victory and no longer need\r
+our aid," said Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+The general frowned. Though there was no definite news of an Austrian\r
+defeat, there were many circumstances confirming the unfavorable rumors\r
+that were afloat, and so Kutuzov's suggestion of an Austrian victory\r
+sounded much like irony. But Kutuzov went on blandly smiling with the\r
+same expression, which seemed to say that he had a right to suppose so.\r
+And, in fact, the last letter he had received from Mack's army informed\r
+him of a victory and stated strategically the position of the army was\r
+very favorable.\r
+\r
+"Give me that letter," said Kutuzov turning to Prince Andrew. "Please\r
+have a look at it"--and Kutuzov with an ironical smile about the corners\r
+of his mouth read to the Austrian general the following passage, in\r
+German, from the Archduke Ferdinand's letter:\r
+\r
+We have fully concentrated forces of nearly seventy thousand men with\r
+which to attack and defeat the enemy should he cross the Lech. Also, as\r
+we are masters of Ulm, we cannot be deprived of the advantage of\r
+commanding both sides of the Danube, so that should the enemy not cross\r
+the Lech, we can cross the Danube, throw ourselves on his line of\r
+communications, recross the river lower down, and frustrate his\r
+intention should he try to direct his whole force against our faithful\r
+ally. We shall therefore confidently await the moment when the Imperial\r
+Russian army will be fully equipped, and shall then, in conjunction with\r
+it, easily find a way to prepare for the enemy the fate he deserves.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov sighed deeply on finishing this paragraph and looked at the\r
+member of the Hofkriegsrath mildly and attentively.\r
+\r
+"But you know the wise maxim your excellency, advising one to expect the\r
+worst," said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to have done with\r
+jests and to come to business. He involuntarily looked round at the\r
+aide-de-camp.\r
+\r
+"Excuse me, General," interrupted Kutuzov, also turning to Prince\r
+Andrew. "Look here, my dear fellow, get from Kozlovski all the reports\r
+from our scouts. Here are two letters from Count Nostitz and here is one\r
+from His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand and here are these," he said,\r
+handing him several papers, "make a neat memorandum in French out of all\r
+this, showing all the news we have had of the movements of the Austrian\r
+army, and then give it to his excellency."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew bowed his head in token of having understood from the\r
+first not only what had been said but also what Kutuzov would have liked\r
+to tell him. He gathered up the papers and with a bow to both, stepped\r
+softly over the carpet and went out into the waiting room.\r
+\r
+Though not much time had passed since Prince Andrew had left Russia, he\r
+had changed greatly during that period. In the expression of his face,\r
+in his movements, in his walk, scarcely a trace was left of his former\r
+affected languor and indolence. He now looked like a man who has time to\r
+think of the impression he makes on others, but is occupied with\r
+agreeable and interesting work. His face expressed more satisfaction\r
+with himself and those around him, his smile and glance were brighter\r
+and more attractive.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov, whom he had overtaken in Poland, had received him very kindly,\r
+promised not to forget him, distinguished him above the other adjutants,\r
+and had taken him to Vienna and given him the more serious commissions.\r
+From Vienna Kutuzov wrote to his old comrade, Prince Andrew's father.\r
+\r
+Your son bids fair to become an officer distinguished by his industry,\r
+firmness, and expedition. I consider myself fortunate to have such a\r
+subordinate by me.\r
+\r
+On Kutuzov's staff, among his fellow officers and in the army generally,\r
+Prince Andrew had, as he had had in Petersburg society, two quite\r
+opposite reputations. Some, a minority, acknowledged him to be different\r
+from themselves and from everyone else, expected great things of him,\r
+listened to him, admired, and imitated him, and with them Prince Andrew\r
+was natural and pleasant. Others, the majority, disliked him and\r
+considered him conceited, cold, and disagreeable. But among these people\r
+Prince Andrew knew how to take his stand so that they respected and even\r
+feared him.\r
+\r
+Coming out of Kutuzov's room into the waiting room with the papers in\r
+his hand Prince Andrew came up to his comrade, the aide-de-camp on duty,\r
+Kozlovski, who was sitting at the window with a book.\r
+\r
+"Well, Prince?" asked Kozlovski.\r
+\r
+"I am ordered to write a memorandum explaining why we are not\r
+advancing."\r
+\r
+"And why is it?"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders.\r
+\r
+"Any news from Mack?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"If it were true that he has been beaten, news would have come."\r
+\r
+"Probably," said Prince Andrew moving toward the outer door.\r
+\r
+But at that instant a tall Austrian general in a greatcoat, with the\r
+order of Maria Theresa on his neck and a black bandage round his head,\r
+who had evidently just arrived, entered quickly, slamming the door.\r
+Prince Andrew stopped short.\r
+\r
+"Commander in Chief Kutuzov?" said the newly arrived general speaking\r
+quickly with a harsh German accent, looking to both sides and advancing\r
+straight toward the inner door.\r
+\r
+"The commander-in-chief is engaged," said Kozlovski, going hurriedly up\r
+to the unknown general and blocking his way to the door. "Whom shall I\r
+announce?"\r
+\r
+The unknown general looked disdainfully down at Kozlovski, who was\r
+rather short, as if surprised that anyone should not know him.\r
+\r
+"The commander-in-chief is engaged," repeated Kozlovski calmly.\r
+\r
+The general's face clouded, his lips quivered and trembled. He took out\r
+a notebook, hurriedly scribbled something in pencil, tore out the leaf,\r
+gave it to Kozlovski, stepped quickly to the window, and threw himself\r
+into a chair, gazing at those in the room as if asking, "Why do they\r
+look at me?" Then he lifted his head, stretched his neck as if he\r
+intended to say something, but immediately, with affected indifference,\r
+began to hum to himself, producing a queer sound which immediately broke\r
+off. The door of the private room opened and Kutuzov appeared in the\r
+doorway. The general with the bandaged head bent forward as though\r
+running away from some danger, and, making long, quick strides with his\r
+thin legs, went up to Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+"Vous voyez le malheureux Mack," he uttered in a broken voice.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov's face as he stood in the open doorway remained perfectly\r
+immobile for a few moments. Then wrinkles ran over his face like a wave\r
+and his forehead became smooth again, he bowed his head respectfully,\r
+closed his eyes, silently let Mack enter his room before him, and closed\r
+the door himself behind him.\r
+\r
+The report which had been circulated that the Austrians had been beaten\r
+and that the whole army had surrendered at Ulm proved to be correct.\r
+Within half an hour adjutants had been sent in various directions with\r
+orders which showed that the Russian troops, who had hitherto been\r
+inactive, would also soon have to meet the enemy.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was one of those rare staff officers whose chief interest\r
+lay in the general progress of the war. When he saw Mack and heard the\r
+details of his disaster he understood that half the campaign was lost,\r
+understood all the difficulties of the Russian army's position, and\r
+vividly imagined what awaited it and the part he would have to play.\r
+Involuntarily he felt a joyful agitation at the thought of the\r
+humiliation of arrogant Austria and that in a week's time he might,\r
+perhaps, see and take part in the first Russian encounter with the\r
+French since Suvorov met them. He feared that Bonaparte's genius might\r
+outweigh all the courage of the Russian troops, and at the same time\r
+could not admit the idea of his hero being disgraced.\r
+\r
+Excited and irritated by these thoughts Prince Andrew went toward his\r
+room to write to his father, to whom he wrote every day. In the corridor\r
+he met Nesvitski, with whom he shared a room, and the wag Zherkov; they\r
+were as usual laughing.\r
+\r
+"Why are you so glum?" asked Nesvitski noticing Prince Andrew's pale\r
+face and glittering eyes.\r
+\r
+"There's nothing to be gay about," answered Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+Just as Prince Andrew met Nesvitski and Zherkov, there came toward them\r
+from the other end of the corridor, Strauch, an Austrian general who on\r
+Kutuzov's staff in charge of the provisioning of the Russian army, and\r
+the member of the Hofkriegsrath who had arrived the previous evening.\r
+There was room enough in the wide corridor for the generals to pass the\r
+three officers quite easily, but Zherkov, pushing Nesvitski aside with\r
+his arm, said in a breathless voice,\r
+\r
+"They're coming!... they're coming!... Stand aside, make way, please\r
+make way!"\r
+\r
+The generals were passing by, looking as if they wished to avoid\r
+embarrassing attentions. On the face of the wag Zherkov there suddenly\r
+appeared a stupid smile of glee which he seemed unable to suppress.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency," said he in German, stepping forward and addressing\r
+the Austrian general, "I have the honor to congratulate you."\r
+\r
+He bowed his head and scraped first with one foot and then with the\r
+other, awkwardly, like a child at a dancing lesson.\r
+\r
+The member of the Hofkriegsrath looked at him severely but, seeing the\r
+seriousness of his stupid smile, could not but give him a moment's\r
+attention. He screwed up his eyes showing that he was listening.\r
+\r
+"I have the honor to congratulate you. General Mack has arrived, quite\r
+well, only a little bruised just here," he added, pointing with a\r
+beaming smile to his head.\r
+\r
+The general frowned, turned away, and went on.\r
+\r
+"Gott, wie naiv!" * said he angrily, after he had gone a few steps.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Good God, what simplicity!"\r
+\r
+Nesvitski with a laugh threw his arms round Prince Andrew, but\r
+Bolkonski, turning still paler, pushed him away with an angry look and\r
+turned to Zherkov. The nervous irritation aroused by the appearance of\r
+Mack, the news of his defeat, and the thought of what lay before the\r
+Russian army found vent in anger at Zherkov's untimely jest.\r
+\r
+"If you, sir, choose to make a buffoon of yourself," he said sharply,\r
+with a slight trembling of the lower jaw, "I can't prevent your doing\r
+so; but I warn you that if you dare to play the fool in my presence, I\r
+will teach you to behave yourself."\r
+\r
+Nesvitski and Zherkov were so surprised by this outburst that they gazed\r
+at Bolkonski silently with wide-open eyes.\r
+\r
+"What's the matter? I only congratulated them," said Zherkov.\r
+\r
+"I am not jesting with you; please be silent!" cried Bolkonski, and\r
+taking Nesvitski's arm he left Zherkov, who did not know what to say.\r
+\r
+"Come, what's the matter, old fellow?" said Nesvitski trying to soothe\r
+him.\r
+\r
+"What's the matter?" exclaimed Prince Andrew standing still in his\r
+excitement. "Don't you understand that either we are officers serving\r
+our Tsar and our country, rejoicing in the successes and grieving at the\r
+misfortunes of our common cause, or we are merely lackeys who care\r
+nothing for their master's business. Quarante mille hommes massacres et\r
+l'armee de nos allies detruite, et vous trouvez la le mot pour rire," *\r
+he said, as if strengthening his views by this French sentence. "C'est\r
+bien pour un garcon de rien comme cet individu dont vous avez fait un\r
+ami, mais pas pour vous, pas pour vous. *(2) Only a hobbledehoy could\r
+amuse himself in this way," he added in Russian--but pronouncing the\r
+word with a French accent--having noticed that Zherkov could still hear\r
+him.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Forty thousand men massacred and the army of our allies destroyed,\r
+and you find that a cause for jesting!"\r
+\r
+* (2) "It is all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow of whom you\r
+have made a friend, but not for you, not for you."\r
+\r
+He waited a moment to see whether the cornet would answer, but he turned\r
+and went out of the corridor.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+The Pavlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The\r
+squadron in which Nicholas Rostov served as a cadet was quartered in the\r
+German village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were\r
+assigned to cavalry-captain Denisov, the squadron commander, known\r
+throughout the whole cavalry division as Vaska Denisov. Cadet Rostov,\r
+ever since he had overtaken the regiment in Poland, had lived with the\r
+squadron commander.\r
+\r
+On October 11, the day when all was astir at headquarters over the news\r
+of Mack's defeat, the camp life of the officers of this squadron was\r
+proceeding as usual. Denisov, who had been losing at cards all night,\r
+had not yet come home when Rostov rode back early in the morning from a\r
+foraging expedition. Rostov in his cadet uniform, with a jerk to his\r
+horse, rode up to the porch, swung his leg over the saddle with a supple\r
+youthful movement, stood for a moment in the stirrup as if loathe to\r
+part from his horse, and at last sprang down and called to his orderly.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Bondarenko, dear friend!" said he to the hussar who rushed up\r
+headlong to the horse. "Walk him up and down, my dear fellow," he\r
+continued, with that gay brotherly cordiality which goodhearted young\r
+people show to everyone when they are happy.\r
+\r
+"Yes, your excellency," answered the Ukrainian gaily, tossing his head.\r
+\r
+"Mind, walk him up and down well!"\r
+\r
+Another hussar also rushed toward the horse, but Bondarenko had already\r
+thrown the reins of the snaffle bridle over the horse's head. It was\r
+evident that the cadet was liberal with his tips and that it paid to\r
+serve him. Rostov patted the horse's neck and then his flank, and\r
+lingered for a moment.\r
+\r
+"Splendid! What a horse he will be!" he thought with a smile, and\r
+holding up his saber, his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the\r
+porch. His landlord, who in a waistcoat and a pointed cap, pitchfork in\r
+hand, was clearing manure from the cowhouse, looked out, and his face\r
+immediately brightened on seeing Rostov. "Schon gut Morgen! Schon gut\r
+Morgen!" * he said winking with a merry smile, evidently pleased to\r
+greet the young man.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "A very good morning! A very good morning!"\r
+\r
+"Schon fleissig?" * said Rostov with the same gay brotherly smile which\r
+did not leave his eager face. "Hoch Oestreicher! Hoch Russen! Kaiser\r
+Alexander hoch!" *(2) said he, quoting words often repeated by the\r
+German landlord.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Busy already?"\r
+\r
+* (2) "Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the Russians! Hurrah for\r
+Emperor Alexander!"\r
+\r
+The German laughed, came out of the cowshed, pulled off his cap, and\r
+waving it above his head cried:\r
+\r
+"Und die ganze Welt hoch!" *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "And hurrah for the whole world!"\r
+\r
+Rostov waved his cap above his head like the German and cried laughing,\r
+"Und vivat die ganze Welt!" Though neither the German cleaning his\r
+cowshed nor Rostov back with his platoon from foraging for hay had any\r
+reason for rejoicing, they looked at each other with joyful delight and\r
+brotherly love, wagged their heads in token of their mutual affection,\r
+and parted smiling, the German returning to his cowshed and Rostov going\r
+to the cottage he occupied with Denisov.\r
+\r
+"What about your master?" he asked Lavrushka, Denisov's orderly, whom\r
+all the regiment knew for a rogue.\r
+\r
+"Hasn't been in since the evening. Must have been losing," answered\r
+Lavrushka. "I know by now, if he wins he comes back early to brag about\r
+it, but if he stays out till morning it means he's lost and will come\r
+back in a rage. Will you have coffee?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, bring some."\r
+\r
+Ten minutes later Lavrushka brought the coffee. "He's coming!" said he.\r
+"Now for trouble!" Rostov looked out of the window and saw Denisov\r
+coming home. Denisov was a small man with a red face, sparkling black\r
+eyes, and black tousled mustache and hair. He wore an unfastened cloak,\r
+wide breeches hanging down in creases, and a crumpled shako on the back\r
+of his head. He came up to the porch gloomily, hanging his head.\r
+\r
+"Lavwuska!" he shouted loudly and angrily, "take it off, blockhead!"\r
+\r
+"Well, I am taking it off," replied Lavrushka's voice.\r
+\r
+"Ah, you're up already," said Denisov, entering the room.\r
+\r
+"Long ago," answered Rostov, "I have already been for the hay, and have\r
+seen Fraulein Mathilde."\r
+\r
+"Weally! And I've been losing, bwother. I lost yesterday like a damned\r
+fool!" cried Denisov, not pronouncing his r's. "Such ill luck! Such ill\r
+luck. As soon as you left, it began and went on. Hullo there! Tea!"\r
+\r
+Puckering up his face though smiling, and showing his short strong\r
+teeth, he began with stubby fingers of both hands to ruffle up his thick\r
+tangled black hair.\r
+\r
+"And what devil made me go to that wat?" (an officer nicknamed "the\r
+rat") he said, rubbing his forehead and whole face with both hands.\r
+"Just fancy, he didn't let me win a single cahd, not one cahd."\r
+\r
+He took the lighted pipe that was offered to him, gripped it in his\r
+fist, and tapped it on the floor, making the sparks fly, while he\r
+continued to shout.\r
+\r
+"He lets one win the singles and collahs it as soon as one doubles it;\r
+gives the singles and snatches the doubles!"\r
+\r
+He scattered the burning tobacco, smashed the pipe, and threw it away.\r
+Then he remained silent for a while, and all at once looked cheerfully\r
+with his glittering, black eyes at Rostov.\r
+\r
+"If at least we had some women here; but there's nothing foh one to do\r
+but dwink. If we could only get to fighting soon. Hullo, who's there?"\r
+he said, turning to the door as he heard a tread of heavy boots and the\r
+clinking of spurs that came to a stop, and a respectful cough.\r
+\r
+"The squadron quartermaster!" said Lavrushka.\r
+\r
+Denisov's face puckered still more.\r
+\r
+"Wetched!" he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in it.\r
+"Wostov, deah fellow, just see how much there is left and shove the\r
+purse undah the pillow," he said, and went out to the quartermaster.\r
+\r
+Rostov took the money and, mechanically arranging the old and new coins\r
+in separate piles, began counting them.\r
+\r
+"Ah! Telyanin! How d'ye do? They plucked me last night," came Denisov's\r
+voice from the next room.\r
+\r
+"Where? At Bykov's, at the rat's... I knew it," replied a piping voice,\r
+and Lieutenant Telyanin, a small officer of the same squadron, entered\r
+the room.\r
+\r
+Rostov thrust the purse under the pillow and shook the damp little hand\r
+which was offered him. Telyanin for some reason had been transferred\r
+from the Guards just before this campaign. He behaved very well in the\r
+regiment but was not liked; Rostov especially detested him and was\r
+unable to overcome or conceal his groundless antipathy to the man.\r
+\r
+"Well, young cavalryman, how is my Rook behaving?" he asked. (Rook was a\r
+young horse Telyanin had sold to Rostov.)\r
+\r
+The lieutenant never looked the man he was speaking to straight in the\r
+face; his eyes continually wandered from one object to another.\r
+\r
+"I saw you riding this morning..." he added.\r
+\r
+"Oh, he's all right, a good horse," answered Rostov, though the horse\r
+for which he had paid seven hundred rubbles was not worth half that sum.\r
+"He's begun to go a little lame on the left foreleg," he added.\r
+\r
+"The hoof's cracked! That's nothing. I'll teach you what to do and show\r
+you what kind of rivet to use."\r
+\r
+"Yes, please do," said Rostov.\r
+\r
+"I'll show you, I'll show you! It's not a secret. And it's a horse\r
+you'll thank me for."\r
+\r
+"Then I'll have it brought round," said Rostov wishing to avoid\r
+Telyanin, and he went out to give the order.\r
+\r
+In the passage Denisov, with a pipe, was squatting on the threshold\r
+facing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing Rostov,\r
+Denisov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder with his\r
+thumb to the room where Telyanin was sitting, he frowned and gave a\r
+shudder of disgust.\r
+\r
+"Ugh! I don't like that fellow," he said, regardless of the\r
+quartermaster's presence.\r
+\r
+Rostov shrugged his shoulders as much as to say: "Nor do I, but what's\r
+one to do?" and, having given his order, he returned to Telyanin.\r
+\r
+Telyanin was sitting in the same indolent pose in which Rostov had left\r
+him, rubbing his small white hands.\r
+\r
+"Well there certainly are disgusting people," thought Rostov as he\r
+entered.\r
+\r
+"Have you told them to bring the horse?" asked Telyanin, getting up and\r
+looking carelessly about him.\r
+\r
+"I have."\r
+\r
+"Let us go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denisov about yesterday's\r
+order. Have you got it, Denisov?"\r
+\r
+"Not yet. But where are you off to?"\r
+\r
+"I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse," said Telyanin.\r
+\r
+They went through the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant\r
+explained how to rivet the hoof and went away to his own quarters.\r
+\r
+When Rostov went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the\r
+table. Denisov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a sheet of\r
+paper. He looked gloomily in Rostov's face and said: "I am witing to\r
+her."\r
+\r
+He leaned his elbows on the table with his pen in his hand and,\r
+evidently glad of a chance to say quicker in words what he wanted to\r
+write, told Rostov the contents of his letter.\r
+\r
+"You see, my fwiend," he said, "we sleep when we don't love. We are\r
+childwen of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God, one is\r
+pua' as on the first day of cweation... Who's that now? Send him to the\r
+devil, I'm busy!" he shouted to Lavrushka, who went up to him not in the\r
+least abashed.\r
+\r
+"Who should it be? You yourself told him to come. It's the quartermaster\r
+for the money."\r
+\r
+Denisov frowned and was about to shout some reply but stopped.\r
+\r
+"Wetched business," he muttered to himself. "How much is left in the\r
+puhse?" he asked, turning to Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Seven new and three old imperials."\r
+\r
+"Oh, it's wetched! Well, what are you standing there for, you sca'cwow?\r
+Call the quahtehmasteh," he shouted to Lavrushka.\r
+\r
+"Please, Denisov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know," said\r
+Rostov, blushing.\r
+\r
+"Don't like bowwowing from my own fellows, I don't," growled Denisov.\r
+\r
+"But if you won't accept money from me like a comrade, you will offend\r
+me. Really I have some," Rostov repeated.\r
+\r
+"No, I tell you."\r
+\r
+And Denisov went to the bed to get the purse from under the pillow.\r
+\r
+"Where have you put it, Wostov?"\r
+\r
+"Under the lower pillow."\r
+\r
+"It's not there."\r
+\r
+Denisov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not there.\r
+\r
+"That's a miwacle."\r
+\r
+"Wait, haven't you dropped it?" said Rostov, picking up the pillows one\r
+at a time and shaking them.\r
+\r
+He pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not there.\r
+\r
+"Dear me, can I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking that you kept it\r
+under your head like a treasure," said Rostov. "I put it just here.\r
+Where is it?" he asked, turning to Lavrushka.\r
+\r
+"I haven't been in the room. It must be where you put it."\r
+\r
+"But it isn't?..."\r
+\r
+"You're always like that; you thwow a thing down anywhere and forget it.\r
+Feel in your pockets."\r
+\r
+"No, if I hadn't thought of it being a treasure," said Rostov, "but I\r
+remember putting it there."\r
+\r
+Lavrushka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed and under\r
+the table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of the\r
+room. Denisov silently watched Lavrushka's movements, and when the\r
+latter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be found\r
+Denisov glanced at Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Wostov, you've not been playing schoolboy twicks..."\r
+\r
+Rostov felt Denisov's gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes, and instantly\r
+dropped them again. All the blood which had seemed congested somewhere\r
+below his throat rushed to his face and eyes. He could not draw breath.\r
+\r
+"And there hasn't been anyone in the room except the lieutenant and\r
+yourselves. It must be here somewhere," said Lavrushka.\r
+\r
+"Now then, you devil's puppet, look alive and hunt for it!" shouted\r
+Denisov, suddenly, turning purple and rushing at the man with a\r
+threatening gesture. "If the purse isn't found I'll flog you, I'll flog\r
+you all."\r
+\r
+Rostov, his eyes avoiding Denisov, began buttoning his coat, buckled on\r
+his saber, and put on his cap.\r
+\r
+"I must have that purse, I tell you," shouted Denisov, shaking his\r
+orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall.\r
+\r
+"Denisov, let him alone, I know who has taken it," said Rostov, going\r
+toward the door without raising his eyes. Denisov paused, thought a\r
+moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostov hinted at, seized his\r
+arm.\r
+\r
+"Nonsense!" he cried, and the veins on his forehead and neck stood out\r
+like cords. "You are mad, I tell you. I won't allow it. The purse is\r
+here! I'll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be found."\r
+\r
+"I know who has taken it," repeated Rostov in an unsteady voice, and\r
+went to the door.\r
+\r
+"And I tell you, don't you dahe to do it!" shouted Denisov, rushing at\r
+the cadet to restrain him.\r
+\r
+But Rostov pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though Denisov\r
+were his worst enemy, firmly fixed his eyes directly on his face.\r
+\r
+"Do you understand what you're saying?" he said in a trembling voice.\r
+"There was no one else in the room except myself. So that if it is not\r
+so, then..."\r
+\r
+He could not finish, and ran out of the room.\r
+\r
+"Ah, may the devil take you and evewybody," were the last words Rostov\r
+heard.\r
+\r
+Rostov went to Telyanin's quarters.\r
+\r
+"The master is not in, he's gone to headquarters," said Telyanin's\r
+orderly. "Has something happened?" he added, surprised at the cadet's\r
+troubled face.\r
+\r
+"No, nothing."\r
+\r
+"You've only just missed him," said the orderly.\r
+\r
+The headquarters were situated two miles away from Salzeneck, and\r
+Rostov, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was\r
+an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostov rode up to\r
+it and saw Telyanin's horse at the porch.\r
+\r
+In the second room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting over a dish of\r
+sausages and a bottle of wine.\r
+\r
+"Ah, you've come here too, young man!" he said, smiling and raising his\r
+eyebrows.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Rostov as if it cost him a great deal to utter the word; and\r
+he sat down at the nearest table.\r
+\r
+Both were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in the\r
+room. No one spoke and the only sounds heard were the clatter of knives\r
+and the munching of the lieutenant.\r
+\r
+When Telyanin had finished his lunch he took out of his pocket a double\r
+purse and, drawing its rings aside with his small, white, turned-up\r
+fingers, drew out a gold imperial, and lifting his eyebrows gave it to\r
+the waiter.\r
+\r
+"Please be quick," he said.\r
+\r
+The coin was a new one. Rostov rose and went up to Telyanin.\r
+\r
+"Allow me to look at your purse," he said in a low, almost inaudible,\r
+voice.\r
+\r
+With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyanin handed him the\r
+purse.\r
+\r
+"Yes, it's a nice purse. Yes, yes," he said, growing suddenly pale, and\r
+added, "Look at it, young man."\r
+\r
+Rostov took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in it, and\r
+looked at Telyanin. The lieutenant was looking about in his usual way\r
+and suddenly seemed to grow very merry.\r
+\r
+"If we get to Vienna I'll get rid of it there but in these wretched\r
+little towns there's nowhere to spend it," said he. "Well, let me have\r
+it, young man, I'm going."\r
+\r
+Rostov did not speak.\r
+\r
+"And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite decently\r
+here," continued Telyanin. "Now then, let me have it."\r
+\r
+He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostov let go of\r
+it. Telyanin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it into the\r
+pocket of his riding breeches, with his eyebrows lifted and his mouth\r
+slightly open, as if to say, "Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in my\r
+pocket and that's quite simple and is no one else's business."\r
+\r
+"Well, young man?" he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted brows\r
+he glanced into Rostov's eyes.\r
+\r
+Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyanin's eyes to Rostov's\r
+and back, and back again and again in an instant.\r
+\r
+"Come here," said Rostov, catching hold of Telyanin's arm and almost\r
+dragging him to the window. "That money is Denisov's; you took it..." he\r
+whispered just above Telyanin's ear.\r
+\r
+"What? What? How dare you? What?" said Telyanin.\r
+\r
+But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty for\r
+pardon. As soon as Rostov heard them, an enormous load of doubt fell\r
+from him. He was glad, and at the same instant began to pity the\r
+miserable man who stood before him, but the task he had begun had to be\r
+completed.\r
+\r
+"Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine," muttered Telyanin,\r
+taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room. "We must have an\r
+explanation..."\r
+\r
+"I know it and shall prove it," said Rostov.\r
+\r
+"I..."\r
+\r
+Every muscle of Telyanin's pale, terrified face began to quiver, his\r
+eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not rising\r
+to Rostov's face, and his sobs were audible.\r
+\r
+"Count!... Don't ruin a young fellow... here is this wretched money,\r
+take it..." He threw it on the table. "I have an old father and\r
+mother!..."\r
+\r
+Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin's eyes, and went out of the\r
+room without a word. But at the door he stopped and then retraced his\r
+steps. "O God," he said with tears in his eyes, "how could you do it?"\r
+\r
+"Count..." said Telyanin drawing nearer to him.\r
+\r
+"Don't touch me," said Rostov, drawing back. "If you need it, take the\r
+money," and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+That same evening there was an animated discussion among the squadron's\r
+officers in Denisov's quarters.\r
+\r
+"And I tell you, Rostov, that you must apologize to the colonel!" said a\r
+tall, grizzly-haired staff captain, with enormous mustaches and many\r
+wrinkles on his large features, to Rostov who was crimson with\r
+excitement.\r
+\r
+The staff captain, Kirsten, had twice been reduced to the ranks for\r
+affairs of honor and had twice regained his commission.\r
+\r
+"I will allow no one to call me a liar!" cried Rostov. "He told me I\r
+lied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He may keep me on duty\r
+every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make me\r
+apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it\r
+beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then..."\r
+\r
+"You just wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen," interrupted the\r
+staff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache. "You\r
+tell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an officer has\r
+stolen..."\r
+\r
+"I'm not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of other\r
+officers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but I am not a\r
+diplomatist. That's why I joined the hussars, thinking that here one\r
+would not need finesse; and he tells me that I am lying--so let him give\r
+me satisfaction..."\r
+\r
+"That's all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that's not the point.\r
+Ask Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet to demand\r
+satisfaction of his regimental commander?"\r
+\r
+Denisov sat gloomily biting his mustache and listening to the\r
+conversation, evidently with no wish to take part in it. He answered the\r
+staff captain's question by a disapproving shake of his head.\r
+\r
+"You speak to the colonel about this nasty business before other\r
+officers," continued the staff captain, "and Bogdanich" (the colonel was\r
+called Bogdanich) "shuts you up."\r
+\r
+"He did not shut me up, he said I was telling an untruth."\r
+\r
+"Well, have it so, and you talked a lot of nonsense to him and must\r
+apologize."\r
+\r
+"Not on any account!" exclaimed Rostov.\r
+\r
+"I did not expect this of you," said the staff captain seriously and\r
+severely. "You don't wish to apologize, but, man, it's not only to him\r
+but to the whole regiment--all of us--you're to blame all round. The\r
+case is this: you ought to have thought the matter over and taken\r
+advice; but no, you go and blurt it all straight out before the\r
+officers. Now what was the colonel to do? Have the officer tried and\r
+disgrace the whole regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of one\r
+scoundrel? Is that how you look at it? We don't see it like that. And\r
+Bogdanich was a brick: he told you you were saying what was not true.\r
+It's not pleasant, but what's to be done, my dear fellow? You landed\r
+yourself in it. And now, when one wants to smooth the thing over, some\r
+conceit prevents your apologizing, and you wish to make the whole affair\r
+public. You are offended at being put on duty a bit, but why not\r
+apologize to an old and honorable officer? Whatever Bogdanich may be,\r
+anyway he is an honorable and brave old colonel! You're quick at taking\r
+offense, but you don't mind disgracing the whole regiment!" The staff\r
+captain's voice began to tremble. "You have been in the regiment next to\r
+no time, my lad, you're here today and tomorrow you'll be appointed\r
+adjutant somewhere and can snap your fingers when it is said 'There are\r
+thieves among the Pavlograd officers!' But it's not all the same to us!\r
+Am I not right, Denisov? It's not the same!"\r
+\r
+Denisov remained silent and did not move, but occasionally looked with\r
+his glittering black eyes at Rostov.\r
+\r
+"You value your own pride and don't wish to apologize," continued the\r
+staff captain, "but we old fellows, who have grown up in and, God\r
+willing, are going to die in the regiment, we prize the honor of the\r
+regiment, and Bogdanich knows it. Oh, we do prize it, old fellow! And\r
+all this is not right, it's not right! You may take offense or not but I\r
+always stick to mother truth. It's not right!"\r
+\r
+And the staff captain rose and turned away from Rostov.\r
+\r
+\r
+"That's twue, devil take it!" shouted Denisov, jumping up. "Now then,\r
+Wostov, now then!"\r
+\r
+Rostov, growing red and pale alternately, looked first at one officer\r
+and then at the other.\r
+\r
+"No, gentlemen, no... you mustn't think... I quite understand. You're\r
+wrong to think that of me... I... for me... for the honor of the\r
+regiment I'd... Ah well, I'll show that in action, and for me the honor\r
+of the flag... Well, never mind, it's true I'm to blame, to blame all\r
+round. Well, what else do you want?..."\r
+\r
+"Come, that's right, Count!" cried the staff captain, turning round and\r
+clapping Rostov on the shoulder with his big hand.\r
+\r
+"I tell you," shouted Denisov, "he's a fine fellow."\r
+\r
+"That's better, Count," said the staff captain, beginning to address\r
+Rostov by his title, as if in recognition of his confession. "Go and\r
+apologize, your excellency. Yes, go!"\r
+\r
+"Gentlemen, I'll do anything. No one shall hear a word from me," said\r
+Rostov in an imploring voice, "but I can't apologize, by God I can't, do\r
+what you will! How can I go and apologize like a little boy asking\r
+forgiveness?"\r
+\r
+Denisov began to laugh.\r
+\r
+"It'll be worse for you. Bogdanich is vindictive and you'll pay for your\r
+obstinacy," said Kirsten.\r
+\r
+"No, on my word it's not obstinacy! I can't describe the feeling. I\r
+can't..."\r
+\r
+"Well, it's as you like," said the staff captain. "And what has become\r
+of that scoundrel?" he asked Denisov.\r
+\r
+"He has weported himself sick, he's to be stwuck off the list tomowwow,"\r
+muttered Denisov.\r
+\r
+"It is an illness, there's no other way of explaining it," said the\r
+staff captain.\r
+\r
+"Illness or not, he'd better not cwoss my path. I'd kill him!" shouted\r
+Denisov in a bloodthirsty tone.\r
+\r
+Just then Zherkov entered the room.\r
+\r
+"What brings you here?" cried the officers turning to the newcomer.\r
+\r
+"We're to go into action, gentlemen! Mack has surrendered with his whole\r
+army."\r
+\r
+"It's not true!"\r
+\r
+"I've seen him myself!"\r
+\r
+"What? Saw the real Mack? With hands and feet?"\r
+\r
+"Into action! Into action! Bring him a bottle for such news! But how did\r
+you come here?"\r
+\r
+"I've been sent back to the regiment all on account of that devil, Mack.\r
+An Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on Mack's\r
+arrival... What's the matter, Rostov? You look as if you'd just come out\r
+of a hot bath."\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear fellow, we're in such a stew here these last two days."\r
+\r
+The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by\r
+Zherkov. They were under orders to advance next day.\r
+\r
+"We're going into action, gentlemen!"\r
+\r
+"Well, thank God! We've been sitting here too long!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+Kutuzov fell back toward Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges over\r
+the rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October 23 the\r
+Russian troops were crossing the river Enns. At midday the Russian\r
+baggage train, the artillery, and columns of troops were defiling\r
+through the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge.\r
+\r
+It was a warm, rainy, autumnal day. The wide expanse that opened out\r
+before the heights on which the Russian batteries stood guarding the\r
+bridge was at times veiled by a diaphanous curtain of slanting rain, and\r
+then, suddenly spread out in the sunlight, far-distant objects could be\r
+clearly seen glittering as though freshly varnished. Down below, the\r
+little town could be seen with its white, red-roofed houses, its\r
+cathedral, and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed jostling\r
+masses of Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, vessels, an island,\r
+and a castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the confluence of\r
+the Enns and the Danube became visible, and the rocky left bank of the\r
+Danube covered with pine forests, with a mystic background of green\r
+treetops and bluish gorges. The turrets of a convent stood out beyond a\r
+wild virgin pine forest, and far away on the other side of the Enns the\r
+enemy's horse patrols could be discerned.\r
+\r
+Among the field guns on the brow of the hill the general in command of\r
+the rearguard stood with a staff officer, scanning the country through\r
+his fieldglass. A little behind them Nesvitski, who had been sent to the\r
+rearguard by the commander-in-chief, was sitting on the trail of a gun\r
+carriage. A Cossack who accompanied him had handed him a knapsack and a\r
+flask, and Nesvitski was treating some officers to pies and real\r
+doppelkummel. The officers gladly gathered round him, some on their\r
+knees, some squatting Turkish fashion on the wet grass.\r
+\r
+"Yes, the Austrian prince who built that castle was no fool. It's a fine\r
+place! Why are you not eating anything, gentlemen?" Nesvitski was\r
+saying.\r
+\r
+"Thank you very much, Prince," answered one of the officers, pleased to\r
+be talking to a staff officer of such importance. "It's a lovely place!\r
+We passed close to the park and saw two deer... and what a splendid\r
+house!"\r
+\r
+"Look, Prince," said another, who would have dearly liked to take\r
+another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the\r
+countryside--"See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there in\r
+the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something.\r
+They'll ransack that castle," he remarked with evident approval.\r
+\r
+"So they will," said Nesvitski. "No, but what I should like," added he,\r
+munching a pie in his moist-lipped handsome mouth, "would be to slip in\r
+over there."\r
+\r
+He pointed with a smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed and\r
+gleamed.\r
+\r
+"That would be fine, gentlemen!"\r
+\r
+The officers laughed.\r
+\r
+"Just to flutter the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls among\r
+them. On my word I'd give five years of my life for it!"\r
+\r
+"They must be feeling dull, too," said one of the bolder officers,\r
+laughing.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile the staff officer standing in front pointed out something to\r
+the general, who looked through his field glass.\r
+\r
+"Yes, so it is, so it is," said the general angrily, lowering the field\r
+glass and shrugging his shoulders, "so it is! They'll be fired on at the\r
+crossing. And why are they dawdling there?"\r
+\r
+On the opposite side the enemy could be seen by the naked eye, and from\r
+their battery a milk-white cloud arose. Then came the distant report of\r
+a shot, and our troops could be seen hurrying to the crossing.\r
+\r
+Nesvitski rose, puffing, and went up to the general, smiling.\r
+\r
+"Would not your excellency like a little refreshment?" he said.\r
+\r
+"It's a bad business," said the general without answering him, "our men\r
+have been wasting time."\r
+\r
+"Hadn't I better ride over, your excellency?" asked Nesvitski.\r
+\r
+"Yes, please do," answered the general, and he repeated the order that\r
+had already once been given in detail: "and tell the hussars that they\r
+are to cross last and to fire the bridge as I ordered; and the\r
+inflammable material on the bridge must be reinspected."\r
+\r
+"Very good," answered Nesvitski.\r
+\r
+He called the Cossack with his horse, told him to put away the knapsack\r
+and flask, and swung his heavy person easily into the saddle.\r
+\r
+"I'll really call in on the nuns," he said to the officers who watched\r
+him smilingly, and he rode off by the winding path down the hill.\r
+\r
+"Now then, let's see how far it will carry, Captain. Just try!" said the\r
+general, turning to an artillery officer. "Have a little fun to pass the\r
+time."\r
+\r
+"Crew, to your guns!" commanded the officer.\r
+\r
+In a moment the men came running gaily from their campfires and began\r
+loading.\r
+\r
+"One!" came the command.\r
+\r
+Number one jumped briskly aside. The gun rang out with a deafening\r
+metallic roar, and a whistling grenade flew above the heads of our\r
+troops below the hill and fell far short of the enemy, a little smoke\r
+showing the spot where it burst.\r
+\r
+The faces of officers and men brightened up at the sound. Everyone got\r
+up and began watching the movements of our troops below, as plainly\r
+visible as if but a stone's throw away, and the movements of the\r
+approaching enemy farther off. At the same instant the sun came fully\r
+out from behind the clouds, and the clear sound of the solitary shot and\r
+the brilliance of the bright sunshine merged in a single joyous and\r
+spirited impression.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+Two of the enemy's shots had already flown across the bridge, where\r
+there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvitski, who had\r
+alighted from his horse and whose big body was jammed against the\r
+railings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack who stood a few steps\r
+behind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each time Prince\r
+Nesvitski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed him back again and\r
+pressed him against the railings, and all he could do was to smile.\r
+\r
+"What a fine fellow you are, friend!" said the Cossack to a convoy\r
+soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were\r
+crowded together close to his wheels and his horses. "What a fellow! You\r
+can't wait a moment! Don't you see the general wants to pass?"\r
+\r
+But the convoyman took no notice of the word "general" and shouted at\r
+the soldiers who were blocking his way. "Hi there, boys! Keep to the\r
+left! Wait a bit." But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder to\r
+shoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a dense\r
+mass. Looking down over the rails Prince Nesvitski saw the rapid, noisy\r
+little waves of the Enns, which rippling and eddying round the piles of\r
+the bridge chased each other along. Looking on the bridge he saw equally\r
+uniform living waves of soldiers, shoulder straps, covered shakos,\r
+knapsacks, bayonets, long muskets, and, under the shakos, faces with\r
+broad cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and listless tired expressions, and\r
+feet that moved through the sticky mud that covered the planks of the\r
+bridge. Sometimes through the monotonous waves of men, like a fleck of\r
+white foam on the waves of the Enns, an officer, in a cloak and with a\r
+type of face different from that of the men, squeezed his way along;\r
+sometimes like a chip of wood whirling in the river, an hussar on foot,\r
+an orderly, or a townsman was carried through the waves of infantry; and\r
+sometimes like a log floating down the river, an officers' or company's\r
+baggage wagon, piled high, leather covered, and hemmed in on all sides,\r
+moved across the bridge.\r
+\r
+"It's as if a dam had burst," said the Cossack hopelessly. "Are there\r
+many more of you to come?"\r
+\r
+"A million all but one!" replied a waggish soldier in a torn coat, with\r
+a wink, and passed on followed by another, an old man.\r
+\r
+"If he" (he meant the enemy) "begins popping at the bridge now," said\r
+the old soldier dismally to a comrade, "you'll forget to scratch\r
+yourself."\r
+\r
+That soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting on a cart.\r
+\r
+"Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?" said an orderly,\r
+running behind the cart and fumbling in the back of it.\r
+\r
+And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry soldiers who\r
+had evidently been drinking.\r
+\r
+"And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth with the butt end\r
+of his gun..." a soldier whose greatcoat was well tucked up said gaily,\r
+with a wide swing of his arm.\r
+\r
+"Yes, the ham was just delicious..." answered another with a loud laugh.\r
+And they, too, passed on, so that Nesvitski did not learn who had been\r
+struck on the teeth, or what the ham had to do with it.\r
+\r
+"Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they think they'll all\r
+be killed," a sergeant was saying angrily and reproachfully.\r
+\r
+"As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean," said a young soldier with\r
+an enormous mouth, hardly refraining from laughing, "I felt like dying\r
+of fright. I did, 'pon my word, I got that frightened!" said he, as if\r
+bragging of having been frightened.\r
+\r
+That one also passed. Then followed a cart unlike any that had gone\r
+before. It was a German cart with a pair of horses led by a German, and\r
+seemed loaded with a whole houseful of effects. A fine brindled cow with\r
+a large udder was attached to the cart behind. A woman with an unweaned\r
+baby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl with bright red cheeks\r
+were sitting on some feather beds. Evidently these fugitives were\r
+allowed to pass by special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers\r
+turned toward the women, and while the vehicle was passing at foot pace\r
+all the soldiers' remarks related to the two young ones. Every face bore\r
+almost the same smile, expressing unseemly thoughts about the women.\r
+\r
+"Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!"\r
+\r
+"Sell me the missis," said another soldier, addressing the German, who,\r
+angry and frightened, strode energetically along with downcast eyes.\r
+\r
+"See how smart she's made herself! Oh, the devils!"\r
+\r
+"There, Fedotov, you should be quartered on them!"\r
+\r
+"I have seen as much before now, mate!"\r
+\r
+"Where are you going?" asked an infantry officer who was eating an\r
+apple, also half smiling as he looked at the handsome girl.\r
+\r
+The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand.\r
+\r
+"Take it if you like," said the officer, giving the girl an apple.\r
+\r
+The girl smiled and took it. Nesvitski like the rest of the men on the\r
+bridge did not take his eyes off the women till they had passed. When\r
+they had gone by, the same stream of soldiers followed, with the same\r
+kind of talk, and at last all stopped. As often happens, the horses of a\r
+convoy wagon became restive at the end of the bridge, and the whole\r
+crowd had to wait.\r
+\r
+"And why are they stopping? There's no proper order!" said the soldiers.\r
+"Where are you shoving to? Devil take you! Can't you wait? It'll be\r
+worse if he fires the bridge. See, here's an officer jammed in too"--\r
+different voices were saying in the crowd, as the men looked at one\r
+another, and all pressed toward the exit from the bridge.\r
+\r
+Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvitski\r
+suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly approaching...\r
+something big, that splashed into the water.\r
+\r
+"Just see where it carries to!" a soldier near by said sternly, looking\r
+round at the sound.\r
+\r
+"Encouraging us to get along quicker," said another uneasily.\r
+\r
+The crowd moved on again. Nesvitski realized that it was a cannon ball.\r
+\r
+"Hey, Cossack, my horse!" he said. "Now, then, you there! get out of the\r
+way! Make way!"\r
+\r
+With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and shouting\r
+continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed themselves to make way\r
+for him, but again pressed on him so that they jammed his leg, and those\r
+nearest him were not to blame for they were themselves pressed still\r
+harder from behind.\r
+\r
+"Nesvitski, Nesvitski! you numskull!" came a hoarse voice from behind\r
+him.\r
+\r
+Nesvitski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but separated by\r
+the living mass of moving infantry, Vaska Denisov, red and shaggy, with\r
+his cap on the back of his black head and a cloak hanging jauntily over\r
+his shoulder.\r
+\r
+"Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!" shouted Denisov\r
+evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with their bloodshot\r
+whites glittering and rolling as he waved his sheathed saber in a small\r
+bare hand as red as his face.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Vaska!" joyfully replied Nesvitski. "What's up with you?"\r
+\r
+"The squadwon can't pass," shouted Vaska Denisov, showing his white\r
+teeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which twitched\r
+its ears as the bayonets touched it, and snorted, spurting white foam\r
+from his bit, tramping the planks of the bridge with his hoofs, and\r
+apparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider let him. "What\r
+is this? They're like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of the way!... Let us\r
+pass!... Stop there, you devil with the cart! I'll hack you with my\r
+saber!" he shouted, actually drawing his saber from its scabbard and\r
+flourishing it.\r
+\r
+The soldiers crowded against one another with terrified faces, and\r
+Denisov joined Nesvitski.\r
+\r
+"How's it you're not drunk today?" said Nesvitski when the other had\r
+ridden up to him.\r
+\r
+"They don't even give one time to dwink!" answered Vaska Denisov. "They\r
+keep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo all day. If they mean to fight,\r
+let's fight. But the devil knows what this is."\r
+\r
+"What a dandy you are today!" said Nesvitski, looking at Denisov's new\r
+cloak and saddlecloth.\r
+\r
+Denisov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief that diffused\r
+a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvitski's nose.\r
+\r
+"Of course. I'm going into action! I've shaved, bwushed my teeth, and\r
+scented myself."\r
+\r
+The imposing figure of Nesvitski followed by his Cossack, and the\r
+determination of Denisov who flourished his sword and shouted\r
+frantically, had such an effect that they managed to squeeze through to\r
+the farther side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Beside the\r
+bridge Nesvitski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order,\r
+and having done this he rode back.\r
+\r
+Having cleared the way Denisov stopped at the end of the bridge.\r
+Carelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing the\r
+ground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he watched his squadron draw\r
+nearer. Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping,\r
+resounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in\r
+front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began to emerge\r
+on his side of it.\r
+\r
+The infantry who had been stopped crowded near the bridge in the\r
+trampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of ill-will,\r
+estrangement, and ridicule with which troops of different arms usually\r
+encounter one another at the clean, smart hussars who moved past them in\r
+regular order.\r
+\r
+"Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!" said one.\r
+\r
+"What good are they? They're led about just for show!" remarked another.\r
+\r
+"Don't kick up the dust, you infantry!" jested an hussar whose prancing\r
+horse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers.\r
+\r
+"I'd like to put you on a two days' march with a knapsack! Your fine\r
+cords would soon get a bit rubbed," said an infantryman, wiping the mud\r
+off his face with his sleeve. "Perched up there, you're more like a bird\r
+than a man."\r
+\r
+"There now, Zikin, they ought to put you on a horse. You'd look fine,"\r
+said a corporal, chaffing a thin little soldier who bent under the\r
+weight of his knapsack.\r
+\r
+"Take a stick between your legs, that'll suit you for a horse!" the\r
+hussar shouted back.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing\r
+together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last\r
+the baggage wagons had all crossed, the crush was less, and the last\r
+battalion came onto the bridge. Only Denisov's squadron of hussars\r
+remained on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who could\r
+be seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was not yet visible from\r
+the bridge, for the horizon as seen from the valley through which the\r
+river flowed was formed by the rising ground only half a mile away. At\r
+the foot of the hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of our\r
+Cossack scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the high\r
+ground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen. These were the\r
+French. A group of Cossack scouts retired down the hill at a trot. All\r
+the officers and men of Denisov's squadron, though they tried to talk of\r
+other things and to look in other directions, thought only of what was\r
+there on the hilltop, and kept constantly looking at the patches\r
+appearing on the skyline, which they knew to be the enemy's troops. The\r
+weather had cleared again since noon and the sun was descending brightly\r
+upon the Danube and the dark hills around it. It was calm, and at\r
+intervals the bugle calls and the shouts of the enemy could be heard\r
+from the hill. There was no one now between the squadron and the enemy\r
+except a few scattered skirmishers. An empty space of some seven hundred\r
+yards was all that separated them. The enemy ceased firing, and that\r
+stern, threatening, inaccessible, and intangible line which separates\r
+two hostile armies was all the more clearly felt.\r
+\r
+"One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing\r
+the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And\r
+what is there? Who is there?--there beyond that field, that tree, that\r
+roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear\r
+and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must\r
+be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will\r
+inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are\r
+strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such\r
+excitedly animated and healthy men." So thinks, or at any rate feels,\r
+anyone who comes in sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives a\r
+particular glamour and glad keenness of impression to everything that\r
+takes place at such moments.\r
+\r
+On the high ground where the enemy was, the smoke of a cannon rose, and\r
+a ball flew whistling over the heads of the hussar squadron. The\r
+officers who had been standing together rode off to their places. The\r
+hussars began carefully aligning their horses. Silence fell on the whole\r
+squadron. All were looking at the enemy in front and at the squadron\r
+commander, awaiting the word of command. A second and a third cannon\r
+ball flew past. Evidently they were firing at the hussars, but the balls\r
+with rapid rhythmic whistle flew over the heads of the horsemen and fell\r
+somewhere beyond them. The hussars did not look round, but at the sound\r
+of each shot, as at the word of command, the whole squadron with its\r
+rows of faces so alike yet so different, holding its breath while the\r
+ball flew past, rose in the stirrups and sank back again. The soldiers\r
+without turning their heads glanced at one another, curious to see their\r
+comrades' impression. Every face, from Denisov's to that of the bugler,\r
+showed one common expression of conflict, irritation, and excitement,\r
+around chin and mouth. The quartermaster frowned, looking at the\r
+soldiers as if threatening to punish them. Cadet Mironov ducked every\r
+time a ball flew past. Rostov on the left flank, mounted on his Rook--a\r
+handsome horse despite its game leg--had the happy air of a schoolboy\r
+called up before a large audience for an examination in which he feels\r
+sure he will distinguish himself. He was glancing at everyone with a\r
+clear, bright expression, as if asking them to notice how calmly he sat\r
+under fire. But despite himself, on his face too that same indication of\r
+something new and stern showed round the mouth.\r
+\r
+"Who's that curtseying there? Cadet Miwonov! That's not wight! Look at\r
+me," cried Denisov who, unable to keep still on one spot, kept turning\r
+his horse in front of the squadron.\r
+\r
+The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Vaska Denisov, and his whole short\r
+sturdy figure with the sinewy hairy hand and stumpy fingers in which he\r
+held the hilt of his naked saber, looked just as it usually did,\r
+especially toward evening when he had emptied his second bottle; he was\r
+only redder than usual. With his shaggy head thrown back like birds when\r
+they drink, pressing his spurs mercilessly into the sides of his good\r
+horse, Bedouin, and sitting as though falling backwards in the saddle,\r
+he galloped to the other flank of the squadron and shouted in a hoarse\r
+voice to the men to look to their pistols. He rode up to Kirsten. The\r
+staff captain on his broad-backed, steady mare came at a walk to meet\r
+him. His face with its long mustache was serious as always, only his\r
+eyes were brighter than usual.\r
+\r
+"Well, what about it?" said he to Denisov. "It won't come to a fight.\r
+You'll see--we shall retire."\r
+\r
+"The devil only knows what they're about!" muttered Denisov. "Ah,\r
+Wostov," he cried noticing the cadet's bright face, "you've got it at\r
+last."\r
+\r
+And he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the cadet. Rostov felt\r
+perfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the bridge. Denisov\r
+galloped up to him.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency! Let us attack them! I'll dwive them off."\r
+\r
+"Attack indeed!" said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering up his\r
+face as if driving off a troublesome fly. "And why are you stopping\r
+here? Don't you see the skirmishers are retreating? Lead the squadron\r
+back."\r
+\r
+The squadron crossed the bridge and drew out of range of fire without\r
+having lost a single man. The second squadron that had been in the front\r
+line followed them across and the last Cossacks quitted the farther side\r
+of the river.\r
+\r
+The two Pavlograd squadrons, having crossed the bridge, retired up the\r
+hill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl Bogdanich Schubert, came\r
+up to Denisov's squadron and rode at a footpace not far from Rostov,\r
+without taking any notice of him although they were now meeting for the\r
+first time since their encounter concerning Telyanin. Rostov, feeling\r
+that he was at the front and in the power of a man toward whom he now\r
+admitted that he had been to blame, did not lift his eyes from the\r
+colonel's athletic back, his nape covered with light hair, and his red\r
+neck. It seemed to Rostov that Bogdanich was only pretending not to\r
+notice him, and that his whole aim now was to test the cadet's courage,\r
+so he drew himself up and looked around him merrily; then it seemed to\r
+him that Bogdanich rode so near in order to show him his courage. Next\r
+he thought that his enemy would send the squadron on a desperate attack\r
+just to punish him--Rostov. Then he imagined how, after the attack,\r
+Bogdanich would come up to him as he lay wounded and would magnanimously\r
+extend the hand of reconciliation.\r
+\r
+The high-shouldered figure of Zherkov, familiar to the Pavlograds as he\r
+had but recently left their regiment, rode up to the colonel. After his\r
+dismissal from headquarters Zherkov had not remained in the regiment,\r
+saying he was not such a fool as to slave at the front when he could get\r
+more rewards by doing nothing on the staff, and had succeeded in\r
+attaching himself as an orderly officer to Prince Bagration. He now came\r
+to his former chief with an order from the commander of the rear guard.\r
+\r
+"Colonel," he said, addressing Rostov's enemy with an air of gloomy\r
+gravity and glancing round at his comrades, "there is an order to stop\r
+and fire the bridge."\r
+\r
+"An order to who?" asked the colonel morosely.\r
+\r
+"I don't myself know 'to who,'" replied the cornet in a serious tone,\r
+"but the prince told me to 'go and tell the colonel that the hussars\r
+must return quickly and fire the bridge.'"\r
+\r
+Zherkov was followed by an officer of the suite who rode up to the\r
+colonel of hussars with the same order. After him the stout Nesvitski\r
+came galloping up on a Cossack horse that could scarcely carry his\r
+weight.\r
+\r
+"How's this, Colonel?" he shouted as he approached. "I told you to fire\r
+the bridge, and now someone has gone and blundered; they are all beside\r
+themselves over there and one can't make anything out."\r
+\r
+The colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvitski.\r
+\r
+"You spoke to me of inflammable material," said he, "but you said\r
+nothing about firing it."\r
+\r
+"But, my dear sir," said Nesvitski as he drew up, taking off his cap and\r
+smoothing his hair wet with perspiration with his plump hand, "wasn't I\r
+telling you to fire the bridge, when inflammable material had been put\r
+in position?"\r
+\r
+"I am not your 'dear sir,' Mr. Staff Officer, and you did not tell me to\r
+burn the bridge! I know the service, and it is my habit orders strictly\r
+to obey. You said the bridge would be burned, but who would it burn, I\r
+could not know by the holy spirit!"\r
+\r
+"Ah, that's always the way!" said Nesvitski with a wave of the hand.\r
+"How did you get here?" said he, turning to Zherkov.\r
+\r
+"On the same business. But you are damp! Let me wring you out!"\r
+\r
+"You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer..." continued the colonel in an\r
+offended tone.\r
+\r
+"Colonel," interrupted the officer of the suite, "You must be quick or\r
+the enemy will bring up his guns to use grapeshot."\r
+\r
+The colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at the stout\r
+staff officer, and at Zherkov, and he frowned.\r
+\r
+"I will the bridge fire," he said in a solemn tone as if to announce\r
+that in spite of all the unpleasantness he had to endure he would still\r
+do the right thing.\r
+\r
+Striking his horse with his long muscular legs as if it were to blame\r
+for everything, the colonel moved forward and ordered the second\r
+squadron, that in which Rostov was serving under Denisov, to return to\r
+the bridge.\r
+\r
+"There, it's just as I thought," said Rostov to himself. "He wishes to\r
+test me!" His heart contracted and the blood rushed to his face. "Let\r
+him see whether I am a coward!" he thought.\r
+\r
+Again on all the bright faces of the squadron the serious expression\r
+appeared that they had worn when under fire. Rostov watched his enemy,\r
+the colonel, closely--to find in his face confirmation of his own\r
+conjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostov, and looked as\r
+he always did when at the front, solemn and stern. Then came the word of\r
+command.\r
+\r
+"Look sharp! Look sharp!" several voices repeated around him.\r
+\r
+Their sabers catching in the bridles and their spurs jingling, the\r
+hussars hastily dismounted, not knowing what they were to do. The men\r
+were crossing themselves. Rostov no longer looked at the colonel, he had\r
+no time. He was afraid of falling behind the hussars, so much afraid\r
+that his heart stood still. His hand trembled as he gave his horse into\r
+an orderly's charge, and he felt the blood rush to his heart with a\r
+thud. Denisov rode past him, leaning back and shouting something. Rostov\r
+saw nothing but the hussars running all around him, their spurs catching\r
+and their sabers clattering.\r
+\r
+"Stretchers!" shouted someone behind him.\r
+\r
+Rostov did not think what this call for stretchers meant; he ran on,\r
+trying only to be ahead of the others; but just at the bridge, not\r
+looking at the ground, he came on some sticky, trodden mud, stumbled,\r
+and fell on his hands. The others outstripped him.\r
+\r
+"At boss zides, Captain," he heard the voice of the colonel, who, having\r
+ridden ahead, had pulled up his horse near the bridge, with a\r
+triumphant, cheerful face.\r
+\r
+Rostov wiping his muddy hands on his breeches looked at his enemy and\r
+was about to run on, thinking that the farther he went to the front the\r
+better. But Bogdanich, without looking at or recognizing Rostov, shouted\r
+to him:\r
+\r
+"Who's that running on the middle of the bridge? To the right! Come\r
+back, Cadet!" he cried angrily; and turning to Denisov, who, showing off\r
+his courage, had ridden on to the planks of the bridge:\r
+\r
+"Why run risks, Captain? You should dismount," he said.\r
+\r
+"Oh, every bullet has its billet," answered Vaska Denisov, turning in\r
+his saddle.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite were standing\r
+together out of range of the shots, watching, now the small group of men\r
+with yellow shakos, dark-green jackets braided with cord, and blue\r
+riding breeches, who were swarming near the bridge, and then at what was\r
+approaching in the distance from the opposite side--the blue uniforms\r
+and groups with horses, easily recognizable as artillery.\r
+\r
+"Will they burn the bridge or not? Who'll get there first? Will they get\r
+there and fire the bridge or will the French get within grapeshot range\r
+and wipe them out?" These were the questions each man of the troops on\r
+the high ground above the bridge involuntarily asked himself with a\r
+sinking heart--watching the bridge and the hussars in the bright evening\r
+light and the blue tunics advancing from the other side with their\r
+bayonets and guns.\r
+\r
+"Ugh. The hussars will get it hot!" said Nesvitski; "they are within\r
+grapeshot range now."\r
+\r
+"He shouldn't have taken so many men," said the officer of the suite.\r
+\r
+"True enough," answered Nesvitski; "two smart fellows could have done\r
+the job just as well."\r
+\r
+"Ah, your excellency," put in Zherkov, his eyes fixed on the hussars,\r
+but still with that naive air that made it impossible to know whether he\r
+was speaking in jest or in earnest. "Ah, your excellency! How you look\r
+at things! Send two men? And who then would give us the Vladimir medal\r
+and ribbon? But now, even if they do get peppered, the squadron may be\r
+recommended for honors and he may get a ribbon. Our Bogdanich knows how\r
+things are done."\r
+\r
+"There now!" said the officer of the suite, "that's grapeshot."\r
+\r
+He pointed to the French guns, the limbers of which were being detached\r
+and hurriedly removed.\r
+\r
+On the French side, amid the groups with cannon, a cloud of smoke\r
+appeared, then a second and a third almost simultaneously, and at the\r
+moment when the first report was heard a fourth was seen. Then two\r
+reports one after another, and a third.\r
+\r
+"Oh! Oh!" groaned Nesvitski as if in fierce pain, seizing the officer of\r
+the suite by the arm. "Look! A man has fallen! Fallen, fallen!"\r
+\r
+"Two, I think."\r
+\r
+"If I were Tsar I would never go to war," said Nesvitski, turning away.\r
+\r
+The French guns were hastily reloaded. The infantry in their blue\r
+uniforms advanced toward the bridge at a run. Smoke appeared again but\r
+at irregular intervals, and grapeshot cracked and rattled onto the\r
+bridge. But this time Nesvitski could not see what was happening there,\r
+as a dense cloud of smoke arose from it. The hussars had succeeded in\r
+setting it on fire and the French batteries were now firing at them, no\r
+longer to hinder them but because the guns were trained and there was\r
+someone to fire at.\r
+\r
+The French had time to fire three rounds of grapeshot before the hussars\r
+got back to their horses. Two were misdirected and the shot went too\r
+high, but the last round fell in the midst of a group of hussars and\r
+knocked three of them over.\r
+\r
+Rostov, absorbed by his relations with Bogdanich, had paused on the\r
+bridge not knowing what to do. There was no one to hew down (as he had\r
+always imagined battles to himself), nor could he help to fire the\r
+bridge because he had not brought any burning straw with him like the\r
+other soldiers. He stood looking about him, when suddenly he heard a\r
+rattle on the bridge as if nuts were being spilt, and the hussar nearest\r
+to him fell against the rails with a groan. Rostov ran up to him with\r
+the others. Again someone shouted, "Stretchers!" Four men seized the\r
+hussar and began lifting him.\r
+\r
+"Oooh! For Christ's sake let me alone!" cried the wounded man, but still\r
+he was lifted and laid on the stretcher.\r
+\r
+Nicholas Rostov turned away and, as if searching for something, gazed\r
+into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, and at the\r
+sun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm, and how deep! How\r
+bright and glorious was the setting sun! With what soft glitter the\r
+waters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer still were the faraway\r
+blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious gorges, and\r
+the pine forests veiled in the mist of their summits... There was peace\r
+and happiness... "I should wish for nothing else, nothing, if only I\r
+were there," thought Rostov. "In myself alone and in that sunshine there\r
+is so much happiness; but here... groans, suffering, fear, and this\r
+uncertainty and hurry... There--they are shouting again, and again are\r
+all running back somewhere, and I shall run with them, and it, death, is\r
+here above me and around... Another instant and I shall never again see\r
+the sun, this water, that gorge!..."\r
+\r
+At that instant the sun began to hide behind the clouds, and other\r
+stretchers came into view before Rostov. And the fear of death and of\r
+the stretchers, and love of the sun and of life, all merged into one\r
+feeling of sickening agitation.\r
+\r
+"O Lord God! Thou who art in that heaven, save, forgive, and protect\r
+me!" Rostov whispered.\r
+\r
+The hussars ran back to the men who held their horses; their voices\r
+sounded louder and calmer, the stretchers disappeared from sight.\r
+\r
+"Well, fwiend? So you've smelt powdah!" shouted Vaska Denisov just above\r
+his ear.\r
+\r
+"It's all over; but I am a coward--yes, a coward!" thought Rostov, and\r
+sighing deeply he took Rook, his horse, which stood resting one foot,\r
+from the orderly and began to mount.\r
+\r
+"Was that grapeshot?" he asked Denisov.\r
+\r
+"Yes and no mistake!" cried Denisov. "You worked like wegular bwicks and\r
+it's nasty work! An attack's pleasant work! Hacking away at the dogs!\r
+But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them shooting at you like\r
+a target."\r
+\r
+And Denisov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostov, composed of\r
+the colonel, Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer from the suite.\r
+\r
+"Well, it seems that no one has noticed," thought Rostov. And this was\r
+true. No one had taken any notice, for everyone knew the sensation which\r
+the cadet under fire for the first time had experienced.\r
+\r
+"Here's something for you to report," said Zherkov. "See if I don't get\r
+promoted to a sublieutenancy."\r
+\r
+"Inform the prince that I the bridge fired!" said the colonel\r
+triumphantly and gaily.\r
+\r
+"And if he asks about the losses?"\r
+\r
+"A trifle," said the colonel in his bass voice: "two hussars wounded,\r
+and one knocked out," he added, unable to restrain a happy smile, and\r
+pronouncing the phrase "knocked out" with ringing distinctness.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+Pursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the command\r
+of Bonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly to it,\r
+losing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of supplies,\r
+and compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything that had\r
+been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men commanded by\r
+Kutuzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube, stopping where\r
+overtaken by the enemy and fighting rearguard actions only as far as\r
+necessary to enable it to retreat without losing its heavy equipment.\r
+There had been actions at Lambach, Amstetten, and Melk; but despite the\r
+courage and endurance--acknowledged even by the enemy--with which the\r
+Russians fought, the only consequence of these actions was a yet more\r
+rapid retreat. Austrian troops that had escaped capture at Ulm and had\r
+joined Kutuzov at Braunau now separated from the Russian army, and\r
+Kutuzov was left with only his own weak and exhausted forces. The\r
+defense of Vienna was no longer to be thought of. Instead of an\r
+offensive, the plan of which, carefully prepared in accord with the\r
+modern science of strategics, had been handed to Kutuzov when he was in\r
+Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, the sole and almost unattainable\r
+aim remaining for him was to effect a junction with the forces that were\r
+advancing from Russia, without losing his army as Mack had done at Ulm.\r
+\r
+On the twenty-eighth of October Kutuzov with his army crossed to the\r
+left bank of the Danube and took up a position for the first time with\r
+the river between himself and the main body of the French. On the\r
+thirtieth he attacked Mortier's division, which was on the left bank,\r
+and broke it up. In this action for the first time trophies were taken:\r
+banners, cannon, and two enemy generals. For the first time, after a\r
+fortnight's retreat, the Russian troops had halted and after a fight had\r
+not only held the field but had repulsed the French. Though the troops\r
+were ill-clad, exhausted, and had lost a third of their number in\r
+killed, wounded, sick, and stragglers; though a number of sick and\r
+wounded had been abandoned on the other side of the Danube with a letter\r
+in which Kutuzov entrusted them to the humanity of the enemy; and though\r
+the big hospitals and the houses in Krems converted into military\r
+hospitals could no longer accommodate all the sick and wounded, yet the\r
+stand made at Krems and the victory over Mortier raised the spirits of\r
+the army considerably. Throughout the whole army and at headquarters\r
+most joyful though erroneous rumors were rife of the imaginary approach\r
+of columns from Russia, of some victory gained by the Austrians, and of\r
+the retreat of the frightened Bonaparte.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew during the battle had been in attendance on the Austrian\r
+General Schmidt, who was killed in the action. His horse had been\r
+wounded under him and his own arm slightly grazed by a bullet. As a mark\r
+of the commander-in-chief's special favor he was sent with the news of\r
+this victory to the Austrian court, now no longer at Vienna (which was\r
+threatened by the French) but at Brunn. Despite his apparently delicate\r
+build Prince Andrew could endure physical fatigue far better than many\r
+very muscular men, and on the night of the battle, having arrived at\r
+Krems excited but not weary, with dispatches from Dokhturov to Kutuzov,\r
+he was sent immediately with a special dispatch to Brunn. To be so sent\r
+meant not only a reward but an important step toward promotion.\r
+\r
+The night was dark but starry, the road showed black in the snow that\r
+had fallen the previous day--the day of the battle. Reviewing his\r
+impressions of the recent battle, picturing pleasantly to himself the\r
+impression his news of a victory would create, or recalling the send-off\r
+given him by the commander-in-chief and his fellow officers, Prince\r
+Andrew was galloping along in a post chaise enjoying the feelings of a\r
+man who has at length begun to attain a long-desired happiness. As soon\r
+as he closed his eyes his ears seemed filled with the rattle of the\r
+wheels and the sensation of victory. Then he began to imagine that the\r
+Russians were running away and that he himself was killed, but he\r
+quickly roused himself with a feeling of joy, as if learning afresh that\r
+this was not so but that on the contrary the French had run away. He\r
+again recalled all the details of the victory and his own calm courage\r
+during the battle, and feeling reassured he dozed off.... The dark\r
+starry night was followed by a bright cheerful morning. The snow was\r
+thawing in the sunshine, the horses galloped quickly, and on both sides\r
+of the road were forests of different kinds, fields, and villages.\r
+\r
+At one of the post stations he overtook a convoy of Russian wounded. The\r
+Russian officer in charge of the transport lolled back in the front\r
+cart, shouting and scolding a soldier with coarse abuse. In each of the\r
+long German carts six or more pale, dirty, bandaged men were being\r
+jolted over the stony road. Some of them were talking (he heard Russian\r
+words), others were eating bread; the more severely wounded looked\r
+silently, with the languid interest of sick children, at the envoy\r
+hurrying past them.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew told his driver to stop, and asked a soldier in what\r
+action they had been wounded. "Day before yesterday, on the Danube,"\r
+answered the soldier. Prince Andrew took out his purse and gave the\r
+soldier three gold pieces.\r
+\r
+"That's for them all," he said to the officer who came up.\r
+\r
+"Get well soon, lads!" he continued, turning to the soldiers. "There's\r
+plenty to do still."\r
+\r
+"What news, sir?" asked the officer, evidently anxious to start a\r
+conversation.\r
+\r
+"Good news!... Go on!" he shouted to the driver, and they galloped on.\r
+\r
+It was already quite dark when Prince Andrew rattled over the paved\r
+streets of Brunn and found himself surrounded by high buildings, the\r
+lights of shops, houses, and street lamps, fine carriages, and all that\r
+atmosphere of a large and active town which is always so attractive to a\r
+soldier after camp life. Despite his rapid journey and sleepless night,\r
+Prince Andrew when he drove up to the palace felt even more vigorous and\r
+alert than he had done the day before. Only his eyes gleamed feverishly\r
+and his thoughts followed one another with extraordinary clearness and\r
+rapidity. He again vividly recalled the details of the battle, no longer\r
+dim, but definite and in the concise form in which he imagined himself\r
+stating them to the Emperor Francis. He vividly imagined the casual\r
+questions that might be put to him and the answers he would give. He\r
+expected to be at once presented to the Emperor. At the chief entrance\r
+to the palace, however, an official came running out to meet him, and\r
+learning that he was a special messenger led him to another entrance.\r
+\r
+"To the right from the corridor, Euer Hochgeboren! There you will find\r
+the adjutant on duty," said the official. "He will conduct you to the\r
+Minister of War."\r
+\r
+The adjutant on duty, meeting Prince Andrew, asked him to wait, and went\r
+in to the Minister of War. Five minutes later he returned and bowing\r
+with particular courtesy ushered Prince Andrew before him along a\r
+corridor to the cabinet where the Minister of War was at work. The\r
+adjutant by his elaborate courtesy appeared to wish to ward off any\r
+attempt at familiarity on the part of the Russian messenger.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew's joyous feeling was considerably weakened as he\r
+approached the door of the minister's room. He felt offended, and\r
+without his noticing it the feeling of offense immediately turned into\r
+one of disdain which was quite uncalled for. His fertile mind instantly\r
+suggested to him a point of view which gave him a right to despise the\r
+adjutant and the minister. "Away from the smell of powder, they probably\r
+think it easy to gain victories!" he thought. His eyes narrowed\r
+disdainfully, he entered the room of the Minister of War with peculiarly\r
+deliberate steps. This feeling of disdain was heightened when he saw the\r
+minister seated at a large table reading some papers and making pencil\r
+notes on them, and for the first two or three minutes taking no notice\r
+of his arrival. A wax candle stood at each side of the minister's bent\r
+bald head with its gray temples. He went on reading to the end, without\r
+raising his eyes at the opening of the door and the sound of footsteps.\r
+\r
+"Take this and deliver it," said he to his adjutant, handing him the\r
+papers and still taking no notice of the special messenger.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew felt that either the actions of Kutuzov's army interested\r
+the Minister of War less than any of the other matters he was concerned\r
+with, or he wanted to give the Russian special messenger that\r
+impression. "But that is a matter of perfect indifference to me," he\r
+thought. The minister drew the remaining papers together, arranged them\r
+evenly, and then raised his head. He had an intellectual and distinctive\r
+head, but the instant he turned to Prince Andrew the firm, intelligent\r
+expression on his face changed in a way evidently deliberate and\r
+habitual to him. His face took on the stupid artificial smile (which\r
+does not even attempt to hide its artificiality) of a man who is\r
+continually receiving many petitioners one after another.\r
+\r
+"From General Field Marshal Kutuzov?" he asked. "I hope it is good news?\r
+There has been an encounter with Mortier? A victory? It was high time!"\r
+\r
+He took the dispatch which was addressed to him and began to read it\r
+with a mournful expression.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my God! My God! Schmidt!" he exclaimed in German. "What a calamity!\r
+What a calamity!"\r
+\r
+Having glanced through the dispatch he laid it on the table and looked\r
+at Prince Andrew, evidently considering something.\r
+\r
+"Ah what a calamity! You say the affair was decisive? But Mortier is not\r
+captured." Again he pondered. "I am very glad you have brought good\r
+news, though Schmidt's death is a heavy price to pay for the victory.\r
+His Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I thank you!\r
+You must have a rest. Be at the levee tomorrow after the parade.\r
+However, I will let you know."\r
+\r
+The stupid smile, which had left his face while he was speaking,\r
+reappeared.\r
+\r
+"Au revoir! Thank you very much. His Majesty will probably desire to see\r
+you," he added, bowing his head.\r
+\r
+When Prince Andrew left the palace he felt that all the interest and\r
+happiness the victory had afforded him had been now left in the\r
+indifferent hands of the Minister of War and the polite adjutant. The\r
+whole tenor of his thoughts instantaneously changed; the battle seemed\r
+the memory of a remote event long past.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew stayed at Brunn with Bilibin, a Russian acquaintance of\r
+his in the diplomatic service.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor," said\r
+Bilibin as he came out to meet Prince Andrew. "Franz, put the prince's\r
+things in my bedroom," said he to the servant who was ushering Bolkonski\r
+in. "So you're a messenger of victory, eh? Splendid! And I am sitting\r
+here ill, as you see."\r
+\r
+After washing and dressing, Prince Andrew came into the diplomat's\r
+luxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilibin\r
+settled down comfortably beside the fire.\r
+\r
+After his journey and the campaign during which he had been deprived of\r
+all the comforts of cleanliness and all the refinements of life, Prince\r
+Andrew felt a pleasant sense of repose among luxurious surroundings such\r
+as he had been accustomed to from childhood. Besides it was pleasant,\r
+after his reception by the Austrians, to speak if not in Russian (for\r
+they were speaking French) at least with a Russian who would, he\r
+supposed, share the general Russian antipathy to the Austrians which was\r
+then particularly strong.\r
+\r
+Bilibin was a man of thirty-five, a bachelor, and of the same circle as\r
+Prince Andrew. They had known each other previously in Petersburg, but\r
+had become more intimate when Prince Andrew was in Vienna with Kutuzov.\r
+Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave promise of rising high in\r
+the military profession, so to an even greater extent Bilibin gave\r
+promise of rising in his diplomatic career. He still a young man but no\r
+longer a young diplomat, as he had entered the service at the age of\r
+sixteen, had been in Paris and Copenhagen, and now held a rather\r
+important post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister and our ambassador\r
+in Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not one of those many\r
+diplomats who are esteemed because they have certain negative qualities,\r
+avoid doing certain things, and speak French. He was one of those, who,\r
+liking work, knew how to do it, and despite his indolence would\r
+sometimes spend a whole night at his writing table. He worked well\r
+whatever the import of his work. It was not the question "What for?" but\r
+the question "How?" that interested him. What the diplomatic matter\r
+might be he did not care, but it gave him great pleasure to prepare a\r
+circular, memorandum, or report, skillfully, pointedly, and elegantly.\r
+Bilibin's services were valued not only for what he wrote, but also for\r
+his skill in dealing and conversing with those in the highest spheres.\r
+\r
+Bilibin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be made\r
+elegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to say\r
+something striking and took part in a conversation only when that was\r
+possible. His conversation was always sprinkled with wittily original,\r
+finished phrases of general interest. These sayings were prepared in the\r
+inner laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if intentionally, so\r
+that insignificant society people might carry them from drawing room to\r
+drawing room. And, in fact, Bilibin's witticisms were hawked about in\r
+the Viennese drawing rooms and often had an influence on matters\r
+considered important.\r
+\r
+His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which always\r
+looked as clean and well washed as the tips of one's fingers after a\r
+Russian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the principal play\r
+of expression on his face. Now his forehead would pucker into deep folds\r
+and his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows would descend and deep\r
+wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always\r
+twinkled and looked out straight.\r
+\r
+"Well, now tell me about your exploits," said he.\r
+\r
+Bolkonski, very modestly without once mentioning himself, described the\r
+engagement and his reception by the Minister of War.\r
+\r
+"They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of\r
+skittles," said he in conclusion.\r
+\r
+Bilibin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.\r
+\r
+"Cependant, mon cher," he remarked, examining his nails from a distance\r
+and puckering the skin above his left eye, "malgre la haute estime que\r
+je professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j'avoue que votre victoire\r
+n'est pas des plus victorieuses." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox Russian\r
+army, I must say that your victory was not particularly victorious."\r
+\r
+He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those words in\r
+Russian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis.\r
+\r
+"Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier and\r
+his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers!\r
+Where's the victory?"\r
+\r
+"But seriously," said Prince Andrew, "we can at any rate say without\r
+boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm..."\r
+\r
+"Why didn't you capture one, just one, marshal for us?"\r
+\r
+"Because not everything happens as one expects or with the smoothness of\r
+a parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at their rear by seven\r
+in the morning but had not reached it by five in the afternoon."\r
+\r
+"And why didn't you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to have\r
+been there at seven in the morning," returned Bilibin with a smile. "You\r
+ought to have been there at seven in the morning."\r
+\r
+"Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by diplomatic\r
+methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?" retorted Prince Andrew in\r
+the same tone.\r
+\r
+"I know," interrupted Bilibin, "you're thinking it's very easy to take\r
+marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but still why\r
+didn't you capture him? So don't be surprised if not only the Minister\r
+of War but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and King Francis is\r
+not much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor secretary of the\r
+Russian Embassy, do not feel any need in token of my joy to give my\r
+Franz a thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to the Prater... True,\r
+we have no Prater here..."\r
+\r
+He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his\r
+forehead.\r
+\r
+"It is now my turn to ask you 'why?' mon cher," said Bolkonski. "I\r
+confess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic subtleties\r
+here beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can't make it out. Mack loses\r
+a whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke Karl give no signs\r
+of life and make blunder after blunder. Kutuzov alone at last gains a\r
+real victory, destroying the spell of the invincibility of the French,\r
+and the Minister of War does not even care to hear the details."\r
+\r
+"That's just it, my dear fellow. You see it's hurrah for the Tsar, for\r
+Russia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is beautiful, but what do\r
+we, I mean the Austrian court, care for your victories? Bring us nice\r
+news of a victory by the Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one archduke's as\r
+good as another, as you know) and even if it is only over a fire brigade\r
+of Bonaparte's, that will be another story and we'll fire off some\r
+cannon! But this sort of thing seems done on purpose to vex us. The\r
+Archduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke Ferdinand disgraces himself.\r
+You abandon Vienna, give up its defense--as much as to say: 'Heaven is\r
+with us, but heaven help you and your capital!' The one general whom we\r
+all loved, Schmidt, you expose to a bullet, and then you congratulate us\r
+on the victory! Admit that more irritating news than yours could not\r
+have been conceived. It's as if it had been done on purpose, on purpose.\r
+Besides, suppose you did gain a brilliant victory, if even the Archduke\r
+Karl gained a victory, what effect would that have on the general course\r
+of events? It's too late now when Vienna is occupied by the French\r
+army!"\r
+\r
+"What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?"\r
+\r
+"Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schonbrunn, and the count, our\r
+dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders."\r
+\r
+After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception, and\r
+especially after having dined, Bolkonski felt that he could not take in\r
+the full significance of the words he heard.\r
+\r
+"Count Lichtenfels was here this morning," Bilibin continued, "and\r
+showed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna was fully\r
+described: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement... You see that your\r
+victory is not a matter for great rejoicing and that you can't be\r
+received as a savior."\r
+\r
+"Really I don't care about that, I don't care at all," said Prince\r
+Andrew, beginning to understand that his news of the battle before Krems\r
+was really of small importance in view of such events as the fall of\r
+Austria's capital. "How is it Vienna was taken? What of the bridge and\r
+its celebrated bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard reports that\r
+Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?" he said.\r
+\r
+"Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is defending\r
+us--doing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending us. But\r
+Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been taken and I\r
+hope it will not be, for it is mined and orders have been given to blow\r
+it up. Otherwise we should long ago have been in the mountains of\r
+Bohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad quarter of an hour\r
+between two fires."\r
+\r
+"But still this does not mean that the campaign is over," said Prince\r
+Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they daren't\r
+say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign, it won't\r
+be your skirmishing at Durrenstein, or gunpowder at all, that will\r
+decide the matter, but those who devised it," said Bilibin quoting one\r
+of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and pausing.\r
+"The only question is what will come of the meeting between the Emperor\r
+Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia joins the\r
+Allies, Austria's hand will be forced and there will be war. If not it\r
+is merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of the new\r
+Campo Formio are to be drawn up."\r
+\r
+"What an extraordinary genius!" Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed,\r
+clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, "and what luck\r
+the man has!"\r
+\r
+"Buonaparte?" said Bilibin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead to\r
+indicate that he was about to say something witty. "Buonaparte?" he\r
+repeated, accentuating the u: "I think, however, now that he lays down\r
+laws for Austria at Schonbrunn, il faut lui faire grace de l'u! * I\r
+shall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply Bonaparte!"\r
+\r
+\r
+* "We must let him off the u!"\r
+\r
+"But joking apart," said Prince Andrew, "do you really think the\r
+campaign is over?"\r
+\r
+"This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is not\r
+used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the first\r
+place because her provinces have been pillaged--they say the Holy\r
+Russian army loots terribly--her army is destroyed, her capital taken,\r
+and all this for the beaux yeux * of His Sardinian Majesty. And\r
+therefore--this is between ourselves--I instinctively feel that we are\r
+being deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and\r
+projects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately."\r
+\r
+\r
+* Fine eyes.\r
+\r
+"Impossible!" cried Prince Andrew. "That would be too base."\r
+\r
+"If we live we shall see," replied Bilibin, his face again becoming\r
+smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.\r
+\r
+When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay down in a\r
+clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows, he\r
+felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far, far away\r
+from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria's treachery, Bonaparte's\r
+new triumph, tomorrow's levee and parade, and the audience with the\r
+Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts.\r
+\r
+He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry\r
+and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now\r
+again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill,\r
+the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode\r
+forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around,\r
+and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since\r
+childhood.\r
+\r
+He woke up...\r
+\r
+"Yes, that all happened!" he said, and, smiling happily to himself like\r
+a child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+Next day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions, the first\r
+thought that came into his mind was that today he had to be presented to\r
+the Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite\r
+Austrian adjutant, Bilibin, and last night's conversation. Having\r
+dressed for his attendance at court in full parade uniform, which he had\r
+not worn for a long time, he went into Bilibin's study fresh, animated,\r
+and handsome, with his hand bandaged. In the study were four gentlemen\r
+of the diplomatic corps. With Prince Hippolyte Kuragin, who was a\r
+secretary to the embassy, Bolkonski was already acquainted. Bilibin\r
+introduced him to the others.\r
+\r
+The gentlemen assembled at Bilibin's were young, wealthy, gay society\r
+men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which Bilibin, their\r
+leader, called les notres. * This set, consisting almost exclusively of\r
+diplomats, evidently had its own interests which had nothing to do with\r
+war or politics but related to high society, to certain women, and to\r
+the official side of the service. These gentlemen received Prince Andrew\r
+as one of themselves, an honor they did not extend to many. From\r
+politeness and to start conversation, they asked him a few questions\r
+about the army and the battle, and then the talk went off into merry\r
+jests and gossip.\r
+\r
+\r
+* Ours.\r
+\r
+"But the best of it was," said one, telling of the misfortune of a\r
+fellow diplomat, "that the Chancellor told him flatly that his\r
+appointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it.\r
+Can you fancy the figure he cut?..."\r
+\r
+"But the worst of it, gentlemen--I am giving Kuragin away to you--is\r
+that that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is taking\r
+advantage of it!"\r
+\r
+Prince Hippolyte was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over its\r
+arm. He began to laugh.\r
+\r
+"Tell me about that!" he said.\r
+\r
+"Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!" cried several voices.\r
+\r
+"You, Bolkonski, don't know," said Bilibin turning to Prince Andrew,\r
+"that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of the\r
+Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing among\r
+the women!"\r
+\r
+"La femme est la compagne de l'homme," * announced Prince Hippolyte, and\r
+began looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Woman is man's companion."\r
+\r
+Bilibin and the rest of "ours" burst out laughing in Hippolyte's face,\r
+and Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom--he had to admit--he had\r
+almost been jealous on his wife's account, was the butt of this set.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I must give you a treat," Bilibin whispered to Bolkonski. "Kuragin\r
+is exquisite when he discusses politics--you should see his gravity!"\r
+\r
+He sat down beside Hippolyte and wrinkling his forehead began talking to\r
+him about politics. Prince Andrew and the others gathered round these\r
+two.\r
+\r
+"The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance," began\r
+Hippolyte gazing round with importance at the others, "without\r
+expressing... as in its last note... you understand... Besides, unless\r
+His Majesty the Emperor derogates from the principle of our alliance...\r
+\r
+"Wait, I have not finished..." he said to Prince Andrew, seizing him by\r
+the arm, "I believe that intervention will be stronger than\r
+nonintervention. And..." he paused. "Finally one cannot impute the\r
+nonreceipt of our dispatch of November 18. That is how it will end." And\r
+he released Bolkonski's arm to indicate that he had now quite finished.\r
+\r
+"Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden\r
+mouth!" said Bilibin, and the mop of hair on his head moved with\r
+satisfaction.\r
+\r
+Everybody laughed, and Hippolyte louder than anyone. He was evidently\r
+distressed, and breathed painfully, but could not restrain the wild\r
+laughter that convulsed his usually impassive features.\r
+\r
+"Well now, gentlemen," said Bilibin, "Bolkonski is my guest in this\r
+house and in Brunn itself. I want to entertain him as far as I can, with\r
+all the pleasures of life here. If we were in Vienna it would be easy,\r
+but here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult, and I\r
+beg you all to help me. Brunn's attractions must be shown him. You can\r
+undertake the theater, I society, and you, Hippolyte, of course the\r
+women."\r
+\r
+"We must let him see Amelie, she's exquisite!" said one of "ours,"\r
+kissing his finger tips.\r
+\r
+"In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane\r
+interests," said Bilibin.\r
+\r
+"I shall scarcely be able to avail myself of your hospitality,\r
+gentlemen, it is already time for me to go," replied Prince Andrew\r
+looking at his watch.\r
+\r
+"Where to?"\r
+\r
+"To the Emperor."\r
+\r
+"Oh! Oh! Oh! Well, au revoir, Bolkonski! Au revoir, Prince! Come back\r
+early to dinner," cried several voices. "We'll take you in hand."\r
+\r
+"When speaking to the Emperor, try as far as you can to praise the way\r
+that provisions are supplied and the routes indicated," said Bilibin,\r
+accompanying him to the hall.\r
+\r
+"I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I know the facts, I\r
+can't," replied Bolkonski, smiling.\r
+\r
+"Well, talk as much as you can, anyway. He has a passion for giving\r
+audiences, but he does not like talking himself and can't do it, as you\r
+will see."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+At the levee Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as he had\r
+been told to, and the Emperor Francis merely looked fixedly into his\r
+face and just nodded to him with his long head. But after it was over,\r
+the adjutant he had seen the previous day ceremoniously informed\r
+Bolkonski that the Emperor desired to give him an audience. The Emperor\r
+Francis received him standing in the middle of the room. Before the\r
+conversation began Prince Andrew was struck by the fact that the Emperor\r
+seemed confused and blushed as if not knowing what to say.\r
+\r
+"Tell me, when did the battle begin?" he asked hurriedly.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew replied. Then followed other questions just as simple:\r
+"Was Kutuzov well? When had he left Krems?" and so on. The Emperor spoke\r
+as if his sole aim were to put a given number of questions--the answers\r
+to these questions, as was only too evident, did not interest him.\r
+\r
+"At what o'clock did the battle begin?" asked the Emperor.\r
+\r
+"I cannot inform Your Majesty at what o'clock the battle began at the\r
+front, but at Durrenstein, where I was, our attack began after five in\r
+the afternoon," replied Bolkonski growing more animated and expecting\r
+that he would have a chance to give a reliable account, which he had\r
+ready in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor smiled\r
+and interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"How many miles?"\r
+\r
+"From where to where, Your Majesty?"\r
+\r
+"From Durrenstein to Krems."\r
+\r
+"Three and a half miles, Your Majesty."\r
+\r
+"The French have abandoned the left bank?"\r
+\r
+"According to the scouts the last of them crossed on rafts during the\r
+night."\r
+\r
+"Is there sufficient forage in Krems?"\r
+\r
+"Forage has not been supplied to the extent..."\r
+\r
+The Emperor interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"At what o'clock was General Schmidt killed?"\r
+\r
+"At seven o'clock, I believe."\r
+\r
+"At seven o'clock? It's very sad, very sad!"\r
+\r
+The Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew withdrew and\r
+was immediately surrounded by courtiers on all sides. Everywhere he saw\r
+friendly looks and heard friendly words. Yesterday's adjutant reproached\r
+him for not having stayed at the palace, and offered him his own house.\r
+The Minister of War came up and congratulated him on the Maria Theresa\r
+Order of the third grade, which the Emperor was conferring on him. The\r
+Empress' chamberlain invited him to see Her Majesty. The archduchess\r
+also wished to see him. He did not know whom to answer, and for a few\r
+seconds collected his thoughts. Then the Russian ambassador took him by\r
+the shoulder, led him to the window, and began to talk to him.\r
+\r
+Contrary to Bilibin's forecast the news he had brought was joyfully\r
+received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutuzov was awarded the\r
+Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army received rewards.\r
+Bolkonski was invited everywhere, and had to spend the whole morning\r
+calling on the principal Austrian dignitaries. Between four and five in\r
+the afternoon, having made all his calls, he was returning to Bilibin's\r
+house thinking out a letter to his father about the battle and his visit\r
+to Brunn. At the door he found a vehicle half full of luggage. Franz,\r
+Bilibin's man, was dragging a portmanteau with some difficulty out of\r
+the front door.\r
+\r
+Before returning to Bilibin's Prince Andrew had gone to a bookshop to\r
+provide himself with some books for the campaign, and had spent some\r
+time in the shop.\r
+\r
+"What is it?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Oh, your excellency!" said Franz, with difficulty rolling the\r
+portmanteau into the vehicle, "we are to move on still farther. The\r
+scoundrel is again at our heels!"\r
+\r
+"Eh? What?" asked Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+Bilibin came out to meet him. His usually calm face showed excitement.\r
+\r
+"There now! Confess that this is delightful," said he. "This affair of\r
+the Thabor Bridge, at Vienna.... They have crossed without striking a\r
+blow!"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew could not understand.\r
+\r
+"But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in the town\r
+knows?"\r
+\r
+"I come from the archduchess'. I heard nothing there."\r
+\r
+"And you didn't see that everybody is packing up?"\r
+\r
+"I did not... What is it all about?" inquired Prince Andrew impatiently.\r
+\r
+"What's it all about? Why, the French have crossed the bridge that\r
+Auersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up: so Murat is\r
+now rushing along the road to Brunn and will be here in a day or two."\r
+\r
+"What? Here? But why did they not blow up the bridge, if it was mined?"\r
+\r
+"That is what I ask you. No one, not even Bonaparte, knows why."\r
+\r
+Bolkonski shrugged his shoulders.\r
+\r
+"But if the bridge is crossed it means that the army too is lost? It\r
+will be cut off," said he.\r
+\r
+"That's just it," answered Bilibin. "Listen! The French entered Vienna\r
+as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday, those\r
+gentlemen, messieurs les marechaux, * Murat, Lannes, and Belliard, mount\r
+and ride to the bridge. (Observe that all three are Gascons.)\r
+'Gentlemen,' says one of them, 'you know the Thabor Bridge is mined and\r
+doubly mined and that there are menacing fortifications at its head and\r
+an army of fifteen thousand men has been ordered to blow up the bridge\r
+and not let us cross? But it will please our sovereign the Emperor\r
+Napoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and take it!' 'Yes,\r
+let's!' say the others. And off they go and take the bridge, cross it,\r
+and now with their whole army are on this side of the Danube, marching\r
+on us, you, and your lines of communication."\r
+\r
+\r
+* The marshalls.\r
+\r
+"Stop jesting," said Prince Andrew sadly and seriously. This news\r
+grieved him and yet he was pleased.\r
+\r
+As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless\r
+situation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead it\r
+out of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift him from\r
+the ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to fame!\r
+Listening to Bilibin he was already imagining how on reaching the army\r
+he would give an opinion at the war council which would be the only one\r
+that could save the army, and how he alone would be entrusted with the\r
+executing of the plan.\r
+\r
+"Stop this jesting," he said\r
+\r
+"I am not jesting," Bilibin went on. "Nothing is truer or sadder. These\r
+gentlemen ride onto the bridge alone and wave white handkerchiefs; they\r
+assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on their way to\r
+negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter the tête-de-pont. *\r
+They spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that the war is over, that\r
+the Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with Bonaparte, that they\r
+desire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The officer sends for\r
+Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack jokes, sit on the\r
+cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to the bridge unobserved,\r
+flings the bags of incendiary material into the water, and approaches\r
+the tête-de-pont. At length appears the lieutenant general, our dear\r
+Prince Auersperg von Mautern himself. 'Dearest foe! Flower of the\r
+Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars Hostilities are ended, we can\r
+shake one another's hand.... The Emperor Napoleon burns with impatience\r
+to make Prince Auersperg's acquaintance.' In a word, those gentlemen,\r
+Gascons indeed, so bewildered him with fine words, and he is so\r
+flattered by his rapidly established intimacy with the French marshals,\r
+and so dazzled by the sight of Murat's mantle and ostrich plumes, qu'il\r
+n'y voit que du feu, et oublie celui qu'il devait faire faire sur\r
+l'ennemi!" *(2) In spite of the animation of his speech, Bilibin did not\r
+forget to pause after this mot to give time for its due appreciation.\r
+"The French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes the guns, and the\r
+bridge is taken! But what is best of all," he went on, his excitement\r
+subsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, "is that the\r
+sergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the signal to fire\r
+the mines and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing that the French\r
+troops were running onto the bridge, was about to fire, but Lannes\r
+stayed his hand. The sergeant, who was evidently wiser than his general,\r
+goes up to Auersperg and says: 'Prince, you are being deceived, here are\r
+the French!' Murat, seeing that all is lost if the sergeant is allowed\r
+to speak, turns to Auersperg with feigned astonishment (he is a true\r
+Gascon) and says: 'I don't recognize the world-famous Austrian\r
+discipline, if you allow a subordinate to address you like that!' It was\r
+a stroke of genius. Prince Auersperg feels his dignity at stake and\r
+orders the sergeant to be arrested. Come, you must own that this affair\r
+of the Thabor Bridge is delightful! It is not exactly stupidity, nor\r
+rascality...."\r
+\r
+\r
+* Bridgehead.\r
+\r
+* (2) That their fire gets into his eyes and he forgets that he ought to\r
+be firing at the enemy.\r
+\r
+"It may be treachery," said Prince Andrew, vividly imagining the gray\r
+overcoats, wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of firing, and the\r
+glory that awaited him.\r
+\r
+"Not that either. That puts the court in too bad a light," replied\r
+Bilibin. "It's not treachery nor rascality nor stupidity: it is just as\r
+at Ulm... it is..."--he seemed to be trying to find the right\r
+expression. "C'est... c'est du Mack. Nous sommes mackes (It is... it is\r
+a bit of Mack. We are Macked)," he concluded, feeling that he had\r
+produced a good epigram, a fresh one that would be repeated. His\r
+hitherto puckered brow became smooth as a sign of pleasure, and with a\r
+slight smile he began to examine his nails.\r
+\r
+"Where are you off to?" he said suddenly to Prince Andrew who had risen\r
+and was going toward his room.\r
+\r
+"I am going away."\r
+\r
+"Where to?"\r
+\r
+"To the army."\r
+\r
+"But you meant to stay another two days?"\r
+\r
+"But now I am off at once."\r
+\r
+And Prince Andrew after giving directions about his departure went to\r
+his room.\r
+\r
+"Do you know, mon cher," said Bilibin following him, "I have been\r
+thinking about you. Why are you going?"\r
+\r
+And in proof of the conclusiveness of his opinion all the wrinkles\r
+vanished from his face.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew looked inquiringly at him and gave no reply.\r
+\r
+"Why are you going? I know you think it your duty to gallop back to the\r
+army now that it is in danger. I understand that. Mon cher, it is\r
+heroism!"\r
+\r
+"Not at all," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"But as you are a philosopher, be a consistent one, look at the other\r
+side of the question and you will see that your duty, on the contrary,\r
+is to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are no longer fit for\r
+anything else.... You have not been ordered to return and have not been\r
+dismissed from here; therefore, you can stay and go with us wherever our\r
+ill luck takes us. They say we are going to Olmutz, and Olmutz is a very\r
+decent town. You and I will travel comfortably in my caleche."\r
+\r
+"Do stop joking, Bilibin," cried Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"I am speaking sincerely as a friend! Consider! Where and why are you\r
+going, when you might remain here? You are faced by one of two things,"\r
+and the skin over his left temple puckered, "either you will not reach\r
+your regiment before peace is concluded, or you will share defeat and\r
+disgrace with Kutuzov's whole army."\r
+\r
+And Bilibin unwrinkled his temple, feeling that the dilemma was\r
+insoluble.\r
+\r
+"I cannot argue about it," replied Prince Andrew coldly, but he thought:\r
+"I am going to save the army."\r
+\r
+"My dear fellow, you are a hero!" said Bilibin.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War, Bolkonski\r
+set off to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would find it and\r
+fearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems.\r
+\r
+In Brunn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the heavy\r
+baggage was already being dispatched to Olmutz. Near Hetzelsdorf Prince\r
+Andrew struck the high road along which the Russian army was moving with\r
+great haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so obstructed\r
+with carts that it was impossible to get by in a carriage. Prince Andrew\r
+took a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, and hungry and\r
+weary, making his way past the baggage wagons, rode in search of the\r
+commander-in-chief and of his own luggage. Very sinister reports of the\r
+position of the army reached him as he went along, and the appearance of\r
+the troops in their disorderly flight confirmed these rumors.\r
+\r
+"Cette armee russe que l'or de l'Angleterre a transportee des extremites\r
+de l'univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le meme sort--(le sort de\r
+l'armee d'Ulm)." * He remembered these words in Bonaparte's address to\r
+his army at the beginning of the campaign, and they awoke in him\r
+astonishment at the genius of his hero, a feeling of wounded pride, and\r
+a hope of glory. "And should there be nothing left but to die?" he\r
+thought. "Well, if need be, I shall do it no worse than others."\r
+\r
+\r
+* "That Russian army which has been brought from the ends of the earth\r
+by English gold, we shall cause to share the same fate--(the fate of the\r
+army at Ulm)."\r
+\r
+He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments,\r
+carts, guns, artillery, and again baggage wagons and vehicles of all\r
+kinds overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road, three and\r
+sometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as ear\r
+could reach, there were the rattle of wheels, the creaking of carts and\r
+gun carriages, the tramp of horses, the crack of whips, shouts, the\r
+urging of horses, and the swearing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers.\r
+All along the sides of the road fallen horses were to be seen, some\r
+flayed, some not, and broken-down carts beside which solitary soldiers\r
+sat waiting for something, and again soldiers straggling from their\r
+companies, crowds of whom set off to the neighboring villages, or\r
+returned from them dragging sheep, fowls, hay, and bulging sacks. At\r
+each ascent or descent of the road the crowds were yet denser and the\r
+din of shouting more incessant. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud\r
+pushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hoofs slipped,\r
+traces broke, and lungs were strained with shouting. The officers\r
+directing the march rode backward and forward between the carts. Their\r
+voices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by their faces\r
+that they despaired of the possibility of checking this disorder.\r
+\r
+"Here is our dear Orthodox Russian army," thought Bolkonski, recalling\r
+Bilibin's words.\r
+\r
+Wishing to find out where the commander-in-chief was, he rode up to a\r
+convoy. Directly opposite to him came a strange one-horse vehicle,\r
+evidently rigged up by soldiers out of any available materials and\r
+looking like something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a caleche. A\r
+soldier was driving, and a woman enveloped in shawls sat behind the\r
+apron under the leather hood of the vehicle. Prince Andrew rode up and\r
+was just putting his question to a soldier when his attention was\r
+diverted by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the vehicle. An\r
+officer in charge of transport was beating the soldier who was driving\r
+the woman's vehicle for trying to get ahead of others, and the strokes\r
+of his whip fell on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed\r
+piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew she leaned out from behind the apron\r
+and, waving her thin arms from under the woolen shawl, cried:\r
+\r
+"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp!... For heaven's sake... Protect me!\r
+What will become of us? I am the wife of the doctor of the Seventh\r
+Chasseurs.... They won't let us pass, we are left behind and have lost\r
+our people..."\r
+\r
+"I'll flatten you into a pancake!" shouted the angry officer to the\r
+soldier. "Turn back with your slut!"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me!... What does it all mean?" screamed the\r
+doctor's wife.\r
+\r
+"Kindly let this cart pass. Don't you see it's a woman?" said Prince\r
+Andrew riding up to the officer.\r
+\r
+The officer glanced at him, and without replying turned again to the\r
+soldier. "I'll teach you to push on!... Back!"\r
+\r
+"Let them pass, I tell you!" repeated Prince Andrew, compressing his\r
+lips.\r
+\r
+"And who are you?" cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy rage,\r
+"who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here, not you!\r
+Go back or I'll flatten you into a pancake," repeated he. This\r
+expression evidently pleased him.\r
+\r
+"That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp," came a voice from\r
+behind.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew saw that the officer was in that state of senseless, tipsy\r
+rage when a man does not know what he is saying. He saw that his\r
+championship of the doctor's wife in her queer trap might expose him to\r
+what he dreaded more than anything in the world--to ridicule; but his\r
+instinct urged him on. Before the officer finished his sentence Prince\r
+Andrew, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised his\r
+riding whip.\r
+\r
+"Kind...ly let--them--pass!"\r
+\r
+The officer flourished his arm and hastily rode away.\r
+\r
+"It's all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there's this\r
+disorder," he muttered. "Do as you like."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew without lifting his eyes rode hastily away from the\r
+doctor's wife, who was calling him her deliverer, and recalling with a\r
+sense of disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene he\r
+galloped on to the village where he was told that the commander-in-chief\r
+was.\r
+\r
+On reaching the village he dismounted and went to the nearest house,\r
+intending to rest if but for a moment, eat something, and try to sort\r
+out the stinging and tormenting thoughts that confused his mind. "This\r
+is a mob of scoundrels and not an army," he was thinking as he went up\r
+to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by\r
+name.\r
+\r
+He turned round. Nesvitski's handsome face looked out of the little\r
+window. Nesvitski, moving his moist lips as he chewed something, and\r
+flourishing his arm, called him to enter.\r
+\r
+"Bolkonski! Bolkonski!... Don't you hear? Eh? Come quick..." he shouted.\r
+\r
+Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvitski and another adjutant\r
+having something to eat. They hastily turned round to him asking if he\r
+had any news. On their familiar faces he read agitation and alarm. This\r
+was particularly noticeable on Nesvitski's usually laughing countenance.\r
+\r
+"Where is the commander-in-chief?" asked Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"Here, in that house," answered the adjutant.\r
+\r
+"Well, is it true that it's peace and capitulation?" asked Nesvitski.\r
+\r
+"I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that it was all I could\r
+do to get here."\r
+\r
+"And we, my dear boy! It's terrible! I was wrong to laugh at Mack, we're\r
+getting it still worse," said Nesvitski. "But sit down and have\r
+something to eat."\r
+\r
+"You won't be able to find either your baggage or anything else now,\r
+Prince. And God only knows where your man Peter is," said the other\r
+adjutant.\r
+\r
+"Where are headquarters?"\r
+\r
+"We are to spend the night in Znaim."\r
+\r
+"Well, I have got all I need into packs for two horses," said Nesvitski.\r
+"They've made up splendid packs for me--fit to cross the Bohemian\r
+mountains with. It's a bad lookout, old fellow! But what's the matter\r
+with you? You must be ill to shiver like that," he added, noticing that\r
+Prince Andrew winced as at an electric shock.\r
+\r
+"It's nothing," replied Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+He had just remembered his recent encounter with the doctor's wife and\r
+the convoy officer.\r
+\r
+"What is the commander-in-chief doing here?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"I can't make out at all," said Nesvitski.\r
+\r
+"Well, all I can make out is that everything is abominable, abominable,\r
+quite abominable!" said Prince Andrew, and he went off to the house\r
+where the commander-in-chief was.\r
+\r
+Passing by Kutuzov's carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of his\r
+suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince\r
+Andrew entered the passage. Kutuzov himself, he was told, was in the\r
+house with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian\r
+general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little Kozlovski was\r
+squatting on his heels in front of a clerk. The clerk, with cuffs turned\r
+up, was hastily writing at a tub turned bottom upwards. Kozlovski's face\r
+looked worn--he too had evidently not slept all night. He glanced at\r
+Prince Andrew and did not even nod to him.\r
+\r
+"Second line... have you written it?" he continued dictating to the\r
+clerk. "The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian..."\r
+\r
+"One can't write so fast, your honor," said the clerk, glancing angrily\r
+and disrespectfully at Kozlovski.\r
+\r
+Through the door came the sounds of Kutuzov's voice, excited and\r
+dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the\r
+sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlovski looked at him, the\r
+disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the clerk and\r
+Kozlovski were squatting on the floor by a tub so near to the commander\r
+in chief, and from the noisy laughter of the Cossacks holding the horses\r
+near the window, Prince Andrew felt that something important and\r
+disastrous was about to happen.\r
+\r
+He turned to Kozlovski with urgent questions.\r
+\r
+"Immediately, Prince," said Kozlovski. "Dispositions for Bagration."\r
+\r
+"What about capitulation?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing of the sort. Orders are issued for a battle."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew moved toward the door from whence voices were heard. Just\r
+as he was going to open it the sounds ceased, the door opened, and\r
+Kutuzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the doorway.\r
+Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutuzov but the expression of the\r
+commander in chief's one sound eye showed him to be so preoccupied with\r
+thoughts and anxieties as to be oblivious of his presence. He looked\r
+straight at his adjutant's face without recognizing him.\r
+\r
+"Well, have you finished?" said he to Kozlovski.\r
+\r
+"One moment, your excellency."\r
+\r
+Bagration, a gaunt middle-aged man of medium height with a firm,\r
+impassive face of Oriental type, came out after the commander-in-chief.\r
+\r
+"I have the honor to present myself," repeated Prince Andrew rather\r
+loudly, handing Kutuzov an envelope.\r
+\r
+"Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!"\r
+\r
+Kutuzov went out into the porch with Bagration.\r
+\r
+"Well, good-by, Prince," said he to Bagration. "My blessing, and may\r
+Christ be with you in your great endeavor!"\r
+\r
+His face suddenly softened and tears came into his eyes. With his left\r
+hand he drew Bagration toward him, and with his right, on which he wore\r
+a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a gesture evidently\r
+habitual, offering his puffy cheek, but Bagration kissed him on the neck\r
+instead.\r
+\r
+"Christ be with you!" Kutuzov repeated and went toward his carriage.\r
+"Get in with me," said he to Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to remain\r
+with Prince Bagration's detachment."\r
+\r
+"Get in," said Kutuzov, and noticing that Bolkonski still delayed, he\r
+added: "I need good officers myself, need them myself!"\r
+\r
+They got into the carriage and drove for a few minutes in silence.\r
+\r
+"There is still much, much before us," he said, as if with an old man's\r
+penetration he understood all that was passing in Bolkonski's mind. "If\r
+a tenth part of his detachment returns I shall thank God," he added as\r
+if speaking to himself.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew glanced at Kutuzov's face only a foot distant from him and\r
+involuntarily noticed the carefully washed seams of the scar near his\r
+temple, where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull, and the empty eye\r
+socket. "Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of those men's death,"\r
+thought Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment," he said.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had been\r
+saying, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, gently swaying\r
+on the soft springs of the carriage, he turned to Prince Andrew. There\r
+was not a trace of agitation on his face. With delicate irony he\r
+questioned Prince Andrew about the details of his interview with the\r
+Emperor, about the remarks he had heard at court concerning the Krems\r
+affair, and about some ladies they both knew.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+On November 1 Kutuzov had received, through a spy, news that the army he\r
+commanded was in an almost hopeless position. The spy reported that the\r
+French, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were advancing in immense\r
+force upon Kutuzov's line of communication with the troops that were\r
+arriving from Russia. If Kutuzov decided to remain at Krems, Napoleon's\r
+army of one hundred and fifty thousand men would cut him off completely\r
+and surround his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he would find\r
+himself in the position of Mack at Ulm. If Kutuzov decided to abandon\r
+the road connecting him with the troops arriving from Russia, he would\r
+have to march with no road into unknown parts of the Bohemian mountains,\r
+defending himself against superior forces of the enemy and abandoning\r
+all hope of a junction with Buxhowden. If Kutuzov decided to retreat\r
+along the road from Krems to Olmutz, to unite with the troops arriving\r
+from Russia, he risked being forestalled on that road by the French who\r
+had crossed the Vienna bridge, and encumbered by his baggage and\r
+transport, having to accept battle on the march against an enemy three\r
+times as strong, who would hem him in from two sides.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov chose this latter course.\r
+\r
+The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were\r
+advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six miles off\r
+on the line of Kutuzov's retreat. If he reached Znaim before the French,\r
+there would be great hope of saving the army; to let the French\r
+forestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army to a\r
+disgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to forestall\r
+the French with his whole army was impossible. The road for the French\r
+from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road for the\r
+Russians from Krems to Znaim.\r
+\r
+The night he received the news, Kutuzov sent Bagration's vanguard, four\r
+thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems-Znaim to\r
+the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration was to make this march without resting,\r
+and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if he succeeded in\r
+forestalling the French he was to delay them as long as possible.\r
+Kutuzov himself with all his transport took the road to Znaim.\r
+\r
+Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his\r
+hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers\r
+by the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrunn a\r
+few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrunn from\r
+Vienna. Kutuzov with his transport had still to march for some days\r
+before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagration with his four thousand\r
+hungry, exhausted men would have to detain for days the whole enemy army\r
+that came upon him at Hollabrunn, which was clearly impossible. But a\r
+freak of fate made the impossible possible. The success of the trick\r
+that had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without a\r
+fight led Murat to try to deceive Kutuzov in a similar way. Meeting\r
+Bagration's weak detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be\r
+Kutuzov's whole army. To be able to crush it absolutely he awaited the\r
+arrival of the rest of the troops who were on their way from Vienna, and\r
+with this object offered a three days' truce on condition that both\r
+armies should remain in position without moving. Murat declared that\r
+negotiations for peace were already proceeding, and that he therefore\r
+offered this truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count Nostitz, the\r
+Austrian general occupying the advanced posts, believed Murat's emissary\r
+and retired, leaving Bagration's division exposed. Another emissary rode\r
+to the Russian line to announce the peace negotiations and to offer the\r
+Russian army the three days' truce. Bagration replied that he was not\r
+authorized either to accept or refuse a truce and sent his adjutant to\r
+Kutuzov to report the offer he had received.\r
+\r
+A truce was Kutuzov's sole chance of gaining time, giving Bagration's\r
+exhausted troops some rest, and letting the transport and heavy convoys\r
+(whose movements were concealed from the French) advance if but one\r
+stage nearer Znaim. The offer of a truce gave the only, and a quite\r
+unexpected, chance of saving the army. On receiving the news he\r
+immediately dispatched Adjutant General Wintzingerode, who was in\r
+attendance on him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode was not merely to\r
+agree to the truce but also to offer terms of capitulation, and\r
+meanwhile Kutuzov sent his adjutants back to hasten to the utmost the\r
+movements of the baggage trains of the entire army along the Krems-Znaim\r
+road. Bagration's exhausted and hungry detachment, which alone covered\r
+this movement of the transport and of the whole army, had to remain\r
+stationary in face of an enemy eight times as strong as itself.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov's expectations that the proposals of capitulation (which were in\r
+no way binding) might give time for part of the transport to pass, and\r
+also that Murat's mistake would very soon be discovered, proved correct.\r
+As soon as Bonaparte (who was at Schonbrunn, sixteen miles from\r
+Hollabrunn) received Murat's dispatch with the proposal of a truce and a\r
+capitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the following letter to\r
+Murat:\r
+\r
+Schonbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805,\r
+\r
+at eight o'clock in the morning\r
+\r
+To PRINCE MURAT,\r
+\r
+I cannot find words to express to you my displeasure. You command only\r
+my advance guard, and have no right to arrange an armistice without my\r
+order. You are causing me to lose the fruits of a campaign. Break the\r
+armistice immediately and march on the enemy. Inform him that the\r
+general who signed that capitulation had no right to do so, and that no\r
+one but the Emperor of Russia has that right.\r
+\r
+If, however, the Emperor of Russia ratifies that convention, I will\r
+ratify it; but it is only a trick. March on, destroy the Russian\r
+army.... You are in a position to seize its baggage and artillery.\r
+\r
+The Russian Emperor's aide-de-camp is an impostor. Officers are nothing\r
+when they have no powers; this one had none.... The Austrians let\r
+themselves be tricked at the crossing of the Vienna bridge, you are\r
+letting yourself be tricked by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor.\r
+\r
+NAPOLEON\r
+\r
+Bonaparte's adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to\r
+Murat. Bonaparte himself, not trusting to his generals, moved with all\r
+the Guards to the field of battle, afraid of letting a ready victim\r
+escape, and Bagration's four thousand men merrily lighted campfires,\r
+dried and warmed themselves, cooked their porridge for the first time\r
+for three days, and not one of them knew or imagined what was in store\r
+for him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon Prince Andrew, who had\r
+persisted in his request to Kutuzov, arrived at Grunth and reported\r
+himself to Bagration. Bonaparte's adjutant had not yet reached Murat's\r
+detachment and the battle had not yet begun. In Bagration's detachment\r
+no one knew anything of the general position of affairs. They talked of\r
+peace but did not believe in its possibility; others talked of a battle\r
+but also disbelieved in the nearness of an engagement. Bagration,\r
+knowing Bolkonski to be a favorite and trusted adjutant, received him\r
+with distinction and special marks of favor, explaining to him that\r
+there would probably be an engagement that day or the next, and giving\r
+him full liberty to remain with him during the battle or to join the\r
+rearguard and have an eye on the order of retreat, "which is also very\r
+important."\r
+\r
+"However, there will hardly be an engagement today," said Bagration as\r
+if to reassure Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"If he is one of the ordinary little staff dandies sent to earn a medal\r
+he can get his reward just as well in the rearguard, but if he wishes to\r
+stay with me, let him... he'll be of use here if he's a brave officer,"\r
+thought Bagration. Prince Andrew, without replying, asked the prince's\r
+permission to ride round the position to see the disposition of the\r
+forces, so as to know his bearings should he be sent to execute an\r
+order. The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly dressed man with a\r
+diamond ring on his forefinger, who was fond of speaking French though\r
+he spoke it badly, offered to conduct Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+On all sides they saw rain-soaked officers with dejected faces who\r
+seemed to be seeking something, and soldiers dragging doors, benches,\r
+and fencing from the village.\r
+\r
+"There now, Prince! We can't stop those fellows," said the staff officer\r
+pointing to the soldiers. "The officers don't keep them in hand. And\r
+there," he pointed to a sutler's tent, "they crowd in and sit. This\r
+morning I turned them all out and now look, it's full again. I must go\r
+there, Prince, and scare them a bit. It won't take a moment."\r
+\r
+"Yes, let's go in and I will get myself a roll and some cheese," said\r
+Prince Andrew who had not yet had time to eat anything.\r
+\r
+"Why didn't you mention it, Prince? I would have offered you something."\r
+\r
+They dismounted and entered the tent. Several officers, with flushed and\r
+weary faces, were sitting at the table eating and drinking.\r
+\r
+"Now what does this mean, gentlemen?" said the staff officer, in the\r
+reproachful tone of a man who has repeated the same thing more than\r
+once. "You know it won't do to leave your posts like this. The prince\r
+gave orders that no one should leave his post. Now you, Captain," and he\r
+turned to a thin, dirty little artillery officer who without his boots\r
+(he had given them to the canteen keeper to dry), in only his stockings,\r
+rose when they entered, smiling not altogether comfortably.\r
+\r
+"Well, aren't you ashamed of yourself, Captain Tushin?" he continued.\r
+"One would think that as an artillery officer you would set a good\r
+example, yet here you are without your boots! The alarm will be sounded\r
+and you'll be in a pretty position without your boots!" (The staff\r
+officer smiled.) "Kindly return to your posts, gentlemen, all of you,\r
+all!" he added in a tone of command.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew smiled involuntarily as he looked at the artillery officer\r
+Tushin, who silent and smiling, shifting from one stockinged foot to the\r
+other, glanced inquiringly with his large, intelligent, kindly eyes from\r
+Prince Andrew to the staff officer.\r
+\r
+"The soldiers say it feels easier without boots," said Captain Tushin\r
+smiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently wishing to adopt\r
+a jocular tone. But before he had finished he felt that his jest was\r
+unacceptable and had not come off. He grew confused.\r
+\r
+"Kindly return to your posts," said the staff officer trying to preserve\r
+his gravity.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew glanced again at the artillery officer's small figure.\r
+There was something peculiar about it, quite unsoldierly, rather comic,\r
+but extremely attractive.\r
+\r
+The staff officer and Prince Andrew mounted their horses and rode on.\r
+\r
+Having ridden beyond the village, continually meeting and overtaking\r
+soldiers and officers of various regiments, they saw on their left some\r
+entrenchments being thrown up, the freshly dug clay of which showed up\r
+red. Several battalions of soldiers, in their shirt sleeves despite the\r
+cold wind, swarmed in these earthworks like a host of white ants;\r
+spadefuls of red clay were continually being thrown up from behind the\r
+bank by unseen hands. Prince Andrew and the officer rode up, looked at\r
+the entrenchment, and went on again. Just behind it they came upon some\r
+dozens of soldiers, continually replaced by others, who ran from the\r
+entrenchment. They had to hold their noses and put their horses to a\r
+trot to escape from the poisoned atmosphere of these latrines.\r
+\r
+"Voila l'agrement des camps, monsieur le Prince," * said the staff\r
+officer.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "This is a pleasure one gets in camp, Prince."\r
+\r
+They rode up the opposite hill. From there the French could already be\r
+seen. Prince Andrew stopped and began examining the position.\r
+\r
+"That's our battery," said the staff officer indicating the highest\r
+point. "It's in charge of the queer fellow we saw without his boots. You\r
+can see everything from there; let's go there, Prince."\r
+\r
+"Thank you very much, I will go on alone," said Prince Andrew, wishing\r
+to rid himself of this staff officer's company, "please don't trouble\r
+yourself further."\r
+\r
+The staff officer remained behind and Prince Andrew rode on alone.\r
+\r
+The farther forward and nearer the enemy he went, the more orderly and\r
+cheerful were the troops. The greatest disorder and depression had been\r
+in the baggage train he had passed that morning on the Znaim road seven\r
+miles away from the French. At Grunth also some apprehension and alarm\r
+could be felt, but the nearer Prince Andrew came to the French lines the\r
+more confident was the appearance of our troops. The soldiers in their\r
+greatcoats were ranged in lines, the sergeants major and company\r
+officers were counting the men, poking the last man in each section in\r
+the ribs and telling him to hold his hand up. Soldiers scattered over\r
+the whole place were dragging logs and brushwood and were building\r
+shelters with merry chatter and laughter; around the fires sat others,\r
+dressed and undressed, drying their shirts and leg bands or mending\r
+boots or overcoats and crowding round the boilers and porridge cookers.\r
+In one company dinner was ready, and the soldiers were gazing eagerly at\r
+the steaming boiler, waiting till the sample, which a quartermaster\r
+sergeant was carrying in a wooden bowl to an officer who sat on a log\r
+before his shelter, had been tasted.\r
+\r
+Another company, a lucky one for not all the companies had vodka,\r
+crowded round a pockmarked, broad-shouldered sergeant major who, tilting\r
+a keg, filled one after another the canteen lids held out to him. The\r
+soldiers lifted the canteen lids to their lips with reverential faces,\r
+emptied them, rolling the vodka in their mouths, and walked away from\r
+the sergeant major with brightened expressions, licking their lips and\r
+wiping them on the sleeves of their greatcoats. All their faces were as\r
+serene as if all this were happening at home awaiting peaceful\r
+encampment, and not within sight of the enemy before an action in which\r
+at least half of them would be left on the field. After passing a\r
+chasseur regiment and in the lines of the Kiev grenadiers--fine fellows\r
+busy with similar peaceful affairs--near the shelter of the regimental\r
+commander, higher than and different from the others, Prince Andrew came\r
+out in front of a platoon of grenadiers before whom lay a naked man. Two\r
+soldiers held him while two others were flourishing their switches and\r
+striking him regularly on his bare back. The man shrieked unnaturally. A\r
+stout major was pacing up and down the line, and regardless of the\r
+screams kept repeating:\r
+\r
+"It's a shame for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest,\r
+honorable, and brave, but if he robs his fellows there is no honor in\r
+him, he's a scoundrel. Go on! Go on!"\r
+\r
+So the swishing sound of the strokes, and the desperate but unnatural\r
+screams, continued.\r
+\r
+"Go on, go on!" said the major.\r
+\r
+A young officer with a bewildered and pained expression on his face\r
+stepped away from the man and looked round inquiringly at the adjutant\r
+as he rode by.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, having reached the front line, rode along it. Our front\r
+line and that of the enemy were far apart on the right and left flanks,\r
+but in the center where the men with a flag of truce had passed that\r
+morning, the lines were so near together that the men could see one\r
+another's faces and speak to one another. Besides the soldiers who\r
+formed the picket line on either side, there were many curious onlookers\r
+who, jesting and laughing, stared at their strange foreign enemies.\r
+\r
+Since early morning--despite an injunction not to approach the picket\r
+line--the officers had been unable to keep sight-seers away. The\r
+soldiers forming the picket line, like showmen exhibiting a curiosity,\r
+no longer looked at the French but paid attention to the sight-seers and\r
+grew weary waiting to be relieved. Prince Andrew halted to have a look\r
+at the French.\r
+\r
+"Look! Look there!" one soldier was saying to another, pointing to a\r
+Russian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer and\r
+was rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. "Hark to him\r
+jabbering! Fine, isn't it? It's all the Frenchy can do to keep up with\r
+him. There now, Sidorov!"\r
+\r
+"Wait a bit and listen. It's fine!" answered Sidorov, who was considered\r
+an adept at French.\r
+\r
+The soldier to whom the laughers referred was Dolokhov. Prince Andrew\r
+recognized him and stopped to listen to what he was saying. Dolokhov had\r
+come from the left flank where their regiment was stationed, with his\r
+captain.\r
+\r
+"Now then, go on, go on!" incited the officer, bending forward and\r
+trying not to lose a word of the speech which was incomprehensible to\r
+him. "More, please: more! What's he saying?"\r
+\r
+Dolokhov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot\r
+dispute with the French grenadier. They were naturally talking about the\r
+campaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the Russians, was\r
+trying to prove that the Russians had surrendered and had fled all the\r
+way from Ulm, while Dolokhov maintained that the Russians had not\r
+surrendered but had beaten the French.\r
+\r
+"We have orders to drive you off here, and we shall drive you off," said\r
+Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"Only take care you and your Cossacks are not all captured!" said the\r
+French grenadier.\r
+\r
+The French onlookers and listeners laughed.\r
+\r
+"We'll make you dance as we did under Suvorov...," * said Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "On vous fera danser."\r
+\r
+"Qu' est-ce qu'il chante?" * asked a Frenchman.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "What's he singing about?"\r
+\r
+"It's ancient history," said another, guessing that it referred to a\r
+former war. "The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the\r
+others..."\r
+\r
+"Bonaparte..." began Dolokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacre nom...!" cried he angrily.\r
+\r
+"The devil skin your Emperor."\r
+\r
+And Dolokhov swore at him in coarse soldier's Russian and shouldering\r
+his musket walked away.\r
+\r
+"Let us go, Ivan Lukich," he said to the captain.\r
+\r
+"Ah, that's the way to talk French," said the picket soldiers. "Now,\r
+Sidorov, you have a try!"\r
+\r
+Sidorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber meaningless\r
+sounds very fast: "Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, Kaska," he said,\r
+trying to give an expressive intonation to his voice.\r
+\r
+"Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!" came peals of such healthy and\r
+good-humored laughter from the soldiers that it infected the French\r
+involuntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed to be to\r
+unload the muskets, explode the ammunition, and all return home as\r
+quickly as possible.\r
+\r
+But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and\r
+entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon\r
+confronted one another as before.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+Having ridden round the whole line from right flank to left, Prince\r
+Andrew made his way up to the battery from which the staff officer had\r
+told him the whole field could be seen. Here he dismounted, and stopped\r
+beside the farthest of the four unlimbered cannon. Before the guns an\r
+artillery sentry was pacing up and down; he stood at attention when the\r
+officer arrived, but at a sign resumed his measured, monotonous pacing.\r
+Behind the guns were their limbers and still farther back picket ropes\r
+and artillerymen's bonfires. To the left, not far from the farthest\r
+cannon, was a small, newly constructed wattle shed from which came the\r
+sound of officers' voices in eager conversation.\r
+\r
+It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and the\r
+greater part of the enemy's opened out from this battery. Just facing\r
+it, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schon Grabern\r
+could be seen, and in three places to left and right the French troops\r
+amid the smoke of their campfires, the greater part of whom were\r
+evidently in the village itself and behind the hill. To the left from\r
+that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it\r
+was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye. Our right flank was\r
+posted on a rather steep incline which dominated the French position.\r
+Our infantry were stationed there, and at the farthest point the\r
+dragoons. In the center, where Tushin's battery stood and from which\r
+Prince Andrew was surveying the position, was the easiest and most\r
+direct descent and ascent to the brook separating us from Schon Grabern.\r
+On the left our troops were close to a copse, in which smoked the\r
+bonfires of our infantry who were felling wood. The French line was\r
+wider than ours, and it was plain that they could easily outflank us on\r
+both sides. Behind our position was a steep and deep dip, making it\r
+difficult for artillery and cavalry to retire. Prince Andrew took out\r
+his notebook and, leaning on the cannon, sketched a plan of the\r
+position. He made some notes on two points, intending to mention them to\r
+Bagration. His idea was, first, to concentrate all the artillery in the\r
+center, and secondly, to withdraw the cavalry to the other side of the\r
+dip. Prince Andrew, being always near the commander in chief, closely\r
+following the mass movements and general orders, and constantly studying\r
+historical accounts of battles, involuntarily pictured to himself the\r
+course of events in the forthcoming action in broad outline. He imagined\r
+only important possibilities: "If the enemy attacks the right flank," he\r
+said to himself, "the Kiev grenadiers and the Podolsk chasseurs must\r
+hold their position till reserves from the center come up. In that case\r
+the dragoons could successfully make a flank counterattack. If they\r
+attack our center we, having the center battery on this high ground,\r
+shall withdraw the left flank under its cover, and retreat to the dip by\r
+echelons." So he reasoned.... All the time he had been beside the gun,\r
+he had heard the voices of the officers distinctly, but as often happens\r
+had not understood a word of what they were saying. Suddenly, however,\r
+he was struck by a voice coming from the shed, and its tone was so\r
+sincere that he could not but listen.\r
+\r
+"No, friend," said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, a\r
+familiar voice, "what I say is that if it were possible to know what is\r
+beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That's so, friend."\r
+\r
+Another, a younger voice, interrupted him: "Afraid or not, you can't\r
+escape it anyhow."\r
+\r
+"All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people," said a third manly\r
+voice interrupting them both. "Of course you artillery men are very\r
+wise, because you can take everything along with you--vodka and snacks."\r
+\r
+And the owner of the manly voice, evidently an infantry officer,\r
+laughed.\r
+\r
+"Yes, one is afraid," continued the first speaker, he of the familiar\r
+voice. "One is afraid of the unknown, that's what it is. Whatever we may\r
+say about the soul going to the sky... we know there is no sky but only\r
+an atmosphere."\r
+\r
+The manly voice again interrupted the artillery officer.\r
+\r
+"Well, stand us some of your herb vodka, Tushin," it said.\r
+\r
+"Why," thought Prince Andrew, "that's the captain who stood up in the\r
+sutler's hut without his boots." He recognized the agreeable,\r
+philosophizing voice with pleasure.\r
+\r
+"Some herb vodka? Certainly!" said Tushin. "But still, to conceive a\r
+future life..."\r
+\r
+He did not finish. Just then there was a whistle in the air; nearer and\r
+nearer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a cannon ball, as if it\r
+had not finished saying what was necessary, thudded into the ground near\r
+the shed with super human force, throwing up a mass of earth. The ground\r
+seemed to groan at the terrible impact.\r
+\r
+And immediately Tushin, with a short pipe in the corner of his mouth and\r
+his kind, intelligent face rather pale, rushed out of the shed followed\r
+by the owner of the manly voice, a dashing infantry officer who hurried\r
+off to his company, buttoning up his coat as he ran.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+Mounting his horse again Prince Andrew lingered with the battery,\r
+looking at the puff from the gun that had sent the ball. His eyes ran\r
+rapidly over the wide space, but he only saw that the hitherto\r
+motionless masses of the French now swayed and that there really was a\r
+battery to their left. The smoke above it had not yet dispersed. Two\r
+mounted Frenchmen, probably adjutants, were galloping up the hill. A\r
+small but distinctly visible enemy column was moving down the hill,\r
+probably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot had\r
+not yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a report.\r
+The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and galloped back\r
+to Grunth to find Prince Bagration. He heard the cannonade behind him\r
+growing louder and more frequent. Evidently our guns had begun to reply.\r
+From the bottom of the slope, where the parleys had taken place, came\r
+the report of musketry.\r
+\r
+Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte's stern letter,\r
+and Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had at once\r
+moved his forces to attack the center and outflank both the Russian\r
+wings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of the Emperor to\r
+crush the contemptible detachment that stood before him.\r
+\r
+"It has begun. Here it is!" thought Prince Andrew, feeling the blood\r
+rush to his heart. "But where and how will my Toulon present itself?"\r
+\r
+Passing between the companies that had been eating porridge and drinking\r
+vodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the same rapid\r
+movement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their muskets ready, and\r
+on all their faces he recognized the same eagerness that filled his\r
+heart. "It has begun! Here it is, dreadful but enjoyable!" was what the\r
+face of each soldier and each officer seemed to say.\r
+\r
+Before he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up, he saw,\r
+in the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men coming toward him.\r
+The foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap and riding a\r
+white horse, was Prince Bagration. Prince Andrew stopped, waiting for\r
+him to come up; Prince Bagration reined in his horse and recognizing\r
+Prince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked ahead while Prince Andrew\r
+told him what he had seen.\r
+\r
+The feeling, "It has begun! Here it is!" was seen even on Prince\r
+Bagration's hard brown face with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes.\r
+Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face and\r
+wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking and\r
+feeling at that moment. "Is there anything at all behind that impassive\r
+face?" Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. Prince Bagration bent\r
+his head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrew told him, and\r
+said, "Very good!" in a tone that seemed to imply that everything that\r
+took place and was reported to him was exactly what he had foreseen.\r
+Prince Andrew, out of breath with his rapid ride, spoke quickly. Prince\r
+Bagration, uttering his words with an Oriental accent, spoke\r
+particularly slowly, as if to impress the fact that there was no need to\r
+hurry. However, he put his horse to a trot in the direction of Tushin's\r
+battery. Prince Andrew followed with the suite. Behind Prince Bagration\r
+rode an officer of the suite, the prince's personal adjutant, Zherkov,\r
+an orderly officer, the staff officer on duty, riding a fine bobtailed\r
+horse, and a civilian--an accountant who had asked permission to be\r
+present at the battle out of curiosity. The accountant, a stout, full-\r
+faced man, looked around him with a naive smile of satisfaction and\r
+presented a strange appearance among the hussars, Cossacks, and\r
+adjutants, in his camlet coat, as he jolted on his horse with a convoy\r
+officer's saddle.\r
+\r
+"He wants to see a battle," said Zherkov to Bolkonski, pointing to the\r
+accountant, "but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomach already."\r
+\r
+"Oh, leave off!" said the accountant with a beaming but rather cunning\r
+smile, as if flattered at being made the subject of Zherkov's joke, and\r
+purposely trying to appear stupider than he really was.\r
+\r
+"It is very strange, mon Monsieur Prince," said the staff officer. (He\r
+remembered that in French there is some peculiar way of addressing a\r
+prince, but could not get it quite right.)\r
+\r
+By this time they were all approaching Tushin's battery, and a ball\r
+struck the ground in front of them.\r
+\r
+"What's that that has fallen?" asked the accountant with a naive smile.\r
+\r
+"A French pancake," answered Zherkov.\r
+\r
+"So that's what they hit with?" asked the accountant. "How awful!"\r
+\r
+He seemed to swell with satisfaction. He had hardly finished speaking\r
+when they again heard an unexpectedly violent whistling which suddenly\r
+ended with a thud into something soft... f-f-flop! and a Cossack, riding\r
+a little to their right and behind the accountant, crashed to earth with\r
+his horse. Zherkov and the staff officer bent over their saddles and\r
+turned their horses away. The accountant stopped, facing the Cossack,\r
+and examined him with attentive curiosity. The Cossack was dead, but the\r
+horse still struggled.\r
+\r
+Prince Bagration screwed up his eyes, looked round, and, seeing the\r
+cause of the confusion, turned away with indifference, as if to say, "Is\r
+it worth while noticing trifles?" He reined in his horse with the care\r
+of a skillful rider and, slightly bending over, disengaged his saber\r
+which had caught in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned saber of a kind\r
+no longer in general use. Prince Andrew remembered the story of Suvorov\r
+giving his saber to Bagration in Italy, and the recollection was\r
+particularly pleasant at that moment. They had reached the battery at\r
+which Prince Andrew had been when he examined the battlefield.\r
+\r
+"Whose company?" asked Prince Bagration of an artilleryman standing by\r
+the ammunition wagon.\r
+\r
+He asked, "Whose company?" but he really meant, "Are you frightened\r
+here?" and the artilleryman understood him.\r
+\r
+"Captain Tushin's, your excellency!" shouted the red-haired, freckled\r
+gunner in a merry voice, standing to attention.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," muttered Bagration as if considering something, and he rode\r
+past the limbers to the farthest cannon.\r
+\r
+As he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him and his\r
+suite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun they could see\r
+the gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quickly back to its\r
+former position. A huge, broad-shouldered gunner, Number One, holding a\r
+mop, his legs far apart, sprang to the wheel; while Number Two with a\r
+trembling hand placed a charge in the cannon's mouth. The short, round-\r
+shouldered Captain Tushin, stumbling over the tail of the gun carriage,\r
+moved forward and, not noticing the general, looked out shading his eyes\r
+with his small hand.\r
+\r
+"Lift it two lines more and it will be just right," cried he in a feeble\r
+voice to which he tried to impart a dashing note, ill-suited to his weak\r
+figure. "Number Two!" he squeaked. "Fire, Medvedev!"\r
+\r
+Bagration called to him, and Tushin, raising three fingers to his cap\r
+with a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a military salute but\r
+like a priest's benediction, approached the general. Though Tushin's\r
+guns had been intended to cannonade the valley, he was firing incendiary\r
+balls at the village of Schon Grabern visible just opposite, in front of\r
+which large masses of French were advancing.\r
+\r
+No one had given Tushin orders where and at what to fire, but after\r
+consulting his sergeant major, Zakharchenko, for whom he had great\r
+respect, he had decided that it would be a good thing to set fire to the\r
+village. "Very good!" said Bagration in reply to the officer's report,\r
+and began deliberately to examine the whole battlefield extended before\r
+him. The French had advanced nearest on our right. Below the height on\r
+which the Kiev regiment was stationed, in the hollow where the rivulet\r
+flowed, the soul-stirring rolling and crackling of musketry was heard,\r
+and much farther to the right beyond the dragoons, the officer of the\r
+suite pointed out to Bagration a French column that was outflanking us.\r
+To the left the horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince Bagration\r
+ordered two battalions from the center to be sent to reinforce the right\r
+flank. The officer of the suite ventured to remark to the prince that if\r
+these battalions went away, the guns would remain without support.\r
+Prince Bagration turned to the officer and with his dull eyes looked at\r
+him in silence. It seemed to Prince Andrew that the officer's remark was\r
+just and that really no answer could be made to it. But at that moment\r
+an adjutant galloped up with a message from the commander of the\r
+regiment in the hollow and news that immense masses of the French were\r
+coming down upon them and that his regiment was in disorder and was\r
+retreating upon the Kiev grenadiers. Prince Bagration bowed his head in\r
+sign of assent and approval. He rode off at a walk to the right and sent\r
+an adjutant to the dragoons with orders to attack the French. But this\r
+adjutant returned half an hour later with the news that the commander of\r
+the dragoons had already retreated beyond the dip in the ground, as a\r
+heavy fire had been opened on him and he was losing men uselessly, and\r
+so had hastened to throw some sharpshooters into the wood.\r
+\r
+"Very good!" said Bagration.\r
+\r
+As he was leaving the battery, firing was heard on the left also, and as\r
+it was too far to the left flank for him to have time to go there\r
+himself, Prince Bagration sent Zherkov to tell the general in command\r
+(the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutuzov at Braunau) that he\r
+must retreat as quickly as possible behind the hollow in the rear, as\r
+the right flank would probably not be able to withstand the enemy's\r
+attack very long. About Tushin and the battalion that had been in\r
+support of his battery all was forgotten. Prince Andrew listened\r
+attentively to Bagration's colloquies with the commanding officers and\r
+the orders he gave them and, to his surprise, found that no orders were\r
+really given, but that Prince Bagration tried to make it appear that\r
+everything done by necessity, by accident, or by the will of subordinate\r
+commanders was done, if not by his direct command, at least in accord\r
+with his intentions. Prince Andrew noticed, however, that though what\r
+happened was due to chance and was independent of the commander's will,\r
+owing to the tact Bagration showed, his presence was very valuable.\r
+Officers who approached him with disturbed countenances became calm;\r
+soldiers and officers greeted him gaily, grew more cheerful in his\r
+presence, and were evidently anxious to display their courage before\r
+him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+Prince Bagration, having reached the highest point of our right flank,\r
+began riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard but where\r
+on account of the smoke nothing could be seen. The nearer they got to\r
+the hollow the less they could see but the more they felt the nearness\r
+of the actual battlefield. They began to meet wounded men. One with a\r
+bleeding head and no cap was being dragged along by two soldiers who\r
+supported him under the arms. There was a gurgle in his throat and he\r
+was spitting blood. A bullet had evidently hit him in the throat or\r
+mouth. Another was walking sturdily by himself but without his musket,\r
+groaning aloud and swinging his arm which had just been hurt, while\r
+blood from it was streaming over his greatcoat as from a bottle. He had\r
+that moment been wounded and his face showed fear rather than suffering.\r
+Crossing a road they descended a steep incline and saw several men lying\r
+on the ground; they also met a crowd of soldiers some of whom were\r
+unwounded. The soldiers were ascending the hill breathing heavily, and\r
+despite the general's presence were talking loudly and gesticulating. In\r
+front of them rows of gray cloaks were already visible through the\r
+smoke, and an officer catching sight of Bagration rushed shouting after\r
+the crowd of retreating soldiers, ordering them back. Bagration rode up\r
+to the ranks along which shots crackled now here and now there, drowning\r
+the sound of voices and the shouts of command. The whole air reeked with\r
+smoke. The excited faces of the soldiers were blackened with it. Some\r
+were using their ramrods, others putting powder on the touchpans or\r
+taking charges from their pouches, while others were firing, though who\r
+they were firing at could not be seen for the smoke which there was no\r
+wind to carry away. A pleasant humming and whistling of bullets were\r
+often heard. "What is this?" thought Prince Andrew approaching the crowd\r
+of soldiers. "It can't be an attack, for they are not moving; it can't\r
+be a square--for they are not drawn up for that."\r
+\r
+The commander of the regiment, a thin, feeble-looking old man with a\r
+pleasant smile--his eyelids drooping more than half over his old eyes,\r
+giving him a mild expression, rode up to Bagration and welcomed him as a\r
+host welcomes an honored guest. He reported that his regiment had been\r
+attacked by French cavalry and that, though the attack had been\r
+repulsed, he had lost more than half his men. He said the attack had\r
+been repulsed, employing this military term to describe what had\r
+occurred to his regiment, but in reality he did not himself know what\r
+had happened during that half-hour to the troops entrusted to him, and\r
+could not say with certainty whether the attack had been repulsed or his\r
+regiment had been broken up. All he knew was that at the commencement of\r
+the action balls and shells began flying all over his regiment and\r
+hitting men and that afterwards someone had shouted "Cavalry!" and our\r
+men had begun firing. They were still firing, not at the cavalry which\r
+had disappeared, but at French infantry who had come into the hollow and\r
+were firing at our men. Prince Bagration bowed his head as a sign that\r
+this was exactly what he had desired and expected. Turning to his\r
+adjutant he ordered him to bring down the two battalions of the Sixth\r
+Chasseurs whom they had just passed. Prince Andrew was struck by the\r
+changed expression on Prince Bagration's face at this moment. It\r
+expressed the concentrated and happy resolution you see on the face of a\r
+man who on a hot day takes a final run before plunging into the water.\r
+The dull, sleepy expression was no longer there, nor the affectation of\r
+profound thought. The round, steady, hawk's eyes looked before him\r
+eagerly and rather disdainfully, not resting on anything although his\r
+movements were still slow and measured.\r
+\r
+The commander of the regiment turned to Prince Bagration, entreating him\r
+to go back as it was too dangerous to remain where they were. "Please,\r
+your excellency, for God's sake!" he kept saying, glancing for support\r
+at an officer of the suite who turned away from him. "There, you see!"\r
+and he drew attention to the bullets whistling, singing, and hissing\r
+continually around them. He spoke in the tone of entreaty and reproach\r
+that a carpenter uses to a gentleman who has picked up an ax: "We are\r
+used to it, but you, sir, will blister your hands." He spoke as if those\r
+bullets could not kill him, and his half-closed eyes gave still more\r
+persuasiveness to his words. The staff officer joined in the colonel's\r
+appeals, but Bagration did not reply; he only gave an order to cease\r
+firing and re-form, so as to give room for the two approaching\r
+battalions. While he was speaking, the curtain of smoke that had\r
+concealed the hollow, driven by a rising wind, began to move from right\r
+to left as if drawn by an invisible hand, and the hill opposite, with\r
+the French moving about on it, opened out before them. All eyes fastened\r
+involuntarily on this French column advancing against them and winding\r
+down over the uneven ground. One could already see the soldiers' shaggy\r
+caps, distinguish the officers from the men, and see the standard\r
+flapping against its staff.\r
+\r
+"They march splendidly," remarked someone in Bagration's suite.\r
+\r
+The head of the column had already descended into the hollow. The clash\r
+would take place on this side of it...\r
+\r
+The remains of our regiment which had been in action rapidly formed up\r
+and moved to the right; from behind it, dispersing the laggards, came\r
+two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs in fine order. Before they had\r
+reached Bagration, the weighty tread of the mass of men marching in step\r
+could be heard. On their left flank, nearest to Bagration, marched a\r
+company commander, a fine round-faced man, with a stupid and happy\r
+expression--the same man who had rushed out of the wattle shed. At that\r
+moment he was clearly thinking of nothing but how dashing a fellow he\r
+would appear as he passed the commander.\r
+\r
+With the self-satisfaction of a man on parade, he stepped lightly with\r
+his muscular legs as if sailing along, stretching himself to his full\r
+height without the smallest effort, his ease contrasting with the heavy\r
+tread of the soldiers who were keeping step with him. He carried close\r
+to his leg a narrow unsheathed sword (small, curved, and not like a real\r
+weapon) and looked now at the superior officers and now back at the men\r
+without losing step, his whole powerful body turning flexibly. It was as\r
+if all the powers of his soul were concentrated on passing the commander\r
+in the best possible manner, and feeling that he was doing it well he\r
+was happy. "Left... left... left..." he seemed to repeat to himself at\r
+each alternate step; and in time to this, with stern but varied faces,\r
+the wall of soldiers burdened with knapsacks and muskets marched in\r
+step, and each one of these hundreds of soldiers seemed to be repeating\r
+to himself at each alternate step, "Left... left... left..." A fat major\r
+skirted a bush, puffing and falling out of step; a soldier who had\r
+fallen behind, his face showing alarm at his defection, ran at a trot,\r
+panting to catch up with his company. A cannon ball, cleaving the air,\r
+flew over the heads of Bagration and his suite, and fell into the column\r
+to the measure of "Left... left!" "Close up!" came the company\r
+commander's voice in jaunty tones. The soldiers passed in a semicircle\r
+round something where the ball had fallen, and an old trooper on the\r
+flank, a noncommissioned officer who had stopped beside the dead men,\r
+ran to catch up his line and, falling into step with a hop, looked back\r
+angrily, and through the ominous silence and the regular tramp of feet\r
+beating the ground in unison, one seemed to hear left... left... left.\r
+\r
+"Well done, lads!" said Prince Bagration.\r
+\r
+"Glad to do our best, your ex'len-lency!" came a confused shout from the\r
+ranks. A morose soldier marching on the left turned his eyes on\r
+Bagration as he shouted, with an expression that seemed to say: "We know\r
+that ourselves!" Another, without looking round, as though fearing to\r
+relax, shouted with his mouth wide open and passed on.\r
+\r
+The order was given to halt and down knapsacks.\r
+\r
+Bagration rode round the ranks that had marched past him and dismounted.\r
+He gave the reins to a Cossack, took off and handed over his felt coat,\r
+stretched his legs, and set his cap straight. The head of the French\r
+column, with its officers leading, appeared from below the hill.\r
+\r
+"Forward, with God!" said Bagration, in a resolute, sonorous voice,\r
+turning for a moment to the front line, and slightly swinging his arms,\r
+he went forward uneasily over the rough field with the awkward gait of a\r
+cavalryman. Prince Andrew felt that an invisible power was leading him\r
+forward, and experienced great happiness.\r
+\r
+The French were already near. Prince Andrew, walking beside Bagration,\r
+could clearly distinguish their bandoliers, red epaulets, and even their\r
+faces. (He distinctly saw an old French officer who, with gaitered legs\r
+and turned-out toes, climbed the hill with difficulty.) Prince Bagration\r
+gave no further orders and silently continued to walk on in front of the\r
+ranks. Suddenly one shot after another rang out from the French, smoke\r
+appeared all along their uneven ranks, and musket shots sounded. Several\r
+of our men fell, among them the round-faced officer who had marched so\r
+gaily and complacently. But at the moment the first report was heard,\r
+Bagration looked round and shouted, "Hurrah!"\r
+\r
+"Hurrah--ah!--ah!" rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and passing\r
+Bagration and racing one another they rushed in an irregular but joyous\r
+and eager crowd down the hill at their disordered foe.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+The attack of the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right\r
+flank. In the center Tushin's forgotten battery, which had managed to\r
+set fire to the Schon Grabern village, delayed the French advance. The\r
+French were putting out the fire which the wind was spreading, and thus\r
+gave us time to retreat. The retirement of the center to the other side\r
+of the dip in the ground at the rear was hurried and noisy, but the\r
+different companies did not get mixed. But our left--which consisted of\r
+the Azov and Podolsk infantry and the Pavlograd hussars--was\r
+simultaneously attacked and outflanked by superior French forces under\r
+Lannes and was thrown into confusion. Bagration had sent Zherkov to the\r
+general commanding that left flank with orders to retreat immediately.\r
+\r
+Zherkov, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse about and\r
+galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagration than his courage\r
+failed him. He was seized by panic and could not go where it was\r
+dangerous.\r
+\r
+Having reached the left flank, instead of going to the front where the\r
+firing was, he began to look for the general and his staff where they\r
+could not possibly be, and so did not deliver the order.\r
+\r
+The command of the left flank belonged by seniority to the commander of\r
+the regiment Kutuzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which Dolokhov was\r
+serving as a private. But the command of the extreme left flank had been\r
+assigned to the commander of the Pavlograd regiment in which Rostov was\r
+serving, and a misunderstanding arose. The two commanders were much\r
+exasperated with one another and, long after the action had begun on the\r
+right flank and the French were already advancing, were engaged in\r
+discussion with the sole object of offending one another. But the\r
+regiments, both cavalry and infantry, were by no means ready for the\r
+impending action. From privates to general they were not expecting a\r
+battle and were engaged in peaceful occupations, the cavalry feeding the\r
+horses and the infantry collecting wood.\r
+\r
+"He higher iss dan I in rank," said the German colonel of the hussars,\r
+flushing and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up, "so let him do\r
+what he vill, but I cannot sacrifice my hussars... Bugler, sount ze\r
+retreat!"\r
+\r
+But haste was becoming imperative. Cannon and musketry, mingling\r
+together, thundered on the right and in the center, while the capotes of\r
+Lannes' sharpshooters were already seen crossing the milldam and forming\r
+up within twice the range of a musket shot. The general in command of\r
+the infantry went toward his horse with jerky steps, and having mounted\r
+drew himself up very straight and tall and rode to the Pavlograd\r
+commander. The commanders met with polite bows but with secret\r
+malevolence in their hearts.\r
+\r
+"Once again, Colonel," said the general, "I can't leave half my men in\r
+the wood. I beg of you, I beg of you," he repeated, "to occupy the\r
+position and prepare for an attack."\r
+\r
+"I peg of you yourself not to mix in vot is not your business!" suddenly\r
+replied the irate colonel. "If you vere in the cavalry..."\r
+\r
+"I am not in the cavalry, Colonel, but I am a Russian general and if you\r
+are not aware of the fact..."\r
+\r
+"Quite avare, your excellency," suddenly shouted the colonel, touching\r
+his horse and turning purple in the face. "Vill you be so goot to come\r
+to ze front and see dat zis position iss no goot? I don't vish to\r
+destroy my men for your pleasure!"\r
+\r
+"You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not considering my own pleasure and\r
+I won't allow it to be said!"\r
+\r
+Taking the colonel's outburst as a challenge to his courage, the general\r
+expanded his chest and rode, frowning, beside him to the front line, as\r
+if their differences would be settled there amongst the bullets. They\r
+reached the front, several bullets sped over them, and they halted in\r
+silence. There was nothing fresh to be seen from the line, for from\r
+where they had been before it had been evident that it was impossible\r
+for cavalry to act among the bushes and broken ground, as well as that\r
+the French were outflanking our left. The general and colonel looked\r
+sternly and significantly at one another like two fighting cocks\r
+preparing for battle, each vainly trying to detect signs of cowardice in\r
+the other. Both passed the examination successfully. As there was\r
+nothing to be said, and neither wished to give occasion for it to be\r
+alleged that he had been the first to leave the range of fire, they\r
+would have remained there for a long time testing each other's courage\r
+had it not been that just then they heard the rattle of musketry and a\r
+muffled shout almost behind them in the wood. The French had attacked\r
+the men collecting wood in the copse. It was no longer possible for the\r
+hussars to retreat with the infantry. They were cut off from the line of\r
+retreat on the left by the French. However inconvenient the position, it\r
+was now necessary to attack in order to cut a way through for\r
+themselves.\r
+\r
+The squadron in which Rostov was serving had scarcely time to mount\r
+before it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as at the Enns bridge,\r
+there was nothing between the squadron and the enemy, and again that\r
+terrible dividing line of uncertainty and fear--resembling the line\r
+separating the living from the dead--lay between them. All were\r
+conscious of this unseen line, and the question whether they would cross\r
+it or not, and how they would cross it, agitated them all.\r
+\r
+The colonel rode to the front, angrily gave some reply to questions put\r
+to him by the officers, and, like a man desperately insisting on having\r
+his own way, gave an order. No one said anything definite, but the rumor\r
+of an attack spread through the squadron. The command to form up rang\r
+out and the sabers whizzed as they were drawn from their scabbards.\r
+Still no one moved. The troops of the left flank, infantry and hussars\r
+alike, felt that the commander did not himself know what to do, and this\r
+irresolution communicated itself to the men.\r
+\r
+"If only they would be quick!" thought Rostov, feeling that at last the\r
+time had come to experience the joy of an attack of which he had so\r
+often heard from his fellow hussars.\r
+\r
+"Fo'ward, with God, lads!" rang out Denisov's voice. "At a twot\r
+fo'ward!"\r
+\r
+The horses' croups began to sway in the front line. Rook pulled at the\r
+reins and started of his own accord.\r
+\r
+Before him, on the right, Rostov saw the front lines of his hussars and\r
+still farther ahead a dark line which he could not see distinctly but\r
+took to be the enemy. Shots could be heard, but some way off.\r
+\r
+"Faster!" came the word of command, and Rostov felt Rook's flanks\r
+drooping as he broke into a gallop.\r
+\r
+Rostov anticipated his horse's movements and became more and more\r
+elated. He had noticed a solitary tree ahead of him. This tree had been\r
+in the middle of the line that had seemed so terrible--and now he had\r
+crossed that line and not only was there nothing terrible, but\r
+everything was becoming more and more happy and animated. "Oh, how I\r
+will slash at him!" thought Rostov, gripping the hilt of his saber.\r
+\r
+"Hur-a-a-a-ah!" came a roar of voices. "Let anyone come my way now,"\r
+thought Rostov driving his spurs into Rook and letting him go at a full\r
+gallop so that he outstripped the others. Ahead, the enemy was already\r
+visible. Suddenly something like a birch broom seemed to sweep over the\r
+squadron. Rostov raised his saber, ready to strike, but at that instant\r
+the trooper Nikitenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away from him, and\r
+Rostov felt as in a dream that he continued to be carried forward with\r
+unnatural speed but yet stayed on the same spot. From behind him\r
+Bondarchuk, an hussar he knew, jolted against him and looked angrily at\r
+him. Bondarchuk's horse swerved and galloped past.\r
+\r
+"How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!" Rostov asked\r
+and answered at the same instant. He was alone in the middle of a field.\r
+Instead of the moving horses and hussars' backs, he saw nothing before\r
+him but the motionless earth and the stubble around him. There was warm\r
+blood under his arm. "No, I am wounded and the horse is killed." Rook\r
+tried to rise on his forelegs but fell back, pinning his rider's leg.\r
+Blood was flowing from his head; he struggled but could not rise. Rostov\r
+also tried to rise but fell back, his sabretache having become entangled\r
+in the saddle. Where our men were, and where the French, he did not\r
+know. There was no one near.\r
+\r
+Having disentangled his leg, he rose. "Where, on which side, was now the\r
+line that had so sharply divided the two armies?" he asked himself and\r
+could not answer. "Can something bad have happened to me?" he wondered\r
+as he got up: and at that moment he felt that something superfluous was\r
+hanging on his benumbed left arm. The wrist felt as if it were not his.\r
+He examined his hand carefully, vainly trying to find blood on it. "Ah,\r
+here are people coming," he thought joyfully, seeing some men running\r
+toward him. "They will help me!" In front came a man wearing a strange\r
+shako and a blue cloak, swarthy, sunburned, and with a hooked nose. Then\r
+came two more, and many more running behind. One of them said something\r
+strange, not in Russian. In among the hindmost of these men wearing\r
+similar shakos was a Russian hussar. He was being held by the arms and\r
+his horse was being led behind him.\r
+\r
+"It must be one of ours, a prisoner. Yes. Can it be that they will take\r
+me too? Who are these men?" thought Rostov, scarcely believing his eyes.\r
+"Can they be French?" He looked at the approaching Frenchmen, and though\r
+but a moment before he had been galloping to get at them and hack them\r
+to pieces, their proximity now seemed so awful that he could not believe\r
+his eyes. "Who are they? Why are they running? Can they be coming at me?\r
+And why? To kill me? Me whom everyone is so fond of?" He remembered his\r
+mother's love for him, and his family's, and his friends', and the\r
+enemy's intention to kill him seemed impossible. "But perhaps they may\r
+do it!" For more than ten seconds he stood not moving from the spot or\r
+realizing the situation. The foremost Frenchman, the one with the hooked\r
+nose, was already so close that the expression of his face could be\r
+seen. And the excited, alien face of that man, his bayonet hanging down,\r
+holding his breath, and running so lightly, frightened Rostov. He seized\r
+his pistol and, instead of firing it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran\r
+with all his might toward the bushes. He did not now run with the\r
+feeling of doubt and conflict with which he had trodden the Enns bridge,\r
+but with the feeling of a hare fleeing from the hounds. One single\r
+sentiment, that of fear for his young and happy life, possessed his\r
+whole being. Rapidly leaping the furrows, he fled across the field with\r
+the impetuosity he used to show at catchplay, now and then turning his\r
+good-natured, pale, young face to look back. A shudder of terror went\r
+through him: "No, better not look," he thought, but having reached the\r
+bushes he glanced round once more. The French had fallen behind, and\r
+just as he looked round the first man changed his run to a walk and,\r
+turning, shouted something loudly to a comrade farther back. Rostov\r
+paused. "No, there's some mistake," thought he. "They can't have wanted\r
+to kill me." But at the same time, his left arm felt as heavy as if a\r
+seventy-pound weight were tied to it. He could run no more. The\r
+Frenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostov closed his eyes and stooped\r
+down. One bullet and then another whistled past him. He mustered his\r
+last remaining strength, took hold of his left hand with his right, and\r
+reached the bushes. Behind these were some Russian sharpshooters.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+The infantry regiments that had been caught unawares in the outskirts of\r
+the wood ran out of it, the different companies getting mixed, and\r
+retreated as a disorderly crowd. One soldier, in his fear, uttered the\r
+senseless cry, "Cut off!" that is so terrible in battle, and that word\r
+infected the whole crowd with a feeling of panic.\r
+\r
+"Surrounded! Cut off? We're lost!" shouted the fugitives.\r
+\r
+The moment he heard the firing and the cry from behind, the general\r
+realized that something dreadful had happened to his regiment, and the\r
+thought that he, an exemplary officer of many years' service who had\r
+never been to blame, might be held responsible at headquarters for\r
+negligence or inefficiency so staggered him that, forgetting the\r
+recalcitrant cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general, and above\r
+all quite forgetting the danger and all regard for self-preservation, he\r
+clutched the crupper of his saddle and, spurring his horse, galloped to\r
+the regiment under a hail of bullets which fell around, but fortunately\r
+missed him. His one desire was to know what was happening and at any\r
+cost correct, or remedy, the mistake if he had made one, so that he, an\r
+exemplary officer of twenty-two years' service, who had never been\r
+censured, should not be held to blame.\r
+\r
+Having galloped safely through the French, he reached a field behind the\r
+copse across which our men, regardless of orders, were running and\r
+descending the valley. That moment of moral hesitation which decides the\r
+fate of battles had arrived. Would this disorderly crowd of soldiers\r
+attend to the voice of their commander, or would they, disregarding him,\r
+continue their flight? Despite his desperate shouts that used to seem so\r
+terrible to the soldiers, despite his furious purple countenance\r
+distorted out of all likeness to his former self, and the flourishing of\r
+his saber, the soldiers all continued to run, talking, firing into the\r
+air, and disobeying orders. The moral hesitation which decided the fate\r
+of battles was evidently culminating in a panic.\r
+\r
+The general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting and of the\r
+powder smoke and stopped in despair. Everything seemed lost. But at that\r
+moment the French who were attacking, suddenly and without any apparent\r
+reason, ran back and disappeared from the outskirts, and Russian\r
+sharpshooters showed themselves in the copse. It was Timokhin's company,\r
+which alone had maintained its order in the wood and, having lain in\r
+ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French unexpectedly. Timokhin, armed\r
+only with a sword, had rushed at the enemy with such a desperate cry and\r
+such mad, drunken determination that, taken by surprise, the French had\r
+thrown down their muskets and run. Dolokhov, running beside Timokhin,\r
+killed a Frenchman at close quarters and was the first to seize the\r
+surrendering French officer by his collar. Our fugitives returned, the\r
+battalions re-formed, and the French who had nearly cut our left flank\r
+in half were for the moment repulsed. Our reserve units were able to\r
+join up, and the fight was at an end. The regimental commander and Major\r
+Ekonomov had stopped beside a bridge, letting the retreating companies\r
+pass by them, when a soldier came up and took hold of the commander's\r
+stirrup, almost leaning against him. The man was wearing a bluish coat\r
+of broadcloth, he had no knapsack or cap, his head was bandaged, and\r
+over his shoulder a French munition pouch was slung. He had an officer's\r
+sword in his hand. The soldier was pale, his blue eyes looked impudently\r
+into the commander's face, and his lips were smiling. Though the\r
+commander was occupied in giving instructions to Major Ekonomov, he\r
+could not help taking notice of the soldier.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency, here are two trophies," said Dolokhov, pointing to the\r
+French sword and pouch. "I have taken an officer prisoner. I stopped the\r
+company." Dolokhov breathed heavily from weariness and spoke in abrupt\r
+sentences. "The whole company can bear witness. I beg you will remember\r
+this, your excellency!"\r
+\r
+"All right, all right," replied the commander, and turned to Major\r
+Ekonomov.\r
+\r
+But Dolokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around his\r
+head, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed on his hair.\r
+\r
+"A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember, your excellency!"\r
+\r
+Tushin's battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of the\r
+action did Prince Bagration, still hearing the cannonade in the center,\r
+send his orderly staff officer, and later Prince Andrew also, to order\r
+the battery to retire as quickly as possible. When the supports attached\r
+to Tushin's battery had been moved away in the middle of the action by\r
+someone's order, the battery had continued firing and was only not\r
+captured by the French because the enemy could not surmise that anyone\r
+could have the effrontery to continue firing from four quite undefended\r
+guns. On the contrary, the energetic action of that battery led the\r
+French to suppose that here--in the center--the main Russian forces were\r
+concentrated. Twice they had attempted to attack this point, but on each\r
+occasion had been driven back by grapeshot from the four isolated guns\r
+on the hillock.\r
+\r
+Soon after Prince Bagration had left him, Tushin had succeeded in\r
+setting fire to Schon Grabern.\r
+\r
+"Look at them scurrying! It's burning! Just see the smoke! Fine! Grand!\r
+Look at the smoke, the smoke!" exclaimed the artillerymen, brightening\r
+up.\r
+\r
+All the guns, without waiting for orders, were being fired in the\r
+direction of the conflagration. As if urging each other on, the soldiers\r
+cried at each shot: "Fine! That's good! Look at it... Grand!" The fire,\r
+fanned by the breeze, was rapidly spreading. The French columns that had\r
+advanced beyond the village went back; but as though in revenge for this\r
+failure, the enemy placed ten guns to the right of the village and began\r
+firing them at Tushin's battery.\r
+\r
+In their childlike glee, aroused by the fire and their luck in\r
+successfully cannonading the French, our artillerymen only noticed this\r
+battery when two balls, and then four more, fell among our guns, one\r
+knocking over two horses and another tearing off a munition-wagon\r
+driver's leg. Their spirits once roused were, however, not diminished,\r
+but only changed character. The horses were replaced by others from a\r
+reserve gun carriage, the wounded were carried away, and the four guns\r
+were turned against the ten-gun battery. Tushin's companion officer had\r
+been killed at the beginning of the engagement and within an hour\r
+seventeen of the forty men of the guns' crews had been disabled, but the\r
+artillerymen were still as merry and lively as ever. Twice they noticed\r
+the French appearing below them, and then they fired grapeshot at them.\r
+\r
+Little Tushin, moving feebly and awkwardly, kept telling his orderly to\r
+"refill my pipe for that one!" and then, scattering sparks from it, ran\r
+forward shading his eyes with his small hand to look at the French.\r
+\r
+"Smack at 'em, lads!" he kept saying, seizing the guns by the wheels and\r
+working the screws himself.\r
+\r
+Amid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports which always made him\r
+jump, Tushin not taking his pipe from his mouth ran from gun to gun, now\r
+aiming, now counting the charges, now giving orders about replacing dead\r
+or wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones, and shouting in his feeble\r
+voice, so high pitched and irresolute. His face grew more and more\r
+animated. Only when a man was killed or wounded did he frown and turn\r
+away from the sight, shouting angrily at the men who, as is always the\r
+case, hesitated about lifting the injured or dead. The soldiers, for the\r
+most part handsome fellows and, as is always the case in an artillery\r
+company, a head and shoulders taller and twice as broad as their\r
+officer--all looked at their commander like children in an embarrassing\r
+situation, and the expression on his face was invariably reflected on\r
+theirs.\r
+\r
+Owing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration and\r
+activity, Tushin did not experience the slightest unpleasant sense of\r
+fear, and the thought that he might be killed or badly wounded never\r
+occurred to him. On the contrary, he became more and more elated. It\r
+seemed to him that it was a very long time ago, almost a day, since he\r
+had first seen the enemy and fired the first shot, and that the corner\r
+of the field he stood on was well-known and familiar ground. Though he\r
+thought of everything, considered everything, and did everything the\r
+best of officers could do in his position, he was in a state akin to\r
+feverish delirium or drunkenness.\r
+\r
+From the deafening sounds of his own guns around him, the whistle and\r
+thud of the enemy's cannon balls, from the flushed and perspiring faces\r
+of the crew bustling round the guns, from the sight of the blood of men\r
+and horses, from the little puffs of smoke on the enemy's side (always\r
+followed by a ball flying past and striking the earth, a man, a gun, a\r
+horse), from the sight of all these things a fantastic world of his own\r
+had taken possession of his brain and at that moment afforded him\r
+pleasure. The enemy's guns were in his fancy not guns but pipes from\r
+which occasional puffs were blown by an invisible smoker.\r
+\r
+"There... he's puffing again," muttered Tushin to himself, as a small\r
+cloud rose from the hill and was borne in a streak to the left by the\r
+wind.\r
+\r
+"Now look out for the ball... we'll throw it back."\r
+\r
+"What do you want, your honor?" asked an artilleryman, standing close\r
+by, who heard him muttering.\r
+\r
+"Nothing... only a shell..." he answered.\r
+\r
+"Come along, our Matvevna!" he said to himself. "Matvevna" * was the\r
+name his fancy gave to the farthest gun of the battery, which was large\r
+and of an old pattern. The French swarming round their guns seemed to\r
+him like ants. In that world, the handsome drunkard Number One of the\r
+second gun's crew was "uncle"; Tushin looked at him more often than at\r
+anyone else and took delight in his every movement. The sound of\r
+musketry at the foot of the hill, now diminishing, now increasing,\r
+seemed like someone's breathing. He listened intently to the ebb and\r
+flow of these sounds.\r
+\r
+\r
+* Daughter of Matthew.\r
+\r
+"Ah! Breathing again, breathing!" he muttered to himself.\r
+\r
+He imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful man who was throwing\r
+cannon balls at the French with both hands.\r
+\r
+"Now then, Matvevna, dear old lady, don't let me down!" he was saying as\r
+he moved from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar voice called above his\r
+head: "Captain Tushin! Captain!"\r
+\r
+Tushin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer who had turned\r
+him out of the booth at Grunth. He was shouting in a gasping voice:\r
+\r
+"Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat, and you..."\r
+\r
+"Why are they down on me?" thought Tushin, looking in alarm at his\r
+superior.\r
+\r
+"I... don't..." he muttered, holding up two fingers to his cap. "I..."\r
+\r
+But the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say. A cannon\r
+ball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and bend over his horse.\r
+He paused, and just as he was about to say something more, another ball\r
+stopped him. He turned his horse and galloped off.\r
+\r
+"Retire! All to retire!" he shouted from a distance.\r
+\r
+The soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived with the same\r
+order.\r
+\r
+It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding up to the space\r
+where Tushin's guns were stationed was an unharnessed horse with a\r
+broken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the harnessed horses.\r
+Blood was gushing from its leg as from a spring. Among the limbers lay\r
+several dead men. One ball after another passed over as he approached\r
+and he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine. But the mere thought\r
+of being afraid roused him again. "I cannot be afraid," thought he, and\r
+dismounted slowly among the guns. He delivered the order and did not\r
+leave the battery. He decided to have the guns removed from their\r
+positions and withdrawn in his presence. Together with Tushin, stepping\r
+across the bodies and under a terrible fire from the French, he attended\r
+to the removal of the guns.\r
+\r
+"A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off," said an\r
+artilleryman to Prince Andrew. "Not like your honor!"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew said nothing to Tushin. They were both so busy as to seem\r
+not to notice one another. When having limbered up the only two cannon\r
+that remained uninjured out of the four, they began moving down the hill\r
+(one shattered gun and one unicorn were left behind), Prince Andrew rode\r
+up to Tushin.\r
+\r
+"Well, till we meet again..." he said, holding out his hand to Tushin.\r
+\r
+"Good-bye, my dear fellow," said Tushin. "Dear soul! Good-bye, my dear\r
+fellow!" and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his eyes.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+The wind had fallen and black clouds, merging with the powder smoke,\r
+hung low over the field of battle on the horizon. It was growing dark\r
+and the glow of two conflagrations was the more conspicuous. The\r
+cannonade was dying down, but the rattle of musketry behind and on the\r
+right sounded oftener and nearer. As soon as Tushin with his guns,\r
+continually driving round or coming upon wounded men, was out of range\r
+of fire and had descended into the dip, he was met by some of the staff,\r
+among them the staff officer and Zherkov, who had been twice sent to\r
+Tushin's battery but had never reached it. Interrupting one another,\r
+they all gave, and transmitted, orders as to how to proceed,\r
+reprimanding and reproaching him. Tushin gave no orders, and, silently--\r
+fearing to speak because at every word he felt ready to weep without\r
+knowing why--rode behind on his artillery nag. Though the orders were to\r
+abandon the wounded, many of them dragged themselves after troops and\r
+begged for seats on the gun carriages. The jaunty infantry officer who\r
+just before the battle had rushed out of Tushin's wattle shed was laid,\r
+with a bullet in his stomach, on "Matvevna's" carriage. At the foot of\r
+the hill, a pale hussar cadet, supporting one hand with the other, came\r
+up to Tushin and asked for a seat.\r
+\r
+"Captain, for God's sake! I've hurt my arm," he said timidly. "For God's\r
+sake... I can't walk. For God's sake!"\r
+\r
+It was plain that this cadet had already repeatedly asked for a lift and\r
+been refused. He asked in a hesitating, piteous voice.\r
+\r
+"Tell them to give me a seat, for God's sake!"\r
+\r
+"Give him a seat," said Tushin. "Lay a cloak for him to sit on, lad," he\r
+said, addressing his favorite soldier. "And where is the wounded\r
+officer?"\r
+\r
+"He has been set down. He died," replied someone.\r
+\r
+"Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out the cloak,\r
+Antonov."\r
+\r
+The cadet was Rostov. With one hand he supported the other; he was pale\r
+and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on "Matvevna,"\r
+the gun from which they had removed the dead officer. The cloak they\r
+spread under him was wet with blood which stained his breeches and arm.\r
+\r
+"What, are you wounded, my lad?" said Tushin, approaching the gun on\r
+which Rostov sat.\r
+\r
+"No, it's a sprain."\r
+\r
+"Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?" inquired Tushin.\r
+\r
+"It was the officer, your honor, stained it," answered the artilleryman,\r
+wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as if apologizing for the\r
+state of his gun.\r
+\r
+It was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise aided by the\r
+infantry, and having reached the village of Gruntersdorf they halted. It\r
+had grown so dark that one could not distinguish the uniforms ten paces\r
+off, and the firing had begun to subside. Suddenly, near by on the\r
+right, shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of shot gleamed in\r
+the darkness. This was the last French attack and was met by soldiers\r
+who had sheltered in the village houses. They all rushed out of the\r
+village again, but Tushin's guns could not move, and the artillerymen,\r
+Tushin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances as they awaited their\r
+fate. The firing died down and soldiers, talking eagerly, streamed out\r
+of a side street.\r
+\r
+"Not hurt, Petrov?" asked one.\r
+\r
+"We've given it 'em hot, mate! They won't make another push now," said\r
+another.\r
+\r
+"You couldn't see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows! Nothing\r
+could be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn't there something to drink?"\r
+\r
+The French had been repulsed for the last time. And again and again in\r
+the complete darkness Tushin's guns moved forward, surrounded by the\r
+humming infantry as by a frame.\r
+\r
+In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was flowing\r
+always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and the sound of\r
+hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and voices of the\r
+wounded were more distinctly heard than any other sound in the darkness\r
+of the night. The gloom that enveloped the army was filled with their\r
+groans, which seemed to melt into one with the darkness of the night.\r
+After a while the moving mass became agitated, someone rode past on a\r
+white horse followed by his suite, and said something in passing: "What\r
+did he say? Where to, now? Halt, is it? Did he thank us?" came eager\r
+questions from all sides. The whole moving mass began pressing closer\r
+together and a report spread that they were ordered to halt: evidently\r
+those in front had halted. All remained where they were in the middle of\r
+the muddy road.\r
+\r
+Fires were lighted and the talk became more audible. Captain Tushin,\r
+having given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a dressing\r
+station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a bonfire the\r
+soldiers had kindled on the road. Rostov, too, dragged himself to the\r
+fire. From pain, cold, and damp, a feverish shivering shook his whole\r
+body. Drowsiness was irresistibly mastering him, but he kept awake by an\r
+excruciating pain in his arm, for which he could find no satisfactory\r
+position. He kept closing his eyes and then again looking at the fire,\r
+which seemed to him dazzlingly red, and at the feeble, round-shouldered\r
+figure of Tushin who was sitting cross-legged like a Turk beside him.\r
+Tushin's large, kind, intelligent eyes were fixed with sympathy and\r
+commiseration on Rostov, who saw that Tushin with his whole heart wished\r
+to help him but could not.\r
+\r
+From all sides were heard the footsteps and talk of the infantry, who\r
+were walking, driving past, and settling down all around. The sound of\r
+voices, the tramping feet, the horses' hoofs moving in mud, the\r
+crackling of wood fires near and afar, merged into one tremulous rumble.\r
+\r
+It was no longer, as before, a dark, unseen river flowing through the\r
+gloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually subsiding after a storm.\r
+Rostov looked at and listened listlessly to what passed before and\r
+around him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on his heels, held\r
+his hands to the blaze, and turned away his face.\r
+\r
+"You don't mind your honor?" he asked Tushin. "I've lost my company,\r
+your honor. I don't know where... such bad luck!"\r
+\r
+With the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came up to\r
+the bonfire, and addressing Tushin asked him to have the guns moved a\r
+trifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone, two soldiers rushed to\r
+the campfire. They were quarreling and fighting desperately, each trying\r
+to snatch from the other a boot they were both holding on to.\r
+\r
+"You picked it up?... I dare say! You're very smart!" one of them\r
+shouted hoarsely.\r
+\r
+Then a thin, pale soldier, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained leg\r
+band, came up and in angry tones asked the artillerymen for water.\r
+\r
+"Must one die like a dog?" said he.\r
+\r
+Tushin told them to give the man some water. Then a cheerful soldier ran\r
+up, begging a little fire for the infantry.\r
+\r
+"A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you, fellow\r
+countrymen. Thanks for the fire--we'll return it with interest," said\r
+he, carrying away into the darkness a glowing stick.\r
+\r
+Next came four soldiers, carrying something heavy on a cloak, and passed\r
+by the fire. One of them stumbled.\r
+\r
+"Who the devil has put the logs on the road?" snarled he.\r
+\r
+"He's dead--why carry him?" said another.\r
+\r
+"Shut up!"\r
+\r
+And they disappeared into the darkness with their load.\r
+\r
+"Still aching?" Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Your honor, you're wanted by the general. He is in the hut here," said\r
+a gunner, coming up to Tushin.\r
+\r
+"Coming, friend."\r
+\r
+Tushin rose and, buttoning his greatcoat and pulling it straight, walked\r
+away from the fire.\r
+\r
+Not far from the artillery campfire, in a hut that had been prepared for\r
+him, Prince Bagration sat at dinner, talking with some commanding\r
+officers who had gathered at his quarters. The little old man with the\r
+half-closed eyes was there greedily gnawing a mutton bone, and the\r
+general who had served blamelessly for twenty-two years, flushed by a\r
+glass of vodka and the dinner; and the staff officer with the signet\r
+ring, and Zherkov, uneasily glancing at them all, and Prince Andrew,\r
+pale, with compressed lips and feverishly glittering eyes.\r
+\r
+In a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French, and\r
+the accountant with the naive face was feeling its texture, shaking his\r
+head in perplexity--perhaps because the banner really interested him,\r
+perhaps because it was hard for him, hungry as he was, to look on at a\r
+dinner where there was no place for him. In the next hut there was a\r
+French colonel who had been taken prisoner by our dragoons. Our officers\r
+were flocking in to look at him. Prince Bagration was thanking the\r
+individual commanders and inquiring into details of the action and our\r
+losses. The general whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau was\r
+informing the prince that as soon as the action began he had withdrawn\r
+from the wood, mustered the men who were woodcutting, and, allowing the\r
+French to pass him, had made a bayonet charge with two battalions and\r
+had broken up the French troops.\r
+\r
+"When I saw, your excellency, that their first battalion was\r
+disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: 'I'll let them come on\r
+and will meet them with the fire of the whole battalion'--and that's\r
+what I did."\r
+\r
+The general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not managed\r
+to do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened. Perhaps it\r
+might really have been so? Could one possibly make out amid all that\r
+confusion what did or did not happen?\r
+\r
+"By the way, your excellency, I should inform you," he continued--\r
+remembering Dolokhov's conversation with Kutuzov and his last interview\r
+with the gentleman-ranker--"that Private Dolokhov, who was reduced to\r
+the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence and\r
+particularly distinguished himself."\r
+\r
+"I saw the Pavlograd hussars attack there, your excellency," chimed in\r
+Zherkov, looking uneasily around. He had not seen the hussars all that\r
+day, but had heard about them from an infantry officer. "They broke up\r
+two squares, your excellency."\r
+\r
+Several of those present smiled at Zherkov's words, expecting one of his\r
+usual jokes, but noticing that what he was saying redounded to the glory\r
+of our arms and of the day's work, they assumed a serious expression,\r
+though many of them knew that what he was saying was a lie devoid of any\r
+foundation. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel:\r
+\r
+"Gentlemen, I thank you all; all arms have behaved heroically: infantry,\r
+cavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were abandoned in the\r
+center?" he inquired, searching with his eyes for someone. (Prince\r
+Bagration did not ask about the guns on the left flank; he knew that all\r
+the guns there had been abandoned at the very beginning of the action.)\r
+"I think I sent you?" he added, turning to the staff officer on duty.\r
+\r
+"One was damaged," answered the staff officer, "and the other I can't\r
+understand. I was there all the time giving orders and had only just\r
+left.... It is true that it was hot there," he added, modestly.\r
+\r
+Someone mentioned that Captain Tushin was bivouacking close to the\r
+village and had already been sent for.\r
+\r
+"Oh, but you were there?" said Prince Bagration, addressing Prince\r
+Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Of course, we only just missed one another," said the staff officer,\r
+with a smile to Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"I had not the pleasure of seeing you," said Prince Andrew, coldly and\r
+abruptly.\r
+\r
+All were silent. Tushin appeared at the threshold and made his way\r
+timidly from behind the backs of the generals. As he stepped past the\r
+generals in the crowded hut, feeling embarrassed as he always was by the\r
+sight of his superiors, he did not notice the staff of the banner and\r
+stumbled over it. Several of those present laughed.\r
+\r
+"How was it a gun was abandoned?" asked Bagration, frowning, not so much\r
+at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom Zherkov laughed\r
+loudest.\r
+\r
+Only now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his guilt\r
+and the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive present\r
+themselves to Tushin in all their horror. He had been so excited that he\r
+had not thought about it until that moment. The officers' laughter\r
+confused him still more. He stood before Bagration with his lower jaw\r
+trembling and was hardly able to mutter: "I don't know... your\r
+excellency... I had no men... your excellency."\r
+\r
+"You might have taken some from the covering troops."\r
+\r
+Tushin did not say that there were no covering troops, though that was\r
+perfectly true. He was afraid of getting some other officer into\r
+trouble, and silently fixed his eyes on Bagration as a schoolboy who has\r
+blundered looks at an examiner.\r
+\r
+The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagration, apparently not wishing\r
+to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture to\r
+intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Tushin from under his brows and his\r
+fingers twitched nervously.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency!" Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt\r
+voice, "you were pleased to send me to Captain Tushin's battery. I went\r
+there and found two thirds of the men and horses knocked out, two guns\r
+smashed, and no supports at all."\r
+\r
+Prince Bagration and Tushin looked with equal intentness at Bolkonski,\r
+who spoke with suppressed agitation.\r
+\r
+"And, if your excellency will allow me to express my opinion," he\r
+continued, "we owe today's success chiefly to the action of that battery\r
+and the heroic endurance of Captain Tushin and his company," and without\r
+awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.\r
+\r
+Prince Bagration looked at Tushin, evidently reluctant to show distrust\r
+in Bolkonski's emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to credit it,\r
+bent his head, and told Tushin that he could go. Prince Andrew went out\r
+with him.\r
+\r
+"Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!" said Tushin.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew gave him a look, but said nothing and went away. He felt\r
+sad and depressed. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had hoped.\r
+\r
+"Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? And when will all\r
+this end?" thought Rostov, looking at the changing shadows before him.\r
+The pain in his arm became more and more intense. Irresistible\r
+drowsiness overpowered him, red rings danced before his eyes, and the\r
+impression of those voices and faces and a sense of loneliness merged\r
+with the physical pain. It was they, these soldiers--wounded and\r
+unwounded--it was they who were crushing, weighing down, and twisting\r
+the sinews and scorching the flesh of his sprained arm and shoulder. To\r
+rid himself of them he closed his eyes.\r
+\r
+For a moment he dozed, but in that short interval innumerable things\r
+appeared to him in a dream: his mother and her large white hand, Sonya's\r
+thin little shoulders, Natasha's eyes and laughter, Denisov with his\r
+voice and mustache, and Telyanin and all that affair with Telyanin and\r
+Bogdanich. That affair was the same thing as this soldier with the harsh\r
+voice, and it was that affair and this soldier that were so agonizingly,\r
+incessantly pulling and pressing his arm and always dragging it in one\r
+direction. He tried to get away from them, but they would not for an\r
+instant let his shoulder move a hair's breadth. It would not ache--it\r
+would be well--if only they did not pull it, but it was impossible to\r
+get rid of them.\r
+\r
+He opened his eyes and looked up. The black canopy of night hung less\r
+than a yard above the glow of the charcoal. Flakes of falling snow were\r
+fluttering in that light. Tushin had not returned, the doctor had not\r
+come. He was alone now, except for a soldier who was sitting naked at\r
+the other side of the fire, warming his thin yellow body.\r
+\r
+"Nobody wants me!" thought Rostov. "There is no one to help me or pity\r
+me. Yet I was once at home, strong, happy, and loved." He sighed and,\r
+doing so, groaned involuntarily.\r
+\r
+"Eh, is anything hurting you?" asked the soldier, shaking his shirt out\r
+over the fire, and not waiting for an answer he gave a grunt and added:\r
+"What a lot of men have been crippled today--frightful!"\r
+\r
+Rostov did not listen to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes\r
+fluttering above the fire and remembered a Russian winter at his warm,\r
+bright home, his fluffy fur coat, his quickly gliding sleigh, his\r
+healthy body, and all the affection and care of his family. "And why did\r
+I come here?" he wondered.\r
+\r
+Next day the French army did not renew their attack, and the remnant of\r
+Bagration's detachment was reunited to Kutuzov's army.\r
+\r
+BOOK THREE: 1805\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili was not a man who deliberately thought out his plans.\r
+Still less did he think of injuring anyone for his own advantage. He was\r
+merely a man of the world who had got on and to whom getting on had\r
+become a habit. Schemes and devices for which he never rightly accounted\r
+to himself, but which formed the whole interest of his life, were\r
+constantly shaping themselves in his mind, arising from the\r
+circumstances and persons he met. Of these plans he had not merely one\r
+or two in his head but dozens, some only beginning to form themselves,\r
+some approaching achievement, and some in course of disintegration. He\r
+did not, for instance, say to himself: "This man now has influence, I\r
+must gain his confidence and friendship and through him obtain a special\r
+grant." Nor did he say to himself: "Pierre is a rich man, I must entice\r
+him to marry my daughter and lend me the forty thousand rubles I need."\r
+But when he came across a man of position his instinct immediately told\r
+him that this man could be useful, and without any premeditation Prince\r
+Vasili took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him,\r
+become intimate with him, and finally make his request.\r
+\r
+He had Pierre at hand in Moscow and procured for him an appointment as\r
+Gentleman of the Bedchamber, which at that time conferred the status of\r
+Councilor of State, and insisted on the young man accompanying him to\r
+Petersburg and staying at his house. With apparent absent-mindedness,\r
+yet with unhesitating assurance that he was doing the right thing,\r
+Prince Vasili did everything to get Pierre to marry his daughter. Had he\r
+thought out his plans beforehand he could not have been so natural and\r
+shown such unaffected familiarity in intercourse with everybody both\r
+above and below him in social standing. Something always drew him toward\r
+those richer and more powerful than himself and he had rare skill in\r
+seizing the most opportune moment for making use of people.\r
+\r
+Pierre, on unexpectedly becoming Count Bezukhov and a rich man, felt\r
+himself after his recent loneliness and freedom from cares so beset and\r
+preoccupied that only in bed was he able to be by himself. He had to\r
+sign papers, to present himself at government offices, the purpose of\r
+which was not clear to him, to question his chief steward, to visit his\r
+estate near Moscow, and to receive many people who formerly did not even\r
+wish to know of his existence but would now have been offended and\r
+grieved had he chosen not to see them. These different people--\r
+businessmen, relations, and acquaintances alike--were all disposed to\r
+treat the young heir in the most friendly and flattering manner: they\r
+were all evidently firmly convinced of Pierre's noble qualities. He was\r
+always hearing such words as: "With your remarkable kindness," or, "With\r
+your excellent heart," "You are yourself so honorable Count," or, "Were\r
+he as clever as you," and so on, till he began sincerely to believe in\r
+his own exceptional kindness and extraordinary intelligence, the more so\r
+as in the depth of his heart it had always seemed to him that he really\r
+was very kind and intelligent. Even people who had formerly been\r
+spiteful toward him and evidently unfriendly now became gentle and\r
+affectionate. The angry eldest princess, with the long waist and hair\r
+plastered down like a doll's, had come into Pierre's room after the\r
+funeral. With drooping eyes and frequent blushes she told him she was\r
+very sorry about their past misunderstandings and did not now feel she\r
+had a right to ask him for anything, except only for permission, after\r
+the blow she had received, to remain for a few weeks longer in the house\r
+she so loved and where she had sacrificed so much. She could not refrain\r
+from weeping at these words. Touched that this statuesque princess could\r
+so change, Pierre took her hand and begged her forgiveness, without\r
+knowing what for. From that day the eldest princess quite changed toward\r
+Pierre and began knitting a striped scarf for him.\r
+\r
+"Do this for my sake, mon cher; after all, she had to put up with a\r
+great deal from the deceased," said Prince Vasili to him, handing him a\r
+deed to sign for the princess' benefit.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to throw\r
+this bone--a bill for thirty thousand rubles--to the poor princess that\r
+it might not occur to her to speak of his share in the affair of the\r
+inlaid portfolio. Pierre signed the deed and after that the princess\r
+grew still kinder. The younger sisters also became affectionate to him,\r
+especially the youngest, the pretty one with the mole, who often made\r
+him feel confused by her smiles and her own confusion when meeting him.\r
+\r
+It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should like him, and it\r
+would have seemed so unnatural had anyone disliked him, that he could\r
+not but believe in the sincerity of those around him. Besides, he had no\r
+time to ask himself whether these people were sincere or not. He was\r
+always busy and always felt in a state of mild and cheerful\r
+intoxication. He felt as though he were the center of some important and\r
+general movement; that something was constantly expected of him, that if\r
+he did not do it he would grieve and disappoint many people, but if he\r
+did this and that, all would be well; and he did what was demanded of\r
+him, but still that happy result always remained in the future.\r
+\r
+More than anyone else, Prince Vasili took possession of Pierre's affairs\r
+and of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of Count\r
+Bezukhov he did not let go his hold of the lad. He had the air of a man\r
+oppressed by business, weary and suffering, who yet would not, for\r
+pity's sake, leave this helpless youth who, after all, was the son of\r
+his old friend and the possessor of such enormous wealth, to the caprice\r
+of fate and the designs of rogues. During the few days he spent in\r
+Moscow after the death of Count Bezukhov, he would call Pierre, or go to\r
+him himself, and tell him what ought to be done in a tone of weariness\r
+and assurance, as if he were adding every time: "You know I am\r
+overwhelmed with business and it is purely out of charity that I trouble\r
+myself about you, and you also know quite well that what I propose is\r
+the only thing possible."\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear fellow, tomorrow we are off at last," said Prince Vasili\r
+one day, closing his eyes and fingering Pierre's elbow, speaking as if\r
+he were saying something which had long since been agreed upon and could\r
+not now be altered. "We start tomorrow and I'm giving you a place in my\r
+carriage. I am very glad. All our important business here is now\r
+settled, and I ought to have been off long ago. Here is something I have\r
+received from the chancellor. I asked him for you, and you have been\r
+entered in the diplomatic corps and made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber.\r
+The diplomatic career now lies open before you."\r
+\r
+Notwithstanding the tone of wearied assurance with which these words\r
+were pronounced, Pierre, who had so long been considering his career,\r
+wished to make some suggestion. But Prince Vasili interrupted him in the\r
+special deep cooing tone, precluding the possibility of interrupting his\r
+speech, which he used in extreme cases when special persuasion was\r
+needed.\r
+\r
+"Mais, mon cher, I did this for my own sake, to satisfy my conscience,\r
+and there is nothing to thank me for. No one has ever complained yet of\r
+being too much loved; and besides, you are free, you could throw it up\r
+tomorrow. But you will see everything for yourself when you get to\r
+Petersburg. It is high time for you to get away from these terrible\r
+recollections." Prince Vasili sighed. "Yes, yes, my boy. And my valet\r
+can go in your carriage. Ah! I was nearly forgetting," he added. "You\r
+know, mon cher, your father and I had some accounts to settle, so I have\r
+received what was due from the Ryazan estate and will keep it; you won't\r
+require it. We'll go into the accounts later."\r
+\r
+By "what was due from the Ryazan estate" Prince Vasili meant several\r
+thousand rubles quitrent received from Pierre's peasants, which the\r
+prince had retained for himself.\r
+\r
+In Petersburg, as in Moscow, Pierre found the same atmosphere of\r
+gentleness and affection. He could not refuse the post, or rather the\r
+rank (for he did nothing), that Prince Vasili had procured for him, and\r
+acquaintances, invitations, and social occupations were so numerous\r
+that, even more than in Moscow, he felt a sense of bewilderment, bustle,\r
+and continual expectation of some good, always in front of him but never\r
+attained.\r
+\r
+Of his former bachelor acquaintances many were no longer in Petersburg.\r
+The Guards had gone to the front; Dolokhov had been reduced to the\r
+ranks; Anatole was in the army somewhere in the provinces; Prince Andrew\r
+was abroad; so Pierre had not the opportunity to spend his nights as he\r
+used to like to spend them, or to open his mind by intimate talks with a\r
+friend older than himself and whom he respected. His whole time was\r
+taken up with dinners and balls and was spent chiefly at Prince Vasili's\r
+house in the company of the stout princess, his wife, and his beautiful\r
+daughter Helene.\r
+\r
+Like the others, Anna Pavlovna Scherer showed Pierre the change of\r
+attitude toward him that had taken place in society.\r
+\r
+Formerly in Anna Pavlovna's presence, Pierre had always felt that what\r
+he was saying was out of place, tactless and unsuitable, that remarks\r
+which seemed to him clever while they formed in his mind became foolish\r
+as soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary Hippolyte's stupidest\r
+remarks came out clever and apt. Now everything Pierre said was\r
+charmant. Even if Anna Pavlovna did not say so, he could see that she\r
+wished to and only refrained out of regard for his modesty.\r
+\r
+In the beginning of the winter of 1805-6 Pierre received one of Anna\r
+Pavlovna's usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added: "You\r
+will find the beautiful Helene here, whom it is always delightful to\r
+see."\r
+\r
+When he read that sentence, Pierre felt for the first time that some\r
+link which other people recognized had grown up between himself and\r
+Helene, and that thought both alarmed him, as if some obligation were\r
+being imposed on him which he could not fulfill, and pleased him as an\r
+entertaining supposition.\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna's "At Home" was like the former one, only the novelty she\r
+offered her guests this time was not Mortemart, but a diplomatist fresh\r
+from Berlin with the very latest details of the Emperor Alexander's\r
+visit to Potsdam, and of how the two august friends had pledged\r
+themselves in an indissoluble alliance to uphold the cause of justice\r
+against the enemy of the human race. Anna Pavlovna received Pierre with\r
+a shade of melancholy, evidently relating to the young man's recent loss\r
+by the death of Count Bezukhov (everyone constantly considered it a duty\r
+to assure Pierre that he was greatly afflicted by the death of the\r
+father he had hardly known), and her melancholy was just like the august\r
+melancholy she showed at the mention of her most august Majesty the\r
+Empress Marya Fedorovna. Pierre felt flattered by this. Anna Pavlovna\r
+arranged the different groups in her drawing room with her habitual\r
+skill. The large group, in which were Prince Vasili and the generals,\r
+had the benefit of the diplomat. Another group was at the tea table.\r
+Pierre wished to join the former, but Anna Pavlovna--who was in the\r
+excited condition of a commander on a battlefield to whom thousands of\r
+new and brilliant ideas occur which there is hardly time to put in\r
+action--seeing Pierre, touched his sleeve with her finger, saying:\r
+\r
+"Wait a bit, I have something in view for you this evening." (She\r
+glanced at Helene and smiled at her.) "My dear Helene, be charitable to\r
+my poor aunt who adores you. Go and keep her company for ten minutes.\r
+And that it will not be too dull, here is the dear count who will not\r
+refuse to accompany you."\r
+\r
+The beauty went to the aunt, but Anna Pavlovna detained Pierre, looking\r
+as if she had to give some final necessary instructions.\r
+\r
+"Isn't she exquisite?" she said to Pierre, pointing to the stately\r
+beauty as she glided away. "And how she carries herself! For so young a\r
+girl, such tact, such masterly perfection of manner! It comes from her\r
+heart. Happy the man who wins her! With her the least worldly of men\r
+would occupy a most brilliant position in society. Don't you think so? I\r
+only wanted to know your opinion," and Anna Pavlovna let Pierre go.\r
+\r
+Pierre, in reply, sincerely agreed with her as to Helene's perfection of\r
+manner. If he ever thought of Helene, it was just of her beauty and her\r
+remarkable skill in appearing silently dignified in society.\r
+\r
+The old aunt received the two young people in her corner, but seemed\r
+desirous of hiding her adoration for Helene and inclined rather to show\r
+her fear of Anna Pavlovna. She looked at her niece, as if inquiring what\r
+she was to do with these people. On leaving them, Anna Pavlovna again\r
+touched Pierre's sleeve, saying: "I hope you won't say that it is dull\r
+in my house again," and she glanced at Helene.\r
+\r
+Helene smiled, with a look implying that she did not admit the\r
+possibility of anyone seeing her without being enchanted. The aunt\r
+coughed, swallowed, and said in French that she was very pleased to see\r
+Helene, then she turned to Pierre with the same words of welcome and the\r
+same look. In the middle of a dull and halting conversation, Helene\r
+turned to Pierre with the beautiful bright smile that she gave to\r
+everyone. Pierre was so used to that smile, and it had so little meaning\r
+for him, that he paid no attention to it. The aunt was just speaking of\r
+a collection of snuffboxes that had belonged to Pierre's father, Count\r
+Bezukhov, and showed them her own box. Princess Helene asked to see the\r
+portrait of the aunt's husband on the box lid.\r
+\r
+"That is probably the work of Vinesse," said Pierre, mentioning a\r
+celebrated miniaturist, and he leaned over the table to take the\r
+snuffbox while trying to hear what was being said at the other table.\r
+\r
+He half rose, meaning to go round, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox,\r
+passing it across Helene's back. Helene stooped forward to make room,\r
+and looked round with a smile. She was, as always at evening parties,\r
+wearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut very low at front and\r
+back. Her bust, which had always seemed like marble to Pierre, was so\r
+close to him that his shortsighted eyes could not but perceive the\r
+living charm of her neck and shoulders, so near to his lips that he need\r
+only have bent his head a little to have touched them. He was conscious\r
+of the warmth of her body, the scent of perfume, and the creaking of her\r
+corset as she moved. He did not see her marble beauty forming a complete\r
+whole with her dress, but all the charm of her body only covered by her\r
+garments. And having once seen this he could not help being aware of it,\r
+just as we cannot renew an illusion we have once seen through.\r
+\r
+"So you have never noticed before how beautiful I am?" Helene seemed to\r
+say. "You had not noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am a woman who may\r
+belong to anyone--to you too," said her glance. And at that moment\r
+Pierre felt that Helene not only could, but must, be his wife, and that\r
+it could not be otherwise.\r
+\r
+He knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing at the\r
+altar with her. How and when this would be he did not know, he did not\r
+even know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he knew not why,\r
+that it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would happen.\r
+\r
+Pierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more to see\r
+her as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had seen her every\r
+day until then, but he could no longer do it. He could not, any more\r
+than a man who has been looking at a tuft of steppe grass through the\r
+mist and taking it for a tree can again take it for a tree after he has\r
+once recognized it to be a tuft of grass. She was terribly close to him.\r
+She already had power over him, and between them there was no longer any\r
+barrier except the barrier of his own will.\r
+\r
+"Well, I will leave you in your little corner," came Anna Pavlovna's\r
+voice, "I see you are all right there."\r
+\r
+And Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done anything\r
+reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him that everyone\r
+knew what had happened to him as he knew it himself.\r
+\r
+A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pavlovna said\r
+to him: "I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?"\r
+\r
+This was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and\r
+Pierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg house\r
+done up.\r
+\r
+"That's a good thing, but don't move from Prince Vasili's. It is good to\r
+have a friend like the prince," she said, smiling at Prince Vasili. "I\r
+know something about that. Don't I? And you are still so young. You need\r
+advice. Don't be angry with me for exercising an old woman's privilege."\r
+\r
+She paused, as women always do, expecting something after they have\r
+mentioned their age. "If you marry it will be a different thing," she\r
+continued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at\r
+Helene nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He\r
+muttered something and colored.\r
+\r
+When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking of what\r
+had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely understood that\r
+the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her beauty was mentioned\r
+he had said absent-mindedly: "Yes, she's good looking," he had\r
+understood that this woman might belong to him.\r
+\r
+"But she's stupid. I have myself said she is stupid," he thought. "There\r
+is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites in me. I\r
+have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her and she\r
+with him, that there was quite a scandal and that that's why he was sent\r
+away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasili is her father... It's\r
+bad...." he reflected, but while he was thinking this (the reflection\r
+was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was conscious that\r
+another line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking of her\r
+worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his wife, how she\r
+would love him become quite different, and how all he had thought and\r
+heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the daughter of\r
+Prince Vasili, but visualized her whole body only veiled by its gray\r
+dress. "But no! Why did this thought never occur to me before?" and\r
+again he told himself that it was impossible, that there would be\r
+something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in this\r
+marriage. He recalled her former words and looks and the words and looks\r
+of those who had seen them together. He recalled Anna Pavlovna's words\r
+and looks when she spoke to him about his house, recalled thousands of\r
+such hints from Prince Vasili and others, and was seized by terror lest\r
+he had already, in some way, bound himself to do something that was\r
+evidently wrong and that he ought not to do. But at the very time he was\r
+expressing this conviction to himself, in another part of his mind her\r
+image rose in all its womanly beauty.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+In November, 1805, Prince Vasili had to go on a tour of inspection in\r
+four different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to\r
+visit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son Anatole\r
+where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nicholas\r
+Bolkonski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that\r
+rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking these new affairs,\r
+Prince Vasili had to settle matters with Pierre, who, it is true, had\r
+latterly spent whole days at home, that is, in Prince Vasili's house\r
+where he was staying, and had been absurd, excited, and foolish in\r
+Helene's presence (as a lover should be), but had not yet proposed to\r
+her.\r
+\r
+"This is all very fine, but things must be settled," said Prince Vasili\r
+to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that Pierre who\r
+was under such obligations to him ("But never mind that") was not\r
+behaving very well in this matter. "Youth, frivolity... well, God be\r
+with him," thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart, "but it must\r
+be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be Lelya's name day. I\r
+will invite two or three people, and if he does not understand what he\r
+ought to do then it will be my affair--yes, my affair. I am her father."\r
+\r
+Six weeks after Anna Pavlovna's "At Home" and after the sleepless night\r
+when he had decided that to marry Helene would be a calamity and that he\r
+ought to avoid her and go away, Pierre, despite that decision, had not\r
+left Prince Vasili's and felt with terror that in people's eyes he was\r
+every day more and more connected with her, that it was impossible for\r
+him to return to his former conception of her, that he could not break\r
+away from her, and that though it would be a terrible thing he would\r
+have to unite his fate with hers. He might perhaps have been able to\r
+free himself but that Prince Vasili (who had rarely before given\r
+receptions) now hardly let a day go by without having an evening party\r
+at which Pierre had to be present unless he wished to spoil the general\r
+pleasure and disappoint everyone's expectation. Prince Vasili, in the\r
+rare moments when he was at home, would take Pierre's hand in passing\r
+and draw it downwards, or absent-mindedly hold out his wrinkled, clean-\r
+shaven cheek for Pierre to kiss and would say: "Till tomorrow," or, "Be\r
+in to dinner or I shall not see you," or, "I am staying in for your\r
+sake," and so on. And though Prince Vasili, when he stayed in (as he\r
+said) for Pierre's sake, hardly exchanged a couple of words with him,\r
+Pierre felt unable to disappoint him. Every day he said to himself one\r
+and the same thing: "It is time I understood her and made up my mind\r
+what she really is. Was I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now? No, she\r
+is not stupid, she is an excellent girl," he sometimes said to himself\r
+"she never makes a mistake, never says anything stupid. She says little,\r
+but what she does say is always clear and simple, so she is not stupid.\r
+She never was abashed and is not abashed now, so she cannot be a bad\r
+woman!" He had often begun to make reflections or think aloud in her\r
+company, and she had always answered him either by a brief but\r
+appropriate remark--showing that it did not interest her--or by a silent\r
+look and smile which more palpably than anything else showed Pierre her\r
+superiority. She was right in regarding all arguments as nonsense in\r
+comparison with that smile.\r
+\r
+She always addressed him with a radiantly confiding smile meant for him\r
+alone, in which there was something more significant than in the general\r
+smile that usually brightened her face. Pierre knew that everyone was\r
+waiting for him to say a word and cross a certain line, and he knew that\r
+sooner or later he would step across it, but an incomprehensible terror\r
+seized him at the thought of that dreadful step. A thousand times during\r
+that month and a half while he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer to\r
+that dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself: "What am I doing? I need\r
+resolution. Can it be that I have none?"\r
+\r
+He wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that in this matter\r
+he lacked that strength of will which he had known in himself and really\r
+possessed. Pierre was one of those who are only strong when they feel\r
+themselves quite innocent, and since that day when he was overpowered by\r
+a feeling of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at Anna Pavlovna's,\r
+an unacknowledged sense of the guilt of that desire paralyzed his will.\r
+\r
+On Helene's name day, a small party of just their own people--as his\r
+wife said--met for supper at Prince Vasili's. All these friends and\r
+relations had been given to understand that the fate of the young girl\r
+would be decided that evening. The visitors were seated at supper.\r
+Princess Kuragina, a portly imposing woman who had once been handsome,\r
+was sitting at the head of the table. On either side of her sat the more\r
+important guests--an old general and his wife, and Anna Pavlovna\r
+Scherer. At the other end sat the younger and less important guests, and\r
+there too sat the members of the family, and Pierre and Helene, side by\r
+side. Prince Vasili was not having any supper: he went round the table\r
+in a merry mood, sitting down now by one, now by another, of the guests.\r
+To each of them he made some careless and agreeable remark except to\r
+Pierre and Helene, whose presence he seemed not to notice. He enlivened\r
+the whole party. The wax candles burned brightly, the silver and crystal\r
+gleamed, so did the ladies' toilets and the gold and silver of the men's\r
+epaulets; servants in scarlet liveries moved round the table, the\r
+clatter of plates, knives, and glasses mingled with the animated hum of\r
+several conversations. At one end of the table, the old chamberlain was\r
+heard assuring an old baroness that he loved her passionately, at which\r
+she laughed; at the other could be heard the story of the misfortunes of\r
+some Mary Viktorovna or other. At the center of the table, Prince Vasili\r
+attracted everybody's attention. With a facetious smile on his face, he\r
+was telling the ladies about last Wednesday's meeting of the Imperial\r
+Council, at which Sergey Kuzmich Vyazmitinov, the new military governor\r
+general of Petersburg, had received and read the then famous rescript of\r
+the Emperor Alexander from the army to Sergey Kuzmich, in which the\r
+Emperor said that he was receiving from all sides declarations of the\r
+people's loyalty, that the declaration from Petersburg gave him\r
+particular pleasure, and that he was proud to be at the head of such a\r
+nation and would endeavor to be worthy of it. This rescript began with\r
+the words: "Sergey Kuzmich, From all sides reports reach me," etc.\r
+\r
+"Well, and so he never got farther than: 'Sergey Kuzmich'?" asked one of\r
+the ladies.\r
+\r
+"Exactly, not a hair's breadth farther," answered Prince Vasili,\r
+laughing, "'Sergey Kuzmich... From all sides... From all sides... Sergey\r
+Kuzmich...' Poor Vyazmitinov could not get any farther! He began the\r
+rescript again and again, but as soon as he uttered 'Sergey' he sobbed,\r
+'Kuz-mi-ch,' tears, and 'From all sides' was smothered in sobs and he\r
+could get no farther. And again his handkerchief, and again: 'Sergey\r
+Kuzmich, From all sides,'... and tears, till at last somebody else was\r
+asked to read it."\r
+\r
+"Kuzmich... From all sides... and then tears," someone repeated\r
+laughing.\r
+\r
+"Don't be unkind," cried Anna Pavlovna from her end of the table holding\r
+up a threatening finger. "He is such a worthy and excellent man, our\r
+dear Vyazmitinov...."\r
+\r
+Everybody laughed a great deal. At the head of the table, where the\r
+honored guests sat, everyone seemed to be in high spirits and under the\r
+influence of a variety of exciting sensations. Only Pierre and Helene\r
+sat silently side by side almost at the bottom of the table, a\r
+suppressed smile brightening both their faces, a smile that had nothing\r
+to do with Sergey Kuzmich--a smile of bashfulness at their own feelings.\r
+But much as all the rest laughed, talked, and joked, much as they\r
+enjoyed their Rhine wine, saute, and ices, and however they avoided\r
+looking at the young couple, and heedless and unobservant as they seemed\r
+of them, one could feel by the occasional glances they gave that the\r
+story about Sergey Kuzmich, the laughter, and the food were all a\r
+pretense, and that the whole attention of that company was directed to--\r
+Pierre and Helene. Prince Vasili mimicked the sobbing of Sergey Kuzmich\r
+and at the same time his eyes glanced toward his daughter, and while he\r
+laughed the expression on his face clearly said: "Yes... it's getting\r
+on, it will all be settled today." Anna Pavlovna threatened him on\r
+behalf of "our dear Vyazmitinov," and in her eyes, which, for an\r
+instant, glanced at Pierre, Prince Vasili read a congratulation on his\r
+future son-in-law and on his daughter's happiness. The old princess\r
+sighed sadly as she offered some wine to the old lady next to her and\r
+glanced angrily at her daughter, and her sigh seemed to say: "Yes,\r
+there's nothing left for you and me but to sip sweet wine, my dear, now\r
+that the time has come for these young ones to be thus boldly,\r
+provocatively happy." "And what nonsense all this is that I am saying!"\r
+thought a diplomatist, glancing at the happy faces of the lovers.\r
+"That's happiness!"\r
+\r
+Into the insignificant, trifling, and artificial interests uniting that\r
+society had entered the simple feeling of the attraction of a healthy\r
+and handsome young man and woman for one another. And this human feeling\r
+dominated everything else and soared above all their affected chatter.\r
+Jests fell flat, news was not interesting, and the animation was\r
+evidently forced. Not only the guests but even the footmen waiting at\r
+table seemed to feel this, and they forgot their duties as they looked\r
+at the beautiful Helene with her radiant face and at the red, broad, and\r
+happy though uneasy face of Pierre. It seemed as if the very light of\r
+the candles was focused on those two happy faces alone.\r
+\r
+Pierre felt that he was the center of it all, and this both pleased and\r
+embarrassed him. He was like a man entirely absorbed in some occupation.\r
+He did not see, hear, or understand anything clearly. Only now and then\r
+detached ideas and impressions from the world of reality shot\r
+unexpectedly through his mind.\r
+\r
+"So it is all finished!" he thought. "And how has it all happened? How\r
+quickly! Now I know that not because of her alone, nor of myself alone,\r
+but because of everyone, it must inevitably come about. They are all\r
+expecting it, they are so sure that it will happen that I cannot, I\r
+cannot, disappoint them. But how will it be? I do not know, but it will\r
+certainly happen!" thought Pierre, glancing at those dazzling shoulders\r
+close to his eyes.\r
+\r
+Or he would suddenly feel ashamed of he knew not what. He felt it\r
+awkward to attract everyone's attention and to be considered a lucky man\r
+and, with his plain face, to be looked on as a sort of Paris possessed\r
+of a Helen. "But no doubt it always is and must be so!" he consoled\r
+himself. "And besides, what have I done to bring it about? How did it\r
+begin? I traveled from Moscow with Prince Vasili. Then there was\r
+nothing. So why should I not stay at his house? Then I played cards with\r
+her and picked up her reticule and drove out with her. How did it begin,\r
+when did it all come about?" And here he was sitting by her side as her\r
+betrothed, seeing, hearing, feeling her nearness, her breathing, her\r
+movements, her beauty. Then it would suddenly seem to him that it was\r
+not she but he was so unusually beautiful, and that that was why they\r
+all looked so at him, and flattered by this general admiration he would\r
+expand his chest, raise his head, and rejoice at his good fortune.\r
+Suddenly he heard a familiar voice repeating something to him a second\r
+time. But Pierre was so absorbed that he did not understand what was\r
+said.\r
+\r
+"I am asking you when you last heard from Bolkonski," repeated Prince\r
+Vasili a third time. "How absent-minded you are, my dear fellow."\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili smiled, and Pierre noticed that everyone was smiling at\r
+him and Helene. "Well, what of it, if you all know it?" thought Pierre.\r
+"What of it? It's the truth!" and he himself smiled his gentle childlike\r
+smile, and Helene smiled too.\r
+\r
+"When did you get the letter? Was it from Olmutz?" repeated Prince\r
+Vasili, who pretended to want to know this in order to settle a dispute.\r
+\r
+"How can one talk or think of such trifles?" thought Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Yes, from Olmutz," he answered, with a sigh.\r
+\r
+After supper Pierre with his partner followed the others into the\r
+drawing room. The guests began to disperse, some without taking leave of\r
+Helene. Some, as if unwilling to distract her from an important\r
+occupation, came up to her for a moment and made haste to go away,\r
+refusing to let her see them off. The diplomatist preserved a mournful\r
+silence as he left the drawing room. He pictured the vanity of his\r
+diplomatic career in comparison with Pierre's happiness. The old general\r
+grumbled at his wife when she asked how his leg was. "Oh, the old fool,"\r
+he thought. "That Princess Helene will be beautiful still when she's\r
+fifty."\r
+\r
+"I think I may congratulate you," whispered Anna Pavlovna to the old\r
+princess, kissing her soundly. "If I hadn't this headache I'd have\r
+stayed longer."\r
+\r
+The old princess did not reply, she was tormented by jealousy of her\r
+daughter's happiness.\r
+\r
+While the guests were taking their leave Pierre remained for a long time\r
+alone with Helene in the little drawing room where they were sitting. He\r
+had often before, during the last six weeks, remained alone with her,\r
+but had never spoken to her of love. Now he felt that it was inevitable,\r
+but he could not make up his mind to take the final step. He felt\r
+ashamed; he felt that he was occupying someone else's place here beside\r
+Helene. "This happiness is not for you," some inner voice whispered to\r
+him. "This happiness is for those who have not in them what there is in\r
+you."\r
+\r
+But, as he had to say something, he began by asking her whether she was\r
+satisfied with the party. She replied in her usual simple manner that\r
+this name day of hers had been one of the pleasantest she had ever had.\r
+\r
+Some of the nearest relatives had not yet left. They were sitting in the\r
+large drawing room. Prince Vasili came up to Pierre with languid\r
+footsteps. Pierre rose and said it was getting late. Prince Vasili gave\r
+him a look of stern inquiry, as though what Pierre had just said was so\r
+strange that one could not take it in. But then the expression of\r
+severity changed, and he drew Pierre's hand downwards, made him sit\r
+down, and smiled affectionately.\r
+\r
+"Well, Lelya?" he asked, turning instantly to his daughter and\r
+addressing her with the careless tone of habitual tenderness natural to\r
+parents who have petted their children from babyhood, but which Prince\r
+Vasili had only acquired by imitating other parents.\r
+\r
+And he again turned to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Sergey Kuzmich--From all sides-" he said, unbuttoning the top button of\r
+his waistcoat.\r
+\r
+Pierre smiled, but his smile showed that he knew it was not the story\r
+about Sergey Kuzmich that interested Prince Vasili just then, and Prince\r
+Vasili saw that Pierre knew this. He suddenly muttered something and\r
+went away. It seemed to Pierre that even the prince was disconcerted.\r
+The sight of the discomposure of that old man of the world touched\r
+Pierre: he looked at Helene and she too seemed disconcerted, and her\r
+look seemed to say: "Well, it is your own fault."\r
+\r
+"The step must be taken but I cannot, I cannot!" thought Pierre, and he\r
+again began speaking about indifferent matters, about Sergey Kuzmich,\r
+asking what the point of the story was as he had not heard it properly.\r
+Helene answered with a smile that she too had missed it.\r
+\r
+When Prince Vasili returned to the drawing room, the princess, his wife,\r
+was talking in low tones to the elderly lady about Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Of course, it is a very brilliant match, but happiness, my dear..."\r
+\r
+"Marriages are made in heaven," replied the elderly lady.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili passed by, seeming not to hear the ladies, and sat down on\r
+a sofa in a far corner of the room. He closed his eyes and seemed to be\r
+dozing. His head sank forward and then he roused himself.\r
+\r
+"Aline," he said to his wife, "go and see what they are about."\r
+\r
+The princess went up to the door, passed by it with a dignified and\r
+indifferent air, and glanced into the little drawing room. Pierre and\r
+Helene still sat talking just as before.\r
+\r
+"Still the same," she said to her husband.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili frowned, twisting his mouth, his cheeks quivered and his\r
+face assumed the coarse, unpleasant expression peculiar to him. Shaking\r
+himself, he rose, threw back his head, and with resolute steps went past\r
+the ladies into the little drawing room. With quick steps he went\r
+joyfully up to Pierre. His face was so unusually triumphant that Pierre\r
+rose in alarm on seeing it.\r
+\r
+"Thank God!" said Prince Vasili. "My wife has told me everything!" (He\r
+put one arm around Pierre and the other around his daughter.)--"My dear\r
+boy... Lelya... I am very pleased." (His voice trembled.) "I loved your\r
+father... and she will make you a good wife... God bless you!..."\r
+\r
+He embraced his daughter, and then again Pierre, and kissed him with his\r
+malodorous mouth. Tears actually moistened his cheeks.\r
+\r
+"Princess, come here!" he shouted.\r
+\r
+The old princess came in and also wept. The elderly lady was using her\r
+handkerchief too. Pierre was kissed, and he kissed the beautiful\r
+Helene's hand several times. After a while they were left alone again.\r
+\r
+"All this had to be and could not be otherwise," thought Pierre, "so it\r
+is useless to ask whether it is good or bad. It is good because it's\r
+definite and one is rid of the old tormenting doubt." Pierre held the\r
+hand of his betrothed in silence, looking at her beautiful bosom as it\r
+rose and fell.\r
+\r
+"Helene!" he said aloud and paused.\r
+\r
+"Something special is always said in such cases," he thought, but could\r
+not remember what it was that people say. He looked at her face. She\r
+drew nearer to him. Her face flushed.\r
+\r
+"Oh, take those off... those..." she said, pointing to his spectacles.\r
+\r
+Pierre took them off, and his eyes, besides the strange look eyes have\r
+from which spectacles have just been removed, had also a frightened and\r
+inquiring look. He was about to stoop over her hand and kiss it, but\r
+with a rapid, almost brutal movement of her head, she intercepted his\r
+lips and met them with her own. Her face struck Pierre, by its altered,\r
+unpleasantly excited expression.\r
+\r
+"It is too late now, it's done; besides I love her," thought Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Je vous aime!" * he said, remembering what has to be said at such\r
+moments: but his words sounded so weak that he felt ashamed of himself.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "I love you."\r
+\r
+Six weeks later he was married, and settled in Count Bezukhov's large,\r
+newly furnished Petersburg house, the happy possessor, as people said,\r
+of a wife who was a celebrated beauty and of millions of money.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+Old Prince Nicholas Bolkonski received a letter from Prince Vasili in\r
+November, 1805, announcing that he and his son would be paying him a\r
+visit. "I am starting on a journey of inspection, and of course I shall\r
+think nothing of an extra seventy miles to come and see you at the same\r
+time, my honored benefactor," wrote Prince Vasili. "My son Anatole is\r
+accompanying me on his way to the army, so I hope you will allow him\r
+personally to express the deep respect that, emulating his father, he\r
+feels for you."\r
+\r
+"It seems that there will be no need to bring Mary out, suitors are\r
+coming to us of their own accord," incautiously remarked the little\r
+princess on hearing the news.\r
+\r
+Prince Nicholas frowned, but said nothing.\r
+\r
+A fortnight after the letter Prince Vasili's servants came one evening\r
+in advance of him, and he and his son arrived next day.\r
+\r
+Old Bolkonski had always had a poor opinion of Prince Vasili's\r
+character, but more so recently, since in the new reigns of Paul and\r
+Alexander Prince Vasili had risen to high position and honors. And now,\r
+from the hints contained in his letter and given by the little princess,\r
+he saw which way the wind was blowing, and his low opinion changed into\r
+a feeling of contemptuous ill will. He snorted whenever he mentioned\r
+him. On the day of Prince Vasili's arrival, Prince Bolkonski was\r
+particularly discontented and out of temper. Whether he was in a bad\r
+temper because Prince Vasili was coming, or whether his being in a bad\r
+temper made him specially annoyed at Prince Vasili's visit, he was in a\r
+bad temper, and in the morning Tikhon had already advised the architect\r
+not to go to the prince with his report.\r
+\r
+"Do you hear how he's walking?" said Tikhon, drawing the architect's\r
+attention to the sound of the prince's footsteps. "Stepping flat on his\r
+heels--we know what that means...."\r
+\r
+However, at nine o'clock the prince, in his velvet coat with a sable\r
+collar and cap, went out for his usual walk. It had snowed the day\r
+before and the path to the hothouse, along which the prince was in the\r
+habit of walking, had been swept: the marks of the broom were still\r
+visible in the snow and a shovel had been left sticking in one of the\r
+soft snowbanks that bordered both sides of the path. The prince went\r
+through the conservatories, the serfs' quarters, and the outbuildings,\r
+frowning and silent.\r
+\r
+"Can a sleigh pass?" he asked his overseer, a venerable man, resembling\r
+his master in manners and looks, who was accompanying him back to the\r
+house.\r
+\r
+"The snow is deep. I am having the avenue swept, your honor."\r
+\r
+The prince bowed his head and went up to the porch. "God be thanked,"\r
+thought the overseer, "the storm has blown over!"\r
+\r
+"It would have been hard to drive up, your honor," he added. "I heard,\r
+your honor, that a minister is coming to visit your honor."\r
+\r
+The prince turned round to the overseer and fixed his eyes on him,\r
+frowning.\r
+\r
+"What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?" he said in his\r
+shrill, harsh voice. "The road is not swept for the princess my\r
+daughter, but for a minister! For me, there are no ministers!"\r
+\r
+"Your honor, I thought..."\r
+\r
+"You thought!" shouted the prince, his words coming more and more\r
+rapidly and indistinctly. "You thought!... Rascals! Blackguards!... I'll\r
+teach you to think!" and lifting his stick he swung it and would have\r
+hit Alpatych, the overseer, had not the latter instinctively avoided the\r
+blow. "Thought... Blackguards..." shouted the prince rapidly.\r
+\r
+But although Alpatych, frightened at his own temerity in avoiding the\r
+stroke, came up to the prince, bowing his bald head resignedly before\r
+him, or perhaps for that very reason, the prince, though he continued to\r
+shout: "Blackguards!... Throw the snow back on the road!" did not lift\r
+his stick again but hurried into the house.\r
+\r
+Before dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bourienne, who knew that\r
+the prince was in a bad humor, stood awaiting him; Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne with a radiant face that said: "I know nothing, I am the same\r
+as usual," and Princess Mary pale, frightened, and with downcast eyes.\r
+What she found hardest to bear was to know that on such occasions she\r
+ought to behave like Mademoiselle Bourienne, but could not. She thought:\r
+"If I seem not to notice he will think that I do not sympathize with\r
+him; if I seem sad and out of spirits myself, he will say (as he has\r
+done before) that I'm in the dumps."\r
+\r
+The prince looked at his daughter's frightened face and snorted.\r
+\r
+"Fool... or dummy!" he muttered.\r
+\r
+"And the other one is not here. They've been telling tales," he thought-\r
+-referring to the little princess who was not in the dining room.\r
+\r
+"Where is the princess?" he asked. "Hiding?"\r
+\r
+"She is not very well," answered Mademoiselle Bourienne with a bright\r
+smile, "so she won't come down. It is natural in her state."\r
+\r
+"Hm! Hm!" muttered the prince, sitting down.\r
+\r
+His plate seemed to him not quite clean, and pointing to a spot he flung\r
+it away. Tikhon caught it and handed it to a footman. The little\r
+princess was not unwell, but had such an overpowering fear of the prince\r
+that, hearing he was in a bad humor, she had decided not to appear.\r
+\r
+"I am afraid for the baby," she said to Mademoiselle Bourienne: "Heaven\r
+knows what a fright might do."\r
+\r
+In general at Bald Hills the little princess lived in constant fear, and\r
+with a sense of antipathy to the old prince which she did not realize\r
+because the fear was so much the stronger feeling. The prince\r
+reciprocated this antipathy, but it was overpowered by his contempt for\r
+her. When the little princess had grown accustomed to life at Bald\r
+Hills, she took a special fancy to Mademoiselle Bourienne, spent whole\r
+days with her, asked her to sleep in her room, and often talked with her\r
+about the old prince and criticized him.\r
+\r
+"So we are to have visitors, mon prince?" remarked Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne, unfolding her white napkin with her rosy fingers. "His\r
+Excellency Prince Vasili Kuragin and his son, I understand?" she said\r
+inquiringly.\r
+\r
+"Hm!--his excellency is a puppy.... I got him his appointment in the\r
+service," said the prince disdainfully. "Why his son is coming I don't\r
+understand. Perhaps Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary know. I don't\r
+want him." (He looked at his blushing daughter.) "Are you unwell today?\r
+Eh? Afraid of the 'minister' as that idiot Alpatych called him this\r
+morning?"\r
+\r
+"No, mon pere."\r
+\r
+Though Mademoiselle Bourienne had been so unsuccessful in her choice of\r
+a subject, she did not stop talking, but chattered about the\r
+conservatories and the beauty of a flower that had just opened, and\r
+after the soup the prince became more genial.\r
+\r
+After dinner, he went to see his daughter-in-law. The little princess\r
+was sitting at a small table, chattering with Masha, her maid. She grew\r
+pale on seeing her father-in-law.\r
+\r
+She was much altered. She was now plain rather than pretty. Her cheeks\r
+had sunk, her lip was drawn up, and her eyes drawn down.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I feel a kind of oppression," she said in reply to the prince's\r
+question as to how she felt.\r
+\r
+"Do you want anything?"\r
+\r
+"No, merci, mon pere."\r
+\r
+"Well, all right, all right."\r
+\r
+He left the room and went to the waiting room where Alpatych stood with\r
+bowed head.\r
+\r
+"Has the snow been shoveled back?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, your excellency. Forgive me for heaven's sake... It was only my\r
+stupidity."\r
+\r
+"All right, all right," interrupted the prince, and laughing his\r
+unnatural way, he stretched out his hand for Alpatych to kiss, and then\r
+proceeded to his study.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili arrived that evening. He was met in the avenue by coachmen\r
+and footmen, who, with loud shouts, dragged his sleighs up to one of the\r
+lodges over the road purposely laden with snow.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili and Anatole had separate rooms assigned to them.\r
+\r
+Anatole, having taken off his overcoat, sat with arms akimbo before a\r
+table on a corner of which he smilingly and absent-mindedly fixed his\r
+large and handsome eyes. He regarded his whole life as a continual round\r
+of amusement which someone for some reason had to provide for him. And\r
+he looked on this visit to a churlish old man and a rich and ugly\r
+heiress in the same way. All this might, he thought, turn out very well\r
+and amusingly. "And why not marry her if she really has so much money?\r
+That never does any harm," thought Anatole.\r
+\r
+He shaved and scented himself with the care and elegance which had\r
+become habitual to him and, his handsome head held high, entered his\r
+father's room with the good-humored and victorious air natural to him.\r
+Prince Vasili's two valets were busy dressing him, and he looked round\r
+with much animation and cheerfully nodded to his son as the latter\r
+entered, as if to say: "Yes, that's how I want you to look."\r
+\r
+"I say, Father, joking apart, is she very hideous?" Anatole asked, as if\r
+continuing a conversation the subject of which had often been mentioned\r
+during the journey.\r
+\r
+"Enough! What nonsense! Above all, try to be respectful and cautious\r
+with the old prince."\r
+\r
+"If he starts a row I'll go away," said Prince Anatole. "I can't bear\r
+those old men! Eh?"\r
+\r
+"Remember, for you everything depends on this."\r
+\r
+In the meantime, not only was it known in the maidservants' rooms that\r
+the minister and his son had arrived, but the appearance of both had\r
+been minutely described. Princess Mary was sitting alone in her room,\r
+vainly trying to master her agitation.\r
+\r
+"Why did they write, why did Lise tell me about it? It can never\r
+happen!" she said, looking at herself in the glass. "How shall I enter\r
+the drawing room? Even if I like him I can't now be myself with him."\r
+The mere thought of her father's look filled her with terror. The little\r
+princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne had already received from Masha, the\r
+lady's maid, the necessary report of how handsome the minister's son\r
+was, with his rosy cheeks and dark eyebrows, and with what difficulty\r
+the father had dragged his legs upstairs while the son had followed him\r
+like an eagle, three steps at a time. Having received this information,\r
+the little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne, whose chattering voices\r
+had reached her from the corridor, went into Princess Mary's room.\r
+\r
+"You know they've come, Marie?" said the little princess, waddling in,\r
+and sinking heavily into an armchair.\r
+\r
+She was no longer in the loose gown she generally wore in the morning,\r
+but had on one of her best dresses. Her hair was carefully done and her\r
+face was animated, which, however, did not conceal its sunken and faded\r
+outlines. Dressed as she used to be in Petersburg society, it was still\r
+more noticeable how much plainer she had become. Some unobtrusive touch\r
+had been added to Mademoiselle Bourienne's toilet which rendered her\r
+fresh and pretty face yet more attractive.\r
+\r
+"What! Are you going to remain as you are, dear princess?" she began.\r
+"They'll be announcing that the gentlemen are in the drawing room and we\r
+shall have to go down, and you have not smartened yourself up at all!"\r
+\r
+The little princess got up, rang for the maid, and hurriedly and merrily\r
+began to devise and carry out a plan of how Princess Mary should be\r
+dressed. Princess Mary's self-esteem was wounded by the fact that the\r
+arrival of a suitor agitated her, and still more so by both her\r
+companions' not having the least conception that it could be otherwise.\r
+To tell them that she felt ashamed for herself and for them would be to\r
+betray her agitation, while to decline their offers to dress her would\r
+prolong their banter and insistence. She flushed, her beautiful eyes\r
+grew dim, red blotches came on her face, and it took on the unattractive\r
+martyrlike expression it so often wore, as she submitted herself to\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne and Lise. Both these women quite sincerely tried\r
+to make her look pretty. She was so plain that neither of them could\r
+think of her as a rival, so they began dressing her with perfect\r
+sincerity, and with the naive and firm conviction women have that dress\r
+can make a face pretty.\r
+\r
+"No really, my dear, this dress is not pretty," said Lise, looking\r
+sideways at Princess Mary from a little distance. "You have a maroon\r
+dress, have it fetched. Really! You know the fate of your whole life may\r
+be at stake. But this one is too light, it's not becoming!"\r
+\r
+It was not the dress, but the face and whole figure of Princess Mary\r
+that was not pretty, but neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor the little\r
+princess felt this; they still thought that if a blue ribbon were placed\r
+in the hair, the hair combed up, and the blue scarf arranged lower on\r
+the best maroon dress, and so on, all would be well. They forgot that\r
+the frightened face and the figure could not be altered, and that\r
+however they might change the setting and adornment of that face, it\r
+would still remain piteous and plain. After two or three changes to\r
+which Princess Mary meekly submitted, just as her hair had been arranged\r
+on the top of her head (a style that quite altered and spoiled her\r
+looks) and she had put on a maroon dress with a pale-blue scarf, the\r
+little princess walked twice round her, now adjusting a fold of the\r
+dress with her little hand, now arranging the scarf and looking at her\r
+with her head bent first on one side and then on the other.\r
+\r
+"No, it will not do," she said decidedly, clasping her hands. "No, Mary,\r
+really this dress does not suit you. I prefer you in your little gray\r
+everyday dress. Now please, do it for my sake. Katie," she said to the\r
+maid, "bring the princess her gray dress, and you'll see, Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne, how I shall arrange it," she added, smiling with a foretaste\r
+of artistic pleasure.\r
+\r
+But when Katie brought the required dress, Princess Mary remained\r
+sitting motionless before the glass, looking at her face, and saw in the\r
+mirror her eyes full of tears and her mouth quivering, ready to burst\r
+into sobs.\r
+\r
+"Come, dear princess," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, "just one more\r
+little effort."\r
+\r
+The little princess, taking the dress from the maid, came up to Princess\r
+Mary.\r
+\r
+"Well, now we'll arrange something quite simple and becoming," she said.\r
+\r
+The three voices, hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne's, and Katie's, who was\r
+laughing at something, mingled in a merry sound, like the chirping of\r
+birds.\r
+\r
+"No, leave me alone," said Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+Her voice sounded so serious and so sad that the chirping of the birds\r
+was silenced at once. They looked at the beautiful, large, thoughtful\r
+eyes full of tears and of thoughts, gazing shiningly and imploringly at\r
+them, and understood that it was useless and even cruel to insist.\r
+\r
+"At least, change your coiffure," said the little princess. "Didn't I\r
+tell you," she went on, turning reproachfully to Mademoiselle Bourienne,\r
+"Mary's is a face which such a coiffure does not suit in the least. Not\r
+in the least! Please change it."\r
+\r
+"Leave me alone, please leave me alone! It is all quite the same to me,"\r
+answered a voice struggling with tears.\r
+\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to own to themselves\r
+that Princess Mary in this guise looked very plain, worse than usual,\r
+but it was too late. She was looking at them with an expression they\r
+both knew, an expression thoughtful and sad. This expression in Princess\r
+Mary did not frighten them (she never inspired fear in anyone), but they\r
+knew that when it appeared on her face, she became mute and was not to\r
+be shaken in her determination.\r
+\r
+"You will change it, won't you?" said Lise. And as Princess Mary gave no\r
+answer, she left the room.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary was left alone. She did not comply with Lise's request,\r
+she not only left her hair as it was, but did not even look in her\r
+glass. Letting her arms fall helplessly, she sat with downcast eyes and\r
+pondered. A husband, a man, a strong dominant and strangely attractive\r
+being rose in her imagination, and carried her into a totally different\r
+happy world of his own. She fancied a child, her own--such as she had\r
+seen the day before in the arms of her nurse's daughter--at her own\r
+breast, the husband standing by and gazing tenderly at her and the\r
+child. "But no, it is impossible, I am too ugly," she thought.\r
+\r
+"Please come to tea. The prince will be out in a moment," came the\r
+maid's voice at the door.\r
+\r
+She roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been thinking, and\r
+before going down she went into the room where the icons hung and, her\r
+eyes fixed on the dark face of a large icon of the Saviour lit by a\r
+lamp, she stood before it with folded hands for a few moments. A painful\r
+doubt filled her soul. Could the joy of love, of earthly love for a man,\r
+be for her? In her thoughts of marriage Princess Mary dreamed of\r
+happiness and of children, but her strongest, most deeply hidden longing\r
+was for earthly love. The more she tried to hide this feeling from\r
+others and even from herself, the stronger it grew. "O God," she said,\r
+"how am I to stifle in my heart these temptations of the devil? How am I\r
+to renounce forever these vile fancies, so as peacefully to fulfill Thy\r
+will?" And scarcely had she put that question than God gave her the\r
+answer in her own heart. "Desire nothing for thyself, seek nothing, be\r
+not anxious or envious. Man's future and thy own fate must remain hidden\r
+from thee, but live so that thou mayest be ready for anything. If it be\r
+God's will to prove thee in the duties of marriage, be ready to fulfill\r
+His will." With this consoling thought (but yet with a hope for the\r
+fulfillment of her forbidden earthly longing) Princess Mary sighed, and\r
+having crossed herself went down, thinking neither of her gown and\r
+coiffure nor of how she would go in nor of what she would say. What\r
+could all that matter in comparison with the will of God, without Whose\r
+care not a hair of man's head can fall?\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+When Princess Mary came down, Prince Vasili and his son were already in\r
+the drawing room, talking to the little princess and Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne. When she entered with her heavy step, treading on her heels,\r
+the gentlemen and Mademoiselle Bourienne rose and the little princess,\r
+indicating her to the gentlemen, said: "Voila Marie!" Princess Mary saw\r
+them all and saw them in detail. She saw Prince Vasili's face, serious\r
+for an instant at the sight of her, but immediately smiling again, and\r
+the little princess curiously noting the impression "Marie" produced on\r
+the visitors. And she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne, with her ribbon and\r
+pretty face, and her unusually animated look which was fixed on him, but\r
+him she could not see, she only saw something large, brilliant, and\r
+handsome moving toward her as she entered the room. Prince Vasili\r
+approached first, and she kissed the bold forehead that bent over her\r
+hand and answered his question by saying that, on the contrary, she\r
+remembered him quite well. Then Anatole came up to her. She still could\r
+not see him. She only felt a soft hand taking hers firmly, and she\r
+touched with her lips a white forehead, over which was beautiful light-\r
+brown hair smelling of pomade. When she looked up at him she was struck\r
+by his beauty. Anatole stood with his right thumb under a button of his\r
+uniform, his chest expanded and his back drawn in, slightly swinging one\r
+foot, and, with his head a little bent, looked with beaming face at the\r
+princess without speaking and evidently not thinking about her at all.\r
+Anatole was not quick-witted, nor ready or eloquent in conversation, but\r
+he had the faculty, so invaluable in society, of composure and\r
+imperturbable self-possession. If a man lacking in self-confidence\r
+remains dumb on a first introduction and betrays a consciousness of the\r
+impropriety of such silence and an anxiety to find something to say, the\r
+effect is bad. But Anatole was dumb, swung his foot, and smilingly\r
+examined the princess' hair. It was evident that he could be silent in\r
+this way for a very long time. "If anyone finds this silence\r
+inconvenient, let him talk, but I don't want to," he seemed to say.\r
+Besides this, in his behavior to women Anatole had a manner which\r
+particularly inspires in them curiosity, awe, and even love--a\r
+supercilious consciousness of his own superiority. It was as if he said\r
+to them: "I know you, I know you, but why should I bother about you?\r
+You'd be only too glad, of course." Perhaps he did not really think this\r
+when he met women--even probably he did not, for in general he thought\r
+very little--but his looks and manner gave that impression. The princess\r
+felt this, and as if wishing to show him that she did not even dare\r
+expect to interest him, she turned to his father. The conversation was\r
+general and animated, thanks to Princess Lise's voice and little downy\r
+lip that lifted over her white teeth. She met Prince Vasili with that\r
+playful manner often employed by lively chatty people, and consisting in\r
+the assumption that between the person they so address and themselves\r
+there are some semi-private, long-established jokes and amusing\r
+reminiscences, though no such reminiscences really exist--just as none\r
+existed in this case. Prince Vasili readily adopted her tone and the\r
+little princess also drew Anatole, whom she hardly knew, into these\r
+amusing recollections of things that had never occurred. Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne also shared them and even Princess Mary felt herself\r
+pleasantly made to share in these merry reminiscences.\r
+\r
+"Here at least we shall have the benefit of your company all to\r
+ourselves, dear prince," said the little princess (of course, in French)\r
+to Prince Vasili. "It's not as at Annette's * receptions where you\r
+always ran away; you remember cette chere Annette!"\r
+\r
+\r
+* Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+"Ah, but you won't talk politics to me like Annette!"\r
+\r
+"And our little tea table?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes!"\r
+\r
+"Why is it you were never at Annette's?" the little princess asked\r
+Anatole. "Ah, I know, I know," she said with a sly glance, "your brother\r
+Hippolyte told me about your goings on. Oh!" and she shook her finger at\r
+him, "I have even heard of your doings in Paris!"\r
+\r
+"And didn't Hippolyte tell you?" asked Prince Vasili, turning to his son\r
+and seizing the little princess' arm as if she would have run away and\r
+he had just managed to catch her, "didn't he tell you how he himself was\r
+pining for the dear princess, and how she showed him the door? Oh, she\r
+is a pearl among women, Princess," he added, turning to Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+When Paris was mentioned, Mademoiselle Bourienne for her part seized the\r
+opportunity of joining in the general current of recollections.\r
+\r
+She took the liberty of inquiring whether it was long since Anatole had\r
+left Paris and how he had liked that city. Anatole answered the\r
+Frenchwoman very readily and, looking at her with a smile, talked to her\r
+about her native land. When he saw the pretty little Bourienne, Anatole\r
+came to the conclusion that he would not find Bald Hills dull either.\r
+"Not at all bad!" he thought, examining her, "not at all bad, that\r
+little companion! I hope she will bring her along with her when we're\r
+married, la petite est gentille." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* The little one is charming.\r
+\r
+The old prince dressed leisurely in his study, frowning and considering\r
+what he was to do. The coming of these visitors annoyed him. "What are\r
+Prince Vasili and that son of his to me? Prince Vasili is a shallow\r
+braggart and his son, no doubt, is a fine specimen," he grumbled to\r
+himself. What angered him was that the coming of these visitors revived\r
+in his mind an unsettled question he always tried to stifle, one about\r
+which he always deceived himself. The question was whether he could ever\r
+bring himself to part from his daughter and give her to a husband. The\r
+prince never directly asked himself that question, knowing beforehand\r
+that he would have to answer it justly, and justice clashed not only\r
+with his feelings but with the very possibility of life. Life without\r
+Princess Mary, little as he seemed to value her, was unthinkable to him.\r
+"And why should she marry?" he thought. "To be unhappy for certain.\r
+There's Lise, married to Andrew--a better husband one would think could\r
+hardly be found nowadays--but is she contented with her lot? And who\r
+would marry Marie for love? Plain and awkward! They'll take her for her\r
+connections and wealth. Are there no women living unmarried, and even\r
+the happier for it?" So thought Prince Bolkonski while dressing, and yet\r
+the question he was always putting off demanded an immediate answer.\r
+Prince Vasili had brought his son with the evident intention of\r
+proposing, and today or tomorrow he would probably ask for an answer.\r
+His birth and position in society were not bad. "Well, I've nothing\r
+against it," the prince said to himself, "but he must be worthy of her.\r
+And that is what we shall see."\r
+\r
+"That is what we shall see! That is what we shall see!" he added aloud.\r
+\r
+He entered the drawing room with his usual alert step, glancing rapidly\r
+round the company. He noticed the change in the little princess' dress,\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne's ribbon, Princess Mary's unbecoming coiffure,\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne's and Anatole's smiles, and the loneliness of his\r
+daughter amid the general conversation. "Got herself up like a fool!" he\r
+thought, looking irritably at her. "She is shameless, and he ignores\r
+her!"\r
+\r
+He went straight up to Prince Vasili.\r
+\r
+"Well! How d'ye do? How d'ye do? Glad to see you!"\r
+\r
+"Friendship laughs at distance," began Prince Vasili in his usual rapid,\r
+self-confident, familiar tone. "Here is my second son; please love and\r
+befriend him."\r
+\r
+Prince Bolkonski surveyed Anatole.\r
+\r
+"Fine young fellow! Fine young fellow!" he said. "Well, come and kiss\r
+me," and he offered his cheek.\r
+\r
+Anatole kissed the old man, and looked at him with curiosity and perfect\r
+composure, waiting for a display of the eccentricities his father had\r
+told him to expect.\r
+\r
+Prince Bolkonski sat down in his usual place in the corner of the sofa\r
+and, drawing up an armchair for Prince Vasili, pointed to it and began\r
+questioning him about political affairs and news. He seemed to listen\r
+attentively to what Prince Vasili said, but kept glancing at Princess\r
+Mary.\r
+\r
+"And so they are writing from Potsdam already?" he said, repeating\r
+Prince Vasili's last words. Then rising, he suddenly went up to his\r
+daughter.\r
+\r
+"Is it for visitors you've got yourself up like that, eh?" said he.\r
+"Fine, very fine! You have done up your hair in this new way for the\r
+visitors, and before the visitors I tell you that in future you are\r
+never to dare to change your way of dress without my consent."\r
+\r
+"It was my fault, mon pere," interceded the little princess, with a\r
+blush.\r
+\r
+"You must do as you please," said Prince Bolkonski, bowing to his\r
+daughter-in-law, "but she need not make a fool of herself, she's plain\r
+enough as it is."\r
+\r
+And he sat down again, paying no more attention to his daughter, who was\r
+reduced to tears.\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, that coiffure suits the princess very well," said\r
+Prince Vasili.\r
+\r
+"Now you, young prince, what's your name?" said Prince Bolkonski,\r
+turning to Anatole, "come here, let us talk and get acquainted."\r
+\r
+"Now the fun begins," thought Anatole, sitting down with a smile beside\r
+the old prince.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear boy, I hear you've been educated abroad, not taught to\r
+read and write by the deacon, like your father and me. Now tell me, my\r
+dear boy, are you serving in the Horse Guards?" asked the old man,\r
+scrutinizing Anatole closely and intently.\r
+\r
+"No, I have been transferred to the line," said Anatole, hardly able to\r
+restrain his laughter.\r
+\r
+"Ah! That's a good thing. So, my dear boy, you wish to serve the Tsar\r
+and the country? It is wartime. Such a fine fellow must serve. Well, are\r
+you off to the front?"\r
+\r
+"No, Prince, our regiment has gone to the front, but I am attached...\r
+what is it I am attached to, Papa?" said Anatole, turning to his father\r
+with a laugh.\r
+\r
+"A splendid soldier, splendid! 'What am I attached to!' Ha, ha, ha!"\r
+laughed Prince Bolkonski, and Anatole laughed still louder. Suddenly\r
+Prince Bolkonski frowned.\r
+\r
+"You may go," he said to Anatole.\r
+\r
+Anatole returned smiling to the ladies.\r
+\r
+"And so you've had him educated abroad, Prince Vasili, haven't you?"\r
+said the old prince to Prince Vasili.\r
+\r
+"I have done my best for him, and I can assure you the education there\r
+is much better than ours."\r
+\r
+"Yes, everything is different nowadays, everything is changed. The lad's\r
+a fine fellow, a fine fellow! Well, come with me now." He took Prince\r
+Vasili's arm and led him to his study. As soon as they were alone\r
+together, Prince Vasili announced his hopes and wishes to the old\r
+prince.\r
+\r
+"Well, do you think I shall prevent her, that I can't part from her?"\r
+said the old prince angrily. "What an idea! I'm ready for it tomorrow!\r
+Only let me tell you, I want to know my son-in-law better. You know my\r
+principles--everything aboveboard? I will ask her tomorrow in your\r
+presence; if she is willing, then he can stay on. He can stay and I'll\r
+see." The old prince snorted. "Let her marry, it's all the same to me!"\r
+he screamed in the same piercing tone as when parting from his son.\r
+\r
+"I will tell you frankly," said Prince Vasili in the tone of a crafty\r
+man convinced of the futility of being cunning with so keen-sighted a\r
+companion. "You know, you see right through people. Anatole is no\r
+genius, but he is an honest, goodhearted lad; an excellent son or\r
+kinsman."\r
+\r
+"All right, all right, we'll see!"\r
+\r
+As always happens when women lead lonely lives for any length of time\r
+without male society, on Anatole's appearance all the three women of\r
+Prince Bolkonski's household felt that their life had not been real till\r
+then. Their powers of reasoning, feeling, and observing immediately\r
+increased tenfold, and their life, which seemed to have been passed in\r
+darkness, was suddenly lit up by a new brightness, full of significance.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary grew quite unconscious of her face and coiffure. The\r
+handsome open face of the man who might perhaps be her husband absorbed\r
+all her attention. He seemed to her kind, brave, determined, manly, and\r
+magnanimous. She felt convinced of that. Thousands of dreams of a future\r
+family life continually rose in her imagination. She drove them away and\r
+tried to conceal them.\r
+\r
+"But am I not too cold with him?" thought the princess. "I try to be\r
+reserved because in the depth of my soul I feel too near to him already,\r
+but then he cannot know what I think of him and may imagine that I do\r
+not like him."\r
+\r
+And Princess Mary tried, but could not manage, to be cordial to her new\r
+guest. "Poor girl, she's devilish ugly!" thought Anatole.\r
+\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne, also roused to great excitement by Anatole's\r
+arrival, thought in another way. Of course, she, a handsome young woman\r
+without any definite position, without relations or even a country, did\r
+not intend to devote her life to serving Prince Bolkonski, to reading\r
+aloud to him and being friends with Princess Mary. Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne had long been waiting for a Russian prince who, able to\r
+appreciate at a glance her superiority to the plain, badly dressed,\r
+ungainly Russian princesses, would fall in love with her and carry her\r
+off; and here at last was a Russian prince. Mademoiselle Bourienne knew\r
+a story, heard from her aunt but finished in her own way, which she\r
+liked to repeat to herself. It was the story of a girl who had been\r
+seduced, and to whom her poor mother (sa pauvre mere) appeared, and\r
+reproached her for yielding to a man without being married. Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne was often touched to tears as in imagination she told this\r
+story to him, her seducer. And now he, a real Russian prince, had\r
+appeared. He would carry her away and then sa pauvre mere would appear\r
+and he would marry her. So her future shaped itself in Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne's head at the very time she was talking to Anatole about\r
+Paris. It was not calculation that guided her (she did not even for a\r
+moment consider what she should do), but all this had long been familiar\r
+to her, and now that Anatole had appeared it just grouped itself around\r
+him and she wished and tried to please him as much as possible.\r
+\r
+The little princess, like an old war horse that hears the trumpet,\r
+unconsciously and quite forgetting her condition, prepared for the\r
+familiar gallop of coquetry, without any ulterior motive or any\r
+struggle, but with naive and lighthearted gaiety.\r
+\r
+Although in female society Anatole usually assumed the role of a man\r
+tired of being run after by women, his vanity was flattered by the\r
+spectacle of his power over these three women. Besides that, he was\r
+beginning to feel for the pretty and provocative Mademoiselle Bourienne\r
+that passionate animal feeling which was apt to master him with great\r
+suddenness and prompt him to the coarsest and most reckless actions.\r
+\r
+After tea, the company went into the sitting room and Princess Mary was\r
+asked to play on the clavichord. Anatole, laughing and in high spirits,\r
+came and leaned on his elbows, facing her and beside Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne. Princess Mary felt his look with a painfully joyous emotion.\r
+Her favorite sonata bore her into a most intimately poetic world and the\r
+look she felt upon her made that world still more poetic. But Anatole's\r
+expression, though his eyes were fixed on her, referred not to her but\r
+to the movements of Mademoiselle Bourienne's little foot, which he was\r
+then touching with his own under the clavichord. Mademoiselle Bourienne\r
+was also looking at Princess Mary, and in her lovely eyes there was a\r
+look of fearful joy and hope that was also new to the princess.\r
+\r
+"How she loves me!" thought Princess Mary. "How happy I am now, and how\r
+happy I may be with such a friend and such a husband! Husband? Can it be\r
+possible?" she thought, not daring to look at his face, but still\r
+feeling his eyes gazing at her.\r
+\r
+In the evening, after supper, when all were about to retire, Anatole\r
+kissed Princess Mary's hand. She did not know how she found the courage,\r
+but she looked straight into his handsome face as it came near to her\r
+shortsighted eyes. Turning from Princess Mary he went up and kissed\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne's hand. (This was not etiquette, but then he did\r
+everything so simply and with such assurance!) Mademoiselle Bourienne\r
+flushed, and gave the princess a frightened look.\r
+\r
+"What delicacy!" thought the princess. "Is it possible that Amelie"\r
+(Mademoiselle Bourienne) "thinks I could be jealous of her, and not\r
+value her pure affection and devotion to me?" She went up to her and\r
+kissed her warmly. Anatole went up to kiss the little princess' hand.\r
+\r
+"No! No! No! When your father writes to tell me that you are behaving\r
+well I will give you my hand to kiss. Not till then!" she said. And\r
+smilingly raising a finger at him, she left the room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+They all separated, but, except Anatole who fell asleep as soon as he\r
+got into bed, all kept awake a long time that night.\r
+\r
+"Is he really to be my husband, this stranger who is so kind--yes, kind,\r
+that is the chief thing," thought Princess Mary; and fear, which she had\r
+seldom experienced, came upon her. She feared to look round, it seemed\r
+to her that someone was there standing behind the screen in the dark\r
+corner. And this someone was he--the devil--and he was also this man\r
+with the white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips.\r
+\r
+She rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room.\r
+\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne walked up and down the conservatory for a long\r
+time that evening, vainly expecting someone, now smiling at someone, now\r
+working herself up to tears with the imaginary words of her pauvre mere\r
+rebuking her for her fall.\r
+\r
+The little princess grumbled to her maid that her bed was badly made.\r
+She could not lie either on her face or on her side. Every position was\r
+awkward and uncomfortable, and her burden oppressed her now more than\r
+ever because Anatole's presence had vividly recalled to her the time\r
+when she was not like that and when everything was light and gay. She\r
+sat in an armchair in her dressing jacket and nightcap and Katie, sleepy\r
+and disheveled, beat and turned the heavy feather bed for the third\r
+time, muttering to herself.\r
+\r
+"I told you it was all lumps and holes!" the little princess repeated.\r
+"I should be glad enough to fall asleep, so it's not my fault!" and her\r
+voice quivered like that of a child about to cry.\r
+\r
+The old prince did not sleep either. Tikhon, half asleep, heard him\r
+pacing angrily about and snorting. The old prince felt as though he had\r
+been insulted through his daughter. The insult was the more pointed\r
+because it concerned not himself but another, his daughter, whom he\r
+loved more than himself. He kept telling himself that he would consider\r
+the whole matter and decide what was right and how he should act, but\r
+instead of that he only excited himself more and more.\r
+\r
+"The first man that turns up--she forgets her father and everything\r
+else, runs upstairs and does up her hair and wags her tail and is unlike\r
+herself! Glad to throw her father over! And she knew I should notice it.\r
+Fr... fr... fr! And don't I see that that idiot had eyes only for\r
+Bourienne--I shall have to get rid of her. And how is it she has not\r
+pride enough to see it? If she has no pride for herself she might at\r
+least have some for my sake! She must be shown that the blockhead thinks\r
+nothing of her and looks only at Bourienne. No, she has no pride... but\r
+I'll let her see...."\r
+\r
+The old prince knew that if he told his daughter she was making a\r
+mistake and that Anatole meant to flirt with Mademoiselle Bourienne,\r
+Princess Mary's self-esteem would be wounded and his point (not to be\r
+parted from her) would be gained, so pacifying himself with this\r
+thought, he called Tikhon and began to undress.\r
+\r
+"What devil brought them here?" thought he, while Tikhon was putting the\r
+nightshirt over his dried-up old body and gray-haired chest. "I never\r
+invited them. They came to disturb my life--and there is not much of it\r
+left."\r
+\r
+"Devil take 'em!" he muttered, while his head was still covered by the\r
+shirt.\r
+\r
+Tikhon knew his master's habit of sometimes thinking aloud, and\r
+therefore met with unaltered looks the angrily inquisitive expression of\r
+the face that emerged from the shirt.\r
+\r
+"Gone to bed?" asked the prince.\r
+\r
+Tikhon, like all good valets, instinctively knew the direction of his\r
+master's thoughts. He guessed that the question referred to Prince\r
+Vasili and his son.\r
+\r
+"They have gone to bed and put out their lights, your excellency."\r
+\r
+"No good... no good..." said the prince rapidly, and thrusting his feet\r
+into his slippers and his arms into the sleeves of his dressing gown, he\r
+went to the couch on which he slept.\r
+\r
+Though no words had passed between Anatole and Mademoiselle Bourienne,\r
+they quite understood one another as to the first part of their romance,\r
+up to the appearance of the pauvre mere; they understood that they had\r
+much to say to one another in private and so they had been seeking an\r
+opportunity since morning to meet one another alone. When Princess Mary\r
+went to her father's room at the usual hour, Mademoiselle Bourienne and\r
+Anatole met in the conservatory.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary went to the door of the study with special trepidation. It\r
+seemed to her that not only did everybody know that her fate would be\r
+decided that day, but that they also knew what she thought about it. She\r
+read this in Tikhon's face and in that of Prince Vasili's valet, who\r
+made her a low bow when she met him in the corridor carrying hot water.\r
+\r
+The old prince was very affectionate and careful in his treatment of his\r
+daughter that morning. Princess Mary well knew this painstaking\r
+expression of her father's. His face wore that expression when his dry\r
+hands clenched with vexation at her not understanding a sum in\r
+arithmetic, when rising from his chair he would walk away from her,\r
+repeating in a low voice the same words several times over.\r
+\r
+He came to the point at once, treating her ceremoniously.\r
+\r
+"I have had a proposition made me concerning you," he said with an\r
+unnatural smile. "I expect you have guessed that Prince Vasili has not\r
+come and brought his pupil with him" (for some reason Prince Bolkonski\r
+referred to Anatole as a "pupil") "for the sake of my beautiful eyes.\r
+Last night a proposition was made me on your account and, as you know my\r
+principles, I refer it to you."\r
+\r
+"How am I to understand you, mon pere?" said the princess, growing pale\r
+and then blushing.\r
+\r
+"How understand me!" cried her father angrily. "Prince Vasili finds you\r
+to his taste as a daughter-in-law and makes a proposal to you on his\r
+pupil's behalf. That's how it's to be understood! 'How understand\r
+it'!... And I ask you!"\r
+\r
+"I do not know what you think, Father," whispered the princess.\r
+\r
+"I? I? What of me? Leave me out of the question. I'm not going to get\r
+married. What about you? That's what I want to know."\r
+\r
+The princess saw that her father regarded the matter with disapproval,\r
+but at that moment the thought occurred to her that her fate would be\r
+decided now or never. She lowered her eyes so as not to see the gaze\r
+under which she felt that she could not think, but would only be able to\r
+submit from habit, and she said: "I wish only to do your will, but if I\r
+had to express my own desire..." She had no time to finish. The old\r
+prince interrupted her.\r
+\r
+"That's admirable!" he shouted. "He will take you with your dowry and\r
+take Mademoiselle Bourienne into the bargain. She'll be the wife, while\r
+you..."\r
+\r
+The prince stopped. He saw the effect these words had produced on his\r
+daughter. She lowered her head and was ready to burst into tears.\r
+\r
+"Now then, now then, I'm only joking!" he said. "Remember this,\r
+Princess, I hold to the principle that a maiden has a full right to\r
+choose. I give you freedom. Only remember that your life's happiness\r
+depends on your decision. Never mind me!"\r
+\r
+"But I do not know, Father!"\r
+\r
+"There's no need to talk! He receives his orders and will marry you or\r
+anybody; but you are free to choose.... Go to your room, think it over,\r
+and come back in an hour and tell me in his presence: yes or no. I know\r
+you will pray over it. Well, pray if you like, but you had better think\r
+it over. Go! Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no!" he still shouted when the\r
+princess, as if lost in a fog, had already staggered out of the study.\r
+\r
+Her fate was decided and happily decided. But what her father had said\r
+about Mademoiselle Bourienne was dreadful. It was untrue to be sure, but\r
+still it was terrible, and she could not help thinking of it. She was\r
+going straight on through the conservatory, neither seeing nor hearing\r
+anything, when suddenly the well-known whispering of Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne aroused her. She raised her eyes, and two steps away saw\r
+Anatole embracing the Frenchwoman and whispering something to her. With\r
+a horrified expression on his handsome face, Anatole looked at Princess\r
+Mary, but did not at once take his arm from the waist of Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne who had not yet seen her.\r
+\r
+"Who's that? Why? Wait a moment!" Anatole's face seemed to say. Princess\r
+Mary looked at them in silence. She could not understand it. At last\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne gave a scream and ran away. Anatole bowed to\r
+Princess Mary with a gay smile, as if inviting her to join in a laugh at\r
+this strange incident, and then shrugging his shoulders went to the door\r
+that led to his own apartments.\r
+\r
+An hour later, Tikhon came to call Princess Mary to the old prince; he\r
+added that Prince Vasili was also there. When Tikhon came to her\r
+Princess Mary was sitting on the sofa in her room, holding the weeping\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne in her arms and gently stroking her hair. The\r
+princess' beautiful eyes with all their former calm radiance were\r
+looking with tender affection and pity at Mademoiselle Bourienne's\r
+pretty face.\r
+\r
+"No, Princess, I have lost your affection forever!" said Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne.\r
+\r
+"Why? I love you more than ever," said Princess Mary, "and I will try to\r
+do all I can for your happiness."\r
+\r
+"But you despise me. You who are so pure can never understand being so\r
+carried away by passion. Oh, only my poor mother..."\r
+\r
+"I quite understand," answered Princess Mary, with a sad smile. "Calm\r
+yourself, my dear. I will go to my father," she said, and went out.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili, with one leg thrown high over the other and a snuffbox in\r
+his hand, was sitting there with a smile of deep emotion on his face, as\r
+if stirred to his heart's core and himself regretting and laughing at\r
+his own sensibility, when Princess Mary entered. He hurriedly took a\r
+pinch of snuff.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my dear, my dear!" he began, rising and taking her by both hands.\r
+Then, sighing, he added: "My son's fate is in your hands. Decide, my\r
+dear, good, gentle Marie, whom I have always loved as a daughter!"\r
+\r
+He drew back and a real tear appeared in his eye.\r
+\r
+"Fr... fr..." snorted Prince Bolkonski. "The prince is making a\r
+proposition to you in his pupil's--I mean, his son's--name. Do you wish\r
+or not to be Prince Anatole Kuragin's wife? Reply: yes or no," he\r
+shouted, "and then I shall reserve the right to state my opinion also.\r
+Yes, my opinion, and only my opinion," added Prince Bolkonski, turning\r
+to Prince Vasili and answering his imploring look. "Yes, or no?"\r
+\r
+"My desire is never to leave you, Father, never to separate my life from\r
+yours. I don't wish to marry," she answered positively, glancing at\r
+Prince Vasili and at her father with her beautiful eyes.\r
+\r
+"Humbug! Nonsense! Humbug, humbug, humbug!" cried Prince Bolkonski,\r
+frowning and taking his daughter's hand; he did not kiss her, but only\r
+bending his forehead to hers just touched it, and pressed her hand so\r
+that she winced and uttered a cry.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili rose.\r
+\r
+"My dear, I must tell you that this is a moment I shall never, never\r
+forget. But, my dear, will you not give us a little hope of touching\r
+this heart, so kind and generous? Say 'perhaps'... The future is so\r
+long. Say 'perhaps.'"\r
+\r
+"Prince, what I have said is all there is in my heart. I thank you for\r
+the honor, but I shall never be your son's wife."\r
+\r
+"Well, so that's finished, my dear fellow! I am very glad to have seen\r
+you. Very glad! Go back to your rooms, Princess. Go!" said the old\r
+prince. "Very, very glad to have seen you," repeated he, embracing\r
+Prince Vasili.\r
+\r
+"My vocation is a different one," thought Princess Mary. "My vocation is\r
+to be happy with another kind of happiness, the happiness of love and\r
+self-sacrifice. And cost what it may, I will arrange poor Amelie's\r
+happiness, she loves him so passionately, and so passionately repents. I\r
+will do all I can to arrange the match between them. If he is not rich I\r
+will give her the means; I will ask my father and Andrew. I shall be so\r
+happy when she is his wife. She is so unfortunate, a stranger, alone,\r
+helpless! And, oh God, how passionately she must love him if she could\r
+so far forget herself! Perhaps I might have done the same!..." thought\r
+Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+It was long since the Rostovs had news of Nicholas. Not till midwinter\r
+was the count at last handed a letter addressed in his son's\r
+handwriting. On receiving it, he ran on tiptoe to his study in alarm and\r
+haste, trying to escape notice, closed the door, and began to read the\r
+letter.\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna, who always knew everything that passed in the house,\r
+on hearing of the arrival of the letter went softly into the room and\r
+found the count with it in his hand, sobbing and laughing at the same\r
+time.\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still\r
+living with the Rostovs.\r
+\r
+"My dear friend?" said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry, prepared to\r
+sympathize in any way.\r
+\r
+The count sobbed yet more.\r
+\r
+"Nikolenka... a letter... wa... a... s... wounded... my darling boy...\r
+the countess... promoted to be an officer... thank God... How tell the\r
+little countess!"\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna sat down beside him, with her own handkerchief wiped\r
+the tears from his eyes and from the letter, then having dried her own\r
+eyes she comforted the count, and decided that at dinner and till\r
+teatime she would prepare the countess, and after tea, with God's help,\r
+would inform her.\r
+\r
+At dinner Anna Mikhaylovna talked the whole time about the war news and\r
+about Nikolenka, twice asked when the last letter had been received from\r
+him, though she knew that already, and remarked that they might very\r
+likely be getting a letter from him that day. Each time that these hints\r
+began to make the countess anxious and she glanced uneasily at the count\r
+and at Anna Mikhaylovna, the latter very adroitly turned the\r
+conversation to insignificant matters. Natasha, who, of the whole\r
+family, was the most gifted with a capacity to feel any shades of\r
+intonation, look, and expression, pricked up her ears from the beginning\r
+of the meal and was certain that there was some secret between her\r
+father and Anna Mikhaylovna, that it had something to do with her\r
+brother, and that Anna Mikhaylovna was preparing them for it. Bold as\r
+she was, Natasha, who knew how sensitive her mother was to anything\r
+relating to Nikolenka, did not venture to ask any questions at dinner,\r
+but she was too excited to eat anything and kept wriggling about on her\r
+chair regardless of her governess' remarks. After dinner, she rushed\r
+head long after Anna Mikhaylovna and, dashing at her, flung herself on\r
+her neck as soon as she overtook her in the sitting room.\r
+\r
+"Auntie, darling, do tell me what it is!"\r
+\r
+"Nothing, my dear."\r
+\r
+"No, dearest, sweet one, honey, I won't give up--I know you know\r
+something."\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna shook her head.\r
+\r
+"You are a little slyboots," she said.\r
+\r
+"A letter from Nikolenka! I'm sure of it!" exclaimed Natasha, reading\r
+confirmation in Anna Mikhaylovna's face.\r
+\r
+"But for God's sake, be careful, you know how it may affect your mamma."\r
+\r
+"I will, I will, only tell me! You won't? Then I will go and tell at\r
+once."\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna, in a few words, told her the contents of the letter,\r
+on condition that she should tell no one.\r
+\r
+"No, on my true word of honor," said Natasha, crossing herself, "I won't\r
+tell anyone!" and she ran off at once to Sonya.\r
+\r
+"Nikolenka... wounded... a letter," she announced in gleeful triumph.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas!" was all Sonya said, instantly turning white.\r
+\r
+Natasha, seeing the impression the news of her brother's wound produced\r
+on Sonya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the news.\r
+\r
+She rushed to Sonya, hugged her, and began to cry.\r
+\r
+"A little wound, but he has been made an officer; he is well now, he\r
+wrote himself," said she through her tears.\r
+\r
+"There now! It's true that all you women are crybabies," remarked Petya,\r
+pacing the room with large, resolute strides. "Now I'm very glad, very\r
+glad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself so. You are all\r
+blubberers and understand nothing."\r
+\r
+Natasha smiled through her tears.\r
+\r
+"You haven't read the letter?" asked Sonya.\r
+\r
+"No, but she said that it was all over and that he's now an officer."\r
+\r
+"Thank God!" said Sonya, crossing herself. "But perhaps she deceived\r
+you. Let us go to Mamma."\r
+\r
+Petya paced the room in silence for a time.\r
+\r
+"If I'd been in Nikolenka's place I would have killed even more of those\r
+Frenchmen," he said. "What nasty brutes they are! I'd have killed so\r
+many that there'd have been a heap of them."\r
+\r
+"Hold your tongue, Petya, what a goose you are!"\r
+\r
+"I'm not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles," said Petya.\r
+\r
+"Do you remember him?" Natasha suddenly asked, after a moment's silence.\r
+\r
+Sonya smiled.\r
+\r
+"Do I remember Nicholas?"\r
+\r
+"No, Sonya, but do you remember so that you remember him perfectly,\r
+remember everything?" said Natasha, with an expressive gesture,\r
+evidently wishing to give her words a very definite meaning. "I remember\r
+Nikolenka too, I remember him well," she said. "But I don't remember\r
+Boris. I don't remember him a bit."\r
+\r
+"What! You don't remember Boris?" asked Sonya in surprise.\r
+\r
+"It's not that I don't remember--I know what he is like, but not as I\r
+remember Nikolenka. Him--I just shut my eyes and remember, but Boris...\r
+No!" (She shut her eyes.) "No! there's nothing at all."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Natasha!" said Sonya, looking ecstatically and earnestly at her\r
+friend as if she did not consider her worthy to hear what she meant to\r
+say and as if she were saying it to someone else, with whom joking was\r
+out of the question, "I am in love with your brother once for all and,\r
+whatever may happen to him or to me, shall never cease to love him as\r
+long as I live."\r
+\r
+Natasha looked at Sonya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and said\r
+nothing. She felt that Sonya was speaking the truth, that there was such\r
+love as Sonya was speaking of. But Natasha had not yet felt anything\r
+like it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it.\r
+\r
+"Shall you write to him?" she asked.\r
+\r
+Sonya became thoughtful. The question of how to write to Nicholas, and\r
+whether she ought to write, tormented her. Now that he was already an\r
+officer and a wounded hero, would it be right to remind him of herself\r
+and, as it might seem, of the obligations to her he had taken on\r
+himself?\r
+\r
+"I don't know. I think if he writes, I will write too," she said,\r
+blushing.\r
+\r
+"And you won't feel ashamed to write to him?"\r
+\r
+Sonya smiled.\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"And I should be ashamed to write to Boris. I'm not going to."\r
+\r
+"Why should you be ashamed?"\r
+\r
+"Well, I don't know. It's awkward and would make me ashamed."\r
+\r
+"And I know why she'd be ashamed," said Petya, offended by Natasha's\r
+previous remark. "It's because she was in love with that fat one in\r
+spectacles" (that was how Petya described his namesake, the new Count\r
+Bezukhov) "and now she's in love with that singer" (he meant Natasha's\r
+Italian singing master), "that's why she's ashamed!"\r
+\r
+"Petya, you're a stupid!" said Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Not more stupid than you, madam," said the nine-year-old Petya, with\r
+the air of an old brigadier.\r
+\r
+The countess had been prepared by Anna Mikhaylovna's hints at dinner. On\r
+retiring to her own room, she sat in an armchair, her eyes fixed on a\r
+miniature portrait of her son on the lid of a snuffbox, while the tears\r
+kept coming into her eyes. Anna Mikhaylovna, with the letter, came on\r
+tiptoe to the countess' door and paused.\r
+\r
+"Don't come in," she said to the old count who was following her. "Come\r
+later." And she went in, closing the door behind her.\r
+\r
+The count put his ear to the keyhole and listened.\r
+\r
+At first he heard the sound of indifferent voices, then Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna's voice alone in a long speech, then a cry, then silence,\r
+then both voices together with glad intonations, and then footsteps.\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna opened the door. Her face wore the proud expression of\r
+a surgeon who has just performed a difficult operation and admits the\r
+public to appreciate his skill.\r
+\r
+"It is done!" she said to the count, pointing triumphantly to the\r
+countess, who sat holding in one hand the snuffbox with its portrait and\r
+in the other the letter, and pressing them alternately to her lips.\r
+\r
+When she saw the count, she stretched out her arms to him, embraced his\r
+bald head, over which she again looked at the letter and the portrait,\r
+and in order to press them again to her lips, she slightly pushed away\r
+the bald head. Vera, Natasha, Sonya, and Petya now entered the room, and\r
+the reading of the letter began. After a brief description of the\r
+campaign and the two battles in which he had taken part, and his\r
+promotion, Nicholas said that he kissed his father's and mother's hands\r
+asking for their blessing, and that he kissed Vera, Natasha, and Petya.\r
+Besides that, he sent greetings to Monsieur Schelling, Madame Schoss,\r
+and his old nurse, and asked them to kiss for him "dear Sonya, whom he\r
+loved and thought of just the same as ever." When she heard this Sonya\r
+blushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable to bear the looks\r
+turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall, whirled round it at\r
+full speed with her dress puffed out like a balloon, and, flushed and\r
+smiling, plumped down on the floor. The countess was crying.\r
+\r
+"Why are you crying, Mamma?" asked Vera. "From all he says one should be\r
+glad and not cry."\r
+\r
+This was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natasha looked at\r
+her reproachfully. "And who is it she takes after?" thought the\r
+countess.\r
+\r
+Nicholas' letter was read over hundreds of times, and those who were\r
+considered worthy to hear it had to come to the countess, for she did\r
+not let it out of her hands. The tutors came, and the nurses, and\r
+Dmitri, and several acquaintances, and the countess reread the letter\r
+each time with fresh pleasure and each time discovered in it fresh\r
+proofs of Nikolenka's virtues. How strange, how extraordinary, how\r
+joyful it seemed, that her son, the scarcely perceptible motion of whose\r
+tiny limbs she had felt twenty years ago within her, that son about whom\r
+she used to have quarrels with the too indulgent count, that son who had\r
+first learned to say "pear" and then "granny," that this son should now\r
+be away in a foreign land amid strange surroundings, a manly warrior\r
+doing some kind of man's work of his own, without help or guidance. The\r
+universal experience of ages, showing that children do grow\r
+imperceptibly from the cradle to manhood, did not exist for the\r
+countess. Her son's growth toward manhood, at each of its stages, had\r
+seemed as extraordinary to her as if there had never existed the\r
+millions of human beings who grew up in the same way. As twenty years\r
+before, it seemed impossible that the little creature who lived\r
+somewhere under her heart would ever cry, suck her breast, and begin to\r
+speak, so now she could not believe that that little creature could be\r
+this strong, brave man, this model son and officer that, judging by this\r
+letter, he now was.\r
+\r
+"What a style! How charmingly he describes!" said she, reading the\r
+descriptive part of the letter. "And what a soul! Not a word about\r
+himself.... Not a word! About some Denisov or other, though he himself,\r
+I dare say, is braver than any of them. He says nothing about his\r
+sufferings. What a heart! How like him it is! And how he has remembered\r
+everybody! Not forgetting anyone. I always said when he was only so\r
+high--I always said...."\r
+\r
+For more than a week preparations were being made, rough drafts of\r
+letters to Nicholas from all the household were written and copied out,\r
+while under the supervision of the countess and the solicitude of the\r
+count, money and all things necessary for the uniform and equipment of\r
+the newly commissioned officer were collected. Anna Mikhaylovna,\r
+practical woman that she was, had even managed by favor with army\r
+authorities to secure advantageous means of communication for herself\r
+and her son. She had opportunities of sending her letters to the Grand\r
+Duke Constantine Pavlovich, who commanded the Guards. The Rostovs\r
+supposed that The Russian Guards, Abroad, was quite a definite address,\r
+and that if a letter reached the Grand Duke in command of the Guards\r
+there was no reason why it should not reach the Pavlograd regiment,\r
+which was presumably somewhere in the same neighborhood. And so it was\r
+decided to send the letters and money by the Grand Duke's courier to\r
+Boris and Boris was to forward them to Nicholas. The letters were from\r
+the old count, the countess, Petya, Vera, Natasha, and Sonya, and\r
+finally there were six thousand rubles for his outfit and various other\r
+things the old count sent to his son.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+On the twelfth of November, Kutuzov's active army, in camp before\r
+Olmutz, was preparing to be reviewed next day by the two Emperors--the\r
+Russian and the Austrian. The Guards, just arrived from Russia, spent\r
+the night ten miles from Olmutz and next morning were to come straight\r
+to the review, reaching the field at Olmutz by ten o'clock.\r
+\r
+That day Nicholas Rostov received a letter from Boris, telling him that\r
+the Ismaylov regiment was quartered for the night ten miles from Olmutz\r
+and that he wanted to see him as he had a letter and money for him.\r
+Rostov was particularly in need of money now that the troops, after\r
+their active service, were stationed near Olmutz and the camp swarmed\r
+with well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering all sorts of\r
+tempting wares. The Pavlograds held feast after feast, celebrating\r
+awards they had received for the campaign, and made expeditions to\r
+Olmutz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian, who had recently\r
+opened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses. Rostov, who had just\r
+celebrated his promotion to a cornetcy and bought Denisov's horse,\r
+Bedouin, was in debt all round, to his comrades and the sutlers. On\r
+receiving Boris' letter he rode with a fellow officer to Olmutz, dined\r
+there, drank a bottle of wine, and then set off alone to the Guards'\r
+camp to find his old playmate. Rostov had not yet had time to get his\r
+uniform. He had on a shabby cadet jacket, decorated with a soldier's\r
+cross, equally shabby cadet's riding breeches lined with worn leather,\r
+and an officer's saber with a sword knot. The Don horse he was riding\r
+was one he had bought from a Cossack during the campaign, and he wore a\r
+crumpled hussar cap stuck jauntily back on one side of his head. As he\r
+rode up to the camp he thought how he would impress Boris and all his\r
+comrades of the Guards by his appearance--that of a fighting hussar who\r
+had been under fire.\r
+\r
+The Guards had made their whole march as if on a pleasure trip, parading\r
+their cleanliness and discipline. They had come by easy stages, their\r
+knapsacks conveyed on carts, and the Austrian authorities had provided\r
+excellent dinners for the officers at every halting place. The regiments\r
+had entered and left the town with their bands playing, and by the Grand\r
+Duke's orders the men had marched all the way in step (a practice on\r
+which the Guards prided themselves), the officers on foot and at their\r
+proper posts. Boris had been quartered, and had marched all the way,\r
+with Berg who was already in command of a company. Berg, who had\r
+obtained his captaincy during the campaign, had gained the confidence of\r
+his superiors by his promptitude and accuracy and had arranged his money\r
+matters very satisfactorily. Boris, during the campaign, had made the\r
+acquaintance of many persons who might prove useful to him, and by a\r
+letter of recommendation he had brought from Pierre had become\r
+acquainted with Prince Andrew Bolkonski, through whom he hoped to obtain\r
+a post on the commander-in-chief's staff. Berg and Boris, having rested\r
+after yesterday's march, were sitting, clean and neatly dressed, at a\r
+round table in the clean quarters allotted to them, playing chess. Berg\r
+held a smoking pipe between his knees. Boris, in the accurate way\r
+characteristic of him, was building a little pyramid of chessmen with\r
+his delicate white fingers while awaiting Berg's move, and watched his\r
+opponent's face, evidently thinking about the game as he always thought\r
+only of whatever he was engaged on.\r
+\r
+"Well, how are you going to get out of that?" he remarked.\r
+\r
+"We'll try to," replied Berg, touching a pawn and then removing his\r
+hand.\r
+\r
+At that moment the door opened.\r
+\r
+"Here he is at last!" shouted Rostov. "And Berg too! Oh, you\r
+petisenfans, allay cushay dormir!" he exclaimed, imitating his Russian\r
+nurse's French, at which he and Boris used to laugh long ago.\r
+\r
+"Dear me, how you have changed!"\r
+\r
+Boris rose to meet Rostov, but in doing so did not omit to steady and\r
+replace some chessmen that were falling. He was about to embrace his\r
+friend, but Nicholas avoided him. With that peculiar feeling of youth,\r
+that dread of beaten tracks, and wish to express itself in a manner\r
+different from that of its elders which is often insincere, Nicholas\r
+wished to do something special on meeting his friend. He wanted to pinch\r
+him, push him, do anything but kiss him--a thing everybody did. But\r
+notwithstanding this, Boris embraced him in a quiet, friendly way and\r
+kissed him three times.\r
+\r
+They had not met for nearly half a year and, being at the age when young\r
+men take their first steps on life's road, each saw immense changes in\r
+the other, quite a new reflection of the society in which they had taken\r
+those first steps. Both had changed greatly since they last met and both\r
+were in a hurry to show the changes that had taken place in them.\r
+\r
+"Oh, you damned dandies! Clean and fresh as if you'd been to a fete, not\r
+like us sinners of the line," cried Rostov, with martial swagger and\r
+with baritone notes in his voice, new to Boris, pointing to his own mud-\r
+bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostov's loud voice,\r
+popped her head in at the door.\r
+\r
+"Eh, is she pretty?" he asked with a wink.\r
+\r
+"Why do you shout so? You'll frighten them!" said Boris. "I did not\r
+expect you today," he added. "I only sent you the note yesterday by\r
+Bolkonski--an adjutant of Kutuzov's, who's a friend of mine. I did not\r
+think he would get it to you so quickly.... Well, how are you? Been\r
+under fire already?" asked Boris.\r
+\r
+Without answering, Rostov shook the soldier's Cross of St. George\r
+fastened to the cording of his uniform and, indicating a bandaged arm,\r
+glanced at Berg with a smile.\r
+\r
+"As you see," he said.\r
+\r
+"Indeed? Yes, yes!" said Boris, with a smile. "And we too have had a\r
+splendid march. You know, of course, that His Imperial Highness rode\r
+with our regiment all the time, so that we had every comfort and every\r
+advantage. What receptions we had in Poland! What dinners and balls! I\r
+can't tell you. And the Tsarevich was very gracious to all our\r
+officers."\r
+\r
+And the two friends told each other of their doings, the one of his\r
+hussar revels and life in the fighting line, the other of the pleasures\r
+and advantages of service under members of the Imperial family.\r
+\r
+"Oh, you Guards!" said Rostov. "I say, send for some wine."\r
+\r
+Boris made a grimace.\r
+\r
+"If you really want it," said he.\r
+\r
+He went to his bed, drew a purse from under the clean pillow, and sent\r
+for wine.\r
+\r
+"Yes, and I have some money and a letter to give you," he added.\r
+\r
+Rostov took the letter and, throwing the money on the sofa, put both\r
+arms on the table and began to read. After reading a few lines, he\r
+glanced angrily at Berg, then, meeting his eyes, hid his face behind the\r
+letter.\r
+\r
+"Well, they've sent you a tidy sum," said Berg, eying the heavy purse\r
+that sank into the sofa. "As for us, Count, we get along on our pay. I\r
+can tell you for myself..."\r
+\r
+"I say, Berg, my dear fellow," said Rostov, "when you get a letter from\r
+home and meet one of your own people whom you want to talk everything\r
+over with, and I happen to be there, I'll go at once, to be out of your\r
+way! Do go somewhere, anywhere... to the devil!" he exclaimed, and\r
+immediately seizing him by the shoulder and looking amiably into his\r
+face, evidently wishing to soften the rudeness of his words, he added,\r
+"Don't be hurt, my dear fellow; you know I speak from my heart as to an\r
+old acquaintance."\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't mention it, Count! I quite understand," said Berg, getting up\r
+and speaking in a muffled and guttural voice.\r
+\r
+"Go across to our hosts: they invited you," added Boris.\r
+\r
+Berg put on the cleanest of coats, without a spot or speck of dust,\r
+stood before a looking glass and brushed the hair on his temples\r
+upwards, in the way affected by the Emperor Alexander, and, having\r
+assured himself from the way Rostov looked at it that his coat had been\r
+noticed, left the room with a pleasant smile.\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, what a beast I am!" muttered Rostov, as he read the letter.\r
+\r
+"Why?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, what a pig I am, not to have written and to have given them such a\r
+fright! Oh, what a pig I am!" he repeated, flushing suddenly. "Well,\r
+have you sent Gabriel for some wine? All right let's have some!"\r
+\r
+In the letter from his parents was enclosed a letter of recommendation\r
+to Bagration which the old countess at Anna Mikhaylovna's advice had\r
+obtained through an acquaintance and sent to her son, asking him to take\r
+it to its destination and make use of it.\r
+\r
+"What nonsense! Much I need it!" said Rostov, throwing the letter under\r
+the table.\r
+\r
+"Why have you thrown that away?" asked Boris.\r
+\r
+"It is some letter of recommendation... what the devil do I want it\r
+for!"\r
+\r
+"Why 'What the devil'?" said Boris, picking it up and reading the\r
+address. "This letter would be of great use to you."\r
+\r
+"I want nothing, and I won't be anyone's adjutant."\r
+\r
+"Why not?" inquired Boris.\r
+\r
+"It's a lackey's job!"\r
+\r
+"You are still the same dreamer, I see," remarked Boris, shaking his\r
+head.\r
+\r
+"And you're still the same diplomatist! But that's not the point...\r
+Come, how are you?" asked Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Well, as you see. So far everything's all right, but I confess I should\r
+much like to be an adjutant and not remain at the front."\r
+\r
+"Why?"\r
+\r
+"Because when once a man starts on military service, he should try to\r
+make as successful a career of it as possible."\r
+\r
+"Oh, that's it!" said Rostov, evidently thinking of something else.\r
+\r
+He looked intently and inquiringly into his friend's eyes, evidently\r
+trying in vain to find the answer to some question.\r
+\r
+Old Gabriel brought in the wine.\r
+\r
+"Shouldn't we now send for Berg?" asked Boris. "He would drink with you.\r
+I can't."\r
+\r
+"Well, send for him... and how do you get on with that German?" asked\r
+Rostov, with a contemptuous smile.\r
+\r
+"He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow," answered Boris.\r
+\r
+Again Rostov looked intently into Boris' eyes and sighed. Berg returned,\r
+and over the bottle of wine conversation between the three officers\r
+became animated. The Guardsmen told Rostov of their march and how they\r
+had been made much of in Russia, Poland, and abroad. They spoke of the\r
+sayings and doings of their commander, the Grand Duke, and told stories\r
+of his kindness and irascibility. Berg, as usual, kept silent when the\r
+subject did not relate to himself, but in connection with the stories of\r
+the Grand Duke's quick temper he related with gusto how in Galicia he\r
+had managed to deal with the Grand Duke when the latter made a tour of\r
+the regiments and was annoyed at the irregularity of a movement. With a\r
+pleasant smile Berg related how the Grand Duke had ridden up to him in a\r
+violent passion, shouting: "Arnauts!" ("Arnauts" was the Tsarevich's\r
+favorite expression when he was in a rage) and called for the company\r
+commander.\r
+\r
+"Would you believe it, Count, I was not at all alarmed, because I knew I\r
+was right. Without boasting, you know, I may say that I know the Army\r
+Orders by heart and know the Regulations as well as I do the Lord's\r
+Prayer. So, Count, there never is any negligence in my company, and so\r
+my conscience was at ease. I came forward...." (Berg stood up and showed\r
+how he presented himself, with his hand to his cap, and really it would\r
+have been difficult for a face to express greater respect and self-\r
+complacency than his did.) "Well, he stormed at me, as the saying is,\r
+stormed and stormed and stormed! It was not a matter of life but rather\r
+of death, as the saying is. 'Albanians!' and 'devils!' and 'To\r
+Siberia!'" said Berg with a sagacious smile. "I knew I was in the right\r
+so I kept silent; was not that best, Count?... 'Hey, are you dumb?' he\r
+shouted. Still I remained silent. And what do you think, Count? The next\r
+day it was not even mentioned in the Orders of the Day. That's what\r
+keeping one's head means. That's the way, Count," said Berg, lighting\r
+his pipe and emitting rings of smoke.\r
+\r
+"Yes, that was fine," said Rostov, smiling.\r
+\r
+But Boris noticed that he was preparing to make fun of Berg, and\r
+skillfully changed the subject. He asked him to tell them how and where\r
+he got his wound. This pleased Rostov and he began talking about it, and\r
+as he went on became more and more animated. He told them of his Schon\r
+Grabern affair, just as those who have taken part in a battle generally\r
+do describe it, that is, as they would like it to have been, as they\r
+have heard it described by others, and as sounds well, but not at all as\r
+it really was. Rostov was a truthful young man and would on no account\r
+have told a deliberate lie. He began his story meaning to tell\r
+everything just as it happened, but imperceptibly, involuntarily, and\r
+inevitably he lapsed into falsehood. If he had told the truth to his\r
+hearers--who like himself had often heard stories of attacks and had\r
+formed a definite idea of what an attack was and were expecting to hear\r
+just such a story--they would either not have believed him or, still\r
+worse, would have thought that Rostov was himself to blame since what\r
+generally happens to the narrators of cavalry attacks had not happened\r
+to him. He could not tell them simply that everyone went at a trot and\r
+that he fell off his horse and sprained his arm and then ran as hard as\r
+he could from a Frenchman into the wood. Besides, to tell everything as\r
+it really happened, it would have been necessary to make an effort of\r
+will to tell only what happened. It is very difficult to tell the truth,\r
+and young people are rarely capable of it. His hearers expected a story\r
+of how beside himself and all aflame with excitement, he had flown like\r
+a storm at the square, cut his way in, slashed right and left, how his\r
+saber had tasted flesh and he had fallen exhausted, and so on. And so he\r
+told them all that.\r
+\r
+In the middle of his story, just as he was saying: "You cannot imagine\r
+what a strange frenzy one experiences during an attack," Prince Andrew,\r
+whom Boris was expecting, entered the room. Prince Andrew, who liked to\r
+help young men, was flattered by being asked for his assistance and\r
+being well disposed toward Boris, who had managed to please him the day\r
+before, he wished to do what the young man wanted. Having been sent with\r
+papers from Kutuzov to the Tsarevich, he looked in on Boris, hoping to\r
+find him alone. When he came in and saw an hussar of the line recounting\r
+his military exploits (Prince Andrew could not endure that sort of man),\r
+he gave Boris a pleasant smile, frowned as with half-closed eyes he\r
+looked at Rostov, bowed slightly and wearily, and sat down languidly on\r
+the sofa: he felt it unpleasant to have dropped in on bad company.\r
+Rostov flushed up on noticing this, but he did not care, this was a mere\r
+stranger. Glancing, however, at Boris, he saw that he too seemed ashamed\r
+of the hussar of the line.\r
+\r
+In spite of Prince Andrew's disagreeable, ironical tone, in spite of the\r
+contempt with which Rostov, from his fighting army point of view,\r
+regarded all these little adjutants on the staff of whom the newcomer\r
+was evidently one, Rostov felt confused, blushed, and became silent.\r
+Boris inquired what news there might be on the staff, and what, without\r
+indiscretion, one might ask about our plans.\r
+\r
+"We shall probably advance," replied Bolkonski, evidently reluctant to\r
+say more in the presence of a stranger.\r
+\r
+Berg took the opportunity to ask, with great politeness, whether, as was\r
+rumored, the allowance of forage money to captains of companies would be\r
+doubled. To this Prince Andrew answered with a smile that he could give\r
+no opinion on such an important government order, and Berg laughed\r
+gaily.\r
+\r
+"As to your business," Prince Andrew continued, addressing Boris, "we\r
+will talk of it later" (and he looked round at Rostov). "Come to me\r
+after the review and we will do what is possible."\r
+\r
+And, having glanced round the room, Prince Andrew turned to Rostov,\r
+whose state of unconquerable childish embarrassment now changing to\r
+anger he did not condescend to notice, and said: "I think you were\r
+talking of the Schon Grabern affair? Were you there?"\r
+\r
+"I was there," said Rostov angrily, as if intending to insult the aide-\r
+de-camp.\r
+\r
+Bolkonski noticed the hussar's state of mind, and it amused him. With a\r
+slightly contemptuous smile, he said: "Yes, there are many stories now\r
+told about that affair!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, stories!" repeated Rostov loudly, looking with eyes suddenly grown\r
+furious, now at Boris, now at Bolkonski. "Yes, many stories! But our\r
+stories are the stories of men who have been under the enemy's fire! Our\r
+stories have some weight, not like the stories of those fellows on the\r
+staff who get rewards without doing anything!"\r
+\r
+"Of whom you imagine me to be one?" said Prince Andrew, with a quiet and\r
+particularly amiable smile.\r
+\r
+A strange feeling of exasperation and yet of respect for this man's\r
+self-possession mingled at that moment in Rostov's soul.\r
+\r
+"I am not talking about you," he said, "I don't know you and, frankly, I\r
+don't want to. I am speaking of the staff in general."\r
+\r
+"And I will tell you this," Prince Andrew interrupted in a tone of quiet\r
+authority, "you wish to insult me, and I am ready to agree with you that\r
+it would be very easy to do so if you haven't sufficient self-respect,\r
+but admit that the time and place are very badly chosen. In a day or two\r
+we shall all have to take part in a greater and more serious duel, and\r
+besides, Drubetskoy, who says he is an old friend of yours, is not at\r
+all to blame that my face has the misfortune to displease you. However,"\r
+he added rising, "you know my name and where to find me, but don't\r
+forget that I do not regard either myself or you as having been at all\r
+insulted, and as a man older than you, my advice is to let the matter\r
+drop. Well then, on Friday after the review I shall expect you,\r
+Drubetskoy. Au revoir!" exclaimed Prince Andrew, and with a bow to them\r
+both he went out.\r
+\r
+Only when Prince Andrew was gone did Rostov think of what he ought to\r
+have said. And he was still more angry at having omitted to say it. He\r
+ordered his horse at once and, coldly taking leave of Boris, rode home.\r
+Should he go to headquarters next day and challenge that affected\r
+adjutant, or really let the matter drop, was the question that worried\r
+him all the way. He thought angrily of the pleasure he would have at\r
+seeing the fright of that small and frail but proud man when covered by\r
+his pistol, and then he felt with surprise that of all the men he knew\r
+there was none he would so much like to have for a friend as that very\r
+adjutant whom he so hated.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+The day after Rostov had been to see Boris, a review was held of the\r
+Austrian and Russian troops, both those freshly arrived from Russia and\r
+those who had been campaigning under Kutuzov. The two Emperors, the\r
+Russian with his heir the Tsarevich, and the Austrian with the Archduke,\r
+inspected the allied army of eighty thousand men.\r
+\r
+From early morning the smart clean troops were on the move, forming up\r
+on the field before the fortress. Now thousands of feet and bayonets\r
+moved and halted at the officers' command, turned with banners flying,\r
+formed up at intervals, and wheeled round other similar masses of\r
+infantry in different uniforms; now was heard the rhythmic beat of hoofs\r
+and the jingling of showy cavalry in blue, red, and green braided\r
+uniforms, with smartly dressed bandsmen in front mounted on black, roan,\r
+or gray horses; then again, spreading out with the brazen clatter of the\r
+polished shining cannon that quivered on the gun carriages and with the\r
+smell of linstocks, came the artillery which crawled between the\r
+infantry and cavalry and took up its appointed position. Not only the\r
+generals in full parade uniforms, with their thin or thick waists drawn\r
+in to the utmost, their red necks squeezed into their stiff collars, and\r
+wearing scarves and all their decorations, not only the elegant, pomaded\r
+officers, but every soldier with his freshly washed and shaven face and\r
+his weapons clean and polished to the utmost, and every horse groomed\r
+till its coat shone like satin and every hair of its wetted mane lay\r
+smooth--felt that no small matter was happening, but an important and\r
+solemn affair. Every general and every soldier was conscious of his own\r
+insignificance, aware of being but a drop in that ocean of men, and yet\r
+at the same time was conscious of his strength as a part of that\r
+enormous whole.\r
+\r
+From early morning strenuous activities and efforts had begun and by ten\r
+o'clock all had been brought into due order. The ranks were drawn up on\r
+the vast field. The whole army was extended in three lines: the cavalry\r
+in front, behind it the artillery, and behind that again the infantry.\r
+\r
+A space like a street was left between each two lines of troops. The\r
+three parts of that army were sharply distinguished: Kutuzov's fighting\r
+army (with the Pavlograds on the right flank of the front); those\r
+recently arrived from Russia, both Guards and regiments of the line; and\r
+the Austrian troops. But they all stood in the same lines, under one\r
+command, and in a like order.\r
+\r
+Like wind over leaves ran an excited whisper: "They're coming! They're\r
+coming!" Alarmed voices were heard, and a stir of final preparation\r
+swept over all the troops.\r
+\r
+From the direction of Olmutz in front of them, a group was seen\r
+approaching. And at that moment, though the day was still, a light gust\r
+of wind blowing over the army slightly stirred the streamers on the\r
+lances and the unfolded standards fluttered against their staffs. It\r
+looked as if by that slight motion the army itself was expressing its\r
+joy at the approach of the Emperors. One voice was heard shouting: "Eyes\r
+front!" Then, like the crowing of cocks at sunrise, this was repeated by\r
+others from various sides and all became silent.\r
+\r
+In the deathlike stillness only the tramp of horses was heard. This was\r
+the Emperors' suites. The Emperors rode up to the flank, and the\r
+trumpets of the first cavalry regiment played the general march. It\r
+seemed as though not the trumpeters were playing, but as if the army\r
+itself, rejoicing at the Emperors' approach, had naturally burst into\r
+music. Amid these sounds, only the youthful kindly voice of the Emperor\r
+Alexander was clearly heard. He gave the words of greeting, and the\r
+first regiment roared "Hurrah!" so deafeningly, continuously, and\r
+joyfully that the men themselves were awed by their multitude and the\r
+immensity of the power they constituted.\r
+\r
+Rostov, standing in the front lines of Kutuzov's army which the Tsar\r
+approached first, experienced the same feeling as every other man in\r
+that army: a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of\r
+might, and a passionate attraction to him who was the cause of this\r
+triumph.\r
+\r
+He felt that at a single word from that man all this vast mass (and he\r
+himself an insignificant atom in it) would go through fire and water,\r
+commit crime, die, or perform deeds of highest heroism, and so he could\r
+not but tremble and his heart stand still at the imminence of that word.\r
+\r
+"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" thundered from all sides, one regiment after\r
+another greeting the Tsar with the strains of the march, and then\r
+"Hurrah!"... Then the general march, and again "Hurrah! Hurrah!" growing\r
+ever stronger and fuller and merging into a deafening roar.\r
+\r
+Till the Tsar reached it, each regiment in its silence and immobility\r
+seemed like a lifeless body, but as soon as he came up it became alive,\r
+its thunder joining the roar of the whole line along which he had\r
+already passed. Through the terrible and deafening roar of those voices,\r
+amid the square masses of troops standing motionless as if turned to\r
+stone, hundreds of riders composing the suites moved carelessly but\r
+symmetrically and above all freely, and in front of them two men--the\r
+Emperors. Upon them the undivided, tensely passionate attention of that\r
+whole mass of men was concentrated.\r
+\r
+The handsome young Emperor Alexander, in the uniform of the Horse\r
+Guards, wearing a cocked hat with its peaks front and back, with his\r
+pleasant face and resonant though not loud voice, attracted everyone's\r
+attention.\r
+\r
+Rostov was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight had\r
+recognized the Tsar and watched his approach. When he was within twenty\r
+paces, and Nicholas could clearly distinguish every detail of his\r
+handsome, happy young face, he experienced a feeling of tenderness and\r
+ecstasy such as he had never before known. Every trait and every\r
+movement of the Tsar's seemed to him enchanting.\r
+\r
+Stopping in front of the Pavlograds, the Tsar said something in French\r
+to the Austrian Emperor and smiled.\r
+\r
+Seeing that smile, Rostov involuntarily smiled himself and felt a still\r
+stronger flow of love for his sovereign. He longed to show that love in\r
+some way and knowing that this was impossible was ready to cry. The Tsar\r
+called the colonel of the regiment and said a few words to him.\r
+\r
+"Oh God, what would happen to me if the Emperor spoke to me?" thought\r
+Rostov. "I should die of happiness!"\r
+\r
+The Tsar addressed the officers also: "I thank you all, gentlemen, I\r
+thank you with my whole heart." To Rostov every word sounded like a\r
+voice from heaven. How gladly would he have died at once for his Tsar!\r
+\r
+"You have earned the St. George's standards and will be worthy of them."\r
+\r
+"Oh, to die, to die for him," thought Rostov.\r
+\r
+The Tsar said something more which Rostov did not hear, and the\r
+soldiers, straining their lungs, shouted "Hurrah!"\r
+\r
+Rostov too, bending over his saddle, shouted "Hurrah!" with all his\r
+might, feeling that he would like to injure himself by that shout, if\r
+only to express his rapture fully.\r
+\r
+The Tsar stopped a few minutes in front of the hussars as if undecided.\r
+\r
+"How can the Emperor be undecided?" thought Rostov, but then even this\r
+indecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like everything else\r
+the Tsar did.\r
+\r
+That hesitation lasted only an instant. The Tsar's foot, in the narrow\r
+pointed boot then fashionable, touched the groin of the bobtailed bay\r
+mare he rode, his hand in a white glove gathered up the reins, and he\r
+moved off accompanied by an irregularly swaying sea of aides-de-camp.\r
+Farther and farther he rode away, stopping at other regiments, till at\r
+last only his white plumes were visible to Rostov from amid the suites\r
+that surrounded the Emperors.\r
+\r
+Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostov noticed Bolkonski, sitting his\r
+horse indolently and carelessly. Rostov recalled their quarrel of\r
+yesterday and the question presented itself whether he ought or ought\r
+not to challenge Bolkonski. "Of course not!" he now thought. "Is it\r
+worth thinking or speaking of it at such a moment? At a time of such\r
+love, such rapture, and such self-sacrifice, what do any of our quarrels\r
+and affronts matter? I love and forgive everybody now."\r
+\r
+When the Emperor had passed nearly all the regiments, the troops began a\r
+ceremonial march past him, and Rostov on Bedouin, recently purchased\r
+from Denisov, rode past too, at the rear of his squadron--that is, alone\r
+and in full view of the Emperor.\r
+\r
+Before he reached him, Rostov, who was a splendid horseman, spurred\r
+Bedouin twice and successfully put him to the showy trot in which the\r
+animal went when excited. Bending his foaming muzzle to his chest, his\r
+tail extended, Bedouin, as if also conscious of the Emperor's eye upon\r
+him, passed splendidly, lifting his feet with a high and graceful\r
+action, as if flying through the air without touching the ground.\r
+\r
+Rostov himself, his legs well back and his stomach drawn in and feeling\r
+himself one with his horse, rode past the Emperor with a frowning but\r
+blissful face "like a vewy devil," as Denisov expressed it.\r
+\r
+"Fine fellows, the Pavlograds!" remarked the Emperor.\r
+\r
+"My God, how happy I should be if he ordered me to leap into the fire\r
+this instant!" thought Rostov.\r
+\r
+When the review was over, the newly arrived officers, and also\r
+Kutuzov's, collected in groups and began to talk about the awards, about\r
+the Austrians and their uniforms, about their lines, about Bonaparte,\r
+and how badly the latter would fare now, especially if the Essen corps\r
+arrived and Prussia took our side.\r
+\r
+But the talk in every group was chiefly about the Emperor Alexander. His\r
+every word and movement was described with ecstasy.\r
+\r
+They all had but one wish: to advance as soon as possible against the\r
+enemy under the Emperor's command. Commanded by the Emperor himself they\r
+could not fail to vanquish anyone, be it whom it might: so thought\r
+Rostov and most of the officers after the review.\r
+\r
+All were then more confident of victory than the winning of two battles\r
+would have made them.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+The day after the review, Boris, in his best uniform and with his\r
+comrade Berg's best wishes for success, rode to Olmutz to see Bolkonski,\r
+wishing to profit by his friendliness and obtain for himself the best\r
+post he could--preferably that of adjutant to some important personage,\r
+a position in the army which seemed to him most attractive. "It is all\r
+very well for Rostov, whose father sends him ten thousand rubles at a\r
+time, to talk about not wishing to cringe to anybody and not be anyone's\r
+lackey, but I who have nothing but my brains have to make a career and\r
+must not miss opportunities, but must avail myself of them!" he\r
+reflected.\r
+\r
+He did not find Prince Andrew in Olmutz that day, but the appearance of\r
+the town where the headquarters and the diplomatic corps were stationed\r
+and the two Emperors were living with their suites, households, and\r
+courts only strengthened his desire to belong to that higher world.\r
+\r
+He knew no one, and despite his smart Guardsman's uniform, all these\r
+exalted personages passing in the streets in their elegant carriages\r
+with their plumes, ribbons, and medals, both courtiers and military men,\r
+seemed so immeasurably above him, an insignificant officer of the\r
+Guards, that they not only did not wish to, but simply could not, be\r
+aware of his existence. At the quarters of the commander-in-chief,\r
+Kutuzov, where he inquired for Bolkonski, all the adjutants and even the\r
+orderlies looked at him as if they wished to impress on him that a great\r
+many officers like him were always coming there and that everybody was\r
+heartily sick of them. In spite of this, or rather because of it, next\r
+day, November 15, after dinner he again went to Olmutz and, entering the\r
+house occupied by Kutuzov, asked for Bolkonski. Prince Andrew was in and\r
+Boris was shown into a large hall probably formerly used for dancing,\r
+but in which five beds now stood, and furniture of various kinds: a\r
+table, chairs, and a clavichord. One adjutant, nearest the door, was\r
+sitting at the table in a Persian dressing gown, writing. Another, the\r
+red, stout Nesvitski, lay on a bed with his arms under his head,\r
+laughing with an officer who had sat down beside him. A third was\r
+playing a Viennese waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth, lying on the\r
+clavichord, sang the tune. Bolkonski was not there. None of these\r
+gentlemen changed his position on seeing Boris. The one who was writing\r
+and whom Boris addressed turned round crossly and told him Bolkonski was\r
+on duty and that he should go through the door on the left into the\r
+reception room if he wished to see him. Boris thanked him and went to\r
+the reception room, where he found some ten officers and generals.\r
+\r
+When he entered, Prince Andrew, his eyes drooping contemptuously (with\r
+that peculiar expression of polite weariness which plainly says, "If it\r
+were not my duty I would not talk to you for a moment"), was listening\r
+to an old Russian general with decorations, who stood very erect, almost\r
+on tiptoe, with a soldier's obsequious expression on his purple face,\r
+reporting something.\r
+\r
+"Very well, then, be so good as to wait," said Prince Andrew to the\r
+general, in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he affected\r
+when he wished to speak contemptuously, and noticing Boris, Prince\r
+Andrew, paying no more heed to the general who ran after him imploring\r
+him to hear something more, nodded and turned to him with a cheerful\r
+smile.\r
+\r
+At that moment Boris clearly realized what he had before surmised, that\r
+in the army, besides the subordination and discipline prescribed in the\r
+military code, which he and the others knew in the regiment, there was\r
+another, more important, subordination, which made this tight-laced,\r
+purple-faced general wait respectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for\r
+his own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant Drubetskoy. More than\r
+ever was Boris resolved to serve in future not according to the written\r
+code, but under this unwritten law. He felt now that merely by having\r
+been recommended to Prince Andrew he had already risen above the general\r
+who at the front had the power to annihilate him, a lieutenant of the\r
+Guards. Prince Andrew came up to him and took his hand.\r
+\r
+"I am very sorry you did not find me in yesterday. I was fussing about\r
+with Germans all day. We went with Weyrother to survey the dispositions.\r
+When Germans start being accurate, there's no end to it!"\r
+\r
+Boris smiled, as if he understood what Prince Andrew was alluding to as\r
+something generally known. But it was the first time he had heard\r
+Weyrother's name, or even the term "dispositions."\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear fellow, so you still want to be an adjutant? I have been\r
+thinking about you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I was thinking"--for some reason Boris could not help blushing--\r
+"of asking the commander-in-chief. He has had a letter from Prince\r
+Kuragin about me. I only wanted to ask because I fear the Guards won't\r
+be in action," he added as if in apology.\r
+\r
+"All right, all right. We'll talk it over," replied Prince Andrew. "Only\r
+let me report this gentleman's business, and I shall be at your\r
+disposal."\r
+\r
+While Prince Andrew went to report about the purple-faced general, that\r
+gentleman--evidently not sharing Boris' conception of the advantages of\r
+the unwritten code of subordination--looked so fixedly at the\r
+presumptuous lieutenant who had prevented his finishing what he had to\r
+say to the adjutant that Boris felt uncomfortable. He turned away and\r
+waited impatiently for Prince Andrew's return from the commander-in-\r
+chief's room.\r
+\r
+"You see, my dear fellow, I have been thinking about you," said Prince\r
+Andrew when they had gone into the large room where the clavichord was.\r
+"It's no use your going to the commander-in-chief. He would say a lot of\r
+pleasant things, ask you to dinner" ("That would not be bad as regards\r
+the unwritten code," thought Boris), "but nothing more would come of it.\r
+There will soon be a battalion of us aides-de-camp and adjutants! But\r
+this is what we'll do: I have a good friend, an adjutant general and an\r
+excellent fellow, Prince Dolgorukov; and though you may not know it, the\r
+fact is that now Kutuzov with his staff and all of us count for nothing.\r
+Everything is now centered round the Emperor. So we will go to\r
+Dolgorukov; I have to go there anyhow and I have already spoken to him\r
+about you. We shall see whether he cannot attach you to himself or find\r
+a place for you somewhere nearer the sun."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew always became specially keen when he had to guide a young\r
+man and help him to worldly success. Under cover of obtaining help of\r
+this kind for another, which from pride he would never accept for\r
+himself, he kept in touch with the circle which confers success and\r
+which attracted him. He very readily took up Boris' cause and went with\r
+him to Dolgorukov.\r
+\r
+It was late in the evening when they entered the palace at Olmutz\r
+occupied by the Emperors and their retinues.\r
+\r
+That same day a council of war had been held in which all the members of\r
+the Hofkriegsrath and both Emperors took part. At that council, contrary\r
+to the views of the old generals Kutuzov and Prince Schwartzenberg, it\r
+had been decided to advance immediately and give battle to Bonaparte.\r
+The council of war was just over when Prince Andrew accompanied by Boris\r
+arrived at the palace to find Dolgorukov. Everyone at headquarters was\r
+still under the spell of the day's council, at which the party of the\r
+young had triumphed. The voices of those who counseled delay and advised\r
+waiting for something else before advancing had been so completely\r
+silenced and their arguments confuted by such conclusive evidence of the\r
+advantages of attacking that what had been discussed at the council--the\r
+coming battle and the victory that would certainly result from it--no\r
+longer seemed to be in the future but in the past. All the advantages\r
+were on our side. Our enormous forces, undoubtedly superior to\r
+Napoleon's, were concentrated in one place, the troops inspired by the\r
+Emperors' presence were eager for action. The strategic position where\r
+the operations would take place was familiar in all its details to the\r
+Austrian General Weyrother: a lucky accident had ordained that the\r
+Austrian army should maneuver the previous year on the very fields where\r
+the French had now to be fought; the adjacent locality was known and\r
+shown in every detail on the maps, and Bonaparte, evidently weakened,\r
+was undertaking nothing.\r
+\r
+Dolgorukov, one of the warmest advocates of an attack, had just returned\r
+from the council, tired and exhausted but eager and proud of the victory\r
+that had been gained. Prince Andrew introduced his protege, but Prince\r
+Dolgorukov politely and firmly pressing his hand said nothing to Boris\r
+and, evidently unable to suppress the thoughts which were uppermost in\r
+his mind at that moment, addressed Prince Andrew in French.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my dear fellow, what a battle we have gained! God grant that the\r
+one that will result from it will be as victorious! However, dear\r
+fellow," he said abruptly and eagerly, "I must confess to having been\r
+unjust to the Austrians and especially to Weyrother. What exactitude,\r
+what minuteness, what knowledge of the locality, what foresight for\r
+every eventuality, every possibility even to the smallest detail! No, my\r
+dear fellow, no conditions better than our present ones could have been\r
+devised. This combination of Austrian precision with Russian valor--what\r
+more could be wished for?"\r
+\r
+"So the attack is definitely resolved on?" asked Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"And do you know, my dear fellow, it seems to me that Bonaparte has\r
+decidedly lost bearings, you know that a letter was received from him\r
+today for the Emperor." Dolgorukov smiled significantly.\r
+\r
+"Is that so? And what did he say?" inquired Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"What can he say? Tra-di-ri-di-ra and so on... merely to gain time. I\r
+tell you he is in our hands, that's certain! But what was most amusing,"\r
+he continued, with a sudden, good-natured laugh, "was that we could not\r
+think how to address the reply! If not as 'Consul' and of course not as\r
+'Emperor,' it seemed to me it should be to 'General Bonaparte.'"\r
+\r
+"But between not recognizing him as Emperor and calling him General\r
+Bonaparte, there is a difference," remarked Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"That's just it," interrupted Dolgorukov quickly, laughing. "You know\r
+Bilibin--he's a very clever fellow. He suggested addressing him as\r
+'Usurper and Enemy of Mankind.'"\r
+\r
+Dolgorukov laughed merrily.\r
+\r
+"Only that?" said Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"All the same, it was Bilibin who found a suitable form for the address.\r
+He is a wise and clever fellow."\r
+\r
+"What was it?"\r
+\r
+"To the Head of the French Government... Au chef du gouvernement\r
+francais," said Dolgorukov, with grave satisfaction. "Good, wasn't it?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, but he will dislike it extremely," said Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, very much! My brother knows him, he's dined with him--the\r
+present Emperor--more than once in Paris, and tells me he never met a\r
+more cunning or subtle diplomatist--you know, a combination of French\r
+adroitness and Italian play-acting! Do you know the tale about him and\r
+Count Markov? Count Markov was the only man who knew how to handle him.\r
+You know the story of the handkerchief? It is delightful!"\r
+\r
+And the talkative Dolgorukov, turning now to Boris, now to Prince\r
+Andrew, told how Bonaparte wishing to test Markov, our ambassador,\r
+purposely dropped a handkerchief in front of him and stood looking at\r
+Markov, probably expecting Markov to pick it up for him, and how Markov\r
+immediately dropped his own beside it and picked it up without touching\r
+Bonaparte's.\r
+\r
+"Delightful!" said Bolkonski. "But I have come to you, Prince, as a\r
+petitioner on behalf of this young man. You see..." but before Prince\r
+Andrew could finish, an aide-de-camp came in to summon Dolgorukov to the\r
+Emperor.\r
+\r
+"Oh, what a nuisance," said Dolgorukov, getting up hurriedly and\r
+pressing the hands of Prince Andrew and Boris. "You know I should be\r
+very glad to do all in my power both for you and for this dear young\r
+man." Again he pressed the hand of the latter with an expression of\r
+good-natured, sincere, and animated levity. "But you see... another\r
+time!"\r
+\r
+Boris was excited by the thought of being so close to the higher powers\r
+as he felt himself to be at that moment. He was conscious that here he\r
+was in contact with the springs that set in motion the enormous\r
+movements of the mass of which in his regiment he felt himself a tiny,\r
+obedient, and insignificant atom. They followed Prince Dolgorukov out\r
+into the corridor and met--coming out of the door of the Emperor's room\r
+by which Dolgorukov had entered--a short man in civilian clothes with a\r
+clever face and sharply projecting jaw which, without spoiling his face,\r
+gave him a peculiar vivacity and shiftiness of expression. This short\r
+man nodded to Dolgorukov as to an intimate friend and stared at Prince\r
+Andrew with cool intensity, walking straight toward him and evidently\r
+expecting him to bow or to step out of his way. Prince Andrew did\r
+neither: a look of animosity appeared on his face and the other turned\r
+away and went down the side of the corridor.\r
+\r
+"Who was that?" asked Boris.\r
+\r
+"He is one of the most remarkable, but to me most unpleasant of men--the\r
+Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Adam Czartoryski.... It is such men\r
+as he who decide the fate of nations," added Bolkonski with a sigh he\r
+could not suppress, as they passed out of the palace.\r
+\r
+Next day, the army began its campaign, and up to the very battle of\r
+Austerlitz, Boris was unable to see either Prince Andrew or Dolgorukov\r
+again and remained for a while with the Ismaylov regiment.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+At dawn on the sixteenth of November, Denisov's squadron, in which\r
+Nicholas Rostov served and which was in Prince Bagration's detachment,\r
+moved from the place where it had spent the night, advancing into action\r
+as arranged, and after going behind other columns for about two thirds\r
+of a mile was stopped on the highroad. Rostov saw the Cossacks and then\r
+the first and second squadrons of hussars and infantry battalions and\r
+artillery pass by and go forward and then Generals Bagration and\r
+Dolgorukov ride past with their adjutants. All the fear before action\r
+which he had experienced as previously, all the inner struggle to\r
+conquer that fear, all his dreams of distinguishing himself as a true\r
+hussar in this battle, had been wasted. Their squadron remained in\r
+reserve and Nicholas Rostov spent that day in a dull and wretched mood.\r
+At nine in the morning, he heard firing in front and shouts of hurrah,\r
+and saw wounded being brought back (there were not many of them), and at\r
+last he saw how a whole detachment of French cavalry was brought in,\r
+convoyed by a sotnya of Cossacks. Evidently the affair was over and,\r
+though not big, had been a successful engagement. The men and officers\r
+returning spoke of a brilliant victory, of the occupation of the town of\r
+Wischau and the capture of a whole French squadron. The day was bright\r
+and sunny after a sharp night frost, and the cheerful glitter of that\r
+autumn day was in keeping with the news of victory which was conveyed,\r
+not only by the tales of those who had taken part in it, but also by the\r
+joyful expression on the faces of soldiers, officers, generals, and\r
+adjutants, as they passed Rostov going or coming. And Nicholas, who had\r
+vainly suffered all the dread that precedes a battle and had spent that\r
+happy day in inactivity, was all the more depressed.\r
+\r
+"Come here, Wostov. Let's dwink to dwown our gwief!" shouted Denisov,\r
+who had settled down by the roadside with a flask and some food.\r
+\r
+The officers gathered round Denisov's canteen, eating and talking.\r
+\r
+"There! They are bringing another!" cried one of the officers,\r
+indicating a captive French dragoon who was being brought in on foot by\r
+two Cossacks.\r
+\r
+One of them was leading by the bridle a fine large French horse he had\r
+taken from the prisoner.\r
+\r
+"Sell us that horse!" Denisov called out to the Cossacks.\r
+\r
+"If you like, your honor!"\r
+\r
+The officers got up and stood round the Cossacks and their prisoner. The\r
+French dragoon was a young Alsatian who spoke French with a German\r
+accent. He was breathless with agitation, his face was red, and when he\r
+heard some French spoken he at once began speaking to the officers,\r
+addressing first one, then another. He said he would not have been\r
+taken, it was not his fault but the corporal's who had sent him to seize\r
+some horsecloths, though he had told him the Russians were there. And at\r
+every word he added: "But don't hurt my little horse!" and stroked the\r
+animal. It was plain that he did not quite grasp where he was. Now he\r
+excused himself for having been taken prisoner and now, imagining\r
+himself before his own officers, insisted on his soldierly discipline\r
+and zeal in the service. He brought with him into our rearguard all the\r
+freshness of atmosphere of the French army, which was so alien to us.\r
+\r
+The Cossacks sold the horse for two gold pieces, and Rostov, being the\r
+richest of the officers now that he had received his money, bought it.\r
+\r
+"But don't hurt my little horse!" said the Alsatian good-naturedly to\r
+Rostov when the animal was handed over to the hussar.\r
+\r
+Rostov smilingly reassured the dragoon and gave him money.\r
+\r
+"Alley! Alley!" said the Cossack, touching the prisoner's arm to make\r
+him go on.\r
+\r
+"The Emperor! The Emperor!" was suddenly heard among the hussars.\r
+\r
+All began to run and bustle, and Rostov saw coming up the road behind\r
+him several riders with white plumes in their hats. In a moment everyone\r
+was in his place, waiting.\r
+\r
+Rostov did not know or remember how he ran to his place and mounted.\r
+Instantly his regret at not having been in action and his dejected mood\r
+amid people of whom he was weary had gone, instantly every thought of\r
+himself had vanished. He was filled with happiness at his nearness to\r
+the Emperor. He felt that this nearness by itself made up to him for the\r
+day he had lost. He was happy as a lover when the longed-for moment of\r
+meeting arrives. Not daring to look round and without looking round, he\r
+was ecstatically conscious of his approach. He felt it not only from the\r
+sound of the hoofs of the approaching cavalcade, but because as he drew\r
+near everything grew brighter, more joyful, more significant, and more\r
+festive around him. Nearer and nearer to Rostov came that sun shedding\r
+beams of mild and majestic light around, and already he felt himself\r
+enveloped in those beams, he heard his voice, that kindly, calm, and\r
+majestic voice that was yet so simple! And as if in accord with Rostov's\r
+feeling, there was a deathly stillness amid which was heard the\r
+Emperor's voice.\r
+\r
+"The Pavlograd hussars?" he inquired.\r
+\r
+"The reserves, sire!" replied a voice, a very human one compared to that\r
+which had said: "The Pavlograd hussars?"\r
+\r
+The Emperor drew level with Rostov and halted. Alexander's face was even\r
+more beautiful than it had been three days before at the review. It\r
+shone with such gaiety and youth, such innocent youth, that it suggested\r
+the liveliness of a fourteen-year-old boy, and yet it was the face of\r
+the majestic Emperor. Casually, while surveying the squadron, the\r
+Emperor's eyes met Rostov's and rested on them for not more than two\r
+seconds. Whether or no the Emperor understood what was going on in\r
+Rostov's soul (it seemed to Rostov that he understood everything), at\r
+any rate his light-blue eyes gazed for about two seconds into Rostov's\r
+face. A gentle, mild light poured from them. Then all at once he raised\r
+his eyebrows, abruptly touched his horse with his left foot, and\r
+galloped on.\r
+\r
+The younger Emperor could not restrain his wish to be present at the\r
+battle and, in spite of the remonstrances of his courtiers, at twelve\r
+o'clock left the third column with which he had been and galloped toward\r
+the vanguard. Before he came up with the hussars, several adjutants met\r
+him with news of the successful result of the action.\r
+\r
+This battle, which consisted in the capture of a French squadron, was\r
+represented as a brilliant victory over the French, and so the Emperor\r
+and the whole army, especially while the smoke hung over the\r
+battlefield, believed that the French had been defeated and were\r
+retreating against their will. A few minutes after the Emperor had\r
+passed, the Pavlograd division was ordered to advance. In Wischau\r
+itself, a petty German town, Rostov saw the Emperor again. In the market\r
+place, where there had been some rather heavy firing before the\r
+Emperor's arrival, lay several killed and wounded soldiers whom there\r
+had not been time to move. The Emperor, surrounded by his suite of\r
+officers and courtiers, was riding a bobtailed chestnut mare, a\r
+different one from that which he had ridden at the review, and bending\r
+to one side he gracefully held a gold lorgnette to his eyes and looked\r
+at a soldier who lay prone, with blood on his uncovered head. The\r
+wounded soldier was so dirty, coarse, and revolting that his proximity\r
+to the Emperor shocked Rostov. Rostov saw how the Emperor's rather round\r
+shoulders shuddered as if a cold shiver had run down them, how his left\r
+foot began convulsively tapping the horse's side with the spur, and how\r
+the well-trained horse looked round unconcerned and did not stir. An\r
+adjutant, dismounting, lifted the soldier under the arms to place him on\r
+a stretcher that had been brought. The soldier groaned.\r
+\r
+"Gently, gently! Can't you do it more gently?" said the Emperor\r
+apparently suffering more than the dying soldier, and he rode away.\r
+\r
+Rostov saw tears filling the Emperor's eyes and heard him, as he was\r
+riding away, say to Czartoryski: "What a terrible thing war is: what a\r
+terrible thing! Quelle terrible chose que la guerre!"\r
+\r
+The troops of the vanguard were stationed before Wischau, within sight\r
+of the enemy's lines, which all day long had yielded ground to us at the\r
+least firing. The Emperor's gratitude was announced to the vanguard,\r
+rewards were promised, and the men received a double ration of vodka.\r
+The campfires crackled and the soldiers' songs resounded even more\r
+merrily than on the previous night. Denisov celebrated his promotion to\r
+the rank of major, and Rostov, who had already drunk enough, at the end\r
+of the feast proposed the Emperor's health. "Not 'our Sovereign, the\r
+Emperor,' as they say at official dinners," said he, "but the health of\r
+our Sovereign, that good, enchanting, and great man! Let us drink to his\r
+health and to the certain defeat of the French!"\r
+\r
+"If we fought before," he said, "not letting the French pass, as at\r
+Schon Grabern, what shall we not do now when he is at the front? We will\r
+all die for him gladly! Is it not so, gentlemen? Perhaps I am not saying\r
+it right, I have drunk a good deal--but that is how I feel, and so do\r
+you too! To the health of Alexander the First! Hurrah!"\r
+\r
+"Hurrah!" rang the enthusiastic voices of the officers.\r
+\r
+And the old cavalry captain, Kirsten, shouted enthusiastically and no\r
+less sincerely than the twenty-year-old Rostov.\r
+\r
+When the officers had emptied and smashed their glasses, Kirsten filled\r
+others and, in shirt sleeves and breeches, went glass in hand to the\r
+soldiers' bonfires and with his long gray mustache, his white chest\r
+showing under his open shirt, he stood in a majestic pose in the light\r
+of the campfire, waving his uplifted arm.\r
+\r
+"Lads! here's to our Sovereign, the Emperor, and victory over our\r
+enemies! Hurrah!" he exclaimed in his dashing, old, hussar's baritone.\r
+\r
+The hussars crowded round and responded heartily with loud shouts.\r
+\r
+Late that night, when all had separated, Denisov with his short hand\r
+patted his favorite, Rostov, on the shoulder.\r
+\r
+"As there's no one to fall in love with on campaign, he's fallen in love\r
+with the Tsar," he said.\r
+\r
+"Denisov, don't make fun of it!" cried Rostov. "It is such a lofty,\r
+beautiful feeling, such a..."\r
+\r
+"I believe it, I believe it, fwiend, and I share and appwove..."\r
+\r
+"No, you don't understand!"\r
+\r
+And Rostov got up and went wandering among the campfires, dreaming of\r
+what happiness it would be to die--not in saving the Emperor's life (he\r
+did not even dare to dream of that), but simply to die before his eyes.\r
+He really was in love with the Tsar and the glory of the Russian arms\r
+and the hope of future triumph. And he was not the only man to\r
+experience that feeling during those memorable days preceding the battle\r
+of Austerlitz: nine tenths of the men in the Russian army were then in\r
+love, though less ecstatically, with their Tsar and the glory of the\r
+Russian arms.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+The next day the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and Villier, his physician,\r
+was repeatedly summoned to see him. At headquarters and among the troops\r
+near by the news spread that the Emperor was unwell. He ate nothing and\r
+had slept badly that night, those around him reported. The cause of this\r
+indisposition was the strong impression made on his sensitive mind by\r
+the sight of the killed and wounded.\r
+\r
+At daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer who had come with a\r
+flag of truce, demanding an audience with the Russian Emperor, was\r
+brought into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary. The\r
+Emperor had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had to wait. At midday\r
+he was admitted to the Emperor, and an hour later he rode off with\r
+Prince Dolgorukov to the advanced post of the French army.\r
+\r
+It was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander a\r
+meeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a\r
+personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince\r
+Dolgorukov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negotiate\r
+with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these negotiations were\r
+actuated by a real desire for peace.\r
+\r
+Toward evening Dolgorukov came back, went straight to the Tsar, and\r
+remained alone with him for a long time.\r
+\r
+On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced two\r
+days' march and the enemy's outposts after a brief interchange of shots\r
+retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the nineteenth, a\r
+great, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted till the morning\r
+of the twentieth, when the memorable battle of Austerlitz was fought.\r
+\r
+Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity--the eager talk, running to\r
+and fro, and dispatching of adjutants--was confined to the Emperor's\r
+headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day, this activity reached\r
+Kutuzov's headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns. By\r
+evening, the adjutants had spread it to all ends and parts of the army,\r
+and in the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole eighty\r
+thousand allied troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of voices,\r
+and the army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles long.\r
+\r
+The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor's headquarters\r
+in the morning and had started the whole movement that followed was like\r
+the first movement of the main wheel of a large tower clock. One wheel\r
+slowly moved, another was set in motion, and a third, and wheels began\r
+to revolve faster and faster, levers and cogwheels to work, chimes to\r
+play, figures to pop out, and the hands to advance with regular motion\r
+as a result of all that activity.\r
+\r
+Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military\r
+machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and just as\r
+indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is transmitted to\r
+them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse has not yet\r
+reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one another and\r
+the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their movement, but a\r
+neighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though it were prepared\r
+to remain so for a hundred years; but the moment comes when the lever\r
+catches it and obeying the impulse that wheel begins to creak and joins\r
+in the common motion the result and aim of which are beyond its ken.\r
+\r
+Just as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of innumerable\r
+wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement of the hands\r
+which show the time, so the result of all the complicated human\r
+activities of 160,000 Russians and French--all their passions, desires,\r
+remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear, and\r
+enthusiasm--was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the so-called\r
+battle of the three Emperors--that is to say, a slow movement of the\r
+hand on the dial of human history.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was on duty that day and in constant attendance on the\r
+commander-in-chief.\r
+\r
+At six in the evening, Kutuzov went to the Emperor's headquarters and\r
+after staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the grand\r
+marshal of the court, Count Tolstoy.\r
+\r
+Bolkonski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the\r
+coming action from Dolgorukov. He felt that Kutuzov was upset and\r
+dissatisfied about something and that at headquarters they were\r
+dissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor's headquarters\r
+everyone adopted toward him the tone of men who know something others do\r
+not know: he therefore wished to speak to Dolgorukov.\r
+\r
+"Well, how d'you do, my dear fellow?" said Dolgorukov, who was sitting\r
+at tea with Bilibin. "The fete is for tomorrow. How is your old fellow?\r
+Out of sorts?"\r
+\r
+"I won't say he is out of sorts, but I fancy he would like to be heard."\r
+\r
+"But they heard him at the council of war and will hear him when he\r
+talks sense, but to temporize and wait for something now when Bonaparte\r
+fears nothing so much as a general battle is impossible."\r
+\r
+"Yes, you have seen him?" said Prince Andrew. "Well, what is Bonaparte\r
+like? How did he impress you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I saw him, and am convinced that he fears nothing so much as a\r
+general engagement," repeated Dolgorukov, evidently prizing this general\r
+conclusion which he had arrived at from his interview with Napoleon. "If\r
+he weren't afraid of a battle why did he ask for that interview? Why\r
+negotiate, and above all why retreat, when to retreat is so contrary to\r
+his method of conducting war? Believe me, he is afraid, afraid of a\r
+general battle. His hour has come! Mark my words!"\r
+\r
+"But tell me, what is he like, eh?" said Prince Andrew again.\r
+\r
+"He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I should call him\r
+'Your Majesty,' but who, to his chagrin, got no title from me! That's\r
+the sort of man he is, and nothing more," replied Dolgorukov, looking\r
+round at Bilibin with a smile.\r
+\r
+"Despite my great respect for old Kutuzov," he continued, "we should be\r
+a nice set of fellows if we were to wait about and so give him a chance\r
+to escape, or to trick us, now that we certainly have him in our hands!\r
+No, we mustn't forget Suvorov and his rule--not to put yourself in a\r
+position to be attacked, but yourself to attack. Believe me in war the\r
+energy of young men often shows the way better than all the experience\r
+of old Cunctators."\r
+\r
+"But in what position are we going to attack him? I have been at the\r
+outposts today and it is impossible to say where his chief forces are\r
+situated," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+He wished to explain to Dolgorukov a plan of attack he had himself\r
+formed.\r
+\r
+"Oh, that is all the same," Dolgorukov said quickly, and getting up he\r
+spread a map on the table. "All eventualities have been foreseen. If he\r
+is standing before Brunn..."\r
+\r
+And Prince Dolgorukov rapidly but indistinctly explained Weyrother's\r
+plan of a flanking movement.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew began to reply and to state his own plan, which might have\r
+been as good as Weyrother's, but for the disadvantage that Weyrother's\r
+had already been approved. As soon as Prince Andrew began to demonstrate\r
+the defects of the latter and the merits of his own plan, Prince\r
+Dolgorukov ceased to listen to him and gazed absent-mindedly not at the\r
+map, but at Prince Andrew's face.\r
+\r
+"There will be a council of war at Kutuzov's tonight, though; you can\r
+say all this there," remarked Dolgorukov.\r
+\r
+"I will do so," said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map.\r
+\r
+"Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?" said Bilibin, who, till\r
+then, had listened with an amused smile to their conversation and now\r
+was evidently ready with a joke. "Whether tomorrow brings victory or\r
+defeat, the glory of our Russian arms is secure. Except your Kutuzov,\r
+there is not a single Russian in command of a column! The commanders\r
+are: Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le Prince de\r
+Lichtenstein, le Prince, de Hohenlohe, and finally Prishprish, and so on\r
+like all those Polish names."\r
+\r
+"Be quiet, backbiter!" said Dolgorukov. "It is not true; there are now\r
+two Russians, Miloradovich, and Dokhturov, and there would be a third,\r
+Count Arakcheev, if his nerves were not too weak."\r
+\r
+"However, I think General Kutuzov has come out," said Prince Andrew. "I\r
+wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!" he added and went out after\r
+shaking hands with Dolgorukov and Bilibin.\r
+\r
+On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking Kutuzov,\r
+who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of tomorrow's\r
+battle.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause, replied: "I\r
+think the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstoy and asked him\r
+to tell the Emperor. What do you think he replied? 'But, my dear\r
+general, I am engaged with rice and cutlets, look after military matters\r
+yourself!' Yes... That was the answer I got!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+Shortly after nine o'clock that evening, Weyrother drove with his plans\r
+to Kutuzov's quarters where the council of war was to be held. All the\r
+commanders of columns were summoned to the commander-in-chief's and with\r
+the exception of Prince Bagration, who declined to come, were all there\r
+at the appointed time.\r
+\r
+Weyrother, who was in full control of the proposed battle, by his\r
+eagerness and briskness presented a marked contrast to the dissatisfied\r
+and drowsy Kutuzov, who reluctantly played the part of chairman and\r
+president of the council of war. Weyrother evidently felt himself to be\r
+at the head of a movement that had already become unrestrainable. He was\r
+like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was\r
+pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at\r
+headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead\r
+to. Weyrother had been twice that evening to the enemy's picket line to\r
+reconnoiter personally, and twice to the Emperors, Russian and Austrian,\r
+to report and explain, and to his headquarters where he had dictated the\r
+dispositions in German, and now, much exhausted, he arrived at\r
+Kutuzov's.\r
+\r
+He was evidently so busy that he even forgot to be polite to the\r
+commander in chief. He interrupted him, talked rapidly and indistinctly,\r
+without looking at the man he was addressing, and did not reply to\r
+questions put to him. He was bespattered with mud and had a pitiful,\r
+weary, and distracted air, though at the same time he was haughty and\r
+self-confident.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov was occupying a nobleman's castle of modest dimensions near\r
+Ostralitz. In the large drawing room which had become the commander in\r
+chief's office were gathered Kutuzov himself, Weyrother, and the members\r
+of the council of war. They were drinking tea, and only awaited Prince\r
+Bagration to begin the council. At last Bagration's orderly came with\r
+the news that the prince could not attend. Prince Andrew came in to\r
+inform the commander-in-chief of this and, availing himself of\r
+permission previously given him by Kutuzov to be present at the council,\r
+he remained in the room.\r
+\r
+"Since Prince Bagration is not coming, we may begin," said Weyrother,\r
+hurriedly rising from his seat and going up to the table on which an\r
+enormous map of the environs of Brunn was spread out.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov, with his uniform unbuttoned so that his fat neck bulged over\r
+his collar as if escaping, was sitting almost asleep in a low chair,\r
+with his podgy old hands resting symmetrically on its arms. At the sound\r
+of Weyrother's voice, he opened his one eye with an effort.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, if you please! It is already late," said he, and nodding his\r
+head he let it droop and again closed his eye.\r
+\r
+If at first the members of the council thought that Kutuzov was\r
+pretending to sleep, the sounds his nose emitted during the reading that\r
+followed proved that the commander-in-chief at that moment was absorbed\r
+by a far more serious matter than a desire to show his contempt for the\r
+dispositions or anything else--he was engaged in satisfying the\r
+irresistible human need for sleep. He really was asleep. Weyrother, with\r
+the gesture of a man too busy to lose a moment, glanced at Kutuzov and,\r
+having convinced himself that he was asleep, took up a paper and in a\r
+loud, monotonous voice began to read out the dispositions for the\r
+impending battle, under a heading which he also read out:\r
+\r
+"Dispositions for an attack on the enemy position behind Kobelnitz and\r
+Sokolnitz, November 30, 1805."\r
+\r
+The dispositions were very complicated and difficult. They began as\r
+follows:\r
+\r
+"As the enemy's left wing rests on wooded hills and his right extends\r
+along Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds that are there, while we,\r
+on the other hand, with our left wing by far outflank his right, it is\r
+advantageous to attack the enemy's latter wing especially if we occupy\r
+the villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz, whereby we can both fall on his\r
+flank and pursue him over the plain between Schlappanitz and the\r
+Thuerassa forest, avoiding the defiles of Schlappanitz and Bellowitz\r
+which cover the enemy's front. For this object it is necessary that...\r
+The first column marches... The second column marches... The third\r
+column marches..." and so on, read Weyrother.\r
+\r
+The generals seemed to listen reluctantly to the difficult dispositions.\r
+The tall, fair-haired General Buxhowden stood, leaning his back against\r
+the wall, his eyes fixed on a burning candle, and seemed not to listen\r
+or even to wish to be thought to listen. Exactly opposite Weyrother,\r
+with his glistening wide-open eyes fixed upon him and his mustache\r
+twisted upwards, sat the ruddy Miloradovich in a military pose, his\r
+elbows turned outwards, his hands on his knees, and his shoulders\r
+raised. He remained stubbornly silent, gazing at Weyrother's face, and\r
+only turned away his eyes when the Austrian chief of staff finished\r
+reading. Then Miloradovich looked round significantly at the other\r
+generals. But one could not tell from that significant look whether he\r
+agreed or disagreed and was satisfied or not with the arrangements. Next\r
+to Weyrother sat Count Langeron who, with a subtle smile that never left\r
+his typically southern French face during the whole time of the reading,\r
+gazed at his delicate fingers which rapidly twirled by its corners a\r
+gold snuffbox on which was a portrait. In the middle of one of the\r
+longest sentences, he stopped the rotary motion of the snuffbox, raised\r
+his head, and with inimical politeness lurking in the corners of his\r
+thin lips interrupted Weyrother, wishing to say something. But the\r
+Austrian general, continuing to read, frowned angrily and jerked his\r
+elbows, as if to say: "You can tell me your views later, but now be so\r
+good as to look at the map and listen." Langeron lifted his eyes with an\r
+expression of perplexity, turned round to Miloradovich as if seeking an\r
+explanation, but meeting the latter's impressive but meaningless gaze\r
+drooped his eyes sadly and again took to twirling his snuffbox.\r
+\r
+"A geography lesson!" he muttered as if to himself, but loud enough to\r
+be heard.\r
+\r
+Przebyszewski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his hand\r
+to his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in\r
+attention. Dohkturov, a little man, sat opposite Weyrother, with an\r
+assiduous and modest mien, and stooping over the outspread map\r
+conscientiously studied the dispositions and the unfamiliar locality. He\r
+asked Weyrother several times to repeat words he had not clearly heard\r
+and the difficult names of villages. Weyrother complied and Dohkturov\r
+noted them down.\r
+\r
+When the reading which lasted more than an hour was over, Langeron again\r
+brought his snuffbox to rest and, without looking at Weyrother or at\r
+anyone in particular, began to say how difficult it was to carry out\r
+such a plan in which the enemy's position was assumed to be known,\r
+whereas it was perhaps not known, since the enemy was in movement.\r
+Langeron's objections were valid but it was obvious that their chief aim\r
+was to show General Weyrother--who had read his dispositions with as\r
+much self-confidence as if he were addressing school children--that he\r
+had to do, not with fools, but with men who could teach him something in\r
+military matters.\r
+\r
+When the monotonous sound of Weyrother's voice ceased, Kutuzov opened\r
+his eye as a miller wakes up when the soporific drone of the mill wheel\r
+is interrupted. He listened to what Langeron said, as if remarking, "So\r
+you are still at that silly business!" quickly closed his eye again, and\r
+let his head sink still lower.\r
+\r
+Langeron, trying as virulently as possible to sting Weyrother's vanity\r
+as author of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might easily\r
+attack instead of being attacked, and so render the whole of this plan\r
+perfectly worthless. Weyrother met all objections with a firm and\r
+contemptuous smile, evidently prepared beforehand to meet all objections\r
+be they what they might.\r
+\r
+"If he could attack us, he would have done so today," said he.\r
+\r
+"So you think he is powerless?" said Langeron.\r
+\r
+"He has forty thousand men at most," replied Weyrother, with the smile\r
+of a doctor to whom an old wife wishes to explain the treatment of a\r
+case.\r
+\r
+"In that case he is inviting his doom by awaiting our attack," said\r
+Langeron, with a subtly ironical smile, again glancing round for support\r
+to Miloradovich who was near him.\r
+\r
+But Miloradovich was at that moment evidently thinking of anything\r
+rather than of what the generals were disputing about.\r
+\r
+"Ma foi!" said he, "tomorrow we shall see all that on the battlefield."\r
+\r
+Weyrother again gave that smile which seemed to say that to him it was\r
+strange and ridiculous to meet objections from Russian generals and to\r
+have to prove to them what he had not merely convinced himself of, but\r
+had also convinced the sovereign Emperors of.\r
+\r
+"The enemy has quenched his fires and a continual noise is heard from\r
+his camp," said he. "What does that mean? Either he is retreating, which\r
+is the only thing we need fear, or he is changing his position." (He\r
+smiled ironically.) "But even if he also took up a position in the\r
+Thuerassa, he merely saves us a great deal of trouble and all our\r
+arrangements to the minutest detail remain the same."\r
+\r
+"How is that?..." began Prince Andrew, who had for long been waiting an\r
+opportunity to express his doubts.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov here woke up, coughed heavily, and looked round at the generals.\r
+\r
+"Gentlemen, the dispositions for tomorrow--or rather for today, for it\r
+is past midnight--cannot now be altered," said he. "You have heard them,\r
+and we shall all do our duty. But before a battle, there is nothing more\r
+important..." he paused, "than to have a good sleep."\r
+\r
+He moved as if to rise. The generals bowed and retired. It was past\r
+midnight. Prince Andrew went out.\r
+\r
+The council of war, at which Prince Andrew had not been able to express\r
+his opinion as he had hoped to, left on him a vague and uneasy\r
+impression. Whether Dolgorukov and Weyrother, or Kutuzov, Langeron, and\r
+the others who did not approve of the plan of attack, were right--he did\r
+not know. "But was it really not possible for Kutuzov to state his views\r
+plainly to the Emperor? Is it possible that on account of court and\r
+personal considerations tens of thousands of lives, and my life, my\r
+life," he thought, "must be risked?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow," he thought.\r
+And suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of most distant,\r
+most intimate, memories rose in his imagination: he remembered his last\r
+parting from his father and his wife; he remembered the days when he\r
+first loved her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for her and\r
+for himself, and in a nervously emotional and softened mood he went out\r
+of the hut in which he was billeted with Nesvitski and began to walk up\r
+and down before it.\r
+\r
+The night was foggy and through the fog the moonlight gleamed\r
+mysteriously. "Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!" he thought. "Tomorrow\r
+everything may be over for me! All these memories will be no more, none\r
+of them will have any meaning for me. Tomorrow perhaps, even certainly,\r
+I have a presentiment that for the first time I shall have to show all I\r
+can do." And his fancy pictured the battle, its loss, the concentration\r
+of fighting at one point, and the hesitation of all the commanders. And\r
+then that happy moment, that Toulon for which he had so long waited,\r
+presents itself to him at last. He firmly and clearly expresses his\r
+opinion to Kutuzov, to Weyrother, and to the Emperors. All are struck by\r
+the justness of his views, but no one undertakes to carry them out, so\r
+he takes a regiment, a division-stipulates that no one is to interfere\r
+with his arrangements--leads his division to the decisive point, and\r
+gains the victory alone. "But death and suffering?" suggested another\r
+voice. Prince Andrew, however, did not answer that voice and went on\r
+dreaming of his triumphs. The dispositions for the next battle are\r
+planned by him alone. Nominally he is only an adjutant on Kutuzov's\r
+staff, but he does everything alone. The next battle is won by him\r
+alone. Kutuzov is removed and he is appointed... "Well and then?" asked\r
+the other voice. "If before that you are not ten times wounded, killed,\r
+or betrayed, well... what then?..." "Well then," Prince Andrew answered\r
+himself, "I don't know what will happen and don't want to know, and\r
+can't, but if I want this--want glory, want to be known to men, want to\r
+be loved by them, it is not my fault that I want it and want nothing but\r
+that and live only for that. Yes, for that alone! I shall never tell\r
+anyone, but, oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and\r
+men's esteem? Death, wounds, the loss of family--I fear nothing. And\r
+precious and dear as many persons are to me--father, sister, wife--those\r
+dearest to me--yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would give them\r
+all at once for a moment of glory, of triumph over men, of love from men\r
+I don't know and never shall know, for the love of these men here," he\r
+thought, as he listened to voices in Kutuzov's courtyard. The voices\r
+were those of the orderlies who were packing up; one voice, probably a\r
+coachman's, was teasing Kutuzov's old cook whom Prince Andrew knew, and\r
+who was called Tit. He was saying, "Tit, I say, Tit!"\r
+\r
+"Well?" returned the old man.\r
+\r
+"Go, Tit, thresh a bit!" said the wag.\r
+\r
+"Oh, go to the devil!" called out a voice, drowned by the laughter of\r
+the orderlies and servants.\r
+\r
+"All the same, I love and value nothing but triumph over them all, I\r
+value this mystic power and glory that is floating here above me in this\r
+mist!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+That same night, Rostov was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in front\r
+of Bagration's detachment. His hussars were placed along the line in\r
+couples and he himself rode along the line trying to master the\r
+sleepiness that kept coming over him. An enormous space, with our army's\r
+campfires dimly glowing in the fog, could be seen behind him; in front\r
+of him was misty darkness. Rostov could see nothing, peer as he would\r
+into that foggy distance: now something gleamed gray, now there was\r
+something black, now little lights seemed to glimmer where the enemy\r
+ought to be, now he fancied it was only something in his own eyes. His\r
+eyes kept closing, and in his fancy appeared--now the Emperor, now\r
+Denisov, and now Moscow memories--and he again hurriedly opened his eyes\r
+and saw close before him the head and ears of the horse he was riding,\r
+and sometimes, when he came within six paces of them, the black figures\r
+of hussars, but in the distance was still the same misty darkness. "Why\r
+not?... It might easily happen," thought Rostov, "that the Emperor will\r
+meet me and give me an order as he would to any other officer; he'll\r
+say: 'Go and find out what's there.' There are many stories of his\r
+getting to know an officer in just such a chance way and attaching him\r
+to himself! What if he gave me a place near him? Oh, how I would guard\r
+him, how I would tell him the truth, how I would unmask his deceivers!"\r
+And in order to realize vividly his love devotion to the sovereign,\r
+Rostov pictured to himself an enemy or a deceitful German, whom he would\r
+not only kill with pleasure but whom he would slap in the face before\r
+the Emperor. Suddenly a distant shout aroused him. He started and opened\r
+his eyes.\r
+\r
+"Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line... pass and watchword--\r
+shaft, Olmutz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be in reserve\r
+tomorrow," he thought. "I'll ask leave to go to the front, this may be\r
+my only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won't be long now before I am\r
+off duty. I'll take another turn and when I get back I'll go to the\r
+general and ask him." He readjusted himself in the saddle and touched up\r
+his horse to ride once more round his hussars. It seemed to him that it\r
+was getting lighter. To the left he saw a sloping descent lit up, and\r
+facing it a black knoll that seemed as steep as a wall. On this knoll\r
+there was a white patch that Rostov could not at all make out: was it a\r
+glade in the wood lit up by the moon, or some unmelted snow, or some\r
+white houses? He even thought something moved on that white spot. "I\r
+expect it's snow... that spot... a spot--une tache," he thought. "There\r
+now... it's not a tache... Natasha... sister, black eyes... Na...\r
+tasha... (Won't she be surprised when I tell her how I've seen the\r
+Emperor?) Natasha... take my sabretache..."--"Keep to the right, your\r
+honor, there are bushes here," came the voice of an hussar, past whom\r
+Rostov was riding in the act of falling asleep. Rostov lifted his head\r
+that had sunk almost to his horse's mane and pulled up beside the\r
+hussar. He was succumbing to irresistible, youthful, childish\r
+drowsiness. "But what was I thinking? I mustn't forget. How shall I\r
+speak to the Emperor? No, that's not it--that's tomorrow. Oh yes!\r
+Natasha... sabretache... saber them... Whom? The hussars... Ah, the\r
+hussars with mustaches. Along the Tverskaya Street rode the hussar with\r
+mustaches... I thought about him too, just opposite Guryev's house...\r
+Old Guryev.... Oh, but Denisov's a fine fellow. But that's all nonsense.\r
+The chief thing is that the Emperor is here. How he looked at me and\r
+wished to say something, but dared not.... No, it was I who dared not.\r
+But that's nonsense, the chief thing is not to forget the important\r
+thing I was thinking of. Yes, Na-tasha, sabretache, oh, yes, yes! That's\r
+right!" And his head once more sank to his horse's neck. All at once it\r
+seemed to him that he was being fired at. "What? What? What?... Cut them\r
+down! What?..." said Rostov, waking up. At the moment he opened his eyes\r
+he heard in front of him, where the enemy was, the long-drawn shouts of\r
+thousands of voices. His horse and the horse of the hussar near him\r
+pricked their ears at these shouts. Over there, where the shouting came\r
+from, a fire flared up and went out again, then another, and all along\r
+the French line on the hill fires flared up and the shouting grew louder\r
+and louder. Rostov could hear the sound of French words but could not\r
+distinguish them. The din of many voices was too great; all he could\r
+hear was: "ahahah!" and "rrrr!"\r
+\r
+"What's that? What do you make of it?" said Rostov to the hussar beside\r
+him. "That must be the enemy's camp!"\r
+\r
+The hussar did not reply.\r
+\r
+"Why, don't you hear it?" Rostov asked again, after waiting for a reply.\r
+\r
+"Who can tell, your honor?" replied the hussar reluctantly.\r
+\r
+"From the direction, it must be the enemy," repeated Rostov.\r
+\r
+"It may be he or it may be nothing," muttered the hussar. "It's dark...\r
+Steady!" he cried to his fidgeting horse.\r
+\r
+Rostov's horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground,\r
+pricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights. The shouting\r
+grew still louder and merged into a general roar that only an army of\r
+several thousand men could produce. The lights spread farther and\r
+farther, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostov no longer\r
+wanted to sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the enemy army had a\r
+stimulating effect on him. "Vive l'Empereur! L'Empereur!" he now heard\r
+distinctly.\r
+\r
+"They can't be far off, probably just beyond the stream," he said to the\r
+hussar beside him.\r
+\r
+The hussar only sighed without replying and coughed angrily. The sound\r
+of horse's hoofs approaching at a trot along the line of hussars was\r
+heard, and out of the foggy darkness the figure of a sergeant of hussars\r
+suddenly appeared, looming huge as an elephant.\r
+\r
+"Your honor, the generals!" said the sergeant, riding up to Rostov.\r
+\r
+Rostov, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode with\r
+the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the line.\r
+One was on a white horse. Prince Bagration and Prince Dolgorukov with\r
+their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the lights\r
+and shouts in the enemy's camp. Rostov rode up to Bagration, reported to\r
+him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the generals were\r
+saying.\r
+\r
+"Believe me," said Prince Dolgorukov, addressing Bagration, "it is\r
+nothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to\r
+kindle fires and make a noise to deceive us."\r
+\r
+"Hardly," said Bagration. "I saw them this evening on that knoll; if\r
+they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too.... Officer!"\r
+said Bagration to Rostov, "are the enemy's skirmishers still there?"\r
+\r
+"They were there this evening, but now I don't know, your excellency.\r
+Shall I go with some of my hussars to see?" replied Rostov.\r
+\r
+Bagration stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostov's face in\r
+the mist.\r
+\r
+"Well, go and see," he said, after a pause.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+Rostov spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fedchenko and two other\r
+hussars, told them to follow him, and trotted downhill in the direction\r
+from which the shouting came. He felt both frightened and pleased to be\r
+riding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and dangerous misty\r
+distance where no one had been before him. Bagration called to him from\r
+the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostov pretended not to hear\r
+him and did not stop but rode on and on, continually mistaking bushes\r
+for trees and gullies for men and continually discovering his mistakes.\r
+Having descended the hill at a trot, he no longer saw either our own or\r
+the enemy's fires, but heard the shouting of the French more loudly and\r
+distinctly. In the valley he saw before him something like a river, but\r
+when he reached it he found it was a road. Having come out onto the road\r
+he reined in his horse, hesitating whether to ride along it or cross it\r
+and ride over the black field up the hillside. To keep to the road which\r
+gleamed white in the mist would have been safer because it would be\r
+easier to see people coming along it. "Follow me!" said he, crossed the\r
+road, and began riding up the hill at a gallop toward the point where\r
+the French pickets had been standing that evening.\r
+\r
+"Your honor, there he is!" cried one of the hussars behind him. And\r
+before Rostov had time to make out what the black thing was that had\r
+suddenly appeared in the fog, there was a flash, followed by a report,\r
+and a bullet whizzing high up in the mist with a plaintive sound passed\r
+out of hearing. Another musket missed fire but flashed in the pan.\r
+Rostov turned his horse and galloped back. Four more reports followed at\r
+intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the fog singing in\r
+different tones. Rostov reined in his horse, whose spirits had risen,\r
+like his own, at the firing, and went back at a footpace. "Well, some\r
+more! Some more!" a merry voice was saying in his soul. But no more\r
+shots came.\r
+\r
+Only when approaching Bagration did Rostov let his horse gallop again,\r
+and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.\r
+\r
+Dolgorukov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had\r
+only lit fires to deceive us.\r
+\r
+"What does that prove?" he was saying as Rostov rode up. "They might\r
+retreat and leave the pickets."\r
+\r
+"It's plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince," said Bagration.\r
+"Wait till tomorrow morning, we'll find out everything tomorrow."\r
+\r
+"The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just where it was in\r
+the evening," reported Rostov, stooping forward with his hand at the\r
+salute and unable to repress the smile of delight induced by his ride\r
+and especially by the sound of the bullets.\r
+\r
+"Very good, very good," said Bagration. "Thank you, officer."\r
+\r
+"Your excellency," said Rostov, "may I ask a favor?"\r
+\r
+"What is it?"\r
+\r
+"Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be attached to\r
+the first squadron?"\r
+\r
+"What's your name?"\r
+\r
+"Count Rostov."\r
+\r
+"Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me."\r
+\r
+"Count Ilya Rostov's son?" asked Dolgorukov.\r
+\r
+But Rostov did not reply.\r
+\r
+"Then I may reckon on it, your excellency?"\r
+\r
+"I will give the order."\r
+\r
+"Tomorrow very likely I may be sent with some message to the Emperor,"\r
+thought Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Thank God!"\r
+\r
+The fires and shouting in the enemy's army were occasioned by the fact\r
+that while Napoleon's proclamation was being read to the troops the\r
+Emperor himself rode round his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing him,\r
+lit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!"\r
+Napoleon's proclamation was as follows:\r
+\r
+Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the\r
+Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at\r
+Hollabrunn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position we\r
+occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round me on\r
+the right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will myself direct\r
+your battalions. I will keep out of fire if you with your habitual valor\r
+carry disorder and confusion into the enemy's ranks, but should victory\r
+be in doubt, even for a moment, you will see your Emperor exposing\r
+himself to the first blows of the enemy, for there must be no doubt of\r
+victory, especially on this day when what is at stake is the honor of\r
+the French infantry, so necessary to the honor of our nation.\r
+\r
+Do not break your ranks on the plea of removing the wounded! Let every\r
+man be fully imbued with the thought that we must defeat these hirelings\r
+of England, inspired by such hatred of our nation! This victory will\r
+conclude our campaign and we can return to winter quarters, where fresh\r
+French troops who are being raised in France will join us, and the peace\r
+I shall conclude will be worthy of my people, of you, and of myself.\r
+\r
+NAPOLEON\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+At five in the morning it was still quite dark. The troops of the\r
+center, the reserves, and Bagration's right flank had not yet moved, but\r
+on the left flank the columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, which\r
+were to be the first to descend the heights to attack the French right\r
+flank and drive it into the Bohemian mountains according to plan, were\r
+already up and astir. The smoke of the campfires, into which they were\r
+throwing everything superfluous, made the eyes smart. It was cold and\r
+dark. The officers were hurriedly drinking tea and breakfasting, the\r
+soldiers, munching biscuit and beating a tattoo with their feet to warm\r
+themselves, gathering round the fires throwing into the flames the\r
+remains of sheds, chairs, tables, wheels, tubs, and everything that they\r
+did not want or could not carry away with them. Austrian column guides\r
+were moving in and out among the Russian troops and served as heralds of\r
+the advance. As soon as an Austrian officer showed himself near a\r
+commanding officer's quarters, the regiment began to move: the soldiers\r
+ran from the fires, thrust their pipes into their boots, their bags into\r
+the carts, got their muskets ready, and formed rank. The officers\r
+buttoned up their coats, buckled on their swords and pouches, and moved\r
+along the ranks shouting. The train drivers and orderlies harnessed and\r
+packed the wagons and tied on the loads. The adjutants and battalion and\r
+regimental commanders mounted, crossed themselves, gave final\r
+instructions, orders, and commissions to the baggage men who remained\r
+behind, and the monotonous tramp of thousands of feet resounded. The\r
+column moved forward without knowing where and unable, from the masses\r
+around them, the smoke and the increasing fog, to see either the place\r
+they were leaving or that to which they were going.\r
+\r
+A soldier on the march is hemmed in and borne along by his regiment as\r
+much as a sailor is by his ship. However far he has walked, whatever\r
+strange, unknown, and dangerous places he reaches, just as a sailor is\r
+always surrounded by the same decks, masts, and rigging of his ship, so\r
+the soldier always has around him the same comrades, the same ranks, the\r
+same sergeant major Ivan Mitrich, the same company dog Jack, and the\r
+same commanders. The sailor rarely cares to know the latitude in which\r
+his ship is sailing, but on the day of battle--heaven knows how and\r
+whence--a stern note of which all are conscious sounds in the moral\r
+atmosphere of an army, announcing the approach of something decisive and\r
+solemn, and awakening in the men an unusual curiosity. On the day of\r
+battle the soldiers excitedly try to get beyond the interests of their\r
+regiment, they listen intently, look about, and eagerly ask concerning\r
+what is going on around them.\r
+\r
+The fog had grown so dense that though it was growing light they could\r
+not see ten paces ahead. Bushes looked like gigantic trees and level\r
+ground like cliffs and slopes. Anywhere, on any side, one might\r
+encounter an enemy invisible ten paces off. But the columns advanced for\r
+a long time, always in the same fog, descending and ascending hills,\r
+avoiding gardens and enclosures, going over new and unknown ground, and\r
+nowhere encountering the enemy. On the contrary, the soldiers became\r
+aware that in front, behind, and on all sides, other Russian columns\r
+were moving in the same direction. Every soldier felt glad to know that\r
+to the unknown place where he was going, many more of our men were going\r
+too.\r
+\r
+"There now, the Kurskies have also gone past," was being said in the\r
+ranks.\r
+\r
+"It's wonderful what a lot of our troops have gathered, lads! Last night\r
+I looked at the campfires and there was no end of them. A regular\r
+Moscow!"\r
+\r
+Though none of the column commanders rode up to the ranks or talked to\r
+the men (the commanders, as we saw at the council of war, were out of\r
+humor and dissatisfied with the affair, and so did not exert themselves\r
+to cheer the men but merely carried out the orders), yet the troops\r
+marched gaily, as they always do when going into action, especially to\r
+an attack. But when they had marched for about an hour in the dense fog,\r
+the greater part of the men had to halt and an unpleasant consciousness\r
+of some dislocation and blunder spread through the ranks. How such a\r
+consciousness is communicated is very difficult to define, but it\r
+certainly is communicated very surely, and flows rapidly, imperceptibly,\r
+and irrepressibly, as water does in a creek. Had the Russian army been\r
+alone without any allies, it might perhaps have been a long time before\r
+this consciousness of mismanagement became a general conviction, but as\r
+it was, the disorder was readily and naturally attributed to the stupid\r
+Germans, and everyone was convinced that a dangerous muddle had been\r
+occasioned by the sausage eaters.\r
+\r
+"Why have we stopped? Is the way blocked? Or have we already come up\r
+against the French?"\r
+\r
+"No, one can't hear them. They'd be firing if we had."\r
+\r
+"They were in a hurry enough to start us, and now here we stand in the\r
+middle of a field without rhyme or reason. It's all those damned\r
+Germans' muddling! What stupid devils!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I'd send them on in front, but no fear, they're crowding up\r
+behind. And now here we stand hungry."\r
+\r
+"I say, shall we soon be clear? They say the cavalry are blocking the\r
+way," said an officer.\r
+\r
+"Ah, those damned Germans! They don't know their own country!" said\r
+another.\r
+\r
+"What division are you?" shouted an adjutant, riding up.\r
+\r
+"The Eighteenth."\r
+\r
+"Then why are you here? You should have gone on long ago, now you won't\r
+get there till evening."\r
+\r
+"What stupid orders! They don't themselves know what they are doing!"\r
+said the officer and rode off.\r
+\r
+Then a general rode past shouting something angrily, not in Russian.\r
+\r
+"Tafa-lafa! But what he's jabbering no one can make out," said a\r
+soldier, mimicking the general who had ridden away. "I'd shoot them, the\r
+scoundrels!"\r
+\r
+"We were ordered to be at the place before nine, but we haven't got\r
+halfway. Fine orders!" was being repeated on different sides.\r
+\r
+And the feeling of energy with which the troops had started began to\r
+turn into vexation and anger at the stupid arrangements and at the\r
+Germans.\r
+\r
+The cause of the confusion was that while the Austrian cavalry was\r
+moving toward our left flank, the higher command found that our center\r
+was too far separated from our right flank and the cavalry were all\r
+ordered to turn back to the right. Several thousand cavalry crossed in\r
+front of the infantry, who had to wait.\r
+\r
+At the front an altercation occurred between an Austrian guide and a\r
+Russian general. The general shouted a demand that the cavalry should be\r
+halted, the Austrian argued that not he, but the higher command, was to\r
+blame. The troops meanwhile stood growing listless and dispirited. After\r
+an hour's delay they at last moved on, descending the hill. The fog that\r
+was dispersing on the hill lay still more densely below, where they were\r
+descending. In front in the fog a shot was heard and then another, at\r
+first irregularly at varying intervals--trata... tat--and then more and\r
+more regularly and rapidly, and the action at the Goldbach Stream began.\r
+\r
+Not expecting to come on the enemy down by the stream, and having\r
+stumbled on him in the fog, hearing no encouraging word from their\r
+commanders, and with a consciousness of being too late spreading through\r
+the ranks, and above all being unable to see anything in front or around\r
+them in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the enemy\r
+lazily and advanced and again halted, receiving no timely orders from\r
+the officers or adjutants who wandered about in the fog in those unknown\r
+surroundings unable to find their own regiments. In this way the action\r
+began for the first, second, and third columns, which had gone down into\r
+the valley. The fourth column, with which Kutuzov was, stood on the\r
+Pratzen Heights.\r
+\r
+Below, where the fight was beginning, there was still thick fog; on the\r
+higher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of what was\r
+going on in front. Whether all the enemy forces were, as we supposed,\r
+six miles away, or whether they were near by in that sea of mist, no one\r
+knew till after eight o'clock.\r
+\r
+It was nine o'clock in the morning. The fog lay unbroken like a sea down\r
+below, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz where Napoleon stood\r
+with his marshals around him, it was quite light. Above him was a clear\r
+blue sky, and the sun's vast orb quivered like a huge hollow, crimson\r
+float on the surface of that milky sea of mist. The whole French army,\r
+and even Napoleon himself with his staff, were not on the far side of\r
+the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and Schlappanitz beyond which we\r
+intended to take up our position and begin the action, but were on this\r
+side, so close to our own forces that Napoleon with the naked eye could\r
+distinguish a mounted man from one on foot. Napoleon, in the blue cloak\r
+which he had worn on his Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab\r
+horse a little in front of his marshals. He gazed silently at the hills\r
+which seemed to rise out of the sea of mist and on which the Russian\r
+troops were moving in the distance, and he listened to the sounds of\r
+firing in the valley. Not a single muscle of his face--which in those\r
+days was still thin--moved. His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on one\r
+spot. His predictions were being justified. Part of the Russian force\r
+had already descended into the valley toward the ponds and lakes and\r
+part were leaving these Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack and\r
+regarded as the key to the position. He saw over the mist that in a\r
+hollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian\r
+columns, their bayonets glittering, were moving continuously in one\r
+direction toward the valley and disappearing one after another into the\r
+mist. From information he had received the evening before, from the\r
+sound of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts during the night, by\r
+the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and from all\r
+indications, he saw clearly that the allies believed him to be far away\r
+in front of them, and that the columns moving near Pratzen constituted\r
+the center of the Russian army, and that that center was already\r
+sufficiently weakened to be successfully attacked. But still he did not\r
+begin the engagement.\r
+\r
+Today was a great day for him--the anniversary of his coronation. Before\r
+dawn he had slept for a few hours, and refreshed, vigorous, and in good\r
+spirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field in that happy\r
+mood in which everything seems possible and everything succeeds. He sat\r
+motionless, looking at the heights visible above the mist, and his cold\r
+face wore that special look of confident, self-complacent happiness that\r
+one sees on the face of a boy happily in love. The marshals stood behind\r
+him not venturing to distract his attention. He looked now at the\r
+Pratzen Heights, now at the sun floating up out of the mist.\r
+\r
+When the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and mist were\r
+aglow with dazzling light--as if he had only awaited this to begin the\r
+action--he drew the glove from his shapely white hand, made a sign with\r
+it to the marshals, and ordered the action to begin. The marshals,\r
+accompanied by adjutants, galloped off in different directions, and a\r
+few minutes later the chief forces of the French army moved rapidly\r
+toward those Pratzen Heights which were being more and more denuded by\r
+Russian troops moving down the valley to their left.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+At eight o'clock Kutuzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth\r
+column, Miloradovich's, the one that was to take the place of\r
+Przebyszewski's and Langeron's columns which had already gone down into\r
+the valley. He greeted the men of the foremost regiment and gave them\r
+the order to march, thereby indicating that he intended to lead that\r
+column himself. When he had reached the village of Pratzen he halted.\r
+Prince Andrew was behind, among the immense number forming the\r
+commander-in-chief's suite. He was in a state of suppressed excitement\r
+and irritation, though controlledly calm as a man is at the approach of\r
+a long-awaited moment. He was firmly convinced that this was the day of\r
+his Toulon, or his bridge of Arcola. How it would come about he did not\r
+know, but he felt sure it would do so. The locality and the position of\r
+our troops were known to him as far as they could be known to anyone in\r
+our army. His own strategic plan, which obviously could not now be\r
+carried out, was forgotten. Now, entering into Weyrother's plan, Prince\r
+Andrew considered possible contingencies and formed new projects such as\r
+might call for his rapidity of perception and decision.\r
+\r
+To the left down below in the mist, the musketry fire of unseen forces\r
+could be heard. It was there Prince Andrew thought the fight would\r
+concentrate. "There we shall encounter difficulties, and there," thought\r
+he, "I shall be sent with a brigade or division, and there, standard in\r
+hand, I shall go forward and break whatever is in front of me."\r
+\r
+He could not look calmly at the standards of the passing battalions.\r
+Seeing them he kept thinking, "That may be the very standard with which\r
+I shall lead the army."\r
+\r
+In the morning all that was left of the night mist on the heights was a\r
+hoar frost now turning to dew, but in the valleys it still lay like a\r
+milk-white sea. Nothing was visible in the valley to the left into which\r
+our troops had descended and from whence came the sounds of firing.\r
+Above the heights was the dark clear sky, and to the right the vast orb\r
+of the sun. In front, far off on the farther shore of that sea of mist,\r
+some wooded hills were discernible, and it was there the enemy probably\r
+was, for something could be descried. On the right the Guards were\r
+entering the misty region with a sound of hoofs and wheels and now and\r
+then a gleam of bayonets; to the left beyond the village similar masses\r
+of cavalry came up and disappeared in the sea of mist. In front and\r
+behind moved infantry. The commander-in-chief was standing at the end of\r
+the village letting the troops pass by him. That morning Kutuzov seemed\r
+worn and irritable. The infantry passing before him came to a halt\r
+without any command being given, apparently obstructed by something in\r
+front.\r
+\r
+"Do order them to form into battalion columns and go round the village!"\r
+he said angrily to a general who had ridden up. "Don't you understand,\r
+your excellency, my dear sir, that you must not defile through narrow\r
+village streets when we are marching against the enemy?"\r
+\r
+"I intended to re-form them beyond the village, your excellency,"\r
+answered the general.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov laughed bitterly.\r
+\r
+"You'll make a fine thing of it, deploying in sight of the enemy! Very\r
+fine!"\r
+\r
+"The enemy is still far away, your excellency. According to the\r
+dispositions..."\r
+\r
+"The dispositions!" exclaimed Kutuzov bitterly. "Who told you that?...\r
+Kindly do as you are ordered."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"My dear fellow," Nesvitski whispered to Prince Andrew, "the old man is\r
+as surly as a dog."\r
+\r
+An Austrian officer in a white uniform with green plumes in his hat\r
+galloped up to Kutuzov and asked in the Emperor's name had the fourth\r
+column advanced into action.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov turned round without answering and his eye happened to fall upon\r
+Prince Andrew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutuzov's malevolent and\r
+caustic expression softened, as if admitting that what was being done\r
+was not his adjutant's fault, and still not answering the Austrian\r
+adjutant, he addressed Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"Go, my dear fellow, and see whether the third division has passed the\r
+village. Tell it to stop and await my orders."\r
+\r
+Hardly had Prince Andrew started than he stopped him.\r
+\r
+"And ask whether sharpshooters have been posted," he added. "What are\r
+they doing? What are they doing?" he murmured to himself, still not\r
+replying to the Austrian.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew galloped off to execute the order.\r
+\r
+Overtaking the battalions that continued to advance, he stopped the\r
+third division and convinced himself that there really were no\r
+sharpshooters in front of our columns. The colonel at the head of the\r
+regiment was much surprised at the commander-in-chief's order to throw\r
+out skirmishers. He had felt perfectly sure that there were other troops\r
+in front of him and that the enemy must be at least six miles away.\r
+There was really nothing to be seen in front except a barren descent\r
+hidden by dense mist. Having given orders in the commander-in-chief's\r
+name to rectify this omission, Prince Andrew galloped back. Kutuzov\r
+still in the same place, his stout body resting heavily in the saddle\r
+with the lassitude of age, sat yawning wearily with closed eyes. The\r
+troops were no longer moving, but stood with the butts of their muskets\r
+on the ground.\r
+\r
+"All right, all right!" he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a\r
+general who, watch in hand, was saying it was time they started as all\r
+the left-flank columns had already descended.\r
+\r
+"Plenty of time, your excellency," muttered Kutuzov in the midst of a\r
+yawn. "Plenty of time," he repeated.\r
+\r
+Just then at a distance behind Kutuzov was heard the sound of regiments\r
+saluting, and this sound rapidly came nearer along the whole extended\r
+line of the advancing Russian columns. Evidently the person they were\r
+greeting was riding quickly. When the soldiers of the regiment in front\r
+of which Kutuzov was standing began to shout, he rode a little to one\r
+side and looked round with a frown. Along the road from Pratzen galloped\r
+what looked like a squadron of horsemen in various uniforms. Two of them\r
+rode side by side in front, at full gallop. One in a black uniform with\r
+white plumes in his hat rode a bobtailed chestnut horse, the other who\r
+was in a white uniform rode a black one. These were the two Emperors\r
+followed by their suites. Kutuzov, affecting the manners of an old\r
+soldier at the front, gave the command "Attention!" and rode up to the\r
+Emperors with a salute. His whole appearance and manner were suddenly\r
+transformed. He put on the air of a subordinate who obeys without\r
+reasoning. With an affectation of respect which evidently struck\r
+Alexander unpleasantly, he rode up and saluted.\r
+\r
+This unpleasant impression merely flitted over the young and happy face\r
+of the Emperor like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and vanished.\r
+After his illness he looked rather thinner that day than on the field of\r
+Olmutz where Bolkonski had seen him for the first time abroad, but there\r
+was still the same bewitching combination of majesty and mildness in his\r
+fine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the same capacity for varying\r
+expression and the same prevalent appearance of goodhearted innocent\r
+youth.\r
+\r
+At the Olmutz review he had seemed more majestic; here he seemed\r
+brighter and more energetic. He was slightly flushed after galloping two\r
+miles, and reining in his horse he sighed restfully and looked round at\r
+the faces of his suite, young and animated as his own. Czartoryski,\r
+Novosiltsev, Prince Volkonsky, Strogonov, and the others, all richly\r
+dressed gay young men on splendid, well-groomed, fresh, only slightly\r
+heated horses, exchanging remarks and smiling, had stopped behind the\r
+Emperor. The Emperor Francis, a rosy, long faced young man, sat very\r
+erect on his handsome black horse, looking about him in a leisurely and\r
+preoccupied manner. He beckoned to one of his white adjutants and asked\r
+some question--"Most likely he is asking at what o'clock they started,"\r
+thought Prince Andrew, watching his old acquaintance with a smile he\r
+could not repress as he recalled his reception at Brunn. In the\r
+Emperors' suite were the picked young orderly officers of the Guard and\r
+line regiments, Russian and Austrian. Among them were grooms leading the\r
+Tsar's beautiful relay horses covered with embroidered cloths.\r
+\r
+As when a window is opened a whiff of fresh air from the fields enters a\r
+stuffy room, so a whiff of youthfulness, energy, and confidence of\r
+success reached Kutuzov's cheerless staff with the galloping advent of\r
+all these brilliant young men.\r
+\r
+"Why aren't you beginning, Michael Ilarionovich?" said the Emperor\r
+Alexander hurriedly to Kutuzov, glancing courteously at the same time at\r
+the Emperor Francis.\r
+\r
+"I am waiting, Your Majesty," answered Kutuzov, bending forward\r
+respectfully.\r
+\r
+The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his ear forward as if he had not\r
+quite heard.\r
+\r
+"Waiting, Your Majesty," repeated Kutuzov. (Prince Andrew noted that\r
+Kutuzov's upper lip twitched unnaturally as he said the word "waiting.")\r
+"Not all the columns have formed up yet, Your Majesty."\r
+\r
+The Tsar heard but obviously did not like the reply; he shrugged his\r
+rather round shoulders and glanced at Novosiltsev who was near him, as\r
+if complaining of Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+"You know, Michael Ilarionovich, we are not on the Empress' Field where\r
+a parade does not begin till all the troops are assembled," said the\r
+Tsar with another glance at the Emperor Francis, as if inviting him if\r
+not to join in at least to listen to what he was saying. But the Emperor\r
+Francis continued to look about him and did not listen.\r
+\r
+"That is just why I do not begin, sire," said Kutuzov in a resounding\r
+voice, apparently to preclude the possibility of not being heard, and\r
+again something in his face twitched--"That is just why I do not begin,\r
+sire, because we are not on parade and not on the Empress' Field," said\r
+clearly and distinctly.\r
+\r
+In the Emperor's suite all exchanged rapid looks that expressed\r
+dissatisfaction and reproach. "Old though he may be, he should not, he\r
+certainly should not, speak like that," their glances seemed to say.\r
+\r
+The Tsar looked intently and observantly into Kutuzov's eye waiting to\r
+hear whether he would say anything more. But Kutuzov, with respectfully\r
+bowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence lasted for about a\r
+minute.\r
+\r
+"However, if you command it, Your Majesty," said Kutuzov, lifting his\r
+head and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning, but\r
+submissive general.\r
+\r
+He touched his horse and having called Miloradovich, the commander of\r
+the column, gave him the order to advance.\r
+\r
+The troops again began to move, and two battalions of the Novgorod and\r
+one of the Apsheron regiment went forward past the Emperor.\r
+\r
+As this Apsheron battalion marched by, the red-faced Miloradovich,\r
+without his greatcoat, with his Orders on his breast and an enormous\r
+tuft of plumes in his cocked hat worn on one side with its corners front\r
+and back, galloped strenuously forward, and with a dashing salute reined\r
+in his horse before the Emperor.\r
+\r
+"God be with you, general!" said the Emperor.\r
+\r
+"Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce qui sera dans notre possibilite, sire," *\r
+he answered gaily, raising nevertheless ironic smiles among the\r
+gentlemen of the Tsar's suite by his poor French.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Indeed, Sire, we shall do everything it is possible to do, Sire."\r
+\r
+Miloradovich wheeled his horse sharply and stationed himself a little\r
+behind the Emperor. The Apsheron men, excited by the Tsar's presence,\r
+passed in step before the Emperors and their suites at a bold, brisk\r
+pace.\r
+\r
+"Lads!" shouted Miloradovich in a loud, self-confident, and cheery\r
+voice, obviously so elated by the sound of firing, by the prospect of\r
+battle, and by the sight of the gallant Apsherons, his comrades in\r
+Suvorov's time, now passing so gallantly before the Emperors, that he\r
+forgot the sovereigns' presence. "Lads, it's not the first village\r
+you've had to take," cried he.\r
+\r
+"Glad to do our best!" shouted the soldiers.\r
+\r
+The Emperor's horse started at the sudden cry. This horse that had\r
+carried the sovereign at reviews in Russia bore him also here on the\r
+field of Austerlitz, enduring the heedless blows of his left foot and\r
+pricking its ears at the sound of shots just as it had done on the\r
+Empress' Field, not understanding the significance of the firing, nor of\r
+the nearness of the Emperor Francis' black cob, nor of all that was\r
+being said, thought, and felt that day by its rider.\r
+\r
+The Emperor turned with a smile to one of his followers and made a\r
+remark to him, pointing to the gallant Apsherons.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+Kutuzov accompanied by his adjutants rode at a walking pace behind the\r
+carabineers.\r
+\r
+When he had gone less than half a mile in the rear of the column he\r
+stopped at a solitary, deserted house that had probably once been an\r
+inn, where two roads parted. Both of them led downhill and troops were\r
+marching along both.\r
+\r
+The fog had begun to clear and enemy troops were already dimly visible\r
+about a mile and a half off on the opposite heights. Down below, on the\r
+left, the firing became more distinct. Kutuzov had stopped and was\r
+speaking to an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, who was a little behind\r
+looking at them, turned to an adjutant to ask him for a field glass.\r
+\r
+"Look, look!" said this adjutant, looking not at the troops in the\r
+distance, but down the hill before him. "It's the French!"\r
+\r
+The two generals and the adjutant took hold of the field glass, trying\r
+to snatch it from one another. The expression on all their faces\r
+suddenly changed to one of horror. The French were supposed to be a mile\r
+and a half away, but had suddenly and unexpectedly appeared just in\r
+front of us.\r
+\r
+"It's the enemy?... No!... Yes, see it is!... for certain.... But how is\r
+that?" said different voices.\r
+\r
+With the naked eye Prince Andrew saw below them to the right, not more\r
+than five hundred paces from where Kutuzov was standing, a dense French\r
+column coming up to meet the Apsherons.\r
+\r
+"Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come," thought\r
+Prince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+"The Apsherons must be stopped, your excellency," cried he. But at that\r
+very instant a cloud of smoke spread all round, firing was heard quite\r
+close at hand, and a voice of naive terror barely two steps from Prince\r
+Andrew shouted, "Brothers! All's lost!" And at this as if at a command,\r
+everyone began to run.\r
+\r
+Confused and ever-increasing crowds were running back to where five\r
+minutes before the troops had passed the Emperors. Not only would it\r
+have been difficult to stop that crowd, it was even impossible not to be\r
+carried back with it oneself. Bolkonski only tried not to lose touch\r
+with it, and looked around bewildered and unable to grasp what was\r
+happening in front of him. Nesvitski with an angry face, red and unlike\r
+himself, was shouting to Kutuzov that if he did not ride away at once he\r
+would certainly be taken prisoner. Kutuzov remained in the same place\r
+and without answering drew out a handkerchief. Blood was flowing from\r
+his cheek. Prince Andrew forced his way to him.\r
+\r
+"You are wounded?" he asked, hardly able to master the trembling of his\r
+lower jaw.\r
+\r
+"The wound is not here, it is there!" said Kutuzov, pressing the\r
+handkerchief to his wounded cheek and pointing to the fleeing soldiers.\r
+"Stop them!" he shouted, and at the same moment, probably realizing that\r
+it was impossible to stop them, spurred his horse and rode to the right.\r
+\r
+A fresh wave of the flying mob caught him and bore him back with it.\r
+\r
+The troops were running in such a dense mass that once surrounded by\r
+them it was difficult to get out again. One was shouting, "Get on! Why\r
+are you hindering us?" Another in the same place turned round and fired\r
+in the air; a third was striking the horse Kutuzov himself rode. Having\r
+by a great effort got away to the left from that flood of men, Kutuzov,\r
+with his suite diminished by more than half, rode toward a sound of\r
+artillery fire near by. Having forced his way out of the crowd of\r
+fugitives, Prince Andrew, trying to keep near Kutuzov, saw on the slope\r
+of the hill amid the smoke a Russian battery that was still firing and\r
+Frenchmen running toward it. Higher up stood some Russian infantry,\r
+neither moving forward to protect the battery nor backward with the\r
+fleeing crowd. A mounted general separated himself from the infantry and\r
+approached Kutuzov. Of Kutuzov's suite only four remained. They were all\r
+pale and exchanged looks in silence.\r
+\r
+"Stop those wretches!" gasped Kutuzov to the regimental commander,\r
+pointing to the flying soldiers; but at that instant, as if to punish\r
+him for those words, bullets flew hissing across the regiment and across\r
+Kutuzov's suite like a flock of little birds.\r
+\r
+The French had attacked the battery and, seeing Kutuzov, were firing at\r
+him. After this volley the regimental commander clutched at his leg;\r
+several soldiers fell, and a second lieutenant who was holding the flag\r
+let it fall from his hands. It swayed and fell, but caught on the\r
+muskets of the nearest soldiers. The soldiers started firing without\r
+orders.\r
+\r
+"Oh! Oh! Oh!" groaned Kutuzov despairingly and looked around....\r
+"Bolkonski!" he whispered, his voice trembling from a consciousness of\r
+the feebleness of age, "Bolkonski!" he whispered, pointing to the\r
+disordered battalion and at the enemy, "what's that?"\r
+\r
+But before he had finished speaking, Prince Andrew, feeling tears of\r
+shame and anger choking him, had already leapt from his horse and run to\r
+the standard.\r
+\r
+"Forward, lads!" he shouted in a voice piercing as a child's.\r
+\r
+"Here it is!" thought he, seizing the staff of the standard and hearing\r
+with pleasure the whistle of bullets evidently aimed at him. Several\r
+soldiers fell.\r
+\r
+"Hurrah!" shouted Prince Andrew, and, scarcely able to hold up the heavy\r
+standard, he ran forward with full confidence that the whole battalion\r
+would follow him.\r
+\r
+And really he only ran a few steps alone. One soldier moved and then\r
+another and soon the whole battalion ran forward shouting "Hurrah!" and\r
+overtook him. A sergeant of the battalion ran up and took the flag that\r
+was swaying from its weight in Prince Andrew's hands, but he was\r
+immediately killed. Prince Andrew again seized the standard and,\r
+dragging it by the staff, ran on with the battalion. In front he saw our\r
+artillerymen, some of whom were fighting, while others, having abandoned\r
+their guns, were running toward him. He also saw French infantry\r
+soldiers who were seizing the artillery horses and turning the guns\r
+round. Prince Andrew and the battalion were already within twenty paces\r
+of the cannon. He heard the whistle of bullets above him unceasingly and\r
+to right and left of him soldiers continually groaned and dropped. But\r
+he did not look at them: he looked only at what was going on in front of\r
+him--at the battery. He now saw clearly the figure of a red-haired\r
+gunner with his shako knocked awry, pulling one end of a mop while a\r
+French soldier tugged at the other. He could distinctly see the\r
+distraught yet angry expression on the faces of these two men, who\r
+evidently did not realize what they were doing.\r
+\r
+"What are they about?" thought Prince Andrew as he gazed at them. "Why\r
+doesn't the red-haired gunner run away as he is unarmed? Why doesn't the\r
+Frenchman stab him? He will not get away before the Frenchman remembers\r
+his bayonet and stabs him...."\r
+\r
+And really another French soldier, trailing his musket, ran up to the\r
+struggling men, and the fate of the red-haired gunner, who had\r
+triumphantly secured the mop and still did not realize what awaited him,\r
+was about to be decided. But Prince Andrew did not see how it ended. It\r
+seemed to him as though one of the soldiers near him hit him on the head\r
+with the full swing of a bludgeon. It hurt a little, but the worst of it\r
+was that the pain distracted him and prevented his seeing what he had\r
+been looking at.\r
+\r
+"What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way," thought he, and\r
+fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of\r
+the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had\r
+been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or saved.\r
+But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the sky--the\r
+lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds\r
+gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all\r
+as I ran," thought Prince Andrew--"not as we ran, shouting and fighting,\r
+not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry\r
+faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide\r
+across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky\r
+before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity,\r
+all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but\r
+that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace.\r
+Thank God!..."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+On our right flank commanded by Bagration, at nine o'clock the battle\r
+had not yet begun. Not wishing to agree to Dolgorukov's demand to\r
+commence the action, and wishing to avert responsibility from himself,\r
+Prince Bagration proposed to Dolgorukov to send to inquire of the\r
+commander-in-chief. Bagration knew that as the distance between the two\r
+flanks was more than six miles, even if the messenger were not killed\r
+(which he very likely would be), and found the commander-in-chief (which\r
+would be very difficult), he would not be able to get back before\r
+evening.\r
+\r
+Bagration cast his large, expressionless, sleepy eyes round his suite,\r
+and the boyish face Rostov, breathless with excitement and hope, was the\r
+first to catch his eye. He sent him.\r
+\r
+"And if I should meet His Majesty before I meet the commander-in-chief,\r
+your excellency?" said Rostov, with his hand to his cap.\r
+\r
+"You can give the message to His Majesty," said Dolgorukov, hurriedly\r
+interrupting Bagration.\r
+\r
+On being relieved from picket duty Rostov had managed to get a few\r
+hours' sleep before morning and felt cheerful, bold, and resolute, with\r
+elasticity of movement, faith in his good fortune, and generally in that\r
+state of mind which makes everything seem possible, pleasant, and easy.\r
+\r
+All his wishes were being fulfilled that morning: there was to be a\r
+general engagement in which he was taking part, more than that, he was\r
+orderly to the bravest general, and still more, he was going with a\r
+message to Kutuzov, perhaps even to the sovereign himself. The morning\r
+was bright, he had a good horse under him, and his heart was full of joy\r
+and happiness. On receiving the order he gave his horse the rein and\r
+galloped along the line. At first he rode along the line of Bagration's\r
+troops, which had not yet advanced into action but were standing\r
+motionless; then he came to the region occupied by Uvarov's cavalry and\r
+here he noticed a stir and signs of preparation for battle; having\r
+passed Uvarov's cavalry he clearly heard the sound of cannon and\r
+musketry ahead of him. The firing grew louder and louder.\r
+\r
+In the fresh morning air were now heard, not two or three musket shots\r
+at irregular intervals as before, followed by one or two cannon shots,\r
+but a roll of volleys of musketry from the slopes of the hill before\r
+Pratzen, interrupted by such frequent reports of cannon that sometimes\r
+several of them were not separated from one another but merged into a\r
+general roar.\r
+\r
+He could see puffs of musketry smoke that seemed to chase one another\r
+down the hillsides, and clouds of cannon smoke rolling, spreading, and\r
+mingling with one another. He could also, by the gleam of bayonets\r
+visible through the smoke, make out moving masses of infantry and narrow\r
+lines of artillery with green caissons.\r
+\r
+Rostov stopped his horse for a moment on a hillock to see what was going\r
+on, but strain his attention as he would he could not understand or make\r
+out anything of what was happening: there in the smoke men of some sort\r
+were moving about, in front and behind moved lines of troops; but why,\r
+whither, and who they were, it was impossible to make out. These sights\r
+and sounds had no depressing or intimidating effect on him; on the\r
+contrary, they stimulated his energy and determination.\r
+\r
+"Go on! Go on! Give it them!" he mentally exclaimed at these sounds, and\r
+again proceeded to gallop along the line, penetrating farther and\r
+farther into the region where the army was already in action.\r
+\r
+"How it will be there I don't know, but all will be well!" thought\r
+Rostov.\r
+\r
+After passing some Austrian troops he noticed that the next part of the\r
+line (the Guards) was already in action.\r
+\r
+"So much the better! I shall see it close," he thought.\r
+\r
+He was riding almost along the front line. A handful of men came\r
+galloping toward him. They were our uhlans who with disordered ranks\r
+were returning from the attack. Rostov got out of their way,\r
+involuntarily noticed that one of them was bleeding, and galloped on.\r
+\r
+"That is no business of mine," he thought. He had not ridden many\r
+hundred yards after that before he saw to his left, across the whole\r
+width of the field, an enormous mass of cavalry in brilliant white\r
+uniforms, mounted on black horses, trotting straight toward him and\r
+across his path. Rostov put his horse to full gallop to get out of the\r
+way of these men, and he would have got clear had they continued at the\r
+same speed, but they kept increasing their pace, so that some of the\r
+horses were already galloping. Rostov heard the thud of their hoofs and\r
+the jingle of their weapons and saw their horses, their figures, and\r
+even their faces, more and more distinctly. They were our Horse Guards,\r
+advancing to attack the French cavalry that was coming to meet them.\r
+\r
+The Horse Guards were galloping, but still holding in their horses.\r
+Rostov could already see their faces and heard the command: "Charge!"\r
+shouted by an officer who was urging his thoroughbred to full speed.\r
+Rostov, fearing to be crushed or swept into the attack on the French,\r
+galloped along the front as hard as his horse could go, but still was\r
+not in time to avoid them.\r
+\r
+The last of the Horse Guards, a huge pockmarked fellow, frowned angrily\r
+on seeing Rostov before him, with whom he would inevitably collide. This\r
+Guardsman would certainly have bowled Rostov and his Bedouin over\r
+(Rostov felt himself quite tiny and weak compared to these gigantic men\r
+and horses) had it not occurred to Rostov to flourish his whip before\r
+the eyes of the Guardsman's horse. The heavy black horse, sixteen hands\r
+high, shied, throwing back its ears; but the pockmarked Guardsman drove\r
+his huge spurs in violently, and the horse, flourishing its tail and\r
+extending its neck, galloped on yet faster. Hardly had the Horse Guards\r
+passed Rostov before he heard them shout, "Hurrah!" and looking back saw\r
+that their foremost ranks were mixed up with some foreign cavalry with\r
+red epaulets, probably French. He could see nothing more, for\r
+immediately afterwards cannon began firing from somewhere and smoke\r
+enveloped everything.\r
+\r
+At that moment, as the Horse Guards, having passed him, disappeared in\r
+the smoke, Rostov hesitated whether to gallop after them or to go where\r
+he was sent. This was the brilliant charge of the Horse Guards that\r
+amazed the French themselves. Rostov was horrified to hear later that of\r
+all that mass of huge and handsome men, of all those brilliant, rich\r
+youths, officers and cadets, who had galloped past him on their\r
+thousand-ruble horses, only eighteen were left after the charge.\r
+\r
+"Why should I envy them? My chance is not lost, and maybe I shall see\r
+the Emperor immediately!" thought Rostov and galloped on.\r
+\r
+When he came level with the Foot Guards he noticed that about them and\r
+around them cannon balls were flying, of which he was aware not so much\r
+because he heard their sound as because he saw uneasiness on the\r
+soldiers' faces and unnatural warlike solemnity on those of the\r
+officers.\r
+\r
+Passing behind one of the lines of a regiment of Foot Guards he heard a\r
+voice calling him by name.\r
+\r
+"Rostov!"\r
+\r
+"What?" he answered, not recognizing Boris.\r
+\r
+"I say, we've been in the front line! Our regiment attacked!" said Boris\r
+with the happy smile seen on the faces of young men who have been under\r
+fire for the first time.\r
+\r
+Rostov stopped.\r
+\r
+"Have you?" he said. "Well, how did it go?"\r
+\r
+"We drove them back!" said Boris with animation, growing talkative. "Can\r
+you imagine it?" and he began describing how the Guards, having taken up\r
+their position and seeing troops before them, thought they were\r
+Austrians, and all at once discovered from the cannon balls discharged\r
+by those troops that they were themselves in the front line and had\r
+unexpectedly to go into action. Rostov without hearing Boris to the end\r
+spurred his horse.\r
+\r
+"Where are you off to?" asked Boris.\r
+\r
+"With a message to His Majesty."\r
+\r
+"There he is!" said Boris, thinking Rostov had said "His Highness," and\r
+pointing to the Grand Duke who with his high shoulders and frowning\r
+brows stood a hundred paces away from them in his helmet and Horse\r
+Guards' jacket, shouting something to a pale, white uniformed Austrian\r
+officer.\r
+\r
+"But that's the Grand Duke, and I want the commander-in-chief or the\r
+Emperor," said Rostov, and was about to spur his horse.\r
+\r
+"Count! Count!" shouted Berg who ran up from the other side as eager as\r
+Boris. "Count! I am wounded in my right hand" (and he showed his\r
+bleeding hand with a handkerchief tied round it) "and I remained at the\r
+front. I held my sword in my left hand, Count. All our family--the von\r
+Bergs--have been knights!"\r
+\r
+He said something more, but Rostov did not wait to hear it and rode\r
+away.\r
+\r
+Having passed the Guards and traversed an empty space, Rostov, to avoid\r
+again getting in front of the first line as he had done when the Horse\r
+Guards charged, followed the line of reserves, going far round the place\r
+where the hottest musket fire and cannonade were heard. Suddenly he\r
+heard musket fire quite close in front of him and behind our troops,\r
+where he could never have expected the enemy to be.\r
+\r
+"What can it be?" he thought. "The enemy in the rear of our army?\r
+Impossible!" And suddenly he was seized by a panic of fear for himself\r
+and for the issue of the whole battle. "But be that what it may," he\r
+reflected, "there is no riding round it now. I must look for the\r
+commander in chief here, and if all is lost it is for me to perish with\r
+the rest."\r
+\r
+The foreboding of evil that had suddenly come over Rostov was more and\r
+more confirmed the farther he rode into the region behind the village of\r
+Pratzen, which was full of troops of all kinds.\r
+\r
+"What does it mean? What is it? Whom are they firing at? Who is firing?"\r
+Rostov kept asking as he came up to Russian and Austrian soldiers\r
+running in confused crowds across his path.\r
+\r
+"The devil knows! They've killed everybody! It's all up now!" he was\r
+told in Russian, German, and Czech by the crowd of fugitives who\r
+understood what was happening as little as he did.\r
+\r
+"Kill the Germans!" shouted one.\r
+\r
+"May the devil take them--the traitors!"\r
+\r
+"Zum Henker diese Russen!" * muttered a German.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Hang these Russians!"\r
+\r
+Several wounded men passed along the road, and words of abuse, screams,\r
+and groans mingled in a general hubbub, then the firing died down.\r
+Rostov learned later that Russian and Austrian soldiers had been firing\r
+at one another.\r
+\r
+"My God! What does it all mean?" thought he. "And here, where at any\r
+moment the Emperor may see them.... But no, these must be only a handful\r
+of scoundrels. It will soon be over, it can't be that, it can't be! Only\r
+to get past them quicker, quicker!"\r
+\r
+The idea of defeat and flight could not enter Rostov's head. Though he\r
+saw French cannon and French troops on the Pratzen Heights just where he\r
+had been ordered to look for the commander-in-chief, he could not, did\r
+not wish to, believe that.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+Rostov had been ordered to look for Kutuzov and the Emperor near the\r
+village of Pratzen. But neither they nor a single commanding officer\r
+were there, only disorganized crowds of troops of various kinds. He\r
+urged on his already weary horse to get quickly past these crowds, but\r
+the farther he went the more disorganized they were. The highroad on\r
+which he had come out was thronged with caleches, carriages of all\r
+sorts, and Russian and Austrian soldiers of all arms, some wounded and\r
+some not. This whole mass droned and jostled in confusion under the\r
+dismal influence of cannon balls flying from the French batteries\r
+stationed on the Pratzen Heights.\r
+\r
+"Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutuzov?" Rostov kept asking everyone he\r
+could stop, but got no answer from anyone.\r
+\r
+At last seizing a soldier by his collar he forced him to answer.\r
+\r
+"Eh, brother! They've all bolted long ago!" said the soldier, laughing\r
+for some reason and shaking himself free.\r
+\r
+Having left that soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostov stopped the\r
+horse of a batman or groom of some important personage and began to\r
+question him. The man announced that the Tsar had been driven in a\r
+carriage at full speed about an hour before along that very road and\r
+that he was dangerously wounded.\r
+\r
+"It can't be!" said Rostov. "It must have been someone else."\r
+\r
+"I saw him myself," replied the man with a self-confident smile of\r
+derision. "I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I've seen\r
+him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you.... There he sat in the\r
+carriage as pale as anything. How they made the four black horses fly!\r
+Gracious me, they did rattle past! It's time I knew the Imperial horses\r
+and Ilya Ivanych. I don't think Ilya drives anyone except the Tsar!"\r
+\r
+Rostov let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when a wounded\r
+officer passing by addressed him:\r
+\r
+"Who is it you want?" he asked. "The commander-in-chief? He was killed\r
+by a cannon ball--struck in the breast before our regiment."\r
+\r
+"Not killed--wounded!" another officer corrected him.\r
+\r
+"Who? Kutuzov?" asked Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Not Kutuzov, but what's his name--well, never mind... there are not\r
+many left alive. Go that way, to that village, all the commanders are\r
+there," said the officer, pointing to the village of Hosjeradek, and he\r
+walked on.\r
+\r
+Rostov rode on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was now\r
+going. The Emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible to\r
+doubt it now. Rostov rode in the direction pointed out to him, in which\r
+he saw turrets and a church. What need to hurry? What was he now to say\r
+to the Tsar or to Kutuzov, even if they were alive and unwounded?\r
+\r
+"Take this road, your honor, that way you will be killed at once!" a\r
+soldier shouted to him. "They'd kill you there!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, what are you talking about?" said another. "Where is he to go? That\r
+way is nearer."\r
+\r
+Rostov considered, and then went in the direction where they said he\r
+would be killed.\r
+\r
+"It's all the same now. If the Emperor is wounded, am I to try to save\r
+myself?" he thought. He rode on to the region where the greatest number\r
+of men had perished in fleeing from Pratzen. The French had not yet\r
+occupied that region, and the Russians--the uninjured and slightly\r
+wounded--had left it long ago. All about the field, like heaps of manure\r
+on well-kept plowland, lay from ten to fifteen dead and wounded to each\r
+couple of acres. The wounded crept together in twos and threes and one\r
+could hear their distressing screams and groans, sometimes feigned--or\r
+so it seemed to Rostov. He put his horse to a trot to avoid seeing all\r
+these suffering men, and he felt afraid--afraid not for his life, but\r
+for the courage he needed and which he knew would not stand the sight of\r
+these unfortunates.\r
+\r
+The French, who had ceased firing at this field strewn with dead and\r
+wounded where there was no one left to fire at, on seeing an adjutant\r
+riding over it trained a gun on him and fired several shots. The\r
+sensation of those terrible whistling sounds and of the corpses around\r
+him merged in Rostov's mind into a single feeling of terror and pity for\r
+himself. He remembered his mother's last letter. "What would she feel,"\r
+thought he, "if she saw me here now on this field with the cannon aimed\r
+at me?"\r
+\r
+In the village of Hosjeradek there were Russian troops retiring from the\r
+field of battle, who though still in some confusion were less\r
+disordered. The French cannon did not reach there and the musketry fire\r
+sounded far away. Here everyone clearly saw and said that the battle was\r
+lost. No one whom Rostov asked could tell him where the Emperor or\r
+Kutuzov was. Some said the report that the Emperor was wounded was\r
+correct, others that it was not, and explained the false rumor that had\r
+spread by the fact that the Emperor's carriage had really galloped from\r
+the field of battle with the pale and terrified Ober-Hofmarschal Count\r
+Tolstoy, who had ridden out to the battlefield with others in the\r
+Emperor's suite. One officer told Rostov that he had seen someone from\r
+headquarters behind the village to the left, and thither Rostov rode,\r
+not hoping to find anyone but merely to ease his conscience. When he had\r
+ridden about two miles and had passed the last of the Russian troops, he\r
+saw, near a kitchen garden with a ditch round it, two men on horseback\r
+facing the ditch. One with a white plume in his hat seemed familiar to\r
+Rostov; the other on a beautiful chestnut horse (which Rostov fancied he\r
+had seen before) rode up to the ditch, struck his horse with his spurs,\r
+and giving it the rein leaped lightly over. Only a little earth crumbled\r
+from the bank under the horse's hind hoofs. Turning the horse sharply,\r
+he again jumped the ditch, and deferentially addressed the horseman with\r
+the white plumes, evidently suggesting that he should do the same. The\r
+rider, whose figure seemed familiar to Rostov and involuntarily riveted\r
+his attention, made a gesture of refusal with his head and hand and by\r
+that gesture Rostov instantly recognized his lamented and adored\r
+monarch.\r
+\r
+"But it can't be he, alone in the midst of this empty field!" thought\r
+Rostov. At that moment Alexander turned his head and Rostov saw the\r
+beloved features that were so deeply engraved on his memory. The Emperor\r
+was pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but the charm, the\r
+mildness of his features, was all the greater. Rostov was happy in the\r
+assurance that the rumors about the Emperor being wounded were false. He\r
+was happy to be seeing him. He knew that he might and even ought to go\r
+straight to him and give the message Dolgorukov had ordered him to\r
+deliver.\r
+\r
+But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter the\r
+thoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks around for help or a\r
+chance of delay and flight when the longed-for moment comes and he is\r
+alone with her, so Rostov, now that he had attained what he had longed\r
+for more than anything else in the world, did not know how to approach\r
+the Emperor, and a thousand reasons occurred to him why it would be\r
+inconvenient, unseemly, and impossible to do so.\r
+\r
+"What! It is as if I were glad of a chance to take advantage of his\r
+being alone and despondent! A strange face may seem unpleasant or\r
+painful to him at this moment of sorrow; besides, what can I say to him\r
+now, when my heart fails me and my mouth feels dry at the mere sight of\r
+him?" Not one of the innumerable speeches addressed to the Emperor that\r
+he had composed in his imagination could he now recall. Those speeches\r
+were intended for quite other conditions, they were for the most part to\r
+be spoken at a moment of victory and triumph, generally when he was\r
+dying of wounds and the sovereign had thanked him for heroic deeds, and\r
+while dying he expressed the love his actions had proved.\r
+\r
+"Besides how can I ask the Emperor for his instructions for the right\r
+flank now that it is nearly four o'clock and the battle is lost? No,\r
+certainly I must not approach him, I must not intrude on his\r
+reflections. Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an unkind\r
+look or bad opinion from him," Rostov decided; and sorrowfully and with\r
+a heart full despair he rode away, continually looking back at the Tsar,\r
+who still remained in the same attitude of indecision.\r
+\r
+While Rostov was thus arguing with himself and riding sadly away,\r
+Captain von Toll chanced to ride to the same spot, and seeing the\r
+Emperor at once rode up to him, offered his services, and assisted him\r
+to cross the ditch on foot. The Emperor, wishing to rest and feeling\r
+unwell, sat down under an apple tree and von Toll remained beside him.\r
+Rostov from a distance saw with envy and remorse how von Toll spoke long\r
+and warmly to the Emperor and how the Emperor, evidently weeping,\r
+covered his eyes with his hand and pressed von Toll's hand.\r
+\r
+"And I might have been in his place!" thought Rostov, and hardly\r
+restraining his tears of pity for the Emperor, he rode on in utter\r
+despair, not knowing where to or why he was now riding.\r
+\r
+His despair was all the greater from feeling that his own weakness was\r
+the cause of his grief.\r
+\r
+He might... not only might but should, have gone up to the sovereign. It\r
+was a unique chance to show his devotion to the Emperor and he had not\r
+made use of it.... "What have I done?" thought he. And he turned round\r
+and galloped back to the place where he had seen the Emperor, but there\r
+was no one beyond the ditch now. Only some carts and carriages were\r
+passing by. From one of the drivers he learned that Kutuzov's staff were\r
+not far off, in the village the vehicles were going to. Rostov followed\r
+them. In front of him walked Kutuzov's groom leading horses in\r
+horsecloths. Then came a cart, and behind that walked an old, bandy-\r
+legged domestic serf in a peaked cap and sheepskin coat.\r
+\r
+"Tit! I say, Tit!" said the groom.\r
+\r
+"What?" answered the old man absent-mindedly.\r
+\r
+"Go, Tit! Thresh a bit!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, you fool!" said the old man, spitting angrily. Some time passed in\r
+silence, and then the same joke was repeated.\r
+\r
+Before five in the evening the battle had been lost at all points. More\r
+than a hundred cannon were already in the hands of the French.\r
+\r
+Przebyszewski and his corps had laid down their arms. Other columns\r
+after losing half their men were retreating in disorderly confused\r
+masses.\r
+\r
+The remains of Langeron's and Dokhturov's mingled forces were crowding\r
+around the dams and banks of the ponds near the village of Augesd.\r
+\r
+After five o'clock it was only at the Augesd Dam that a hot cannonade\r
+(delivered by the French alone) was still to be heard from numerous\r
+batteries ranged on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights, directed at our\r
+retreating forces.\r
+\r
+In the rearguard, Dokhturov and others rallying some battalions kept up\r
+a musketry fire at the French cavalry that was pursuing our troops. It\r
+was growing dusk. On the narrow Augesd Dam where for so many years the\r
+old miller had been accustomed to sit in his tasseled cap peacefully\r
+angling, while his grandson, with shirt sleeves rolled up, handled the\r
+floundering silvery fish in the watering can, on that dam over which for\r
+so many years Moravians in shaggy caps and blue jackets had peacefully\r
+driven their two-horse carts loaded with wheat and had returned dusty\r
+with flour whitening their carts--on that narrow dam amid the wagons and\r
+the cannon, under the horses' hoofs and between the wagon wheels, men\r
+disfigured by fear of death now crowded together, crushing one another,\r
+dying, stepping over the dying and killing one another, only to move on\r
+a few steps and be killed themselves in the same way.\r
+\r
+Every ten seconds a cannon ball flew compressing the air around, or a\r
+shell burst in the midst of that dense throng, killing some and\r
+splashing with blood those near them.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov--now an officer--wounded in the arm, and on foot, with the\r
+regimental commander on horseback and some ten men of his company,\r
+represented all that was left of that whole regiment. Impelled by the\r
+crowd, they had got wedged in at the approach to the dam and, jammed in\r
+on all sides, had stopped because a horse in front had fallen under a\r
+cannon and the crowd were dragging it out. A cannon ball killed someone\r
+behind them, another fell in front and splashed Dolokhov with blood. The\r
+crowd, pushing forward desperately, squeezed together, moved a few\r
+steps, and again stopped.\r
+\r
+"Move on a hundred yards and we are certainly saved, remain here another\r
+two minutes and it is certain death," thought each one.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov who was in the midst of the crowd forced his way to the edge of\r
+the dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran onto the slippery\r
+ice that covered the millpool.\r
+\r
+"Turn this way!" he shouted, jumping over the ice which creaked under\r
+him; "turn this way!" he shouted to those with the gun. "It bears!..."\r
+\r
+The ice bore him but it swayed and creaked, and it was plain that it\r
+would give way not only under a cannon or a crowd, but very soon even\r
+under his weight alone. The men looked at him and pressed to the bank,\r
+hesitating to step onto the ice. The general on horseback at the\r
+entrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth to address\r
+Dolokhov. Suddenly a cannon ball hissed so low above the crowd that\r
+everyone ducked. It flopped into something moist, and the general fell\r
+from his horse in a pool of blood. Nobody gave him a look or thought of\r
+raising him.\r
+\r
+"Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don't you hear? Go on!"\r
+innumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had struck the\r
+general, the men themselves not knowing what, or why, they were\r
+shouting.\r
+\r
+One of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam turned off onto the\r
+ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto the frozen pond.\r
+The ice gave way under one of the foremost soldiers, and one leg slipped\r
+into the water. He tried to right himself but fell in up to his waist.\r
+The nearest soldiers shrank back, the gun driver stopped his horse, but\r
+from behind still came the shouts: "Onto the ice, why do you stop? Go\r
+on! Go on!" And cries of horror were heard in the crowd. The soldiers\r
+near the gun waved their arms and beat the horses to make them turn and\r
+move on. The horses moved off the bank. The ice, that had held under\r
+those on foot, collapsed in a great mass, and some forty men who were on\r
+it dashed, some forward and some back, drowning one another.\r
+\r
+Still the cannon balls continued regularly to whistle and flop onto the\r
+ice and into the water and oftenest of all among the crowd that covered\r
+the dam, the pond, and the bank.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+On the Pratzen Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in his\r
+hand, lay Prince Andrew Bolkonski bleeding profusely and unconsciously\r
+uttering a gentle, piteous, and childlike moan.\r
+\r
+Toward evening he ceased moaning and became quite still. He did not know\r
+how long his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he again felt that he was\r
+alive and suffering from a burning, lacerating pain in his head.\r
+\r
+"Where is it, that lofty sky that I did not know till now, but saw\r
+today?" was his first thought. "And I did not know this suffering\r
+either," he thought. "Yes, I did not know anything, anything at all till\r
+now. But where am I?"\r
+\r
+He listened and heard the sound of approaching horses, and voices\r
+speaking French. He opened his eyes. Above him again was the same lofty\r
+sky with clouds that had risen and were floating still higher, and\r
+between them gleamed blue infinity. He did not turn his head and did not\r
+see those who, judging by the sound of hoofs and voices, had ridden up\r
+and stopped near him.\r
+\r
+It was Napoleon accompanied by two aides-de-camp. Bonaparte riding over\r
+the battlefield had given final orders to strengthen the batteries\r
+firing at the Augesd Dam and was looking at the killed and wounded left\r
+on the field.\r
+\r
+"Fine men!" remarked Napoleon, looking at a dead Russian grenadier, who,\r
+with his face buried in the ground and a blackened nape, lay on his\r
+stomach with an already stiffened arm flung wide.\r
+\r
+"The ammunition for the guns in position is exhausted, Your Majesty,"\r
+said an adjutant who had come from the batteries that were firing at\r
+Augesd.\r
+\r
+"Have some brought from the reserve," said Napoleon, and having gone on\r
+a few steps he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his back with\r
+the flagstaff that had been dropped beside him. (The flag had already\r
+been taken by the French as a trophy.)\r
+\r
+"That's a fine death!" said Napoleon as he gazed at Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was\r
+Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he\r
+heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not only\r
+did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at once\r
+forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to death,\r
+and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He knew it\r
+was Napoleon--his hero--but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him such a\r
+small, insignificant creature compared with what was passing now between\r
+himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over it. At\r
+that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over him, or\r
+what was said of him; he was only glad that people were standing near\r
+him and only wished that they would help him and bring him back to life,\r
+which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned to\r
+understand it so differently. He collected all his strength, to stir and\r
+utter a sound. He feebly moved his leg and uttered a weak, sickly groan\r
+which aroused his own pity.\r
+\r
+"Ah! He is alive," said Napoleon. "Lift this young man up and carry him\r
+to the dressing station."\r
+\r
+Having said this, Napoleon rode on to meet Marshal Lannes, who, hat in\r
+hand, rode up smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the victory.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness from the\r
+terrible pain of being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting while\r
+being moved, and the probing of his wound at the dressing station. He\r
+did not regain consciousness till late in the day, when with other\r
+wounded and captured Russian officers he was carried to the hospital.\r
+During this transfer he felt a little stronger and was able to look\r
+about him and even speak.\r
+\r
+The first words he heard on coming to his senses were those of a French\r
+convoy officer, who said rapidly: "We must halt here: the Emperor will\r
+pass here immediately; it will please him to see these gentlemen\r
+prisoners."\r
+\r
+"There are so many prisoners today, nearly the whole Russian army, that\r
+he is probably tired of them," said another officer.\r
+\r
+"All the same! They say this one is the commander of all the Emperor\r
+Alexander's Guards," said the first one, indicating a Russian officer in\r
+the white uniform of the Horse Guards.\r
+\r
+Bolkonski recognized Prince Repnin whom he had met in Petersburg\r
+society. Beside him stood a lad of nineteen, also a wounded officer of\r
+the Horse Guards.\r
+\r
+Bonaparte, having come up at a gallop, stopped his horse.\r
+\r
+"Which is the senior?" he asked, on seeing the prisoners.\r
+\r
+They named the colonel, Prince Repnin.\r
+\r
+"You are the commander of the Emperor Alexander's regiment of Horse\r
+Guards?" asked Napoleon.\r
+\r
+"I commanded a squadron," replied Repnin.\r
+\r
+"Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably," said Napoleon.\r
+\r
+"The praise of a great commander is a soldier's highest reward," said\r
+Repnin.\r
+\r
+"I bestow it with pleasure," said Napoleon. "And who is that young man\r
+beside you?"\r
+\r
+Prince Repnin named Lieutenant Sukhtelen.\r
+\r
+After looking at him Napoleon smiled.\r
+\r
+"He's very young to come to meddle with us."\r
+\r
+"Youth is no hindrance to courage," muttered Sukhtelen in a failing\r
+voice.\r
+\r
+"A splendid reply!" said Napoleon. "Young man, you will go far!"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, who had also been brought forward before the Emperor's\r
+eyes to complete the show of prisoners, could not fail to attract his\r
+attention. Napoleon apparently remembered seeing him on the battlefield\r
+and, addressing him, again used the epithet "young man" that was\r
+connected in his memory with Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Well, and you, young man," said he. "How do you feel, mon brave?"\r
+\r
+Though five minutes before, Prince Andrew had been able to say a few\r
+words to the soldiers who were carrying him, now with his eyes fixed\r
+straight on Napoleon, he was silent.... So insignificant at that moment\r
+seemed to him all the interests that engrossed Napoleon, so mean did his\r
+hero himself with his paltry vanity and joy in victory appear, compared\r
+to the lofty, equitable, and kindly sky which he had seen and\r
+understood, that he could not answer him.\r
+\r
+Everything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the\r
+stern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood,\r
+suffering, and the nearness of death aroused in him. Looking into\r
+Napoleon's eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of\r
+greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and\r
+the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one\r
+alive could understand or explain.\r
+\r
+The Emperor without waiting for an answer turned away and said to one of\r
+the officers as he went: "Have these gentlemen attended to and taken to\r
+my bivouac; let my doctor, Larrey, examine their wounds. Au revoir,\r
+Prince Repnin!" and he spurred his horse and galloped away.\r
+\r
+His face shone with self-satisfaction and pleasure.\r
+\r
+The soldiers who had carried Prince Andrew had noticed and taken the\r
+little gold icon Princess Mary had hung round her brother's neck, but\r
+seeing the favor the Emperor showed the prisoners, they now hastened to\r
+return the holy image.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew did not see how and by whom it was replaced, but the\r
+little icon with its thin gold chain suddenly appeared upon his chest\r
+outside his uniform.\r
+\r
+"It would be good," thought Prince Andrew, glancing at the icon his\r
+sister had hung round his neck with such emotion and reverence, "it\r
+would be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems to\r
+Mary. How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this life,\r
+and what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm I\r
+should be if I could now say: 'Lord, have mercy on me!'... But to whom\r
+should I say that? Either to a Power indefinable, incomprehensible,\r
+which I not only cannot address but which I cannot even express in\r
+words--the Great All or Nothing-" said he to himself, "or to that God\r
+who has been sewn into this amulet by Mary! There is nothing certain,\r
+nothing at all except the unimportance of everything I understand, and\r
+the greatness of something incomprehensible but all-important."\r
+\r
+The stretchers moved on. At every jolt he again felt unendurable pain;\r
+his feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions of his father,\r
+wife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness he had felt the night\r
+before the battle, the figure of the insignificant little Napoleon, and\r
+above all this the lofty sky, formed the chief subjects of his delirious\r
+fancies.\r
+\r
+The quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills presented\r
+itself to him. He was already enjoying that happiness when that little\r
+Napoleon had suddenly appeared with his unsympathizing look of\r
+shortsighted delight at the misery of others, and doubts and torments\r
+had followed, and only the heavens promised peace. Toward morning all\r
+these dreams melted and merged into the chaos and darkness of\r
+unconciousness and oblivion which in the opinion of Napoleon's doctor,\r
+Larrey, was much more likely to end in death than in convalescence.\r
+\r
+"He is a nervous, bilious subject," said Larrey, "and will not recover."\r
+\r
+And Prince Andrew, with others fatally wounded, was left to the care of\r
+the inhabitants of the district.\r
+\r
+BOOK FOUR: 1806\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+Early in the year 1806 Nicholas Rostov returned home on leave. Denisov\r
+was going home to Voronezh and Rostov persuaded him to travel with him\r
+as far as Moscow and to stay with him there. Meeting a comrade at the\r
+last post station but one before Moscow, Denisov had drunk three bottles\r
+of wine with him and, despite the jolting ruts across the snow-covered\r
+road, did not once wake up on the way to Moscow, but lay at the bottom\r
+of the sleigh beside Rostov, who grew more and more impatient the nearer\r
+they got to Moscow.\r
+\r
+"How much longer? How much longer? Oh, these insufferable streets,\r
+shops, bakers' signboards, street lamps, and sleighs!" thought Rostov,\r
+when their leave permits had been passed at the town gate and they had\r
+entered Moscow.\r
+\r
+"Denisov! We're here! He's asleep," he added, leaning forward with his\r
+whole body as if in that position he hoped to hasten the speed of the\r
+sleigh.\r
+\r
+Denisov gave no answer.\r
+\r
+"There's the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhar, has his\r
+stand, and there's Zakhar himself and still the same horse! And here's\r
+the little shop where we used to buy gingerbread! Can't you hurry up?\r
+Now then!"\r
+\r
+"Which house is it?" asked the driver.\r
+\r
+"Why, that one, right at the end, the big one. Don't you see? That's our\r
+house," said Rostov. "Of course, it's our house! Denisov, Denisov! We're\r
+almost there!"\r
+\r
+Denisov raised his head, coughed, and made no answer.\r
+\r
+"Dmitri," said Rostov to his valet on the box, "those lights are in our\r
+house, aren't they?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, and there's a light in your father's study."\r
+\r
+"Then they've not gone to bed yet? What do you think? Mind now, don't\r
+forget to put out my new coat," added Rostov, fingering his new\r
+mustache. "Now then, get on," he shouted to the driver. "Do wake up,\r
+Vaska!" he went on, turning to Denisov, whose head was again nodding.\r
+"Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for vodka--get on!" Rostov\r
+shouted, when the sleigh was only three houses from his door. It seemed\r
+to him the horses were not moving at all. At last the sleigh bore to the\r
+right, drew up at an entrance, and Rostov saw overhead the old familiar\r
+cornice with a bit of plaster broken off, the porch, and the post by the\r
+side of the pavement. He sprang out before the sleigh stopped, and ran\r
+into the hall. The house stood cold and silent, as if quite regardless\r
+of who had come to it. There was no one in the hall. "Oh God! Is\r
+everyone all right?" he thought, stopping for a moment with a sinking\r
+heart, and then immediately starting to run along the hall and up the\r
+warped steps of the familiar staircase. The well-known old door handle,\r
+which always angered the countess when it was not properly cleaned,\r
+turned as loosely as ever. A solitary tallow candle burned in the\r
+anteroom.\r
+\r
+Old Michael was asleep on the chest. Prokofy, the footman, who was so\r
+strong that he could lift the back of the carriage from behind, sat\r
+plaiting slippers out of cloth selvedges. He looked up at the opening\r
+door and his expression of sleepy indifference suddenly changed to one\r
+of delighted amazement.\r
+\r
+"Gracious heavens! The young count!" he cried, recognizing his young\r
+master. "Can it be? My treasure!" and Prokofy, trembling with\r
+excitement, rushed toward the drawing-room door, probably in order to\r
+announce him, but, changing his mind, came back and stooped to kiss the\r
+young man's shoulder.\r
+\r
+"All well?" asked Rostov, drawing away his arm.\r
+\r
+"Yes, God be thanked! Yes! They've just finished supper. Let me have a\r
+look at you, your excellency."\r
+\r
+"Is everything quite all right?"\r
+\r
+"The Lord be thanked, yes!"\r
+\r
+Rostov, who had completely forgotten Denisov, not wishing anyone to\r
+forestall him, threw off his fur coat and ran on tiptoe through the\r
+large dark ballroom. All was the same: there were the same old card\r
+tables and the same chandelier with a cover over it; but someone had\r
+already seen the young master, and, before he had reached the drawing\r
+room, something flew out from a side door like a tornado and began\r
+hugging and kissing him. Another and yet another creature of the same\r
+kind sprang from a second door and a third; more hugging, more kissing,\r
+more outcries, and tears of joy. He could not distinguish which was\r
+Papa, which Natasha, and which Petya. Everyone shouted, talked, and\r
+kissed him at the same time. Only his mother was not there, he noticed\r
+that.\r
+\r
+"And I did not know... Nicholas... My darling!..."\r
+\r
+"Here he is... our own... Kolya, * dear fellow... How he has changed!...\r
+Where are the candles?... Tea!..."\r
+\r
+\r
+* Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"And me, kiss me!"\r
+\r
+"Dearest... and me!"\r
+\r
+Sonya, Natasha, Petya, Anna Mikhaylovna, Vera, and the old count were\r
+all hugging him, and the serfs, men and maids, flocked into the room,\r
+exclaiming and oh-ing and ah-ing.\r
+\r
+Petya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, "And me too!"\r
+\r
+Natasha, after she had pulled him down toward her and covered his face\r
+with kisses, holding him tight by the skirt of his coat, sprang away and\r
+pranced up and down in one place like a goat and shrieked piercingly.\r
+\r
+All around were loving eyes glistening with tears of joy, and all around\r
+were lips seeking a kiss.\r
+\r
+Sonya too, all rosy red, clung to his arm and, radiant with bliss,\r
+looked eagerly toward his eyes, waiting for the look for which she\r
+longed. Sonya now was sixteen and she was very pretty, especially at\r
+this moment of happy, rapturous excitement. She gazed at him, not taking\r
+her eyes off him, and smiling and holding her breath. He gave her a\r
+grateful look, but was still expectant and looking for someone. The old\r
+countess had not yet come. But now steps were heard at the door, steps\r
+so rapid that they could hardly be his mother's.\r
+\r
+Yet it was she, dressed in a new gown which he did not know, made since\r
+he had left. All the others let him go, and he ran to her. When they\r
+met, she fell on his breast, sobbing. She could not lift her face, but\r
+only pressed it to the cold braiding of his hussar's jacket. Denisov,\r
+who had come into the room unnoticed by anyone, stood there and wiped\r
+his eyes at the sight.\r
+\r
+"Vasili Denisov, your son's friend," he said, introducing himself to the\r
+count, who was looking inquiringly at him.\r
+\r
+"You are most welcome! I know, I know," said the count, kissing and\r
+embracing Denisov. "Nicholas wrote us... Natasha, Vera, look! Here is\r
+Denisov!"\r
+\r
+The same happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of Denisov.\r
+\r
+"Darling Denisov!" screamed Natasha, beside herself with rapture,\r
+springing to him, putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This\r
+escapade made everybody feel confused. Denisov blushed too, but smiled\r
+and, taking Natasha's hand, kissed it.\r
+\r
+Denisov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostovs all\r
+gathered round Nicholas in the sitting room.\r
+\r
+The old countess, not letting go of his hand and kissing it every\r
+moment, sat beside him: the rest, crowding round him, watched every\r
+movement, word, or look of his, never taking their blissfully adoring\r
+eyes off him. His brother and sisters struggled for the places nearest\r
+to him and disputed with one another who should bring him his tea,\r
+handkerchief, and pipe.\r
+\r
+Rostov was very happy in the love they showed him; but the first moment\r
+of meeting had been so beatific that his present joy seemed\r
+insufficient, and he kept expecting something more, more and yet more.\r
+\r
+Next morning, after the fatigues of their journey, the travelers slept\r
+till ten o'clock.\r
+\r
+In the room next their bedroom there was a confusion of sabers,\r
+satchels, sabretaches, open portmanteaus, and dirty boots. Two freshly\r
+cleaned pairs with spurs had just been placed by the wall. The servants\r
+were bringing in jugs and basins, hot water for shaving, and their well-\r
+brushed clothes. There was a masculine odor and a smell of tobacco.\r
+\r
+"Hallo, Gwiska--my pipe!" came Vasili Denisov's husky voice. "Wostov,\r
+get up!"\r
+\r
+Rostov, rubbing his eyes that seemed glued together, raised his\r
+disheveled head from the hot pillow.\r
+\r
+"Why, is it late?"\r
+\r
+"Late! It's nearly ten o'clock," answered Natasha's voice. A rustle of\r
+starched petticoats and the whispering and laughter of girls' voices\r
+came from the adjoining room. The door was opened a crack and there was\r
+a glimpse of something blue, of ribbons, black hair, and merry faces. It\r
+was Natasha, Sonya, and Petya, who had come to see whether they were\r
+getting up.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas! Get up!" Natasha's voice was again heard at the door.\r
+\r
+"Directly!"\r
+\r
+Meanwhile, Petya, having found and seized the sabers in the outer room,\r
+with the delight boys feel at the sight of a military elder brother, and\r
+forgetting that it was unbecoming for the girls to see men undressed,\r
+opened the bedroom door.\r
+\r
+"Is this your saber?" he shouted.\r
+\r
+The girls sprang aside. Denisov hid his hairy legs under the blanket,\r
+looking with a scared face at his comrade for help. The door, having let\r
+Petya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from behind it.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!" said Natasha's voice.\r
+\r
+"Is this your saber?" asked Petya. "Or is it yours?" he said, addressing\r
+the black-mustached Denisov with servile deference.\r
+\r
+Rostov hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing gown,\r
+and went out. Natasha had put on one spurred boot and was just getting\r
+her foot into the other. Sonya, when he came in, was twirling round and\r
+was about to expand her dresses into a balloon and sit down. They were\r
+dressed alike, in new pale-blue frocks, and were both fresh, rosy, and\r
+bright. Sonya ran away, but Natasha, taking her brother's arm, led him\r
+into the sitting room, where they began talking. They hardly gave one\r
+another time to ask questions and give replies concerning a thousand\r
+little matters which could not interest anyone but themselves. Natasha\r
+laughed at every word he said or that she said herself, not because what\r
+they were saying was amusing, but because she felt happy and was unable\r
+to control her joy which expressed itself by laughter.\r
+\r
+"Oh, how nice, how splendid!" she said to everything.\r
+\r
+Rostov felt that, under the influence of the warm rays of love, that\r
+childlike smile which had not once appeared on his face since he left\r
+home now for the first time after eighteen months again brightened his\r
+soul and his face.\r
+\r
+"No, but listen," she said, "now you are quite a man, aren't you? I'm\r
+awfully glad you're my brother." She touched his mustache. "I want to\r
+know what you men are like. Are you the same as we? No?"\r
+\r
+"Why did Sonya run away?" asked Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Ah, yes! That's a whole long story! How are you going to speak to her--\r
+thou or you?"\r
+\r
+"As may happen," said Rostov.\r
+\r
+"No, call her you, please! I'll tell you all about it some other time.\r
+No, I'll tell you now. You know Sonya's my dearest friend. Such a friend\r
+that I burned my arm for her sake. Look here!"\r
+\r
+She pulled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her long,\r
+slender, delicate arm, high above the elbow on that part that is covered\r
+even by a ball dress.\r
+\r
+"I burned this to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in the\r
+fire and pressed it there!"\r
+\r
+Sitting on the sofa with the little cushions on its arms, in what used\r
+to be his old schoolroom, and looking into Natasha's wildly bright eyes,\r
+Rostov re-entered that world of home and childhood which had no meaning\r
+for anyone else, but gave him some of the best joys of his life; and the\r
+burning of an arm with a ruler as a proof of love did not seem to him\r
+senseless, he understood and was not surprised at it.\r
+\r
+"Well, and is that all?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"We are such friends, such friends! All that ruler business was just\r
+nonsense, but we are friends forever. She, if she loves anyone, does it\r
+for life, but I don't understand that, I forget quickly."\r
+\r
+"Well, what then?"\r
+\r
+"Well, she loves me and you like that."\r
+\r
+Natasha suddenly flushed.\r
+\r
+"Why, you remember before you went away?... Well, she says you are to\r
+forget all that.... She says: 'I shall love him always, but let him be\r
+free.' Isn't that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn't it?" asked\r
+Natasha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that what she\r
+was now saying she had talked of before, with tears.\r
+\r
+Rostov became thoughtful.\r
+\r
+"I never go back on my word," he said. "Besides, Sonya is so charming\r
+that only a fool would renounce such happiness."\r
+\r
+"No, no!" cried Natasha, "she and I have already talked it over. We knew\r
+you'd say so. But it won't do, because you see, if you say that--if you\r
+consider yourself bound by your promise--it will seem as if she had not\r
+meant it seriously. It makes it as if you were marrying her because you\r
+must, and that wouldn't do at all."\r
+\r
+Rostov saw that it had been well considered by them. Sonya had already\r
+struck him by her beauty on the preceding day. Today, when he had caught\r
+a glimpse of her, she seemed still more lovely. She was a charming girl\r
+of sixteen, evidently passionately in love with him (he did not doubt\r
+that for an instant). Why should he not love her now, and even marry\r
+her, Rostov thought, but just now there were so many other pleasures and\r
+interests before him! "Yes, they have taken a wise decision," he\r
+thought, "I must remain free."\r
+\r
+"Well then, that's excellent," said he. "We'll talk it over later on.\r
+Oh, how glad I am to have you!"\r
+\r
+"Well, and are you still true to Boris?" he continued.\r
+\r
+"Oh, what nonsense!" cried Natasha, laughing. "I don't think about him\r
+or anyone else, and I don't want anything of the kind."\r
+\r
+"Dear me! Then what are you up to now?"\r
+\r
+"Now?" repeated Natasha, and a happy smile lit up her face. "Have you\r
+seen Duport?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"Not seen Duport--the famous dancer? Well then, you won't understand.\r
+That's what I'm up to."\r
+\r
+Curving her arms, Natasha held out her skirts as dancers do, ran back a\r
+few steps, turned, cut a caper, brought her little feet sharply\r
+together, and made some steps on the very tips of her toes.\r
+\r
+"See, I'm standing! See!" she said, but could not maintain herself on\r
+her toes any longer. "So that's what I'm up to! I'll never marry anyone,\r
+but will be a dancer. Only don't tell anyone."\r
+\r
+Rostov laughed so loud and merrily that Denisov, in his bedroom, felt\r
+envious and Natasha could not help joining in.\r
+\r
+"No, but don't you think it's nice?" she kept repeating.\r
+\r
+"Nice! And so you no longer wish to marry Boris?"\r
+\r
+Natasha flared up. "I don't want to marry anyone. And I'll tell him so\r
+when I see him!"\r
+\r
+"Dear me!" said Rostov.\r
+\r
+"But that's all rubbish," Natasha chattered on. "And is Denisov nice?"\r
+she asked.\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he very terrible, Denisov?"\r
+\r
+"Why terrible?" asked Nicholas. "No, Vaska is a splendid fellow."\r
+\r
+"You call him Vaska? That's funny! And is he very nice?"\r
+\r
+"Very."\r
+\r
+"Well then, be quick. We'll all have breakfast together."\r
+\r
+And Natasha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet\r
+dancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When\r
+Rostov met Sonya in the drawing room, he reddened. He did not know how\r
+to behave with her. The evening before, in the first happy moment of\r
+meeting, they had kissed each other, but today they felt it could not be\r
+done; he felt that everybody, including his mother and sisters, was\r
+looking inquiringly at him and watching to see how he would behave with\r
+her. He kissed her hand and addressed her not as thou but as you--Sonya.\r
+But their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender kisses. Her looks\r
+asked him to forgive her for having dared, by Natasha's intermediacy, to\r
+remind him of his promise, and then thanked him for his love. His looks\r
+thanked her for offering him his freedom and told her that one way or\r
+another he would never cease to love her, for that would be impossible.\r
+\r
+"How strange it is," said Vera, selecting a moment when all were silent,\r
+"that Sonya and Nicholas now say you to one another and meet like\r
+strangers."\r
+\r
+Vera's remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like most of\r
+her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not only Sonya,\r
+Nicholas, and Natasha, but even the old countess, who--dreading this\r
+love affair which might hinder Nicholas from making a brilliant match--\r
+blushed like a girl.\r
+\r
+Denisov, to Rostov's surprise, appeared in the drawing room with pomaded\r
+hair, perfumed, and in a new uniform, looking just as smart as he made\r
+himself when going into battle, and he was more amiable to the ladies\r
+and gentlemen than Rostov had ever expected to see him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+On his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostov was welcomed by\r
+his home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their darling\r
+Nikolenka; by his relations as a charming, attractive, and polite young\r
+man; by his acquaintances as a handsome lieutenant of hussars, a good\r
+dancer, and one of the best matches in the city.\r
+\r
+The Rostovs knew everybody in Moscow. The old count had money enough\r
+that year, as all his estates had been remortgaged, and so Nicholas,\r
+acquiring a trotter of his own, very stylish riding breeches of the\r
+latest cut, such as no one else yet had in Moscow, and boots of the\r
+latest fashion, with extremely pointed toes and small silver spurs,\r
+passed his time very gaily. After a short period of adapting himself to\r
+the old conditions of life, Nicholas found it very pleasant to be at\r
+home again. He felt that he had grown up and matured very much. His\r
+despair at failing in a Scripture examination, his borrowing money from\r
+Gavril to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sonya on the sly--he now\r
+recalled all this as childishness he had left immeasurably behind. Now\r
+he was a lieutenant of hussars, in a jacket laced with silver, and\r
+wearing the Cross of St. George, awarded to soldiers for bravery in\r
+action, and in the company of well-known, elderly, and respected racing\r
+men was training a trotter of his own for a race. He knew a lady on one\r
+of the boulevards whom he visited of an evening. He led the mazurka at\r
+the Arkharovs' ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal Kamenski,\r
+visited the English Club, and was on intimate terms with a colonel of\r
+forty to whom Denisov had introduced him.\r
+\r
+His passion for the Emperor had cooled somewhat in Moscow. But still, as\r
+he did not see him and had no opportunity of seeing him, he often spoke\r
+about him and about his love for him, letting it be understood that he\r
+had not told all and that there was something in his feelings for the\r
+Emperor not everyone could understand, and with his whole soul he shared\r
+the adoration then common in Moscow for the Emperor, who was spoken of\r
+as the "angel incarnate."\r
+\r
+During Rostov's short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army, he did\r
+not draw closer to Sonya, but rather drifted away from her. She was very\r
+pretty and sweet, and evidently deeply in love with him, but he was at\r
+the period of youth when there seems so much to do that there is no time\r
+for that sort of thing and a young man fears to bind himself and prizes\r
+his freedom which he needs for so many other things. When he thought of\r
+Sonya, during this stay in Moscow, he said to himself, "Ah, there will\r
+be, and there are, many more such girls somewhere whom I do not yet\r
+know. There will be time enough to think about love when I want to, but\r
+now I have no time." Besides, it seemed to him that the society of women\r
+was rather derogatory to his manhood. He went to balls and into ladies'\r
+society with an affectation of doing so against his will. The races, the\r
+English Club, sprees with Denisov, and visits to a certain house--that\r
+was another matter and quite the thing for a dashing young hussar!\r
+\r
+At the beginning of March, old Count Ilya Rostov was very busy arranging\r
+a dinner in honor of Prince Bagration at the English Club.\r
+\r
+The count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving\r
+orders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktist, the club's head\r
+cook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and fish for\r
+this dinner. The count had been a member and on the committee of the\r
+club from the day it was founded. To him the club entrusted the\r
+arrangement of the festival in honor of Bagration, for few men knew so\r
+well how to arrange a feast on an open-handed, hospitable scale, and\r
+still fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of\r
+their own resources what might be needed for the success of the fete.\r
+The club cook and the steward listened to the count's orders with\r
+pleased faces, for they knew that under no other management could they\r
+so easily extract a good profit for themselves from a dinner costing\r
+several thousand rubles.\r
+\r
+"Well then, mind and have cocks' comb in the turtle soup, you know!"\r
+\r
+"Shall we have three cold dishes then?" asked the cook.\r
+\r
+The count considered.\r
+\r
+"We can't have less--yes, three... the mayonnaise, that's one," said he,\r
+bending down a finger.\r
+\r
+"Then am I to order those large sterlets?" asked the steward.\r
+\r
+"Yes, it can't be helped if they won't take less. Ah, dear me! I was\r
+forgetting. We must have another entree. Ah, goodness gracious!" he\r
+clutched at his head. "Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmitri! Eh,\r
+Dmitri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate," he said to the factotum who\r
+appeared at his call. "Hurry off and tell Maksim, the gardener, to set\r
+the serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must be\r
+brought here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred pots here\r
+on Friday."\r
+\r
+Having given several more orders, he was about to go to his "little\r
+countess" to have a rest, but remembering something else of importance,\r
+he returned again, called back the cook and the club steward, and again\r
+began giving orders. A light footstep and the clinking of spurs were\r
+heard at the door, and the young count, handsome, rosy, with a dark\r
+little mustache, evidently rested and made sleeker by his easy life in\r
+Moscow, entered the room.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my boy, my head's in a whirl!" said the old man with a smile, as if\r
+he felt a little confused before his son. "Now, if you would only help a\r
+bit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own orchestra, but\r
+shouldn't we get the gypsy singers as well? You military men like that\r
+sort of thing."\r
+\r
+"Really, Papa, I believe Prince Bagration worried himself less before\r
+the battle of Schon Grabern than you do now," said his son with a smile.\r
+\r
+The old count pretended to be angry.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you talk, but try it yourself!"\r
+\r
+And the count turned to the cook, who, with a shrewd and respectful\r
+expression, looked observantly and sympathetically at the father and\r
+son.\r
+\r
+"What have the young people come to nowadays, eh, Feoktist?" said he.\r
+"Laughing at us old fellows!"\r
+\r
+"That's so, your excellency, all they have to do is to eat a good\r
+dinner, but providing it and serving it all up, that's not their\r
+business!"\r
+\r
+"That's it, that's it!" exclaimed the count, and gaily seizing his son\r
+by both hands, he cried, "Now I've got you, so take the sleigh and pair\r
+at once, and go to Bezukhov's, and tell him 'Count Ilya has sent you to\r
+ask for strawberries and fresh pineapples.' We can't get them from\r
+anyone else. He's not there himself, so you'll have to go in and ask the\r
+princesses; and from there go on to the Rasgulyay--the coachman Ipatka\r
+knows--and look up the gypsy Ilyushka, the one who danced at Count\r
+Orlov's, you remember, in a white Cossack coat, and bring him along to\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"And am I to bring the gypsy girls along with him?" asked Nicholas,\r
+laughing. "Dear, dear!..."\r
+\r
+At that moment, with noiseless footsteps and with the businesslike,\r
+preoccupied, yet meekly Christian look which never left her face, Anna\r
+Mikhaylovna entered the hall. Though she came upon the count in his\r
+dressing gown every day, he invariably became confused and begged her to\r
+excuse his costume.\r
+\r
+"No matter at all, my dear count," she said, meekly closing her eyes.\r
+"But I'll go to Bezukhov's myself. Pierre has arrived, and now we shall\r
+get anything we want from his hothouses. I have to see him in any case.\r
+He has forwarded me a letter from Boris. Thank God, Boris is now on the\r
+staff."\r
+\r
+The count was delighted at Anna Mikhaylovna's taking upon herself one of\r
+his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her.\r
+\r
+"Tell Bezukhov to come. I'll put his name down. Is his wife with him?"\r
+he asked.\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna turned up her eyes, and profound sadness was depicted\r
+on her face.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate," she said. "If what we hear\r
+is true, it is dreadful. How little we dreamed of such a thing when we\r
+were rejoicing at his happiness! And such a lofty angelic soul as young\r
+Bezukhov! Yes, I pity him from my heart, and shall try to give him what\r
+consolation I can."\r
+\r
+"Wh-what is the matter?" asked both the young and old Rostov.\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna sighed deeply.\r
+\r
+"Dolokhov, Mary Ivanovna's son," she said in a mysterious whisper, "has\r
+compromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him up, invited him to\r
+his house in Petersburg, and now... she has come here and that daredevil\r
+after her!" said Anna Mikhaylovna, wishing to show her sympathy for\r
+Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile betraying her\r
+sympathy for the "daredevil," as she called Dolokhov. "They say Pierre\r
+is quite broken by his misfortune."\r
+\r
+"Dear, dear! But still tell him to come to the club--it will all blow\r
+over. It will be a tremendous banquet."\r
+\r
+Next day, the third of March, soon after one o'clock, two hundred and\r
+fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting the\r
+guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagration, to\r
+dinner.\r
+\r
+On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow had\r
+been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to victories\r
+that on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not believe it,\r
+while others sought some extraordinary explanation of so strange an\r
+event. In the English Club, where all who were distinguished, important,\r
+and well informed foregathered when the news began to arrive in\r
+December, nothing was said about the war and the last battle, as though\r
+all were in a conspiracy of silence. The men who set the tone in\r
+conversation--Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri Dolgorukov, Valuev, Count\r
+Markov, and Prince Vyazemski--did not show themselves at the club, but\r
+met in private houses in intimate circles, and the Moscovites who took\r
+their opinions from others--Ilya Rostov among them--remained for a while\r
+without any definite opinion on the subject of the war and without\r
+leaders. The Moscovites felt that something was wrong and that to\r
+discuss the bad news was difficult, and so it was best to be silent. But\r
+after a while, just as a jury comes out of its room, the bigwigs who\r
+guided the club's opinion reappeared, and everybody began speaking\r
+clearly and definitely. Reasons were found for the incredible, unheard-\r
+of, and impossible event of a Russian defeat, everything became clear,\r
+and in all corners of Moscow the same things began to be said. These\r
+reasons were the treachery of the Austrians, a defective commissariat,\r
+the treachery of the Pole Przebyszewski and of the Frenchman Langeron,\r
+Kutuzov's incapacity, and (it was whispered) the youth and inexperience\r
+of the sovereign, who had trusted worthless and insignificant people.\r
+But the army, the Russian army, everyone declared, was extraordinary and\r
+had achieved miracles of valor. The soldiers, officers, and generals\r
+were heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagration, distinguished\r
+by his Schon Grabern affair and by the retreat from Austerlitz, where he\r
+alone had withdrawn his column unbroken and had all day beaten back an\r
+enemy force twice as numerous as his own. What also conduced to\r
+Bagration's being selected as Moscow's hero was the fact that he had no\r
+connections in the city and was a stranger there. In his person, honor\r
+was shown to a simple fighting Russian soldier without connections and\r
+intrigues, and to one who was associated by memories of the Italian\r
+campaign with the name of Suvorov. Moreover, paying such honor to\r
+Bagration was the best way of expressing disapproval and dislike of\r
+Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+"Had there been no Bagration, it would have been necessary to invent\r
+him," said the wit Shinshin, parodying the words of Voltaire. Kutuzov no\r
+one spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers, calling him a\r
+court weathercock and an old satyr.\r
+\r
+All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorukov's saying: "If you go on modeling\r
+and modeling you must get smeared with clay," suggesting consolation for\r
+our defeat by the memory of former victories; and the words of\r
+Rostopchin, that French soldiers have to be incited to battle by\r
+highfalutin words, and Germans by logical arguments to show them that it\r
+is more dangerous to run away than to advance, but that Russian soldiers\r
+only need to be restrained and held back! On all sides, new and fresh\r
+anecdotes were heard of individual examples of heroism shown by our\r
+officers and men at Austerlitz. One had saved a standard, another had\r
+killed five Frenchmen, a third had loaded five cannon singlehanded. Berg\r
+was mentioned, by those who did not know him, as having, when wounded in\r
+the right hand, taken his sword in the left, and gone forward. Of\r
+Bolkonski, nothing was said, and only those who knew him intimately\r
+regretted that he had died so young, leaving a pregnant wife with his\r
+eccentric father.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+On that third of March, all the rooms in the English Club were filled\r
+with a hum of conversation, like the hum of bees swarming in springtime.\r
+The members and guests of the club wandered hither and thither, sat,\r
+stood, met, and separated, some in uniform and some in evening dress,\r
+and a few here and there with powdered hair and in Russian kaftans.\r
+Powdered footmen, in livery with buckled shoes and smart stockings,\r
+stood at every door anxiously noting visitors' every movement in order\r
+to offer their services. Most of those present were elderly, respected\r
+men with broad, self-confident faces, fat fingers, and resolute gestures\r
+and voices. This class of guests and members sat in certain habitual\r
+places and met in certain habitual groups. A minority of those present\r
+were casual guests--chiefly young men, among whom were Denisov, Rostov,\r
+and Dolokhov--who was now again an officer in the Semenov regiment. The\r
+faces of these young people, especially those who were military men,\r
+bore that expression of condescending respect for their elders which\r
+seems to say to the older generation, "We are prepared to respect and\r
+honor you, but all the same remember that the future belongs to us."\r
+\r
+Nesvitski was there as an old member of the club. Pierre, who at his\r
+wife's command had let his hair grow and abandoned his spectacles, went\r
+about the rooms fashionably dressed but looking sad and dull. Here, as\r
+elsewhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of subservience to his\r
+wealth, and being in the habit of lording it over these people, he\r
+treated them with absent-minded contempt.\r
+\r
+By his age he should have belonged to the younger men, but by his wealth\r
+and connections he belonged to the groups of old and honored guests, and\r
+so he went from one group to another. Some of the most important old men\r
+were the center of groups which even strangers approached respectfully\r
+to hear the voices of well-known men. The largest circles formed round\r
+Count Rostopchin, Valuev, and Naryshkin. Rostopchin was describing how\r
+the Russians had been overwhelmed by flying Austrians and had had to\r
+force their way through them with bayonets.\r
+\r
+Valuev was confidentially telling that Uvarov had been sent from\r
+Petersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz.\r
+\r
+In the third circle, Naryshkin was speaking of the meeting of the\r
+Austrian Council of War at which Suvorov crowed like a cock in reply to\r
+the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshin, standing close\r
+by, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutuzov had evidently failed to\r
+learn from Suvorov even so simple a thing as the art of crowing like a\r
+cock, but the elder members glanced severely at the wit, making him feel\r
+that in that place and on that day, it was improper to speak so of\r
+Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+Count Ilya Rostov, hurried and preoccupied, went about in his soft boots\r
+between the dining and drawing rooms, hastily greeting the important and\r
+unimportant, all of whom he knew, as if they were all equals, while his\r
+eyes occasionally sought out his fine well-set-up young son, resting on\r
+him and winking joyfully at him. Young Rostov stood at a window with\r
+Dolokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately made and highly valued. The\r
+old count came up to them and pressed Dolokhov's hand.\r
+\r
+"Please come and visit us... you know my brave boy... been together out\r
+there... both playing the hero... Ah, Vasili Ignatovich... How d'ye do,\r
+old fellow?" he said, turning to an old man who was passing, but before\r
+he had finished his greeting there was a general stir, and a footman who\r
+had run in announced, with a frightened face: "He's arrived!"\r
+\r
+Bells rang, the stewards rushed forward, and--like rye shaken together\r
+in a shovel--the guests who had been scattered about in different rooms\r
+came together and crowded in the large drawing room by the door of the\r
+ballroom.\r
+\r
+Bagration appeared in the doorway of the anteroom without hat or sword,\r
+which, in accord with the club custom, he had given up to the hall\r
+porter. He had no lambskin cap on his head, nor had he a loaded whip\r
+over his shoulder, as when Rostov had seen him on the eve of the battle\r
+of Austerlitz, but wore a tight new uniform with Russian and foreign\r
+Orders, and the Star of St. George on his left breast. Evidently just\r
+before coming to the dinner he had had his hair and whiskers trimmed,\r
+which changed his appearance for the worse. There was something naively\r
+festive in his air, which, in conjunction with his firm and virile\r
+features, gave him a rather comical expression. Bekleshev and Theodore\r
+Uvarov, who had arrived with him, paused at the doorway to allow him, as\r
+the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagration was embarrassed, not\r
+wishing to avail himself of their courtesy, and this caused some delay\r
+at the doors, but after all he did at last enter first. He walked shyly\r
+and awkwardly over the parquet floor of the reception room, not knowing\r
+what to do with his hands; he was more accustomed to walk over a plowed\r
+field under fire, as he had done at the head of the Kursk regiment at\r
+Schon Grabern--and he would have found that easier. The committeemen met\r
+him at the first door and, expressing their delight at seeing such a\r
+highly honored guest, took possession of him as it were, without waiting\r
+for his reply, surrounded him, and led him to the drawing room. It was\r
+at first impossible to enter the drawing-room door for the crowd of\r
+members and guests jostling one another and trying to get a good look at\r
+Bagration over each other's shoulders, as if he were some rare animal.\r
+Count Ilya Rostov, laughing and repeating the words, "Make way, dear\r
+boy! Make way, make way!" pushed through the crowd more energetically\r
+than anyone, led the guests into the drawing room, and seated them on\r
+the center sofa. The bigwigs, the most respected members of the club,\r
+beset the new arrivals. Count Ilya, again thrusting his way through the\r
+crowd, went out of the drawing room and reappeared a minute later with\r
+another committeeman, carrying a large silver salver which he presented\r
+to Prince Bagration. On the salver lay some verses composed and printed\r
+in the hero's honor. Bagration, on seeing the salver, glanced around in\r
+dismay, as though seeking help. But all eyes demanded that he should\r
+submit. Feeling himself in their power, he resolutely took the salver\r
+with both hands and looked sternly and reproachfully at the count who\r
+had presented it to him. Someone obligingly took the dish from Bagration\r
+(or he would, it seemed, have held it till evening and have gone in to\r
+dinner with it) and drew his attention to the verses.\r
+\r
+"Well, I will read them, then!" Bagration seemed to say, and, fixing his\r
+weary eyes on the paper, began to read them with a fixed and serious\r
+expression. But the author himself took the verses and began reading\r
+them aloud. Bagration bowed his head and listened:\r
+\r
+\r
+Bring glory then to Alexander's reign And on the throne our Titus\r
+shield. A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man, A Rhipheus at home,\r
+a Caesar in the field! E'en fortunate Napoleon Knows by experience, now,\r
+Bagration, And dare not Herculean Russians trouble...\r
+\r
+But before he had finished reading, a stentorian major-domo announced\r
+that dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the dining room came\r
+the resounding strains of the polonaise:\r
+\r
+\r
+Conquest's joyful thunder waken, Triumph, valiant Russians, now!...\r
+\r
+and Count Rostov, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading his\r
+verses, bowed to Bagration. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner was more\r
+important than verses, and Bagration, again preceding all the rest, went\r
+in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between two\r
+Alexanders--Bekleshev and Naryshkin--which was a significant allusion to\r
+the name of the sovereign. Three hundred persons took their seats in the\r
+dining room, according to their rank and importance: the more important\r
+nearer to the honored guest, as naturally as water flows deepest where\r
+the land lies lowest.\r
+\r
+Just before dinner, Count Ilya Rostov presented his son to Bagration,\r
+who recognized him and said a few words to him, disjointed and awkward,\r
+as were all the words he spoke that day, and Count Ilya looked joyfully\r
+and proudly around while Bagration spoke to his son.\r
+\r
+Nicholas Rostov, with Denisov and his new acquaintance, Dolokhov, sat\r
+almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre, beside Prince\r
+Nesvitski. Count Ilya Rostov with the other members of the committee sat\r
+facing Bagration and, as the very personification of Moscow hospitality,\r
+did the honors to the prince.\r
+\r
+His efforts had not been in vain. The dinner, both the Lenten and the\r
+other fare, was splendid, yet he could not feel quite at ease till the\r
+end of the meal. He winked at the butler, whispered directions to the\r
+footmen, and awaited each expected dish with some anxiety. Everything\r
+was excellent. With the second course, a gigantic sterlet (at sight of\r
+which Ilya Rostov blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the footmen\r
+began popping corks and filling the champagne glasses. After the fish,\r
+which made a certain sensation, the count exchanged glances with the\r
+other committeemen. "There will be many toasts, it's time to begin," he\r
+whispered, and taking up his glass, he rose. All were silent, waiting\r
+for what he would say.\r
+\r
+"To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!" he cried, and at the same\r
+moment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of joy and enthusiasm. The\r
+band immediately struck up "Conquest's joyful thunder waken..." All rose\r
+and cried "Hurrah!" Bagration also rose and shouted "Hurrah!" in exactly\r
+the same voice in which he had shouted it on the field at Schon Grabern.\r
+Young Rostov's ecstatic voice could be heard above the three hundred\r
+others. He nearly wept. "To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!"\r
+he roared, "Hurrah!" and emptying his glass at one gulp he dashed it to\r
+the floor. Many followed his example, and the loud shouting continued\r
+for a long time. When the voices subsided, the footmen cleared away the\r
+broken glass and everybody sat down again, smiling at the noise they had\r
+made and exchanging remarks. The old count rose once more, glanced at a\r
+note lying beside his plate, and proposed a toast, "To the health of the\r
+hero of our last campaign, Prince Peter Ivanovich Bagration!" and again\r
+his blue eyes grew moist. "Hurrah!" cried the three hundred voices\r
+again, but instead of the band a choir began singing a cantata composed\r
+by Paul Ivanovich Kutuzov:\r
+\r
+\r
+Russians! O'er all barriers on! Courage conquest guarantees; Have we not\r
+Bagration? He brings foe men to their knees,... etc.\r
+\r
+As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was proposed\r
+and Count Ilya Rostov became more and more moved, more glass was\r
+smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to Bekleshev,\r
+Naryshkin, Uvarov, Dolgorukov, Apraksin, Valuev, to the committee, to\r
+all the club members and to all the club guests, and finally to Count\r
+Ilya Rostov separately, as the organizer of the banquet. At that toast,\r
+the count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face, wept\r
+outright.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+Pierre sat opposite Dolokhov and Nicholas Rostov. As usual, he ate and\r
+drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed that\r
+some great change had come over him that day. He was silent all through\r
+dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed eyes and\r
+a look of complete absent-mindedness, kept rubbing the bridge of his\r
+nose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and hear\r
+nothing of what was going on around him and to be absorbed by some\r
+depressing and unsolved problem.\r
+\r
+The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the\r
+princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dolokhov's intimacy with his\r
+wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which in\r
+the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw badly\r
+through his spectacles, but that his wife's connection with Dolokhov was\r
+a secret to no one but himself. Pierre absolutely disbelieved both the\r
+princess' hints and the letter, but he feared now to look at Dolokhov,\r
+who was sitting opposite him. Every time he chanced to meet Dolokhov's\r
+handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt something terrible and monstrous\r
+rising in his soul and turned quickly away. Involuntarily recalling his\r
+wife's past and her relations with Dolokhov, Pierre saw clearly that\r
+what was said in the letter might be true, or might at least seem to be\r
+true had it not referred to his wife. He involuntarily remembered how\r
+Dolokhov, who had fully recovered his former position after the\r
+campaign, had returned to Petersburg and come to him. Availing himself\r
+of his friendly relations with Pierre as a boon companion, Dolokhov had\r
+come straight to his house, and Pierre had put him up and lent him\r
+money. Pierre recalled how Helene had smilingly expressed disapproval of\r
+Dolokhov's living at their house, and how cynically Dolokhov had praised\r
+his wife's beauty to him and from that time till they came to Moscow had\r
+not left them for a day.\r
+\r
+"Yes, he is very handsome," thought Pierre, "and I know him. It would be\r
+particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule me, just\r
+because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him, and helped\r
+him. I know and understand what a spice that would add to the pleasure\r
+of deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true, but I do\r
+not believe it. I have no right to, and can't, believe it." He\r
+remembered the expression Dolokhov's face assumed in his moments of\r
+cruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them into\r
+the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any reason, or\r
+shot a post-boy's horse with a pistol. That expression was often on\r
+Dolokhov's face when looking at him. "Yes, he is a bully," thought\r
+Pierre, "to kill a man means nothing to him. It must seem to him that\r
+everyone is afraid of him, and that must please him. He must think that\r
+I, too, am afraid of him--and in fact I am afraid of him," he thought,\r
+and again he felt something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul.\r
+Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov were now sitting opposite Pierre and\r
+seemed very gay. Rostov was talking merrily to his two friends, one of\r
+whom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious duelist and rake,\r
+and every now and then he glanced ironically at Pierre, whose\r
+preoccupied, absent-minded, and massive figure was a very noticeable one\r
+at the dinner. Rostov looked inimically at Pierre, first because Pierre\r
+appeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the husband of a beauty,\r
+and in a word--an old woman; and secondly because Pierre in his\r
+preoccupation and absent-mindedness had not recognized Rostov and had\r
+not responded to his greeting. When the Emperor's health was drunk,\r
+Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his glass.\r
+\r
+"What are you about?" shouted Rostov, looking at him in an ecstasy of\r
+exasperation. "Don't you hear it's His Majesty the Emperor's health?"\r
+\r
+Pierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting till\r
+all were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Why, I didn't recognize you!" he said. But Rostov was otherwise\r
+engaged; he was shouting "Hurrah!"\r
+\r
+"Why don't you renew the acquaintance?" said Dolokhov to Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Confound him, he's a fool!" said Rostov.\r
+\r
+"One should make up to the husbands of pretty women," said Denisov.\r
+\r
+Pierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were talking\r
+about him. He reddened and turned away.\r
+\r
+"Well, now to the health of handsome women!" said Dolokhov, and with a\r
+serious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of his\r
+mouth, he turned with his glass to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Here's to the health of lovely women, Peterkin--and their lovers!" he\r
+added.\r
+\r
+Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking at\r
+Dolokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing leaflets\r
+with Kutuzov's cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of the principal\r
+guests. He was just going to take it when Dolokhov, leaning across,\r
+snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre looked at\r
+Dolokhov and his eyes dropped, the something terrible and monstrous that\r
+had tormented him all dinnertime rose and took possession of him. He\r
+leaned his whole massive body across the table.\r
+\r
+"How dare you take it?" he shouted.\r
+\r
+Hearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvitski and the\r
+neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezukhov.\r
+\r
+"Don't! Don't! What are you about?" whispered their frightened voices.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that\r
+smile of his which seemed to say, "Ah! This is what I like!"\r
+\r
+"You shan't have it!" he said distinctly.\r
+\r
+Pale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy.\r
+\r
+"You...! you... scoundrel! I challenge you!" he ejaculated, and, pushing\r
+back his chair, he rose from the table.\r
+\r
+At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt\r
+that the question of his wife's guilt which had been tormenting him the\r
+whole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative. He\r
+hated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denisov's request\r
+that he would take no part in the matter, Rostov agreed to be Dolokhov's\r
+second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for the duel with\r
+Nesvitski, Bezukhov's second. Pierre went home, but Rostov with Dolokhov\r
+and Denisov stayed on at the club till late, listening to the gypsies\r
+and other singers.\r
+\r
+"Well then, till tomorrow at Sokolniki," said Dolokhov, as he took leave\r
+of Rostov in the club porch.\r
+\r
+"And do you feel quite calm?" Rostov asked.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov paused.\r
+\r
+"Well, you see, I'll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two words.\r
+If you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write\r
+affectionate letters to your parents, and if you think you may be\r
+killed, you are a fool and are lost for certain. But go with the firm\r
+intention of killing your man as quickly and surely as possible, and\r
+then all will be right, as our bear huntsman at Kostroma used to tell\r
+me. 'Everyone fears a bear,' he says, 'but when you see one your fear's\r
+all gone, and your only thought is not to let him get away!' And that's\r
+how it is with me. A demain, mon cher." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.\r
+\r
+Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvitski drove to the\r
+Sokolniki forest and found Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov already there.\r
+Pierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations which had no\r
+connection with the matter in hand. His haggard face was yellow. He had\r
+evidently not slept that night. He looked about distractedly and screwed\r
+up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He was entirely absorbed by two\r
+considerations: his wife's guilt, of which after his sleepless night he\r
+had not the slightest doubt, and the guiltlessness of Dolokhov, who had\r
+no reason to preserve the honor of a man who was nothing to him.... "I\r
+should perhaps have done the same thing in his place," thought Pierre.\r
+"It's even certain that I should have done the same, then why this duel,\r
+this murder? Either I shall kill him, or he will hit me in the head, or\r
+elbow, or knee. Can't I go away from here, run away, bury myself\r
+somewhere?" passed through his mind. But just at moments when such\r
+thoughts occurred to him, he would ask in a particularly calm and\r
+absent-minded way, which inspired the respect of the onlookers, "Will it\r
+be long? Are things ready?"\r
+\r
+When all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the barriers,\r
+and the pistols loaded, Nesvitski went up to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"I should not be doing my duty, Count," he said in timid tones, "and\r
+should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done me in\r
+choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very grave, moment I\r
+did not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no sufficient ground\r
+for this affair, or for blood to be shed over it.... You were not right,\r
+not quite in the right, you were impetuous..."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, it is horribly stupid," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your opponent will\r
+accept them," said Nesvitski (who like the others concerned in the\r
+affair, and like everyone in similar cases, did not yet believe that the\r
+affair had come to an actual duel). "You know, Count, it is much more\r
+honorable to admit one's mistake than to let matters become irreparable.\r
+There was no insult on either side. Allow me to convey...."\r
+\r
+"No! What is there to talk about?" said Pierre. "It's all the same....\r
+Is everything ready?" he added. "Only tell me where to go and where to\r
+shoot," he said with an unnaturally gentle smile.\r
+\r
+He took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of the\r
+trigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand--a fact that he\r
+did not wish to confess.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot," said he.\r
+\r
+"No apologies, none whatever," said Dolokhov to Denisov (who on his side\r
+had been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to the\r
+appointed place.\r
+\r
+The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road, where\r
+the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest\r
+covered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during the\r
+last few days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther\r
+edge of the clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in\r
+the deep wet snow between the place where they had been standing and\r
+Nesvitski's and Dolokhov's sabers, which were stuck into the ground ten\r
+paces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at forty\r
+paces' distance nothing could be seen. For three minutes all had been\r
+ready, but they still delayed and all were silent.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+"Well begin!" said Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"All right," said Pierre, still smiling in the same way. A feeling of\r
+dread was in the air. It was evident that the affair so lightly begun\r
+could no longer be averted but was taking its course independently of\r
+men's will.\r
+\r
+Denisov first went to the barrier and announced: "As the adve'sawies\r
+have wefused a weconciliation, please pwoceed. Take your pistols, and at\r
+the word thwee begin to advance.\r
+\r
+"O-ne! T-wo! Thwee!" he shouted angrily and stepped aside.\r
+\r
+The combatants advanced along the trodden tracks, nearer and nearer to\r
+one another, beginning to see one another through the mist. They had the\r
+right to fire when they liked as they approached the barrier. Dolokhov\r
+walked slowly without raising his pistol, looking intently with his\r
+bright, sparkling blue eyes into his antagonist's face. His mouth wore\r
+its usual semblance of a smile.\r
+\r
+"So I can fire when I like!" said Pierre, and at the word "three," he\r
+went quickly forward, missing the trodden path and stepping into the\r
+deep snow. He held the pistol in his right hand at arm's length,\r
+apparently afraid of shooting himself with it. His left hand he held\r
+carefully back, because he wished to support his right hand with it and\r
+knew he must not do so. Having advanced six paces and strayed off the\r
+track into the snow, Pierre looked down at his feet, then quickly\r
+glanced at Dolokhov and, bending his finger as he had been shown, fired.\r
+Not at all expecting so loud a report, Pierre shuddered at the sound and\r
+then, smiling at his own sensations, stood still. The smoke, rendered\r
+denser by the mist, prevented him from seeing anything for an instant,\r
+but there was no second report as he had expected. He only heard\r
+Dolokhov's hurried steps, and his figure came in view through the smoke.\r
+He was pressing one hand to his left side, while the other clutched his\r
+drooping pistol. His face was pale. Rostov ran toward him and said\r
+something.\r
+\r
+"No-o-o!" muttered Dolokhov through his teeth, "no, it's not over." And\r
+after stumbling a few staggering steps right up to the saber, he sank on\r
+the snow beside it. His left hand was bloody; he wiped it on his coat\r
+and supported himself with it. His frowning face was pallid and\r
+quivered.\r
+\r
+"Plea..." began Dolokhov, but could not at first pronounce the word.\r
+\r
+"Please," he uttered with an effort.\r
+\r
+Pierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began running toward Dolokhov and\r
+was about to cross the space between the barriers, when Dolokhov cried:\r
+\r
+"To your barrier!" and Pierre, grasping what was meant, stopped by his\r
+saber. Only ten paces divided them. Dolokhov lowered his head to the\r
+snow, greedily bit at it, again raised his head, adjusted himself, drew\r
+in his legs and sat up, seeking a firm center of gravity. He sucked and\r
+swallowed the cold snow, his lips quivered but his eyes, still smiling,\r
+glittered with effort and exasperation as he mustered his remaining\r
+strength. He raised his pistol and aimed.\r
+\r
+"Sideways! Cover yourself with your pistol!" ejaculated Nesvitski.\r
+\r
+"Cover yourself!" even Denisov cried to his adversary.\r
+\r
+Pierre, with a gentle smile of pity and remorse, his arms and legs\r
+helplessly spread out, stood with his broad chest directly facing\r
+Dolokhov looked sorrowfully at him. Denisov, Rostov, and Nesvitski\r
+closed their eyes. At the same instant they heard a report and\r
+Dolokhov's angry cry.\r
+\r
+"Missed!" shouted Dolokhov, and he lay helplessly, face downwards on the\r
+snow.\r
+\r
+Pierre clutched his temples, and turning round went into the forest,\r
+trampling through the deep snow, and muttering incoherent words:\r
+\r
+"Folly... folly! Death... lies..." he repeated, puckering his face.\r
+\r
+Nesvitski stopped him and took him home.\r
+\r
+Rostov and Denisov drove away with the wounded Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+The latter lay silent in the sleigh with closed eyes and did not answer\r
+a word to the questions addressed to him. But on entering Moscow he\r
+suddenly came to and, lifting his head with an effort, took Rostov, who\r
+was sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostov was struck by the totally\r
+altered and unexpectedly rapturous and tender expression on Dolokhov's\r
+face.\r
+\r
+"Well? How do you feel?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Bad! But it's not that, my friend-" said Dolokhov with a gasping voice.\r
+"Where are we? In Moscow, I know. I don't matter, but I have killed her,\r
+killed... She won't get over it! She won't survive...."\r
+\r
+"Who?" asked Rostov.\r
+\r
+"My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother," and Dolokhov\r
+pressed Rostov's hand and burst into tears.\r
+\r
+When he had become a little quieter, he explained to Rostov that he was\r
+living with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not survive it.\r
+He implored Rostov to go on and prepare her.\r
+\r
+Rostov went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise\r
+learned that Dolokhov the brawler, Dolokhov the bully, lived in Moscow\r
+with an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most affectionate\r
+of sons and brothers.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+Pierre had of late rarely seen his wife alone. Both in Petersburg and in\r
+Moscow their house was always full of visitors. The night after the duel\r
+he did not go to his bedroom but, as he often did, remained in his\r
+father's room, that huge room in which Count Bezukhov had died.\r
+\r
+He lay down on the sofa meaning to fall asleep and forget all that had\r
+happened to him, but could not do so. Such a storm of feelings,\r
+thoughts, and memories suddenly arose within him that he could not fall\r
+asleep, nor even remain in one place, but had to jump up and pace the\r
+room with rapid steps. Now he seemed to see her in the early days of\r
+their marriage, with bare shoulders and a languid, passionate look on\r
+her face, and then immediately he saw beside her Dolokhov's handsome,\r
+insolent, hard, and mocking face as he had seen it at the banquet, and\r
+then that same face pale, quivering, and suffering, as it had been when\r
+he reeled and sank on the snow.\r
+\r
+"What has happened?" he asked himself. "I have killed her lover, yes,\r
+killed my wife's lover. Yes, that was it! And why? How did I come to do\r
+it?"--"Because you married her," answered an inner voice.\r
+\r
+"But in what was I to blame?" he asked. "In marrying her without loving\r
+her; in deceiving yourself and her." And he vividly recalled that moment\r
+after supper at Prince Vasili's, when he spoke those words he had found\r
+so difficult to utter: "I love you." "It all comes from that! Even then\r
+I felt it," he thought. "I felt then that it was not so, that I had no\r
+right to do it. And so it turns out."\r
+\r
+He remembered his honeymoon and blushed at the recollection.\r
+Particularly vivid, humiliating, and shameful was the recollection of\r
+how one day soon after his marriage he came out of the bedroom into his\r
+study a little before noon in his silk dressing gown and found his head\r
+steward there, who, bowing respectfully, looked into his face and at his\r
+dressing gown and smiled slightly, as if expressing respectful\r
+understanding of his employer's happiness.\r
+\r
+"But how often I have felt proud of her, proud of her majestic beauty\r
+and social tact," thought he; "been proud of my house, in which she\r
+received all Petersburg, proud of her unapproachability and beauty. So\r
+this is what I was proud of! I then thought that I did not understand\r
+her. How often when considering her character I have told myself that I\r
+was to blame for not understanding her, for not understanding that\r
+constant composure and complacency and lack of all interests or desires,\r
+and the whole secret lies in the terrible truth that she is a depraved\r
+woman. Now I have spoken that terrible word to myself all has become\r
+clear.\r
+\r
+"Anatole used to come to borrow money from her and used to kiss her\r
+naked shoulders. She did not give him the money, but let herself be\r
+kissed. Her father in jest tried to rouse her jealousy, and she replied\r
+with a calm smile that she was not so stupid as to be jealous: 'Let him\r
+do what he pleases,' she used to say of me. One day I asked her if she\r
+felt any symptoms of pregnancy. She laughed contemptuously and said she\r
+was not a fool to want to have children, and that she was not going to\r
+have any children by me."\r
+\r
+Then he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her thoughts and the\r
+vulgarity of the expressions that were natural to her, though she had\r
+been brought up in the most aristocratic circles.\r
+\r
+"I'm not such a fool.... Just you try it on.... Allez-vous promener," *\r
+she used to say. Often seeing the success she had with young and old men\r
+and women Pierre could not understand why he did not love her.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "You clear out of this."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I never loved her," said he to himself; "I knew she was a depraved\r
+woman," he repeated, "but dared not admit it to myself. And now there's\r
+Dolokhov sitting in the snow with a forced smile and perhaps dying,\r
+while meeting my remorse with some forced bravado!"\r
+\r
+Pierre was one of those people who, in spite of an appearance of what is\r
+called weak character, do not seek a confidant in their troubles. He\r
+digested his sufferings alone.\r
+\r
+"It is all, all her fault," he said to himself; "but what of that? Why\r
+did I bind myself to her? Why did I say 'Je vous aime' * to her, which\r
+was a lie, and worse than a lie? I am guilty and must endure... what? A\r
+slur on my name? A misfortune for life? Oh, that's nonsense," he\r
+thought. "The slur on my name and honor--that's all apart from myself."\r
+\r
+\r
+* I love you.\r
+\r
+"Louis XVI was executed because they said he was dishonorable and a\r
+criminal," came into Pierre's head, "and from their point of view they\r
+were right, as were those too who canonized him and died a martyr's\r
+death for his sake. Then Robespierre was beheaded for being a despot.\r
+Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are alive--live:\r
+tomorrow you'll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth\r
+tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life in comparison\r
+with eternity?"\r
+\r
+But at the moment when he imagined himself calmed by such reflections,\r
+she suddenly came into his mind as she was at the moments when he had\r
+most strongly expressed his insincere love for her, and he felt the\r
+blood rush to his heart and had again to get up and move about and break\r
+and tear whatever came to his hand. "Why did I tell her that 'Je vous\r
+aime'?" he kept repeating to himself. And when he had said it for the\r
+tenth time, Moliere's words: "Mais que diable allait-il faire dans cette\r
+galere?"* occurred to him, and he began to laugh at himself.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "But what the devil was he doing in that galley?"\r
+\r
+In the night he called his valet and told him to pack up to go to\r
+Petersburg. He could not imagine how he could speak to her now. He\r
+resolved to go away next day and leave a letter informing her of his\r
+intention to part from her forever.\r
+\r
+Next morning when the valet came into the room with his coffee, Pierre\r
+was lying asleep on the ottoman with an open book in his hand.\r
+\r
+He woke up and looked round for a while with a startled expression,\r
+unable to realize where he was.\r
+\r
+"The countess told me to inquire whether your excellency was at home,"\r
+said the valet.\r
+\r
+But before Pierre could decide what answer he would send, the countess\r
+herself in a white satin dressing gown embroidered with silver and with\r
+simply dressed hair (two immense plaits twice round her lovely head like\r
+a coronet) entered the room, calm and majestic, except that there was a\r
+wrathful wrinkle on her rather prominent marble brow. With her\r
+imperturbable calm she did not begin to speak in front of the valet. She\r
+knew of the duel and had come to speak about it. She waited till the\r
+valet had set down the coffee things and left the room. Pierre looked at\r
+her timidly over his spectacles, and like a hare surrounded by hounds\r
+who lays back her ears and continues to crouch motionless before her\r
+enemies, he tried to continue reading. But feeling this to be senseless\r
+and impossible, he again glanced timidly at her. She did not sit down\r
+but looked at him with a contemptuous smile, waiting for the valet to\r
+go.\r
+\r
+"Well, what's this now? What have you been up to now, I should like to\r
+know?" she asked sternly.\r
+\r
+"I? What have I...?" stammered Pierre.\r
+\r
+"So it seems you're a hero, eh? Come now, what was this duel about? What\r
+is it meant to prove? What? I ask you."\r
+\r
+Pierre turned over heavily on the ottoman and opened his mouth, but\r
+could not reply.\r
+\r
+"If you won't answer, I'll tell you..." Helene went on. "You believe\r
+everything you're told. You were told..." Helene laughed, "that Dolokhov\r
+was my lover," she said in French with her coarse plainness of speech,\r
+uttering the word amant as casually as any other word, "and you believed\r
+it! Well, what have you proved? What does this duel prove? That you're a\r
+fool, que vous etes un sot, but everybody knew that. What will be the\r
+result? That I shall be the laughingstock of all Moscow, that everyone\r
+will say that you, drunk and not knowing what you were about, challenged\r
+a man you are jealous of without cause." Helene raised her voice and\r
+became more and more excited, "A man who's a better man than you in\r
+every way..."\r
+\r
+"Hm... Hm...!" growled Pierre, frowning without looking at her, and not\r
+moving a muscle.\r
+\r
+"And how could you believe he was my lover? Why? Because I like his\r
+company? If you were cleverer and more agreeable, I should prefer\r
+yours."\r
+\r
+"Don't speak to me... I beg you," muttered Pierre hoarsely.\r
+\r
+"Why shouldn't I speak? I can speak as I like, and I tell you plainly\r
+that there are not many wives with husbands such as you who would not\r
+have taken lovers (des amants), but I have not done so," said she.\r
+\r
+Pierre wished to say something, looked at her with eyes whose strange\r
+expression she did not understand, and lay down again. He was suffering\r
+physically at that moment, there was a weight on his chest and he could\r
+not breathe. He knew that he must do something to put an end to this\r
+suffering, but what he wanted to do was too terrible.\r
+\r
+"We had better separate," he muttered in a broken voice.\r
+\r
+"Separate? Very well, but only if you give me a fortune," said Helene.\r
+"Separate! That's a thing to frighten me with!"\r
+\r
+Pierre leaped up from the sofa and rushed staggering toward her.\r
+\r
+"I'll kill you!" he shouted, and seizing the marble top of a table with\r
+a strength he had never before felt, he made a step toward her\r
+brandishing the slab.\r
+\r
+Helene's face became terrible, she shrieked and sprang aside. His\r
+father's nature showed itself in Pierre. He felt the fascination and\r
+delight of frenzy. He flung down the slab, broke it, and swooping down\r
+on her with outstretched hands shouted, "Get out!" in such a terrible\r
+voice that the whole house heard it with horror. God knows what he would\r
+have done at that moment had Helene not fled from the room.\r
+\r
+A week later Pierre gave his wife full power to control all his estates\r
+in Great Russia, which formed the larger part of his property, and left\r
+for Petersburg alone.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+Two months had elapsed since the news of the battle of Austerlitz and\r
+the loss of Prince Andrew had reached Bald Hills, and in spite of the\r
+letters sent through the embassy and all the searches made, his body had\r
+not been found nor was he on the list of prisoners. What was worst of\r
+all for his relations was the fact that there was still a possibility of\r
+his having been picked up on the battlefield by the people of the place\r
+and that he might now be lying, recovering or dying, alone among\r
+strangers and unable to send news of himself. The gazettes from which\r
+the old prince first heard of the defeat at Austerlitz stated, as usual\r
+very briefly and vaguely, that after brilliant engagements the Russians\r
+had had to retreat and had made their withdrawal in perfect order. The\r
+old prince understood from this official report that our army had been\r
+defeated. A week after the gazette report of the battle of Austerlitz\r
+came a letter from Kutuzov informing the prince of the fate that had\r
+befallen his son.\r
+\r
+"Your son," wrote Kutuzov, "fell before my eyes, a standard in his hand\r
+and at the head of a regiment--he fell as a hero, worthy of his father\r
+and his fatherland. To the great regret of myself and of the whole army\r
+it is still uncertain whether he is alive or not. I comfort myself and\r
+you with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise he would have\r
+been mentioned among the officers found on the field of battle, a list\r
+of whom has been sent me under flag of truce."\r
+\r
+After receiving this news late in the evening, when he was alone in his\r
+study, the old prince went for his walk as usual next morning, but he\r
+was silent with his steward, the gardener, and the architect, and though\r
+he looked very grim he said nothing to anyone.\r
+\r
+When Princess Mary went to him at the usual hour he was working at his\r
+lathe and, as usual, did not look round at her.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Princess Mary!" he said suddenly in an unnatural voice, throwing\r
+down his chisel. (The wheel continued to revolve by its own impetus, and\r
+Princess Mary long remembered the dying creak of that wheel, which\r
+merged in her memory with what followed.)\r
+\r
+She approached him, saw his face, and something gave way within her. Her\r
+eyes grew dim. By the expression of her father's face, not sad, not\r
+crushed, but angry and working unnaturally, she saw that hanging over\r
+her and about to crush her was some terrible misfortune, the worst in\r
+life, one she had not yet experienced, irreparable and incomprehensible-\r
+-the death of one she loved.\r
+\r
+"Father! Andrew!"--said the ungraceful, awkward princess with such an\r
+indescribable charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her father\r
+could not bear her look but turned away with a sob.\r
+\r
+"Bad news! He's not among the prisoners nor among the killed! Kutuzov\r
+writes..." and he screamed as piercingly as if he wished to drive the\r
+princess away by that scream... "Killed!"\r
+\r
+The princess did not fall down or faint. She was already pale, but on\r
+hearing these words her face changed and something brightened in her\r
+beautiful, radiant eyes. It was as if joy--a supreme joy apart from the\r
+joys and sorrows of this world--overflowed the great grief within her.\r
+She forgot all fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand, and\r
+drawing him down put her arm round his thin, scraggy neck.\r
+\r
+"Father," she said, "do not turn away from me, let us weep together."\r
+\r
+"Scoundrels! Blackguards!" shrieked the old man, turning his face away\r
+from her. "Destroying the army, destroying the men! And why? Go, go and\r
+tell Lise."\r
+\r
+The princess sank helplessly into an armchair beside her father and\r
+wept. She saw her brother now as he had been at the moment when he took\r
+leave of her and of Lise, his look tender yet proud. She saw him tender\r
+and amused as he was when he put on the little icon. "Did he believe?\r
+Had he repented of his unbelief? Was he now there? There in the realms\r
+of eternal peace and blessedness?" she thought.\r
+\r
+"Father, tell me how it happened," she asked through her tears.\r
+\r
+"Go! Go! Killed in battle, where the best of Russian men and Russia's\r
+glory were led to destruction. Go, Princess Mary. Go and tell Lise. I\r
+will follow."\r
+\r
+When Princess Mary returned from her father, the little princess sat\r
+working and looked up with that curious expression of inner, happy calm\r
+peculiar to pregnant women. It was evident that her eyes did not see\r
+Princess Mary but were looking within... into herself... at something\r
+joyful and mysterious taking place within her.\r
+\r
+"Mary," she said, moving away from the embroidery frame and lying back,\r
+"give me your hand." She took her sister-in-law's hand and held it below\r
+her waist.\r
+\r
+Her eyes were smiling expectantly, her downy lip rose and remained\r
+lifted in childlike happiness.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary knelt down before her and hid her face in the folds of her\r
+sister-in-law's dress.\r
+\r
+"There, there! Do you feel it? I feel so strange. And do you know, Mary,\r
+I am going to love him very much," said Lise, looking with bright and\r
+happy eyes at her sister-in-law.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary could not lift her head, she was weeping.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter, Mary?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing... only I feel sad... sad about Andrew," she said, wiping away\r
+her tears on her sister-in-law's knee.\r
+\r
+Several times in the course of the morning Princess Mary began trying to\r
+prepare her sister-in-law, and every time began to cry. Unobservant as\r
+was the little princess, these tears, the cause of which she did not\r
+understand, agitated her. She said nothing but looked about uneasily as\r
+if in search of something. Before dinner the old prince, of whom she was\r
+always afraid, came into her room with a peculiarly restless and malign\r
+expression and went out again without saying a word. She looked at\r
+Princess Mary, then sat thinking for a while with that expression of\r
+attention to something within her that is only seen in pregnant women,\r
+and suddenly began to cry.\r
+\r
+"Has anything come from Andrew?" she asked.\r
+\r
+"No, you know it's too soon for news. But my father is anxious and I\r
+feel afraid."\r
+\r
+"So there's nothing?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing," answered Princess Mary, looking firmly with her radiant eyes\r
+at her sister-in-law.\r
+\r
+She had determined not to tell her and persuaded her father to hide the\r
+terrible news from her till after her confinement, which was expected\r
+within a few days. Princess Mary and the old prince each bore and hid\r
+their grief in their own way. The old prince would not cherish any hope:\r
+he made up his mind that Prince Andrew had been killed, and though he\r
+sent an official to Austria to seek for traces of his son, he ordered a\r
+monument from Moscow which he intended to erect in his own garden to his\r
+memory, and he told everybody that his son had been killed. He tried not\r
+to change his former way of life, but his strength failed him. He walked\r
+less, ate less, slept less, and became weaker every day. Princess Mary\r
+hoped. She prayed for her brother as living and was always awaiting news\r
+of his return.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+"Dearest," said the little princess after breakfast on the morning of\r
+the nineteenth March, and her downy little lip rose from old habit, but\r
+as sorrow was manifest in every smile, the sound of every word, and even\r
+every footstep in that house since the terrible news had come, so now\r
+the smile of the little princess--influenced by the general mood though\r
+without knowing its cause--was such as to remind one still more of the\r
+general sorrow.\r
+\r
+"Dearest, I'm afraid this morning's fruschtique *--as Foka the cook\r
+calls it--has disagreed with me."\r
+\r
+\r
+* Fruhstuck: breakfast.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter with you, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you are\r
+very pale!" said Princess Mary in alarm, running with her soft,\r
+ponderous steps up to her sister-in-law.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency, should not Mary Bogdanovna be sent for?" said one of\r
+the maids who was present. (Mary Bogdanovna was a midwife from the\r
+neighboring town, who had been at Bald Hills for the last fortnight.)\r
+\r
+"Oh yes," assented Princess Mary, "perhaps that's it. I'll go. Courage,\r
+my angel." She kissed Lise and was about to leave the room.\r
+\r
+"Oh, no, no!" And besides the pallor and the physical suffering on the\r
+little princess' face, an expression of childish fear of inevitable pain\r
+showed itself.\r
+\r
+"No, it's only indigestion?... Say it's only indigestion, say so, Mary!\r
+Say..." And the little princess began to cry capriciously like a\r
+suffering child and to wring her little hands even with some\r
+affectation. Princess Mary ran out of the room to fetch Mary Bogdanovna.\r
+\r
+"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Oh!" she heard as she left the room.\r
+\r
+The midwife was already on her way to meet her, rubbing her small, plump\r
+white hands with an air of calm importance.\r
+\r
+"Mary Bogdanovna, I think it's beginning!" said Princess Mary looking at\r
+the midwife with wide-open eyes of alarm.\r
+\r
+"Well, the Lord be thanked, Princess," said Mary Bogdanovna, not\r
+hastening her steps. "You young ladies should not know anything about\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"But how is it the doctor from Moscow is not here yet?" said the\r
+princess. (In accordance with Lise's and Prince Andrew's wishes they had\r
+sent in good time to Moscow for a doctor and were expecting him at any\r
+moment.)\r
+\r
+"No matter, Princess, don't be alarmed," said Mary Bogdanovna. "We'll\r
+manage very well without a doctor."\r
+\r
+Five minutes later Princess Mary from her room heard something heavy\r
+being carried by. She looked out. The men servants were carrying the\r
+large leather sofa from Prince Andrew's study into the bedroom. On their\r
+faces was a quiet and solemn look.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary sat alone in her room listening to the sounds in the\r
+house, now and then opening her door when someone passed and watching\r
+what was going on in the passage. Some women passing with quiet steps in\r
+and out of the bedroom glanced at the princess and turned away. She did\r
+not venture to ask any questions, and shut the door again, now sitting\r
+down in her easy chair, now taking her prayer book, now kneeling before\r
+the icon stand. To her surprise and distress she found that her prayers\r
+did not calm her excitement. Suddenly her door opened softly and her old\r
+nurse, Praskovya Savishna, who hardly ever came to that room as the old\r
+prince had forbidden it, appeared on the threshold with a shawl round\r
+her head.\r
+\r
+"I've come to sit with you a bit, Masha," said the nurse, "and here I've\r
+brought the prince's wedding candles to light before his saint, my\r
+angel," she said with a sigh.\r
+\r
+"Oh, nurse, I'm so glad!"\r
+\r
+"God is merciful, birdie."\r
+\r
+The nurse lit the gilt candles before the icons and sat down by the door\r
+with her knitting. Princess Mary took a book and began reading. Only\r
+when footsteps or voices were heard did they look at one another, the\r
+princess anxious and inquiring, the nurse encouraging. Everyone in the\r
+house was dominated by the same feeling that Princess Mary experienced\r
+as she sat in her room. But owing to the superstition that the fewer the\r
+people who know of it the less a woman in travail suffers, everyone\r
+tried to pretend not to know; no one spoke of it, but apart from the\r
+ordinary staid and respectful good manners habitual in the prince's\r
+household, a common anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a\r
+consciousness that something great and mysterious was being accomplished\r
+at that moment made itself felt.\r
+\r
+There was no laughter in the maids' large hall. In the men servants'\r
+hall all sat waiting, silently and alert. In the outlying serfs'\r
+quarters torches and candles were burning and no one slept. The old\r
+prince, stepping on his heels, paced up and down his study and sent\r
+Tikhon to ask Mary Bogdanovna what news.--"Say only that 'the prince\r
+told me to ask,' and come and tell me her answer."\r
+\r
+"Inform the prince that labor has begun," said Mary Bogdanovna, giving\r
+the messenger a significant look.\r
+\r
+Tikhon went and told the prince.\r
+\r
+"Very good!" said the prince closing the door behind him, and Tikhon did\r
+not hear the slightest sound from the study after that.\r
+\r
+After a while he re-entered it as if to snuff the candles, and, seeing\r
+the prince was lying on the sofa, looked at him, noticed his perturbed\r
+face, shook his head, and going up to him silently kissed him on the\r
+shoulder and left the room without snuffing the candles or saying why he\r
+had entered. The most solemn mystery in the world continued its course.\r
+Evening passed, night came, and the feeling of suspense and softening of\r
+heart in the presence of the unfathomable did not lessen but increased.\r
+No one slept.\r
+\r
+It was one of those March nights when winter seems to wish to resume its\r
+sway and scatters its last snows and storms with desperate fury. A relay\r
+of horses had been sent up the highroad to meet the German doctor from\r
+Moscow who was expected every moment, and men on horseback with lanterns\r
+were sent to the crossroads to guide him over the country road with its\r
+hollows and snow-covered pools of water.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary had long since put aside her book: she sat silent, her\r
+luminous eyes fixed on her nurse's wrinkled face (every line of which\r
+she knew so well), on the lock of gray hair that escaped from under the\r
+kerchief, and the loose skin that hung under her chin.\r
+\r
+Nurse Savishna, knitting in hand, was telling in low tones, scarcely\r
+hearing or understanding her own words, what she had told hundreds of\r
+times before: how the late princess had given birth to Princess Mary in\r
+Kishenev with only a Moldavian peasant woman to help instead of a\r
+midwife.\r
+\r
+"God is merciful, doctors are never needed," she said.\r
+\r
+Suddenly a gust of wind beat violently against the casement of the\r
+window, from which the double frame had been removed (by order of the\r
+prince, one window frame was removed in each room as soon as the larks\r
+returned), and, forcing open a loosely closed latch, set the damask\r
+curtain flapping and blew out the candle with its chill, snowy draft.\r
+Princess Mary shuddered; her nurse, putting down the stocking she was\r
+knitting, went to the window and leaning out tried to catch the open\r
+casement. The cold wind flapped the ends of her kerchief and her loose\r
+locks of gray hair.\r
+\r
+"Princess, my dear, there's someone driving up the avenue!" she said,\r
+holding the casement and not closing it. "With lanterns. Most likely the\r
+doctor."\r
+\r
+"Oh, my God! thank God!" said Princess Mary. "I must go and meet him, he\r
+does not know Russian."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary threw a shawl over her head and ran to meet the newcomer.\r
+As she was crossing the anteroom she saw through the window a carriage\r
+with lanterns, standing at the entrance. She went out on the stairs. On\r
+a banister post stood a tallow candle which guttered in the draft. On\r
+the landing below, Philip, the footman, stood looking scared and holding\r
+another candle. Still lower, beyond the turn of the staircase, one could\r
+hear the footstep of someone in thick felt boots, and a voice that\r
+seemed familiar to Princess Mary was saying something.\r
+\r
+"Thank God!" said the voice. "And Father?"\r
+\r
+"Gone to bed," replied the voice of Demyan the house steward, who was\r
+downstairs.\r
+\r
+Then the voice said something more, Demyan replied, and the steps in the\r
+felt boots approached the unseen bend of the staircase more rapidly.\r
+\r
+"It's Andrew!" thought Princess Mary. "No it can't be, that would be too\r
+extraordinary," and at the very moment she thought this, the face and\r
+figure of Prince Andrew, in a fur cloak the deep collar of which covered\r
+with snow, appeared on the landing where the footman stood with the\r
+candle. Yes, it was he, pale, thin, with a changed and strangely\r
+softened but agitated expression on his face. He came up the stairs and\r
+embraced his sister.\r
+\r
+"You did not get my letter?" he asked, and not waiting for a reply--\r
+which he would not have received, for the princess was unable to speak--\r
+he turned back, rapidly mounted the stairs again with the doctor who had\r
+entered the hall after him (they had met at the last post station), and\r
+again embraced his sister.\r
+\r
+"What a strange fate, Masha darling!" And having taken off his cloak and\r
+felt boots, he went to the little princess' apartment.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+The little princess lay supported by pillows, with a white cap on her\r
+head (the pains had just left her). Strands of her black hair lay round\r
+her inflamed and perspiring cheeks, her charming rosy mouth with its\r
+downy lip was open and she was smiling joyfully. Prince Andrew entered\r
+and paused facing her at the foot of the sofa on which she was lying.\r
+Her glittering eyes, filled with childlike fear and excitement, rested\r
+on him without changing their expression. "I love you all and have done\r
+no harm to anyone; why must I suffer so? Help me!" her look seemed to\r
+say. She saw her husband, but did not realize the significance of his\r
+appearance before her now. Prince Andrew went round the sofa and kissed\r
+her forehead.\r
+\r
+"My darling!" he said--a word he had never used to her before. "God is\r
+merciful...."\r
+\r
+She looked at him inquiringly and with childlike reproach.\r
+\r
+"I expected help from you and I get none, none from you either!" said\r
+her eyes. She was not surprised at his having come; she did not realize\r
+that he had come. His coming had nothing to do with her sufferings or\r
+with their relief. The pangs began again and Mary Bogdanovna advised\r
+Prince Andrew to leave the room.\r
+\r
+The doctor entered. Prince Andrew went out and, meeting Princess Mary,\r
+again joined her. They began talking in whispers, but their talk broke\r
+off at every moment. They waited and listened.\r
+\r
+"Go, dear," said Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew went again to his wife and sat waiting in the room next to\r
+hers. A woman came from the bedroom with a frightened face and became\r
+confused when she saw Prince Andrew. He covered his face with his hands\r
+and remained so for some minutes. Piteous, helpless, animal moans came\r
+through the door. Prince Andrew got up, went to the door, and tried to\r
+open it. Someone was holding it shut.\r
+\r
+"You can't come in! You can't!" said a terrified voice from within.\r
+\r
+He began pacing the room. The screaming ceased, and a few more seconds\r
+went by. Then suddenly a terrible shriek--it could not be hers, she\r
+could not scream like that--came from the bedroom. Prince Andrew ran to\r
+the door; the scream ceased and he heard the wail of an infant.\r
+\r
+"What have they taken a baby in there for?" thought Prince Andrew in the\r
+first second. "A baby? What baby...? Why is there a baby there? Or is\r
+the baby born?"\r
+\r
+Then suddenly he realized the joyful significance of that wail; tears\r
+choked him, and leaning his elbows on the window sill be began to cry,\r
+sobbing like a child. The door opened. The doctor with his shirt sleeves\r
+tucked up, without a coat, pale and with a trembling jaw, came out of\r
+the room. Prince Andrew turned to him, but the doctor gave him a\r
+bewildered look and passed by without a word. A woman rushed out and\r
+seeing Prince Andrew stopped, hesitating on the threshold. He went into\r
+his wife's room. She was lying dead, in the same position he had seen\r
+her in five minutes before and, despite the fixed eyes and the pallor of\r
+the cheeks, the same expression was on her charming childlike face with\r
+its upper lip covered with tiny black hair.\r
+\r
+"I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you done\r
+to me?"--said her charming, pathetic, dead face.\r
+\r
+In a corner of the room something red and tiny gave a grunt and squealed\r
+in Mary Bogdanovna's trembling white hands.\r
+\r
+Two hours later Prince Andrew, stepping softly, went into his father's\r
+room. The old man already knew everything. He was standing close to the\r
+door and as soon as it opened his rough old arms closed like a vise\r
+round his son's neck, and without a word he began to sob like a child.\r
+\r
+Three days later the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrew went\r
+up the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her the farewell kiss.\r
+And there in the coffin was the same face, though with closed eyes. "Ah,\r
+what have you done to me?" it still seemed to say, and Prince Andrew\r
+felt that something gave way in his soul and that he was guilty of a sin\r
+he could neither remedy nor forget. He could not weep. The old man too\r
+came up and kissed the waxen little hands that lay quietly crossed one\r
+on the other on her breast, and to him, too, her face seemed to say:\r
+"Ah, what have you done to me, and why?" And at the sight the old man\r
+turned angrily away.\r
+\r
+Another five days passed, and then the young Prince Nicholas Andreevich\r
+was baptized. The wet nurse supported the coverlet with her chin, while\r
+the priest with a goose feather anointed the boy's little red and\r
+wrinkled soles and palms.\r
+\r
+His grandfather, who was his godfather, trembling and afraid of dropping\r
+him, carried the infant round the battered tin font and handed him over\r
+to the godmother, Princess Mary. Prince Andrew sat in another room,\r
+faint with fear lest the baby should be drowned in the font, and awaited\r
+the termination of the ceremony. He looked up joyfully at the baby when\r
+the nurse brought it to him and nodded approval when she told him that\r
+the wax with the baby's hair had not sunk in the font but had floated.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+Rostov's share in Dolokhov's duel with Bezukhov was hushed up by the\r
+efforts of the old count, and instead of being degraded to the ranks as\r
+he expected he was appointed an adjutant to the governor general of\r
+Moscow. As a result he could not go to the country with the rest of the\r
+family, but was kept all summer in Moscow by his new duties. Dolokhov\r
+recovered, and Rostov became very friendly with him during his\r
+convalescence. Dolokhov lay ill at his mother's who loved him\r
+passionately and tenderly, and old Mary Ivanovna, who had grown fond of\r
+Rostov for his friendship to her Fedya, often talked to him about her\r
+son.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Count," she would say, "he is too noble and pure-souled for our\r
+present, depraved world. No one now loves virtue; it seems like a\r
+reproach to everyone. Now tell me, Count, was it right, was it\r
+honorable, of Bezukhov? And Fedya, with his noble spirit, loved him and\r
+even now never says a word against him. Those pranks in Petersburg when\r
+they played some tricks on a policeman, didn't they do it together? And\r
+there! Bezukhov got off scotfree, while Fedya had to bear the whole\r
+burden on his shoulders. Fancy what he had to go through! It's true he\r
+has been reinstated, but how could they fail to do that? I think there\r
+were not many such gallant sons of the fatherland out there as he. And\r
+now--this duel! Have these people no feeling, or honor? Knowing him to\r
+be an only son, to challenge him and shoot so straight! It's well God\r
+had mercy on us. And what was it for? Who doesn't have intrigues\r
+nowadays? Why, if he was so jealous, as I see things he should have\r
+shown it sooner, but he lets it go on for months. And then to call him\r
+out, reckoning on Fedya not fighting because he owed him money! What\r
+baseness! What meanness! I know you understand Fedya, my dear count;\r
+that, believe me, is why I am so fond of you. Few people do understand\r
+him. He is such a lofty, heavenly soul!"\r
+\r
+Dolokhov himself during his convalescence spoke to Rostov in a way no\r
+one would have expected of him.\r
+\r
+"I know people consider me a bad man!" he said. "Let them! I don't care\r
+a straw about anyone but those I love; but those I love, I love so that\r
+I would give my life for them, and the others I'd throttle if they stood\r
+in my way. I have an adored, a priceless mother, and two or three\r
+friends--you among them--and as for the rest I only care about them in\r
+so far as they are harmful or useful. And most of them are harmful,\r
+especially the women. Yes, dear boy," he continued, "I have met loving,\r
+noble, high-minded men, but I have not yet met any women--countesses or\r
+cooks--who were not venal. I have not yet met that divine purity and\r
+devotion I look for in women. If I found such a one I'd give my life for\r
+her! But those!..." and he made a gesture of contempt. "And believe me,\r
+if I still value my life it is only because I still hope to meet such a\r
+divine creature, who will regenerate, purify, and elevate me. But you\r
+don't understand it."\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, I quite understand," answered Rostov, who was under his new\r
+friend's influence.\r
+\r
+In the autumn the Rostovs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter\r
+Denisov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the\r
+winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostov spent in Moscow, was one of the\r
+happiest, merriest times for him and the whole family. Nicholas brought\r
+many young men to his parents' house. Vera was a handsome girl of\r
+twenty; Sonya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening flower;\r
+Natasha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly amusing, now\r
+girlishly enchanting.\r
+\r
+At that time in the Rostovs' house there prevailed an amorous atmosphere\r
+characteristic of homes where there are very young and very charming\r
+girls. Every young man who came to the house--seeing those\r
+impressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their own\r
+happiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the fitful\r
+bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle of\r
+young girls ready for anything and full of hope--experienced the same\r
+feeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostovs' household a\r
+readiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness.\r
+\r
+Among the young men introduced by Rostov one of the first was Dolokhov,\r
+whom everyone in the house liked except Natasha. She almost quarreled\r
+with her brother about him. She insisted that he was a bad man, and that\r
+in the duel with Bezukhov, Pierre was right and Dolokhov wrong, and\r
+further that he was disagreeable and unnatural.\r
+\r
+"There's nothing for me to understand," she cried out with resolute\r
+self-will, "he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like your Denisov\r
+though he is a rake and all that, still I like him; so you see I do\r
+understand. I don't know how to put it... with this one everything is\r
+calculated, and I don't like that. But Denisov..."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Denisov is quite different," replied Nicholas, implying that even\r
+Denisov was nothing compared to Dolokhov--"you must understand what a\r
+soul there is in Dolokhov, you should see him with his mother. What a\r
+heart!"\r
+\r
+"Well, I don't know about that, but I am uncomfortable with him. And do\r
+you know he has fallen in love with Sonya?"\r
+\r
+"What nonsense..."\r
+\r
+"I'm certain of it; you'll see."\r
+\r
+Natasha's prediction proved true. Dolokhov, who did not usually care for\r
+the society of ladies, began to come often to the house, and the\r
+question for whose sake he came (though no one spoke of it) was soon\r
+settled. He came because of Sonya. And Sonya, though she would never\r
+have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time Dolokhov\r
+appeared.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov often dined at the Rostovs', never missed a performance at\r
+which they were present, and went to Iogel's balls for young people\r
+which the Rostovs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to Sonya\r
+and looked at her in such a way that not only could she not bear his\r
+glances without coloring, but even the old countess and Natasha blushed\r
+when they saw his looks.\r
+\r
+It was evident that this strange, strong man was under the irresistible\r
+influence of the dark, graceful girl who loved another.\r
+\r
+Rostov noticed something new in Dolokhov's relations with Sonya, but he\r
+did not explain to himself what these new relations were. "They're\r
+always in love with someone," he thought of Sonya and Natasha. But he\r
+was not as much at ease with Sonya and Dolokhov as before and was less\r
+frequently at home.\r
+\r
+In the autumn of 1806 everybody had again begun talking of the war with\r
+Napoleon with even greater warmth than the year before. Orders were\r
+given to raise recruits, ten men in every thousand for the regular army,\r
+and besides this, nine men in every thousand for the militia. Everywhere\r
+Bonaparte was anathematized and in Moscow nothing but the coming war was\r
+talked of. For the Rostov family the whole interest of these\r
+preparations for war lay in the fact that Nicholas would not hear of\r
+remaining in Moscow, and only awaited the termination of Denisov's\r
+furlough after Christmas to return with him to their regiment. His\r
+approaching departure did not prevent his amusing himself, but rather\r
+gave zest to his pleasures. He spent the greater part of his time away\r
+from home, at dinners, parties, and balls.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+On the third day after Christmas Nicholas dined at home, a thing he had\r
+rarely done of late. It was a grand farewell dinner, as he and Denisov\r
+were leaving to join their regiment after Epiphany. About twenty people\r
+were present, including Dolokhov and Denisov.\r
+\r
+Never had love been so much in the air, and never had the amorous\r
+atmosphere made itself so strongly felt in the Rostovs' house as at this\r
+holiday time. "Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That\r
+is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing\r
+we are interested in here," said the spirit of the place.\r
+\r
+Nicholas, having as usual exhausted two pairs of horses, without\r
+visiting all the places he meant to go to and where he had been invited,\r
+returned home just before dinner. As soon as he entered he noticed and\r
+felt the tension of the amorous air in the house, and also noticed a\r
+curious embarrassment among some of those present. Sonya, Dolokhov, and\r
+the old countess were especially disturbed, and to a lesser degree\r
+Natasha. Nicholas understood that something must have happened between\r
+Sonya and Dolokhov before dinner, and with the kindly sensitiveness\r
+natural to him was very gentle and wary with them both at dinner. On\r
+that same evening there was to be one of the balls that Iogel (the\r
+dancing master) gave for his pupils during the holidays.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas, will you come to Iogel's? Please do!" said Natasha. "He asked\r
+you, and Vasili Dmitrich * is also going."\r
+\r
+\r
+* Denisov.\r
+\r
+"Where would I not go at the countess' command!" said Denisov, who at\r
+the Rostovs' had jocularly assumed the role of Natasha's knight. "I'm\r
+even weady to dance the pas de chale."\r
+\r
+"If I have time," answered Nicholas. "But I promised the Arkharovs; they\r
+have a party."\r
+\r
+"And you?" he asked Dolokhov, but as soon as he had asked the question\r
+he noticed that it should not have been put.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," coldly and angrily replied Dolokhov, glancing at Sonya, and,\r
+scowling, he gave Nicholas just such a look as he had given Pierre at\r
+the club dinner.\r
+\r
+"There is something up," thought Nicholas, and he was further confirmed\r
+in this conclusion by the fact that Dolokhov left immediately after\r
+dinner. He called Natasha and asked her what was the matter.\r
+\r
+"And I was looking for you," said Natasha running out to him. "I told\r
+you, but you would not believe it," she said triumphantly. "He has\r
+proposed to Sonya!"\r
+\r
+Little as Nicholas had occupied himself with Sonya of late, something\r
+seemed to give way within him at this news. Dolokhov was a suitable and\r
+in some respects a brilliant match for the dowerless, orphan girl. From\r
+the point of view of the old countess and of society it was out of the\r
+question for her to refuse him. And therefore Nicholas' first feeling on\r
+hearing the news was one of anger with Sonya.... He tried to say,\r
+"That's capital; of course she'll forget her childish promises and\r
+accept the offer," but before he had time to say it Natasha began again.\r
+\r
+"And fancy! she refused him quite definitely!" adding, after a pause,\r
+"she told him she loved another."\r
+\r
+"Yes, my Sonya could not have done otherwise!" thought Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"Much as Mamma pressed her, she refused, and I know she won't change\r
+once she has said..."\r
+\r
+"And Mamma pressed her!" said Nicholas reproachfully.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Natasha. "Do you know, Nicholas--don't be angry--but I know\r
+you will not marry her. I know, heaven knows how, but I know for certain\r
+that you won't marry her."\r
+\r
+"Now you don't know that at all!" said Nicholas. "But I must talk to\r
+her. What a darling Sonya is!" he added with a smile.\r
+\r
+"Ah, she is indeed a darling! I'll send her to you."\r
+\r
+And Natasha kissed her brother and ran away.\r
+\r
+A minute later Sonya came in with a frightened, guilty, and scared look.\r
+Nicholas went up to her and kissed her hand. This was the first time\r
+since his return that they had talked alone and about their love.\r
+\r
+"Sophie," he began, timidly at first and then more and more boldly, "if\r
+you wish to refuse one who is not only a brilliant and advantageous\r
+match but a splendid, noble fellow... he is my friend..."\r
+\r
+Sonya interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"I have already refused," she said hurriedly.\r
+\r
+"If you are refusing for my sake, I am afraid that I..."\r
+\r
+Sonya again interrupted. She gave him an imploring, frightened look.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas, don't tell me that!" she said.\r
+\r
+"No, but I must. It may be arrogant of me, but still it is best to say\r
+it. If you refuse him on my account, I must tell you the whole truth. I\r
+love you, and I think I love you more than anyone else...."\r
+\r
+"That is enough for me," said Sonya, blushing.\r
+\r
+"No, but I have been in love a thousand times and shall fall in love\r
+again, though for no one have I such a feeling of friendship,\r
+confidence, and love as I have for you. Then I am young. Mamma does not\r
+wish it. In a word, I make no promise. And I beg you to consider\r
+Dolokhov's offer," he said, articulating his friend's name with\r
+difficulty.\r
+\r
+"Don't say that to me! I want nothing. I love you as a brother and\r
+always shall, and I want nothing more."\r
+\r
+"You are an angel: I am not worthy of you, but I am afraid of misleading\r
+you."\r
+\r
+And Nicholas again kissed her hand.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+Iogel's were the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. So said the mothers as\r
+they watched their young people executing their newly learned steps, and\r
+so said the youths and maidens themselves as they danced till they were\r
+ready to drop, and so said the grown-up young men and women who came to\r
+these balls with an air of condescension and found them most enjoyable.\r
+That year two marriages had come of these balls. The two pretty young\r
+Princesses Gorchakov met suitors there and were married and so further\r
+increased the fame of these dances. What distinguished them from others\r
+was the absence of host or hostess and the presence of the good-natured\r
+Iogel, flying about like a feather and bowing according to the rules of\r
+his art, as he collected the tickets from all his visitors. There was\r
+the fact that only those came who wished to dance and amuse themselves\r
+as girls of thirteen and fourteen do who are wearing long dresses for\r
+the first time. With scarcely any exceptions they all were, or seemed to\r
+be, pretty--so rapturous were their smiles and so sparkling their eyes.\r
+Sometimes the best of the pupils, of whom Natasha, who was exceptionally\r
+graceful, was first, even danced the pas de chale, but at this last ball\r
+only the ecossaise, the anglaise, and the mazurka, which was just coming\r
+into fashion, were danced. Iogel had taken a ballroom in Bezukhov's\r
+house, and the ball, as everyone said, was a great success. There were\r
+many pretty girls and the Rostov girls were among the prettiest. They\r
+were both particularly happy and gay. That evening, proud of Dolokhov's\r
+proposal, her refusal, and her explanation with Nicholas, Sonya twirled\r
+about before she left home so that the maid could hardly get her hair\r
+plaited, and she was transparently radiant with impulsive joy.\r
+\r
+Natasha no less proud of her first long dress and of being at a real\r
+ball was even happier. They were both dressed in white muslin with pink\r
+ribbons.\r
+\r
+Natasha fell in love the very moment she entered the ballroom. She was\r
+not in love with anyone in particular, but with everyone. Whatever\r
+person she happened to look at she was in love with for that moment.\r
+\r
+"Oh, how delightful it is!" she kept saying, running up to Sonya.\r
+\r
+Nicholas and Denisov were walking up and down, looking with kindly\r
+patronage at the dancers.\r
+\r
+"How sweet she is--she will be a weal beauty!" said Denisov.\r
+\r
+"Who?"\r
+\r
+"Countess Natasha," answered Denisov.\r
+\r
+"And how she dances! What gwace!" he said again after a pause.\r
+\r
+"Who are you talking about?"\r
+\r
+"About your sister," ejaculated Denisov testily.\r
+\r
+Rostov smiled.\r
+\r
+"My dear count, you were one of my best pupils--you must dance," said\r
+little Iogel coming up to Nicholas. "Look how many charming young\r
+ladies-" He turned with the same request to Denisov who was also a\r
+former pupil of his.\r
+\r
+"No, my dear fellow, I'll be a wallflower," said Denisov. "Don't you\r
+wecollect what bad use I made of your lessons?"\r
+\r
+\r
+"Oh no!" said Iogel, hastening to reassure him. "You were only\r
+inattentive, but you had talent--oh yes, you had talent!"\r
+\r
+The band struck up the newly introduced mazurka. Nicholas could not\r
+refuse Iogel and asked Sonya to dance. Denisov sat down by the old\r
+ladies and, leaning on his saber and beating time with his foot, told\r
+them something funny and kept them amused, while he watched the young\r
+people dancing, Iogel with Natasha, his pride and his best pupil, were\r
+the first couple. Noiselessly, skillfully stepping with his little feet\r
+in low shoes, Iogel flew first across the hall with Natasha, who, though\r
+shy, went on carefully executing her steps. Denisov did not take his\r
+eyes off her and beat time with his saber in a way that clearly\r
+indicated that if he was not dancing it was because he would not and not\r
+because he could not. In the middle of a figure he beckoned to Rostov\r
+who was passing:\r
+\r
+"This is not at all the thing," he said. "What sort of Polish mazuwka is\r
+this? But she does dance splendidly."\r
+\r
+Knowing that Denisov had a reputation even in Poland for the masterly\r
+way in which he danced the mazurka, Nicholas ran up to Natasha:\r
+\r
+"Go and choose Denisov. He is a real dancer, a wonder!" he said.\r
+\r
+When it came to Natasha's turn to choose a partner, she rose and,\r
+tripping rapidly across in her little shoes trimmed with bows, ran\r
+timidly to the corner where Denisov sat. She saw that everybody was\r
+looking at her and waiting. Nicholas saw that Denisov was refusing\r
+though he smiled delightedly. He ran up to them.\r
+\r
+"Please, Vasili Dmitrich," Natasha was saying, "do come!"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, let me off, Countess," Denisov replied.\r
+\r
+"Now then, Vaska," said Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"They coax me as if I were Vaska the cat!" said Denisov jokingly.\r
+\r
+"I'll sing for you a whole evening," said Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with me!" said Denisov, and he\r
+unhooked his saber. He came out from behind the chairs, clasped his\r
+partner's hand firmly, threw back his head, and advanced his foot,\r
+waiting for the beat. Only on horse back and in the mazurka was\r
+Denisov's short stature not noticeable and he looked the fine fellow he\r
+felt himself to be. At the right beat of the music he looked sideways at\r
+his partner with a merry and triumphant air, suddenly stamped with one\r
+foot, bounded from the floor like a ball, and flew round the room taking\r
+his partner with him. He glided silently on one foot half across the\r
+room, and seeming not to notice the chairs was dashing straight at them,\r
+when suddenly, clinking his spurs and spreading out his legs, he stopped\r
+short on his heels, stood so a second, stamped on the spot clanking his\r
+spurs, whirled rapidly round, and, striking his left heel against his\r
+right, flew round again in a circle. Natasha guessed what he meant to\r
+do, and abandoning herself to him followed his lead hardly knowing how.\r
+First he spun her round, holding her now with his left, now with his\r
+right hand, then falling on one knee he twirled her round him, and again\r
+jumping up, dashed so impetuously forward that it seemed as if he would\r
+rush through the whole suite of rooms without drawing breath, and then\r
+he suddenly stopped and performed some new and unexpected steps. When at\r
+last, smartly whirling his partner round in front of her chair, he drew\r
+up with a click of his spurs and bowed to her, Natasha did not even make\r
+him a curtsy. She fixed her eyes on him in amazement, smiling as if she\r
+did not recognize him.\r
+\r
+"What does this mean?" she brought out.\r
+\r
+Although Iogel did not acknowledge this to be the real mazurka, everyone\r
+was delighted with Denisov's skill, he was asked again and again as a\r
+partner, and the old men began smilingly to talk about Poland and the\r
+good old days. Denisov, flushed after the mazurka and mopping himself\r
+with his handkerchief, sat down by Natasha and did not leave her for the\r
+rest of the evening.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+For two days after that Rostov did not see Dolokhov at his own or at\r
+Dolokhov's home: on the third day he received a note from him:\r
+\r
+As I do not intend to be at your house again for reasons you know of,\r
+and am going to rejoin my regiment, I am giving a farewell supper\r
+tonight to my friends--come to the English Hotel.\r
+\r
+About ten o'clock Rostov went to the English Hotel straight from the\r
+theater, where he had been with his family and Denisov. He was at once\r
+shown to the best room, which Dolokhov had taken for that evening. Some\r
+twenty men were gathered round a table at which Dolokhov sat between two\r
+candles. On the table was a pile of gold and paper money, and he was\r
+keeping the bank. Rostov had not seen him since his proposal and Sonya's\r
+refusal and felt uncomfortable at the thought of how they would meet.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov's clear, cold glance met Rostov as soon as he entered the door,\r
+as though he had long expected him.\r
+\r
+"It's a long time since we met," he said. "Thanks for coming. I'll just\r
+finish dealing, and then Ilyushka will come with his chorus."\r
+\r
+"I called once or twice at your house," said Rostov, reddening.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov made no reply.\r
+\r
+"You may punt," he said.\r
+\r
+Rostov recalled at that moment a strange conversation he had once had\r
+with Dolokhov. "None but fools trust to luck in play," Dolokhov had then\r
+said.\r
+\r
+"Or are you afraid to play with me?" Dolokhov now asked as if guessing\r
+Rostov's thought.\r
+\r
+Beneath his smile Rostov saw in him the mood he had shown at the club\r
+dinner and at other times, when as if tired of everyday life he had felt\r
+a need to escape from it by some strange, and usually cruel, action.\r
+\r
+Rostov felt ill at ease. He tried, but failed, to find some joke with\r
+which to reply to Dolokhov's words. But before he had thought of\r
+anything, Dolokhov, looking straight in his face, said slowly and\r
+deliberately so that everyone could hear:\r
+\r
+"Do you remember we had a talk about cards... 'He's a fool who trusts to\r
+luck, one should make certain,' and I want to try."\r
+\r
+"To try his luck or the certainty?" Rostov asked himself.\r
+\r
+"Well, you'd better not play," Dolokhov added, and springing a new pack\r
+of cards said: "Bank, gentlemen!"\r
+\r
+Moving the money forward he prepared to deal. Rostov sat down by his\r
+side and at first did not play. Dolokhov kept glancing at him.\r
+\r
+"Why don't you play?" he asked.\r
+\r
+And strange to say Nicholas felt that he could not help taking up a\r
+card, putting a small stake on it, and beginning to play.\r
+\r
+"I have no money with me," he said.\r
+\r
+"I'll trust you."\r
+\r
+Rostov staked five rubles on a card and lost, staked again, and again\r
+lost. Dolokhov "killed," that is, beat, ten cards of Rostov's running.\r
+\r
+"Gentlemen," said Dolokhov after he had dealt for some time. "Please\r
+place your money on the cards or I may get muddled in the reckoning."\r
+\r
+One of the players said he hoped he might be trusted.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you might, but I am afraid of getting the accounts mixed. So I ask\r
+you to put the money on your cards," replied Dolokhov. "Don't stint\r
+yourself, we'll settle afterwards," he added, turning to Rostov.\r
+\r
+The game continued; a waiter kept handing round champagne.\r
+\r
+All Rostov's cards were beaten and he had eight hundred rubles scored up\r
+against him. He wrote "800 rubles" on a card, but while the waiter\r
+filled his glass he changed his mind and altered it to his usual stake\r
+of twenty rubles.\r
+\r
+"Leave it," said Dolokhov, though he did not seem to be even looking at\r
+Rostov, "you'll win it back all the sooner. I lose to the others but win\r
+from you. Or are you afraid of me?" he asked again.\r
+\r
+Rostov submitted. He let the eight hundred remain and laid down a seven\r
+of hearts with a torn corner, which he had picked up from the floor. He\r
+well remembered that seven afterwards. He laid down the seven of hearts,\r
+on which with a broken bit of chalk he had written "800 rubles" in clear\r
+upright figures; he emptied the glass of warm champagne that was handed\r
+him, smiled at Dolokhov's words, and with a sinking heart, waiting for a\r
+seven to turn up, gazed at Dolokhov's hands which held the pack. Much\r
+depended on Rostov's winning or losing on that seven of hearts. On the\r
+previous Sunday the old count had given his son two thousand rubles, and\r
+though he always disliked speaking of money difficulties had told\r
+Nicholas that this was all he could let him have till May, and asked him\r
+to be more economical this time. Nicholas had replied that it would be\r
+more than enough for him and that he gave his word of honor not to take\r
+anything more till the spring. Now only twelve hundred rubles was left\r
+of that money, so that this seven of hearts meant for him not only the\r
+loss of sixteen hundred rubles, but the necessity of going back on his\r
+word. With a sinking heart he watched Dolokhov's hands and thought, "Now\r
+then, make haste and let me have this card and I'll take my cap and\r
+drive home to supper with Denisov, Natasha, and Sonya, and will\r
+certainly never touch a card again." At that moment his home life, jokes\r
+with Petya, talks with Sonya, duets with Natasha, piquet with his\r
+father, and even his comfortable bed in the house on the Povarskaya rose\r
+before him with such vividness, clearness, and charm that it seemed as\r
+if it were all a lost and unappreciated bliss, long past. He could not\r
+conceive that a stupid chance, letting the seven be dealt to the right\r
+rather than to the left, might deprive him of all this happiness, newly\r
+appreciated and newly illumined, and plunge him into the depths of\r
+unknown and undefined misery. That could not be, yet he awaited with a\r
+sinking heart the movement of Dolokhov's hands. Those broad, reddish\r
+hands, with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt cuffs, laid down\r
+the pack and took up a glass and a pipe that were handed him.\r
+\r
+"So you are not afraid to play with me?" repeated Dolokhov, and as if\r
+about to tell a good story he put down the cards, leaned back in his\r
+chair, and began deliberately with a smile:\r
+\r
+"Yes, gentlemen, I've been told there's a rumor going about Moscow that\r
+I'm a sharper, so I advise you to be careful."\r
+\r
+"Come now, deal!" exclaimed Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Oh, those Moscow gossips!" said Dolokhov, and he took up the cards with\r
+a smile.\r
+\r
+"Aah!" Rostov almost screamed lifting both hands to his head. The seven\r
+he needed was lying uppermost, the first card in the pack. He had lost\r
+more than he could pay.\r
+\r
+"Still, don't ruin yourself!" said Dolokhov with a side glance at Rostov\r
+as he continued to deal.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+An hour and a half later most of the players were but little interested\r
+in their own play.\r
+\r
+The whole interest was concentrated on Rostov. Instead of sixteen\r
+hundred rubles he had a long column of figures scored against him, which\r
+he had reckoned up to ten thousand, but that now, as he vaguely\r
+supposed, must have risen to fifteen thousand. In reality it already\r
+exceeded twenty thousand rubles. Dolokhov was no longer listening to\r
+stories or telling them, but followed every movement of Rostov's hands\r
+and occasionally ran his eyes over the score against him. He had decided\r
+to play until that score reached forty-three thousand. He had fixed on\r
+that number because forty-three was the sum of his and Sonya's joint\r
+ages. Rostov, leaning his head on both hands, sat at the table which was\r
+scrawled over with figures, wet with spilled wine, and littered with\r
+cards. One tormenting impression did not leave him: that those broad-\r
+boned reddish hands with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt\r
+sleeves, those hands which he loved and hated, held him in their power.\r
+\r
+"Six hundred rubles, ace, a corner, a nine... winning it back's\r
+impossible... Oh, how pleasant it was at home!... The knave, double or\r
+quits... it can't be!... And why is he doing this to me?" Rostov\r
+pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dolokhov refused to\r
+accept it and fixed the stake himself. Nicholas submitted to him, and at\r
+one moment prayed to God as he had done on the battlefield at the bridge\r
+over the Enns, and then guessed that the card that came first to hand\r
+from the crumpled heap under the table would save him, now counted the\r
+cords on his coat and took a card with that number and tried staking the\r
+total of his losses on it, then he looked round for aid from the other\r
+players, or peered at the now cold face of Dolokhov and tried to read\r
+what was passing in his mind.\r
+\r
+"He knows of course what this loss means to me. He can't want my ruin.\r
+Wasn't he my friend? Wasn't I fond of him? But it's not his fault.\r
+What's he to do if he has such luck?... And it's not my fault either,"\r
+he thought to himself, "I have done nothing wrong. Have I killed anyone,\r
+or insulted or wished harm to anyone? Why such a terrible misfortune?\r
+And when did it begin? Such a little while ago I came to this table with\r
+the thought of winning a hundred rubles to buy that casket for Mamma's\r
+name day and then going home. I was so happy, so free, so lighthearted!\r
+And I did not realize how happy I was! When did that end and when did\r
+this new, terrible state of things begin? What marked the change? I sat\r
+all the time in this same place at this table, chose and placed cards,\r
+and watched those broad-boned agile hands in the same way. When did it\r
+happen and what has happened? I am well and strong and still the same\r
+and in the same place. No, it can't be! Surely it will all end in\r
+nothing!"\r
+\r
+He was flushed and bathed in perspiration, though the room was not hot.\r
+His face was terrible and piteous to see, especially from its helpless\r
+efforts to seem calm.\r
+\r
+The score against him reached the fateful sum of forty-three thousand.\r
+Rostov had just prepared a card, by bending the corner of which he meant\r
+to double the three thousand just put down to his score, when Dolokhov,\r
+slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside and began rapidly adding\r
+up the total of Rostov's debt, breaking the chalk as he marked the\r
+figures in his clear, bold hand.\r
+\r
+"Supper, it's time for supper! And here are the gypsies!"\r
+\r
+Some swarthy men and women were really entering from the cold outside\r
+and saying something in their gypsy accents. Nicholas understood that it\r
+was all over; but he said in an indifferent tone:\r
+\r
+"Well, won't you go on? I had a splendid card all ready," as if it were\r
+the fun of the game which interested him most.\r
+\r
+"It's all up! I'm lost!" thought he. "Now a bullet through my brain--\r
+that's all that's left me!" And at the same time he said in a cheerful\r
+voice:\r
+\r
+"Come now, just this one more little card!"\r
+\r
+"All right!" said Dolokhov, having finished the addition. "All right!\r
+Twenty-one rubles," he said, pointing to the figure twenty-one by which\r
+the total exceeded the round sum of forty-three thousand; and taking up\r
+a pack he prepared to deal. Rostov submissively unbent the corner of his\r
+card and, instead of the six thousand he had intended, carefully wrote\r
+twenty-one.\r
+\r
+"It's all the same to me," he said. "I only want to see whether you will\r
+let me win this ten, or beat it."\r
+\r
+Dolokhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how Rostov detested at that moment\r
+those hands with their short reddish fingers and hairy wrists, which\r
+held him in their power.... The ten fell to him.\r
+\r
+"You owe forty-three thousand, Count," said Dolokhov, and stretching\r
+himself he rose from the table. "One does get tired sitting so long," he\r
+added.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I'm tired too," said Rostov.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov cut him short, as if to remind him that it was not for him to\r
+jest.\r
+\r
+"When am I to receive the money, Count?"\r
+\r
+Rostov, flushing, drew Dolokhov into the next room.\r
+\r
+"I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you take an I.O.U.?" he said.\r
+\r
+"I say, Rostov," said Dolokhov clearly, smiling and looking Nicholas\r
+straight in the eyes, "you know the saying, 'Lucky in love, unlucky at\r
+cards.' Your cousin is in love with you, I know."\r
+\r
+"Oh, it's terrible to feel oneself so in this man's power," thought\r
+Rostov. He knew what a shock he would inflict on his father and mother\r
+by the news of this loss, he knew what a relief it would be to escape it\r
+all, and felt that Dolokhov knew that he could save him from all this\r
+shame and sorrow, but wanted now to play with him as a cat does with a\r
+mouse.\r
+\r
+"Your cousin..." Dolokhov started to say, but Nicholas interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"My cousin has nothing to do with this and it's not necessary to mention\r
+her!" he exclaimed fiercely.\r
+\r
+"Then when am I to have it?"\r
+\r
+"Tomorrow," replied Rostov and left the room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+To say "tomorrow" and keep up a dignified tone was not difficult, but to\r
+go home alone, see his sisters, brother, mother, and father, confess and\r
+ask for money he had no right to after giving his word of honor, was\r
+terrible.\r
+\r
+At home, they had not yet gone to bed. The young people, after returning\r
+from the theater, had had supper and were grouped round the clavichord.\r
+As soon as Nicholas entered, he was enfolded in that poetic atmosphere\r
+of love which pervaded the Rostov household that winter and, now after\r
+Dolokhov's proposal and Iogel's ball, seemed to have grown thicker round\r
+Sonya and Natasha as the air does before a thunderstorm. Sonya and\r
+Natasha, in the light-blue dresses they had worn at the theater, looking\r
+pretty and conscious of it, were standing by the clavichord, happy and\r
+smiling. Vera was playing chess with Shinshin in the drawing room. The\r
+old countess, waiting for the return of her husband and son, sat playing\r
+patience with the old gentlewoman who lived in their house. Denisov,\r
+with sparkling eyes and ruffled hair, sat at the clavichord striking\r
+chords with his short fingers, his legs thrown back and his eyes rolling\r
+as he sang, with his small, husky, but true voice, some verses called\r
+"Enchantress," which he had composed, and to which he was trying to fit\r
+music:\r
+\r
+\r
+Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre What magic power is this recalls\r
+me still? What spark has set my inmost soul on fire, What is this bliss\r
+that makes my fingers thrill?\r
+\r
+He was singing in passionate tones, gazing with his sparkling black-\r
+agate eyes at the frightened and happy Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Splendid! Excellent!" exclaimed Natasha. "Another verse," she said,\r
+without noticing Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"Everything's still the same with them," thought Nicholas, glancing into\r
+the drawing room, where he saw Vera and his mother with the old lady.\r
+\r
+"Ah, and here's Nicholas!" cried Natasha, running up to him.\r
+\r
+"Is Papa at home?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"I am so glad you've come!" said Natasha, without answering him. "We are\r
+enjoying ourselves! Vasili Dmitrich is staying a day longer for my sake!\r
+Did you know?"\r
+\r
+"No, Papa is not back yet," said Sonya.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas, have you come? Come here, dear!" called the old countess from\r
+the drawing room.\r
+\r
+Nicholas went to her, kissed her hand, and sitting down silently at her\r
+table began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From the dancing\r
+room, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying to persuade\r
+Natasha to sing.\r
+\r
+"All wight! All wight!" shouted Denisov. "It's no good making excuses\r
+now! It's your turn to sing the ba'cawolla--I entweat you!"\r
+\r
+The countess glanced at her silent son.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter?" she asked.\r
+\r
+"Oh, nothing," said he, as if weary of being continually asked the same\r
+question. "Will Papa be back soon?"\r
+\r
+"I expect so."\r
+\r
+"Everything's the same with them. They know nothing about it! Where am I\r
+to go?" thought Nicholas, and went again into the dancing room where the\r
+clavichord stood.\r
+\r
+Sonya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to Denisov's\r
+favorite barcarolle. Natasha was preparing to sing. Denisov was looking\r
+at her with enraptured eyes.\r
+\r
+Nicholas began pacing up and down the room.\r
+\r
+"Why do they want to make her sing? How can she sing? There's nothing to\r
+be happy about!" thought he.\r
+\r
+Sonya struck the first chord of the prelude.\r
+\r
+"My God, I'm a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through my brain is\r
+the only thing left me--not singing!" his thoughts ran on. "Go away? But\r
+where to? It's one--let them sing!"\r
+\r
+He continued to pace the room, looking gloomily at Denisov and the girls\r
+and avoiding their eyes.\r
+\r
+"Nikolenka, what is the matter?" Sonya's eyes fixed on him seemed to\r
+ask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him.\r
+\r
+Nicholas turned away from her. Natasha too, with her quick instinct, had\r
+instantly noticed her brother's condition. But, though she noticed it,\r
+she was herself in such high spirits at that moment, so far from sorrow,\r
+sadness, or self-reproach, that she purposely deceived herself as young\r
+people often do. "No, I am too happy now to spoil my enjoyment by\r
+sympathy with anyone's sorrow," she felt, and she said to herself: "No,\r
+I must be mistaken, he must be feeling happy, just as I am."\r
+\r
+"Now, Sonya!" she said, going to the very middle of the room, where she\r
+considered the resonance was best.\r
+\r
+Having lifted her head and let her arms droop lifelessly, as ballet\r
+dancers do, Natasha, rising energetically from her heels to her toes,\r
+stepped to the middle of the room and stood still.\r
+\r
+"Yes, that's me!" she seemed to say, answering the rapt gaze with which\r
+Denisov followed her.\r
+\r
+"And what is she so pleased about?" thought Nicholas, looking at his\r
+sister. "Why isn't she dull and ashamed?"\r
+\r
+Natasha took the first note, her throat swelled, her chest rose, her\r
+eyes became serious. At that moment she was oblivious of her\r
+surroundings, and from her smiling lips flowed sounds which anyone may\r
+produce at the same intervals and hold for the same time, but which\r
+leave you cold a thousand times and the thousand and first time thrill\r
+you and make you weep.\r
+\r
+Natasha, that winter, had for the first time begun to sing seriously,\r
+mainly because Denisov so delighted in her singing. She no longer sang\r
+as a child, there was no longer in her singing that comical, childish,\r
+painstaking effect that had been in it before; but she did not yet sing\r
+well, as all the connoisseurs who heard her said: "It is not trained,\r
+but it is a beautiful voice that must be trained." Only they generally\r
+said this some time after she had finished singing. While that untrained\r
+voice, with its incorrect breathing and labored transitions, was\r
+sounding, even the connoisseurs said nothing, but only delighted in it\r
+and wished to hear it again. In her voice there was a virginal\r
+freshness, an unconsciousness of her own powers, and an as yet untrained\r
+velvety softness, which so mingled with her lack of art in singing that\r
+it seemed as if nothing in that voice could be altered without spoiling\r
+it.\r
+\r
+"What is this?" thought Nicholas, listening to her with widely opened\r
+eyes. "What has happened to her? How she is singing today!" And suddenly\r
+the whole world centered for him on anticipation of the next note, the\r
+next phrase, and everything in the world was divided into three beats:\r
+"Oh mio crudele affetto."... One, two, three... one, two, three...\r
+One... "Oh mio crudele affetto."... One, two, three... One. "Oh, this\r
+senseless life of ours!" thought Nicholas. "All this misery, and money,\r
+and Dolokhov, and anger, and honor--it's all nonsense... but this is\r
+real.... Now then, Natasha, now then, dearest! Now then, darling! How\r
+will she take that si? She's taken it! Thank God!" And without noticing\r
+that he was singing, to strengthen the si he sung a second, a third\r
+below the high note. "Ah, God! How fine! Did I really take it? How\r
+fortunate!" he thought.\r
+\r
+Oh, how that chord vibrated, and how moved was something that was finest\r
+in Rostov's soul! And this something was apart from everything else in\r
+the world and above everything in the world. "What were losses, and\r
+Dolokhov, and words of honor?... All nonsense! One might kill and rob\r
+and yet be happy..."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+It was long since Rostov had felt such enjoyment from music as he did\r
+that day. But no sooner had Natasha finished her barcarolle than reality\r
+again presented itself. He got up without saying a word and went\r
+downstairs to his own room. A quarter of an hour later the old count\r
+came in from his club, cheerful and contented. Nicholas, hearing him\r
+drive up, went to meet him.\r
+\r
+"Well--had a good time?" said the old count, smiling gaily and proudly\r
+at his son.\r
+\r
+Nicholas tried to say "Yes," but could not: and he nearly burst into\r
+sobs. The count was lighting his pipe and did not notice his son's\r
+condition.\r
+\r
+"Ah, it can't be avoided!" thought Nicholas, for the first and last\r
+time. And suddenly, in the most casual tone, which made him feel ashamed\r
+of himself, he said, as if merely asking his father to let him have the\r
+carriage to drive to town:\r
+\r
+"Papa, I have come on a matter of business. I was nearly forgetting. I\r
+need some money."\r
+\r
+"Dear me!" said his father, who was in a specially good humor. "I told\r
+you it would not be enough. How much?"\r
+\r
+"Very much," said Nicholas flushing, and with a stupid careless smile,\r
+for which he was long unable to forgive himself, "I have lost a little,\r
+I mean a good deal, a great deal--forty three thousand."\r
+\r
+"What! To whom?... Nonsense!" cried the count, suddenly reddening with\r
+an apoplectic flush over neck and nape as old people do.\r
+\r
+"I promised to pay tomorrow," said Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"Well!..." said the old count, spreading out his arms and sinking\r
+helplessly on the sofa.\r
+\r
+"It can't be helped It happens to everyone!" said the son, with a bold,\r
+free, and easy tone, while in his soul he regarded himself as a\r
+worthless scoundrel whose whole life could not atone for his crime. He\r
+longed to kiss his father's hands and kneel to beg his forgiveness, but\r
+said, in a careless and even rude voice, that it happens to everyone!\r
+\r
+The old count cast down his eyes on hearing his son's words and began\r
+bustlingly searching for something.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," he muttered, "it will be difficult, I fear, difficult to\r
+raise... happens to everybody! Yes, who has not done it?"\r
+\r
+And with a furtive glance at his son's face, the count went out of the\r
+room.... Nicholas had been prepared for resistance, but had not at all\r
+expected this.\r
+\r
+"Papa! Pa-pa!" he called after him, sobbing, "forgive me!" And seizing\r
+his father's hand, he pressed it to his lips and burst into tears.\r
+\r
+While father and son were having their explanation, the mother and\r
+daughter were having one not less important. Natasha came running to her\r
+mother, quite excited.\r
+\r
+"Mamma!... Mamma!... He has made me..."\r
+\r
+"Made what?"\r
+\r
+"Made, made me an offer, Mamma! Mamma!" she exclaimed.\r
+\r
+The countess did not believe her ears. Denisov had proposed. To whom? To\r
+this chit of a girl, Natasha, who not so long ago was playing with dolls\r
+and who was still having lessons.\r
+\r
+"Don't, Natasha! What nonsense!" she said, hoping it was a joke.\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, indeed! I am telling you the fact," said Natasha indignantly.\r
+"I come to ask you what to do, and you call it 'nonsense!'"\r
+\r
+The countess shrugged her shoulders.\r
+\r
+"If it is true that Monsieur Denisov has made you a proposal, tell him\r
+he is a fool, that's all!"\r
+\r
+"No, he's not a fool!" replied Natasha indignantly and seriously.\r
+\r
+"Well then, what do you want? You're all in love nowadays. Well, if you\r
+are in love, marry him!" said the countess, with a laugh of annoyance.\r
+"Good luck to you!"\r
+\r
+"No, Mamma, I'm not in love with him, I suppose I'm not in love with\r
+him."\r
+\r
+"Well then, tell him so."\r
+\r
+"Mamma, are you cross? Don't be cross, dear! Is it my fault?"\r
+\r
+"No, but what is it, my dear? Do you want me to go and tell him?" said\r
+the countess smiling.\r
+\r
+"No, I will do it myself, only tell me what to say. It's all very well\r
+for you," said Natasha, with a responsive smile. "You should have seen\r
+how he said it! I know he did not mean to say it, but it came out\r
+accidently."\r
+\r
+"Well, all the same, you must refuse him."\r
+\r
+"No, I mustn't. I am so sorry for him! He's so nice."\r
+\r
+"Well then, accept his offer. It's high time for you to be married,"\r
+answered the countess sharply and sarcastically.\r
+\r
+"No, Mamma, but I'm so sorry for him. I don't know how I'm to say it."\r
+\r
+"And there's nothing for you to say. I shall speak to him myself," said\r
+the countess, indignant that they should have dared to treat this little\r
+Natasha as grown up.\r
+\r
+"No, not on any account! I will tell him myself, and you'll listen at\r
+the door," and Natasha ran across the drawing room to the dancing hall,\r
+where Denisov was sitting on the same chair by the clavichord with his\r
+face in his hands.\r
+\r
+He jumped up at the sound of her light step.\r
+\r
+"Nataly," he said, moving with rapid steps toward her, "decide my fate.\r
+It is in your hands."\r
+\r
+"Vasili Dmitrich, I'm so sorry for you!... No, but you are so nice...\r
+but it won't do...not that... but as a friend, I shall always love you."\r
+\r
+Denisov bent over her hand and she heard strange sounds she did not\r
+understand. She kissed his rough curly black head. At this instant, they\r
+heard the quick rustle of the countess' dress. She came up to them.\r
+\r
+"Vasili Dmitrich, I thank you for the honor," she said, with an\r
+embarrassed voice, though it sounded severe to Denisov--"but my daughter\r
+is so young, and I thought that, as my son's friend, you would have\r
+addressed yourself first to me. In that case you would not have obliged\r
+me to give this refusal."\r
+\r
+"Countess..." said Denisov, with downcast eyes and a guilty face. He\r
+tried to say more, but faltered.\r
+\r
+Natasha could not remain calm, seeing him in such a plight. She began to\r
+sob aloud.\r
+\r
+"Countess, I have done w'ong," Denisov went on in an unsteady voice,\r
+"but believe me, I so adore your daughter and all your family that I\r
+would give my life twice over..." He looked at the countess, and seeing\r
+her severe face said: "Well, good-by, Countess," and kissing her hand,\r
+he left the room with quick resolute strides, without looking at\r
+Natasha.\r
+\r
+Next day Rostov saw Denisov off. He did not wish to stay another day in\r
+Moscow. All Denisov's Moscow friends gave him a farewell entertainment\r
+at the gypsies', with the result that he had no recollection of how he\r
+was put in the sleigh or of the first three stages of his journey.\r
+\r
+After Denisov's departure, Rostov spent another fortnight in Moscow,\r
+without going out of the house, waiting for the money his father could\r
+not at once raise, and he spent most of his time in the girls' room.\r
+\r
+Sonya was more tender and devoted to him than ever. It was as if she\r
+wanted to show him that his losses were an achievement that made her\r
+love him all the more, but Nicholas now considered himself unworthy of\r
+her.\r
+\r
+He filled the girls' albums with verses and music, and having at last\r
+sent Dolokhov the whole forty-three thousand rubles and received his\r
+receipt, he left at the end of November, without taking leave of any of\r
+his acquaintances, to overtake his regiment which was already in Poland.\r
+\r
+BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+After his interview with his wife Pierre left for Petersburg. At the\r
+Torzhok post station, either there were no horses or the postmaster\r
+would not supply them. Pierre was obliged to wait. Without undressing,\r
+he lay down on the leather sofa in front of a round table, put his big\r
+feet in their overboots on the table, and began to reflect.\r
+\r
+"Will you have the portmanteaus brought in? And a bed got ready, and\r
+tea?" asked his valet.\r
+\r
+Pierre gave no answer, for he neither heard nor saw anything. He had\r
+begun to think of the last station and was still pondering on the same\r
+question--one so important that he took no notice of what went on around\r
+him. Not only was he indifferent as to whether he got to Petersburg\r
+earlier or later, or whether he secured accommodation at this station,\r
+but compared to the thoughts that now occupied him it was a matter of\r
+indifference whether he remained there for a few hours or for the rest\r
+of his life.\r
+\r
+The postmaster, his wife, the valet, and a peasant woman selling Torzhok\r
+embroidery came into the room offering their services. Without changing\r
+his careless attitude, Pierre looked at them over his spectacles unable\r
+to understand what they wanted or how they could go on living without\r
+having solved the problems that so absorbed him. He had been engrossed\r
+by the same thoughts ever since the day he returned from Sokolniki after\r
+the duel and had spent that first agonizing, sleepless night. But now,\r
+in the solitude of the journey, they seized him with special force. No\r
+matter what he thought about, he always returned to these same questions\r
+which he could not solve and yet could not cease to ask himself. It was\r
+as if the thread of the chief screw which held his life together were\r
+stripped, so that the screw could not get in or out, but went on turning\r
+uselessly in the same place.\r
+\r
+The postmaster came in and began obsequiously to beg his excellency to\r
+wait only two hours, when, come what might, he would let his excellency\r
+have the courier horses. It was plain that he was lying and only wanted\r
+to get more money from the traveler.\r
+\r
+"Is this good or bad?" Pierre asked himself. "It is good for me, bad for\r
+another traveler, and for himself it's unavoidable, because he needs\r
+money for food; the man said an officer had once given him a thrashing\r
+for letting a private traveler have the courier horses. But the officer\r
+thrashed him because he had to get on as quickly as possible. And I,"\r
+continued Pierre, "shot Dolokhov because I considered myself injured,\r
+and Louis XVI was executed because they considered him a criminal, and a\r
+year later they executed those who executed him--also for some reason.\r
+What is bad? What is good? What should one love and what hate? What does\r
+one live for? And what am I? What is life, and what is death? What power\r
+governs all?"\r
+\r
+There was no answer to any of these questions, except one, and that not\r
+a logical answer and not at all a reply to them. The answer was: "You'll\r
+die and all will end. You'll die and know all, or cease asking." But\r
+dying was also dreadful.\r
+\r
+The Torzhok peddler woman, in a whining voice, went on offering her\r
+wares, especially a pair of goatskin slippers. "I have hundreds of\r
+rubles I don't know what to do with, and she stands in her tattered\r
+cloak looking timidly at me," he thought. "And what does she want the\r
+money for? As if that money could add a hair's breadth to happiness or\r
+peace of mind. Can anything in the world make her or me less a prey to\r
+evil and death?--death which ends all and must come today or tomorrow--\r
+at any rate, in an instant as compared with eternity." And again he\r
+twisted the screw with the stripped thread, and again it turned\r
+uselessly in the same place.\r
+\r
+His servant handed him a half-cut novel, in the form of letters, by\r
+Madame de Souza. He began reading about the sufferings and virtuous\r
+struggles of a certain Emilie de Mansfeld. "And why did she resist her\r
+seducer when she loved him?" he thought. "God could not have put into\r
+her heart an impulse that was against His will. My wife--as she once\r
+was--did not struggle, and perhaps she was right. Nothing has been found\r
+out, nothing discovered," Pierre again said to himself. "All we can know\r
+is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom."\r
+\r
+Everything within and around him seemed confused, senseless, and\r
+repellent. Yet in this very repugnance to all his circumstances Pierre\r
+found a kind of tantalizing satisfaction.\r
+\r
+"I make bold to ask your excellency to move a little for this\r
+gentleman," said the postmaster, entering the room followed by another\r
+traveler, also detained for lack of horses.\r
+\r
+The newcomer was a short, large-boned, yellow-faced, wrinkled old man,\r
+with gray bushy eyebrows overhanging bright eyes of an indefinite\r
+grayish color.\r
+\r
+Pierre took his feet off the table, stood up, and lay down on a bed that\r
+had been got ready for him, glancing now and then at the newcomer, who,\r
+with a gloomy and tired face, was wearily taking off his wraps with the\r
+aid of his servant, and not looking at Pierre. With a pair of felt boots\r
+on his thin bony legs, and keeping on a worn, nankeen-covered, sheepskin\r
+coat, the traveler sat down on the sofa, leaned back his big head with\r
+its broad temples and close-cropped hair, and looked at Bezukhov. The\r
+stern, shrewd, and penetrating expression of that look struck Pierre. He\r
+felt a wish to speak to the stranger, but by the time he had made up his\r
+mind to ask him a question about the roads, the traveler had closed his\r
+eyes. His shriveled old hands were folded and on the finger of one of\r
+them Pierre noticed a large cast iron ring with a seal representing a\r
+death's head. The stranger sat without stirring, either resting or, as\r
+it seemed to Pierre, sunk in profound and calm meditation. His servant\r
+was also a yellow, wrinkled old man, without beard or mustache,\r
+evidently not because he was shaven but because they had never grown.\r
+This active old servant was unpacking the traveler's canteen and\r
+preparing tea. He brought in a boiling samovar. When everything was\r
+ready, the stranger opened his eyes, moved to the table, filled a\r
+tumbler with tea for himself and one for the beardless old man to whom\r
+he passed it. Pierre began to feel a sense of uneasiness, and the need,\r
+even the inevitability, of entering into conversation with this\r
+stranger.\r
+\r
+The servant brought back his tumbler turned upside down, * with an\r
+unfinished bit of nibbled sugar, and asked if anything more would be\r
+wanted.\r
+\r
+\r
+* To indicate he did not want more tea.\r
+\r
+"No. Give me the book," said the stranger.\r
+\r
+The servant handed him a book which Pierre took to be a devotional work,\r
+and the traveler became absorbed in it. Pierre looked at him. All at\r
+once the stranger closed the book, putting in a marker, and again,\r
+leaning with his arms on the back of the sofa, sat in his former\r
+position with his eyes shut. Pierre looked at him and had not time to\r
+turn away when the old man, opening his eyes, fixed his steady and\r
+severe gaze straight on Pierre's face.\r
+\r
+Pierre felt confused and wished to avoid that look, but the bright old\r
+eyes attracted him irresistibly.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+"I have the pleasure of addressing Count Bezukhov, if I am not\r
+mistaken," said the stranger in a deliberate and loud voice.\r
+\r
+Pierre looked silently and inquiringly at him over his spectacles.\r
+\r
+"I have heard of you, my dear sir," continued the stranger, "and of your\r
+misfortune." He seemed to emphasize the last word, as if to say--"Yes,\r
+misfortune! Call it what you please, I know that what happened to you in\r
+Moscow was a misfortune."--"I regret it very much, my dear sir."\r
+\r
+Pierre flushed and, hurriedly putting his legs down from the bed, bent\r
+forward toward the old man with a forced and timid smile.\r
+\r
+"I have not referred to this out of curiosity, my dear sir, but for\r
+greater reasons."\r
+\r
+He paused, his gaze still on Pierre, and moved aside on the sofa by way\r
+of inviting the other to take a seat beside him. Pierre felt reluctant\r
+to enter into conversation with this old man, but, submitting to him\r
+involuntarily, came up and sat down beside him.\r
+\r
+"You are unhappy, my dear sir," the stranger continued. "You are young\r
+and I am old. I should like to help you as far as lies in my power."\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes!" said Pierre, with a forced smile. "I am very grateful to you.\r
+Where are you traveling from?"\r
+\r
+The stranger's face was not genial, it was even cold and severe, but in\r
+spite of this, both the face and words of his new acquaintance were\r
+irresistibly attractive to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"But if for reason you don't feel inclined to talk to me," said the old\r
+man, "say so, my dear sir." And he suddenly smiled, in an unexpected and\r
+tenderly paternal way.\r
+\r
+"Oh no, not at all! On the contrary, I am very glad to make your\r
+acquaintance," said Pierre. And again, glancing at the stranger's hands,\r
+he looked more closely at the ring, with its skull--a masonic sign.\r
+\r
+"Allow me to ask," he said, "are you a Mason?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I belong to the Brotherhood of the Freemasons," said the stranger,\r
+looking deeper and deeper into Pierre's eyes. "And in their name and my\r
+own I hold out a brotherly hand to you."\r
+\r
+"I am afraid," said Pierre, smiling, and wavering between the confidence\r
+the personality of the Freemason inspired in him and his own habit of\r
+ridiculing the masonic beliefs--"I am afraid I am very far from\r
+understanding--how am I to put it?--I am afraid my way of looking at the\r
+world is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand one another."\r
+\r
+"I know your outlook," said the Mason, "and the view of life you\r
+mention, and which you think is the result of your own mental efforts,\r
+is the one held by the majority of people, and is the invariable fruit\r
+of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I\r
+had not known it I should not have addressed you. Your view of life is a\r
+regrettable delusion."\r
+\r
+"Just as I may suppose you to be deluded," said Pierre, with a faint\r
+smile.\r
+\r
+"I should never dare to say that I know the truth," said the Mason,\r
+whose words struck Pierre more and more by their precision and firmness.\r
+"No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone on stone\r
+with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our\r
+forefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be a\r
+worthy dwelling place of the Great God," he added, and closed his eyes.\r
+\r
+"I ought to tell you that I do not believe... do not believe in God,"\r
+said Pierre, regretfully and with an effort, feeling it essential to\r
+speak the whole truth.\r
+\r
+The Mason looked intently at Pierre and smiled as a rich man with\r
+millions in hand might smile at a poor fellow who told him that he, poor\r
+man, had not the five rubles that would make him happy.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you do not know Him, my dear sir," said the Mason. "You cannot\r
+know Him. You do not know Him and that is why you are unhappy."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I am unhappy," assented Pierre. "But what am I to do?"\r
+\r
+"You know Him not, my dear sir, and so you are very unhappy. You do not\r
+know Him, but He is here, He is in me, He is in my words, He is in thee,\r
+and even in those blasphemous words thou hast just uttered!" pronounced\r
+the Mason in a stern and tremulous voice.\r
+\r
+He paused and sighed, evidently trying to calm himself.\r
+\r
+"If He were not," he said quietly, "you and I would not be speaking of\r
+Him, my dear sir. Of what, of whom, are we speaking? Whom hast thou\r
+denied?" he suddenly asked with exulting austerity and authority in his\r
+voice. "Who invented Him, if He did not exist? Whence came thy\r
+conception of the existence of such an incomprehensible Being? didst\r
+thou, and why did the whole world, conceive the idea of the existence of\r
+such an incomprehensible Being, a Being all-powerful, eternal, and\r
+infinite in all His attributes?..."\r
+\r
+He stopped and remained silent for a long time.\r
+\r
+Pierre could not and did not wish to break this silence.\r
+\r
+"He exists, but to understand Him is hard," the Mason began again,\r
+looking not at Pierre but straight before him, and turning the leaves of\r
+his book with his old hands which from excitement he could not keep\r
+still. "If it were a man whose existence thou didst doubt I could bring\r
+him to thee, could take him by the hand and show him to thee. But how\r
+can I, an insignificant mortal, show His omnipotence, His infinity, and\r
+all His mercy to one who is blind, or who shuts his eyes that he may not\r
+see or understand Him and may not see or understand his own vileness and\r
+sinfulness?" He paused again. "Who art thou? Thou dreamest that thou art\r
+wise because thou couldst utter those blasphemous words," he went on,\r
+with a somber and scornful smile. "And thou art more foolish and\r
+unreasonable than a little child, who, playing with the parts of a\r
+skillfully made watch, dares to say that, as he does not understand its\r
+use, he does not believe in the master who made it. To know Him is\r
+hard.... For ages, from our forefather Adam to our own day, we labor to\r
+attain that knowledge and are still infinitely far from our aim; but in\r
+our lack of understanding we see only our weakness and His\r
+greatness...."\r
+\r
+Pierre listened with swelling heart, gazing into the Mason's face with\r
+shining eyes, not interrupting or questioning him, but believing with\r
+his whole soul what the stranger said. Whether he accepted the wise\r
+reasoning contained in the Mason's words, or believed as a child\r
+believes, in the speaker's tone of conviction and earnestness, or the\r
+tremor of the speaker's voice--which sometimes almost broke--or those\r
+brilliant aged eyes grown old in this conviction, or the calm firmness\r
+and certainty of his vocation, which radiated from his whole being (and\r
+which struck Pierre especially by contrast with his own dejection and\r
+hopelessness)--at any rate, Pierre longed with his whole soul to believe\r
+and he did believe, and felt a joyful sense of comfort, regeneration,\r
+and return to life.\r
+\r
+"He is not to be apprehended by reason, but by life," said the Mason.\r
+\r
+"I do not understand," said Pierre, feeling with dismay doubts\r
+reawakening. He was afraid of any want of clearness, any weakness, in\r
+the Mason's arguments; he dreaded not to be able to believe in him. "I\r
+don't understand," he said, "how it is that the mind of man cannot\r
+attain the knowledge of which you speak."\r
+\r
+The Mason smiled with his gentle fatherly smile.\r
+\r
+"The highest wisdom and truth are like the purest liquid we may wish to\r
+imbibe," he said. "Can I receive that pure liquid into an impure vessel\r
+and judge of its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself can I\r
+retain in some degree of purity the liquid I receive."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, that is so," said Pierre joyfully.\r
+\r
+"The highest wisdom is not founded on reason alone, not on those worldly\r
+sciences of physics, history, chemistry, and the like, into which\r
+intellectual knowledge is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The\r
+highest wisdom has but one science--the science of the whole--the\r
+science explaining the whole creation and man's place in it. To receive\r
+that science it is necessary to purify and renew one's inner self, and\r
+so before one can know, it is necessary to believe and to perfect one's\r
+self. And to attain this end, we have the light called conscience that\r
+God has implanted in our souls."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," assented Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Look then at thy inner self with the eyes of the spirit, and ask\r
+thyself whether thou art content with thyself. What hast thou attained\r
+relying on reason only? What art thou? You are young, you are rich, you\r
+are clever, you are well educated. And what have you done with all these\r
+good gifts? Are you content with yourself and with your life?"\r
+\r
+"No, I hate my life," Pierre muttered, wincing.\r
+\r
+"Thou hatest it. Then change it, purify thyself; and as thou art\r
+purified, thou wilt gain wisdom. Look at your life, my dear sir. How\r
+have you spent it? In riotous orgies and debauchery, receiving\r
+everything from society and giving nothing in return. You have become\r
+the possessor of wealth. How have you used it? What have you done for\r
+your neighbor? Have you ever thought of your tens of thousands of\r
+slaves? Have you helped them physically and morally? No! You have\r
+profited by their toil to lead a profligate life. That is what you have\r
+done. Have you chosen a post in which you might be of service to your\r
+neighbor? No! You have spent your life in idleness. Then you married, my\r
+dear sir--took on yourself responsibility for the guidance of a young\r
+woman; and what have you done? You have not helped her to find the way\r
+of truth, my dear sir, but have thrust her into an abyss of deceit and\r
+misery. A man offended you and you shot him, and you say you do not know\r
+God and hate your life. There is nothing strange in that, my dear sir!"\r
+\r
+After these words, the Mason, as if tired by his long discourse, again\r
+leaned his arms on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. Pierre\r
+looked at that aged, stern, motionless, almost lifeless face and moved\r
+his lips without uttering a sound. He wished to say, "Yes, a vile, idle,\r
+vicious life!" but dared not break the silence.\r
+\r
+The Mason cleared his throat huskily, as old men do, and called his\r
+servant.\r
+\r
+"How about the horses?" he asked, without looking at Pierre.\r
+\r
+"The exchange horses have just come," answered the servant. "Will you\r
+not rest here?"\r
+\r
+"No, tell them to harness."\r
+\r
+"Can he really be going away leaving me alone without having told me\r
+all, and without promising to help me?" thought Pierre, rising with\r
+downcast head; and he began to pace the room, glancing occasionally at\r
+the Mason. "Yes, I never thought of it, but I have led a contemptible\r
+and profligate life, though I did not like it and did not want to,"\r
+thought Pierre. "But this man knows the truth and, if he wished to,\r
+could disclose it to me."\r
+\r
+Pierre wished to say this to the Mason, but did not dare to. The\r
+traveler, having packed his things with his practiced hands, began\r
+fastening his coat. When he had finished, he turned to Bezukhov, and\r
+said in a tone of indifferent politeness:\r
+\r
+"Where are you going to now, my dear sir?"\r
+\r
+"I?... I'm going to Petersburg," answered Pierre, in a childlike,\r
+hesitating voice. "I thank you. I agree with all you have said. But do\r
+not suppose me to be so bad. With my whole soul I wish to be what you\r
+would have me be, but I have never had help from anyone.... But it is I,\r
+above all, who am to blame for everything. Help me, teach me, and\r
+perhaps I may..."\r
+\r
+Pierre could not go on. He gulped and turned away.\r
+\r
+The Mason remained silent for a long time, evidently considering.\r
+\r
+"Help comes from God alone," he said, "but such measure of help as our\r
+Order can bestow it will render you, my dear sir. You are going to\r
+Petersburg. Hand this to Count Willarski" (he took out his notebook and\r
+wrote a few words on a large sheet of paper folded in four). "Allow me\r
+to give you a piece of advice. When you reach the capital, first of all\r
+devote some time to solitude and self-examination and do not resume your\r
+former way of life. And now I wish you a good journey, my dear sir," he\r
+added, seeing that his servant had entered... "and success."\r
+\r
+The traveler was Joseph Alexeevich Bazdeev, as Pierre saw from the\r
+postmaster's book. Bazdeev had been one of the best-known Freemasons and\r
+Martinists, even in Novikov's time. For a long while after he had gone,\r
+Pierre did not go to bed or order horses but paced up and down the room,\r
+pondering over his vicious past, and with a rapturous sense of beginning\r
+anew pictured to himself the blissful, irreproachable, virtuous future\r
+that seemed to him so easy. It seemed to him that he had been vicious\r
+only because he had somehow forgotten how good it is to be virtuous. Not\r
+a trace of his former doubts remained in his soul. He firmly believed in\r
+the possibility of the brotherhood of men united in the aim of\r
+supporting one another in the path of virtue, and that is how\r
+Freemasonry presented itself to him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+On reaching Petersburg Pierre did not let anyone know of his arrival, he\r
+went nowhere and spent whole days in reading Thomas a Kempis, whose book\r
+had been sent him by someone unknown. One thing he continually realized\r
+as he read that book: the joy, hitherto unknown to him, of believing in\r
+the possibility of attaining perfection, and in the possibility of\r
+active brotherly love among men, which Joseph Alexeevich had revealed to\r
+him. A week after his arrival, the young Polish count, Willarski, whom\r
+Pierre had known slightly in Petersburg society, came into his room one\r
+evening in the official and ceremonious manner in which Dolokhov's\r
+second had called on him, and, having closed the door behind him and\r
+satisfied himself that there was nobody else in the room, addressed\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+"I have come to you with a message and an offer, Count," he said without\r
+sitting down. "A person of very high standing in our Brotherhood has\r
+made application for you to be received into our Order before the usual\r
+term and has proposed to me to be your sponsor. I consider it a sacred\r
+duty to fulfill that person's wishes. Do you wish to enter the\r
+Brotherhood of Freemasons under my sponsorship?"\r
+\r
+The cold, austere tone of this man, whom he had almost always before met\r
+at balls, amiably smiling in the society of the most brilliant women,\r
+surprised Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do wish it," said he.\r
+\r
+Willarski bowed his head.\r
+\r
+"One more question, Count," he said, "which I beg you to answer in all\r
+sincerity--not as a future Mason but as an honest man: have you\r
+renounced your former convictions--do you believe in God?"\r
+\r
+Pierre considered.\r
+\r
+"Yes... yes, I believe in God," he said.\r
+\r
+"In that case..." began Willarski, but Pierre interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do believe in God," he repeated.\r
+\r
+"In that case we can go," said Willarski. "My carriage is at your\r
+service."\r
+\r
+Willarski was silent throughout the drive. To Pierre's inquiries as to\r
+what he must do and how he should answer, Willarski only replied that\r
+brothers more worthy than he would test him and that Pierre had only to\r
+tell the truth.\r
+\r
+Having entered the courtyard of a large house where the Lodge had its\r
+headquarters, and having ascended a dark staircase, they entered a small\r
+well-lit anteroom where they took off their cloaks without the aid of a\r
+servant. From there they passed into another room. A man in strange\r
+attire appeared at the door. Willarski, stepping toward him, said\r
+something to him in French in an undertone and then went up to a small\r
+wardrobe in which Pierre noticed garments such as he had never seen\r
+before. Having taken a kerchief from the cupboard, Willarski bound\r
+Pierre's eyes with it and tied it in a knot behind, catching some hairs\r
+painfully in the knot. Then he drew his face down, kissed him, and\r
+taking him by the hand led him forward. The hairs tied in the knot hurt\r
+Pierre and there were lines of pain on his face and a shamefaced smile.\r
+His huge figure, with arms hanging down and with a puckered, though\r
+smiling face, moved after Willarski with uncertain, timid steps.\r
+\r
+Having led him about ten paces, Willarski stopped.\r
+\r
+"Whatever happens to you," he said, "you must bear it all manfully if\r
+you have firmly resolved to join our Brotherhood." (Pierre nodded\r
+affirmatively.) "When you hear a knock at the door, you will uncover\r
+your eyes," added Willarski. "I wish you courage and success," and,\r
+pressing Pierre's hand, he went out.\r
+\r
+Left alone, Pierre went on smiling in the same way. Once or twice he\r
+shrugged his shoulders and raised his hand to the kerchief, as if\r
+wishing to take it off, but let it drop again. The five minutes spent\r
+with his eyes bandaged seemed to him an hour. His arms felt numb, his\r
+legs almost gave way, it seemed to him that he was tired out. He\r
+experienced a variety of most complex sensations. He felt afraid of what\r
+would happen to him and still more afraid of showing his fear. He felt\r
+curious to know what was going to happen and what would be revealed to\r
+him; but most of all, he felt joyful that the moment had come when he\r
+would at last start on that path of regeneration and on the actively\r
+virtuous life of which he had been dreaming since he met Joseph\r
+Alexeevich. Loud knocks were heard at the door. Pierre took the bandage\r
+off his eyes and glanced around him. The room was in black darkness,\r
+only a small lamp was burning inside something white. Pierre went nearer\r
+and saw that the lamp stood on a black table on which lay an open book.\r
+The book was the Gospel, and the white thing with the lamp inside was a\r
+human skull with its cavities and teeth. After reading the first words\r
+of the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with\r
+God," Pierre went round the table and saw a large open box filled with\r
+something. It was a coffin with bones inside. He was not at all\r
+surprised by what he saw. Hoping to enter on an entirely new life quite\r
+unlike the old one, he expected everything to be unusual, even more\r
+unusual than what he was seeing. A skull, a coffin, the Gospel--it\r
+seemed to him that he had expected all this and even more. Trying to\r
+stimulate his emotions he looked around. "God, death, love, the\r
+brotherhood of man," he kept saying to himself, associating these words\r
+with vague yet joyful ideas. The door opened and someone came in.\r
+\r
+By the dim light, to which Pierre had already become accustomed, he saw\r
+a rather a short man. Having evidently come from the light into the\r
+darkness, the man paused, then moved with cautious steps toward the\r
+table and placed on it his small leather-gloved hands.\r
+\r
+This short man had on a white leather apron which covered his chest and\r
+part of his legs; he had on a kind of necklace above which rose a high\r
+white ruffle, outlining his rather long face which was lit up from\r
+below.\r
+\r
+"For what have you come hither?" asked the newcomer, turning in Pierre's\r
+direction at a slight rustle made by the latter. "Why have you, who do\r
+not believe in the truth of the light and who have not seen the light,\r
+come here? What do you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment?"\r
+\r
+At the moment the door opened and the stranger came in, Pierre felt a\r
+sense of awe and veneration such as he had experienced in his boyhood at\r
+confession; he felt himself in the presence of one socially a complete\r
+stranger, yet nearer to him through the brotherhood of man. With bated\r
+breath and beating heart he moved toward the Rhetor (by which name the\r
+brother who prepared a seeker for entrance into the Brotherhood was\r
+known). Drawing nearer, he recognized in the Rhetor a man he knew,\r
+Smolyaninov, and it mortified him to think that the newcomer was an\r
+acquaintance--he wished him simply a brother and a virtuous instructor.\r
+For a long time he could not utter a word, so that the Rhetor had to\r
+repeat his question.\r
+\r
+"Yes... I... I... desire regeneration," Pierre uttered with difficulty.\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Smolyaninov, and went on at once: "Have you any idea\r
+of the means by which our holy Order will help you to reach your aim?"\r
+said he quietly and quickly.\r
+\r
+"I... hope... for guidance... help... in regeneration," said Pierre,\r
+with a trembling voice and some difficulty in utterance due to his\r
+excitement and to being unaccustomed to speak of abstract matters in\r
+Russian.\r
+\r
+"What is your conception of Freemasonry?"\r
+\r
+"I imagine that Freemasonry is the fraternity and equality of men who\r
+have virtuous aims," said Pierre, feeling ashamed of the inadequacy of\r
+his words for the solemnity of the moment, as he spoke. "I imagine..."\r
+\r
+"Good!" said the Rhetor quickly, apparently satisfied with this answer.\r
+"Have you sought for means of attaining your aim in religion?"\r
+\r
+"No, I considered it erroneous and did not follow it," said Pierre, so\r
+softly that the Rhetor did not hear him and asked him what he was\r
+saying. "I have been an atheist," answered Pierre.\r
+\r
+"You are seeking for truth in order to follow its laws in your life,\r
+therefore you seek wisdom and virtue. Is that not so?" said the Rhetor,\r
+after a moment's pause.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," assented Pierre.\r
+\r
+The Rhetor cleared his throat, crossed his gloved hands on his breast,\r
+and began to speak.\r
+\r
+"Now I must disclose to you the chief aim of our Order," he said, "and\r
+if this aim coincides with yours, you may enter our Brotherhood with\r
+profit. The first and chief object of our Order, the foundation on which\r
+it rests and which no human power can destroy, is the preservation and\r
+handing on to posterity of a certain important mystery... which has come\r
+down to us from the remotest ages, even from the first man--a mystery on\r
+which perhaps the fate of mankind depends. But since this mystery is of\r
+such a nature that nobody can know or use it unless he be prepared by\r
+long and diligent self-purification, not everyone can hope to attain it\r
+quickly. Hence we have a secondary aim, that of preparing our members as\r
+much as possible to reform their hearts, to purify and enlighten their\r
+minds, by means handed on to us by tradition from those who have striven\r
+to attain this mystery, and thereby to render them capable of receiving\r
+it.\r
+\r
+"By purifying and regenerating our members we try, thirdly, to improve\r
+the whole human race, offering it in our members an example of piety and\r
+virtue, and thereby try with all our might to combat the evil which\r
+sways the world. Think this over and I will come to you again."\r
+\r
+"To combat the evil which sways the world..." Pierre repeated, and a\r
+mental image of his future activity in this direction rose in his mind.\r
+He imagined men such as he had himself been a fortnight ago, and he\r
+addressed an edifying exhortation to them. He imagined to himself\r
+vicious and unfortunate people whom he would assist by word and deed,\r
+imagined oppressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the three objects\r
+mentioned by the Rhetor, this last, that of improving mankind,\r
+especially appealed to Pierre. The important mystery mentioned by the\r
+Rhetor, though it aroused his curiosity, did not seem to him essential,\r
+and the second aim, that of purifying and regenerating himself, did not\r
+much interest him because at that moment he felt with delight that he\r
+was already perfectly cured of his former faults and was ready for all\r
+that was good.\r
+\r
+Half an hour later, the Rhetor returned to inform the seeker of the\r
+seven virtues, corresponding to the seven steps of Solomon's temple,\r
+which every Freemason should cultivate in himself. These virtues were:\r
+1. Discretion, the keeping of the secrets of the Order. 2. Obedience to\r
+those of higher ranks in the Order. 3. Morality. 4. Love of mankind. 5.\r
+Courage. 6. Generosity. 7. The love of death.\r
+\r
+"In the seventh place, try, by the frequent thought of death," the\r
+Rhetor said, "to bring yourself to regard it not as a dreaded foe, but\r
+as a friend that frees the soul grown weary in the labors of virtue from\r
+this distressful life, and leads it to its place of recompense and\r
+peace."\r
+\r
+"Yes, that must be so," thought Pierre, when after these words the\r
+Rhetor went away, leaving him to solitary meditation. "It must be so,\r
+but I am still so weak that I love my life, the meaning of which is only\r
+now gradually opening before me." But five of the other virtues which\r
+Pierre recalled, counting them on his fingers, he felt already in his\r
+soul: courage, generosity, morality, love of mankind, and especially\r
+obedience--which did not even seem to him a virtue, but a joy. (He now\r
+felt so glad to be free from his own lawlessness and to submit his will\r
+to those who knew the indubitable truth.) He forgot what the seventh\r
+virtue was and could not recall it.\r
+\r
+The third time the Rhetor came back more quickly and asked Pierre\r
+whether he was still firm in his intention and determined to submit to\r
+all that would be required of him.\r
+\r
+"I am ready for everything," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"I must also inform you," said the Rhetor, "that our Order delivers its\r
+teaching not in words only but also by other means, which may perhaps\r
+have a stronger effect on the sincere seeker after wisdom and virtue\r
+than mere words. This chamber with what you see therein should already\r
+have suggested to your heart, if it is sincere, more than words could\r
+do. You will perhaps also see in your further initiation a like method\r
+of enlightenment. Our Order imitates the ancient societies that\r
+explained their teaching by hieroglyphics. A hieroglyph," said the\r
+Rhetor, "is an emblem of something not cognizable by the senses but\r
+which possesses qualities resembling those of the symbol."\r
+\r
+Pierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but dared not speak. He\r
+listened to the Rhetor in silence, feeling from all he said that his\r
+ordeal was about to begin.\r
+\r
+"If you are resolved, I must begin your initiation," said the Rhetor\r
+coming closer to Pierre. "In token of generosity I ask you to give me\r
+all your valuables."\r
+\r
+"But I have nothing here," replied Pierre, supposing that he was asked\r
+to give up all he possessed.\r
+\r
+"What you have with you: watch, money, rings...."\r
+\r
+Pierre quickly took out his purse and watch, but could not manage for\r
+some time to get the wedding ring off his fat finger. When that had been\r
+done, the Rhetor said:\r
+\r
+"In token of obedience, I ask you to undress."\r
+\r
+Pierre took off his coat, waistcoat, and left boot according to the\r
+Rhetor's instructions. The Mason drew the shirt back from Pierre's left\r
+breast, and stooping down pulled up the left leg of his trousers to\r
+above the knee. Pierre hurriedly began taking off his right boot also\r
+and was going to tuck up the other trouser leg to save this stranger the\r
+trouble, but the Mason told him that was not necessary and gave him a\r
+slipper for his left foot. With a childlike smile of embarrassment,\r
+doubt, and self-derision, which appeared on his face against his will,\r
+Pierre stood with his arms hanging down and legs apart, before his\r
+brother Rhetor, and awaited his further commands.\r
+\r
+"And now, in token of candor, I ask you to reveal to me your chief\r
+passion," said the latter.\r
+\r
+"My passion! I have had so many," replied Pierre.\r
+\r
+"That passion which more than all others caused you to waver on the path\r
+of virtue," said the Mason.\r
+\r
+Pierre paused, seeking a reply.\r
+\r
+"Wine? Gluttony? Idleness? Laziness? Irritability? Anger? Women?" He\r
+went over his vices in his mind, not knowing to which of them to give\r
+the pre-eminence.\r
+\r
+"Women," he said in a low, scarcely audible voice.\r
+\r
+The Mason did not move and for a long time said nothing after this\r
+answer. At last he moved up to Pierre and, taking the kerchief that lay\r
+on the table, again bound his eyes.\r
+\r
+"For the last time I say to you--turn all your attention upon yourself,\r
+put a bridle on your senses, and seek blessedness, not in passion but in\r
+your own heart. The source of blessedness is not without us but\r
+within...."\r
+\r
+Pierre had already long been feeling in himself that refreshing source\r
+of blessedness which now flooded his heart with glad emotion.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+Soon after this there came into the dark chamber to fetch Pierre, not\r
+the Rhetor but Pierre's sponsor, Willarski, whom he recognized by his\r
+voice. To fresh questions as to the firmness of his resolution Pierre\r
+replied: "Yes, yes, I agree," and with a beaming, childlike smile, his\r
+fat chest uncovered, stepping unevenly and timidly in one slippered and\r
+one booted foot, he advanced, while Willarski held a sword to his bare\r
+chest. He was conducted from that room along passages that turned\r
+backwards and forwards and was at last brought to the doors of the\r
+Lodge. Willarski coughed, he was answered by the masonic knock with\r
+mallets, the doors opened before them. A bass voice (Pierre was still\r
+blindfolded) questioned him as to who he was, when and where he was\r
+born, and so on. Then he was again led somewhere still blindfolded, and\r
+as they went along he was told allegories of the toils of his\r
+pilgrimage, of holy friendship, of the Eternal Architect of the\r
+universe, and of the courage with which he should endure toils and\r
+dangers. During these wanderings, Pierre noticed that he was spoken of\r
+now as the "Seeker," now as the "Sufferer," and now as the "Postulant,"\r
+to the accompaniment of various knockings with mallets and swords. As he\r
+was being led up to some object he noticed a hesitation and uncertainty\r
+among his conductors. He heard those around him disputing in whispers\r
+and one of them insisting that he should be led along a certain carpet.\r
+After that they took his right hand, placed it on something, and told\r
+him to hold a pair of compasses to his left breast with the other hand\r
+and to repeat after someone who read aloud an oath of fidelity to the\r
+laws of the Order. The candles were then extinguished and some spirit\r
+lighted, as Pierre knew by the smell, and he was told that he would now\r
+see the lesser light. The bandage was taken off his eyes and, by the\r
+faint light of the burning spirit, Pierre, as in a dream, saw several\r
+men standing before him, wearing aprons like the Rhetor's and holding\r
+swords in their hands pointed at his breast. Among them stood a man\r
+whose white shirt was stained with blood. On seeing this, Pierre moved\r
+forward with his breast toward the swords, meaning them to pierce it.\r
+But the swords were drawn back from him and he was at once blindfolded\r
+again.\r
+\r
+"Now thou hast seen the lesser light," uttered a voice. Then the candles\r
+were relit and he was told that he would see the full light; the bandage\r
+was again removed and more than ten voices said together: "Sic transit\r
+gloria mundi."\r
+\r
+Pierre gradually began to recover himself and looked about at the room\r
+and at the people in it. Round a long table covered with black sat some\r
+twelve men in garments like those he had already seen. Some of them\r
+Pierre had met in Petersburg society. In the President's chair sat a\r
+young man he did not know, with a peculiar cross hanging from his neck.\r
+On his right sat the Italian abbe whom Pierre had met at Anna Pavlovna's\r
+two years before. There were also present a very distinguished dignitary\r
+and a Swiss who had formerly been tutor at the Kuragins'. All maintained\r
+a solemn silence, listening to the words of the President, who held a\r
+mallet in his hand. Let into the wall was a star-shaped light. At one\r
+side of the table was a small carpet with various figures worked upon\r
+it, at the other was something resembling an altar on which lay a\r
+Testament and a skull. Round it stood seven large candlesticks like\r
+those used in churches. Two of the brothers led Pierre up to the altar,\r
+placed his feet at right angles, and bade him lie down, saying that he\r
+must prostrate himself at the Gates of the Temple.\r
+\r
+"He must first receive the trowel," whispered one of the brothers.\r
+\r
+"Oh, hush, please!" said another.\r
+\r
+Pierre, perplexed, looked round with his shortsighted eyes without\r
+obeying, and suddenly doubts arose in his mind. "Where am I? What am I\r
+doing? Aren't they laughing at me? Shan't I be ashamed to remember\r
+this?" But these doubts only lasted a moment. Pierre glanced at the\r
+serious faces of those around, remembered all he had already gone\r
+through, and realized that he could not stop halfway. He was aghast at\r
+his hesitation and, trying to arouse his former devotional feeling,\r
+prostrated himself before the Gates of the Temple. And really, the\r
+feeling of devotion returned to him even more strongly than before. When\r
+he had lain there some time, he was told to get up, and a white leather\r
+apron, such as the others wore, was put on him: he was given a trowel\r
+and three pairs of gloves, and then the Grand Master addressed him. He\r
+told him that he should try to do nothing to stain the whiteness of that\r
+apron, which symbolized strength and purity; then of the unexplained\r
+trowel, he told him to toil with it to cleanse his own heart from vice,\r
+and indulgently to smooth with it the heart of his neighbor. As to the\r
+first pair of gloves, a man's, he said that Pierre could not know their\r
+meaning but must keep them. The second pair of man's gloves he was to\r
+wear at the meetings, and finally of the third, a pair of women's\r
+gloves, he said: "Dear brother, these woman's gloves are intended for\r
+you too. Give them to the woman whom you shall honor most of all. This\r
+gift will be a pledge of your purity of heart to her whom you select to\r
+be your worthy helpmeet in Masonry." And after a pause, he added: "But\r
+beware, dear brother, that these gloves do not deck hands that are\r
+unclean." While the Grand Master said these last words it seemed to\r
+Pierre that he grew embarrassed. Pierre himself grew still more\r
+confused, blushed like a child till tears came to his eyes, began\r
+looking about him uneasily, and an awkward pause followed.\r
+\r
+This silence was broken by one of the brethren, who led Pierre up to the\r
+rug and began reading to him from a manuscript book an explanation of\r
+all the figures on it: the sun, the moon, a hammer, a plumb line, a\r
+trowel, a rough stone and a squared stone, a pillar, three windows, and\r
+so on. Then a place was assigned to Pierre, he was shown the signs of\r
+the Lodge, told the password, and at last was permitted to sit down. The\r
+Grand Master began reading the statutes. They were very long, and\r
+Pierre, from joy, agitation, and embarrassment, was not in a state to\r
+understand what was being read. He managed to follow only the last words\r
+of the statutes and these remained in his mind.\r
+\r
+"In our temples we recognize no other distinctions," read the Grand\r
+Master, "but those between virtue and vice. Beware of making any\r
+distinctions which may infringe equality. Fly to a brother's aid whoever\r
+he may be, exhort him who goeth astray, raise him that falleth, never\r
+bear malice or enmity toward thy brother. Be kindly and courteous.\r
+Kindle in all hearts the flame of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy\r
+neighbor, and may envy never dim the purity of that bliss. Forgive thy\r
+enemy, do not avenge thyself except by doing him good. Thus fulfilling\r
+the highest law thou shalt regain traces of the ancient dignity which\r
+thou hast lost."\r
+\r
+He finished and, getting up, embraced and kissed Pierre, who, with tears\r
+of joy in his eyes, looked round him, not knowing how to answer the\r
+congratulations and greetings from acquaintances that met him on all\r
+sides. He acknowledged no acquaintances but saw in all these men only\r
+brothers, and burned with impatience to set to work with them.\r
+\r
+The Grand Master rapped with his mallet. All the Masons sat down in\r
+their places, and one of them read an exhortation on the necessity of\r
+humility.\r
+\r
+The Grand Master proposed that the last duty should be performed, and\r
+the distinguished dignitary who bore the title of "Collector of Alms"\r
+went round to all the brothers. Pierre would have liked to subscribe all\r
+he had, but fearing that it might look like pride subscribed the same\r
+amount as the others.\r
+\r
+The meeting was at an end, and on reaching home Pierre felt as if he had\r
+returned from a long journey on which he had spent dozens of years, had\r
+become completely changed, and had quite left behind his former habits\r
+and way of life.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+The day after he had been received into the Lodge, Pierre was sitting at\r
+home reading a book and trying to fathom the significance of the Square,\r
+one side of which symbolized God, another moral things, a third physical\r
+things, and the fourth a combination of these. Now and then his\r
+attention wandered from the book and the Square and he formed in\r
+imagination a new plan of life. On the previous evening at the Lodge, he\r
+had heard that a rumor of his duel had reached the Emperor and that it\r
+would be wiser for him to leave Petersburg. Pierre proposed going to his\r
+estates in the south and there attending to the welfare of his serfs. He\r
+was joyfully planning this new life, when Prince Vasili suddenly entered\r
+the room.\r
+\r
+"My dear fellow, what have you been up to in Moscow? Why have you\r
+quarreled with Helene, mon cher? You are under a delusion," said Prince\r
+Vasili, as he entered. "I know all about it, and I can tell you\r
+positively that Helene is as innocent before you as Christ was before\r
+the Jews."\r
+\r
+Pierre was about to reply, but Prince Vasili interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"And why didn't you simply come straight to me as to a friend? I know\r
+all about it and understand it all," he said. "You behaved as becomes a\r
+man who values his honor, perhaps too hastily, but we won't go into\r
+that. But consider the position in which you are placing her and me in\r
+the eyes of society, and even of the court," he added, lowering his\r
+voice. "She is living in Moscow and you are here. Remember, dear boy,"\r
+and he drew Pierre's arm downwards, "it is simply a misunderstanding. I\r
+expect you feel it so yourself. Let us write her a letter at once, and\r
+she'll come here and all will be explained, or else, my dear boy, let me\r
+tell you it's quite likely you'll have to suffer for it."\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili gave Pierre a significant look.\r
+\r
+"I know from reliable sources that the Dowager Empress is taking a keen\r
+interest in the whole affair. You know she is very gracious to Helene."\r
+\r
+Pierre tried several times to speak, but, on one hand, Prince Vasili did\r
+not let him and, on the other, Pierre himself feared to begin to speak\r
+in the tone of decided refusal and disagreement in which he had firmly\r
+resolved to answer his father-in-law. Moreover, the words of the masonic\r
+statutes, "be kindly and courteous," recurred to him. He blinked, went\r
+red, got up and sat down again, struggling with himself to do what was\r
+for him the most difficult thing in life--to say an unpleasant thing to\r
+a man's face, to say what the other, whoever he might be, did not\r
+expect. He was so used to submitting to Prince Vasili's tone of careless\r
+self-assurance that he felt he would be unable to withstand it now, but\r
+he also felt that on what he said now his future depended--whether he\r
+would follow the same old road, or that new path so attractively shown\r
+him by the Masons, on which he firmly believed he would be reborn to a\r
+new life.\r
+\r
+"Now, dear boy," said Prince Vasili playfully, "say 'yes,' and I'll\r
+write to her myself, and we will kill the fatted calf."\r
+\r
+But before Prince Vasili had finished his playful speech, Pierre,\r
+without looking at him, and with a kind of fury that made him like his\r
+father, muttered in a whisper:\r
+\r
+"Prince, I did not ask you here. Go, please go!" And he jumped up and\r
+opened the door for him.\r
+\r
+"Go!" he repeated, amazed at himself and glad to see the look of\r
+confusion and fear that showed itself on Prince Vasili's face.\r
+\r
+"What's the matter with you? Are you ill?"\r
+\r
+"Go!" the quivering voice repeated. And Prince Vasili had to go without\r
+receiving any explanation.\r
+\r
+A week later, Pierre, having taken leave of his new friends, the Masons,\r
+and leaving large sums of money with them for alms, went away to his\r
+estates. His new brethren gave him letters to the Kiev and Odessa Masons\r
+and promised to write to him and guide him in his new activity.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+The duel between Pierre and Dolokhov was hushed up and, in spite of the\r
+Emperor's severity regarding duels at that time, neither the principals\r
+nor their seconds suffered for it. But the story of the duel, confirmed\r
+by Pierre's rupture with his wife, was the talk of society. Pierre who\r
+had been regarded with patronizing condescension when he was an\r
+illegitimate son, and petted and extolled when he was the best match in\r
+Russia, had sunk greatly in the esteem of society after his marriage--\r
+when the marriageable daughters and their mothers had nothing to hope\r
+from him--especially as he did not know how, and did not wish, to court\r
+society's favor. Now he alone was blamed for what had happened, he was\r
+said to be insanely jealous and subject like his father to fits of\r
+bloodthirsty rage. And when after Pierre's departure Helene returned to\r
+Petersburg, she was received by all her acquaintances not only\r
+cordially, but even with a shade of deference due to her misfortune.\r
+When conversation turned on her husband Helene assumed a dignified\r
+expression, which with characteristic tact she had acquired though she\r
+did not understand its significance. This expression suggested that she\r
+had resolved to endure her troubles uncomplainingly and that her husband\r
+was a cross laid upon her by God. Prince Vasili expressed his opinion\r
+more openly. He shrugged his shoulders when Pierre was mentioned and,\r
+pointing to his forehead, remarked:\r
+\r
+"A bit touched--I always said so."\r
+\r
+"I said from the first," declared Anna Pavlovna referring to Pierre, "I\r
+said at the time and before anyone else" (she insisted on her priority)\r
+"that that senseless young man was spoiled by the depraved ideas of\r
+these days. I said so even at the time when everybody was in raptures\r
+about him, when he had just returned from abroad, and when, if you\r
+remember, he posed as a sort of Marat at one of my soirees. And how has\r
+it ended? I was against this marriage even then and foretold all that\r
+has happened."\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna continued to give on free evenings the same kind of\r
+soirees as before--such as she alone had the gift of arranging--at which\r
+was to be found "the cream of really good society, the bloom of the\r
+intellectual essence of Petersburg," as she herself put it. Besides this\r
+refined selection of society Anna Pavlovna's receptions were also\r
+distinguished by the fact that she always presented some new and\r
+interesting person to the visitors and that nowhere else was the state\r
+of the political thermometer of legitimate Petersburg court society so\r
+dearly and distinctly indicated.\r
+\r
+Toward the end of 1806, when all the sad details of Napoleon's\r
+destruction of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstadt and the surrender\r
+of most of the Prussian fortresses had been received, when our troops\r
+had already entered Prussia and our second war with Napoleon was\r
+beginning, Anna Pavlovna gave one of her soirees. The "cream of really\r
+good society" consisted of the fascinating Helene, forsaken by her\r
+husband, Mortemart, the delightful Prince Hippolyte who had just\r
+returned from Vienna, two diplomatists, the old aunt, a young man\r
+referred to in that drawing room as "a man of great merit" (un homme de\r
+beaucoup de merite), a newly appointed maid of honor and her mother, and\r
+several other less noteworthy persons.\r
+\r
+The novelty Anna Pavlovna was setting before her guests that evening was\r
+Boris Drubetskoy, who had just arrived as a special messenger from the\r
+Prussian army and was aide-de-camp to a very important personage.\r
+\r
+The temperature shown by the political thermometer to the company that\r
+evening was this:\r
+\r
+"Whatever the European sovereigns and commanders may do to countenance\r
+Bonaparte, and to cause me, and us in general, annoyance and\r
+mortification, our opinion of Bonaparte cannot alter. We shall not cease\r
+to express our sincere views on that subject, and can only say to the\r
+King of Prussia and others: 'So much the worse for you. Tu l'as voulu,\r
+George Dandin,' that's all we have to say about it!"\r
+\r
+When Boris, who was to be served up to the guests, entered the drawing\r
+room, almost all the company had assembled, and the conversation, guided\r
+by Anna Pavlovna, was about our diplomatic relations with Austria and\r
+the hope of an alliance with her.\r
+\r
+Boris, grown more manly and looking fresh, rosy and self-possessed,\r
+entered the drawing room elegantly dressed in the uniform of an aide-de-\r
+camp and was duly conducted to pay his respects to the aunt and then\r
+brought back to the general circle.\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna gave him her shriveled hand to kiss and introduced him to\r
+several persons whom he did not know, giving him a whispered description\r
+of each.\r
+\r
+"Prince Hippolyte Kuragin, M. Krug, the charge d'affaires from\r
+Copenhagen--a profound intellect," and simply, "Mr. Shitov--a man of\r
+great merit"--this of the man usually so described.\r
+\r
+Thanks to Anna Mikhaylovna's efforts, his own tastes, and the\r
+peculiarities of his reserved nature, Boris had managed during his\r
+service to place himself very advantageously. He was aide-de-camp to a\r
+very important personage, had been sent on a very important mission to\r
+Prussia, and had just returned from there as a special messenger. He had\r
+become thoroughly conversant with that unwritten code with which he had\r
+been so pleased at Olmutz and according to which an ensign might rank\r
+incomparably higher than a general, and according to which what was\r
+needed for success in the service was not effort or work, or courage, or\r
+perseverance, but only the knowledge of how to get on with those who can\r
+grant rewards, and he was himself often surprised at the rapidity of his\r
+success and at the inability of others to understand these things. In\r
+consequence of this discovery his whole manner of life, all his\r
+relations with old friends, all his plans for his future, were\r
+completely altered. He was not rich, but would spend his last groat to\r
+be better dressed than others, and would rather deprive himself of many\r
+pleasures than allow himself to be seen in a shabby equipage or appear\r
+in the streets of Petersburg in an old uniform. He made friends with and\r
+sought the acquaintance of only those above him in position and who\r
+could therefore be of use to him. He liked Petersburg and despised\r
+Moscow. The remembrance of the Rostovs' house and of his childish love\r
+for Natasha was unpleasant to him and he had not once been to see the\r
+Rostovs since the day of his departure for the army. To be in Anna\r
+Pavlovna's drawing room he considered an important step up in the\r
+service, and he at once understood his role, letting his hostess make\r
+use of whatever interest he had to offer. He himself carefully scanned\r
+each face, appraising the possibilities of establishing intimacy with\r
+each of those present, and the advantages that might accrue. He took the\r
+seat indicated to him beside the fair Helene and listened to the general\r
+conversation.\r
+\r
+"Vienna considers the bases of the proposed treaty so unattainable that\r
+not even a continuity of most brilliant successes would secure them, and\r
+she doubts the means we have of gaining them. That is the actual phrase\r
+used by the Vienna cabinet," said the Danish charge d'affaires.\r
+\r
+"The doubt is flattering," said "the man of profound intellect," with a\r
+subtle smile.\r
+\r
+"We must distinguish between the Vienna cabinet and the Emperor of\r
+Austria," said Mortemart. "The Emperor of Austria can never have thought\r
+of such a thing, it is only the cabinet that says it."\r
+\r
+"Ah, my dear vicomte," put in Anna Pavlovna, "L'Urope" (for some reason\r
+she called it Urope as if that were a specially refined French\r
+pronunciation which she could allow herself when conversing with a\r
+Frenchman), "L'Urope ne sera jamais notre alliee sincere." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Europe will never be our sincere ally."\r
+\r
+After that Anna Pavlovna led up to the courage and firmness of the King\r
+of Prussia, in order to draw Boris into the conversation.\r
+\r
+Boris listened attentively to each of the speakers, awaiting his turn,\r
+but managed meanwhile to look round repeatedly at his neighbor, the\r
+beautiful Helene, whose eyes several times met those of the handsome\r
+young aide-de-camp with a smile.\r
+\r
+Speaking of the position of Prussia, Anna Pavlovna very naturally asked\r
+Boris to tell them about his journey to Glogau and in what state he\r
+found the Prussian army. Boris, speaking with deliberation, told them in\r
+pure, correct French many interesting details about the armies and the\r
+court, carefully abstaining from expressing an opinion of his own about\r
+the facts he was recounting. For some time he engrossed the general\r
+attention, and Anna Pavlovna felt that the novelty she had served up was\r
+received with pleasure by all her visitors. The greatest attention of\r
+all to Boris' narrative was shown by Helene. She asked him several\r
+questions about his journey and seemed greatly interested in the state\r
+of the Prussian army. As soon as he had finished she turned to him with\r
+her usual smile.\r
+\r
+"You absolutely must come and see me," she said in a tone that implied\r
+that, for certain considerations he could not know of, this was\r
+absolutely necessary.\r
+\r
+"On Tuesday between eight and nine. It will give me great pleasure."\r
+\r
+Boris promised to fulfill her wish and was about to begin a conversation\r
+with her, when Anna Pavlovna called him away on the pretext that her\r
+aunt wished to hear him.\r
+\r
+"You know her husband, of course?" said Anna Pavlovna, closing her eyes\r
+and indicating Helene with a sorrowful gesture. "Ah, she is such an\r
+unfortunate and charming woman! Don't mention him before her--please\r
+don't! It is too painful for her!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+When Boris and Anna Pavlovna returned to the others Prince Hippolyte had\r
+the ear of the company.\r
+\r
+Bending forward in his armchair he said: "Le Roi de Prusse!" and having\r
+said this laughed. Everyone turned toward him.\r
+\r
+"Le Roi de Prusse?" Hippolyte said interrogatively, again laughing, and\r
+then calmly and seriously sat back in his chair. Anna Pavlovna waited\r
+for him to go on, but as he seemed quite decided to say no more she\r
+began to tell of how at Potsdam the impious Bonaparte had stolen the\r
+sword of Frederick the Great.\r
+\r
+"It is the sword of Frederick the Great which I..." she began, but\r
+Hippolyte interrupted her with the words: "Le Roi de Prusse..." and\r
+again, as soon as all turned toward him, excused himself and said no\r
+more.\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna frowned. Mortemart, Hippolyte's friend, addressed him\r
+firmly.\r
+\r
+"Come now, what about your Roi de Prusse?"\r
+\r
+Hippolyte laughed as if ashamed of laughing.\r
+\r
+"Oh, it's nothing. I only wished to say..." (he wanted to repeat a joke\r
+he had heard in Vienna and which he had been trying all that evening to\r
+get in) "I only wished to say that we are wrong to fight pour le Roi de\r
+Prusse!"\r
+\r
+Boris smiled circumspectly, so that it might be taken as ironical or\r
+appreciative according to the way the joke was received. Everybody\r
+laughed.\r
+\r
+"Your joke is too bad, it's witty but unjust," said Anna Pavlovna,\r
+shaking her little shriveled finger at him.\r
+\r
+"We are not fighting pour le Roi de Prusse, but for right principles.\r
+Oh, that wicked Prince Hippolyte!" she said.\r
+\r
+The conversation did not flag all evening and turned chiefly on the\r
+political news. It became particularly animated toward the end of the\r
+evening when the rewards bestowed by the Emperor were mentioned.\r
+\r
+"You know N-- N-- received a snuffbox with the portrait last year?" said\r
+"the man of profound intellect." "Why shouldn't S-- S-- get the same\r
+distinction?"\r
+\r
+"Pardon me! A snuffbox with the Emperor's portrait is a reward but not a\r
+distinction," said the diplomatist--"a gift, rather."\r
+\r
+"There are precedents, I may mention Schwarzenberg."\r
+\r
+"It's impossible," replied another.\r
+\r
+"Will you bet? The ribbon of the order is a different matter...."\r
+\r
+When everybody rose to go, Helene who had spoken very little all the\r
+evening again turned to Boris, asking him in a tone of caressing\r
+significant command to come to her on Tuesday.\r
+\r
+"It is of great importance to me," she said, turning with a smile toward\r
+Anna Pavlovna, and Anna Pavlovna, with the same sad smile with which she\r
+spoke of her exalted patroness, supported Helene's wish.\r
+\r
+It seemed as if from some words Boris had spoken that evening about the\r
+Prussian army, Helene had suddenly found it necessary to see him. She\r
+seemed to promise to explain that necessity to him when he came on\r
+Tuesday.\r
+\r
+But on Tuesday evening, having come to Helene's splendid salon, Boris\r
+received no clear explanation of why it had been necessary for him to\r
+come. There were other guests and the countess talked little to him, and\r
+only as he kissed her hand on taking leave said unexpectedly and in a\r
+whisper, with a strangely unsmiling face: "Come to dinner tomorrow... in\r
+the evening. You must come.... Come!"\r
+\r
+During that stay in Petersburg, Boris became an intimate in the\r
+countess' house.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+The war was flaming up and nearing the Russian frontier. Everywhere one\r
+heard curses on Bonaparte, "the enemy of mankind." Militiamen and\r
+recruits were being enrolled in the villages, and from the seat of war\r
+came contradictory news, false as usual and therefore variously\r
+interpreted. The life of old Prince Bolkonski, Prince Andrew, and\r
+Princess Mary had greatly changed since 1805.\r
+\r
+In 1806 the old prince was made one of the eight commanders in chief\r
+then appointed to supervise the enrollment decreed throughout Russia.\r
+Despite the weakness of age, which had become particularly noticeable\r
+since the time when he thought his son had been killed, he did not think\r
+it right to refuse a duty to which he had been appointed by the Emperor\r
+himself, and this fresh opportunity for action gave him new energy and\r
+strength. He was continually traveling through the three provinces\r
+entrusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment of his duties, severe\r
+to cruel with his subordinates, and went into everything down to the\r
+minutest details himself. Princess Mary had ceased taking lessons in\r
+mathematics from her father, and when the old prince was at home went to\r
+his study with the wet nurse and little Prince Nicholas (as his\r
+grandfather called him). The baby Prince Nicholas lived with his wet\r
+nurse and nurse Savishna in the late princess' rooms and Princess Mary\r
+spent most of the day in the nursery, taking a mother's place to her\r
+little nephew as best she could. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too, seemed\r
+passionately fond of the boy, and Princess Mary often deprived herself\r
+to give her friend the pleasure of dandling the little angel--as she\r
+called her nephew--and playing with him.\r
+\r
+Near the altar of the church at Bald Hills there was a chapel over the\r
+tomb of the little princess, and in this chapel was a marble monument\r
+brought from Italy, representing an angel with outspread wings ready to\r
+fly upwards. The angel's upper lip was slightly raised as though about\r
+to smile, and once on coming out of the chapel Prince Andrew and\r
+Princess Mary admitted to one another that the angel's face reminded\r
+them strangely of the little princess. But what was still stranger,\r
+though of this Prince Andrew said nothing to his sister, was that in the\r
+expression the sculptor had happened to give the angel's face, Prince\r
+Andrew read the same mild reproach he had read on the face of his dead\r
+wife: "Ah, why have you done this to me?"\r
+\r
+Soon after Prince Andrew's return the old prince made over to him a\r
+large estate, Bogucharovo, about twenty-five miles from Bald Hills.\r
+Partly because of the depressing memories associated with Bald Hills,\r
+partly because Prince Andrew did not always feel equal to bearing with\r
+his father's peculiarities, and partly because he needed solitude,\r
+Prince Andrew made use of Bogucharovo, began building and spent most of\r
+his time there.\r
+\r
+After the Austerlitz campaign Prince Andrew had firmly resolved not to\r
+continue his military service, and when the war recommenced and\r
+everybody had to serve, he took a post under his father in the\r
+recruitment so as to avoid active service. The old prince and his son\r
+seemed to have changed roles since the campaign of 1805. The old man,\r
+roused by activity, expected the best results from the new campaign,\r
+while Prince Andrew on the contrary, taking no part in the war and\r
+secretly regretting this, saw only the dark side.\r
+\r
+On February 26, 1807, the old prince set off on one of his circuits.\r
+Prince Andrew remained at Bald Hills as usual during his father's\r
+absence. Little Nicholas had been unwell for four days. The coachman who\r
+had driven the old prince to town returned bringing papers and letters\r
+for Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+Not finding the young prince in his study the valet went with the\r
+letters to Princess Mary's apartments, but did not find him there. He\r
+was told that the prince had gone to the nursery.\r
+\r
+"If you please, your excellency, Petrusha has brought some papers," said\r
+one of the nursemaids to Prince Andrew who was sitting on a child's\r
+little chair while, frowning and with trembling hands, he poured drops\r
+from a medicine bottle into a wineglass half full of water.\r
+\r
+"What is it?" he said crossly, and, his hand shaking unintentionally, he\r
+poured too many drops into the glass. He threw the mixture onto the\r
+floor and asked for some more water. The maid brought it.\r
+\r
+There were in the room a child's cot, two boxes, two armchairs, a table,\r
+a child's table, and the little chair on which Prince Andrew was\r
+sitting. The curtains were drawn, and a single candle was burning on the\r
+table, screened by a bound music book so that the light did not fall on\r
+the cot.\r
+\r
+"My dear," said Princess Mary, addressing her brother from beside the\r
+cot where she was standing, "better wait a bit... later..."\r
+\r
+"Oh, leave off, you always talk nonsense and keep putting things off--\r
+and this is what comes of it!" said Prince Andrew in an exasperated\r
+whisper, evidently meaning to wound his sister.\r
+\r
+"My dear, really... it's better not to wake him... he's asleep," said\r
+the princess in a tone of entreaty.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew got up and went on tiptoe up to the little bed, wineglass\r
+in hand.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps we'd really better not wake him," he said hesitating.\r
+\r
+"As you please... really... I think so... but as you please," said\r
+Princess Mary, evidently intimidated and confused that her opinion had\r
+prevailed. She drew her brother's attention to the maid who was calling\r
+him in a whisper.\r
+\r
+It was the second night that neither of them had slept, watching the boy\r
+who was in a high fever. These last days, mistrusting their household\r
+doctor and expecting another for whom they had sent to town, they had\r
+been trying first one remedy and then another. Worn out by sleeplessness\r
+and anxiety they threw their burden of sorrow on one another and\r
+reproached and disputed with each other.\r
+\r
+"Petrusha has come with papers from your father," whispered the maid.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew went out.\r
+\r
+"Devil take them!" he muttered, and after listening to the verbal\r
+instructions his father had sent and taking the correspondence and his\r
+father's letter, he returned to the nursery.\r
+\r
+"Well?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Still the same. Wait, for heaven's sake. Karl Ivanich always says that\r
+sleep is more important than anything," whispered Princess Mary with a\r
+sigh.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew went up to the child and felt him. He was burning hot.\r
+\r
+"Confound you and your Karl Ivanich!" He took the glass with the drops\r
+and again went up to the cot.\r
+\r
+"Andrew, don't!" said Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+But he scowled at her angrily though also with suffering in his eyes,\r
+and stooped glass in hand over the infant.\r
+\r
+"But I wish it," he said. "I beg you--give it him!"\r
+\r
+Princess Mary shrugged her shoulders but took the glass submissively and\r
+calling the nurse began giving the medicine. The child screamed\r
+hoarsely. Prince Andrew winced and, clutching his head, went out and sat\r
+down on a sofa in the next room.\r
+\r
+He still had all the letters in his hand. Opening them mechanically he\r
+began reading. The old prince, now and then using abbreviations, wrote\r
+in his large elongated hand on blue paper as follows:\r
+\r
+Have just this moment received by special messenger very joyful news--if\r
+it's not false. Bennigsen seems to have obtained a complete victory over\r
+Buonaparte at Eylau. In Petersburg everyone is rejoicing, and the\r
+rewards sent to the army are innumerable. Though he is a German--I\r
+congratulate him! I can't make out what the commander at Korchevo--a\r
+certain Khandrikov--is up to; till now the additional men and provisions\r
+have not arrived. Gallop off to him at once and say I'll have his head\r
+off if everything is not here in a week. Have received another letter\r
+about the Preussisch-Eylau battle from Petenka--he took part in it--and\r
+it's all true. When mischief-makers don't meddle even a German beats\r
+Buonaparte. He is said to be fleeing in great disorder. Mind you gallop\r
+off to Korchevo without delay and carry out instructions!\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew sighed and broke the seal of another envelope. It was a\r
+closely written letter of two sheets from Bilibin. He folded it up\r
+without reading it and reread his father's letter, ending with the\r
+words: "Gallop off to Korchevo and carry out instructions!"\r
+\r
+"No, pardon me, I won't go now till the child is better," thought he,\r
+going to the door and looking into the nursery.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary was still standing by the cot, gently rocking the baby.\r
+\r
+"Ah yes, and what else did he say that's unpleasant?" thought Prince\r
+Andrew, recalling his father's letter. "Yes, we have gained a victory\r
+over Bonaparte, just when I'm not serving. Yes, yes, he's always poking\r
+fun at me.... Ah, well! Let him!" And he began reading Bilibin's letter\r
+which was written in French. He read without understanding half of it,\r
+read only to forget, if but for a moment, what he had too long been\r
+thinking of so painfully to the exclusion of all else.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+Bilibin was now at army headquarters in a diplomatic capacity, and\r
+though he wrote in French and used French jests and French idioms, he\r
+described the whole campaign with a fearless self-censure and self-\r
+derision genuinely Russian. Bilibin wrote that the obligation of\r
+diplomatic discretion tormented him, and he was happy to have in Prince\r
+Andrew a reliable correspondent to whom he could pour out the bile he\r
+had accumulated at the sight of all that was being done in the army. The\r
+letter was old, having been written before the battle at Preussisch-\r
+Eylau.\r
+\r
+"Since the day of our brilliant success at Austerlitz," wrote Bilibin,\r
+"as you know, my dear prince, I never leave headquarters. I have\r
+certainly acquired a taste for war, and it is just as well for me; what\r
+I have seen during these last three months is incredible.\r
+\r
+"I begin ab ovo. 'The enemy of the human race,' as you know, attacks the\r
+Prussians. The Prussians are our faithful allies who have only betrayed\r
+us three times in three years. We take up their cause, but it turns out\r
+that 'the enemy of the human race' pays no heed to our fine speeches and\r
+in his rude and savage way throws himself on the Prussians without\r
+giving them time to finish the parade they had begun, and in two twists\r
+of the hand he breaks them to smithereens and installs himself in the\r
+palace at Potsdam.\r
+\r
+"'I most ardently desire,' writes the King of Prussia to Bonaparte,\r
+'that Your Majesty should be received and treated in my palace in a\r
+manner agreeable to yourself, and in so far as circumstances allowed, I\r
+have hastened to take all steps to that end. May I have succeeded!' The\r
+Prussian generals pride themselves on being polite to the French and lay\r
+down their arms at the first demand.\r
+\r
+"The head of the garrison at Glogau, with ten thousand men, asks the\r
+King of Prussia what he is to do if he is summoned to surrender.... All\r
+this is absolutely true.\r
+\r
+"In short, hoping to settle matters by taking up a warlike attitude, it\r
+turns out that we have landed ourselves in war, and what is more, in war\r
+on our own frontiers, with and for the King of Prussia. We have\r
+everything in perfect order, only one little thing is lacking, namely, a\r
+commander in chief. As it was considered that the Austerlitz success\r
+might have been more decisive had the commander-in-chief not been so\r
+young, all our octogenarians were reviewed, and of Prozorovski and\r
+Kamenski the latter was preferred. The general comes to us, Suvorov-\r
+like, in a kibitka, and is received with acclamations of joy and\r
+triumph.\r
+\r
+"On the 4th, the first courier arrives from Petersburg. The mails are\r
+taken to the field marshal's room, for he likes to do everything\r
+himself. I am called in to help sort the letters and take those meant\r
+for us. The field marshal looks on and waits for letters addressed to\r
+him. We search, but none are to be found. The field marshal grows\r
+impatient and sets to work himself and finds letters from the Emperor to\r
+Count T., Prince V., and others. Then he bursts into one of his wild\r
+furies and rages at everyone and everything, seizes the letters, opens\r
+them, and reads those from the Emperor addressed to others. 'Ah! So\r
+that's the way they treat me! No confidence in me! Ah, ordered to keep\r
+an eye on me! Very well then! Get along with you!' So he writes the\r
+famous order of the day to General Bennigsen:\r
+\r
+'I am wounded and cannot ride and consequently cannot command the army.\r
+You have brought your army corps to Pultusk, routed: here it is exposed,\r
+and without fuel or forage, so something must be done, and, as you\r
+yourself reported to Count Buxhowden yesterday, you must think of\r
+retreating to our frontier--which do today.'\r
+\r
+"'From all my riding,' he writes to the Emperor, 'I have got a saddle\r
+sore which, coming after all my previous journeys, quite prevents my\r
+riding and commanding so vast an army, so I have passed on the command\r
+to the general next in seniority, Count Buxhowden, having sent him my\r
+whole staff and all that belongs to it, advising him if there is a lack\r
+of bread, to move farther into the interior of Prussia, for only one\r
+day's ration of bread remains, and in some regiments none at all, as\r
+reported by the division commanders, Ostermann and Sedmoretzki, and all\r
+that the peasants had has been eaten up. I myself will remain in\r
+hospital at Ostrolenka till I recover. In regard to which I humbly\r
+submit my report, with the information that if the army remains in its\r
+present bivouac another fortnight there will not be a healthy man left\r
+in it by spring.\r
+\r
+"'Grant leave to retire to his country seat to an old man who is already\r
+in any case dishonored by being unable to fulfill the great and glorious\r
+task for which he was chosen. I shall await your most gracious\r
+permission here in hospital, that I may not have to play the part of a\r
+secretary rather than commander in the army. My removal from the army\r
+does not produce the slightest stir--a blind man has left it. There are\r
+thousands such as I in Russia.'\r
+\r
+"The field marshal is angry with the Emperor and he punishes us all,\r
+isn't it logical?\r
+\r
+"This is the first act. Those that follow are naturally increasingly\r
+interesting and entertaining. After the field marshal's departure it\r
+appears that we are within sight of the enemy and must give battle.\r
+Buxhowden is commander-in-chief by seniority, but General Bennigsen does\r
+not quite see it; more particularly as it is he and his corps who are\r
+within sight of the enemy and he wishes to profit by the opportunity to\r
+fight a battle 'on his own hand' as the Germans say. He does so. This is\r
+the battle of Pultusk, which is considered a great victory but in my\r
+opinion was nothing of the kind. We civilians, as you know, have a very\r
+bad way of deciding whether a battle was won or lost. Those who retreat\r
+after a battle have lost it is what we say; and according to that it is\r
+we who lost the battle of Pultusk. In short, we retreat after the battle\r
+but send a courier to Petersburg with news of a victory, and General\r
+Bennigsen, hoping to receive from Petersburg the post of commander in\r
+chief as a reward for his victory, does not give up the command of the\r
+army to General Buxhowden. During this interregnum we begin a very\r
+original and interesting series of maneuvers. Our aim is no longer, as\r
+it should be, to avoid or attack the enemy, but solely to avoid General\r
+Buxhowden who by right of seniority should be our chief. So\r
+energetically do we pursue this aim that after crossing an unfordable\r
+river we burn the bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy, who at\r
+the moment is not Bonaparte but Buxhowden. General Buxhowden was all but\r
+attacked and captured by a superior enemy force as a result of one of\r
+these maneuvers that enabled us to escape him. Buxhowden pursues us--we\r
+scuttle. He hardly crosses the river to our side before we recross to\r
+the other. At last our enemy, Buxhowden, catches us and attacks. Both\r
+generals are angry, and the result is a challenge on Buxhowden's part\r
+and an epileptic fit on Bennigsen's. But at the critical moment the\r
+courier who carried the news of our victory at Pultusk to Petersburg\r
+returns bringing our appointment as commander-in-chief, and our first\r
+foe, Buxhowden, is vanquished; we can now turn our thoughts to the\r
+second, Bonaparte. But as it turns out, just at that moment a third\r
+enemy rises before us--namely the Orthodox Russian soldiers, loudly\r
+demanding bread, meat, biscuits, fodder, and whatnot! The stores are\r
+empty, the roads impassable. The Orthodox begin looting, and in a way of\r
+which our last campaign can give you no idea. Half the regiments form\r
+bands and scour the countryside and put everything to fire and sword.\r
+The inhabitants are totally ruined, the hospitals overflow with sick,\r
+and famine is everywhere. Twice the marauders even attack our\r
+headquarters, and the commander-in-chief has to ask for a battalion to\r
+disperse them. During one of these attacks they carried off my empty\r
+portmanteau and my dressing gown. The Emperor proposes to give all\r
+commanders of divisions the right to shoot marauders, but I much fear\r
+this will oblige one half the army to shoot the other."\r
+\r
+At first Prince Andrew read with his eyes only, but after a while, in\r
+spite of himself (although he knew how far it was safe to trust\r
+Bilibin), what he had read began to interest him more and more. When he\r
+had read thus far, he crumpled the letter up and threw it away. It was\r
+not what he had read that vexed him, but the fact that the life out\r
+there in which he had now no part could perturb him. He shut his eyes,\r
+rubbed his forehead as if to rid himself of all interest in what he had\r
+read, and listened to what was passing in the nursery. Suddenly he\r
+thought he heard a strange noise through the door. He was seized with\r
+alarm lest something should have happened to the child while he was\r
+reading the letter. He went on tiptoe to the nursery door and opened it.\r
+\r
+Just as he went in he saw that the nurse was hiding something from him\r
+with a scared look and that Princess Mary was no longer by the cot.\r
+\r
+"My dear," he heard what seemed to him her despairing whisper behind\r
+him.\r
+\r
+As often happens after long sleeplessness and long anxiety, he was\r
+seized by an unreasoning panic--it occurred to him that the child was\r
+dead. All that he saw and heard seemed to confirm this terror.\r
+\r
+"All is over," he thought, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.\r
+He went to the cot in confusion, sure that he would find it empty and\r
+that the nurse had been hiding the dead baby. He drew the curtain aside\r
+and for some time his frightened, restless eyes could not find the baby.\r
+At last he saw him: the rosy boy had tossed about till he lay across the\r
+bed with his head lower than the pillow, and was smacking his lips in\r
+his sleep and breathing evenly.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was as glad to find the boy like that, as if he had\r
+already lost him. He bent over him and, as his sister had taught him,\r
+tried with his lips whether the child was still feverish. The soft\r
+forehead was moist. Prince Andrew touched the head with his hand; even\r
+the hair was wet, so profusely had the child perspired. He was not dead,\r
+but evidently the crisis was over and he was convalescent. Prince Andrew\r
+longed to snatch up, to squeeze, to hold to his heart, this helpless\r
+little creature, but dared not do so. He stood over him, gazing at his\r
+head and at the little arms and legs which showed under the blanket. He\r
+heard a rustle behind him and a shadow appeared under the curtain of the\r
+cot. He did not look round, but still gazing at the infant's face\r
+listened to his regular breathing. The dark shadow was Princess Mary,\r
+who had come up to the cot with noiseless steps, lifted the curtain, and\r
+dropped it again behind her. Prince Andrew recognized her without\r
+looking and held out his hand to her. She pressed it.\r
+\r
+"He has perspired," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"I was coming to tell you so."\r
+\r
+The child moved slightly in his sleep, smiled, and rubbed his forehead\r
+against the pillow.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew looked at his sister. In the dim shadow of the curtain her\r
+luminous eyes shone more brightly than usual from the tears of joy that\r
+were in them. She leaned over to her brother and kissed him, slightly\r
+catching the curtain of the cot. Each made the other a warning gesture\r
+and stood still in the dim light beneath the curtain as if not wishing\r
+to leave that seclusion where they three were shut off from all the\r
+world. Prince Andrew was the first to move away, ruffling his hair\r
+against the muslin of the curtain.\r
+\r
+"Yes, this is the one thing left me now," he said with a sigh.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+Soon after his admission to the masonic Brotherhood, Pierre went to the\r
+Kiev province, where he had the greatest number of serfs, taking with\r
+him full directions which he had written down for his own guidance as to\r
+what he should do on his estates.\r
+\r
+When he reached Kiev he sent for all his stewards to the head office and\r
+explained to them his intentions and wishes. He told them that steps\r
+would be taken immediately to free his serfs--and that till then they\r
+were not to be overburdened with labor, women while nursing their babies\r
+were not to be sent to work, assistance was to be given to the serfs,\r
+punishments were to be admonitory and not corporal, and hospitals,\r
+asylums, and schools were to be established on all the estates. Some of\r
+the stewards (there were semiliterate foremen among them) listened with\r
+alarm, supposing these words to mean that the young count was displeased\r
+with their management and embezzlement of money, some after their first\r
+fright were amused by Pierre's lisp and the new words they had not heard\r
+before, others simply enjoyed hearing how the master talked, while the\r
+cleverest among them, including the chief steward, understood from this\r
+speech how they could best handle the master for their own ends.\r
+\r
+The chief steward expressed great sympathy with Pierre's intentions, but\r
+remarked that besides these changes it would be necessary to go into the\r
+general state of affairs which was far from satisfactory.\r
+\r
+Despite Count Bezukhov's enormous wealth, since he had come into an\r
+income which was said to amount to five hundred thousand rubles a year,\r
+Pierre felt himself far poorer than when his father had made him an\r
+allowance of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim perception of the\r
+following budget:\r
+\r
+About 80,000 went in payments on all the estates to the Land Bank, about\r
+30,000 went for the upkeep of the estate near Moscow, the town house,\r
+and the allowance to the three princesses; about 15,000 was given in\r
+pensions and the same amount for asylums; 150,000 alimony was sent to\r
+the countess; about 70,000 went for interest on debts. The building of a\r
+new church, previously begun, had cost about 10,000 in each of the last\r
+two years, and he did not know how the rest, about 100,000 rubles, was\r
+spent, and almost every year he was obliged to borrow. Besides this the\r
+chief steward wrote every year telling him of fires and bad harvests, or\r
+of the necessity of rebuilding factories and workshops. So the first\r
+task Pierre had to face was one for which he had very little aptitude or\r
+inclination--practical business.\r
+\r
+He discussed estate affairs every day with his chief steward. But he\r
+felt that this did not forward matters at all. He felt that these\r
+consultations were detached from real affairs and did not link up with\r
+them or make them move. On the one hand, the chief steward put the state\r
+of things to him in the very worst light, pointing out the necessity of\r
+paying off the debts and undertaking new activities with serf labor, to\r
+which Pierre did not agree. On the other hand, Pierre demanded that\r
+steps should be taken to liberate the serfs, which the steward met by\r
+showing the necessity of first paying off the loans from the Land Bank,\r
+and the consequent impossibility of a speedy emancipation.\r
+\r
+The steward did not say it was quite impossible, but suggested selling\r
+the forests in the province of Kostroma, the land lower down the river,\r
+and the Crimean estate, in order to make it possible: all of which\r
+operations according to him were connected with such complicated\r
+measures--the removal of injunctions, petitions, permits, and so on--\r
+that Pierre became quite bewildered and only replied:\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, do so."\r
+\r
+Pierre had none of the practical persistence that would have enabled him\r
+to attend to the business himself and so he disliked it and only tried\r
+to pretend to the steward that he was attending to it. The steward for\r
+his part tried to pretend to the count that he considered these\r
+consultations very valuable for the proprietor and troublesome to\r
+himself.\r
+\r
+In Kiev Pierre found some people he knew, and strangers hastened to make\r
+his acquaintance and joyfully welcomed the rich newcomer, the largest\r
+landowner of the province. Temptations to Pierre's greatest weakness--\r
+the one to which he had confessed when admitted to the Lodge--were so\r
+strong that he could not resist them. Again whole days, weeks, and\r
+months of his life passed in as great a rush and were as much occupied\r
+with evening parties, dinners, lunches, and balls, giving him no time\r
+for reflection, as in Petersburg. Instead of the new life he had hoped\r
+to lead he still lived the old life, only in new surroundings.\r
+\r
+Of the three precepts of Freemasonry Pierre realized that he did not\r
+fulfill the one which enjoined every Mason to set an example of moral\r
+life, and that of the seven virtues he lacked two--morality and the love\r
+of death. He consoled himself with the thought that he fulfilled another\r
+of the precepts--that of reforming the human race--and had other\r
+virtues--love of his neighbor, and especially generosity.\r
+\r
+In the spring of 1807 he decided to return to Petersburg. On the way he\r
+intended to visit all his estates and see for himself how far his orders\r
+had been carried out and in what state were the serfs whom God had\r
+entrusted to his care and whom he intended to benefit.\r
+\r
+The chief steward, who considered the young count's attempts almost\r
+insane--unprofitable to himself, to the count, and to the serfs--made\r
+some concessions. Continuing to represent the liberation of the serfs as\r
+impracticable, he arranged for the erection of large buildings--schools,\r
+hospitals, and asylums--on all the estates before the master arrived.\r
+Everywhere preparations were made not for ceremonious welcomes (which he\r
+knew Pierre would not like), but for just such gratefully religious\r
+ones, with offerings of icons and the bread and salt of hospitality, as,\r
+according to his understanding of his master, would touch and delude\r
+him.\r
+\r
+The southern spring, the comfortable rapid traveling in a Vienna\r
+carriage, and the solitude of the road, all had a gladdening effect on\r
+Pierre. The estates he had not before visited were each more picturesque\r
+than the other; the serfs everywhere seemed thriving and touchingly\r
+grateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere were receptions,\r
+which though they embarrassed Pierre awakened a joyful feeling in the\r
+depth of his heart. In one place the peasants presented him with bread\r
+and salt and an icon of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, asking permission,\r
+as a mark of their gratitude for the benefits he had conferred on them,\r
+to build a new chantry to the church at their own expense in honor of\r
+Peter and Paul, his patron saints. In another place the women with\r
+infants in arms met him to thank him for releasing them from hard work.\r
+On a third estate the priest, bearing a cross, came to meet him\r
+surrounded by children whom, by the count's generosity, he was\r
+instructing in reading, writing, and religion. On all his estates Pierre\r
+saw with his own eyes brick buildings erected or in course of erection,\r
+all on one plan, for hospitals, schools, and almshouses, which were soon\r
+to be opened. Everywhere he saw the stewards' accounts, according to\r
+which the serfs' manorial labor had been diminished, and heard the\r
+touching thanks of deputations of serfs in their full-skirted blue\r
+coats.\r
+\r
+What Pierre did not know was that the place where they presented him\r
+with bread and salt and wished to build a chantry in honor of Peter and\r
+Paul was a market village where a fair was held on St. Peter's day, and\r
+that the richest peasants (who formed the deputation) had begun the\r
+chantry long before, but that nine tenths of the peasants in that\r
+villages were in a state of the greatest poverty. He did not know that\r
+since the nursing mothers were no longer sent to work on his land, they\r
+did still harder work on their own land. He did not know that the priest\r
+who met him with the cross oppressed the peasants by his exactions, and\r
+that the pupils' parents wept at having to let him take their children\r
+and secured their release by heavy payments. He did not know that the\r
+brick buildings, built to plan, were being built by serfs whose manorial\r
+labor was thus increased, though lessened on paper. He did not know that\r
+where the steward had shown him in the accounts that the serfs' payments\r
+had been diminished by a third, their obligatory manorial work had been\r
+increased by a half. And so Pierre was delighted with his visit to his\r
+estates and quite recovered the philanthropic mood in which he had left\r
+Petersburg, and wrote enthusiastic letters to his "brother-instructor"\r
+as he called the Grand Master.\r
+\r
+"How easy it is, how little effort it needs, to do so much good,"\r
+thought Pierre, "and how little attention we pay to it!"\r
+\r
+He was pleased at the gratitude he received, but felt abashed at\r
+receiving it. This gratitude reminded him of how much more he might do\r
+for these simple, kindly people.\r
+\r
+The chief steward, a very stupid but cunning man who saw perfectly\r
+through the naive and intelligent count and played with him as with a\r
+toy, seeing the effect these prearranged receptions had on Pierre,\r
+pressed him still harder with proofs of the impossibility and above all\r
+the uselessness of freeing the serfs, who were quite happy as it was.\r
+\r
+Pierre in his secret soul agreed with the steward that it would be\r
+difficult to imagine happier people, and that God only knew what would\r
+happen to them when they were free, but he insisted, though reluctantly,\r
+on what he thought right. The steward promised to do all in his power to\r
+carry out the count's wishes, seeing clearly that not only would the\r
+count never be able to find out whether all measures had been taken for\r
+the sale of the land and forests and to release them from the Land Bank,\r
+but would probably never even inquire and would never know that the\r
+newly erected buildings were standing empty and that the serfs continued\r
+to give in money and work all that other people's serfs gave--that is to\r
+say, all that could be got out of them.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+Returning from his journey through South Russia in the happiest state of\r
+mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had of visiting his\r
+friend Bolkonski, whom he had not seen for two years.\r
+\r
+Bogucharovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country among fields\r
+and forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut down. The house lay\r
+behind a newly dug pond filled with water to the brink and with banks\r
+still bare of grass. It was at the end of a village that stretched along\r
+the highroad in the midst of a young copse in which were a few fir\r
+trees.\r
+\r
+The homestead consisted of a threshing floor, outhouses, stables, a\r
+bathhouse, a lodge, and a large brick house with semicircular facade\r
+still in course of construction. Round the house was a garden newly laid\r
+out. The fences and gates were new and solid; two fire pumps and a water\r
+cart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight, the\r
+bridges were strong and had handrails. Everything bore an impress of\r
+tidiness and good management. Some domestic serfs Pierre met, in reply\r
+to inquiries as to where the prince lived, pointed out a small newly\r
+built lodge close to the pond. Anton, a man who had looked after Prince\r
+Andrew in his boyhood, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said that the\r
+prince was at home, and showed him into a clean little anteroom.\r
+\r
+Pierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean house after\r
+the brilliant surroundings in which he had last met his friend in\r
+Petersburg.\r
+\r
+He quickly entered the small reception room with its still-unplastered\r
+wooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but Anton\r
+ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.\r
+\r
+"Well, what is it?" came a sharp, unpleasant voice.\r
+\r
+"A visitor," answered Anton.\r
+\r
+"Ask him to wait," and the sound was heard of a chair being pushed back.\r
+\r
+Pierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came face to face\r
+with Prince Andrew, who came out frowning and looking old. Pierre\r
+embraced him and lifting his spectacles kissed his friend on the cheek\r
+and looked at him closely.\r
+\r
+"Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+Pierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with surprise. He\r
+was struck by the change in him. His words were kindly and there was a\r
+smile on his lips and face, but his eyes were dull and lifeless and in\r
+spite of his evident wish to do so he could not give them a joyous and\r
+glad sparkle. Prince Andrew had grown thinner, paler, and more manly-\r
+looking, but what amazed and estranged Pierre till he got used to it\r
+were his inertia and a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged\r
+concentration on some one thought.\r
+\r
+As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged separation,\r
+it was long before their conversation could settle on anything. They put\r
+questions and gave brief replies about things they knew ought to be\r
+talked over at length. At last the conversation gradually settled on\r
+some of the topics at first lightly touched on: their past life, plans\r
+for the future, Pierre's journeys and occupations, the war, and so on.\r
+The preoccupation and despondency which Pierre had noticed in his\r
+friend's look was now still more clearly expressed in the smile with\r
+which he listened to Pierre, especially when he spoke with joyful\r
+animation of the past or the future. It was as if Prince Andrew would\r
+have liked to sympathize with what Pierre was saying, but could not. The\r
+latter began to feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his\r
+enthusiasms, dreams, and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince\r
+Andrew's presence. He was ashamed to express his new masonic views,\r
+which had been particularly revived and strengthened by his late tour.\r
+He checked himself, fearing to seem naive, yet he felt an irresistible\r
+desire to show his friend as soon as possible that he was now a quite\r
+different, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg.\r
+\r
+"I can't tell you how much I have lived through since then. I hardly\r
+know myself again."\r
+\r
+"Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Well, and you? What are your plans?"\r
+\r
+"Plans!" repeated Prince Andrew ironically. "My plans?" he said, as if\r
+astonished at the word. "Well, you see, I'm building. I mean to settle\r
+here altogether next year...."\r
+\r
+Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew's face, which\r
+had grown much older.\r
+\r
+"No, I meant to ask..." Pierre began, but Prince Andrew interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"But why talk of me?... Talk to me, yes, tell me about your travels and\r
+all you have been doing on your estates."\r
+\r
+Pierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying as far\r
+as possible to conceal his own part in the improvements that had been\r
+made. Prince Andrew several times prompted Pierre's story of what he had\r
+been doing, as though it were all an old-time story, and he listened not\r
+only without interest but even as if ashamed of what Pierre was telling\r
+him.\r
+\r
+Pierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend's company and\r
+at last became silent.\r
+\r
+"I'll tell you what, my dear fellow," said Prince Andrew, who evidently\r
+also felt depressed and constrained with his visitor, "I am only\r
+bivouacking here and have just come to look round. I am going back to my\r
+sister today. I will introduce you to her. But of course you know her\r
+already," he said, evidently trying to entertain a visitor with whom he\r
+now found nothing in common. "We will go after dinner. And would you now\r
+like to look round my place?"\r
+\r
+They went out and walked about till dinnertime, talking of the political\r
+news and common acquaintances like people who do not know each other\r
+intimately. Prince Andrew spoke with some animation and interest only of\r
+the new homestead he was constructing and its buildings, but even here,\r
+while on the scaffolding, in the midst of a talk explaining the future\r
+arrangements of the house, he interrupted himself:\r
+\r
+"However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have dinner, and then\r
+we'll set off."\r
+\r
+At dinner, conversation turned on Pierre's marriage.\r
+\r
+"I was very much surprised when I heard of it," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+Pierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and said\r
+hurriedly: "I will tell you some time how it all happened. But you know\r
+it is all over, and forever."\r
+\r
+"Forever?" said Prince Andrew. "Nothing's forever."\r
+\r
+"But you know how it all ended, don't you? You heard of the duel?"\r
+\r
+"And so you had to go through that too!"\r
+\r
+"One thing I thank God for is that I did not kill that man," said\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Why so?" asked Prince Andrew. "To kill a vicious dog is a very good\r
+thing really."\r
+\r
+"No, to kill a man is bad--wrong."\r
+\r
+"Why is it wrong?" urged Prince Andrew. "It is not given to man to know\r
+what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and\r
+in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong."\r
+\r
+"What does harm to another is wrong," said Pierre, feeling with pleasure\r
+that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was roused, had\r
+begun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him to his present\r
+state.\r
+\r
+"And who has told you what is bad for another man?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Bad! Bad!" exclaimed Pierre. "We all know what is bad for ourselves."\r
+\r
+"Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is\r
+something I cannot inflict on others," said Prince Andrew, growing more\r
+and more animated and evidently wishing to express his new outlook to\r
+Pierre. He spoke in French. "I only know two very real evils in life:\r
+remorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils. To\r
+live for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy now."\r
+\r
+"And love of one's neighbor, and self-sacrifice?" began Pierre. "No, I\r
+can't agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and not to have\r
+to repent is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for myself and\r
+ruined my life. And only now when I am living, or at least trying"\r
+(Pierre's modesty made him correct himself) "to live for others, only\r
+now have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I shall not agree\r
+with you, and you do not really believe what you are saying." Prince\r
+Andrew looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile.\r
+\r
+"When you see my sister, Princess Mary, you'll get on with her," he\r
+said. "Perhaps you are right for yourself," he added after a short\r
+pause, "but everyone lives in his own way. You lived for yourself and\r
+say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you began\r
+living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I lived for glory.--\r
+And after all what is glory? The same love of others, a desire to do\r
+something for them, a desire for their approval.--So I lived for others,\r
+and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have become calmer\r
+since I began to live only for myself."\r
+\r
+"But what do you mean by living only for yourself?" asked Pierre,\r
+growing excited. "What about your son, your sister, and your father?"\r
+\r
+"But that's just the same as myself--they are not others," explained\r
+Prince Andrew. "The others, one's neighbors, le prochain, as you and\r
+Princess Mary call it, are the chief source of all error and evil. Le\r
+prochain--your Kiev peasants to whom you want to do good."\r
+\r
+And he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He\r
+evidently wished to draw him on.\r
+\r
+"You are joking," replied Pierre, growing more and more excited. "What\r
+error or evil can there be in my wishing to do good, and even doing a\r
+little--though I did very little and did it very badly? What evil can\r
+there be in it if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like ourselves,\r
+were growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth beyond\r
+ceremonies and meaningless prayers and are now instructed in a\r
+comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and\r
+consolation? What evil and error are there in it, if people were dying\r
+of disease without help while material assistance could so easily be\r
+rendered, and I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum\r
+for the aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a\r
+peasant, or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night and I give\r
+them rest and leisure?" said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. "And I have\r
+done that though badly and to a small extent; but I have done something\r
+toward it and you cannot persuade me that it was not a good action, and\r
+more than that, you can't make me believe that you do not think so\r
+yourself. And the main thing is," he continued, "that I know, and know\r
+for certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only sure\r
+happiness in life."\r
+\r
+"Yes, if you put it like that it's quite a different matter," said\r
+Prince Andrew. "I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build\r
+hospitals. The one and the other may serve as a pastime. But what's\r
+right and what's good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by\r
+us. Well, you want an argument," he added, "come on then."\r
+\r
+They rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch which served\r
+as a veranda.\r
+\r
+"Come, let's argue then," said Prince Andrew, "You talk of schools," he\r
+went on, crooking a finger, "education and so forth; that is, you want\r
+to raise him" (pointing to a peasant who passed by them taking off his\r
+cap) "from his animal condition and awaken in him spiritual needs, while\r
+it seems to me that animal happiness is the only happiness possible, and\r
+that is just what you want to deprive him of. I envy him, but you want\r
+to make him what I am, without giving him my means. Then you say,\r
+'lighten his toil.' But as I see it, physical labor is as essential to\r
+him, as much a condition of his existence, as mental activity is to you\r
+or me. You can't help thinking. I go to bed after two in the morning,\r
+thoughts come and I can't sleep but toss about till dawn, because I\r
+think and can't help thinking, just as he can't help plowing and mowing;\r
+if he didn't, he would go to the drink shop or fall ill. Just as I could\r
+not stand his terrible physical labor but should die of it in a week, so\r
+he could not stand my physical idleness, but would grow fat and die. The\r
+third thing--what else was it you talked about?" and Prince Andrew\r
+crooked a third finger. "Ah, yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit, he\r
+is dying, and you come and bleed him and patch him up. He will drag\r
+about as a cripple, a burden to everybody, for another ten years. It\r
+would be far easier and simpler for him to die. Others are being born\r
+and there are plenty of them as it is. It would be different if you\r
+grudged losing a laborer--that's how I regard him--but you want to cure\r
+him from love of him. And he does not want that. And besides, what a\r
+notion that medicine ever cured anyone! Killed them, yes!" said he,\r
+frowning angrily and turning away from Pierre.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it was\r
+evident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he spoke\r
+readily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time. His\r
+glance became more animated as his conclusions became more hopeless.\r
+\r
+"Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!" said Pierre. "I don't understand how\r
+one can live with such ideas. I had such moments myself not long ago, in\r
+Moscow and when traveling, but at such times I collapsed so that I don't\r
+live at all--everything seems hateful to me... myself most of all. Then\r
+I don't eat, don't wash... and how is it with you?..."\r
+\r
+"Why not wash? That is not cleanly," said Prince Andrew; "on the\r
+contrary one must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm\r
+alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I can\r
+without hurting others."\r
+\r
+"But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit\r
+without moving, undertaking nothing...."\r
+\r
+"Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do nothing,\r
+but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the honor to\r
+choose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get out of it.\r
+They could not understand that I have not the necessary qualifications\r
+for it--the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness necessary for the\r
+position. Then there's this house, which must be built in order to have\r
+a nook of one's own in which to be quiet. And now there's this\r
+recruiting."\r
+\r
+"Why aren't you serving in the army?"\r
+\r
+"After Austerlitz!" said Prince Andrew gloomily. "No, thank you very\r
+much! I have promised myself not to serve again in the active Russian\r
+army. And I won't--not even if Bonaparte were here at Smolensk\r
+threatening Bald Hills--even then I wouldn't serve in the Russian army!\r
+Well, as I was saying," he continued, recovering his composure, "now\r
+there's this recruiting. My father is chief in command of the Third\r
+District, and my only way of avoiding active service is to serve under\r
+him."\r
+\r
+"Then you are serving?"\r
+\r
+"I am."\r
+\r
+He paused a little while.\r
+\r
+"And why do you serve?"\r
+\r
+"Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable men of\r
+his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel he has too\r
+energetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that he is\r
+terrible, and now he has this authority of a commander-in-chief of the\r
+recruiting, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late a\r
+fortnight ago he would have had a paymaster's clerk at Yukhnovna\r
+hanged," said Prince Andrew with a smile. "So I am serving because I\r
+alone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save him\r
+from actions which would torment him afterwards."\r
+\r
+"Well, there you see!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, but it is not as you imagine," Prince Andrew continued. "I did\r
+not, and do not, in the least care about that scoundrel of a clerk who\r
+had stolen some boots from the recruits; I should even have been very\r
+glad to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father--that again is for\r
+myself."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered feverishly\r
+while he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions there was no\r
+desire to do good to his neighbor.\r
+\r
+"There now, you wish to liberate your serfs," he continued; "that is a\r
+very good thing, but not for you--I don't suppose you ever had anyone\r
+flogged or sent to Siberia--and still less for your serfs. If they are\r
+beaten, flogged, or sent to Siberia, I don't suppose they are any the\r
+worse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the stripes on\r
+their bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is a good thing\r
+for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon themselves,\r
+stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being able to\r
+inflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I pity, and\r
+for their sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You may not have\r
+seen, but I have seen, how good men brought up in those traditions of\r
+unlimited power, in time when they grow more irritable, become cruel and\r
+harsh, are conscious of it, but cannot restrain themselves and grow more\r
+and more miserable."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help thinking\r
+that these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andrew by his father's\r
+case.\r
+\r
+He did not reply.\r
+\r
+"So that's what I'm sorry for--human dignity, peace of mind, purity, and\r
+not the serfs' backs and foreheads, which, beat and shave as you may,\r
+always remain the same backs and foreheads."\r
+\r
+"No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with you," said\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+In the evening Andrew and Pierre got into the open carriage and drove to\r
+Bald Hills. Prince Andrew, glancing at Pierre, broke the silence now and\r
+then with remarks which showed that he was in a good temper.\r
+\r
+Pointing to the fields, he spoke of the improvements he was making in\r
+his husbandry.\r
+\r
+Pierre remained gloomily silent, answering in monosyllables and\r
+apparently immersed in his own thoughts.\r
+\r
+He was thinking that Prince Andrew was unhappy, had gone astray, did not\r
+see the true light, and that he, Pierre, ought to aid, enlighten, and\r
+raise him. But as soon as he thought of what he should say, he felt that\r
+Prince Andrew with one word, one argument, would upset all his teaching,\r
+and he shrank from beginning, afraid of exposing to possible ridicule\r
+what to him was precious and sacred.\r
+\r
+"No, but why do you think so?" Pierre suddenly began, lowering his head\r
+and looking like a bull about to charge, "why do you think so? You\r
+should not think so."\r
+\r
+"Think? What about?" asked Prince Andrew with surprise.\r
+\r
+"About life, about man's destiny. It can't be so. I myself thought like\r
+that, and do you know what saved me? Freemasonry! No, don't smile.\r
+Freemasonry is not a religious ceremonial sect, as I thought it was:\r
+Freemasonry is the best expression of the best, the eternal, aspects of\r
+humanity."\r
+\r
+And he began to explain Freemasonry as he understood it to Prince\r
+Andrew. He said that Freemasonry is the teaching of Christianity freed\r
+from the bonds of State and Church, a teaching of equality, brotherhood,\r
+and love.\r
+\r
+"Only our holy brotherhood has the real meaning of life, all the rest is\r
+a dream," said Pierre. "Understand, my dear fellow, that outside this\r
+union all is filled with deceit and falsehood and I agree with you that\r
+nothing is left for an intelligent and good man but to live out his\r
+life, like you, merely trying not to harm others. But make our\r
+fundamental convictions your own, join our brotherhood, give yourself up\r
+to us, let yourself be guided, and you will at once feel yourself, as I\r
+have felt myself, a part of that vast invisible chain the beginning of\r
+which is hidden in heaven," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, looking straight in front of him, listened in silence to\r
+Pierre's words. More than once, when the noise of the wheels prevented\r
+his catching what Pierre said, he asked him to repeat it, and by the\r
+peculiar glow that came into Prince Andrew's eyes and by his silence,\r
+Pierre saw that his words were not in vain and that Prince Andrew would\r
+not interrupt him or laugh at what he said.\r
+\r
+They reached a river that had overflowed its banks and which they had to\r
+cross by ferry. While the carriage and horses were being placed on it,\r
+they also stepped on the raft.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, leaning his arms on the raft railing, gazed silently at\r
+the flooding waters glittering in the setting sun.\r
+\r
+"Well, what do you think about it?" Pierre asked. "Why are you silent?"\r
+\r
+"What do I think about it? I am listening to you. It's all very well....\r
+You say: join our brotherhood and we will show you the aim of life, the\r
+destiny of man, and the laws which govern the world. But who are we?\r
+Men. How is it you know everything? Why do I alone not see what you see?\r
+You see a reign of goodness and truth on earth, but I don't see it."\r
+\r
+Pierre interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"Do you believe in a future life?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"A future life?" Prince Andrew repeated, but Pierre, giving him no time\r
+to reply, took the repetition for a denial, the more readily as he knew\r
+Prince Andrew's former atheistic convictions.\r
+\r
+"You say you can't see a reign of goodness and truth on earth. Nor could\r
+I, and it cannot be seen if one looks on our life here as the end of\r
+everything. On earth, here on this earth" (Pierre pointed to the\r
+fields), "there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the universe,\r
+in the whole universe there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now\r
+the children of earth are--eternally--children of the whole universe.\r
+Don't I feel in my soul that I am part of this vast harmonious whole?\r
+Don't I feel that I form one link, one step, between the lower and\r
+higher beings, in this vast harmonious multitude of beings in whom the\r
+Deity--the Supreme Power if you prefer the term--is manifest? If I see,\r
+clearly see, that ladder leading from plant to man, why should I suppose\r
+it breaks off at me and does not go farther and farther? I feel that I\r
+cannot vanish, since nothing vanishes in this world, but that I shall\r
+always exist and always have existed. I feel that beyond me and above me\r
+there are spirits, and that in this world there is truth."\r
+\r
+"Yes, that is Herder's theory," said Prince Andrew, "but it is not that\r
+which can convince me, dear friend--life and death are what convince.\r
+What convinces is when one sees a being dear to one, bound up with one's\r
+own life, before whom one was to blame and had hoped to make it right"\r
+(Prince Andrew's voice trembled and he turned away), "and suddenly that\r
+being is seized with pain, suffers, and ceases to exist.... Why? It\r
+cannot be that there is no answer. And I believe there is.... That's\r
+what convinces, that is what has convinced me," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, of course," said Pierre, "isn't that what I'm saying?"\r
+\r
+"No. All I say is that it is not argument that convinces me of the\r
+necessity of a future life, but this: when you go hand in hand with\r
+someone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and\r
+you yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked\r
+in...."\r
+\r
+"Well, that's it then! You know that there is a there and there is a\r
+Someone? There is the future life. The Someone is--God."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew did not reply. The carriage and horses had long since been\r
+taken off, onto the farther bank, and reharnessed. The sun had sunk half\r
+below the horizon and an evening frost was starring the puddles near the\r
+ferry, but Pierre and Andrew, to the astonishment of the footmen,\r
+coachmen, and ferrymen, still stood on the raft and talked.\r
+\r
+"If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man's\r
+highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we\r
+must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap\r
+of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole,"\r
+said Pierre, and he pointed to the sky.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew stood leaning on the railing of the raft listening to\r
+Pierre, and he gazed with his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the\r
+sun gleaming on the blue waters. There was perfect stillness. Pierre\r
+became silent. The raft had long since stopped and only the waves of the\r
+current beat softly against it below. Prince Andrew felt as if the sound\r
+of the waves kept up a refrain to Pierre's words, whispering:\r
+\r
+"It is true, believe it."\r
+\r
+He sighed, and glanced with a radiant, childlike, tender look at\r
+Pierre's face, flushed and rapturous, but yet shy before his superior\r
+friend.\r
+\r
+"Yes, if it only were so!" said Prince Andrew. "However, it is time to\r
+get on," he added, and, stepping off the raft, he looked up at the sky\r
+to which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw\r
+that high, everlasting sky he had seen while lying on that battlefield;\r
+and something that had long been slumbering, something that was best\r
+within him, suddenly awoke, joyful and youthful, in his soul. It\r
+vanished as soon as he returned to the customary conditions of his life,\r
+but he knew that this feeling which he did not know how to develop\r
+existed within him. His meeting with Pierre formed an epoch in Prince\r
+Andrew's life. Though outwardly he continued to live in the same old\r
+way, inwardly he began a new life.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+It was getting dusk when Prince Andrew and Pierre drove up to the front\r
+entrance of the house at Bald Hills. As they approached the house,\r
+Prince Andrew with a smile drew Pierre's attention to a commotion going\r
+on at the back porch. A woman, bent with age, with a wallet on her back,\r
+and a short, long-haired, young man in a black garment had rushed back\r
+to the gate on seeing the carriage driving up. Two women ran out after\r
+them, and all four, looking round at the carriage, ran in dismay up the\r
+steps of the back porch.\r
+\r
+"Those are Mary's 'God's folk,'" said Prince Andrew. "They have mistaken\r
+us for my father. This is the one matter in which she disobeys him. He\r
+orders these pilgrims to be driven away, but she receives them."\r
+\r
+"But what are 'God's folk'?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew had no time to answer. The servants came out to meet them,\r
+and he asked where the old prince was and whether he was expected back\r
+soon.\r
+\r
+The old prince had gone to the town and was expected back any minute.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew led Pierre to his own apartments, which were always kept\r
+in perfect order and readiness for him in his father's house; he himself\r
+went to the nursery.\r
+\r
+"Let us go and see my sister," he said to Pierre when he returned. "I\r
+have not found her yet, she is hiding now, sitting with her 'God's\r
+folk.' It will serve her right, she will be confused, but you will see\r
+her 'God's folk.' It's really very curious."\r
+\r
+"What are 'God's folk'?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Come, and you'll see for yourself."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary really was disconcerted and red patches came on her face\r
+when they went in. In her snug room, with lamps burning before the icon\r
+stand, a young lad with a long nose and long hair, wearing a monk's\r
+cassock, sat on the sofa beside her, behind a samovar. Near them, in an\r
+armchair, sat a thin, shriveled, old woman, with a meek expression on\r
+her childlike face.\r
+\r
+"Andrew, why didn't you warn me?" said the princess, with mild reproach,\r
+as she stood before her pilgrims like a hen before her chickens.\r
+\r
+"Charmee de vous voir. Je suis tres contente de vous voir," * she said\r
+to Pierre as he kissed her hand. She had known him as a child, and now\r
+his friendship with Andrew, his misfortune with his wife, and above all\r
+his kindly, simple face disposed her favorably toward him. She looked at\r
+him with her beautiful radiant eyes and seemed to say, "I like you very\r
+much, but please don't laugh at my people." After exchanging the first\r
+greetings, they sat down.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Delighted to see you. I am very glad to see you."\r
+\r
+"Ah, and Ivanushka is here too!" said Prince Andrew, glancing with a\r
+smile at the young pilgrim.\r
+\r
+"Andrew!" said Princess Mary, imploringly. "Il faut que vous sachiez que\r
+c'est une femme," * said Prince Andrew to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Andrew, au nom de Dieu!" *(2) Princess Mary repeated.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "You must know that this is a woman."\r
+\r
+* (2) "For heaven's sake."\r
+\r
+It was evident that Prince Andrew's ironical tone toward the pilgrims\r
+and Princess Mary's helpless attempts to protect them were their\r
+customary long-established relations on the matter.\r
+\r
+"Mais, ma bonne amie," said Prince Andrew, "vous devriez au contraire\r
+m'être reconnaissante de ce que j'explique a Pierre votre intimité avec\r
+ce jeune homme." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "But, my dear, you ought on the contrary to be grateful to me for\r
+explaining to Pierre your intimacy with this young man."\r
+\r
+"Really?" said Pierre, gazing over his spectacles with curiosity and\r
+seriousness (for which Princess Mary was specially grateful to him) into\r
+Ivanushka's face, who, seeing that she was being spoken about, looked\r
+round at them all with crafty eyes.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary's embarrassment on her people's account was quite\r
+unnecessary. They were not in the least abashed. The old woman, lowering\r
+her eyes but casting side glances at the newcomers, had turned her cup\r
+upside down and placed a nibbled bit of sugar beside it, and sat quietly\r
+in her armchair, though hoping to be offered another cup of tea.\r
+Ivanushka, sipping out of her saucer, looked with sly womanish eyes from\r
+under her brows at the young men.\r
+\r
+"Where have you been? To Kiev?" Prince Andrew asked the old woman.\r
+\r
+"I have, good sir," she answered garrulously. "Just at Christmastime I\r
+was deemed worthy to partake of the holy and heavenly sacrament at the\r
+shrine of the saint. And now I'm from Kolyazin, master, where a great\r
+and wonderful blessing has been revealed."\r
+\r
+"And was Ivanushka with you?"\r
+\r
+"I go by myself, benefactor," said Ivanushka, trying to speak in a bass\r
+voice. "I only came across Pelageya in Yukhnovo..."\r
+\r
+Pelageya interrupted her companion; she evidently wished to tell what\r
+she had seen.\r
+\r
+"In Kolyazin, master, a wonderful blessing has been revealed."\r
+\r
+"What is it? Some new relics?" asked Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Andrew, do leave off," said Princess Mary. "Don't tell him, Pelageya."\r
+\r
+"No... why not, my dear, why shouldn't I? I like him. He is kind, he is\r
+one of God's chosen, he's a benefactor, he once gave me ten rubles, I\r
+remember. When I was in Kiev, Crazy Cyril says to me (he's one of God's\r
+own and goes barefoot summer and winter), he says, 'Why are you not\r
+going to the right place? Go to Kolyazin where a wonder-working icon of\r
+the Holy Mother of God has been revealed.' On hearing those words I said\r
+good-by to the holy folk and went."\r
+\r
+All were silent, only the pilgrim woman went on in measured tones,\r
+drawing in her breath.\r
+\r
+"So I come, master, and the people say to me: 'A great blessing has been\r
+revealed, holy oil trickles from the cheeks of our blessed Mother, the\r
+Holy Virgin Mother of God'...."\r
+\r
+"All right, all right, you can tell us afterwards," said Princess Mary,\r
+flushing.\r
+\r
+"Let me ask her," said Pierre. "Did you see it yourselves?" he inquired.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, master, I was found worthy. Such a brightness on the face like\r
+the light of heaven, and from the blessed Mother's cheek it drops and\r
+drops...."\r
+\r
+"But, dear me, that must be a fraud!" said Pierre, naively, who had\r
+listened attentively to the pilgrim.\r
+\r
+"Oh, master, what are you saying?" exclaimed the horrified Pelageya,\r
+turning to Princess Mary for support.\r
+\r
+"They impose on the people," he repeated.\r
+\r
+"Lord Jesus Christ!" exclaimed the pilgrim woman, crossing herself. "Oh,\r
+don't speak so, master! There was a general who did not believe, and\r
+said, 'The monks cheat,' and as soon as he'd said it he went blind. And\r
+he dreamed that the Holy Virgin Mother of the Kiev catacombs came to him\r
+and said, 'Believe in me and I will make you whole.' So he begged: 'Take\r
+me to her, take me to her.' It's the real truth I'm telling you, I saw\r
+it myself. So he was brought, quite blind, straight to her, and he goes\r
+up to her and falls down and says, 'Make me whole,' says he, 'and I'll\r
+give thee what the Tsar bestowed on me.' I saw it myself, master, the\r
+star is fixed into the icon. Well, and what do you think? He received\r
+his sight! It's a sin to speak so. God will punish you," she said\r
+admonishingly, turning to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"How did the star get into the icon?" Pierre asked.\r
+\r
+"And was the Holy Mother promoted to the rank of general?" said Prince\r
+Andrew, with a smile.\r
+\r
+Pelageya suddenly grew quite pale and clasped her hands.\r
+\r
+"Oh, master, master, what a sin! And you who have a son!" she began, her\r
+pallor suddenly turning to a vivid red. "Master, what have you said? God\r
+forgive you!" And she crossed herself. "Lord forgive him! My dear, what\r
+does it mean?..." she asked, turning to Princess Mary. She got up and,\r
+almost crying, began to arrange her wallet. She evidently felt\r
+frightened and ashamed to have accepted charity in a house where such\r
+things could be said, and was at the same time sorry to have now to\r
+forgo the charity of this house.\r
+\r
+"Now, why need you do it?" said Princess Mary. "Why did you come to\r
+me?..."\r
+\r
+"Come, Pelageya, I was joking," said Pierre. "Princesse, ma parole, je\r
+n'ai pas voulu l'offenser. * I did not mean anything, I was only\r
+joking," he said, smiling shyly and trying to efface his offense. "It\r
+was all my fault, and Andrew was only joking."\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Princess, on my word, I did not wish to offend her."\r
+\r
+Pelageya stopped doubtfully, but in Pierre's face there was such a look\r
+of sincere penitence, and Prince Andrew glanced so meekly now at her and\r
+now at Pierre, that she was gradually reassured.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+The pilgrim woman was appeased and, being encouraged to talk, gave a\r
+long account of Father Amphilochus, who led so holy a life that his\r
+hands smelled of incense, and how on her last visit to Kiev some monks\r
+she knew let her have the keys of the catacombs, and how she, taking\r
+some dried bread with her, had spent two days in the catacombs with the\r
+saints. "I'd pray awhile to one, ponder awhile, then go on to another.\r
+I'd sleep a bit and then again go and kiss the relics, and there was\r
+such peace all around, such blessedness, that one don't want to come\r
+out, even into the light of heaven again."\r
+\r
+Pierre listened to her attentively and seriously. Prince Andrew went out\r
+of the room, and then, leaving "God's folk" to finish their tea,\r
+Princess Mary took Pierre into the drawing room.\r
+\r
+"You are very kind," she said to him.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I really did not mean to hurt her feelings. I understand them so\r
+well and have the greatest respect for them."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary looked at him silently and smiled affectionately.\r
+\r
+"I have known you a long time, you see, and am as fond of you as of a\r
+brother," she said. "How do you find Andrew?" she added hurriedly, not\r
+giving him time to reply to her affectionate words. "I am very anxious\r
+about him. His health was better in the winter, but last spring his\r
+wound reopened and the doctor said he ought to go away for a cure. And I\r
+am also very much afraid for him spiritually. He has not a character\r
+like us women who, when we suffer, can weep away our sorrows. He keeps\r
+it all within him. Today he is cheerful and in good spirits, but that is\r
+the effect of your visit--he is not often like that. If you could\r
+persuade him to go abroad. He needs activity, and this quiet regular\r
+life is very bad for him. Others don't notice it, but I see it."\r
+\r
+Toward ten o'clock the men servants rushed to the front door, hearing\r
+the bells of the old prince's carriage approaching. Prince Andrew and\r
+Pierre also went out into the porch.\r
+\r
+"Who's that?" asked the old prince, noticing Pierre as he got out of the\r
+carriage.\r
+\r
+"Ah! Very glad! Kiss me," he said, having learned who the young stranger\r
+was.\r
+\r
+The old prince was in a good temper and very gracious to Pierre.\r
+\r
+Before supper, Prince Andrew, coming back to his father's study, found\r
+him disputing hotly with his visitor. Pierre was maintaining that a time\r
+would come when there would be no more wars. The old prince disputed it\r
+chaffingly, but without getting angry.\r
+\r
+"Drain the blood from men's veins and put in water instead, then there\r
+will be no more war! Old women's nonsense--old women's nonsense!" he\r
+repeated, but still he patted Pierre affectionately on the shoulder, and\r
+then went up to the table where Prince Andrew, evidently not wishing to\r
+join in the conversation, was looking over the papers his father had\r
+brought from town. The old prince went up to him and began to talk\r
+business.\r
+\r
+"The marshal, a Count Rostov, hasn't sent half his contingent. He came\r
+to town and wanted to invite me to dinner--I gave him a pretty\r
+dinner!... And there, look at this.... Well, my boy," the old prince\r
+went on, addressing his son and patting Pierre on the shoulder. "A fine\r
+fellow--your friend--I like him! He stirs me up. Another says clever\r
+things and one doesn't care to listen, but this one talks rubbish yet\r
+stirs an old fellow up. Well, go! Get along! Perhaps I'll come and sit\r
+with you at supper. We'll have another dispute. Make friends with my\r
+little fool, Princess Mary," he shouted after Pierre, through the door.\r
+\r
+Only now, on his visit to Bald Hills, did Pierre fully realize the\r
+strength and charm of his friendship with Prince Andrew. That charm was\r
+not expressed so much in his relations with him as with all his family\r
+and with the household. With the stern old prince and the gentle, timid\r
+Princess Mary, though he had scarcely known them, Pierre at once felt\r
+like an old friend. They were all fond of him already. Not only Princess\r
+Mary, who had been won by his gentleness with the pilgrims, gave him her\r
+most radiant looks, but even the one-year-old "Prince Nicholas" (as his\r
+grandfather called him) smiled at Pierre and let himself be taken in his\r
+arms, and Michael Ivanovich and Mademoiselle Bourienne looked at him\r
+with pleasant smiles when he talked to the old prince.\r
+\r
+The old prince came in to supper; this was evidently on Pierre's\r
+account. And during the two days of the young man's visit he was\r
+extremely kind to him and told him to visit them again.\r
+\r
+When Pierre had gone and the members of the household met together, they\r
+began to express their opinions of him as people always do after a new\r
+acquaintance has left, but as seldom happens, no one said anything but\r
+what was good of him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+When returning from his leave, Rostov felt, for the first time, how\r
+close was the bond that united him to Denisov and the whole regiment.\r
+\r
+On approaching it, Rostov felt as he had done when approaching his home\r
+in Moscow. When he saw the first hussar with the unbuttoned uniform of\r
+his regiment, when he recognized red-haired Dementyev and saw the picket\r
+ropes of the roan horses, when Lavrushka gleefully shouted to his\r
+master, "The count has come!" and Denisov, who had been asleep on his\r
+bed, ran all disheveled out of the mud hut to embrace him, and the\r
+officers collected round to greet the new arrival, Rostov experienced\r
+the same feeling as when his mother, his father, and his sister had\r
+embraced him, and tears of joy choked him so that he could not speak.\r
+The regiment was also a home, and as unalterably dear and precious as\r
+his parents' house.\r
+\r
+When he had reported himself to the commander of the regiment and had\r
+been reassigned to his former squadron, had been on duty and had gone\r
+out foraging, when he had again entered into all the little interests of\r
+the regiment and felt himself deprived of liberty and bound in one\r
+narrow, unchanging frame, he experienced the same sense of peace, of\r
+moral support, and the same sense of being at home here in his own\r
+place, as he had felt under the parental roof. But here was none of all\r
+that turmoil of the world at large, where he did not know his right\r
+place and took mistaken decisions; here was no Sonya with whom he ought,\r
+or ought not, to have an explanation; here was no possibility of going\r
+there or not going there; here there were not twenty-four hours in the\r
+day which could be spent in such a variety of ways; there was not that\r
+innumerable crowd of people of whom not one was nearer to him or farther\r
+from him than another; there were none of those uncertain and undefined\r
+money relations with his father, and nothing to recall that terrible\r
+loss to Dolokhov. Here, in the regiment, all was clear and simple. The\r
+whole world was divided into two unequal parts: one, our Pavlograd\r
+regiment; the other, all the rest. And the rest was no concern of his.\r
+In the regiment, everything was definite: who was lieutenant, who\r
+captain, who was a good fellow, who a bad one, and most of all, who was\r
+a comrade. The canteenkeeper gave one credit, one's pay came every four\r
+months, there was nothing to think out or decide, you had only to do\r
+nothing that was considered bad in the Pavlograd regiment and, when\r
+given an order, to do what was clearly, distinctly, and definitely\r
+ordered--and all would be well.\r
+\r
+Having once more entered into the definite conditions of this regimental\r
+life, Rostov felt the joy and relief a tired man feels on lying down to\r
+rest. Life in the regiment, during this campaign, was all the pleasanter\r
+for him, because, after his loss to Dolokhov (for which, in spite of all\r
+his family's efforts to console him, he could not forgive himself), he\r
+had made up his mind to atone for his fault by serving, not as he had\r
+done before, but really well, and by being a perfectly first-rate\r
+comrade and officer--in a word, a splendid man altogether, a thing which\r
+seemed so difficult out in the world, but so possible in the regiment.\r
+\r
+After his losses, he had determined to pay back his debt to his parents\r
+in five years. He received ten thousand rubles a year, but now resolved\r
+to take only two thousand and leave the rest to repay the debt to his\r
+parents.\r
+\r
+Our army, after repeated retreats and advances and battles at Pultusk\r
+and Preussisch-Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein. It was awaiting\r
+the Emperor's arrival and the beginning of a new campaign.\r
+\r
+The Pavlograd regiment, belonging to that part of the army which had\r
+served in the 1805 campaign, had been recruiting up to strength in\r
+Russia, and arrived too late to take part in the first actions of the\r
+campaign. It had been neither at Pultusk nor at Preussisch-Eylau and,\r
+when it joined the army in the field in the second half of the campaign,\r
+was attached to Platov's division.\r
+\r
+Platov's division was acting independently of the main army. Several\r
+times parts of the Pavlograd regiment had exchanged shots with the\r
+enemy, had taken prisoners, and once had even captured Marshal Oudinot's\r
+carriages. In April the Pavlograds were stationed immovably for some\r
+weeks near a totally ruined and deserted German village.\r
+\r
+A thaw had set in, it was muddy and cold, the ice on the river broke,\r
+and the roads became impassable. For days neither provisions for the men\r
+nor fodder for the horses had been issued. As no transports could\r
+arrive, the men dispersed about the abandoned and deserted villages,\r
+searching for potatoes, but found few even of these.\r
+\r
+Everything had been eaten up and the inhabitants had all fled--if any\r
+remained, they were worse than beggars and nothing more could be taken\r
+from them; even the soldiers, usually pitiless enough, instead of taking\r
+anything from them, often gave them the last of their rations.\r
+\r
+The Pavlograd regiment had had only two men wounded in action, but had\r
+lost nearly half its men from hunger and sickness. In the hospitals,\r
+death was so certain that soldiers suffering from fever, or the swelling\r
+that came from bad food, preferred to remain on duty, and hardly able to\r
+drag their legs went to the front rather than to the hospitals. When\r
+spring came on, the soldiers found a plant just showing out of the\r
+ground that looked like asparagus, which, for some reason, they called\r
+"Mashka's sweet root." It was very bitter, but they wandered about the\r
+fields seeking it and dug it out with their sabers and ate it, though\r
+they were ordered not to do so, as it was a noxious plant. That spring a\r
+new disease broke out among the soldiers, a swelling of the arms, legs,\r
+and face, which the doctors attributed to eating this root. But in spite\r
+of all this, the soldiers of Denisov's squadron fed chiefly on "Mashka's\r
+sweet root," because it was the second week that the last of the\r
+biscuits were being doled out at the rate of half a pound a man and the\r
+last potatoes received had sprouted and frozen.\r
+\r
+The horses also had been fed for a fortnight on straw from the thatched\r
+roofs and had become terribly thin, though still covered with tufts of\r
+felty winter hair.\r
+\r
+Despite this destitution, the soldiers and officers went on living just\r
+as usual. Despite their pale swollen faces and tattered uniforms, the\r
+hussars formed line for roll call, kept things in order, groomed their\r
+horses, polished their arms, brought in straw from the thatched roofs in\r
+place of fodder, and sat down to dine round the caldrons from which they\r
+rose up hungry, joking about their nasty food and their hunger. As\r
+usual, in their spare time, they lit bonfires, steamed themselves before\r
+them naked; smoked, picked out and baked sprouting rotten potatoes, told\r
+and listened to stories of Potemkin's and Suvorov's campaigns, or to\r
+legends of Alesha the Sly, or the priest's laborer Mikolka.\r
+\r
+The officers, as usual, lived in twos and threes in the roofless, half-\r
+ruined houses. The seniors tried to collect straw and potatoes and, in\r
+general, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves as\r
+before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though there was\r
+no food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits and skittles.\r
+The general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken of, partly because\r
+nothing certain was known about it, partly because there was a vague\r
+feeling that in the main it was going badly.\r
+\r
+Rostov lived, as before, with Denisov, and since their furlough they had\r
+become more friendly than ever. Denisov never spoke of Rostov's family,\r
+but by the tender friendship his commander showed him, Rostov felt that\r
+the elder hussar's luckless love for Natasha played a part in\r
+strengthening their friendship. Denisov evidently tried to expose Rostov\r
+to danger as seldom as possible, and after an action greeted his safe\r
+return with evident joy. On one of his foraging expeditions, in a\r
+deserted and ruined village to which he had come in search of\r
+provisions, Rostov found a family consisting of an old Pole and his\r
+daughter with an infant in arms. They were half clad, hungry, too weak\r
+to get away on foot and had no means of obtaining a conveyance. Rostov\r
+brought them to his quarters, placed them in his own lodging, and kept\r
+them for some weeks while the old man was recovering. One of his\r
+comrades, talking of women, began chaffing Rostov, saying that he was\r
+more wily than any of them and that it would not be a bad thing if he\r
+introduced to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved. Rostov took the\r
+joke as an insult, flared up, and said such unpleasant things to the\r
+officer that it was all Denisov could do to prevent a duel. When the\r
+officer had gone away, Denisov, who did not himself know what Rostov's\r
+relations with the Polish girl might be, began to upbraid him for his\r
+quickness of temper, and Rostov replied:\r
+\r
+"Say what you like.... She is like a sister to me, and I can't tell you\r
+how it offended me... because... well, for that reason...."\r
+\r
+Denisov patted him on the shoulder and began rapidly pacing the room\r
+without looking at Rostov, as was his way at moments of deep feeling.\r
+\r
+"Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostovs are!" he muttered, and Rostov noticed\r
+tears in his eyes.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+In April the troops were enlivened by news of the Emperor's arrival, but\r
+Rostov had no chance of being present at the review he held at\r
+Bartenstein, as the Pavlograds were at the outposts far beyond that\r
+place.\r
+\r
+They were bivouacking. Denisov and Rostov were living in an earth hut,\r
+dug out for them by the soldiers and roofed with branches and turf. The\r
+hut was made in the following manner, which had then come into vogue. A\r
+trench was dug three and a half feet wide, four feet eight inches deep,\r
+and eight feet long. At one end of the trench, steps were cut out and\r
+these formed the entrance and vestibule. The trench itself was the room,\r
+in which the lucky ones, such as the squadron commander, had a board,\r
+lying on piles at the end opposite the entrance, to serve as a table. On\r
+each side of the trench, the earth was cut out to a breadth of about two\r
+and a half feet, and this did duty for bedsteads and couches. The roof\r
+was so constructed that one could stand up in the middle of the trench\r
+and could even sit up on the beds if one drew close to the table.\r
+Denisov, who was living luxuriously because the soldiers of his squadron\r
+liked him, had also a board in the roof at the farther end, with a piece\r
+of (broken but mended) glass in it for a window. When it was very cold,\r
+embers from the soldiers' campfire were placed on a bent sheet of iron\r
+on the steps in the "reception room"--as Denisov called that part of the\r
+hut--and it was then so warm that the officers, of whom there were\r
+always some with Denisov and Rostov, sat in their shirt sleeves.\r
+\r
+In April, Rostov was on orderly duty. One morning, between seven and\r
+eight, returning after a sleepless night, he sent for embers, changed\r
+his rain-soaked underclothes, said his prayers, drank tea, got warm,\r
+then tidied up the things on the table and in his own corner, and, his\r
+face glowing from exposure to the wind and with nothing on but his\r
+shirt, lay down on his back, putting his arms under his head. He was\r
+pleasantly considering the probability of being promoted in a few days\r
+for his last reconnoitering expedition, and was awaiting Denisov, who\r
+had gone out somewhere and with whom he wanted a talk.\r
+\r
+Suddenly he heard Denisov shouting in a vibrating voice behind the hut,\r
+evidently much excited. Rostov moved to the window to see whom he was\r
+speaking to, and saw the quartermaster, Topcheenko.\r
+\r
+"I ordered you not to let them eat that Mashka woot stuff!" Denisov was\r
+shouting. "And I saw with my own eyes how Lazarchuk bwought some fwom\r
+the fields."\r
+\r
+"I have given the order again and again, your honor, but they don't\r
+obey," answered the quartermaster.\r
+\r
+Rostov lay down again on his bed and thought complacently: "Let him fuss\r
+and bustle now, my job's done and I'm lying down--capitally!" He could\r
+hear that Lavrushka--that sly, bold orderly of Denisov's--was talking,\r
+as well as the quartermaster. Lavrushka was saying something about\r
+loaded wagons, biscuits, and oxen he had seen when he had gone out for\r
+provisions.\r
+\r
+Then Denisov's voice was heard shouting farther and farther away.\r
+"Saddle! Second platoon!"\r
+\r
+"Where are they off to now?" thought Rostov.\r
+\r
+Five minutes later, Denisov came into the hut, climbed with muddy boots\r
+on the bed, lit his pipe, furiously scattered his things about, took his\r
+leaded whip, buckled on his saber, and went out again. In answer to\r
+Rostov's inquiry where he was going, he answered vaguely and crossly\r
+that he had some business.\r
+\r
+"Let God and our gweat monarch judge me afterwards!" said Denisov going\r
+out, and Rostov heard the hoofs of several horses splashing through the\r
+mud. He did not even trouble to find out where Denisov had gone. Having\r
+got warm in his corner, he fell asleep and did not leave the hut till\r
+toward evening. Denisov had not yet returned. The weather had cleared\r
+up, and near the next hut two officers and a cadet were playing svayka,\r
+laughing as they threw their missiles which buried themselves in the\r
+soft mud. Rostov joined them. In the middle of the game, the officers\r
+saw some wagons approaching with fifteen hussars on their skinny horses\r
+behind them. The wagons escorted by the hussars drew up to the picket\r
+ropes and a crowd of hussars surrounded them.\r
+\r
+"There now, Denisov has been worrying," said Rostov, "and here are the\r
+provisions."\r
+\r
+"So they are!" said the officers. "Won't the soldiers be glad!"\r
+\r
+A little behind the hussars came Denisov, accompanied by two infantry\r
+officers with whom he was talking.\r
+\r
+Rostov went to meet them.\r
+\r
+"I warn you, Captain," one of the officers, a short thin man, evidently\r
+very angry, was saying.\r
+\r
+"Haven't I told you I won't give them up?" replied Denisov.\r
+\r
+"You will answer for it, Captain. It is mutiny--seizing the transport of\r
+one's own army. Our men have had nothing to eat for two days."\r
+\r
+"And mine have had nothing for two weeks," said Denisov.\r
+\r
+"It is robbery! You'll answer for it, sir!" said the infantry officer,\r
+raising his voice.\r
+\r
+"Now, what are you pestewing me for?" cried Denisov, suddenly losing his\r
+temper. "I shall answer for it and not you, and you'd better not buzz\r
+about here till you get hurt. Be off! Go!" he shouted at the officers.\r
+\r
+"Very well, then!" shouted the little officer, undaunted and not riding\r
+away. "If you are determined to rob, I'll..."\r
+\r
+"Go to the devil! quick ma'ch, while you're safe and sound!" and Denisov\r
+turned his horse on the officer.\r
+\r
+"Very well, very well!" muttered the officer, threateningly, and turning\r
+his horse he trotted away, jolting in his saddle.\r
+\r
+"A dog astwide a fence! A weal dog astwide a fence!" shouted Denisov\r
+after him (the most insulting expression a cavalryman can address to a\r
+mounted infantryman) and riding up to Rostov, he burst out laughing.\r
+\r
+"I've taken twansports from the infantwy by force!" he said. "After all,\r
+can't let our men starve."\r
+\r
+The wagons that had reached the hussars had been consigned to an\r
+infantry regiment, but learning from Lavrushka that the transport was\r
+unescorted, Denisov with his hussars had seized it by force. The\r
+soldiers had biscuits dealt out to them freely, and they even shared\r
+them with the other squadrons.\r
+\r
+The next day the regimental commander sent for Denisov, and holding his\r
+fingers spread out before his eyes said:\r
+\r
+"This is how I look at this affair: I know nothing about it and won't\r
+begin proceedings, but I advise you to ride over to the staff and settle\r
+the business there in the commissariat department and if possible sign a\r
+receipt for such and such stores received. If not, as the demand was\r
+booked against an infantry regiment, there will be a row and the affair\r
+may end badly."\r
+\r
+From the regimental commander's, Denisov rode straight to the staff with\r
+a sincere desire to act on this advice. In the evening he came back to\r
+his dugout in a state such as Rostov had never yet seen him in. Denisov\r
+could not speak and gasped for breath. When Rostov asked what was the\r
+matter, he only uttered some incoherent oaths and threats in a hoarse,\r
+feeble voice.\r
+\r
+Alarmed at Denisov's condition, Rostov suggested that he should undress,\r
+drink some water, and send for the doctor.\r
+\r
+"Twy me for wobbewy... oh! Some more water... Let them twy me, but I'll\r
+always thwash scoundwels... and I'll tell the Empewo'... Ice..." he\r
+muttered.\r
+\r
+The regimental doctor, when he came, said it was absolutely necessary to\r
+bleed Denisov. A deep saucer of black blood was taken from his hairy arm\r
+and only then was he able to relate what had happened to him.\r
+\r
+"I get there," began Denisov. "'Now then, where's your chief's\r
+quarters?' They were pointed out. 'Please to wait.' 'I've widden twenty\r
+miles and have duties to attend to and no time to wait. Announce me.'\r
+Vewy well, so out comes their head chief--also took it into his head to\r
+lecture me: 'It's wobbewy!'--'Wobbewy,' I say, 'is not done by man who\r
+seizes pwovisions to feed his soldiers, but by him who takes them to\r
+fill his own pockets!' 'Will you please be silent?' 'Vewy good!' Then he\r
+says: 'Go and give a weceipt to the commissioner, but your affair will\r
+be passed on to headquarters.' I go to the commissioner. I enter, and at\r
+the table... who do you think? No, but wait a bit!... Who is it that's\r
+starving us?" shouted Denisov, hitting the table with the fist of his\r
+newly bled arm so violently that the table nearly broke down and the\r
+tumblers on it jumped about. "Telyanin! 'What? So it's you who's\r
+starving us to death! Is it? Take this and this!' and I hit him so pat,\r
+stwaight on his snout... 'Ah, what a... what a...!' and I sta'ted\r
+fwashing him... Well, I've had a bit of fun I can tell you!" cried\r
+Denisov, gleeful and yet angry, his white teeth showing under his black\r
+mustache. "I'd have killed him if they hadn't taken him away!"\r
+\r
+"But what are you shouting for? Calm yourself," said Rostov. "You've set\r
+your arm bleeding afresh. Wait, we must tie it up again."\r
+\r
+Denisov was bandaged up again and put to bed. Next day he woke calm and\r
+cheerful.\r
+\r
+But at noon the adjutant of the regiment came into Rostov's and\r
+Denisov's dugout with a grave and serious face and regretfully showed\r
+them a paper addressed to Major Denisov from the regimental commander in\r
+which inquiries were made about yesterday's occurrence. The adjutant\r
+told them that the affair was likely to take a very bad turn: that a\r
+court-martial had been appointed, and that in view of the severity with\r
+which marauding and insubordination were now regarded, degradation to\r
+the ranks would be the best that could be hoped for.\r
+\r
+The case, as represented by the offended parties, was that, after\r
+seizing the transports, Major Denisov, being drunk, went to the chief\r
+quartermaster and without any provocation called him a thief, threatened\r
+to strike him, and on being led out had rushed into the office and given\r
+two officials a thrashing, and dislocated the arm of one of them.\r
+\r
+In answer to Rostov's renewed questions, Denisov said, laughing, that he\r
+thought he remembered that some other fellow had got mixed up in it, but\r
+that it was all nonsense and rubbish, and he did not in the least fear\r
+any kind of trial, and that if those scoundrels dared attack him he\r
+would give them an answer that they would not easily forget.\r
+\r
+Denisov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but Rostov knew him\r
+too well not to detect that (while hiding it from others) at heart he\r
+feared a court-martial and was worried over the affair, which was\r
+evidently taking a bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry and notices\r
+from the court arrived, and on the first of May, Denisov was ordered to\r
+hand the squadron over to the next in seniority and appear before the\r
+staff of his division to explain his violence at the commissariat\r
+office. On the previous day Platov reconnoitered with two Cossack\r
+regiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denisov, as was his wont, rode\r
+out in front of the outposts, parading his courage. A bullet fired by a\r
+French sharpshooter hit him in the fleshy part of his leg. Perhaps at\r
+another time Denisov would not have left the regiment for so slight a\r
+wound, but now he took advantage of it to excuse himself from appearing\r
+at the staff and went into hospital.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+In June the battle of Friedland was fought, in which the Pavlograds did\r
+not take part, and after that an armistice was proclaimed. Rostov, who\r
+felt his friend's absence very much, having no news of him since he left\r
+and feeling very anxious about his wound and the progress of his\r
+affairs, took advantage of the armistice to get leave to visit Denisov\r
+in hospital.\r
+\r
+The hospital was in a small Prussian town that had been twice devastated\r
+by Russian and French troops. Because it was summer, when it is so\r
+beautiful out in the fields, the little town presented a particularly\r
+dismal appearance with its broken roofs and fences, its foul streets,\r
+tattered inhabitants, and the sick and drunken soldiers wandering about.\r
+\r
+The hospital was in a brick building with some of the window frames and\r
+panes broken and a courtyard surrounded by the remains of a wooden fence\r
+that had been pulled to pieces. Several bandaged soldiers, with pale\r
+swollen faces, were sitting or walking about in the sunshine in the\r
+yard.\r
+\r
+Directly Rostov entered the door he was enveloped by a smell of\r
+putrefaction and hospital air. On the stairs he met a Russian army\r
+doctor smoking a cigar. The doctor was followed by a Russian assistant.\r
+\r
+"I can't tear myself to pieces," the doctor was saying. "Come to Makar\r
+Alexeevich in the evening. I shall be there."\r
+\r
+The assistant asked some further questions.\r
+\r
+"Oh, do the best you can! Isn't it all the same?" The doctor noticed\r
+Rostov coming upstairs.\r
+\r
+"What do you want, sir?" said the doctor. "What do you want? The bullets\r
+having spared you, do you want to try typhus? This is a pesthouse, sir."\r
+\r
+"How so?" asked Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Typhus, sir. It's death to go in. Only we two, Makeev and I" (he\r
+pointed to the assistant), "keep on here. Some five of us doctors have\r
+died in this place.... When a new one comes he is done for in a week,"\r
+said the doctor with evident satisfaction. "Prussian doctors have been\r
+invited here, but our allies don't like it at all."\r
+\r
+Rostov explained that he wanted to see Major Denisov of the hussars, who\r
+was wounded.\r
+\r
+"I don't know. I can't tell you, sir. Only think! I am alone in charge\r
+of three hospitals with more than four hundred patients! It's well that\r
+the charitable Prussian ladies send us two pounds of coffee and some\r
+lint each month or we should be lost!" he laughed. "Four hundred, sir,\r
+and they're always sending me fresh ones. There are four hundred? Eh?"\r
+he asked, turning to the assistant.\r
+\r
+The assistant looked fagged out. He was evidently vexed and impatient\r
+for the talkative doctor to go.\r
+\r
+"Major Denisov," Rostov said again. "He was wounded at Molliten."\r
+\r
+"Dead, I fancy. Eh, Makeev?" queried the doctor, in a tone of\r
+indifference.\r
+\r
+The assistant, however, did not confirm the doctor's words.\r
+\r
+"Is he tall and with reddish hair?" asked the doctor.\r
+\r
+Rostov described Denisov's appearance.\r
+\r
+"There was one like that," said the doctor, as if pleased. "That one is\r
+dead, I fancy. However, I'll look up our list. We had a list. Have you\r
+got it, Makeev?"\r
+\r
+"Makar Alexeevich has the list," answered the assistant. "But if you'll\r
+step into the officers' wards you'll see for yourself," he added,\r
+turning to Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Ah, you'd better not go, sir," said the doctor, "or you may have to\r
+stay here yourself."\r
+\r
+But Rostov bowed himself away from the doctor and asked the assistant to\r
+show him the way.\r
+\r
+"Only don't blame me!" the doctor shouted up after him.\r
+\r
+Rostov and the assistant went into the dark corridor. The smell was so\r
+strong there that Rostov held his nose and had to pause and collect his\r
+strength before he could go on. A door opened to the right, and an\r
+emaciated sallow man on crutches, barefoot and in underclothing, limped\r
+out and, leaning against the doorpost, looked with glittering envious\r
+eyes at those who were passing. Glancing in at the door, Rostov saw that\r
+the sick and wounded were lying on the floor on straw and overcoats.\r
+\r
+"May I go in and look?"\r
+\r
+"What is there to see?" said the assistant.\r
+\r
+But, just because the assistant evidently did not want him to go in,\r
+Rostov entered the soldiers' ward. The foul air, to which he had already\r
+begun to get used in the corridor, was still stronger here. It was a\r
+little different, more pungent, and one felt that this was where it\r
+originated.\r
+\r
+In the long room, brightly lit up by the sun through the large windows,\r
+the sick and wounded lay in two rows with their heads to the walls, and\r
+leaving a passage in the middle. Most of them were unconscious and paid\r
+no attention to the newcomers. Those who were conscious raised\r
+themselves or lifted their thin yellow faces, and all looked intently at\r
+Rostov with the same expression of hope, of relief, reproach, and envy\r
+of another's health. Rostov went to the middle of the room and looking\r
+through the open doors into the two adjoining rooms saw the same thing\r
+there. He stood still, looking silently around. He had not at all\r
+expected such a sight. Just before him, almost across the middle of the\r
+passage on the bare floor, lay a sick man, probably a Cossack to judge\r
+by the cut of his hair. The man lay on his back, his huge arms and legs\r
+outstretched. His face was purple, his eyes were rolled back so that\r
+only the whites were seen, and on his bare legs and arms which were\r
+still red, the veins stood out like cords. He was knocking the back of\r
+his head against the floor, hoarsely uttering some word which he kept\r
+repeating. Rostov listened and made out the word. It was "drink, drink,\r
+a drink!" Rostov glanced round, looking for someone who would put this\r
+man back in his place and bring him water.\r
+\r
+"Who looks after the sick here?" he asked the assistant.\r
+\r
+Just then a commissariat soldier, a hospital orderly, came in from the\r
+next room, marching stiffly, and drew up in front of Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Good day, your honor!" he shouted, rolling his eyes at Rostov and\r
+evidently mistaking him for one of the hospital authorities.\r
+\r
+"Get him to his place and give him some water," said Rostov, pointing to\r
+the Cossack.\r
+\r
+"Yes, your honor," the soldier replied complacently, and rolling his\r
+eyes more than ever he drew himself up still straighter, but did not\r
+move.\r
+\r
+"No, it's impossible to do anything here," thought Rostov, lowering his\r
+eyes, and he was going out, but became aware of an intense look fixed on\r
+him on his right, and he turned. Close to the corner, on an overcoat,\r
+sat an old, unshaven, gray-bearded soldier as thin as a skeleton, with a\r
+stern sallow face and eyes intently fixed on Rostov. The man's neighbor\r
+on one side whispered something to him, pointing at Rostov, who noticed\r
+that the old man wanted to speak to him. He drew nearer and saw that the\r
+old man had only one leg bent under him, the other had been amputated\r
+above the knee. His neighbor on the other side, who lay motionless some\r
+distance from him with his head thrown back, was a young soldier with a\r
+snub nose. His pale waxen face was still freckled and his eyes were\r
+rolled back. Rostov looked at the young soldier and a cold chill ran\r
+down his back.\r
+\r
+"Why, this one seems..." he began, turning to the assistant.\r
+\r
+"And how we've been begging, your honor," said the old soldier, his jaw\r
+quivering. "He's been dead since morning. After all we're men, not\r
+dogs."\r
+\r
+"I'll send someone at once. He shall be taken away--taken away at once,"\r
+said the assistant hurriedly. "Let us go, your honor."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, let us go," said Rostov hastily, and lowering his eyes and\r
+shrinking, he tried to pass unnoticed between the rows of reproachful\r
+envious eyes that were fixed upon him, and went out of the room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+Going along the corridor, the assistant led Rostov to the officers'\r
+wards, consisting of three rooms, the doors of which stood open. There\r
+were beds in these rooms and the sick and wounded officers were lying or\r
+sitting on them. Some were walking about the rooms in hospital dressing\r
+gowns. The first person Rostov met in the officers' ward was a thin\r
+little man with one arm, who was walking about the first room in a\r
+nightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a pipe between his teeth.\r
+Rostov looked at him, trying to remember where he had seen him before.\r
+\r
+"See where we've met again!" said the little man. "Tushin, Tushin, don't\r
+you remember, who gave you a lift at Schon Grabern? And I've had a bit\r
+cut off, you see..." he went on with a smile, pointing to the empty\r
+sleeve of his dressing gown. "Looking for Vasili Dmitrich Denisov? My\r
+neighbor," he added, when he heard who Rostov wanted. "Here, here," and\r
+Tushin led him into the next room, from whence came sounds of several\r
+laughing voices.\r
+\r
+"How can they laugh, or even live at all here?" thought Rostov, still\r
+aware of that smell of decomposing flesh that had been so strong in the\r
+soldiers' ward, and still seeming to see fixed on him those envious\r
+looks which had followed him out from both sides, and the face of that\r
+young soldier with eyes rolled back.\r
+\r
+Denisov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket, though it\r
+was nearly noon.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Wostov? How are you, how are you?" he called out, still in the same\r
+voice as in the regiment, but Rostov noticed sadly that under this\r
+habitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling showed\r
+itself in the expression of Denisov's face and the intonations of his\r
+voice.\r
+\r
+His wound, though a slight one, had not yet healed even now, six weeks\r
+after he had been hit. His face had the same swollen pallor as the faces\r
+of the other hospital patients, but it was not this that struck Rostov.\r
+What struck him was that Denisov did not seem glad to see him, and\r
+smiled at him unnaturally. He did not ask about the regiment, nor about\r
+the general state of affairs, and when Rostov spoke of these matters did\r
+not listen.\r
+\r
+Rostov even noticed that Denisov did not like to be reminded of the\r
+regiment, or in general of that other free life which was going on\r
+outside the hospital. He seemed to try to forget that old life and was\r
+only interested in the affair with the commissariat officers. On\r
+Rostov's inquiry as to how the matter stood, he at once produced from\r
+under his pillow a paper he had received from the commission and the\r
+rough draft of his answer to it. He became animated when he began\r
+reading his paper and specially drew Rostov's attention to the stinging\r
+rejoinders he made to his enemies. His hospital companions, who had\r
+gathered round Rostov--a fresh arrival from the world outside--gradually\r
+began to disperse as soon as Denisov began reading his answer. Rostov\r
+noticed by their faces that all those gentlemen had already heard that\r
+story more than once and were tired of it. Only the man who had the next\r
+bed, a stout Uhlan, continued to sit on his bed, gloomily frowning and\r
+smoking a pipe, and little one-armed Tushin still listened, shaking his\r
+head disapprovingly. In the middle of the reading, the Uhlan interrupted\r
+Denisov.\r
+\r
+"But what I say is," he said, turning to Rostov, "it would be best\r
+simply to petition the Emperor for pardon. They say great rewards will\r
+now be distributed, and surely a pardon would be granted...."\r
+\r
+"Me petition the Empewo'!" exclaimed Denisov, in a voice to which he\r
+tried hard to give the old energy and fire, but which sounded like an\r
+expression of irritable impotence. "What for? If I were a wobber I would\r
+ask mercy, but I'm being court-martialed for bwinging wobbers to book.\r
+Let them twy me, I'm not afwaid of anyone. I've served the Tsar and my\r
+countwy honowably and have not stolen! And am I to be degwaded?...\r
+Listen, I'm w'iting to them stwaight. This is what I say: 'If I had\r
+wobbed the Tweasuwy...'"\r
+\r
+"It's certainly well written," said Tushin, "but that's not the point,\r
+Vasili Dmitrich," and he also turned to Rostov. "One has to submit, and\r
+Vasili Dmitrich doesn't want to. You know the auditor told you it was a\r
+bad business."\r
+\r
+"Well, let it be bad," said Denisov.\r
+\r
+"The auditor wrote out a petition for you," continued Tushin, "and you\r
+ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt he"\r
+(indicating Rostov) "has connections on the staff. You won't find a\r
+better opportunity."\r
+\r
+"Haven't I said I'm not going to gwovel?" Denisov interrupted him, went\r
+on reading his paper.\r
+\r
+Rostov had not the courage to persuade Denisov, though he instinctively\r
+felt that the way advised by Tushin and the other officers was the\r
+safest, and though he would have been glad to be of service to Denisov.\r
+He knew his stubborn will and straightforward hasty temper.\r
+\r
+When the reading of Denisov's virulent reply, which took more than an\r
+hour, was over, Rostov said nothing, and he spent the rest of the day in\r
+a most dejected state of mind amid Denisov's hospital comrades, who had\r
+gathered round him, telling them what he knew and listening to their\r
+stories. Denisov was moodily silent all the evening.\r
+\r
+Late in the evening, when Rostov was about to leave, he asked Denisov\r
+whether he had no commission for him.\r
+\r
+"Yes, wait a bit," said Denisov, glancing round at the officers, and\r
+taking his papers from under his pillow he went to the window, where he\r
+had an inkpot, and sat down to write.\r
+\r
+"It seems it's no use knocking one's head against a wall!" he said,\r
+coming from the window and giving Rostov a large envelope. In it was the\r
+petition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in which Denisov,\r
+without alluding to the offenses of the commissariat officials, simply\r
+asked for pardon.\r
+\r
+"Hand it in. It seems..."\r
+\r
+He did not finish, but gave a painfully unnatural smile.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+Having returned to the regiment and told the commander the state of\r
+Denisov's affairs, Rostov rode to Tilsit with the letter to the Emperor.\r
+\r
+On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in\r
+Tilsit. Boris Drubetskoy had asked the important personage on whom he\r
+was in attendance, to include him in the suite appointed for the stay at\r
+Tilsit.\r
+\r
+"I should like to see the great man," he said, alluding to Napoleon,\r
+whom hitherto he, like everyone else, had always called Buonaparte.\r
+\r
+"You are speaking of Buonaparte?" asked the general, smiling.\r
+\r
+Boris looked at his general inquiringly and immediately saw that he was\r
+being tested.\r
+\r
+"I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon," he replied. The\r
+general patted him on the shoulder, with a smile.\r
+\r
+"You will go far," he said, and took him to Tilsit with him.\r
+\r
+Boris was among the few present at the Niemen on the day the two\r
+Emperors met. He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon\r
+pass before the French Guards on the farther bank of the river, saw the\r
+pensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern\r
+on the bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon's arrival, saw both Emperors\r
+get into boats, and saw how Napoleon--reaching the raft first--stepped\r
+quickly forward to meet Alexander and held out his hand to him, and how\r
+they both retired into the pavilion. Since he had begun to move in the\r
+highest circles Boris had made it his habit to watch attentively all\r
+that went on around him and to note it down. At the time of the meeting\r
+at Tilsit he asked the names of those who had come with Napoleon and\r
+about the uniforms they wore, and listened attentively to words spoken\r
+by important personages. At the moment the Emperors went into the\r
+pavilion he looked at his watch, and did not forget to look at it again\r
+when Alexander came out. The interview had lasted an hour and fifty-\r
+three minutes. He noted this down that same evening, among other facts\r
+he felt to be of historic importance. As the Emperor's suite was a very\r
+small one, it was a matter of great importance, for a man who valued his\r
+success in the service, to be at Tilsit on the occasion of this\r
+interview between the two Emperors, and having succeeded in this, Boris\r
+felt that henceforth his position was fully assured. He had not only\r
+become known, but people had grown accustomed to him and accepted him.\r
+Twice he had executed commissions to the Emperor himself, so that the\r
+latter knew his face, and all those at court, far from cold-shouldering\r
+him as at first when they considered him a newcomer, would now have been\r
+surprised had he been absent.\r
+\r
+Boris lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilinski.\r
+Zhilinski, a Pole brought up in Paris, was rich, and passionately fond\r
+of the French, and almost every day of the stay at Tilsit, French\r
+officers of the Guard and from French headquarters were dining and\r
+lunching with him and Boris.\r
+\r
+On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilinski arranged a\r
+supper for his French friends. The guest of honor was an aide-de-camp of\r
+Napoleon's, there were also several French officers of the Guard, and a\r
+page of Napoleon's, a young lad of an old aristocratic French family.\r
+That same day, Rostov, profiting by the darkness to avoid being\r
+recognized in civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the lodging\r
+occupied by Boris and Zhilinski.\r
+\r
+Rostov, in common with the whole army from which he came, was far from\r
+having experienced the change of feeling toward Napoleon and the French-\r
+-who from being foes had suddenly become friends--that had taken place\r
+at headquarters and in Boris. In the army, Bonaparte and the French were\r
+still regarded with mingled feelings of anger, contempt, and fear. Only\r
+recently, talking with one of Platov's Cossack officers, Rostov had\r
+argued that if Napoleon were taken prisoner he would be treated not as a\r
+sovereign, but as a criminal. Quite lately, happening to meet a wounded\r
+French colonel on the road, Rostov had maintained with heat that peace\r
+was impossible between a legitimate sovereign and the criminal\r
+Bonaparte. Rostov was therefore unpleasantly struck by the presence of\r
+French officers in Boris' lodging, dressed in uniforms he had been\r
+accustomed to see from quite a different point of view from the outposts\r
+of the flank. As soon as he noticed a French officer, who thrust his\r
+head out of the door, that warlike feeling of hostility which he always\r
+experienced at the sight of the enemy suddenly seized him. He stopped at\r
+the threshold and asked in Russian whether Drubetskoy lived there.\r
+Boris, hearing a strange voice in the anteroom, came out to meet him. An\r
+expression of annoyance showed itself for a moment on his face on first\r
+recognizing Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Ah, it's you? Very glad, very glad to see you," he said, however,\r
+coming toward him with a smile. But Rostov had noticed his first\r
+impulse.\r
+\r
+"I've come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, but I have\r
+business," he said coldly.\r
+\r
+"No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from your regiment. Dans\r
+un moment je suis a vous," * he said, answering someone who called him.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "In a minute I shall be at your disposal."\r
+\r
+"I see I'm intruding," Rostov repeated.\r
+\r
+The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Boris' face: having\r
+evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly took both\r
+Rostov's hands and led him into the next room. His eyes, looking\r
+serenely and steadily at Rostov, seemed to be veiled by something, as if\r
+screened by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it seemed to Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!" said Boris, and he\r
+led him into the room where the supper table was laid and introduced him\r
+to his guests, explaining that he was not a civilian, but an hussar\r
+officer, and an old friend of his.\r
+\r
+"Count Zhilinski--le Comte N. N.--le Capitaine S. S.," said he, naming\r
+his guests. Rostov looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, bowed\r
+reluctantly, and remained silent.\r
+\r
+Zhilinski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very\r
+willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostov. Boris did not\r
+appear to notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the same\r
+pleasant composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with which he\r
+had met Rostov, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the Frenchmen,\r
+with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen, addressed the\r
+obstinately taciturn Rostov, saying that the latter had probably come to\r
+Tilsit to see the Emperor.\r
+\r
+"No, I came on business," replied Rostov, briefly.\r
+\r
+Rostov had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look of\r
+dissatisfaction on Boris' face, and as always happens to those in a bad\r
+humor, it seemed to him that everyone regarded him with aversion and\r
+that he was in everybody's way. He really was in their way, for he alone\r
+took no part in the conversation which again became general. The looks\r
+the visitors cast on him seemed to say: "And what is he sitting here\r
+for?" He rose and went up to Boris.\r
+\r
+"Anyhow, I'm in your way," he said in a low tone. "Come and talk over my\r
+business and I'll go away."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no, not at all," said Boris. "But if you are tired, come and lie\r
+down in my room and have a rest."\r
+\r
+"Yes, really..."\r
+\r
+They went into the little room where Boris slept. Rostov, without\r
+sitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Boris were to blame in\r
+some way) telling him about Denisov's affair, asking him whether,\r
+through his general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor on\r
+Denisov's behalf and get Denisov's petition handed in. When he and Boris\r
+were alone, Rostov felt for the first time that he could not look Boris\r
+in the face without a sense of awkwardness. Boris, with one leg crossed\r
+over the other and stroking his left hand with the slender fingers of\r
+his right, listened to Rostov as a general listens to the report of a\r
+subordinate, now looking aside and now gazing straight into Rostov's\r
+eyes with the same veiled look. Each time this happened Rostov felt\r
+uncomfortable and cast down his eyes.\r
+\r
+"I have heard of such cases and know that His Majesty is very severe in\r
+such affairs. I think it would be best not to bring it before the\r
+Emperor, but to apply to the commander of the corps.... But in general,\r
+I think..."\r
+\r
+"So you don't want to do anything? Well then, say so!" Rostov almost\r
+shouted, not looking Boris in the face.\r
+\r
+Boris smiled.\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought..."\r
+\r
+At that moment Zhilinski's voice was heard calling Boris.\r
+\r
+"Well then, go, go, go..." said Rostov, and refusing supper and\r
+remaining alone in the little room, he walked up and down for a long\r
+time, hearing the lighthearted French conversation from the next room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+Rostov had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a petition on\r
+Denisov's behalf. He could not himself go to the general in attendance\r
+as he was in mufti and had come to Tilsit without permission to do so,\r
+and Boris, even had he wished to, could not have done so on the\r
+following day. On that day, June 27, the preliminaries of peace were\r
+signed. The Emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received the Cross\r
+of the Legion of Honor and Napoleon the Order of St. Andrew of the First\r
+Degree, and a dinner had been arranged for the evening, given by a\r
+battalion of the French Guards to the Preobrazhensk battalion. The\r
+Emperors were to be present at that banquet.\r
+\r
+Rostov felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Boris that, when the\r
+latter looked in after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and early next\r
+morning went away, avoiding Boris. In his civilian clothes and a round\r
+hat, he wandered about the town, staring at the French and their\r
+uniforms and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French\r
+Emperors were staying. In a square he saw tables being set up and\r
+preparations made for the dinner; he saw the Russian and French colors\r
+draped from side to side of the streets, with huge monograms A and N. In\r
+the windows of the houses also flags and bunting were displayed.\r
+\r
+"Boris doesn't want to help me and I don't want to ask him. That's\r
+settled," thought Nicholas. "All is over between us, but I won't leave\r
+here without having done all I can for Denisov and certainly not without\r
+getting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!... He is here!" thought\r
+Rostov, who had unconsciously returned to the house where Alexander\r
+lodged.\r
+\r
+Saddled horses were standing before the house and the suite were\r
+assembling, evidently preparing for the Emperor to come out.\r
+\r
+"I may see him at any moment," thought Rostov. "If only I were to hand\r
+the letter direct to him and tell him all... could they really arrest me\r
+for my civilian clothes? Surely not! He would understand on whose side\r
+justice lies. He understands everything, knows everything. Who can be\r
+more just, more magnanimous than he? And even if they did arrest me for\r
+being here, what would it matter?" thought he, looking at an officer who\r
+was entering the house the Emperor occupied. "After all, people do go\r
+in.... It's all nonsense! I'll go in and hand the letter to the Emperor\r
+myself so much the worse for Drubetskoy who drives me to it!" And\r
+suddenly with a determination he himself did not expect, Rostov felt for\r
+the letter in his pocket and went straight to the house.\r
+\r
+"No, I won't miss my opportunity now, as I did after Austerlitz," he\r
+thought, expecting every moment to meet the monarch, and conscious of\r
+the blood that rushed to his heart at the thought. "I will fall at his\r
+feet and beseech him. He will lift me up, will listen, and will even\r
+thank me. 'I am happy when I can do good, but to remedy injustice is the\r
+greatest happiness,'" Rostov fancied the sovereign saying. And passing\r
+people who looked after him with curiosity, he entered the porch of the\r
+Emperor's house.\r
+\r
+A broad staircase led straight up from the entry, and to the right he\r
+saw a closed door. Below, under the staircase, was a door leading to the\r
+lower floor.\r
+\r
+"Whom do you want?" someone inquired.\r
+\r
+"To hand in a letter, a petition, to His Majesty," said Nicholas, with a\r
+tremor in his voice.\r
+\r
+"A petition? This way, to the officer on duty" (he was shown the door\r
+leading downstairs), "only it won't be accepted."\r
+\r
+On hearing this indifferent voice, Rostov grew frightened at what he was\r
+doing; the thought of meeting the Emperor at any moment was so\r
+fascinating and consequently so alarming that he was ready to run away,\r
+but the official who had questioned him opened the door, and Rostov\r
+entered.\r
+\r
+A short stout man of about thirty, in white breeches and high boots and\r
+a batiste shirt that he had evidently only just put on, standing in that\r
+room, and his valet was buttoning on to the back of his breeches a new\r
+pair of handsome silk-embroidered braces that, for some reason,\r
+attracted Rostov's attention. This man was speaking to someone in the\r
+adjoining room.\r
+\r
+"A good figure and in her first bloom," he was saying, but on seeing\r
+Rostov, he stopped short and frowned.\r
+\r
+"What is it? A petition?"\r
+\r
+"What is it?" asked the person in the other room.\r
+\r
+"Another petitioner," answered the man with the braces.\r
+\r
+"Tell him to come later. He'll be coming out directly, we must go."\r
+\r
+"Later... later! Tomorrow. It's too late..."\r
+\r
+Rostov turned and was about to go, but the man in the braces stopped\r
+him.\r
+\r
+"Whom have you come from? Who are you?"\r
+\r
+"I come from Major Denisov," answered Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Are you an officer?"\r
+\r
+"Lieutenant Count Rostov."\r
+\r
+"What audacity! Hand it in through your commander. And go along with\r
+you... go," and he continued to put on the uniform the valet handed him.\r
+\r
+Rostov went back into the hall and noticed that in the porch there were\r
+many officers and generals in full parade uniform, whom he had to pass.\r
+\r
+Cursing his temerity, his heart sinking at the thought of finding\r
+himself at any moment face to face with the Emperor and being put to\r
+shame and arrested in his presence, fully alive now to the impropriety\r
+of his conduct and repenting of it, Rostov, with downcast eyes, was\r
+making his way out of the house through the brilliant suite when a\r
+familiar voice called him and a hand detained him.\r
+\r
+"What are you doing here, sir, in civilian dress?" asked a deep voice.\r
+\r
+It was a cavalry general who had obtained the Emperor's special favor\r
+during this campaign, and who had formerly commanded the division in\r
+which Rostov was serving.\r
+\r
+Rostov, in dismay, began justifying himself, but seeing the kindly,\r
+jocular face of the general, he took him aside and in an excited voice\r
+told him the whole affair, asking him to intercede for Denisov, whom the\r
+general knew. Having heard Rostov to the end, the general shook his head\r
+gravely.\r
+\r
+"I'm sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter."\r
+\r
+Hardly had Rostov handed him the letter and finished explaining\r
+Denisov's case, when hasty steps and the jingling of spurs were heard on\r
+the stairs, and the general, leaving him, went to the porch. The\r
+gentlemen of the Emperor's suite ran down the stairs and went to their\r
+horses. Hayne, the same groom who had been at Austerlitz, led up the\r
+Emperor's horse, and the faint creak of a footstep Rostov knew at once\r
+was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the danger of being recognized,\r
+Rostov went close to the porch, together with some inquisitive\r
+civilians, and again, after two years, saw those features he adored:\r
+that same face and same look and step, and the same union of majesty and\r
+mildness.... And the feeling of enthusiasm and love for his sovereign\r
+rose again in Rostov's soul in all its old force. In the uniform of the\r
+Preobrazhensk regiment--white chamois-leather breeches and high boots--\r
+and wearing a star Rostov did not know (it was that of the Legion\r
+d'honneur), the monarch came out into the porch, putting on his gloves\r
+and carrying his hat under his arm. He stopped and looked about him,\r
+brightening everything around by his glance. He spoke a few words to\r
+some of the generals, and, recognizing the former commander of Rostov's\r
+division, smiled and beckoned to him.\r
+\r
+All the suite drew back and Rostov saw the general talking for some time\r
+to the Emperor.\r
+\r
+The Emperor said a few words to him and took a step toward his horse.\r
+Again the crowd of members of the suite and street gazers (among whom\r
+was Rostov) moved nearer to the Emperor. Stopping beside his horse, with\r
+his hand on the saddle, the Emperor turned to the cavalry general and\r
+said in a loud voice, evidently wishing to be heard by all:\r
+\r
+"I cannot do it, General. I cannot, because the law is stronger than I,"\r
+and he raised his foot to the stirrup.\r
+\r
+The general bowed his head respectfully, and the monarch mounted and\r
+rode down the street at a gallop. Beside himself with enthusiasm, Rostov\r
+ran after him with the crowd.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a battalion of\r
+the Preobrazhensk regiment stood on the right and a battalion of the\r
+French Guards in their bearskin caps on the left.\r
+\r
+As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which presented\r
+arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and\r
+at the head of them Rostov recognized Napoleon. It could be no one else.\r
+He came at a gallop, wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open over a\r
+white vest, and the St. Andrew ribbon over his shoulder. He was riding a\r
+very fine thoroughbred gray Arab horse with a crimson gold-embroidered\r
+saddlecloth. On approaching Alexander he raised his hat, and as he did\r
+so, Rostov, with his cavalryman's eye, could not help noticing that\r
+Napoleon did not sit well or firmly in the saddle. The battalions\r
+shouted "Hurrah!" and "Vive l'Empereur!" Napoleon said something to\r
+Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each other's hands.\r
+Napoleon's face wore an unpleasant and artificial smile. Alexander was\r
+saying something affable to him.\r
+\r
+In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes' horses, which were\r
+pushing back the crowd, Rostov kept his eyes on every movement of\r
+Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise that Alexander\r
+treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with\r
+the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter\r
+to him.\r
+\r
+Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their suites, approached\r
+the right flank of the Preobrazhensk battalion and came straight up to\r
+the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly found itself so close\r
+to the Emperors that Rostov, standing in the front row, was afraid he\r
+might be recognized.\r
+\r
+"Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the\r
+bravest of your soldiers," said a sharp, precise voice, articulating\r
+every letter.\r
+\r
+This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight into\r
+Alexander's eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what was said to him\r
+and, bending his head, smiled pleasantly.\r
+\r
+"To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war," added\r
+Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and assurance\r
+exasperating to Rostov, he ran his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn up\r
+before him, who all presented arms with their eyes fixed on their\r
+Emperor.\r
+\r
+"Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?" said Alexander and\r
+took a few hasty steps toward Prince Kozlovski, the commander of the\r
+battalion.\r
+\r
+Bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white hand,\r
+tore it in doing so, and threw it away. An aide-de-camp behind him\r
+rushed forward and picked it up.\r
+\r
+"To whom shall it be given?" the Emperor Alexander asked Koslovski, in\r
+Russian in a low voice.\r
+\r
+"To whomever Your Majesty commands."\r
+\r
+The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, glancing back,\r
+remarked:\r
+\r
+"But we must give him an answer."\r
+\r
+Kozlovski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostov in his\r
+scrutiny.\r
+\r
+"Can it be me?" thought Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Lazarev!" the colonel called, with a frown, and Lazarev, the first\r
+soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.\r
+\r
+"Where are you off to? Stop here!" voices whispered to Lazarev who did\r
+not know where to go. Lazarev stopped, casting a sidelong look at his\r
+colonel in alarm. His face twitched, as often happens to soldiers called\r
+before the ranks.\r
+\r
+Napoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump little hand out\r
+behind him as if to take something. The members of his suite, guessing\r
+at once what he wanted, moved about and whispered as they passed\r
+something from one to another, and a page--the same one Rostov had seen\r
+the previous evening at Boris'--ran forward and, bowing respectfully\r
+over the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting a moment, laid in\r
+it an Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, without looking, pressed two\r
+fingers together and the badge was between them. Then he approached\r
+Lazarev (who rolled his eyes and persistently gazed at his own monarch),\r
+looked round at the Emperor Alexander to imply that what he was now\r
+doing was done for the sake of his ally, and the small white hand\r
+holding the Order touched one of Lazarev's buttons. It was as if\r
+Napoleon knew that it was only necessary for his hand to deign to touch\r
+that soldier's breast for the soldier to be forever happy, rewarded, and\r
+distinguished from everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely laid the\r
+cross on Lazarev's breast and, dropping his hand, turned toward\r
+Alexander as though sure that the cross would adhere there. And it\r
+really did.\r
+\r
+Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the cross and\r
+fastened it to the uniform. Lazarev glanced morosely at the little man\r
+with white hands who was doing something to him and, still standing\r
+motionless presenting arms, looked again straight into Alexander's eyes,\r
+as if asking whether he should stand there, or go away, or do something\r
+else. But receiving no orders, he remained for some time in that rigid\r
+position.\r
+\r
+The Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobrazhensk battalion,\r
+breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the tables\r
+prepared for them.\r
+\r
+Lazarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French officers embraced\r
+him, congratulated him, and pressed his hands. Crowds of officers and\r
+civilians drew near merely to see him. A rumble of Russian and French\r
+voices and laughter filled the air round the tables in the square. Two\r
+officers with flushed faces, looking cheerful and happy, passed by\r
+Rostov.\r
+\r
+"What d'you think of the treat? All on silver plate," one of them was\r
+saying. "Have you seen Lazarev?"\r
+\r
+"I have."\r
+\r
+"Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhenskis will give them a dinner."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but what luck for Lazarev! Twelve hundred francs' pension for\r
+life."\r
+\r
+"Here's a cap, lads!" shouted a Preobrazhensk soldier, donning a shaggy\r
+French cap.\r
+\r
+"It's a fine thing! First-rate!"\r
+\r
+"Have you heard the password?" asked one Guards' officer of another.\r
+"The day before yesterday it was 'Napoleon, France, bravoure';\r
+yesterday, 'Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.' One day our Emperor gives it\r
+and next day Napoleon. Tomorrow our Emperor will send a St. George's\r
+Cross to the bravest of the French Guards. It has to be done. He must\r
+respond in kind."\r
+\r
+Boris, too, with his friend Zhilinski, came to see the Preobrazhensk\r
+banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostov standing by the corner of a\r
+house.\r
+\r
+"Rostov! How d'you do? We missed one another," he said, and could not\r
+refrain from asking what was the matter, so strangely dismal and\r
+troubled was Rostov's face.\r
+\r
+"Nothing, nothing," replied Rostov.\r
+\r
+"You'll call round?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I will."\r
+\r
+Rostov stood at that corner for a long time, watching the feast from a\r
+distance. In his mind, a painful process was going on which he could not\r
+bring to a conclusion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he\r
+remembered Denisov with his changed expression, his submission, and the\r
+whole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease. So\r
+vividly did he recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he looked\r
+round to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that self-\r
+satisfied Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an Emperor,\r
+liked and respected by Alexander. Then why those severed arms and legs\r
+and those dead men?... Then again he thought of Lazarev rewarded and\r
+Denisov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself harboring such\r
+strange thoughts that he was frightened.\r
+\r
+The smell of the food the Preobrazhenskis were eating and a sense of\r
+hunger recalled him from these reflections; he had to get something to\r
+eat before going away. He went to a hotel he had noticed that morning.\r
+There he found so many people, among them officers who, like himself,\r
+had come in civilian clothes, that he had difficulty in getting a\r
+dinner. Two officers of his own division joined him. The conversation\r
+naturally turned on the peace. The officers, his comrades, like most of\r
+the army, were dissatisfied with the peace concluded after the battle of\r
+Friedland. They said that had we held out a little longer Napoleon would\r
+have been done for, as his troops had neither provisions nor ammunition.\r
+Nicholas ate and drank (chiefly the latter) in silence. He finished a\r
+couple of bottles of wine by himself. The process in his mind went on\r
+tormenting him without reaching a conclusion. He feared to give way to\r
+his thoughts, yet could not get rid of them. Suddenly, on one of the\r
+officers' saying that it was humiliating to look at the French, Rostov\r
+began shouting with uncalled-for wrath, and therefore much to the\r
+surprise of the officers:\r
+\r
+"How can you judge what's best?" he cried, the blood suddenly rushing to\r
+his face. "How can you judge the Emperor's actions? What right have we\r
+to argue? We cannot comprehend either the Emperor's aims or his\r
+actions!"\r
+\r
+"But I never said a word about the Emperor!" said the officer,\r
+justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostov's outburst, except\r
+on the supposition that he was drunk.\r
+\r
+But Rostov did not listen to him.\r
+\r
+"We are not diplomatic officials, we are soldiers and nothing more," he\r
+went on. "If we are ordered to die, we must die. If we're punished, it\r
+means that we have deserved it, it's not for us to judge. If the Emperor\r
+pleases to recognize Bonaparte as Emperor and to conclude an alliance\r
+with him, it means that that is the right thing to do. If once we begin\r
+judging and arguing about everything, nothing sacred will be left! That\r
+way we shall be saying there is no God--nothing!" shouted Nicholas,\r
+banging the table--very little to the point as it seemed to his\r
+listeners, but quite relevantly to the course of his own thoughts.\r
+\r
+"Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to think! That's\r
+all...." said he.\r
+\r
+"And to drink," said one of the officers, not wishing to quarrel.\r
+\r
+"Yes, and to drink," assented Nicholas. "Hullo there! Another bottle!"\r
+he shouted.\r
+\r
+In 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for a fresh interview with\r
+the Emperor Napoleon, and in the upper circles of Petersburg there was\r
+much talk of the grandeur of this important meeting.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+In 1809 the intimacy between "the world's two arbiters," as Napoleon and\r
+Alexander were called, was such that when Napoleon declared war on\r
+Austria a Russian corps crossed the frontier to co-operate with our old\r
+enemy Bonaparte against our old ally the Emperor of Austria, and in\r
+court circles the possibility of marriage between Napoleon and one of\r
+Alexander's sisters was spoken of. But besides considerations of foreign\r
+policy, the attention of Russian society was at that time keenly\r
+directed on the internal changes that were being undertaken in all the\r
+departments of government.\r
+\r
+Life meanwhile--real life, with its essential interests of health and\r
+sickness, toil and rest, and its intellectual interests in thought,\r
+science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, and passions--went on\r
+as usual, independently of and apart from political friendship or enmity\r
+with Napoleon Bonaparte and from all the schemes of reconstruction.\r
+\r
+BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew had spent two years continuously in the country.\r
+\r
+All the plans Pierre had attempted on his estates--and constantly\r
+changing from one thing to another had never accomplished--were carried\r
+out by Prince Andrew without display and without perceptible difficulty.\r
+\r
+He had in the highest degree a practical tenacity which Pierre lacked,\r
+and without fuss or strain on his part this set things going.\r
+\r
+On one of his estates the three hundred serfs were liberated and became\r
+free agricultural laborers--this being one of the first examples of the\r
+kind in Russia. On other estates the serfs' compulsory labor was\r
+commuted for a quitrent. A trained midwife was engaged for Bogucharovo\r
+at his expense, and a priest was paid to teach reading and writing to\r
+the children of the peasants and household serfs.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew spent half his time at Bald Hills with his father and his\r
+son, who was still in the care of nurses. The other half he spent in\r
+"Bogucharovo Cloister," as his father called Prince Andrew's estate.\r
+Despite the indifference to the affairs of the world he had expressed to\r
+Pierre, he diligently followed all that went on, received many books,\r
+and to his surprise noticed that when he or his father had visitors from\r
+Petersburg, the very vortex of life, these people lagged behind himself-\r
+-who never left the country--in knowledge of what was happening in home\r
+and foreign affairs.\r
+\r
+Besides being occupied with his estates and reading a great variety of\r
+books, Prince Andrew was at this time busy with a critical survey of our\r
+last two unfortunate campaigns, and with drawing up a proposal for a\r
+reform of the army rules and regulations.\r
+\r
+In the spring of 1809 he went to visit the Ryazan estates which had been\r
+inherited by his son, whose guardian he was.\r
+\r
+Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the caleche looking at the new\r
+grass, the first leaves on the birches, and the first puffs of white\r
+spring clouds floating across the clear blue sky. He was not thinking of\r
+anything, but looked absent-mindedly and cheerfully from side to side.\r
+\r
+They crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre the year before.\r
+They went through the muddy village, past threshing floors and green\r
+fields of winter rye, downhill where snow still lodged near the bridge,\r
+uphill where the clay had been liquefied by the rain, past strips of\r
+stubble land and bushes touched with green here and there, and into a\r
+birch forest growing on both sides of the road. In the forest it was\r
+almost hot, no wind could be felt. The birches with their sticky green\r
+leaves were motionless, and lilac-colored flowers and the first blades\r
+of green grass were pushing up and lifting last year's leaves. The\r
+coarse evergreen color of the small fir trees scattered here and there\r
+among the birches was an unpleasant reminder of winter. On entering the\r
+forest the horses began to snort and sweated visibly.\r
+\r
+Peter the footman made some remark to the coachman; the latter assented.\r
+But apparently the coachman's sympathy was not enough for Peter, and he\r
+turned on the box toward his master.\r
+\r
+"How pleasant it is, your excellency!" he said with a respectful smile.\r
+\r
+"What?"\r
+\r
+"It's pleasant, your excellency!"\r
+\r
+\r
+"What is he talking about?" thought Prince Andrew. "Oh, the spring, I\r
+suppose," he thought as he turned round. "Yes, really everything is\r
+green already.... How early! The birches and cherry and alders too are\r
+coming out.... But the oaks show no sign yet. Ah, here is one oak!"\r
+\r
+At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times the age of the\r
+birches that formed the forest, it was ten times as thick and twice as\r
+tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth twice as great as a man\r
+could embrace, and evidently long ago some of its branches had been\r
+broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling\r
+unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an aged,\r
+stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch trees. Only the\r
+dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the forest, and this oak,\r
+refused to yield to the charm of spring or notice either the spring or\r
+the sunshine.\r
+\r
+"Spring, love, happiness!" this oak seemed to say. "Are you not weary of\r
+that stupid, meaningless, constantly repeated fraud? Always the same and\r
+always a fraud? There is no spring, no sun, no happiness! Look at those\r
+cramped dead firs, ever the same, and at me too, sticking out my broken\r
+and barked fingers just where they have grown, whether from my back or\r
+my sides: as they have grown so I stand, and I do not believe in your\r
+hopes and your lies."\r
+\r
+As he passed through the forest Prince Andrew turned several times to\r
+look at that oak, as if expecting something from it. Under the oak, too,\r
+were flowers and grass, but it stood among them scowling, rigid,\r
+misshapen, and grim as ever.\r
+\r
+"Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right," thought Prince Andrew.\r
+"Let others--the young--yield afresh to that fraud, but we know life,\r
+our life is finished!"\r
+\r
+A whole sequence of new thoughts, hopeless but mournfully pleasant, rose\r
+in his soul in connection with that tree. During this journey he, as it\r
+were, considered his life afresh and arrived at his old conclusion,\r
+restful in its hopelessness: that it was not for him to begin anything\r
+anew--but that he must live out his life, content to do no harm, and not\r
+disturbing himself or desiring anything.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew had to see the Marshal of the Nobility for the district in\r
+connection with the affairs of the Ryazan estate of which he was\r
+trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilya Rostov, and in the middle of May\r
+Prince Andrew went to visit him.\r
+\r
+It was now hot spring weather. The whole forest was already clothed in\r
+green. It was dusty and so hot that on passing near water one longed to\r
+bathe.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, depressed and preoccupied with the business about which\r
+he had to speak to the Marshal, was driving up the avenue in the grounds\r
+of the Rostovs' house at Otradnoe. He heard merry girlish cries behind\r
+some trees on the right and saw a group of girls running to cross the\r
+path of his caleche. Ahead of the rest and nearer to him ran a dark-\r
+haired, remarkably slim, pretty girl in a yellow chintz dress, with a\r
+white handkerchief on her head from under which loose locks of hair\r
+escaped. The girl was shouting something but, seeing that he was a\r
+stranger, ran back laughing without looking at him.\r
+\r
+Suddenly, he did not know why, he felt a pang. The day was so beautiful,\r
+the sun so bright, everything around so gay, but that slim pretty girl\r
+did not know, or wish to know, of his existence and was contented and\r
+cheerful in her own separate--probably foolish--but bright and happy\r
+life. "What is she so glad about? What is she thinking of? Not of the\r
+military regulations or of the arrangement of the Ryazan serfs'\r
+quitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so happy?" Prince Andrew\r
+asked himself with instinctive curiosity.\r
+\r
+In 1809 Count Ilya Rostov was living at Otradnoe just as he had done in\r
+former years, that is, entertaining almost the whole province with\r
+hunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. He was glad to see Prince\r
+Andrew, as he was to see any new visitor, and insisted on his staying\r
+the night.\r
+\r
+During the dull day, in the course of which he was entertained by his\r
+elderly hosts and by the more important of the visitors (the old count's\r
+house was crowded on account of an approaching name day), Prince Andrew\r
+repeatedly glanced at Natasha, gay and laughing among the younger\r
+members of the company, and asked himself each time, "What is she\r
+thinking about? Why is she so glad?"\r
+\r
+That night, alone in new surroundings, he was long unable to sleep. He\r
+read awhile and then put out his candle, but relit it. It was hot in the\r
+room, the inside shutters of which were closed. He was cross with the\r
+stupid old man (as he called Rostov), who had made him stay by assuring\r
+him that some necessary documents had not yet arrived from town, and he\r
+was vexed with himself for having stayed.\r
+\r
+He got up and went to the window to open it. As soon as he opened the\r
+shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this, burst\r
+into the room. He opened the casement. The night was fresh, bright, and\r
+very still. Just before the window was a row of pollard trees, looking\r
+black on one side and with a silvery light on the other. Beneath the\r
+trees grew some kind of lush, wet, bushy vegetation with silver-lit\r
+leaves and stems here and there. Farther back beyond the dark trees a\r
+roof glittered with dew, to the right was a leafy tree with brilliantly\r
+white trunk and branches, and above it shone the moon, nearly at its\r
+full, in a pale, almost starless, spring sky. Prince Andrew leaned his\r
+elbows on the window ledge and his eyes rested on that sky.\r
+\r
+His room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above were also\r
+awake. He heard female voices overhead.\r
+\r
+"Just once more," said a girlish voice above him which Prince Andrew\r
+recognized at once.\r
+\r
+"But when are you coming to bed?" replied another voice.\r
+\r
+"I won't, I can't sleep, what's the use? Come now for the last time."\r
+\r
+\r
+Two girlish voices sang a musical passage--the end of some song.\r
+\r
+"Oh, how lovely! Now go to sleep, and there's an end of it."\r
+\r
+"You go to sleep, but I can't," said the first voice, coming nearer to\r
+the window. She was evidently leaning right out, for the rustle of her\r
+dress and even her breathing could be heard. Everything was stone-still,\r
+like the moon and its light and the shadows. Prince Andrew, too, dared\r
+not stir, for fear of betraying his unintentional presence.\r
+\r
+"Sonya! Sonya!" he again heard the first speaker. "Oh, how can you\r
+sleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake up,\r
+Sonya!" she said almost with tears in her voice. "There never, never was\r
+such a lovely night before!"\r
+\r
+Sonya made some reluctant reply.\r
+\r
+"Do just come and see what a moon!... Oh, how lovely! Come here....\r
+Darling, sweetheart, come here! There, you see? I feel like sitting down\r
+on my heels, putting my arms round my knees like this, straining tight,\r
+as tight as possible, and flying away! Like this...."\r
+\r
+"Take care, you'll fall out."\r
+\r
+He heard the sound of a scuffle and Sonya's disapproving voice: "It's\r
+past one o'clock."\r
+\r
+"Oh, you only spoil things for me. All right, go, go!"\r
+\r
+Again all was silent, but Prince Andrew knew she was still sitting\r
+there. From time to time he heard a soft rustle and at times a sigh.\r
+\r
+"O God, O God! What does it mean?" she suddenly exclaimed. "To bed then,\r
+if it must be!" and she slammed the casement.\r
+\r
+"For her I might as well not exist!" thought Prince Andrew while he\r
+listened to her voice, for some reason expecting yet fearing that she\r
+might say something about him. "There she is again! As if it were on\r
+purpose," thought he.\r
+\r
+In his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected turmoil of youthful\r
+thoughts and hopes, contrary to the whole tenor of his life, that unable\r
+to explain his condition to himself he lay down and fell asleep at once.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+Next morning, having taken leave of no one but the count, and not\r
+waiting for the ladies to appear, Prince Andrew set off for home.\r
+\r
+It was already the beginning of June when on his return journey he drove\r
+into the birch forest where the gnarled old oak had made so strange and\r
+memorable an impression on him. In the forest the harness bells sounded\r
+yet more muffled than they had done six weeks before, for now all was\r
+thick, shady, and dense, and the young firs dotted about in the forest\r
+did not jar on the general beauty but, lending themselves to the mood\r
+around, were delicately green with fluffy young shoots.\r
+\r
+The whole day had been hot. Somewhere a storm was gathering, but only a\r
+small cloud had scattered some raindrops lightly, sprinkling the road\r
+and the sappy leaves. The left side of the forest was dark in the shade,\r
+the right side glittered in the sunlight, wet and shiny and scarcely\r
+swayed by the breeze. Everything was in blossom, the nightingales\r
+trilled, and their voices reverberated now near, now far away.\r
+\r
+"Yes, here in this forest was that oak with which I agreed," thought\r
+Prince Andrew. "But where is it?" he again wondered, gazing at the left\r
+side of the road, and without recognizing it he looked with admiration\r
+at the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured, spreading\r
+out a canopy of sappy dark-green foliage, stood rapt and slightly\r
+trembling in the rays of the evening sun. Neither gnarled fingers nor\r
+old scars nor old doubts and sorrows were any of them in evidence now.\r
+Through the hard century-old bark, even where there were no twigs,\r
+leaves had sprouted such as one could hardly believe the old veteran\r
+could have produced.\r
+\r
+"Yes, it is the same oak," thought Prince Andrew, and all at once he was\r
+seized by an unreasoning springtime feeling of joy and renewal. All the\r
+best moments of his life suddenly rose to his memory. Austerlitz with\r
+the lofty heavens, his wife's dead reproachful face, Pierre at the\r
+ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night\r
+itself and the moon, and.... all this rushed suddenly to his mind.\r
+\r
+"No, life is not over at thirty-one!" Prince Andrew suddenly decided\r
+finally and decisively. "It is not enough for me to know what I have in\r
+me--everyone must know it: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to fly\r
+away into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life may not be\r
+lived for myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that\r
+it may be reflected in them all, and they and I may live in harmony!"\r
+\r
+On reaching home Prince Andrew decided to go to Petersburg that autumn\r
+and found all sorts of reasons for this decision. A whole series of\r
+sensible and logical considerations showing it to be essential for him\r
+to go to Petersburg, and even to re-enter the service, kept springing up\r
+in his mind. He could not now understand how he could ever even have\r
+doubted the necessity of taking an active share in life, just as a month\r
+before he had not understood how the idea of leaving the quiet country\r
+could ever enter his head. It now seemed clear to him that all his\r
+experience of life must be senselessly wasted unless he applied it to\r
+some kind of work and again played an active part in life. He did not\r
+even remember how formerly, on the strength of similar wretched logical\r
+arguments, it had seemed obvious that he would be degrading himself if\r
+he now, after the lessons he had had in life, allowed himself to believe\r
+in the possibility of being useful and in the possibility of happiness\r
+or love. Now reason suggested quite the opposite. After that journey to\r
+Ryazan he found the country dull; his former pursuits no longer\r
+interested him, and often when sitting alone in his study he got up,\r
+went to the mirror, and gazed a long time at his own face. Then he would\r
+turn away to the portrait of his dead Lise, who with hair curled a la\r
+grecque looked tenderly and gaily at him out of the gilt frame. She did\r
+not now say those former terrible words to him, but looked simply,\r
+merrily, and inquisitively at him. And Prince Andrew, crossing his arms\r
+behind him, long paced the room, now frowning, now smiling, as he\r
+reflected on those irrational, inexpressible thoughts, secret as a\r
+crime, which altered his whole life and were connected with Pierre, with\r
+fame, with the girl at the window, the oak, and woman's beauty and love.\r
+And if anyone came into his room at such moments he was particularly\r
+cold, stern, and above all unpleasantly logical.\r
+\r
+"My dear," Princess Mary entering at such a moment would say, "little\r
+Nicholas can't go out today, it's very cold."\r
+\r
+"If it were hot," Prince Andrew would reply at such times very dryly to\r
+his sister, "he could go out in his smock, but as it is cold he must\r
+wear warm clothes, which were designed for that purpose. That is what\r
+follows from the fact that it is cold; and not that a child who needs\r
+fresh air should remain at home," he would add with extreme logic, as if\r
+punishing someone for those secret illogical emotions that stirred\r
+within him.\r
+\r
+At such moments Princess Mary would think how intellectual work dries\r
+men up.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew arrived in Petersburg in August, 1809. It was the time\r
+when the youthful Speranski was at the zenith of his fame and his\r
+reforms were being pushed forward with the greatest energy. That same\r
+August the Emperor was thrown from his caleche, injured his leg, and\r
+remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speranski every day and no\r
+one else. At that time the two famous decrees were being prepared that\r
+so agitated society--abolishing court ranks and introducing examinations\r
+to qualify for the grades of Collegiate Assessor and State Councilor--\r
+and not merely these but a whole state constitution, intended to change\r
+the existing order of government in Russia: legal, administrative, and\r
+financial, from the Council of State down to the district tribunals. Now\r
+those vague liberal dreams with which the Emperor Alexander had ascended\r
+the throne, and which he had tried to put into effect with the aid of\r
+his associates, Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Kochubey, and Strogonov--whom\r
+he himself in jest had called his Comite de salut public--were taking\r
+shape and being realized.\r
+\r
+Now all these men were replaced by Speranski on the civil side, and\r
+Arakcheev on the military. Soon after his arrival Prince Andrew, as a\r
+gentleman of the chamber, presented himself at court and at a levee. The\r
+Emperor, though he met him twice, did not favor him with a single word.\r
+It had always seemed to Prince Andrew before that he was antipathetic to\r
+the Emperor and that the latter disliked his face and personality\r
+generally, and in the cold, repellent glance the Emperor gave him, he\r
+now found further confirmation of this surmise. The courtiers explained\r
+the Emperor's neglect of him by His Majesty's displeasure at Bolkonski's\r
+not having served since 1805.\r
+\r
+"I know myself that one cannot help one's sympathies and antipathies,"\r
+thought Prince Andrew, "so it will not do to present my proposal for the\r
+reform of the army regulations to the Emperor personally, but the\r
+project will speak for itself."\r
+\r
+He mentioned what he had written to an old field marshal, a friend of\r
+his father's. The field marshal made an appointment to see him, received\r
+him graciously, and promised to inform the Emperor. A few days later\r
+Prince Andrew received notice that he was to go to see the Minister of\r
+War, Count Arakcheev.\r
+\r
+On the appointed day Prince Andrew entered Count Arakcheev's waiting\r
+room at nine in the morning.\r
+\r
+He did not know Arakcheev personally, had never seen him, and all he had\r
+heard of him inspired him with but little respect for the man.\r
+\r
+"He is Minister of War, a man trusted by the Emperor, and I need not\r
+concern myself about his personal qualities: he has been commissioned to\r
+consider my project, so he alone can get it adopted," thought Prince\r
+Andrew as he waited among a number of important and unimportant people\r
+in Count Arakcheev's waiting room.\r
+\r
+During his service, chiefly as an adjutant, Prince Andrew had seen the\r
+anterooms of many important men, and the different types of such rooms\r
+were well known to him. Count Arakcheev's anteroom had quite a special\r
+character. The faces of the unimportant people awaiting their turn for\r
+an audience showed embarrassment and servility; the faces of those of\r
+higher rank expressed a common feeling of awkwardness, covered by a mask\r
+of unconcern and ridicule of themselves, their situation, and the person\r
+for whom they were waiting. Some walked thoughtfully up and down, others\r
+whispered and laughed. Prince Andrew heard the nickname "Sila\r
+Andreevich" and the words, "Uncle will give it to us hot," in reference\r
+to Count Arakcheev. One general (an important personage), evidently\r
+feeling offended at having to wait so long, sat crossing and uncrossing\r
+his legs and smiling contemptuously to himself.\r
+\r
+But the moment the door opened one feeling alone appeared on all faces--\r
+that of fear. Prince Andrew for the second time asked the adjutant on\r
+duty to take in his name, but received an ironical look and was told\r
+that his turn would come in due course. After some others had been shown\r
+in and out of the minister's room by the adjutant on duty, an officer\r
+who struck Prince Andrew by his humiliated and frightened air was\r
+admitted at that terrible door. This officer's audience lasted a long\r
+time. Then suddenly the grating sound of a harsh voice was heard from\r
+the other side of the door, and the officer--with pale face and\r
+trembling lips--came out and passed through the waiting room, clutching\r
+his head.\r
+\r
+After this Prince Andrew was conducted to the door and the officer on\r
+duty said in a whisper, "To the right, at the window."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew entered a plain tidy room and saw at the table a man of\r
+forty with a long waist, a long closely cropped head, deep wrinkles,\r
+scowling brows above dull greenish-hazel eyes and an overhanging red\r
+nose. Arakcheev turned his head toward him without looking at him.\r
+\r
+"What is your petition?" asked Arakcheev.\r
+\r
+"I am not petitioning, your excellency," returned Prince Andrew quietly.\r
+\r
+Arakcheev's eyes turned toward him.\r
+\r
+"Sit down," said he. "Prince Bolkonski?"\r
+\r
+"I am not petitioning about anything. His Majesty the Emperor has\r
+deigned to send your excellency a project submitted by me..."\r
+\r
+"You see, my dear sir, I have read your project," interrupted Arakcheev,\r
+uttering only the first words amiably and then--again without looking at\r
+Prince Andrew--relapsing gradually into a tone of grumbling contempt.\r
+"You are proposing new military laws? There are many laws but no one to\r
+carry out the old ones. Nowadays everybody designs laws, it is easier\r
+writing than doing."\r
+\r
+"I came at His Majesty the Emperor's wish to learn from your excellency\r
+how you propose to deal with the memorandum I have presented," said\r
+Prince Andrew politely.\r
+\r
+"I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum and sent it to the\r
+committee. I do not approve of it," said Arakcheev, rising and taking a\r
+paper from his writing table. "Here!" and he handed it to Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+Across the paper was scrawled in pencil, without capital letters,\r
+misspelled, and without punctuation: "Unsoundly constructed because\r
+resembles an imitation of the French military code and from the Articles\r
+of War needlessly deviating."\r
+\r
+"To what committee has the memorandum been referred?" inquired Prince\r
+Andrew.\r
+\r
+"To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have recommended that your\r
+honor should be appointed a member, but without a salary."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew smiled.\r
+\r
+"I don't want one."\r
+\r
+"A member without salary," repeated Arakcheev. "I have the honor... Eh!\r
+Call the next one! Who else is there?" he shouted, bowing to Prince\r
+Andrew.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+While waiting for the announcement of his appointment to the committee\r
+Prince Andrew looked up his former acquaintances, particularly those he\r
+knew to be in power and whose aid he might need. In Petersburg he now\r
+experienced the same feeling he had had on the eve of a battle, when\r
+troubled by anxious curiosity and irresistibly attracted to the ruling\r
+circles where the future, on which the fate of millions depended, was\r
+being shaped. From the irritation of the older men, the curiosity of the\r
+uninitiated, the reserve of the initiated, the hurry and preoccupation\r
+of everyone, and the innumerable committees and commissions of whose\r
+existence he learned every day, he felt that now, in 1809, here in\r
+Petersburg a vast civil conflict was in preparation, the commander in\r
+chief of which was a mysterious person he did not know, but who was\r
+supposed to be a man of genius--Speranski. And this movement of\r
+reconstruction of which Prince Andrew had a vague idea, and Speranski\r
+its chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly that the question of\r
+the army regulations quickly receded to a secondary place in his\r
+consciousness.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was most favorably placed to secure good reception in the\r
+highest and most diverse Petersburg circles of the day. The reforming\r
+party cordially welcomed and courted him, in the first place because he\r
+was reputed to be clever and very well read, and secondly because by\r
+liberating his serfs he had obtained the reputation of being a liberal.\r
+The party of the old and dissatisfied, who censured the innovations,\r
+turned to him expecting his sympathy in their disapproval of the\r
+reforms, simply because he was the son of his father. The feminine\r
+society world welcomed him gladly, because he was rich, distinguished, a\r
+good match, and almost a newcomer, with a halo of romance on account of\r
+his supposed death and the tragic loss of his wife. Besides this the\r
+general opinion of all who had known him previously was that he had\r
+greatly improved during these last five years, having softened and grown\r
+more manly, lost his former affectation, pride, and contemptuous irony,\r
+and acquired the serenity that comes with years. People talked about\r
+him, were interested in him, and wanted to meet him.\r
+\r
+The day after his interview with Count Arakcheev, Prince Andrew spent\r
+the evening at Count Kochubey's. He told the count of his interview with\r
+Sila Andreevich (Kochubey spoke of Arakcheev by that nickname with the\r
+same vague irony Prince Andrew had noticed in the Minister of War's\r
+anteroom).\r
+\r
+"Mon cher, even in this case you can't do without Michael Mikhaylovich\r
+Speranski. He manages everything. I'll speak to him. He has promised to\r
+come this evening."\r
+\r
+"What has Speranski to do with the army regulations?" asked Prince\r
+Andrew.\r
+\r
+Kochubey shook his head smilingly, as if surprised at Bolkonski's\r
+simplicity.\r
+\r
+"We were talking to him about you a few days ago," Kochubey continued,\r
+"and about your freed plowmen."\r
+\r
+"Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?" said an old man of\r
+Catherine's day, turning contemptuously toward Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"It was a small estate that brought in no profit," replied Prince\r
+Andrew, trying to extenuate his action so as not to irritate the old man\r
+uselessly.\r
+\r
+"Afraid of being late..." said the old man, looking at Kochubey.\r
+\r
+"There's one thing I don't understand," he continued. "Who will plow the\r
+land if they are set free? It is easy to write laws, but difficult to\r
+rule.... Just the same as now--I ask you, Count--who will be heads of\r
+the departments when everybody has to pass examinations?"\r
+\r
+"Those who pass the examinations, I suppose," replied Kochubey, crossing\r
+his legs and glancing round.\r
+\r
+"Well, I have Pryanichnikov serving under me, a splendid man, a\r
+priceless man, but he's sixty. Is he to go up for examination?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, that's a difficulty, as education is not at all general, but..."\r
+\r
+Count Kochubey did not finish. He rose, took Prince Andrew by the arm,\r
+and went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of about forty with a large open\r
+forehead and a long face of unusual and peculiar whiteness, who was just\r
+entering. The newcomer wore a blue swallow-tail coat with a cross\r
+suspended from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was Speranski.\r
+Prince Andrew recognized him at once, and felt a throb within him, as\r
+happens at critical moments of life. Whether it was from respect, envy,\r
+or anticipation, he did not know. Speranski's whole figure was of a\r
+peculiar type that made him easily recognizable. In the society in which\r
+Prince Andrew lived he had never seen anyone who together with awkward\r
+and clumsy gestures possessed such calmness and self-assurance; he had\r
+never seen so resolute yet gentle an expression as that in those half-\r
+closed, rather humid eyes, or so firm a smile that expressed nothing;\r
+nor had he heard such a refined, smooth, soft voice; above all he had\r
+never seen such delicate whiteness of face or hands--hands which were\r
+broad, but very plump, soft, and white. Such whiteness and softness\r
+Prince Andrew had only seen on the faces of soldiers who had been long\r
+in hospital. This was Speranski, Secretary of State, reporter to the\r
+Emperor and his companion at Erfurt, where he had more than once met and\r
+talked with Napoleon.\r
+\r
+Speranski did not shift his eyes from one face to another as people\r
+involuntarily do on entering a large company and was in no hurry to\r
+speak. He spoke slowly, with assurance that he would be listened to, and\r
+he looked only at the person with whom he was conversing.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew followed Speranski's every word and movement with\r
+particular attention. As happens to some people, especially to men who\r
+judge those near to them severely, he always on meeting anyone new--\r
+especially anyone whom, like Speranski, he knew by reputation--expected\r
+to discover in him the perfection of human qualities.\r
+\r
+Speranski told Kochubey he was sorry he had been unable to come sooner\r
+as he had been detained at the palace. He did not say that the Emperor\r
+had kept him, and Prince Andrew noticed this affectation of modesty.\r
+When Kochubey introduced Prince Andrew, Speranski slowly turned his eyes\r
+to Bolkonski with his customary smile and looked at him in silence.\r
+\r
+"I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I had heard of you, as\r
+everyone has," he said after a pause.\r
+\r
+Kochubey said a few words about the reception Arakcheev had given\r
+Bolkonski. Speranski smiled more markedly.\r
+\r
+"The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations is my good friend\r
+Monsieur Magnitski," he said, fully articulating every word and\r
+syllable, "and if you like I can put you in touch with him." He paused\r
+at the full stop. "I hope you will find him sympathetic and ready to co-\r
+operate in promoting all that is reasonable."\r
+\r
+A circle soon formed round Speranski, and the old man who had talked\r
+about his subordinate Pryanichnikov addressed a question to him.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew without joining in the conversation watched every movement\r
+of Speranski's: this man, not long since an insignificant divinity\r
+student, who now, Bolkonski thought, held in his hands--those plump\r
+white hands--the fate of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck by the\r
+extraordinarily disdainful composure with which Speranski answered the\r
+old man. He appeared to address condescending words to him from an\r
+immeasurable height. When the old man began to speak too loud, Speranski\r
+smiled and said he could not judge of the advantage or disadvantage of\r
+what pleased the sovereign.\r
+\r
+Having talked for a little while in the general circle, Speranski rose\r
+and coming up to Prince Andrew took him along to the other end of the\r
+room. It was clear that he thought it necessary to interest himself in\r
+Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"I had no chance to talk with you, Prince, during the animated\r
+conversation in which that venerable gentleman involved me," he said\r
+with a mildly contemptuous smile, as if intimating by that smile that he\r
+and Prince Andrew understood the insignificance of the people with whom\r
+he had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrew. "I have known of\r
+you for a long time: first from your action with regard to your serfs, a\r
+first example, of which it is very desirable that there should be more\r
+imitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen of the\r
+chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new decree\r
+concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing so much\r
+gossip and tittle-tattle."\r
+\r
+"No," said Prince Andrew, "my father did not wish me to take advantage\r
+of the privilege. I began the service from the lower grade."\r
+\r
+"Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands above our\r
+contemporaries who so condemn this measure which merely reestablishes\r
+natural justice."\r
+\r
+"I think, however, that these condemnations have some ground," returned\r
+Prince Andrew, trying to resist Speranski's influence, of which he began\r
+to be conscious. He did not like to agree with him in everything and\r
+felt a wish to contradict. Though he usually spoke easily and well, he\r
+felt a difficulty in expressing himself now while talking with\r
+Speranski. He was too much absorbed in observing the famous man's\r
+personality.\r
+\r
+"Grounds of personal ambition maybe," Speranski put in quietly.\r
+\r
+"And of state interest to some extent," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"What do you mean?" asked Speranski quietly, lowering his eyes.\r
+\r
+"I am an admirer of Montesquieu," replied Prince Andrew, "and his idea\r
+that le principe des monarchies est l'honneur me parait incontestable.\r
+Certains droits et privileges de la noblesse me paraissent etre des\r
+moyens de soutenir ce sentiment." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "The principle of monarchies is honor seems to me incontestable.\r
+Certain rights and privileges for the aristocracy appear to me a means\r
+of maintaining that sentiment."\r
+\r
+The smile vanished from Speranski's white face, which was much improved\r
+by the change. Probably Prince Andrew's thought interested him.\r
+\r
+"Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue," * he began,\r
+pronouncing French with evident difficulty, and speaking even slower\r
+than in Russian but quite calmly.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "If you regard the question from that point of view."\r
+\r
+Speranski went on to say that honor, l'honneur, cannot be upheld by\r
+privileges harmful to the service; that honor, l'honneur, is either a\r
+negative concept of not doing what is blameworthy or it is a source of\r
+emulation in pursuit of commendation and rewards, which recognize it.\r
+His arguments were concise, simple, and clear.\r
+\r
+"An institution upholding honor, the source of emulation, is one similar\r
+to the Legion d'honneur of the great Emperor Napoleon, not harmful but\r
+helpful to the success of the service, but not a class or court\r
+privilege."\r
+\r
+"I do not dispute that, but it cannot be denied that court privileges\r
+have attained the same end," returned Prince Andrew. "Every courtier\r
+considers himself bound to maintain his position worthily."\r
+\r
+"Yet you do not care to avail yourself of the privilege, Prince," said\r
+Speranski, indicating by a smile that he wished to finish amiably an\r
+argument which was embarrassing for his companion. "If you will do me\r
+the honor of calling on me on Wednesday," he added, "I will, after\r
+talking with Magnitski, let you know what may interest you, and shall\r
+also have the pleasure of a more detailed chat with you."\r
+\r
+Closing his eyes, he bowed a la francaise, without taking leave, and\r
+trying to attract as little attention as possible, he left the room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+During the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andrew felt the\r
+whole trend of thought he had formed during his life of seclusion quite\r
+overshadowed by the trifling cares that engrossed him in that city.\r
+\r
+On returning home in the evening he would jot down in his notebook four\r
+or five necessary calls or appointments for certain hours. The mechanism\r
+of life, the arrangement of the day so as to be in time everywhere,\r
+absorbed the greater part of his vital energy. He did nothing, did not\r
+even think or find time to think, but only talked, and talked\r
+successfully, of what he had thought while in the country.\r
+\r
+He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he repeated the same\r
+remark on the same day in different circles. But he was so busy for\r
+whole days together that he had no time to notice that he was thinking\r
+of nothing.\r
+\r
+As he had done on their first meeting at Kochubey's, Speranski produced\r
+a strong impression on Prince Andrew on the Wednesday, when he received\r
+him tête-à-tête at his own house and talked to him long and\r
+confidentially.\r
+\r
+To Bolkonski so many people appeared contemptible and insignificant\r
+creatures, and he so longed to find in someone the living ideal of that\r
+perfection toward which he strove, that he readily believed that in\r
+Speranski he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous\r
+man. Had Speranski sprung from the same class as himself and possessed\r
+the same breeding and traditions, Bolkonski would soon have discovered\r
+his weak, human, unheroic sides; but as it was, Speranski's strange and\r
+logical turn of mind inspired him with respect all the more because he\r
+did not quite understand him. Moreover, Speranski, either because he\r
+appreciated the other's capacity or because he considered it necessary\r
+to win him to his side, showed off his dispassionate calm reasonableness\r
+before Prince Andrew and flattered him with that subtle flattery which\r
+goes hand in hand with self-assurance and consists in a tacit assumption\r
+that one's companion is the only man besides oneself capable of\r
+understanding the folly of the rest of mankind and the reasonableness\r
+and profundity of one's own ideas.\r
+\r
+During their long conversation on Wednesday evening, Speranski more than\r
+once remarked: "We regard everything that is above the common level of\r
+rooted custom..." or, with a smile: "But we want the wolves to be fed\r
+and the sheep to be safe..." or: "They cannot understand this..." and\r
+all in a way that seemed to say: "We, you and I, understand what they\r
+are and who we are."\r
+\r
+This first long conversation with Speranski only strengthened in Prince\r
+Andrew the feeling he had experienced toward him at their first meeting.\r
+He saw in him a remarkable, clear-thinking man of vast intellect who by\r
+his energy and persistence had attained power, which he was using solely\r
+for the welfare of Russia. In Prince Andrew's eyes Speranski was the man\r
+he would himself have wished to be--one who explained all the facts of\r
+life reasonably, considered important only what was rational, and was\r
+capable of applying the standard of reason to everything. Everything\r
+seemed so simple and clear in Speranski's exposition that Prince Andrew\r
+involuntarily agreed with him about everything. If he replied and\r
+argued, it was only because he wished to maintain his independence and\r
+not submit to Speranski's opinions entirely. Everything was right and\r
+everything was as it should be: only one thing disconcerted Prince\r
+Andrew. This was Speranski's cold, mirrorlike look, which did not allow\r
+one to penetrate to his soul, and his delicate white hands, which Prince\r
+Andrew involuntarily watched as one does watch the hands of those who\r
+possess power. This mirrorlike gaze and those delicate hands irritated\r
+Prince Andrew, he knew not why. He was unpleasantly struck, too, by the\r
+excessive contempt for others that he observed in Speranski, and by the\r
+diversity of lines of argument he used to support his opinions. He made\r
+use of every kind of mental device, except analogy, and passed too\r
+boldly, it seemed to Prince Andrew, from one to another. Now he would\r
+take up the position of a practical man and condemn dreamers; now that\r
+of a satirist, and laugh ironically at his opponents; now grow severely\r
+logical, or suddenly rise to the realm of metaphysics. (This last\r
+resource was one he very frequently employed.) He would transfer a\r
+question to metaphysical heights, pass on to definitions of space, time,\r
+and thought, and, having deduced the refutation he needed, would again\r
+descend to the level of the original discussion.\r
+\r
+In general the trait of Speranski's mentality which struck Prince Andrew\r
+most was his absolute and unshakable belief in the power and authority\r
+of reason. It was evident that the thought could never occur to him\r
+which to Prince Andrew seemed so natural, namely, that it is after all\r
+impossible to express all one thinks; and that he had never felt the\r
+doubt, "Is not all I think and believe nonsense?" And it was just this\r
+peculiarity of Speranski's mind that particularly attracted Prince\r
+Andrew.\r
+\r
+During the first period of their acquaintance Bolkonski felt a\r
+passionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for\r
+Bonaparte. The fact that Speranski was the son of a village priest, and\r
+that stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his humble\r
+origin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andrew to cherish his\r
+sentiment for him the more, and unconsciously to strengthen it.\r
+\r
+On that first evening Bolkonski spent with him, having mentioned the\r
+Commission for the Revision of the Code of Laws, Speranski told him\r
+sarcastically that the Commission had existed for a hundred and fifty\r
+years, had cost millions, and had done nothing except that Rosenkampf\r
+had stuck labels on the corresponding paragraphs of the different codes.\r
+\r
+"And that is all the state has for the millions it has spent," said he.\r
+"We want to give the Senate new juridical powers, but we have no laws.\r
+That is why it is a sin for men like you, Prince, not to serve in these\r
+times!"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew said that for that work an education in jurisprudence was\r
+needed which he did not possess.\r
+\r
+"But nobody possesses it, so what would you have? It is a vicious circle\r
+from which we must break a way out."\r
+\r
+A week later Prince Andrew was a member of the Committee on Army\r
+Regulations and--what he had not at all expected--was chairman of a\r
+section of the committee for the revision of the laws. At Speranski's\r
+request he took the first part of the Civil Code that was being drawn up\r
+and, with the aid of the Code Napoleon and the Institutes of Justinian,\r
+he worked at formulating the section on Personal Rights.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+Nearly two years before this, in 1808, Pierre on returning to Petersburg\r
+after visiting his estates had involuntarily found himself in a leading\r
+position among the Petersburg Freemasons. He arranged dining and funeral\r
+lodge meetings, enrolled new members, and busied himself uniting various\r
+lodges and acquiring authentic charters. He gave money for the erection\r
+of temples and supplemented as far as he could the collection of alms,\r
+in regard to which the majority of members were stingy and irregular. He\r
+supported almost singlehanded a poorhouse the order had founded in\r
+Petersburg.\r
+\r
+His life meanwhile continued as before, with the same infatuations and\r
+dissipations. He liked to dine and drink well, and though he considered\r
+it immoral and humiliating could not resist the temptations of the\r
+bachelor circles in which he moved.\r
+\r
+Amid the turmoil of his activities and distractions, however, Pierre at\r
+the end of a year began to feel that the more firmly he tried to rest\r
+upon it, the more masonic ground on which he stood gave way under him.\r
+At the same time he felt that the deeper the ground sank under him the\r
+closer bound he involuntarily became to the order. When he had joined\r
+the Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who confidently\r
+steps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his foot down it\r
+sank in. To make quite sure of the firmness of the ground, he put his\r
+other foot down and sank deeper still, became stuck in it, and\r
+involuntarily waded knee-deep in the bog.\r
+\r
+Joseph Alexeevich was not in Petersburg--he had of late stood aside from\r
+the affairs of the Petersburg lodges, and lived almost entirely in\r
+Moscow. All the members of the lodges were men Pierre knew in ordinary\r
+life, and it was difficult for him to regard them merely as Brothers in\r
+Freemasonry and not as Prince B. or Ivan Vasilevich D., whom he knew in\r
+society mostly as weak and insignificant men. Under the masonic aprons\r
+and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they aimed in\r
+ordinary life. Often after collecting alms, and reckoning up twenty to\r
+thirty rubles received for the most part in promises from a dozen\r
+members, of whom half were as well able to pay as himself, Pierre\r
+remembered the masonic vow in which each Brother promised to devote all\r
+his belongings to his neighbor, and doubts on which he tried not to\r
+dwell arose in his soul.\r
+\r
+He divided the Brothers he knew into four categories. In the first he\r
+put those who did not take an active part in the affairs of the lodges\r
+or in human affairs, but were exclusively occupied with the mystical\r
+science of the order: with questions of the threefold designation of\r
+God, the three primordial elements--sulphur, mercury, and salt--or the\r
+meaning of the square and all the various figures of the temple of\r
+Solomon. Pierre respected this class of Brothers to which the elder ones\r
+chiefly belonged, including, Pierre thought, Joseph Alexeevich himself,\r
+but he did not share their interests. His heart was not in the mystical\r
+aspect of Freemasonry.\r
+\r
+In the second category Pierre reckoned himself and others like him,\r
+seeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a straight\r
+and comprehensible path, but hoped to do so.\r
+\r
+In the third category he included those Brothers (the majority) who saw\r
+nothing in Freemasonry but the external forms and ceremonies, and prized\r
+the strict performance of these forms without troubling about their\r
+purport or significance. Such were Willarski and even the Grand Master\r
+of the principal lodge.\r
+\r
+Finally, to the fourth category also a great many Brothers belonged,\r
+particularly those who had lately joined. These according to Pierre's\r
+observations were men who had no belief in anything, nor desire for\r
+anything, but joined the Freemasons merely to associate with the wealthy\r
+young Brothers who were influential through their connections or rank,\r
+and of whom there were very many in the lodge.\r
+\r
+Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with what he was doing. Freemasonry,\r
+at any rate as he saw it here, sometimes seemed to him based merely on\r
+externals. He did not think of doubting Freemasonry itself, but\r
+suspected that Russian Masonry had taken a wrong path and deviated from\r
+its original principles. And so toward the end of the year he went\r
+abroad to be initiated into the higher secrets of the order.\r
+\r
+In the summer of 1809 Pierre returned to Petersburg. Our Freemasons knew\r
+from correspondence with those abroad that Bezukhov had obtained the\r
+confidence of many highly placed persons, had been initiated into many\r
+mysteries, had been raised to a higher grade, and was bringing back with\r
+him much that might conduce to the advantage of the masonic cause in\r
+Russia. The Petersburg Freemasons all came to see him, tried to\r
+ingratiate themselves with him, and it seemed to them all that he was\r
+preparing something for them and concealing it.\r
+\r
+A solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened, at\r
+which Pierre promised to communicate to the Petersburg Brothers what he\r
+had to deliver to them from the highest leaders of their order. The\r
+meeting was a full one. After the usual ceremonies Pierre rose and began\r
+his address.\r
+\r
+"Dear Brothers," he began, blushing and stammering, with a written\r
+speech in his hand, "it is not sufficient to observe our mysteries in\r
+the seclusion of our lodge--we must act--act! We are drowsing, but we\r
+must act." Pierre raised his notebook and began to read.\r
+\r
+"For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph of\r
+virtue," he read, "we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse\r
+principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the\r
+education of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the\r
+wisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity, and\r
+folly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by unity\r
+of purpose and possessed of authority and power.\r
+\r
+"To attain this end we must secure a preponderance of virtue over vice\r
+and must endeavor to secure that the honest man may, even in this world,\r
+receive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great endeavors we\r
+are gravely hampered by the political institutions of today. What is to\r
+be done in these circumstances? To favor revolutions, overthrow\r
+everything, repel force by force?... No! We are very far from that.\r
+Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy evil\r
+while men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs no\r
+violence.\r
+\r
+"The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of preparing\r
+men of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of conviction--aiming\r
+at the punishment of vice and folly, and patronizing talent and virtue:\r
+raising worthy men from the dust and attaching them to our Brotherhood.\r
+Only then will our order have the power unobtrusively to bind the hands\r
+of the protectors of disorder and to control them without their being\r
+aware of it. In a word, we must found a form of government holding\r
+universal sway, which should be diffused over the whole world without\r
+destroying the bonds of citizenship, and beside which all other\r
+governments can continue in their customary course and do everything\r
+except what impedes the great aim of our order, which is to obtain for\r
+virtue the victory over vice. This aim was that of Christianity itself.\r
+It taught men to be wise and good and for their own benefit to follow\r
+the example and instruction of the best and wisest men.\r
+\r
+"At that time, when everything was plunged in darkness, preaching alone\r
+was of course sufficient. The novelty of Truth endowed her with special\r
+strength, but now we need much more powerful methods. It is now\r
+necessary that man, governed by his senses, should find in virtue a\r
+charm palpable to those senses. It is impossible to eradicate the\r
+passions; but we must strive to direct them to a noble aim, and it is\r
+therefore necessary that everyone should be able to satisfy his passions\r
+within the limits of virtue. Our order should provide means to that end.\r
+\r
+"As soon as we have a certain number of worthy men in every state, each\r
+of them again training two others and all being closely united,\r
+everything will be possible for our order, which has already in secret\r
+accomplished much for the welfare of mankind."\r
+\r
+This speech not only made a strong impression, but created excitement in\r
+the lodge. The majority of the Brothers, seeing in it dangerous designs\r
+of Illuminism, * met it with a coldness that surprised Pierre. The Grand\r
+Master began answering him, and Pierre began developing his views with\r
+more and more warmth. It was long since there had been so stormy a\r
+meeting. Parties were formed, some accusing Pierre of Illuminism, others\r
+supporting him. At that meeting he was struck for the first time by the\r
+endless variety of men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever\r
+presenting itself identically to two persons. Even those members who\r
+seemed to be on his side understood him in their own way with\r
+limitations and alterations he could not agree to, as what he always\r
+wanted most was to convey his thought to others just as he himself\r
+understood it.\r
+\r
+\r
+* The Illuminati sought to substitute republican for monarchical\r
+institutions.\r
+\r
+At the end of the meeting the Grand Master with irony and ill-will\r
+reproved Bezukhov for his vehemence and said it was not love of virtue\r
+alone, but also a love of strife that had moved him in the dispute.\r
+Pierre did not answer him and asked briefly whether his proposal would\r
+be accepted. He was told that it would not, and without waiting for the\r
+usual formalities he left the lodge and went home.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+Again Pierre was overtaken by the depression he so dreaded. For three\r
+days after the delivery of his speech at the lodge he lay on a sofa at\r
+home receiving no one and going nowhere.\r
+\r
+It was just then that he received a letter from his wife, who implored\r
+him to see her, telling him how grieved she was about him and how she\r
+wished to devote her whole life to him.\r
+\r
+At the end of the letter she informed him that in a few days she would\r
+return to Petersburg from abroad.\r
+\r
+Following this letter one of the masonic Brothers whom Pierre respected\r
+less than the others forced his way in to see him and, turning the\r
+conversation upon Pierre's matrimonial affairs, by way of fraternal\r
+advice expressed the opinion that his severity to his wife was wrong and\r
+that he was neglecting one of the first rules of Freemasonry by not\r
+forgiving the penitent.\r
+\r
+At the same time his mother-in-law, Prince Vasili's wife, sent to him\r
+imploring him to come if only for a few minutes to discuss a most\r
+important matter. Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him and\r
+that they wanted to reunite him with his wife, and in the mood he then\r
+was, this was not even unpleasant to him. Nothing mattered to him.\r
+Nothing in life seemed to him of much importance, and under the\r
+influence of the depression that possessed him he valued neither his\r
+liberty nor his resolution to punish his wife.\r
+\r
+"No one is right and no one is to blame; so she too is not to blame," he\r
+thought.\r
+\r
+If he did not at once give his consent to a reunion with his wife, it\r
+was only because in his state of depression he did not feel able to take\r
+any step. Had his wife come to him, he would not have turned her away.\r
+Compared to what preoccupied him, was it not a matter of indifference\r
+whether he lived with his wife or not?\r
+\r
+Without replying either to his wife or his mother-in-law, Pierre late\r
+one night prepared for a journey and started for Moscow to see Joseph\r
+Alexeevich. This is what he noted in his diary:\r
+\r
+Moscow, 17th November\r
+\r
+I have just returned from my benefactor, and hasten to write down what I\r
+have experienced. Joseph Alexeevich is living poorly and has for three\r
+years been suffering from a painful disease of the bladder. No one has\r
+ever heard him utter a groan or a word of complaint. From morning till\r
+late at night, except when he eats his very plain food, he is working at\r
+science. He received me graciously and made me sit down on the bed on\r
+which he lay. I made the sign of the Knights of the East and of\r
+Jerusalem, and he responded in the same manner, asking me with a mild\r
+smile what I had learned and gained in the Prussian and Scottish lodges.\r
+I told him everything as best I could, and told him what I had proposed\r
+to our Petersburg lodge, of the bad reception I had encountered, and of\r
+my rupture with the Brothers. Joseph Alexeevich, having remained silent\r
+and thoughtful for a good while, told me his view of the matter, which\r
+at once lit up for me my whole past and the future path I should follow.\r
+He surprised me by asking whether I remembered the threefold aim of the\r
+order: (1) The preservation and study of the mystery. (2) The\r
+purification and reformation of oneself for its reception, and (3) The\r
+improvement of the human race by striving for such purification. Which\r
+is the principal aim of these three? Certainly self-reformation and\r
+self-purification. Only to this aim can we always strive independently\r
+of circumstances. But at the same time just this aim demands the\r
+greatest efforts of us; and so, led astray by pride, losing sight of\r
+this aim, we occupy ourselves either with the mystery which in our\r
+impurity we are unworthy to receive, or seek the reformation of the\r
+human race while ourselves setting an example of baseness and\r
+profligacy. Illuminism is not a pure doctrine, just because it is\r
+attracted by social activity and puffed up by pride. On this ground\r
+Joseph Alexeevich condemned my speech and my whole activity, and in the\r
+depth of my soul I agreed with him. Talking of my family affairs he said\r
+to me, "the chief duty of a true Mason, as I have told you, lies in\r
+perfecting himself. We often think that by removing all the difficulties\r
+of our life we shall more quickly reach our aim, but on the contrary, my\r
+dear sir, it is only in the midst of worldly cares that we can attain\r
+our three chief aims: (1) Self-knowledge--for man can only know himself\r
+by comparison, (2) Self-perfecting, which can only be attained by\r
+conflict, and (3) The attainment of the chief virtue--love of death.\r
+Only the vicissitudes of life can show us its vanity and develop our\r
+innate love of death or of rebirth to a new life." These words are all\r
+the more remarkable because, in spite of his great physical sufferings,\r
+Joseph Alexeevich is never weary of life though he loves death, for\r
+which--in spite of the purity and loftiness of his inner man--he does\r
+not yet feel himself sufficiently prepared. My benefactor then explained\r
+to me fully the meaning of the Great Square of creation and pointed out\r
+to me that the numbers three and seven are the basis of everything. He\r
+advised me not to avoid intercourse with the Petersburg Brothers, but to\r
+take up only second-grade posts in the lodge, to try, while diverting\r
+the Brothers from pride, to turn them toward the true path self-\r
+knowledge and self-perfecting. Besides this he advised me for myself\r
+personally above all to keep a watch over myself, and to that end he\r
+gave me a notebook, the one I am now writing in and in which I will in\r
+future note down all my actions.\r
+\r
+Petersburg, 23rd November\r
+\r
+I am again living with my wife. My mother-in-law came to me in tears and\r
+said that Helene was here and that she implored me to hear her; that she\r
+was innocent and unhappy at my desertion, and much more. I knew that if\r
+I once let myself see her I should not have strength to go on refusing\r
+what she wanted. In my perplexity I did not know whose aid and advice to\r
+seek. Had my benefactor been here he would have told me what to do. I\r
+went to my room and reread Joseph Alexeevich's letters and recalled my\r
+conversations with him, and deduced from it all that I ought not to\r
+refuse a supplicant, and ought to reach a helping hand to everyone--\r
+especially to one so closely bound to me--and that I must bear my cross.\r
+But if I forgive her for the sake of doing right, then let union with\r
+her have only a spiritual aim. That is what I decided, and what I wrote\r
+to Joseph Alexeevich. I told my wife that I begged her to forget the\r
+past, to forgive me whatever wrong I may have done her, and that I had\r
+nothing to forgive. It gave me joy to tell her this. She need not know\r
+how hard it was for me to see her again. I have settled on the upper\r
+floor of this big house and am experiencing a happy feeling of\r
+regeneration.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+At that time, as always happens, the highest society that met at court\r
+and at the grand balls was divided into several circles, each with its\r
+own particular tone. The largest of these was the French circle of the\r
+Napoleonic alliance, the circle of Count Rumyantsev and Caulaincourt. In\r
+this group Helene, as soon as she had settled in Petersburg with her\r
+husband, took a very prominent place. She was visited by the members of\r
+the French embassy and by many belonging to that circle and noted for\r
+their intellect and polished manners.\r
+\r
+Helene had been at Erfurt during the famous meeting of the Emperors and\r
+had brought from there these connections with the Napoleonic\r
+notabilities. At Erfurt her success had been brilliant. Napoleon himself\r
+had noticed her in the theater and said of her: "C'est un superbe\r
+animal." * Her success as a beautiful and elegant woman did not surprise\r
+Pierre, for she had become even handsomer than before. What did surprise\r
+him was that during these last two years his wife had succeeded in\r
+gaining the reputation "d' une femme charmante, aussi spirituelle que\r
+belle." *(2) The distinguished Prince de Ligne wrote her eight-page\r
+letters. Bilibin saved up his epigrams to produce them in Countess\r
+Bezukhova's presence. To be received in the Countess Bezukhova's salon\r
+was regarded as a diploma of intellect. Young men read books before\r
+attending Helene's evenings, to have something to say in her salon, and\r
+secretaries of the embassy, and even ambassadors, confided diplomatic\r
+secrets to her, so that in a way Helene was a power. Pierre, who knew\r
+she was very stupid, sometimes attended, with a strange feeling of\r
+perplexity and fear, her evenings and dinner parties, where politics,\r
+poetry, and philosophy were discussed. At these parties his feelings\r
+were like those of a conjuror who always expects his trick to be found\r
+out at any moment. But whether because stupidity was just what was\r
+needed to run such a salon, or because those who were deceived found\r
+pleasure in the deception, at any rate it remained unexposed and Helene\r
+Bezukhova's reputation as a lovely and clever woman became so firmly\r
+established that she could say the emptiest and stupidest things and\r
+everybody would go into raptures over every word of hers and look for a\r
+profound meaning in it of which she herself had no conception.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "That's a superb animal."\r
+\r
+* (2) "Of a charming woman, as witty as she is lovely."\r
+\r
+Pierre was just the husband needed for a brilliant society woman. He was\r
+that absent-minded crank, a grand seigneur husband who was in no one's\r
+way, and far from spoiling the high tone and general impression of the\r
+drawing room, he served, by the contrast he presented to her, as an\r
+advantageous background to his elegant and tactful wife. Pierre during\r
+the last two years, as a result of his continual absorption in abstract\r
+interests and his sincere contempt for all else, had acquired in his\r
+wife's circle, which did not interest him, that air of unconcern,\r
+indifference, and benevolence toward all, which cannot be acquired\r
+artificially and therefore inspires involuntary respect. He entered his\r
+wife's drawing room as one enters a theater, was acquainted with\r
+everybody, equally pleased to see everyone, and equally indifferent to\r
+them all. Sometimes he joined in a conversation which interested him\r
+and, regardless of whether any "gentlemen of the embassy" were present\r
+or not, lispingly expressed his views, which were sometimes not at all\r
+in accord with the accepted tone of the moment. But the general opinion\r
+concerning the queer husband of "the most distinguished woman in\r
+Petersburg" was so well established that no one took his freaks\r
+seriously.\r
+\r
+Among the many young men who frequented her house every day, Boris\r
+Drubetskoy, who had already achieved great success in the service, was\r
+the most intimate friend of the Bezukhov household since Helene's return\r
+from Erfurt. Helene spoke of him as "mon page" and treated him like a\r
+child. Her smile for him was the same as for everybody, but sometimes\r
+that smile made Pierre uncomfortable. Toward him Boris behaved with a\r
+particularly dignified and sad deference. This shade of deference also\r
+disturbed Pierre. He had suffered so painfully three years before from\r
+the mortification to which his wife had subjected him that he now\r
+protected himself from the danger of its repetition, first by not being\r
+a husband to his wife, and secondly by not allowing himself to suspect.\r
+\r
+"No, now that she has become a bluestocking she has finally renounced\r
+her former infatuations," he told himself. "There has never been an\r
+instance of a bluestocking being carried away by affairs of the heart"--\r
+a statement which, though gathered from an unknown source, he believed\r
+implicitly. Yet strange to say Boris' presence in his wife's drawing\r
+room (and he was almost always there) had a physical effect upon Pierre;\r
+it constricted his limbs and destroyed the unconsciousness and freedom\r
+of his movements.\r
+\r
+"What a strange antipathy," thought Pierre, "yet I used to like him very\r
+much."\r
+\r
+In the eyes of the world Pierre was a great gentleman, the rather blind\r
+and absurd husband of a distinguished wife, a clever crank who did\r
+nothing but harmed nobody and was a first-rate, good-natured fellow. But\r
+a complex and difficult process of internal development was taking place\r
+all this time in Pierre's soul, revealing much to him and causing him\r
+many spiritual doubts and joys.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+Pierre went on with his diary, and this is what he wrote in it during\r
+that time:\r
+\r
+24th November\r
+\r
+Got up at eight, read the Scriptures, then went to my duties. (By Joseph\r
+Alexeevich's advice Pierre had entered the service of the state and\r
+served on one of the committees.) Returned home for dinner and dined\r
+alone--the countess had many visitors I do not like. I ate and drank\r
+moderately and after dinner copied out some passages for the Brothers.\r
+In the evening I went down to the countess and told a funny story about\r
+B., and only remembered that I ought not to have done so when everybody\r
+laughed loudly at it.\r
+\r
+I am going to bed with a happy and tranquil mind. Great God, help me to\r
+walk in Thy paths, (1) to conquer anger by calmness and deliberation,\r
+(2) to vanquish lust by self-restraint and repulsion, (3) to withdraw\r
+from worldliness, but not avoid (a) the service of the state, (b) family\r
+duties, (c) relations with my friends, and the management of my affairs.\r
+\r
+27th November\r
+\r
+I got up late. On waking I lay long in bed yielding to sloth. O God,\r
+help and strengthen me that I may walk in Thy ways! Read the Scriptures,\r
+but without proper feeling. Brother Urusov came and we talked about\r
+worldly vanities. He told me of the Emperor's new projects. I began to\r
+criticize them, but remembered my rules and my benefactor's words--that\r
+a true Freemason should be a zealous worker for the state when his aid\r
+is required and a quiet onlooker when not called on to assist. My tongue\r
+is my enemy. Brothers G. V. and O. visited me and we had a preliminary\r
+talk about the reception of a new Brother. They laid on me the duty of\r
+Rhetor. I feel myself weak and unworthy. Then our talk turned to the\r
+interpretation of the seven pillars and steps of the Temple, the seven\r
+sciences, the seven virtues, the seven vices, and the seven gifts of the\r
+Holy Spirit. Brother O. was very eloquent. In the evening the admission\r
+took place. The new decoration of the Premises contributed much to the\r
+magnificence of the spectacle. It was Boris Drubetskoy who was admitted.\r
+I nominated him and was the Rhetor. A strange feeling agitated me all\r
+the time I was alone with him in the dark chamber. I caught myself\r
+harboring a feeling of hatred toward him which I vainly tried to\r
+overcome. That is why I should really like to save him from evil and\r
+lead him into the path of truth, but evil thoughts of him did not leave\r
+me. It seemed to me that his object in entering the Brotherhood was\r
+merely to be intimate and in favor with members of our lodge. Apart from\r
+the fact that he had asked me several times whether N. and S. were\r
+members of our lodge (a question to which I could not reply) and that\r
+according to my observation he is incapable of feeling respect for our\r
+holy order and is too preoccupied and satisfied with the outer man to\r
+desire spiritual improvement, I had no cause to doubt him, but he seemed\r
+to me insincere, and all the time I stood alone with him in the dark\r
+temple it seemed to me that he was smiling contemptuously at my words,\r
+and I wished really to stab his bare breast with the sword I held to it.\r
+I could not be eloquent, nor could I frankly mention my doubts to the\r
+Brothers and to the Grand Master. Great Architect of Nature, help me to\r
+find the true path out of the labyrinth of lies!\r
+\r
+\r
+After this, three pages were left blank in the diary, and then the\r
+following was written:\r
+\r
+I have had a long and instructive talk alone with Brother V., who\r
+advised me to hold fast by Brother A. Though I am unworthy, much was\r
+revealed to me. Adonai is the name of the creator of the world. Elohim\r
+is the name of the ruler of all. The third name is the name unutterable\r
+which means the All. Talks with Brother V. strengthen, refresh, and\r
+support me in the path of virtue. In his presence doubt has no place.\r
+The distinction between the poor teachings of mundane science and our\r
+sacred all-embracing teaching is clear to me. Human sciences dissect\r
+everything to comprehend it, and kill everything to examine it. In the\r
+holy science of our order all is one, all is known in its entirety and\r
+life. The Trinity--the three elements of matter--are sulphur, mercury,\r
+and salt. Sulphur is of an oily and fiery nature; in combination with\r
+salt by its fiery nature it arouses a desire in the latter by means of\r
+which it attracts mercury, seizes it, holds it, and in combination\r
+produces other bodies. Mercury is a fluid, volatile, spiritual essence.\r
+Christ, the Holy Spirit, Him!...\r
+\r
+3rd December\r
+\r
+Awoke late, read the Scriptures but was apathetic. Afterwards went and\r
+paced up and down the large hall. I wished to meditate, but instead my\r
+imagination pictured an occurrence of four years ago, when Dolokhov,\r
+meeting me in Moscow after our duel, said he hoped I was enjoying\r
+perfect peace of mind in spite of my wife's absence. At the time I gave\r
+him no answer. Now I recalled every detail of that meeting and in my\r
+mind gave him the most malevolent and bitter replies. I recollected\r
+myself and drove away that thought only when I found myself glowing with\r
+anger, but I did not sufficiently repent. Afterwards Boris Drubetskoy\r
+came and began relating various adventures. His coming vexed me from the\r
+first, and I said something disagreeable to him. He replied. I flared up\r
+and said much that was unpleasant and even rude to him. He became\r
+silent, and I recollected myself only when it was too late. My God, I\r
+cannot get on with him at all. The cause of this is my egotism. I set\r
+myself above him and so become much worse than he, for he is lenient to\r
+my rudeness while I on the contrary nourish contempt for him. O God,\r
+grant that in his presence I may rather see my own vileness, and behave\r
+so that he too may benefit. After dinner I fell asleep and as I was\r
+drowsing off I clearly heard a voice saying in my left ear, "Thy day!"\r
+\r
+I dreamed that I was walking in the dark and was suddenly surrounded by\r
+dogs, but I went on undismayed. Suddenly a smallish dog seized my left\r
+thigh with its teeth and would not let go. I began to throttle it with\r
+my hands. Scarcely had I torn it off before another, a bigger one, began\r
+biting me. I lifted it up, but the higher I lifted it the bigger and\r
+heavier it grew. And suddenly Brother A. came and, taking my arm, led me\r
+to a building to enter which we had to pass along a narrow plank. I\r
+stepped on it, but it bent and gave way and I began to clamber up a\r
+fence which I could scarcely reach with my hands. After much effort I\r
+dragged myself up, so that my leg hung down on one side and my body on\r
+the other. I looked round and saw Brother A. standing on the fence and\r
+pointing me to a broad avenue and garden, and in the garden was a large\r
+and beautiful building. I woke up. O Lord, great Architect of Nature,\r
+help me to tear from myself these dogs--my passions especially the last,\r
+which unites in itself the strength of all the former ones, and aid me\r
+to enter that temple of virtue to a vision of which I attained in my\r
+dream.\r
+\r
+7th December\r
+\r
+I dreamed that Joseph Alexeevich was sitting in my house, and that I was\r
+very glad and wished to entertain him. It seemed as if I chattered\r
+incessantly with other people and suddenly remembered that this could\r
+not please him, and I wished to come close to him and embrace him. But\r
+as soon as I drew near I saw that his face had changed and grown young,\r
+and he was quietly telling me something about the teaching of our order,\r
+but so softly that I could not hear it. Then it seemed that we all left\r
+the room and something strange happened. We were sitting or lying on the\r
+floor. He was telling me something, and I wished to show him my\r
+sensibility, and not listening to what he was saying I began picturing\r
+to myself the condition of my inner man and the grace of God sanctifying\r
+me. And tears came into my eyes, and I was glad he noticed this. But he\r
+looked at me with vexation and jumped up, breaking off his remarks. I\r
+felt abashed and asked whether what he had been saying did not concern\r
+me; but he did not reply, gave me a kind look, and then we suddenly\r
+found ourselves in my bedroom where there is a double bed. He lay down\r
+on the edge of it and I burned with longing to caress him and lie down\r
+too. And he said, "Tell me frankly what is your chief temptation? Do you\r
+know it? I think you know it already." Abashed by this question, I\r
+replied that sloth was my chief temptation. He shook his head\r
+incredulously; and even more abashed, I said that though I was living\r
+with my wife as he advised, I was not living with her as her husband. To\r
+this he replied that one should not deprive a wife of one's embraces and\r
+gave me to understand that that was my duty. But I replied that I should\r
+be ashamed to do it, and suddenly everything vanished. And I awoke and\r
+found in my mind the text from the Gospel: "The life was the light of\r
+men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it\r
+not." Joseph Alexeevich's face had looked young and bright. That day I\r
+received a letter from my benefactor in which he wrote about "conjugal\r
+duties."\r
+\r
+9th December\r
+\r
+I had a dream from which I awoke with a throbbing heart. I saw that I\r
+was in Moscow in my house, in the big sitting room, and Joseph\r
+Alexeevich came in from the drawing room. I seemed to know at once that\r
+the process of regeneration had already taken place in him, and I rushed\r
+to meet him. I embraced him and kissed his hands, and he said, "Hast\r
+thou noticed that my face is different?" I looked at him, still holding\r
+him in my arms, and saw that his face was young, but that he had no hair\r
+on his head and his features were quite changed. And I said, "I should\r
+have known you had I met you by chance," and I thought to myself, "Am I\r
+telling the truth?" And suddenly I saw him lying like a dead body; then\r
+he gradually recovered and went with me into my study carrying a large\r
+book of sheets of drawing paper; I said, "I drew that," and he answered\r
+by bowing his head. I opened the book, and on all the pages there were\r
+excellent drawings. And in my dream I knew that these drawings\r
+represented the love adventures of the soul with its beloved. And on its\r
+pages I saw a beautiful representation of a maiden in transparent\r
+garments and with a transparent body, flying up to the clouds. And I\r
+seemed to know that this maiden was nothing else than a representation\r
+of the Song of Songs. And looking at those drawings I dreamed I felt\r
+that I was doing wrong, but could not tear myself away from them. Lord,\r
+help me! My God, if Thy forsaking me is Thy doing, Thy will be done; but\r
+if I am myself the cause, teach me what I should do! I shall perish of\r
+my debauchery if Thou utterly desertest me!\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+The Rostovs' monetary affairs had not improved during the two years they\r
+had spent in the country.\r
+\r
+Though Nicholas Rostov had kept firmly to his resolution and was still\r
+serving modestly in an obscure regiment, spending comparatively little,\r
+the way of life at Otradnoe--Mitenka's management of affairs, in\r
+particular--was such that the debts inevitably increased every year. The\r
+only resource obviously presenting itself to the old count was to apply\r
+for an official post, so he had come to Petersburg to look for one and\r
+also, as he said, to let the lassies enjoy themselves for the last time.\r
+\r
+Soon after their arrival in Petersburg Berg proposed to Vera and was\r
+accepted.\r
+\r
+Though in Moscow the Rostovs belonged to the best society without\r
+themselves giving it a thought, yet in Petersburg their circle of\r
+acquaintances was a mixed and indefinite one. In Petersburg they were\r
+provincials, and the very people they had entertained in Moscow without\r
+inquiring to what set they belonged, here looked down on them.\r
+\r
+The Rostovs lived in the same hospitable way in Petersburg as in Moscow,\r
+and the most diverse people met at their suppers. Country neighbors from\r
+Otradnoe, impoverished old squires and their daughters, Peronskaya a\r
+maid of honor, Pierre Bezukhov, and the son of their district postmaster\r
+who had obtained a post in Petersburg. Among the men who very soon\r
+became frequent visitors at the Rostovs' house in Petersburg were Boris,\r
+Pierre whom the count had met in the street and dragged home with him,\r
+and Berg who spent whole days at the Rostovs' and paid the eldest\r
+daughter, Countess Vera, the attentions a young man pays when he intends\r
+to propose.\r
+\r
+Not in vain had Berg shown everybody his right hand wounded at\r
+Austerlitz and held a perfectly unnecessary sword in his left. He\r
+narrated that episode so persistently and with so important an air that\r
+everyone believed in the merit and usefulness of his deed, and he had\r
+obtained two decorations for Austerlitz.\r
+\r
+In the Finnish war he also managed to distinguish himself. He had picked\r
+up the scrap of a grenade that had killed an aide-de-camp standing near\r
+the commander-in-chief and had taken it to his commander. Just as he had\r
+done after Austerlitz, he related this occurrence at such length and so\r
+insistently that everyone again believed it had been necessary to do\r
+this, and he received two decorations for the Finnish war also. In 1809\r
+he was a captain in the Guards, wore medals, and held some special\r
+lucrative posts in Petersburg.\r
+\r
+Though some skeptics smiled when told of Berg's merits, it could not be\r
+denied that he was a painstaking and brave officer, on excellent terms\r
+with his superiors, and a moral young man with a brilliant career before\r
+him and an assured position in society.\r
+\r
+Four years before, meeting a German comrade in the stalls of a Moscow\r
+theater, Berg had pointed out Vera Rostova to him and had said in\r
+German, "das soll mein Weib werden," * and from that moment had made up\r
+his mind to marry her. Now in Petersburg, having considered the Rostovs'\r
+position and his own, he decided that the time had come to propose.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "That girl shall be my wife."\r
+\r
+Berg's proposal was at first received with a perplexity that was not\r
+flattering to him. At first it seemed strange that the son of an obscure\r
+Livonian gentleman should propose marriage to a Countess Rostova; but\r
+Berg's chief characteristic was such a naive and good natured egotism\r
+that the Rostovs involuntarily came to think it would be a good thing,\r
+since he himself was so firmly convinced that it was good, indeed\r
+excellent. Moreover, the Rostovs' affairs were seriously embarrassed, as\r
+the suitor could not but know; and above all, Vera was twenty-four, had\r
+been taken out everywhere, and though she was certainly good-looking and\r
+sensible, no one up to now had proposed to her. So they gave their\r
+consent.\r
+\r
+"You see," said Berg to his comrade, whom he called "friend" only\r
+because he knew that everyone has friends, "you see, I have considered\r
+it all, and should not marry if I had not thought it all out or if it\r
+were in any way unsuitable. But on the contrary, my papa and mamma are\r
+now provided for--I have arranged that rent for them in the Baltic\r
+Provinces--and I can live in Petersburg on my pay, and with her fortune\r
+and my good management we can get along nicely. I am not marrying for\r
+money--I consider that dishonorable--but a wife should bring her share\r
+and a husband his. I have my position in the service, she has\r
+connections and some means. In our times that is worth something, isn't\r
+it? But above all, she is a handsome, estimable girl, and she loves\r
+me..."\r
+\r
+Berg blushed and smiled.\r
+\r
+"And I love her, because her character is sensible and very good. Now\r
+the other sister, though they are the same family, is quite different--\r
+an unpleasant character and has not the same intelligence. She is so...\r
+you know?... Unpleasant... But my fiancee!... Well, you will be coming,"\r
+he was going to say, "to dine," but changed his mind and said "to take\r
+tea with us," and quickly doubling up his tongue he blew a small round\r
+ring of tobacco smoke, perfectly embodying his dream of happiness.\r
+\r
+After the first feeling of perplexity aroused in the parents by Berg's\r
+proposal, the holiday tone of joyousness usual at such times took\r
+possession of the family, but the rejoicing was external and insincere.\r
+In the family's feeling toward this wedding a certain awkwardness and\r
+constraint was evident, as if they were ashamed of not having loved Vera\r
+sufficiently and of being so ready to get her off their hands. The old\r
+count felt this most. He would probably have been unable to state the\r
+cause of his embarrassment, but it resulted from the state of his\r
+affairs. He did not know at all how much he had, what his debts amounted\r
+to, or what dowry he could give Vera. When his daughters were born he\r
+had assigned to each of them, for her dowry, an estate with three\r
+hundred serfs; but one of these estates had already been sold, and the\r
+other was mortgaged and the interest so much in arrears that it would\r
+have to be sold, so that it was impossible to give it to Vera. Nor had\r
+he any money.\r
+\r
+Berg had already been engaged a month, and only a week remained before\r
+the wedding, but the count had not yet decided in his own mind the\r
+question of the dowry, nor spoken to his wife about it. At one time the\r
+count thought of giving her the Ryazan estate or of selling a forest, at\r
+another time of borrowing money on a note of hand. A few days before the\r
+wedding Berg entered the count's study early one morning and, with a\r
+pleasant smile, respectfully asked his future father-in-law to let him\r
+know what Vera's dowry would be. The count was so disconcerted by this\r
+long-foreseen inquiry that without consideration he gave the first reply\r
+that came into his head. "I like your being businesslike about it.... I\r
+like it. You shall be satisfied...."\r
+\r
+And patting Berg on the shoulder he got up, wishing to end the\r
+conversation. But Berg, smiling pleasantly, explained that if he did not\r
+know for certain how much Vera would have and did not receive at least\r
+part of the dowry in advance, he would have to break matters off.\r
+\r
+"Because, consider, Count--if I allowed myself to marry now without\r
+having definite means to maintain my wife, I should be acting badly...."\r
+\r
+The conversation ended by the count, who wished to be generous and to\r
+avoid further importunity, saying that he would give a note of hand for\r
+eighty thousand rubles. Berg smiled meekly, kissed the count on the\r
+shoulder, and said that he was very grateful, but that it was impossible\r
+for him to arrange his new life without receiving thirty thousand in\r
+ready money. "Or at least twenty thousand, Count," he added, "and then a\r
+note of hand for only sixty thousand."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, all right!" said the count hurriedly. "Only excuse me, my\r
+dear fellow, I'll give you twenty thousand and a note of hand for eighty\r
+thousand as well. Yes, yes! Kiss me."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+Natasha was sixteen and it was the year 1809, the very year to which she\r
+had counted on her fingers with Boris after they had kissed four years\r
+ago. Since then she had not seen him. Before Sonya and her mother, if\r
+Boris happened to be mentioned, she spoke quite freely of that episode\r
+as of some childish, long-forgotten matter that was not worth\r
+mentioning. But in the secret depths of her soul the question whether\r
+her engagement to Boris was a jest or an important, binding promise\r
+tormented her.\r
+\r
+Since Boris left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he had not seen the\r
+Rostovs. He had been in Moscow several times, and had passed near\r
+Otradnoe, but had never been to see them.\r
+\r
+Sometimes it occurred to Natasha that he did not wish to see her, and\r
+this conjecture was confirmed by the sad tone in which her elders spoke\r
+of him.\r
+\r
+"Nowadays old friends are not remembered," the countess would say when\r
+Boris was mentioned.\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna also had of late visited them less frequently, seemed\r
+to hold herself with particular dignity, and always spoke rapturously\r
+and gratefully of the merits of her son and the brilliant career on\r
+which he had entered. When the Rostovs came to Petersburg Boris called\r
+on them.\r
+\r
+He drove to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natasha was his\r
+most poetic recollection. But he went with the firm intention of letting\r
+her and her parents feel that the childish relations between himself and\r
+Natasha could not be binding either on her or on him. He had a brilliant\r
+position in society thanks to his intimacy with Countess Bezukhova, a\r
+brilliant position in the service thanks to the patronage of an\r
+important personage whose complete confidence he enjoyed, and he was\r
+beginning to make plans for marrying one of the richest heiresses in\r
+Petersburg, plans which might very easily be realized. When he entered\r
+the Rostovs' drawing room Natasha was in her own room. When she heard of\r
+his arrival she almost ran into the drawing room, flushed and beaming\r
+with a more than cordial smile.\r
+\r
+Boris remembered Natasha in a short dress, with dark eyes shining from\r
+under her curls and boisterous, childish laughter, as he had known her\r
+four years before; and so he was taken aback when quite a different\r
+Natasha entered, and his face expressed rapturous astonishment. This\r
+expression on his face pleased Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?" asked the\r
+countess.\r
+\r
+Boris kissed Natasha's hand and said that he was astonished at the\r
+change in her.\r
+\r
+"How handsome you have grown!"\r
+\r
+"I should think so!" replied Natasha's laughing eyes.\r
+\r
+"And is Papa older?" she asked.\r
+\r
+Natasha sat down and, without joining in Boris' conversation with the\r
+countess, silently and minutely studied her childhood's suitor. He felt\r
+the weight of that resolute and affectionate scrutiny and glanced at her\r
+occasionally.\r
+\r
+Boris' uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were all\r
+comme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natasha noticed at once.\r
+He sat rather sideways in the armchair next to the countess, arranging\r
+with his right hand the cleanest of gloves that fitted his left hand\r
+like a skin, and he spoke with a particularly refined compression of his\r
+lips about the amusements of the highest Petersburg society, recalling\r
+with mild irony old times in Moscow and Moscow acquaintances. It was not\r
+accidentally, Natasha felt, that he alluded, when speaking of the\r
+highest aristocracy, to an ambassador's ball he had attended, and to\r
+invitations he had received from N.N. and S.S.\r
+\r
+All this time Natasha sat silent, glancing up at him from under her\r
+brows. This gaze disturbed and confused Boris more and more. He looked\r
+round more frequently toward her, and broke off in what he was saying.\r
+He did not stay more than ten minutes, then rose and took his leave. The\r
+same inquisitive, challenging, and rather mocking eyes still looked at\r
+him. After his first visit Boris said to himself that Natasha attracted\r
+him just as much as ever, but that he must not yield to that feeling,\r
+because to marry her, a girl almost without fortune, would mean ruin to\r
+his career, while to renew their former relations without intending to\r
+marry her would be dishonorable. Boris made up his mind to avoid meeting\r
+Natasha, but despite that resolution he called again a few days later\r
+and began calling often and spending whole days at the Rostovs'. It\r
+seemed to him that he ought to have an explanation with Natasha and tell\r
+her that the old times must be forgotten, that in spite of everything...\r
+she could not be his wife, that he had no means, and they would never\r
+let her marry him. But he failed to do so and felt awkward about\r
+entering on such an explanation. From day to day he became more and more\r
+entangled. It seemed to her mother and Sonya that Natasha was in love\r
+with Boris as of old. She sang him his favorite songs, showed him her\r
+album, making him write in it, did not allow him to allude to the past,\r
+letting it be understood how delightful was the present; and every day\r
+he went away in a fog, without having said what he meant to, and not\r
+knowing what he was doing or why he came, or how it would all end. He\r
+left off visiting Helene and received reproachful notes from her every\r
+day, and yet he continued to spend whole days with the Rostovs.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+One night when the old countess, in nightcap and dressing jacket,\r
+without her false curls, and with her poor little knob of hair showing\r
+under her white cotton cap, knelt sighing and groaning on a rug and\r
+bowing to the ground in prayer, her door creaked and Natasha, also in a\r
+dressing jacket with slippers on her bare feet and her hair in\r
+curlpapers, ran in. The countess--her prayerful mood dispelled--looked\r
+round and frowned. She was finishing her last prayer: "Can it be that\r
+this couch will be my grave?" Natasha, flushed and eager, seeing her\r
+mother in prayer, suddenly checked her rush, half sat down, and\r
+unconsciously put out her tongue as if chiding herself. Seeing that her\r
+mother was still praying she ran on tiptoe to the bed and, rapidly\r
+slipping one little foot against the other, pushed off her slippers and\r
+jumped onto the bed the countess had feared might become her grave. This\r
+couch was high, with a feather bed and five pillows each smaller than\r
+the one below. Natasha jumped on it, sank into the feather bed, rolled\r
+over to the wall, and began snuggling up the bedclothes as she settled\r
+down, raising her knees to her chin, kicking out and laughing almost\r
+inaudibly, now covering herself up head and all, and now peeping at her\r
+mother. The countess finished her prayers and came to the bed with a\r
+stern face, but seeing, that Natasha's head was covered, she smiled in\r
+her kind, weak way.\r
+\r
+"Now then, now then!" said she.\r
+\r
+"Mamma, can we have a talk? Yes?" said Natasha. "Now, just one on your\r
+throat and another... that'll do!" And seizing her mother round the\r
+neck, she kissed her on the throat. In her behavior to her mother\r
+Natasha seemed rough, but she was so sensitive and tactful that however\r
+she clasped her mother she always managed to do it without hurting her\r
+or making her feel uncomfortable or displeased.\r
+\r
+"Well, what is it tonight?" said the mother, having arranged her pillows\r
+and waited until Natasha, after turning over a couple of times, had\r
+settled down beside her under the quilt, spread out her arms, and\r
+assumed a serious expression.\r
+\r
+These visits of Natasha's at night before the count returned from his\r
+club were one of the greatest pleasures of both mother, and daughter.\r
+\r
+"What is it tonight?--But I have to tell you..."\r
+\r
+Natasha put her hand on her mother's mouth.\r
+\r
+"About Boris... I know," she said seriously; "that's what I have come\r
+about. Don't say it--I know. No, do tell me!" and she removed her hand.\r
+"Tell me, Mamma! He's nice?"\r
+\r
+"Natasha, you are sixteen. At your age I was married. You say Boris is\r
+nice. He is very nice, and I love him like a son. But what then?... What\r
+are you thinking about? You have quite turned his head, I can see\r
+that...."\r
+\r
+As she said this the countess looked round at her daughter. Natasha was\r
+lying looking steadily straight before her at one of the mahogany\r
+sphinxes carved on the corners of the bedstead, so that the countess\r
+only saw her daughter's face in profile. That face struck her by its\r
+peculiarly serious and concentrated expression.\r
+\r
+Natasha was listening and considering.\r
+\r
+"Well, what then?" said she.\r
+\r
+"You have quite turned his head, and why? What do you want of him? You\r
+know you can't marry him."\r
+\r
+"Why not?" said Natasha, without changing her position.\r
+\r
+"Because he is young, because he is poor, because he is a relation...\r
+and because you yourself don't love him."\r
+\r
+"How do you know?"\r
+\r
+"I know. It is not right, darling!"\r
+\r
+\r
+"But if I want to..." said Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Leave off talking nonsense," said the countess.\r
+\r
+"But if I want to..."\r
+\r
+"Natasha, I am in earnest..."\r
+\r
+Natasha did not let her finish. She drew the countess' large hand to\r
+her, kissed it on the back and then on the palm, then again turned it\r
+over and began kissing first one knuckle, then the space between the\r
+knuckles, then the next knuckle, whispering, "January, February, March,\r
+April, May. Speak, Mamma, why don't you say anything? Speak!" said she,\r
+turning to her mother, who was tenderly gazing at her daughter and in\r
+that contemplation seemed to have forgotten all she had wished to say.\r
+\r
+"It won't do, my love! Not everyone will understand this friendship\r
+dating from your childish days, and to see him so intimate with you may\r
+injure you in the eyes of other young men who visit us, and above all it\r
+torments him for nothing. He may already have found a suitable and\r
+wealthy match, and now he's half crazy."\r
+\r
+"Crazy?" repeated Natasha.\r
+\r
+"I'll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin..."\r
+\r
+"I know! Cyril Matveich... but he is old."\r
+\r
+"He was not always old. But this is what I'll do, Natasha, I'll have a\r
+talk with Boris. He need not come so often...."\r
+\r
+"Why not, if he likes to?"\r
+\r
+"Because I know it will end in nothing...."\r
+\r
+"How can you know? No, Mamma, don't speak to him! What nonsense!" said\r
+Natasha in the tone of one being deprived of her property. "Well, I\r
+won't marry, but let him come if he enjoys it and I enjoy it." Natasha\r
+smiled and looked at her mother. "Not to marry, but just so," she added.\r
+\r
+"How so, my pet?"\r
+\r
+"Just so. There's no need for me to marry him. But... just so."\r
+\r
+"Just so, just so," repeated the countess, and shaking all over, she\r
+went off into a good humored, unexpected, elderly laugh.\r
+\r
+"Don't laugh, stop!" cried Natasha. "You're shaking the whole bed!\r
+You're awfully like me, just such another giggler.... Wait..." and she\r
+seized the countess' hands and kissed a knuckle of the little finger,\r
+saying, "June," and continued, kissing, "July, August," on the other\r
+hand. "But, Mamma, is he very much in love? What do you think? Was\r
+anybody ever so much in love with you? And he's very nice, very, very\r
+nice. Only not quite my taste--he is so narrow, like the dining-room\r
+clock.... Don't you understand? Narrow, you know--gray, light gray..."\r
+\r
+"What rubbish you're talking!" said the countess.\r
+\r
+Natasha continued: "Don't you really understand? Nicholas would\r
+understand.... Bezukhov, now, is blue, dark-blue and red, and he is\r
+square."\r
+\r
+"You flirt with him too," said the countess, laughing.\r
+\r
+"No, he is a Freemason, I have found out. He is fine, dark-blue and\r
+red.... How can I explain it to you?"\r
+\r
+"Little countess!" the count's voice called from behind the door.\r
+"You're not asleep?" Natasha jumped up, snatched up her slippers, and\r
+ran barefoot to her own room.\r
+\r
+It was a long time before she could sleep. She kept thinking that no one\r
+could understand all that she understood and all there was in her.\r
+\r
+"Sonya?" she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping little kitten\r
+with her enormous plait of hair. "No, how could she? She's virtuous. She\r
+fell in love with Nicholas and does not wish to know anything more. Even\r
+Mamma does not understand. It is wonderful how clever I am and how...\r
+charming she is," she went on, speaking of herself in the third person,\r
+and imagining it was some very wise man--the wisest and best of men--who\r
+was saying it of her. "There is everything, everything in her,"\r
+continued this man. "She is unusually intelligent, charming... and then\r
+she is pretty, uncommonly pretty, and agile--she swims and rides\r
+splendidly... and her voice! One can really say it's a wonderful voice!"\r
+\r
+She hummed a scrap from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw herself\r
+on her bed, laughed at the pleasant thought that she would immediately\r
+fall asleep, called Dunyasha the maid to put out the candle, and before\r
+Dunyasha had left the room had already passed into yet another happier\r
+world of dreams, where everything was as light and beautiful as in\r
+reality, and even more so because it was different.\r
+\r
+Next day the countess called Boris aside and had a talk with him, after\r
+which he ceased coming to the Rostovs'.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+On the thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, 1809 - 10 an old\r
+grandee of Catherine's day was giving a ball and midnight supper. The\r
+diplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were to be present.\r
+\r
+The grandee's well-known mansion on the English Quay glittered with\r
+innumerable lights. Police were stationed at the brightly lit entrance\r
+which was carpeted with red baize, and not only gendarmes but dozens of\r
+police officers and even the police master himself stood at the porch.\r
+Carriages kept driving away and fresh ones arriving, with red-liveried\r
+footmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages emerged men\r
+wearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons, while ladies in satin and ermine\r
+cautiously descended the carriage steps which were let down for them\r
+with a clatter, and then walked hurriedly and noiselessly over the baize\r
+at the entrance.\r
+\r
+Almost every time a new carriage drove up a whisper ran through the\r
+crowd and caps were doffed.\r
+\r
+"The Emperor?... No, a minister.... prince... ambassador. Don't you see\r
+the plumes?..." was whispered among the crowd.\r
+\r
+One person, better dressed than the rest, seemed to know everyone and\r
+mentioned by name the greatest dignitaries of the day.\r
+\r
+A third of the visitors had already arrived, but the Rostovs, who were\r
+to be present, were still hurrying to get dressed.\r
+\r
+There had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in the\r
+Rostov family, many fears that the invitation would not arrive, that the\r
+dresses would not be ready, or that something would not be arranged as\r
+it should be.\r
+\r
+Marya Ignatevna Peronskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at the\r
+court of the Dowager Empress, who was a friend and relation of the\r
+countess and piloted the provincial Rostovs in Petersburg high society,\r
+was to accompany them to the ball.\r
+\r
+They were to call for her at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten\r
+o'clock, but it was already five minutes to ten, and the girls were not\r
+yet dressed.\r
+\r
+Natasha was going to her first grand ball. She had got up at eight that\r
+morning and had been in a fever of excitement and activity all day. All\r
+her powers since morning had been concentrated on ensuring that they\r
+all--she herself, Mamma, and Sonya--should be as well dressed as\r
+possible. Sonya and her mother put themselves entirely in her hands. The\r
+countess was to wear a claret-colored velvet dress, and the two girls\r
+white gauze over pink silk slips, with roses on their bodices and their\r
+hair dressed a la grecque.\r
+\r
+Everything essential had already been done; feet, hands, necks, and ears\r
+washed, perfumed, and powdered, as befits a ball; the openwork silk\r
+stockings and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the\r
+hairdressing was almost done. Sonya was finishing dressing and so was\r
+the countess, but Natasha, who had bustled about helping them all, was\r
+behindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing\r
+jacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sonya stood ready dressed in\r
+the middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her\r
+dainty finger, was fixing on a last ribbon that squeaked as the pin went\r
+through it.\r
+\r
+"That's not the way, that's not the way, Sonya!" cried Natasha turning\r
+her head and clutching with both hands at her hair which the maid who\r
+was dressing it had not time to release. "That bow is not right. Come\r
+here!"\r
+\r
+Sonya sat down and Natasha pinned the ribbon on differently.\r
+\r
+"Allow me, Miss! I can't do it like that," said the maid who was holding\r
+Natasha's hair.\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That's right, Sonya."\r
+\r
+"Aren't you ready? It is nearly ten," came the countess' voice.\r
+\r
+"Directly! Directly! And you, Mamma?"\r
+\r
+"I have only my cap to pin on."\r
+\r
+"Don't do it without me!" called Natasha. "You won't do it right."\r
+\r
+"But it's already ten."\r
+\r
+They had decided to be at the ball by half past ten, and Natasha had\r
+still to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens.\r
+\r
+When her hair was done, Natasha, in her short petticoat from under which\r
+her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother's dressing jacket, ran up to\r
+Sonya, scrutinized her, and then ran to her mother. Turning her mother's\r
+head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and, hurriedly kissing\r
+her gray hair, ran back to the maids who were turning up the hem of her\r
+skirt.\r
+\r
+The cause of the delay was Natasha's skirt, which was too long. Two\r
+maids were turning up the hem and hurriedly biting off the ends of\r
+thread. A third with pins in her mouth was running about between the\r
+countess and Sonya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossamer garment\r
+up high on one uplifted hand.\r
+\r
+"Mavra, quicker, darling!"\r
+\r
+"Give me my thimble, Miss, from there..."\r
+\r
+"Whenever will you be ready?" asked the count coming to the door. "Here\r
+is some scent. Peronskaya must be tired of waiting."\r
+\r
+"It's ready, Miss," said the maid, holding up the shortened gauze dress\r
+with two fingers, and blowing and shaking something off it, as if by\r
+this to express a consciousness of the airiness and purity of what she\r
+held.\r
+\r
+Natasha began putting on the dress.\r
+\r
+"In a minute! In a minute! Don't come in, Papa!" she cried to her father\r
+as he opened the door--speaking from under the filmy skirt which still\r
+covered her whole face.\r
+\r
+Sonya slammed the door to. A minute later they let the count in. He was\r
+wearing a blue swallow-tail coat, shoes and stockings, and was perfumed\r
+and his hair pomaded.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Papa! how nice you look! Charming!" cried Natasha, as she stood in\r
+the middle of the room smoothing out the folds of the gauze.\r
+\r
+"If you please, Miss! allow me," said the maid, who on her knees was\r
+pulling the skirt straight and shifting the pins from one side of her\r
+mouth to the other with her tongue.\r
+\r
+"Say what you like," exclaimed Sonya, in a despairing voice as she\r
+looked at Natasha, "say what you like, it's still too long."\r
+\r
+Natasha stepped back to look at herself in the pier glass. The dress was\r
+too long.\r
+\r
+"Really, madam, it is not at all too long," said Mavra, crawling on her\r
+knees after her young lady.\r
+\r
+"Well, if it's too long we'll take it up... we'll tack it up in one\r
+minute," said the resolute Dunyasha taking a needle that was stuck on\r
+the front of her little shawl and, still kneeling on the floor, set to\r
+work once more.\r
+\r
+At that moment, with soft steps, the countess came in shyly, in her cap\r
+and velvet gown.\r
+\r
+"Oo-oo, my beauty!" exclaimed the count, "she looks better than any of\r
+you!"\r
+\r
+He would have embraced her but, blushing, she stepped aside fearing to\r
+be rumpled.\r
+\r
+"Mamma, your cap, more to this side," said Natasha. "I'll arrange it,"\r
+and she rushed forward so that the maids who were tacking up her skirt\r
+could not move fast enough and a piece of gauze was torn off.\r
+\r
+"Oh goodness! What has happened? Really it was not my fault!"\r
+\r
+"Never mind, I'll run it up, it won't show," said Dunyasha.\r
+\r
+"What a beauty--a very queen!" said the nurse as she came to the door.\r
+"And Sonya! They are lovely!"\r
+\r
+At a quarter past ten they at last got into their carriages and started.\r
+But they had still to call at the Taurida Gardens.\r
+\r
+Peronskaya was quite ready. In spite of her age and plainness she had\r
+gone through the same process as the Rostovs, but with less flurry--for\r
+to her it was a matter of routine. Her ugly old body was washed,\r
+perfumed, and powdered in just the same way. She had washed behind her\r
+ears just as carefully, and when she entered her drawing room in her\r
+yellow dress, wearing her badge as maid of honor, her old lady's maid\r
+was as full of rapturous admiration as the Rostovs' servants had been.\r
+\r
+She praised the Rostovs' toilets. They praised her taste and toilet, and\r
+at eleven o'clock, careful of their coiffures and dresses, they settled\r
+themselves in their carriages and drove off.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+Natasha had not had a moment free since early morning and had not once\r
+had time to think of what lay before her.\r
+\r
+In the damp chill air and crowded closeness of the swaying carriage, she\r
+for the first time vividly imagined what was in store for her there at\r
+the ball, in those brightly lighted rooms--with music, flowers, dances,\r
+the Emperor, and all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The\r
+prospect was so splendid that she hardly believed it would come true, so\r
+out of keeping was it with the chill darkness and closeness of the\r
+carriage. She understood all that awaited her only when, after stepping\r
+over the red baize at the entrance, she entered the hall, took off her\r
+fur cloak, and, beside Sonya and in front of her mother, mounted the\r
+brightly illuminated stairs between the flowers. Only then did she\r
+remember how she must behave at a ball, and tried to assume the majestic\r
+air she considered indispensable for a girl on such an occasion. But,\r
+fortunately for her, she felt her eyes growing misty, she saw nothing\r
+clearly, her pulse beat a hundred to the minute, and the blood throbbed\r
+at her heart. She could not assume that pose, which would have made her\r
+ridiculous, and she moved on almost fainting from excitement and trying\r
+with all her might to conceal it. And this was the very attitude that\r
+became her best. Before and behind them other visitors were entering,\r
+also talking in low tones and wearing ball dresses. The mirrors on the\r
+landing reflected ladies in white, pale-blue, and pink dresses, with\r
+diamonds and pearls on their bare necks and arms.\r
+\r
+Natasha looked in the mirrors and could not distinguish her reflection\r
+from the others. All was blended into one brilliant procession. On\r
+entering the ballroom the regular hum of voices, footsteps, and\r
+greetings deafened Natasha, and the light and glitter dazzled her still\r
+more. The host and hostess, who had already been standing at the door\r
+for half an hour repeating the same words to the various arrivals,\r
+"Charme de vous voir," * greeted the Rostovs and Peronskaya in the same\r
+manner.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Delighted to see you."\r
+\r
+The two girls in their white dresses, each with a rose in her black\r
+hair, both curtsied in the same way, but the hostess' eye involuntarily\r
+rested longer on the slim Natasha. She looked at her and gave her alone\r
+a special smile in addition to her usual smile as hostess. Looking at\r
+her she may have recalled the golden, irrecoverable days of her own\r
+girlhood and her own first ball. The host also followed Natasha with his\r
+eyes and asked the count which was his daughter.\r
+\r
+"Charming!" said he, kissing the tips of his fingers.\r
+\r
+In the ballroom guests stood crowding at the entrance doors awaiting the\r
+Emperor. The countess took up a position in one of the front rows of\r
+that crowd. Natasha heard and felt that several people were asking about\r
+her and looking at her. She realized that those noticing her liked her,\r
+and this observation helped to calm her.\r
+\r
+"There are some like ourselves and some worse," she thought.\r
+\r
+Peronskaya was pointing out to the countess the most important people at\r
+the ball.\r
+\r
+"That is the Dutch ambassador, do you see? That gray-haired man," she\r
+said, indicating an old man with a profusion of silver-gray curly hair,\r
+who was surrounded by ladies laughing at something he said.\r
+\r
+"Ah, here she is, the Queen of Petersburg, Countess Bezukhova," said\r
+Peronskaya, indicating Helene who had just entered. "How lovely! She is\r
+quite equal to Marya Antonovna. See how the men, young and old, pay\r
+court to her. Beautiful and clever... they say Prince--is quite mad\r
+about her. But see, those two, though not good-looking, are even more\r
+run after."\r
+\r
+She pointed to a lady who was crossing the room followed by a very plain\r
+daughter.\r
+\r
+"She is a splendid match, a millionairess," said Peronskaya. "And look,\r
+here come her suitors."\r
+\r
+"That is Bezukhova's brother, Anatole Kuragin," she said, indicating a\r
+handsome officer of the Horse Guards who passed by them with head erect,\r
+looking at something over the heads of the ladies. "He's handsome, isn't\r
+he? I hear they will marry him to that rich girl. But your cousin,\r
+Drubetskoy, is also very attentive to her. They say she has millions. Oh\r
+yes, that's the French ambassador himself!" she replied to the countess'\r
+inquiry about Caulaincourt. "Looks as if he were a king! All the same,\r
+the French are charming, very charming. No one more charming in society.\r
+Ah, here she is! Yes, she is still the most beautiful of them all, our\r
+Marya Antonovna! And how simply she is dressed! Lovely! And that stout\r
+one in spectacles is the universal Freemason," she went on, indicating\r
+Pierre. "Put him beside his wife and he looks a regular buffoon!"\r
+\r
+Pierre, swaying his stout body, advanced, making way through the crowd\r
+and nodding to right and left as casually and good-naturedly as if he\r
+were passing through a crowd at a fair. He pushed through, evidently\r
+looking for someone.\r
+\r
+Natasha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, "the buffoon,"\r
+as Peronskaya had called him, and knew he was looking for them, and for\r
+her in particular. He had promised to be at the ball and introduce\r
+partners to her.\r
+\r
+But before he reached them Pierre stopped beside a very handsome, dark\r
+man of middle height, and in a white uniform, who stood by a window\r
+talking to a tall man wearing stars and a ribbon. Natasha at once\r
+recognized the shorter and younger man in the white uniform: it was\r
+Bolkonski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger, happier, and\r
+better-looking.\r
+\r
+"There's someone else we know--Bolkonski, do you see, Mamma?" said\r
+Natasha, pointing out Prince Andrew. "You remember, he stayed a night\r
+with us at Otradnoe."\r
+\r
+"Oh, you know him?" said Peronskaya. "I can't bear him. Il fait a\r
+present la pluie et le beau temps. * He's too proud for anything. Takes\r
+after his father. And he's hand in glove with Speranski, writing some\r
+project or other. Just look how he treats the ladies! There's one\r
+talking to him and he has turned away," she said, pointing at him. "I'd\r
+give it to him if he treated me as he does those ladies."\r
+\r
+\r
+* "He is all the rage just now."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+Suddenly everybody stirred, began talking, and pressed forward and then\r
+back, and between the two rows, which separated, the Emperor entered to\r
+the sounds of music that had immediately struck up. Behind him walked\r
+his host and hostess. He walked in rapidly, bowing to right and left as\r
+if anxious to get the first moments of the reception over. The band\r
+played the polonaise in vogue at that time on account of the words that\r
+had been set to it, beginning: "Alexander, Elisaveta, all our hearts you\r
+ravish quite..." The Emperor passed on to the drawing room, the crowd\r
+made a rush for the doors, and several persons with excited faces\r
+hurried there and back again. Then the crowd hastily retired from the\r
+drawing-room door, at which the Emperor reappeared talking to the\r
+hostess. A young man, looking distraught, pounced down on the ladies,\r
+asking them to move aside. Some ladies, with faces betraying complete\r
+forgetfulness of all the rules of decorum, pushed forward to the\r
+detriment of their toilets. The men began to choose partners and take\r
+their places for the polonaise.\r
+\r
+Everyone moved back, and the Emperor came smiling out of the drawing\r
+room leading his hostess by the hand but not keeping time to the music.\r
+The host followed with Marya Antonovna Naryshkina; then came\r
+ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Peronskaya diligently\r
+named. More than half the ladies already had partners and were taking\r
+up, or preparing to take up, their positions for the polonaise. Natasha\r
+felt that she would be left with her mother and Sonya among a minority\r
+of women who crowded near the wall, not having been invited to dance.\r
+She stood with her slender arms hanging down, her scarcely defined bosom\r
+rising and falling regularly, and with bated breath and glittering,\r
+frightened eyes gazed straight before her, evidently prepared for the\r
+height of joy or misery. She was not concerned about the Emperor or any\r
+of those great people whom Peronskaya was pointing out--she had but one\r
+thought: "Is it possible no one will ask me, that I shall not be among\r
+the first to dance? Is it possible that not one of all these men will\r
+notice me? They do not even seem to see me, or if they do they look as\r
+if they were saying, 'Ah, she's not the one I'm after, so it's not worth\r
+looking at her!' No, it's impossible," she thought. "They must know how\r
+I long to dance, how splendidly I dance, and how they would enjoy\r
+dancing with me."\r
+\r
+The strains of the polonaise, which had continued for a considerable\r
+time, had begun to sound like a sad reminiscence to Natasha's ears. She\r
+wanted to cry. Peronskaya had left them. The count was at the other end\r
+of the room. She and the countess and Sonya were standing by themselves\r
+as in the depths of a forest amid that crowd of strangers, with no one\r
+interested in them and not wanted by anyone. Prince Andrew with a lady\r
+passed by, evidently not recognizing them. The handsome Anatole was\r
+smilingly talking to a partner on his arm and looked at Natasha as one\r
+looks at a wall. Boris passed them twice and each time turned away. Berg\r
+and his wife, who were not dancing, came up to them.\r
+\r
+This family gathering seemed humiliating to Natasha--as if there were\r
+nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She did not\r
+listen to or look at Vera, who was telling her something about her own\r
+green dress.\r
+\r
+At last the Emperor stopped beside his last partner (he had danced with\r
+three) and the music ceased. A worried aide-de-camp ran up to the\r
+Rostovs requesting them to stand farther back, though as it was they\r
+were already close to the wall, and from the gallery resounded the\r
+distinct, precise, enticingly rhythmical strains of a waltz. The Emperor\r
+looked smilingly down the room. A minute passed but no one had yet begun\r
+dancing. An aide-de-camp, the Master of Ceremonies, went up to Countess\r
+Bezukhova and asked her to dance. She smilingly raised her hand and laid\r
+it on his shoulder without looking at him. The aide-de-camp, an adept in\r
+his art, grasping his partner firmly round her waist, with confident\r
+deliberation started smoothly, gliding first round the edge of the\r
+circle, then at the corner of the room he caught Helene's left hand and\r
+turned her, the only sound audible, apart from the ever-quickening\r
+music, being the rhythmic click of the spurs on his rapid, agile feet,\r
+while at every third beat his partner's velvet dress spread out and\r
+seemed to flash as she whirled round. Natasha gazed at them and was\r
+ready to cry because it was not she who was dancing that first turn of\r
+the waltz.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, in the white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearing\r
+stockings and dancing shoes, stood looking animated and bright in the\r
+front row of the circle not far from the Rostovs. Baron Firhoff was\r
+talking to him about the first sitting of the Council of State to be\r
+held next day. Prince Andrew, as one closely connected with Speranski\r
+and participating in the work of the legislative commission, could give\r
+reliable information about that sitting, concerning which various rumors\r
+were current. But not listening to what Firhoff was saying, he was\r
+gazing now at the sovereign and now at the men intending to dance who\r
+had not yet gathered courage to enter the circle.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was watching these men abashed by the Emperor's presence,\r
+and the women who were breathlessly longing to be asked to dance.\r
+\r
+Pierre came up to him and caught him by the arm.\r
+\r
+"You always dance. I have a protegee, the young Rostova, here. Ask her,"\r
+he said.\r
+\r
+"Where is she?" asked Bolkonski. "Excuse me!" he added, turning to the\r
+baron, "we will finish this conversation elsewhere--at a ball one must\r
+dance." He stepped forward in the direction Pierre indicated. The\r
+despairing, dejected expression of Natasha's face caught his eye. He\r
+recognized her, guessed her feelings, saw that it was her debut,\r
+remembered her conversation at the window, and with an expression of\r
+pleasure on his face approached Countess Rostova.\r
+\r
+"Allow me to introduce you to my daughter," said the countess, with\r
+heightened color.\r
+\r
+"I have the pleasure of being already acquainted, if the countess\r
+remembers me," said Prince Andrew with a low and courteous bow quite\r
+belying Peronskaya's remarks about his rudeness, and approaching Natasha\r
+he held out his arm to grasp her waist before he had completed his\r
+invitation. He asked her to waltz. That tremulous expression on\r
+Natasha's face, prepared either for despair or rapture, suddenly\r
+brightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile.\r
+\r
+"I have long been waiting for you," that frightened happy little girl\r
+seemed to say by the smile that replaced the threatened tears, as she\r
+raised her hand to Prince Andrew's shoulder. They were the second couple\r
+to enter the circle. Prince Andrew was one of the best dancers of his\r
+day and Natasha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their white satin\r
+dancing shoes did their work swiftly, lightly, and independently of\r
+herself, while her face beamed with ecstatic happiness. Her slender bare\r
+arms and neck were not beautiful--compared to Helene's her shoulders\r
+looked thin and her bosom undeveloped. But Helene seemed, as it were,\r
+hardened by a varnish left by the thousands of looks that had scanned\r
+her person, while Natasha was like a girl exposed for the first time,\r
+who would have felt very much ashamed had she not been assured that this\r
+was absolutely necessary.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew liked dancing, and wishing to escape as quickly as\r
+possible from the political and clever talk which everyone addressed to\r
+him, wishing also to break up the circle of restraint he disliked,\r
+caused by the Emperor's presence, he danced, and had chosen Natasha\r
+because Pierre pointed her out to him and because she was the first\r
+pretty girl who caught his eye; but scarcely had he embraced that\r
+slender supple figure and felt her stirring so close to him and smiling\r
+so near him than the wine of her charm rose to his head, and he felt\r
+himself revived and rejuvenated when after leaving her he stood\r
+breathing deeply and watching the other dancers.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+After Prince Andrew, Boris came up to ask Natasha for a dance, and then\r
+the aide-de-camp who had opened the ball, and several other young men,\r
+so that, flushed and happy, and passing on her superfluous partners to\r
+Sonya, she did not cease dancing all the evening. She noticed and saw\r
+nothing of what occupied everyone else. Not only did she fail to notice\r
+that the Emperor talked a long time with the French ambassador, and how\r
+particularly gracious he was to a certain lady, or that Prince So-and-so\r
+and So-and-so did and said this and that, and that Helene had great\r
+success and was honored by the special attention of So-and-so, but she\r
+did not even see the Emperor, and only noticed that he had gone because\r
+the ball became livelier after his departure. For one of the merry\r
+cotillions before supper Prince Andrew was again her partner. He\r
+reminded her of their first encounter in the Otradnoe avenue, and how\r
+she had been unable to sleep that moonlight night, and told her how he\r
+had involuntarily overheard her. Natasha blushed at that recollection\r
+and tried to excuse herself, as if there had been something to be\r
+ashamed of in what Prince Andrew had overheard.\r
+\r
+Like all men who have grown up in society, Prince Andrew liked meeting\r
+someone there not of the conventional society stamp. And such was\r
+Natasha, with her surprise, her delight, her shyness, and even her\r
+mistakes in speaking French. With her he behaved with special care and\r
+tenderness, sitting beside her and talking of the simplest and most\r
+unimportant matters; he admired her shy grace. In the middle of the\r
+cotillion, having completed one of the figures, Natasha, still out of\r
+breath, was returning to her seat when another dancer chose her. She was\r
+tired and panting and evidently thought of declining, but immediately\r
+put her hand gaily on the man's shoulder, smiling at Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"I'd be glad to sit beside you and rest: I'm tired; but you see how they\r
+keep asking me, and I'm glad of it, I'm happy and I love everybody, and\r
+you and I understand it all," and much, much more was said in her smile.\r
+When her partner left her Natasha ran across the room to choose two\r
+ladies for the figure.\r
+\r
+"If she goes to her cousin first and then to another lady, she will be\r
+my wife," said Prince Andrew to himself quite to his own surprise, as he\r
+watched her. She did go first to her cousin.\r
+\r
+"What rubbish sometimes enters one's head!" thought Prince Andrew, "but\r
+what is certain is that that girl is so charming, so original, that she\r
+won't be dancing here a month before she will be married.... Such as she\r
+are rare here," he thought, as Natasha, readjusting a rose that was\r
+slipping on her bodice, settled herself beside him.\r
+\r
+When the cotillion was over the old count in his blue coat came up to\r
+the dancers. He invited Prince Andrew to come and see them, and asked\r
+his daughter whether she was enjoying herself. Natasha did not answer at\r
+once but only looked up with a smile that said reproachfully: "How can\r
+you ask such a question?"\r
+\r
+"I have never enjoyed myself so much before!" she said, and Prince\r
+Andrew noticed how her thin arms rose quickly as if to embrace her\r
+father and instantly dropped again. Natasha was happier than she had\r
+ever been in her life. She was at that height of bliss when one becomes\r
+completely kind and good and does not believe in the possibility of\r
+evil, unhappiness, or sorrow.\r
+\r
+At that ball Pierre for the first time felt humiliated by the position\r
+his wife occupied in court circles. He was gloomy and absent-minded. A\r
+deep furrow ran across his forehead, and standing by a window he stared\r
+over his spectacles seeing no one.\r
+\r
+On her way to supper Natasha passed him.\r
+\r
+Pierre's gloomy, unhappy look struck her. She stopped in front of him.\r
+She wished to help him, to bestow on him the superabundance of her own\r
+happiness.\r
+\r
+"How delightful it is, Count!" said she. "Isn't it?"\r
+\r
+Pierre smiled absent-mindedly, evidently not grasping what she said.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I am very glad," he said.\r
+\r
+"How can people be dissatisfied with anything?" thought Natasha.\r
+"Especially such a capital fellow as Bezukhov!" In Natasha's eyes all\r
+the people at the ball alike were good, kind, and splendid people,\r
+loving one another; none of them capable of injuring another--and so\r
+they ought all to be happy.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+Next day Prince Andrew thought of the ball, but his mind did not dwell\r
+on it long. "Yes, it was a very brilliant ball," and then... "Yes, that\r
+little Rostova is very charming. There's something fresh, original, un-\r
+Petersburg-like about her that distinguishes her." That was all he\r
+thought about yesterday's ball, and after his morning tea he set to\r
+work.\r
+\r
+But either from fatigue or want of sleep he was ill-disposed for work\r
+and could get nothing done. He kept criticizing his own work, as he\r
+often did, and was glad when he heard someone coming.\r
+\r
+The visitor was Bitski, who served on various committees, frequented all\r
+the societies in Petersburg, and a passionate devotee of the new ideas\r
+and of Speranski, and a diligent Petersburg newsmonger--one of those men\r
+who choose their opinions like their clothes according to the fashion,\r
+but who for that very reason appear to be the warmest partisans. Hardly\r
+had he got rid of his hat before he ran into Prince Andrew's room with a\r
+preoccupied air and at once began talking. He had just heard particulars\r
+of that morning's sitting of the Council of State opened by the Emperor,\r
+and he spoke of it enthusiastically. The Emperor's speech had been\r
+extraordinary. It had been a speech such as only constitutional monarchs\r
+deliver. "The Sovereign plainly said that the Council and Senate are\r
+estates of the realm, he said that the government must rest not on\r
+authority but on secure bases. The Emperor said that the fiscal system\r
+must be reorganized and the accounts published," recounted Bitski,\r
+emphasizing certain words and opening his eyes significantly.\r
+\r
+"Ah, yes! Today's events mark an epoch, the greatest epoch in our\r
+history," he concluded.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew listened to the account of the opening of the Council of\r
+State, which he had so impatiently awaited and to which he had attached\r
+such importance, and was surprised that this event, now that it had\r
+taken place, did not affect him, and even seemed quite insignificant. He\r
+listened with quiet irony to Bitski's enthusiastic account of it. A very\r
+simple thought occurred to him: "What does it matter to me or to Bitski\r
+what the Emperor was pleased to say at the Council? Can all that make me\r
+any happier or better?"\r
+\r
+And this simple reflection suddenly destroyed all the interest Prince\r
+Andrew had felt in the impending reforms. He was going to dine that\r
+evening at Speranski's, "with only a few friends," as the host had said\r
+when inviting him. The prospect of that dinner in the intimate home\r
+circle of the man he so admired had greatly interested Prince Andrew,\r
+especially as he had not yet seen Speranski in his domestic\r
+surroundings, but now he felt disinclined to go to it.\r
+\r
+At the appointed hour, however, he entered the modest house Speranski\r
+owned in the Taurida Gardens. In the parqueted dining room this small\r
+house, remarkable for its extreme cleanliness (suggesting that of a\r
+monastery), Prince Andrew, who was rather late, found the friendly\r
+gathering of Speranski's intimate acquaintances already assembled at\r
+five o'clock. There were no ladies present except Speranski's little\r
+daughter (long-faced like her father) and her governess. The other\r
+guests were Gervais, Magnitski, and Stolypin. While still in the\r
+anteroom Prince Andrew heard loud voices and a ringing staccato laugh--a\r
+laugh such as one hears on the stage. Someone--it sounded like\r
+Speranski--was distinctly ejaculating ha-ha-ha. Prince Andrew had never\r
+before heard Speranski's famous laugh, and this ringing, high-pitched\r
+laughter from a statesman made a strange impression on him.\r
+\r
+He entered the dining room. The whole company were standing between two\r
+windows at a small table laid with hors-d'oeuvres. Speranski, wearing a\r
+gray swallow-tail coat with a star on the breast, and evidently still\r
+the same waistcoat and high white stock he had worn at the meeting of\r
+the Council of State, stood at the table with a beaming countenance. His\r
+guests surrounded him. Magnitski, addressing himself to Speranski, was\r
+relating an anecdote, and Speranski was laughing in advance at what\r
+Magnitski was going to say. When Prince Andrew entered the room\r
+Magnitski's words were again crowned by laughter. Stolypin gave a deep\r
+bass guffaw as he munched a piece of bread and cheese. Gervais laughed\r
+softly with a hissing chuckle, and Speranski in a high-pitched staccato\r
+manner.\r
+\r
+Still laughing, Speranski held out his soft white hand to Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Very pleased to see you, Prince," he said. "One moment..." he went on,\r
+turning to Magnitski and interrupting his story. "We have agreed that\r
+this is a dinner for recreation, with not a word about business!" and\r
+turning again to the narrator he began to laugh afresh.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew looked at the laughing Speranski with astonishment,\r
+regret, and disillusionment. It seemed to him that this was not\r
+Speranski but someone else. Everything that had formerly appeared\r
+mysterious and fascinating in Speranski suddenly became plain and\r
+unattractive.\r
+\r
+At dinner the conversation did not cease for a moment and seemed to\r
+consist of the contents of a book of funny anecdotes. Before Magnitski\r
+had finished his story someone else was anxious to relate something\r
+still funnier. Most of the anecdotes, if not relating to the state\r
+service, related to people in the service. It seemed that in this\r
+company the insignificance of those people was so definitely accepted\r
+that the only possible attitude toward them was one of good humored\r
+ridicule. Speranski related how at the Council that morning a deaf\r
+dignitary, when asked his opinion, replied that he thought so too.\r
+Gervais gave a long account of an official revision, remarkable for the\r
+stupidity of everybody concerned. Stolypin, stuttering, broke into the\r
+conversation and began excitedly talking of the abuses that existed\r
+under the former order of things--threatening to give a serious turn to\r
+the conversation. Magnitski starting quizzing Stolypin about his\r
+vehemence. Gervais intervened with a joke, and the talk reverted to its\r
+former lively tone.\r
+\r
+Evidently Speranski liked to rest after his labors and find amusement in\r
+a circle of friends, and his guests, understanding his wish, tried to\r
+enliven him and amuse themselves. But their gaiety seemed to Prince\r
+Andrew mirthless and tiresome. Speranski's high-pitched voice struck him\r
+unpleasantly, and the incessant laughter grated on him like a false\r
+note. Prince Andrew did not laugh and feared that he would be a damper\r
+on the spirits of the company, but no one took any notice of his being\r
+out of harmony with the general mood. They all seemed very gay.\r
+\r
+He tried several times to join in the conversation, but his remarks were\r
+tossed aside each time like a cork thrown out of the water, and he could\r
+not jest with them.\r
+\r
+There was nothing wrong or unseemly in what they said, it was witty and\r
+might have been funny, but it lacked just that something which is the\r
+salt of mirth, and they were not even aware that such a thing existed.\r
+\r
+After dinner Speranski's daughter and her governess rose. He patted the\r
+little girl with his white hand and kissed her. And that gesture, too,\r
+seemed unnatural to Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+The men remained at table over their port--English fashion. In the midst\r
+of a conversation that was started about Napoleon's Spanish affairs,\r
+which they all agreed in approving, Prince Andrew began to express a\r
+contrary opinion. Speranski smiled and, with an evident wish to prevent\r
+the conversation from taking an unpleasant course, told a story that had\r
+no connection with the previous conversation. For a few moments all were\r
+silent.\r
+\r
+Having sat some time at table, Speranski corked a bottle of wine and,\r
+remarking, "Nowadays good wine rides in a carriage and pair," passed it\r
+to the servant and got up. All rose and continuing to talk loudly went\r
+into the drawing room. Two letters brought by a courier were handed to\r
+Speranski and he took them to his study. As soon as he had left the room\r
+the general merriment stopped and the guests began to converse sensibly\r
+and quietly with one another.\r
+\r
+"Now for the recitation!" said Speranski on returning from his study. "A\r
+wonderful talent!" he said to Prince Andrew, and Magnitski immediately\r
+assumed a pose and began reciting some humorous verses in French which\r
+he had composed about various well-known Petersburg people. He was\r
+interrupted several times by applause. When the verses were finished\r
+Prince Andrew went up to Speranski and took his leave.\r
+\r
+"Where are you off to so early?" asked Speranski.\r
+\r
+"I promised to go to a reception."\r
+\r
+They said no more. Prince Andrew looked closely into those mirrorlike,\r
+impenetrable eyes, and felt that it had been ridiculous of him to have\r
+expected anything from Speranski and from any of his own activities\r
+connected with him, or ever to have attributed importance to what\r
+Speranski was doing. That precise, mirthless laughter rang in Prince\r
+Andrew's ears long after he had left the house.\r
+\r
+When he reached home Prince Andrew began thinking of his life in\r
+Petersburg during those last four months as if it were something new. He\r
+recalled his exertions and solicitations, and the history of his project\r
+of army reform, which had been accepted for consideration and which they\r
+were trying to pass over in silence simply because another, a very poor\r
+one, had already been prepared and submitted to the Emperor. He thought\r
+of the meetings of a committee of which Berg was a member. He remembered\r
+how carefully and at what length everything relating to form and\r
+procedure was discussed at those meetings, and how sedulously and\r
+promptly all that related to the gist of the business was evaded. He\r
+recalled his labors on the Legal Code, and how painstakingly he had\r
+translated the articles of the Roman and French codes into Russian, and\r
+he felt ashamed of himself. Then he vividly pictured to himself\r
+Bogucharovo, his occupations in the country, his journey to Ryazan; he\r
+remembered the peasants and Dron the village elder, and mentally\r
+applying to them the Personal Rights he had divided into paragraphs, he\r
+felt astonished that he could have spent so much time on such useless\r
+work.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+Next day Prince Andrew called at a few houses he had not visited before,\r
+and among them at the Rostovs' with whom he had renewed acquaintance at\r
+the ball. Apart from considerations of politeness which demanded the\r
+call, he wanted to see that original, eager girl who had left such a\r
+pleasant impression on his mind, in her own home.\r
+\r
+Natasha was one of the first to meet him. She was wearing a dark-blue\r
+house dress in which Prince Andrew thought her even prettier than in her\r
+ball dress. She and all the Rostov family welcomed him as an old friend,\r
+simply and cordially. The whole family, whom he had formerly judged\r
+severely, now seemed to him to consist of excellent, simple, and kindly\r
+people. The old count's hospitality and good nature, which struck one\r
+especially in Petersburg as a pleasant surprise, were such that Prince\r
+Andrew could not refuse to stay to dinner. "Yes," he thought, "they are\r
+capital people, who of course have not the slightest idea what a\r
+treasure they possess in Natasha; but they are kindly folk and form the\r
+best possible setting for this strikingly poetic, charming girl,\r
+overflowing with life!"\r
+\r
+In Natasha Prince Andrew was conscious of a strange world completely\r
+alien to him and brimful of joys unknown to him, a different world, that\r
+in the Otradnoe avenue and at the window that moonlight night had\r
+already begun to disconcert him. Now this world disconcerted him no\r
+longer and was no longer alien to him, but he himself having entered it\r
+found in it a new enjoyment.\r
+\r
+After dinner Natasha, at Prince Andrew's request, went to the clavichord\r
+and began singing. Prince Andrew stood by a window talking to the ladies\r
+and listened to her. In the midst of a phrase he ceased speaking and\r
+suddenly felt tears choking him, a thing he had thought impossible for\r
+him. He looked at Natasha as she sang, and something new and joyful\r
+stirred in his soul. He felt happy and at the same time sad. He had\r
+absolutely nothing to weep about yet he was ready to weep. What about?\r
+His former love? The little princess? His disillusionments?... His hopes\r
+for the future?... Yes and no. The chief reason was a sudden, vivid\r
+sense of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great and\r
+illimitable within him and that limited and material something that he,\r
+and even she, was. This contrast weighed on and yet cheered him while\r
+she sang.\r
+\r
+As soon as Natasha had finished she went up to him and asked how he\r
+liked her voice. She asked this and then became confused, feeling that\r
+she ought not to have asked it. He smiled, looking at her, and said he\r
+liked her singing as he liked everything she did.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew left the Rostovs' late in the evening. He went to bed from\r
+habit, but soon realized that he could not sleep. Having lit his candle\r
+he sat up in bed, then got up, then lay down again not at all troubled\r
+by his sleeplessness: his soul was as fresh and joyful as if he had\r
+stepped out of a stuffy room into God's own fresh air. It did not enter\r
+his head that he was in love with Natasha; he was not thinking about\r
+her, but only picturing her to himself, and in consequence all life\r
+appeared in a new light. "Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow,\r
+confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?"\r
+said he to himself. And for the first time for a very long while he\r
+began making happy plans for the future. He decided that he must attend\r
+to his son's education by finding a tutor and putting the boy in his\r
+charge, then he ought to retire from the service and go abroad, and see\r
+England, Switzerland and Italy. "I must use my freedom while I feel so\r
+much strength and youth in me," he said to himself. "Pierre was right\r
+when he said one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order\r
+to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead,\r
+but while one has life one must live and be happy!" thought he.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+One morning Colonel Berg, whom Pierre knew as he knew everybody in\r
+Moscow and Petersburg, came to see him. Berg arrived in an immaculate\r
+brand-new uniform, with his hair pomaded and brushed forward over his\r
+temples as the Emperor Alexander wore his hair.\r
+\r
+"I have just been to see the countess, your wife. Unfortunately she\r
+could not grant my request, but I hope, Count, I shall be more fortunate\r
+with you," he said with a smile.\r
+\r
+"What is it you wish, Colonel? I am at your service."\r
+\r
+"I have now quite settled in my new rooms, Count" (Berg said this with\r
+perfect conviction that this information could not but be agreeable),\r
+"and so I wish to arrange just a small party for my own and my wife's\r
+friends." (He smiled still more pleasantly.) "I wished to ask the\r
+countess and you to do me the honor of coming to tea and to supper."\r
+\r
+Only Countess Helene, considering the society of such people as the\r
+Bergs beneath her, could be cruel enough to refuse such an invitation.\r
+Berg explained so clearly why he wanted to collect at his house a small\r
+but select company, and why this would give him pleasure, and why though\r
+he grudged spending money on cards or anything harmful, he was prepared\r
+to run into some expense for the sake of good society--that Pierre could\r
+not refuse, and promised to come.\r
+\r
+"But don't be late, Count, if I may venture to ask; about ten minutes to\r
+eight, please. We shall make up a rubber. Our general is coming. He is\r
+very good to me. We shall have supper, Count. So you will do me the\r
+favor."\r
+\r
+Contrary to his habit of being late, Pierre on that day arrived at the\r
+Bergs' house, not at ten but at fifteen minutes to eight.\r
+\r
+Having prepared everything necessary for the party, the Bergs were ready\r
+for their guests' arrival.\r
+\r
+In their new, clean, and light study with its small busts and pictures\r
+and new furniture sat Berg and his wife. Berg, closely buttoned up in\r
+his new uniform, sat beside his wife explaining to her that one always\r
+could and should be acquainted with people above one, because only then\r
+does one get satisfaction from acquaintances.\r
+\r
+"You can get to know something, you can ask for something. See how I\r
+managed from my first promotion." (Berg measured his life not by years\r
+but by promotions.) "My comrades are still nobodies, while I am only\r
+waiting for a vacancy to command a regiment, and have the happiness to\r
+be your husband." (He rose and kissed Vera's hand, and on the way to her\r
+straightened out a turned-up corner of the carpet.) "And how have I\r
+obtained all this? Chiefly by knowing how to choose my aquaintances. It\r
+goes without saying that one must be conscientious and methodical."\r
+\r
+Berg smiled with a sense of his superiority over a weak woman, and\r
+paused, reflecting that this dear wife of his was after all but a weak\r
+woman who could not understand all that constitutes a man's dignity,\r
+what it was ein Mann zu sein. * Vera at the same time smiling with a\r
+sense of superiority over her good, conscientious husband, who all the\r
+same understood life wrongly, as according to Vera all men did. Berg,\r
+judging by his wife, thought all women weak and foolish. Vera, judging\r
+only by her husband and generalizing from that observation, supposed\r
+that all men, though they understand nothing and are conceited and\r
+selfish, ascribe common sense to themselves alone.\r
+\r
+\r
+* To be a man.\r
+\r
+Berg rose and embraced his wife carefully, so as not to crush her lace\r
+fichu for which he had paid a good price, kissing her straight on the\r
+lips.\r
+\r
+"The only thing is, we mustn't have children too soon," he continued,\r
+following an unconscious sequence of ideas.\r
+\r
+"Yes," answered Vera, "I don't at all want that. We must live for\r
+society."\r
+\r
+"Princess Yusupova wore one exactly like this," said Berg, pointing to\r
+the fichu with a happy and kindly smile.\r
+\r
+Just then Count Bezukhov was announced. Husband and wife glanced at one\r
+another, both smiling with self-satisfaction, and each mentally claiming\r
+the honor of this visit.\r
+\r
+"This is what comes of knowing how to make acquaintances," thought Berg.\r
+"This is what comes of knowing how to conduct oneself."\r
+\r
+"But please don't interrupt me when I am entertaining the guests," said\r
+Vera, "because I know what interests each of them and what to say to\r
+different people."\r
+\r
+Berg smiled again.\r
+\r
+"It can't be helped: men must sometimes have masculine conversation,"\r
+said he.\r
+\r
+They received Pierre in their small, new drawing-room, where it was\r
+impossible to sit down anywhere without disturbing its symmetry,\r
+neatness, and order; so it was quite comprehensible and not strange that\r
+Berg, having generously offered to disturb the symmetry of an armchair\r
+or of the sofa for his dear guest, but being apparently painfully\r
+undecided on the matter himself, eventually left the visitor to settle\r
+the question of selection. Pierre disturbed the symmetry by moving a\r
+chair for himself, and Berg and Vera immediately began their evening\r
+party, interrupting each other in their efforts to entertain their\r
+guest.\r
+\r
+Vera, having decided in her own mind that Pierre ought to be entertained\r
+with conversation about the French embassy, at once began accordingly.\r
+Berg, having decided that masculine conversation was required,\r
+interrupted his wife's remarks and touched on the question of the war\r
+with Austria, and unconsciously jumped from the general subject to\r
+personal considerations as to the proposals made him to take part in the\r
+Austrian campaign and the reasons why he had declined them. Though the\r
+conversation was very incoherent and Vera was angry at the intrusion of\r
+the masculine element, both husband and wife felt with satisfaction\r
+that, even if only one guest was present, their evening had begun very\r
+well and was as like as two peas to every other evening party with its\r
+talk, tea, and lighted candles.\r
+\r
+Before long Boris, Berg's old comrade, arrived. There was a shade of\r
+condescension and patronage in his treatment of Berg and Vera. After\r
+Boris came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, then the\r
+Rostovs, and the party became unquestionably exactly like all other\r
+evening parties. Berg and Vera could not repress their smiles of\r
+satisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room, at\r
+the sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the\r
+bowing and scraping. Everything was just as everybody always has it,\r
+especially so the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on the\r
+shoulder, and with parental authority superintended the setting out of\r
+the table for boston. The general sat down by Count Ilya Rostov, who was\r
+next to himself the most important guest. The old people sat with the\r
+old, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table, on\r
+which stood exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as\r
+the Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere\r
+else.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to boston with\r
+Count Rostov, the general, and the colonel. At the card table he\r
+happened to be directly facing Natasha, and was struck by a curious\r
+change that had come over her since the ball. She was silent, and not\r
+only less pretty than at the ball, but only redeemed from plainness by\r
+her look of gentle indifference to everything around.\r
+\r
+"What's the matter with her?" thought Pierre, glancing at her. She was\r
+sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without looking\r
+at him, made some reply to Boris who sat down beside her. After playing\r
+out a whole suit and to his partner's delight taking five tricks,\r
+Pierre, hearing greetings and the steps of someone who had entered the\r
+room while he was picking up his tricks, glanced again at Natasha.\r
+\r
+"What has happened to her?" he asked himself with still greater\r
+surprise.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was standing before her, saying something to her with a\r
+look of tender solicitude. She, having raised her head, was looking up\r
+at him, flushed and evidently trying to master her rapid breathing. And\r
+the bright glow of some inner fire that had been suppressed was again\r
+alight in her. She was completely transformed and from a plain girl had\r
+again become what she had been at the ball.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew went up to Pierre, and the latter noticed a new and\r
+youthful expression in his friend's face.\r
+\r
+Pierre changed places several times during the game, sitting now with\r
+his back to Natasha and now facing her, but during the whole of the six\r
+rubbers he watched her and his friend.\r
+\r
+"Something very important is happening between them," thought Pierre,\r
+and a feeling that was both joyful and painful agitated him and made him\r
+neglect the game.\r
+\r
+After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no use playing\r
+like that, and Pierre was released. Natasha on one side was talking with\r
+Sonya and Boris, and Vera with a subtle smile was saying something to\r
+Prince Andrew. Pierre went up to his friend and, asking whether they\r
+were talking secrets, sat down beside them. Vera, having noticed Prince\r
+Andrew's attentions to Natasha, decided that at a party, a real evening\r
+party, subtle allusions to the tender passion were absolutely necessary\r
+and, seizing a moment when Prince Andrew was alone, began a conversation\r
+with him about feelings in general and about her sister. With so\r
+intellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andrew to be, she felt\r
+that she had to employ her diplomatic tact.\r
+\r
+When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Vera was being carried away\r
+by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andrew seemed embarrassed, a\r
+thing that rarely happened with him.\r
+\r
+"What do you think?" Vera was saying with an arch smile. "You are so\r
+discerning, Prince, and understand people's characters so well at a\r
+glance. What do you think of Natalie? Could she be constant in her\r
+attachments? Could she, like other women" (Vera meant herself), "love a\r
+man once for all and remain true to him forever? That is what I consider\r
+true love. What do you think, Prince?"\r
+\r
+"I know your sister too little," replied Prince Andrew, with a sarcastic\r
+smile under which he wished to hide his embarrassment, "to be able to\r
+solve so delicate a question, and then I have noticed that the less\r
+attractive a woman is the more constant she is likely to be," he added,\r
+and looked up at Pierre who was just approaching them.\r
+\r
+"Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days," continued Vera--mentioning\r
+"our days" as people of limited intelligence are fond of doing,\r
+imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of\r
+"our days" and that human characteristics change with the times--"in our\r
+days a girl has so much freedom that the pleasure of being courted often\r
+stifles real feeling in her. And it must be confessed that Natalie is\r
+very susceptible." This return to the subject of Natalie caused Prince\r
+Andrew to knit his brows with discomfort: he was about to rise, but Vera\r
+continued with a still more subtle smile:\r
+\r
+"I think no one has been more courted than she," she went on, "but till\r
+quite lately she never cared seriously for anyone. Now you know, Count,"\r
+she said to Pierre, "even our dear cousin Boris, who, between ourselves,\r
+was very far gone in the land of tenderness..." (alluding to a map of\r
+love much in vogue at that time).\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew frowned and remained silent.\r
+\r
+"You are friendly with Boris, aren't you?" asked Vera.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I know him..."\r
+\r
+"I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natasha?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, there was childish love?" suddenly asked Prince Andrew, blushing\r
+unexpectedly.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you know between cousins intimacy often leads to love. Le\r
+cousinage est un dangereux voisinage. * Don't you think so?"\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood."\r
+\r
+"Oh, undoubtedly!" said Prince Andrew, and with sudden and unnatural\r
+liveliness he began chaffing Pierre about the need to be very careful\r
+with his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins, and in the midst of these\r
+jesting remarks he rose, taking Pierre by the arm, and drew him aside.\r
+\r
+"Well?" asked Pierre, seeing his friend's strange animation with\r
+surprise, and noticing the glance he turned on Natasha as he rose.\r
+\r
+"I must... I must have a talk with you," said Prince Andrew. "You know\r
+that pair of women's gloves?" (He referred to the masonic gloves given\r
+to a newly initiated Brother to present to the woman he loved.) "I...\r
+but no, I will talk to you later on," and with a strange light in his\r
+eyes and restlessness in his movements, Prince Andrew approached Natasha\r
+and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how Prince Andrew asked her\r
+something and how she flushed as she replied.\r
+\r
+But at that moment Berg came to Pierre and began insisting that he\r
+should take part in an argument between the general and the colonel on\r
+the affairs in Spain.\r
+\r
+Berg was satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never left his face.\r
+The party was very successful and quite like other parties he had seen.\r
+Everything was similar: the ladies' subtle talk, the cards, the general\r
+raising his voice at the card table, and the samovar and the tea cakes;\r
+only one thing was lacking that he had always seen at the evening\r
+parties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud conversation\r
+among the men and a dispute about something important and clever. Now\r
+the general had begun such a discussion and so Berg drew Pierre to it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+Next day, having been invited by the count, Prince Andrew dined with the\r
+Rostovs and spent the rest of the day there.\r
+\r
+Everyone in the house realized for whose sake Prince Andrew came, and\r
+without concealing it he tried to be with Natasha all day. Not only in\r
+the soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natasha, but in the\r
+whole house, there was a feeling of awe at something important that was\r
+bound to happen. The countess looked with sad and sternly serious eyes\r
+at Prince Andrew when he talked to Natasha and timidly started some\r
+artificial conversation about trifles as soon as he looked her way.\r
+Sonya was afraid to leave Natasha and afraid of being in the way when\r
+she was with them. Natasha grew pale, in a panic of expectation, when\r
+she remained alone with him for a moment. Prince Andrew surprised her by\r
+his timidity. She felt that he wanted to say something to her but could\r
+not bring himself to do so.\r
+\r
+In the evening, when Prince Andrew had left, the countess went up to\r
+Natasha and whispered: "Well, what?"\r
+\r
+"Mamma! For heaven's sake don't ask me anything now! One can't talk\r
+about that," said Natasha.\r
+\r
+But all the same that night Natasha, now agitated and now frightened,\r
+lay a long time in her mother's bed gazing straight before her. She told\r
+her how he had complimented her, how he told her he was going abroad,\r
+asked her where they were going to spend the summer, and then how he had\r
+asked her about Boris.\r
+\r
+"But such a... such a... never happened to me before!" she said. "Only I\r
+feel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid when I'm with him. What\r
+does that mean? Does it mean that it's the real thing? Yes? Mamma, are\r
+you asleep?"\r
+\r
+"No, my love; I am frightened myself," answered her mother. "Now go!"\r
+\r
+"All the same I shan't sleep. What silliness, to sleep! Mummy! Mummy!\r
+such a thing never happened to me before," she said, surprised and\r
+alarmed at the feeling she was aware of in herself. "And could we ever\r
+have thought!..."\r
+\r
+It seemed to Natasha that even at the time she first saw Prince Andrew\r
+at Otradnoe she had fallen in love with him. It was as if she feared\r
+this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she had\r
+then chosen (she was firmly convinced she had done so) and of finding\r
+him, as it seemed, not indifferent to her.\r
+\r
+"And it had to happen that he should come specially to Petersburg while\r
+we are here. And it had to happen that we should meet at that ball. It\r
+is fate. Clearly it is fate that everything led up to this! Already\r
+then, directly I saw him I felt something peculiar."\r
+\r
+"What else did he say to you? What are those verses? Read them..." said\r
+her mother, thoughtfully, referring to some verses Prince Andrew had\r
+written in Natasha's album.\r
+\r
+"Mamma, one need not be ashamed of his being a widower?"\r
+\r
+"Don't, Natasha! Pray to God. 'Marriages are made in heaven,'" said her\r
+mother.\r
+\r
+"Darling Mummy, how I love you! How happy I am!" cried Natasha, shedding\r
+tears of joy and excitement and embracing her mother.\r
+\r
+At that very time Prince Andrew was sitting with Pierre and telling him\r
+of his love for Natasha and his firm resolve to make her his wife.\r
+\r
+That day Countess Helene had a reception at her house. The French\r
+ambassador was there, and a foreign prince of the blood who had of late\r
+become a frequent visitor of hers, and many brilliant ladies and\r
+gentlemen. Pierre, who had come downstairs, walked through the rooms and\r
+struck everyone by his preoccupied, absent-minded, and morose air.\r
+\r
+Since the ball he had felt the approach of a fit of nervous depression\r
+and had made desperate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of his\r
+wife with the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been made a\r
+gentleman of the bedchamber, and from that time he had begun to feel\r
+oppressed and ashamed in court society, and dark thoughts of the vanity\r
+of all things human came to him oftener than before. At the same time\r
+the feeling he had noticed between his protegee Natasha and Prince\r
+Andrew accentuated his gloom by the contrast between his own position\r
+and his friend's. He tried equally to avoid thinking about his wife, and\r
+about Natasha and Prince Andrew; and again everything seemed to him\r
+insignificant in comparison with eternity; again the question: for what?\r
+presented itself; and he forced himself to work day and night at masonic\r
+labors, hoping to drive away the evil spirit that threatened him. Toward\r
+midnight, after he had left the countess' apartments, he was sitting\r
+upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying out the original transaction\r
+of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his low room cloudy\r
+with tobacco smoke, when someone came in. It was Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Ah, it's you!" said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air. "And\r
+I, you see, am hard at it." He pointed to his manuscript book with that\r
+air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy people look at\r
+their work.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, with a beaming, ecstatic expression of renewed life on\r
+his face, paused in front of Pierre and, not noticing his sad look,\r
+smiled at him with the egotism of joy.\r
+\r
+"Well, dear heart," said he, "I wanted to tell you about it yesterday\r
+and I have come to do so today. I never experienced anything like it\r
+before. I am in love, my friend!"\r
+\r
+Suddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person down on\r
+the sofa beside Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"With Natasha Rostova, yes?" said he.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should never have believed it, but\r
+the feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I tormented myself and\r
+suffered, but I would not exchange even that torment for anything in the\r
+world, I have not lived till now. At last I live, but I can't live\r
+without her! But can she love me?... I am too old for her.... Why don't\r
+you speak?"\r
+\r
+"I? I? What did I tell you?" said Pierre suddenly, rising and beginning\r
+to pace up and down the room. "I always thought it.... That girl is such\r
+a treasure... she is a rare girl.... My dear friend, I entreat you,\r
+don't philosophize, don't doubt, marry, marry, marry.... And I am sure\r
+there will not be a happier man than you."\r
+\r
+"But what of her?"\r
+\r
+"She loves you."\r
+\r
+"Don't talk rubbish..." said Prince Andrew, smiling and looking into\r
+Pierre's eyes.\r
+\r
+"She does, I know," Pierre cried fiercely.\r
+\r
+"But do listen," returned Prince Andrew, holding him by the arm. "Do you\r
+know the condition I am in? I must talk about it to someone."\r
+\r
+"Well, go on, go on. I am very glad," said Pierre, and his face really\r
+changed, his brow became smooth, and he listened gladly to Prince\r
+Andrew. Prince Andrew seemed, and really was, quite a different, quite a\r
+new man. Where was his spleen, his contempt for life, his\r
+disillusionment? Pierre was the only person to whom he made up his mind\r
+to speak openly; and to him he told all that was in his soul. Now he\r
+boldly and lightly made plans for an extended future, said he could not\r
+sacrifice his own happiness to his father's caprice, and spoke of how he\r
+would either make his father consent to this marriage and love her, or\r
+would do without his consent; then he marveled at the feeling that had\r
+mastered him as at something strange, apart from and independent of\r
+himself.\r
+\r
+"I should not have believed anyone who told me that I was capable of\r
+such love," said Prince Andrew. "It is not at all the same feeling that\r
+I knew in the past. The whole world is now for me divided into two\r
+halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the other\r
+half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and\r
+darkness...."\r
+\r
+"Darkness and gloom," reiterated Pierre: "yes, yes, I understand that."\r
+\r
+"I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault. And I am very\r
+happy! You understand me? I know you are glad for my sake."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," Pierre assented, looking at his friend with a touched and\r
+sad expression in his eyes. The brighter Prince Andrew's lot appeared to\r
+him, the gloomier seemed his own.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew needed his father's consent to his marriage, and to obtain\r
+this he started for the country next day.\r
+\r
+His father received his son's communication with external composure, but\r
+inward wrath. He could not comprehend how anyone could wish to alter his\r
+life or introduce anything new into it, when his own life was already\r
+ending. "If only they would let me end my days as I want to," thought\r
+the old man, "then they might do as they please." With his son, however,\r
+he employed the diplomacy he reserved for important occasions and,\r
+adopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole matter.\r
+\r
+In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards\r
+birth, wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was no longer as young\r
+as he had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress\r
+on this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would\r
+be a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. "Fourthly and finally," the\r
+father said, looking ironically at his son, "I beg you to put it off for\r
+a year: go abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for a German\r
+tutor for Prince Nicholas. Then if your love or passion or obstinacy--as\r
+you please--is still as great, marry! And that's my last word on it.\r
+Mind, the last..." concluded the prince, in a tone which showed that\r
+nothing would make him alter his decision.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feelings, or\r
+his fiancee's, would not stand a year's test, or that he (the old prince\r
+himself) would die before then, and he decided to conform to his\r
+father's wish--to propose, and postpone the wedding for a year.\r
+\r
+Three weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostovs, Prince\r
+Andrew returned to Petersburg.\r
+\r
+Next day after her talk with her mother Natasha expected Bolkonski all\r
+day, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was the same.\r
+Pierre did not come either and Natasha, not knowing that Prince Andrew\r
+had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence to herself.\r
+\r
+Three weeks passed in this way. Natasha had no desire to go out anywhere\r
+and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and listless; she\r
+wept secretly at night and did not go to her mother in the evenings. She\r
+blushed continually and was irritable. It seemed to her that everybody\r
+knew about her disappointment and was laughing at her and pitying her.\r
+Strong as was her inward grief, this wound to her vanity intensified her\r
+misery.\r
+\r
+Once she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly began\r
+to cry. Her tears were those of an offended child who does not know why\r
+it is being punished.\r
+\r
+The countess began to soothe Natasha, who after first listening to her\r
+mother's words, suddenly interrupted her:\r
+\r
+"Leave off, Mamma! I don't think, and don't want to think about it! He\r
+just came and then left off, left off..."\r
+\r
+Her voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but recovered and went\r
+on quietly:\r
+\r
+"And I don't at all want to get married. And I am afraid of him; I have\r
+now become quite calm, quite calm."\r
+\r
+The day after this conversation Natasha put on the old dress which she\r
+knew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness in the\r
+mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she had\r
+abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she went to\r
+the ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud resonance, and\r
+began singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her first exercise\r
+she stood still in the middle of the room and sang a musical phrase that\r
+particularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not\r
+expected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the whole\r
+empty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt\r
+cheerful. "What's the good of making so much of it? Things are nice as\r
+it is," she said to herself, and she began walking up and down the room,\r
+not stepping simply on the resounding parquet but treading with each\r
+step from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and favorite pair of\r
+shoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and creak of the toe\r
+as gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice. Passing a mirror\r
+she glanced into it. "There, that's me!" the expression of her face\r
+seemed to say as she caught sight of herself. "Well, and very nice too!\r
+I need nobody."\r
+\r
+A footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the room but she\r
+would not let him, and having closed the door behind him continued her\r
+walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite mood--love of, and\r
+delight in, herself. "How charming that Natasha is!" she said again,\r
+speaking as some third, collective, male person. "Pretty, a good voice,\r
+young, and in nobody's way if only they leave her in peace." But however\r
+much they left her in peace she could not now be at peace, and\r
+immediately felt this.\r
+\r
+In the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, "At home?" and\r
+then footsteps were heard. Natasha was looking at the mirror, but did\r
+not see herself. She listened to the sounds in the hall. When she saw\r
+herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for certain, though\r
+she hardly heard his voice through the closed doors.\r
+\r
+Pale and agitated, Natasha ran into the drawing room.\r
+\r
+"Mamma! Bolkonski has come!" she said. "Mamma, it is awful, it is\r
+unbearable! I don't want... to be tormented? What am I to do?..."\r
+\r
+Before the countess could answer, Prince Andrew entered the room with an\r
+agitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natasha his face\r
+brightened. He kissed the countess' hand and Natasha's, and sat down\r
+beside the sofa.\r
+\r
+"It is long since we had the pleasure..." began the countess, but Prince\r
+Andrew interrupted her by answering her intended question, obviously in\r
+haste to say what he had to.\r
+\r
+"I have not been to see you all this time because I have been at my\r
+father's. I had to talk over a very important matter with him. I only\r
+got back last night," he said glancing at Natasha; "I want to have a\r
+talk with you, Countess," he added after a moment's pause.\r
+\r
+The countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply.\r
+\r
+"I am at your disposal," she murmured.\r
+\r
+Natasha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to do so:\r
+something gripped her throat, and regardless of manners she stared\r
+straight at Prince Andrew with wide-open eyes.\r
+\r
+"At once? This instant!... No, it can't be!" she thought.\r
+\r
+Again he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that she was not\r
+mistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate would be decided.\r
+\r
+"Go, Natasha! I will call you," said the countess in a whisper.\r
+\r
+Natasha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andrew and at\r
+her mother and went out.\r
+\r
+"I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter's hand," said Prince\r
+Andrew.\r
+\r
+The countess' face flushed hotly, but she said nothing.\r
+\r
+"Your offer..." she began at last sedately. He remained silent, looking\r
+into her eyes. "Your offer..." (she grew confused) "is agreeable to us,\r
+and I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband... I hope... but it\r
+will depend on her...."\r
+\r
+"I will speak to her when I have your consent.... Do you give it to me?"\r
+said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Yes," replied the countess. She held out her hand to him, and with a\r
+mixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness pressed her lips to his\r
+forehead as he stooped to kiss her hand. She wished to love him as a\r
+son, but felt that to her he was a stranger and a terrifying man. "I am\r
+sure my husband will consent," said the countess, "but your father..."\r
+\r
+"My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it an express\r
+condition of his consent that the wedding is not to take place for a\r
+year. And I wished to tell you of that," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"It is true that Natasha is still young, but--so long as that?..."\r
+\r
+"It is unavoidable," said Prince Andrew with a sigh.\r
+\r
+"I will send her to you," said the countess, and left the room.\r
+\r
+"Lord have mercy upon us!" she repeated while seeking her daughter.\r
+\r
+Sonya said that Natasha was in her bedroom. Natasha was sitting on the\r
+bed, pale and dry eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whispering\r
+something as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her mother she jumped\r
+up and flew to her.\r
+\r
+"Well, Mamma?... Well?..."\r
+\r
+"Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand," said the countess, coldly\r
+it seemed to Natasha. "Go... go," said the mother, sadly and\r
+reproachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter ran away.\r
+\r
+Natasha never remembered how she entered the drawing room. When she came\r
+in and saw him she paused. "Is it possible that this stranger has now\r
+become everything to me?" she asked herself, and immediately answered,\r
+"Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me than everything in the\r
+world." Prince Andrew came up to her with downcast eyes.\r
+\r
+"I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. May I hope?"\r
+\r
+He looked at her and was struck by the serious impassioned expression of\r
+her face. Her face said: "Why ask? Why doubt what you cannot but know?\r
+Why speak, when words cannot express what one feels?"\r
+\r
+She drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it.\r
+\r
+"Do you love me?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes!" Natasha murmured as if in vexation. Then she sighed loudly\r
+and, catching her breath more and more quickly, began to sob.\r
+\r
+"What is it? What's the matter?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I am so happy!" she replied, smiled through her tears, bent over\r
+closer to him, paused for an instant as if asking herself whether she\r
+might, and then kissed him.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find in\r
+his heart his former love for her. Something in him had suddenly\r
+changed; there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of\r
+desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear\r
+at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of\r
+the duty that now bound him to her forever. The present feeling, though\r
+not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious.\r
+\r
+"Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?" asked Prince\r
+Andrew, still looking into her eyes.\r
+\r
+"Is it possible that I--the 'chit of a girl,' as everybody called me,"\r
+thought Natasha--"is it possible that I am now to be the wife and the\r
+equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father looks up to?\r
+Can it be true? Can it be true that there can be no more playing with\r
+life, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies a responsibility for\r
+my every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ask me?"\r
+\r
+"No," she replied, but she had not understood his question.\r
+\r
+"Forgive me!" he said. "But you are so young, and I have already been\r
+through so much in life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know\r
+yourself."\r
+\r
+Natasha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing to take\r
+in the meaning of his words.\r
+\r
+"Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be," continued Prince\r
+Andrew, "it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask you to make\r
+me happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall remain a\r
+secret, and should you find that you do not love me, or should you come\r
+to love..." said Prince Andrew with an unnatural smile.\r
+\r
+"Why do you say that?" Natasha interrupted him. "You know that from the\r
+very day you first came to Otradnoe I have loved you," she cried, quite\r
+convinced that she spoke the truth.\r
+\r
+"In a year you will learn to know yourself...."\r
+\r
+"A whole year!" Natasha repeated suddenly, only now realizing that the\r
+marriage was to be postponed for a year. "But why a year? Why a\r
+year?..."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this delay.\r
+Natasha did not hear him.\r
+\r
+"And can't it be helped?" she asked. Prince Andrew did not reply, but\r
+his face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision.\r
+\r
+"It's awful! Oh, it's awful! awful!" Natasha suddenly cried, and again\r
+burst into sobs. "I shall die, waiting a year: it's impossible, it's\r
+awful!" She looked into her lover's face and saw in it a look of\r
+commiseration and perplexity.\r
+\r
+"No, no! I'll do anything!" she said, suddenly checking her tears. "I am\r
+so happy."\r
+\r
+The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed couple\r
+their blessing.\r
+\r
+From that day Prince Andrew began to frequent the Rostovs' as Natasha's\r
+affianced lover.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIV\r
+\r
+No betrothal ceremony took place and Natasha's engagement to Bolkonski\r
+was not announced; Prince Andrew insisted on that. He said that as he\r
+was responsible for the delay he ought to bear the whole burden of it;\r
+that he had given his word and bound himself forever, but that he did\r
+not wish to bind Natasha and gave her perfect freedom. If after six\r
+months she felt that she did not love him she would have full right to\r
+reject him. Naturally neither Natasha nor her parents wished to hear of\r
+this, but Prince Andrew was firm. He came every day to the Rostovs', but\r
+did not behave to Natasha as an affianced lover: he did not use the\r
+familiar thou, but said you to her, and kissed only her hand. After\r
+their engagement, quite different, intimate, and natural relations\r
+sprang up between them. It was as if they had not known each other till\r
+now. Both liked to recall how they had regarded each other when as yet\r
+they were nothing to one another; they felt themselves now quite\r
+different beings: then they were artificial, now natural and sincere. At\r
+first the family felt some constraint in intercourse with Prince Andrew;\r
+he seemed a man from another world, and for a long time Natasha trained\r
+the family to get used to him, proudly assuring them all that he only\r
+appeared to be different, but was really just like all of them, and that\r
+she was not afraid of him and no one else ought to be. After a few days\r
+they grew accustomed to him, and without restraint in his presence\r
+pursued their usual way of life, in which he took his part. He could\r
+talk about rural economy with the count, fashions with the countess and\r
+Natasha, and about albums and fancywork with Sonya. Sometimes the\r
+household both among themselves and in his presence expressed their\r
+wonder at how it had all happened, and at the evident omens there had\r
+been of it: Prince Andrew's coming to Otradnoe and their coming to\r
+Petersburg, and the likeness between Natasha and Prince Andrew which her\r
+nurse had noticed on his first visit, and Andrew's encounter with\r
+Nicholas in 1805, and many other incidents betokening that it had to be.\r
+\r
+In the house that poetic dullness and quiet reigned which always\r
+accompanies the presence of a betrothed couple. Often when all sitting\r
+together everyone kept silent. Sometimes the others would get up and go\r
+away and the couple, left alone, still remained silent. They rarely\r
+spoke of their future life. Prince Andrew was afraid and ashamed to\r
+speak of it. Natasha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she\r
+constantly divined. Once she began questioning him about his son. Prince\r
+Andrew blushed, as he often did now--Natasha particularly liked it in\r
+him--and said that his son would not live with them.\r
+\r
+"Why not?" asked Natasha in a frightened tone.\r
+\r
+"I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and besides..."\r
+\r
+"How I should have loved him!" said Natasha, immediately guessing his\r
+thought; "but I know you wish to avoid any pretext for finding fault\r
+with us."\r
+\r
+Sometimes the old count would come up, kiss Prince Andrew, and ask his\r
+advice about Petya's education or Nicholas' service. The old countess\r
+sighed as she looked at them; Sonya was always getting frightened lest\r
+she should be in the way and tried to find excuses for leaving them\r
+alone, even when they did not wish it. When Prince Andrew spoke (he\r
+could tell a story very well), Natasha listened to him with pride; when\r
+she spoke she noticed with fear and joy that he gazed attentively and\r
+scrutinizingly at her. She asked herself in perplexity: "What does he\r
+look for in me? He is trying to discover something by looking at me!\r
+What if what he seeks in me is not there?" Sometimes she fell into one\r
+of the mad, merry moods characteristic of her, and then she particularly\r
+loved to hear and see how Prince Andrew laughed. He seldom laughed, but\r
+when he did he abandoned himself entirely to his laughter, and after\r
+such a laugh she always felt nearer to him. Natasha would have been\r
+completely happy if the thought of the separation awaiting her and\r
+drawing near had not terrified her, just as the mere thought of it made\r
+him turn pale and cold.\r
+\r
+On the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince Andrew brought with\r
+him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostovs' once since the ball. Pierre\r
+seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the countess, and\r
+Natasha sat down beside a little chess table with Sonya, thereby\r
+inviting Prince Andrew to come too. He did so.\r
+\r
+"You have known Bezukhov a long time?" he asked. "Do you like him?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, he's a dear, but very absurd."\r
+\r
+And as usual when speaking of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes of his\r
+absent-mindedness, some of which had even been invented about him.\r
+\r
+"Do you know I have entrusted him with our secret? I have known him from\r
+childhood. He has a heart of gold. I beg you, Natalie," Prince Andrew\r
+said with sudden seriousness--"I am going away and heaven knows what may\r
+happen. You may cease to... all right, I know I am not to say that. Only\r
+this, then: whatever may happen to you when I am not here..."\r
+\r
+"What can happen?"\r
+\r
+"Whatever trouble may come," Prince Andrew continued, "I beg you,\r
+Mademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone for\r
+advice and help! He is a most absent-minded and absurd fellow, but he\r
+has a heart of gold."\r
+\r
+Neither her father, nor her mother, nor Sonya, nor Prince Andrew himself\r
+could have foreseen how the separation from her lover would act on\r
+Natasha. Flushed and agitated she went about the house all that day,\r
+dry-eyed, occupied with most trivial matters as if not understanding\r
+what awaited her. She did not even cry when, on taking leave, he kissed\r
+her hand for the last time. "Don't go!" she said in a tone that made him\r
+wonder whether he really ought not to stay and which he remembered long\r
+afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but for several days she\r
+sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in anything and only saying\r
+now and then, "Oh, why did he go away?"\r
+\r
+But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around\r
+her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became\r
+her old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a\r
+child gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXV\r
+\r
+During that year after his son's departure, Prince Nicholas Bolkonski's\r
+health and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and\r
+it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits\r
+of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so\r
+as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Mary had two\r
+passions and consequently two joys--her nephew, little Nicholas, and\r
+religion--and these were the favorite subjects of the prince's attacks\r
+and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would bring round to the\r
+superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting and spoiling of children.\r
+"You want to make him"--little Nicholas--"into an old maid like\r
+yourself! A pity! Prince Andrew wants a son and not an old maid," he\r
+would say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in\r
+Princess Mary's presence how she liked our village priests and icons and\r
+would joke about them.\r
+\r
+He continually hurt Princess Mary's feelings and tormented her, but it\r
+cost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame toward her, or\r
+could her father, whom she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust?\r
+And what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word\r
+"justice." All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and\r
+simple law--the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who\r
+lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to\r
+do with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and\r
+love, and that she did.\r
+\r
+During the winter Prince Andrew had come to Bald Hills and had been gay,\r
+gentle, and more affectionate than Princess Mary had known him for a\r
+long time past. She felt that something had happened to him, but he said\r
+nothing to her about his love. Before he left he had a long talk with\r
+his father about something, and Princess Mary noticed that before his\r
+departure they were dissatisfied with one another.\r
+\r
+Soon after Prince Andrew had gone, Princess Mary wrote to her friend\r
+Julie Karagina in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as all girls dream)\r
+of marrying to her brother, and who was at that time in mourning for her\r
+own brother, killed in Turkey.\r
+\r
+Sorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie.\r
+\r
+Your loss is so terrible that I can only explain it to myself as a\r
+special providence of God who, loving you, wishes to try you and your\r
+excellent mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion alone, can--I\r
+will not say comfort us--but save us from despair. Religion alone can\r
+explain to us what without its help man cannot comprehend: why, for what\r
+cause, kind and noble beings able to find happiness in life--not merely\r
+harming no one but necessary to the happiness of others--are called away\r
+to God, while cruel, useless, harmful persons, or such as are a burden\r
+to themselves and to others, are left living. The first death I saw, and\r
+one I shall never forget--that of my dear sister-in-law--left that\r
+impression on me. Just as you ask destiny why your splendid brother had\r
+to die, so I asked why that angel Lise, who not only never wronged\r
+anyone, but in whose soul there were never any unkind thoughts, had to\r
+die. And what do you think, dear friend? Five years have passed since\r
+then, and already I, with my petty understanding, begin to see clearly\r
+why she had to die, and in what way that death was but an expression of\r
+the infinite goodness of the Creator, whose every action, though\r
+generally incomprehensible to us, is but a manifestation of His infinite\r
+love for His creatures. Perhaps, I often think, she was too angelically\r
+innocent to have the strength to perform all a mother's duties. As a\r
+young wife she was irreproachable; perhaps she could not have been so as\r
+a mother. As it is, not only has she left us, and particularly Prince\r
+Andrew, with the purest regrets and memories, but probably she will\r
+there receive a place I dare not hope for myself. But not to speak of\r
+her alone, that early and terrible death has had the most beneficent\r
+influence on me and on my brother in spite of all our grief. Then, at\r
+the moment of our loss, these thoughts could not occur to me; I should\r
+then have dismissed them with horror, but now they are very clear and\r
+certain. I write all this to you, dear friend, only to convince you of\r
+the Gospel truth which has become for me a principle of life: not a\r
+single hair of our heads will fall without His will. And His will is\r
+governed only by infinite love for us, and so whatever befalls us is for\r
+our good.\r
+\r
+You ask whether we shall spend next winter in Moscow. In spite of my\r
+wish to see you, I do not think so and do not want to do so. You will be\r
+surprised to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte! The case is\r
+this: my father's health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand\r
+any contradiction and is becoming irritable. This irritability is, as\r
+you know, chiefly directed to political questions. He cannot endure the\r
+notion that Buonaparte is negotiating on equal terms with all the\r
+sovereigns of Europe and particularly with our own, the grandson of the\r
+Great Catherine! As you know, I am quite indifferent to politics, but\r
+from my father's remarks and his talks with Michael Ivanovich I know all\r
+that goes on in the world and especially about the honors conferred on\r
+Buonaparte, who only at Bald Hills in the whole world, it seems, is not\r
+accepted as a great man, still less as Emperor of France. And my father\r
+cannot stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly because of his\r
+political views that my father is reluctant to speak of going to Moscow;\r
+for he foresees the encounters that would result from his way of\r
+expressing his views regardless of anybody. All the benefit he might\r
+derive from a course of treatment he would lose as a result of the\r
+disputes about Buonaparte which would be inevitable. In any case it will\r
+be decided very shortly.\r
+\r
+Our family life goes on in the old way except for my brother Andrew's\r
+absence. He, as I wrote you before, has changed very much of late. After\r
+his sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits. He has again\r
+become as I used to know him when a child: kind, affectionate, with that\r
+heart of gold to which I know no equal. He has realized, it seems to me,\r
+that life is not over for him. But together with this mental change he\r
+has grown physically much weaker. He has become thinner and more\r
+nervous. I am anxious about him and glad he is taking this trip abroad\r
+which the doctors recommended long ago. I hope it will cure him. You\r
+write that in Petersburg he is spoken of as one of the most active,\r
+cultivated, and capable of the young men. Forgive my vanity as a\r
+relation, but I never doubted it. The good he has done to everybody\r
+here, from his peasants up to the gentry, is incalculable. On his\r
+arrival in Petersburg he received only his due. I always wonder at the\r
+way rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, especially such false ones as\r
+that you write about--I mean the report of my brother's betrothal to the\r
+little Rostova. I do not think my brother will ever marry again, and\r
+certainly not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he rarely\r
+speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss has gone too\r
+deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a successor and our\r
+little angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far as I know, that girl\r
+is not the kind of girl who could please Prince Andrew. I do not think\r
+he would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do not wish it. But I am\r
+running on too long and am at the end of my second sheet. Good-bye, my\r
+dear friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty care. My dear\r
+friend, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses.\r
+\r
+MARY\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVI\r
+\r
+In the middle of the summer Princess Mary received an unexpected letter\r
+from Prince Andrew in Switzerland in which he gave her strange and\r
+surprising news. He informed her of his engagement to Natasha Rostova.\r
+The whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and tender\r
+and confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved\r
+as he did now and that only now did he understand and know what life\r
+was. He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her of his\r
+resolve when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it\r
+to his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Mary should ask her\r
+father to give his consent, irritating him and having to bear the brunt\r
+of his displeasure without attaining her object. "Besides," he wrote,\r
+"the matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now. My father\r
+then insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months, half of\r
+that period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever. If the\r
+doctors did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in Russia, but\r
+as it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You know me and\r
+my relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have been and\r
+always shall be independent; but to go against his will and arouse his\r
+anger, now that he may perhaps remain with us such a short time, would\r
+destroy half my happiness. I am now writing to him about the same\r
+question, and beg you to choose a good moment to hand him the letter and\r
+to let me know how he looks at the whole matter and whether there is\r
+hope that he may consent to reduce the term by four months."\r
+\r
+After long hesitations, doubts, and prayers, Princess Mary gave the\r
+letter to her father. The next day the old prince said to her quietly:\r
+\r
+"Write and tell your brother to wait till I am dead.... It won't be\r
+long--I shall soon set him free."\r
+\r
+The princess was about to reply, but her father would not let her speak\r
+and, raising his voice more and more, cried:\r
+\r
+"Marry, marry, my boy!... A good family!... Clever people, eh? Rich, eh?\r
+Yes, a nice stepmother little Nicholas will have! Write and tell him\r
+that he may marry tomorrow if he likes. She will be little Nicholas'\r
+stepmother and I'll marry Bourienne!... Ha, ha, ha! He mustn't be\r
+without a stepmother either! Only one thing, no more women are wanted in\r
+my house--let him marry and live by himself. Perhaps you will go and\r
+live with him too?" he added, turning to Princess Mary. "Go in heavens\r
+name! Go out into the frost... the frost... the frost!"\r
+\r
+After this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the matter.\r
+But repressed vexation at his son's poor-spirited behavior found\r
+expression in his treatment of his daughter. To his former pretexts for\r
+irony a fresh one was now added--allusions to stepmothers and\r
+amiabilities to Mademoiselle Bourienne.\r
+\r
+"Why shouldn't I marry her?" he asked his daughter. "She'll make a\r
+splendid princess!"\r
+\r
+And latterly, to her surprise and bewilderment, Princess Mary noticed\r
+that her father was really associating more and more with the\r
+Frenchwoman. She wrote to Prince Andrew about the reception of his\r
+letter, but comforted him with hopes of reconciling their father to the\r
+idea.\r
+\r
+Little Nicholas and his education, her brother Andrew, and religion were\r
+Princess Mary's joys and consolations; but besides that, since everyone\r
+must have personal hopes, Princess Mary in the profoundest depths of her\r
+heart had a hidden dream and hope that supplied the chief consolation of\r
+her life. This comforting dream and hope were given her by God's folk--\r
+the half-witted and other pilgrims who visited her without the prince's\r
+knowledge. The longer she lived, the more experience and observation she\r
+had of life, the greater was her wonder at the short-sightedness of men\r
+who seek enjoyment and happiness here on earth: toiling, suffering,\r
+struggling, and harming one another, to obtain that impossible,\r
+visionary, sinful happiness. Prince Andrew had loved his wife, she died,\r
+but that was not enough: he wanted to bind his happiness to another\r
+woman. Her father objected to this because he wanted a more\r
+distinguished and wealthier match for Andrew. And they all struggled and\r
+suffered and tormented one another and injured their souls, their\r
+eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure but for an\r
+instant. Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the Son of God,\r
+came down to earth and told us that this life is but for a moment and is\r
+a probation; yet we cling to it and think to find happiness in it. "How\r
+is it that no one realizes this?" thought Princess Mary. "No one except\r
+these despised God's folk who, wallet on back, come to me by the back\r
+door, afraid of being seen by the prince, not for fear of ill-usage by\r
+him but for fear of causing him to sin. To leave family, home, and all\r
+the cares of worldly welfare, in order without clinging to anything to\r
+wander in hempen rags from place to place under an assumed name, doing\r
+no one any harm but praying for all--for those who drive one away as\r
+well as for those who protect one: higher than that life and truth there\r
+is no life or truth!"\r
+\r
+There was one pilgrim, a quiet pockmarked little woman of fifty called\r
+Theodosia, who for over thirty years had gone about barefoot and worn\r
+heavy chains. Princess Mary was particularly fond of her. Once, when in\r
+a room with a lamp dimly lit before the icon Theodosia was talking of\r
+her life, the thought that Theodosia alone had found the true path of\r
+life suddenly came to Princess Mary with such force that she resolved to\r
+become a pilgrim herself. When Theodosia had gone to sleep Princess Mary\r
+thought about this for a long time, and at last made up her mind that,\r
+strange as it might seem, she must go on a pilgrimage. She disclosed\r
+this thought to no one but to her confessor, Father Akinfi, the monk,\r
+and he approved of her intention. Under guise of a present for the\r
+pilgrims, Princess Mary prepared a pilgrim's complete costume for\r
+herself: a coarse smock, bast shoes, a rough coat, and a black kerchief.\r
+Often, approaching the chest of drawers containing this secret treasure,\r
+Princess Mary paused, uncertain whether the time had not already come to\r
+put her project into execution.\r
+\r
+Often, listening to the pilgrims' tales, she was so stimulated by their\r
+simple speech, mechanical to them but to her so full of deep meaning,\r
+that several times she was on the point of abandoning everything and\r
+running away from home. In imagination she already pictured herself by\r
+Theodosia's side, dressed in coarse rags, walking with a staff, a wallet\r
+on her back, along the dusty road, directing her wanderings from one\r
+saint's shrine to another, free from envy, earthly love, or desire, and\r
+reaching at last the place where there is no more sorrow or sighing, but\r
+eternal joy and bliss.\r
+\r
+"I shall come to a place and pray there, and before having time to get\r
+used to it or getting to love it, I shall go farther. I will go on till\r
+my legs fail, and I'll lie down and die somewhere, and shall at last\r
+reach that eternal, quiet haven, where there is neither sorrow nor\r
+sighing..." thought Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+But afterwards, when she saw her father and especially little Koko\r
+(Nicholas), her resolve weakened. She wept quietly, and felt that she\r
+was a sinner who loved her father and little nephew more than God.\r
+\r
+BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+The Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor--idleness--was a\r
+condition of the first man's blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man has\r
+retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not only\r
+because we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but because\r
+our moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at ease. An\r
+inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man could\r
+find a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling his\r
+duty, he would have found one of the conditions of man's primitive\r
+blessedness. And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness\r
+is the lot of a whole class--the military. The chief attraction of\r
+military service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and\r
+irreproachable idleness.\r
+\r
+Nicholas Rostov experienced this blissful condition to the full when,\r
+after 1807, he continued to serve in the Pavlograd regiment, in which he\r
+already commanded the squadron he had taken over from Denisov.\r
+\r
+Rostov had become a bluff, good-natured fellow, whom his Moscow\r
+acquaintances would have considered rather bad form, but who was liked\r
+and respected by his comrades, subordinates, and superiors, and was well\r
+contented with his life. Of late, in 1809, he found in letters from home\r
+more frequent complaints from his mother that their affairs were falling\r
+into greater and greater disorder, and that it was time for him to come\r
+back to gladden and comfort his old parents.\r
+\r
+Reading these letters, Nicholas felt a dread of their wanting to take\r
+him away from surroundings in which, protected from all the\r
+entanglements of life, he was living so calmly and quietly. He felt that\r
+sooner or later he would have to re-enter that whirlpool of life, with\r
+its embarrassments and affairs to be straightened out, its accounts with\r
+stewards, quarrels, and intrigues, its ties, society, and with Sonya's\r
+love and his promise to her. It was all dreadfully difficult and\r
+complicated; and he replied to his mother in cold, formal letters in\r
+French, beginning: "My dear Mamma," and ending: "Your obedient son,"\r
+which said nothing of when he would return. In 1810 he received letters\r
+from his parents, in which they told him of Natasha's engagement to\r
+Bolkonski, and that the wedding would be in a year's time because the\r
+old prince made difficulties. This letter grieved and mortified\r
+Nicholas. In the first place he was sorry that Natasha, for whom he\r
+cared more than for anyone else in the family, should be lost to the\r
+home; and secondly, from his hussar point of view, he regretted not to\r
+have been there to show that fellow Bolkonski that connection with him\r
+was no such great honor after all, and that if he loved Natasha he might\r
+dispense with permission from his dotard father. For a moment he\r
+hesitated whether he should not apply for leave in order to see Natasha\r
+before she was married, but then came the maneuvers, and considerations\r
+about Sonya and about the confusion of their affairs, and Nicholas again\r
+put it off. But in the spring of that year, he received a letter from\r
+his mother, written without his father's knowledge, and that letter\r
+persuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come and take\r
+matters in hand, their whole property would be sold by auction and they\r
+would all have to go begging. The count was so weak, and trusted Mitenka\r
+so much, and was so good-natured, that everybody took advantage of him\r
+and things were going from bad to worse. "For God's sake, I implore you,\r
+come at once if you do not wish to make me and the whole family\r
+wretched," wrote the countess.\r
+\r
+This letter touched Nicholas. He had that common sense of a matter-of-\r
+fact man which showed him what he ought to do.\r
+\r
+The right thing now was, if not to retire from the service, at any rate\r
+to go home on leave. Why he had to go he did not know; but after his\r
+after-dinner nap he gave orders to saddle Mars, an extremely vicious\r
+gray stallion that had not been ridden for a long time, and when he\r
+returned with the horse all in a lather, he informed Lavrushka\r
+(Denisov's servant who had remained with him) and his comrades who\r
+turned up in the evening that he was applying for leave and was going\r
+home. Difficult and strange as it was for him to reflect that he would\r
+go away without having heard from the staff--and this interested him\r
+extremely--whether he was promoted to a captaincy or would receive the\r
+Order of St. Anne for the last maneuvers; strange as it was to think\r
+that he would go away without having sold his three roans to the Polish\r
+Count Golukhovski, who was bargaining for the horses Rostov had betted\r
+he would sell for two thousand rubles; incomprehensible as it seemed\r
+that the ball the hussars were giving in honor of the Polish\r
+Mademoiselle Przazdziecka (out of rivalry to the uhlans who had given\r
+one in honor of their Polish Mademoiselle Borzozowska) would take place\r
+without him--he knew he must go away from this good, bright world to\r
+somewhere where everything was stupid and confused. A week later he\r
+obtained his leave. His hussar comrades--not only those of his own\r
+regiment, but the whole brigade--gave Rostov a dinner to which the\r
+subscription was fifteen rubles a head, and at which there were two\r
+bands and two choirs of singers. Rostov danced the Trepak with Major\r
+Basov; the tipsy officers tossed, embraced, and dropped Rostov; the\r
+soldiers of the third squadron tossed him too, and shouted "hurrah!" and\r
+then they put him in his sleigh and escorted him as far as the first\r
+post station.\r
+\r
+During the first half of the journey--from Kremenchug to Kiev--all\r
+Rostov's thoughts, as is usual in such cases, were behind him, with the\r
+squadron; but when he had gone more than halfway he began to forget his\r
+three roans and Dozhoyveyko, his quartermaster, and to wonder anxiously\r
+how things would be at Otradnoe and what he would find there. Thoughts\r
+of home grew stronger the nearer he approached it--far stronger, as\r
+though this feeling of his was subject to the law by which the force of\r
+attraction is in inverse proportion to the square of the distance. At\r
+the last post station before Otradnoe he gave the driver a three-ruble\r
+tip, and on arriving he ran breathlessly, like a boy, up the steps of\r
+his home.\r
+\r
+After the rapture of meeting, and after that odd feeling of unsatisfied\r
+expectation--the feeling that "everything is just the same, so why did I\r
+hurry?"--Nicholas began to settle down in his old home world. His father\r
+and mother were much the same, only a little older. What was new in them\r
+was a certain uneasiness and occasional discord, which there used not to\r
+be, and which, as Nicholas soon found out, was due to the bad state of\r
+their affairs. Sonya was nearly twenty; she had stopped growing prettier\r
+and promised nothing more than she was already, but that was enough. She\r
+exhaled happiness and love from the time Nicholas returned, and the\r
+faithful, unalterable love of this girl had a gladdening effect on him.\r
+Petya and Natasha surprised Nicholas most. Petya was a big handsome boy\r
+of thirteen, merry, witty, and mischievous, with a voice that was\r
+already breaking. As for Natasha, for a long while Nicholas wondered and\r
+laughed whenever he looked at her.\r
+\r
+"You're not the same at all," he said.\r
+\r
+"How? Am I uglier?"\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, but what dignity? A princess!" he whispered to her.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Natasha, joyfully.\r
+\r
+She told him about her romance with Prince Andrew and of his visit to\r
+Otradnoe and showed him his last letter.\r
+\r
+"Well, are you glad?" Natasha asked. "I am so tranquil and happy now."\r
+\r
+"Very glad," answered Nicholas. "He is an excellent fellow.... And are\r
+you very much in love?"\r
+\r
+"How shall I put it?" replied Natasha. "I was in love with Boris, with\r
+my teacher, and with Denisov, but this is quite different. I feel at\r
+peace and settled. I know that no better man than he exists, and I am\r
+calm and contented now. Not at all as before."\r
+\r
+Nicholas expressed his disapproval of the postponement of the marriage\r
+for a year; but Natasha attacked her brother with exasperation, proving\r
+to him that it could not be otherwise, and that it would be a bad thing\r
+to enter a family against the father's will, and that she herself wished\r
+it so.\r
+\r
+"You don't at all understand," she said.\r
+\r
+Nicholas was silent and agreed with her.\r
+\r
+Her brother often wondered as he looked at her. She did not seem at all\r
+like a girl in love and parted from her affianced husband. She was even-\r
+tempered and calm and quite as cheerful as of old. This amazed Nicholas\r
+and even made him regard Bolkonski's courtship skeptically. He could not\r
+believe that her fate was sealed, especially as he had not seen her with\r
+Prince Andrew. It always seemed to him that there was something not\r
+quite right about this intended marriage.\r
+\r
+"Why this delay? Why no betrothal?" he thought. Once, when he had\r
+touched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise\r
+and somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too\r
+had doubts about this marriage.\r
+\r
+"You see he writes," said she, showing her son a letter of Prince\r
+Andrew's, with that latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a\r
+daughter's future married happiness, "he writes that he won't come\r
+before December. What can be keeping him? Illness, probably! His health\r
+is very delicate. Don't tell Natasha. And don't attach importance to her\r
+being so bright: that's because she's living through the last days of\r
+her girlhood, but I know what she is like every time we receive a letter\r
+from him! However, God grant that everything turns out well!" (She\r
+always ended with these words.) "He is an excellent man!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+After reaching home Nicholas was at first serious and even dull. He was\r
+worried by the impending necessity of interfering in the stupid business\r
+matters for which his mother had called him home. To throw off this\r
+burden as quickly as possible, on the third day after his arrival he\r
+went, angry and scowling and without answering questions as to where he\r
+was going, to Mitenka's lodge and demanded an account of everything. But\r
+what an account of everything might be Nicholas knew even less than the\r
+frightened and bewildered Mitenka. The conversation and the examination\r
+of the accounts with Mitenka did not last long. The village elder, a\r
+peasant delegate, and the village clerk, who were waiting in the\r
+passage, heard with fear and delight first the young count's voice\r
+roaring and snapping and rising louder and louder, and then words of\r
+abuse, dreadful words, ejaculated one after the other.\r
+\r
+"Robber!... Ungrateful wretch!... I'll hack the dog to pieces! I'm not\r
+my father!... Robbing us!..." and so on.\r
+\r
+Then with no less fear and delight they saw how the young count, red in\r
+the face and with bloodshot eyes, dragged Mitenka out by the scruff of\r
+the neck and applied his foot and knee to his behind with great agility\r
+at convenient moments between the words, shouting, "Be off! Never let me\r
+see your face here again, you villain!"\r
+\r
+Mitenka flew headlong down the six steps and ran away into the\r
+shrubbery. (This shrubbery was a well-known haven of refuge for culprits\r
+at Otradnoe. Mitenka himself, returning tipsy from the town, used to\r
+hide there, and many of the residents at Otradnoe, hiding from Mitenka,\r
+knew of its protective qualities.)\r
+\r
+Mitenka's wife and sisters-in-law thrust their heads and frightened\r
+faces out of the door of a room where a bright samovar was boiling and\r
+where the steward's high bedstead stood with its patchwork quilt.\r
+\r
+The young count paid no heed to them, but, breathing hard, passed by\r
+with resolute strides and went into the house.\r
+\r
+The countess, who heard at once from the maids what had happened at the\r
+lodge, was calmed by the thought that now their affairs would certainly\r
+improve, but on the other hand felt anxious as to the effect this\r
+excitement might have on her son. She went several times to his door on\r
+tiptoe and listened, as he lighted one pipe after another.\r
+\r
+Next day the old count called his son aside and, with an embarrassed\r
+smile, said to him:\r
+\r
+"But you know, my dear boy, it's a pity you got excited! Mitenka has\r
+told me all about it."\r
+\r
+"I knew," thought Nicholas, "that I should never understand anything in\r
+this crazy world."\r
+\r
+"You were angry that he had not entered those 700 rubles. But they were\r
+carried forward--and you did not look at the other page."\r
+\r
+"Papa, he is a blackguard and a thief! I know he is! And what I have\r
+done, I have done; but, if you like, I won't speak to him again."\r
+\r
+"No, my dear boy" (the count, too, felt embarrassed. He knew he had\r
+mismanaged his wife's property and was to blame toward his children, but\r
+he did not know how to remedy it). "No, I beg you to attend to the\r
+business. I am old. I..."\r
+\r
+"No, Papa. Forgive me if I have caused you unpleasantness. I understand\r
+it all less than you do."\r
+\r
+"Devil take all these peasants, and money matters, and carryings forward\r
+from page to page," he thought. "I used to understand what a 'corner'\r
+and the stakes at cards meant, but carrying forward to another page I\r
+don't understand at all," said he to himself, and after that he did not\r
+meddle in business affairs. But once the countess called her son and\r
+informed him that she had a promissory note from Anna Mikhaylovna for\r
+two thousand rubles, and asked him what he thought of doing with it.\r
+\r
+"This," answered Nicholas. "You say it rests with me. Well, I don't like\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna and I don't like Boris, but they were our friends and\r
+poor. Well then, this!" and he tore up the note, and by so doing caused\r
+the old countess to weep tears of joy. After that, young Rostov took no\r
+further part in any business affairs, but devoted himself with\r
+passionate enthusiasm to what was to him a new pursuit--the chase--for\r
+which his father kept a large establishment.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+The weather was already growing wintry and morning frosts congealed an\r
+earth saturated by autumn rains. The verdure had thickened and its\r
+bright green stood out sharply against the brownish strips of winter rye\r
+trodden down by the cattle, and against the pale-yellow stubble of the\r
+spring buckwheat. The wooded ravines and the copses, which at the end of\r
+August had still been green islands amid black fields and stubble, had\r
+become golden and bright-red islands amid the green winter rye. The\r
+hares had already half changed their summer coats, the fox cubs were\r
+beginning to scatter, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs. It was\r
+the best time of the year for the chase. The hounds of that ardent young\r
+sportsman Rostov had not merely reached hard winter condition, but were\r
+so jaded that at a meeting of the huntsmen it was decided to give them a\r
+three days' rest and then, on the sixteenth of September, to go on a\r
+distant expedition, starting from the oak grove where there was an\r
+undisturbed litter of wolf cubs.\r
+\r
+All that day the hounds remained at home. It was frosty and the air was\r
+sharp, but toward evening the sky became overcast and it began to thaw.\r
+On the fifteenth, when young Rostov, in his dressing gown, looked out of\r
+the window, he saw it was an unsurpassable morning for hunting: it was\r
+as if the sky were melting and sinking to the earth without any wind.\r
+The only motion in the air was that of the dripping, microscopic\r
+particles of drizzling mist. The bare twigs in the garden were hung with\r
+transparent drops which fell on the freshly fallen leaves. The earth in\r
+the kitchen garden looked wet and black and glistened like poppy seed\r
+and at a short distance merged into the dull, moist veil of mist.\r
+Nicholas went out into the wet and muddy porch. There was a smell of\r
+decaying leaves and of dog. Milka, a black-spotted, broad-haunched bitch\r
+with prominent black eyes, got up on seeing her master, stretched her\r
+hind legs, lay down like a hare, and then suddenly jumped up and licked\r
+him right on his nose and mustache. Another borzoi, a dog, catching\r
+sight of his master from the garden path, arched his back and, rushing\r
+headlong toward the porch with lifted tail, began rubbing himself\r
+against his legs.\r
+\r
+"O-hoy!" came at that moment, that inimitable huntsman's call which\r
+unites the deepest bass with the shrillest tenor, and round the corner\r
+came Daniel the head huntsman and head kennelman, a gray, wrinkled old\r
+man with hair cut straight over his forehead, Ukrainian fashion, a long\r
+bent whip in his hand, and that look of independence and scorn of\r
+everything that is only seen in huntsmen. He doffed his Circassian cap\r
+to his master and looked at him scornfully. This scorn was not offensive\r
+to his master. Nicholas knew that this Daniel, disdainful of everybody\r
+and who considered himself above them, was all the same his serf and\r
+huntsman.\r
+\r
+"Daniel!" Nicholas said timidly, conscious at the sight of the weather,\r
+the hounds, and the huntsman that he was being carried away by that\r
+irresistible passion for sport which makes a man forget all his previous\r
+resolutions, as a lover forgets in the presence of his mistress.\r
+\r
+"What orders, your excellency?" said the huntsman in his deep bass, deep\r
+as a proto-deacon's and hoarse with hallooing--and two flashing black\r
+eyes gazed from under his brows at his master, who was silent. "Can you\r
+resist it?" those eyes seemed to be asking.\r
+\r
+"It's a good day, eh? For a hunt and a gallop, eh?" asked Nicholas,\r
+scratching Milka behind the ears.\r
+\r
+Daniel did not answer, but winked instead.\r
+\r
+"I sent Uvarka at dawn to listen," his bass boomed out after a minute's\r
+pause. "He says she's moved them into the Otradnoe enclosure. They were\r
+howling there." (This meant that the she-wolf, about whom they both\r
+knew, had moved with her cubs to the Otradnoe copse, a small place a\r
+mile and a half from the house.)\r
+\r
+"We ought to go, don't you think so?" said Nicholas. "Come to me with\r
+Uvarka."\r
+\r
+"As you please."\r
+\r
+"Then put off feeding them."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+Five minutes later Daniel and Uvarka were standing in Nicholas' big\r
+study. Though Daniel was not a big man, to see him in a room was like\r
+seeing a horse or a bear on the floor among the furniture and\r
+surroundings of human life. Daniel himself felt this, and as usual stood\r
+just inside the door, trying to speak softly and not move, for fear of\r
+breaking something in the master's apartment, and he hastened to say all\r
+that was necessary so as to get from under that ceiling, out into the\r
+open under the sky once more.\r
+\r
+Having finished his inquiries and extorted from Daniel an opinion that\r
+the hounds were fit (Daniel himself wished to go hunting), Nicholas\r
+ordered the horses to be saddled. But just as Daniel was about to go\r
+Natasha came in with rapid steps, not having done up her hair or\r
+finished dressing and with her old nurse's big shawl wrapped round her.\r
+Petya ran in at the same time.\r
+\r
+"You are going?" asked Natasha. "I knew you would! Sonya said you\r
+wouldn't go, but I knew that today is the sort of day when you couldn't\r
+help going."\r
+\r
+"Yes, we are going," replied Nicholas reluctantly, for today, as he\r
+intended to hunt seriously, he did not want to take Natasha and Petya.\r
+"We are going, but only wolf hunting: it would be dull for you."\r
+\r
+"You know it is my greatest pleasure," said Natasha. "It's not fair; you\r
+are going by yourself, are having the horses saddled and said nothing to\r
+us about it."\r
+\r
+"'No barrier bars a Russian's path'--we'll go!" shouted Petya.\r
+\r
+"But you can't. Mamma said you mustn't," said Nicholas to Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I'll go. I shall certainly go," said Natasha decisively. "Daniel,\r
+tell them to saddle for us, and Michael must come with my dogs," she\r
+added to the huntsman.\r
+\r
+It seemed to Daniel irksome and improper to be in a room at all, but to\r
+have anything to do with a young lady seemed to him impossible. He cast\r
+down his eyes and hurried out as if it were none of his business,\r
+careful as he went not to inflict any accidental injury on the young\r
+lady.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+The old count, who had always kept up an enormous hunting establishment\r
+but had now handed it all completely over to his son's care, being in\r
+very good spirits on this fifteenth of September, prepared to go out\r
+with the others.\r
+\r
+In an hour's time the whole hunting party was at the porch. Nicholas,\r
+with a stern and serious air which showed that now was no time for\r
+attending to trifles, went past Natasha and Petya who were trying to\r
+tell him something. He had a look at all the details of the hunt, sent a\r
+pack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to find the quarry, mounted his\r
+chestnut Donets, and whistling to his own leash of borzois, set off\r
+across the threshing ground to a field leading to the Otradnoe wood. The\r
+old count's horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyanka, was led by the\r
+groom in attendance on him, while the count himself was to drive in a\r
+small trap straight to a spot reserved for him.\r
+\r
+They were taking fifty-four hounds, with six hunt attendants and\r
+whippers-in. Besides the family, there were eight borzoi kennelmen and\r
+more than forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on the leash\r
+belonging to members of the family, there were about a hundred and\r
+thirty dogs and twenty horsemen.\r
+\r
+Each dog knew its master and its call. Each man in the hunt knew his\r
+business, his place, what he had to do. As soon as they had passed the\r
+fence they all spread out evenly and quietly, without noise or talk,\r
+along the road and field leading to the Otradnoe covert.\r
+\r
+The horses stepped over the field as over a thick carpet, now and then\r
+splashing into puddles as they crossed a road. The misty sky still\r
+seemed to descend evenly and imperceptibly toward the earth, the air was\r
+still, warm, and silent. Occasionally the whistle of a huntsman, the\r
+snort of a horse, the crack of a whip, or the whine of a straggling\r
+hound could be heard.\r
+\r
+When they had gone a little less than a mile, five more riders with dogs\r
+appeared out of the mist, approaching the Rostovs. In front rode a\r
+fresh-looking, handsome old man with a large gray mustache.\r
+\r
+"Good morning, Uncle!" said Nicholas, when the old man drew near.\r
+\r
+"That's it. Come on!... I was sure of it," began "Uncle." (He was a\r
+distant relative of the Rostovs', a man of small means, and their\r
+neighbor.) "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist it and it's a good\r
+thing you're going. That's it! Come on!" (This was "Uncle's" favorite\r
+expression.) "Take the covert at once, for my Girchik says the Ilagins\r
+are at Korniki with their hounds. That's it. Come on!... They'll take\r
+the cubs from under your very nose."\r
+\r
+"That's where I'm going. Shall we join up our packs?" asked Nicholas.\r
+\r
+The hounds were joined into one pack, and "Uncle" and Nicholas rode on\r
+side by side. Natasha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide her eager\r
+face and shining eyes, galloped up to them. She was followed by Petya\r
+who always kept close to her, by Michael, a huntsman, and by a groom\r
+appointed to look after her. Petya, who was laughing, whipped and pulled\r
+at his horse. Natasha sat easily and confidently on her black Arabchik\r
+and reined him in without effort with a firm hand.\r
+\r
+"Uncle" looked round disapprovingly at Petya and Natasha. He did not\r
+like to combine frivolity with the serious business of hunting.\r
+\r
+"Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!" shouted Petya.\r
+\r
+"Good morning, good morning! But don't go overriding the hounds," said\r
+"Uncle" sternly.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas, what a fine dog Trunila is! He knew me," said Natasha,\r
+referring to her favorite hound.\r
+\r
+"In the first place, Trunila is not a 'dog,' but a harrier," thought\r
+Nicholas, and looked sternly at his sister, trying to make her feel the\r
+distance that ought to separate them at that moment. Natasha understood\r
+it.\r
+\r
+"You mustn't think we'll be in anyone's way, Uncle," she said. "We'll go\r
+to our places and won't budge."\r
+\r
+"A good thing too, little countess," said "Uncle," "only mind you don't\r
+fall off your horse," he added, "because--that's it, come on!--you've\r
+nothing to hold on to."\r
+\r
+The oasis of the Otradnoe covert came in sight a few hundred yards off,\r
+the huntsmen were already nearing it. Rostov, having finally settled\r
+with "Uncle" where they should set on the hounds, and having shown\r
+Natasha where she was to stand--a spot where nothing could possibly run\r
+out--went round above the ravine.\r
+\r
+"Well, nephew, you're going for a big wolf," said "Uncle." "Mind and\r
+don't let her slip!"\r
+\r
+"That's as may happen," answered Rostov. "Karay, here!" he shouted,\r
+answering "Uncle's" remark by this call to his borzoi. Karay was a\r
+shaggy old dog with a hanging jowl, famous for having tackled a big wolf\r
+unaided. They all took up their places.\r
+\r
+The old count, knowing his son's ardor in the hunt, hurried so as not to\r
+be late, and the huntsmen had not yet reached their places when Count\r
+Ilya Rostov, cheerful, flushed, and with quivering cheeks, drove up with\r
+his black horses over the winter rye to the place reserved for him,\r
+where a wolf might come out. Having straightened his coat and fastened\r
+on his hunting knives and horn, he mounted his good, sleek, well-fed,\r
+and comfortable horse, Viflyanka, which was turning gray, like himself.\r
+His horses and trap were sent home. Count Ilya Rostov, though not at\r
+heart a keen sportsman, knew the rules of the hunt well, and rode to the\r
+bushy edge of the road where he was to stand, arranged his reins,\r
+settled himself in the saddle, and, feeling that he was ready, looked\r
+about with a smile.\r
+\r
+Beside him was Simon Chekmar, his personal attendant, an old horseman\r
+now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmar held in leash three formidable\r
+wolfhounds, who had, however, grown fat like their master and his horse.\r
+Two wise old dogs lay down unleashed. Some hundred paces farther along\r
+the edge of the wood stood Mitka, the count's other groom, a daring\r
+horseman and keen rider to hounds. Before the hunt, by old custom, the\r
+count had drunk a silver cupful of mulled brandy, taken a snack, and\r
+washed it down with half a bottle of his favorite Bordeaux.\r
+\r
+He was somewhat flushed with the wine and the drive. His eyes were\r
+rather moist and glittered more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle,\r
+wrapped up in his fur coat, he looked like a child taken out for an\r
+outing.\r
+\r
+The thin, hollow-cheeked Chekmar, having got everything ready, kept\r
+glancing at his master with whom he had lived on the best of terms for\r
+thirty years, and understanding the mood he was in expected a pleasant\r
+chat. A third person rode up circumspectly through the wood (it was\r
+plain that he had had a lesson) and stopped behind the count. This\r
+person was a gray-bearded old man in a woman's cloak, with a tall peaked\r
+cap on his head. He was the buffoon, who went by a woman's name,\r
+Nastasya Ivanovna.\r
+\r
+"Well, Nastasya Ivanovna!" whispered the count, winking at him. "If you\r
+scare away the beast, Daniel'll give it you!"\r
+\r
+"I know a thing or two myself!" said Nastasya Ivanovna.\r
+\r
+"Hush!" whispered the count and turned to Simon. "Have you seen the\r
+young countess?" he asked. "Where is she?"\r
+\r
+"With young Count Peter, by the Zharov rank grass," answered Simon,\r
+smiling. "Though she's a lady, she's very fond of hunting."\r
+\r
+"And you're surprised at the way she rides, Simon, eh?" said the count.\r
+"She's as good as many a man!"\r
+\r
+"Of course! It's marvelous. So bold, so easy!"\r
+\r
+"And Nicholas? Where is he? By the Lyadov upland, isn't he?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so well\r
+that Daniel and I are often quite astounded," said Simon, well knowing\r
+what would please his master.\r
+\r
+"Rides well, eh? And how well he looks on his horse, eh?"\r
+\r
+"A perfect picture! How he chased a fox out of the rank grass by the\r
+Zavarzinsk thicket the other day! Leaped a fearful place; what a sight\r
+when they rushed from the covert... the horse worth a thousand rubles\r
+and the rider beyond all price! Yes, one would have to search far to\r
+find another as smart."\r
+\r
+"To search far..." repeated the count, evidently sorry Simon had not\r
+said more. "To search far," he said, turning back the skirt of his coat\r
+to get at his snuffbox.\r
+\r
+"The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform, Michael\r
+Sidorych..." Simon did not finish, for on the still air he had\r
+distinctly caught the music of the hunt with only two or three hounds\r
+giving tongue. He bent down his head and listened, shaking a warning\r
+finger at his master. "They are on the scent of the cubs..." he\r
+whispered, "straight to the Lyadov uplands."\r
+\r
+The count, forgetting to smooth out the smile on his face, looked into\r
+the distance straight before him, down the narrow open space, holding\r
+the snuffbox in his hand but not taking any. After the cry of the hounds\r
+came the deep tones of the wolf call from Daniel's hunting horn; the\r
+pack joined the first three hounds and they could be heard in full cry,\r
+with that peculiar lift in the note that indicates that they are after a\r
+wolf. The whippers-in no longer set on the hounds, but changed to the\r
+cry of ulyulyu, and above the others rose Daniel's voice, now a deep\r
+bass, now piercingly shrill. His voice seemed to fill the whole wood and\r
+carried far beyond out into the open field.\r
+\r
+After listening a few moments in silence, the count and his attendant\r
+convinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the\r
+sound of the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in\r
+the distance, the other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and it\r
+was with this that Daniel's voice was heard calling ulyulyu. The sounds\r
+of both packs mingled and broke apart again, but both were becoming more\r
+distant.\r
+\r
+Simon sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi had\r
+entangled; the count too sighed and, noticing the snuffbox in his hand,\r
+opened it and took a pinch. "Back!" cried Simon to a borzoi that was\r
+pushing forward out of the wood. The count started and dropped the\r
+snuffbox. Nastasya Ivanovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and\r
+Simon were looking at him.\r
+\r
+Then, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt suddenly\r
+approached, as if the hounds in full cry and Daniel ulyulyuing were just\r
+in front of them.\r
+\r
+The count turned and saw on his right Mitka staring at him with eyes\r
+starting out of his head, raising his cap and pointing before him to the\r
+other side.\r
+\r
+"Look out!" he shouted, in a voice plainly showing that he had long\r
+fretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped\r
+toward the count.\r
+\r
+The count and Simon galloped out of the wood and saw on their left a\r
+wolf which, softly swaying from side to side, was coming at a quiet lope\r
+farther to the left to the very place where they were standing. The\r
+angry borzois whined and getting free of the leash rushed past the\r
+horses' feet at the wolf.\r
+\r
+The wolf paused, turned its heavy forehead toward the dogs awkwardly,\r
+like a man suffering from the quinsy, and, still slightly swaying from\r
+side to side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of its tail\r
+disappeared into the skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with a cry\r
+like a wail, first one hound, then another, and then another, sprang\r
+helter-skelter from the wood opposite and the whole pack rushed across\r
+the field toward the very spot where the wolf had disappeared. The hazel\r
+bushes parted behind the hounds and Daniel's chestnut horse appeared,\r
+dark with sweat. On its long back sat Daniel, hunched forward, capless,\r
+his disheveled gray hair hanging over his flushed, perspiring face.\r
+\r
+"Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu!..." he cried. When he caught sight of the count\r
+his eyes flashed lightning.\r
+\r
+"Blast you!" he shouted, holding up his whip threateningly at the count.\r
+\r
+"You've let the wolf go!... What sportsmen!" and as if scorning to say\r
+more to the frightened and shamefaced count, he lashed the heaving\r
+flanks of his sweating chestnut gelding with all the anger the count had\r
+aroused and flew off after the hounds. The count, like a punished\r
+schoolboy, looked round, trying by a smile to win Simon's sympathy for\r
+his plight. But Simon was no longer there. He was galloping round by the\r
+bushes while the field was coming up on both sides, all trying to head\r
+the wolf, but it vanished into the wood before they could do so.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+Nicholas Rostov meanwhile remained at his post, waiting for the wolf. By\r
+the way the hunt approached and receded, by the cries of the dogs whose\r
+notes were familiar to him, by the way the voices of the huntsmen\r
+approached, receded, and rose, he realized what was happening at the\r
+copse. He knew that young and old wolves were there, that the hounds had\r
+separated into two packs, that somewhere a wolf was being chased, and\r
+that something had gone wrong. He expected the wolf to come his way any\r
+moment. He made thousands of different conjectures as to where and from\r
+what side the beast would come and how he would set upon it. Hope\r
+alternated with despair. Several times he addressed a prayer to God that\r
+the wolf should come his way. He prayed with that passionate and\r
+shamefaced feeling with which men pray at moments of great excitement\r
+arising from trivial causes. "What would it be to Thee to do this for\r
+me?" he said to God. "I know Thou art great, and that it is a sin to ask\r
+this of Thee, but for God's sake do let the old wolf come my way and let\r
+Karay spring at it--in sight of 'Uncle' who is watching from over there-\r
+-and seize it by the throat in a death grip!" A thousand times during\r
+that half-hour Rostov cast eager and restless glances over the edge of\r
+the wood, with the two scraggy oaks rising above the aspen undergrowth\r
+and the gully with its water-worn side and "Uncle's" cap just visible\r
+above the bush on his right.\r
+\r
+"No, I shan't have such luck," thought Rostov, "yet what wouldn't it be\r
+worth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in war, I am always\r
+unlucky." Memories of Austerlitz and of Dolokhov flashed rapidly and\r
+clearly through his mind. "Only once in my life to get an old wolf, I\r
+want only that!" thought he, straining eyes and ears and looking to the\r
+left and then to the right and listening to the slightest variation of\r
+note in the cries of the dogs.\r
+\r
+Again he looked to the right and saw something running toward him across\r
+the deserted field. "No, it can't be!" thought Rostov, taking a deep\r
+breath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped for. The\r
+height of happiness was reached--and so simply, without warning, or\r
+noise, or display, that Rostov could not believe his eyes and remained\r
+in doubt for over a second. The wolf ran forward and jumped heavily over\r
+a gully that lay in her path. She was an old animal with a gray back and\r
+big reddish belly. She ran without hurry, evidently feeling sure that no\r
+one saw her. Rostov, holding his breath, looked round at the borzois.\r
+They stood or lay not seeing the wolf or understanding the situation.\r
+Old Karay had turned his head and was angrily searching for fleas,\r
+baring his yellow teeth and snapping at his hind legs.\r
+\r
+"Ulyulyulyu!" whispered Rostov, pouting his lips. The borzois jumped up,\r
+jerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears. Karay finished\r
+scratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got up with quivering\r
+tail from which tufts of matted hair hung down.\r
+\r
+"Shall I loose them or not?" Nicholas asked himself as the wolf\r
+approached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf's whole\r
+physiognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably never\r
+seen before--human eyes fixed upon her--and turning her head a little\r
+toward Rostov, she paused.\r
+\r
+"Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward..." the wolf seemed to say to\r
+herself, and she moved forward without again looking round and with a\r
+quiet, long, easy yet resolute lope.\r
+\r
+"Ulyulyu!" cried Nicholas, in a voice not his own, and of its own accord\r
+his good horse darted headlong downhill, leaping over gullies to head\r
+off the wolf, and the borzois passed it, running faster still. Nicholas\r
+did not hear his own cry nor feel that he was galloping, nor see the\r
+borzois, nor the ground over which he went: he saw only the wolf, who,\r
+increasing her speed, bounded on in the same direction along the hollow.\r
+The first to come into view was Milka, with her black markings and\r
+powerful quarters, gaining upon the wolf. Nearer and nearer... now she\r
+was ahead of it; but the wolf turned its head to face her, and instead\r
+of putting on speed as she usually did Milka suddenly raised her tail\r
+and stiffened her forelegs.\r
+\r
+"Ulyulyulyulyu!" shouted Nicholas.\r
+\r
+The reddish Lyubim rushed forward from behind Milka, sprang impetuously\r
+at the wolf, and seized it by its hindquarters, but immediately jumped\r
+aside in terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed her teeth, and again rose\r
+and bounded forward, followed at the distance of a couple of feet by all\r
+the borzois, who did not get any closer to her.\r
+\r
+"She'll get away! No, it's impossible!" thought Nicholas, still shouting\r
+with a hoarse voice.\r
+\r
+"Karay, ulyulyu!..." he shouted, looking round for the old borzoi who\r
+was now his only hope. Karay, with all the strength age had left him,\r
+stretched himself to the utmost and, watching the wolf, galloped heavily\r
+aside to intercept it. But the quickness of the wolf's lope and the\r
+borzoi's slower pace made it plain that Karay had miscalculated.\r
+Nicholas could already see not far in front of him the wood where the\r
+wolf would certainly escape should she reach it. But, coming toward him,\r
+he saw hounds and a huntsman galloping almost straight at the wolf.\r
+There was still hope. A long, yellowish young borzoi, one Nicholas did\r
+not know, from another leash, rushed impetuously at the wolf from in\r
+front and almost knocked her over. But the wolf jumped up more quickly\r
+than anyone could have expected and, gnashing her teeth, flew at the\r
+yellowish borzoi, which, with a piercing yelp, fell with its head on the\r
+ground, bleeding from a gash in its side.\r
+\r
+"Karay? Old fellow!..." wailed Nicholas.\r
+\r
+Thanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf's path, the old\r
+dog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within five paces of\r
+it. As if aware of her danger, the wolf turned her eyes on Karay, tucked\r
+her tail yet further between her legs, and increased her speed. But here\r
+Nicholas only saw that something happened to Karay--the borzoi was\r
+suddenly on the wolf, and they rolled together down into a gully just in\r
+front of them.\r
+\r
+That instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully with\r
+the dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and\r
+outstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears\r
+laid back (Karay was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest moment\r
+of his life. With his hand on his saddlebow, he was ready to dismount\r
+and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up from among that\r
+mass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge of the gully. She\r
+clicked her teeth (Karay no longer had her by the throat), leaped with a\r
+movement of her hind legs out of the gully, and having disengaged\r
+herself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again, went forward. Karay,\r
+his hair bristling, and probably bruised or wounded, climbed with\r
+difficulty out of the gully.\r
+\r
+"Oh my God! Why?" Nicholas cried in despair.\r
+\r
+"Uncle's" huntsman was galloping from the other side across the wolf's\r
+path and his borzois once more stopped the animal's advance. She was\r
+again hemmed in.\r
+\r
+Nicholas and his attendant, with "Uncle" and his huntsman, were all\r
+riding round the wolf, crying "ulyulyu!" shouting and preparing to\r
+dismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting forward\r
+again every time she shook herself and moved toward the wood where she\r
+would be safe.\r
+\r
+Already, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the ulyulyuing,\r
+had rushed out from the wood. He saw Karay seize the wolf, and checked\r
+his horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when he saw that the\r
+horsemen did not dismount and that the wolf shook herself and ran for\r
+safety, Daniel set his chestnut galloping, not at the wolf but straight\r
+toward the wood, just as Karay had run to cut the animal off. As a\r
+result of this, he galloped up to the wolf just when she had been\r
+stopped a second time by "Uncle's" borzois.\r
+\r
+Daniel galloped up silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand and\r
+thrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip as if\r
+it were a flail.\r
+\r
+Nicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel until the chestnut, breathing\r
+heavily, panted past him, and he heard the fall of a body and saw Daniel\r
+lying on the wolf's back among the dogs, trying to seize her by the\r
+ears. It was evident to the dogs, the hunters, and to the wolf herself\r
+that all was now over. The terrified wolf pressed back her ears and\r
+tried to rise, but the borzois stuck to her. Daniel rose a little, took\r
+a step, and with his whole weight, as if lying down to rest, fell on the\r
+wolf, seizing her by the ears. Nicholas was about to stab her, but\r
+Daniel whispered, "Don't! We'll gag her!" and, changing his position,\r
+set his foot on the wolf's neck. A stick was thrust between her jaws and\r
+she was fastened with a leash, as if bridled, her legs were bound\r
+together, and Daniel rolled her over once or twice from side to side.\r
+\r
+With happy, exhausted faces, they laid the old wolf, alive, on a shying\r
+and snorting horse and, accompanied by the dogs yelping at her, took her\r
+to the place where they were all to meet. The hounds had killed two of\r
+the cubs and the borzois three. The huntsmen assembled with their booty\r
+and their stories, and all came to look at the wolf, which, with her\r
+broad-browed head hanging down and the bitten stick between her jaws,\r
+gazed with great glassy eyes at this crowd of dogs and men surrounding\r
+her. When she was touched, she jerked her bound legs and looked wildly\r
+yet simply at everybody. Old Count Rostov also rode up and touched the\r
+wolf.\r
+\r
+"Oh, what a formidable one!" said he. "A formidable one, eh?" he asked\r
+Daniel, who was standing near.\r
+\r
+"Yes, your excellency," answered Daniel, quickly doffing his cap.\r
+\r
+The count remembered the wolf he had let slip and his encounter with\r
+Daniel.\r
+\r
+"Ah, but you are a crusty fellow, friend!" said the count.\r
+\r
+For sole reply Daniel gave him a shy, childlike, meek, and amiable\r
+smile.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+The old count went home, and Natasha and Petya promised to return very\r
+soon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther. At midday they\r
+put the hounds into a ravine thickly overgrown with young trees.\r
+Nicholas standing in a fallow field could see all his whips.\r
+\r
+Facing him lay a field of winter rye, there his own huntsman stood alone\r
+in a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely been loosed\r
+before Nicholas heard one he knew, Voltorn, giving tongue at intervals;\r
+other hounds joined in, now pausing and now again giving tongue. A\r
+moment later he heard a cry from the wooded ravine that a fox had been\r
+found, and the whole pack, joining together, rushed along the ravine\r
+toward the ryefield and away from Nicholas.\r
+\r
+He saw the whips in their red caps galloping along the edge of the\r
+ravine, he even saw the hounds, and was expecting a fox to show itself\r
+at any moment on the ryefield opposite.\r
+\r
+The huntsman standing in the hollow moved and loosed his borzois, and\r
+Nicholas saw a queer, short-legged red fox with a fine brush going hard\r
+across the field. The borzois bore down on it.... Now they drew close to\r
+the fox which began to dodge between the field in sharper and sharper\r
+curves, trailing its brush, when suddenly a strange white borzoi dashed\r
+in followed by a black one, and everything was in confusion; the borzois\r
+formed a star-shaped figure, scarcely swaying their bodies and with\r
+tails turned away from the center of the group. Two huntsmen galloped up\r
+to the dogs; one in a red cap, the other, a stranger, in a green coat.\r
+\r
+"What's this?" thought Nicholas. "Where's that huntsman from? He is not\r
+'Uncle's' man."\r
+\r
+The huntsmen got the fox, but stayed there a long time without strapping\r
+it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and with high saddles, stood\r
+near them and there too the dogs were lying. The huntsmen waved their\r
+arms and did something to the fox. Then from that spot came the sound of\r
+a horn, with the signal agreed on in case of a fight.\r
+\r
+"That's Ilagin's huntsman having a row with our Ivan," said Nicholas'\r
+groom.\r
+\r
+Nicholas sent the man to call Natasha and Petya to him, and rode at a\r
+footpace to the place where the whips were getting the hounds together.\r
+Several of the field galloped to the spot where the fight was going on.\r
+\r
+Nicholas dismounted, and with Natasha and Petya, who had ridden up,\r
+stopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would end. Out of\r
+the bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting and rode toward his\r
+young master, with the fox tied to his crupper. While still at a\r
+distance he took off his cap and tried to speak respectfully, but he was\r
+pale and breathless and his face was angry. One of his eyes was black,\r
+but he probably was not even aware of it.\r
+\r
+"What has happened?" asked Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"A likely thing, killing a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my gray\r
+bitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed!... He snatches at the fox! I\r
+gave him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want a taste\r
+of this?..." said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger and probably\r
+imagining himself still speaking to his foe.\r
+\r
+Nicholas, not stopping to talk to the man, asked his sister and Petya to\r
+wait for him and rode to the spot where the enemy's, Ilagin's, hunting\r
+party was.\r
+\r
+The victorious huntsman rode off to join the field, and there,\r
+surrounded by inquiring sympathizers, recounted his exploits.\r
+\r
+The facts were that Ilagin, with whom the Rostovs had a quarrel and were\r
+at law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the Rostovs, and\r
+had now, as if purposely, sent his men to the very woods the Rostovs\r
+were hunting and let his man snatch a fox their dogs had chased.\r
+\r
+Nicholas, though he had never seen Ilagin, with his usual absence of\r
+moderation in judgment, hated him cordially from reports of his\r
+arbitrariness and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe. He\r
+rode in angry agitation toward him, firmly grasping his whip and fully\r
+prepared to take the most resolute and desperate steps to punish his\r
+enemy.\r
+\r
+Hardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout gentleman in a\r
+beaver cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black horse,\r
+accompanied by two hunt servants.\r
+\r
+Instead of an enemy, Nicholas found in Ilagin a stately and courteous\r
+gentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young count's\r
+acquaintance. Having ridden up to Nicholas, Ilagin raised his beaver cap\r
+and said he much regretted what had occurred and would have the man\r
+punished who had allowed himself to seize a fox hunted by someone else's\r
+borzois. He hoped to become better acquainted with the count and invited\r
+him to draw his covert.\r
+\r
+Natasha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had\r
+followed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging friendly\r
+greetings, she rode up to them. Ilagin lifted his beaver cap still\r
+higher to Natasha and said, with a pleasant smile, that the young\r
+countess resembled Diana in her passion for the chase as well as in her\r
+beauty, of which he had heard much.\r
+\r
+To expiate his huntsman's offense, Ilagin pressed the Rostovs to come to\r
+an upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for himself and\r
+which, he said, swarmed with hares. Nicholas agreed, and the hunt, now\r
+doubled, moved on.\r
+\r
+The way to Iligin's upland was across the fields. The hunt servants fell\r
+into line. The masters rode together. "Uncle," Rostov, and Ilagin kept\r
+stealthily glancing at one another's dogs, trying not to be observed by\r
+their companions and searching uneasily for rivals to their own borzois.\r
+\r
+Rostov was particularly struck by the beauty of a small, pure-bred, red-\r
+spotted bitch on Ilagin's leash, slender but with muscles like steel, a\r
+delicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes. He had heard of the swiftness\r
+of Ilagin's borzois, and in that beautiful bitch saw a rival to his own\r
+Milka.\r
+\r
+In the middle of a sober conversation begun by Ilagin about the year's\r
+harvest, Nicholas pointed to the red-spotted bitch.\r
+\r
+"A fine little bitch, that!" said he in a careless tone. "Is she swift?"\r
+\r
+"That one? Yes, she's a good dog, gets what she's after," answered\r
+Ilagin indifferently, of the red-spotted bitch Erza, for which, a year\r
+before, he had given a neighbor three families of house serfs. "So in\r
+your parts, too, the harvest is nothing to boast of, Count?" he went on,\r
+continuing the conversation they had begun. And considering it polite to\r
+return the young count's compliment, Ilagin looked at his borzois and\r
+picked out Milka who attracted his attention by her breadth. "That\r
+black-spotted one of yours is fine--well shaped!" said he.\r
+\r
+"Yes, she's fast enough," replied Nicholas, and thought: "If only a\r
+full-grown hare would cross the field now I'd show you what sort of\r
+borzoi she is," and turning to his groom, he said he would give a ruble\r
+to anyone who found a hare.\r
+\r
+"I don't understand," continued Ilagin, "how some sportsmen can be so\r
+jealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you, Count, I enjoy\r
+riding in company such as this... what could be better?" (he again\r
+raised his cap to Natasha) "but as for counting skins and what one\r
+takes, I don't care about that."\r
+\r
+"Of course not!"\r
+\r
+"Or being upset because someone else's borzoi and not mine catches\r
+something. All I care about is to enjoy seeing the chase, is it not so,\r
+Count? For I consider that..."\r
+\r
+"A-tu!" came the long-drawn cry of one of the borzoi whippers-in, who\r
+had halted. He stood on a knoll in the stubble, holding his whip aloft,\r
+and again repeated his long-drawn cry, "A-tu!" (This call and the\r
+uplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.)\r
+\r
+"Ah, he has found one, I think," said Ilagin carelessly. "Yes, we must\r
+ride up.... Shall we both course it?" answered Nicholas, seeing in Erza\r
+and "Uncle's" red Rugay two rivals he had never yet had a chance of\r
+pitting against his own borzois. "And suppose they outdo my Milka at\r
+once!" he thought as he rode with "Uncle" and Ilagin toward the hare.\r
+\r
+"A full-grown one?" asked Ilagin as he approached the whip who had\r
+sighted the hare--and not without agitation he looked round and whistled\r
+to Erza.\r
+\r
+"And you, Michael Nikanorovich?" he said, addressing "Uncle."\r
+\r
+The latter was riding with a sullen expression on his face.\r
+\r
+"How can I join in? Why, you've given a village for each of your\r
+borzois! That's it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours\r
+against one another, you two, and I'll look on!"\r
+\r
+"Rugay, hey, hey!" he shouted. "Rugayushka!" he added, involuntarily by\r
+this diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes he placed on this\r
+red borzoi. Natasha saw and felt the agitation the two elderly men and\r
+her brother were trying to conceal, and was herself excited by it.\r
+\r
+The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and the\r
+gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off on\r
+the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the\r
+gentlefolk, also moved away. All were moving slowly and sedately.\r
+\r
+"How is it pointing?" asked Nicholas, riding a hundred paces toward the\r
+whip who had sighted the hare.\r
+\r
+But before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting the frost coming\r
+next morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash rushed\r
+downhill in full cry after the hare, and from all sides the borzois that\r
+were not on leash darted after the hounds and the hare. All the hunt,\r
+who had been moving slowly, shouted, "Stop!" calling in the hounds,\r
+while the borzoi whips, with a cry of "A-tu!" galloped across the field\r
+setting the borzois on the hare. The tranquil Ilagin, Nicholas, Natasha,\r
+and "Uncle" flew, reckless of where and how they went, seeing only the\r
+borzois and the hare and fearing only to lose sight even for an instant\r
+of the chase. The hare they had started was a strong and swift one. When\r
+he jumped up he did not run at once, but pricked his ears listening to\r
+the shouting and trampling that resounded from all sides at once. He\r
+took a dozen bounds, not very quickly, letting the borzois gain on him,\r
+and, finally having chosen his direction and realized his danger, laid\r
+back his ears and rushed off headlong. He had been lying in the stubble,\r
+but in front of him was the autumn sowing where the ground was soft. The\r
+two borzois of the huntsman who had sighted him, having been the\r
+nearest, were the first to see and pursue him, but they had not gone far\r
+before Ilagin's red-spotted Erza passed them, got within a length, flew\r
+at the hare with terrible swiftness aiming at his scut, and, thinking\r
+she had seized him, rolled over like a ball. The hare arched his back\r
+and bounded off yet more swiftly. From behind Erza rushed the broad-\r
+haunched, black-spotted Milka and began rapidly gaining on the hare.\r
+\r
+"Milashka, dear!" rose Nicholas' triumphant cry. It looked as if Milka\r
+would immediately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him and flew\r
+past. The hare had squatted. Again the beautiful Erza reached him, but\r
+when close to the hare's scut paused as if measuring the distance, so as\r
+not to make a mistake this time but seize his hind leg.\r
+\r
+"Erza, darling!" Ilagin wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erza did not\r
+hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have seized her\r
+prey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between the winter rye\r
+and the stubble. Again Erza and Milka were abreast, running like a pair\r
+of carriage horses, and began to overtake the hare, but it was easier\r
+for the hare to run on the balk and the borzois did not overtake him so\r
+quickly.\r
+\r
+"Rugay, Rugayushka! That's it, come on!" came a third voice just then,\r
+and "Uncle's" red borzoi, straining and curving its back, caught up with\r
+the two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless of the\r
+terrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off the balk\r
+onto the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously, sinking to\r
+his knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was how, muddying\r
+his back, he rolled over with the hare. A ring of borzois surrounded\r
+him. A moment later everyone had drawn up round the crowd of dogs. Only\r
+the delighted "Uncle" dismounted, and cut off a pad, shaking the hare\r
+for the blood to drip off, and anxiously glancing round with restless\r
+eyes while his arms and legs twitched. He spoke without himself knowing\r
+whom to or what about. "That's it, come on! That's a dog!... There, it\r
+has beaten them all, the thousand-ruble as well as the one-ruble\r
+borzois. That's it, come on!" said he, panting and looking wrathfully\r
+around as if he were abusing someone, as if they were all his enemies\r
+and had insulted him, and only now had he at last succeeded in\r
+justifying himself. "There are your thousand-ruble ones.... That's it,\r
+come on!..."\r
+\r
+"Rugay, here's a pad for you!" he said, throwing down the hare's muddy\r
+pad. "You've deserved it, that's it, come on!"\r
+\r
+"She'd tired herself out, she'd run it down three times by herself,"\r
+said Nicholas, also not listening to anyone and regardless of whether he\r
+were heard or not.\r
+\r
+"But what is there in running across it like that?" said Ilagin's groom.\r
+\r
+"Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take it,"\r
+Ilagin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop and his\r
+excitement. At the same moment Natasha, without drawing breath, screamed\r
+joyously, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set everyone's ear\r
+tingling. By that shriek she expressed what the others expressed by all\r
+talking at once, and it was so strange that she must herself have been\r
+ashamed of so wild a cry and everyone else would have been amazed at it\r
+at any other time. "Uncle" himself twisted up the hare, threw it neatly\r
+and smartly across his horse's back as if by that gesture he meant to\r
+rebuke everybody, and, with an air of not wishing to speak to anyone,\r
+mounted his bay and rode off. The others all followed, dispirited and\r
+shamefaced, and only much later were they able to regain their former\r
+affectation of indifference. For a long time they continued to look at\r
+red Rugay who, his arched back spattered with mud and clanking the ring\r
+of his leash, walked along just behind "Uncle's" horse with the serene\r
+air of a conqueror.\r
+\r
+"Well, I am like any other dog as long as it's not a question of\r
+coursing. But when it is, then look out!" his appearance seemed to\r
+Nicholas to be saying.\r
+\r
+When, much later, "Uncle" rode up to Nicholas and began talking to him,\r
+he felt flattered that, after what had happened, "Uncle" deigned to\r
+speak to him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+Toward evening Ilagin took leave of Nicholas, who found that they were\r
+so far from home that he accepted "Uncle's" offer that the hunting party\r
+should spend the night in his little village of Mikhaylovna.\r
+\r
+"And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That's it,\r
+come on!" said "Uncle." "You see it's damp weather, and you could rest,\r
+and the little countess could be driven home in a trap."\r
+\r
+"Uncle's" offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otradnoe for a\r
+trap, while Nicholas rode with Natasha and Petya to "Uncle's" house.\r
+\r
+Some five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the front\r
+porch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and young, as\r
+well as children, popped out from the back entrance to have a look at\r
+the hunters who were arriving. The presence of Natasha--a woman, a lady,\r
+and on horseback--raised the curiosity of the serfs to such a degree\r
+that many of them came up to her, stared her in the face, and unabashed\r
+by her presence made remarks about her as though she were some prodigy\r
+on show and not a human being able to hear or understand what was said\r
+about her.\r
+\r
+"Arinka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt\r
+dangles.... See, she's got a little hunting horn!"\r
+\r
+"Goodness gracious! See her knife?..."\r
+\r
+"Isn't she a Tartar!"\r
+\r
+"How is it you didn't go head over heels?" asked the boldest of all,\r
+addressing Natasha directly.\r
+\r
+"Uncle" dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house which stood\r
+in the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his\r
+retainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should take\r
+themselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made to\r
+receive the guests and the visitors.\r
+\r
+The serfs all dispersed. "Uncle" lifted Natasha off her horse and taking\r
+her hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch. The house,\r
+with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean--it did not seem\r
+that those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless--but neither was it\r
+noticeably neglected. In the entry there was a smell of fresh apples,\r
+and wolf and fox skins hung about.\r
+\r
+"Uncle" led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall with a\r
+folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round\r
+birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room where\r
+there was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvorov, of\r
+the host's father and mother, and of himself in military uniform. The\r
+study smelt strongly of tobacco and dogs. "Uncle" asked his visitors to\r
+sit down and make themselves at home, and then went out of the room.\r
+Rugay, his back still muddy, came into the room and lay down on the\r
+sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. Leading from the study\r
+was a passage in which a partition with ragged curtains could be seen.\r
+From behind this came women's laughter and whispers. Natasha, Nicholas,\r
+and Petya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa. Petya, leaning\r
+on his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natasha and Nicholas were silent.\r
+Their faces glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful. They looked at\r
+one another (now that the hunt was over and they were in the house,\r
+Nicholas no longer considered it necessary to show his manly superiority\r
+over his sister), Natasha gave him a wink, and neither refrained long\r
+from bursting into a peal of ringing laughter even before they had a\r
+pretext ready to account for it.\r
+\r
+After a while "Uncle" came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and\r
+small top boots. And Natasha felt that this costume, the very one she\r
+had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otradnoe, was just the right\r
+thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat. "Uncle"\r
+too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the brother's and\r
+sister's laughter (it could never enter his head that they might be\r
+laughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the merriment.\r
+\r
+"That's right, young countess, that's it, come on! I never saw anyone\r
+like her!" said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem and, with\r
+a practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that had been\r
+cut short. "She's ridden all day like a man, and is as fresh as ever!"\r
+\r
+Soon after "Uncle's" reappearance the door was opened, evidently from\r
+the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking woman of\r
+about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered carrying a\r
+large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in her glance\r
+and in every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with a pleasant\r
+smile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional stoutness, which\r
+caused her to protrude her chest and stomach and throw back her head,\r
+this woman (who was "Uncle's" housekeeper) trod very lightly. She went\r
+to the table, set down the tray, and with her plump white hands deftly\r
+took from it the bottles and various hors d'oeuvres and dishes and\r
+arranged them on the table. When she had finished, she stepped aside and\r
+stopped at the door with a smile on her face. "Here I am. I am she! Now\r
+do you understand 'Uncle'?" her expression said to Rostov. How could one\r
+help understanding? Not only Nicholas, but even Natasha understood the\r
+meaning of his puckered brow and the happy complacent smile that\r
+slightly puckered his lips when Anisya Fedorovna entered. On the tray\r
+was a bottle of herb wine, different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms,\r
+rye cakes made with buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and\r
+sparkling mead, apples, nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey\r
+sweets. Afterwards she brought a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves\r
+made with honey, and preserves made with sugar.\r
+\r
+All this was the fruit of Anisya Fedorovna's housekeeping, gathered and\r
+prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack of Anisya\r
+Fedorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness, whiteness, and\r
+pleasant smiles.\r
+\r
+"Take this, little Lady-Countess!" she kept saying, as she offered\r
+Natasha first one thing and then another.\r
+\r
+Natasha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such\r
+buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such\r
+a chicken anywhere. Anisya Fedorovna left the room.\r
+\r
+After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostov and "Uncle" talked of\r
+past and future hunts, of Rugay and Ilagin's dogs, while Natasha sat\r
+upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried several\r
+times to wake Petya that he might eat something, but he only muttered\r
+incoherent words without waking up. Natasha felt so lighthearted and\r
+happy in these novel surroundings that she only feared the trap would\r
+come for her too soon. After a casual pause, such as often occurs when\r
+receiving friends for the first time in one's own house, "Uncle,"\r
+answering a thought that was in his visitors' mind, said:\r
+\r
+"This, you see, is how I am finishing my days... Death will come. That's\r
+it, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?"\r
+\r
+"Uncle's" face was very significant and even handsome as he said this.\r
+Involuntarily Rostov recalled all the good he had heard about him from\r
+his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province "Uncle" had\r
+the reputation of being the most honorable and disinterested of cranks.\r
+They called him in to decide family disputes, chose him as executor,\r
+confided secrets to him, elected him to be a justice and to other posts;\r
+but he always persistently refused public appointments, passing the\r
+autumn and spring in the fields on his bay gelding, sitting at home in\r
+winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in summer.\r
+\r
+"Why don't you enter the service, Uncle?"\r
+\r
+"I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That's it, come on! I\r
+can't make head or tail of it. That's for you--I haven't brains enough.\r
+Now, hunting is another matter--that's it, come on! Open the door,\r
+there!" he shouted. "Why have you shut it?"\r
+\r
+The door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen's room, as they\r
+called the room for the hunt servants.\r
+\r
+There was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the\r
+door into the huntsmen's room, from which came the clear sounds of a\r
+balalayka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was\r
+playing. Natasha had been listening to those strains for some time and\r
+now went out into the passage to hear better.\r
+\r
+"That's Mitka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balalayka. I'm fond\r
+of it," said "Uncle."\r
+\r
+It was the custom for Mitka to play the balalayka in the huntsmen's room\r
+when "Uncle" returned from the chase. "Uncle" was fond of such music.\r
+\r
+"How good! Really very good!" said Nicholas with some unintentional\r
+superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased him\r
+very much.\r
+\r
+"Very good?" said Natasha reproachfully, noticing her brother's tone.\r
+"Not 'very good' it's simply delicious!"\r
+\r
+Just as "Uncle's" pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had seemed\r
+to her the best in the world, so also that song, at that moment, seemed\r
+to her the acme of musical delight.\r
+\r
+"More, please, more!" cried Natasha at the door as soon as the balalayka\r
+ceased. Mitka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming the balalayka\r
+to the air of My Lady, with trills and variations. "Uncle" sat\r
+listening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side. The air was\r
+repeated a hundred times. The balalayka was retuned several times and\r
+the same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did not grow weary\r
+of it and wished to hear it again and again. Anisya Fedorovna came in\r
+and leaned her portly person against the doorpost.\r
+\r
+"You like listening?" she said to Natasha, with a smile extremely like\r
+"Uncle's." "That's a good player of ours," she added.\r
+\r
+"He doesn't play that part right!" said "Uncle" suddenly, with an\r
+energetic gesture. "Here he ought to burst out--that's it, come on!--\r
+ought to burst out."\r
+\r
+"Do you play then?" asked Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Uncle" did not answer, but smiled.\r
+\r
+"Anisya, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I haven't\r
+touched it for a long time. That's it--come on! I've given it up."\r
+\r
+Anisya Fedorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her\r
+errand and brought back the guitar.\r
+\r
+Without looking at anyone, "Uncle" blew the dust off it and, tapping the\r
+case with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar and settled himself in his\r
+armchair. He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching his\r
+left elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at\r
+Anisya Fedorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then\r
+quietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not\r
+My Lady, but the well-known song: Came a maiden down the street. The\r
+tune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the\r
+hearts of Nicholas and Natasha, arousing in them the same kind of sober\r
+mirth as radiated from Anisya Fedorovna's whole being. Anisya Fedorovna\r
+flushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went laughing out of the\r
+room. "Uncle" continued to play correctly, carefully, with energetic\r
+firmness, looking with a changed and inspired expression at the spot\r
+where Anisya Fedorovna had just stood. Something seemed to be laughing a\r
+little on one side of his face under his gray mustaches, especially as\r
+the song grew brisker and the time quicker and when, here and there, as\r
+he ran his fingers over the strings, something seemed to snap.\r
+\r
+"Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!" shouted Natasha as soon as he had\r
+finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. "Nicholas, Nicholas!"\r
+she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: "What is it moves me\r
+so?"\r
+\r
+Nicholas too was greatly pleased by "Uncle's" playing, and "Uncle"\r
+played the piece over again. Anisya Fedorovna's smiling face reappeared\r
+in the doorway and behind hers other faces...\r
+\r
+\r
+Fetching water clear and sweet, Stop, dear maiden, I entreat--\r
+\r
+played "Uncle" once more, running his fingers skillfully over the\r
+strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders.\r
+\r
+"Go on, Uncle dear," Natasha wailed in an imploring tone as if her life\r
+depended on it.\r
+\r
+"Uncle" rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of them\r
+smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck a\r
+naive and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance.\r
+\r
+"Now then, niece!" he exclaimed, waving to Natasha the hand that had\r
+just struck a chord.\r
+\r
+Natasha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face\r
+"Uncle," and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her\r
+shoulders and struck an attitude.\r
+\r
+Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an emigree\r
+French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit\r
+and obtained that manner which the pas de chale * would, one would have\r
+supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were\r
+those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that "Uncle" had expected\r
+of her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and smiled triumphantly,\r
+proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had at first seized\r
+Nicholas and the others that she might not do the right thing was at an\r
+end, and they were already admiring her.\r
+\r
+\r
+* The French shawl dance.\r
+\r
+She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision,\r
+that Anisya Fedorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she\r
+needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she\r
+watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so\r
+different from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was in\r
+Anisya and in Anisya's father and mother and aunt, and in every Russian\r
+man and woman.\r
+\r
+"Well, little countess; that's it--come on!" cried "Uncle," with a\r
+joyous laugh, having finished the dance. "Well done, niece! Now a fine\r
+young fellow must be found as husband for you. That's it--come on!"\r
+\r
+"He's chosen already," said Nicholas smiling.\r
+\r
+"Oh?" said "Uncle" in surprise, looking inquiringly at Natasha, who\r
+nodded her head with a happy smile.\r
+\r
+"And such a one!" she said. But as soon as she had said it a new train\r
+of thoughts and feelings arose in her. "What did Nicholas' smile mean\r
+when he said 'chosen already'? Is he glad of it or not? It is as if he\r
+thought my Bolkonski would not approve of or understand our gaiety. But\r
+he would understand it all. Where is he now?" she thought, and her face\r
+suddenly became serious. But this lasted only a second. "Don't dare to\r
+think about it," she said to herself, and sat down again smilingly\r
+beside "Uncle," begging him to play something more.\r
+\r
+"Uncle" played another song and a valse; then after a pause he cleared\r
+his throat and sang his favorite hunting song:\r
+\r
+\r
+As 'twas growing dark last night Fell the snow so soft and light...\r
+\r
+"Uncle" sang as peasants sing, with full and naive conviction that the\r
+whole meaning of a song lies in the words and that the tune comes of\r
+itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists\r
+only to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered\r
+tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good. Natasha was in\r
+ecstasies over "Uncle's" singing. She resolved to give up learning the\r
+harp and to play only the guitar. She asked "Uncle" for his guitar and\r
+at once found the chords of the song.\r
+\r
+After nine o'clock two traps and three mounted men, who had been sent to\r
+look for them, arrived to fetch Natasha and Petya. The count and\r
+countess did not know where they were and were very anxious, said one of\r
+the men.\r
+\r
+Petya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two\r
+traps. Natasha and Nicholas got into the other. "Uncle" wrapped Natasha\r
+up warmly and took leave of her with quite a new tenderness. He\r
+accompanied them on foot as far as the bridge that could not be crossed,\r
+so that they had to go round by the ford, and he sent huntsmen to ride\r
+in front with lanterns.\r
+\r
+"Good-bye, dear niece," his voice called out of the darkness--not the\r
+voice Natasha had known previously, but the one that had sung As 'twas\r
+growing dark last night.\r
+\r
+In the village through which they passed there were red lights and a\r
+cheerful smell of smoke.\r
+\r
+"What a darling Uncle is!" said Natasha, when they had come out onto the\r
+highroad.\r
+\r
+"Yes," returned Nicholas. "You're not cold?"\r
+\r
+"No. I'm quite, quite all right. I feel so comfortable!" answered\r
+Natasha, almost perplexed by her feelings. They remained silent a long\r
+while. The night was dark and damp. They could not see the horses, but\r
+only heard them splashing through the unseen mud.\r
+\r
+What was passing in that receptive childlike soul that so eagerly caught\r
+and assimilated all the diverse impressions of life? How did they all\r
+find place in her? But she was very happy. As they were nearing home she\r
+suddenly struck up the air of As 'twas growing dark last night--the tune\r
+of which she had all the way been trying to get and had at last caught.\r
+\r
+"Got it?" said Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"What were you thinking about just now, Nicholas?" inquired Natasha.\r
+\r
+They were fond of asking one another that question.\r
+\r
+"I?" said Nicholas, trying to remember. "Well, you see, first I thought\r
+that Rugay, the red hound, was like Uncle, and that if he were a man he\r
+would always keep Uncle near him, if not for his riding, then for his\r
+manner. What a good fellow Uncle is! Don't you think so?... Well, and\r
+you?"\r
+\r
+"I? Wait a bit, wait.... Yes, first I thought that we are driving along\r
+and imagining that we are going home, but that heaven knows where we are\r
+really going in the darkness, and that we shall arrive and suddenly find\r
+that we are not in Otradnoe, but in Fairyland. And then I thought... No,\r
+nothing else."\r
+\r
+"I know, I expect you thought of him," said Nicholas, smiling as Natasha\r
+knew by the sound of his voice.\r
+\r
+"No," said Natasha, though she had in reality been thinking about Prince\r
+Andrew at the same time as of the rest, and of how he would have liked\r
+"Uncle." "And then I was saying to myself all the way, 'How well Anisya\r
+carried herself, how well!'" And Nicholas heard her spontaneous, happy,\r
+ringing laughter. "And do you know," she suddenly said, "I know that I\r
+shall never again be as happy and tranquil as I am now."\r
+\r
+"Rubbish, nonsense, humbug!" exclaimed Nicholas, and he thought: "How\r
+charming this Natasha of mine is! I have no other friend like her and\r
+never shall have. Why should she marry? We might always drive about\r
+together!"\r
+\r
+"What a darling this Nicholas of mine is!" thought Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Ah, there are still lights in the drawing-room!" she said, pointing to\r
+the windows of the house that gleamed invitingly in the moist velvety\r
+darkness of the night.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+Count Ilya Rostov had resigned the position of Marshal of the Nobility\r
+because it involved him in too much expense, but still his affairs did\r
+not improve. Natasha and Nicholas often noticed their parents conferring\r
+together anxiously and privately and heard suggestions of selling the\r
+fine ancestral Rostov house and estate near Moscow. It was not necessary\r
+to entertain so freely as when the count had been Marshal, and life at\r
+Otradnoe was quieter than in former years, but still the enormous house\r
+and its lodges were full of people and more than twenty sat down to\r
+table every day. These were all their own people who had settled down in\r
+the house almost as members of the family, or persons who were, it\r
+seemed, obliged to live in the count's house. Such were Dimmler the\r
+musician and his wife, Vogel the dancing master and his family, Belova,\r
+an old maiden lady, an inmate of the house, and many others such as\r
+Petya's tutors, the girls' former governess, and other people who simply\r
+found it preferable and more advantageous to live in the count's house\r
+than at home. They had not as many visitors as before, but the old\r
+habits of life without which the count and countess could not conceive\r
+of existence remained unchanged. There was still the hunting\r
+establishment which Nicholas had even enlarged, the same fifty horses\r
+and fifteen grooms in the stables, the same expensive presents and\r
+dinner parties to the whole district on name days; there were still the\r
+count's games of whist and boston, at which--spreading out his cards so\r
+that everybody could see them--he let himself be plundered of hundreds\r
+of rubles every day by his neighbors, who looked upon an opportunity to\r
+play a rubber with Count Rostov as a most profitable source of income.\r
+\r
+The count moved in his affairs as in a huge net, trying not to believe\r
+that he was entangled but becoming more and more so at every step, and\r
+feeling too feeble to break the meshes or to set to work carefully and\r
+patiently to disentangle them. The countess, with her loving heart, felt\r
+that her children were being ruined, that it was not the count's fault\r
+for he could not help being what he was--that (though he tried to hide\r
+it) he himself suffered from the consciousness of his own and his\r
+children's ruin, and she tried to find means of remedying the position.\r
+From her feminine point of view she could see only one solution, namely,\r
+for Nicholas to marry a rich heiress. She felt this to be their last\r
+hope and that if Nicholas refused the match she had found for him, she\r
+would have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters right. This match\r
+was with Julie Karagina, the daughter of excellent and virtuous parents,\r
+a girl the Rostovs had known from childhood, and who had now become a\r
+wealthy heiress through the death of the last of her brothers.\r
+\r
+The countess had written direct to Julie's mother in Moscow suggesting a\r
+marriage between their children and had received a favorable answer from\r
+her. Karagina had replied that for her part she was agreeable, and\r
+everything depend on her daughter's inclination. She invited Nicholas to\r
+come to Moscow.\r
+\r
+Several times the countess, with tears in her eyes, told her son that\r
+now both her daughters were settled, her only wish was to see him\r
+married. She said she could lie down in her grave peacefully if that\r
+were accomplished. Then she told him that she knew of a splendid girl\r
+and tried to discover what he thought about marriage.\r
+\r
+At other times she praised Julie to him and advised him to go to Moscow\r
+during the holidays to amuse himself. Nicholas guessed what his mother's\r
+remarks were leading to and during one of these conversations induced\r
+her to speak quite frankly. She told him that her only hope of getting\r
+their affairs disentangled now lay in his marrying Julie Karagina.\r
+\r
+"But, Mamma, suppose I loved a girl who has no fortune, would you expect\r
+me to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for the sake of money?" he\r
+asked his mother, not realizing the cruelty of his question and only\r
+wishing to show his noble-mindedness.\r
+\r
+"No, you have not understood me," said his mother, not knowing how to\r
+justify herself. "You have not understood me, Nikolenka. It is your\r
+happiness I wish for," she added, feeling that she was telling an\r
+untruth and was becoming entangled. She began to cry.\r
+\r
+"Mamma, don't cry! Only tell me that you wish it, and you know I will\r
+give my life, anything, to put you at ease," said Nicholas. "I would\r
+sacrifice anything for you--even my feelings."\r
+\r
+But the countess did not want the question put like that: she did not\r
+want a sacrifice from her son, she herself wished to make a sacrifice\r
+for him.\r
+\r
+"No, you have not understood me, don't let us talk about it," she\r
+replied, wiping away her tears.\r
+\r
+"Maybe I do love a poor girl," said Nicholas to himself. "Am I to\r
+sacrifice my feelings and my honor for money? I wonder how Mamma could\r
+speak so to me. Because Sonya is poor I must not love her," he thought,\r
+"must not respond to her faithful, devoted love? Yet I should certainly\r
+be happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can always\r
+sacrifice my feelings for my family's welfare," he said to himself, "but\r
+I can't coerce my feelings. If I love Sonya, that feeling is for me\r
+stronger and higher than all else."\r
+\r
+Nicholas did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not renew the\r
+conversation with him about marriage. She saw with sorrow, and sometimes\r
+with exasperation, symptoms of a growing attachment between her son and\r
+the portionless Sonya. Though she blamed herself for it, she could not\r
+refrain from grumbling at and worrying Sonya, often pulling her up\r
+without reason, addressing her stiffly as "my dear," and using the\r
+formal "you" instead of the intimate "thou" in speaking to her. The\r
+kindhearted countess was the more vexed with Sonya because that poor,\r
+dark-eyed niece of hers was so meek, so kind, so devotedly grateful to\r
+her benefactors, and so faithfully, unchangingly, and unselfishly in\r
+love with Nicholas, that there were no grounds for finding fault with\r
+her.\r
+\r
+Nicholas was spending the last of his leave at home. A fourth letter had\r
+come from Prince Andrew, from Rome, in which he wrote that he would have\r
+been on his way back to Russia long ago had not his wound unexpectedly\r
+reopened in the warm climate, which obliged him to defer his return till\r
+the beginning of the new year. Natasha was still as much in love with\r
+her betrothed, found the same comfort in that love, and was still as\r
+ready to throw herself into all the pleasures of life as before; but at\r
+the end of the fourth month of their separation she began to have fits\r
+of depression which she could not master. She felt sorry for herself:\r
+sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to anyone--\r
+while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved.\r
+\r
+Things were not cheerful in the Rostovs' home.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+Christmas came and except for the ceremonial Mass, the solemn and\r
+wearisome Christmas congratulations from neighbors and servants, and the\r
+new dresses everyone put on, there were no special festivities, though\r
+the calm frost of twenty degrees Reaumur, the dazzling sunshine by day,\r
+and the starlight of the winter nights seemed to call for some special\r
+celebration of the season.\r
+\r
+On the third day of Christmas week, after the midday dinner, all the\r
+inmates of the house dispersed to various rooms. It was the dullest time\r
+of the day. Nicholas, who had been visiting some neighbors that morning,\r
+was asleep on the sitting-room sofa. The old count was resting in his\r
+study. Sonya sat in the drawing room at the round table, copying a\r
+design for embroidery. The countess was playing patience. Nastasya\r
+Ivanovna the buffoon sat with a sad face at the window with two old\r
+ladies. Natasha came into the room, went up to Sonya, glanced at what\r
+she was doing, and then went up to her mother and stood without\r
+speaking.\r
+\r
+"Why are you wandering about like an outcast?" asked her mother. "What\r
+do you want?"\r
+\r
+"Him... I want him... now, this minute! I want him!" said Natasha, with\r
+glittering eyes and no sign of a smile.\r
+\r
+The countess lifted her head and looked attentively at her daughter.\r
+\r
+"Don't look at me, Mamma! Don't look; I shall cry directly."\r
+\r
+"Sit down with me a little," said the countess.\r
+\r
+"Mamma, I want him. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?"\r
+\r
+Her voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she turned quickly to\r
+hide them and left the room.\r
+\r
+She passed into the sitting room, stood there thinking awhile, and then\r
+went into the maids' room. There an old maidservant was grumbling at a\r
+young girl who stood panting, having just run in through the cold from\r
+the serfs' quarters.\r
+\r
+"Stop playing--there's a time for everything," said the old woman.\r
+\r
+"Let her alone, Kondratevna," said Natasha. "Go, Mavrushka, go."\r
+\r
+Having released Mavrushka, Natasha crossed the dancing hall and went to\r
+the vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were playing\r
+cards. They broke off and rose as she entered.\r
+\r
+"What can I do with them?" thought Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Nikita, please go... where can I send him?... Yes, go to the yard\r
+and fetch a fowl, please, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some oats."\r
+\r
+"Just a few oats?" said Misha, cheerfully and readily.\r
+\r
+"Go, go quickly," the old man urged him.\r
+\r
+"And you, Theodore, get me a piece of chalk."\r
+\r
+On her way past the butler's pantry she told them to set a samovar,\r
+though it was not at all the time for tea.\r
+\r
+Foka, the butler, was the most ill-tempered person in the house. Natasha\r
+liked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and asked\r
+whether the samovar was really wanted.\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, what a young lady!" said Foka, pretending to frown at Natasha.\r
+\r
+No one in the house sent people about or gave them as much trouble as\r
+Natasha did. She could not see people unconcernedly, but had to send\r
+them on some errand. She seemed to be trying whether any of them would\r
+get angry or sulky with her; but the serfs fulfilled no one's orders so\r
+readily as they did hers. "What can I do, where can I go?" thought she,\r
+as she went slowly along the passage.\r
+\r
+"Nastasya Ivanovna, what sort of children shall I have?" she asked the\r
+buffoon, who was coming toward her in a woman's jacket.\r
+\r
+"Why, fleas, crickets, grasshoppers," answered the buffoon.\r
+\r
+"O Lord, O Lord, it's always the same! Oh, where am I to go? What am I\r
+to do with myself?" And tapping with her heels, she ran quickly upstairs\r
+to see Vogel and his wife who lived on the upper story.\r
+\r
+Two governesses were sitting with the Vogels at a table, on which were\r
+plates of raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were discussing\r
+whether it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa. Natasha sat down,\r
+listened to their talk with a serious and thoughtful air, and then got\r
+up again.\r
+\r
+"The island of Madagascar," she said, "Ma-da-gas-car," she repeated,\r
+articulating each syllable distinctly, and, not replying to Madame\r
+Schoss who asked her what she was saying, she went out of the room.\r
+\r
+Her brother Petya was upstairs too; with the man in attendance on him he\r
+was preparing fireworks to let off that night.\r
+\r
+"Petya! Petya!" she called to him. "Carry me downstairs."\r
+\r
+Petya ran up and offered her his back. She jumped on it, putting her\r
+arms round his neck, and he pranced along with her.\r
+\r
+"No, don't... the island of Madagascar!" she said, and jumping off his\r
+back she went downstairs.\r
+\r
+Having as it were reviewed her kingdom, tested her power, and made sure\r
+that everyone was submissive, but that all the same it was dull, Natasha\r
+betook herself to the ballroom, picked up her guitar, sat down in a dark\r
+corner behind a bookcase, and began to run her fingers over the strings\r
+in the bass, picking out a passage she recalled from an opera she had\r
+heard in Petersburg with Prince Andrew. What she drew from the guitar\r
+would have had no meaning for other listeners, but in her imagination a\r
+whole series of reminiscences arose from those sounds. She sat behind\r
+the bookcase with her eyes fixed on a streak of light escaping from the\r
+pantry door and listened to herself and pondered. She was in a mood for\r
+brooding on the past.\r
+\r
+Sonya passed to the pantry with a glass in her hand. Natasha glanced at\r
+her and at the crack in the pantry door, and it seemed to her that she\r
+remembered the light falling through that crack once before and Sonya\r
+passing with a glass in her hand. "Yes it was exactly the same," thought\r
+Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Sonya, what is this?" she cried, twanging a thick string.\r
+\r
+"Oh, you are there!" said Sonya with a start, and came near and\r
+listened. "I don't know. A storm?" she ventured timidly, afraid of being\r
+wrong.\r
+\r
+"There! That's just how she started and just how she came up smiling\r
+timidly when all this happened before," thought Natasha, "and in just\r
+the same way I thought there was something lacking in her."\r
+\r
+"No, it's the chorus from The Water-Carrier, listen!" and Natasha sang\r
+the air of the chorus so that Sonya should catch it. "Where were you\r
+going?" she asked.\r
+\r
+"To change the water in this glass. I am just finishing the design."\r
+\r
+"You always find something to do, but I can't," said Natasha. "And\r
+where's Nicholas?"\r
+\r
+"Asleep, I think."\r
+\r
+"Sonya, go and wake him," said Natasha. "Tell him I want him to come and\r
+sing."\r
+\r
+She sat awhile, wondering what the meaning of it all having happened\r
+before could be, and without solving this problem, or at all regretting\r
+not having done so, she again passed in fancy to the time when she was\r
+with him and he was looking at her with a lover's eyes.\r
+\r
+"Oh, if only he would come quicker! I am so afraid it will never be!\r
+And, worst of all, I am growing old--that's the thing! There won't then\r
+be in me what there is now. But perhaps he'll come today, will come\r
+immediately. Perhaps he has come and is sitting in the drawing room.\r
+Perhaps he came yesterday and I have forgotten it." She rose, put down\r
+the guitar, and went to the drawing room.\r
+\r
+All the domestic circle, tutors, governesses, and guests, were already\r
+at the tea table. The servants stood round the table--but Prince Andrew\r
+was not there and life was going on as before.\r
+\r
+"Ah, here she is!" said the old count, when he saw Natasha enter. "Well,\r
+sit down by me." But Natasha stayed by her mother and glanced round as\r
+if looking for something.\r
+\r
+"Mamma!" she muttered, "give him to me, give him, Mamma, quickly,\r
+quickly!" and she again had difficulty in repressing her sobs.\r
+\r
+She sat down at the table and listened to the conversation between the\r
+elders and Nicholas, who had also come to the table. "My God, my God!\r
+The same faces, the same talk, Papa holding his cup and blowing in the\r
+same way!" thought Natasha, feeling with horror a sense of repulsion\r
+rising up in her for the whole household, because they were always the\r
+same.\r
+\r
+After tea, Nicholas, Sonya, and Natasha went to the sitting room, to\r
+their favorite corner where their most intimate talks always began.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+"Does it ever happen to you," said Natasha to her brother, when they\r
+settled down in the sitting room, "does it ever happen to you to feel as\r
+if there were nothing more to come--nothing; that everything good is\r
+past? And to feel not exactly dull, but sad?"\r
+\r
+"I should think so!" he replied. "I have felt like that when everything\r
+was all right and everyone was cheerful. The thought has come into my\r
+mind that I was already tired of it all, and that we must all die. Once\r
+in the regiment I had not gone to some merrymaking where there was\r
+music... and suddenly I felt so depressed..."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, I know, I know, I know!" Natasha interrupted him. "When I was\r
+quite little that used to be so with me. Do you remember when I was\r
+punished once about some plums? You were all dancing, and I sat sobbing\r
+in the schoolroom? I shall never forget it: I felt sad and sorry for\r
+everyone, for myself, and for everyone. And I was innocent--that was the\r
+chief thing," said Natasha. "Do you remember?"\r
+\r
+"I remember," answered Nicholas. "I remember that I came to you\r
+afterwards and wanted to comfort you, but do you know, I felt ashamed\r
+to. We were terribly absurd. I had a funny doll then and wanted to give\r
+it to you. Do you remember?"\r
+\r
+"And do you remember," Natasha asked with a pensive smile, "how once,\r
+long, long ago, when we were quite little, Uncle called us into the\r
+study--that was in the old house--and it was dark--we went in and\r
+suddenly there stood..."\r
+\r
+"A Negro," chimed in Nicholas with a smile of delight. "Of course I\r
+remember. Even now I don't know whether there really was a Negro, or if\r
+we only dreamed it or were told about him."\r
+\r
+"He was gray, you remember, and had white teeth, and stood and looked at\r
+us..."\r
+\r
+"Sonya, do you remember?" asked Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I do remember something too," Sonya answered timidly.\r
+\r
+"You know I have asked Papa and Mamma about that Negro," said Natasha,\r
+"and they say there was no Negro at all. But you see, you remember!"\r
+\r
+"Of course I do, I remember his teeth as if I had just seen them."\r
+\r
+"How strange it is! It's as if it were a dream! I like that."\r
+\r
+"And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the ballroom, and\r
+suddenly two old women began spinning round on the carpet? Was that real\r
+or not? Do you remember what fun it was?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, and you remember how Papa in his blue overcoat fired a gun in the\r
+porch?"\r
+\r
+So they went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad\r
+memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones--those impressions of\r
+one's most distant past in which dreams and realities blend--and they\r
+laughed with quiet enjoyment.\r
+\r
+Sonya, as always, did not quite keep pace with them, though they shared\r
+the same reminiscences.\r
+\r
+Much that they remembered had slipped from her mind, and what she\r
+recalled did not arouse the same poetic feeling as they experienced. She\r
+simply enjoyed their pleasure and tried to fit in with it.\r
+\r
+She only really took part when they recalled Sonya's first arrival. She\r
+told them how afraid she had been of Nicholas because he had on a corded\r
+jacket and her nurse had told her that she, too, would be sewn up with\r
+cords.\r
+\r
+"And I remember their telling me that you had been born under a\r
+cabbage," said Natasha, "and I remember that I dared not disbelieve it\r
+then, but knew that it was not true, and I felt so uncomfortable."\r
+\r
+While they were talking a maid thrust her head in at the other door of\r
+the sitting room.\r
+\r
+"They have brought the cock, Miss," she said in a whisper.\r
+\r
+"It isn't wanted, Petya. Tell them to take it away," replied Natasha.\r
+\r
+In the middle of their talk in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and\r
+went up to the harp that stood there in a corner. He took off its cloth\r
+covering, and the harp gave out a jarring sound.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Dimmler, please play my favorite nocturne by Field," came the old\r
+countess' voice from the drawing room.\r
+\r
+Dimmler struck a chord and, turning to Natasha, Nicholas, and Sonya,\r
+remarked: "How quiet you young people are!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, we're philosophizing," said Natasha, glancing round for a moment\r
+and then continuing the conversation. They were now discussing dreams.\r
+\r
+Dimmler began to play; Natasha went on tiptoe noiselessly to the table,\r
+took up a candle, carried it out, and returned, seating herself quietly\r
+in her former place. It was dark in the room especially where they were\r
+sitting on the sofa, but through the big windows the silvery light of\r
+the full moon fell on the floor. Dimmler had finished the piece but\r
+still sat softly running his fingers over the strings, evidently\r
+uncertain whether to stop or to play something else.\r
+\r
+"Do you know," said Natasha in a whisper, moving closer to Nicholas and\r
+Sonya, "that when one goes on and on recalling memories, one at last\r
+begins to remember what happened before one was in the world..."\r
+\r
+"That is metempsychosis," said Sonya, who had always learned well, and\r
+remembered everything. "The Egyptians believed that our souls have lived\r
+in animals, and will go back into animals again."\r
+\r
+"No, I don't believe we ever were in animals," said Natasha, still in a\r
+whisper though the music had ceased. "But I am certain that we were\r
+angels somewhere there, and have been here, and that is why we\r
+remember...."\r
+\r
+"May I join you?" said Dimmler who had come up quietly, and he sat down\r
+by them.\r
+\r
+"If we have been angels, why have we fallen lower?" said Nicholas. "No,\r
+that can't be!"\r
+\r
+"Not lower, who said we were lower?... How do I know what I was before?"\r
+Natasha rejoined with conviction. "The soul is immortal--well then, if I\r
+shall always live I must have lived before, lived for a whole eternity."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but it is hard for us to imagine eternity," remarked Dimmler, who\r
+had joined the young folk with a mildly condescending smile but now\r
+spoke as quietly and seriously as they.\r
+\r
+"Why is it hard to imagine eternity?" said Natasha. "It is now today,\r
+and it will be tomorrow, and always; and there was yesterday, and the\r
+day before..."\r
+\r
+"Natasha! Now it's your turn. Sing me something," they heard the\r
+countess say. "Why are you sitting there like conspirators?"\r
+\r
+"Mamma, I don't at all want to," replied Natasha, but all the same she\r
+rose.\r
+\r
+None of them, not even the middle-aged Dimmler, wanted to break off\r
+their conversation and quit that corner in the sitting room, but Natasha\r
+got up and Nicholas sat down at the clavichord. Standing as usual in the\r
+middle of the hall and choosing the place where the resonance was best,\r
+Natasha began to sing her mother's favorite song.\r
+\r
+She had said she did not want to sing, but it was long since she had\r
+sung, and long before she again sang, as she did that evening. The\r
+count, from his study where he was talking to Mitenka, heard her and,\r
+like a schoolboy in a hurry to run out to play, blundered in his talk\r
+while giving orders to the steward, and at last stopped, while Mitenka\r
+stood in front of him also listening and smiling. Nicholas did not take\r
+his eyes off his sister and drew breath in time with her. Sonya, as she\r
+listened, thought of the immense difference there was between herself\r
+and her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be anything like as\r
+bewitching as her cousin. The old countess sat with a blissful yet sad\r
+smile and with tears in her eyes, occasionally shaking her head. She\r
+thought of Natasha and of her own youth, and of how there was something\r
+unnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage of Natasha and Prince\r
+Andrew.\r
+\r
+Dimmler, who had seated himself beside the countess, listened with\r
+closed eyes.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Countess," he said at last, "that's a European talent, she has\r
+nothing to learn--what softness, tenderness, and strength...."\r
+\r
+"Ah, how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!" said the countess, not\r
+realizing to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her that\r
+Natasha had too much of something, and that because of this she would\r
+not be happy. Before Natasha had finished singing, fourteen-year-old\r
+Petya rushed in delightedly, to say that some mummers had arrived.\r
+\r
+Natasha stopped abruptly.\r
+\r
+"Idiot!" she screamed at her brother and, running to a chair, threw\r
+herself on it, sobbing so violently that she could not stop for a long\r
+time.\r
+\r
+"It's nothing, Mamma, really it's nothing; only Petya startled me," she\r
+said, trying to smile, but her tears still flowed and sobs still choked\r
+her.\r
+\r
+The mummers (some of the house serfs) dressed up as bears, Turks,\r
+innkeepers, and ladies--frightening and funny--bringing in with them the\r
+cold from outside and a feeling of gaiety, crowded, at first timidly,\r
+into the anteroom, then hiding behind one another they pushed into the\r
+ballroom where, shyly at first and then more and more merrily and\r
+heartily, they started singing, dancing, and playing Christmas games.\r
+The countess, when she had identified them and laughed at their\r
+costumes, went into the drawing room. The count sat in the ballroom,\r
+smiling radiantly and applauding the players. The young people had\r
+disappeared.\r
+\r
+Half an hour later there appeared among the other mummers in the\r
+ballroom an old lady in a hooped skirt--this was Nicholas. A Turkish\r
+girl was Petya. A clown was Dimmler. An hussar was Natasha, and a\r
+Circassian was Sonya with burnt-cork mustache and eyebrows.\r
+\r
+After the condescending surprise, nonrecognition, and praise, from those\r
+who were not themselves dressed up, the young people decided that their\r
+costumes were so good that they ought to be shown elsewhere.\r
+\r
+Nicholas, who, as the roads were in splendid condition, wanted to take\r
+them all for a drive in his troyka, proposed to take with them about a\r
+dozen of the serf mummers and drive to "Uncle's."\r
+\r
+"No, why disturb the old fellow?" said the countess. "Besides, you\r
+wouldn't have room to turn round there. If you must go, go to the\r
+Melyukovs'."\r
+\r
+Melyukova was a widow, who, with her family and their tutors and\r
+governesses, lived three miles from the Rostovs.\r
+\r
+"That's right, my dear," chimed in the old count, thoroughly aroused.\r
+"I'll dress up at once and go with them. I'll make Pashette open her\r
+eyes."\r
+\r
+But the countess would not agree to his going; he had had a bad leg all\r
+these last days. It was decided that the count must not go, but that if\r
+Louisa Ivanovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young ladies\r
+might go to the Melyukovs', Sonya, generally so timid and shy, more\r
+urgently than anyone begging Louisa Ivanovna not to refuse.\r
+\r
+Sonya's costume was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows were\r
+extraordinarily becoming. Everyone told her she looked very handsome,\r
+and she was in a spirited and energetic mood unusual with her. Some\r
+inner voice told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and in\r
+her male attire she seemed quite a different person. Louisa Ivanovna\r
+consented to go, and in half an hour four troyka sleighs with large and\r
+small bells, their runners squeaking and whistling over the frozen snow,\r
+drove up to the porch.\r
+\r
+Natasha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone, which, passing\r
+from one to another, grew stronger and reached its climax when they all\r
+came out into the frost and got into the sleighs, talking, calling to\r
+one another, laughing, and shouting.\r
+\r
+Two of the troykas were the usual household sleighs, the third was the\r
+old count's with a trotter from the Orlov stud as shaft horse, the\r
+fourth was Nicholas' own with a short shaggy black shaft horse.\r
+Nicholas, in his old lady's dress over which he had belted his hussar\r
+overcoat, stood in the middle of the sleigh, reins in hand.\r
+\r
+It was so light that he could see the moonlight reflected from the metal\r
+harness disks and from the eyes of the horses, who looked round in alarm\r
+at the noisy party under the shadow of the porch roof.\r
+\r
+Natasha, Sonya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nicholas' sleigh;\r
+Dimmler, his wife, and Petya, into the old count's, and the rest of the\r
+mummers seated themselves in the other two sleighs.\r
+\r
+"You go ahead, Zakhar!" shouted Nicholas to his father's coachman,\r
+wishing for a chance to race past him.\r
+\r
+The old count's troyka, with Dimmler and his party, started forward,\r
+squeaking on its runners as though freezing to the snow, its deep-toned\r
+bell clanging. The side horses, pressing against the shafts of the\r
+middle horse, sank in the snow, which was dry and glittered like sugar,\r
+and threw it up.\r
+\r
+Nicholas set off, following the first sleigh; behind him the others\r
+moved noisily, their runners squeaking. At first they drove at a steady\r
+trot along the narrow road. While they drove past the garden the shadows\r
+of the bare trees often fell across the road and hid the brilliant\r
+moonlight, but as soon as they were past the fence, the snowy plain\r
+bathed in moonlight and motionless spread out before them glittering\r
+like diamonds and dappled with bluish shadows. Bang, bang! went the\r
+first sleigh over a cradle hole in the snow of the road, and each of the\r
+other sleighs jolted in the same way, and rudely breaking the frost-\r
+bound stillness, the troykas began to speed along the road, one after\r
+the other.\r
+\r
+"A hare's track, a lot of tracks!" rang out Natasha's voice through the\r
+frost-bound air.\r
+\r
+"How light it is, Nicholas!" came Sonya's voice.\r
+\r
+Nicholas glanced round at Sonya, and bent down to see her face closer.\r
+Quite a new, sweet face with black eyebrows and mustaches peeped up at\r
+him from her sable furs--so close and yet so distant--in the moonlight.\r
+\r
+"That used to be Sonya," thought he, and looked at her closer and\r
+smiled.\r
+\r
+"What is it, Nicholas?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing," said he and turned again to the horses.\r
+\r
+When they came out onto the beaten highroad--polished by sleigh runners\r
+and cut up by rough-shod hoofs, the marks of which were visible in the\r
+moonlight--the horses began to tug at the reins of their own accord and\r
+increased their pace. The near side horse, arching his head and breaking\r
+into a short canter, tugged at his traces. The shaft horse swayed from\r
+side to side, moving his ears as if asking: "Isn't it time to begin\r
+now?" In front, already far ahead the deep bell of the sleigh ringing\r
+farther and farther off, the black horses driven by Zakhar could be\r
+clearly seen against the white snow. From that sleigh one could hear the\r
+shouts, laughter, and voices of the mummers.\r
+\r
+"Gee up, my darlings!" shouted Nicholas, pulling the reins to one side\r
+and flourishing the whip.\r
+\r
+It was only by the keener wind that met them and the jerks given by the\r
+side horses who pulled harder--ever increasing their gallop--that one\r
+noticed how fast the troyka was flying. Nicholas looked back. With\r
+screams squeals, and waving of whips that caused even the shaft horses\r
+to gallop--the other sleighs followed. The shaft horse swung steadily\r
+beneath the bow over its head, with no thought of slackening pace and\r
+ready to put on speed when required.\r
+\r
+Nicholas overtook the first sleigh. They were driving downhill and\r
+coming out upon a broad trodden track across a meadow, near a river.\r
+\r
+"Where are we?" thought he. "It's the Kosoy meadow, I suppose. But no--\r
+this is something new I've never seen before. This isn't the Kosoy\r
+meadow nor the Demkin hill, and heaven only knows what it is! It is\r
+something new and enchanted. Well, whatever it may be..." And shouting\r
+to his horses, he began to pass the first sleigh.\r
+\r
+Zakhar held back his horses and turned his face, which was already\r
+covered with hoarfrost to his eyebrows.\r
+\r
+Nicholas gave the horses the rein, and Zakhar, stretching out his arms,\r
+clucked his tongue and let his horses go.\r
+\r
+"Now, look out, master!" he cried.\r
+\r
+Faster still the two troykas flew side by side, and faster moved the\r
+feet of the galloping side horses. Nicholas began to draw ahead. Zakhar,\r
+while still keeping his arms extended, raised one hand with the reins.\r
+\r
+"No you won't, master!" he shouted.\r
+\r
+Nicholas put all his horses to a gallop and passed Zakhar. The horses\r
+showered the fine dry snow on the faces of those in the sleigh--beside\r
+them sounded quick ringing bells and they caught confused glimpses of\r
+swiftly moving legs and the shadows of the troyka they were passing. The\r
+whistling sound of the runners on the snow and the voices of girls\r
+shrieking were heard from different sides.\r
+\r
+Again checking his horses, Nicholas looked around him. They were still\r
+surrounded by the magic plain bathed in moonlight and spangled with\r
+stars.\r
+\r
+"Zakhar is shouting that I should turn to the left, but why to the\r
+left?" thought Nicholas. "Are we getting to the Melyukovs'? Is this\r
+Melyukovka? Heaven only knows where we are going, and heaven knows what\r
+is happening to us--but it is very strange and pleasant whatever it is."\r
+And he looked round in the sleigh.\r
+\r
+"Look, his mustache and eyelashes are all white!" said one of the\r
+strange, pretty, unfamiliar people--the one with fine eyebrows and\r
+mustache.\r
+\r
+"I think this used to be Natasha," thought Nicholas, "and that was\r
+Madame Schoss, but perhaps it's not, and this Circassian with the\r
+mustache I don't know, but I love her."\r
+\r
+"Aren't you cold?" he asked.\r
+\r
+They did not answer but began to laugh. Dimmler from the sleigh behind\r
+shouted something--probably something funny--but they could not make out\r
+what he said.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes!" some voices answered, laughing.\r
+\r
+"But here was a fairy forest with black moving shadows, and a glitter of\r
+diamonds and a flight of marble steps and the silver roofs of fairy\r
+buildings and the shrill yells of some animals. And if this is really\r
+Melyukovka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and\r
+have come to Melyukovka," thought Nicholas.\r
+\r
+It really was Melyukovka, and maids and footmen with merry faces came\r
+running, out to the porch carrying candles.\r
+\r
+"Who is it?" asked someone in the porch.\r
+\r
+"The mummers from the count's. I know by the horses," replied some\r
+voices.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+Pelageya Danilovna Melyukova, a broadly built, energetic woman wearing\r
+spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress, surrounded by her\r
+daughters whom she was trying to keep from feeling dull. They were\r
+quietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking at the shadows the wax\r
+figures would throw on the wall, when they heard the steps and voices of\r
+new arrivals in the vestibule.\r
+\r
+Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing their\r
+throats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule, came\r
+into the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. The clown--\r
+Dimmler--and the lady--Nicholas--started a dance. Surrounded by the\r
+screaming children the mummers, covering their faces and disguising\r
+their voices, bowed to their hostess and arranged themselves about the\r
+room.\r
+\r
+"Dear me! there's no recognizing them! And Natasha! See whom she looks\r
+like! She really reminds me of somebody. But Herr Dimmler--isn't he\r
+good! I didn't know him! And how he dances. Dear me, there's a\r
+Circassian. Really, how becoming it is to dear Sonya. And who is that?\r
+Well, you have cheered us up! Nikita and Vanya--clear away the tables!\r
+And we were sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!... The hussar, the hussar!\r
+Just like a boy! And the legs!... I can't look at him..." different\r
+voices were saying.\r
+\r
+Natasha, the young Melyukovs' favorite, disappeared with them into the\r
+back rooms where a cork and various dressing gowns and male garments\r
+were called for and received from the footman by bare girlish arms from\r
+behind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukovs joined the\r
+mummers.\r
+\r
+Pelageya Danilovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for the\r
+visitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs,\r
+went about among the mummers without removing her spectacles, peering\r
+into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize any of\r
+them. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostovs she failed to recognize,\r
+she did not even recognize her own daughters, or her late husband's,\r
+dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on.\r
+\r
+"And who is this?" she asked her governess, peering into the face of her\r
+own daughter dressed up as a Kazan-Tartar. "I suppose it is one of the\r
+Rostovs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you serve in?" she asked\r
+Natasha. "Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!" she ordered the\r
+butler who was handing things round. "That's not forbidden by his law."\r
+\r
+Sometimes, as she looked at the strange but amusing capers cut by the\r
+dancers, who--having decided once for all that being disguised, no one\r
+would recognize them--were not at all shy, Pelageya Danilovna hid her\r
+face in her handkerchief, and her whole stout body shook with\r
+irrepressible, kindly, elderly laughter.\r
+\r
+"My little Sasha! Look at Sasha!" she said.\r
+\r
+After Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelageya Danilovna made\r
+the serfs and gentry join in one large circle: a ring, a string, and a\r
+silver ruble were fetched and they all played games together.\r
+\r
+In an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. The corked\r
+eyebrows and mustaches were smeared over the perspiring, flushed, and\r
+merry faces. Pelageya Danilovna began to recognize the mummers, admired\r
+their cleverly contrived costumes, and particularly how they suited the\r
+young ladies, and she thanked them all for having entertained her so\r
+well. The visitors were invited to supper in the drawing room, and the\r
+serfs had something served to them in the ballroom.\r
+\r
+"Now to tell one's fortune in the empty bathhouse is frightening!" said\r
+an old maid who lived with the Melyukovs, during supper.\r
+\r
+"Why?" said the eldest Melyukov girl.\r
+\r
+"You wouldn't go, it takes courage..."\r
+\r
+"I'll go," said Sonya.\r
+\r
+"Tell what happened to the young lady!" said the second Melyukov girl.\r
+\r
+"Well," began the old maid, "a young lady once went out, took a cock,\r
+laid the table for two, all properly, and sat down. After sitting a\r
+while, she suddenly hears someone coming... a sleigh drives up with\r
+harness bells; she hears him coming! He comes in, just in the shape of a\r
+man, like an officer--comes in and sits down to table with her."\r
+\r
+"Ah! ah!" screamed Natasha, rolling her eyes with horror.\r
+\r
+"Yes? And how... did he speak?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, like a man. Everything quite all right, and he began persuading\r
+her; and she should have kept him talking till cockcrow, but she got\r
+frightened, just got frightened and hid her face in her hands. Then he\r
+caught her up. It was lucky the maids ran in just then..."\r
+\r
+"Now, why frighten them?" said Pelageya Danilovna.\r
+\r
+"Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself..." said her daughter.\r
+\r
+"And how does one do it in a barn?" inquired Sonya.\r
+\r
+"Well, say you went to the barn now, and listened. It depends on what\r
+you hear; hammering and knocking--that's bad; but a sound of shifting\r
+grain is good and one sometimes hears that, too."\r
+\r
+"Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn."\r
+\r
+Pelageya Danilovna smiled.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I've forgotten..." she replied. "But none of you would go?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I will; Pelageya Danilovna, let me! I'll go," said Sonya.\r
+\r
+"Well, why not, if you're not afraid?"\r
+\r
+"Louisa Ivanovna, may I?" asked Sonya.\r
+\r
+Whether they were playing the ring and string game or the ruble game or\r
+talking as now, Nicholas did not leave Sonya's side, and gazed at her\r
+with quite new eyes. It seemed to him that it was only today, thanks to\r
+that burnt-cork mustache, that he had fully learned to know her. And\r
+really, that evening, Sonya was brighter, more animated, and prettier\r
+than Nicholas had ever seen her before.\r
+\r
+"So that's what she is like; what a fool I have been!" he thought gazing\r
+at her sparkling eyes, and under the mustache a happy rapturous smile\r
+dimpled her cheeks, a smile he had never seen before.\r
+\r
+"I'm not afraid of anything," said Sonya. "May I go at once?" She got\r
+up.\r
+\r
+They told her where the barn was and how she should stand and listen,\r
+and they handed her a fur cloak. She threw this over her head and\r
+shoulders and glanced at Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"What a darling that girl is!" thought he. "And what have I been\r
+thinking of till now?"\r
+\r
+Sonya went out into the passage to go to the barn. Nicholas went hastily\r
+to the front porch, saying he felt too hot. The crowd of people really\r
+had made the house stuffy.\r
+\r
+Outside, there was the same cold stillness and the same moon, but even\r
+brighter than before. The light was so strong and the snow sparkled with\r
+so many stars that one did not wish to look up at the sky and the real\r
+stars were unnoticed. The sky was black and dreary, while the earth was\r
+gay.\r
+\r
+"I am a fool, a fool! what have I been waiting for?" thought Nicholas,\r
+and running out from the porch he went round the corner of the house and\r
+along the path that led to the back porch. He knew Sonya would pass that\r
+way. Halfway lay some snow-covered piles of firewood and across and\r
+along them a network of shadows from the bare old lime trees fell on the\r
+snow and on the path. This path led to the barn. The log walls of the\r
+barn and its snow-covered roof, that looked as if hewn out of some\r
+precious stone, sparkled in the moonlight. A tree in the garden snapped\r
+with the frost, and then all was again perfectly silent. His bosom\r
+seemed to inhale not air but the strength of eternal youth and gladness.\r
+\r
+From the back porch came the sound of feet descending the steps, the\r
+bottom step upon which snow had fallen gave a ringing creak and he heard\r
+the voice of an old maidservant saying, "Straight, straight, along the\r
+path, Miss. Only, don't look back."\r
+\r
+"I am not afraid," answered Sonya's voice, and along the path toward\r
+Nicholas came the crunching, whistling sound of Sonya's feet in her thin\r
+shoes.\r
+\r
+Sonya came along, wrapped in her cloak. She was only a couple of paces\r
+away when she saw him, and to her too he was not the Nicholas she had\r
+known and always slightly feared. He was in a woman's dress, with\r
+tousled hair and a happy smile new to Sonya. She ran rapidly toward him.\r
+\r
+"Quite different and yet the same," thought Nicholas, looking at her\r
+face all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the cloak\r
+that covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, and kissed her\r
+on the lips that wore a mustache and had a smell of burnt cork. Sonya\r
+kissed him full on the lips, and disengaging her little hands pressed\r
+them to his cheeks.\r
+\r
+"Sonya!... Nicholas!"... was all they said. They ran to the barn and\r
+then back again, re-entering, he by the front and she by the back porch.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+When they all drove back from Pelageya Danilovna's, Natasha, who always\r
+saw and noticed everything, arranged that she and Madame Schoss should\r
+go back in the sleigh with Dimmler, and Sonya with Nicholas and the\r
+maids.\r
+\r
+On the way back Nicholas drove at a steady pace instead of racing and\r
+kept peering by that fantastic all-transforming light into Sonya's face\r
+and searching beneath the eyebrows and mustache for his former and his\r
+present Sonya from whom he had resolved never to be parted again. He\r
+looked and recognizing in her both the old and the new Sonya, and being\r
+reminded by the smell of burnt cork of the sensation of her kiss,\r
+inhaled the frosty air with a full breast and, looking at the ground\r
+flying beneath him and at the sparkling sky, felt himself again in\r
+fairyland.\r
+\r
+"Sonya, is it well with thee?" he asked from time to time.\r
+\r
+"Yes!" she replied. "And with thee?"\r
+\r
+When halfway home Nicholas handed the reins to the coachman and ran for\r
+a moment to Natasha's sleigh and stood on its wing.\r
+\r
+"Natasha!" he whispered in French, "do you know I have made up my mind\r
+about Sonya?"\r
+\r
+"Have you told her?" asked Natasha, suddenly beaming all over with joy.\r
+\r
+"Oh, how strange you are with that mustache and those eyebrows!...\r
+Natasha--are you glad?"\r
+\r
+"I am so glad, so glad! I was beginning to be vexed with you. I did not\r
+tell you, but you have been treating her badly. What a heart she has,\r
+Nicholas! I am horrid sometimes, but I was ashamed to be happy while\r
+Sonya was not," continued Natasha. "Now I am so glad! Well, run back to\r
+her."\r
+\r
+"No, wait a bit.... Oh, how funny you look!" cried Nicholas, peering\r
+into her face and finding in his sister too something new, unusual, and\r
+bewitchingly tender that he had not seen in her before. "Natasha, it's\r
+magical, isn't it?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," she replied. "You have done splendidly."\r
+\r
+"Had I seen her before as she is now," thought Nicholas, "I should long\r
+ago have asked her what to do and have done whatever she told me, and\r
+all would have been well."\r
+\r
+"So you are glad and I have done right?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, quite right! I had a quarrel with Mamma some time ago about it.\r
+Mamma said she was angling for you. How could she say such a thing! I\r
+nearly stormed at Mamma. I will never let anyone say anything bad of\r
+Sonya, for there is nothing but good in her."\r
+\r
+"Then it's all right?" said Nicholas, again scrutinizing the expression\r
+of his sister's face to see if she was in earnest. Then he jumped down\r
+and, his boots scrunching the snow, ran back to his sleigh. The same\r
+happy, smiling Circassian, with mustache and beaming eyes looking up\r
+from under a sable hood, was still sitting there, and that Circassian\r
+was Sonya, and that Sonya was certainly his future happy and loving\r
+wife.\r
+\r
+When they reached home and had told their mother how they had spent the\r
+evening at the Melyukovs', the girls went to their bedroom. When they\r
+had undressed, but without washing off the cork mustaches, they sat a\r
+long time talking of their happiness. They talked of how they would live\r
+when they were married, how their husbands would be friends, and how\r
+happy they would be. On Natasha's table stood two looking glasses which\r
+Dunyasha had prepared beforehand.\r
+\r
+"Only when will all that be? I am afraid never.... It would be too\r
+good!" said Natasha, rising and going to the looking glasses.\r
+\r
+"Sit down, Natasha; perhaps you'll see him," said Sonya.\r
+\r
+Natasha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the looking glasses,\r
+and sat down.\r
+\r
+"I see someone with a mustache," said Natasha, seeing her own face.\r
+\r
+"You mustn't laugh, Miss," said Dunyasha.\r
+\r
+With Sonya's help and the maid's, Natasha got the glass she held into\r
+the right position opposite the other; her face assumed a serious\r
+expression and she sat silent. She sat a long time looking at the\r
+receding line of candles reflected in the glasses and expecting (from\r
+tales she had heard) to see a coffin, or him, Prince Andrew, in that\r
+last dim, indistinctly outlined square. But ready as she was to take the\r
+smallest speck for the image of a man or of a coffin, she saw nothing.\r
+She began blinking rapidly and moved away from the looking glasses.\r
+\r
+"Why is it others see things and I don't?" she said. "You sit down now,\r
+Sonya. You absolutely must, tonight! Do it for me.... Today I feel so\r
+frightened!"\r
+\r
+Sonya sat down before the glasses, got the right position, and began\r
+looking.\r
+\r
+"Now, Miss Sonya is sure to see something," whispered Dunyasha; "while\r
+you do nothing but laugh."\r
+\r
+Sonya heard this and Natasha's whisper:\r
+\r
+"I know she will. She saw something last year."\r
+\r
+For about three minutes all were silent.\r
+\r
+"Of course she will!" whispered Natasha, but did not finish... suddenly\r
+Sonya pushed away the glass she was holding and covered her eyes with\r
+her hand.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Natasha!" she cried.\r
+\r
+"Did you see? Did you? What was it?" exclaimed Natasha, holding up the\r
+looking glass.\r
+\r
+Sonya had not seen anything, she was just wanting to blink and to get up\r
+when she heard Natasha say, "Of course she will!" She did not wish to\r
+disappoint either Dunyasha or Natasha, but it was hard to sit still. She\r
+did not herself know how or why the exclamation escaped her when she\r
+covered her eyes.\r
+\r
+"You saw him?" urged Natasha, seizing her hand.\r
+\r
+"Yes. Wait a bit... I... saw him," Sonya could not help saying, not yet\r
+knowing whom Natasha meant by him, Nicholas or Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"But why shouldn't I say I saw something? Others do see! Besides who can\r
+tell whether I saw anything or not?" flashed through Sonya's mind.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I saw him," she said.\r
+\r
+"How? Standing or lying?"\r
+\r
+"No, I saw... At first there was nothing, then I saw him lying down."\r
+\r
+"Andrew lying? Is he ill?" asked Natasha, her frightened eyes fixed on\r
+her friend.\r
+\r
+"No, on the contrary, on the contrary! His face was cheerful, and he\r
+turned to me." And when saying this she herself fancied she had really\r
+seen what she described.\r
+\r
+"Well, and then, Sonya?..."\r
+\r
+"After that, I could not make out what there was; something blue and\r
+red..."\r
+\r
+"Sonya! When will he come back? When shall I see him! O, God, how afraid\r
+I am for him and for myself and about everything!..." Natasha began, and\r
+without replying to Sonya's words of comfort she got into bed, and long\r
+after her candle was out lay open-eyed and motionless, gazing at the\r
+moonlight through the frosty windowpanes.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+Soon after the Christmas holidays Nicholas told his mother of his love\r
+for Sonya and of his firm resolve to marry her. The countess, who had\r
+long noticed what was going on between them and was expecting this\r
+declaration, listened to him in silence and then told her son that he\r
+might marry whom he pleased, but that neither she nor his father would\r
+give their blessing to such a marriage. Nicholas, for the first time,\r
+felt that his mother was displeased with him and that, despite her love\r
+for him, she would not give way. Coldly, without looking at her son, she\r
+sent for her husband and, when he came, tried briefly and coldly to\r
+inform him of the facts, in her son's presence, but unable to restrain\r
+herself she burst into tears of vexation and left the room. The old\r
+count began irresolutely to admonish Nicholas and beg him to abandon his\r
+purpose. Nicholas replied that he could not go back on his word, and his\r
+father, sighing and evidently disconcerted, very soon became silent and\r
+went in to the countess. In all his encounters with his son, the count\r
+was always conscious of his own guilt toward him for having wasted the\r
+family fortune, and so he could not be angry with him for refusing to\r
+marry an heiress and choosing the dowerless Sonya. On this occasion, he\r
+was only more vividly conscious of the fact that if his affairs had not\r
+been in disorder, no better wife for Nicholas than Sonya could have been\r
+wished for, and that no one but himself with his Mitenka and his\r
+uncomfortable habits was to blame for the condition of the family\r
+finances.\r
+\r
+The father and mother did not speak of the matter to their son again,\r
+but a few days later the countess sent for Sonya and, with a cruelty\r
+neither of them expected, reproached her niece for trying to catch\r
+Nicholas and for ingratitude. Sonya listened silently with downcast eyes\r
+to the countess' cruel words, without understanding what was required of\r
+her. She was ready to sacrifice everything for her benefactors. Self-\r
+sacrifice was her most cherished idea but in this case she could not see\r
+what she ought to sacrifice, or for whom. She could not help loving the\r
+countess and the whole Rostov family, but neither could she help loving\r
+Nicholas and knowing that his happiness depended on that love. She was\r
+silent and sad and did not reply. Nicholas felt the situation to be\r
+intolerable and went to have an explanation with his mother. He first\r
+implored her to forgive him and Sonya and consent to their marriage,\r
+then he threatened that if she molested Sonya he would at once marry her\r
+secretly.\r
+\r
+The countess, with a coldness her son had never seen in her before,\r
+replied that he was of age, that Prince Andrew was marrying without his\r
+father's consent, and he could do the same, but that she would never\r
+receive that intriguer as her daughter.\r
+\r
+Exploding at the word intriguer, Nicholas, raising his voice, told his\r
+mother he had never expected her to try to force him to sell his\r
+feelings, but if that were so, he would say for the last time.... But he\r
+had no time to utter the decisive word which the expression of his face\r
+caused his mother to await with terror, and which would perhaps have\r
+forever remained a cruel memory to them both. He had not time to say it,\r
+for Natasha, with a pale and set face, entered the room from the door at\r
+which she had been listening.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas, you are talking nonsense! Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, I\r
+tell you!..." she almost screamed, so as to drown his voice.\r
+\r
+"Mamma darling, it's not at all so... my poor, sweet darling," she said\r
+to her mother, who conscious that they had been on the brink of a\r
+rupture gazed at her son with terror, but in the obstinacy and\r
+excitement of the conflict could not and would not give way.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas, I'll explain to you. Go away! Listen, Mamma darling," said\r
+Natasha.\r
+\r
+Her words were incoherent, but they attained the purpose at which she\r
+was aiming.\r
+\r
+The countess, sobbing heavily, hid her face on her daughter's breast,\r
+while Nicholas rose, clutching his head, and left the room.\r
+\r
+Natasha set to work to effect a reconciliation, and so far succeeded\r
+that Nicholas received a promise from his mother that Sonya should not\r
+be troubled, while he on his side promised not to undertake anything\r
+without his parents' knowledge.\r
+\r
+Firmly resolved, after putting his affairs in order in the regiment, to\r
+retire from the army and return and marry Sonya, Nicholas, serious,\r
+sorrowful, and at variance with his parents, but, as it seemed to him,\r
+passionately in love, left at the beginning of January to rejoin his\r
+regiment.\r
+\r
+After Nicholas had gone things in the Rostov household were more\r
+depressing than ever, and the countess fell ill from mental agitation.\r
+\r
+Sonya was unhappy at the separation from Nicholas and still more so on\r
+account of the hostile tone the countess could not help adopting toward\r
+her. The count was more perturbed than ever by the condition of his\r
+affairs, which called for some decisive action. Their town house and\r
+estate near Moscow had inevitably to be sold, and for this they had to\r
+go to Moscow. But the countess' health obliged them to delay their\r
+departure from day to day.\r
+\r
+Natasha, who had borne the first period of separation from her betrothed\r
+lightly and even cheerfully, now grew more agitated and impatient every\r
+day. The thought that her best days, which she would have employed in\r
+loving him, were being vainly wasted, with no advantage to anyone,\r
+tormented her incessantly. His letters for the most part irritated her.\r
+It hurt her to think that while she lived only in the thought of him, he\r
+was living a real life, seeing new places and new people that interested\r
+him. The more interesting his letters were the more vexed she felt. Her\r
+letters to him, far from giving her any comfort, seemed to her a\r
+wearisome and artificial obligation. She could not write, because she\r
+could not conceive the possibility of expressing sincerely in a letter\r
+even a thousandth part of what she expressed by voice, smile, and\r
+glance. She wrote to him formal, monotonous, and dry letters, to which\r
+she attached no importance herself, and in the rough copies of which the\r
+countess corrected her mistakes in spelling.\r
+\r
+There was still no improvement in the countess' health, but it was\r
+impossible to defer the journey to Moscow any longer. Natasha's\r
+trousseau had to be ordered and the house sold. Moreover, Prince Andrew\r
+was expected in Moscow, where old Prince Bolkonski was spending the\r
+winter, and Natasha felt sure he had already arrived.\r
+\r
+So the countess remained in the country, and the count, taking Sonya and\r
+Natasha with him, went to Moscow at the end of January.\r
+\r
+BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+After Prince Andrew's engagement to Natasha, Pierre without any apparent\r
+cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before. Firmly\r
+convinced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his benefactor, and\r
+happy as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to which he had\r
+devoted himself with such ardor--all the zest of such a life vanished\r
+after the engagement of Andrew and Natasha and the death of Joseph\r
+Alexeevich, the news of which reached him almost at the same time. Only\r
+the skeleton of life remained: his house, a brilliant wife who now\r
+enjoyed the favors of a very important personage, acquaintance with all\r
+Petersburg, and his court service with its dull formalities. And this\r
+life suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome. He ceased keeping\r
+a diary, avoided the company of the Brothers, began going to the club\r
+again, drank a great deal, and came once more in touch with the bachelor\r
+sets, leading such a life that the Countess Helene thought it necessary\r
+to speak severely to him about it. Pierre felt that she was right, and\r
+to avoid compromising her went away to Moscow.\r
+\r
+In Moscow as soon as he entered his huge house in which the faded and\r
+fading princesses still lived, with its enormous retinue; as soon as,\r
+driving through the town, he saw the Iberian shrine with innumerable\r
+tapers burning before the golden covers of the icons, the Kremlin Square\r
+with its snow undisturbed by vehicles, the sleigh drivers and hovels of\r
+the Sivtsev Vrazhok, those old Moscovites who desired nothing, hurried\r
+nowhere, and were ending their days leisurely; when he saw those old\r
+Moscow ladies, the Moscow balls, and the English Club, he felt himself\r
+at home in a quiet haven. In Moscow he felt at peace, at home, warm and\r
+dirty as in an old dressing gown.\r
+\r
+Moscow society, from the old women down to the children, received Pierre\r
+like a long-expected guest whose place was always ready awaiting him.\r
+For Moscow society Pierre was the nicest, kindest, most intellectual,\r
+merriest, and most magnanimous of cranks, a heedless, genial nobleman of\r
+the old Russian type. His purse was always empty because it was open to\r
+everyone.\r
+\r
+Benefit performances, poor pictures, statues, benevolent societies,\r
+gypsy choirs, schools, subscription dinners, sprees, Freemasons,\r
+churches, and books--no one and nothing met with a refusal from him, and\r
+had it not been for two friends who had borrowed large sums from him and\r
+taken him under their protection, he would have given everything away.\r
+There was never a dinner or soiree at the club without him. As soon as\r
+he sank into his place on the sofa after two bottles of Margaux he was\r
+surrounded, and talking, disputing, and joking began. When there were\r
+quarrels, his kindly smile and well-timed jests reconciled the\r
+antagonists. The masonic dinners were dull and dreary when he was not\r
+there.\r
+\r
+When after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and kindly smile,\r
+yielding to the entreaties of the festive company to drive off somewhere\r
+with them, shouts of delight and triumph arose among the young men. At\r
+balls he danced if a partner was needed. Young ladies, married and\r
+unmarried, liked him because without making love to any of them, he was\r
+equally amiable to all, especially after supper. "Il est charmant; il\r
+n'a pas de sexe," * they said of him.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "He is charming; he has no sex."\r
+\r
+Pierre was one of those retired gentlemen-in-waiting of whom there were\r
+hundreds good-humoredly ending their days in Moscow.\r
+\r
+How horrified he would have been seven years before, when he first\r
+arrived from abroad, had he been told that there was no need for him to\r
+seek or plan anything, that his rut had long been shaped, eternally\r
+predetermined, and that wriggle as he might, he would be what all in his\r
+position were. He could not have believed it! Had he not at one time\r
+longed with all his heart to establish a republic in Russia; then\r
+himself to be a Napoleon; then to be a philosopher; and then a\r
+strategist and the conqueror of Napoleon? Had he not seen the\r
+possibility of, and passionately desired, the regeneration of the sinful\r
+human race, and his own progress to the highest degree of perfection?\r
+Had he not established schools and hospitals and liberated his serfs?\r
+\r
+But instead of all that--here he was, the wealthy husband of an\r
+unfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, fond of eating and\r
+drinking and, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat, of abusing the government\r
+a bit, a member of the Moscow English Club, and a universal favorite in\r
+Moscow society. For a long time he could not reconcile himself to the\r
+idea that he was one of those same retired Moscow gentlemen-in-waiting\r
+he had so despised seven years before.\r
+\r
+Sometimes he consoled himself with the thought that he was only living\r
+this life temporarily; but then he was shocked by the thought of how\r
+many, like himself, had entered that life and that club temporarily,\r
+with all their teeth and hair, and had only left it when not a single\r
+tooth or hair remained.\r
+\r
+In moments of pride, when he thought of his position it seemed to him\r
+that he was quite different and distinct from those other retired\r
+gentlemen-in-waiting he had formerly despised: they were empty, stupid,\r
+contented fellows, satisfied with their position, "while I am still\r
+discontented and want to do something for mankind. But perhaps all these\r
+comrades of mine struggled just like me and sought something new, a path\r
+in life of their own, and like me were brought by force of\r
+circumstances, society, and race--by that elemental force against which\r
+man is powerless--to the condition I am in," said he to himself in\r
+moments of humility; and after living some time in Moscow he no longer\r
+despised, but began to grow fond of, to respect, and to pity his\r
+comrades in destiny, as he pitied himself.\r
+\r
+Pierre no longer suffered moments of despair, hypochondria, and disgust\r
+with life, but the malady that had formerly found expression in such\r
+acute attacks was driven inwards and never left him for a moment. "What\r
+for? Why? What is going on in the world?" he would ask himself in\r
+perplexity several times a day, involuntarily beginning to reflect anew\r
+on the meaning of the phenomena of life; but knowing by experience that\r
+there were no answers to these questions he made haste to turn away from\r
+them, and took up a book, or hurried off to the club or to Apollon\r
+Nikolaevich's, to exchange the gossip of the town.\r
+\r
+"Helene, who has never cared for anything but her own body and is one of\r
+the stupidest women in the world," thought Pierre, "is regarded by\r
+people as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they pay homage\r
+to her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he was great,\r
+but now that he has become a wretched comedian the Emperor Francis wants\r
+to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The Spaniards, through\r
+the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their victory over the\r
+French on the fourteenth of June, and the French, also through the\r
+Catholic clergy, offer praise because on that same fourteenth of June\r
+they defeated the Spaniards. My brother Masons swear by the blood that\r
+they are ready to sacrifice everything for their neighbor, but they do\r
+not give a ruble each to the collections for the poor, and they\r
+intrigue, the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers, and fuss about an\r
+authentic Scotch carpet and a charter that nobody needs, and the meaning\r
+of which the very man who wrote it does not understand. We all profess\r
+the Christian law of forgiveness of injuries and love of our neighbors,\r
+the law in honor of which we have built in Moscow forty times forty\r
+churches--but yesterday a deserter was knouted to death and a minister\r
+of that same law of love and forgiveness, a priest, gave the soldier a\r
+cross to kiss before his execution." So thought Pierre, and the whole of\r
+this general deception which everyone accepts, accustomed as he was to\r
+it, astonished him each time as if it were something new. "I understand\r
+the deception and confusion," he thought, "but how am I to tell them all\r
+that I see? I have tried, and have always found that they too in the\r
+depths of their souls understand it as I do, and only try not to see it.\r
+So it appears that it must be so! But I--what is to become of me?"\r
+thought he. He had the unfortunate capacity many men, especially\r
+Russians, have of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness\r
+and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to\r
+be able to take a serious part in it. Every sphere of work was\r
+connected, in his eyes, with evil and deception. Whatever he tried to\r
+be, whatever he engaged in, the evil and falsehood of it repulsed him\r
+and blocked every path of activity. Yet he had to live and to find\r
+occupation. It was too dreadful to be under the burden of these\r
+insoluble problems, so he abandoned himself to any distraction in order\r
+to forget them. He frequented every kind of society, drank much, bought\r
+pictures, engaged in building, and above all--read.\r
+\r
+He read, and read everything that came to hand. On coming home, while\r
+his valets were still taking off his things, he picked up a book and\r
+began to read. From reading he passed to sleeping, from sleeping to\r
+gossip in drawing rooms of the club, from gossip to carousals and women;\r
+from carousals back to gossip, reading, and wine. Drinking became more\r
+and more a physical and also a moral necessity. Though the doctors\r
+warned him that with his corpulence wine was dangerous for him, he drank\r
+a great deal. He was only quite at ease when having poured several\r
+glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth he felt a pleasant\r
+warmth in his body, an amiability toward all his fellows, and a\r
+readiness to respond superficially to every idea without probing it\r
+deeply. Only after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the\r
+terribly tangled skein of life which previously had terrified him was\r
+not as dreadful as he had thought. He was always conscious of some\r
+aspect of that skein, as with a buzzing in his head after dinner or\r
+supper he chatted or listened to conversation or read. But under the\r
+influence of wine he said to himself: "It doesn't matter. I'll get it\r
+unraveled. I have a solution ready, but have no time now--I'll think it\r
+all out later on!" But the later on never came.\r
+\r
+In the morning, on an empty stomach, all the old questions appeared as\r
+insoluble and terrible as ever, and Pierre hastily picked up a book, and\r
+if anyone came to see him he was glad.\r
+\r
+Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when\r
+entrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard\r
+to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre\r
+all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in\r
+ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in\r
+toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and\r
+some in governmental affairs. "Nothing is trivial, and nothing is\r
+important, it's all the same--only to save oneself from it as best one\r
+can," thought Pierre. "Only not to see it, that dreadful it!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+At the beginning of winter Prince Nicholas Bolkonski and his daughter\r
+moved to Moscow. At that time enthusiasm for the Emperor Alexander's\r
+regime had weakened and a patriotic and anti-French tendency prevailed\r
+there, and this, together with his past and his intellect and his\r
+originality, at once made Prince Nicholas Bolkonski an object of\r
+particular respect to the Moscovites and the center of the Moscow\r
+opposition to the government.\r
+\r
+The prince had aged very much that year. He showed marked signs of\r
+senility by a tendency to fall asleep, forgetfulness of quite recent\r
+events, remembrance of remote ones, and the childish vanity with which\r
+he accepted the role of head of the Moscow opposition. In spite of this\r
+the old man inspired in all his visitors alike a feeling of respectful\r
+veneration--especially of an evening when he came in to tea in his old-\r
+fashioned coat and powdered wig and, aroused by anyone, told his abrupt\r
+stories of the past, or uttered yet more abrupt and scathing criticisms\r
+of the present. For them all, that old-fashioned house with its gigantic\r
+mirrors, pre-Revolution furniture, powdered footmen, and the stern\r
+shrewd old man (himself a relic of the past century) with his gentle\r
+daughter and the pretty Frenchwoman who were reverently devoted to him\r
+presented a majestic and agreeable spectacle. But the visitors did not\r
+reflect that besides the couple of hours during which they saw their\r
+host, there were also twenty-two hours in the day during which the\r
+private and intimate life of the house continued.\r
+\r
+Latterly that private life had become very trying for Princess Mary.\r
+There in Moscow she was deprived of her greatest pleasures--talks with\r
+the pilgrims and the solitude which refreshed her at Bald Hills--and she\r
+had none of the advantages and pleasures of city life. She did not go\r
+out into society; everyone knew that her father would not let her go\r
+anywhere without him, and his failing health prevented his going out\r
+himself, so that she was not invited to dinners and evening parties. She\r
+had quite abandoned the hope of getting married. She saw the coldness\r
+and malevolence with which the old prince received and dismissed the\r
+young men, possible suitors, who sometimes appeared at their house. She\r
+had no friends: during this visit to Moscow she had been disappointed in\r
+the two who had been nearest to her. Mademoiselle Bourienne, with whom\r
+she had never been able to be quite frank, had now become unpleasant to\r
+her, and for various reasons Princess Mary avoided her. Julie, with whom\r
+she had corresponded for the last five years, was in Moscow, but proved\r
+to be quite alien to her when they met. Just then Julie, who by the\r
+death of her brothers had become one of the richest heiresses in Moscow,\r
+was in the full whirl of society pleasures. She was surrounded by young\r
+men who, she fancied, had suddenly learned to appreciate her worth.\r
+Julie was at that stage in the life of a society woman when she feels\r
+that her last chance of marrying has come and that her fate must be\r
+decided now or never. On Thursdays Princess Mary remembered with a\r
+mournful smile that she now had no one to write to, since Julie--whose\r
+presence gave her no pleasure was here and they met every week. Like the\r
+old emigre who declined to marry the lady with whom he had spent his\r
+evenings for years, she regretted Julie's presence and having no one to\r
+write to. In Moscow Princess Mary had no one to talk to, no one to whom\r
+to confide her sorrow, and much sorrow fell to her lot just then. The\r
+time for Prince Andrew's return and marriage was approaching, but his\r
+request to her to prepare his father for it had not been carried out; in\r
+fact, it seemed as if matters were quite hopeless, for at every mention\r
+of the young Countess Rostova the old prince (who apart from that was\r
+usually in a bad temper) lost control of himself. Another lately added\r
+sorrow arose from the lessons she gave her six year-old nephew. To her\r
+consternation she detected in herself in relation to little Nicholas\r
+some symptoms of her father's irritability. However often she told\r
+herself that she must not get irritable when teaching her nephew, almost\r
+every time that, pointer in hand, she sat down to show him the French\r
+alphabet, she so longed to pour her own knowledge quickly and easily\r
+into the child--who was already afraid that Auntie might at any moment\r
+get angry--that at his slightest inattention she trembled, became\r
+flustered and heated, raised her voice, and sometimes pulled him by the\r
+arm and put him in the corner. Having put him in the corner she would\r
+herself begin to cry over her cruel, evil nature, and little Nicholas,\r
+following her example, would sob, and without permission would leave his\r
+corner, come to her, pull her wet hands from her face, and comfort her.\r
+But what distressed the princess most of all was her father's\r
+irritability, which was always directed against her and had of late\r
+amounted to cruelty. Had he forced her to prostrate herself to the\r
+ground all night, had he beaten her or made her fetch wood or water, it\r
+would never have entered her mind to think her position hard; but this\r
+loving despot--the more cruel because he loved her and for that reason\r
+tormented himself and her--knew how not merely to hurt and humiliate her\r
+deliberately, but to show her that she was always to blame for\r
+everything. Of late he had exhibited a new trait that tormented Princess\r
+Mary more than anything else; this was his ever-increasing intimacy with\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne. The idea that at the first moment of receiving\r
+the news of his son's intentions had occurred to him in jest--that if\r
+Andrew got married he himself would marry Bourienne--had evidently\r
+pleased him, and latterly he had persistently, and as it seemed to\r
+Princess Mary merely to offend her, shown special endearments to the\r
+companion and expressed his dissatisfaction with his daughter by\r
+demonstrations of love of Bourienne.\r
+\r
+One day in Moscow in Princess Mary's presence (she thought her father\r
+did it purposely when she was there) the old prince kissed Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne's hand and, drawing her to him, embraced her affectionately.\r
+Princess Mary flushed and ran out of the room. A few minutes later\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne came into Princess Mary's room smiling and making\r
+cheerful remarks in her agreeable voice. Princess Mary hastily wiped\r
+away her tears, went resolutely up to Mademoiselle Bourienne, and\r
+evidently unconscious of what she was doing began shouting in angry\r
+haste at the Frenchwoman, her voice breaking: "It's horrible, vile,\r
+inhuman, to take advantage of the weakness..." She did not finish.\r
+"Leave my room," she exclaimed, and burst into sobs.\r
+\r
+Next day the prince did not say a word to his daughter, but she noticed\r
+that at dinner he gave orders that Mademoiselle Bourienne should be\r
+served first. After dinner, when the footman handed coffee and from\r
+habit began with the princess, the prince suddenly grew furious, threw\r
+his stick at Philip, and instantly gave instructions to have him\r
+conscripted for the army.\r
+\r
+"He doesn't obey... I said it twice... and he doesn't obey! She is the\r
+first person in this house; she's my best friend," cried the prince.\r
+"And if you allow yourself," he screamed in a fury, addressing Princess\r
+Mary for the first time, "to forget yourself again before her as you\r
+dared to do yesterday, I will show you who is master in this house. Go!\r
+Don't let me set eyes on you; beg her pardon!"\r
+\r
+Princess Mary asked Mademoiselle Bourienne's pardon, and also her\r
+father's pardon for herself and for Philip the footman, who had begged\r
+for her intervention.\r
+\r
+At such moments something like a pride of sacrifice gathered in her\r
+soul. And suddenly that father whom she had judged would look for his\r
+spectacles in her presence, fumbling near them and not seeing them, or\r
+would forget something that had just occurred, or take a false step with\r
+his failing legs and turn to see if anyone had noticed his feebleness,\r
+or, worst of all, at dinner when there were no visitors to excite him\r
+would suddenly fall asleep, letting his napkin drop and his shaking head\r
+sink over his plate. "He is old and feeble, and I dare to condemn him!"\r
+she thought at such moments, with a feeling of revulsion against\r
+herself.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+In 1811 there was living in Moscow a French doctor--Metivier--who had\r
+rapidly become the fashion. He was enormously tall, handsome, amiable as\r
+Frenchmen are, and was, as all Moscow said, an extraordinarily clever\r
+doctor. He was received in the best houses not merely as a doctor, but\r
+as an equal.\r
+\r
+Prince Nicholas had always ridiculed medicine, but latterly on\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne's advice had allowed this doctor to visit him and\r
+had grown accustomed to him. Metivier came to see the prince about twice\r
+a week.\r
+\r
+On December 6--St. Nicholas' Day and the prince's name day--all Moscow\r
+came to the prince's front door but he gave orders to admit no one and\r
+to invite to dinner only a small number, a list of whom he gave to\r
+Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+Metivier, who came in the morning with his felicitations, considered it\r
+proper in his quality of doctor de forcer la consigne, * as he told\r
+Princess Mary, and went in to see the prince. It happened that on that\r
+morning of his name day the prince was in one of his worst moods. He had\r
+been going about the house all the morning finding fault with everyone\r
+and pretending not to understand what was said to him and not to be\r
+understood himself. Princess Mary well knew this mood of quiet absorbed\r
+querulousness, which generally culminated in a burst of rage, and she\r
+went about all that morning as though facing a cocked and loaded gun and\r
+awaited the inevitable explosion. Until the doctor's arrival the morning\r
+had passed off safely. After admitting the doctor, Princess Mary sat\r
+down with a book in the drawing room near the door through which she\r
+could hear all that passed in the study.\r
+\r
+\r
+* To force the guard.\r
+\r
+At first she heard only Metivier's voice, then her father's, then both\r
+voices began speaking at the same time, the door was flung open, and on\r
+the threshold appeared the handsome figure of the terrified Metivier\r
+with his shock of black hair, and the prince in his dressing gown and\r
+fez, his face distorted with fury and the pupils of his eyes rolled\r
+downwards.\r
+\r
+"You don't understand?" shouted the prince, "but I do! French spy, slave\r
+of Buonaparte, spy, get out of my house! Be off, I tell you..."\r
+\r
+Metivier, shrugging his shoulders, went up to Mademoiselle Bourienne who\r
+at the sound of shouting had run in from an adjoining room.\r
+\r
+"The prince is not very well: bile and rush of blood to the head. Keep\r
+calm, I will call again tomorrow," said Metivier; and putting his\r
+fingers to his lips he hastened away.\r
+\r
+Through the study door came the sound of slippered feet and the cry:\r
+"Spies, traitors, traitors everywhere! Not a moment's peace in my own\r
+house!"\r
+\r
+After Metivier's departure the old prince called his daughter in, and\r
+the whole weight of his wrath fell on her. She was to blame that a spy\r
+had been admitted. Had he not told her, yes, told her to make a list,\r
+and not to admit anyone who was not on that list? Then why was that\r
+scoundrel admitted? She was the cause of it all. With her, he said, he\r
+could not have a moment's peace and could not die quietly.\r
+\r
+"No, ma'am! We must part, we must part! Understand that, understand it!\r
+I cannot endure any more," he said, and left the room. Then, as if\r
+afraid she might find some means of consolation, he returned and trying\r
+to appear calm added: "And don't imagine I have said this in a moment of\r
+anger. I am calm. I have thought it over, and it will be carried out--we\r
+must part; so find some place for yourself...." But he could not\r
+restrain himself and with the virulence of which only one who loves is\r
+capable, evidently suffering himself, he shook his fists at her and\r
+screamed:\r
+\r
+"If only some fool would marry her!" Then he slammed the door, sent for\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne, and subsided into his study.\r
+\r
+At two o'clock the six chosen guests assembled for dinner.\r
+\r
+These guests--the famous Count Rostopchin, Prince Lopukhin with his\r
+nephew, General Chatrov an old war comrade of the prince's, and of the\r
+younger generation Pierre and Boris Drubetskoy--awaited the prince in\r
+the drawing room.\r
+\r
+Boris, who had come to Moscow on leave a few days before, had been\r
+anxious to be presented to Prince Nicholas Bolkonski, and had contrived\r
+to ingratiate himself so well that the old prince in his case made an\r
+exception to the rule of not receiving bachelors in his house.\r
+\r
+The prince's house did not belong to what is known as fashionable\r
+society, but his little circle--though not much talked about in town--\r
+was one it was more flattering to be received in than any other. Boris\r
+had realized this the week before when the commander-in-chief in his\r
+presence invited Rostopchin to dinner on St. Nicholas' Day, and\r
+Rostopchin had replied that he could not come:\r
+\r
+"On that day I always go to pay my devotions to the relics of Prince\r
+Nicholas Bolkonski."\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, yes!" replied the commander-in-chief. "How is he?..."\r
+\r
+The small group that assembled before dinner in the lofty old-fashioned\r
+drawing room with its old furniture resembled the solemn gathering of a\r
+court of justice. All were silent or talked in low tones. Prince\r
+Nicholas came in serious and taciturn. Princess Mary seemed even quieter\r
+and more diffident than usual. The guests were reluctant to address her,\r
+feeling that she was in no mood for their conversation. Count Rostopchin\r
+alone kept the conversation going, now relating the latest town news,\r
+and now the latest political gossip.\r
+\r
+Lopukhin and the old general occasionally took part in the conversation.\r
+Prince Bolkonski listened as a presiding judge receives a report, only\r
+now and then, silently or by a brief word, showing that he took heed of\r
+what was being reported to him. The tone of the conversation was such as\r
+indicated that no one approved of what was being done in the political\r
+world. Incidents were related evidently confirming the opinion that\r
+everything was going from bad to worse, but whether telling a story or\r
+giving an opinion the speaker always stopped, or was stopped, at the\r
+point beyond which his criticism might touch the sovereign himself.\r
+\r
+At dinner the talk turned on the latest political news: Napoleon's\r
+seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg's territory, and the Russian Note,\r
+hostile to Napoleon, which had been sent to all the European courts.\r
+\r
+"Bonaparte treats Europe as a pirate does a captured vessel," said Count\r
+Rostopchin, repeating a phrase he had uttered several times before. "One\r
+only wonders at the long-suffering or blindness of the crowned heads.\r
+Now the Pope's turn has come and Bonaparte doesn't scruple to depose the\r
+head of the Catholic Church--yet all keep silent! Our sovereign alone\r
+has protested against the seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg's territory,\r
+and even..." Count Rostopchin paused, feeling that he had reached the\r
+limit beyond which censure was impossible.\r
+\r
+"Other territories have been offered in exchange for the Duchy of\r
+Oldenburg," said Prince Bolkonski. "He shifts the Dukes about as I might\r
+move my serfs from Bald Hills to Bogucharovo or my Ryazan estates."\r
+\r
+"The Duke of Oldenburg bears his misfortunes with admirable strength of\r
+character and resignation," remarked Boris, joining in respectfully.\r
+\r
+He said this because on his journey from Petersburg he had had the honor\r
+of being presented to the Duke. Prince Bolkonski glanced at the young\r
+man as if about to say something in reply, but changed his mind,\r
+evidently considering him too young.\r
+\r
+"I have read our protests about the Oldenburg affair and was surprised\r
+how badly the Note was worded," remarked Count Rostopchin in the casual\r
+tone of a man dealing with a subject quite familiar to him.\r
+\r
+Pierre looked at Rostopchin with naive astonishment, not understanding\r
+why he should be disturbed by the bad composition of the Note.\r
+\r
+"Does it matter, Count, how the Note is worded," he asked, "so long as\r
+its substance is forcible?"\r
+\r
+"My dear fellow, with our five hundred thousand troops it should be easy\r
+to have a good style," returned Count Rostopchin.\r
+\r
+Pierre now understood the count's dissatisfaction with the wording of\r
+the Note.\r
+\r
+"One would have thought quill drivers enough had sprung up," remarked\r
+the old prince. "There in Petersburg they are always writing--not notes\r
+only but even new laws. My Andrew there has written a whole volume of\r
+laws for Russia. Nowadays they are always writing!" and he laughed\r
+unnaturally.\r
+\r
+There was a momentary pause in the conversation; the old general cleared\r
+his throat to draw attention.\r
+\r
+"Did you hear of the last event at the review in Petersburg? The figure\r
+cut by the new French ambassador."\r
+\r
+"Eh? Yes, I heard something: he said something awkward in His Majesty's\r
+presence."\r
+\r
+"His Majesty drew attention to the Grenadier division and to the march\r
+past," continued the general, "and it seems the ambassador took no\r
+notice and allowed himself to reply that: 'We in France pay no attention\r
+to such trifles!' The Emperor did not condescend to reply. At the next\r
+review, they say, the Emperor did not once deign to address him."\r
+\r
+All were silent. On this fact relating to the Emperor personally, it was\r
+impossible to pass any judgment.\r
+\r
+"Impudent fellows!" said the prince. "You know Metivier? I turned him\r
+out of my house this morning. He was here; they admitted him in spite of\r
+my request that they should let no one in," he went on, glancing angrily\r
+at his daughter.\r
+\r
+And he narrated his whole conversation with the French doctor and the\r
+reasons that convinced him that Metivier was a spy. Though these reasons\r
+were very insufficient and obscure, no one made any rejoinder.\r
+\r
+After the roast, champagne was served. The guests rose to congratulate\r
+the old prince. Princess Mary, too, went round to him.\r
+\r
+He gave her a cold, angry look and offered her his wrinkled, clean-\r
+shaven cheek to kiss. The whole expression of his face told her that he\r
+had not forgotten the morning's talk, that his decision remained in\r
+force, and only the presence of visitors hindered his speaking of it to\r
+her now.\r
+\r
+When they went into the drawing room where coffee was served, the old\r
+men sat together.\r
+\r
+Prince Nicholas grew more animated and expressed his views on the\r
+impending war.\r
+\r
+He said that our wars with Bonaparte would be disastrous so long as we\r
+sought alliances with the Germans and thrust ourselves into European\r
+affairs, into which we had been drawn by the Peace of Tilsit. "We ought\r
+not to fight either for or against Austria. Our political interests are\r
+all in the East, and in regard to Bonaparte the only thing is to have an\r
+armed frontier and a firm policy, and he will never dare to cross the\r
+Russian frontier, as was the case in 1807!"\r
+\r
+"How can we fight the French, Prince?" said Count Rostopchin. "Can we\r
+arm ourselves against our teachers and divinities? Look at our youths,\r
+look at our ladies! The French are our Gods: Paris is our Kingdom of\r
+Heaven."\r
+\r
+He began speaking louder, evidently to be heard by everyone.\r
+\r
+"French dresses, French ideas, French feelings! There now, you turned\r
+Metivier out by the scruff of his neck because he is a Frenchman and a\r
+scoundrel, but our ladies crawl after him on their knees. I went to a\r
+party last night, and there out of five ladies three were Roman\r
+Catholics and had the Pope's indulgence for doing woolwork on Sundays.\r
+And they themselves sit there nearly naked, like the signboards at our\r
+Public Baths if I may say so. Ah, when one looks at our young people,\r
+Prince, one would like to take Peter the Great's old cudgel out of the\r
+museum and belabor them in the Russian way till all the nonsense jumps\r
+out of them."\r
+\r
+All were silent. The old prince looked at Rostopchin with a smile and\r
+wagged his head approvingly.\r
+\r
+"Well, good-by, your excellency, keep well!" said Rostopchin, getting up\r
+with characteristic briskness and holding out his hand to the prince.\r
+\r
+"Good-bye, my dear fellow.... His words are music, I never tire of\r
+hearing him!" said the old prince, keeping hold of the hand and offering\r
+his cheek to be kissed.\r
+\r
+Following Rostopchin's example the others also rose.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+Princess Mary as she sat listening to the old men's talk and\r
+faultfinding, understood nothing of what she heard; she only wondered\r
+whether the guests had all observed her father's hostile attitude toward\r
+her. She did not even notice the special attentions and amiabilities\r
+shown her during dinner by Boris Drubetskoy, who was visiting them for\r
+the third time already.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary turned with absent-minded questioning look to Pierre, who\r
+hat in hand and with a smile on his face was the last of the guests to\r
+approach her after the old prince had gone out and they were left alone\r
+in the drawing room.\r
+\r
+"May I stay a little longer?" he said, letting his stout body sink into\r
+an armchair beside her.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes," she answered. "You noticed nothing?" her look asked.\r
+\r
+Pierre was in an agreeable after-dinner mood. He looked straight before\r
+him and smiled quietly.\r
+\r
+"Have you known that young man long, Princess?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Who?"\r
+\r
+"Drubetskoy."\r
+\r
+"No, not long..."\r
+\r
+"Do you like him?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, he is an agreeable young man.... Why do you ask me that?" said\r
+Princess Mary, still thinking of that morning's conversation with her\r
+father.\r
+\r
+"Because I have noticed that when a young man comes on leave from\r
+Petersburg to Moscow it is usually with the object of marrying an\r
+heiress."\r
+\r
+"You have observed that?" said Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+"Yes," returned Pierre with a smile, "and this young man now manages\r
+matters so that where there is a wealthy heiress there he is too. I can\r
+read him like a book. At present he is hesitating whom to lay siege to--\r
+you or Mademoiselle Julie Karagina. He is very attentive to her."\r
+\r
+"He visits them?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very often. And do you know the new way of courting?" said Pierre\r
+with an amused smile, evidently in that cheerful mood of good humored\r
+raillery for which he so often reproached himself in his diary.\r
+\r
+"No," replied Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+"To please Moscow girls nowadays one has to be melancholy. He is very\r
+melancholy with Mademoiselle Karagina," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Really?" asked Princess Mary, looking into Pierre's kindly face and\r
+still thinking of her own sorrow. "It would be a relief," thought she,\r
+"if I ventured to confide what I am feeling to someone. I should like to\r
+tell everything to Pierre. He is kind and generous. It would be a\r
+relief. He would give me advice."\r
+\r
+"Would you marry him?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, my God, Count, there are moments when I would marry anybody!" she\r
+cried suddenly to her own surprise and with tears in her voice. "Ah, how\r
+bitter it is to love someone near to you and to feel that..." she went\r
+on in a trembling voice, "that you can do nothing for him but grieve\r
+him, and to know that you cannot alter this. Then there is only one\r
+thing left--to go away, but where could I go?"\r
+\r
+"What is wrong? What is it, Princess?"\r
+\r
+But without finishing what she was saying, Princess Mary burst into\r
+tears.\r
+\r
+"I don't know what is the matter with me today. Don't take any notice--\r
+forget what I have said!"\r
+\r
+Pierre's gaiety vanished completely. He anxiously questioned the\r
+princess, asked her to speak out fully and confide her grief to him; but\r
+she only repeated that she begged him to forget what she had said, that\r
+she did not remember what she had said, and that she had no trouble\r
+except the one he knew of--that Prince Andrew's marriage threatened to\r
+cause a rupture between father and son.\r
+\r
+"Have you any news of the Rostovs?" she asked, to change the subject. "I\r
+was told they are coming soon. I am also expecting Andrew any day. I\r
+should like them to meet here."\r
+\r
+"And how does he now regard the matter?" asked Pierre, referring to the\r
+old prince.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary shook her head.\r
+\r
+"What is to be done? In a few months the year will be up. The thing is\r
+impossible. I only wish I could spare my brother the first moments. I\r
+wish they would come sooner. I hope to be friends with her. You have\r
+known them a long time," said Princess Mary. "Tell me honestly the whole\r
+truth: what sort of girl is she, and what do you think of her?--The real\r
+truth, because you know Andrew is risking so much doing this against his\r
+father's will that I should like to know..."\r
+\r
+An undefined instinct told Pierre that these explanations, and repeated\r
+requests to be told the whole truth, expressed ill-will on the princess'\r
+part toward her future sister-in-law and a wish that he should\r
+disapprove of Andrew's choice; but in reply he said what he felt rather\r
+than what he thought.\r
+\r
+"I don't know how to answer your question," he said, blushing without\r
+knowing why. "I really don't know what sort of girl she is; I can't\r
+analyze her at all. She is enchanting, but what makes her so I don't\r
+know. That is all one can say about her."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary sighed, and the expression on her face said: "Yes, that's\r
+what I expected and feared."\r
+\r
+"Is she clever?" she asked.\r
+\r
+Pierre considered.\r
+\r
+"I think not," he said, "and yet--yes. She does not deign to be\r
+clever.... Oh no, she is simply enchanting, and that is all."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary again shook her head disapprovingly.\r
+\r
+"Ah, I so long to like her! Tell her so if you see her before I do."\r
+\r
+"I hear they are expected very soon," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary told Pierre of her plan to become intimate with her future\r
+sister-in-law as soon as the Rostovs arrived and to try to accustom the\r
+old prince to her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+Boris had not succeeded in making a wealthy match in Petersburg, so with\r
+the same object in view he came to Moscow. There he wavered between the\r
+two richest heiresses, Julie and Princess Mary. Though Princess Mary\r
+despite her plainness seemed to him more attractive than Julie, he,\r
+without knowing why, felt awkward about paying court to her. When they\r
+had last met on the old prince's name day, she had answered at random\r
+all his attempts to talk sentimentally, evidently not listening to what\r
+he was saying.\r
+\r
+Julie on the contrary accepted his attentions readily, though in a\r
+manner peculiar to herself.\r
+\r
+She was twenty-seven. After the death of her brothers she had become\r
+very wealthy. She was by now decidedly plain, but thought herself not\r
+merely as good-looking as before but even far more attractive. She was\r
+confirmed in this delusion by the fact that she had become a very\r
+wealthy heiress and also by the fact that the older she grew the less\r
+dangerous she became to men, and the more freely they could associate\r
+with her and avail themselves of her suppers, soirees, and the animated\r
+company that assembled at her house, without incurring any obligation. A\r
+man who would have been afraid ten years before of going every day to\r
+the house when there was a girl of seventeen there, for fear of\r
+compromising her and committing himself, would now go boldly every day\r
+and treat her not as a marriageable girl but as a sexless acquaintance.\r
+\r
+That winter the Karagins' house was the most agreeable and hospitable in\r
+Moscow. In addition to the formal evening and dinner parties, a large\r
+company, chiefly of men, gathered there every day, supping at midnight\r
+and staying till three in the morning. Julie never missed a ball, a\r
+promenade, or a play. Her dresses were always of the latest fashion. But\r
+in spite of that she seemed to be disillusioned about everything and\r
+told everyone that she did not believe either in friendship or in love,\r
+or any of the joys of life, and expected peace only "yonder." She\r
+adopted the tone of one who has suffered a great disappointment, like a\r
+girl who has either lost the man she loved or been cruelly deceived by\r
+him. Though nothing of the kind had happened to her she was regarded in\r
+that light, and had even herself come to believe that she had suffered\r
+much in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her amusing\r
+herself, did not hinder the young people who came to her house from\r
+passing the time pleasantly. Every visitor who came to the house paid\r
+his tribute to the melancholy mood of the hostess, and then amused\r
+himself with society gossip, dancing, intellectual games, and bouts\r
+rimes, which were in vogue at the Karagins'. Only a few of these young\r
+men, among them Boris, entered more deeply into Julie's melancholy, and\r
+with these she had prolonged conversations in private on the vanity of\r
+all worldly things, and to them she showed her albums filled with\r
+mournful sketches, maxims, and verses.\r
+\r
+To Boris, Julie was particularly gracious: she regretted his early\r
+disillusionment with life, offered him such consolation of friendship as\r
+she who had herself suffered so much could render, and showed him her\r
+album. Boris sketched two trees in the album and wrote: "Rustic trees,\r
+your dark branches shed gloom and melancholy upon me."\r
+\r
+On another page he drew a tomb, and wrote:\r
+\r
+\r
+La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille. Ah! contre les\r
+douleurs il n'y a pas d'autre asile. *\r
+\r
+\r
+* Death gives relief and death is peaceful.\r
+\r
+Ah! from suffering there is no other refuge.\r
+\r
+Julie said this was charming\r
+\r
+"There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy," she said\r
+to Boris, repeating word for word a passage she had copied from a book.\r
+"It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and\r
+despair, showing the possibility of consolation."\r
+\r
+In reply Boris wrote these lines:\r
+\r
+\r
+Aliment de poison d'une ame trop sensible, Toi, sans qui le bonheur me\r
+serait impossible, Tendre melancholie, ah, viens me consoler, Viens\r
+calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite, Et mele une douceur secrete\r
+A ces pleurs que je sens couler. *\r
+\r
+\r
+*Poisonous nourishment of a too sensitive soul, Thou, without whom\r
+happiness would for me be impossible, Tender melancholy, ah, come to\r
+console me, Come to calm the torments of my gloomy retreat, And mingle a\r
+secret sweetness With these tears that I feel to be flowing.\r
+\r
+For Boris, Julie played most doleful nocturnes on her harp. Boris read\r
+'Poor Liza' aloud to her, and more than once interrupted the reading\r
+because of the emotions that choked him. Meeting at large gatherings\r
+Julie and Boris looked on one another as the only souls who understood\r
+one another in a world of indifferent people.\r
+\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna, who often visited the Karagins, while playing cards\r
+with the mother made careful inquiries as to Julie's dowry (she was to\r
+have two estates in Penza and the Nizhegorod forests). Anna Mikhaylovna\r
+regarded the refined sadness that united her son to the wealthy Julie\r
+with emotion, and resignation to the Divine will.\r
+\r
+"You are always charming and melancholy, my dear Julie," she said to the\r
+daughter. "Boris says his soul finds repose at your house. He has\r
+suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive," said she to the\r
+mother. "Ah, my dear, I can't tell you how fond I have grown of Julie\r
+latterly," she said to her son. "But who could help loving her? She is\r
+an angelic being! Ah, Boris, Boris!"--she paused. "And how I pity her\r
+mother," she went on; "today she showed me her accounts and letters from\r
+Penza (they have enormous estates there), and she, poor thing, has no\r
+one to help her, and they do cheat her so!"\r
+\r
+Boris smiled almost imperceptibly while listening to his mother. He\r
+laughed blandly at her naive diplomacy but listened to what she had to\r
+say, and sometimes questioned her carefully about the Penza and\r
+Nizhegorod estates.\r
+\r
+Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholy adorer and\r
+was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of repulsion for her,\r
+for her passionate desire to get married, for her artificiality, and a\r
+feeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of real love still\r
+restrained Boris. His leave was expiring. He spent every day and whole\r
+days at the Karagins', and every day on thinking the matter over told\r
+himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in Julie's presence, looking\r
+at her red face and chin (nearly always powdered), her moist eyes, and\r
+her expression of continual readiness to pass at once from melancholy to\r
+an unnatural rapture of married bliss, Boris could not utter the\r
+decisive words, though in imagination he had long regarded himself as\r
+the possessor of those Penza and Nizhegorod estates and had apportioned\r
+the use of the income from them. Julie saw Boris' indecision, and\r
+sometimes the thought occurred to her that she was repulsive to him, but\r
+her feminine self-deception immediately supplied her with consolation,\r
+and she told herself that he was only shy from love. Her melancholy,\r
+however, began to turn to irritability, and not long before Boris'\r
+departure she formed a definite plan of action. Just as Boris' leave of\r
+absence was expiring, Anatole Kuragin made his appearance in Moscow, and\r
+of course in the Karagins' drawing room, and Julie, suddenly abandoning\r
+her melancholy, became cheerful and very attentive to Kuragin.\r
+\r
+"My dear," said Anna Mikhaylovna to her son, "I know from a reliable\r
+source that Prince Vasili has sent his son to Moscow to get him married\r
+to Julie. I am so fond of Julie that I should be sorry for her. What do\r
+you think of it, my dear?"\r
+\r
+The idea of being made a fool of and of having thrown away that whole\r
+month of arduous melancholy service to Julie, and of seeing all the\r
+revenue from the Penza estates which he had already mentally apportioned\r
+and put to proper use fall into the hands of another, and especially\r
+into the hands of that idiot Anatole, pained Boris. He drove to the\r
+Karagins' with the firm intention of proposing. Julie met him in a gay,\r
+careless manner, spoke casually of how she had enjoyed yesterday's ball,\r
+and asked when he was leaving. Though Boris had come intentionally to\r
+speak of his love and therefore meant to be tender, he began speaking\r
+irritably of feminine inconstancy, of how easily women can turn from\r
+sadness to joy, and how their moods depend solely on who happens to be\r
+paying court to them. Julie was offended and replied that it was true\r
+that a woman needs variety, and the same thing over and over again would\r
+weary anyone.\r
+\r
+"Then I should advise you..." Boris began, wishing to sting her; but at\r
+that instant the galling thought occurred to him that he might have to\r
+leave Moscow without having accomplished his aim, and have vainly wasted\r
+his efforts--which was a thing he never allowed to happen.\r
+\r
+He checked himself in the middle of the sentence, lowered his eyes to\r
+avoid seeing her unpleasantly irritated and irresolute face, and said:\r
+\r
+"I did not come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary..."\r
+\r
+He glanced at her to make sure that he might go on. Her irritability had\r
+suddenly quite vanished, and her anxious, imploring eyes were fixed on\r
+him with greedy expectation. "I can always arrange so as not to see her\r
+often," thought Boris. "The affair has been begun and must be finished!"\r
+He blushed hotly, raised his eyes to hers, and said:\r
+\r
+"You know my feelings for you!"\r
+\r
+There was no need to say more: Julie's face shone with triumph and self-\r
+satisfaction; but she forced Boris to say all that is said on such\r
+occasions--that he loved her and had never loved any other woman more\r
+than her. She knew that for the Penza estates and Nizhegorod forests she\r
+could demand this, and she received what she demanded.\r
+\r
+The affianced couple, no longer alluding to trees that shed gloom and\r
+melancholy upon them, planned the arrangements of a splendid house in\r
+Petersburg, paid calls, and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+At the end of January old Count Rostov went to Moscow with Natasha and\r
+Sonya. The countess was still unwell and unable to travel but it was\r
+impossible to wait for her recovery. Prince Andrew was expected in\r
+Moscow any day, the trousseau had to be ordered and the estate near\r
+Moscow had to be sold, besides which the opportunity of presenting his\r
+future daughter-in-law to old Prince Bolkonski while he was in Moscow\r
+could not be missed. The Rostovs' Moscow house had not been heated that\r
+winter and, as they had come only for a short time and the countess was\r
+not with them, the count decided to stay with Marya Dmitrievna\r
+Akhrosimova, who had long been pressing her hospitality on them.\r
+\r
+Late one evening the Rostovs' four sleighs drove into Marya Dmitrievna's\r
+courtyard in the old Konyusheny street. Marya Dmitrievna lived alone.\r
+She had already married off her daughter, and her sons were all in the\r
+service.\r
+\r
+She held herself as erect, told everyone her opinion as candidly,\r
+loudly, and bluntly as ever, and her whole bearing seemed a reproach to\r
+others for any weakness, passion, or temptation--the possibility of\r
+which she did not admit. From early in the morning, wearing a dressing\r
+jacket, she attended to her household affairs, and then she drove out:\r
+on holy days to church and after the service to jails and prisons on\r
+affairs of which she never spoke to anyone. On ordinary days, after\r
+dressing, she received petitioners of various classes, of whom there\r
+were always some. Then she had dinner, a substantial and appetizing meal\r
+at which there were always three or four guests; after dinner she played\r
+a game of boston, and at night she had the newspapers or a new book read\r
+to her while she knitted. She rarely made an exception and went out to\r
+pay visits, and then only to the most important persons in the town.\r
+\r
+She had not yet gone to bed when the Rostovs arrived and the pulley of\r
+the hall door squeaked from the cold as it let in the Rostovs and their\r
+servants. Marya Dmitrievna, with her spectacles hanging down on her nose\r
+and her head flung back, stood in the hall doorway looking with a stern,\r
+grim face at the new arrivals. One might have thought she was angry with\r
+the travelers and would immediately turn them out, had she not at the\r
+same time been giving careful instructions to the servants for the\r
+accommodation of the visitors and their belongings.\r
+\r
+"The count's things? Bring them here," she said, pointing to the\r
+portmanteaus and not greeting anyone. "The young ladies'? There to the\r
+left. Now what are you dawdling for?" she cried to the maids. "Get the\r
+samovar ready!... You've grown plumper and prettier," she remarked,\r
+drawing Natasha (whose cheeks were glowing from the cold) to her by the\r
+hood. "Foo! You are cold! Now take off your things, quick!" she shouted\r
+to the count who was going to kiss her hand. "You're half frozen, I'm\r
+sure! Bring some rum for tea!... Bonjour, Sonya dear!" she added,\r
+turning to Sonya and indicating by this French greeting her slightly\r
+contemptuous though affectionate attitude toward her.\r
+\r
+When they came in to tea, having taken off their outdoor things and\r
+tidied themselves up after their journey, Marya Dmitrievna kissed them\r
+all in due order.\r
+\r
+"I'm heartily glad you have come and are staying with me. It was high\r
+time," she said, giving Natasha a significant look. "The old man is here\r
+and his son's expected any day. You'll have to make his acquaintance.\r
+But we'll speak of that later on," she added, glancing at Sonya with a\r
+look that showed she did not want to speak of it in her presence. "Now\r
+listen," she said to the count. "What do you want tomorrow? Whom will\r
+you send for? Shinshin?" she crooked one of her fingers. "The sniveling\r
+Anna Mikhaylovna? That's two. She's here with her son. The son is\r
+getting married! Then Bezukhov, eh? He is here too, with his wife. He\r
+ran away from her and she came galloping after him. He dined with me on\r
+Wednesday. As for them"--and she pointed to the girls--"tomorrow I'll\r
+take them first to the Iberian shrine of the Mother of God, and then\r
+we'll drive to the Super-Rogue's. I suppose you'll have everything new.\r
+Don't judge by me: sleeves nowadays are this size! The other day young\r
+Princess Irina Vasilevna came to see me; she was an awful sight--looked\r
+as if she had put two barrels on her arms. You know not a day passes now\r
+without some new fashion.... And what have you to do yourself?" she\r
+asked the count sternly.\r
+\r
+"One thing has come on top of another: her rags to buy, and now a\r
+purchaser has turned up for the Moscow estate and for the house. If you\r
+will be so kind, I'll fix a time and go down to the estate just for a\r
+day, and leave my lassies with you."\r
+\r
+"All right. All right. They'll be safe with me, as safe as in Chancery!\r
+I'll take them where they must go, scold them a bit, and pet them a\r
+bit," said Marya Dmitrievna, touching her goddaughter and favorite,\r
+Natasha, on the cheek with her large hand.\r
+\r
+Next morning Marya Dmitrievna took the young ladies to the Iberian\r
+shrine of the Mother of God and to Madame Suppert-Roguet, who was so\r
+afraid of Marya Dmitrievna that she always let her have costumes at a\r
+loss merely to get rid of her. Marya Dmitrievna ordered almost the whole\r
+trousseau. When they got home she turned everybody out of the room\r
+except Natasha, and then called her pet to her armchair.\r
+\r
+"Well, now we'll talk. I congratulate you on your betrothed. You've\r
+hooked a fine fellow! I am glad for your sake and I've known him since\r
+he was so high." She held her hand a couple of feet from the ground.\r
+Natasha blushed happily. "I like him and all his family. Now listen! You\r
+know that old Prince Nicholas much dislikes his son's marrying. The old\r
+fellow's crotchety! Of course Prince Andrew is not a child and can shift\r
+without him, but it's not nice to enter a family against a father's\r
+will. One wants to do it peacefully and lovingly. You're a clever girl\r
+and you'll know how to manage. Be kind, and use your wits. Then all will\r
+be well."\r
+\r
+Natasha remained silent, from shyness Marya Dmitrievna supposed, but\r
+really because she disliked anyone interfering in what touched her love\r
+of Prince Andrew, which seemed to her so apart from all human affairs\r
+that no one could understand it. She loved and knew Prince Andrew, he\r
+loved her only, and was to come one of these days and take her. She\r
+wanted nothing more.\r
+\r
+"You see I have known him a long time and am also fond of Mary, your\r
+future sister-in-law. 'Husbands' sisters bring up blisters,' but this\r
+one wouldn't hurt a fly. She has asked me to bring you two together.\r
+Tomorrow you'll go with your father to see her. Be very nice and\r
+affectionate to her: you're younger than she. When he comes, he'll find\r
+you already know his sister and father and are liked by them. Am I right\r
+or not? Won't that be best?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, it will," Natasha answered reluctantly.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+Next day, by Marya Dmitrievna's advice, Count Rostov took Natasha to\r
+call on Prince Nicholas Bolkonski. The count did not set out cheerfully\r
+on this visit, at heart he felt afraid. He well remembered the last\r
+interview he had had with the old prince at the time of the enrollment,\r
+when in reply to an invitation to dinner he had had to listen to an\r
+angry reprimand for not having provided his full quota of men. Natasha,\r
+on the other hand, having put on her best gown, was in the highest\r
+spirits. "They can't help liking me," she thought. "Everybody always has\r
+liked me, and I am so willing to do anything they wish, so ready to be\r
+fond of him--for being his father--and of her--for being his sister--\r
+that there is no reason for them not to like me..."\r
+\r
+They drove up to the gloomy old house on the Vozdvizhenka and entered\r
+the vestibule.\r
+\r
+"Well, the Lord have mercy on us!" said the count, half in jest, half in\r
+earnest; but Natasha noticed that her father was flurried on entering\r
+the anteroom and inquired timidly and softly whether the prince and\r
+princess were at home.\r
+\r
+When they had been announced a perturbation was noticeable among the\r
+servants. The footman who had gone to announce them was stopped by\r
+another in the large hall and they whispered to one another. Then a\r
+maidservant ran into the hall and hurriedly said something, mentioning\r
+the princess. At last an old, cross looking footman came and announced\r
+to the Rostovs that the prince was not receiving, but that the princess\r
+begged them to walk up. The first person who came to meet the visitors\r
+was Mademoiselle Bourienne. She greeted the father and daughter with\r
+special politeness and showed them to the princess' room. The princess,\r
+looking excited and nervous, her face flushed in patches, ran in to meet\r
+the visitors, treading heavily, and vainly trying to appear cordial and\r
+at ease. From the first glance Princess Mary did not like Natasha. She\r
+thought her too fashionably dressed, frivolously gay and vain. She did\r
+not at all realize that before having seen her future sister-in-law she\r
+was prejudiced against her by involuntary envy of her beauty, youth, and\r
+happiness, as well as by jealousy of her brother's love for her. Apart\r
+from this insuperable antipathy to her, Princess Mary was agitated just\r
+then because on the Rostovs' being announced, the old prince had shouted\r
+that he did not wish to see them, that Princess Mary might do so if she\r
+chose, but they were not to be admitted to him. She had decided to\r
+receive them, but feared lest the prince might at any moment indulge in\r
+some freak, as he seemed much upset by the Rostovs' visit.\r
+\r
+"There, my dear princess, I've brought you my songstress," said the\r
+count, bowing and looking round uneasily as if afraid the old prince\r
+might appear. "I am so glad you should get to know one another... very\r
+sorry the prince is still ailing," and after a few more commonplace\r
+remarks he rose. "If you'll allow me to leave my Natasha in your hands\r
+for a quarter of an hour, Princess, I'll drive round to see Anna\r
+Semenovna, it's quite near in the Dogs' Square, and then I'll come back\r
+for her."\r
+\r
+The count had devised this diplomatic ruse (as he afterwards told his\r
+daughter) to give the future sisters-in-law an opportunity to talk to\r
+one another freely, but another motive was to avoid the danger of\r
+encountering the old prince, of whom he was afraid. He did not mention\r
+this to his daughter, but Natasha noticed her father's nervousness and\r
+anxiety and felt mortified by it. She blushed for him, grew still\r
+angrier at having blushed, and looked at the princess with a bold and\r
+defiant expression which said that she was not afraid of anybody. The\r
+princess told the count that she would be delighted, and only begged him\r
+to stay longer at Anna Semenovna's, and he departed.\r
+\r
+Despite the uneasy glances thrown at her by Princess Mary--who wished to\r
+have a tête-à-tête with Natasha--Mademoiselle Bourienne remained in the\r
+room and persistently talked about Moscow amusements and theaters.\r
+Natasha felt offended by the hesitation she had noticed in the anteroom,\r
+by her father's nervousness, and by the unnatural manner of the princess\r
+who--she thought--was making a favor of receiving her, and so everything\r
+displeased her. She did not like Princess Mary, whom she thought very\r
+plain, affected, and dry. Natasha suddenly shrank into herself and\r
+involuntarily assumed an offhand air which alienated Princess Mary still\r
+more. After five minutes of irksome, constrained conversation, they\r
+heard the sound of slippered feet rapidly approaching. Princess Mary\r
+looked frightened.\r
+\r
+The door opened and the old prince, in a dressing gown and a white\r
+nightcap, came in.\r
+\r
+"Ah, madam!" he began. "Madam, Countess... Countess Rostova, if I am not\r
+mistaken... I beg you to excuse me, to excuse me... I did not know,\r
+madam. God is my witness, I did not know you had honored us with a\r
+visit, and I came in such a costume only to see my daughter. I beg you\r
+to excuse me... God is my witness, I didn't know-" he repeated,\r
+stressing the word "God" so unnaturally and so unpleasantly that\r
+Princess Mary stood with downcast eyes not daring to look either at her\r
+father or at Natasha.\r
+\r
+Nor did the latter, having risen and curtsied, know what to do.\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne alone smiled agreeably.\r
+\r
+"I beg you to excuse me, excuse me! God is my witness, I did not know,"\r
+muttered the old man, and after looking Natasha over from head to foot\r
+he went out.\r
+\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne was the first to recover herself after this\r
+apparition and began speaking about the prince's indisposition. Natasha\r
+and Princess Mary looked at one another in silence, and the longer they\r
+did so without saying what they wanted to say, the greater grew their\r
+antipathy to one another.\r
+\r
+When the count returned, Natasha was impolitely pleased and hastened to\r
+get away: at that moment she hated the stiff, elderly princess, who\r
+could place her in such an embarrassing position and had spent half an\r
+hour with her without once mentioning Prince Andrew. "I couldn't begin\r
+talking about him in the presence of that Frenchwoman," thought Natasha.\r
+The same thought was meanwhile tormenting Princess Mary. She knew what\r
+she ought to have said to Natasha, but she had been unable to say it\r
+because Mademoiselle Bourienne was in the way, and because, without\r
+knowing why, she felt it very difficult to speak of the marriage. When\r
+the count was already leaving the room, Princess Mary went up hurriedly\r
+to Natasha, took her by the hand, and said with a deep sigh:\r
+\r
+"Wait, I must..."\r
+\r
+Natasha glanced at her ironically without knowing why.\r
+\r
+"Dear Natalie," said Princess Mary, "I want you to know that I am glad\r
+my brother has found happiness...."\r
+\r
+She paused, feeling that she was not telling the truth. Natasha noticed\r
+this and guessed its reason.\r
+\r
+"I think, Princess, it is not convenient to speak of that now," she said\r
+with external dignity and coldness, though she felt the tears choking\r
+her.\r
+\r
+"What have I said and what have I done?" thought she, as soon as she was\r
+out of the room.\r
+\r
+They waited a long time for Natasha to come to dinner that day. She sat\r
+in her room crying like a child, blowing her nose and sobbing. Sonya\r
+stood beside her, kissing her hair.\r
+\r
+"Natasha, what is it about?" she asked. "What do they matter to you? It\r
+will all pass, Natasha."\r
+\r
+"But if you only knew how offensive it was... as if I..."\r
+\r
+"Don't talk about it, Natasha. It wasn't your fault so why should you\r
+mind? Kiss me," said Sonya.\r
+\r
+Natasha raised her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed her\r
+wet face against her.\r
+\r
+"I can't tell you, I don't know. No one's to blame," said Natasha--"It's\r
+my fault. But it all hurts terribly. Oh, why doesn't he come?..."\r
+\r
+She came in to dinner with red eyes. Marya Dmitrievna, who knew how the\r
+prince had received the Rostovs, pretended not to notice how upset\r
+Natasha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the count and\r
+the other guests.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+That evening the Rostovs went to the Opera, for which Marya Dmitrievna\r
+had taken a box.\r
+\r
+Natasha did not want to go, but could not refuse Marya Dmitrievna's kind\r
+offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready dressed\r
+into the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large mirror\r
+there saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more sad, but\r
+it was a sweet, tender sadness.\r
+\r
+"O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did then, but\r
+differently. I would not be silly and afraid of things, I would simply\r
+embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those searching\r
+inquiring eyes with which he has so often looked at me, and then I would\r
+make him laugh as he used to laugh. And his eyes--how I see those eyes!"\r
+thought Natasha. "And what do his father and sister matter to me? I love\r
+him alone, him, him, with that face and those eyes, with his smile,\r
+manly and yet childlike.... No, I had better not think of him; not think\r
+of him but forget him, quite forget him for the present. I can't bear\r
+this waiting and I shall cry in a minute!" and she turned away from the\r
+glass, making an effort not to cry. "And how can Sonya love Nicholas so\r
+calmly and quietly and wait so long and so patiently?" thought she,\r
+looking at Sonya, who also came in quite ready, with a fan in her hand.\r
+"No, she's altogether different. I can't!"\r
+\r
+Natasha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it was not\r
+enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at\r
+once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words of\r
+love such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her\r
+father, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on\r
+the frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot\r
+where she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of\r
+carriages, the Rostovs' carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels\r
+squeaking over the snow. Natasha and Sonya, holding up their dresses,\r
+jumped out quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and,\r
+passing among men and women who were entering and the program sellers,\r
+they all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes.\r
+Through the closed doors the music was already audible.\r
+\r
+"Natasha, your hair!..." whispered Sonya.\r
+\r
+An attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the ladies and\r
+opened the door of their box. The music sounded louder and through the\r
+door rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies sat with bare arms and\r
+shoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with uniforms, glittered before\r
+their eyes. A lady entering the next box shot a glance of feminine envy\r
+at Natasha. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was being\r
+played. Natasha, smoothing her gown, went in with Sonya and sat down,\r
+scanning the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she had not\r
+experienced for a long time--that of hundreds of eyes looking at her\r
+bare arms and neck--suddenly affected her both agreeably and\r
+disagreeably and called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and\r
+emotions associated with that feeling.\r
+\r
+The two remarkably pretty girls, Natasha and Sonya, with Count Rostov\r
+who had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted general\r
+attention. Moreover, everybody knew vaguely of Natasha's engagement to\r
+Prince Andrew, and knew that the Rostovs had lived in the country ever\r
+since, and all looked with curiosity at a fiancee who was making one of\r
+the best matches in Russia.\r
+\r
+Natasha's looks, as everyone told her, had improved in the country, and\r
+that evening thanks to her agitation she was particularly pretty. She\r
+struck those who saw her by her fullness of life and beauty, combined\r
+with her indifference to everything about her. Her black eyes looked at\r
+the crowd without seeking anyone, and her delicate arm, bare to above\r
+the elbow, lay on the velvet edge of the box, while, evidently\r
+unconsciously, she opened and closed her hand in time to the music,\r
+crumpling her program. "Look, there's Alenina," said Sonya, "with her\r
+mother, isn't it?"\r
+\r
+"Dear me, Michael Kirilovich has grown still stouter!" remarked the\r
+count.\r
+\r
+"Look at our Anna Mikhaylovna--what a headdress she has on!"\r
+\r
+"The Karagins, Julie--and Boris with them. One can see at once that\r
+they're engaged...."\r
+\r
+"Drubetskoy has proposed?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, I heard it today," said Shinshin, coming into the Rostovs' box.\r
+\r
+Natasha looked in the direction in which her father's eyes were turned\r
+and saw Julie sitting beside her mother with a happy look on her face\r
+and a string of pearls round her thick red neck--which Natasha knew was\r
+covered with powder. Behind them, wearing a smile and leaning over with\r
+an ear to Julie's mouth, was Boris' handsome smoothly brushed head. He\r
+looked at the Rostovs from under his brows and said something, smiling,\r
+to his betrothed.\r
+\r
+"They are talking about us, about me and him!" thought Natasha. "And he\r
+no doubt is calming her jealousy of me. They needn't trouble themselves!\r
+If only they knew how little I am concerned about any of them."\r
+\r
+Behind them sat Anna Mikhaylovna wearing a green headdress and with a\r
+happy look of resignation to the will of God on her face. Their box was\r
+pervaded by that atmosphere of an affianced couple which Natasha knew so\r
+well and liked so much. She turned away and suddenly remembered all that\r
+had been so humiliating in her morning's visit.\r
+\r
+"What right has he not to wish to receive me into his family? Oh, better\r
+not think of it--not till he comes back!" she told herself, and began\r
+looking at the faces, some strange and some familiar, in the stalls. In\r
+the front, in the very center, leaning back against the orchestra rail,\r
+stood Dolokhov in a Persian dress, his curly hair brushed up into a huge\r
+shock. He stood in full view of the audience, well aware that he was\r
+attracting everyone's attention, yet as much at ease as though he were\r
+in his own room. Around him thronged Moscow's most brilliant young men,\r
+whom he evidently dominated.\r
+\r
+The count, laughing, nudged the blushing Sonya and pointed to her former\r
+adorer.\r
+\r
+"Do you recognize him?" said he. "And where has he sprung from?" he\r
+asked, turning to Shinshin. "Didn't he vanish somewhere?"\r
+\r
+"He did," replied Shinshin. "He was in the Caucasus and ran away from\r
+there. They say he has been acting as minister to some ruling prince in\r
+Persia, where he killed the Shah's brother. Now all the Moscow ladies\r
+are mad about him! It's 'Dolokhov the Persian' that does it! We never\r
+hear a word but Dolokhov is mentioned. They swear by him, they offer him\r
+to you as they would a dish of choice sterlet. Dolokhov and Anatole\r
+Kuragin have turned all our ladies' heads."\r
+\r
+A tall, beautiful woman with a mass of plaited hair and much exposed\r
+plump white shoulders and neck, round which she wore a double string of\r
+large pearls, entered the adjoining box rustling her heavy silk dress\r
+and took a long time settling into her place.\r
+\r
+Natasha involuntarily gazed at that neck, those shoulders, and pearls\r
+and coiffure, and admired the beauty of the shoulders and the pearls.\r
+While Natasha was fixing her gaze on her for the second time the lady\r
+looked round and, meeting the count's eyes, nodded to him and smiled.\r
+She was the Countess Bezukhova, Pierre's wife, and the count, who knew\r
+everyone in society, leaned over and spoke to her.\r
+\r
+"Have you been here long, Countess?" he inquired. "I'll call, I'll call\r
+to kiss your hand. I'm here on business and have brought my girls with\r
+me. They say Semenova acts marvelously. Count Pierre never used to\r
+forget us. Is he here?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, he meant to look in," answered Helene, and glanced attentively at\r
+Natasha.\r
+\r
+Count Rostov resumed his seat.\r
+\r
+"Handsome, isn't she?" he whispered to Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Wonderful!" answered Natasha. "She's a woman one could easily fall in\r
+love with."\r
+\r
+Just then the last chords of the overture were heard and the conductor\r
+tapped with his stick. Some latecomers took their seats in the stalls,\r
+and the curtain rose.\r
+\r
+As soon as it rose everyone in the boxes and stalls became silent, and\r
+all the men, old and young, in uniform and evening dress, and all the\r
+women with gems on their bare flesh, turned their whole attention with\r
+eager curiosity to the stage. Natasha too began to look at it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+The floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was some\r
+painted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth\r
+stretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red\r
+bodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat\r
+apart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard\r
+was glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song\r
+the girl in white went up to the prompter's box and a man with tight\r
+silk trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger,\r
+went up to her and began singing, waving his arms about.\r
+\r
+First the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then they\r
+both paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the hand of\r
+the girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing with\r
+her. They sang together and everyone in the theater began clapping and\r
+shouting, while the man and woman on the stage--who represented lovers--\r
+began smiling, spreading out their arms, and bowing.\r
+\r
+After her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this\r
+seemed grotesque and amazing to Natasha. She could not follow the opera\r
+nor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the\r
+queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in\r
+that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but\r
+it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed\r
+for the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the faces of the\r
+audience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and perplexity she\r
+herself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to what was happening\r
+on the stage, and expressed delight which to Natasha seemed feigned. "I\r
+suppose it has to be like this!" she thought. She kept looking round in\r
+turn at the rows of pomaded heads in the stalls and then at the seminude\r
+women in the boxes, especially at Helene in the next box, who--\r
+apparently quite unclothed--sat with a quiet tranquil smile, not taking\r
+her eyes off the stage. And feeling the bright light that flooded the\r
+whole place and the warm air heated by the crowd, Natasha little by\r
+little began to pass into a state of intoxication she had not\r
+experienced for a long while. She did not realize who and where she was,\r
+nor what was going on before her. As she looked and thought, the\r
+strangest fancies unexpectedly and disconnectedly passed through her\r
+mind: the idea occurred to her of jumping onto the edge of the box and\r
+singing the air the actress was singing, then she wished to touch with\r
+her fan an old gentleman sitting not far from her, then to lean over to\r
+Helene and tickle her.\r
+\r
+At a moment when all was quiet before the commencement of a song, a door\r
+leading to the stalls on the side nearest the Rostovs' box creaked, and\r
+the steps of a belated arrival were heard. "There's Kuragin!" whispered\r
+Shinshin. Countess Bezukhova turned smiling to the newcomer, and\r
+Natasha, following the direction of that look, saw an exceptionally\r
+handsome adjutant approaching their box with a self-assured yet\r
+courteous bearing. This was Anatole Kuragin whom she had seen and\r
+noticed long ago at the ball in Petersburg. He was now in an adjutant's\r
+uniform with one epaulet and a shoulder knot. He moved with a restrained\r
+swagger which would have been ridiculous had he not been so good-looking\r
+and had his handsome face not worn such an expression of good-humored\r
+complacency and gaiety. Though the performance was proceeding, he walked\r
+deliberately down the carpeted gangway, his sword and spurs slightly\r
+jingling and his handsome perfumed head held high. Having looked at\r
+Natasha he approached his sister, laid his well gloved hand on the edge\r
+of her box, nodded to her, and leaning forward asked a question, with a\r
+motion toward Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Mais charmante!" said he, evidently referring to Natasha, who did not\r
+exactly hear his words but understood them from the movement of his\r
+lips. Then he took his place in the first row of the stalls and sat down\r
+beside Dolokhov, nudging with his elbow in a friendly and offhand way\r
+that Dolokhov whom others treated so fawningly. He winked at him gaily,\r
+smiled, and rested his foot against the orchestra screen.\r
+\r
+"How like the brother is to the sister," remarked the count. "And how\r
+handsome they both are!"\r
+\r
+Shinshin, lowering his voice, began to tell the count of some intrigue\r
+of Kuragin's in Moscow, and Natasha tried to overhear it just because he\r
+had said she was "charmante."\r
+\r
+The first act was over. In the stalls everyone began moving about, going\r
+out and coming in.\r
+\r
+Boris came to the Rostovs' box, received their congratulations very\r
+simply, and raising his eyebrows with an absent-minded smile conveyed to\r
+Natasha and Sonya his fiancee's invitation to her wedding, and went\r
+away. Natasha with a gay, coquettish smile talked to him, and\r
+congratulated on his approaching wedding that same Boris with whom she\r
+had formerly been in love. In the state of intoxication she was in,\r
+everything seemed simple and natural.\r
+\r
+The scantily clad Helene smiled at everyone in the same way, and Natasha\r
+gave Boris a similar smile.\r
+\r
+Helene's box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most\r
+distinguished and intellectual men, who seemed to vie with one another\r
+in their wish to let everyone see that they knew her.\r
+\r
+During the whole of that entr'acte Kuragin stood with Dolokhov in front\r
+of the orchestra partition, looking at the Rostovs' box. Natasha knew he\r
+was talking about her and this afforded her pleasure. She even turned so\r
+that he should see her profile in what she thought was its most becoming\r
+aspect. Before the beginning of the second act Pierre appeared in the\r
+stalls. The Rostovs had not seen him since their arrival. His face\r
+looked sad, and he had grown still stouter since Natasha last saw him.\r
+He passed up to the front rows, not noticing anyone. Anatole went up to\r
+him and began speaking to him, looking at and indicating the Rostovs'\r
+box. On seeing Natasha Pierre grew animated and, hastily passing between\r
+the rows, came toward their box. When he got there he leaned on his\r
+elbows and, smiling, talked to her for a long time. While conversing\r
+with Pierre, Natasha heard a man's voice in Countess Bezukhova's box and\r
+something told her it was Kuragin. She turned and their eyes met. Almost\r
+smiling, he gazed straight into her eyes with such an enraptured\r
+caressing look that it seemed strange to be so near him, to look at him\r
+like that, to be so sure he admired her, and not to be acquainted with\r
+him.\r
+\r
+In the second act there was scenery representing tombstones, there was a\r
+round hole in the canvas to represent the moon, shades were raised over\r
+the footlights, and from horns and contrabass came deep notes while many\r
+people appeared from right and left wearing black cloaks and holding\r
+things like daggers in their hands. They began waving their arms. Then\r
+some other people ran in and began dragging away the maiden who had been\r
+in white and was now in light blue. They did not drag her away at once,\r
+but sang with her for a long time and then at last dragged her off, and\r
+behind the scenes something metallic was struck three times and everyone\r
+knelt down and sang a prayer. All these things were repeatedly\r
+interrupted by the enthusiastic shouts of the audience.\r
+\r
+During this act every time Natasha looked toward the stalls she saw\r
+Anatole Kuragin with an arm thrown across the back of his chair, staring\r
+at her. She was pleased to see that he was captivated by her and it did\r
+not occur to her that there was anything wrong in it.\r
+\r
+When the second act was over Countess Bezukhova rose, turned to the\r
+Rostovs' box--her whole bosom completely exposed--beckoned the old count\r
+with a gloved finger, and paying no attention to those who had entered\r
+her box began talking to him with an amiable smile.\r
+\r
+"Do make me acquainted with your charming daughters," said she. "The\r
+whole town is singing their praises and I don't even know them!"\r
+\r
+Natasha rose and curtsied to the splendid countess. She was so pleased\r
+by praise from this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure.\r
+\r
+"I want to become a Moscovite too, now," said Helene. "How is it you're\r
+not ashamed to bury such pearls in the country?"\r
+\r
+Countess Bezukhova quite deserved her reputation of being a fascinating\r
+woman. She could say what she did not think--especially what was\r
+flattering--quite simply and naturally.\r
+\r
+"Dear count, you must let me look after your daughters! Though I am not\r
+staying here long this time--nor are you--I will try to amuse them. I\r
+have already heard much of you in Petersburg and wanted to get to know\r
+you," said she to Natasha with her stereotyped and lovely smile. "I had\r
+heard about you from my page, Drubetskoy. Have you heard he is getting\r
+married? And also from my husband's friend Bolkonski, Prince Andrew\r
+Bolkonski," she went on with special emphasis, implying that she knew of\r
+his relation to Natasha. To get better acquainted she asked that one of\r
+the young ladies should come into her box for the rest of the\r
+performance, and Natasha moved over to it.\r
+\r
+The scene of the third act represented a palace in which many candles\r
+were burning and pictures of knights with short beards hung on the\r
+walls. In the middle stood what were probably a king and a queen. The\r
+king waved his right arm and, evidently nervous, sang something badly\r
+and sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had been first in white\r
+and then in light blue, now wore only a smock, and stood beside the\r
+throne with her hair down. She sang something mournfully, addressing the\r
+queen, but the king waved his arm severely, and men and women with bare\r
+legs came in from both sides and began dancing all together. Then the\r
+violins played very shrilly and merrily and one of the women with thick\r
+bare legs and thin arms, separating from the others, went behind the\r
+wings, adjusted her bodice, returned to the middle of the stage, and\r
+began jumping and striking one foot rapidly against the other. In the\r
+stalls everyone clapped and shouted "bravo!" Then one of the men went\r
+into a corner of the stage. The cymbals and horns in the orchestra\r
+struck up more loudly, and this man with bare legs jumped very high and\r
+waved his feet about very rapidly. (He was Duport, who received sixty\r
+thousand rubles a year for this art.) Everybody in the stalls, boxes,\r
+and galleries began clapping and shouting with all their might, and the\r
+man stopped and began smiling and bowing to all sides. Then other men\r
+and women danced with bare legs. Then the king again shouted to the\r
+sound of music, and they all began singing. But suddenly a storm came\r
+on, chromatic scales and diminished sevenths were heard in the\r
+orchestra, everyone ran off, again dragging one of their number away,\r
+and the curtain dropped. Once more there was a terrible noise and\r
+clatter among the audience, and with rapturous faces everyone began\r
+shouting: "Duport! Duport! Duport!" Natasha no longer thought this\r
+strange. She looked about with pleasure, smiling joyfully.\r
+\r
+"Isn't Duport delightful?" Helene asked her.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes," replied Natasha.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+During the entr'acte a whiff of cold air came into Helene's box, the\r
+door opened, and Anatole entered, stooping and trying not to brush\r
+against anyone.\r
+\r
+"Let me introduce my brother to you," said Helene, her eyes shifting\r
+uneasily from Natasha to Anatole.\r
+\r
+Natasha turned her pretty little head toward the elegant young officer\r
+and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was as handsome\r
+at close quarters as at a distance, sat down beside her and told her he\r
+had long wished to have this happiness--ever since the Naryshkins' ball\r
+in fact, at which he had had the well-remembered pleasure of seeing her.\r
+Kuragin was much more sensible and simple with women than among men. He\r
+talked boldly and naturally, and Natasha was strangely and agreeably\r
+struck by the fact that there was nothing formidable in this man about\r
+whom there was so much talk, but that on the contrary his smile was most\r
+naive, cheerful, and good-natured.\r
+\r
+Kuragin asked her opinion of the performance and told her how at a\r
+previous performance Semenova had fallen down on the stage.\r
+\r
+"And do you know, Countess," he said, suddenly addressing her as an old,\r
+familiar acquaintance, "we are getting up a costume tournament; you\r
+ought to take part in it! It will be great fun. We shall all meet at the\r
+Karagins'! Please come! No! Really, eh?" said he.\r
+\r
+While saying this he never removed his smiling eyes from her face, her\r
+neck, and her bare arms. Natasha knew for certain that he was enraptured\r
+by her. This pleased her, yet his presence made her feel constrained and\r
+oppressed. When she was not looking at him she felt that he was looking\r
+at her shoulders, and she involuntarily caught his eye so that he should\r
+look into hers rather than this. But looking into his eyes she was\r
+frightened, realizing that there was not that barrier of modesty she had\r
+always felt between herself and other men. She did not know how it was\r
+that within five minutes she had come to feel herself terribly near to\r
+this man. When she turned away she feared he might seize her from behind\r
+by her bare arm and kiss her on the neck. They spoke of most ordinary\r
+things, yet she felt that they were closer to one another than she had\r
+ever been to any man. Natasha kept turning to Helene and to her father,\r
+as if asking what it all meant, but Helene was engaged in conversation\r
+with a general and did not answer her look, and her father's eyes said\r
+nothing but what they always said: "Having a good time? Well, I'm glad\r
+of it!"\r
+\r
+During one of these moments of awkward silence when Anatole's prominent\r
+eyes were gazing calmly and fixedly at her, Natasha, to break the\r
+silence, asked him how he liked Moscow. She asked the question and\r
+blushed. She felt all the time that by talking to him she was doing\r
+something improper. Anatole smiled as though to encourage her.\r
+\r
+"At first I did not like it much, because what makes a town pleasant ce\r
+sont les jolies femmes, * isn't that so? But now I like it very much\r
+indeed," he said, looking at her significantly. "You'll come to the\r
+costume tournament, Countess? Do come!" and putting out his hand to her\r
+bouquet and dropping his voice, he added, "You will be the prettiest\r
+there. Do come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a pledge!"\r
+\r
+\r
+* Are the pretty women.\r
+\r
+Natasha did not understand what he was saying any more than he did\r
+himself, but she felt that his incomprehensible words had an improper\r
+intention. She did not know what to say and turned away as if she had\r
+not heard his remark. But as soon as she had turned away she felt that\r
+he was there, behind, so close behind her.\r
+\r
+"How is he now? Confused? Angry? Ought I to put it right?" she asked\r
+herself, and she could not refrain from turning round. She looked\r
+straight into his eyes, and his nearness, self-assurance, and the good-\r
+natured tenderness of his smile vanquished her. She smiled just as he\r
+was doing, gazing straight into his eyes. And again she felt with horror\r
+that no barrier lay between him and her.\r
+\r
+The curtain rose again. Anatole left the box, serene and gay. Natasha\r
+went back to her father in the other box, now quite submissive to the\r
+world she found herself in. All that was going on before her now seemed\r
+quite natural, but on the other hand all her previous thoughts of her\r
+betrothed, of Princess Mary, or of life in the country did not once\r
+recur to her mind and were as if belonging to a remote past.\r
+\r
+In the fourth act there was some sort of devil who sang waving his arm\r
+about, till the boards were withdrawn from under him and he disappeared\r
+down below. That was the only part of the fourth act that Natasha saw.\r
+She felt agitated and tormented, and the cause of this was Kuragin whom\r
+she could not help watching. As they were leaving the theater Anatole\r
+came up to them, called their carriage, and helped them in. As he was\r
+putting Natasha in he pressed her arm above the elbow. Agitated and\r
+flushed she turned round. He was looking at her with glittering eyes,\r
+smiling tenderly.\r
+\r
+Only after she had reached home was Natasha able clearly to think over\r
+what had happened to her, and suddenly remembering Prince Andrew she was\r
+horrified, and at tea to which all had sat down after the opera, she\r
+gave a loud exclamation, flushed, and ran out of the room.\r
+\r
+"O God! I am lost!" she said to herself. "How could I let him?" She sat\r
+for a long time hiding her flushed face in her hands trying to realize\r
+what had happened to her, but was unable either to understand what had\r
+happened or what she felt. Everything seemed dark, obscure, and\r
+terrible. There in that enormous, illuminated theater where the bare-\r
+legged Duport, in a tinsel-decorated jacket, jumped about to the music\r
+on wet boards, and young girls and old men, and the nearly naked Helene\r
+with her proud, calm smile, rapturously cried "bravo!"--there in the\r
+presence of that Helene it had all seemed clear and simple; but now,\r
+alone by herself, it was incomprehensible. "What is it? What was that\r
+terror I felt of him? What is this gnawing of conscience I am feeling\r
+now?" she thought.\r
+\r
+Only to the old countess at night in bed could Natasha have told all she\r
+was feeling. She knew that Sonya with her severe and simple views would\r
+either not understand it at all or would be horrified at such a\r
+confession. So Natasha tried to solve what was torturing her by herself.\r
+\r
+"Am I spoiled for Andrew's love or not?" she asked herself, and with\r
+soothing irony replied: "What a fool I am to ask that! What did happen\r
+to me? Nothing! I have done nothing, I didn't lead him on at all. Nobody\r
+will know and I shall never see him again," she told herself. "So it is\r
+plain that nothing has happened and there is nothing to repent of, and\r
+Andrew can love me still. But why 'still?' O God, why isn't he here?"\r
+Natasha quieted herself for a moment, but again some instinct told her\r
+that though all this was true, and though nothing had happened, yet the\r
+former purity of her love for Prince Andrew had perished. And again in\r
+imagination she went over her whole conversation with Kuragin, and again\r
+saw the face, gestures, and tender smile of that bold handsome man when\r
+he pressed her arm.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+Anatole Kuragin was staying in Moscow because his father had sent him\r
+away from Petersburg, where he had been spending twenty thousand rubles\r
+a year in cash, besides running up debts for as much more, which his\r
+creditors demanded from his father.\r
+\r
+His father announced to him that he would now pay half his debts for the\r
+last time, but only on condition that he went to Moscow as adjutant to\r
+the commander-in-chief--a post his father had procured for him--and\r
+would at last try to make a good match there. He indicated to him\r
+Princess Mary and Julie Karagina.\r
+\r
+Anatole consented and went to Moscow, where he put up at Pierre's house.\r
+Pierre received him unwillingly at first, but got used to him after a\r
+while, sometimes even accompanied him on his carousals, and gave him\r
+money under the guise of loans.\r
+\r
+As Shinshin had remarked, from the time of his arrival Anatole had\r
+turned the heads of the Moscow ladies, especially by the fact that he\r
+slighted them and plainly preferred the gypsy girls and French\r
+actresses--with the chief of whom, Mademoiselle George, he was said to\r
+be on intimate relations. He had never missed a carousal at Danilov's or\r
+other Moscow revelers', drank whole nights through, outvying everyone\r
+else, and was at all the balls and parties of the best society. There\r
+was talk of his intrigues with some of the ladies, and he flirted with a\r
+few of them at the balls. But he did not run after the unmarried girls,\r
+especially the rich heiresses who were most of them plain. There was a\r
+special reason for this, as he had got married two years before--a fact\r
+known only to his most intimate friends. At that time while with his\r
+regiment in Poland, a Polish landowner of small means had forced him to\r
+marry his daughter. Anatole had very soon abandoned his wife and, for a\r
+payment which he agreed to send to his father-in-law, had arranged to be\r
+free to pass himself off as a bachelor.\r
+\r
+Anatole was always content with his position, with himself, and with\r
+others. He was instinctively and thoroughly convinced that it was\r
+impossible for him to live otherwise than as he did and that he had\r
+never in his life done anything base. He was incapable of considering\r
+how his actions might affect others or what the consequences of this or\r
+that action of his might be. He was convinced that, as a duck is so made\r
+that it must live in water, so God had made him such that he must spend\r
+thirty thousand rubles a year and always occupy a prominent position in\r
+society. He believed this so firmly that others, looking at him, were\r
+persuaded of it too and did not refuse him either a leading place in\r
+society or money, which he borrowed from anyone and everyone and\r
+evidently would not repay.\r
+\r
+He was not a gambler, at any rate he did not care about winning. He was\r
+not vain. He did not mind what people thought of him. Still less could\r
+he be accused of ambition. More than once he had vexed his father by\r
+spoiling his own career, and he laughed at distinctions of all kinds. He\r
+was not mean, and did not refuse anyone who asked of him. All he cared\r
+about was gaiety and women, and as according to his ideas there was\r
+nothing dishonorable in these tastes, and he was incapable of\r
+considering what the gratification of his tastes entailed for others, he\r
+honestly considered himself irreproachable, sincerely despised rogues\r
+and bad people, and with a tranquil conscience carried his head high.\r
+\r
+Rakes, those male Magdalenes, have a secret feeling of innocence similar\r
+to that which female Magdalenes have, based on the same hope of\r
+forgiveness. "All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; and all will\r
+be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much."\r
+\r
+Dolokhov, who had reappeared that year in Moscow after his exile and his\r
+Persian adventures, and was leading a life of luxury, gambling, and\r
+dissipation, associated with his old Petersburg comrade Kuragin and made\r
+use of him for his own ends.\r
+\r
+Anatole was sincerely fond of Dolokhov for his cleverness and audacity.\r
+Dolokhov, who needed Anatole Kuragin's name, position, and connections\r
+as a bait to draw rich young men into his gambling set, made use of him\r
+and amused himself at his expense without letting the other feel it.\r
+Apart from the advantage he derived from Anatole, the very process of\r
+dominating another's will was in itself a pleasure, a habit, and a\r
+necessity to Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+Natasha had made a strong impression on Kuragin. At supper after the\r
+opera he described to Dolokhov with the air of a connoisseur the\r
+attractions of her arms, shoulders, feet, and hair and expressed his\r
+intention of making love to her. Anatole had no notion and was incapable\r
+of considering what might come of such love-making, as he never had any\r
+notion of the outcome of any of his actions.\r
+\r
+"She's first-rate, my dear fellow, but not for us," replied Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"I will tell my sister to ask her to dinner," said Anatole. "Eh?"\r
+\r
+"You'd better wait till she's married...."\r
+\r
+"You know, I adore little girls, they lose their heads at once," pursued\r
+Anatole.\r
+\r
+"You have been caught once already by a 'little girl,'" said Dolokhov\r
+who knew of Kuragin's marriage. "Take care!"\r
+\r
+"Well, that can't happen twice! Eh?" said Anatole, with a good-humored\r
+laugh.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+The day after the opera the Rostovs went nowhere and nobody came to see\r
+them. Marya Dmitrievna talked to the count about something which they\r
+concealed from Natasha. Natasha guessed they were talking about the old\r
+prince and planning something, and this disquieted and offended her. She\r
+was expecting Prince Andrew any moment and twice that day sent a\r
+manservant to the Vozdvizhenka to ascertain whether he had come. He had\r
+not arrived. She suffered more now than during her first days in Moscow.\r
+To her impatience and pining for him were now added the unpleasant\r
+recollection of her interview with Princess Mary and the old prince, and\r
+a fear and anxiety of which she did not understand the cause. She\r
+continually fancied that either he would never come or that something\r
+would happen to her before he came. She could no longer think of him by\r
+herself calmly and continuously as she had done before. As soon as she\r
+began to think of him, the recollection of the old prince, of Princess\r
+Mary, of the theater, and of Kuragin mingled with her thoughts. The\r
+question again presented itself whether she was not guilty, whether she\r
+had not already broken faith with Prince Andrew, and again she found\r
+herself recalling to the minutest detail every word, every gesture, and\r
+every shade in the play of expression on the face of the man who had\r
+been able to arouse in her such an incomprehensible and terrifying\r
+feeling. To the family Natasha seemed livelier than usual, but she was\r
+far less tranquil and happy than before.\r
+\r
+On Sunday morning Marya Dmitrievna invited her visitors to Mass at her\r
+parish church--the Church of the Assumption built over the graves of\r
+victims of the plague.\r
+\r
+"I don't like those fashionable churches," she said, evidently priding\r
+herself on her independence of thought. "God is the same every where. We\r
+have an excellent priest, he conducts the service decently and with\r
+dignity, and the deacon is the same. What holiness is there in giving\r
+concerts in the choir? I don't like it, it's just self-indulgence!"\r
+\r
+Marya Dmitrievna liked Sundays and knew how to keep them. Her whole\r
+house was scrubbed and cleaned on Saturdays; neither she nor the\r
+servants worked, and they all wore holiday dress and went to church. At\r
+her table there were extra dishes at dinner, and the servants had vodka\r
+and roast goose or suckling pig. But in nothing in the house was the\r
+holiday so noticeable as in Marya Dmitrievna's broad, stern face, which\r
+on that day wore an invariable look of solemn festivity.\r
+\r
+After Mass, when they had finished their coffee in the dining room where\r
+the loose covers had been removed from the furniture, a servant\r
+announced that the carriage was ready, and Marya Dmitrievna rose with a\r
+stern air. She wore her holiday shawl, in which she paid calls, and\r
+announced that she was going to see Prince Nicholas Bolkonski to have an\r
+explanation with him about Natasha.\r
+\r
+After she had gone, a dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet waited on\r
+the Rostovs, and Natasha, very glad of this diversion, having shut\r
+herself into a room adjoining the drawing room, occupied herself trying\r
+on the new dresses. Just as she had put on a bodice without sleeves and\r
+only tacked together, and was turning her head to see in the glass how\r
+the back fitted, she heard in the drawing room the animated sounds of\r
+her father's voice and another's--a woman's--that made her flush. It was\r
+Helene. Natasha had not time to take off the bodice before the door\r
+opened and Countess Bezukhova, dressed in a purple velvet gown with a\r
+high collar, came into the room beaming with good-humored amiable\r
+smiles.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my enchantress!" she cried to the blushing Natasha. "Charming! No,\r
+this is really beyond anything, my dear count," said she to Count Rostov\r
+who had followed her in. "How can you live in Moscow and go nowhere? No,\r
+I won't let you off! Mademoiselle George will recite at my house tonight\r
+and there'll be some people, and if you don't bring your lovely girls--\r
+who are prettier than Mademoiselle George--I won't know you! My husband\r
+is away in Tver or I would send him to fetch you. You must come. You\r
+positively must! Between eight and nine."\r
+\r
+She nodded to the dressmaker, whom she knew and who had curtsied\r
+respectfully to her, and seated herself in an armchair beside the\r
+looking glass, draping the folds of her velvet dress picturesquely. She\r
+did not cease chattering good-naturedly and gaily, continually praising\r
+Natasha's beauty. She looked at Natasha's dresses and praised them, as\r
+well as a new dress of her own made of "metallic gauze," which she had\r
+received from Paris, and advised Natasha to have one like it.\r
+\r
+"But anything suits you, my charmer!" she remarked.\r
+\r
+A smile of pleasure never left Natasha's face. She felt happy and as if\r
+she were blossoming under the praise of this dear Countess Bezukhova who\r
+had formerly seemed to her so unapproachable and important and was now\r
+so kind to her. Natasha brightened up and felt almost in love with this\r
+woman, who was so beautiful and so kind. Helene for her part was\r
+sincerely delighted with Natasha and wished to give her a good time.\r
+Anatole had asked her to bring him and Natasha together, and she was\r
+calling on the Rostovs for that purpose. The idea of throwing her\r
+brother and Natasha together amused her.\r
+\r
+Though at one time, in Petersburg, she had been annoyed with Natasha for\r
+drawing Boris away, she did not think of that now, and in her own way\r
+heartily wished Natasha well. As she was leaving the Rostovs she called\r
+her protegee aside.\r
+\r
+"My brother dined with me yesterday--we nearly died of laughter--he ate\r
+nothing and kept sighing for you, my charmer! He is madly, quite madly,\r
+in love with you, my dear."\r
+\r
+Natasha blushed scarlet when she heard this.\r
+\r
+"How she blushes, how she blushes, my pretty!" said Helene. "You must\r
+certainly come. If you love somebody, my charmer, that is not a reason\r
+to shut yourself up. Even if you are engaged, I am sure your fiance\r
+would wish you to go into society rather than be bored to death."\r
+\r
+"So she knows I am engaged, and she and her husband Pierre--that good\r
+Pierre--have talked and laughed about this. So it's all right." And\r
+again, under Helene's influence, what had seemed terrible now seemed\r
+simple and natural. "And she is such a grande dame, so kind, and\r
+evidently likes me so much. And why not enjoy myself?" thought Natasha,\r
+gazing at Helene with wide-open, wondering eyes.\r
+\r
+Marya Dmitrievna came back to dinner taciturn and serious, having\r
+evidently suffered a defeat at the old prince's. She was still too\r
+agitated by the encounter to be able to talk of the affair calmly. In\r
+answer to the count's inquiries she replied that things were all right\r
+and that she would tell about it next day. On hearing of Countess\r
+Bezukhova's visit and the invitation for that evening, Marya Dmitrievna\r
+remarked:\r
+\r
+"I don't care to have anything to do with Bezukhova and don't advise you\r
+to; however, if you've promised--go. It will divert your thoughts," she\r
+added, addressing Natasha.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+Count Rostov took the girls to Countess Bezukhova's. There were a good\r
+many people there, but nearly all strangers to Natasha. Count Rostov was\r
+displeased to see that the company consisted almost entirely of men and\r
+women known for the freedom of their conduct. Mademoiselle George was\r
+standing in a corner of the drawing room surrounded by young men. There\r
+were several Frenchmen present, among them Metivier who from the time\r
+Helene reached Moscow had been an intimate in her house. The count\r
+decided not to sit down to cards or let his girls out of his sight and\r
+to get away as soon as Mademoiselle George's performance was over.\r
+\r
+Anatole was at the door, evidently on the lookout for the Rostovs.\r
+Immediately after greeting the count he went up to Natasha and followed\r
+her. As soon as she saw him she was seized by the same feeling she had\r
+had at the opera--gratified vanity at his admiration of her and fear at\r
+the absence of a moral barrier between them.\r
+\r
+Helene welcomed Natasha delightedly and was loud in admiration of her\r
+beauty and her dress. Soon after their arrival Mademoiselle George went\r
+out of the room to change her costume. In the drawing room people began\r
+arranging the chairs and taking their seats. Anatole moved a chair for\r
+Natasha and was about to sit down beside her, but the count, who never\r
+lost sight of her, took the seat himself. Anatole sat down behind her.\r
+\r
+Mademoiselle George, with her bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red shawl\r
+draped over one shoulder, came into the space left vacant for her, and\r
+assumed an unnatural pose. Enthusiastic whispering was audible.\r
+\r
+Mademoiselle George looked sternly and gloomily at the audience and\r
+began reciting some French verses describing her guilty love for her\r
+son. In some places she raised her voice, in others she whispered,\r
+lifting her head triumphantly; sometimes she paused and uttered hoarse\r
+sounds, rolling her eyes.\r
+\r
+"Adorable! divine! delicious!" was heard from every side.\r
+\r
+Natasha looked at the fat actress, but neither saw nor heard nor\r
+understood anything of what went on before her. She only felt herself\r
+again completely borne away into this strange senseless world--so remote\r
+from her old world--a world in which it was impossible to know what was\r
+good or bad, reasonable or senseless. Behind her sat Anatole, and\r
+conscious of his proximity she experienced a frightened sense of\r
+expectancy.\r
+\r
+After the first monologue the whole company rose and surrounded\r
+Mademoiselle George, expressing their enthusiasm.\r
+\r
+"How beautiful she is!" Natasha remarked to her father who had also\r
+risen and was moving through the crowd toward the actress.\r
+\r
+"I don't think so when I look at you!" said Anatole, following Natasha.\r
+He said this at a moment when she alone could hear him. "You are\r
+enchanting... from the moment I saw you I have never ceased..."\r
+\r
+"Come, come, Natasha!" said the count, as he turned back for his\r
+daughter. "How beautiful she is!" Natasha without saying anything\r
+stepped up to her father and looked at him with surprised inquiring\r
+eyes.\r
+\r
+After giving several recitations, Mademoiselle George left, and Countess\r
+Bezukhova asked her visitors into the ballroom.\r
+\r
+The count wished to go home, but Helene entreated him not to spoil her\r
+improvised ball, and the Rostovs stayed on. Anatole asked Natasha for a\r
+valse and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand and told her she\r
+was bewitching and that he loved her. During the ecossaise, which she\r
+also danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they happened to be by\r
+themselves, but merely gazed at her. Natasha lifted her frightened eyes\r
+to him, but there was such confident tenderness in his affectionate look\r
+and smile that she could not, whilst looking at him, say what she had to\r
+say. She lowered her eyes.\r
+\r
+"Don't say such things to me. I am betrothed and love another," she said\r
+rapidly.... She glanced at him.\r
+\r
+Anatole was not upset or pained by what she had said.\r
+\r
+"Don't speak to me of that! What can I do?" said he. "I tell you I am\r
+madly, madly, in love with you! Is it my fault that you are\r
+enchanting?... It's our turn to begin."\r
+\r
+Natasha, animated and excited, looked about her with wide-open\r
+frightened eyes and seemed merrier than usual. She understood hardly\r
+anything that went on that evening. They danced the ecossaise and the\r
+Grossvater. Her father asked her to come home, but she begged to remain.\r
+Wherever she went and whomever she was speaking to, she felt his eyes\r
+upon her. Later on she recalled how she had asked her father to let her\r
+go to the dressing room to rearrange her dress, that Helene had followed\r
+her and spoken laughingly of her brother's love, and that she again met\r
+Anatole in the little sitting room. Helene had disappeared leaving them\r
+alone, and Anatole had taken her hand and said in a tender voice:\r
+\r
+"I cannot come to visit you but is it possible that I shall never see\r
+you? I love you madly. Can I never...?" and, blocking her path, he\r
+brought his face close to hers.\r
+\r
+His large, glittering, masculine eyes were so close to hers that she saw\r
+nothing but them.\r
+\r
+"Natalie?" he whispered inquiringly while she felt her hands being\r
+painfully pressed. "Natalie?"\r
+\r
+"I don't understand. I have nothing to say," her eyes replied.\r
+\r
+Burning lips were pressed to hers, and at the same instant she felt\r
+herself released, and Helene's footsteps and the rustle of her dress\r
+were heard in the room. Natasha looked round at her, and then, red and\r
+trembling, threw a frightened look of inquiry at Anatole and moved\r
+toward the door.\r
+\r
+"One word, just one, for God's sake!" cried Anatole.\r
+\r
+She paused. She so wanted a word from him that would explain to her what\r
+had happened and to which she could find no answer.\r
+\r
+"Natalie, just a word, only one!" he kept repeating, evidently not\r
+knowing what to say and he repeated it till Helene came up to them.\r
+\r
+Helene returned with Natasha to the drawing room. The Rostovs went away\r
+without staying for supper.\r
+\r
+After reaching home Natasha did not sleep all night. She was tormented\r
+by the insoluble question whether she loved Anatole or Prince Andrew.\r
+She loved Prince Andrew--she remembered distinctly how deeply she loved\r
+him. But she also loved Anatole, of that there was no doubt. "Else how\r
+could all this have happened?" thought she. "If, after that, I could\r
+return his smile when saying good-by, if I was able to let it come to\r
+that, it means that I loved him from the first. It means that he is\r
+kind, noble, and splendid, and I could not help loving him. What am I to\r
+do if I love him and the other one too?" she asked herself, unable to\r
+find an answer to these terrible questions.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+Morning came with its cares and bustle. Everyone got up and began to\r
+move about and talk, dressmakers came again. Marya Dmitrievna appeared,\r
+and they were called to breakfast. Natasha kept looking uneasily at\r
+everybody with wide-open eyes, as if wishing to intercept every glance\r
+directed toward her, and tried to appear the same as usual.\r
+\r
+After breakfast, which was her best time, Marya Dmitrievna sat down in\r
+her armchair and called Natasha and the count to her.\r
+\r
+"Well, friends, I have now thought the whole matter over and this is my\r
+advice," she began. "Yesterday, as you know, I went to see Prince\r
+Bolkonski. Well, I had a talk with him.... He took it into his head to\r
+begin shouting, but I am not one to be shouted down. I said what I had\r
+to say!"\r
+\r
+"Well, and he?" asked the count.\r
+\r
+"He? He's crazy... he did not want to listen. But what's the use of\r
+talking? As it is we have worn the poor girl out," said Marya\r
+Dmitrievna. "My advice to you is finish your business and go back home\r
+to Otradnoe... and wait there."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no!" exclaimed Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Yes, go back," said Marya Dmitrievna, "and wait there. If your\r
+betrothed comes here now--there will be no avoiding a quarrel; but alone\r
+with the old man he will talk things over and then come on to you."\r
+\r
+Count Rostov approved of this suggestion, appreciating its\r
+reasonableness. If the old man came round it would be all the better to\r
+visit him in Moscow or at Bald Hills later on; and if not, the wedding,\r
+against his wishes, could only be arranged at Otradnoe.\r
+\r
+"That is perfectly true. And I am sorry I went to see him and took her,"\r
+said the old count.\r
+\r
+"No, why be sorry? Being here, you had to pay your respects. But if he\r
+won't--that's his affair," said Marya Dmitrievna, looking for something\r
+in her reticule. "Besides, the trousseau is ready, so there is nothing\r
+to wait for; and what is not ready I'll send after you. Though I don't\r
+like letting you go, it is the best way. So go, with God's blessing!"\r
+\r
+Having found what she was looking for in the reticule she handed it to\r
+Natasha. It was a letter from Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+"She has written to you. How she torments herself, poor thing! She's\r
+afraid you might think that she does not like you."\r
+\r
+"But she doesn't like me," said Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Don't talk nonsense!" cried Marya Dmitrievna.\r
+\r
+"I shan't believe anyone, I know she doesn't like me," replied Natasha\r
+boldly as she took the letter, and her face expressed a cold and angry\r
+resolution that caused Marya Dmitrievna to look at her more intently and\r
+to frown.\r
+\r
+"Don't answer like that, my good girl!" she said. "What I say is true!\r
+Write an answer!" Natasha did not reply and went to her own room to read\r
+Princess Mary's letter.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary wrote that she was in despair at the misunderstanding that\r
+had occurred between them. Whatever her father's feelings might be, she\r
+begged Natasha to believe that she could not help loving her as the one\r
+chosen by her brother, for whose happiness she was ready to sacrifice\r
+everything.\r
+\r
+"Do not think, however," she wrote, "that my father is ill-disposed\r
+toward you. He is an invalid and an old man who must be forgiven; but he\r
+is good and magnanimous and will love her who makes his son happy."\r
+Princess Mary went on to ask Natasha to fix a time when she could see\r
+her again.\r
+\r
+After reading the letter Natasha sat down at the writing table to answer\r
+it. "Dear Princess," she wrote in French quickly and mechanically, and\r
+then paused. What more could she write after all that had happened the\r
+evening before? "Yes, yes! All that has happened, and now all is\r
+changed," she thought as she sat with the letter she had begun before\r
+her. "Must I break off with him? Must I really? That's awful..." and to\r
+escape from these dreadful thoughts she went to Sonya and began sorting\r
+patterns with her.\r
+\r
+After dinner Natasha went to her room and again took up Princess Mary's\r
+letter. "Can it be that it is all over?" she thought. "Can it be that\r
+all this has happened so quickly and has destroyed all that went\r
+before?" She recalled her love for Prince Andrew in all its former\r
+strength, and at the same time felt that she loved Kuragin. She vividly\r
+pictured herself as Prince Andrew's wife, and the scenes of happiness\r
+with him she had so often repeated in her imagination, and at the same\r
+time, aglow with excitement, recalled every detail of yesterday's\r
+interview with Anatole.\r
+\r
+"Why could that not be as well?" she sometimes asked herself in complete\r
+bewilderment. "Only so could I be completely happy; but now I have to\r
+choose, and I can't be happy without either of them. Only," she thought,\r
+"to tell Prince Andrew what has happened or to hide it from him are both\r
+equally impossible. But with that one nothing is spoiled. But am I\r
+really to abandon forever the joy of Prince Andrew's love, in which I\r
+have lived so long?"\r
+\r
+"Please, Miss!" whispered a maid entering the room with a mysterious\r
+air. "A man told me to give you this-" and she handed Natasha a letter.\r
+\r
+"Only, for Christ's sake..." the girl went on, as Natasha, without\r
+thinking, mechanically broke the seal and read a love letter from\r
+Anatole, of which, without taking in a word, she understood only that it\r
+was a letter from him--from the man she loved. Yes, she loved him, or\r
+else how could that have happened which had happened? And how could she\r
+have a love letter from him in her hand?\r
+\r
+With trembling hands Natasha held that passionate love letter which\r
+Dolokhov had composed for Anatole, and as she read it she found in it an\r
+echo of all that she herself imagined she was feeling.\r
+\r
+"Since yesterday evening my fate has been sealed; to be loved by you or\r
+to die. There is no other way for me," the letter began. Then he went on\r
+to say that he knew her parents would not give her to him--for this\r
+there were secret reasons he could reveal only to her--but that if she\r
+loved him she need only say the word yes, and no human power could\r
+hinder their bliss. Love would conquer all. He would steal her away and\r
+carry her off to the ends of the earth.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes! I love him!" thought Natasha, reading the letter for the\r
+twentieth time and finding some peculiarly deep meaning in each word of\r
+it.\r
+\r
+That evening Marya Dmitrievna was going to the Akharovs' and proposed to\r
+take the girls with her. Natasha, pleading a headache, remained at home.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+On returning late in the evening Sonya went to Natasha's room, and to\r
+her surprise found her still dressed and asleep on the sofa. Open on the\r
+table, beside her lay Anatole's letter. Sonya picked it up and read it.\r
+\r
+As she read she glanced at the sleeping Natasha, trying to find in her\r
+face an explanation of what she was reading, but did not find it. Her\r
+face was calm, gentle, and happy. Clutching her breast to keep herself\r
+from choking, Sonya, pale and trembling with fear and agitation, sat\r
+down in an armchair and burst into tears.\r
+\r
+"How was it I noticed nothing? How could it go so far? Can she have left\r
+off loving Prince Andrew? And how could she let Kuragin go to such\r
+lengths? He is a deceiver and a villain, that's plain! What will\r
+Nicholas, dear noble Nicholas, do when he hears of it? So this is the\r
+meaning of her excited, resolute, unnatural look the day before\r
+yesterday, yesterday, and today," thought Sonya. "But it can't be that\r
+she loves him! She probably opened the letter without knowing who it was\r
+from. Probably she is offended by it. She could not do such a thing!"\r
+\r
+Sonya wiped away her tears and went up to Natasha, again scanning her\r
+face.\r
+\r
+"Natasha!" she said, just audibly.\r
+\r
+Natasha awoke and saw Sonya.\r
+\r
+"Ah, you're back?"\r
+\r
+And with the decision and tenderness that often come at the moment of\r
+awakening, she embraced her friend, but noticing Sonya's look of\r
+embarrassment, her own face expressed confusion and suspicion.\r
+\r
+"Sonya, you've read that letter?" she demanded.\r
+\r
+"Yes," answered Sonya softly.\r
+\r
+Natasha smiled rapturously.\r
+\r
+"No, Sonya, I can't any longer!" she said. "I can't hide it from you any\r
+longer. You know, we love one another! Sonya, darling, he writes...\r
+Sonya..."\r
+\r
+Sonya stared open-eyed at Natasha, unable to believe her ears.\r
+\r
+"And Bolkonski?" she asked.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Sonya, if you only knew how happy I am!" cried Natasha. "You don't\r
+know what love is...."\r
+\r
+"But, Natasha, can that be all over?"\r
+\r
+Natasha looked at Sonya with wide-open eyes as if she could not grasp\r
+the question.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, are you refusing Prince Andrew?" said Sonya.\r
+\r
+"Oh, you don't understand anything! Don't talk nonsense, just listen!"\r
+said Natasha, with momentary vexation.\r
+\r
+"But I can't believe it," insisted Sonya. "I don't understand. How is it\r
+you have loved a man for a whole year and suddenly... Why, you have only\r
+seen him three times! Natasha, I don't believe you, you're joking! In\r
+three days to forget everything and so..."\r
+\r
+"Three days?" said Natasha. "It seems to me I've loved him a hundred\r
+years. It seems to me that I have never loved anyone before. You can't\r
+understand it.... Sonya, wait a bit, sit here," and Natasha embraced and\r
+kissed her.\r
+\r
+"I had heard that it happens like this, and you must have heard it too,\r
+but it's only now that I feel such love. It's not the same as before. As\r
+soon as I saw him I felt he was my master and I his slave, and that I\r
+could not help loving him. Yes, his slave! Whatever he orders I shall\r
+do. You don't understand that. What can I do? What can I do, Sonya?"\r
+cried Natasha with a happy yet frightened expression.\r
+\r
+"But think what you are doing," cried Sonya. "I can't leave it like\r
+this. This secret correspondence... How could you let him go so far?"\r
+she went on, with a horror and disgust she could hardly conceal.\r
+\r
+"I told you that I have no will," Natasha replied. "Why can't you\r
+understand? I love him!"\r
+\r
+"Then I won't let it come to that... I shall tell!" cried Sonya,\r
+bursting into tears.\r
+\r
+"What do you mean? For God's sake... If you tell, you are my enemy!"\r
+declared Natasha. "You want me to be miserable, you want us to be\r
+separated...."\r
+\r
+When she saw Natasha's fright, Sonya shed tears of shame and pity for\r
+her friend.\r
+\r
+"But what has happened between you?" she asked. "What has he said to\r
+you? Why doesn't he come to the house?"\r
+\r
+Natasha did not answer her questions.\r
+\r
+"For God's sake, Sonya, don't tell anyone, don't torture me," Natasha\r
+entreated. "Remember no one ought to interfere in such matters! I have\r
+confided in you...."\r
+\r
+"But why this secrecy? Why doesn't he come to the house?" asked Sonya.\r
+"Why doesn't he openly ask for your hand? You know Prince Andrew gave\r
+you complete freedom--if it is really so; but I don't believe it!\r
+Natasha, have you considered what these secret reasons can be?"\r
+\r
+Natasha looked at Sonya with astonishment. Evidently this question\r
+presented itself to her mind for the first time and she did not know how\r
+to answer it.\r
+\r
+"I don't know what the reasons are. But there must be reasons!"\r
+\r
+Sonya sighed and shook her head incredulously.\r
+\r
+"If there were reasons..." she began.\r
+\r
+But Natasha, guessing her doubts, interrupted her in alarm.\r
+\r
+"Sonya, one can't doubt him! One can't, one can't! Don't you\r
+understand?" she cried.\r
+\r
+"Does he love you?"\r
+\r
+"Does he love me?" Natasha repeated with a smile of pity at her friend's\r
+lack of comprehension. "Why, you have read his letter and you have seen\r
+him."\r
+\r
+"But if he is dishonorable?"\r
+\r
+"He! dishonorable? If you only knew!" exclaimed Natasha.\r
+\r
+"If he is an honorable man he should either declare his intentions or\r
+cease seeing you; and if you won't do this, I will. I will write to him,\r
+and I will tell Papa!" said Sonya resolutely.\r
+\r
+"But I can't live without him!" cried Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Natasha, I don't understand you. And what are you saying! Think of your\r
+father and of Nicholas."\r
+\r
+"I don't want anyone, I don't love anyone but him. How dare you say he\r
+is dishonorable? Don't you know that I love him?" screamed Natasha. "Go\r
+away, Sonya! I don't want to quarrel with you, but go, for God's sake\r
+go! You see how I am suffering!" Natasha cried angrily, in a voice of\r
+despair and repressed irritation. Sonya burst into sobs and ran from the\r
+room.\r
+\r
+Natasha went to the table and without a moment's reflection wrote that\r
+answer to Princess Mary which she had been unable to write all the\r
+morning. In this letter she said briefly that all their\r
+misunderstandings were at an end; that availing herself of the\r
+magnanimity of Prince Andrew who when he went abroad had given her her\r
+freedom, she begged Princess Mary to forget everything and forgive her\r
+if she had been to blame toward her, but that she could not be his wife.\r
+At that moment this all seemed quite easy, simple, and clear to Natasha.\r
+\r
+On Friday the Rostovs were to return to the country, but on Wednesday\r
+the count went with the prospective purchaser to his estate near Moscow.\r
+\r
+On the day the count left, Sonya and Natasha were invited to a big\r
+dinner party at the Karagins', and Marya Dmitrievna took them there. At\r
+that party Natasha again met Anatole, and Sonya noticed that she spoke\r
+to him, trying not to be overheard, and that all through dinner she was\r
+more agitated than ever. When they got home Natasha was the first to\r
+begin the explanation Sonya expected.\r
+\r
+"There, Sonya, you were talking all sorts of nonsense about him,"\r
+Natasha began in a mild voice such as children use when they wish to be\r
+praised. "We have had an explanation today."\r
+\r
+"Well, what happened? What did he say? Natasha, how glad I am you're not\r
+angry with me! Tell me everything--the whole truth. What did he say?"\r
+\r
+Natasha became thoughtful.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Sonya, if you knew him as I do! He said... He asked me what I had\r
+promised Bolkonski. He was glad I was free to refuse him."\r
+\r
+Sonya sighed sorrowfully.\r
+\r
+"But you haven't refused Bolkonski?" said she.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps I have. Perhaps all is over between me and Bolkonski. Why do\r
+you think so badly of me?"\r
+\r
+"I don't think anything, only I don't understand this..."\r
+\r
+"Wait a bit, Sonya, you'll understand everything. You'll see what a man\r
+he is! Now don't think badly of me or of him. I don't think badly of\r
+anyone: I love and pity everybody. But what am I to do?"\r
+\r
+Sonya did not succumb to the tender tone Natasha used toward her. The\r
+more emotional and ingratiating the expression of Natasha's face became,\r
+the more serious and stern grew Sonya's.\r
+\r
+"Natasha," said she, "you asked me not to speak to you, and I haven't\r
+spoken, but now you yourself have begun. I don't trust him, Natasha. Why\r
+this secrecy?"\r
+\r
+"Again, again!" interrupted Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Natasha, I am afraid for you!"\r
+\r
+"Afraid of what?"\r
+\r
+"I am afraid you're going to your ruin," said Sonya resolutely, and was\r
+herself horrified at what she had said.\r
+\r
+Anger again showed in Natasha's face.\r
+\r
+"And I'll go to my ruin, I will, as soon as possible! It's not your\r
+business! It won't be you, but I, who'll suffer. Leave me alone, leave\r
+me alone! I hate you!"\r
+\r
+"Natasha!" moaned Sonya, aghast.\r
+\r
+"I hate you, I hate you! You're my enemy forever!" And Natasha ran out\r
+of the room.\r
+\r
+Natasha did not speak to Sonya again and avoided her. With the same\r
+expression of agitated surprise and guilt she went about the house,\r
+taking up now one occupation, now another, and at once abandoning them.\r
+\r
+Hard as it was for Sonya, she watched her friend and did not let her out\r
+of her sight.\r
+\r
+The day before the count was to return, Sonya noticed that Natasha sat\r
+by the drawing-room window all the morning as if expecting something and\r
+that she made a sign to an officer who drove past, whom Sonya took to be\r
+Anatole.\r
+\r
+Sonya began watching her friend still more attentively and noticed that\r
+at dinner and all that evening Natasha was in a strange and unnatural\r
+state. She answered questions at random, began sentences she did not\r
+finish, and laughed at everything.\r
+\r
+After tea Sonya noticed a housemaid at Natasha's door timidly waiting to\r
+let her pass. She let the girl go in, and then listening at the door\r
+learned that another letter had been delivered.\r
+\r
+Then suddenly it became clear to Sonya that Natasha had some dreadful\r
+plan for that evening. Sonya knocked at her door. Natasha did not let\r
+her in.\r
+\r
+"She will run away with him!" thought Sonya. "She is capable of\r
+anything. There was something particularly pathetic and resolute in her\r
+face today. She cried as she said good-by to Uncle," Sonya remembered.\r
+"Yes, that's it, she means to elope with him, but what am I to do?"\r
+thought she, recalling all the signs that clearly indicated that Natasha\r
+had some terrible intention. "The count is away. What am I to do? Write\r
+to Kuragin demanding an explanation? But what is there to oblige him to\r
+reply? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andrew asked me to in case of some\r
+misfortune?... But perhaps she really has already refused Bolkonski--she\r
+sent a letter to Princess Mary yesterday. And Uncle is away...." To tell\r
+Marya Dmitrievna who had such faith in Natasha seemed to Sonya terrible.\r
+"Well, anyway," thought Sonya as she stood in the dark passage, "now or\r
+never I must prove that I remember the family's goodness to me and that\r
+I love Nicholas. Yes! If I don't sleep for three nights I'll not leave\r
+this passage and will hold her back by force and will and not let the\r
+family be disgraced," thought she.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+Anatole had lately moved to Dolokhov's. The plan for Natalie Rostova's\r
+abduction had been arranged and the preparations made by Dolokhov a few\r
+days before, and on the day that Sonya, after listening at Natasha's\r
+door, resolved to safeguard her, it was to have been put into execution.\r
+Natasha had promised to come out to Kuragin at the back porch at ten\r
+that evening. Kuragin was to put her into a troyka he would have ready\r
+and to drive her forty miles to the village of Kamenka, where an\r
+unfrocked priest was in readiness to perform a marriage ceremony over\r
+them. At Kamenka a relay of horses was to wait which would take them to\r
+the Warsaw highroad, and from there they would hasten abroad with post\r
+horses.\r
+\r
+Anatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles he\r
+had taken from his sister and another ten thousand borrowed with\r
+Dolokhov's help.\r
+\r
+Two witnesses for the mock marriage--Khvostikov, a retired petty\r
+official whom Dolokhov made use of in his gambling transactions, and\r
+Makarin, a retired hussar, a kindly, weak fellow who had an unbounded\r
+affection for Kuragin--were sitting at tea in Dolokhov's front room.\r
+\r
+In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with\r
+Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dolokhov in a traveling cloak\r
+and high boots, at an open desk on which lay abacus and some bundles of\r
+paper money. Anatole, with uniform unbuttoned, walked to and fro from\r
+the room where the witnesses were sitting, through the study to the room\r
+behind, where his French valet and others were packing the last of his\r
+things. Dolokhov was counting the money and noting something down.\r
+\r
+"Well," he said, "Khvostikov must have two thousand."\r
+\r
+"Give it to him, then," said Anatole.\r
+\r
+"Makarka" (their name for Makarin) "will go through fire and water for\r
+you for nothing. So here are our accounts all settled," said Dolokhov,\r
+showing him the memorandum. "Is that right?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, of course," returned Anatole, evidently not listening to Dolokhov\r
+and looking straight before him with a smile that did not leave his\r
+face.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov banged down the lid of his desk and turned to Anatole with an\r
+ironic smile:\r
+\r
+"Do you know? You'd really better drop it all. There's still time!"\r
+\r
+"Fool," retorted Anatole. "Don't talk nonsense! If you only knew... it's\r
+the devil knows what!"\r
+\r
+"No, really, give it up!" said Dolokhov. "I am speaking seriously. It's\r
+no joke, this plot you've hatched."\r
+\r
+"What, teasing again? Go to the devil! Eh?" said Anatole, making a\r
+grimace. "Really it's no time for your stupid jokes," and he left the\r
+room.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov smiled contemptuously and condescendingly when Anatole had gone\r
+out.\r
+\r
+"You wait a bit," he called after him. "I'm not joking, I'm talking\r
+sense. Come here, come here!"\r
+\r
+Anatole returned and looked at Dolokhov, trying to give him his\r
+attention and evidently submitting to him involuntarily.\r
+\r
+"Now listen to me. I'm telling you this for the last time. Why should I\r
+joke about it? Did I hinder you? Who arranged everything for you? Who\r
+found the priest and got the passport? Who raised the money? I did it\r
+all."\r
+\r
+"Well, thank you for it. Do you think I am not grateful?" And Anatole\r
+sighed and embraced Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"I helped you, but all the same I must tell you the truth; it is a\r
+dangerous business, and if you think about it--a stupid business. Well,\r
+you'll carry her off--all right! Will they let it stop at that? It will\r
+come out that you're already married. Why, they'll have you in the\r
+criminal court...."\r
+\r
+"Oh, nonsense, nonsense!" Anatole ejaculated and again made a grimace.\r
+"Didn't I explain to you? What?" And Anatole, with the partiality dull-\r
+witted people have for any conclusion they have reached by their own\r
+reasoning, repeated the argument he had already put to Dolokhov a\r
+hundred times. "Didn't I explain to you that I have come to this\r
+conclusion: if this marriage is invalid," he went on, crooking one\r
+finger, "then I have nothing to answer for; but if it is valid, no\r
+matter! Abroad no one will know anything about it. Isn't that so? And\r
+don't talk to me, don't, don't."\r
+\r
+"Seriously, you'd better drop it! You'll only get yourself into a mess!"\r
+\r
+"Go to the devil!" cried Anatole and, clutching his hair, left the room,\r
+but returned at once and dropped into an armchair in front of Dolokhov\r
+with his feet turned under him. "It's the very devil! What? Feel how it\r
+beats!" He took Dolokhov's hand and put it on his heart. "What a foot,\r
+my dear fellow! What a glance! A goddess!" he added in French. "What?"\r
+\r
+Dolokhov with a cold smile and a gleam in his handsome insolent eyes\r
+looked at him--evidently wishing to get some more amusement out of him.\r
+\r
+"Well and when the money's gone, what then?"\r
+\r
+"What then? Eh?" repeated Anatole, sincerely perplexed by a thought of\r
+the future. "What then?... Then, I don't know.... But why talk\r
+nonsense!" He glanced at his watch. "It's time!"\r
+\r
+Anatole went into the back room.\r
+\r
+"Now then! Nearly ready? You're dawdling!" he shouted to the servants.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov put away the money, called a footman whom he ordered to bring\r
+something for them to eat and drink before the journey, and went into\r
+the room where Khvostikov and Makarin were sitting.\r
+\r
+Anatole lay on the sofa in the study leaning on his elbow and smiling\r
+pensively, while his handsome lips muttered tenderly to himself.\r
+\r
+"Come and eat something. Have a drink!" Dolokhov shouted to him from the\r
+other room.\r
+\r
+"I don't want to," answered Anatole continuing to smile.\r
+\r
+"Come! Balaga is here."\r
+\r
+Anatole rose and went into the dining room. Balaga was a famous troyka\r
+driver who had known Dolokhov and Anatole some six years and had given\r
+them good service with his troykas. More than once when Anatole's\r
+regiment was stationed at Tver he had taken him from Tver in the\r
+evening, brought him to Moscow by daybreak, and driven him back again\r
+the next night. More than once he had enabled Dolokhov to escape when\r
+pursued. More than once he had driven them through the town with gypsies\r
+and "ladykins" as he called the cocottes. More than once in their\r
+service he had run over pedestrians and upset vehicles in the streets of\r
+Moscow and had always been protected from the consequences by "my\r
+gentlemen" as he called them. He had ruined more than one horse in their\r
+service. More than once they had beaten him, and more than once they had\r
+made him drunk on champagne and Madeira, which he loved; and he knew\r
+more than one thing about each of them which would long ago have sent an\r
+ordinary man to Siberia. They often called Balaga into their orgies and\r
+made him drink and dance at the gypsies', and more than one thousand\r
+rubles of their money had passed through his hands. In their service he\r
+risked his skin and his life twenty times a year, and in their service\r
+had lost more horses than the money he had from them would buy. But he\r
+liked them; liked that mad driving at twelve miles an hour, liked\r
+upsetting a driver or running down a pedestrian, and flying at full\r
+gallop through the Moscow streets. He liked to hear those wild, tipsy\r
+shouts behind him: "Get on! Get on!" when it was impossible to go any\r
+faster. He liked giving a painful lash on the neck to some peasant who,\r
+more dead than alive, was already hurrying out of his way. "Real\r
+gentlemen!" he considered them.\r
+\r
+Anatole and Dolokhov liked Balaga too for his masterly driving and\r
+because he liked the things they liked. With others Balaga bargained,\r
+charging twenty-five rubles for a two hours' drive, and rarely drove\r
+himself, generally letting his young men do so. But with "his gentlemen"\r
+he always drove himself and never demanded anything for his work. Only a\r
+couple of times a year--when he knew from their valets that they had\r
+money in hand--he would turn up of a morning quite sober and with a deep\r
+bow would ask them to help him. The gentlemen always made him sit down.\r
+\r
+"Do help me out, Theodore Ivanych, sir," or "your excellency," he would\r
+say. "I am quite out of horses. Let me have what you can to go to the\r
+fair."\r
+\r
+And Anatole and Dolokhov, when they had money, would give him a thousand\r
+or a couple of thousand rubles.\r
+\r
+Balaga was a fair-haired, short, and snub-nosed peasant of about twenty-\r
+seven; red-faced, with a particularly red thick neck, glittering little\r
+eyes, and a small beard. He wore a fine, dark-blue, silk-lined cloth\r
+coat over a sheepskin.\r
+\r
+On entering the room now he crossed himself, turning toward the front\r
+corner of the room, and went up to Dolokhov, holding out a small, black\r
+hand.\r
+\r
+"Theodore Ivanych!" he said, bowing.\r
+\r
+"How d'you do, friend? Well, here he is!"\r
+\r
+"Good day, your excellency!" he said, again holding out his hand to\r
+Anatole who had just come in.\r
+\r
+"I say, Balaga," said Anatole, putting his hands on the man's shoulders,\r
+"do you care for me or not? Eh? Now, do me a service.... What horses\r
+have you come with? Eh?"\r
+\r
+"As your messenger ordered, your special beasts," replied Balaga.\r
+\r
+"Well, listen, Balaga! Drive all three to death but get me there in\r
+three hours. Eh?"\r
+\r
+"When they are dead, what shall I drive?" said Balaga with a wink.\r
+\r
+"Mind, I'll smash your face in! Don't make jokes!" cried Anatole,\r
+suddenly rolling his eyes.\r
+\r
+"Why joke?" said the driver, laughing. "As if I'd grudge my gentlemen\r
+anything! As fast as ever the horses can gallop, so fast we'll go!"\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Anatole. "Well, sit down."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sit down!" said Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"I'll stand, Theodore Ivanych."\r
+\r
+"Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!" said Anatole, and filled a large\r
+glass of Madeira for him.\r
+\r
+The driver's eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After refusing it\r
+for manners' sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk\r
+handkerchief he took out of his cap.\r
+\r
+"And when are we to start, your excellency?"\r
+\r
+"Well..." Anatole looked at his watch. "We'll start at once. Mind,\r
+Balaga! You'll get there in time? Eh?"\r
+\r
+"That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn't we be there in\r
+time?" replied Balaga. "Didn't we get you to Tver in seven hours? I\r
+think you remember that, your excellency?"\r
+\r
+"Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver," said Anatole, smilingly\r
+at the recollection and turning to Makarin who gazed rapturously at him\r
+with wide-open eyes. "Will you believe it, Makarka, it took one's breath\r
+away, the rate we flew. We came across a train of loaded sleighs and\r
+drove right over two of them. Eh?"\r
+\r
+"Those were horses!" Balaga continued the tale. "That time I'd harnessed\r
+two young side horses with the bay in the shafts," he went on, turning\r
+to Dolokhov. "Will you believe it, Theodore Ivanych, those animals flew\r
+forty miles? I couldn't hold them in, my hands grew numb in the sharp\r
+frost so that I threw down the reins--'Catch hold yourself, your\r
+excellency!' says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom of the sleigh and\r
+sprawled there. It wasn't a case of urging them on, there was no holding\r
+them in till we reached the place. The devils took us there in three\r
+hours! Only the near one died of it."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+Anatole went out of the room and returned a few minutes later wearing a\r
+fur coat girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap jauntily set on one\r
+side and very becoming to his handsome face. Having looked in a mirror,\r
+and standing before Dolokhov in the same pose he had assumed before it,\r
+he lifted a glass of wine.\r
+\r
+"Well, good-by, Theodore. Thank you for everything and farewell!" said\r
+Anatole. "Well, comrades and friends..." he considered for a moment\r
+"...of my youth, farewell!" he said, turning to Makarin and the others.\r
+\r
+Though they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wished to make\r
+something touching and solemn out of this address to his comrades. He\r
+spoke slowly in a loud voice and throwing out his chest slightly swayed\r
+one leg.\r
+\r
+"All take glasses; you too, Balaga. Well, comrades and friends of my\r
+youth, we've had our fling and lived and reveled. Eh? And now, when\r
+shall we meet again? I am going abroad. We have had a good time--now\r
+farewell, lads! To our health! Hurrah!..." he cried, and emptying his\r
+glass flung it on the floor.\r
+\r
+"To your health!" said Balaga who also emptied his glass, and wiped his\r
+mouth with his handkerchief.\r
+\r
+Makarin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Prince, how sorry I am to part from you!\r
+\r
+"Let's go. Let's go!" cried Anatole.\r
+\r
+Balaga was about to leave the room.\r
+\r
+"No, stop!" said Anatole. "Shut the door; we have first to sit down.\r
+That's the way."\r
+\r
+They shut the door and all sat down.\r
+\r
+"Now, quick march, lads!" said Anatole, rising.\r
+\r
+Joseph, his valet, handed him his sabretache and saber, and they all\r
+went out into the vestibule.\r
+\r
+"And where's the fur cloak?" asked Dolokhov. "Hey, Ignatka! Go to\r
+Matrena Matrevna and ask her for the sable cloak. I have heard what\r
+elopements are like," continued Dolokhov with a wink. "Why, she'll rush\r
+out more dead than alive just in the things she is wearing; if you delay\r
+at all there'll be tears and 'Papa' and 'Mamma,' and she's frozen in a\r
+minute and must go back--but you wrap the fur cloak round her first\r
+thing and carry her to the sleigh."\r
+\r
+The valet brought a woman's fox-lined cloak.\r
+\r
+"Fool, I told you the sable one! Hey, Matrena, the sable!" he shouted so\r
+that his voice rang far through the rooms.\r
+\r
+A handsome, slim, and pale-faced gypsy girl with glittering black eyes\r
+and curly blue-black hair, wearing a red shawl, ran out with a sable\r
+mantle on her arm.\r
+\r
+"Here, I don't grudge it--take it!" she said, evidently afraid of her\r
+master and yet regretful of her cloak.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov, without answering, took the cloak, threw it over Matrena, and\r
+wrapped her up in it.\r
+\r
+"That's the way," said Dolokhov, "and then so!" and he turned the collar\r
+up round her head, leaving only a little of the face uncovered. "And\r
+then so, do you see?" and he pushed Anatole's head forward to meet the\r
+gap left by the collar, through which Matrena's brilliant smile was\r
+seen.\r
+\r
+"Well, good-by, Matrena," said Anatole, kissing her. "Ah, my revels here\r
+are over. Remember me to Steshka. There, good-by! Good-bye, Matrena,\r
+wish me luck!"\r
+\r
+"Well, Prince, may God give you great luck!" said Matrena in her gypsy\r
+accent.\r
+\r
+Two troykas were standing before the porch and two young drivers were\r
+holding the horses. Balaga took his seat in the front one and holding\r
+his elbows high arranged the reins deliberately. Anatole and Dolokhov\r
+got in with him. Makarin, Khvostikov, and a valet seated themselves in\r
+the other sleigh.\r
+\r
+"Well, are you ready?" asked Balaga.\r
+\r
+"Go!" he cried, twisting the reins round his hands, and the troyka tore\r
+down the Nikitski Boulevard.\r
+\r
+"Tproo! Get out of the way! Hi!... Tproo!..." The shouting of Balaga and\r
+of the sturdy young fellow seated on the box was all that could be\r
+heard. On the Arbat Square the troyka caught against a carriage;\r
+something cracked, shouts were heard, and the troyka flew along the\r
+Arbat Street.\r
+\r
+After taking a turn along the Podnovinski Boulevard, Balaga began to\r
+rein in, and turning back drew up at the crossing of the old Konyusheny\r
+Street.\r
+\r
+The young fellow on the box jumped down to hold the horses and Anatole\r
+and Dolokhov went along the pavement. When they reached the gate\r
+Dolokhov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maidservant ran out.\r
+\r
+"Come into the courtyard or you'll be seen; she'll come out directly,"\r
+said she.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov stayed by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the\r
+courtyard, turned the corner, and ran up into the porch.\r
+\r
+He was met by Gabriel, Marya Dmitrievna's gigantic footman.\r
+\r
+"Come to the mistress, please," said the footman in his deep bass,\r
+intercepting any retreat.\r
+\r
+"To what Mistress? Who are you?" asked Anatole in a breathless whisper.\r
+\r
+"Kindly step in, my orders are to bring you in."\r
+\r
+"Kuragin! Come back!" shouted Dolokhov. "Betrayed! Back!"\r
+\r
+Dolokhov, after Anatole entered, had remained at the wicket gate and was\r
+struggling with the yard porter who was trying to lock it. With a last\r
+desperate effort Dolokhov pushed the porter aside, and when Anatole ran\r
+back seized him by the arm, pulled him through the wicket, and ran back\r
+with him to the troyka.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+Marya Dmitrievna, having found Sonya weeping in the corridor, made her\r
+confess everything, and intercepting the note to Natasha she read it and\r
+went into Natasha's room with it in her hand.\r
+\r
+"You shameless good-for-nothing!" said she. "I won't hear a word."\r
+\r
+Pushing back Natasha who looked at her with astonished but tearless\r
+eyes, she locked her in; and having given orders to the yard porter to\r
+admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to let them\r
+out again, and having told the footman to bring them up to her, she\r
+seated herself in the drawing room to await the abductors.\r
+\r
+When Gabriel came to inform her that the men who had come had run away\r
+again, she rose frowning, and clasping her hands behind her paced\r
+through the rooms a long time considering what she should do. Toward\r
+midnight she went to Natasha's room fingering the key in her pocket.\r
+Sonya was sitting sobbing in the corridor. "Marya Dmitrievna, for God's\r
+sake let me in to her!" she pleaded, but Marya Dmitrievna unlocked the\r
+door and went in without giving her an answer.... "Disgusting,\r
+abominable... In my house... horrid girl, hussy! I'm only sorry for her\r
+father!" thought she, trying to restrain her wrath. "Hard as it may be,\r
+I'll tell them all to hold their tongues and will hide it from the\r
+count." She entered the room with resolute steps. Natasha lying on the\r
+sofa, her head hidden in her hands, and she did not stir. She was in\r
+just the same position in which Marya Dmitrievna had left her.\r
+\r
+"A nice girl! Very nice!" said Marya Dmitrievna. "Arranging meetings\r
+with lovers in my house! It's no use pretending: you listen when I speak\r
+to you!" And Marya Dmitrievna touched her arm. "Listen when I speak!\r
+You've disgraced yourself like the lowest of hussies. I'd treat you\r
+differently, but I'm sorry for your father, so I will conceal it."\r
+\r
+Natasha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved with\r
+noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Marya Dmitrievna glanced\r
+round at Sonya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natasha.\r
+\r
+"It's lucky for him that he escaped me; but I'll find him!" she said in\r
+her rough voice. "Do you hear what I am saying or not?" she added.\r
+\r
+She put her large hand under Natasha's face and turned it toward her.\r
+Both Marya Dmitrievna and Sonya were amazed when they saw how Natasha\r
+looked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed, her\r
+cheeks sunken.\r
+\r
+"Let me be!... What is it to me?... I shall die!" she muttered,\r
+wrenching herself from Marya Dmitrievna's hands with a vicious effort\r
+and sinking down again into her former position.\r
+\r
+"Natalie!" said Marya Dmitrievna. "I wish for your good. Lie still, stay\r
+like that then, I won't touch you. But listen. I won't tell you how\r
+guilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your father comes back\r
+tomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?"\r
+\r
+Again Natasha's body shook with sobs.\r
+\r
+"Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?"\r
+\r
+"I have no betrothed: I have refused him!" cried Natasha.\r
+\r
+"That's all the same," continued Marya Dmitrievna. "If they hear of\r
+this, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him... if he\r
+challenges him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who asked you\r
+to?" shouted Natasha, raising herself on the sofa and looking\r
+malignantly at Marya Dmitrievna.\r
+\r
+"But what did you want?" cried Marya Dmitrievna, growing angry again.\r
+"Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming to the house?\r
+Why carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing girl?... Well, if he\r
+had carried you off... do you think they wouldn't have found him? Your\r
+father, or brother, or your betrothed? And he's a scoundrel, a wretch--\r
+that's a fact!"\r
+\r
+"He is better than any of you!" exclaimed Natasha getting up. "If you\r
+hadn't interfered... Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it? Sonya,\r
+why?... Go away!"\r
+\r
+And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people\r
+bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned. Marya\r
+Dmitrievna was to speak again but Natasha cried out:\r
+\r
+"Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!" and she threw herself\r
+back on the sofa.\r
+\r
+Marya Dmitrievna went on admonishing her for some time, enjoining on her\r
+that it must all be kept from her father and assuring her that nobody\r
+would know anything about it if only Natasha herself would undertake to\r
+forget it all and not let anyone see that something had happened.\r
+Natasha did not reply, nor did she sob any longer, but she grew cold and\r
+had a shivering fit. Marya Dmitrievna put a pillow under her head,\r
+covered her with two quilts, and herself brought her some lime-flower\r
+water, but Natasha did not respond to her.\r
+\r
+"Well, let her sleep," said Marya Dmitrievna as she went out of the room\r
+supposing Natasha to be asleep.\r
+\r
+But Natasha was not asleep; with pale face and fixed wide-open eyes she\r
+looked straight before her. All that night she did not sleep or weep and\r
+did not speak to Sonya who got up and went to her several times.\r
+\r
+Next day Count Rostov returned from his estate near Moscow in time for\r
+lunch as he had promised. He was in very good spirits; the affair with\r
+the purchaser was going on satisfactorily, and there was nothing to keep\r
+him any longer in Moscow, away from the countess whom he missed. Marya\r
+Dmitrievna met him and told him that Natasha had been very unwell the\r
+day before and that they had sent for the doctor, but that she was\r
+better now. Natasha had not left her room that morning. With compressed\r
+and parched lips and dry fixed eyes, she sat at the window, uneasily\r
+watching the people who drove past and hurriedly glancing round at\r
+anyone who entered the room. She was evidently expecting news of him and\r
+that he would come or would write to her.\r
+\r
+When the count came to see her she turned anxiously round at the sound\r
+of a man's footstep, and then her face resumed its cold and malevolent\r
+expression. She did not even get up to greet him. "What is the matter\r
+with you, my angel? Are you ill?" asked the count.\r
+\r
+After a moment's silence Natasha answered: "Yes, ill."\r
+\r
+In reply to the count's anxious inquiries as to why she was so dejected\r
+and whether anything had happened to her betrothed, she assured him that\r
+nothing had happened and asked him not to worry. Marya Dmitrievna\r
+confirmed Natasha's assurances that nothing had happened. From the\r
+pretense of illness, from his daughter's distress, and by the\r
+embarrassed faces of Sonya and Marya Dmitrievna, the count saw clearly\r
+that something had gone wrong during his absence, but it was so terrible\r
+for him to think that anything disgraceful had happened to his beloved\r
+daughter, and he so prized his own cheerful tranquillity, that he\r
+avoided inquiries and tried to assure himself that nothing particularly\r
+had happened; and he was only dissatisfied that her indisposition\r
+delayed their return to the country.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+From the day his wife arrived in Moscow Pierre had been intending to go\r
+away somewhere, so as not to be near her. Soon after the Rostovs came to\r
+Moscow the effect Natasha had on him made him hasten to carry out his\r
+intention. He went to Tver to see Joseph Alexeevich's widow, who had\r
+long since promised to hand over to him some papers of her deceased\r
+husband's.\r
+\r
+When he returned to Moscow Pierre was handed a letter from Marya\r
+Dmitrievna asking him to come and see her on a matter of great\r
+importance relating to Andrew Bolkonski and his betrothed. Pierre had\r
+been avoiding Natasha because it seemed to him that his feeling for her\r
+was stronger than a married man's should be for his friend's fiancee.\r
+Yet some fate constantly threw them together.\r
+\r
+"What can have happened? And what can they want with me?" thought he as\r
+he dressed to go to Marya Dmitrievna's. "If only Prince Andrew would\r
+hurry up and come and marry her!" thought he on his way to the house.\r
+\r
+On the Tverskoy Boulevard a familiar voice called to him.\r
+\r
+"Pierre! Been back long?" someone shouted. Pierre raised his head. In a\r
+sleigh drawn by two gray trotting-horses that were bespattering the\r
+dashboard with snow, Anatole and his constant companion Makarin dashed\r
+past. Anatole was sitting upright in the classic pose of military\r
+dandies, the lower part of his face hidden by his beaver collar and his\r
+head slightly bent. His face was fresh and rosy, his white-plumed hat,\r
+tilted to one side, disclosed his curled and pomaded hair besprinkled\r
+with powdery snow.\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed, that's a true sage," thought Pierre. "He sees nothing\r
+beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing troubles him and so he is\r
+always cheerful, satisfied, and serene. What wouldn't I give to be like\r
+him!" he thought enviously.\r
+\r
+In Marya Dmitrievna's anteroom the footman who helped him off with his\r
+fur coat said that the mistress asked him to come to her bedroom.\r
+\r
+When he opened the ballroom door Pierre saw Natasha sitting at the\r
+window, with a thin, pale, and spiteful face. She glanced round at him,\r
+frowned, and left the room with an expression of cold dignity.\r
+\r
+"What has happened?" asked Pierre, entering Marya Dmitrievna's room.\r
+\r
+"Fine doings!" answered Dmitrievna. "For fifty-eight years have I lived\r
+in this world and never known anything so disgraceful!"\r
+\r
+And having put him on his honor not to repeat anything she told him,\r
+Marya Dmitrievna informed him that Natasha had refused Prince Andrew\r
+without her parents' knowledge and that the cause of this was Anatole\r
+Kuragin into whose society Pierre's wife had thrown her and with whom\r
+Natasha had tried to elope during her father's absence, in order to be\r
+married secretly.\r
+\r
+Pierre raised his shoulders and listened open-mouthed to what was told\r
+him, scarcely able to believe his own ears. That Prince Andrew's deeply\r
+loved affianced wife--the same Natasha Rostova who used to be so\r
+charming--should give up Bolkonski for that fool Anatole who was already\r
+secretly married (as Pierre knew), and should be so in love with him as\r
+to agree to run away with him, was something Pierre could not conceive\r
+and could not imagine.\r
+\r
+He could not reconcile the charming impression he had of Natasha, whom\r
+he had known from a child, with this new conception of her baseness,\r
+folly, and cruelty. He thought of his wife. "They are all alike!" he\r
+said to himself, reflecting that he was not the only man unfortunate\r
+enough to be tied to a bad woman. But still he pitied Prince Andrew to\r
+the point of tears and sympathized with his wounded pride, and the more\r
+he pitied his friend the more did he think with contempt and even with\r
+disgust of that Natasha who had just passed him in the ballroom with\r
+such a look of cold dignity. He did not know that Natasha's soul was\r
+overflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not\r
+her fault that her face happened to assume an expression of calm dignity\r
+and severity.\r
+\r
+"But how get married?" said Pierre, in answer to Marya Dmitrievna. "He\r
+could not marry--he is married!"\r
+\r
+"Things get worse from hour to hour!" ejaculated Marya Dmitrievna. "A\r
+nice youth! What a scoundrel! And she's expecting him--expecting him\r
+since yesterday. She must be told! Then at least she won't go on\r
+expecting him."\r
+\r
+After hearing the details of Anatole's marriage from Pierre, and giving\r
+vent to her anger against Anatole in words of abuse, Marya Dmitrievna\r
+told Pierre why she had sent for him. She was afraid that the count or\r
+Bolkonski, who might arrive at any moment, if they knew of this affair\r
+(which she hoped to hide from them) might challenge Anatole to a duel,\r
+and she therefore asked Pierre to tell his brother-in-law in her name to\r
+leave Moscow and not dare to let her set eyes on him again. Pierre--only\r
+now realizing the danger to the old count, Nicholas, and Prince Andrew--\r
+promised to do as she wished. Having briefly and exactly explained her\r
+wishes to him, she let him go to the drawing room.\r
+\r
+"Mind, the count knows nothing. Behave as if you know nothing either,"\r
+she said. "And I will go and tell her it is no use expecting him! And\r
+stay to dinner if you care to!" she called after Pierre.\r
+\r
+Pierre met the old count, who seemed nervous and upset. That morning\r
+Natasha had told him that she had rejected Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+"Troubles, troubles, my dear fellow!" he said to Pierre. "What troubles\r
+one has with these girls without their mother! I do so regret having\r
+come here.... I will be frank with you. Have you heard she has broken\r
+off her engagement without consulting anybody? It's true this engagement\r
+never was much to my liking. Of course he is an excellent man, but\r
+still, with his father's disapproval they wouldn't have been happy, and\r
+Natasha won't lack suitors. Still, it has been going on so long, and to\r
+take such a step without father's or mother's consent! And now she's\r
+ill, and God knows what! It's hard, Count, hard to manage daughters in\r
+their mother's absence...."\r
+\r
+Pierre saw that the count was much upset and tried to change the\r
+subject, but the count returned to his troubles.\r
+\r
+Sonya entered the room with an agitated face.\r
+\r
+"Natasha is not quite well; she's in her room and would like to see you.\r
+Marya Dmitrievna is with her and she too asks you to come."\r
+\r
+"Yes, you are a great friend of Bolkonski's, no doubt she wants to send\r
+him a message," said the count. "Oh dear! Oh dear! How happy it all\r
+was!"\r
+\r
+And clutching the spare gray locks on his temples the count left the\r
+room.\r
+\r
+When Marya Dmitrievna told Natasha that Anatole was married, Natasha did\r
+not wish to believe it and insisted on having it confirmed by Pierre\r
+himself. Sonya told Pierre this as she led him along the corridor to\r
+Natasha's room.\r
+\r
+Natasha, pale and stern, was sitting beside Marya Dmitrievna, and her\r
+eyes, glittering feverishly, met Pierre with a questioning look the\r
+moment he entered. She did not smile or nod, but only gazed fixedly at\r
+him, and her look asked only one thing: was he a friend, or like the\r
+others an enemy in regard to Anatole? As for Pierre, he evidently did\r
+not exist for her.\r
+\r
+"He knows all about it," said Marya Dmitrievna pointing to Pierre and\r
+addressing Natasha. "Let him tell you whether I have told the truth."\r
+\r
+Natasha looked from one to the other as a hunted and wounded animal\r
+looks at the approaching dogs and sportsmen.\r
+\r
+"Natalya Ilynichna," Pierre began, dropping his eyes with a feeling of\r
+pity for her and loathing for the thing he had to do, "whether it is\r
+true or not should make no difference to you, because..."\r
+\r
+"Then it is not true that he's married!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, it is true."\r
+\r
+"Has he been married long?" she asked. "On your honor?..."\r
+\r
+Pierre gave his word of honor.\r
+\r
+"Is he still here?" she asked, quickly.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I have just seen him."\r
+\r
+She was evidently unable to speak and made a sign with her hands that\r
+they should leave her alone.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+Pierre did not stay for dinner, but left the room and went away at once.\r
+He drove through the town seeking Anatole Kuragin, at the thought of\r
+whom now the blood rushed to his heart and he felt a difficulty in\r
+breathing. He was not at the ice hills, nor at the gypsies', nor at\r
+Komoneno's. Pierre drove to the club. In the club all was going on as\r
+usual. The members who were assembling for dinner were sitting about in\r
+groups; they greeted Pierre and spoke of the town news. The footman\r
+having greeted him, knowing his habits and his acquaintances, told him\r
+there was a place left for him in the small dining room and that Prince\r
+Michael Zakharych was in the library, but Paul Timofeevich had not yet\r
+arrived. One of Pierre's acquaintances, while they were talking about\r
+the weather, asked if he had heard of Kuragin's abduction of Rostova\r
+which was talked of in the town, and was it true? Pierre laughed and\r
+said it was nonsense for he had just come from the Rostovs'. He asked\r
+everyone about Anatole. One man told him he had not come yet, and\r
+another that he was coming to dinner. Pierre felt it strange to see this\r
+calm, indifferent crowd of people unaware of what was going on in his\r
+soul. He paced through the ballroom, waited till everyone had come, and\r
+as Anatole had not turned up did not stay for dinner but drove home.\r
+\r
+Anatole, for whom Pierre was looking, dined that day with Dolokhov,\r
+consulting him as to how to remedy this unfortunate affair. It seemed to\r
+him essential to see Natasha. In the evening he drove to his sister's to\r
+discuss with her how to arrange a meeting. When Pierre returned home\r
+after vainly hunting all over Moscow, his valet informed him that Prince\r
+Anatole was with the countess. The countess' drawing room was full of\r
+guests.\r
+\r
+Pierre without greeting his wife whom he had not seen since his return--\r
+at that moment she was more repulsive to him than ever--entered the\r
+drawing room and seeing Anatole went up to him.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Pierre," said the countess going up to her husband. "You don't know\r
+what a plight our Anatole..."\r
+\r
+She stopped, seeing in the forward thrust of her husband's head, in his\r
+glowing eyes and his resolute gait, the terrible indications of that\r
+rage and strength which she knew and had herself experienced after his\r
+duel with Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"Where you are, there is vice and evil!" said Pierre to his wife.\r
+"Anatole, come with me! I must speak to you," he added in French.\r
+\r
+Anatole glanced round at his sister and rose submissively, ready to\r
+follow Pierre. Pierre, taking him by the arm, pulled him toward himself\r
+and was leading him from the room.\r
+\r
+"If you allow yourself in my drawing room..." whispered Helene, but\r
+Pierre did not reply and went out of the room.\r
+\r
+Anatole followed him with his usual jaunty step but his face betrayed\r
+anxiety.\r
+\r
+Having entered his study Pierre closed the door and addressed Anatole\r
+without looking at him.\r
+\r
+"You promised Countess Rostova to marry her and were about to elope with\r
+her, is that so?"\r
+\r
+"Mon cher," answered Anatole (their whole conversation was in French),\r
+"I don't consider myself bound to answer questions put to me in that\r
+tone."\r
+\r
+Pierre's face, already pale, became distorted by fury. He seized Anatole\r
+by the collar of his uniform with his big hand and shook him from side\r
+to side till Anatole's face showed a sufficient degree of terror.\r
+\r
+"When I tell you that I must talk to you!..." repeated Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Come now, this is stupid. What?" said Anatole, fingering a button of\r
+his collar that had been wrenched loose with a bit of the cloth.\r
+\r
+"You're a scoundrel and a blackguard, and I don't know what deprives me\r
+from the pleasure of smashing your head with this!" said Pierre,\r
+expressing himself so artificially because he was talking French.\r
+\r
+He took a heavy paperweight and lifted it threateningly, but at once put\r
+it back in its place.\r
+\r
+"Did you promise to marry her?"\r
+\r
+"I... I didn't think of it. I never promised, because..."\r
+\r
+Pierre interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"Have you any letters of hers? Any letters?" he said, moving toward\r
+Anatole.\r
+\r
+Anatole glanced at him and immediately thrust his hand into his pocket\r
+and drew out his pocketbook.\r
+\r
+Pierre took the letter Anatole handed him and, pushing aside a table\r
+that stood in his way, threw himself on the sofa.\r
+\r
+"I shan't be violent, don't be afraid!" said Pierre in answer to a\r
+frightened gesture of Anatole's. "First, the letters," said he, as if\r
+repeating a lesson to himself. "Secondly," he continued after a short\r
+pause, again rising and again pacing the room, "tomorrow you must get\r
+out of Moscow."\r
+\r
+"But how can I?..."\r
+\r
+"Thirdly," Pierre continued without listening to him, "you must never\r
+breathe a word of what has passed between you and Countess Rostova. I\r
+know I can't prevent your doing so, but if you have a spark of\r
+conscience..." Pierre paced the room several times in silence.\r
+\r
+Anatole sat at a table frowning and biting his lips.\r
+\r
+"After all, you must understand that besides your pleasure there is such\r
+a thing as other people's happiness and peace, and that you are ruining\r
+a whole life for the sake of amusing yourself! Amuse yourself with women\r
+like my wife--with them you are within your rights, for they know what\r
+you want of them. They are armed against you by the same experience of\r
+debauchery; but to promise a maid to marry her... to deceive, to\r
+kidnap.... Don't you understand that it is as mean as beating an old man\r
+or a child?..."\r
+\r
+Pierre paused and looked at Anatole no longer with an angry but with a\r
+questioning look.\r
+\r
+"I don't know about that, eh?" said Anatole, growing more confident as\r
+Pierre mastered his wrath. "I don't know that and don't want to," he\r
+said, not looking at Pierre and with a slight tremor of his lower jaw,\r
+"but you have used such words to me--'mean' and so on--which as a man of\r
+honor I can't allow anyone to use."\r
+\r
+Pierre glanced at him with amazement, unable to understand what he\r
+wanted.\r
+\r
+"Though it was tête-à-tête," Anatole continued, "still I can't..."\r
+\r
+"Is it satisfaction you want?" said Pierre ironically.\r
+\r
+"You could at least take back your words. What? If you want me to do as\r
+you wish, eh?"\r
+\r
+"I take them back, I take them back!" said Pierre, "and I ask you to\r
+forgive me." Pierre involuntarily glanced at the loose button. "And if\r
+you require money for your journey..."\r
+\r
+Anatole smiled. The expression of that base and cringing smile, which\r
+Pierre knew so well in his wife, revolted him.\r
+\r
+"Oh, vile and heartless brood!" he exclaimed, and left the room.\r
+\r
+Next day Anatole left for Petersburg.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+Pierre drove to Marya Dmitrievna's to tell her of the fulfillment of her\r
+wish that Kuragin should be banished from Moscow. The whole house was in\r
+a state of alarm and commotion. Natasha was very ill, having, as Marya\r
+Dmitrievna told him in secret, poisoned herself the night after she had\r
+been told that Anatole was married, with some arsenic she had stealthily\r
+procured. After swallowing a little she had been so frightened that she\r
+woke Sonya and told her what she had done. The necessary antidotes had\r
+been administered in time and she was now out of danger, though still so\r
+weak that it was out of the question to move her to the country, and so\r
+the countess had been sent for. Pierre saw the distracted count, and\r
+Sonya, who had a tear-stained face, but he could not see Natasha.\r
+\r
+Pierre dined at the club that day and heard on all sides gossip about\r
+the attempted abduction of Rostova. He resolutely denied these rumors,\r
+assuring everyone that nothing had happened except that his brother-in-\r
+law had proposed to her and been refused. It seemed to Pierre that it\r
+was his duty to conceal the whole affair and re-establish Natasha's\r
+reputation.\r
+\r
+He was awaiting Prince Andrew's return with dread and went every day to\r
+the old prince's for news of him.\r
+\r
+Old Prince Bolkonski heard all the rumors current in the town from\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne and had read the note to Princess Mary in which\r
+Natasha had broken off her engagement. He seemed in better spirits than\r
+usual and awaited his son with great impatience.\r
+\r
+Some days after Anatole's departure Pierre received a note from Prince\r
+Andrew, informing him of his arrival and asking him to come to see him.\r
+\r
+As soon as he reached Moscow, Prince Andrew had received from his father\r
+Natasha's note to Princess Mary breaking off her engagement\r
+(Mademoiselle Bourienne had purloined it from Princess Mary and given it\r
+to the old prince), and he heard from him the story of Natasha's\r
+elopement, with additions.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew had arrived in the evening and Pierre came to see him next\r
+morning. Pierre expected to find Prince Andrew in almost the same state\r
+as Natasha and was therefore surprised on entering the drawing room to\r
+hear him in the study talking in a loud animated voice about some\r
+intrigue going on in Petersburg. The old prince's voice and another now\r
+and then interrupted him. Princess Mary came out to meet Pierre. She\r
+sighed, looking toward the door of the room where Prince Andrew was,\r
+evidently intending to express her sympathy with his sorrow, but Pierre\r
+saw by her face that she was glad both at what had happened and at the\r
+way her brother had taken the news of Natasha's faithlessness.\r
+\r
+"He says he expected it," she remarked. "I know his pride will not let\r
+him express his feelings, but still he has taken it better, far better,\r
+than I expected. Evidently it had to be...."\r
+\r
+"But is it possible that all is really ended?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary looked at him with astonishment. She did not understand\r
+how he could ask such a question. Pierre went into the study. Prince\r
+Andrew, greatly changed and plainly in better health, but with a fresh\r
+horizontal wrinkle between his brows, stood in civilian dress facing his\r
+father and Prince Meshcherski, warmly disputing and vigorously\r
+gesticulating. The conversation was about Speranski--the news of whose\r
+sudden exile and alleged treachery had just reached Moscow.\r
+\r
+"Now he is censured and accused by all who were enthusiastic about him a\r
+month ago," Prince Andrew was saying, "and by those who were unable to\r
+understand his aims. To judge a man who is in disfavor and to throw on\r
+him all the blame of other men's mistakes is very easy, but I maintain\r
+that if anything good has been accomplished in this reign it was done by\r
+him, by him alone."\r
+\r
+He paused at the sight of Pierre. His face quivered and immediately\r
+assumed a vindictive expression.\r
+\r
+"Posterity will do him justice," he concluded, and at once turned to\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Well, how are you? Still getting stouter?" he said with animation, but\r
+the new wrinkle on his forehead deepened. "Yes, I am well," he said in\r
+answer to Pierre's question, and smiled.\r
+\r
+To Pierre that smile said plainly: "I am well, but my health is now of\r
+no use to anyone."\r
+\r
+After a few words to Pierre about the awful roads from the Polish\r
+frontier, about people he had met in Switzerland who knew Pierre, and\r
+about M. Dessalles, whom he had brought from abroad to be his son's\r
+tutor, Prince Andrew again joined warmly in the conversation about\r
+Speranski which was still going on between the two old men.\r
+\r
+"If there were treason, or proofs of secret relations with Napoleon,\r
+they would have been made public," he said with warmth and haste. "I do\r
+not, and never did, like Speranski personally, but I like justice!"\r
+\r
+Pierre now recognized in his friend a need with which he was only too\r
+familiar, to get excited and to have arguments about extraneous matters\r
+in order to stifle thoughts that were too oppressive and too intimate.\r
+When Prince Meshcherski had left, Prince Andrew took Pierre's arm and\r
+asked him into the room that had been assigned him. A bed had been made\r
+up there, and some open portmanteaus and trunks stood about. Prince\r
+Andrew went to one and took out a small casket, from which he drew a\r
+packet wrapped in paper. He did it all silently and very quickly. He\r
+stood up and coughed. His face was gloomy and his lips compressed.\r
+\r
+"Forgive me for troubling you..."\r
+\r
+Pierre saw that Prince Andrew was going to speak of Natasha, and his\r
+broad face expressed pity and sympathy. This expression irritated Prince\r
+Andrew, and in a determined, ringing, and unpleasant tone he continued:\r
+\r
+"I have received a refusal from Countess Rostova and have heard reports\r
+of your brother-in-law having sought her hand, or something of that\r
+kind. Is that true?"\r
+\r
+"Both true and untrue," Pierre began; but Prince Andrew interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"Here are her letters and her portrait," said he.\r
+\r
+He took the packet from the table and handed it to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Give this to the countess... if you see her."\r
+\r
+"She is very ill," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Then she is here still?" said Prince Andrew. "And Prince Kuragin?" he\r
+added quickly.\r
+\r
+"He left long ago. She has been at death's door."\r
+\r
+"I much regret her illness," said Prince Andrew; and he smiled like his\r
+father, coldly, maliciously, and unpleasantly.\r
+\r
+"So Monsieur Kuragin has not honored Countess Rostova with his hand?"\r
+said Prince Andrew, and he snorted several times.\r
+\r
+"He could not marry, for he was married already," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew laughed disagreeably, again reminding one of his father.\r
+\r
+"And where is your brother-in-law now, if I may ask?" he said.\r
+\r
+"He has gone to Peters... But I don't know," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Well, it doesn't matter," said Prince Andrew. "Tell Countess Rostova\r
+that she was and is perfectly free and that I wish her all that is\r
+good."\r
+\r
+Pierre took the packet. Prince Andrew, as if trying to remember whether\r
+he had something more to say, or waiting to see if Pierre would say\r
+anything, looked fixedly at him.\r
+\r
+"I say, do you remember our discussion in Petersburg?" asked Pierre,\r
+"about..."\r
+\r
+"Yes," returned Prince Andrew hastily. "I said that a fallen woman\r
+should be forgiven, but I didn't say I could forgive her. I can't."\r
+\r
+"But can this be compared...?" said Pierre.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew interrupted him and cried sharply: "Yes, ask her hand\r
+again, be magnanimous, and so on?... Yes, that would be very noble, but\r
+I am unable to follow in that gentleman's footsteps. If you wish to be\r
+my friend never speak to me of that... of all that! Well, good-by. So\r
+you'll give her the packet?"\r
+\r
+Pierre left the room and went to the old prince and Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+The old man seemed livelier than usual. Princess Mary was the same as\r
+always, but beneath her sympathy for her brother, Pierre noticed her\r
+satisfaction that the engagement had been broken off. Looking at them\r
+Pierre realized what contempt and animosity they all felt for the\r
+Rostovs, and that it was impossible in their presence even to mention\r
+the name of her who could give up Prince Andrew for anyone else.\r
+\r
+At dinner the talk turned on the war, the approach of which was becoming\r
+evident. Prince Andrew talked incessantly, arguing now with his father,\r
+now with the Swiss tutor Dessalles, and showing an unnatural animation,\r
+the cause of which Pierre so well understood.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+That same evening Pierre went to the Rostovs' to fulfill the commission\r
+entrusted to him. Natasha was in bed, the count at the club, and Pierre,\r
+after giving the letters to Sonya, went to Marya Dmitrievna who was\r
+interested to know how Prince Andrew had taken the news. Ten minutes\r
+later Sonya came to Marya Dmitrievna.\r
+\r
+"Natasha insists on seeing Count Peter Kirilovich," said she.\r
+\r
+"But how? Are we to take him up to her? The room there has not been\r
+tidied up."\r
+\r
+"No, she has dressed and gone into the drawing room," said Sonya.\r
+\r
+Marya Dmitrievna only shrugged her shoulders.\r
+\r
+"When will her mother come? She has worried me to death! Now mind, don't\r
+tell her everything!" said she to Pierre. "One hasn't the heart to scold\r
+her, she is so much to be pitied, so much to be pitied."\r
+\r
+Natasha was standing in the middle of the drawing room, emaciated, with\r
+a pale set face, but not at all shamefaced as Pierre expected to find\r
+her. When he appeared at the door she grew flurried, evidently undecided\r
+whether to go to meet him or to wait till he came up.\r
+\r
+Pierre hastened to her. He thought she would give him her hand as usual;\r
+but she, stepping up to him, stopped, breathing heavily, her arms\r
+hanging lifelessly just in the pose she used to stand in when she went\r
+to the middle of the ballroom to sing, but with quite a different\r
+expression of face.\r
+\r
+"Peter Kirilovich," she began rapidly, "Prince Bolkonski was your\r
+friend--is your friend," she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that\r
+everything that had once been must now be different.) "He told me once\r
+to apply to you..."\r
+\r
+Pierre sniffed as he looked at her, but did not speak. Till then he had\r
+reproached her in his heart and tried to despise her, but he now felt so\r
+sorry for her that there was no room in his soul for reproach.\r
+\r
+"He is here now: tell him... to for... forgive me!" She stopped and\r
+breathed still more quickly, but did not shed tears.\r
+\r
+"Yes... I will tell him," answered Pierre; "but..."\r
+\r
+He did not know what to say.\r
+\r
+Natasha was evidently dismayed at the thought of what he might think she\r
+had meant.\r
+\r
+"No, I know all is over," she said hurriedly. "No, that can never be.\r
+I'm only tormented by the wrong I have done him. Tell him only that I\r
+beg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything...."\r
+\r
+She trembled all over and sat down on a chair.\r
+\r
+A sense of pity he had never before known overflowed Pierre's heart.\r
+\r
+"I will tell him, I will tell him everything once more," said Pierre.\r
+"But... I should like to know one thing...."\r
+\r
+"Know what?" Natasha's eyes asked.\r
+\r
+"I should like to know, did you love..." Pierre did not know how to\r
+refer to Anatole and flushed at the thought of him--"did you love that\r
+bad man?"\r
+\r
+"Don't call him bad!" said Natasha. "But I don't know, don't know at\r
+all...."\r
+\r
+She began to cry and a still greater sense of pity, tenderness, and love\r
+welled up in Pierre. He felt the tears trickle under his spectacles and\r
+hoped they would not be noticed.\r
+\r
+"We won't speak of it any more, my dear," said Pierre, and his gentle,\r
+cordial tone suddenly seemed very strange to Natasha.\r
+\r
+"We won't speak of it, my dear--I'll tell him everything; but one thing\r
+I beg of you, consider me your friend and if you want help, advice, or\r
+simply to open your heart to someone--not now, but when your mind is\r
+clearer think of me!" He took her hand and kissed it. "I shall be happy\r
+if it's in my power..."\r
+\r
+Pierre grew confused.\r
+\r
+"Don't speak to me like that. I am not worth it!" exclaimed Natasha and\r
+turned to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand.\r
+\r
+He knew he had something more to say to her. But when he said it he was\r
+amazed at his own words.\r
+\r
+"Stop, stop! You have your whole life before you," said he to her.\r
+\r
+\r
+"Before me? No! All is over for me," she replied with shame and self-\r
+abasement.\r
+\r
+"All over?" he repeated. "If I were not myself, but the handsomest,\r
+cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this moment\r
+ask on my knees for your hand and your love!"\r
+\r
+For the first time for many days Natasha wept tears of gratitude and\r
+tenderness, and glancing at Pierre she went out of the room.\r
+\r
+Pierre too when she had gone almost ran into the anteroom, restraining\r
+tears of tenderness and joy that choked him, and without finding the\r
+sleeves of his fur cloak threw it on and got into his sleigh.\r
+\r
+"Where to now, your excellency?" asked the coachman.\r
+\r
+"Where to?" Pierre asked himself. "Where can I go now? Surely not to the\r
+club or to pay calls?" All men seemed so pitiful, so poor, in comparison\r
+with this feeling of tenderness and love he experienced: in comparison\r
+with that softened, grateful, last look she had given him through her\r
+tears.\r
+\r
+"Home!" said Pierre, and despite twenty-two degrees of frost Fahrenheit\r
+he threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and inhaled the\r
+air with joy.\r
+\r
+It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the\r
+black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only looking up at the sky\r
+did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane\r
+things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised.\r
+At the entrance to the Arbat Square an immense expanse of dark starry\r
+sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the\r
+Prechistenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars\r
+but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white\r
+light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant\r
+comet of 1812--the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and\r
+the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long\r
+luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed\r
+joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having\r
+traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable\r
+space, seemed suddenly--like an arrow piercing the earth--to remain\r
+fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and\r
+displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It\r
+seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in\r
+his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.\r
+\r
+BOOK NINE: 1812\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+From the close of the year 1811 intensified arming and concentrating of\r
+the forces of Western Europe began, and in 1812 these forces--millions\r
+of men, reckoning those transporting and feeding the army--moved from\r
+the west eastwards to the Russian frontier, toward which since 1811\r
+Russian forces had been similarly drawn. On the twelfth of June, 1812,\r
+the forces of Western Europe crossed the Russian frontier and war began,\r
+that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and to human\r
+nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable\r
+crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money,\r
+burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not\r
+recorded in the annals of all the law courts of the world, but which\r
+those who committed them did not at the time regard as being crimes.\r
+\r
+What produced this extraordinary occurrence? What were its causes? The\r
+historians tell us with naive assurance that its causes were the wrongs\r
+inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, the nonobservance of the Continental\r
+System, the ambition of Napoleon, the firmness of Alexander, the\r
+mistakes of the diplomatists, and so on.\r
+\r
+Consequently, it would only have been necessary for Metternich,\r
+Rumyantsev, or Talleyrand, between a levee and an evening party, to have\r
+taken proper pains and written a more adroit note, or for Napoleon to\r
+have written to Alexander: "My respected Brother, I consent to restore\r
+the duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg"--and there would have been no war.\r
+\r
+We can understand that the matter seemed like that to contemporaries. It\r
+naturally seemed to Napoleon that the war was caused by England's\r
+intrigues (as in fact he said on the island of St. Helena). It naturally\r
+seemed to members of the English Parliament that the cause of the war\r
+was Napoleon's ambition; to the Duke of Oldenburg, that the cause of the\r
+war was the violence done to him; to businessmen that the cause of the\r
+war was the Continental System which was ruining Europe; to the generals\r
+and old soldiers that the chief reason for the war was the necessity of\r
+giving them employment; to the legitimists of that day that it was the\r
+need of re-establishing les bons principes, and to the diplomatists of\r
+that time that it all resulted from the fact that the alliance between\r
+Russia and Austria in 1809 had not been sufficiently well concealed from\r
+Napoleon, and from the awkward wording of Memorandum No. 178. It is\r
+natural that these and a countless and infinite quantity of other\r
+reasons, the number depending on the endless diversity of points of\r
+view, presented themselves to the men of that day; but to us, to\r
+posterity who view the thing that happened in all its magnitude and\r
+perceive its plain and terrible meaning, these causes seem insufficient.\r
+To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and\r
+tortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander\r
+was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of\r
+Oldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances\r
+have with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the\r
+Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed\r
+and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.\r
+\r
+To us, their descendants, who are not historians and are not carried\r
+away by the process of research and can therefore regard the event with\r
+unclouded common sense, an incalculable number of causes present\r
+themselves. The deeper we delve in search of these causes the more of\r
+them we find; and each separate cause or whole series of causes appears\r
+to us equally valid in itself and equally false by its insignificance\r
+compared to the magnitude of the events, and by its impotence--apart\r
+from the cooperation of all the other coincident causes--to occasion the\r
+event. To us, the wish or objection of this or that French corporal to\r
+serve a second term appears as much a cause as Napoleon's refusal to\r
+withdraw his troops beyond the Vistula and to restore the duchy of\r
+Oldenburg; for had he not wished to serve, and had a second, a third,\r
+and a thousandth corporal and private also refused, there would have\r
+been so many less men in Napoleon's army and the war could not have\r
+occurred.\r
+\r
+Had Napoleon not taken offense at the demand that he should withdraw\r
+beyond the Vistula, and not ordered his troops to advance, there would\r
+have been no war; but had all his sergeants objected to serving a second\r
+term then also there could have been no war. Nor could there have been a\r
+war had there been no English intrigues and no Duke of Oldenburg, and\r
+had Alexander not felt insulted, and had there not been an autocratic\r
+government in Russia, or a Revolution in France and a subsequent\r
+dictatorship and Empire, or all the things that produced the French\r
+Revolution, and so on. Without each of these causes nothing could have\r
+happened. So all these causes--myriads of causes--coincided to bring it\r
+about. And so there was no one cause for that occurrence, but it had to\r
+occur because it had to. Millions of men, renouncing their human\r
+feelings and reason, had to go from west to east to slay their fellows,\r
+just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east\r
+to the west, slaying their fellows.\r
+\r
+The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event seemed\r
+to hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier who was\r
+drawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription. This could not be\r
+otherwise, for in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander (on whom\r
+the event seemed to depend) should be carried out, the concurrence of\r
+innumerable circumstances was needed without any one of which the event\r
+could not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of men in\r
+whose hands lay the real power--the soldiers who fired, or transported\r
+provisions and guns--should consent to carry out the will of these weak\r
+individuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number\r
+of diverse and complex causes.\r
+\r
+We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational\r
+events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not\r
+understand). The more we try to explain such events in history\r
+reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to\r
+us.\r
+\r
+Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal\r
+aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from\r
+doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action\r
+performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to\r
+history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance.\r
+\r
+There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life, which\r
+is the more free the more abstract its interests, and his elemental hive\r
+life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him.\r
+\r
+Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in\r
+the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity. A deed done\r
+is irrevocable, and its result coinciding in time with the actions of\r
+millions of other men assumes an historic significance. The higher a man\r
+stands on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with and\r
+the more power he has over others, the more evident is the\r
+predestination and inevitability of his every action.\r
+\r
+"The king's heart is in the hands of the Lord."\r
+\r
+A king is history's slave.\r
+\r
+History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses\r
+every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes.\r
+\r
+Though Napoleon at that time, in 1812, was more convinced than ever that\r
+it depended on him, verser (ou ne pas verser) le sang de ses peuples *--\r
+as Alexander expressed it in the last letter he wrote him--he had never\r
+been so much in the grip of inevitable laws, which compelled him, while\r
+thinking that he was acting on his own volition, to perform for the hive\r
+life--that is to say, for history--whatever had to be performed.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "To shed (or not to shed) the blood of his peoples."\r
+\r
+The people of the west moved eastwards to slay their fellow men, and by\r
+the law of coincidence thousands of minute causes fitted in and co-\r
+ordinated to produce that movement and war: reproaches for the\r
+nonobservance of the Continental System, the Duke of Oldenburg's wrongs,\r
+the movement of troops into Prussia--undertaken (as it seemed to\r
+Napoleon) only for the purpose of securing an armed peace, the French\r
+Emperor's love and habit of war coinciding with his people's\r
+inclinations, allurement by the grandeur of the preparations, and the\r
+expenditure on those preparations and the need of obtaining advantages\r
+to compensate for that expenditure, the intoxicating honors he received\r
+in Dresden, the diplomatic negotiations which, in the opinion of\r
+contemporaries, were carried on with a sincere desire to attain peace,\r
+but which only wounded the self-love of both sides, and millions of\r
+other causes that adapted themselves to the event that was happening or\r
+coincided with it.\r
+\r
+When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its\r
+attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried\r
+by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or\r
+because the boy standing below wants to eat it?\r
+\r
+Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in\r
+which all vital organic and elemental events occur. And the botanist who\r
+finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so\r
+forth is equally right with the child who stands under the tree and says\r
+the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it. Equally\r
+right or wrong is he who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because he\r
+wanted to, and perished because Alexander desired his destruction, and\r
+he who says that an undermined hill weighing a million tons fell because\r
+the last navvy struck it for the last time with his mattock. In historic\r
+events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and\r
+like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself.\r
+\r
+Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is\r
+in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of\r
+history and predestined from eternity.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+On the twenty-ninth of May Napoleon left Dresden, where he had spent\r
+three weeks surrounded by a court that included princes, dukes, kings,\r
+and even an emperor. Before leaving, Napoleon showed favor to the\r
+emperor, kings, and princes who had deserved it, reprimanded the kings\r
+and princes with whom he was dissatisfied, presented pearls and diamonds\r
+of his own--that is, which he had taken from other kings--to the Empress\r
+of Austria, and having, as his historian tells us, tenderly embraced the\r
+Empress Marie Louise--who regarded him as her husband, though he had\r
+left another wife in Paris--left her grieved by the parting which she\r
+seemed hardly able to bear. Though the diplomatists still firmly\r
+believed in the possibility of peace and worked zealously to that end,\r
+and though the Emperor Napoleon himself wrote a letter to Alexander,\r
+calling him Monsieur mon frere, and sincerely assured him that he did\r
+not want war and would always love and honor him--yet he set off to join\r
+his army, and at every station gave fresh orders to accelerate the\r
+movement of his troops from west to east. He went in a traveling coach\r
+with six horses, surrounded by pages, aides-de-camp, and an escort,\r
+along the road to Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and Konigsberg. At each of these\r
+towns thousands of people met him with excitement and enthusiasm.\r
+\r
+The army was moving from west to east, and relays of six horses carried\r
+him in the same direction. On the tenth of June, * coming up with the\r
+army, he spent the night in apartments prepared for him on the estate of\r
+a Polish count in the Vilkavisski forest.\r
+\r
+\r
+* Old style.\r
+\r
+Next day, overtaking the army, he went in a carriage to the Niemen, and,\r
+changing into a Polish uniform, he drove to the riverbank in order to\r
+select a place for the crossing.\r
+\r
+Seeing, on the other side, some Cossacks (les Cosaques) and the wide-\r
+spreading steppes in the midst of which lay the holy city of Moscow\r
+(Moscou, la ville sainte), the capital of a realm such as the Scythia\r
+into which Alexander the Great had marched--Napoleon unexpectedly, and\r
+contrary alike to strategic and diplomatic considerations, ordered an\r
+advance, and the next day his army began to cross the Niemen.\r
+\r
+Early in the morning of the twelfth of June he came out of his tent,\r
+which was pitched that day on the steep left bank of the Niemen, and\r
+looked through a spyglass at the streams of his troops pouring out of\r
+the Vilkavisski forest and flowing over the three bridges thrown across\r
+the river. The troops, knowing of the Emperor's presence, were on the\r
+lookout for him, and when they caught sight of a figure in an overcoat\r
+and a cocked hat standing apart from his suite in front of his tent on\r
+the hill, they threw up their caps and shouted: "Vive l'Empereur!" and\r
+one after another poured in a ceaseless stream out of the vast forest\r
+that had concealed them and, separating, flowed on and on by the three\r
+bridges to the other side.\r
+\r
+"Now we'll go into action. Oh, when he takes it in hand himself, things\r
+get hot... by heaven!... There he is!... Vive l'Empereur! So these are\r
+the steppes of Asia! It's a nasty country all the same. Au revoir,\r
+Beauche; I'll keep the best palace in Moscow for you! Au revoir. Good\r
+luck!... Did you see the Emperor? Vive l'Empereur!... preur!--If they\r
+make me Governor of India, Gerard, I'll make you Minister of Kashmir--\r
+that's settled. Vive l'Empereur! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! The Cossacks--\r
+those rascals--see how they run! Vive l'Empereur! There he is, do you\r
+see him? I've seen him twice, as I see you now. The little corporal... I\r
+saw him give the cross to one of the veterans.... Vive l'Empereur!" came\r
+the voices of men, old and young, of most diverse characters and social\r
+positions. On the faces of all was one common expression of joy at the\r
+commencement of the long-expected campaign and of rapture and devotion\r
+to the man in the gray coat who was standing on the hill.\r
+\r
+On the thirteenth of June a rather small, thoroughbred Arab horse was\r
+brought to Napoleon. He mounted it and rode at a gallop to one of the\r
+bridges over the Niemen, deafened continually by incessant and rapturous\r
+acclamations which he evidently endured only because it was impossible\r
+to forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by such shouting,\r
+but the shouting which accompanied him everywhere disturbed him and\r
+distracted him from the military cares that had occupied him from the\r
+time he joined the army. He rode across one of the swaying pontoon\r
+bridges to the farther side, turned sharply to the left, and galloped in\r
+the direction of Kovno, preceded by enraptured, mounted chasseurs of the\r
+Guard who, breathless with delight, galloped ahead to clear a path for\r
+him through the troops. On reaching the broad river Viliya, he stopped\r
+near a regiment of Polish uhlans stationed by the river.\r
+\r
+"Vivat!" shouted the Poles, ecstatically, breaking their ranks and\r
+pressing against one another to see him.\r
+\r
+Napoleon looked up and down the river, dismounted, and sat down on a log\r
+that lay on the bank. At a mute sign from him, a telescope was handed\r
+him which he rested on the back of a happy page who had run up to him,\r
+and he gazed at the opposite bank. Then he became absorbed in a map laid\r
+out on the logs. Without lifting his head he said something, and two of\r
+his aides-de-camp galloped off to the Polish uhlans.\r
+\r
+"What? What did he say?" was heard in the ranks of the Polish uhlans\r
+when one of the aides-de-camp rode up to them.\r
+\r
+The order was to find a ford and to cross the river. The colonel of the\r
+Polish uhlans, a handsome old man, flushed and, fumbling in his speech\r
+from excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he would be permitted to\r
+swim the river with his uhlans instead of seeking a ford. In evident\r
+fear of refusal, like a boy asking for permission to get on a horse, he\r
+begged to be allowed to swim across the river before the Emperor's eyes.\r
+The aide-de-camp replied that probably the Emperor would not be\r
+displeased at this excess of zeal.\r
+\r
+As soon as the aide-de-camp had said this, the old mustached officer,\r
+with happy face and sparkling eyes, raised his saber, shouted "Vivat!"\r
+and, commanding the uhlans to follow him, spurred his horse and galloped\r
+into the river. He gave an angry thrust to his horse, which had grown\r
+restive under him, and plunged into the water, heading for the deepest\r
+part where the current was swift. Hundreds of uhlans galloped in after\r
+him. It was cold and uncanny in the rapid current in the middle of the\r
+stream, and the uhlans caught hold of one another as they fell off their\r
+horses. Some of the horses were drowned and some of the men; the others\r
+tried to swim on, some in the saddle and some clinging to their horses'\r
+manes. They tried to make their way forward to the opposite bank and,\r
+though there was a ford one third of a mile away, were proud that they\r
+were swimming and drowning in this river under the eyes of the man who\r
+sat on the log and was not even looking at what they were doing. When\r
+the aide-de-camp, having returned and choosing an opportune moment,\r
+ventured to draw the Emperor's attention to the devotion of the Poles to\r
+his person, the little man in the gray overcoat got up and, having\r
+summoned Berthier, began pacing up and down the bank with him, giving\r
+him instructions and occasionally glancing disapprovingly at the\r
+drowning uhlans who distracted his attention.\r
+\r
+For him it was no new conviction that his presence in any part of the\r
+world, from Africa to the steppes of Muscovy alike, was enough to\r
+dumfound people and impel them to insane self-oblivion. He called for\r
+his horse and rode to his quarters.\r
+\r
+Some forty uhlans were drowned in the river, though boats were sent to\r
+their assistance. The majority struggled back to the bank from which\r
+they had started. The colonel and some of his men got across and with\r
+difficulty clambered out on the further bank. And as soon as they had\r
+got out, in their soaked and streaming clothes, they shouted "Vivat!"\r
+and looked ecstatically at the spot where Napoleon had been but where he\r
+no longer was and at that moment considered themselves happy.\r
+\r
+That evening, between issuing one order that the forged Russian paper\r
+money prepared for use in Russia should be delivered as quickly as\r
+possible and another that a Saxon should be shot, on whom a letter\r
+containing information about the orders to the French army had been\r
+found, Napoleon also gave instructions that the Polish colonel who had\r
+needlessly plunged into the river should be enrolled in the Legion\r
+d'honneur of which Napoleon was himself the head.\r
+\r
+Quos vult perdere dementat. *\r
+\r
+\r
+* Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+The Emperor of Russia had, meanwhile, been in Vilna for more than a\r
+month, reviewing troops and holding maneuvers. Nothing was ready for the\r
+war that everyone expected and to prepare for which the Emperor had come\r
+from Petersburg. There was no general plan of action. The vacillation\r
+between the various plans that were proposed had even increased after\r
+the Emperor had been at headquarters for a month. Each of the three\r
+armies had its own commander-in-chief, but there was no supreme\r
+commander of all the forces, and the Emperor did not assume that\r
+responsibility himself.\r
+\r
+The longer the Emperor remained in Vilna the less did everybody--tired\r
+of waiting--prepare for the war. All the efforts of those who surrounded\r
+the sovereign seemed directed merely to making him spend his time\r
+pleasantly and forget that war was impending.\r
+\r
+In June, after many balls and fetes given by the Polish magnates, by the\r
+courtiers, and by the Emperor himself, it occurred to one of the Polish\r
+aides-de-camp in attendance that a dinner and ball should be given for\r
+the Emperor by his aides-de-camp. This idea was eagerly received. The\r
+Emperor gave his consent. The aides-de-camp collected money by\r
+subscription. The lady who was thought to be most pleasing to the\r
+Emperor was invited to act as hostess. Count Bennigsen, being a\r
+landowner in the Vilna province, offered his country house for the fete,\r
+and the thirteenth of June was fixed for a ball, dinner, regatta, and\r
+fireworks at Zakret, Count Bennigsen's country seat.\r
+\r
+The very day that Napoleon issued the order to cross the Niemen, and his\r
+vanguard, driving off the Cossacks, crossed the Russian frontier,\r
+Alexander spent the evening at the entertainment given by his aides-de-\r
+camp at Bennigsen's country house.\r
+\r
+It was a gay and brilliant fete. Connoisseurs of such matters declared\r
+that rarely had so many beautiful women been assembled in one place.\r
+Countess Bezukhova was present among other Russian ladies who had\r
+followed the sovereign from Petersburg to Vilna and eclipsed the refined\r
+Polish ladies by her massive, so-called Russian type of beauty. The\r
+Emperor noticed her and honored her with a dance.\r
+\r
+Boris Drubetskoy, having left his wife in Moscow and being for the\r
+present en garcon (as he phrased it), was also there and, though not an\r
+aide-de-camp, had subscribed a large sum toward the expenses. Boris was\r
+now a rich man who had risen to high honors and no longer sought\r
+patronage but stood on an equal footing with the highest of those of his\r
+own age. He was meeting Helene in Vilna after not having seen her for a\r
+long time and did not recall the past, but as Helene was enjoying the\r
+favors of a very important personage and Boris had only recently\r
+married, they met as good friends of long standing.\r
+\r
+At midnight dancing was still going on. Helene, not having a suitable\r
+partner, herself offered to dance the mazurka with Boris. They were the\r
+third couple. Boris, coolly looking at Helene's dazzling bare shoulders\r
+which emerged from a dark, gold-embroidered, gauze gown, talked to her\r
+of old acquaintances and at the same time, unaware of it himself and\r
+unnoticed by others, never for an instant ceased to observe the Emperor\r
+who was in the same room. The Emperor was not dancing, he stood in the\r
+doorway, stopping now one pair and now another with gracious words which\r
+he alone knew how to utter.\r
+\r
+As the mazurka began, Boris saw that Adjutant General Balashev, one of\r
+those in closest attendance on the Emperor, went up to him and contrary\r
+to court etiquette stood near him while he was talking to a Polish lady.\r
+Having finished speaking to her, the Emperor looked inquiringly at\r
+Balashev and, evidently understanding that he only acted thus because\r
+there were important reasons for so doing, nodded slightly to the lady\r
+and turned to him. Hardly had Balashev begun to speak before a look of\r
+amazement appeared on the Emperor's face. He took Balashev by the arm\r
+and crossed the room with him, unconsciously clearing a path seven yards\r
+wide as the people on both sides made way for him. Boris noticed\r
+Arakcheev's excited face when the sovereign went out with Balashev.\r
+Arakcheev looked at the Emperor from under his brow and, sniffing with\r
+his red nose, stepped forward from the crowd as if expecting the Emperor\r
+to address him. (Boris understood that Arakcheev envied Balashev and was\r
+displeased that evidently important news had reached the Emperor\r
+otherwise than through himself.)\r
+\r
+But the Emperor and Balashev passed out into the illuminated garden\r
+without noticing Arakcheev who, holding his sword and glancing\r
+wrathfully around, followed some twenty paces behind them.\r
+\r
+All the time Boris was going through the figures of the mazurka, he was\r
+worried by the question of what news Balashev had brought and how he\r
+could find it out before others. In the figure in which he had to choose\r
+two ladies, he whispered to Helene that he meant to choose Countess\r
+Potocka who, he thought, had gone out onto the veranda, and glided over\r
+the parquet to the door opening into the garden, where, seeing Balashev\r
+and the Emperor returning to the veranda, he stood still. They were\r
+moving toward the door. Boris, fluttering as if he had not had time to\r
+withdraw, respectfully pressed close to the doorpost with bowed head.\r
+\r
+The Emperor, with the agitation of one who has been personally\r
+affronted, was finishing with these words:\r
+\r
+"To enter Russia without declaring war! I will not make peace as long as\r
+a single armed enemy remains in my country!" It seemed to Boris that it\r
+gave the Emperor pleasure to utter these words. He was satisfied with\r
+the form in which he had expressed his thoughts, but displeased that\r
+Boris had overheard it.\r
+\r
+"Let no one know of it!" the Emperor added with a frown.\r
+\r
+Boris understood that this was meant for him and, closing his eyes,\r
+slightly bowed his head. The Emperor re-entered the ballroom and\r
+remained there about another half-hour.\r
+\r
+Boris was thus the first to learn the news that the French army had\r
+crossed the Niemen and, thanks to this, was able to show certain\r
+important personages that much that was concealed from others was\r
+usually known to him, and by this means he rose higher in their\r
+estimation.\r
+\r
+The unexpected news of the French having crossed the Niemen was\r
+particularly startling after a month of unfulfilled expectations, and at\r
+a ball. On first receiving the news, under the influence of indignation\r
+and resentment the Emperor had found a phrase that pleased him, fully\r
+expressed his feelings, and has since become famous. On returning home\r
+at two o'clock that night he sent for his secretary, Shishkov, and told\r
+him to write an order to the troops and a rescript to Field Marshal\r
+Prince Saltykov, in which he insisted on the words being inserted that\r
+he would not make peace so long as a single armed Frenchman remained on\r
+Russian soil.\r
+\r
+Next day the following letter was sent to Napoleon:\r
+\r
+Monsieur mon frere,\r
+\r
+Yesterday I learned that, despite the loyalty with which I have kept my\r
+engagements with Your Majesty, your troops have crossed the Russian\r
+frontier, and I have this moment received from Petersburg a note, in\r
+which Count Lauriston informs me, as a reason for this aggression, that\r
+Your Majesty has considered yourself to be in a state of war with me\r
+from the time Prince Kuragin asked for his passports. The reasons on\r
+which the Duc de Bassano based his refusal to deliver them to him would\r
+never have led me to suppose that that could serve as a pretext for\r
+aggression. In fact, the ambassador, as he himself has declared, was\r
+never authorized to make that demand, and as soon as I was informed of\r
+it I let him know how much I disapproved of it and ordered him to remain\r
+at his post. If Your Majesty does not intend to shed the blood of our\r
+peoples for such a misunderstanding, and consents to withdraw your\r
+troops from Russian territory, I will regard what has passed as not\r
+having occurred and an understanding between us will be possible. In the\r
+contrary case, Your Majesty, I shall see myself forced to repel an\r
+attack that nothing on my part has provoked. It still depends on Your\r
+Majesty to preserve humanity from the calamity of another war. I am,\r
+etc.,\r
+\r
+(signed) Alexander.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+At two in the morning of the fourteenth of June, the Emperor, having\r
+sent for Balashev and read him his letter to Napoleon, ordered him to\r
+take it and hand it personally to the French Emperor. When dispatching\r
+Balashev, the Emperor repeated to him the words that he would not make\r
+peace so long as a single armed enemy remained on Russian soil and told\r
+him to transmit those words to Napoleon. Alexander did not insert them\r
+in his letter to Napoleon, because with his characteristic tact he felt\r
+it would be injudicious to use them at a moment when a last attempt at\r
+reconciliation was being made, but he definitely instructed Balashev to\r
+repeat them personally to Napoleon.\r
+\r
+Having set off in the small hours of the fourteenth, accompanied by a\r
+bugler and two Cossacks, Balashev reached the French outposts at the\r
+village of Rykonty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, by dawn. There he\r
+was stopped by French cavalry sentinels.\r
+\r
+A French noncommissioned officer of hussars, in crimson uniform and a\r
+shaggy cap, shouted to the approaching Balashev to halt. Balashev did\r
+not do so at once, but continued to advance along the road at a walking\r
+pace.\r
+\r
+The noncommissioned officer frowned and, muttering words of abuse,\r
+advanced his horse's chest against Balashev, put his hand to his saber,\r
+and shouted rudely at the Russian general, asking: was he deaf that he\r
+did not do as he was told? Balashev mentioned who he was. The\r
+noncommissioned officer began talking with his comrades about regimental\r
+matters without looking at the Russian general.\r
+\r
+After living at the seat of the highest authority and power, after\r
+conversing with the Emperor less than three hours before, and in general\r
+being accustomed to the respect due to his rank in the service, Balashev\r
+found it very strange here on Russian soil to encounter this hostile,\r
+and still more this disrespectful, application of brute force to\r
+himself.\r
+\r
+The sun was only just appearing from behind the clouds, the air was\r
+fresh and dewy. A herd of cattle was being driven along the road from\r
+the village, and over the fields the larks rose trilling, one after\r
+another, like bubbles rising in water.\r
+\r
+Balashev looked around him, awaiting the arrival of an officer from the\r
+village. The Russian Cossacks and bugler and the French hussars looked\r
+silently at one another from time to time.\r
+\r
+A French colonel of hussars, who had evidently just left his bed, came\r
+riding from the village on a handsome sleek gray horse, accompanied by\r
+two hussars. The officer, the soldiers, and their horses all looked\r
+smart and well kept.\r
+\r
+It was that first period of a campaign when troops are still in full\r
+trim, almost like that of peacetime maneuvers, but with a shade of\r
+martial swagger in their clothes, and a touch of the gaiety and spirit\r
+of enterprise which always accompany the opening of a campaign.\r
+\r
+The French colonel with difficulty repressed a yawn, but was polite and\r
+evidently understood Balashev's importance. He led him past his soldiers\r
+and behind the outposts and told him that his wish to be presented to\r
+the Emperor would most likely be satisfied immediately, as the Emperor's\r
+quarters were, he believed, not far off.\r
+\r
+They rode through the village of Rykonty, past tethered French hussar\r
+horses, past sentinels and men who saluted their colonel and stared with\r
+curiosity at a Russian uniform, and came out at the other end of the\r
+village. The colonel said that the commander of the division was a mile\r
+and a quarter away and would receive Balashev and conduct him to his\r
+destination.\r
+\r
+The sun had by now risen and shone gaily on the bright verdure.\r
+\r
+They had hardly ridden up a hill, past a tavern, before they saw a group\r
+of horsemen coming toward them. In front of the group, on a black horse\r
+with trappings that glittered in the sun, rode a tall man with plumes in\r
+his hat and black hair curling down to his shoulders. He wore a red\r
+mantle, and stretched his long legs forward in French fashion. This man\r
+rode toward Balashev at a gallop, his plumes flowing and his gems and\r
+gold lace glittering in the bright June sunshine.\r
+\r
+Balashev was only two horses' length from the equestrian with the\r
+bracelets, plumes, necklaces, and gold embroidery, who was galloping\r
+toward him with a theatrically solemn countenance, when Julner, the\r
+French colonel, whispered respectfully: "The King of Naples!" It was, in\r
+fact, Murat, now called "King of Naples." Though it was quite\r
+incomprehensible why he should be King of Naples, he was called so, and\r
+was himself convinced that he was so, and therefore assumed a more\r
+solemn and important air than formerly. He was so sure that he really\r
+was the King of Naples that when, on the eve of his departure from that\r
+city, while walking through the streets with his wife, some Italians\r
+called out to him: "Viva il re!" * he turned to his wife with a pensive\r
+smile and said: "Poor fellows, they don't know that I am leaving them\r
+tomorrow!"\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Long live the king."\r
+\r
+But though he firmly believed himself to be King of Naples and pitied\r
+the grief felt by the subjects he was abandoning, latterly, after he had\r
+been ordered to return to military service--and especially since his\r
+last interview with Napoleon in Danzig, when his august brother-in-law\r
+had told him: "I made you King that you should reign in my way, but not\r
+in yours!"--he had cheerfully taken up his familiar business, and--like\r
+a well-fed but not overfat horse that feels himself in harness and grows\r
+skittish between the shafts--he dressed up in clothes as variegated and\r
+expensive as possible, and gaily and contentedly galloped along the\r
+roads of Poland, without himself knowing why or whither.\r
+\r
+On seeing the Russian general he threw back his head, with its long hair\r
+curling to his shoulders, in a majestically royal manner, and looked\r
+inquiringly at the French colonel. The colonel respectfully informed His\r
+Majesty of Balashev's mission, whose name he could not pronounce.\r
+\r
+"De Bal-macheve!" said the King (overcoming by his assurance the\r
+difficulty that had presented itself to the colonel). "Charmed to make\r
+your acquaintance, General!" he added, with a gesture of kingly\r
+condescension.\r
+\r
+As soon as the King began to speak loud and fast his royal dignity\r
+instantly forsook him, and without noticing it he passed into his\r
+natural tone of good-natured familiarity. He laid his hand on the\r
+withers of Balashev's horse and said:\r
+\r
+"Well, General, it all looks like war," as if regretting a circumstance\r
+of which he was unable to judge.\r
+\r
+"Your Majesty," replied Balashev, "my master, the Emperor, does not\r
+desire war and as Your Majesty sees..." said Balashev, using the words\r
+Your Majesty at every opportunity, with the affectation unavoidable in\r
+frequently addressing one to whom the title was still a novelty.\r
+\r
+Murat's face beamed with stupid satisfaction as he listened to "Monsieur\r
+de Bal-macheve." But royaute oblige! * and he felt it incumbent on him,\r
+as a king and an ally, to confer on state affairs with Alexander's\r
+envoy. He dismounted, took Balashev's arm, and moving a few steps away\r
+from his suite, which waited respectfully, began to pace up and down\r
+with him, trying to speak significantly. He referred to the fact that\r
+the Emperor Napoleon had resented the demand that he should withdraw his\r
+troops from Prussia, especially when that demand became generally known\r
+and the dignity of France was thereby offended.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Royalty has its obligations."\r
+\r
+Balashev replied that there was "nothing offensive in the demand,\r
+because..." but Murat interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"Then you don't consider the Emperor Alexander the aggressor?" he asked\r
+unexpectedly, with a kindly and foolish smile.\r
+\r
+Balashev told him why he considered Napoleon to be the originator of the\r
+war.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear general!" Murat again interrupted him, "with all my heart I\r
+wish the Emperors may arrange the affair between them, and that the war\r
+begun by no wish of mine may finish as quickly as possible!" said he, in\r
+the tone of a servant who wants to remain good friends with another\r
+despite a quarrel between their masters.\r
+\r
+And he went on to inquiries about the Grand Duke and the state of his\r
+health, and to reminiscences of the gay and amusing times he had spent\r
+with him in Naples. Then suddenly, as if remembering his royal dignity,\r
+Murat solemnly drew himself up, assumed the pose in which he had stood\r
+at his coronation, and, waving his right arm, said:\r
+\r
+"I won't detain you longer, General. I wish success to your mission,"\r
+and with his embroidered red mantle, his flowing feathers, and his\r
+glittering ornaments, he rejoined his suite who were respectfully\r
+awaiting him.\r
+\r
+Balashev rode on, supposing from Murat's words that he would very soon\r
+be brought before Napoleon himself. But instead of that, at the next\r
+village the sentinels of Davout's infantry corps detained him as the\r
+pickets of the vanguard had done, and an adjutant of the corps\r
+commander, who was fetched, conducted him into the village to Marshal\r
+Davout.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+Davout was to Napoleon what Arakcheev was to Alexander--though not a\r
+coward like Arakcheev, he was as precise, as cruel, and as unable to\r
+express his devotion to his monarch except by cruelty.\r
+\r
+In the organism of states such men are necessary, as wolves are\r
+necessary in the organism of nature, and they always exist, always\r
+appear and hold their own, however incongruous their presence and their\r
+proximity to the head of the government may be. This inevitability alone\r
+can explain how the cruel Arakcheev, who tore out a grenadier's mustache\r
+with his own hands, whose weak nerves rendered him unable to face\r
+danger, and who was neither an educated man nor a courtier, was able to\r
+maintain his powerful position with Alexander, whose own character was\r
+chivalrous, noble, and gentle.\r
+\r
+Balashev found Davout seated on a barrel in the shed of a peasant's hut,\r
+writing--he was auditing accounts. Better quarters could have been found\r
+him, but Marshal Davout was one of those men who purposely put\r
+themselves in most depressing conditions to have a justification for\r
+being gloomy. For the same reason they are always hard at work and in a\r
+hurry. "How can I think of the bright side of life when, as you see, I\r
+am sitting on a barrel and working in a dirty shed?" the expression of\r
+his face seemed to say. The chief pleasure and necessity of such men,\r
+when they encounter anyone who shows animation, is to flaunt their own\r
+dreary, persistent activity. Davout allowed himself that pleasure when\r
+Balashev was brought in. He became still more absorbed in his task when\r
+the Russian general entered, and after glancing over his spectacles at\r
+Balashev's face, which was animated by the beauty of the morning and by\r
+his talk with Murat, he did not rise or even stir, but scowled still\r
+more and sneered malevolently.\r
+\r
+When he noticed in Balashev's face the disagreeable impression this\r
+reception produced, Davout raised his head and coldly asked what he\r
+wanted.\r
+\r
+Thinking he could have been received in such a manner only because\r
+Davout did not know that he was adjutant general to the Emperor\r
+Alexander and even his envoy to Napoleon, Balashev hastened to inform\r
+him of his rank and mission. Contrary to his expectation, Davout, after\r
+hearing him, became still surlier and ruder.\r
+\r
+"Where is your dispatch?" he inquired. "Give it to me. I will send it to\r
+the Emperor."\r
+\r
+Balashev replied that he had been ordered to hand it personally to the\r
+Emperor.\r
+\r
+"Your Emperor's orders are obeyed in your army, but here," said Davout,\r
+"you must do as you're told."\r
+\r
+And, as if to make the Russian general still more conscious of his\r
+dependence on brute force, Davout sent an adjutant to call the officer\r
+on duty.\r
+\r
+Balashev took out the packet containing the Emperor's letter and laid it\r
+on the table (made of a door with its hinges still hanging on it, laid\r
+across two barrels). Davout took the packet and read the inscription.\r
+\r
+"You are perfectly at liberty to treat me with respect or not,"\r
+protested Balashev, "but permit me to observe that I have the honor to\r
+be adjutant general to His Majesty...."\r
+\r
+Davout glanced at him silently and plainly derived pleasure from the\r
+signs of agitation and confusion which appeared on Balashev's face.\r
+\r
+"You will be treated as is fitting," said he and, putting the packet in\r
+his pocket, left the shed.\r
+\r
+A minute later the marshal's adjutant, de Castres, came in and conducted\r
+Balashev to the quarters assigned him.\r
+\r
+That day he dined with the marshal, at the same board on the barrels.\r
+\r
+Next day Davout rode out early and, after asking Balashev to come to\r
+him, peremptorily requested him to remain there, to move on with the\r
+baggage train should orders come for it to move, and to talk to no one\r
+except Monsieur de Castres.\r
+\r
+After four days of solitude, ennui, and consciousness of his impotence\r
+and insignificance--particularly acute by contrast with the sphere of\r
+power in which he had so lately moved--and after several marches with\r
+the marshal's baggage and the French army, which occupied the whole\r
+district, Balashev was brought to Vilna--now occupied by the French--\r
+through the very gate by which he had left it four days previously.\r
+\r
+Next day the imperial gentleman-in-waiting, the Comte de Turenne, came\r
+to Balashev and informed him of the Emperor Napoleon's wish to honor him\r
+with an audience.\r
+\r
+Four days before, sentinels of the Preobrazhensk regiment had stood in\r
+front of the house to which Balashev was conducted, and now two French\r
+grenadiers stood there in blue uniforms unfastened in front and with\r
+shaggy caps on their heads, and an escort of hussars and uhlans and a\r
+brilliant suite of aides-de-camp, pages, and generals, who were waiting\r
+for Napoleon to come out, were standing at the porch, round his saddle\r
+horse and his Mameluke, Rustan. Napoleon received Balashev in the very\r
+house in Vilna from which Alexander had dispatched him on his mission.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+Though Balashev was used to imperial pomp, he was amazed at the luxury\r
+and magnificence of Napoleon's court.\r
+\r
+The Comte de Turenne showed him into a big reception room where many\r
+generals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish magnates--several of whom\r
+Balashev had seen at the court of the Emperor of Russia--were waiting.\r
+Duroc said that Napoleon would receive the Russian general before going\r
+for his ride.\r
+\r
+After some minutes, the gentleman-in-waiting who was on duty came into\r
+the great reception room and, bowing politely, asked Balashev to follow\r
+him.\r
+\r
+Balashev went into a small reception room, one door of which led into a\r
+study, the very one from which the Russian Emperor had dispatched him on\r
+his mission. He stood a minute or two, waiting. He heard hurried\r
+footsteps beyond the door, both halves of it were opened rapidly; all\r
+was silent and then from the study the sound was heard of other steps,\r
+firm and resolute--they were those of Napoleon. He had just finished\r
+dressing for his ride, and wore a blue uniform, opening in front over a\r
+white waistcoat so long that it covered his rotund stomach, white\r
+leather breeches tightly fitting the fat thighs of his short legs, and\r
+Hessian boots. His short hair had evidently just been brushed, but one\r
+lock hung down in the middle of his broad forehead. His plump white neck\r
+stood out sharply above the black collar of his uniform, and he smelled\r
+of Eau de Cologne. His full face, rather young-looking, with its\r
+prominent chin, wore a gracious and majestic expression of imperial\r
+welcome.\r
+\r
+He entered briskly, with a jerk at every step and his head slightly\r
+thrown back. His whole short corpulent figure with broad thick\r
+shoulders, and chest and stomach involuntarily protruding, had that\r
+imposing and stately appearance one sees in men of forty who live in\r
+comfort. It was evident, too, that he was in the best of spirits that\r
+day.\r
+\r
+He nodded in answer to Balashav's low and respectful bow, and coming up\r
+to him at once began speaking like a man who values every moment of his\r
+time and does not condescend to prepare what he has to say but is sure\r
+he will always say the right thing and say it well.\r
+\r
+"Good day, General!" said he. "I have received the letter you brought\r
+from the Emperor Alexander and am very glad to see you." He glanced with\r
+his large eyes into Balashav's face and immediately looked past him.\r
+\r
+It was plain that Balashev's personality did not interest him at all.\r
+Evidently only what took place within his own mind interested him.\r
+Nothing outside himself had any significance for him, because everything\r
+in the world, it seemed to him, depended entirely on his will.\r
+\r
+"I do not, and did not, desire war," he continued, "but it has been\r
+forced on me. Even now" (he emphasized the word) "I am ready to receive\r
+any explanations you can give me."\r
+\r
+And he began clearly and concisely to explain his reasons for\r
+dissatisfaction with the Russian government. Judging by the calmly\r
+moderate and amicable tone in which the French Emperor spoke, Balashev\r
+was firmly persuaded that he wished for peace and intended to enter into\r
+negotiations.\r
+\r
+When Napoleon, having finished speaking, looked inquiringly at the\r
+Russian envoy, Balashev began a speech he had prepared long before:\r
+"Sire! The Emperor, my master..." but the sight of the Emperor's eyes\r
+bent on him confused him. "You are flurried--compose yourself!" Napoleon\r
+seemed to say, as with a scarcely perceptible smile he looked at\r
+Balashev's uniform and sword.\r
+\r
+Balashev recovered himself and began to speak. He said that the Emperor\r
+Alexander did not consider Kurakin's demand for his passports a\r
+sufficient cause for war; that Kurakin had acted on his own initiative\r
+and without his sovereign's assent, that the Emperor Alexander did not\r
+desire war, and had no relations with England.\r
+\r
+"Not yet!" interposed Napoleon, and, as if fearing to give vent to his\r
+feelings, he frowned and nodded slightly as a sign that Balashev might\r
+proceed.\r
+\r
+After saying all he had been instructed to say, Balashev added that the\r
+Emperor Alexander wished for peace, but would not enter into\r
+negotiations except on condition that... Here Balashev hesitated: he\r
+remembered the words the Emperor Alexander had not written in his\r
+letter, but had specially inserted in the rescript to Saltykov and had\r
+told Balashev to repeat to Napoleon. Balashev remembered these words,\r
+"So long as a single armed foe remains on Russian soil," but some\r
+complex feeling restrained him. He could not utter them, though he\r
+wished to do so. He grew confused and said: "On condition that the\r
+French army retires beyond the Niemen."\r
+\r
+Napoleon noticed Balashev's embarrassment when uttering these last\r
+words; his face twitched and the calf of his left leg began to quiver\r
+rhythmically. Without moving from where he stood he began speaking in a\r
+louder tone and more hurriedly than before. During the speech that\r
+followed, Balashev, who more than once lowered his eyes, involuntarily\r
+noticed the quivering of Napoleon's left leg which increased the more\r
+Napoleon raised his voice.\r
+\r
+"I desire peace, no less than the Emperor Alexander," he began. "Have I\r
+not for eighteen months been doing everything to obtain it? I have\r
+waited eighteen months for explanations. But in order to begin\r
+negotiations, what is demanded of me?" he said, frowning and making an\r
+energetic gesture of inquiry with his small white plump hand.\r
+\r
+"The withdrawal of your army beyond the Niemen, sire," replied Balashev.\r
+\r
+"The Niemen?" repeated Napoleon. "So now you want me to retire beyond\r
+the Niemen--only the Niemen?" repeated Napoleon, looking straight at\r
+Balashev.\r
+\r
+The latter bowed his head respectfully.\r
+\r
+Instead of the demand of four months earlier to withdraw from Pomerania,\r
+only a withdrawal beyond the Niemen was now demanded. Napoleon turned\r
+quickly and began to pace the room.\r
+\r
+"You say the demand now is that I am to withdraw beyond the Niemen\r
+before commencing negotiations, but in just the same way two months ago\r
+the demand was that I should withdraw beyond the Vistula and the Oder,\r
+and yet you are willing to negotiate."\r
+\r
+He went in silence from one corner of the room to the other and again\r
+stopped in front of Balashev. Balashev noticed that his left leg was\r
+quivering faster than before and his face seemed petrified in its stern\r
+expression. This quivering of his left leg was a thing Napoleon was\r
+conscious of. "The vibration of my left calf is a great sign with me,"\r
+he remarked at a later date.\r
+\r
+"Such demands as to retreat beyond the Vistula and Oder may be made to a\r
+Prince of Baden, but not to me!" Napoleon almost screamed, quite to his\r
+own surprise. "If you gave me Petersburg and Moscow I could not accept\r
+such conditions. You say I have begun this war! But who first joined his\r
+army? The Emperor Alexander, not I! And you offer me negotiations when I\r
+have expended millions, when you are in alliance with England, and when\r
+your position is a bad one. You offer me negotiations! But what is the\r
+aim of your alliance with England? What has she given you?" he continued\r
+hurriedly, evidently no longer trying to show the advantages of peace\r
+and discuss its possibility, but only to prove his own rectitude and\r
+power and Alexander's errors and duplicity.\r
+\r
+The commencement of his speech had obviously been made with the\r
+intention of demonstrating the advantages of his position and showing\r
+that he was nevertheless willing to negotiate. But he had begun talking,\r
+and the more he talked the less could he control his words.\r
+\r
+The whole purport of his remarks now was evidently to exalt himself and\r
+insult Alexander--just what he had least desired at the commencement of\r
+the interview.\r
+\r
+"I hear you have made peace with Turkey?"\r
+\r
+Balashev bowed his head affirmatively.\r
+\r
+"Peace has been concluded..." he began.\r
+\r
+But Napoleon did not let him speak. He evidently wanted to do all the\r
+talking himself, and continued to talk with the sort of eloquence and\r
+unrestrained irritability to which spoiled people are so prone.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I know you have made peace with the Turks without obtaining\r
+Moldavia and Wallachia; I would have given your sovereign those\r
+provinces as I gave him Finland. Yes," he went on, "I promised and would\r
+have given the Emperor Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, and now he\r
+won't have those splendid provinces. Yet he might have united them to\r
+his empire and in a single reign would have extended Russia from the\r
+Gulf of Bothnia to the mouths of the Danube. Catherine the Great could\r
+not have done more," said Napoleon, growing more and more excited as he\r
+paced up and down the room, repeating to Balashev almost the very words\r
+he had used to Alexander himself at Tilsit. "All that, he would have\r
+owed to my friendship. Oh, what a splendid reign!" he repeated several\r
+times, then paused, drew from his pocket a gold snuffbox, lifted it to\r
+his nose, and greedily sniffed at it.\r
+\r
+"What a splendid reign the Emperor Alexander's might have been!"\r
+\r
+He looked compassionately at Balashev, and as soon as the latter tried\r
+to make some rejoinder hastily interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"What could he wish or look for that he would not have obtained through\r
+my friendship?" demanded Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders in\r
+perplexity. "But no, he has preferred to surround himself with my\r
+enemies, and with whom? With Steins, Armfeldts, Bennigsens, and\r
+Wintzingerodes! Stein, a traitor expelled from his own country;\r
+Armfeldt, a rake and an intriguer; Wintzingerode, a fugitive French\r
+subject; Bennigsen, rather more of a soldier than the others, but all\r
+the same an incompetent who was unable to do anything in 1807 and who\r
+should awaken terrible memories in the Emperor Alexander's mind....\r
+Granted that were they competent they might be made use of," continued\r
+Napoleon--hardly able to keep pace in words with the rush of thoughts\r
+that incessantly sprang up, proving how right and strong he was (in his\r
+perception the two were one and the same)--"but they are not even that!\r
+They are neither fit for war nor peace! Barclay is said to be the most\r
+capable of them all, but I cannot say so, judging by his first\r
+movements. And what are they doing, all these courtiers? Pfuel proposes,\r
+Armfeldt disputes, Bennigsen considers, and Barclay, called on to act,\r
+does not know what to decide on, and time passes bringing no result.\r
+Bagration alone is a military man. He's stupid, but he has experience, a\r
+quick eye, and resolution.... And what role is your young monarch\r
+playing in that monstrous crowd? They compromise him and throw on him\r
+the responsibility for all that happens. A sovereign should not be with\r
+the army unless he is a general!" said Napoleon, evidently uttering\r
+these words as a direct challenge to the Emperor. He knew how Alexander\r
+desired to be a military commander.\r
+\r
+"The campaign began only a week ago, and you haven't even been able to\r
+defend Vilna. You are cut in two and have been driven out of the Polish\r
+provinces. Your army is grumbling."\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, Your Majesty," said Balashev, hardly able to remember\r
+what had been said to him and following these verbal fireworks with\r
+difficulty, "the troops are burning with eagerness..."\r
+\r
+"I know everything!" Napoleon interrupted him. "I know everything. I\r
+know the number of your battalions as exactly as I know my own. You have\r
+not two hundred thousand men, and I have three times that number. I give\r
+you my word of honor," said Napoleon, forgetting that his word of honor\r
+could carry no weight--"I give you my word of honor that I have five\r
+hundred and thirty thousand men this side of the Vistula. The Turks will\r
+be of no use to you; they are worth nothing and have shown it by making\r
+peace with you. As for the Swedes--it is their fate to be governed by\r
+mad kings. Their king was insane and they changed him for another--\r
+Bernadotte, who promptly went mad--for no Swede would ally himself with\r
+Russia unless he were mad."\r
+\r
+Napoleon grinned maliciously and again raised his snuffbox to his nose.\r
+\r
+Balashev knew how to reply to each of Napoleon's remarks, and would have\r
+done so; he continually made the gesture of a man wishing to say\r
+something, but Napoleon always interrupted him. To the alleged insanity\r
+of the Swedes, Balashev wished to reply that when Russia is on her side\r
+Sweden is practically an island: but Napoleon gave an angry exclamation\r
+to drown his voice. Napoleon was in that state of irritability in which\r
+a man has to talk, talk, and talk, merely to convince himself that he is\r
+in the right. Balashev began to feel uncomfortable: as envoy he feared\r
+to demean his dignity and felt the necessity of replying; but, as a man,\r
+he shrank before the transport of groundless wrath that had evidently\r
+seized Napoleon. He knew that none of the words now uttered by Napoleon\r
+had any significance, and that Napoleon himself would be ashamed of them\r
+when he came to his senses. Balashev stood with downcast eyes, looking\r
+at the movements of Napoleon's stout legs and trying to avoid meeting\r
+his eyes.\r
+\r
+"But what do I care about your allies?" said Napoleon. "I have allies--\r
+the Poles. There are eighty thousand of them and they fight like lions.\r
+And there will be two hundred thousand of them."\r
+\r
+And probably still more perturbed by the fact that he had uttered this\r
+obvious falsehood, and that Balashev still stood silently before him in\r
+the same attitude of submission to fate, Napoleon abruptly turned round,\r
+drew close to Balashev's face, and, gesticulating rapidly and\r
+energetically with his white hands, almost shouted:\r
+\r
+"Know that if you stir up Prussia against me, I'll wipe it off the map\r
+of Europe!" he declared, his face pale and distorted by anger, and he\r
+struck one of his small hands energetically with the other. "Yes, I will\r
+throw you back beyond the Dvina and beyond the Dnieper, and will re-\r
+erect against you that barrier which it was criminal and blind of Europe\r
+to allow to be destroyed. Yes, that is what will happen to you. That is\r
+what you have gained by alienating me!" And he walked silently several\r
+times up and down the room, his fat shoulders twitching.\r
+\r
+He put his snuffbox into his waistcoat pocket, took it out again, lifted\r
+it several times to his nose, and stopped in front of Balashev. He\r
+paused, looked ironically straight into Balashev's eyes, and said in a\r
+quiet voice:\r
+\r
+"And yet what a splendid reign your master might have had!"\r
+\r
+Balashev, feeling it incumbent on him to reply, said that from the\r
+Russian side things did not appear in so gloomy a light. Napoleon was\r
+silent, still looking derisively at him and evidently not listening to\r
+him. Balashev said that in Russia the best results were expected from\r
+the war. Napoleon nodded condescendingly, as if to say, "I know it's\r
+your duty to say that, but you don't believe it yourself. I have\r
+convinced you."\r
+\r
+When Balashev had ended, Napoleon again took out his snuffbox, sniffed\r
+at it, and stamped his foot twice on the floor as a signal. The door\r
+opened, a gentleman-in-waiting, bending respectfully, handed the Emperor\r
+his hat and gloves; another brought him a pocket handkerchief. Napoleon,\r
+without giving them a glance, turned to Balashev:\r
+\r
+"Assure the Emperor Alexander from me," said he, taking his hat, "that I\r
+am as devoted to him as before: I know him thoroughly and very highly\r
+esteem his lofty qualities. I will detain you no longer, General; you\r
+shall receive my letter to the Emperor."\r
+\r
+And Napoleon went quickly to the door. Everyone in the reception room\r
+rushed forward and descended the staircase.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+After all that Napoleon had said to him--those bursts of anger and the\r
+last dryly spoken words: "I will detain you no longer, General; you\r
+shall receive my letter," Balashev felt convinced that Napoleon would\r
+not wish to see him, and would even avoid another meeting with him--an\r
+insulted envoy--especially as he had witnessed his unseemly anger. But,\r
+to his surprise, Balashev received, through Duroc, an invitation to dine\r
+with the Emperor that day.\r
+\r
+Bessieres, Caulaincourt, and Berthier were present at that dinner.\r
+\r
+Napoleon met Balashev cheerfully and amiably. He not only showed no sign\r
+of constraint or self-reproach on account of his outburst that morning,\r
+but, on the contrary, tried to reassure Balashev. It was evident that he\r
+had long been convinced that it was impossible for him to make a\r
+mistake, and that in his perception whatever he did was right, not\r
+because it harmonized with any idea of right and wrong, but because he\r
+did it.\r
+\r
+The Emperor was in very good spirits after his ride through Vilna, where\r
+crowds of people had rapturously greeted and followed him. From all the\r
+windows of the streets through which he rode, rugs, flags, and his\r
+monogram were displayed, and the Polish ladies, welcoming him, waved\r
+their handkerchiefs to him.\r
+\r
+At dinner, having placed Balashev beside him, Napoleon not only treated\r
+him amiably but behaved as if Balashev were one of his own courtiers,\r
+one of those who sympathized with his plans and ought to rejoice at his\r
+success. In the course of conversation he mentioned Moscow and\r
+questioned Balashev about the Russian capital, not merely as an\r
+interested traveler asks about a new city he intends to visit, but as if\r
+convinced that Balashev, as a Russian, must be flattered by his\r
+curiosity.\r
+\r
+"How many inhabitants are there in Moscow? How many houses? Is it true\r
+that Moscow is called 'Holy Moscow'? How many churches are there in\r
+Moscow?" he asked.\r
+\r
+And receiving the reply that there were more than two hundred churches,\r
+he remarked:\r
+\r
+"Why such a quantity of churches?"\r
+\r
+"The Russians are very devout," replied Balashev.\r
+\r
+"But a large number of monasteries and churches is always a sign of the\r
+backwardness of a people," said Napoleon, turning to Caulaincourt for\r
+appreciation of this remark.\r
+\r
+Balashev respectfully ventured to disagree with the French Emperor.\r
+\r
+"Every country has its own character," said he.\r
+\r
+"But nowhere in Europe is there anything like that," said Napoleon.\r
+\r
+"I beg your Majesty's pardon," returned Balashev, "besides Russia there\r
+is Spain, where there are also many churches and monasteries."\r
+\r
+This reply of Balashev's, which hinted at the recent defeats of the\r
+French in Spain, was much appreciated when he related it at Alexander's\r
+court, but it was not much appreciated at Napoleon's dinner, where it\r
+passed unnoticed.\r
+\r
+The uninterested and perplexed faces of the marshals showed that they\r
+were puzzled as to what Balashev's tone suggested. "If there is a point\r
+we don't see it, or it is not at all witty," their expressions seemed to\r
+say. So little was his rejoinder appreciated that Napoleon did not\r
+notice it at all and naively asked Balashev through what towns the\r
+direct road from there to Moscow passed. Balashev, who was on the alert\r
+all through the dinner, replied that just as "all roads lead to Rome,"\r
+so all roads lead to Moscow: there were many roads, and "among them the\r
+road through Poltava, which Charles XII chose." Balashev involuntarily\r
+flushed with pleasure at the aptitude of this reply, but hardly had he\r
+uttered the word Poltava before Caulaincourt began speaking of the\r
+badness of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and of his Petersburg\r
+reminiscences.\r
+\r
+After dinner they went to drink coffee in Napoleon's study, which four\r
+days previously had been that of the Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat\r
+down, toying with his Sevres coffee cup, and motioned Balashev to a\r
+chair beside him.\r
+\r
+Napoleon was in that well-known after-dinner mood which, more than any\r
+reasoned cause, makes a man contented with himself and disposed to\r
+consider everyone his friend. It seemed to him that he was surrounded by\r
+men who adored him: and he felt convinced that, after his dinner,\r
+Balashev too was his friend and worshiper. Napoleon turned to him with a\r
+pleasant, though slightly ironic, smile.\r
+\r
+"They tell me this is the room the Emperor Alexander occupied? Strange,\r
+isn't it, General?" he said, evidently not doubting that this remark\r
+would be agreeable to his hearer since it went to prove his, Napoleon's,\r
+superiority to Alexander.\r
+\r
+Balashev made no reply and bowed his head in silence.\r
+\r
+"Yes. Four days ago in this room, Wintzingerode and Stein were\r
+deliberating," continued Napoleon with the same derisive and self-\r
+confident smile. "What I can't understand," he went on, "is that the\r
+Emperor Alexander has surrounded himself with my personal enemies. That\r
+I do not... understand. Has he not thought that I may do the same?" and\r
+he turned inquiringly to Balashev, and evidently this thought turned him\r
+back on to the track of his morning's anger, which was still fresh in\r
+him.\r
+\r
+"And let him know that I will do so!" said Napoleon, rising and pushing\r
+his cup away with his hand. "I'll drive all his Wurttemberg, Baden, and\r
+Weimar relations out of Germany.... Yes. I'll drive them out. Let him\r
+prepare an asylum for them in Russia!"\r
+\r
+Balashev bowed his head with an air indicating that he would like to\r
+make his bow and leave, and only listened because he could not help\r
+hearing what was said to him. Napoleon did not notice this expression;\r
+he treated Balashev not as an envoy from his enemy, but as a man now\r
+fully devoted to him and who must rejoice at his former master's\r
+humiliation.\r
+\r
+"And why has the Emperor Alexander taken command of the armies? What is\r
+the good of that? War is my profession, but his business is to reign and\r
+not to command armies! Why has he taken on himself such a\r
+responsibility?"\r
+\r
+Again Napoleon brought out his snuffbox, paced several times up and down\r
+the room in silence, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, went up to\r
+Balashev and with a slight smile, as confidently, quickly, and simply as\r
+if he were doing something not merely important but pleasing to\r
+Balashev, he raised his hand to the forty-year-old Russian general's\r
+face and, taking him by the ear, pulled it gently, smiling with his lips\r
+only.\r
+\r
+To have one's ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the greatest\r
+honor and mark of favor at the French court.\r
+\r
+"Well, adorer and courtier of the Emperor Alexander, why don't you say\r
+anything?" said he, as if it was ridiculous, in his presence, to be the\r
+adorer and courtier of anyone but himself, Napoleon. "Are the horses\r
+ready for the general?" he added, with a slight inclination of his head\r
+in reply to Balashev's bow. "Let him have mine, he has a long way to\r
+go!"\r
+\r
+The letter taken by Balashev was the last Napoleon sent to Alexander.\r
+Every detail of the interview was communicated to the Russian monarch,\r
+and the war began...\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+After his interview with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Andrew went to\r
+Petersburg, on business as he told his family, but really to meet\r
+Anatole Kuragin whom he felt it necessary to encounter. On reaching\r
+Petersburg he inquired for Kuragin but the latter had already left the\r
+city. Pierre had warned his brother-in-law that Prince Andrew was on his\r
+track. Anatole Kuragin promptly obtained an appointment from the\r
+Minister of War and went to join the army in Moldavia. While in\r
+Petersburg Prince Andrew met Kutuzov, his former commander who was\r
+always well disposed toward him, and Kutuzov suggested that he should\r
+accompany him to the army in Moldavia, to which the old general had been\r
+appointed commander-in-chief. So Prince Andrew, having received an\r
+appointment on the headquarters staff, left for Turkey.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew did not think it proper to write and challenge Kuragin. He\r
+thought that if he challenged him without some fresh cause it might\r
+compromise the young Countess Rostova and so he wanted to meet Kuragin\r
+personally in order to find a fresh pretext for a duel. But he again\r
+failed to meet Kuragin in Turkey, for soon after Prince Andrew arrived,\r
+the latter returned to Russia. In a new country, amid new conditions,\r
+Prince Andrew found life easier to bear. After his betrothed had broken\r
+faith with him--which he felt the more acutely the more he tried to\r
+conceal its effects--the surroundings in which he had been happy became\r
+trying to him, and the freedom and independence he had once prized so\r
+highly were still more so. Not only could he no longer think the\r
+thoughts that had first come to him as he lay gazing at the sky on the\r
+field of Austerlitz and had later enlarged upon with Pierre, and which\r
+had filled his solitude at Bogucharovo and then in Switzerland and Rome,\r
+but he even dreaded to recall them and the bright and boundless horizons\r
+they had revealed. He was now concerned only with the nearest practical\r
+matters unrelated to his past interests, and he seized on these the more\r
+eagerly the more those past interests were closed to him. It was as if\r
+that lofty, infinite canopy of heaven that had once towered above him\r
+had suddenly turned into a low, solid vault that weighed him down, in\r
+which all was clear, but nothing eternal or mysterious.\r
+\r
+Of the activities that presented themselves to him, army service was the\r
+simplest and most familiar. As a general on duty on Kutuzov's staff, he\r
+applied himself to business with zeal and perseverance and surprised\r
+Kutuzov by his willingness and accuracy in work. Not having found\r
+Kuragin in Turkey, Prince Andrew did not think it necessary to rush back\r
+to Russia after him, but all the same he knew that however long it might\r
+be before he met Kuragin, despite his contempt for him and despite all\r
+the proofs he deduced to convince himself that it was not worth stooping\r
+to a conflict with him--he knew that when he did meet him he would not\r
+be able to resist calling him out, any more than a ravenous man can help\r
+snatching at food. And the consciousness that the insult was not yet\r
+avenged, that his rancor was still unspent, weighed on his heart and\r
+poisoned the artificial tranquillity which he managed to obtain in\r
+Turkey by means of restless, plodding, and rather vainglorious and\r
+ambitious activity.\r
+\r
+In the year 1812, when news of the war with Napoleon reached Bucharest--\r
+where Kutuzov had been living for two months, passing his days and\r
+nights with a Wallachian woman--Prince Andrew asked Kutuzov to transfer\r
+him to the Western Army. Kutuzov, who was already weary of Bolkonski's\r
+activity which seemed to reproach his own idleness, very readily let him\r
+go and gave him a mission to Barclay de Tolly.\r
+\r
+Before joining the Western Army which was then, in May, encamped at\r
+Drissa, Prince Andrew visited Bald Hills which was directly on his way,\r
+being only two miles off the Smolensk highroad. During the last three\r
+years there had been so many changes in his life, he had thought, felt,\r
+and seen so much (having traveled both in the east and the west), that\r
+on reaching Bald Hills it struck him as strange and unexpected to find\r
+the way of life there unchanged and still the same in every detail. He\r
+entered through the gates with their stone pillars and drove up the\r
+avenue leading to the house as if he were entering an enchanted,\r
+sleeping castle. The same old stateliness, the same cleanliness, the\r
+same stillness reigned there, and inside there was the same furniture,\r
+the same walls, sounds, and smell, and the same timid faces, only\r
+somewhat older. Princess Mary was still the same timid, plain maiden\r
+getting on in years, uselessly and joylessly passing the best years of\r
+her life in fear and constant suffering. Mademoiselle Bourienne was the\r
+same coquettish, self-satisfied girl, enjoying every moment of her\r
+existence and full of joyous hopes for the future. She had merely become\r
+more self-confident, Prince Andrew thought. Dessalles, the tutor he had\r
+brought from Switzerland, was wearing a coat of Russian cut and talking\r
+broken Russian to the servants, but was still the same narrowly\r
+intelligent, conscientious, and pedantic preceptor. The old prince had\r
+changed in appearance only by the loss of a tooth, which left a\r
+noticeable gap on one side of his mouth; in character he was the same as\r
+ever, only showing still more irritability and skepticism as to what was\r
+happening in the world. Little Nicholas alone had changed. He had grown,\r
+become rosier, had curly dark hair, and, when merry and laughing, quite\r
+unconsciously lifted the upper lip of his pretty little mouth just as\r
+the little princess used to do. He alone did not obey the law of\r
+immutability in the enchanted, sleeping castle. But though externally\r
+all remained as of old, the inner relations of all these people had\r
+changed since Prince Andrew had seen them last. The household was\r
+divided into two alien and hostile camps, who changed their habits for\r
+his sake and only met because he was there. To the one camp belonged the\r
+old prince, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and the architect; to the other\r
+Princess Mary, Dessalles, little Nicholas, and all the old nurses and\r
+maids.\r
+\r
+During his stay at Bald Hills all the family dined together, but they\r
+were ill at ease and Prince Andrew felt that he was a visitor for whose\r
+sake an exception was being made and that his presence made them all\r
+feel awkward. Involuntarily feeling this at dinner on the first day, he\r
+was taciturn, and the old prince noticing this also became morosely dumb\r
+and retired to his apartments directly after dinner. In the evening,\r
+when Prince Andrew went to him and, trying to rouse him, began to tell\r
+him of the young Count Kamensky's campaign, the old prince began\r
+unexpectedly to talk about Princess Mary, blaming her for her\r
+superstitions and her dislike of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who, he said,\r
+was the only person really attached to him.\r
+\r
+The old prince said that if he was ill it was only because of Princess\r
+Mary: that she purposely worried and irritated him, and that by\r
+indulgence and silly talk she was spoiling little Prince Nicholas. The\r
+old prince knew very well that he tormented his daughter and that her\r
+life was very hard, but he also knew that he could not help tormenting\r
+her and that she deserved it. "Why does Prince Andrew, who sees this,\r
+say nothing to me about his sister? Does he think me a scoundrel, or an\r
+old fool who, without any reason, keeps his own daughter at a distance\r
+and attaches this Frenchwoman to himself? He doesn't understand, so I\r
+must explain it, and he must hear me out," thought the old prince. And\r
+he began explaining why he could not put up with his daughter's\r
+unreasonable character.\r
+\r
+"If you ask me," said Prince Andrew, without looking up (he was\r
+censuring his father for the first time in his life), "I did not wish to\r
+speak about it, but as you ask me I will give you my frank opinion. If\r
+there is any misunderstanding and discord between you and Mary, I can't\r
+blame her for it at all. I know how she loves and respects you. Since\r
+you ask me," continued Prince Andrew, becoming irritable--as he was\r
+always liable to do of late--"I can only say that if there are any\r
+misunderstandings they are caused by that worthless woman, who is not\r
+fit to be my sister's companion."\r
+\r
+The old man at first stared fixedly at his son, and an unnatural smile\r
+disclosed the fresh gap between his teeth to which Prince Andrew could\r
+not get accustomed.\r
+\r
+"What companion, my dear boy? Eh? You've already been talking it over!\r
+Eh?"\r
+\r
+"Father, I did not want to judge," said Prince Andrew, in a hard and\r
+bitter tone, "but you challenged me, and I have said, and always shall\r
+say, that Mary is not to blame, but those to blame--the one to blame--is\r
+that Frenchwoman."\r
+\r
+"Ah, he has passed judgment... passed judgement!" said the old man in a\r
+low voice and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, with some embarrassment,\r
+but then he suddenly jumped up and cried: "Be off, be off! Let not a\r
+trace of you remain here!..."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew wished to leave at once, but Princess Mary persuaded him\r
+to stay another day. That day he did not see his father, who did not\r
+leave his room and admitted no one but Mademoiselle Bourienne and\r
+Tikhon, but asked several times whether his son had gone. Next day,\r
+before leaving, Prince Andrew went to his son's rooms. The boy, curly-\r
+headed like his mother and glowing with health, sat on his knee, and\r
+Prince Andrew began telling him the story of Bluebeard, but fell into a\r
+reverie without finishing the story. He thought not of this pretty\r
+child, his son whom he held on his knee, but of himself. He sought in\r
+himself either remorse for having angered his father or regret at\r
+leaving home for the first time in his life on bad terms with him, and\r
+was horrified to find neither. What meant still more to him was that he\r
+sought and did not find in himself the former tenderness for his son\r
+which he had hoped to reawaken by caressing the boy and taking him on\r
+his knee.\r
+\r
+"Well, go on!" said his son.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, without replying, put him down from his knee and went out\r
+of the room.\r
+\r
+As soon as Prince Andrew had given up his daily occupations, and\r
+especially on returning to the old conditions of life amid which he had\r
+been happy, weariness of life overcame him with its former intensity,\r
+and he hastened to escape from these memories and to find some work as\r
+soon as possible.\r
+\r
+"So you've decided to go, Andrew?" asked his sister.\r
+\r
+"Thank God that I can," replied Prince Andrew. "I am very sorry you\r
+can't."\r
+\r
+"Why do you say that?" replied Princess Mary. "Why do you say that, when\r
+you are going to this terrible war, and he is so old? Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne says he has been asking about you...."\r
+\r
+As soon as she began to speak of that, her lips trembled and her tears\r
+began to fall. Prince Andrew turned away and began pacing the room.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my God! my God! When one thinks who and what--what trash--can cause\r
+people misery!" he said with a malignity that alarmed Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+She understood that when speaking of "trash" he referred not only to\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne, the cause of her misery, but also to the man who\r
+had ruined his own happiness.\r
+\r
+"Andrew! One thing I beg, I entreat of you!" she said, touching his\r
+elbow and looking at him with eyes that shone through her tears. "I\r
+understand you" (she looked down). "Don't imagine that sorrow is the\r
+work of men. Men are His tools." She looked a little above Prince\r
+Andrew's head with the confident, accustomed look with which one looks\r
+at the place where a familiar portrait hangs. "Sorrow is sent by Him,\r
+not by men. Men are His instruments, they are not to blame. If you think\r
+someone has wronged you, forget it and forgive! We have no right to\r
+punish. And then you will know the happiness of forgiving."\r
+\r
+"If I were a woman I would do so, Mary. That is a woman's virtue. But a\r
+man should not and cannot forgive and forget," he replied, and though\r
+till that moment he had not been thinking of Kuragin, all his unexpended\r
+anger suddenly swelled up in his heart.\r
+\r
+"If Mary is already persuading me to forgive, it means that I ought long\r
+ago to have punished him," he thought. And giving her no further reply,\r
+he began thinking of the glad vindictive moment when he would meet\r
+Kuragin who he knew was now in the army.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary begged him to stay one day more, saying that she knew how\r
+unhappy her father would be if Andrew left without being reconciled to\r
+him, but Prince Andrew replied that he would probably soon be back again\r
+from the army and would certainly write to his father, but that the\r
+longer he stayed now the more embittered their differences would become.\r
+\r
+"Good-bye, Andrew! Remember that misfortunes come from God, and men are\r
+never to blame," were the last words he heard from his sister when he\r
+took leave of her.\r
+\r
+"Then it must be so!" thought Prince Andrew as he drove out of the\r
+avenue from the house at Bald Hills. "She, poor innocent creature, is\r
+left to be victimized by an old man who has outlived his wits. The old\r
+man feels he is guilty, but cannot change himself. My boy is growing up\r
+and rejoices in life, in which like everybody else he will deceive or be\r
+deceived. And I am off to the army. Why? I myself don't know. I want to\r
+meet that man whom I despise, so as to give him a chance to kill and\r
+laugh at me!"\r
+\r
+These conditions of life had been the same before, but then they were\r
+all connected, while now they had all tumbled to pieces. Only senseless\r
+things, lacking coherence, presented themselves one after another to\r
+Prince Andrew's mind.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew reached the general headquarters of the army at the end of\r
+June. The first army, with which was the Emperor, occupied the fortified\r
+camp at Drissa; the second army was retreating, trying to effect a\r
+junction with the first one from which it was said to be cut off by\r
+large French forces. Everyone was dissatisfied with the general course\r
+of affairs in the Russian army, but no one anticipated any danger of\r
+invasion of the Russian provinces, and no one thought the war would\r
+extend farther than the western, the Polish, provinces.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew found Barclay de Tolly, to whom he had been assigned, on\r
+the bank of the Drissa. As there was not a single town or large village\r
+in the vicinity of the camp, the immense number of generals and\r
+courtiers accompanying the army were living in the best houses of the\r
+villages on both sides of the river, over a radius of six miles. Barclay\r
+de Tolly was quartered nearly three miles from the Emperor. He received\r
+Bolkonski stiffly and coldly and told him in his foreign accent that he\r
+would mention him to the Emperor for a decision as to his employment,\r
+but asked him meanwhile to remain on his staff. Anatole Kuragin, whom\r
+Prince Andrew had hoped to find with the army, was not there. He had\r
+gone to Petersburg, but Prince Andrew was glad to hear this. His mind\r
+was occupied by the interests of the center that was conducting a\r
+gigantic war, and he was glad to be free for a while from the\r
+distraction caused by the thought of Kuragin. During the first four\r
+days, while no duties were required of him, Prince Andrew rode round the\r
+whole fortified camp and, by the aid of his own knowledge and by talks\r
+with experts, tried to form a definite opinion about it. But the\r
+question whether the camp was advantageous or disadvantageous remained\r
+for him undecided. Already from his military experience and what he had\r
+seen in the Austrian campaign, he had come to the conclusion that in war\r
+the most deeply considered plans have no significance and that all\r
+depends on the way unexpected movements of the enemy--that cannot be\r
+foreseen--are met, and on how and by whom the whole matter is handled.\r
+To clear up this last point for himself, Prince Andrew, utilizing his\r
+position and acquaintances, tried to fathom the character of the control\r
+of the army and of the men and parties engaged in it, and he deduced for\r
+himself the following of the state of affairs.\r
+\r
+While the Emperor had still been at Vilna, the forces had been divided\r
+into three armies. First, the army under Barclay de Tolly, secondly, the\r
+army under Bagration, and thirdly, the one commanded by Tormasov. The\r
+Emperor was with the first army, but not as commander-in-chief. In the\r
+orders issued it was stated, not that the Emperor would take command,\r
+but only that he would be with the army. The Emperor, moreover, had with\r
+him not a commander-in-chief's staff but the imperial headquarters\r
+staff. In attendance on him was the head of the imperial staff,\r
+Quartermaster General Prince Volkonski, as well as generals, imperial\r
+aides-de-camp, diplomatic officials, and a large number of foreigners,\r
+but not the army staff. Besides these, there were in attendance on the\r
+Emperor without any definite appointments: Arakcheev, the ex-Minister of\r
+War; Count Bennigsen, the senior general in rank; the Grand Duke\r
+Tsarevich Constantine Pavlovich; Count Rumyantsev, the Chancellor;\r
+Stein, a former Prussian minister; Armfeldt, a Swedish general; Pfuel,\r
+the chief author of the plan of campaign; Paulucci, an adjutant general\r
+and Sardinian emigre; Wolzogen--and many others. Though these men had no\r
+military appointment in the army, their position gave them influence,\r
+and often a corps commander, or even the commander-in-chief, did not\r
+know in what capacity he was questioned by Bennigsen, the Grand Duke,\r
+Arakcheev, or Prince Volkonski, or was given this or that advice and did\r
+not know whether a certain order received in the form of advice emanated\r
+from the man who gave it or from the Emperor and whether it had to be\r
+executed or not. But this was only the external condition; the essential\r
+significance of the presence of the Emperor and of all these people,\r
+from a courtier's point of view (and in an Emperor's vicinity all became\r
+courtiers), was clear to everyone. It was this: the Emperor did not\r
+assume the title of commander-in-chief, but disposed of all the armies;\r
+the men around him were his assistants. Arakcheev was a faithful\r
+custodian to enforce order and acted as the sovereign's bodyguard.\r
+Bennigsen was a landlord in the Vilna province who appeared to be doing\r
+the honors of the district, but was in reality a good general, useful as\r
+an adviser and ready at hand to replace Barclay. The Grand Duke was\r
+there because it suited him to be. The ex-Minister Stein was there\r
+because his advice was useful and the Emperor Alexander held him in high\r
+esteem personally. Armfeldt virulently hated Napoleon and was a general\r
+full of self-confidence, a quality that always influenced Alexander.\r
+Paulucci was there because he was bold and decided in speech. The\r
+adjutants general were there because they always accompanied the\r
+Emperor, and lastly and chiefly Pfuel was there because he had drawn up\r
+the plan of campaign against Napoleon and, having induced Alexander to\r
+believe in the efficacy of that plan, was directing the whole business\r
+of the war. With Pfuel was Wolzogen, who expressed Pfuel's thoughts in a\r
+more comprehensible way than Pfuel himself (who was a harsh, bookish\r
+theorist, self-confident to the point of despising everyone else) was\r
+able to do.\r
+\r
+Besides these Russians and foreigners who propounded new and unexpected\r
+ideas every day--especially the foreigners, who did so with a boldness\r
+characteristic of people employed in a country not their own--there were\r
+many secondary personages accompanying the army because their principals\r
+were there.\r
+\r
+Among the opinions and voices in this immense, restless, brilliant, and\r
+proud sphere, Prince Andrew noticed the following sharply defined\r
+subdivisions of tendencies and parties:\r
+\r
+The first party consisted of Pfuel and his adherents--military theorists\r
+who believed in a science of war with immutable laws--laws of oblique\r
+movements, outflankings, and so forth. Pfuel and his adherents demanded\r
+a retirement into the depths of the country in accordance with precise\r
+laws defined by a pseudo-theory of war, and they saw only barbarism,\r
+ignorance, or evil intention in every deviation from that theory. To\r
+this party belonged the foreign nobles, Wolzogen, Wintzingerode, and\r
+others, chiefly Germans.\r
+\r
+The second party was directly opposed to the first; one extreme, as\r
+always happens, was met by representatives of the other. The members of\r
+this party were those who had demanded an advance from Vilna into Poland\r
+and freedom from all prearranged plans. Besides being advocates of bold\r
+action, this section also represented nationalism, which made them still\r
+more one-sided in the dispute. They were Russians: Bagration, Ermolov\r
+(who was beginning to come to the front), and others. At that time a\r
+famous joke of Ermolov's was being circulated, that as a great favor he\r
+had petitioned the Emperor to make him a German. The men of that party,\r
+remembering Suvorov, said that what one had to do was not to reason, or\r
+stick pins into maps, but to fight, beat the enemy, keep him out of\r
+Russia, and not let the army get discouraged.\r
+\r
+To the third party--in which the Emperor had most confidence--belonged\r
+the courtiers who tried to arrange compromises between the other two.\r
+The members of this party, chiefly civilians and to whom Arakcheev\r
+belonged, thought and said what men who have no convictions but wish to\r
+seem to have some generally say. They said that undoubtedly war,\r
+particularly against such a genius as Bonaparte (they called him\r
+Bonaparte now), needs most deeply devised plans and profound scientific\r
+knowledge and in that respect Pfuel was a genius, but at the same time\r
+it had to be acknowledged that the theorists are often one-sided, and\r
+therefore one should not trust them absolutely, but should also listen\r
+to what Pfuel's opponents and practical men of experience in warfare had\r
+to say, and then choose a middle course. They insisted on the retention\r
+of the camp at Drissa, according to Pfuel's plan, but on changing the\r
+movements of the other armies. Though, by this course, neither one aim\r
+nor the other could be attained, yet it seemed best to the adherents of\r
+this third party.\r
+\r
+Of a fourth opinion the most conspicuous representative was the\r
+Tsarevich, who could not forget his disillusionment at Austerlitz, where\r
+he had ridden out at the head of the Guards, in his casque and cavalry\r
+uniform as to a review, expecting to crush the French gallantly; but\r
+unexpectedly finding himself in the front line had narrowly escaped amid\r
+the general confusion. The men of this party had both the quality and\r
+the defect of frankness in their opinions. They feared Napoleon,\r
+recognized his strength and their own weakness, and frankly said so.\r
+They said: "Nothing but sorrow, shame, and ruin will come of all this!\r
+We have abandoned Vilna and Vitebsk and shall abandon Drissa. The only\r
+reasonable thing left to do is to conclude peace as soon as possible,\r
+before we are turned out of Petersburg."\r
+\r
+This view was very general in the upper army circles and found support\r
+also in Petersburg and from the chancellor, Rumyantsev, who, for other\r
+reasons of state, was in favor of peace.\r
+\r
+The fifth party consisted of those who were adherents of Barclay de\r
+Tolly, not so much as a man but as minister of war and commander-in-\r
+chief. "Be he what he may" (they always began like that), "he is an\r
+honest, practical man and we have nobody better. Give him real power,\r
+for war cannot be conducted successfully without unity of command, and\r
+he will show what he can do, as he did in Finland. If our army is well\r
+organized and strong and has withdrawn to Drissa without suffering any\r
+defeats, we owe this entirely to Barclay. If Barclay is now to be\r
+superseded by Bennigsen all will be lost, for Bennigsen showed his\r
+incapacity already in 1807."\r
+\r
+The sixth party, the Bennigsenites, said, on the contrary, that at any\r
+rate there was no one more active and experienced than Bennigsen: "and\r
+twist about as you may, you will have to come to Bennigsen eventually.\r
+Let the others make mistakes now!" said they, arguing that our\r
+retirement to Drissa was a most shameful reverse and an unbroken series\r
+of blunders. "The more mistakes that are made the better. It will at any\r
+rate be understood all the sooner that things cannot go on like this.\r
+What is wanted is not some Barclay or other, but a man like Bennigsen,\r
+who made his mark in 1807, and to whom Napoleon himself did justice--a\r
+man whose authority would be willingly recognized, and Bennigsen is the\r
+only such man."\r
+\r
+The seventh party consisted of the sort of people who are always to be\r
+found, especially around young sovereigns, and of whom there were\r
+particularly many round Alexander--generals and imperial aides-de-camp\r
+passionately devoted to the Emperor, not merely as a monarch but as a\r
+man, adoring him sincerely and disinterestedly, as Rostov had done in\r
+1805, and who saw in him not only all the virtues but all human\r
+capabilities as well. These men, though enchanted with the sovereign for\r
+refusing the command of the army, yet blamed him for such excessive\r
+modesty, and only desired and insisted that their adored sovereign\r
+should abandon his diffidence and openly announce that he would place\r
+himself at the head of the army, gather round him a commander-in-chief's\r
+staff, and, consulting experienced theoreticians and practical men where\r
+necessary, would himself lead the troops, whose spirits would thereby be\r
+raised to the highest pitch.\r
+\r
+The eighth and largest group, which in its enormous numbers was to the\r
+others as ninety-nine to one, consisted of men who desired neither peace\r
+nor war, neither an advance nor a defensive camp at the Drissa or\r
+anywhere else, neither Barclay nor the Emperor, neither Pfuel nor\r
+Bennigsen, but only the one most essential thing--as much advantage and\r
+pleasure for themselves as possible. In the troubled waters of\r
+conflicting and intersecting intrigues that eddied about the Emperor's\r
+headquarters, it was possible to succeed in many ways unthinkable at\r
+other times. A man who simply wished to retain his lucrative post would\r
+today agree with Pfuel, tomorrow with his opponent, and the day after,\r
+merely to avoid responsibility or to please the Emperor, would declare\r
+that he had no opinion at all on the matter. Another who wished to gain\r
+some advantage would attract the Emperor's attention by loudly\r
+advocating the very thing the Emperor had hinted at the day before, and\r
+would dispute and shout at the council, beating his breast and\r
+challenging those who did not agree with him to duels, thereby proving\r
+that he was prepared to sacrifice himself for the common good. A third,\r
+in the absence of opponents, between two councils would simply solicit a\r
+special gratuity for his faithful services, well knowing that at that\r
+moment people would be too busy to refuse him. A fourth while seemingly\r
+overwhelmed with work would often come accidentally under the Emperor's\r
+eye. A fifth, to achieve his long-cherished aim of dining with the\r
+Emperor, would stubbornly insist on the correctness or falsity of some\r
+newly emerging opinion and for this object would produce arguments more\r
+or less forcible and correct.\r
+\r
+All the men of this party were fishing for rubles, decorations, and\r
+promotions, and in this pursuit watched only the weathercock of imperial\r
+favor, and directly they noticed it turning in any direction, this whole\r
+drone population of the army began blowing hard that way, so that it was\r
+all the harder for the Emperor to turn it elsewhere. Amid the\r
+uncertainties of the position, with the menace of serious danger giving\r
+a peculiarly threatening character to everything, amid this vortex of\r
+intrigue, egotism, conflict of views and feelings, and the diversity of\r
+race among these people--this eighth and largest party of those\r
+preoccupied with personal interests imparted great confusion and\r
+obscurity to the common task. Whatever question arose, a swarm of these\r
+drones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous theme, flew\r
+over to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the voices of\r
+those who were disputing honestly.\r
+\r
+From among all these parties, just at the time Prince Andrew reached the\r
+army, another, a ninth party, was being formed and was beginning to\r
+raise its voice. This was the party of the elders, reasonable men\r
+experienced and capable in state affairs, who, without sharing any of\r
+those conflicting opinions, were able to take a detached view of what\r
+was going on at the staff at headquarters and to consider means of\r
+escape from this muddle, indecision, intricacy, and weakness.\r
+\r
+The men of this party said and thought that what was wrong resulted\r
+chiefly from the Emperor's presence in the army with his military court\r
+and from the consequent presence there of an indefinite, conditional,\r
+and unsteady fluctuation of relations, which is in place at court but\r
+harmful in an army; that a sovereign should reign but not command the\r
+army, and that the only way out of the position would be for the Emperor\r
+and his court to leave the army; that the mere presence of the Emperor\r
+paralyzed the action of fifty thousand men required to secure his\r
+personal safety, and that the worst commander-in-chief, if independent,\r
+would be better than the very best one trammeled by the presence and\r
+authority of the monarch.\r
+\r
+Just at the time Prince Andrew was living unoccupied at Drissa,\r
+Shishkov, the Secretary of State and one of the chief representatives of\r
+this party, wrote a letter to the Emperor which Arakcheev and Balashev\r
+agreed to sign. In this letter, availing himself of permission given him\r
+by the Emperor to discuss the general course of affairs, he respectfully\r
+suggested--on the plea that it was necessary for the sovereign to arouse\r
+a warlike spirit in the people of the capital--that the Emperor should\r
+leave the army.\r
+\r
+That arousing of the people by their sovereign and his call to them to\r
+defend their country--the very incitement which was the chief cause of\r
+Russia's triumph in so far as it was produced by the Tsar's personal\r
+presence in Moscow--was suggested to the Emperor, and accepted by him,\r
+as a pretext for quitting the army.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+This letter had not yet been presented to the Emperor when Barclay, one\r
+day at dinner, informed Bolkonski that the sovereign wished to see him\r
+personally, to question him about Turkey, and that Prince Andrew was to\r
+present himself at Bennigsen's quarters at six that evening.\r
+\r
+News was received at the Emperor's quarters that very day of a fresh\r
+movement by Napoleon which might endanger the army--news subsequently\r
+found to be false. And that morning Colonel Michaud had ridden round the\r
+Drissa fortifications with the Emperor and had pointed out to him that\r
+this fortified camp constructed by Pfuel, and till then considered a\r
+chef-d'oeuvre of tactical science which would ensure Napoleon's\r
+destruction, was an absurdity, threatening the destruction of the\r
+Russian army.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew arrived at Bennigsen's quarters--a country gentleman's\r
+house of moderate size, situated on the very banks of the river. Neither\r
+Bennigsen nor the Emperor was there, but Chernyshev, the Emperor's aide-\r
+de-camp, received Bolkonski and informed him that the Emperor,\r
+accompanied by General Bennigsen and Marquis Paulucci, had gone a second\r
+time that day to inspect the fortifications of the Drissa camp, of the\r
+suitability of which serious doubts were beginning to be felt.\r
+\r
+Chernyshev was sitting at a window in the first room with a French novel\r
+in his hand. This room had probably been a music room; there was still\r
+an organ in it on which some rugs were piled, and in one corner stood\r
+the folding bedstead of Bennigsen's adjutant. This adjutant was also\r
+there and sat dozing on the rolled-up bedding, evidently exhausted by\r
+work or by feasting. Two doors led from the room, one straight on into\r
+what had been the drawing room, and another, on the right, to the study.\r
+Through the first door came the sound of voices conversing in German and\r
+occasionally in French. In that drawing room were gathered, by the\r
+Emperor's wish, not a military council (the Emperor preferred\r
+indefiniteness), but certain persons whose opinions he wished to know in\r
+view of the impending difficulties. It was not a council of war, but, as\r
+it were, a council to elucidate certain questions for the Emperor\r
+personally. To this semicouncil had been invited the Swedish General\r
+Armfeldt, Adjutant General Wolzogen, Wintzingerode (whom Napoleon had\r
+referred to as a renegade French subject), Michaud, Toll, Count Stein\r
+who was not a military man at all, and Pfuel himself, who, as Prince\r
+Andrew had heard, was the mainspring of the whole affair. Prince Andrew\r
+had an opportunity of getting a good look at him, for Pfuel arrived soon\r
+after himself and, in passing through to the drawing room, stopped a\r
+minute to speak to Chernyshev.\r
+\r
+At first sight, Pfuel, in his ill-made uniform of a Russian general,\r
+which fitted him badly like a fancy costume, seemed familiar to Prince\r
+Andrew, though he saw him now for the first time. There was about him\r
+something of Weyrother, Mack, and Schmidt, and many other German\r
+theorist-generals whom Prince Andrew had seen in 1805, but he was more\r
+typical than any of them. Prince Andrew had never yet seen a German\r
+theorist in whom all the characteristics of those others were united to\r
+such an extent.\r
+\r
+Pfuel was short and very thin but broad-boned, of coarse, robust build,\r
+broad in the hips, and with prominent shoulder blades. His face was much\r
+wrinkled and his eyes deep set. His hair had evidently been hastily\r
+brushed smooth in front of the temples, but stuck up behind in quaint\r
+little tufts. He entered the room, looking restlessly and angrily\r
+around, as if afraid of everything in that large apartment. Awkwardly\r
+holding up his sword, he addressed Chernyshev and asked in German where\r
+the Emperor was. One could see that he wished to pass through the rooms\r
+as quickly as possible, finish with the bows and greetings, and sit down\r
+to business in front of a map, where he would feel at home. He nodded\r
+hurriedly in reply to Chernyshev, and smiled ironically on hearing that\r
+the sovereign was inspecting the fortifications that he, Pfuel, had\r
+planned in accord with his theory. He muttered something to himself\r
+abruptly and in a bass voice, as self-assured Germans do--it might have\r
+been "stupid fellow"... or "the whole affair will be ruined," or\r
+"something absurd will come of it."... Prince Andrew did not catch what\r
+he said and would have passed on, but Chernyshev introduced him to\r
+Pfuel, remarking that Prince Andrew was just back from Turkey where the\r
+war had terminated so fortunately. Pfuel barely glanced--not so much at\r
+Prince Andrew as past him--and said, with a laugh: "That must have been\r
+a fine tactical war"; and, laughing contemptuously, went on into the\r
+room from which the sound of voices was heard.\r
+\r
+Pfuel, always inclined to be irritably sarcastic, was particularly\r
+disturbed that day, evidently by the fact that they had dared to inspect\r
+and criticize his camp in his absence. From this short interview with\r
+Pfuel, Prince Andrew, thanks to his Austerlitz experiences, was able to\r
+form a clear conception of the man. Pfuel was one of those hopelessly\r
+and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of\r
+martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident\r
+on the basis of an abstract notion--science, that is, the supposed\r
+knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he\r
+regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly\r
+attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a\r
+citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an\r
+Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as\r
+an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because\r
+he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian\r
+is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know\r
+anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The\r
+German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive\r
+than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth--science--\r
+which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.\r
+\r
+Pfuel was evidently of that sort. He had a science--the theory of\r
+oblique movements deduced by him from the history of Frederick the\r
+Great's wars, and all he came across in the history of more recent\r
+warfare seemed to him absurd and barbarous--monstrous collisions in\r
+which so many blunders were committed by both sides that these wars\r
+could not be called wars, they did not accord with the theory, and\r
+therefore could not serve as material for science.\r
+\r
+In 1806 Pfuel had been one of those responsible, for the plan of\r
+campaign that ended in Jena and Auerstadt, but he did not see the least\r
+proof of the fallibility of his theory in the disasters of that war. On\r
+the contrary, the deviations made from his theory were, in his opinion,\r
+the sole cause of the whole disaster, and with characteristically\r
+gleeful sarcasm he would remark, "There, I said the whole affair would\r
+go to the devil!" Pfuel was one of those theoreticians who so love their\r
+theory that they lose sight of the theory's object--its practical\r
+application. His love of theory made him hate everything practical, and\r
+he would not listen to it. He was even pleased by failures, for failures\r
+resulting from deviations in practice from the theory only proved to him\r
+the accuracy of his theory.\r
+\r
+He said a few words to Prince Andrew and Chernyshev about the present\r
+war, with the air of a man who knows beforehand that all will go wrong,\r
+and who is not displeased that it should be so. The unbrushed tufts of\r
+hair sticking up behind and the hastily brushed hair on his temples\r
+expressed this most eloquently.\r
+\r
+He passed into the next room, and the deep, querulous sounds of his\r
+voice were at once heard from there.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew's eyes were still following Pfuel out of the room when\r
+Count Bennigsen entered hurriedly, and nodding to Bolkonski, but not\r
+pausing, went into the study, giving instructions to his adjutant as he\r
+went. The Emperor was following him, and Bennigsen had hastened on to\r
+make some preparations and to be ready to receive the sovereign.\r
+Chernyshev and Prince Andrew went out into the porch, where the Emperor,\r
+who looked fatigued, was dismounting. Marquis Paulucci was talking to\r
+him with particular warmth and the Emperor, with his head bent to the\r
+left, was listening with a dissatisfied air. The Emperor moved forward\r
+evidently wishing to end the conversation, but the flushed and excited\r
+Italian, oblivious of decorum, followed him and continued to speak.\r
+\r
+"And as for the man who advised forming this camp--the Drissa camp,"\r
+said Paulucci, as the Emperor mounted the steps and noticing Prince\r
+Andrew scanned his unfamiliar face, "as to that person, sire..."\r
+continued Paulucci, desperately, apparently unable to restrain himself,\r
+"the man who advised the Drissa camp--I see no alternative but the\r
+lunatic asylum or the gallows!"\r
+\r
+Without heeding the end of the Italian's remarks, and as though not\r
+hearing them, the Emperor, recognizing Bolkonski, addressed him\r
+graciously.\r
+\r
+"I am very glad to see you! Go in there where they are meeting, and wait\r
+for me."\r
+\r
+The Emperor went into the study. He was followed by Prince Peter\r
+Mikhaylovich Volkonski and Baron Stein, and the door closed behind them.\r
+Prince Andrew, taking advantage of the Emperor's permission, accompanied\r
+Paulucci, whom he had known in Turkey, into the drawing room where the\r
+council was assembled.\r
+\r
+Prince Peter Mikhaylovich Volkonski occupied the position, as it were,\r
+of chief of the Emperor's staff. He came out of the study into the\r
+drawing room with some maps which he spread on a table, and put\r
+questions on which he wished to hear the opinion of the gentlemen\r
+present. What had happened was that news (which afterwards proved to be\r
+false) had been received during the night of a movement by the French to\r
+outflank the Drissa camp.\r
+\r
+The first to speak was General Armfeldt who, to meet the difficulty that\r
+presented itself, unexpectedly proposed a perfectly new position away\r
+from the Petersburg and Moscow roads. The reason for this was\r
+inexplicable (unless he wished to show that he, too, could have an\r
+opinion), but he urged that at this point the army should unite and\r
+there await the enemy. It was plain that Armfeldt had thought out that\r
+plan long ago and now expounded it not so much to answer the questions\r
+put--which, in fact, his plan did not answer--as to avail himself of the\r
+opportunity to air it. It was one of the millions of proposals, one as\r
+good as another, that could be made as long as it was quite unknown what\r
+character the war would take. Some disputed his arguments, others\r
+defended them. Young Count Toll objected to the Swedish general's views\r
+more warmly than anyone else, and in the course of the dispute drew from\r
+his side pocket a well-filled notebook, which he asked permission to\r
+read to them. In these voluminous notes Toll suggested another scheme,\r
+totally different from Armfeldt's or Pfuel's plan of campaign. In answer\r
+to Toll, Paulucci suggested an advance and an attack, which, he urged,\r
+could alone extricate us from the present uncertainty and from the trap\r
+(as he called the Drissa camp) in which we were situated.\r
+\r
+During all these discussions Pfuel and his interpreter, Wolzogen (his\r
+"bridge" in court relations), were silent. Pfuel only snorted\r
+contemptuously and turned away, to show that he would never demean\r
+himself by replying to such nonsense as he was now hearing. So when\r
+Prince Volkonski, who was in the chair, called on him to give his\r
+opinion, he merely said:\r
+\r
+"Why ask me? General Armfeldt has proposed a splendid position with an\r
+exposed rear, or why not this Italian gentleman's attack--very fine, or\r
+a retreat, also good! Why ask me?" said he. "Why, you yourselves know\r
+everything better than I do."\r
+\r
+But when Volkonski said, with a frown, that it was in the Emperor's name\r
+that he asked his opinion, Pfuel rose and, suddenly growing animated,\r
+began to speak:\r
+\r
+"Everything has been spoiled, everything muddled, everybody thought they\r
+knew better than I did, and now you come to me! How mend matters? There\r
+is nothing to mend! The principles laid down by me must be strictly\r
+adhered to," said he, drumming on the table with his bony fingers. "What\r
+is the difficulty? Nonsense, childishness!"\r
+\r
+He went up to the map and speaking rapidly began proving that no\r
+eventuality could alter the efficiency of the Drissa camp, that\r
+everything had been foreseen, and that if the enemy were really going to\r
+outflank it, the enemy would inevitably be destroyed.\r
+\r
+Paulucci, who did not know German, began questioning him in French.\r
+Wolzogen came to the assistance of his chief, who spoke French badly,\r
+and began translating for him, hardly able to keep pace with Pfuel, who\r
+was rapidly demonstrating that not only all that had happened, but all\r
+that could happen, had been foreseen in his scheme, and that if there\r
+were now any difficulties the whole fault lay in the fact that his plan\r
+had not been precisely executed. He kept laughing sarcastically, he\r
+demonstrated, and at last contemptuously ceased to demonstrate, like a\r
+mathematician who ceases to prove in various ways the accuracy of a\r
+problem that has already been proved. Wolzogen took his place and\r
+continued to explain his views in French, every now and then turning to\r
+Pfuel and saying, "Is it not so, your excellency?" But Pfuel, like a man\r
+heated in a fight who strikes those on his own side, shouted angrily at\r
+his own supporter, Wolzogen:\r
+\r
+"Well, of course, what more is there to explain?"\r
+\r
+Paulucci and Michaud both attacked Wolzogen simultaneously in French.\r
+Armfeldt addressed Pfuel in German. Toll explained to Volkonski in\r
+Russian. Prince Andrew listened and observed in silence.\r
+\r
+Of all these men Prince Andrew sympathized most with Pfuel, angry,\r
+determined, and absurdly self-confident as he was. Of all those present,\r
+evidently he alone was not seeking anything for himself, nursed no\r
+hatred against anyone, and only desired that the plan, formed on a\r
+theory arrived at by years of toil, should be carried out. He was\r
+ridiculous, and unpleasantly sarcastic, but yet he inspired involuntary\r
+respect by his boundless devotion to an idea. Besides this, the remarks\r
+of all except Pfuel had one common trait that had not been noticeable at\r
+the council of war in 1805: there was now a panic fear of Napoleon's\r
+genius, which, though concealed, was noticeable in every rejoinder.\r
+Everything was assumed to be possible for Napoleon, they expected him\r
+from every side, and invoked his terrible name to shatter each other's\r
+proposals. Pfuel alone seemed to consider Napoleon a barbarian like\r
+everyone else who opposed his theory. But besides this feeling of\r
+respect, Pfuel evoked pity in Prince Andrew. From the tone in which the\r
+courtiers addressed him and the way Paulucci had allowed himself to\r
+speak of him to the Emperor, but above all from a certain desperation in\r
+Pfuel's own expressions, it was clear that the others knew, and Pfuel\r
+himself felt, that his fall was at hand. And despite his self-confidence\r
+and grumpy German sarcasm he was pitiable, with his hair smoothly\r
+brushed on the temples and sticking up in tufts behind. Though he\r
+concealed the fact under a show of irritation and contempt, he was\r
+evidently in despair that the sole remaining chance of verifying his\r
+theory by a huge experiment and proving its soundness to the whole world\r
+was slipping away from him.\r
+\r
+The discussions continued a long time, and the longer they lasted the\r
+more heated became the disputes, culminating in shouts and\r
+personalities, and the less was it possible to arrive at any general\r
+conclusion from all that had been said. Prince Andrew, listening to this\r
+polyglot talk and to these surmises, plans, refutations, and shouts,\r
+felt nothing but amazement at what they were saying. A thought that had\r
+long since and often occurred to him during his military activities--the\r
+idea that there is not and cannot be any science of war, and that\r
+therefore there can be no such thing as a military genius--now appeared\r
+to him an obvious truth. "What theory and science is possible about a\r
+matter the conditions and circumstances of which are unknown and cannot\r
+be defined, especially when the strength of the acting forces cannot be\r
+ascertained? No one was or is able to foresee in what condition our or\r
+the enemy's armies will be in a day's time, and no one can gauge the\r
+force of this or that detachment. Sometimes--when there is not a coward\r
+at the front to shout, 'We are cut off!' and start running, but a brave\r
+and jolly lad who shouts, 'Hurrah!'--a detachment of five thousand is\r
+worth thirty thousand, as at Schon Grabern, while at times fifty\r
+thousand run from eight thousand, as at Austerlitz. What science can\r
+there be in a matter in which, as in all practical matters, nothing can\r
+be defined and everything depends on innumerable conditions, the\r
+significance of which is determined at a particular moment which arrives\r
+no one knows when? Armfeldt says our army is cut in half, and Paulucci\r
+says we have got the French army between two fires; Michaud says that\r
+the worthlessness of the Drissa camp lies in having the river behind it,\r
+and Pfuel says that is what constitutes its strength; Toll proposes one\r
+plan, Armfeldt another, and they are all good and all bad, and the\r
+advantages of any suggestions can be seen only at the moment of trial.\r
+And why do they all speak of a 'military genius'? Is a man a genius who\r
+can order bread to be brought up at the right time and say who is to go\r
+to the right and who to the left? It is only because military men are\r
+invested with pomp and power and crowds of sychophants flatter power,\r
+attributing to it qualities of genius it does not possess. The best\r
+generals I have known were, on the contrary, stupid or absent-minded\r
+men. Bagration was the best, Napoleon himself admitted that. And of\r
+Bonaparte himself! I remember his limited, self-satisfied face on the\r
+field of Austerlitz. Not only does a good army commander not need any\r
+special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest\r
+and best human attributes--love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic\r
+inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is\r
+doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient\r
+patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he\r
+should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and\r
+unjust. It is understandable that a theory of their 'genius' was\r
+invented for them long ago because they have power! The success of a\r
+military action depends not on them, but on the man in the ranks who\r
+shouts, 'We are lost!' or who shouts, 'Hurrah!' And only in the ranks\r
+can one serve with assurance of being useful."\r
+\r
+So thought Prince Andrew as he listened to the talking, and he roused\r
+himself only when Paulucci called him and everyone was leaving.\r
+\r
+At the review next day the Emperor asked Prince Andrew where he would\r
+like to serve, and Prince Andrew lost his standing in court circles\r
+forever by not asking to remain attached to the sovereign's person, but\r
+for permission to serve in the army.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+Before the beginning of the campaign, Rostov had received a letter from\r
+his parents in which they told him briefly of Natasha's illness and the\r
+breaking off of her engagement to Prince Andrew (which they explained by\r
+Natasha's having rejected him) and again asked Nicholas to retire from\r
+the army and return home. On receiving this letter, Nicholas did not\r
+even make any attempt to get leave of absence or to retire from the\r
+army, but wrote to his parents that he was sorry Natasha was ill and her\r
+engagement broken off, and that he would do all he could to meet their\r
+wishes. To Sonya he wrote separately.\r
+\r
+"Adored friend of my soul!" he wrote. "Nothing but honor could keep me\r
+from returning to the country. But now, at the commencement of the\r
+campaign, I should feel dishonored, not only in my comrades' eyes but in\r
+my own, if I preferred my own happiness to my love and duty to the\r
+Fatherland. But this shall be our last separation. Believe me, directly\r
+the war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I will\r
+throw up everything and fly to you, to press you forever to my ardent\r
+breast."\r
+\r
+It was, in fact, only the commencement of the campaign that prevented\r
+Rostov from returning home as he had promised and marrying Sonya. The\r
+autumn in Otradnoe with the hunting, and the winter with the Christmas\r
+holidays and Sonya's love, had opened out to him a vista of tranquil\r
+rural joys and peace such as he had never known before, and which now\r
+allured him. "A splendid wife, children, a good pack of hounds, a dozen\r
+leashes of smart borzois, agriculture, neighbors, service by\r
+election..." thought he. But now the campaign was beginning, and he had\r
+to remain with his regiment. And since it had to be so, Nicholas Rostov,\r
+as was natural to him, felt contented with the life he led in the\r
+regiment and was able to find pleasure in that life.\r
+\r
+On his return from his furlough Nicholas, having been joyfully welcomed\r
+by his comrades, was sent to obtain remounts and brought back from the\r
+Ukraine excellent horses which pleased him and earned him commendation\r
+from his commanders. During his absence he had been promoted captain,\r
+and when the regiment was put on war footing with an increase in\r
+numbers, he was again allotted his old squadron.\r
+\r
+The campaign began, the regiment was moved into Poland on double pay,\r
+new officers arrived, new men and horses, and above all everybody was\r
+infected with the merrily excited mood that goes with the commencement\r
+of a war, and Rostov, conscious of his advantageous position in the\r
+regiment, devoted himself entirely to the pleasures and interests of\r
+military service, though he knew that sooner or later he would have to\r
+relinquish them.\r
+\r
+The troops retired from Vilna for various complicated reasons of state,\r
+political and strategic. Each step of the retreat was accompanied by a\r
+complicated interplay of interests, arguments, and passions at\r
+headquarters. For the Pavlograd hussars, however, the whole of this\r
+retreat during the finest period of summer and with sufficient supplies\r
+was a very simple and agreeable business.\r
+\r
+It was only at headquarters that there was depression, uneasiness, and\r
+intriguing; in the body of the army they did not ask themselves where\r
+they were going or why. If they regretted having to retreat, it was only\r
+because they had to leave billets they had grown accustomed to, or some\r
+pretty young Polish lady. If the thought that things looked bad chanced\r
+to enter anyone's head, he tried to be as cheerful as befits a good\r
+soldier and not to think of the general trend of affairs, but only of\r
+the task nearest to hand. First they camped gaily before Vilna, making\r
+acquaintance with the Polish landowners, preparing for reviews and being\r
+reviewed by the Emperor and other high commanders. Then came an order to\r
+retreat to Sventsyani and destroy any provisions they could not carry\r
+away with them. Sventsyani was remembered by the hussars only as the\r
+drunken camp, a name the whole army gave to their encampment there, and\r
+because many complaints were made against the troops, who, taking\r
+advantage of the order to collect provisions, took also horses,\r
+carriages, and carpets from the Polish proprietors. Rostov remembered\r
+Sventsyani, because on the first day of their arrival at that small town\r
+he changed his sergeant major and was unable to manage all the drunken\r
+men of his squadron who, unknown to him, had appropriated five barrels\r
+of old beer. From Sventsyani they retired farther and farther to Drissa,\r
+and thence again beyond Drissa, drawing near to the frontier of Russia\r
+proper.\r
+\r
+On the thirteenth of July the Pavlograds took part in a serious action\r
+for the first time.\r
+\r
+On the twelfth of July, on the eve of that action, there was a heavy\r
+storm of rain and hail. In general, the summer of 1812 was remarkable\r
+for its storms.\r
+\r
+The two Pavlograd squadrons were bivouacking on a field of rye, which\r
+was already in ear but had been completely trodden down by cattle and\r
+horses. The rain was descending in torrents, and Rostov, with a young\r
+officer named Ilyin, his protege, was sitting in a hastily constructed\r
+shelter. An officer of their regiment, with long mustaches extending\r
+onto his cheeks, who after riding to the staff had been overtaken by the\r
+rain, entered Rostov's shelter.\r
+\r
+"I have come from the staff, Count. Have you heard of Raevski's\r
+exploit?"\r
+\r
+And the officer gave them details of the Saltanov battle, which he had\r
+heard at the staff.\r
+\r
+Rostov, smoking his pipe and turning his head about as the water\r
+trickled down his neck, listened inattentively, with an occasional\r
+glance at Ilyin, who was pressing close to him. This officer, a lad of\r
+sixteen who had recently joined the regiment, was now in the same\r
+relation to Nicholas that Nicholas had been to Denisov seven years\r
+before. Ilyin tried to imitate Rostov in everything and adored him as a\r
+girl might have done.\r
+\r
+Zdrzhinski, the officer with the long mustache, spoke grandiloquently of\r
+the Saltanov dam being "a Russian Thermopylae," and of how a deed worthy\r
+of antiquity had been performed by General Raevski. He recounted how\r
+Raevski had led his two sons onto the dam under terrific fire and had\r
+charged with them beside him. Rostov heard the story and not only said\r
+nothing to encourage Zdrzhinski's enthusiasm but, on the contrary,\r
+looked like a man ashamed of what he was hearing, though with no\r
+intention of contradicting it. Since the campaigns of Austerlitz and of\r
+1807 Rostov knew by experience that men always lie when describing\r
+military exploits, as he himself had done when recounting them; besides\r
+that, he had experience enough to know that nothing happens in war at\r
+all as we can imagine or relate it. And so he did not like Zdrzhinski's\r
+tale, nor did he like Zdrzhinski himself who, with his mustaches\r
+extending over his cheeks, bent low over the face of his hearer, as was\r
+his habit, and crowded Rostov in the narrow shanty. Rostov looked at him\r
+in silence. "In the first place, there must have been such a confusion\r
+and crowding on the dam that was being attacked that if Raevski did lead\r
+his sons there, it could have had no effect except perhaps on some dozen\r
+men nearest to him," thought he, "the rest could not have seen how or\r
+with whom Raevski came onto the dam. And even those who did see it would\r
+not have been much stimulated by it, for what had they to do with\r
+Raevski's tender paternal feelings when their own skins were in danger?\r
+And besides, the fate of the Fatherland did not depend on whether they\r
+took the Saltanov dam or not, as we are told was the case at\r
+Thermopylae. So why should he have made such a sacrifice? And why expose\r
+his own children in the battle? I would not have taken my brother Petya\r
+there, or even Ilyin, who's a stranger to me but a nice lad, but would\r
+have tried to put them somewhere under cover," Nicholas continued to\r
+think, as he listened to Zdrzhinski. But he did not express his\r
+thoughts, for in such matters, too, he had gained experience. He knew\r
+that this tale redounded to the glory of our arms and so one had to\r
+pretend not to doubt it. And he acted accordingly.\r
+\r
+"I can't stand this any more," said Ilyin, noticing that Rostov did not\r
+relish Zdrzhinski's conversation. "My stockings and shirt... and the\r
+water is running on my seat! I'll go and look for shelter. The rain\r
+seems less heavy."\r
+\r
+Ilyin went out and Zdrzhinski rode away.\r
+\r
+Five minutes later Ilyin, splashing through the mud, came running back\r
+to the shanty.\r
+\r
+"Hurrah! Rostov, come quick! I've found it! About two hundred yards away\r
+there's a tavern where ours have already gathered. We can at least get\r
+dry there, and Mary Hendrikhovna's there."\r
+\r
+Mary Hendrikhovna was the wife of the regimental doctor, a pretty young\r
+German woman he had married in Poland. The doctor, whether from lack of\r
+means or because he did not like to part from his young wife in the\r
+early days of their marriage, took her about with him wherever the\r
+hussar regiment went and his jealousy had become a standing joke among\r
+the hussar officers.\r
+\r
+Rostov threw his cloak over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrushka to\r
+follow with the things, and--now slipping in the mud, now splashing\r
+right through it--set off with Ilyin in the lessening rain and the\r
+darkness that was occasionally rent by distant lightning.\r
+\r
+"Rostov, where are you?"\r
+\r
+"Here. What lightning!" they called to one another.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+In the tavern, before which stood the doctor's covered cart, there were\r
+already some five officers. Mary Hendrikhovna, a plump little blonde\r
+German, in a dressing jacket and nightcap, was sitting on a broad bench\r
+in the front corner. Her husband, the doctor, lay asleep behind her.\r
+Rostov and Ilyin, on entering the room, were welcomed with merry shouts\r
+and laughter.\r
+\r
+"Dear me, how jolly we are!" said Rostov laughing.\r
+\r
+"And why do you stand there gaping?"\r
+\r
+"What swells they are! Why, the water streams from them! Don't make our\r
+drawing room so wet."\r
+\r
+"Don't mess Mary Hendrikhovna's dress!" cried other voices.\r
+\r
+Rostov and Ilyin hastened to find a corner where they could change into\r
+dry clothes without offending Mary Hendrikhovna's modesty. They were\r
+going into a tiny recess behind a partition to change, but found it\r
+completely filled by three officers who sat playing cards by the light\r
+of a solitary candle on an empty box, and these officers would on no\r
+account yield their position. Mary Hendrikhovna obliged them with the\r
+loan of a petticoat to be used as a curtain, and behind that screen\r
+Rostov and Ilyin, helped by Lavrushka who had brought their kits,\r
+changed their wet things for dry ones.\r
+\r
+A fire was made up in the dilapidated brick stove. A board was found,\r
+fixed on two saddles and covered with a horsecloth, a small samovar was\r
+produced and a cellaret and half a bottle of rum, and having asked Mary\r
+Hendrikhovna to preside, they all crowded round her. One offered her a\r
+clean handkerchief to wipe her charming hands, another spread a jacket\r
+under her little feet to keep them from the damp, another hung his coat\r
+over the window to keep out the draft, and yet another waved the flies\r
+off her husband's face, lest he should wake up.\r
+\r
+"Leave him alone," said Mary Hendrikhovna, smiling timidly and happily.\r
+"He is sleeping well as it is, after a sleepless night."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no, Mary Hendrikhovna," replied the officer, "one must look after\r
+the doctor. Perhaps he'll take pity on me someday, when it comes to\r
+cutting off a leg or an arm for me."\r
+\r
+There were only three tumblers, the water was so muddy that one could\r
+not make out whether the tea was strong or weak, and the samovar held\r
+only six tumblers of water, but this made it all the pleasanter to take\r
+turns in order of seniority to receive one's tumbler from Mary\r
+Hendrikhovna's plump little hands with their short and not overclean\r
+nails. All the officers appeared to be, and really were, in love with\r
+her that evening. Even those playing cards behind the partition soon\r
+left their game and came over to the samovar, yielding to the general\r
+mood of courting Mary Hendrikhovna. She, seeing herself surrounded by\r
+such brilliant and polite young men, beamed with satisfaction, try as\r
+she might to hide it, and perturbed as she evidently was each time her\r
+husband moved in his sleep behind her.\r
+\r
+There was only one spoon, sugar was more plentiful than anything else,\r
+but it took too long to dissolve, so it was decided that Mary\r
+Hendrikhovna should stir the sugar for everyone in turn. Rostov received\r
+his tumbler, and adding some rum to it asked Mary Hendrikhovna to stir\r
+it.\r
+\r
+"But you take it without sugar?" she said, smiling all the time, as if\r
+everything she said and everything the others said was very amusing and\r
+had a double meaning.\r
+\r
+"It is not the sugar I want, but only that your little hand should stir\r
+my tea."\r
+\r
+Mary Hendrikhovna assented and began looking for the spoon which someone\r
+meanwhile had pounced on.\r
+\r
+"Use your finger, Mary Hendrikhovna, it will be still nicer," said\r
+Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Too hot!" she replied, blushing with pleasure.\r
+\r
+Ilyin put a few drops of rum into the bucket of water and brought it to\r
+Mary Hendrikhovna, asking her to stir it with her finger.\r
+\r
+"This is my cup," said he. "Only dip your finger in it and I'll drink it\r
+all up."\r
+\r
+When they had emptied the samovar, Rostov took a pack of cards and\r
+proposed that they should play "Kings" with Mary Hendrikhovna. They drew\r
+lots to settle who should make up her set. At Rostov's suggestion it was\r
+agreed that whoever became "King" should have the right to kiss Mary\r
+Hendrikhovna's hand, and that the "Booby" should go to refill and reheat\r
+the samovar for the doctor when the latter awoke.\r
+\r
+"Well, but supposing Mary Hendrikhovna is 'King'?" asked Ilyin.\r
+\r
+"As it is, she is Queen, and her word is law!"\r
+\r
+They had hardly begun to play before the doctor's disheveled head\r
+suddenly appeared from behind Mary Hendrikhovna. He had been awake for\r
+some time, listening to what was being said, and evidently found nothing\r
+entertaining or amusing in what was going on. His face was sad and\r
+depressed. Without greeting the officers, he scratched himself and asked\r
+to be allowed to pass as they were blocking the way. As soon as he had\r
+left the room all the officers burst into loud laughter and Mary\r
+Hendrikhovna blushed till her eyes filled with tears and thereby became\r
+still more attractive to them. Returning from the yard, the doctor told\r
+his wife (who had ceased to smile so happily, and looked at him in\r
+alarm, awaiting her sentence) that the rain had ceased and they must go\r
+to sleep in their covered cart, or everything in it would be stolen.\r
+\r
+"But I'll send an orderly.... Two of them!" said Rostov. "What an idea,\r
+doctor!"\r
+\r
+"I'll stand guard on it myself!" said Ilyin.\r
+\r
+"No, gentlemen, you have had your sleep, but I have not slept for two\r
+nights," replied the doctor, and he sat down morosely beside his wife,\r
+waiting for the game to end.\r
+\r
+Seeing his gloomy face as he frowned at his wife, the officers grew\r
+still merrier, and some of them could not refrain from laughter, for\r
+which they hurriedly sought plausible pretexts. When he had gone, taking\r
+his wife with him, and had settled down with her in their covered cart,\r
+the officers lay down in the tavern, covering themselves with their wet\r
+cloaks, but they did not sleep for a long time; now they exchanged\r
+remarks, recalling the doctor's uneasiness and his wife's delight, now\r
+they ran out into the porch and reported what was taking place in the\r
+covered trap. Several times Rostov, covering his head, tried to go to\r
+sleep, but some remark would arouse him and conversation would be\r
+resumed, to the accompaniment of unreasoning, merry, childlike laughter.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+It was nearly three o'clock but no one was yet asleep, when the\r
+quartermaster appeared with an order to move on to the little town of\r
+Ostrovna. Still laughing and talking, the officers began hurriedly\r
+getting ready and again boiled some muddy water in the samovar. But\r
+Rostov went off to his squadron without waiting for tea. Day was\r
+breaking, the rain had ceased, and the clouds were dispersing. It felt\r
+damp and cold, especially in clothes that were still moist. As they left\r
+the tavern in the twilight of the dawn, Rostov and Ilyin both glanced\r
+under the wet and glistening leather hood of the doctor's cart, from\r
+under the apron of which his feet were sticking out, and in the middle\r
+of which his wife's nightcap was visible and her sleepy breathing\r
+audible.\r
+\r
+"She really is a dear little thing," said Rostov to Ilyin, who was\r
+following him.\r
+\r
+"A charming woman!" said Ilyin, with all the gravity of a boy of\r
+sixteen.\r
+\r
+Half an hour later the squadron was lined up on the road. The command\r
+was heard to "mount" and the soldiers crossed themselves and mounted.\r
+Rostov riding in front gave the order "Forward!" and the hussars, with\r
+clanking sabers and subdued talk, their horses' hoofs splashing in the\r
+mud, defiled in fours and moved along the broad road planted with birch\r
+trees on each side, following the infantry and a battery that had gone\r
+on in front.\r
+\r
+Tattered, blue-purple clouds, reddening in the east, were scudding\r
+before the wind. It was growing lighter and lighter. That curly grass\r
+which always grows by country roadsides became clearly visible, still\r
+wet with the night's rain; the drooping branches of the birches, also\r
+wet, swayed in the wind and flung down bright drops of water to one\r
+side. The soldiers' faces were more and more clearly visible. Rostov,\r
+always closely followed by Ilyin, rode along the side of the road\r
+between two rows of birch trees.\r
+\r
+When campaigning, Rostov allowed himself the indulgence of riding not a\r
+regimental but a Cossack horse. A judge of horses and a sportsman, he\r
+had lately procured himself a large, fine, mettlesome, Donets horse,\r
+dun-colored, with light mane and tail, and when he rode it no one could\r
+outgallop him. To ride this horse was a pleasure to him, and he thought\r
+of the horse, of the morning, of the doctor's wife, but not once of the\r
+impending danger.\r
+\r
+Formerly, when going into action, Rostov had felt afraid; now he had not\r
+the least feeling of fear. He was fearless, not because he had grown\r
+used to being under fire (one cannot grow used to danger), but because\r
+he had learned how to manage his thoughts when in danger. He had grown\r
+accustomed when going into action to think about anything but what would\r
+seem most likely to interest him--the impending danger. During the first\r
+period of his service, hard as he tried and much as he reproached\r
+himself with cowardice, he had not been able to do this, but with time\r
+it had come of itself. Now he rode beside Ilyin under the birch trees,\r
+occasionally plucking leaves from a branch that met his hand, sometimes\r
+touching his horse's side with his foot, or, without turning round,\r
+handing a pipe he had finished to an hussar riding behind him, with as\r
+calm and careless an air as though he were merely out for a ride. He\r
+glanced with pity at the excited face of Ilyin, who talked much and in\r
+great agitation. He knew from experience the tormenting expectation of\r
+terror and death the cornet was suffering and knew that only time could\r
+help him.\r
+\r
+As soon as the sun appeared in a clear strip of sky beneath the clouds,\r
+the wind fell, as if it dared not spoil the beauty of the summer morning\r
+after the storm; drops still continued to fall, but vertically now, and\r
+all was still. The whole sun appeared on the horizon and disappeared\r
+behind a long narrow cloud that hung above it. A few minutes later it\r
+reappeared brighter still from behind the top of the cloud, tearing its\r
+edge. Everything grew bright and glittered. And with that light, and as\r
+if in reply to it, came the sound of guns ahead of them.\r
+\r
+Before Rostov had had time to consider and determine the distance of\r
+that firing, Count Ostermann-Tolstoy's adjutant came galloping from\r
+Vitebsk with orders to advance at a trot along the road.\r
+\r
+The squadron overtook and passed the infantry and the battery--which had\r
+also quickened their pace--rode down a hill, and passing through an\r
+empty and deserted village again ascended. The horses began to lather\r
+and the men to flush.\r
+\r
+"Halt! Dress your ranks!" the order of the regimental commander was\r
+heard ahead. "Forward by the left. Walk, march!" came the order from in\r
+front.\r
+\r
+And the hussars, passing along the line of troops on the left flank of\r
+our position, halted behind our uhlans who were in the front line. To\r
+the right stood our infantry in a dense column: they were the reserve.\r
+Higher up the hill, on the very horizon, our guns were visible through\r
+the wonderfully clear air, brightly illuminated by slanting morning\r
+sunbeams. In front, beyond a hollow dale, could be seen the enemy's\r
+columns and guns. Our advanced line, already in action, could be heard\r
+briskly exchanging shots with the enemy in the dale.\r
+\r
+At these sounds, long unheard, Rostov's spirits rose, as at the strains\r
+of the merriest music. Trap-ta-ta-tap! cracked the shots, now together,\r
+now several quickly one after another. Again all was silent and then\r
+again it sounded as if someone were walking on detonators and exploding\r
+them.\r
+\r
+The hussars remained in the same place for about an hour. A cannonade\r
+began. Count Ostermann with his suite rode up behind the squadron,\r
+halted, spoke to the commander of the regiment, and rode up the hill to\r
+the guns.\r
+\r
+After Ostermann had gone, a command rang out to the uhlans.\r
+\r
+"Form column! Prepare to charge!"\r
+\r
+The infantry in front of them parted into platoons to allow the cavalry\r
+to pass. The uhlans started, the streamers on their spears fluttering,\r
+and trotted downhill toward the French cavalry which was seen below to\r
+the left.\r
+\r
+As soon as the uhlans descended the hill, the hussars were ordered up\r
+the hill to support the battery. As they took the places vacated by the\r
+uhlans, bullets came from the front, whining and whistling, but fell\r
+spent without taking effect.\r
+\r
+The sounds, which he had not heard for so long, had an even more\r
+pleasurable and exhilarating effect on Rostov than the previous sounds\r
+of firing. Drawing himself up, he viewed the field of battle opening out\r
+before him from the hill, and with his whole soul followed the movement\r
+of the uhlans. They swooped down close to the French dragoons, something\r
+confused happened there amid the smoke, and five minutes later our\r
+uhlans were galloping back, not to the place they had occupied but more\r
+to the left, and among the orange-colored uhlans on chestnut horses and\r
+behind them, in a large group, blue French dragoons on gray horses could\r
+be seen.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+Rostov, with his keen sportsman's eye, was one of the first to catch\r
+sight of these blue French dragoons pursuing our uhlans. Nearer and\r
+nearer in disorderly crowds came the uhlans and the French dragoons\r
+pursuing them. He could already see how these men, who looked so small\r
+at the foot of the hill, jostled and overtook one another, waving their\r
+arms and their sabers in the air.\r
+\r
+Rostov gazed at what was happening before him as at a hunt. He felt\r
+instinctively that if the hussars struck at the French dragoons now, the\r
+latter could not withstand them, but if a charge was to be made it must\r
+be done now, at that very moment, or it would be too late. He looked\r
+around. A captain, standing beside him, was gazing like himself with\r
+eyes fixed on the cavalry below them.\r
+\r
+"Andrew Sevastyanych!" said Rostov. "You know, we could crush them...."\r
+\r
+"A fine thing too!" replied the captain, "and really..."\r
+\r
+Rostov, without waiting to hear him out, touched his horse, galloped to\r
+the front of his squadron, and before he had time to finish giving the\r
+word of command, the whole squadron, sharing his feeling, was following\r
+him. Rostov himself did not know how or why he did it. He acted as he\r
+did when hunting, without reflecting or considering. He saw the dragoons\r
+near and that they were galloping in disorder; he knew they could not\r
+withstand an attack--knew there was only that moment and that if he let\r
+it slip it would not return. The bullets were whining and whistling so\r
+stimulatingly around him and his horse was so eager to go that he could\r
+not restrain himself. He touched his horse, gave the word of command,\r
+and immediately, hearing behind him the tramp of the horses of his\r
+deployed squadron, rode at full trot downhill toward the dragoons.\r
+Hardly had they reached the bottom of the hill before their pace\r
+instinctively changed to a gallop, which grew faster and faster as they\r
+drew nearer to our uhlans and the French dragoons who galloped after\r
+them. The dragoons were now close at hand. On seeing the hussars, the\r
+foremost began to turn, while those behind began to halt. With the same\r
+feeling with which he had galloped across the path of a wolf, Rostov\r
+gave rein to his Donets horse and galloped to intersect the path of the\r
+dragoons' disordered lines. One Uhlan stopped, another who was on foot\r
+flung himself to the ground to avoid being knocked over, and a riderless\r
+horse fell in among the hussars. Nearly all the French dragoons were\r
+galloping back. Rostov, picking out one on a gray horse, dashed after\r
+him. On the way he came upon a bush, his gallant horse cleared it, and\r
+almost before he had righted himself in his saddle he saw that he would\r
+immediately overtake the enemy he had selected. That Frenchman, by his\r
+uniform an officer, was going at a gallop, crouching on his gray horse\r
+and urging it on with his saber. In another moment Rostov's horse dashed\r
+its breast against the hindquarters of the officer's horse, almost\r
+knocking it over, and at the same instant Rostov, without knowing why,\r
+raised his saber and struck the Frenchman with it.\r
+\r
+The instant he had done this, all Rostov's animation vanished. The\r
+officer fell, not so much from the blow--which had but slightly cut his\r
+arm above the elbow--as from the shock to his horse and from fright.\r
+Rostov reined in his horse, and his eyes sought his foe to see whom he\r
+had vanquished. The French dragoon officer was hopping with one foot on\r
+the ground, the other being caught in the stirrup. His eyes, screwed up\r
+with fear as if he every moment expected another blow, gazed up at\r
+Rostov with shrinking terror. His pale and mud-stained face--fair and\r
+young, with a dimple in the chin and light-blue eyes--was not an enemy's\r
+face at all suited to a battlefield, but a most ordinary, homelike face.\r
+Before Rostov had decided what to do with him, the officer cried, "I\r
+surrender!" He hurriedly but vainly tried to get his foot out of the\r
+stirrup and did not remove his frightened blue eyes from Rostov's face.\r
+Some hussars who galloped up disengaged his foot and helped him into the\r
+saddle. On all sides, the hussars were busy with the dragoons; one was\r
+wounded, but though his face was bleeding, he would not give up his\r
+horse; another was perched up behind an hussar with his arms round him;\r
+a third was being helped by an hussar to mount his horse. In front, the\r
+French infantry were firing as they ran. The hussars galloped hastily\r
+back with their prisoners. Rostov galloped back with the rest, aware of\r
+an unpleasant feeling of depression in his heart. Something vague and\r
+confused, which he could not at all account for, had come over him with\r
+the capture of that officer and the blow he had dealt him.\r
+\r
+Count Ostermann-Tolstoy met the returning hussars, sent for Rostov,\r
+thanked him, and said he would report his gallant deed to the Emperor\r
+and would recommend him for a St. George's Cross. When sent for by Count\r
+Ostermann, Rostov, remembering that he had charged without orders, felt\r
+sure his commander was sending for him to punish him for breach of\r
+discipline. Ostermann's flattering words and promise of a reward should\r
+therefore have struck him all the more pleasantly, but he still felt\r
+that same vaguely disagreeable feeling of moral nausea. "But what on\r
+earth is worrying me?" he asked himself as he rode back from the\r
+general. "Ilyin? No, he's safe. Have I disgraced myself in any way? No,\r
+that's not it." Something else, resembling remorse, tormented him. "Yes,\r
+oh yes, that French officer with the dimple. And I remember how my arm\r
+paused when I raised it."\r
+\r
+Rostov saw the prisoners being led away and galloped after them to have\r
+a look at his Frenchman with the dimple on his chin. He was sitting in\r
+his foreign uniform on an hussar packhorse and looked anxiously about\r
+him; The sword cut on his arm could scarcely be called a wound. He\r
+glanced at Rostov with a feigned smile and waved his hand in greeting.\r
+Rostov still had the same indefinite feeling, as of shame.\r
+\r
+All that day and the next his friends and comrades noticed that Rostov,\r
+without being dull or angry, was silent, thoughtful, and preoccupied. He\r
+drank reluctantly, tried to remain alone, and kept turning something\r
+over in his mind.\r
+\r
+Rostov was always thinking about that brilliant exploit of his, which to\r
+his amazement had gained him the St. George's Cross and even given him a\r
+reputation for bravery, and there was something he could not at all\r
+understand. "So others are even more afraid than I am!" he thought. "So\r
+that's all there is in what is called heroism! And did I do it for my\r
+country's sake? And how was he to blame, with his dimple and blue eyes?\r
+And how frightened he was! He thought that I should kill him. Why should\r
+I kill him? My hand trembled. And they have given me a St. George's\r
+Cross.... I can't make it out at all."\r
+\r
+But while Nicholas was considering these questions and still could reach\r
+no clear solution of what puzzled him so, the wheel of fortune in the\r
+service, as often happens, turned in his favor. After the affair at\r
+Ostrovna he was brought into notice, received command of an hussar\r
+battalion, and when a brave officer was needed he was chosen.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+On receiving news of Natasha's illness, the countess, though not quite\r
+well yet and still weak, went to Moscow with Petya and the rest of the\r
+household, and the whole family moved from Marya Dmitrievna's house to\r
+their own and settled down in town.\r
+\r
+Natasha's illness was so serious that, fortunately for her and for her\r
+parents, the consideration of all that had caused the illness, her\r
+conduct and the breaking off of her engagement, receded into the\r
+background. She was so ill that it was impossible for them to consider\r
+in how far she was to blame for what had happened. She could not eat or\r
+sleep, grew visibly thinner, coughed, and, as the doctors made them\r
+feel, was in danger. They could not think of anything but how to help\r
+her. Doctors came to see her singly and in consultation, talked much in\r
+French, German, and Latin, blamed one another, and prescribed a great\r
+variety of medicines for all the diseases known to them, but the simple\r
+idea never occurred to any of them that they could not know the disease\r
+Natasha was suffering from, as no disease suffered by a live man can be\r
+known, for every living person has his own peculiarities and always has\r
+his own peculiar, personal, novel, complicated disease, unknown to\r
+medicine--not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves, and so\r
+on mentioned in medical books, but a disease consisting of one of the\r
+innumerable combinations of the maladies of those organs. This simple\r
+thought could not occur to the doctors (as it cannot occur to a wizard\r
+that he is unable to work his charms) because the business of their\r
+lives was to cure, and they received money for it and had spent the best\r
+years of their lives on that business. But, above all, that thought was\r
+kept out of their minds by the fact that they saw they were really\r
+useful, as in fact they were to the whole Rostov family. Their\r
+usefulness did not depend on making the patient swallow substances for\r
+the most part harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible, as they were\r
+given in small doses), but they were useful, necessary, and\r
+indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and of\r
+those who loved her--and that is why there are, and always will be,\r
+pseudo-healers, wise women, homeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied\r
+that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that\r
+something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering. They\r
+satisfied the need seen in its most elementary form in a child, when it\r
+wants to have a place rubbed that has been hurt. A child knocks itself\r
+and runs at once to the arms of its mother or nurse to have the aching\r
+spot rubbed or kissed, and it feels better when this is done. The child\r
+cannot believe that the strongest and wisest of its people have no\r
+remedy for its pain, and the hope of relief and the expression of its\r
+mother's sympathy while she rubs the bump comforts it. The doctors were\r
+of use to Natasha because they kissed and rubbed her bump, assuring her\r
+that it would soon pass if only the coachman went to the chemist's in\r
+the Arbat and got a powder and some pills in a pretty box for a ruble\r
+and seventy kopeks, and if she took those powders in boiled water at\r
+intervals of precisely two hours, neither more nor less.\r
+\r
+What would Sonya and the count and countess have done, how would they\r
+have looked, if nothing had been done, if there had not been those pills\r
+to give by the clock, the warm drinks, the chicken cutlets, and all the\r
+other details of life ordered by the doctors, the carrying out of which\r
+supplied an occupation and consolation to the family circle? How would\r
+the count have borne his dearly loved daughter's illness had he not\r
+known that it was costing him a thousand rubles, and that he would not\r
+grudge thousands more to benefit her, or had he not known that if her\r
+illness continued he would not grudge yet other thousands and would take\r
+her abroad for consultations there, and had he not been able to explain\r
+the details of how Metivier and Feller had not understood the symptoms,\r
+but Frise had, and Mudrov had diagnosed them even better? What would the\r
+countess have done had she not been able sometimes to scold the invalid\r
+for not strictly obeying the doctor's orders?\r
+\r
+"You'll never get well like that," she would say, forgetting her grief\r
+in her vexation, "if you won't obey the doctor and take your medicine at\r
+the right time! You mustn't trifle with it, you know, or it may turn to\r
+pneumonia," she would go on, deriving much comfort from the utterance of\r
+that foreign word, incomprehensible to others as well as to herself.\r
+\r
+What would Sonya have done without the glad consciousness that she had\r
+not undressed during the first three nights, in order to be ready to\r
+carry out all the doctor's injunctions with precision, and that she\r
+still kept awake at night so as not to miss the proper time when the\r
+slightly harmful pills in the little gilt box had to be administered?\r
+Even to Natasha herself it was pleasant to see that so many sacrifices\r
+were being made for her sake, and to know that she had to take medicine\r
+at certain hours, though she declared that no medicine would cure her\r
+and that it was all nonsense. And it was even pleasant to be able to\r
+show, by disregarding the orders, that she did not believe in medical\r
+treatment and did not value her life.\r
+\r
+The doctor came every day, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and\r
+regardless of her grief-stricken face joked with her. But when he had\r
+gone into another room, to which the countess hurriedly followed him, he\r
+assumed a grave air and thoughtfully shaking his head said that though\r
+there was danger, he had hopes of the effect of this last medicine and\r
+one must wait and see, that the malady was chiefly mental, but... And\r
+the countess, trying to conceal the action from herself and from him,\r
+slipped a gold coin into his hand and always returned to the patient\r
+with a more tranquil mind.\r
+\r
+The symptoms of Natasha's illness were that she ate little, slept\r
+little, coughed, and was always low-spirited. The doctors said that she\r
+could not get on without medical treatment, so they kept her in the\r
+stifling atmosphere of the town, and the Rostovs did not move to the\r
+country that summer of 1812.\r
+\r
+In spite of the many pills she swallowed and the drops and powders out\r
+of the little bottles and boxes of which Madame Schoss who was fond of\r
+such things made a large collection, and in spite of being deprived of\r
+the country life to which she was accustomed, youth prevailed. Natasha's\r
+grief began to be overlaid by the impressions of daily life, it ceased\r
+to press so painfully on her heart, it gradually faded into the past,\r
+and she began to recover physically.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+Natasha was calmer but no happier. She not merely avoided all external\r
+forms of pleasure--balls, promenades, concerts, and theaters--but she\r
+never laughed without a sound of tears in her laughter. She could not\r
+sing. As soon as she began to laugh, or tried to sing by herself, tears\r
+choked her: tears of remorse, tears at the recollection of those pure\r
+times which could never return, tears of vexation that she should so\r
+uselessly have ruined her young life which might have been so happy.\r
+Laughter and singing in particular seemed to her like a blasphemy, in\r
+face of her sorrow. Without any need of self-restraint, no wish to\r
+coquet ever entered her head. She said and felt at that time that no man\r
+was more to her than Nastasya Ivanovna, the buffoon. Something stood\r
+sentinel within her and forbade her every joy. Besides, she had lost all\r
+the old interests of her carefree girlish life that had been so full of\r
+hope. The previous autumn, the hunting, "Uncle," and the Christmas\r
+holidays spent with Nicholas at Otradnoe were what she recalled oftenest\r
+and most painfully. What would she not have given to bring back even a\r
+single day of that time! But it was gone forever. Her presentiment at\r
+the time had not deceived her--that that state of freedom and readiness\r
+for any enjoyment would not return again. Yet it was necessary to live\r
+on.\r
+\r
+It comforted her to reflect that she was not better as she had formerly\r
+imagined, but worse, much worse, than anybody else in the world. But\r
+this was not enough. She knew that, and asked herself, "What next?" But\r
+there was nothing to come. There was no joy in life, yet life was\r
+passing. Natasha apparently tried not to be a burden or a hindrance to\r
+anyone, but wanted nothing for herself. She kept away from everyone in\r
+the house and felt at ease only with her brother Petya. She liked to be\r
+with him better than with the others, and when alone with him she\r
+sometimes laughed. She hardly ever left the house and of those who came\r
+to see them was glad to see only one person, Pierre. It would have been\r
+impossible to treat her with more delicacy, greater care, and at the\r
+same time more seriously than did Count Bezukhov. Natasha unconsciously\r
+felt this delicacy and so found great pleasure in his society. But she\r
+was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre's part\r
+seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind\r
+to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness. Sometimes Natasha\r
+noticed embarrassment and awkwardness on his part in her presence,\r
+especially when he wanted to do something to please her, or feared that\r
+something they spoke of would awaken memories distressing to her. She\r
+noticed this and attributed it to his general kindness and shyness,\r
+which she imagined must be the same toward everyone as it was to her.\r
+After those involuntary words--that if he were free he would have asked\r
+on his knees for her hand and her love--uttered at a moment when she was\r
+so strongly agitated, Pierre never spoke to Natasha of his feelings; and\r
+it seemed plain to her that those words, which had then so comforted\r
+her, were spoken as all sorts of meaningless words are spoken to comfort\r
+a crying child. It was not because Pierre was a married man, but because\r
+Natasha felt very strongly with him that moral barrier the absence of\r
+which she had experienced with Kuragin that it never entered her head\r
+that the relations between him and herself could lead to love on her\r
+part, still less on his, or even to the kind of tender, self-conscious,\r
+romantic friendship between a man and a woman of which she had known\r
+several instances.\r
+\r
+Before the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agrafena Ivanovna Belova, a\r
+country neighbor of the Rostovs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions at\r
+the shrines of the Moscow saints. She suggested that Natasha should fast\r
+and prepare for Holy Communion, and Natasha gladly welcomed the idea.\r
+Despite the doctor's orders that she should not go out early in the\r
+morning, Natasha insisted on fasting and preparing for the sacrament,\r
+not as they generally prepared for it in the Rostov family by attending\r
+three services in their own house, but as Agrafena Ivanovna did, by\r
+going to church every day for a week and not once missing Vespers,\r
+Matins, or Mass.\r
+\r
+The countess was pleased with Natasha's zeal; after the poor results of\r
+the medical treatment, in the depths of her heart she hoped that prayer\r
+might help her daughter more than medicines and, though not without fear\r
+and concealing it from the doctor, she agreed to Natasha's wish and\r
+entrusted her to Belova. Agrafena Ivanovna used to come to wake Natasha\r
+at three in the morning, but generally found her already awake. She was\r
+afraid of being late for Matins. Hastily washing, and meekly putting on\r
+her shabbiest dress and an old mantilla, Natasha, shivering in the fresh\r
+air, went out into the deserted streets lit by the clear light of dawn.\r
+By Agrafena Ivanovna's advice Natasha prepared herself not in their own\r
+parish, but at a church where, according to the devout Agrafena\r
+Ivanovna, the priest was a man of very severe and lofty life. There were\r
+never many people in the church; Natasha always stood beside Belova in\r
+the customary place before an icon of the Blessed Virgin, let into the\r
+screen before the choir on the left side, and a feeling, new to her, of\r
+humility before something great and incomprehensible, seized her when at\r
+that unusual morning hour, gazing at the dark face of the Virgin\r
+illuminated by the candles burning before it and by the morning light\r
+falling from the window, she listened to the words of the service which\r
+she tried to follow with understanding. When she understood them her\r
+personal feeling became interwoven in the prayers with shades of its\r
+own. When she did not understand, it was sweeter still to think that the\r
+wish to understand everything is pride, that it is impossible to\r
+understand all, that it is only necessary to believe and to commit\r
+oneself to God, whom she felt guiding her soul at those moments. She\r
+crossed herself, bowed low, and when she did not understand, in horror\r
+at her own vileness, simply asked God to forgive her everything,\r
+everything, to have mercy upon her. The prayers to which she surrendered\r
+herself most of all were those of repentance. On her way home at an\r
+early hour when she met no one but bricklayers going to work or men\r
+sweeping the street, and everybody within the houses was still asleep,\r
+Natasha experienced a feeling new to her, a sense of the possibility of\r
+correcting her faults, the possibility of a new, clean life, and of\r
+happiness.\r
+\r
+During the whole week she spent in this way, that feeling grew every\r
+day. And the happiness of taking communion, or "communing" as Agrafena\r
+Ivanovna, joyously playing with the word, called it, seemed to Natasha\r
+so great that she felt she should never live till that blessed Sunday.\r
+\r
+But the happy day came, and on that memorable Sunday, when, dressed in\r
+white muslin, she returned home after communion, for the first time for\r
+many months she felt calm and not oppressed by the thought of the life\r
+that lay before her.\r
+\r
+The doctor who came to see her that day ordered her to continue the\r
+powders he had prescribed a fortnight previously.\r
+\r
+"She must certainly go on taking them morning and evening," said he,\r
+evidently sincerely satisfied with his success. "Only, please be\r
+particular about it.\r
+\r
+"Be quite easy," he continued playfully, as he adroitly took the gold\r
+coin in his palm. "She will soon be singing and frolicking about. The\r
+last medicine has done her a very great deal of good. She has freshened\r
+up very much."\r
+\r
+The countess, with a cheerful expression on her face, looked down at her\r
+nails and spat a little for luck as she returned to the drawing room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+At the beginning of July more and more disquieting reports about the war\r
+began to spread in Moscow; people spoke of an appeal by the Emperor to\r
+the people, and of his coming himself from the army to Moscow. And as up\r
+to the eleventh of July no manifesto or appeal had been received,\r
+exaggerated reports became current about them and about the position of\r
+Russia. It was said that the Emperor was leaving the army because it was\r
+in danger, it was said that Smolensk had surrendered, that Napoleon had\r
+an army of a million and only a miracle could save Russia.\r
+\r
+On the eleventh of July, which was Saturday, the manifesto was received\r
+but was not yet in print, and Pierre, who was at the Rostovs', promised\r
+to come to dinner next day, Sunday, and bring a copy of the manifesto\r
+and appeal, which he would obtain from Count Rostopchin.\r
+\r
+That Sunday, the Rostovs went to Mass at the Razumovskis' private chapel\r
+as usual. It was a hot July day. Even at ten o'clock, when the Rostovs\r
+got out of their carriage at the chapel, the sultry air, the shouts of\r
+hawkers, the light and gay summer clothes of the crowd, the dusty leaves\r
+of the trees on the boulevard, the sounds of the band and the white\r
+trousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattling of wheels on\r
+the cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine were all full of that\r
+summer languor, that content and discontent with the present, which is\r
+most strongly felt on a bright, hot day in town. All the Moscow\r
+notabilities, all the Rostovs' acquaintances, were at the Razumovskis'\r
+chapel, for, as if expecting something to happen, many wealthy families\r
+who usually left town for their country estates had not gone away that\r
+summer. As Natasha, at her mother's side, passed through the crowd\r
+behind a liveried footman who cleared the way for them, she heard a\r
+young man speaking about her in too loud a whisper.\r
+\r
+"That's Rostova, the one who..."\r
+\r
+"She's much thinner, but all the same she's pretty!"\r
+\r
+She heard, or thought she heard, the names of Kuragin and Bolkonski. But\r
+she was always imagining that. It always seemed to her that everyone who\r
+looked at her was thinking only of what had happened to her. With a\r
+sinking heart, wretched as she always was now when she found herself in\r
+a crowd, Natasha in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace walked-\r
+-as women can walk--with the more repose and stateliness the greater the\r
+pain and shame in her soul. She knew for certain that she was pretty,\r
+but this no longer gave her satisfaction as it used to. On the contrary\r
+it tormented her more than anything else of late, and particularly so on\r
+this bright, hot summer day in town. "It's Sunday again--another week\r
+past," she thought, recalling that she had been here the Sunday before,\r
+"and always the same life that is no life, and the same surroundings in\r
+which it used to be so easy to live. I'm pretty, I'm young, and I know\r
+that now I am good. I used to be bad, but now I know I am good," she\r
+thought, "but yet my best years are slipping by and are no good to\r
+anyone." She stood by her mother's side and exchanged nods with\r
+acquaintances near her. From habit she scrutinized the ladies' dresses,\r
+condemned the bearing of a lady standing close by who was not crossing\r
+herself properly but in a cramped manner, and again she thought with\r
+vexation that she was herself being judged and was judging others, and\r
+suddenly, at the sound of the service, she felt horrified at her own\r
+vileness, horrified that the former purity of her soul was again lost to\r
+her.\r
+\r
+A comely, fresh-looking old man was conducting the service with that\r
+mild solemnity which has so elevating and soothing an effect on the\r
+souls of the worshipers. The gates of the sanctuary screen were closed,\r
+the curtain was slowly drawn, and from behind it a soft mysterious voice\r
+pronounced some words. Tears, the cause of which she herself did not\r
+understand, made Natasha's breast heave, and a joyous but oppressive\r
+feeling agitated her.\r
+\r
+"Teach me what I should do, how to live my life, how I may grow good\r
+forever, forever!" she pleaded.\r
+\r
+The deacon came out onto the raised space before the altar screen and,\r
+holding his thumb extended, drew his long hair from under his dalmatic\r
+and, making the sign of the cross on his breast, began in a loud and\r
+solemn voice to recite the words of the prayer...\r
+\r
+"In peace let us pray unto the Lord."\r
+\r
+"As one community, without distinction of class, without enmity, united\r
+by brotherly love--let us pray!" thought Natasha.\r
+\r
+"For the peace that is from above, and for the salvation of our souls."\r
+\r
+"For the world of angels and all the spirits who dwell above us," prayed\r
+Natasha.\r
+\r
+When they prayed for the warriors, she thought of her brother and\r
+Denisov. When they prayed for all traveling by land and sea, she\r
+remembered Prince Andrew, prayed for him, and asked God to forgive her\r
+all the wrongs she had done him. When they prayed for those who love us,\r
+she prayed for the members of her own family, her father and mother and\r
+Sonya, realizing for the first time how wrongly she had acted toward\r
+them, and feeling all the strength of her love for them. When they\r
+prayed for those who hate us, she tried to think of her enemies and\r
+people who hated her, in order to pray for them. She included among her\r
+enemies the creditors and all who had business dealings with her father,\r
+and always at the thought of enemies and those who hated her she\r
+remembered Anatole who had done her so much harm--and though he did not\r
+hate her she gladly prayed for him as for an enemy. Only at prayer did\r
+she feel able to think clearly and calmly of Prince Andrew and Anatole,\r
+as men for whom her feelings were as nothing compared with her awe and\r
+devotion to God. When they prayed for the Imperial family and the Synod,\r
+she bowed very low and made the sign of the cross, saying to herself\r
+that even if she did not understand, still she could not doubt, and at\r
+any rate loved the governing Synod and prayed for it.\r
+\r
+When he had finished the Litany the deacon crossed the stole over his\r
+breast and said, "Let us commit ourselves and our whole lives to Christ\r
+the Lord!"\r
+\r
+"Commit ourselves to God," Natasha inwardly repeated. "Lord God, I\r
+submit myself to Thy will!" she thought. "I want nothing, wish for\r
+nothing; teach me what to do and how to use my will! Take me, take me!"\r
+prayed Natasha, with impatient emotion in her heart, not crossing\r
+herself but letting her slender arms hang down as if expecting some\r
+invisible power at any moment to take her and deliver her from herself,\r
+from her regrets, desires, remorse, hopes, and sins.\r
+\r
+The countess looked round several times at her daughter's softened face\r
+and shining eyes and prayed God to help her.\r
+\r
+Unexpectedly, in the middle of the service, and not in the usual order\r
+Natasha knew so well, the deacon brought out a small stool, the one he\r
+knelt on when praying on Trinity Sunday, and placed it before the doors\r
+of the sanctuary screen. The priest came out with his purple velvet\r
+biretta on his head, adjusted his hair, and knelt down with an effort.\r
+Everybody followed his example and they looked at one another in\r
+surprise. Then came the prayer just received from the Synod--a prayer\r
+for the deliverance of Russia from hostile invasion.\r
+\r
+"Lord God of might, God of our salvation!" began the priest in that\r
+voice, clear, not grandiloquent but mild, in which only the Slav clergy\r
+read and which acts so irresistibly on a Russian heart.\r
+\r
+"Lord God of might, God of our salvation! Look this day in mercy and\r
+blessing on Thy humble people, and graciously hear us, spare us, and\r
+have mercy upon us! This foe confounding Thy land, desiring to lay waste\r
+the whole world, rises against us; these lawless men are gathered\r
+together to overthrow Thy kingdom, to destroy Thy dear Jerusalem, Thy\r
+beloved Russia; to defile Thy temples, to overthrow Thine altars, and to\r
+desecrate our holy shrines. How long, O Lord, how long shall the wicked\r
+triumph? How long shall they wield unlawful power?\r
+\r
+"Lord God! Hear us when we pray to Thee; strengthen with Thy might our\r
+most gracious sovereign lord, the Emperor Alexander Pavlovich; be\r
+mindful of his uprightness and meekness, reward him according to his\r
+righteousness, and let it preserve us, Thy chosen Israel! Bless his\r
+counsels, his undertakings, and his work; strengthen his kingdom by\r
+Thine almighty hand, and give him victory over his enemy, even as Thou\r
+gavest Moses the victory over Amalek, Gideon over Midian, and David over\r
+Goliath. Preserve his army, put a bow of brass in the hands of those who\r
+have armed themselves in Thy Name, and gird their loins with strength\r
+for the fight. Take up the spear and shield and arise to help us;\r
+confound and put to shame those who have devised evil against us, may\r
+they be before the faces of Thy faithful warriors as dust before the\r
+wind, and may Thy mighty Angel confound them and put them to flight; may\r
+they be ensnared when they know it not, and may the plots they have laid\r
+in secret be turned against them; let them fall before Thy servants'\r
+feet and be laid low by our hosts! Lord, Thou art able to save both\r
+great and small; Thou art God, and man cannot prevail against Thee!\r
+\r
+"God of our fathers! Remember Thy bounteous mercy and loving-kindness\r
+which are from of old; turn not Thy face from us, but be gracious to our\r
+unworthiness, and in Thy great goodness and Thy many mercies regard not\r
+our transgressions and iniquities! Create in us a clean heart and renew\r
+a right spirit within us, strengthen us all in Thy faith, fortify our\r
+hope, inspire us with true love one for another, arm us with unity of\r
+spirit in the righteous defense of the heritage Thou gavest to us and to\r
+our fathers, and let not the scepter of the wicked be exalted against\r
+the destiny of those Thou hast sanctified.\r
+\r
+"O Lord our God, in whom we believe and in whom we put our trust, let us\r
+not be confounded in our hope of Thy mercy, and give us a token of Thy\r
+blessing, that those who hate us and our Orthodox faith may see it and\r
+be put to shame and perish, and may all the nations know that Thou art\r
+the Lord and we are Thy people. Show Thy mercy upon us this day, O Lord,\r
+and grant us Thy salvation; make the hearts of Thy servants to rejoice\r
+in Thy mercy; smite down our enemies and destroy them swiftly beneath\r
+the feet of Thy faithful servants! For Thou art the defense, the succor,\r
+and the victory of them that put their trust in Thee, and to Thee be all\r
+glory, to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and forever, world without\r
+end. Amen."\r
+\r
+In Natasha's receptive condition of soul this prayer affected her\r
+strongly. She listened to every word about the victory of Moses over\r
+Amalek, of Gideon over Midian, and of David over Goliath, and about the\r
+destruction of "Thy Jerusalem," and she prayed to God with the\r
+tenderness and emotion with which her heart was overflowing, but without\r
+fully understanding what she was asking of God in that prayer. She\r
+shared with all her heart in the prayer for the spirit of righteousness,\r
+for the strengthening of the heart by faith and hope, and its animation\r
+by love. But she could not pray that her enemies might be trampled under\r
+foot when but a few minutes before she had been wishing she had more of\r
+them that she might pray for them. But neither could she doubt the\r
+righteousness of the prayer that was being read on bended knees. She\r
+felt in her heart a devout and tremulous awe at the thought of the\r
+punishment that overtakes men for their sins, and especially of her own\r
+sins, and she prayed to God to forgive them all, and her too, and to\r
+give them all, and her too, peace and happiness. And it seemed to her\r
+that God heard her prayer.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+From the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostovs' with Natasha's\r
+grateful look fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed to\r
+be fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his own\r
+horizon--from that day the problem of the vanity and uselessness of all\r
+earthly things, that had incessantly tormented him, no longer presented\r
+itself. That terrible question "Why?" "Wherefore?" which had come to him\r
+amid every occupation, was now replaced, not by another question or by a\r
+reply to the former question, but by her image. When he listened to, or\r
+himself took part in, trivial conversations, when he read or heard of\r
+human baseness or folly, he was not horrified as formerly, and did not\r
+ask himself why men struggled so about these things when all is so\r
+transient and incomprehensible--but he remembered her as he had last\r
+seen her, and all his doubts vanished--not because she had answered the\r
+questions that had haunted him, but because his conception of her\r
+transferred him instantly to another, a brighter, realm of spiritual\r
+activity in which no one could be justified or guilty--a realm of beauty\r
+and love which it was worth living for. Whatever worldly baseness\r
+presented itself to him, he said to himself:\r
+\r
+"Well, supposing N. N. swindled the country and the Tsar, and the\r
+country and the Tsar confer honors upon him, what does that matter? She\r
+smiled at me yesterday and asked me to come again, and I love her, and\r
+no one will ever know it." And his soul felt calm and peaceful.\r
+\r
+Pierre still went into society, drank as much and led the same idle and\r
+dissipated life, because besides the hours he spent at the Rostovs'\r
+there were other hours he had to spend somehow, and the habits and\r
+acquaintances he had made in Moscow formed a current that bore him along\r
+irresistibly. But latterly, when more and more disquieting reports came\r
+from the seat of war and Natasha's health began to improve and she no\r
+longer aroused in him the former feeling of careful pity, an ever-\r
+increasing restlessness, which he could not explain, took possession of\r
+him. He felt that the condition he was in could not continue long, that\r
+a catastrophe was coming which would change his whole life, and he\r
+impatiently sought everywhere for signs of that approaching catastrophe.\r
+One of his brother Masons had revealed to Pierre the following prophecy\r
+concerning Napoleon, drawn from the Revelation of St. John.\r
+\r
+In chapter 13, verse 18, of the Apocalypse, it is said:\r
+\r
+Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the\r
+beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred\r
+threescore and six.\r
+\r
+And in the fifth verse of the same chapter:\r
+\r
+And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and\r
+blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two\r
+months.\r
+\r
+The French alphabet, written out with the same numerical values as the\r
+Hebrew, in which the first nine letters denote units and the others\r
+tens, will have the following significance:\r
+\r
+\r
+a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h   i   k 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9\r
+10 l    m    n    o    p    q    r    s 20   30   40   50   60   70   80\r
+90 t    u    v    w    x    y 100  110  120  130  140  150 z 160\r
+\r
+Writing the words L'Empereur Napoleon in numbers, it appears that the\r
+sum of them is 666, and that Napoleon was therefore the beast foretold\r
+in the Apocalypse. Moreover, by applying the same system to the words\r
+quarante-deux, * which was the term allowed to the beast that "spoke\r
+great things and blasphemies," the same number 666 was obtained; from\r
+which it followed that the limit fixed for Napoleon's power had come in\r
+the year 1812 when the French emperor was forty-two. This prophecy\r
+pleased Pierre very much and he often asked himself what would put an\r
+end to the power of the beast, that is, of Napoleon, and tried by the\r
+same system of using letters as numbers and adding them up, to find an\r
+answer to the question that engrossed him. He wrote the words L'Empereur\r
+Alexandre, La nation russe and added up their numbers, but the sums were\r
+either more or less than 666. Once when making such calculations he\r
+wrote down his own name in French, Comte Pierre Besouhoff, but the sum\r
+of the numbers did not come right. Then he changed the spelling,\r
+substituting a z for the s and adding de and the article le, still\r
+without obtaining the desired result. Then it occurred to him: if the\r
+answer to the question were contained in his name, his nationality would\r
+also be given in the answer. So he wrote Le russe Besuhof and adding up\r
+the numbers got 671. This was only five too much, and five was\r
+represented by e, the very letter elided from the article le before the\r
+word Empereur. By omitting the e, though incorrectly, Pierre got the\r
+answer he sought. L'russe Besuhof made 666. This discovery excited him.\r
+How, or by what means, he was connected with the great event foretold in\r
+the Apocalypse he did not know, but he did not doubt that connection for\r
+a moment. His love for Natasha, Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the\r
+comet, 666, L'Empereur Napoleon, and L'russe Besuhof--all this had to\r
+mature and culminate, to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere\r
+of Moscow habits in which he felt himself held captive and lead him to a\r
+great achievement and great happiness.\r
+\r
+\r
+* Forty-two.\r
+\r
+On the eve of the Sunday when the special prayer was read, Pierre had\r
+promised the Rostovs to bring them, from Count Rostopchin whom he knew\r
+well, both the appeal to the people and the news from the army. In the\r
+morning, when he went to call at Rostopchin's he met there a courier\r
+fresh from the army, an acquaintance of his own, who often danced at\r
+Moscow balls.\r
+\r
+"Do, please, for heaven's sake, relieve me of something!" said the\r
+courier. "I have a sackful of letters to parents."\r
+\r
+Among these letters was one from Nicholas Rostov to his father. Pierre\r
+took that letter, and Rostopchin also gave him the Emperor's appeal to\r
+Moscow, which had just been printed, the last army orders, and his own\r
+most recent bulletin. Glancing through the army orders, Pierre found in\r
+one of them, in the lists of killed, wounded, and rewarded, the name of\r
+Nicholas Rostov, awarded a St. George's Cross of the Fourth Class for\r
+courage shown in the Ostrovna affair, and in the same order the name of\r
+Prince Andrew Bolkonski, appointed to the command of a regiment of\r
+Chasseurs. Though he did not want to remind the Rostovs of Bolkonski,\r
+Pierre could not refrain from making them happy by the news of their\r
+son's having received a decoration, so he sent that printed army order\r
+and Nicholas' letter to the Rostovs, keeping the appeal, the bulletin,\r
+and the other orders to take with him when he went to dinner.\r
+\r
+His conversation with Count Rostopchin and the latter's tone of anxious\r
+hurry, the meeting with the courier who talked casually of how badly\r
+things were going in the army, the rumors of the discovery of spies in\r
+Moscow and of a leaflet in circulation stating that Napoleon promised to\r
+be in both the Russian capitals by the autumn, and the talk of the\r
+Emperor's being expected to arrive next day--all aroused with fresh\r
+force that feeling of agitation and expectation in Pierre which he had\r
+been conscious of ever since the appearance of the comet, and especially\r
+since the beginning of the war.\r
+\r
+He had long been thinking of entering the army and would have done so\r
+had he not been hindered, first, by his membership of the Society of\r
+Freemasons to which he was bound by oath and which preached perpetual\r
+peace and the abolition of war, and secondly, by the fact that when he\r
+saw the great mass of Muscovites who had donned uniform and were talking\r
+patriotism, he somehow felt ashamed to take the step. But the chief\r
+reason for not carrying out his intention to enter the army lay in the\r
+vague idea that he was L'russe Besuhof who had the number of the beast,\r
+666; that his part in the great affair of setting a limit to the power\r
+of the beast that spoke great and blasphemous things had been\r
+predestined from eternity, and that therefore he ought not to undertake\r
+anything, but wait for what was bound to come to pass.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+A few intimate friends were dining with the Rostovs that day, as usual\r
+on Sundays.\r
+\r
+Pierre came early so as to find them alone.\r
+\r
+He had grown so stout this year that he would have been abnormal had he\r
+not been so tall, so broad of limb, and so strong that he carried his\r
+bulk with evident ease.\r
+\r
+He went up the stairs, puffing and muttering something. His coachman did\r
+not even ask whether he was to wait. He knew that when his master was at\r
+the Rostovs' he stayed till midnight. The Rostovs' footman rushed\r
+eagerly forward to help him off with his cloak and take his hat and\r
+stick. Pierre, from club habit, always left both hat and stick in the\r
+anteroom.\r
+\r
+The first person he saw in the house was Natasha. Even before he saw\r
+her, while taking off his cloak, he heard her. She was practicing solfa\r
+exercises in the music room. He knew that she had not sung since her\r
+illness, and so the sound of her voice surprised and delighted him. He\r
+opened the door softly and saw her, in the lilac dress she had worn at\r
+church, walking about the room singing. She had her back to him when he\r
+opened the door, but when, turning quickly, she saw his broad, surprised\r
+face, she blushed and came rapidly up to him.\r
+\r
+"I want to try to sing again," she said, adding as if by way of excuse,\r
+"it is, at least, something to do."\r
+\r
+"That's capital!"\r
+\r
+"How glad I am you've come! I am so happy today," she said, with the old\r
+animation Pierre had not seen in her for a long time. "You know Nicholas\r
+has received a St. George's Cross? I am so proud of him."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, I sent that announcement. But I don't want to interrupt you,"\r
+he added, and was about to go to the drawing room.\r
+\r
+Natasha stopped him.\r
+\r
+"Count, is it wrong of me to sing?" she said blushing, and fixing her\r
+eyes inquiringly on him.\r
+\r
+"No... Why should it be? On the contrary... But why do you ask me?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know myself," Natasha answered quickly, "but I should not like\r
+to do anything you disapproved of. I believe in you completely. You\r
+don't know how important you are to me, how much you've done for me...."\r
+She spoke rapidly and did not notice how Pierre flushed at her words. "I\r
+saw in that same army order that he, Bolkonski" (she whispered the name\r
+hastily), "is in Russia, and in the army again. What do you think?"--she\r
+was speaking hurriedly, evidently afraid her strength might fail her--\r
+"Will he ever forgive me? Will he not always have a bitter feeling\r
+toward me? What do you think? What do you think?"\r
+\r
+"I think..." Pierre replied, "that he has nothing to forgive.... If I\r
+were in his place..."\r
+\r
+By association of ideas, Pierre was at once carried back to the day\r
+when, trying to comfort her, he had said that if he were not himself but\r
+the best man in the world and free, he would ask on his knees for her\r
+hand; and the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love took possession\r
+of him and the same words rose to his lips. But she did not give him\r
+time to say them.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you... you..." she said, uttering the word you rapturously--\r
+"that's a different thing. I know no one kinder, more generous, or\r
+better than you; nobody could be! Had you not been there then, and now\r
+too, I don't know what would have become of me, because..."\r
+\r
+Tears suddenly rose in her eyes, she turned away, lifted her music\r
+before her eyes, began singing again, and again began walking up and\r
+down the room.\r
+\r
+Just then Petya came running in from the drawing room.\r
+\r
+Petya was now a handsome rosy lad of fifteen with full red lips and\r
+resembled Natasha. He was preparing to enter the university, but he and\r
+his friend Obolenski had lately, in secret, agreed to join the hussars.\r
+\r
+Petya had come rushing out to talk to his namesake about this affair. He\r
+had asked Pierre to find out whether he would be accepted in the\r
+hussars.\r
+\r
+Pierre walked up and down the drawing room, not listening to what Petya\r
+was saying.\r
+\r
+Petya pulled him by the arm to attract his attention.\r
+\r
+"Well, what about my plan? Peter Kirilych, for heaven's sake! You are my\r
+only hope," said Petya.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, your plan. To join the hussars? I'll mention it, I'll bring it\r
+all up today."\r
+\r
+"Well, mon cher, have you got the manifesto?" asked the old count. "The\r
+countess has been to Mass at the Razumovskis' and heard the new prayer.\r
+She says it's very fine."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I've got it," said Pierre. "The Emperor is to be here tomorrow...\r
+there's to be an Extraordinary Meeting of the nobility, and they are\r
+talking of a levy of ten men per thousand. Oh yes, let me congratulate\r
+you!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, thank God! Well, and what news from the army?"\r
+\r
+"We are again retreating. They say we're already near Smolensk," replied\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+"O Lord, O Lord!" exclaimed the count. "Where is the manifesto?"\r
+\r
+"The Emperor's appeal? Oh yes!"\r
+\r
+Pierre began feeling in his pockets for the papers, but could not find\r
+them. Still slapping his pockets, he kissed the hand of the countess who\r
+entered the room and glanced uneasily around, evidently expecting\r
+Natasha, who had left off singing but had not yet come into the drawing\r
+room.\r
+\r
+"On my word, I don't know what I've done with it," he said.\r
+\r
+"There he is, always losing everything!" remarked the countess.\r
+\r
+Natasha entered with a softened and agitated expression of face and sat\r
+down looking silently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre's\r
+features, which had been gloomy, suddenly lighted up, and while still\r
+searching for the papers he glanced at her several times.\r
+\r
+"No, really! I'll drive home, I must have left them there. I'll\r
+certainly..."\r
+\r
+"But you'll be late for dinner."\r
+\r
+"Oh! And my coachman has gone."\r
+\r
+But Sonya, who had gone to look for the papers in the anteroom, had\r
+found them in Pierre's hat, where he had carefully tucked them under the\r
+lining. Pierre was about to begin reading.\r
+\r
+"No, after dinner," said the old count, evidently expecting much\r
+enjoyment from that reading.\r
+\r
+At dinner, at which champagne was drunk to the health of the new\r
+chevalier of St. George, Shinshin told them the town news, of the\r
+illness of the old Georgian princess, of Metivier's disappearance from\r
+Moscow, and of how some German fellow had been brought to Rostopchin and\r
+accused of being a French "spyer" (so Count Rostopchin had told the\r
+story), and how Rostopchin let him go and assured the people that he was\r
+"not a spire at all, but only an old German ruin."\r
+\r
+"People are being arrested..." said the count. "I've told the countess\r
+she should not speak French so much. It's not the time for it now."\r
+\r
+"And have you heard?" Shinshin asked. "Prince Golitsyn has engaged a\r
+master to teach him Russian. It is becoming dangerous to speak French in\r
+the streets."\r
+\r
+"And how about you, Count Peter Kirilych? If they call up the militia,\r
+you too will have to mount a horse," remarked the old count, addressing\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+Pierre had been silent and preoccupied all through dinner, seeming not\r
+to grasp what was said. He looked at the count.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, the war," he said. "No! What sort of warrior should I make? And\r
+yet everything is so strange, so strange! I can't make it out. I don't\r
+know, I am very far from having military tastes, but in these times no\r
+one can answer for himself."\r
+\r
+After dinner the count settled himself comfortably in an easy chair and\r
+with a serious face asked Sonya, who was considered an excellent reader,\r
+to read the appeal.\r
+\r
+"To Moscow, our ancient Capital!\r
+\r
+"The enemy has entered the borders of Russia with immense forces. He\r
+comes to despoil our beloved country."\r
+\r
+Sonya read painstakingly in her high-pitched voice. The count listened\r
+with closed eyes, heaving abrupt sighs at certain passages.\r
+\r
+Natasha sat erect, gazing with a searching look now at her father and\r
+now at Pierre.\r
+\r
+Pierre felt her eyes on him and tried not to look round. The countess\r
+shook her head disapprovingly and angrily at every solemn expression in\r
+the manifesto. In all these words she saw only that the danger\r
+threatening her son would not soon be over. Shinshin, with a sarcastic\r
+smile on his lips, was evidently preparing to make fun of anything that\r
+gave him the opportunity: Sonya's reading, any remark of the count's, or\r
+even the manifesto itself should no better pretext present itself.\r
+\r
+After reading about the dangers that threatened Russia, the hopes the\r
+Emperor placed on Moscow and especially on its illustrious nobility,\r
+Sonya, with a quiver in her voice due chiefly to the attention that was\r
+being paid to her, read the last words:\r
+\r
+"We ourselves will not delay to appear among our people in that Capital\r
+and in other parts of our realm for consultation, and for the direction\r
+of all our levies, both those now barring the enemy's path and those\r
+freshly formed to defeat him wherever he may appear. May the ruin he\r
+hopes to bring upon us recoil on his own head, and may Europe delivered\r
+from bondage glorify the name of Russia!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, that's it!" cried the count, opening his moist eyes and sniffing\r
+repeatedly, as if a strong vinaigrette had been held to his nose; and he\r
+added, "Let the Emperor but say the word and we'll sacrifice everything\r
+and begrudge nothing."\r
+\r
+Before Shinshin had time to utter the joke he was ready to make on the\r
+count's patriotism, Natasha jumped up from her place and ran to her\r
+father.\r
+\r
+"What a darling our Papa is!" she cried, kissing him, and she again\r
+looked at Pierre with the unconscious coquetry that had returned to her\r
+with her better spirits.\r
+\r
+"There! Here's a patriot for you!" said Shinshin.\r
+\r
+"Not a patriot at all, but simply..." Natasha replied in an injured\r
+tone. "Everything seems funny to you, but this isn't at all a joke...."\r
+\r
+"A joke indeed!" put in the count. "Let him but say the word and we'll\r
+all go.... We're not Germans!"\r
+\r
+"But did you notice, it says, 'for consultation'?" said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Never mind what it's for...."\r
+\r
+At this moment, Petya, to whom nobody was paying any attention, came up\r
+to his father with a very flushed face and said in his breaking voice\r
+that was now deep and now shrill:\r
+\r
+"Well, Papa, I tell you definitely, and Mamma too, it's as you please,\r
+but I say definitely that you must let me enter the army, because I\r
+can't... that's all...."\r
+\r
+The countess, in dismay, looked up to heaven, clasped her hands, and\r
+turned angrily to her husband.\r
+\r
+"That comes of your talking!" said she.\r
+\r
+But the count had already recovered from his excitement.\r
+\r
+"Come, come!" said he. "Here's a fine warrior! No! Nonsense! You must\r
+study."\r
+\r
+"It's not nonsense, Papa. Fedya Obolenski is younger than I, and he's\r
+going too. Besides, all the same I can't study now when..." Petya\r
+stopped short, flushed till he perspired, but still got out the words,\r
+"when our Fatherland is in danger."\r
+\r
+"That'll do, that'll do--nonsense...."\r
+\r
+"But you said yourself that we would sacrifice everything."\r
+\r
+"Petya! Be quiet, I tell you!" cried the count, with a glance at his\r
+wife, who had turned pale and was staring fixedly at her son.\r
+\r
+"And I tell you--Peter Kirilych here will also tell you..."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, I tell you. Your mother's milk has hardly dried on your lips\r
+and you want to go into the army! There, there, I tell you," and the\r
+count moved to go out of the room, taking the papers, probably to reread\r
+them in his study before having a nap.\r
+\r
+"Well, Peter Kirilych, let's go and have a smoke," he said.\r
+\r
+Pierre was agitated and undecided. Natasha's unwontedly brilliant eyes,\r
+continually glancing at him with a more than cordial look, had reduced\r
+him to this condition.\r
+\r
+"No, I think I'll go home."\r
+\r
+"Home? Why, you meant to spend the evening with us.... You don't often\r
+come nowadays as it is, and this girl of mine," said the count good-\r
+naturedly, pointing to Natasha, "only brightens up when you're here."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I had forgotten... I really must go home... business..." said\r
+Pierre hurriedly.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, au revoir!" said the count, and went out of the room.\r
+\r
+"Why are you going? Why are you upset?" asked Natasha, and she looked\r
+challengingly into Pierre's eyes.\r
+\r
+"Because I love you!" was what he wanted to say, but he did not say it,\r
+and only blushed till the tears came, and lowered his eyes.\r
+\r
+"Because it is better for me to come less often... because... No, simply\r
+I have business...."\r
+\r
+"Why? No, tell me!" Natasha began resolutely and suddenly stopped.\r
+\r
+They looked at each other with dismayed and embarrassed faces. He tried\r
+to smile but could not: his smile expressed suffering, and he silently\r
+kissed her hand and went out.\r
+\r
+Pierre made up his mind not to go to the Rostovs' any more.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+After the definite refusal he had received, Petya went to his room and\r
+there locked himself in and wept bitterly. When he came in to tea,\r
+silent, morose, and with tear-stained face, everybody pretended not to\r
+notice anything.\r
+\r
+Next day the Emperor arrived in Moscow, and several of the Rostovs'\r
+domestic serfs begged permission to go to have a look at him. That\r
+morning Petya was a long time dressing and arranging his hair and collar\r
+to look like a grown-up man. He frowned before his looking glass,\r
+gesticulated, shrugged his shoulders, and finally, without saying a word\r
+to anyone, took his cap and left the house by the back door, trying to\r
+avoid notice. Petya decided to go straight to where the Emperor was and\r
+to explain frankly to some gentleman-in-waiting (he imagined the Emperor\r
+to be always surrounded by gentlemen-in-waiting) that he, Count Rostov,\r
+in spite of his youth wished to serve his country; that youth could be\r
+no hindrance to loyalty, and that he was ready to... While dressing,\r
+Petya had prepared many fine things he meant to say to the gentleman-in-\r
+waiting.\r
+\r
+It was on the very fact of being so young that Petya counted for success\r
+in reaching the Emperor--he even thought how surprised everyone would be\r
+at his youthfulness--and yet in the arrangement of his collar and hair\r
+and by his sedate deliberate walk he wished to appear a grown-up man.\r
+But the farther he went and the more his attention was diverted by the\r
+ever-increasing crowds moving toward the Kremlin, the less he remembered\r
+to walk with the sedateness and deliberation of a man. As he approached\r
+the Kremlin he even began to avoid being crushed and resolutely stuck\r
+out his elbows in a menacing way. But within the Trinity Gateway he was\r
+so pressed to the wall by people who probably were unaware of the\r
+patriotic intentions with which he had come that in spite of all his\r
+determination he had to give in, and stop while carriages passed in,\r
+rumbling beneath the archway. Beside Petya stood a peasant woman, a\r
+footman, two tradesmen, and a discharged soldier. After standing some\r
+time in the gateway, Petya tried to move forward in front of the others\r
+without waiting for all the carriages to pass, and he began resolutely\r
+working his way with his elbows, but the woman just in front of him, who\r
+was the first against whom he directed his efforts, angrily shouted at\r
+him:\r
+\r
+"What are you shoving for, young lordling? Don't you see we're all\r
+standing still? Then why push?"\r
+\r
+"Anybody can shove," said the footman, and also began working his elbows\r
+to such effect that he pushed Petya into a very filthy corner of the\r
+gateway.\r
+\r
+Petya wiped his perspiring face with his hands and pulled up the damp\r
+collar which he had arranged so well at home to seem like a man's.\r
+\r
+He felt that he no longer looked presentable, and feared that if he were\r
+now to approach the gentlemen-in-waiting in that plight he would not be\r
+admitted to the Emperor. But it was impossible to smarten oneself up or\r
+move to another place, because of the crowd. One of the generals who\r
+drove past was an acquaintance of the Rostovs', and Petya thought of\r
+asking his help, but came to the conclusion that that would not be a\r
+manly thing to do. When the carriages had all passed in, the crowd,\r
+carrying Petya with it, streamed forward into the Kremlin Square which\r
+was already full of people. There were people not only in the square,\r
+but everywhere--on the slopes and on the roofs. As soon as Petya found\r
+himself in the square he clearly heard the sound of bells and the joyous\r
+voices of the crowd that filled the whole Kremlin.\r
+\r
+For a while the crowd was less dense, but suddenly all heads were bared,\r
+and everyone rushed forward in one direction. Petya was being pressed so\r
+that he could scarcely breathe, and everybody shouted, "Hurrah! hurrah!\r
+hurrah!" Petya stood on tiptoe and pushed and pinched, but could see\r
+nothing except the people about him.\r
+\r
+All the faces bore the same expression of excitement and enthusiasm. A\r
+tradesman's wife standing beside Petya sobbed, and the tears ran down\r
+her cheeks.\r
+\r
+"Father! Angel! Dear one!" she kept repeating, wiping away her tears\r
+with her fingers.\r
+\r
+"Hurrah!" was heard on all sides.\r
+\r
+For a moment the crowd stood still, but then it made another rush\r
+forward.\r
+\r
+Quite beside himself, Petya, clinching his teeth and rolling his eyes\r
+ferociously, pushed forward, elbowing his way and shouting "hurrah!" as\r
+if he were prepared that instant to kill himself and everyone else, but\r
+on both sides of him other people with similarly ferocious faces pushed\r
+forward and everybody shouted "hurrah!"\r
+\r
+"So this is what the Emperor is!" thought Petya. "No, I can't petition\r
+him myself--that would be too bold." But in spite of this he continued\r
+to struggle desperately forward, and from between the backs of those in\r
+front he caught glimpses of an open space with a strip of red cloth\r
+spread out on it; but just then the crowd swayed back--the police in\r
+front were pushing back those who had pressed too close to the\r
+procession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral of\r
+the Assumption--and Petya unexpectedly received such a blow on his side\r
+and ribs and was squeezed so hard that suddenly everything grew dim\r
+before his eyes and he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, a\r
+man of clerical appearance with a tuft of gray hair at the back of his\r
+head and wearing a shabby blue cassock--probably a church clerk and\r
+chanter--was holding him under the arm with one hand while warding off\r
+the pressure of the crowd with the other.\r
+\r
+"You've crushed the young gentleman!" said the clerk. "What are you up\r
+to? Gently!... They've crushed him, crushed him!"\r
+\r
+The Emperor entered the Cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd spread\r
+out again more evenly, and the clerk led Petya--pale and breathless--to\r
+the Tsar-cannon. Several people were sorry for Petya, and suddenly a\r
+crowd turned toward him and pressed round him. Those who stood nearest\r
+him attended to him, unbuttoned his coat, seated him on the raised\r
+platform of the cannon, and reproached those others (whoever they might\r
+be) who had crushed him.\r
+\r
+"One might easily get killed that way! What do they mean by it? Killing\r
+people! Poor dear, he's as white as a sheet!"--various voices were heard\r
+saying.\r
+\r
+Petya soon came to himself, the color returned to his face, the pain had\r
+passed, and at the cost of that temporary unpleasantness he had obtained\r
+a place by the cannon from where he hoped to see the Emperor who would\r
+be returning that way. Petya no longer thought of presenting his\r
+petition. If he could only see the Emperor he would be happy!\r
+\r
+While the service was proceeding in the Cathedral of the Assumption--it\r
+was a combined service of prayer on the occasion of the Emperor's\r
+arrival and of thanksgiving for the conclusion of peace with the Turks--\r
+the crowd outside spread out and hawkers appeared, selling kvas,\r
+gingerbread, and poppyseed sweets (of which Petya was particularly\r
+fond), and ordinary conversation could again be heard. A tradesman's\r
+wife was showing a rent in her shawl and telling how much the shawl had\r
+cost; another was saying that all silk goods had now got dear. The clerk\r
+who had rescued Petya was talking to a functionary about the priests who\r
+were officiating that day with the bishop. The clerk several times used\r
+the word "plenary" (of the service), a word Petya did not understand.\r
+Two young citizens were joking with some serf girls who were cracking\r
+nuts. All these conversations, especially the joking with the girls,\r
+were such as might have had a particular charm for Petya at his age, but\r
+they did not interest him now. He sat on his elevation--the pedestal of\r
+the cannon--still agitated as before by the thought of the Emperor and\r
+by his love for him. The feeling of pain and fear he had experienced\r
+when he was being crushed, together with that of rapture, still further\r
+intensified his sense of the importance of the occasion.\r
+\r
+Suddenly the sound of a firing of cannon was heard from the embankment,\r
+to celebrate the signing of peace with the Turks, and the crowd rushed\r
+impetuously toward the embankment to watch the firing. Petya too would\r
+have run there, but the clerk who had taken the young gentleman under\r
+his protection stopped him. The firing was still proceeding when\r
+officers, generals, and gentlemen-in-waiting came running out of the\r
+cathedral, and after them others in a more leisurely manner: caps were\r
+again raised, and those who had run to look at the cannon ran back\r
+again. At last four men in uniforms and sashes emerged from the\r
+cathedral doors. "Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the crowd again.\r
+\r
+"Which is he? Which?" asked Petya in a tearful voice, of those around\r
+him, but no one answered him, everybody was too excited; and Petya,\r
+fixing on one of those four men, whom he could not clearly see for the\r
+tears of joy that filled his eyes, concentrated all his enthusiasm on\r
+him--though it happened not to be the Emperor--frantically shouted\r
+"Hurrah!" and resolved that tomorrow, come what might, he would join the\r
+army.\r
+\r
+The crowd ran after the Emperor, followed him to the palace, and began\r
+to disperse. It was already late, and Petya had not eaten anything and\r
+was drenched with perspiration, yet he did not go home but stood with\r
+that diminishing, but still considerable, crowd before the palace while\r
+the Emperor dined--looking in at the palace windows, expecting he knew\r
+not what, and envying alike the notables he saw arriving at the entrance\r
+to dine with the Emperor and the court footmen who served at table,\r
+glimpses of whom could be seen through the windows.\r
+\r
+While the Emperor was dining, Valuev, looking out of the window, said:\r
+\r
+"The people are still hoping to see Your Majesty again."\r
+\r
+The dinner was nearly over, and the Emperor, munching a biscuit, rose\r
+and went out onto the balcony. The people, with Petya among them, rushed\r
+toward the balcony.\r
+\r
+"Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!..." cried the crowd, and Petya with\r
+it, and again the women and men of weaker mold, Petya among them, wept\r
+with joy.\r
+\r
+A largish piece of the biscuit the Emperor was holding in his hand broke\r
+off, fell on the balcony parapet, and then to the ground. A coachman in\r
+a jerkin, who stood nearest, sprang forward and snatched it up. Several\r
+people in the crowd rushed at the coachman. Seeing this the Emperor had\r
+a plateful of biscuits brought him and began throwing them down from the\r
+balcony. Petya's eyes grew bloodshot, and still more excited by the\r
+danger of being crushed, he rushed at the biscuits. He did not know why,\r
+but he had to have a biscuit from the Tsar's hand and he felt that he\r
+must not give way. He sprang forward and upset an old woman who was\r
+catching at a biscuit; the old woman did not consider herself defeated\r
+though she was lying on the ground--she grabbed at some biscuits but her\r
+hand did not reach them. Petya pushed her hand away with his knee,\r
+seized a biscuit, and as if fearing to be too late, again shouted\r
+"Hurrah!" with a voice already hoarse.\r
+\r
+The Emperor went in, and after that the greater part of the crowd began\r
+to disperse.\r
+\r
+"There! I said if only we waited--and so it was!" was being joyfully\r
+said by various people.\r
+\r
+Happy as Petya was, he felt sad at having to go home knowing that all\r
+the enjoyment of that day was over. He did not go straight home from the\r
+Kremlin, but called on his friend Obolenski, who was fifteen and was\r
+also entering the regiment. On returning home Petya announced resolutely\r
+and firmly that if he was not allowed to enter the service he would run\r
+away. And next day, Count Ilya Rostov--though he had not yet quite\r
+yielded--went to inquire how he could arrange for Petya to serve where\r
+there would be least danger.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+Two days later, on the fifteenth of July, an immense number of carriages\r
+were standing outside the Sloboda Palace.\r
+\r
+The great halls were full. In the first were the nobility and gentry in\r
+their uniforms, in the second bearded merchants in full-skirted coats of\r
+blue cloth and wearing medals. In the noblemen's hall there was an\r
+incessant movement and buzz of voices. The chief magnates sat on high-\r
+backed chairs at a large table under the portrait of the Emperor, but\r
+most of the gentry were strolling about the room.\r
+\r
+All these nobles, whom Pierre met every day at the club or in their own\r
+houses, were in uniform--some in that of Catherine's day, others in that\r
+of Emperor Paul, others again in the new uniforms of Alexander's time or\r
+the ordinary uniform of the nobility, and the general characteristic of\r
+being in uniform imparted something strange and fantastic to these\r
+diverse and familiar personalities, both old and young. The old men,\r
+dim-eyed, toothless, bald, sallow, and bloated, or gaunt and wrinkled,\r
+were especially striking. For the most part they sat quietly in their\r
+places and were silent, or, if they walked about and talked, attached\r
+themselves to someone younger. On all these faces, as on the faces of\r
+the crowd Petya had seen in the Square, there was a striking\r
+contradiction: the general expectation of a solemn event, and at the\r
+same time the everyday interests in a boston card party, Peter the cook,\r
+Zinaida Dmitrievna's health, and so on.\r
+\r
+Pierre was there too, buttoned up since early morning in a nobleman's\r
+uniform that had become too tight for him. He was agitated; this\r
+extraordinary gathering not only of nobles but also of the merchant-\r
+class--les etats generaux (States-General)--evoked in him a whole series\r
+of ideas he had long laid aside but which were deeply graven in his\r
+soul: thoughts of the Contrat Social and the French Revolution. The\r
+words that had struck him in the Emperor's appeal--that the sovereign\r
+was coming to the capital for consultation with his people--strengthened\r
+this idea. And imagining that in this direction something important\r
+which he had long awaited was drawing near, he strolled about watching\r
+and listening to conversations, but nowhere finding any confirmation of\r
+the ideas that occupied him.\r
+\r
+The Emperor's manifesto was read, evoking enthusiasm, and then all moved\r
+about discussing it. Besides the ordinary topics of conversation, Pierre\r
+heard questions of where the marshals of the nobility were to stand when\r
+the Emperor entered, when a ball should be given in the Emperor's honor,\r
+whether they should group themselves by districts or by whole\r
+provinces... and so on; but as soon as the war was touched on, or what\r
+the nobility had been convened for, the talk became undecided and\r
+indefinite. Then all preferred listening to speaking.\r
+\r
+A middle-aged man, handsome and virile, in the uniform of a retired\r
+naval officer, was speaking in one of the rooms, and a small crowd was\r
+pressing round him. Pierre went up to the circle that had formed round\r
+the speaker and listened. Count Ilya Rostov, in a military uniform of\r
+Catherine's time, was sauntering with a pleasant smile among the crowd,\r
+with all of whom he was acquainted. He too approached that group and\r
+listened with a kindly smile and nods of approval, as he always did, to\r
+what the speaker was saying. The retired naval man was speaking very\r
+boldly, as was evident from the expression on the faces of the listeners\r
+and from the fact that some people Pierre knew as the meekest and\r
+quietest of men walked away disapprovingly or expressed disagreement\r
+with him. Pierre pushed his way into the middle of the group, listened,\r
+and convinced himself that the man was indeed a liberal, but of views\r
+quite different from his own. The naval officer spoke in a particularly\r
+sonorous, musical, and aristocratic baritone voice, pleasantly\r
+swallowing his r's and generally slurring his consonants: the voice of a\r
+man calling out to his servant, "Heah! Bwing me my pipe!" It was\r
+indicative of dissipation and the exercise of authority.\r
+\r
+"What if the Smolensk people have offahd to waise militia for the\r
+Empewah? Ah we to take Smolensk as our patte'n? If the noble awistocwacy\r
+of the pwovince of Moscow thinks fit, it can show its loyalty to our\r
+sov'weign the Empewah in other ways. Have we fo'gotten the waising of\r
+the militia in the yeah 'seven? All that did was to enwich the pwiests'\r
+sons and thieves and wobbahs...."\r
+\r
+Count Ilya Rostov smiled blandly and nodded approval.\r
+\r
+"And was our militia of any use to the Empia? Not at all! It only wuined\r
+our farming! Bettah have another conscwiption... o' ou' men will wetu'n\r
+neithah soldiers no' peasants, and we'll get only depwavity fwom them.\r
+The nobility don't gwudge theah lives--evewy one of us will go and bwing\r
+in more wecwuits, and the sov'weign" (that was the way he referred to\r
+the Emperor) "need only say the word and we'll all die fo' him!" added\r
+the orator with animation.\r
+\r
+Count Rostov's mouth watered with pleasure and he nudged Pierre, but\r
+Pierre wanted to speak himself. He pushed forward, feeling stirred, but\r
+not yet sure what stirred him or what he would say. Scarcely had he\r
+opened his mouth when one of the senators, a man without a tooth in his\r
+head, with a shrewd though angry expression, standing near the first\r
+speaker, interrupted him. Evidently accustomed to managing debates and\r
+to maintaining an argument, he began in low but distinct tones:\r
+\r
+"I imagine, sir," said he, mumbling with his toothless mouth, "that we\r
+have been summoned here not to discuss whether it's best for the empire\r
+at the present moment to adopt conscription or to call out the militia.\r
+We have been summoned to reply to the appeal with which our sovereign\r
+the Emperor has honored us. But to judge what is best--conscription or\r
+the militia--we can leave to the supreme authority...."\r
+\r
+Pierre suddenly saw an outlet for his excitement. He hardened his heart\r
+against the senator who was introducing this set and narrow attitude\r
+into the deliberations of the nobility. Pierre stepped forward and\r
+interrupted him. He himself did not yet know what he would say, but he\r
+began to speak eagerly, occasionally lapsing into French or expressing\r
+himself in bookish Russian.\r
+\r
+"Excuse me, your excellency," he began. (He was well acquainted with the\r
+senator, but thought it necessary on this occasion to address him\r
+formally.) "Though I don't agree with the gentleman..." (he hesitated:\r
+he wished to say, "Mon tres honorable preopinant"--"My very honorable\r
+opponent") "with the gentleman... whom I have not the honor of knowing,\r
+I suppose that the nobility have been summoned not merely to express\r
+their sympathy and enthusiasm but also to consider the means by which we\r
+can assist our Fatherland! I imagine," he went on, warming to his\r
+subject, "that the Emperor himself would not be satisfied to find in us\r
+merely owners of serfs whom we are willing to devote to his service, and\r
+chair a canon * we are ready to make of ourselves--and not to obtain\r
+from us any co-co-counsel."\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Food for cannon."\r
+\r
+Many persons withdrew from the circle, noticing the senator's sarcastic\r
+smile and the freedom of Pierre's remarks. Only Count Rostov was pleased\r
+with them as he had been pleased with those of the naval officer, the\r
+senator, and in general with whatever speech he had last heard.\r
+\r
+"I think that before discussing these questions," Pierre continued, "we\r
+should ask the Emperor--most respectfully ask His Majesty--to let us\r
+know the number of our troops and the position in which our army and our\r
+forces now are, and then..."\r
+\r
+But scarcely had Pierre uttered these words before he was attacked from\r
+three sides. The most vigorous attack came from an old acquaintance, a\r
+boston player who had always been well disposed toward him, Stepan\r
+Stepanovich Adraksin. Adraksin was in uniform, and whether as a result\r
+of the uniform or from some other cause Pierre saw before him quite a\r
+different man. With a sudden expression of malevolence on his aged face,\r
+Adraksin shouted at Pierre:\r
+\r
+"In the first place, I tell you we have no right to question the Emperor\r
+about that, and secondly, if the Russian nobility had that right, the\r
+Emperor could not answer such a question. The troops are moved according\r
+to the enemy's movements and the number of men increases and\r
+decreases..."\r
+\r
+Another voice, that of a nobleman of medium height and about forty years\r
+of age, whom Pierre had formerly met at the gypsies' and knew as a bad\r
+cardplayer, and who, also transformed by his uniform, came up to Pierre,\r
+interrupted Adraksin.\r
+\r
+"Yes, and this is not a time for discussing," he continued, "but for\r
+acting: there is war in Russia! The enemy is advancing to destroy\r
+Russia, to desecrate the tombs of our fathers, to carry off our wives\r
+and children." The nobleman smote his breast. "We will all arise, every\r
+one of us will go, for our father the Tsar!" he shouted, rolling his\r
+bloodshot eyes. Several approving voices were heard in the crowd. "We\r
+are Russians and will not grudge our blood in defense of our faith, the\r
+throne, and the Fatherland! We must cease raving if we are sons of our\r
+Fatherland! We will show Europe how Russia rises to the defense of\r
+Russia!"\r
+\r
+Pierre wished to reply, but could not get in a word. He felt that his\r
+words, apart from what meaning they conveyed, were less audible than the\r
+sound of his opponent's voice.\r
+\r
+Count Rostov at the back of the crowd was expressing approval; several\r
+persons, briskly turning a shoulder to the orator at the end of a\r
+phrase, said:\r
+\r
+"That's right, quite right! Just so!"\r
+\r
+Pierre wished to say that he was ready to sacrifice his money, his\r
+serfs, or himself, only one ought to know the state of affairs in order\r
+to be able to improve it, but he was unable to speak. Many voices\r
+shouted and talked at the same time, so that Count Rostov had not time\r
+to signify his approval of them all, and the group increased, dispersed,\r
+re-formed, and then moved with a hum of talk into the largest hall and\r
+to the big table. Not only was Pierre's attempt to speak unsuccessful,\r
+but he was rudely interrupted, pushed aside, and people turned away from\r
+him as from a common enemy. This happened not because they were\r
+displeased by the substance of his speech, which had even been forgotten\r
+after the many subsequent speeches, but to animate it the crowd needed a\r
+tangible object to love and a tangible object to hate. Pierre became the\r
+latter. Many other orators spoke after the excited nobleman, and all in\r
+the same tone. Many spoke eloquently and with originality.\r
+\r
+Glinka, the editor of the Russian Messenger, who was recognized (cries\r
+of "author! author!" were heard in the crowd), said that "hell must be\r
+repulsed by hell," and that he had seen a child smiling at lightning\r
+flashes and thunderclaps, but "we will not be that child."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, at thunderclaps!" was repeated approvingly in the back rows\r
+of the crowd.\r
+\r
+The crowd drew up to the large table, at which sat gray-haired or bald\r
+seventy-year-old magnates, uniformed and besashed almost all of whom\r
+Pierre had seen in their own homes with their buffoons, or playing\r
+boston at the clubs. With an incessant hum of voices the crowd advanced\r
+to the table. Pressed by the throng against the high backs of the\r
+chairs, the orators spoke one after another and sometimes two together.\r
+Those standing behind noticed what a speaker omitted to say and hastened\r
+to supply it. Others in that heat and crush racked their brains to find\r
+some thought and hastened to utter it. The old magnates, whom Pierre\r
+knew, sat and turned to look first at one and then at another, and their\r
+faces for the most part only expressed the fact that they found it very\r
+hot. Pierre, however, felt excited, and the general desire to show that\r
+they were ready to go to all lengths--which found expression in the\r
+tones and looks more than in the substance of the speeches--infected him\r
+too. He did not renounce his opinions, but felt himself in some way to\r
+blame and wished to justify himself.\r
+\r
+"I only said that it would be more to the purpose to make sacrifices\r
+when we know what is needed!" said he, trying to be heard above the\r
+other voices.\r
+\r
+One of the old men nearest to him looked round, but his attention was\r
+immediately diverted by an exclamation at the other side of the table.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Moscow will be surrendered! She will be our expiation!" shouted\r
+one man.\r
+\r
+"He is the enemy of mankind!" cried another. "Allow me to speak...."\r
+"Gentlemen, you are crushing me!..."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+At that moment Count Rostopchin with his protruding chin and alert eyes,\r
+wearing the uniform of a general with sash over his shoulder, entered\r
+the room, stepping briskly to the front of the crowd of gentry.\r
+\r
+"Our sovereign the Emperor will be here in a moment," said Rostopchin.\r
+"I am straight from the palace. Seeing the position we are in, I think\r
+there is little need for discussion. The Emperor has deigned to summon\r
+us and the merchants. Millions will pour forth from there"--he pointed\r
+to the merchants' hall--"but our business is to supply men and not spare\r
+ourselves... That is the least we can do!"\r
+\r
+A conference took place confined to the magnates sitting at the table.\r
+The whole consultation passed more than quietly. After all the preceding\r
+noise the sound of their old voices saying one after another, "I agree,"\r
+or for variety, "I too am of that opinion," and so on had even a\r
+mournful effect.\r
+\r
+The secretary was told to write down the resolution of the Moscow\r
+nobility and gentry, that they would furnish ten men, fully equipped,\r
+out of every thousand serfs, as the Smolensk gentry had done. Their\r
+chairs made a scraping noise as the gentlemen who had conferred rose\r
+with apparent relief, and began walking up and down, arm in arm, to\r
+stretch their legs and converse in couples.\r
+\r
+"The Emperor! The Emperor!" a sudden cry resounded through the halls and\r
+the whole throng hurried to the entrance.\r
+\r
+The Emperor entered the hall through a broad path between two lines of\r
+nobles. Every face expressed respectful, awe-struck curiosity. Pierre\r
+stood rather far off and could not hear all that the Emperor said. From\r
+what he did hear he understood that the Emperor spoke of the danger\r
+threatening the empire and of the hopes he placed on the Moscow\r
+nobility. He was answered by a voice which informed him of the\r
+resolution just arrived at.\r
+\r
+"Gentlemen!" said the Emperor with a quivering voice.\r
+\r
+There was a rustling among the crowd and it again subsided, so that\r
+Pierre distinctly heard the pleasantly human voice of the Emperor saying\r
+with emotion:\r
+\r
+"I never doubted the devotion of the Russian nobles, but today it has\r
+surpassed my expectations. I thank you in the name of the Fatherland!\r
+Gentlemen, let us act! Time is most precious..."\r
+\r
+The Emperor ceased speaking, the crowd began pressing round him, and\r
+rapturous exclamations were heard from all sides.\r
+\r
+"Yes, most precious... a royal word," said Count Rostov, with a sob. He\r
+stood at the back, and, though he had heard hardly anything, understood\r
+everything in his own way.\r
+\r
+From the hall of the nobility the Emperor went to that of the merchants.\r
+There he remained about ten minutes. Pierre was among those who saw him\r
+come out from the merchants' hall with tears of emotion in his eyes. As\r
+became known later, he had scarcely begun to address the merchants\r
+before tears gushed from his eyes and he concluded in a trembling voice.\r
+When Pierre saw the Emperor he was coming out accompanied by two\r
+merchants, one of whom Pierre knew, a fat otkupshchik. The other was the\r
+mayor, a man with a thin sallow face and narrow beard. Both were\r
+weeping. Tears filled the thin man's eyes, and the fat otkupshchik\r
+sobbed outright like a child and kept repeating:\r
+\r
+"Our lives and property--take them, Your Majesty!"\r
+\r
+Pierre's one feeling at the moment was a desire to show that he was\r
+ready to go all lengths and was prepared to sacrifice everything. He now\r
+felt ashamed of his speech with its constitutional tendency and sought\r
+an opportunity of effacing it. Having heard that Count Mamonov was\r
+furnishing a regiment, Bezukhov at once informed Rostopchin that he\r
+would give a thousand men and their maintenance.\r
+\r
+Old Rostov could not tell his wife of what had passed without tears, and\r
+at once consented to Petya's request and went himself to enter his name.\r
+\r
+Next day the Emperor left Moscow. The assembled nobles all took off\r
+their uniforms and settled down again in their homes and clubs, and not\r
+without some groans gave orders to their stewards about the enrollment,\r
+feeling amazed themselves at what they had done.\r
+\r
+BOOK TEN: 1812\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+Napoleon began the war with Russia because he could not resist going to\r
+Dresden, could not help having his head turned by the homage he\r
+received, could not help donning a Polish uniform and yielding to the\r
+stimulating influence of a June morning, and could not refrain from\r
+bursts of anger in the presence of Kurakin and then of Balashev.\r
+\r
+Alexander refused negotiations because he felt himself to be personally\r
+insulted. Barclay de Tolly tried to command the army in the best way,\r
+because he wished to fulfill his duty and earn fame as a great\r
+commander. Rostov charged the French because he could not restrain his\r
+wish for a gallop across a level field; and in the same way the\r
+innumerable people who took part in the war acted in accord with their\r
+personal characteristics, habits, circumstances, and aims. They were\r
+moved by fear or vanity, rejoiced or were indignant, reasoned, imagining\r
+that they knew what they were doing and did it of their own free will,\r
+but they all were involuntary tools of history, carrying on a work\r
+concealed from them but comprehensible to us. Such is the inevitable\r
+fate of men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy\r
+the less are they free.\r
+\r
+The actors of 1812 have long since left the stage, their personal\r
+interests have vanished leaving no trace, and nothing remains of that\r
+time but its historic results.\r
+\r
+Providence compelled all these men, striving to attain personal aims, to\r
+further the accomplishment of a stupendous result no one of them at all\r
+expected--neither Napoleon, nor Alexander, nor still less any of those\r
+who did the actual fighting.\r
+\r
+The cause of the destruction of the French army in 1812 is clear to us\r
+now. No one will deny that that cause was, on the one hand, its advance\r
+into the heart of Russia late in the season without any preparation for\r
+a winter campaign and, on the other, the character given to the war by\r
+the burning of Russian towns and the hatred of the foe this aroused\r
+among the Russian people. But no one at the time foresaw (what now seems\r
+so evident) that this was the only way an army of eight hundred thousand\r
+men--the best in the world and led by the best general--could be\r
+destroyed in conflict with a raw army of half its numerical strength,\r
+and led by inexperienced commanders as the Russian army was. Not only\r
+did no one see this, but on the Russian side every effort was made to\r
+hinder the only thing that could save Russia, while on the French side,\r
+despite Napoleon's experience and so-called military genius, every\r
+effort was directed to pushing on to Moscow at the end of the summer,\r
+that is, to doing the very thing that was bound to lead to destruction.\r
+\r
+In historical works on the year 1812 French writers are very fond of\r
+saying that Napoleon felt the danger of extending his line, that he\r
+sought a battle and that his marshals advised him to stop at Smolensk,\r
+and of making similar statements to show that the danger of the campaign\r
+was even then understood. Russian authors are still fonder of telling us\r
+that from the commencement of the campaign a Scythian war plan was\r
+adopted to lure Napoleon into the depths of Russia, and this plan some\r
+of them attribute to Pfuel, others to a certain Frenchman, others to\r
+Toll, and others again to Alexander himself--pointing to notes,\r
+projects, and letters which contain hints of such a line of action. But\r
+all these hints at what happened, both from the French side and the\r
+Russian, are advanced only because they fit in with the event. Had that\r
+event not occurred these hints would have been forgotten, as we have\r
+forgotten the thousands and millions of hints and expectations to the\r
+contrary which were current then but have now been forgotten because the\r
+event falsified them. There are always so many conjectures as to the\r
+issue of any event that however it may end there will always be people\r
+to say: "I said then that it would be so," quite forgetting that amid\r
+their innumerable conjectures many were to quite the contrary effect.\r
+\r
+Conjectures as to Napoleon's awareness of the danger of extending his\r
+line, and (on the Russian side) as to luring the enemy into the depths\r
+of Russia, are evidently of that kind, and only by much straining can\r
+historians attribute such conceptions to Napoleon and his marshals, or\r
+such plans to the Russian commanders. All the facts are in flat\r
+contradiction to such conjectures. During the whole period of the war\r
+not only was there no wish on the Russian side to draw the French into\r
+the heart of the country, but from their first entry into Russia\r
+everything was done to stop them. And not only was Napoleon not afraid\r
+to extend his line, but he welcomed every step forward as a triumph and\r
+did not seek battle as eagerly as in former campaigns, but very lazily.\r
+\r
+At the very beginning of the war our armies were divided, and our sole\r
+aim was to unite them, though uniting the armies was no advantage if we\r
+meant to retire and lure the enemy into the depths of the country. Our\r
+Emperor joined the army to encourage it to defend every inch of Russian\r
+soil and not to retreat. The enormous Drissa camp was formed on Pfuel's\r
+plan, and there was no intention of retiring farther. The Emperor\r
+reproached the commanders in chief for every step they retired. He could\r
+not bear the idea of letting the enemy even reach Smolensk, still less\r
+could he contemplate the burning of Moscow, and when our armies did\r
+unite he was displeased that Smolensk was abandoned and burned without a\r
+general engagement having been fought under its walls.\r
+\r
+So thought the Emperor, and the Russian commanders and people were still\r
+more provoked at the thought that our forces were retreating into the\r
+depths of the country.\r
+\r
+Napoleon having cut our armies apart advanced far into the country and\r
+missed several chances of forcing an engagement. In August he was at\r
+Smolensk and thought only of how to advance farther, though as we now\r
+see that advance was evidently ruinous to him.\r
+\r
+The facts clearly show that Napoleon did not foresee the danger of the\r
+advance on Moscow, nor did Alexander and the Russian commanders then\r
+think of luring Napoleon on, but quite the contrary. The luring of\r
+Napoleon into the depths of the country was not the result of any plan,\r
+for no one believed it to be possible; it resulted from a most complex\r
+interplay of intrigues, aims, and wishes among those who took part in\r
+the war and had no perception whatever of the inevitable, or of the one\r
+way of saving Russia. Everything came about fortuitously. The armies\r
+were divided at the commencement of the campaign. We tried to unite\r
+them, with the evident intention of giving battle and checking the\r
+enemy's advance, and by this effort to unite them while avoiding battle\r
+with a much stronger enemy, and necessarily withdrawing the armies at an\r
+acute angle--we led the French on to Smolensk. But we withdrew at an\r
+acute angle not only because the French advanced between our two armies;\r
+the angle became still more acute and we withdrew still farther, because\r
+Barclay de Tolly was an unpopular foreigner disliked by Bagration (who\r
+would come under his command), and Bagration--being in command of the\r
+second army--tried to postpone joining up and coming under Barclay's\r
+command as long as he could. Bagration was slow in effecting the\r
+junction--though that was the chief aim of all at headquarters--because,\r
+as he alleged, he exposed his army to danger on this march, and it was\r
+best for him to retire more to the left and more to the south, worrying\r
+the enemy from flank and rear and securing from the Ukraine recruits for\r
+his army; and it looks as if he planned this in order not to come under\r
+the command of the detested foreigner Barclay, whose rank was inferior\r
+to his own.\r
+\r
+The Emperor was with the army to encourage it, but his presence and\r
+ignorance of what steps to take, and the enormous number of advisers and\r
+plans, destroyed the first army's energy and it retired.\r
+\r
+The intention was to make a stand at the Drissa camp, but Paulucci,\r
+aiming at becoming commander-in-chief, unexpectedly employed his energy\r
+to influence Alexander, and Pfuel's whole plan was abandoned and the\r
+command entrusted to Barclay. But as Barclay did not inspire confidence\r
+his power was limited. The armies were divided, there was no unity of\r
+command, and Barclay was unpopular; but from this confusion, division,\r
+and the unpopularity of the foreign commander-in-chief, there resulted\r
+on the one hand indecision and the avoidance of a battle (which we could\r
+not have refrained from had the armies been united and had someone else,\r
+instead of Barclay, been in command) and on the other an ever-increasing\r
+indignation against the foreigners and an increase in patriotic zeal.\r
+\r
+At last the Emperor left the army, and as the most convenient and indeed\r
+the only pretext for his departure it was decided that it was necessary\r
+for him to inspire the people in the capitals and arouse the nation in\r
+general to a patriotic war. And by this visit of the Emperor to Moscow\r
+the strength of the Russian army was trebled.\r
+\r
+He left in order not to obstruct the commander-in-chief's undivided\r
+control of the army, and hoping that more decisive action would then be\r
+taken, but the command of the armies became still more confused and\r
+enfeebled. Bennigsen, the Tsarevich, and a swarm of adjutants general\r
+remained with the army to keep the commander-in-chief under observation\r
+and arouse his energy, and Barclay, feeling less free than ever under\r
+the observation of all these "eyes of the Emperor," became still more\r
+cautious of undertaking any decisive action and avoided giving battle.\r
+\r
+Barclay stood for caution. The Tsarevich hinted at treachery and\r
+demanded a general engagement. Lubomirski, Bronnitski, Wlocki, and the\r
+others of that group stirred up so much trouble that Barclay, under\r
+pretext of sending papers to the Emperor, dispatched these Polish\r
+adjutants general to Petersburg and plunged into an open struggle with\r
+Bennigsen and the Tsarevich.\r
+\r
+At Smolensk the armies at last reunited, much as Bagration disliked it.\r
+\r
+Bagration drove up in a carriage to the house occupied by Barclay.\r
+Barclay donned his sash and came out to meet and report to his senior\r
+officer Bagration.\r
+\r
+Despite his seniority in rank Bagration, in this contest of magnanimity,\r
+took his orders from Barclay, but, having submitted, agreed with him\r
+less than ever. By the Emperor's orders Bagration reported direct to\r
+him. He wrote to Arakcheev, the Emperor's confidant: "It must be as my\r
+sovereign pleases, but I cannot work with the Minister (meaning\r
+Barclay). For God's sake send me somewhere else if only in command of a\r
+regiment. I cannot stand it here. Headquarters are so full of Germans\r
+that a Russian cannot exist and there is no sense in anything. I thought\r
+I was really serving my sovereign and the Fatherland, but it turns out\r
+that I am serving Barclay. I confess I do not want to."\r
+\r
+The swarm of Bronnitskis and Wintzingerodes and their like still further\r
+embittered the relations between the commanders in chief, and even less\r
+unity resulted. Preparations were made to fight the French before\r
+Smolensk. A general was sent to survey the position. This general,\r
+hating Barclay, rode to visit a friend of his own, a corps commander,\r
+and, having spent the day with him, returned to Barclay and condemned,\r
+as unsuitable from every point of view, the battleground he had not\r
+seen.\r
+\r
+While disputes and intrigues were going on about the future field of\r
+battle, and while we were looking for the French--having lost touch with\r
+them--the French stumbled upon Neverovski's division and reached the\r
+walls of Smolensk.\r
+\r
+It was necessary to fight an unexpected battle at Smolensk to save our\r
+lines of communication. The battle was fought and thousands were killed\r
+on both sides.\r
+\r
+Smolensk was abandoned contrary to the wishes of the Emperor and of the\r
+whole people. But Smolensk was burned by its own inhabitants-who had\r
+been misled by their governor. And these ruined inhabitants, setting an\r
+example to other Russians, went to Moscow thinking only of their own\r
+losses but kindling hatred of the foe. Napoleon advanced farther and we\r
+retired, thus arriving at the very result which caused his destruction.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+The day after his son had left, Prince Nicholas sent for Princess Mary\r
+to come to his study.\r
+\r
+"Well? Are you satisfied now?" said he. "You've made me quarrel with my\r
+son! Satisfied, are you? That's all you wanted! Satisfied?... It hurts\r
+me, it hurts. I'm old and weak and this is what you wanted. Well then,\r
+gloat over it! Gloat over it!"\r
+\r
+After that Princess Mary did not see her father for a whole week. He was\r
+ill and did not leave his study.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary noticed to her surprise that during this illness the old\r
+prince not only excluded her from his room, but did not admit\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne either. Tikhon alone attended him.\r
+\r
+At the end of the week the prince reappeared and resumed his former way\r
+of life, devoting himself with special activity to building operations\r
+and the arrangement of the gardens and completely breaking off his\r
+relations with Mademoiselle Bourienne. His looks and cold tone to his\r
+daughter seemed to say: "There, you see? You plotted against me, you\r
+lied to Prince Andrew about my relations with that Frenchwoman and made\r
+me quarrel with him, but you see I need neither her nor you!"\r
+\r
+Princess Mary spent half of every day with little Nicholas, watching his\r
+lessons, teaching him Russian and music herself, and talking to\r
+Dessalles; the rest of the day she spent over her books, with her old\r
+nurse, or with "God's folk" who sometimes came by the back door to see\r
+her.\r
+\r
+Of the war Princess Mary thought as women do think about wars. She\r
+feared for her brother who was in it, was horrified by and amazed at the\r
+strange cruelty that impels men to kill one another, but she did not\r
+understand the significance of this war, which seemed to her like all\r
+previous wars. She did not realize the significance of this war, though\r
+Dessalles with whom she constantly conversed was passionately interested\r
+in its progress and tried to explain his own conception of it to her,\r
+and though the "God's folk" who came to see her reported, in their own\r
+way, the rumors current among the people of an invasion by Antichrist,\r
+and though Julie (now Princess Drubetskaya), who had resumed\r
+correspondence with her, wrote patriotic letters from Moscow.\r
+\r
+"I write you in Russian, my good friend," wrote Julie in her Frenchified\r
+Russian, "because I have a detestation for all the French, and the same\r
+for their language which I cannot support to hear spoken.... We in\r
+Moscow are elated by enthusiasm for our adored Emperor.\r
+\r
+"My poor husband is enduring pains and hunger in Jewish taverns, but the\r
+news which I have inspires me yet more.\r
+\r
+"You heard probably of the heroic exploit of Raevski, embracing his two\r
+sons and saying: 'I will perish with them but we will not be shaken!'\r
+And truly though the enemy was twice stronger than we, we were\r
+unshakable. We pass the time as we can, but in war as in war! The\r
+princesses Aline and Sophie sit whole days with me, and we, unhappy\r
+widows of live men, make beautiful conversations over our 'charpie',\r
+only you, my friend, are missing..." and so on.\r
+\r
+The chief reason Princess Mary did not realize the full significance of\r
+this war was that the old prince never spoke of it, did not recognize\r
+it, and laughed at Dessalles when he mentioned it at dinner. The\r
+prince's tone was so calm and confident that Princess Mary\r
+unhesitatingly believed him.\r
+\r
+All that July the old prince was exceedingly active and even animated.\r
+He planned another garden and began a new building for the domestic\r
+serfs. The only thing that made Princess Mary anxious about him was that\r
+he slept very little and, instead of sleeping in his study as usual,\r
+changed his sleeping place every day. One day he would order his camp\r
+bed to be set up in the glass gallery, another day he remained on the\r
+couch or on the lounge chair in the drawing room and dozed there without\r
+undressing, while--instead of Mademoiselle Bourienne--a serf boy read to\r
+him. Then again he would spend a night in the dining room.\r
+\r
+On August 1, a second letter was received from Prince Andrew. In his\r
+first letter which came soon after he had left home, Prince Andrew had\r
+dutifully asked his father's forgiveness for what he had allowed himself\r
+to say and begged to be restored to his favor. To this letter the old\r
+prince had replied affectionately, and from that time had kept the\r
+Frenchwoman at a distance. Prince Andrew's second letter, written near\r
+Vitebsk after the French had occupied that town, gave a brief account of\r
+the whole campaign, enclosed for them a plan he had drawn and forecasts\r
+as to the further progress of the war. In this letter Prince Andrew\r
+pointed out to his father the danger of staying at Bald Hills, so near\r
+the theater of war and on the army's direct line of march, and advised\r
+him to move to Moscow.\r
+\r
+At dinner that day, on Dessalles' mentioning that the French were said\r
+to have already entered Vitebsk, the old prince remembered his son's\r
+letter.\r
+\r
+"There was a letter from Prince Andrew today," he said to Princess Mary-\r
+-"Haven't you read it?"\r
+\r
+"No, Father," she replied in a frightened voice.\r
+\r
+She could not have read the letter as she did not even know it had\r
+arrived.\r
+\r
+"He writes about this war," said the prince, with the ironic smile that\r
+had become habitual to him in speaking of the present war.\r
+\r
+"That must be very interesting," said Dessalles. "Prince Andrew is in a\r
+position to know..."\r
+\r
+"Oh, very interesting!" said Mademoiselle Bourienne.\r
+\r
+"Go and get it for me," said the old prince to Mademoiselle Bourienne.\r
+"You know--under the paperweight on the little table."\r
+\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne jumped up eagerly.\r
+\r
+"No, don't!" he exclaimed with a frown. "You go, Michael Ivanovich."\r
+\r
+Michael Ivanovich rose and went to the study. But as soon as he had left\r
+the room the old prince, looking uneasily round, threw down his napkin\r
+and went himself.\r
+\r
+"They can't do anything... always make some muddle," he muttered.\r
+\r
+While he was away Princess Mary, Dessalles, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and\r
+even little Nicholas exchanged looks in silence. The old prince returned\r
+with quick steps, accompanied by Michael Ivanovich, bringing the letter\r
+and a plan. These he put down beside him--not letting anyone read them\r
+at dinner.\r
+\r
+On moving to the drawing room he handed the letter to Princess Mary and,\r
+spreading out before him the plan of the new building and fixing his\r
+eyes upon it, told her to read the letter aloud. When she had done so\r
+Princess Mary looked inquiringly at her father. He was examining the\r
+plan, evidently engrossed in his own ideas.\r
+\r
+"What do you think of it, Prince?" Dessalles ventured to ask.\r
+\r
+"I? I?..." said the prince as if unpleasantly awakened, and not taking\r
+his eyes from the plan of the building.\r
+\r
+"Very possibly the theater of war will move so near to us that..."\r
+\r
+"Ha ha ha! The theater of war!" said the prince. "I have said and still\r
+say that the theater of war is Poland and the enemy will never get\r
+beyond the Niemen."\r
+\r
+Dessalles looked in amazement at the prince, who was talking of the\r
+Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper, but Princess Mary,\r
+forgetting the geographical position of the Niemen, thought that what\r
+her father was saying was correct.\r
+\r
+"When the snow melts they'll sink in the Polish swamps. Only they could\r
+fail to see it," the prince continued, evidently thinking of the\r
+campaign of 1807 which seemed to him so recent. "Bennigsen should have\r
+advanced into Prussia sooner, then things would have taken a different\r
+turn..."\r
+\r
+"But, Prince," Dessalles began timidly, "the letter mentions\r
+Vitebsk...."\r
+\r
+"Ah, the letter? Yes..." replied the prince peevishly. "Yes... yes..."\r
+His face suddenly took on a morose expression. He paused. "Yes, he\r
+writes that the French were beaten at... at... what river is it?"\r
+\r
+Dessalles dropped his eyes.\r
+\r
+"The prince says nothing about that," he remarked gently.\r
+\r
+"Doesn't he? But I didn't invent it myself."\r
+\r
+No one spoke for a long time.\r
+\r
+"Yes... yes... Well, Michael Ivanovich," he suddenly went on, raising\r
+his head and pointing to the plan of the building, "tell me how you mean\r
+to alter it...."\r
+\r
+Michael Ivanovich went up to the plan, and the prince after speaking to\r
+him about the building looked angrily at Princess Mary and Dessalles and\r
+went to his own room.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary saw Dessalles' embarrassed and astonished look fixed on\r
+her father, noticed his silence, and was struck by the fact that her\r
+father had forgotten his son's letter on the drawing-room table; but she\r
+was not only afraid to speak of it and ask Dessalles the reason of his\r
+confusion and silence, but was afraid even to think about it.\r
+\r
+In the evening Michael Ivanovich, sent by the prince, came to Princess\r
+Mary for Prince Andrew's letter which had been forgotten in the drawing\r
+room. She gave it to him and, unpleasant as it was to her to do so,\r
+ventured to ask him what her father was doing.\r
+\r
+"Always busy," replied Michael Ivanovich with a respectfully ironic\r
+smile which caused Princess Mary to turn pale. "He's worrying very much\r
+about the new building. He has been reading a little, but now"--Michael\r
+Ivanovich went on, lowering his voice--"now he's at his desk, busy with\r
+his will, I expect." (One of the prince's favorite occupations of late\r
+had been the preparation of some papers he meant to leave at his death\r
+and which he called his "will.")\r
+\r
+"And Alpatych is being sent to Smolensk?" asked Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, he has been waiting to start for some time."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+When Michael Ivanovich returned to the study with the letter, the old\r
+prince, with spectacles on and a shade over his eyes, was sitting at his\r
+open bureau with screened candles, holding a paper in his outstretched\r
+hand, and in a somewhat dramatic attitude was reading his manuscript--\r
+his "Remarks" as he termed it--which was to be transmitted to the\r
+Emperor after his death.\r
+\r
+When Michael Ivanovich went in there were tears in the prince's eyes\r
+evoked by the memory of the time when the paper he was now reading had\r
+been written. He took the letter from Michael Ivanovich's hand, put it\r
+in his pocket, folded up his papers, and called in Alpatych who had long\r
+been waiting.\r
+\r
+The prince had a list of things to be bought in Smolensk and, walking up\r
+and down the room past Alpatych who stood by the door, he gave his\r
+instructions.\r
+\r
+"First, notepaper--do you hear? Eight quires, like this sample, gilt-\r
+edged... it must be exactly like the sample. Varnish, sealing wax, as in\r
+Michael Ivanovich's list."\r
+\r
+He paced up and down for a while and glanced at his notes.\r
+\r
+"Then hand to the governor in person a letter about the deed."\r
+\r
+Next, bolts for the doors of the new building were wanted and had to be\r
+of a special shape the prince had himself designed, and a leather case\r
+had to be ordered to keep the "will" in.\r
+\r
+The instructions to Alpatych took over two hours and still the prince\r
+did not let him go. He sat down, sank into thought, closed his eyes, and\r
+dozed off. Alpatych made a slight movement.\r
+\r
+"Well, go, go! If anything more is wanted I'll send after you."\r
+\r
+Alpatych went out. The prince again went to his bureau, glanced into it,\r
+fingered his papers, closed the bureau again, and sat down at the table\r
+to write to the governor.\r
+\r
+It was already late when he rose after sealing the letter. He wished to\r
+sleep, but he knew he would not be able to and that most depressing\r
+thoughts came to him in bed. So he called Tikhon and went through the\r
+rooms with him to show him where to set up the bed for that night.\r
+\r
+He went about looking at every corner. Every place seemed\r
+unsatisfactory, but worst of all was his customary couch in the study.\r
+That couch was dreadful to him, probably because of the oppressive\r
+thoughts he had had when lying there. It was unsatisfactory everywhere,\r
+but the corner behind the piano in the sitting room was better than\r
+other places: he had never slept there yet.\r
+\r
+With the help of a footman Tikhon brought in the bedstead and began\r
+putting it up.\r
+\r
+"That's not right! That's not right!" cried the prince, and himself\r
+pushed it a few inches from the corner and then closer in again.\r
+\r
+"Well, at last I've finished, now I'll rest," thought the prince, and\r
+let Tikhon undress him.\r
+\r
+Frowning with vexation at the effort necessary to divest himself of his\r
+coat and trousers, the prince undressed, sat down heavily on the bed,\r
+and appeared to be meditating as he looked contemptuously at his\r
+withered yellow legs. He was not meditating, but only deferring the\r
+moment of making the effort to lift those legs up and turn over on the\r
+bed. "Ugh, how hard it is! Oh, that this toil might end and you would\r
+release me!" thought he. Pressing his lips together he made that effort\r
+for the twenty-thousandth time and lay down. But hardly had he done so\r
+before he felt the bed rocking backwards and forwards beneath him as if\r
+it were breathing heavily and jolting. This happened to him almost every\r
+night. He opened his eyes as they were closing.\r
+\r
+"No peace, damn them!" he muttered, angry he knew not with whom. "Ah\r
+yes, there was something else important, very important, that I was\r
+keeping till I should be in bed. The bolts? No, I told him about them.\r
+No, it was something, something in the drawing room. Princess Mary\r
+talked some nonsense. Dessalles, that fool, said something. Something in\r
+my pocket--can't remember..."\r
+\r
+"Tikhon, what did we talk about at dinner?"\r
+\r
+"About Prince Michael..."\r
+\r
+"Be quiet, quiet!" The prince slapped his hand on the table. "Yes, I\r
+know, Prince Andrew's letter! Princess Mary read it. Dessalles said\r
+something about Vitebsk. Now I'll read it."\r
+\r
+He had the letter taken from his pocket and the table--on which stood a\r
+glass of lemonade and a spiral wax candle--moved close to the bed, and\r
+putting on his spectacles he began reading. Only now in the stillness of\r
+the night, reading it by the faint light under the green shade, did he\r
+grasp its meaning for a moment.\r
+\r
+"The French at Vitebsk, in four days' march they may be at Smolensk;\r
+perhaps are already there! Tikhon!" Tikhon jumped up. "No, no, I don't\r
+want anything!" he shouted.\r
+\r
+He put the letter under the candlestick and closed his eyes. And there\r
+rose before him the Danube at bright noonday: reeds, the Russian camp,\r
+and himself a young general without a wrinkle on his ruddy face,\r
+vigorous and alert, entering Potemkin's gaily colored tent, and a\r
+burning sense of jealousy of "the favorite" agitated him now as strongly\r
+as it had done then. He recalled all the words spoken at that first\r
+meeting with Potemkin. And he saw before him a plump, rather sallow-\r
+faced, short, stout woman, the Empress Mother, with her smile and her\r
+words at her first gracious reception of him, and then that same face on\r
+the catafalque, and the encounter he had with Zubov over her coffin\r
+about his right to kiss her hand.\r
+\r
+"Oh, quicker, quicker! To get back to that time and have done with all\r
+the present! Quicker, quicker--and that they should leave me in peace!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Bolkonski's estate, lay forty miles east\r
+from Smolensk and two miles from the main road to Moscow.\r
+\r
+The same evening that the prince gave his instructions to Alpatych,\r
+Dessalles, having asked to see Princess Mary, told her that, as the\r
+prince was not very well and was taking no steps to secure his safety,\r
+though from Prince Andrew's letter it was evident that to remain at Bald\r
+Hills might be dangerous, he respectfully advised her to send a letter\r
+by Alpatych to the Provincial Governor at Smolensk, asking him to let\r
+her know the state of affairs and the extent of the danger to which Bald\r
+Hills was exposed. Dessalles wrote this letter to the Governor for\r
+Princess Mary, she signed it, and it was given to Alpatych with\r
+instructions to hand it to the Governor and to come back as quickly as\r
+possible if there was danger.\r
+\r
+Having received all his orders Alpatych, wearing a white beaver hat--a\r
+present from the prince--and carrying a stick as the prince did, went\r
+out accompanied by his family. Three well-fed roans stood ready\r
+harnessed to a small conveyance with a leather hood.\r
+\r
+The larger bell was muffled and the little bells on the harness stuffed\r
+with paper. The prince allowed no one at Bald Hills to drive with\r
+ringing bells; but on a long journey Alpatych liked to have them. His\r
+satellites--the senior clerk, a countinghouse clerk, a scullery maid, a\r
+cook, two old women, a little pageboy, the coachman, and various\r
+domestic serfs--were seeing him off.\r
+\r
+His daughter placed chintz-covered down cushions for him to sit on and\r
+behind his back. His old sister-in-law popped in a small bundle, and one\r
+of the coachmen helped him into the vehicle.\r
+\r
+"There! There! Women's fuss! Women, women!" said Alpatych, puffing and\r
+speaking rapidly just as the prince did, and he climbed into the trap.\r
+\r
+After giving the clerk orders about the work to be done, Alpatych, not\r
+trying to imitate the prince now, lifted the hat from his bald head and\r
+crossed himself three times.\r
+\r
+"If there is anything... come back, Yakov Alpatych! For Christ's sake\r
+think of us!" cried his wife, referring to the rumors of war and the\r
+enemy.\r
+\r
+"Women, women! Women's fuss!" muttered Alpatych to himself and started\r
+on his journey, looking round at the fields of yellow rye and the still-\r
+green, thickly growing oats, and at other quite black fields just being\r
+plowed a second time.\r
+\r
+As he went along he looked with pleasure at the year's splendid crop of\r
+corn, scrutinized the strips of ryefield which here and there were\r
+already being reaped, made his calculations as to the sowing and the\r
+harvest, and asked himself whether he had not forgotten any of the\r
+prince's orders.\r
+\r
+Having baited the horses twice on the way, he arrived at the town toward\r
+evening on the fourth of August.\r
+\r
+Alpatych kept meeting and overtaking baggage trains and troops on the\r
+road. As he approached Smolensk he heard the sounds of distant firing,\r
+but these did not impress him. What struck him most was the sight of a\r
+splendid field of oats in which a camp had been pitched and which was\r
+being mown down by the soldiers, evidently for fodder. This fact\r
+impressed Alpatych, but in thinking about his own business he soon\r
+forgot it.\r
+\r
+All the interests of his life for more than thirty years had been\r
+bounded by the will of the prince, and he never went beyond that limit.\r
+Everything not connected with the execution of the prince's orders did\r
+not interest and did not even exist for Alpatych.\r
+\r
+On reaching Smolensk on the evening of the fourth of August he put up in\r
+the Gachina suburb across the Dnieper, at the inn kept by Ferapontov,\r
+where he had been in the habit of putting up for the last thirty years.\r
+Some thirty years ago Ferapontov, by Alpatych's advice, had bought a\r
+wood from the prince, had begun to trade, and now had a house, an inn,\r
+and a corn dealer's shop in that province. He was a stout, dark, red-\r
+faced peasant in the forties, with thick lips, a broad knob of a nose,\r
+similar knobs over his black frowning brows, and a round belly.\r
+\r
+Wearing a waistcoat over his cotton shirt, Ferapontov was standing\r
+before his shop which opened onto the street. On seeing Alpatych he went\r
+up to him.\r
+\r
+"You're welcome, Yakov Alpatych. Folks are leaving the town, but you\r
+have come to it," said he.\r
+\r
+"Why are they leaving the town?" asked Alpatych.\r
+\r
+"That's what I say. Folks are foolish! Always afraid of the French."\r
+\r
+"Women's fuss, women's fuss!" said Alpatych.\r
+\r
+"Just what I think, Yakov Alpatych. What I say is: orders have been\r
+given not to let them in, so that must be right. And the peasants are\r
+asking three rubles for carting--it isn't Christian!"\r
+\r
+Yakov Alpatych heard without heeding. He asked for a samovar and for hay\r
+for his horses, and when he had had his tea he went to bed.\r
+\r
+All night long troops were moving past the inn. Next morning Alpatych\r
+donned a jacket he wore only in town and went out on business. It was a\r
+sunny morning and by eight o'clock it was already hot. "A good day for\r
+harvesting," thought Alpatych.\r
+\r
+From beyond the town firing had been heard since early morning. At eight\r
+o'clock the booming of cannon was added to the sound of musketry. Many\r
+people were hurrying through the streets and there were many soldiers,\r
+but cabs were still driving about, tradesmen stood at their shops, and\r
+service was being held in the churches as usual. Alpatych went to the\r
+shops, to government offices, to the post office, and to the Governor's.\r
+In the offices and shops and at the post office everyone was talking\r
+about the army and about the enemy who was already attacking the town,\r
+everybody was asking what should be done, and all were trying to calm\r
+one another.\r
+\r
+In front of the Governor's house Alpatych found a large number of\r
+people, Cossacks, and a traveling carriage of the Governor's. At the\r
+porch he met two of the landed gentry, one of whom he knew. This man, an\r
+ex-captain of police, was saying angrily:\r
+\r
+"It's no joke, you know! It's all very well if you're single. 'One man\r
+though undone is but one,' as the proverb says, but with thirteen in\r
+your family and all the property... They've brought us to utter ruin!\r
+What sort of governors are they to do that? They ought to be hanged--the\r
+brigands!..."\r
+\r
+"Oh come, that's enough!" said the other.\r
+\r
+"What do I care? Let him hear! We're not dogs," said the ex-captain of\r
+police, and looking round he noticed Alpatych.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Yakov Alpatych! What have you come for?"\r
+\r
+"To see the Governor by his excellency's order," answered Alpatych,\r
+lifting his head and proudly thrusting his hand into the bosom of his\r
+coat as he always did when he mentioned the prince.... "He has ordered\r
+me to inquire into the position of affairs," he added.\r
+\r
+"Yes, go and find out!" shouted the angry gentleman. "They've brought\r
+things to such a pass that there are no carts or anything!... There it\r
+is again, do you hear?" said he, pointing in the direction whence came\r
+the sounds of firing.\r
+\r
+"They've brought us all to ruin... the brigands!" he repeated, and\r
+descended the porch steps.\r
+\r
+Alpatych swayed his head and went upstairs. In the waiting room were\r
+tradesmen, women, and officials, looking silently at one another. The\r
+door of the Governor's room opened and they all rose and moved forward.\r
+An official ran out, said some words to a merchant, called a stout\r
+official with a cross hanging on his neck to follow him, and vanished\r
+again, evidently wishing to avoid the inquiring looks and questions\r
+addressed to him. Alpatych moved forward and next time the official came\r
+out addressed him, one hand placed in the breast of his buttoned coat,\r
+and handed him two letters.\r
+\r
+"To his Honor Baron Asch, from General-in-Chief Prince Bolkonski," he\r
+announced with such solemnity and significance that the official turned\r
+to him and took the letters.\r
+\r
+A few minutes later the Governor received Alpatych and hurriedly said to\r
+him:\r
+\r
+"Inform the prince and princess that I knew nothing: I acted on the\r
+highest instructions--here..." and he handed a paper to Alpatych.\r
+"Still, as the prince is unwell my advice is that they should go to\r
+Moscow. I am just starting myself. Inform them..."\r
+\r
+But the Governor did not finish: a dusty perspiring officer ran into the\r
+room and began to say something in French. The Governor's face expressed\r
+terror.\r
+\r
+"Go," he said, nodding his head to Alpatych, and began questioning the\r
+officer.\r
+\r
+Eager, frightened, helpless glances were turned on Alpatych when he came\r
+out of the Governor's room. Involuntarily listening now to the firing,\r
+which had drawn nearer and was increasing in strength, Alpatych hurried\r
+to his inn. The paper handed to him by the Governor said this:\r
+\r
+"I assure you that the town of Smolensk is not in the slightest danger\r
+as yet and it is unlikely that it will be threatened with any. I from\r
+the one side and Prince Bagration from the other are marching to unite\r
+our forces before Smolensk, which junction will be effected on the 22nd\r
+instant, and both armies with their united forces will defend our\r
+compatriots of the province entrusted to your care till our efforts\r
+shall have beaten back the enemies of our Fatherland, or till the last\r
+warrior in our valiant ranks has perished. From this you will see that\r
+you have a perfect right to reassure the inhabitants of Smolensk, for\r
+those defended by two such brave armies may feel assured of victory."\r
+(Instructions from Barclay de Tolly to Baron Asch, the civil governor of\r
+Smolensk, 1812.)\r
+\r
+People were anxiously roaming about the streets.\r
+\r
+Carts piled high with household utensils, chairs, and cupboards kept\r
+emerging from the gates of the yards and moving along the streets.\r
+Loaded carts stood at the house next to Ferapontov's and women were\r
+wailing and lamenting as they said good-by. A small watchdog ran round\r
+barking in front of the harnessed horses.\r
+\r
+Alpatych entered the innyard at a quicker pace than usual and went\r
+straight to the shed where his horses and trap were. The coachman was\r
+asleep. He woke him up, told him to harness, and went into the passage.\r
+From the host's room came the sounds of a child crying, the despairing\r
+sobs of a woman, and the hoarse angry shouting of Ferapontov. The cook\r
+began running hither and thither in the passage like a frightened hen,\r
+just as Alpatych entered.\r
+\r
+"He's done her to death. Killed the mistress!... Beat her... dragged her\r
+about so!..."\r
+\r
+"What for?" asked Alpatych.\r
+\r
+"She kept begging to go away. She's a woman! 'Take me away,' says she,\r
+'don't let me perish with my little children! Folks,' she says, 'are all\r
+gone, so why,' she says, 'don't we go?' And he began beating and pulling\r
+her about so!"\r
+\r
+At these words Alpatych nodded as if in approval, and not wishing to\r
+hear more went to the door of the room opposite the innkeeper's, where\r
+he had left his purchases.\r
+\r
+"You brute, you murderer!" screamed a thin, pale woman who, with a baby\r
+in her arms and her kerchief torn from her head, burst through the door\r
+at that moment and down the steps into the yard.\r
+\r
+Ferapontov came out after her, but on seeing Alpatych adjusted his\r
+waistcoat, smoothed his hair, yawned, and followed Alpatych into the\r
+opposite room.\r
+\r
+"Going already?" said he.\r
+\r
+Alpatych, without answering or looking at his host, sorted his packages\r
+and asked how much he owed.\r
+\r
+"We'll reckon up! Well, have you been to the Governor's?" asked\r
+Ferapontov. "What has been decided?"\r
+\r
+Alpatych replied that the Governor had not told him anything definite.\r
+\r
+"With our business, how can we get away?" said Ferapontov. "We'd have to\r
+pay seven rubles a cartload to Dorogobuzh and I tell them they're not\r
+Christians to ask it! Selivanov, now, did a good stroke last Thursday--\r
+sold flour to the army at nine rubles a sack. Will you have some tea?"\r
+he added.\r
+\r
+While the horses were being harnessed Alpatych and Ferapontov over their\r
+tea talked of the price of corn, the crops, and the good weather for\r
+harvesting.\r
+\r
+"Well, it seems to be getting quieter," remarked Ferapontov, finishing\r
+his third cup of tea and getting up. "Ours must have got the best of it.\r
+The orders were not to let them in. So we're in force, it seems.... They\r
+say the other day Matthew Ivanych Platov drove them into the river\r
+Marina and drowned some eighteen thousand in one day."\r
+\r
+Alpatych collected his parcels, handed them to the coachman who had come\r
+in, and settled up with the innkeeper. The noise of wheels, hoofs, and\r
+bells was heard from the gateway as a little trap passed out.\r
+\r
+It was by now late in the afternoon. Half the street was in shadow, the\r
+other half brightly lit by the sun. Alpatych looked out of the window\r
+and went to the door. Suddenly the strange sound of a far-off whistling\r
+and thud was heard, followed by a boom of cannon blending into a dull\r
+roar that set the windows rattling.\r
+\r
+He went out into the street: two men were running past toward the\r
+bridge. From different sides came whistling sounds and the thud of\r
+cannon balls and bursting shells falling on the town. But these sounds\r
+were hardly heard in comparison with the noise of the firing outside the\r
+town and attracted little attention from the inhabitants. The town was\r
+being bombarded by a hundred and thirty guns which Napoleon had ordered\r
+up after four o'clock. The people did not at once realize the meaning of\r
+this bombardment.\r
+\r
+At first the noise of the falling bombs and shells only aroused\r
+curiosity. Ferapontov's wife, who till then had not ceased wailing under\r
+the shed, became quiet and with the baby in her arms went to the gate,\r
+listening to the sounds and looking in silence at the people.\r
+\r
+The cook and a shop assistant came to the gate. With lively curiosity\r
+everyone tried to get a glimpse of the projectiles as they flew over\r
+their heads. Several people came round the corner talking eagerly.\r
+\r
+"What force!" remarked one. "Knocked the roof and ceiling all to\r
+splinters!"\r
+\r
+"Routed up the earth like a pig," said another.\r
+\r
+"That's grand, it bucks one up!" laughed the first. "Lucky you jumped\r
+aside, or it would have wiped you out!"\r
+\r
+Others joined those men and stopped and told how cannon balls had fallen\r
+on a house close to them. Meanwhile still more projectiles, now with the\r
+swift sinister whistle of a cannon ball, now with the agreeable\r
+intermittent whistle of a shell, flew over people's heads incessantly,\r
+but not one fell close by, they all flew over. Alpatych was getting into\r
+his trap. The innkeeper stood at the gate.\r
+\r
+"What are you staring at?" he shouted to the cook, who in her red skirt,\r
+with sleeves rolled up, swinging her bare elbows, had stepped to the\r
+corner to listen to what was being said.\r
+\r
+"What marvels!" she exclaimed, but hearing her master's voice she turned\r
+back, pulling down her tucked-up skirt.\r
+\r
+Once more something whistled, but this time quite close, swooping\r
+downwards like a little bird; a flame flashed in the middle of the\r
+street, something exploded, and the street was shrouded in smoke.\r
+\r
+"Scoundrel, what are you doing?" shouted the innkeeper, rushing to the\r
+cook.\r
+\r
+At that moment the pitiful wailing of women was heard from different\r
+sides, the frightened baby began to cry, and people crowded silently\r
+with pale faces round the cook. The loudest sound in that crowd was her\r
+wailing.\r
+\r
+"Oh-h-h! Dear souls, dear kind souls! Don't let me die! My good\r
+souls!..."\r
+\r
+Five minutes later no one remained in the street. The cook, with her\r
+thigh broken by a shell splinter, had been carried into the kitchen.\r
+Alpatych, his coachman, Ferapontov's wife and children and the house\r
+porter were all sitting in the cellar, listening. The roar of guns, the\r
+whistling of projectiles, and the piteous moaning of the cook, which\r
+rose above the other sounds, did not cease for a moment. The mistress\r
+rocked and hushed her baby and when anyone came into the cellar asked in\r
+a pathetic whisper what had become of her husband who had remained in\r
+the street. A shopman who entered told her that her husband had gone\r
+with others to the cathedral, whence they were fetching the wonder-\r
+working icon of Smolensk.\r
+\r
+Toward dusk the cannonade began to subside. Alpatych left the cellar and\r
+stopped in the doorway. The evening sky that had been so clear was\r
+clouded with smoke, through which, high up, the sickle of the new moon\r
+shone strangely. Now that the terrible din of the guns had ceased a hush\r
+seemed to reign over the town, broken only by the rustle of footsteps,\r
+the moaning, the distant cries, and the crackle of fires which seemed\r
+widespread everywhere. The cook's moans had now subsided. On two sides\r
+black curling clouds of smoke rose and spread from the fires. Through\r
+the streets soldiers in various uniforms walked or ran confusedly in\r
+different directions like ants from a ruined ant-hill. Several of them\r
+ran into Ferapontov's yard before Alpatych's eyes. Alpatych went out to\r
+the gate. A retreating regiment, thronging and hurrying, blocked the\r
+street.\r
+\r
+Noticing him, an officer said: "The town is being abandoned. Get away,\r
+get away!" and then, turning to the soldiers, shouted:\r
+\r
+"I'll teach you to run into the yards!"\r
+\r
+Alpatych went back to the house, called the coachman, and told him to\r
+set off. Ferapontov's whole household came out too, following Alpatych\r
+and the coachman. The women, who had been silent till then, suddenly\r
+began to wail as they looked at the fires--the smoke and even the flames\r
+of which could be seen in the failing twilight--and as if in reply the\r
+same kind of lamentation was heard from other parts of the street.\r
+Inside the shed Alpatych and the coachman arranged the tangled reins and\r
+traces of their horses with trembling hands.\r
+\r
+As Alpatych was driving out of the gate he saw some ten soldiers in\r
+Ferapontov's open shop, talking loudly and filling their bags and\r
+knapsacks with flour and sunflower seeds. Just then Ferapontov returned\r
+and entered his shop. On seeing the soldiers he was about to shout at\r
+them, but suddenly stopped and, clutching at his hair, burst into sobs\r
+and laughter:\r
+\r
+"Loot everything, lads! Don't let those devils get it!" he cried, taking\r
+some bags of flour himself and throwing them into the street.\r
+\r
+Some of the soldiers were frightened and ran away, others went on\r
+filling their bags. On seeing Alpatych, Ferapontov turned to him:\r
+\r
+"Russia is done for!" he cried. "Alpatych, I'll set the place on fire\r
+myself. We're done for!..." and Ferapontov ran into the yard.\r
+\r
+Soldiers were passing in a constant stream along the street blocking it\r
+completely, so that Alpatych could not pass out and had to wait.\r
+Ferapontov's wife and children were also sitting in a cart waiting till\r
+it was possible to drive out.\r
+\r
+Night had come. There were stars in the sky and the new moon shone out\r
+amid the smoke that screened it. On the sloping descent to the Dnieper\r
+Alpatych's cart and that of the innkeeper's wife, which were slowly\r
+moving amid the rows of soldiers and of other vehicles, had to stop. In\r
+a side street near the crossroads where the vehicles had stopped, a\r
+house and some shops were on fire. This fire was already burning itself\r
+out. The flames now died down and were lost in the black smoke, now\r
+suddenly flared up again brightly, lighting up with strange distinctness\r
+the faces of the people crowding at the crossroads. Black figures\r
+flitted about before the fire, and through the incessant crackling of\r
+the flames talking and shouting could be heard. Seeing that his trap\r
+would not be able to move on for some time, Alpatych got down and turned\r
+into the side street to look at the fire. Soldiers were continually\r
+rushing backwards and forwards near it, and he saw two of them and a man\r
+in a frieze coat dragging burning beams into another yard across the\r
+street, while others carried bundles of hay.\r
+\r
+Alpatych went up to a large crowd standing before a high barn which was\r
+blazing briskly. The walls were all on fire and the back wall had fallen\r
+in, the wooden roof was collapsing, and the rafters were alight. The\r
+crowd was evidently watching for the roof to fall in, and Alpatych\r
+watched for it too.\r
+\r
+"Alpatych!" a familiar voice suddenly hailed the old man.\r
+\r
+"Mercy on us! Your excellency!" answered Alpatych, immediately\r
+recognizing the voice of his young prince.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew in his riding cloak, mounted on a black horse, was looking\r
+at Alpatych from the back of the crowd.\r
+\r
+"Why are you here?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Your... your excellency," stammered Alpatych and broke into sobs. "Are\r
+we really lost? Master!..."\r
+\r
+"Why are you here?" Prince Andrew repeated.\r
+\r
+At that moment the flames flared up and showed his young master's pale\r
+worn face. Alpatych told how he had been sent there and how difficult it\r
+was to get away.\r
+\r
+"Are we really quite lost, your excellency?" he asked again.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew without replying took out a notebook and raising his knee\r
+began writing in pencil on a page he tore out. He wrote to his sister:\r
+\r
+"Smolensk is being abandoned. Bald Hills will be occupied by the enemy\r
+within a week. Set off immediately for Moscow. Let me know at once when\r
+you will start. Send by special messenger to Usvyazh."\r
+\r
+Having written this and given the paper to Alpatych, he told him how to\r
+arrange for departure of the prince, the princess, his son, and the\r
+boy's tutor, and how and where to let him know immediately. Before he\r
+had had time to finish giving these instructions, a chief of staff\r
+followed by a suite galloped up to him.\r
+\r
+"You are a colonel?" shouted the chief of staff with a German accent, in\r
+a voice familiar to Prince Andrew. "Houses are set on fire in your\r
+presence and you stand by! What does this mean? You will answer for it!"\r
+shouted Berg, who was now assistant to the chief of staff of the\r
+commander of the left flank of the infantry of the first army, a place,\r
+as Berg said, "very agreeable and well en evidence."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew looked at him and without replying went on speaking to\r
+Alpatych.\r
+\r
+"So tell them that I shall await a reply till the tenth, and if by the\r
+tenth I don't receive news that they have all got away I shall have to\r
+throw up everything and come myself to Bald Hills."\r
+\r
+"Prince," said Berg, recognizing Prince Andrew, "I only spoke because I\r
+have to obey orders, because I always do obey exactly.... You must\r
+please excuse me," he went on apologetically.\r
+\r
+Something cracked in the flames. The fire died down for a moment and\r
+wreaths of black smoke rolled from under the roof. There was another\r
+terrible crash and something huge collapsed.\r
+\r
+"Ou-rou-rou!" yelled the crowd, echoing the crash of the collapsing roof\r
+of the barn, the burning grain in which diffused a cakelike aroma all\r
+around. The flames flared up again, lighting the animated, delighted,\r
+exhausted faces of the spectators.\r
+\r
+The man in the frieze coat raised his arms and shouted:\r
+\r
+"It's fine, lads! Now it's raging... It's fine!"\r
+\r
+"That's the owner himself," cried several voices.\r
+\r
+"Well then," continued Prince Andrew to Alpatych, "report to them as I\r
+have told you"; and not replying a word to Berg who was now mute beside\r
+him, he touched his horse and rode down the side street.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+From Smolensk the troops continued to retreat, followed by the enemy. On\r
+the tenth of August the regiment Prince Andrew commanded was marching\r
+along the highroad past the avenue leading to Bald Hills. Heat and\r
+drought had continued for more than three weeks. Each day fleecy clouds\r
+floated across the sky and occasionally veiled the sun, but toward\r
+evening the sky cleared again and the sun set in reddish-brown mist.\r
+Heavy night dews alone refreshed the earth. The unreaped corn was\r
+scorched and shed its grain. The marshes dried up. The cattle lowed from\r
+hunger, finding no food on the sun-parched meadows. Only at night and in\r
+the forests while the dew lasted was there any freshness. But on the\r
+road, the highroad along which the troops marched, there was no such\r
+freshness even at night or when the road passed through the forest; the\r
+dew was imperceptible on the sandy dust churned up more than six inches\r
+deep. As soon as day dawned the march began. The artillery and baggage\r
+wagons moved noiselessly through the deep dust that rose to the very\r
+hubs of the wheels, and the infantry sank ankle-deep in that soft,\r
+choking, hot dust that never cooled even at night. Some of this dust was\r
+kneaded by the feet and wheels, while the rest rose and hung like a\r
+cloud over the troops, settling in eyes, ears, hair, and nostrils, and\r
+worst of all in the lungs of the men and beasts as they moved along that\r
+road. The higher the sun rose the higher rose that cloud of dust, and\r
+through the screen of its hot fine particles one could look with naked\r
+eye at the sun, which showed like a huge crimson ball in the unclouded\r
+sky. There was no wind, and the men choked in that motionless\r
+atmosphere. They marched with handkerchiefs tied over their noses and\r
+mouths. When they passed through a village they all rushed to the wells\r
+and fought for the water and drank it down to the mud.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was in command of a regiment, and the management of that\r
+regiment, the welfare of the men and the necessity of receiving and\r
+giving orders, engrossed him. The burning of Smolensk and its\r
+abandonment made an epoch in his life. A novel feeling of anger against\r
+the foe made him forget his own sorrow. He was entirely devoted to the\r
+affairs of his regiment and was considerate and kind to his men and\r
+officers. In the regiment they called him "our prince," were proud of\r
+him and loved him. But he was kind and gentle only to those of his\r
+regiment, to Timokhin and the like--people quite new to him, belonging\r
+to a different world and who could not know and understand his past. As\r
+soon as he came across a former acquaintance or anyone from the staff,\r
+he bristled up immediately and grew spiteful, ironical, and\r
+contemptuous. Everything that reminded him of his past was repugnant to\r
+him, and so in his relations with that former circle he confined himself\r
+to trying to do his duty and not to be unfair.\r
+\r
+In truth everything presented itself in a dark and gloomy light to\r
+Prince Andrew, especially after the abandonment of Smolensk on the sixth\r
+of August (he considered that it could and should have been defended)\r
+and after his sick father had had to flee to Moscow, abandoning to\r
+pillage his dearly beloved Bald Hills which he had built and peopled.\r
+But despite this, thanks to his regiment, Prince Andrew had something to\r
+think about entirely apart from general questions. Two days previously\r
+he had received news that his father, son, and sister had left for\r
+Moscow; and though there was nothing for him to do at Bald Hills, Prince\r
+Andrew with a characteristic desire to foment his own grief decided that\r
+he must ride there.\r
+\r
+He ordered his horse to be saddled and, leaving his regiment on the\r
+march, rode to his father's estate where he had been born and spent his\r
+childhood. Riding past the pond where there used always to be dozens of\r
+women chattering as they rinsed their linen or beat it with wooden\r
+beetles, Prince Andrew noticed that there was not a soul about and that\r
+the little washing wharf, torn from its place and half submerged, was\r
+floating on its side in the middle of the pond. He rode to the keeper's\r
+lodge. No one at the stone entrance gates of the drive and the door\r
+stood open. Grass had already begun to grow on the garden paths, and\r
+horses and calves were straying in the English park. Prince Andrew rode\r
+up to the hothouse; some of the glass panes were broken, and of the\r
+trees in tubs some were overturned and others dried up. He called for\r
+Taras the gardener, but no one replied. Having gone round the corner of\r
+the hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw that the carved garden\r
+fence was broken and branches of the plum trees had been torn off with\r
+the fruit. An old peasant whom Prince Andrew in his childhood had often\r
+seen at the gate was sitting on a green garden seat, plaiting a bast\r
+shoe.\r
+\r
+He was deaf and did not hear Prince Andrew ride up. He was sitting on\r
+the seat the old prince used to like to sit on, and beside him strips of\r
+bast were hanging on the broken and withered branch of a magnolia.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew rode up to the house. Several limes in the old garden had\r
+been cut down and a piebald mare and her foal were wandering in front of\r
+the house among the rosebushes. The shutters were all closed, except at\r
+one window which was open. A little serf boy, seeing Prince Andrew, ran\r
+into the house. Alpatych, having sent his family away, was alone at Bald\r
+Hills and was sitting indoors reading the Lives of the Saints. On\r
+hearing that Prince Andrew had come, he went out with his spectacles on\r
+his nose, buttoning his coat, and, hastily stepping up, without a word\r
+began weeping and kissing Prince Andrew's knee.\r
+\r
+Then, vexed at his own weakness, he turned away and began to report on\r
+the position of affairs. Everything precious and valuable had been\r
+removed to Bogucharovo. Seventy quarters of grain had also been carted\r
+away. The hay and the spring corn, of which Alpatych said there had been\r
+a remarkable crop that year, had been commandeered by the troops and\r
+mown down while still green. The peasants were ruined; some of them too\r
+had gone to Bogucharovo, only a few remained.\r
+\r
+Without waiting to hear him out, Prince Andrew asked:\r
+\r
+"When did my father and sister leave?" meaning when did they leave for\r
+Moscow.\r
+\r
+Alpatych, understanding the question to refer to their departure for\r
+Bogucharovo, replied that they had left on the seventh and again went\r
+into details concerning the estate management, asking for instructions.\r
+\r
+"Am I to let the troops have the oats, and to take a receipt for them?\r
+We have still six hundred quarters left," he inquired.\r
+\r
+"What am I to say to him?" thought Prince Andrew, looking down on the\r
+old man's bald head shining in the sun and seeing by the expression on\r
+his face that the old man himself understood how untimely such questions\r
+were and only asked them to allay his grief.\r
+\r
+"Yes, let them have it," replied Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"If you noticed some disorder in the garden," said Alpatych, "it was\r
+impossible to prevent it. Three regiments have been here and spent the\r
+night, dragoons mostly. I took down the name and rank of their\r
+commanding officer, to hand in a complaint about it."\r
+\r
+"Well, and what are you going to do? Will you stay here if the enemy\r
+occupies the place?" asked Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+Alpatych turned his face to Prince Andrew, looked at him, and suddenly\r
+with a solemn gesture raised his arm.\r
+\r
+"He is my refuge! His will be done!" he exclaimed.\r
+\r
+A group of bareheaded peasants was approaching across the meadow toward\r
+the prince.\r
+\r
+"Well, good-by!" said Prince Andrew, bending over to Alpatych. "You must\r
+go away too, take away what you can and tell the serfs to go to the\r
+Ryazan estate or to the one near Moscow."\r
+\r
+Alpatych clung to Prince Andrew's leg and burst into sobs. Gently\r
+disengaging himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode down the\r
+avenue at a gallop.\r
+\r
+The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly\r
+impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping the last on\r
+which he was making the bast shoe, and two little girls, running out\r
+from the hot house carrying in their skirts plums they had plucked from\r
+the trees there, came upon Prince Andrew. On seeing the young master,\r
+the elder one with frightened look clutched her younger companion by the\r
+hand and hid with her behind a birch tree, not stopping to pick up some\r
+green plums they had dropped.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew turned away with startled haste, unwilling to let them see\r
+that they had been observed. He was sorry for the pretty frightened\r
+little girl, was afraid of looking at her, and yet felt an irresistible\r
+desire to do so. A new sensation of comfort and relief came over him\r
+when, seeing these girls, he realized the existence of other human\r
+interests entirely aloof from his own and just as legitimate as those\r
+that occupied him. Evidently these girls passionately desired one thing-\r
+-to carry away and eat those green plums without being caught--and\r
+Prince Andrew shared their wish for the success of their enterprise. He\r
+could not resist looking at them once more. Believing their danger past,\r
+they sprang from their ambush and, chirruping something in their shrill\r
+little voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburned\r
+feet scampered merrily and quickly across the meadow grass.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was somewhat refreshed by having ridden off the dusty\r
+highroad along which the troops were moving. But not far from Bald Hills\r
+he again came out on the road and overtook his regiment at its halting\r
+place by the dam of a small pond. It was past one o'clock. The sun, a\r
+red ball through the dust, burned and scorched his back intolerably\r
+through his black coat. The dust always hung motionless above the buzz\r
+of talk that came from the resting troops. There was no wind. As he\r
+crossed the dam Prince Andrew smelled the ooze and freshness of the\r
+pond. He longed to get into that water, however dirty it might be, and\r
+he glanced round at the pool from whence came sounds of shrieks and\r
+laughter. The small, muddy, green pond had risen visibly more than a\r
+foot, flooding the dam, because it was full of the naked white bodies of\r
+soldiers with brick-red hands, necks, and faces, who were splashing\r
+about in it. All this naked white human flesh, laughing and shrieking,\r
+floundered about in that dirty pool like carp stuffed into a watering\r
+can, and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering mass rendered\r
+it specially pathetic.\r
+\r
+One fair-haired young soldier of the third company, whom Prince Andrew\r
+knew and who had a strap round the calf of one leg, crossed himself,\r
+stepped back to get a good run, and plunged into the water; another, a\r
+dark noncommissioned officer who was always shaggy, stood up to his\r
+waist in the water joyfully wriggling his muscular figure and snorted\r
+with satisfaction as he poured the water over his head with hands\r
+blackened to the wrists. There were sounds of men slapping one another,\r
+yelling, and puffing.\r
+\r
+Everywhere on the bank, on the dam, and in the pond, there was healthy,\r
+white, muscular flesh. The officer, Timokhin, with his red little nose,\r
+standing on the dam wiping himself with a towel, felt confused at seeing\r
+the prince, but made up his mind to address him nevertheless.\r
+\r
+"It's very nice, your excellency! Wouldn't you like to?" said he.\r
+\r
+"It's dirty," replied Prince Andrew, making a grimace.\r
+\r
+"We'll clear it out for you in a minute," said Timokhin, and, still\r
+undressed, ran off to clear the men out of the pond.\r
+\r
+"The prince wants to bathe."\r
+\r
+"What prince? Ours?" said many voices, and the men were in such haste to\r
+clear out that the prince could hardly stop them. He decided that he\r
+would rather wash himself with water in the barn.\r
+\r
+"Flesh, bodies, cannon fodder!" he thought, and he looked at his own\r
+naked body and shuddered, not from cold but from a sense of disgust and\r
+horror he did not himself understand, aroused by the sight of that\r
+immense number of bodies splashing about in the dirty pond.\r
+\r
+On the seventh of August Prince Bagration wrote as follows from his\r
+quarters at Mikhaylovna on the Smolensk road:\r
+\r
+Dear Count Alexis Andreevich--(He was writing to Arakcheev but knew that\r
+his letter would be read by the Emperor, and therefore weighed every\r
+word in it to the best of his ability.)\r
+\r
+I expect the Minister (Barclay de Tolly) has already reported the\r
+abandonment of Smolensk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad, and the\r
+whole army is in despair that this most important place has been\r
+wantonly abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally most urgently\r
+and finally wrote him, but nothing would induce him to consent. I swear\r
+to you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a fix as never before and\r
+might have lost half his army but could not have taken Smolensk. Our\r
+troops fought, and are fighting, as never before. With fifteen thousand\r
+men I held the enemy at bay for thirty-five hours and beat him; but he\r
+would not hold out even for fourteen hours. It is disgraceful, a stain\r
+on our army, and as for him, he ought, it seems to me, not to live. If\r
+he reports that our losses were great, it is not true; perhaps about\r
+four thousand, not more, and not even that; but even were they ten\r
+thousand, that's war! But the enemy has lost masses...\r
+\r
+What would it have cost him to hold out for another two days? They would\r
+have had to retire of their own accord, for they had no water for men or\r
+horses. He gave me his word he would not retreat, but suddenly sent\r
+instructions that he was retiring that night. We cannot fight in this\r
+way, or we may soon bring the enemy to Moscow...\r
+\r
+There is a rumor that you are thinking of peace. God forbid that you\r
+should make peace after all our sacrifices and such insane retreats! You\r
+would set all Russia against you and every one of us would feel ashamed\r
+to wear the uniform. If it has come to this--we must fight as long as\r
+Russia can and as long as there are men able to stand...\r
+\r
+One man ought to be in command, and not two. Your Minister may perhaps\r
+be good as a Minister, but as a general he is not merely bad but\r
+execrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country.... I\r
+am really frantic with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear\r
+that the man who advocates the conclusion of a peace, and that the\r
+Minister should command the army, does not love our sovereign and\r
+desires the ruin of us all. So I write you frankly: call out the\r
+militia. For the Minister is leading these visitors after him to Moscow\r
+in a most masterly way. The whole army feels great suspicion of the\r
+Imperial aide-de-camp Wolzogen. He is said to be more Napoleon's man\r
+than ours, and he is always advising the Minister. I am not merely civil\r
+to him but obey him like a corporal, though I am his senior. This is\r
+painful, but, loving my benefactor and sovereign, I submit. Only I am\r
+sorry for the Emperor that he entrusts our fine army to such as he.\r
+Consider that on our retreat we have lost by fatigue and left in the\r
+hospital more than fifteen thousand men, and had we attacked this would\r
+not have happened. Tell me, for God's sake, what will Russia, our mother\r
+Russia, say to our being so frightened, and why are we abandoning our\r
+good and gallant Fatherland to such rabble and implanting feelings of\r
+hatred and shame in all our subjects? What are we scared at and of whom\r
+are we afraid? I am not to blame that the Minister is vacillating, a\r
+coward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad qualities. The whole army\r
+bewails it and calls down curses upon him...\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+Among the innumerable categories applicable to the phenomena of human\r
+life one may discriminate between those in which substance prevails and\r
+those in which form prevails. To the latter--as distinguished from\r
+village, country, provincial, or even Moscow life--we may allot\r
+Petersburg life, and especially the life of its salons. That life of the\r
+salons is unchanging. Since the year 1805 we had made peace and had\r
+again quarreled with Bonaparte and had made constitutions and unmade\r
+them again, but the salons of Anna Pavlovna and Helene remained just as\r
+they had been--the one seven and the other five years before. At Anna\r
+Pavlovna's they talked with perplexity of Bonaparte's successes just as\r
+before and saw in them and in the subservience shown to him by the\r
+European sovereigns a malicious conspiracy, the sole object of which was\r
+to cause unpleasantness and anxiety to the court circle of which Anna\r
+Pavlovna was the representative. And in Helene's salon, which Rumyantsev\r
+himself honored with his visits, regarding Helene as a remarkably\r
+intelligent woman, they talked with the same ecstasy in 1812 as in 1808\r
+of the "great nation" and the "great man," and regretted our rupture\r
+with France, a rupture which, according to them, ought to be promptly\r
+terminated by peace.\r
+\r
+Of late, since the Emperor's return from the army, there had been some\r
+excitement in these conflicting salon circles and some demonstrations of\r
+hostility to one another, but each camp retained its own tendency. In\r
+Anna Pavlovna's circle only those Frenchmen were admitted who were deep-\r
+rooted legitimists, and patriotic views were expressed to the effect\r
+that one ought not to go to the French theater and that to maintain the\r
+French troupe was costing the government as much as a whole army corps.\r
+The progress of the war was eagerly followed, and only the reports most\r
+flattering to our army were circulated. In the French circle of Helene\r
+and Rumyantsev the reports of the cruelty of the enemy and of the war\r
+were contradicted and all Napoleon's attempts at conciliation were\r
+discussed. In that circle they discountenanced those who advised hurried\r
+preparations for a removal to Kazan of the court and the girls'\r
+educational establishments under the patronage of the Dowager Empress.\r
+In Helene's circle the war in general was regarded as a series of formal\r
+demonstrations which would very soon end in peace, and the view\r
+prevailed expressed by Bilibin--who now in Petersburg was quite at home\r
+in Helene's house, which every clever man was obliged to visit--that not\r
+by gunpowder but by those who invented it would matters be settled. In\r
+that circle the Moscow enthusiasm--news of which had reached Petersburg\r
+simultaneously with the Emperor's return--was ridiculed sarcastically\r
+and very cleverly, though with much caution.\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna's circle on the contrary was enraptured by this enthusiasm\r
+and spoke of it as Plutarch speaks of the deeds of the ancients. Prince\r
+Vasili, who still occupied his former important posts, formed a\r
+connecting link between these two circles. He visited his "good friend\r
+Anna Pavlovna" as well as his daughter's "diplomatic salon," and often\r
+in his constant comings and goings between the two camps became confused\r
+and said at Helene's what he should have said at Anna Pavlovna's and\r
+vice versa.\r
+\r
+Soon after the Emperor's return Prince Vasili in a conversation about\r
+the war at Anna Pavlovna's severely condemned Barclay de Tolly, but was\r
+undecided as to who ought to be appointed commander-in-chief. One of the\r
+visitors, usually spoken of as "a man of great merit," having described\r
+how he had that day seen Kutuzov, the newly chosen chief of the\r
+Petersburg militia, presiding over the enrollment of recruits at the\r
+Treasury, cautiously ventured to suggest that Kutuzov would be the man\r
+to satisfy all requirements.\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna remarked with a melancholy smile that Kutuzov had done\r
+nothing but cause the Emperor annoyance.\r
+\r
+"I have talked and talked at the Assembly of the Nobility," Prince\r
+Vasili interrupted, "but they did not listen to me. I told them his\r
+election as chief of the militia would not please the Emperor. They did\r
+not listen to me.\r
+\r
+"It's all this mania for opposition," he went on. "And who for? It is\r
+all because we want to ape the foolish enthusiasm of those Muscovites,"\r
+Prince Vasili continued, forgetting for a moment that though at Helene's\r
+one had to ridicule the Moscow enthusiasm, at Anna Pavlovna's one had to\r
+be ecstatic about it. But he retrieved his mistake at once. "Now, is it\r
+suitable that Count Kutuzov, the oldest general in Russia, should\r
+preside at that tribunal? He will get nothing for his pains! How could\r
+they make a man commander-in-chief who cannot mount a horse, who drops\r
+asleep at a council, and has the very worst morals! A good reputation he\r
+made for himself at Bucharest! I don't speak of his capacity as a\r
+general, but at a time like this how they appoint a decrepit, blind old\r
+man, positively blind? A fine idea to have a blind general! He can't see\r
+anything. To play blindman's bluff? He can't see at all!"\r
+\r
+No one replied to his remarks.\r
+\r
+This was quite correct on the twenty-fourth of July. But on the twenty-\r
+ninth of July Kutuzov received the title of Prince. This might indicate\r
+a wish to get rid of him, and therefore Prince Vasili's opinion\r
+continued to be correct though he was not now in any hurry to express\r
+it. But on the eighth of August a committee, consisting of Field Marshal\r
+Saltykov, Arakcheev, Vyazmitinov, Lopukhin, and Kochubey met to consider\r
+the progress of the war. This committee came to the conclusion that our\r
+failures were due to a want of unity in the command and though the\r
+members of the committee were aware of the Emperor's dislike of Kutuzov,\r
+after a short deliberation they agreed to advise his appointment as\r
+commander in chief. That same day Kutuzov was appointed commander-in-\r
+chief with full powers over the armies and over the whole region\r
+occupied by them.\r
+\r
+On the ninth of August Prince Vasili at Anna Pavlovna's again met the\r
+"man of great merit." The latter was very attentive to Anna Pavlovna\r
+because he wanted to be appointed director of one of the educational\r
+establishments for young ladies. Prince Vasili entered the room with the\r
+air of a happy conqueror who has attained the object of his desires.\r
+\r
+"Well, have you heard the great news? Prince Kutuzov is field marshal!\r
+All dissensions are at an end! I am so glad, so delighted! At last we\r
+have a man!" said he, glancing sternly and significantly round at\r
+everyone in the drawing room.\r
+\r
+The "man of great merit," despite his desire to obtain the post of\r
+director, could not refrain from reminding Prince Vasili of his former\r
+opinion. Though this was impolite to Prince Vasili in Anna Pavlovna's\r
+drawing room, and also to Anna Pavlovna herself who had received the\r
+news with delight, he could not resist the temptation.\r
+\r
+"But, Prince, they say he is blind!" said he, reminding Prince Vasili of\r
+his own words.\r
+\r
+"Eh? Nonsense! He sees well enough," said Prince Vasili rapidly, in a\r
+deep voice and with a slight cough--the voice and cough with which he\r
+was wont to dispose of all difficulties.\r
+\r
+"He sees well enough," he added. "And what I am so pleased about," he\r
+went on, "is that our sovereign has given him full powers over all the\r
+armies and the whole region--powers no commander-in-chief ever had\r
+before. He is a second autocrat," he concluded with a victorious smile.\r
+\r
+"God grant it! God grant it!" said Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+The "man of great merit," who was still a novice in court circles,\r
+wishing to flatter Anna Pavlovna by defending her former position on\r
+this question, observed:\r
+\r
+"It is said that the Emperor was reluctant to give Kutuzov those powers.\r
+They say he blushed like a girl to whom Joconde is read, when he said to\r
+Kutuzov: 'Your Emperor and the Fatherland award you this honor.'"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps the heart took no part in that speech," said Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+"Oh, no, no!" warmly rejoined Prince Vasili, who would not now yield\r
+Kutuzov to anyone; in his opinion Kutuzov was not only admirable\r
+himself, but was adored by everybody. "No, that's impossible," said he,\r
+"for our sovereign appreciated him so highly before."\r
+\r
+"God grant only that Prince Kutuzov assumes real power and does not\r
+allow anyone to put a spoke in his wheel," observed Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+Understanding at once to whom she alluded, Prince Vasili said in a\r
+whisper:\r
+\r
+"I know for a fact that Kutuzov made it an absolute condition that the\r
+Tsarevich should not be with the army. Do you know what he said to the\r
+Emperor?"\r
+\r
+And Prince Vasili repeated the words supposed to have been spoken by\r
+Kutuzov to the Emperor. "I can neither punish him if he does wrong nor\r
+reward him if he does right."\r
+\r
+"Oh, a very wise man is Prince Kutuzov! I have known him a long time!"\r
+\r
+"They even say," remarked the "man of great merit" who did not yet\r
+possess courtly tact, "that his excellency made it an express condition\r
+that the sovereign himself should not be with the army."\r
+\r
+As soon as he said this both Prince Vasili and Anna Pavlovna turned away\r
+from him and glanced sadly at one another with a sigh at his naivete.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+While this was taking place in Petersburg the French had already passed\r
+Smolensk and were drawing nearer and nearer to Moscow. Napoleon's\r
+historian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify his\r
+hero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. He\r
+is as right as other historians who look for the explanation of historic\r
+events in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian historians\r
+who maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of the\r
+Russian commanders. Here besides the law of retrospection, which regards\r
+all the past as a preparation for events that subsequently occur, the\r
+law of reciprocity comes in, confusing the whole matter. A good\r
+chessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss\r
+resulted from a mistake he made and looks for that mistake in the\r
+opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar\r
+mistakes and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the\r
+mistake to which he pays attention, because his opponent took advantage\r
+of it. How much more complex than this is the game of war, which occurs\r
+under certain limits of time, and where it is not one will that\r
+manipulates lifeless objects, but everything results from innumerable\r
+conflicts of various wills!\r
+\r
+After Smolensk Napoleon sought a battle beyond Dorogobuzh at Vyazma, and\r
+then at Tsarevo-Zaymishche, but it happened that owing to a conjunction\r
+of innumerable circumstances the Russians could not give battle till\r
+they reached Borodino, seventy miles from Moscow. From Vyazma Napoleon\r
+ordered a direct advance on Moscow.\r
+\r
+Moscou, la capitale asiatique de ce grand empire, la ville sacree des\r
+peuples d'Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables eglises en forme de\r
+pagodes chinoises, * this Moscow gave Napoleon's imagination no rest. On\r
+the march from Vyazma to Tsarevo-Zaymishche he rode his light bay\r
+bobtailed ambler accompanied by his Guards, his bodyguard, his pages,\r
+and aides-de-camp. Berthier, his chief of staff, dropped behind to\r
+question a Russian prisoner captured by the cavalry. Followed by\r
+Lelorgne d'Ideville, an interpreter, he overtook Napoleon at a gallop\r
+and reined in his horse with an amused expression.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Moscow, the Asiatic capital of this great empire, the sacred city of\r
+Alexander's people, Moscow with its innumerable churches shaped like\r
+Chinese pagodas."\r
+\r
+"Well?" asked Napoleon.\r
+\r
+"One of Platov's Cossacks says that Platov's corps is joining up with\r
+the main army and that Kutuzov has been appointed commander-in-chief. He\r
+is a very shrewd and garrulous fellow."\r
+\r
+Napoleon smiled and told them to give the Cossack a horse and bring the\r
+man to him. He wished to talk to him himself. Several adjutants galloped\r
+off, and an hour later, Lavrushka, the serf Denisov had handed over to\r
+Rostov, rode up to Napoleon in an orderly's jacket and on a French\r
+cavalry saddle, with a merry, and tipsy face. Napoleon told him to ride\r
+by his side and began questioning him.\r
+\r
+"You are a Cossack?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, a Cossack, your Honor."\r
+\r
+"The Cossack, not knowing in what company he was, for Napoleon's plain\r
+appearance had nothing about it that would reveal to an Oriental mind\r
+the presence of a monarch, talked with extreme familiarity of the\r
+incidents of the war," says Thiers, narrating this episode. In reality\r
+Lavrushka, having got drunk the day before and left his master\r
+dinnerless, had been whipped and sent to the village in quest of\r
+chickens, where he engaged in looting till the French took him prisoner.\r
+Lavrushka was one of those coarse, bare-faced lackeys who have seen all\r
+sorts of things, consider it necessary to do everything in a mean and\r
+cunning way, are ready to render any sort of service to their master,\r
+and are keen at guessing their master's baser impulses, especially those\r
+prompted by vanity and pettiness.\r
+\r
+Finding himself in the company of Napoleon, whose identity he had easily\r
+and surely recognized, Lavrushka was not in the least abashed but merely\r
+did his utmost to gain his new master's favor.\r
+\r
+He knew very well that this was Napoleon, but Napoleon's presence could\r
+no more intimidate him than Rostov's, or a sergeant major's with the\r
+rods, would have done, for he had nothing that either the sergeant major\r
+or Napoleon could deprive him of.\r
+\r
+So he rattled on, telling all the gossip he had heard among the\r
+orderlies. Much of it true. But when Napoleon asked him whether the\r
+Russians thought they would beat Bonaparte or not, Lavrushka screwed up\r
+his eyes and considered.\r
+\r
+In this question he saw subtle cunning, as men of his type see cunning\r
+in everything, so he frowned and did not answer immediately.\r
+\r
+"It's like this," he said thoughtfully, "if there's a battle soon, yours\r
+will win. That's right. But if three days pass, then after that, well,\r
+then that same battle will not soon be over."\r
+\r
+Lelorgne d'Ideville smilingly interpreted this speech to Napoleon thus:\r
+"If a battle takes place within the next three days the French will win,\r
+but if later, God knows what will happen." Napoleon did not smile,\r
+though he was evidently in high good humor, and he ordered these words\r
+to be repeated.\r
+\r
+Lavrushka noticed this and to entertain him further, pretending not to\r
+know who Napoleon was, added:\r
+\r
+"We know that you have Bonaparte and that he has beaten everybody in the\r
+world, but we are a different matter..."--without knowing why or how\r
+this bit of boastful patriotism slipped out at the end.\r
+\r
+The interpreter translated these words without the last phrase, and\r
+Bonaparte smiled. "The young Cossack made his mighty interlocutor\r
+smile," says Thiers. After riding a few paces in silence, Napoleon\r
+turned to Berthier and said he wished to see how the news that he was\r
+talking to the Emperor himself, to that very Emperor who had written his\r
+immortally victorious name on the Pyramids, would affect this enfant du\r
+Don. *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Child of the Don."\r
+\r
+The fact was accordingly conveyed to Lavrushka.\r
+\r
+Lavrushka, understanding that this was done to perplex him and that\r
+Napoleon expected him to be frightened, to gratify his new masters\r
+promptly pretended to be astonished and awe-struck, opened his eyes\r
+wide, and assumed the expression he usually put on when taken to be\r
+whipped. "As soon as Napoleon's interpreter had spoken," says Thiers,\r
+"the Cossack, seized by amazement, did not utter another word, but rode\r
+on, his eyes fixed on the conqueror whose fame had reached him across\r
+the steppes of the East. All his loquacity was suddenly arrested and\r
+replaced by a naive and silent feeling of admiration. Napoleon, after\r
+making the Cossack a present, had him set free like a bird restored to\r
+its native fields."\r
+\r
+Napoleon rode on, dreaming of the Moscow that so appealed to his\r
+imagination, and "the bird restored to its native fields" galloped to\r
+our outposts, inventing on the way all that had not taken place but that\r
+he meant to relate to his comrades. What had really taken place he did\r
+not wish to relate because it seemed to him not worth telling. He found\r
+the Cossacks, inquired for the regiment operating with Platov's\r
+detachment and by evening found his master, Nicholas Rostov, quartered\r
+at Yankovo. Rostov was just mounting to go for a ride round the\r
+neighboring villages with Ilyin; he let Lavrushka have another horse and\r
+took him along with him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+Princess Mary was not in Moscow and out of danger as Prince Andrew\r
+supposed.\r
+\r
+After the return of Alpatych from Smolensk the old prince suddenly\r
+seemed to awake as from a dream. He ordered the militiamen to be called\r
+up from the villages and armed, and wrote a letter to the commander-in-\r
+chief informing him that he had resolved to remain at Bald Hills to the\r
+last extremity and to defend it, leaving to the commander-in-chief's\r
+discretion to take measures or not for the defense of Bald Hills, where\r
+one of Russia's oldest generals would be captured or killed, and he\r
+announced to his household that he would remain at Bald Hills.\r
+\r
+But while himself remaining, he gave instructions for the departure of\r
+the princess and Dessalles with the little prince to Bogucharovo and\r
+thence to Moscow. Princess Mary, alarmed by her father's feverish and\r
+sleepless activity after his previous apathy, could not bring herself to\r
+leave him alone and for the first time in her life ventured to disobey\r
+him. She refused to go away and her father's fury broke over her in a\r
+terrible storm. He repeated every injustice he had ever inflicted on\r
+her. Trying to convict her, he told her she had worn him out, had caused\r
+his quarrel with his son, had harbored nasty suspicions of him, making\r
+it the object of her life to poison his existence, and he drove her from\r
+his study telling her that if she did not go away it was all the same to\r
+him. He declared that he did not wish to remember her existence and\r
+warned her not to dare to let him see her. The fact that he did not, as\r
+she had feared, order her to be carried away by force but only told her\r
+not to let him see her cheered Princess Mary. She knew it was a proof\r
+that in the depth of his soul he was glad she was remaining at home and\r
+had not gone away.\r
+\r
+The morning after little Nicholas had left, the old prince donned his\r
+full uniform and prepared to visit the commander-in-chief. His caleche\r
+was already at the door. Princess Mary saw him walk out of the house in\r
+his uniform wearing all his orders and go down the garden to review his\r
+armed peasants and domestic serfs. She sat by the window listening to\r
+his voice which reached her from the garden. Suddenly several men came\r
+running up the avenue with frightened faces.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary ran out to the porch, down the flower-bordered path, and\r
+into the avenue. A large crowd of militiamen and domestics were moving\r
+toward her, and in their midst several men were supporting by the\r
+armpits and dragging along a little old man in a uniform and\r
+decorations. She ran up to him and, in the play of the sunlight that\r
+fell in small round spots through the shade of the lime-tree avenue,\r
+could not be sure what change there was in his face. All she could see\r
+was that his former stern and determined expression had altered to one\r
+of timidity and submission. On seeing his daughter he moved his helpless\r
+lips and made a hoarse sound. It was impossible to make out what he\r
+wanted. He was lifted up, carried to his study, and laid on the very\r
+couch he had so feared of late.\r
+\r
+The doctor, who was fetched that same night, bled him and said that the\r
+prince had had a seizure paralyzing his right side.\r
+\r
+It was becoming more and more dangerous to remain at Bald Hills, and\r
+next day they moved the prince to Bogucharovo, the doctor accompanying\r
+him.\r
+\r
+By the time they reached Bogucharovo, Dessalles and the little prince\r
+had already left for Moscow.\r
+\r
+For three weeks the old prince lay stricken by paralysis in the new\r
+house Prince Andrew had built at Bogucharovo, ever in the same state,\r
+getting neither better nor worse. He was unconscious and lay like a\r
+distorted corpse. He muttered unceasingly, his eyebrows and lips\r
+twitching, and it was impossible to tell whether he understood what was\r
+going on around him or not. One thing was certain--that he was suffering\r
+and wished to say something. But what it was, no one could tell: it\r
+might be some caprice of a sick and half-crazy man, or it might relate\r
+to public affairs, or possibly to family concerns.\r
+\r
+The doctor said this restlessness did not mean anything and was due to\r
+physical causes; but Princess Mary thought he wished to tell her\r
+something, and the fact that her presence always increased his\r
+restlessness confirmed her opinion.\r
+\r
+He was evidently suffering both physically and mentally. There was no\r
+hope of recovery. It was impossible for him to travel, it would not do\r
+to let him die on the road. "Would it not be better if the end did come,\r
+the very end?" Princess Mary sometimes thought. Night and day, hardly\r
+sleeping at all, she watched him and, terrible to say, often watched him\r
+not with hope of finding signs of improvement but wishing to find\r
+symptoms of the approach of the end.\r
+\r
+Strange as it was to her to acknowledge this feeling in herself, yet\r
+there it was. And what seemed still more terrible to her was that since\r
+her father's illness began (perhaps even sooner, when she stayed with\r
+him expecting something to happen), all the personal desires and hopes\r
+that had been forgotten or sleeping within her had awakened. Thoughts\r
+that had not entered her mind for years--thoughts of a life free from\r
+the fear of her father, and even the possibility of love and of family\r
+happiness--floated continually in her imagination like temptations of\r
+the devil. Thrust them aside as she would, questions continually\r
+recurred to her as to how she would order her life now, after that.\r
+These were temptations of the devil and Princess Mary knew it. She knew\r
+that the sole weapon against him was prayer, and she tried to pray. She\r
+assumed an attitude of prayer, looked at the icons, repeated the words\r
+of a prayer, but she could not pray. She felt that a different world had\r
+now taken possession of her--the life of a world of strenuous and free\r
+activity, quite opposed to the spiritual world in which till now she had\r
+been confined and in which her greatest comfort had been prayer. She\r
+could not pray, could not weep, and worldly cares took possession of\r
+her.\r
+\r
+It was becoming dangerous to remain in Bogucharovo. News of the approach\r
+of the French came from all sides, and in one village, ten miles from\r
+Bogucharovo, a homestead had been looted by French marauders.\r
+\r
+The doctor insisted on the necessity of moving the prince; the\r
+provincial Marshal of the Nobility sent an official to Princess Mary to\r
+persuade her to get away as quickly as possible, and the head of the\r
+rural police having come to Bogucharovo urged the same thing, saying\r
+that the French were only some twenty-five miles away, that French\r
+proclamations were circulating in the villages, and that if the princess\r
+did not take her father away before the fifteenth, he could not answer\r
+for the consequences.\r
+\r
+The princess decided to leave on the fifteenth. The cares of preparation\r
+and giving orders, for which everyone came to her, occupied her all day.\r
+She spent the night of the fourteenth as usual, without undressing, in\r
+the room next to the one where the prince lay. Several times, waking up,\r
+she heard his groans and muttering, the creak of his bed, and the steps\r
+of Tikhon and the doctor when they turned him over. Several times she\r
+listened at the door, and it seemed to her that his mutterings were\r
+louder than usual and that they turned him over oftener. She could not\r
+sleep and several times went to the door and listened, wishing to enter\r
+but not deciding to do so. Though he did not speak, Princess Mary saw\r
+and knew how unpleasant every sign of anxiety on his account was to him.\r
+She had noticed with what dissatisfaction he turned from the look she\r
+sometimes involuntarily fixed on him. She knew that her going in during\r
+the night at an unusual hour would irritate him.\r
+\r
+But never had she felt so grieved for him or so much afraid of losing\r
+him. She recalled all her life with him and in every word and act of his\r
+found an expression of his love of her. Occasionally amid these memories\r
+temptations of the devil would surge into her imagination: thoughts of\r
+how things would be after his death, and how her new, liberated life\r
+would be ordered. But she drove these thoughts away with disgust. Toward\r
+morning he became quiet and she fell asleep.\r
+\r
+She woke late. That sincerity which often comes with waking showed her\r
+clearly what chiefly concerned her about her father's illness. On waking\r
+she listened to what was going on behind the door and, hearing him\r
+groan, said to herself with a sigh that things were still the same.\r
+\r
+"But what could have happened? What did I want? I want his death!" she\r
+cried with a feeling of loathing for herself.\r
+\r
+She washed, dressed, said her prayers, and went out to the porch. In\r
+front of it stood carriages without horses and things were being packed\r
+into the vehicles.\r
+\r
+It was a warm, gray morning. Princess Mary stopped at the porch, still\r
+horrified by her spiritual baseness and trying to arrange her thoughts\r
+before going to her father. The doctor came downstairs and went out to\r
+her.\r
+\r
+"He is a little better today," said he. "I was looking for you. One can\r
+make out something of what he is saying. His head is clearer. Come in,\r
+he is asking for you..."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary's heart beat so violently at this news that she grew pale\r
+and leaned against the wall to keep from falling. To see him, talk to\r
+him, feel his eyes on her now that her whole soul was overflowing with\r
+those dreadful, wicked temptations, was a torment of joy and terror.\r
+\r
+"Come," said the doctor.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary entered her father's room and went up to his bed. He was\r
+lying on his back propped up high, and his small bony hands with their\r
+knotted purple veins were lying on the quilt; his left eye gazed\r
+straight before him, his right eye was awry, and his brows and lips\r
+motionless. He seemed altogether so thin, small, and pathetic. His face\r
+seemed to have shriveled or melted; his features had grown smaller.\r
+Princess Mary went up and kissed his hand. His left hand pressed hers so\r
+that she understood that he had long been waiting for her to come. He\r
+twitched her hand, and his brows and lips quivered angrily.\r
+\r
+She looked at him in dismay trying to guess what he wanted of her. When\r
+she changed her position so that his left eye could see her face he\r
+calmed down, not taking his eyes off her for some seconds. Then his lips\r
+and tongue moved, sounds came, and he began to speak, gazing timidly and\r
+imploringly at her, evidently afraid that she might not understand.\r
+\r
+Straining all her faculties Princess Mary looked at him. The comic\r
+efforts with which he moved his tongue made her drop her eyes and with\r
+difficulty repress the sobs that rose to her throat. He said something,\r
+repeating the same words several times. She could not understand them,\r
+but tried to guess what he was saying and inquiringly repeated the words\r
+he uttered.\r
+\r
+"Mmm...ar...ate...ate..." he repeated several times.\r
+\r
+It was quite impossible to understand these sounds. The doctor thought\r
+he had guessed them, and inquiringly repeated: "Mary, are you afraid?"\r
+The prince shook his head, again repeated the same sounds.\r
+\r
+"My mind, my mind aches?" questioned Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+He made a mumbling sound in confirmation of this, took her hand, and\r
+began pressing it to different parts of his breast as if trying to find\r
+the right place for it.\r
+\r
+"Always thoughts... about you... thoughts..." he then uttered much more\r
+clearly than he had done before, now that he was sure of being\r
+understood.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary pressed her head against his hand, trying to hide her sobs\r
+and tears.\r
+\r
+He moved his hand over her hair.\r
+\r
+"I have been calling you all night..." he brought out.\r
+\r
+"If only I had known..." she said through her tears. "I was afraid to\r
+come in."\r
+\r
+He pressed her hand.\r
+\r
+"Weren't you asleep?"\r
+\r
+"No, I did not sleep," said Princess Mary, shaking her head.\r
+\r
+Unconsciously imitating her father, she now tried to express herself as\r
+he did, as much as possible by signs, and her tongue too seemed to move\r
+with difficulty.\r
+\r
+"Dear one... Dearest..." Princess Mary could not quite make out what he\r
+had said, but from his look it was clear that he had uttered a tender\r
+caressing word such as he had never used to her before. "Why didn't you\r
+come in?"\r
+\r
+"And I was wishing for his death!" thought Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+He was silent awhile.\r
+\r
+"Thank you... daughter dear!... for all, for all... forgive!... thank\r
+you!... forgive!... thank you!..." and tears began to flow from his\r
+eyes. "Call Andrew!" he said suddenly, and a childish, timid expression\r
+of doubt showed itself on his face as he spoke.\r
+\r
+He himself seemed aware that his demand was meaningless. So at least it\r
+seemed to Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+"I have a letter from him," she replied.\r
+\r
+He glanced at her with timid surprise.\r
+\r
+"Where is he?"\r
+\r
+"He's with the army, Father, at Smolensk."\r
+\r
+He closed his eyes and remained silent a long time. Then as if in answer\r
+to his doubts and to confirm the fact that now he understood and\r
+remembered everything, he nodded his head and reopened his eyes.\r
+\r
+"Yes," he said, softly and distinctly. "Russia has perished. They've\r
+destroyed her."\r
+\r
+And he began to sob, and again tears flowed from his eyes. Princess Mary\r
+could no longer restrain herself and wept while she gazed at his face.\r
+\r
+Again he closed his eyes. His sobs ceased, he pointed to his eyes, and\r
+Tikhon, understanding him, wiped away the tears.\r
+\r
+Then he again opened his eyes and said something none of them could\r
+understand for a long time, till at last Tikhon understood and repeated\r
+it. Princess Mary had sought the meaning of his words in the mood in\r
+which he had just been speaking. She thought he was speaking of Russia,\r
+or Prince Andrew, of herself, of his grandson, or of his own death, and\r
+so she could not guess his words.\r
+\r
+"Put on your white dress. I like it," was what he said.\r
+\r
+Having understood this Princess Mary sobbed still louder, and the doctor\r
+taking her arm led her out to the veranda, soothing her and trying to\r
+persuade her to prepare for her journey. When she had left the room the\r
+prince again began speaking about his son, about the war, and about the\r
+Emperor, angrily twitching his brows and raising his hoarse voice, and\r
+then he had a second and final stroke.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary stayed on the veranda. The day had cleared, it was hot and\r
+sunny. She could understand nothing, think of nothing and feel nothing,\r
+except passionate love for her father, love such as she thought she had\r
+never felt till that moment. She ran out sobbing into the garden and as\r
+far as the pond, along the avenues of young lime trees Prince Andrew had\r
+planted.\r
+\r
+"Yes... I... I... I wished for his death! Yes, I wanted it to end\r
+quicker.... I wished to be at peace.... And what will become of me? What\r
+use will peace be when he is no longer here?" Princess Mary murmured,\r
+pacing the garden with hurried steps and pressing her hands to her bosom\r
+which heaved with convulsive sobs.\r
+\r
+When she had completed the tour of the garden, which brought her again\r
+to the house, she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne--who had remained at\r
+Bogucharovo and did not wish to leave it--coming toward her with a\r
+stranger. This was the Marshal of the Nobility of the district, who had\r
+come personally to point out to the princess the necessity for her\r
+prompt departure. Princess Mary listened without understanding him; she\r
+led him to the house, offered him lunch, and sat down with him. Then,\r
+excusing herself, she went to the door of the old prince's room. The\r
+doctor came out with an agitated face and said she could not enter.\r
+\r
+"Go away, Princess! Go away... go away!"\r
+\r
+She returned to the garden and sat down on the grass at the foot of the\r
+slope by the pond, where no one could see her. She did not know how long\r
+she had been there when she was aroused by the sound of a woman's\r
+footsteps running along the path. She rose and saw Dunyasha her maid,\r
+who was evidently looking for her, and who stopped suddenly as if in\r
+alarm on seeing her mistress.\r
+\r
+"Please come, Princess... The Prince," said Dunyasha in a breaking\r
+voice.\r
+\r
+"Immediately, I'm coming, I'm coming!" replied the princess hurriedly,\r
+not giving Dunyasha time to finish what she was saying, and trying to\r
+avoid seeing the girl she ran toward the house.\r
+\r
+"Princess, it's God's will! You must be prepared for everything," said\r
+the Marshal, meeting her at the house door.\r
+\r
+"Let me alone; it's not true!" she cried angrily to him.\r
+\r
+The doctor tried to stop her. She pushed him aside and ran to her\r
+father's door. "Why are these people with frightened faces stopping me?\r
+I don't want any of them! And what are they doing here?" she thought.\r
+She opened the door and the bright daylight in that previously darkened\r
+room startled her. In the room were her nurse and other women. They all\r
+drew back from the bed, making way for her. He was still lying on the\r
+bed as before, but the stern expression of his quiet face made Princess\r
+Mary stop short on the threshold.\r
+\r
+"No, he's not dead--it's impossible!" she told herself and approached\r
+him, and repressing the terror that seized her, she pressed her lips to\r
+his cheek. But she stepped back immediately. All the force of the\r
+tenderness she had been feeling for him vanished instantly and was\r
+replaced by a feeling of horror at what lay there before her. "No, he is\r
+no more! He is not, but here where he was is something unfamiliar and\r
+hostile, some dreadful, terrifying, and repellent mystery!" And hiding\r
+her face in her hands, Princess Mary sank into the arms of the doctor,\r
+who held her up.\r
+\r
+In the presence of Tikhon and the doctor the women washed what had been\r
+the prince, tied his head up with a handkerchief that the mouth should\r
+not stiffen while open, and with another handkerchief tied together the\r
+legs that were already spreading apart. Then they dressed him in uniform\r
+with his decorations and placed his shriveled little body on a table.\r
+Heaven only knows who arranged all this and when, but it all got done as\r
+if of its own accord. Toward night candles were burning round his\r
+coffin, a pall was spread over it, the floor was strewn with sprays of\r
+juniper, a printed band was tucked in under his shriveled head, and in a\r
+corner of the room sat a chanter reading the psalms.\r
+\r
+Just as horses shy and snort and gather about a dead horse, so the\r
+inmates of the house and strangers crowded into the drawing room round\r
+the coffin--the Marshal, the village Elder, peasant women--and all with\r
+fixed and frightened eyes, crossing themselves, bowed and kissed the old\r
+prince's cold and stiffened hand.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+Until Prince Andrew settled in Bogucharovo its owners had always been\r
+absentees, and its peasants were of quite a different character from\r
+those of Bald Hills. They differed from them in speech, dress, and\r
+disposition. They were called steppe peasants. The old prince used to\r
+approve of them for their endurance at work when they came to Bald Hills\r
+to help with the harvest or to dig ponds, and ditches, but he disliked\r
+them for their boorishness.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew's last stay at Bogucharovo, when he introduced hospitals\r
+and schools and reduced the quitrent the peasants had to pay, had not\r
+softened their disposition but had on the contrary strengthened in them\r
+the traits of character the old prince called boorishness. Various\r
+obscure rumors were always current among them: at one time a rumor that\r
+they would all be enrolled as Cossacks; at another of a new religion to\r
+which they were all to be converted; then of some proclamation of the\r
+Tsar's and of an oath to the Tsar Paul in 1797 (in connection with which\r
+it was rumored that freedom had been granted them but the landowners had\r
+stopped it), then of Peter Fedorovich's return to the throne in seven\r
+years' time, when everything would be made free and so "simple" that\r
+there would be no restrictions. Rumors of the war with Bonaparte and his\r
+invasion were connected in their minds with the same sort of vague\r
+notions of Antichrist, the end of the world, and "pure freedom."\r
+\r
+In the vicinity of Bogucharovo were large villages belonging to the\r
+crown or to owners whose serfs paid quitrent and could work where they\r
+pleased. There were very few resident landlords in the neighborhood and\r
+also very few domestic or literate serfs, and in the lives of the\r
+peasantry of those parts the mysterious undercurrents in the life of the\r
+Russian people, the causes and meaning of which are so baffling to\r
+contemporaries, were more clearly and strongly noticeable than among\r
+others. One instance, which had occurred some twenty years before, was a\r
+movement among the peasants to emigrate to some unknown "warm rivers."\r
+Hundreds of peasants, among them the Bogucharovo folk, suddenly began\r
+selling their cattle and moving in whole families toward the southeast.\r
+As birds migrate to somewhere beyond the sea, so these men with their\r
+wives and children streamed to the southeast, to parts where none of\r
+them had ever been. They set off in caravans, bought their freedom one\r
+by one or ran away, and drove or walked toward the "warm rivers." Many\r
+of them were punished, some sent to Siberia, many died of cold and\r
+hunger on the road, many returned of their own accord, and the movement\r
+died down of itself just as it had sprung up, without apparent reason.\r
+But such undercurrents still existed among the people and gathered new\r
+forces ready to manifest themselves just as strangely, unexpectedly, and\r
+at the same time simply, naturally, and forcibly. Now in 1812, to anyone\r
+living in close touch with these people it was apparent that these\r
+undercurrents were acting strongly and nearing an eruption.\r
+\r
+Alpatych, who had reached Bogucharovo shortly before the old prince's\r
+death, noticed an agitation among the peasants, and that contrary to\r
+what was happening in the Bald Hills district, where over a radius of\r
+forty miles all the peasants were moving away and leaving their villages\r
+to be devastated by the Cossacks, the peasants in the steppe region\r
+round Bogucharovo were, it was rumored, in touch with the French,\r
+received leaflets from them that passed from hand to hand, and did not\r
+migrate. He learned from domestic serfs loyal to him that the peasant\r
+Karp, who possessed great influence in the village commune and had\r
+recently been away driving a government transport, had returned with\r
+news that the Cossacks were destroying deserted villages, but that the\r
+French did not harm them. Alpatych also knew that on the previous day\r
+another peasant had even brought from the village of Visloukhovo, which\r
+was occupied by the French, a proclamation by a French general that no\r
+harm would be done to the inhabitants, and if they remained they would\r
+be paid for anything taken from them. As proof of this the peasant had\r
+brought from Visloukhovo a hundred rubles in notes (he did not know that\r
+they were false) paid to him in advance for hay.\r
+\r
+More important still, Alpatych learned that on the morning of the very\r
+day he gave the village Elder orders to collect carts to move the\r
+princess' luggage from Bogucharovo, there had been a village meeting at\r
+which it had been decided not to move but to wait. Yet there was no time\r
+to waste. On the fifteenth, the day of the old prince's death, the\r
+Marshal had insisted on Princess Mary's leaving at once, as it was\r
+becoming dangerous. He had told her that after the sixteenth he could\r
+not be responsible for what might happen. On the evening of the day the\r
+old prince died the Marshal went away, promising to return next day for\r
+the funeral. But this he was unable to do, for he received tidings that\r
+the French had unexpectedly advanced, and had barely time to remove his\r
+own family and valuables from his estate.\r
+\r
+For some thirty years Bogucharovo had been managed by the village Elder,\r
+Dron, whom the old prince called by the diminutive "Dronushka."\r
+\r
+Dron was one of those physically and mentally vigorous peasants who grow\r
+big beards as soon as they are of age and go on unchanged till they are\r
+sixty or seventy, without a gray hair or the loss of a tooth, as\r
+straight and strong at sixty as at thirty.\r
+\r
+Soon after the migration to the "warm rivers," in which he had taken\r
+part like the rest, Dron was made village Elder and overseer of\r
+Bogucharovo, and had since filled that post irreproachably for twenty-\r
+three years. The peasants feared him more than they did their master.\r
+The masters, both the old prince and the young, and the steward\r
+respected him and jestingly called him "the Minister." During the whole\r
+time of his service Dron had never been drunk or ill, never after\r
+sleepless nights or the hardest tasks had he shown the least fatigue,\r
+and though he could not read he had never forgotten a single money\r
+account or the number of quarters of flour in any of the endless\r
+cartloads he sold for the prince, nor a single shock of the whole corn\r
+crop on any single acre of the Bogucharovo fields.\r
+\r
+Alpatych, arriving from the devastated Bald Hills estate, sent for his\r
+Dron on the day of the prince's funeral and told him to have twelve\r
+horses got ready for the princess' carriages and eighteen carts for the\r
+things to be removed from Bogucharovo. Though the peasants paid\r
+quitrent, Alpatych thought no difficulty would be made about complying\r
+with this order, for there were two hundred and thirty households at\r
+work in Bogucharovo and the peasants were well to do. But on hearing the\r
+order Dron lowered his eyes and remained silent. Alpatych named certain\r
+peasants he knew, from whom he told him to take the carts.\r
+\r
+Dron replied that the horses of these peasants were away carting.\r
+Alpatych named others, but they too, according to Dron, had no horses\r
+available: some horses were carting for the government, others were too\r
+weak, and others had died for want of fodder. It seemed that no horses\r
+could be had even for the carriages, much less for the carting.\r
+\r
+Alpatych looked intently at Dron and frowned. Just as Dron was a model\r
+village Elder, so Alpatych had not managed the prince's estates for\r
+twenty years in vain. He was a model steward, possessing in the highest\r
+degree the faculty of divining the needs and instincts of those he dealt\r
+with. Having glanced at Dron he at once understood that his answers did\r
+not express his personal views but the general mood of the Bogucharovo\r
+commune, by which the Elder had already been carried away. But he also\r
+knew that Dron, who had acquired property and was hated by the commune,\r
+must be hesitating between the two camps: the masters' and the serfs'.\r
+He noticed this hesitation in Dron's look and therefore frowned and\r
+moved closer up to him.\r
+\r
+"Now just listen, Dronushka," said he. "Don't talk nonsense to me. His\r
+excellency Prince Andrew himself gave me orders to move all the people\r
+away and not leave them with the enemy, and there is an order from the\r
+Tsar about it too. Anyone who stays is a traitor to the Tsar. Do you\r
+hear?"\r
+\r
+"I hear," Dron answered without lifting his eyes.\r
+\r
+Alpatych was not satisfied with this reply.\r
+\r
+"Eh, Dron, it will turn out badly!" he said, shaking his head.\r
+\r
+"The power is in your hands," Dron rejoined sadly.\r
+\r
+"Eh, Dron, drop it!" Alpatych repeated, withdrawing his hand from his\r
+bosom and solemnly pointing to the floor at Dron's feet. "I can see\r
+through you and three yards into the ground under you," he continued,\r
+gazing at the floor in front of Dron.\r
+\r
+Dron was disconcerted, glanced furtively at Alpatych and again lowered\r
+his eyes.\r
+\r
+"You drop this nonsense and tell the people to get ready to leave their\r
+homes and go to Moscow and to get carts ready for tomorrow morning for\r
+the princess' things. And don't go to any meeting yourself, do you\r
+hear?"\r
+\r
+Dron suddenly fell on his knees.\r
+\r
+"Yakov Alpatych, discharge me! Take the keys from me and discharge me,\r
+for Christ's sake!"\r
+\r
+"Stop that!" cried Alpatych sternly. "I see through you and three yards\r
+under you," he repeated, knowing that his skill in beekeeping, his\r
+knowledge of the right time to sow the oats, and the fact that he had\r
+been able to retain the old prince's favor for twenty years had long\r
+since gained him the reputation of being a wizard, and that the power of\r
+seeing three yards under a man is considered an attribute of wizards.\r
+\r
+Dron got up and was about to say something, but Alpatych interrupted\r
+him.\r
+\r
+"What is it you have got into your heads, eh?... What are you thinking\r
+of, eh?"\r
+\r
+"What am I to do with the people?" said Dron. "They're quite beside\r
+themselves; I have already told them..."\r
+\r
+"'Told them,' I dare say!" said Alpatych. "Are they drinking?" he asked\r
+abruptly.\r
+\r
+"Quite beside themselves, Yakov Alpatych; they've fetched another\r
+barrel."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, listen! I'll go to the police officer, and you tell them\r
+so, and that they must stop this and the carts must be got ready."\r
+\r
+"I understand."\r
+\r
+Alpatych did not insist further. He had managed people for a long time\r
+and knew that the chief way to make them obey is to show no suspicion\r
+that they can possibly disobey. Having wrung a submissive "I understand"\r
+from Dron, Alpatych contented himself with that, though he not only\r
+doubted but felt almost certain that without the help of troops the\r
+carts would not be forthcoming.\r
+\r
+And so it was, for when evening came no carts had been provided. In the\r
+village, outside the drink shop, another meeting was being held, which\r
+decided that the horses should be driven out into the woods and the\r
+carts should not be provided. Without saying anything of this to the\r
+princess, Alpatych had his own belongings taken out of the carts which\r
+had arrived from Bald Hills and had those horses got ready for the\r
+princess' carriages. Meanwhile he went himself to the police\r
+authorities.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+After her father's funeral Princess Mary shut herself up in her room and\r
+did not admit anyone. A maid came to the door to say that Alpatych was\r
+asking for orders about their departure. (This was before his talk with\r
+Dron.) Princess Mary raised herself on the sofa on which she had been\r
+lying and replied through the closed door that she did not mean to go\r
+away and begged to be left in peace.\r
+\r
+The windows of the room in which she was lying looked westward. She lay\r
+on the sofa with her face to the wall, fingering the buttons of the\r
+leather cushion and seeing nothing but that cushion, and her confused\r
+thoughts were centered on one subject--the irrevocability of death and\r
+her own spiritual baseness, which she had not suspected, but which had\r
+shown itself during her father's illness. She wished to pray but did not\r
+dare to, dared not in her present state of mind address herself to God.\r
+She lay for a long time in that position.\r
+\r
+The sun had reached the other side of the house, and its slanting rays\r
+shone into the open window, lighting up the room and part of the morocco\r
+cushion at which Princess Mary was looking. The flow of her thoughts\r
+suddenly stopped. Unconsciously she sat up, smoothed her hair, got up,\r
+and went to the window, involuntarily inhaling the freshness of the\r
+clear but windy evening.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you can well enjoy the evening now! He is gone and no one will\r
+hinder you," she said to herself, and sinking into a chair she let her\r
+head fall on the window sill.\r
+\r
+Someone spoke her name in a soft and tender voice from the garden and\r
+kissed her head. She looked up. It was Mademoiselle Bourienne in a black\r
+dress and weepers. She softly approached Princess Mary, sighed, kissed\r
+her, and immediately began to cry. The princess looked up at her. All\r
+their former disharmony and her own jealousy recurred to her mind. But\r
+she remembered too how he had changed of late toward Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne and could not bear to see her, thereby showing how unjust were\r
+the reproaches Princess Mary had mentally addressed to her. "Besides, is\r
+it for me, for me who desired his death, to condemn anyone?" she\r
+thought.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary vividly pictured to herself the position of Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne, whom she had of late kept at a distance, but who yet was\r
+dependent on her and living in her house. She felt sorry for her and\r
+held out her hand with a glance of gentle inquiry. Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne at once began crying again and kissed that hand, speaking of\r
+the princess' sorrow and making herself a partner in it. She said her\r
+only consolation was the fact that the princess allowed her to share her\r
+sorrow, that all the old misunderstandings should sink into nothing but\r
+this great grief; that she felt herself blameless in regard to everyone,\r
+and that he, from above, saw her affection and gratitude. The princess\r
+heard her, not heeding her words but occasionally looking up at her and\r
+listening to the sound of her voice.\r
+\r
+"Your position is doubly terrible, dear princess," said Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne after a pause. "I understand that you could not, and cannot,\r
+think of yourself, but with my love for you I must do so.... Has\r
+Alpatych been to you? Has he spoken to you of going away?" she asked.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary did not answer. She did not understand who was to go or\r
+where to. "Is it possible to plan or think of anything now? Is it not\r
+all the same?" she thought, and did not reply.\r
+\r
+"You know, chere Marie," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, "that we are in\r
+danger--are surrounded by the French. It would be dangerous to move now.\r
+If we go we are almost sure to be taken prisoners, and God knows..."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary looked at her companion without understanding what she was\r
+talking about.\r
+\r
+"Oh, if anyone knew how little anything matters to me now," she said.\r
+"Of course I would on no account wish to go away from him.... Alpatych\r
+did say something about going.... Speak to him; I can do nothing,\r
+nothing, and don't want to...."\r
+\r
+"I've spoken to him. He hopes we should be in time to get away tomorrow,\r
+but I think it would now be better to stay here," said Mademoiselle\r
+Bourienne. "Because, you will agree, chere Marie, to fall into the hands\r
+of the soldiers or of riotous peasants would be terrible."\r
+\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne took from her reticule a proclamation (not\r
+printed on ordinary Russian paper) of General Rameau's, telling people\r
+not to leave their homes and that the French authorities would afford\r
+them proper protection. She handed this to the princess.\r
+\r
+"I think it would be best to appeal to that general," she continued,\r
+"and I am sure that all due respect would be shown you."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary read the paper, and her face began to quiver with stifled\r
+sobs.\r
+\r
+"From whom did you get this?" she asked.\r
+\r
+"They probably recognized that I am French, by my name," replied\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne blushing.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary, with the paper in her hand, rose from the window and with\r
+a pale face went out of the room and into what had been Prince Andrew's\r
+study.\r
+\r
+"Dunyasha, send Alpatych, or Dronushka, or somebody to me!" she said,\r
+"and tell Mademoiselle Bourienne not to come to me," she added, hearing\r
+Mademoiselle Bourienne's voice. "We must go at once, at once!" she said,\r
+appalled at the thought of being left in the hands of the French.\r
+\r
+"If Prince Andrew heard that I was in the power of the French! That I,\r
+the daughter of Prince Nicholas Bolkonski, asked General Rameau for\r
+protection and accepted his favor!" This idea horrified her, made her\r
+shudder, blush, and feel such a rush of anger and pride as she had never\r
+experienced before. All that was distressing, and especially all that\r
+was humiliating, in her position rose vividly to her mind. "They, the\r
+French, would settle in this house: M. le General Rameau would occupy\r
+Prince Andrew's study and amuse himself by looking through and reading\r
+his letters and papers. Mademoiselle Bourienne would do the honors of\r
+Bogucharovo for him. I should be given a small room as a favor, the\r
+soldiers would violate my father's newly dug grave to steal his crosses\r
+and stars, they would tell me of their victories over the Russians, and\r
+would pretend to sympathize with my sorrow..." thought Princess Mary,\r
+not thinking her own thoughts but feeling bound to think like her father\r
+and her brother. For herself she did not care where she remained or what\r
+happened to her, but she felt herself the representative of her dead\r
+father and of Prince Andrew. Involuntarily she thought their thoughts\r
+and felt their feelings. What they would have said and what they would\r
+have done she felt bound to say and do. She went into Prince Andrew's\r
+study, trying to enter completely into his ideas, and considered her\r
+position.\r
+\r
+The demands of life, which had seemed to her annihilated by her father's\r
+death, all at once rose before her with a new, previously unknown force\r
+and took possession of her.\r
+\r
+Agitated and flushed she paced the room, sending now for Michael\r
+Ivanovich and now for Tikhon or Dron. Dunyasha, the nurse, and the other\r
+maids could not say in how far Mademoiselle Bourienne's statement was\r
+correct. Alpatych was not at home, he had gone to the police. Neither\r
+could the architect Michael Ivanovich, who on being sent for came in\r
+with sleepy eyes, tell Princess Mary anything. With just the same smile\r
+of agreement with which for fifteen years he had been accustomed to\r
+answer the old prince without expressing views of his own, he now\r
+replied to Princess Mary, so that nothing definite could be got from his\r
+answers. The old valet Tikhon, with sunken, emaciated face that bore the\r
+stamp of inconsolable grief, replied: "Yes, Princess" to all Princess\r
+Mary's questions and hardly refrained from sobbing as he looked at her.\r
+\r
+At length Dron, the village Elder, entered the room and with a deep bow\r
+to Princess Mary came to a halt by the doorpost.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary walked up and down the room and stopped in front of him.\r
+\r
+"Dronushka," she said, regarding as a sure friend this Dronushka who\r
+always used to bring a special kind of gingerbread from his visit to the\r
+fair at Vyazma every year and smilingly offer it to her, "Dronushka, now\r
+since our misfortune..." she began, but could not go on.\r
+\r
+"We are all in God's hands," said he, with a sigh.\r
+\r
+They were silent for a while.\r
+\r
+"Dronushka, Alpatych has gone off somewhere and I have no one to turn\r
+to. Is it true, as they tell me, that I can't even go away?"\r
+\r
+"Why shouldn't you go away, your excellency? You can go," said Dron.\r
+\r
+"I was told it would be dangerous because of the enemy. Dear friend, I\r
+can do nothing. I understand nothing. I have nobody! I want to go away\r
+tonight or early tomorrow morning."\r
+\r
+Dron paused. He looked askance at Princess Mary and said: "There are no\r
+horses; I told Yakov Alpatych so."\r
+\r
+"Why are there none?" asked the princess.\r
+\r
+"It's all God's scourge," said Dron. "What horses we had have been taken\r
+for the army or have died--this is such a year! It's not a case of\r
+feeding horses--we may die of hunger ourselves! As it is, some go three\r
+days without eating. We've nothing, we've been ruined."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary listened attentively to what he told her.\r
+\r
+"The peasants are ruined? They have no bread?" she asked.\r
+\r
+"They're dying of hunger," said Dron. "It's not a case of carting."\r
+\r
+"But why didn't you tell me, Dronushka? Isn't it possible to help them?\r
+I'll do all I can...."\r
+\r
+To Princess Mary it was strange that now, at a moment when such sorrow\r
+was filling her soul, there could be rich people and poor, and the rich\r
+could refrain from helping the poor. She had heard vaguely that there\r
+was such a thing as "landlord's corn" which was sometimes given to the\r
+peasants. She also knew that neither her father nor her brother would\r
+refuse to help the peasants in need, she only feared to make some\r
+mistake in speaking about the distribution of the grain she wished to\r
+give. She was glad such cares presented themselves, enabling her without\r
+scruple to forget her own grief. She began asking Dron about the\r
+peasants' needs and what there was in Bogucharovo that belonged to the\r
+landlord.\r
+\r
+"But we have grain belonging to my brother?" she said.\r
+\r
+"The landlord's grain is all safe," replied Dron proudly. "Our prince\r
+did not order it to be sold."\r
+\r
+"Give it to the peasants, let them have all they need; I give you leave\r
+in my brother's name," said she.\r
+\r
+Dron made no answer but sighed deeply.\r
+\r
+"Give them that corn if there is enough of it. Distribute it all. I give\r
+this order in my brother's name; and tell them that what is ours is\r
+theirs. We do not grudge them anything. Tell them so."\r
+\r
+Dron looked intently at the princess while she was speaking.\r
+\r
+"Discharge me, little mother, for God's sake! Order the keys to be taken\r
+from me," said he. "I have served twenty-three years and have done no\r
+wrong. Discharge me, for God's sake!"\r
+\r
+Princess Mary did not understand what he wanted of her or why he was\r
+asking to be discharged. She replied that she had never doubted his\r
+devotion and that she was ready to do anything for him and for the\r
+peasants.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+An hour later Dunyasha came to tell the princess that Dron had come, and\r
+all the peasants had assembled at the barn by the princess' order and\r
+wished to have word with their mistress.\r
+\r
+"But I never told them to come," said Princess Mary. "I only told Dron\r
+to let them have the grain."\r
+\r
+"Only, for God's sake, Princess dear, have them sent away and don't go\r
+out to them. It's all a trick," said Dunyasha, "and when Yakov Alpatych\r
+returns let us get away... and please don't..."\r
+\r
+"What is a trick?" asked Princess Mary in surprise.\r
+\r
+"I know it is, only listen to me for God's sake! Ask nurse too. They say\r
+they don't agree to leave Bogucharovo as you ordered."\r
+\r
+"You're making some mistake. I never ordered them to go away," said\r
+Princess Mary. "Call Dronushka."\r
+\r
+Dron came and confirmed Dunyasha's words; the peasants had come by the\r
+princess' order.\r
+\r
+"But I never sent for them," declared the princess. "You must have given\r
+my message wrong. I only said that you were to give them the grain."\r
+\r
+Dron only sighed in reply.\r
+\r
+"If you order it they will go away," said he.\r
+\r
+"No, no. I'll go out to them," said Princess Mary, and in spite of the\r
+nurse's and Dunyasha's protests she went out into the porch; Dron,\r
+Dunyasha, the nurse, and Michael Ivanovich following her.\r
+\r
+"They probably think I am offering them the grain to bribe them to\r
+remain here, while I myself go away leaving them to the mercy of the\r
+French," thought Princess Mary. "I will offer them monthly rations and\r
+housing at our Moscow estate. I am sure Andrew would do even more in my\r
+place," she thought as she went out in the twilight toward the crowd\r
+standing on the pasture by the barn.\r
+\r
+The men crowded closer together, stirred, and rapidly took off their\r
+hats. Princess Mary lowered her eyes and, tripping over her skirt, came\r
+close up to them. So many different eyes, old and young, were fixed on\r
+her, and there were so many different faces, that she could not\r
+distinguish any of them and, feeling that she must speak to them all at\r
+once, did not know how to do it. But again the sense that she\r
+represented her father and her brother gave her courage, and she boldly\r
+began her speech.\r
+\r
+"I am very glad you have come," she said without raising her eyes, and\r
+feeling her heart beating quickly and violently. "Dronushka tells me\r
+that the war has ruined you. That is our common misfortune, and I shall\r
+grudge nothing to help you. I am myself going away because it is\r
+dangerous here... the enemy is near... because... I am giving you\r
+everything, my friends, and I beg you to take everything, all our grain,\r
+so that you may not suffer want! And if you have been told that I am\r
+giving you the grain to keep you here--that is not true. On the\r
+contrary, I ask you to go with all your belongings to our estate near\r
+Moscow, and I promise you I will see to it that there you shall want for\r
+nothing. You shall be given food and lodging."\r
+\r
+The princess stopped. Sighs were the only sound heard in the crowd.\r
+\r
+"I am not doing this on my own account," she continued, "I do it in the\r
+name of my dead father, who was a good master to you, and of my brother\r
+and his son."\r
+\r
+Again she paused. No one broke the silence.\r
+\r
+"Ours is a common misfortune and we will share it together. All that is\r
+mine is yours," she concluded, scanning the faces before her.\r
+\r
+All eyes were gazing at her with one and the same expression. She could\r
+not fathom whether it was curiosity, devotion, gratitude, or\r
+apprehension and distrust--but the expression on all the faces was\r
+identical.\r
+\r
+"We are all very thankful for your bounty, but it won't do for us to\r
+take the landlord's grain," said a voice at the back of the crowd.\r
+\r
+"But why not?" asked the princess.\r
+\r
+No one replied and Princess Mary, looking round at the crowd, found that\r
+every eye she met now was immediately dropped.\r
+\r
+"But why don't you want to take it?" she asked again.\r
+\r
+No one answered.\r
+\r
+The silence began to oppress the princess and she tried to catch\r
+someone's eye.\r
+\r
+"Why don't you speak?" she inquired of a very old man who stood just in\r
+front of her leaning on his stick. "If you think something more is\r
+wanted, tell me! I will do anything," said she, catching his eye.\r
+\r
+But as if this angered him, he bent his head quite low and muttered:\r
+\r
+"Why should we agree? We don't want the grain."\r
+\r
+"Why should we give up everything? We don't agree. Don't agree.... We\r
+are sorry for you, but we're not willing. Go away yourself, alone..."\r
+came from various sides of the crowd.\r
+\r
+And again all the faces in that crowd bore an identical expression,\r
+though now it was certainly not an expression of curiosity or gratitude,\r
+but of angry resolve.\r
+\r
+"But you can't have understood me," said Princess Mary with a sad smile.\r
+"Why don't you want to go? I promise to house and feed you, while here\r
+the enemy would ruin you..."\r
+\r
+But her voice was drowned by the voices of the crowd.\r
+\r
+"We're not willing. Let them ruin us! We won't take your grain. We don't\r
+agree."\r
+\r
+Again Princess Mary tried to catch someone's eye, but not a single eye\r
+in the crowd was turned to her; evidently they were all trying to avoid\r
+her look. She felt strange and awkward.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, an artful tale! Follow her into slavery! Pull down your houses\r
+and go into bondage! I dare say! 'I'll give you grain, indeed!' she\r
+says," voices in the crowd were heard saying.\r
+\r
+With drooping head Princess Mary left the crowd and went back to the\r
+house. Having repeated her order to Dron to have horses ready for her\r
+departure next morning, she went to her room and remained alone with her\r
+own thoughts.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+For a long time that night Princess Mary sat by the open window of her\r
+room hearing the sound of the peasants' voices that reached her from the\r
+village, but it was not of them she was thinking. She felt that she\r
+could not understand them however much she might think about them. She\r
+thought only of one thing, her sorrow, which, after the break caused by\r
+cares for the present, seemed already to belong to the past. Now she\r
+could remember it and weep or pray.\r
+\r
+After sunset the wind had dropped. The night was calm and fresh. Toward\r
+midnight the voices began to subside, a cock crowed, the full moon began\r
+to show from behind the lime trees, a fresh white dewy mist began to\r
+rise, and stillness reigned over the village and the house.\r
+\r
+Pictures of the near past--her father's illness and last moments--rose\r
+one after another to her memory. With mournful pleasure she now lingered\r
+over these images, repelling with horror only the last one, the picture\r
+of his death, which she felt she could not contemplate even in\r
+imagination at this still and mystic hour of night. And these pictures\r
+presented themselves to her so clearly and in such detail that they\r
+seemed now present, now past, and now future.\r
+\r
+She vividly recalled the moment when he had his first stroke and was\r
+being dragged along by his armpits through the garden at Bald Hills,\r
+muttering something with his helpless tongue, twitching his gray\r
+eyebrows and looking uneasily and timidly at her.\r
+\r
+"Even then he wanted to tell me what he told me the day he died," she\r
+thought. "He had always thought what he said then." And she recalled in\r
+all its detail the night at Bald Hills before he had the last stroke,\r
+when with a foreboding of disaster she had remained at home against his\r
+will. She had not slept and had stolen downstairs on tiptoe, and going\r
+to the door of the conservatory where he slept that night had listened\r
+at the door. In a suffering and weary voice he was saying something to\r
+Tikhon, speaking of the Crimea and its warm nights and of the Empress.\r
+Evidently he had wanted to talk. "And why didn't he call me? Why didn't\r
+he let me be there instead of Tikhon?" Princess Mary had thought and\r
+thought again now. "Now he will never tell anyone what he had in his\r
+soul. Never will that moment return for him or for me when he might have\r
+said all he longed to say, and not Tikhon but I might have heard and\r
+understood him. Why didn't I enter the room?" she thought. "Perhaps he\r
+would then have said to me what he said the day he died. While talking\r
+to Tikhon he asked about me twice. He wanted to see me, and I was\r
+standing close by, outside the door. It was sad and painful for him to\r
+talk to Tikhon who did not understand him. I remember how he began\r
+speaking to him about Lise as if she were alive--he had forgotten she\r
+was dead--and Tikhon reminded him that she was no more, and he shouted,\r
+'Fool!' He was greatly depressed. From behind the door I heard how he\r
+lay down on his bed groaning and loudly exclaimed, 'My God!' Why didn't\r
+I go in then? What could he have done to me? What could I have lost? And\r
+perhaps he would then have been comforted and would have said that word\r
+to me." And Princess Mary uttered aloud the caressing word he had said\r
+to her on the day of his death. "Dear-est!" she repeated, and began\r
+sobbing, with tears that relieved her soul. She now saw his face before\r
+her. And not the face she had known ever since she could remember and\r
+had always seen at a distance, but the timid, feeble face she had seen\r
+for the first time quite closely, with all its wrinkles and details,\r
+when she stooped near to his mouth to catch what he said.\r
+\r
+"Dear-est!" she repeated again.\r
+\r
+"What was he thinking when he uttered that word? What is he thinking\r
+now?" This question suddenly presented itself to her, and in answer she\r
+saw him before her with the expression that was on his face as he lay in\r
+his coffin with his chin bound up with a white handkerchief. And the\r
+horror that had seized her when she touched him and convinced herself\r
+that that was not he, but something mysterious and horrible, seized her\r
+again. She tried to think of something else and to pray, but could do\r
+neither. With wide-open eyes she gazed at the moonlight and the shadows,\r
+expecting every moment to see his dead face, and she felt that the\r
+silence brooding over the house and within it held her fast.\r
+\r
+"Dunyasha," she whispered. "Dunyasha!" she screamed wildly, and tearing\r
+herself out of this silence she ran to the servants' quarters to meet\r
+her old nurse and the maidservants who came running toward her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+On the seventeenth of August Rostov and Ilyin, accompanied by Lavrushka\r
+who had just returned from captivity and by an hussar orderly, left\r
+their quarters at Yankovo, ten miles from Bogucharovo, and went for a\r
+ride--to try a new horse Ilyin had bought and to find out whether there\r
+was any hay to be had in the villages.\r
+\r
+For the last three days Bogucharovo had lain between the two hostile\r
+armies, so that it was as easy for the Russian rearguard to get to it as\r
+for the French vanguard; Rostov, as a careful squadron commander, wished\r
+to take such provisions as remained at Bogucharovo before the French\r
+could get them.\r
+\r
+Rostov and Ilyin were in the merriest of moods. On the way to\r
+Bogucharovo, a princely estate with a dwelling house and farm where they\r
+hoped to find many domestic serfs and pretty girls, they questioned\r
+Lavrushka about Napoleon and laughed at his stories, and raced one\r
+another to try Ilyin's horse.\r
+\r
+Rostov had no idea that the village he was entering was the property of\r
+that very Bolkonski who had been engaged to his sister.\r
+\r
+Rostov and Ilyin gave rein to their horses for a last race along the\r
+incline before reaching Bogucharovo, and Rostov, outstripping Ilyin, was\r
+the first to gallop into the village street.\r
+\r
+"You're first!" cried Ilyin, flushed.\r
+\r
+"Yes, always first both on the grassland and here," answered Rostov,\r
+stroking his heated Donets horse.\r
+\r
+"And I'd have won on my Frenchy, your excellency," said Lavrushka from\r
+behind, alluding to his shabby cart horse, "only I didn't wish to\r
+mortify you."\r
+\r
+They rode at a footpace to the barn, where a large crowd of peasants was\r
+standing.\r
+\r
+Some of the men bared their heads, others stared at the new arrivals\r
+without doffing their caps. Two tall old peasants with wrinkled faces\r
+and scanty beards emerged from the tavern, smiling, staggering, and\r
+singing some incoherent song, and approached the officers.\r
+\r
+"Fine fellows!" said Rostov laughing. "Is there any hay here?"\r
+\r
+"And how like one another," said Ilyin.\r
+\r
+"A mo-o-st me-r-r-y co-o-m-pa...!" sang one of the peasants with a\r
+blissful smile.\r
+\r
+One of the men came out of the crowd and went up to Rostov.\r
+\r
+"Who do you belong to?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"The French," replied Ilyin jestingly, "and here is Napoleon himself"--\r
+and he pointed to Lavrushka.\r
+\r
+"Then you are Russians?" the peasant asked again.\r
+\r
+"And is there a large force of you here?" said another, a short man,\r
+coming up.\r
+\r
+"Very large," answered Rostov. "But why have you collected here?" he\r
+added. "Is it a holiday?"\r
+\r
+"The old men have met to talk over the business of the commune," replied\r
+the peasant, moving away.\r
+\r
+At that moment, on the road leading from the big house, two women and a\r
+man in a white hat were seen coming toward the officers.\r
+\r
+"The one in pink is mine, so keep off!" said Ilyin on seeing Dunyasha\r
+running resolutely toward him.\r
+\r
+"She'll be ours!" said Lavrushka to Ilyin, winking.\r
+\r
+"What do you want, my pretty?" said Ilyin with a smile.\r
+\r
+"The princess ordered me to ask your regiment and your name."\r
+\r
+"This is Count Rostov, squadron commander, and I am your humble\r
+servant."\r
+\r
+"Co-o-om-pa-ny!" roared the tipsy peasant with a beatific smile as he\r
+looked at Ilyin talking to the girl. Following Dunyasha, Alpatych\r
+advanced to Rostov, having bared his head while still at a distance.\r
+\r
+"May I make bold to trouble your honor?" said he respectfully, but with\r
+a shade of contempt for the youthfulness of this officer and with a hand\r
+thrust into his bosom. "My mistress, daughter of General in Chief Prince\r
+Nicholas Bolkonski who died on the fifteenth of this month, finding\r
+herself in difficulties owing to the boorishness of these people"--he\r
+pointed to the peasants--"asks you to come up to the house.... Won't\r
+you, please, ride on a little farther," said Alpatych with a melancholy\r
+smile, "as it is not convenient in the presence of...?" He pointed to\r
+the two peasants who kept as close to him as horseflies to a horse.\r
+\r
+"Ah!... Alpatych... Ah, Yakov Alpatych... Grand! Forgive us for Christ's\r
+sake, eh?" said the peasants, smiling joyfully at him.\r
+\r
+Rostov looked at the tipsy peasants and smiled.\r
+\r
+"Or perhaps they amuse your honor?" remarked Alpatych with a staid air,\r
+as he pointed at the old men with his free hand.\r
+\r
+"No, there's not much to be amused at here," said Rostov, and rode on a\r
+little way. "What's the matter?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"I make bold to inform your honor that the rude peasants here don't wish\r
+to let the mistress leave the estate, and threaten to unharness her\r
+horses, so that though everything has been packed up since morning, her\r
+excellency cannot get away."\r
+\r
+"Impossible!" exclaimed Rostov.\r
+\r
+"I have the honor to report to you the actual truth," said Alpatych.\r
+\r
+Rostov dismounted, gave his horse to the orderly, and followed Alpatych\r
+to the house, questioning him as to the state of affairs. It appeared\r
+that the princess' offer of corn to the peasants the previous day, and\r
+her talk with Dron and at the meeting, had actually had so bad an effect\r
+that Dron had finally given up the keys and joined the peasants and had\r
+not appeared when Alpatych sent for him; and that in the morning when\r
+the princess gave orders to harness for her journey, the peasants had\r
+come in a large crowd to the barn and sent word that they would not let\r
+her leave the village: that there was an order not to move, and that\r
+they would unharness the horses. Alpatych had gone out to admonish them,\r
+but was told (it was chiefly Karp who did the talking, Dron not showing\r
+himself in the crowd) that they could not let the princess go, that\r
+there was an order to the contrary, but that if she stayed they would\r
+serve her as before and obey her in everything.\r
+\r
+At the moment when Rostov and Ilyin were galloping along the road,\r
+Princess Mary, despite the dissuasions of Alpatych, her nurse, and the\r
+maids, had given orders to harness and intended to start, but when the\r
+cavalrymen were espied they were taken for Frenchmen, the coachman ran\r
+away, and the women in the house began to wail.\r
+\r
+"Father! Benefactor! God has sent you!" exclaimed deeply moved voices as\r
+Rostov passed through the anteroom.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary was sitting helpless and bewildered in the large sitting\r
+room, when Rostov was shown in. She could not grasp who he was and why\r
+he had come, or what was happening to her. When she saw his Russian\r
+face, and by his walk and the first words he uttered recognized him as a\r
+man of her own class, she glanced at him with her deep radiant look and\r
+began speaking in a voice that faltered and trembled with emotion. This\r
+meeting immediately struck Rostov as a romantic event. "A helpless girl\r
+overwhelmed with grief, left to the mercy of coarse, rioting peasants!\r
+And what a strange fate sent me here! What gentleness and nobility there\r
+are in her features and expression!" thought he as he looked at her and\r
+listened to her timid story.\r
+\r
+When she began to tell him that all this had happened the day after her\r
+father's funeral, her voice trembled. She turned away, and then, as if\r
+fearing he might take her words as meant to move him to pity, looked at\r
+him with an apprehensive glance of inquiry. There were tears in Rostov's\r
+eyes. Princess Mary noticed this and glanced gratefully at him with that\r
+radiant look which caused the plainness of her face to be forgotten.\r
+\r
+"I cannot express, Princess, how glad I am that I happened to ride here\r
+and am able to show my readiness to serve you," said Rostov, rising. "Go\r
+when you please, and I give you my word of honor that no one shall dare\r
+to cause you annoyance if only you will allow me to act as your escort."\r
+And bowing respectfully, as if to a lady of royal blood, he moved toward\r
+the door.\r
+\r
+Rostov's deferential tone seemed to indicate that though he would\r
+consider himself happy to be acquainted with her, he did not wish to\r
+take advantage of her misfortunes to intrude upon her.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary understood this and appreciated his delicacy.\r
+\r
+"I am very, very grateful to you," she said in French, "but I hope it\r
+was all a misunderstanding and that no one is to blame for it." She\r
+suddenly began to cry.\r
+\r
+"Excuse me!" she said.\r
+\r
+Rostov, knitting his brows, left the room with another low bow.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+"Well, is she pretty? Ah, friend--my pink one is delicious; her name is\r
+Dunyasha...."\r
+\r
+But on glancing at Rostov's face Ilyin stopped short. He saw that his\r
+hero and commander was following quite a different train of thought.\r
+\r
+Rostov glanced angrily at Ilyin and without replying strode off with\r
+rapid steps to the village.\r
+\r
+"I'll show them; I'll give it to them, the brigands!" said he to\r
+himself.\r
+\r
+Alpatych at a gliding trot, only just managing not to run, kept up with\r
+him with difficulty.\r
+\r
+"What decision have you been pleased to come to?" said he.\r
+\r
+Rostov stopped and, clenching his fists, suddenly and sternly turned on\r
+Alpatych.\r
+\r
+"Decision? What decision? Old dotard!..." cried he. "What have you been\r
+about? Eh? The peasants are rioting, and you can't manage them? You're a\r
+traitor yourself! I know you. I'll flay you all alive!..." And as if\r
+afraid of wasting his store of anger, he left Alpatych and went rapidly\r
+forward. Alpatych, mastering his offended feelings, kept pace with\r
+Rostov at a gliding gait and continued to impart his views. He said the\r
+peasants were obdurate and that at the present moment it would be\r
+imprudent to "overresist" them without an armed force, and would it not\r
+be better first to send for the military?\r
+\r
+"I'll give them armed force... I'll 'overresist' them!" uttered Rostov\r
+meaninglessly, breathless with irrational animal fury and the need to\r
+vent it.\r
+\r
+Without considering what he would do he moved unconciously with quick,\r
+resolute steps toward the crowd. And the nearer he drew to it the more\r
+Alpatych felt that this unreasonable action might produce good results.\r
+The peasants in the crowd were similarly impressed when they saw\r
+Rostov's rapid, firm steps and resolute, frowning face.\r
+\r
+After the hussars had come to the village and Rostov had gone to see the\r
+princess, a certain confusion and dissension had arisen among the crowd.\r
+Some of the peasants said that these new arrivals were Russians and\r
+might take it amiss that the mistress was being detained. Dron was of\r
+this opinion, but as soon as he expressed it Karp and others attacked\r
+their ex-Elder.\r
+\r
+"How many years have you been fattening on the commune?" Karp shouted at\r
+him. "It's all one to you! You'll dig up your pot of money and take it\r
+away with you.... What does it matter to you whether our homes are\r
+ruined or not?"\r
+\r
+"We've been told to keep order, and that no one is to leave their homes\r
+or take away a single grain, and that's all about it!" cried another.\r
+\r
+"It was your son's turn to be conscripted, but no fear! You begrudged\r
+your lump of a son," a little old man suddenly began attacking Dron--\r
+"and so they took my Vanka to be shaved for a soldier! But we all have\r
+to die."\r
+\r
+"To be sure, we all have to die. I'm not against the commune," said\r
+Dron.\r
+\r
+"That's it--not against it! You've filled your belly...."\r
+\r
+The two tall peasants had their say. As soon as Rostov, followed by\r
+Ilyin, Lavrushka, and Alpatych, came up to the crowd, Karp, thrusting\r
+his fingers into his belt and smiling a little, walked to the front.\r
+Dron on the contrary retired to the rear and the crowd drew closer\r
+together.\r
+\r
+"Who is your Elder here? Hey?" shouted Rostov, coming up to the crowd\r
+with quick steps.\r
+\r
+"The Elder? What do you want with him?..." asked Karp.\r
+\r
+But before the words were well out of his mouth, his cap flew off and a\r
+fierce blow jerked his head to one side.\r
+\r
+"Caps off, traitors!" shouted Rostov in a wrathful voice. "Where's the\r
+Elder?" he cried furiously.\r
+\r
+"The Elder.... He wants the Elder!... Dron Zakharych, you!" meek and\r
+flustered voices here and there were heard calling and caps began to\r
+come off their heads.\r
+\r
+"We don't riot, we're following the orders," declared Karp, and at that\r
+moment several voices began speaking together.\r
+\r
+"It's as the old men have decided--there's too many of you giving\r
+orders."\r
+\r
+"Arguing? Mutiny!... Brigands! Traitors!" cried Rostov unmeaningly in a\r
+voice not his own, gripping Karp by the collar. "Bind him, bind him!" he\r
+shouted, though there was no one to bind him but Lavrushka and Alpatych.\r
+\r
+Lavrushka, however, ran up to Karp and seized him by the arms from\r
+behind.\r
+\r
+"Shall I call up our men from beyond the hill?" he called out.\r
+\r
+Alpatych turned to the peasants and ordered two of them by name to come\r
+and bind Karp. The men obediently came out of the crowd and began taking\r
+off their belts.\r
+\r
+"Where's the Elder?" demanded Rostov in a loud voice.\r
+\r
+With a pale and frowning face Dron stepped out of the crowd.\r
+\r
+"Are you the Elder? Bind him, Lavrushka!" shouted Rostov, as if that\r
+order, too, could not possibly meet with any opposition.\r
+\r
+And in fact two more peasants began binding Dron, who took off his own\r
+belt and handed it to them, as if to aid them.\r
+\r
+"And you all listen to me!" said Rostov to the peasants. "Be off to your\r
+houses at once, and don't let one of your voices be heard!"\r
+\r
+"Why, we've not done any harm! We did it just out of foolishness. It's\r
+all nonsense... I said then that it was not in order," voices were heard\r
+bickering with one another.\r
+\r
+\r
+"There! What did I say?" said Alpatych, coming into his own again. "It's\r
+wrong, lads!"\r
+\r
+"All our stupidity, Yakov Alpatych," came the answers, and the crowd\r
+began at once to disperse through the village.\r
+\r
+The two bound men were led off to the master's house. The two drunken\r
+peasants followed them.\r
+\r
+"Aye, when I look at you!..." said one of them to Karp.\r
+\r
+"How can one talk to the masters like that? What were you thinking of,\r
+you fool?" added the other--"A real fool!"\r
+\r
+Two hours later the carts were standing in the courtyard of the\r
+Bogucharovo house. The peasants were briskly carrying out the\r
+proprietor's goods and packing them on the carts, and Dron, liberated at\r
+Princess Mary's wish from the cupboard where he had been confined, was\r
+standing in the yard directing the men.\r
+\r
+"Don't put it in so carelessly," said one of the peasants, a man with a\r
+round smiling face, taking a casket from a housemaid. "You know it has\r
+cost money! How can you chuck it in like that or shove it under the cord\r
+where it'll get rubbed? I don't like that way of doing things. Let it\r
+all be done properly, according to rule. Look here, put it under the\r
+bast matting and cover it with hay--that's the way!"\r
+\r
+"Eh, books, books!" said another peasant, bringing out Prince Andrew's\r
+library cupboards. "Don't catch up against it! It's heavy, lads--solid\r
+books."\r
+\r
+"Yes, they worked all day and didn't play!" remarked the tall, round-\r
+faced peasant gravely, pointing with a significant wink at the\r
+dictionaries that were on the top.\r
+\r
+Unwilling to obtrude himself on the princess, Rostov did not go back to\r
+the house but remained in the village awaiting her departure. When her\r
+carriage drove out of the house, he mounted and accompanied her eight\r
+miles from Bogucharovo to where the road was occupied by our troops. At\r
+the inn at Yankovo he respectfully took leave of her, for the first time\r
+permitting himself to kiss her hand.\r
+\r
+"How can you speak so!" he blushingly replied to Princess Mary's\r
+expressions of gratitude for her deliverance, as she termed what had\r
+occurred. "Any police officer would have done as much! If we had had\r
+only peasants to fight, we should not have let the enemy come so far,"\r
+said he with a sense of shame and wishing to change the subject. "I am\r
+only happy to have had the opportunity of making your acquaintance.\r
+Good-bye, Princess. I wish you happiness and consolation and hope to\r
+meet you again in happier circumstances. If you don't want to make me\r
+blush, please don't thank me!"\r
+\r
+But the princess, if she did not again thank him in words, thanked him\r
+with the whole expression of her face, radiant with gratitude and\r
+tenderness. She could not believe that there was nothing to thank him\r
+for. On the contrary, it seemed to her certain that had he not been\r
+there she would have perished at the hands of the mutineers and of the\r
+French, and that he had exposed himself to terrible and obvious danger\r
+to save her, and even more certain was it that he was a man of lofty and\r
+noble soul, able to understand her position and her sorrow. His kind,\r
+honest eyes, with the tears rising in them when she herself had begun to\r
+cry as she spoke of her loss, did not leave her memory.\r
+\r
+When she had taken leave of him and remained alone she suddenly felt her\r
+eyes filling with tears, and then not for the first time the strange\r
+question presented itself to her: did she love him?\r
+\r
+On the rest of the way to Moscow, though the princess' position was not\r
+a cheerful one, Dunyasha, who went with her in the carriage, more than\r
+once noticed that her mistress leaned out of the window and smiled at\r
+something with an expression of mingled joy and sorrow.\r
+\r
+"Well, supposing I do love him?" thought Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+Ashamed as she was of acknowledging to herself that she had fallen in\r
+love with a man who would perhaps never love her, she comforted herself\r
+with the thought that no one would ever know it and that she would not\r
+be to blame if, without ever speaking of it to anyone, she continued to\r
+the end of her life to love the man with whom she had fallen in love for\r
+the first and last time in her life.\r
+\r
+Sometimes when she recalled his looks, his sympathy, and his words,\r
+happiness did not appear impossible to her. It was at those moments that\r
+Dunyasha noticed her smiling as she looked out of the carriage window.\r
+\r
+"Was it not fate that brought him to Bogucharovo, and at that very\r
+moment?" thought Princess Mary. "And that caused his sister to refuse my\r
+brother?" And in all this Princess Mary saw the hand of Providence.\r
+\r
+The impression the princess made on Rostov was a very agreeable one. To\r
+remember her gave him pleasure, and when his comrades, hearing of his\r
+adventure at Bogucharovo, rallied him on having gone to look for hay and\r
+having picked up one of the wealthiest heiresses in Russia, he grew\r
+angry. It made him angry just because the idea of marrying the gentle\r
+Princess Mary, who was attractive to him and had an enormous fortune,\r
+had against his will more than once entered his head. For himself\r
+personally Nicholas could not wish for a better wife: by marrying her he\r
+would make the countess his mother happy, would be able to put his\r
+father's affairs in order, and would even--he felt it--ensure Princess\r
+Mary's happiness.\r
+\r
+But Sonya? And his plighted word? That was why Rostov grew angry when he\r
+was rallied about Princess Bolkonskaya.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+On receiving command of the armies Kutuzov remembered Prince Andrew and\r
+sent an order for him to report at headquarters.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew arrived at Tsarevo-Zaymishche on the very day and at the\r
+very hour that Kutuzov was reviewing the troops for the first time. He\r
+stopped in the village at the priest's house in front of which stood the\r
+commander-in-chief's carriage, and he sat down on the bench at the gate\r
+awaiting his Serene Highness, as everyone now called Kutuzov. From the\r
+field beyond the village came now sounds of regimental music and now the\r
+roar of many voices shouting "Hurrah!" to the new commander-in-chief.\r
+Two orderlies, a courier and a major-domo, stood near by, some ten paces\r
+from Prince Andrew, availing themselves of Kutuzov's absence and of the\r
+fine weather. A short, swarthy lieutenant colonel of hussars with thick\r
+mustaches and whiskers rode up to the gate and, glancing at Prince\r
+Andrew, inquired whether his Serene Highness was putting up there and\r
+whether he would soon be back.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew replied that he was not on his Serene Highness' staff but\r
+was himself a new arrival. The lieutenant colonel turned to a smart\r
+orderly, who, with the peculiar contempt with which a commander-in-\r
+chief's orderly speaks to officers, replied:\r
+\r
+"What? His Serene Highness? I expect he'll be here soon. What do you\r
+want?"\r
+\r
+The lieutenant colonel of hussars smiled beneath his mustache at the\r
+orderly's tone, dismounted, gave his horse to a dispatch runner, and\r
+approached Bolkonski with a slight bow. Bolkonski made room for him on\r
+the bench and the lieutenant colonel sat down beside him.\r
+\r
+"You're also waiting for the commander-in-chief?" said he. "They say he\r
+weceives evewyone, thank God!... It's awful with those sausage eaters!\r
+Ermolov had weason to ask to be pwomoted to be a German! Now p'waps\r
+Wussians will get a look in. As it was, devil only knows what was\r
+happening. We kept wetweating and wetweating. Did you take part in the\r
+campaign?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"I had the pleasure," replied Prince Andrew, "not only of taking part in\r
+the retreat but of losing in that retreat all I held dear--not to\r
+mention the estate and home of my birth--my father, who died of grief. I\r
+belong to the province of Smolensk."\r
+\r
+"Ah? You're Pwince Bolkonski? Vewy glad to make your acquaintance! I'm\r
+Lieutenant Colonel Denisov, better known as 'Vaska,'" said Denisov,\r
+pressing Prince Andrew's hand and looking into his face with a\r
+particularly kindly attention. "Yes, I heard," said he sympathetically,\r
+and after a short pause added: "Yes, it's Scythian warfare. It's all\r
+vewy well--only not for those who get it in the neck. So you are Pwince\r
+Andwew Bolkonski?" He swayed his head. "Vewy pleased, Pwince, to make\r
+your acquaintance!" he repeated again, smiling sadly, and he again\r
+pressed Prince Andrew's hand.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew knew Denisov from what Natasha had told him of her first\r
+suitor. This memory carried him sadly and sweetly back to those painful\r
+feelings of which he had not thought lately, but which still found place\r
+in his soul. Of late he had received so many new and very serious\r
+impressions--such as the retreat from Smolensk, his visit to Bald Hills,\r
+and the recent news of his father's death--and had experienced so many\r
+emotions, that for a long time past those memories had not entered his\r
+mind, and now that they did, they did not act on him with nearly their\r
+former strength. For Denisov, too, the memories awakened by the name of\r
+Bolkonski belonged to a distant, romantic past, when after supper and\r
+after Natasha's singing he had proposed to a little girl of fifteen\r
+without realizing what he was doing. He smiled at the recollection of\r
+that time and of his love for Natasha, and passed at once to what now\r
+interested him passionately and exclusively. This was a plan of campaign\r
+he had devised while serving at the outposts during the retreat. He had\r
+proposed that plan to Barclay de Tolly and now wished to propose it to\r
+Kutuzov. The plan was based on the fact that the French line of\r
+operation was too extended, and it proposed that instead of, or\r
+concurrently with, action on the front to bar the advance of the French,\r
+we should attack their line of communication. He began explaining his\r
+plan to Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"They can't hold all that line. It's impossible. I will undertake to\r
+bweak thwough. Give me five hundwed men and I will bweak the line,\r
+that's certain! There's only one way--guewilla warfare!"\r
+\r
+Denisov rose and began gesticulating as he explained his plan to\r
+Bolkonski. In the midst of his explanation shouts were heard from the\r
+army, growing more incoherent and more diffused, mingling with music and\r
+songs and coming from the field where the review was held. Sounds of\r
+hoofs and shouts were nearing the village.\r
+\r
+"He's coming! He's coming!" shouted a Cossack standing at the gate.\r
+\r
+Bolkonski and Denisov moved to the gate, at which a knot of soldiers (a\r
+guard of honor) was standing, and they saw Kutuzov coming down the\r
+street mounted on a rather small sorrel horse. A huge suite of generals\r
+rode behind him. Barclay was riding almost beside him, and a crowd of\r
+officers ran after and around them shouting, "Hurrah!"\r
+\r
+His adjutants galloped into the yard before him. Kutuzov was impatiently\r
+urging on his horse, which ambled smoothly under his weight, and he\r
+raised his hand to his white Horse Guard's cap with a red band and no\r
+peak, nodding his head continually. When he came up to the guard of\r
+honor, a fine set of Grenadiers mostly wearing decorations, who were\r
+giving him the salute, he looked at them silently and attentively for\r
+nearly a minute with the steady gaze of a commander and then turned to\r
+the crowd of generals and officers surrounding him. Suddenly his face\r
+assumed a subtle expression, he shrugged his shoulders with an air of\r
+perplexity.\r
+\r
+"And with such fine fellows to retreat and retreat! Well, good-by,\r
+General," he added, and rode into the yard past Prince Andrew and\r
+Denisov.\r
+\r
+"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" shouted those behind him.\r
+\r
+Since Prince Andrew had last seen him Kutuzov had grown still more\r
+corpulent, flaccid, and fat. But the bleached eyeball, the scar, and the\r
+familiar weariness of his expression were still the same. He was wearing\r
+the white Horse Guard's cap and a military overcoat with a whip hanging\r
+over his shoulder by a thin strap. He sat heavily and swayed limply on\r
+his brisk little horse.\r
+\r
+"Whew... whew... whew!" he whistled just audibly as he rode into the\r
+yard. His face expressed the relief of relaxed strain felt by a man who\r
+means to rest after a ceremony. He drew his left foot out of the stirrup\r
+and, lurching with his whole body and puckering his face with the\r
+effort, raised it with difficulty onto the saddle, leaned on his knee,\r
+groaned, and slipped down into the arms of the Cossacks and adjutants\r
+who stood ready to assist him.\r
+\r
+He pulled himself together, looked round, screwing up his eyes, glanced\r
+at Prince Andrew, and, evidently not recognizing him, moved with his\r
+waddling gait to the porch. "Whew... whew... whew!" he whistled, and\r
+again glanced at Prince Andrew. As often occurs with old men, it was\r
+only after some seconds that the impression produced by Prince Andrew's\r
+face linked itself up with Kutuzov's remembrance of his personality.\r
+\r
+"Ah, how do you do, my dear prince? How do you do, my dear boy? Come\r
+along..." said he, glancing wearily round, and he stepped onto the porch\r
+which creaked under his weight.\r
+\r
+He unbuttoned his coat and sat down on a bench in the porch.\r
+\r
+"And how's your father?"\r
+\r
+"I received news of his death, yesterday," replied Prince Andrew\r
+abruptly.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov looked at him with eyes wide open with dismay and then took off\r
+his cap and crossed himself:\r
+\r
+"May the kingdom of Heaven be his! God's will be done to us all!" He\r
+sighed deeply, his whole chest heaving, and was silent for a while. "I\r
+loved him and respected him, and sympathize with you with all my heart."\r
+\r
+He embraced Prince Andrew, pressing him to his fat breast, and for some\r
+time did not let him go. When he released him Prince Andrew saw that\r
+Kutuzov's flabby lips were trembling and that tears were in his eyes. He\r
+sighed and pressed on the bench with both hands to raise himself.\r
+\r
+"Come! Come with me, we'll have a talk," said he.\r
+\r
+But at that moment Denisov, no more intimidated by his superiors than by\r
+the enemy, came with jingling spurs up the steps of the porch, despite\r
+the angry whispers of the adjutants who tried to stop him. Kutuzov, his\r
+hands still pressed on the seat, glanced at him glumly. Denisov, having\r
+given his name, announced that he had to communicate to his Serene\r
+Highness a matter of great importance for their country's welfare.\r
+Kutuzov looked wearily at him and, lifting his hands with a gesture of\r
+annoyance, folded them across his stomach, repeating the words: "For our\r
+country's welfare? Well, what is it? Speak!" Denisov blushed like a girl\r
+(it was strange to see the color rise in that shaggy, bibulous, time-\r
+worn face) and boldly began to expound his plan of cutting the enemy's\r
+lines of communication between Smolensk and Vyazma. Denisov came from\r
+those parts and knew the country well. His plan seemed decidedly a good\r
+one, especially from the strength of conviction with which he spoke.\r
+Kutuzov looked down at his own legs, occasionally glancing at the door\r
+of the adjoining hut as if expecting something unpleasant to emerge from\r
+it. And from that hut, while Denisov was speaking, a general with a\r
+portfolio under his arm really did appear.\r
+\r
+"What?" said Kutuzov, in the midst of Denisov's explanations, "are you\r
+ready so soon?"\r
+\r
+"Ready, your Serene Highness," replied the general.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov swayed his head, as much as to say: "How is one man to deal with\r
+it all?" and again listened to Denisov.\r
+\r
+"I give my word of honor as a Wussian officer," said Denisov, "that I\r
+can bweak Napoleon's line of communication!"\r
+\r
+"What relation are you to Intendant General Kiril Andreevich Denisov?"\r
+asked Kutuzov, interrupting him.\r
+\r
+"He is my uncle, your Sewene Highness."\r
+\r
+"Ah, we were friends," said Kutuzov cheerfully. "All right, all right,\r
+friend, stay here at the staff and tomorrow we'll have a talk."\r
+\r
+With a nod to Denisov he turned away and put out his hand for the papers\r
+Konovnitsyn had brought him.\r
+\r
+"Would not your Serene Highness like to come inside?" said the general\r
+on duty in a discontented voice, "the plans must be examined and several\r
+papers have to be signed."\r
+\r
+An adjutant came out and announced that everything was in readiness\r
+within. But Kutuzov evidently did not wish to enter that room till he\r
+was disengaged. He made a grimace...\r
+\r
+"No, tell them to bring a small table out here, my dear boy. I'll look\r
+at them here," said he. "Don't go away," he added, turning to Prince\r
+Andrew, who remained in the porch and listened to the general's report.\r
+\r
+While this was being given, Prince Andrew heard the whisper of a woman's\r
+voice and the rustle of a silk dress behind the door. Several times on\r
+glancing that way he noticed behind that door a plump, rosy, handsome\r
+woman in a pink dress with a lilac silk kerchief on her head, holding a\r
+dish and evidently awaiting the entrance of the commander-in-chief.\r
+Kutuzov's adjutant whispered to Prince Andrew that this was the wife of\r
+the priest whose home it was, and that she intended to offer his Serene\r
+Highness bread and salt. "Her husband has welcomed his Serene Highness\r
+with the cross at the church, and she intends to welcome him in the\r
+house.... She's very pretty," added the adjutant with a smile. At those\r
+words Kutuzov looked round. He was listening to the general's report--\r
+which consisted chiefly of a criticism of the position at Tsarevo-\r
+Zaymishche--as he had listened to Denisov, and seven years previously\r
+had listened to the discussion at the Austerlitz council of war. He\r
+evidently listened only because he had ears which, though there was a\r
+piece of tow in one of them, could not help hearing; but it was evident\r
+that nothing the general could say would surprise or even interest him,\r
+that he knew all that would be said beforehand, and heard it all only\r
+because he had to, as one has to listen to the chanting of a service of\r
+prayer. All that Denisov had said was clever and to the point. What the\r
+general was saying was even more clever and to the point, but it was\r
+evident that Kutuzov despised knowledge and cleverness, and knew of\r
+something else that would decide the matter--something independent of\r
+cleverness and knowledge. Prince Andrew watched the commander-in-chief's\r
+face attentively, and the only expression he could see there was one of\r
+boredom, curiosity as to the meaning of the feminine whispering behind\r
+the door, and a desire to observe propriety. It was evident that Kutuzov\r
+despised cleverness and learning and even the patriotic feeling shown by\r
+Denisov, but despised them not because of his own intellect, feelings,\r
+or knowledge--he did not try to display any of these--but because of\r
+something else. He despised them because of his old age and experience\r
+of life. The only instruction Kutuzov gave of his own accord during that\r
+report referred to looting by the Russian troops. At the end of the\r
+report the general put before him for signature a paper relating to the\r
+recovery of payment from army commanders for green oats mown down by the\r
+soldiers, when landowners lodged petitions for compensation.\r
+\r
+After hearing the matter, Kutuzov smacked his lips together and shook\r
+his head.\r
+\r
+"Into the stove... into the fire with it! I tell you once for all, my\r
+dear fellow," said he, "into the fire with all such things! Let them cut\r
+the crops and burn wood to their hearts' content. I don't order it or\r
+allow it, but I don't exact compensation either. One can't get on\r
+without it. 'When wood is chopped the chips will fly.'" He looked at the\r
+paper again. "Oh, this German precision!" he muttered, shaking his head.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+"Well, that's all!" said Kutuzov as he signed the last of the documents,\r
+and rising heavily and smoothing out the folds in his fat white neck he\r
+moved toward the door with a more cheerful expression.\r
+\r
+The priest's wife, flushing rosy red, caught up the dish she had after\r
+all not managed to present at the right moment, though she had so long\r
+been preparing for it, and with a low bow offered it to Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+He screwed up his eyes, smiled, lifted her chin with his hand, and said:\r
+\r
+"Ah, what a beauty! Thank you, sweetheart!"\r
+\r
+He took some gold pieces from his trouser pocket and put them on the\r
+dish for her. "Well, my dear, and how are we getting on?" he asked,\r
+moving to the door of the room assigned to him. The priest's wife\r
+smiled, and with dimples in her rosy cheeks followed him into the room.\r
+The adjutant came out to the porch and asked Prince Andrew to lunch with\r
+him. Half an hour later Prince Andrew was again called to Kutuzov. He\r
+found him reclining in an armchair, still in the same unbuttoned\r
+overcoat. He had in his hand a French book which he closed as Prince\r
+Andrew entered, marking the place with a knife. Prince Andrew saw by the\r
+cover that it was Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis.\r
+\r
+"Well, sit down, sit down here. Let's have a talk," said Kutuzov. "It's\r
+sad, very sad. But remember, my dear fellow, that I am a father to you,\r
+a second father...."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew told Kutuzov all he knew of his father's death, and what\r
+he had seen at Bald Hills when he passed through it.\r
+\r
+"What... what they have brought us to!" Kutuzov suddenly cried in an\r
+agitated voice, evidently picturing vividly to himself from Prince\r
+Andrew's story the condition Russia was in. "But give me time, give me\r
+time!" he said with a grim look, evidently not wishing to continue this\r
+agitating conversation, and added: "I sent for you to keep you with me."\r
+\r
+"I thank your Serene Highness, but I fear I am no longer fit for the\r
+staff," replied Prince Andrew with a smile which Kutuzov noticed.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov glanced inquiringly at him.\r
+\r
+"But above all," added Prince Andrew, "I have grown used to my regiment,\r
+am fond of the officers, and I fancy the men also like me. I should be\r
+sorry to leave the regiment. If I decline the honor of being with you,\r
+believe me..."\r
+\r
+A shrewd, kindly, yet subtly derisive expression lit up Kutuzov's podgy\r
+face. He cut Bolkonski short.\r
+\r
+"I am sorry, for I need you. But you're right, you're right! It's not\r
+here that men are needed. Advisers are always plentiful, but men are\r
+not. The regiments would not be what they are if the would-be advisers\r
+served there as you do. I remember you at Austerlitz.... I remember,\r
+yes, I remember you with the standard!" said Kutuzov, and a flush of\r
+pleasure suffused Prince Andrew's face at this recollection.\r
+\r
+Taking his hand and drawing him downwards, Kutuzov offered his cheek to\r
+be kissed, and again Prince Andrew noticed tears in the old man's eyes.\r
+Though Prince Andrew knew that Kutuzov's tears came easily, and that he\r
+was particularly tender to and considerate of him from a wish to show\r
+sympathy with his loss, yet this reminder of Austerlitz was both\r
+pleasant and flattering to him.\r
+\r
+"Go your way and God be with you. I know your path is the path of\r
+honor!" He paused. "I missed you at Bucharest, but I needed someone to\r
+send." And changing the subject, Kutuzov began to speak of the Turkish\r
+war and the peace that had been concluded. "Yes, I have been much\r
+blamed," he said, "both for that war and the peace... but everything\r
+came at the right time. Tout vient a point a celui qui sait attendre. *\r
+And there were as many advisers there as here..." he went on, returning\r
+to the subject of "advisers" which evidently occupied him. "Ah, those\r
+advisers!" said he. "If we had listened to them all we should not have\r
+made peace with Turkey and should not have been through with that war.\r
+Everything in haste, but more haste, less speed. Kamenski would have\r
+been lost if he had not died. He stormed fortresses with thirty thousand\r
+men. It is not difficult to capture a fortress but it is difficult to\r
+win a campaign. For that, not storming and attacking but patience and\r
+time are wanted. Kamenski sent soldiers to Rustchuk, but I only employed\r
+these two things and took more fortresses than Kamenski and made them\r
+Turks eat horseflesh!" He swayed his head. "And the French shall too,\r
+believe me," he went on, growing warmer and beating his chest, "I'll\r
+make them eat horseflesh!" And tears again dimmed his eyes.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait."\r
+\r
+"But shan't we have to accept battle?" remarked Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"We shall if everybody wants it; it can't be helped.... But believe me,\r
+my dear boy, there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and\r
+time, they will do it all. But the advisers n'entendent pas de cette\r
+oreille, voila le mal. * Some want a thing--others don't. What's one to\r
+do?" he asked, evidently expecting an answer. "Well, what do you want us\r
+to do?" he repeated and his eye shone with a deep, shrewd look. "I'll\r
+tell you what to do," he continued, as Prince Andrew still did not\r
+reply: "I will tell you what to do, and what I do. Dans le doute, mon\r
+cher," he paused, "abstiens-toi" *(2)--he articulated the French proverb\r
+deliberately.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Don't see it that way, that's the trouble."\r
+\r
+* (2) "When in doubt, my dear fellow, do nothing."\r
+\r
+"Well, good-by, my dear fellow; remember that with all my heart I share\r
+your sorrow, and that for you I am not a Serene Highness, nor a prince,\r
+nor a commander-in-chief, but a father! If you want anything come\r
+straight to me. Good-bye, my dear boy."\r
+\r
+Again he embraced and kissed Prince Andrew, but before the latter had\r
+left the room Kutuzov gave a sigh of relief and went on with his\r
+unfinished novel, Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew could not have explained how or why it was, but after that\r
+interview with Kutuzov he went back to his regiment reassured as to the\r
+general course of affairs and as to the man to whom it had been\r
+entrusted. The more he realized the absence of all personal motive in\r
+that old man--in whom there seemed to remain only the habit of passions,\r
+and in place of an intellect (grouping events and drawing conclusions)\r
+only the capacity calmly to contemplate the course of events--the more\r
+reassured he was that everything would be as it should. "He will not\r
+bring in any plan of his own. He will not devise or undertake anything,"\r
+thought Prince Andrew, "but he will hear everything, remember\r
+everything, and put everything in its place. He will not hinder anything\r
+useful nor allow anything harmful. He understands that there is\r
+something stronger and more important than his own will--the inevitable\r
+course of events, and he can see them and grasp their significance, and\r
+seeing that significance can refrain from meddling and renounce his\r
+personal wish directed to something else. And above all," thought Prince\r
+Andrew, "one believes in him because he's Russian, despite the novel by\r
+Genlis and the French proverbs, and because his voice shook when he\r
+said: 'What they have brought us to!' and had a sob in it when he said\r
+he would 'make them eat horseflesh!'"\r
+\r
+On such feelings, more or less dimly shared by all, the unanimity and\r
+general approval were founded with which, despite court influences, the\r
+popular choice of Kutuzov as commander-in-chief was received.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+After the Emperor had left Moscow, life flowed on there in its usual\r
+course, and its course was so very usual that it was difficult to\r
+remember the recent days of patriotic elation and ardor, hard to believe\r
+that Russia was really in danger and that the members of the English\r
+Club were also sons of the Fatherland ready to sacrifice everything for\r
+it. The one thing that recalled the patriotic fervor everyone had\r
+displayed during the Emperor's stay was the call for contributions of\r
+men and money, a necessity that as soon as the promises had been made\r
+assumed a legal, official form and became unavoidable.\r
+\r
+With the enemy's approach to Moscow, the Moscovites' view of their\r
+situation did not grow more serious but on the contrary became even more\r
+frivolous, as always happens with people who see a great danger\r
+approaching. At the approach of danger there are always two voices that\r
+speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a\r
+man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it;\r
+the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and\r
+painful to think of the danger, since it is not in man's power to\r
+foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is\r
+therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to\r
+think about what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally listens to the\r
+first voice, but in society to the second. So it was now with the\r
+inhabitants of Moscow. It was long since people had been as gay in\r
+Moscow as that year.\r
+\r
+Rostopchin's broadsheets, headed by woodcuts of a drink shop, a potman,\r
+and a Moscow burgher called Karpushka Chigirin, "who--having been a\r
+militiaman and having had rather too much at the pub--heard that\r
+Napoleon wished to come to Moscow, grew angry, abused the French in very\r
+bad language, came out of the drink shop, and, under the sign of the\r
+eagle, began to address the assembled people," were read and discussed,\r
+together with the latest of Vasili Lvovich Pushkin's bouts rimes.\r
+\r
+In the corner room at the club, members gathered to read these\r
+broadsheets, and some liked the way Karpushka jeered at the French,\r
+saying: "They will swell up with Russian cabbage, burst with our\r
+buckwheat porridge, and choke themselves with cabbage soup. They are all\r
+dwarfs and one peasant woman will toss three of them with a hayfork."\r
+Others did not like that tone and said it was stupid and vulgar. It was\r
+said that Rostopchin had expelled all Frenchmen and even all foreigners\r
+from Moscow, and that there had been some spies and agents of Napoleon\r
+among them; but this was told chiefly to introduce Rostopchin's witty\r
+remark on that occasion. The foreigners were deported to Nizhni by boat,\r
+and Rostopchin had said to them in French: "Rentrez en vousmemes; entrez\r
+dans la barque, et n'en faites pas une barque de Charon." * There was\r
+talk of all the government offices having been already removed from\r
+Moscow, and to this Shinshin's witticism was added--that for that alone\r
+Moscow ought to be grateful to Napoleon. It was said that Mamonov's\r
+regiment would cost him eight hundred thousand rubles, and that Bezukhov\r
+had spent even more on his, but that the best thing about Bezukhov's\r
+action was that he himself was going to don a uniform and ride at the\r
+head of his regiment without charging anything for the show.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Think it over; get into the barque, and take care not to make it a\r
+barque of Charon."\r
+\r
+"You don't spare anyone," said Julie Drubetskaya as she collected and\r
+pressed together a bunch of raveled lint with her thin, beringed\r
+fingers.\r
+\r
+Julie was preparing to leave Moscow next day and was giving a farewell\r
+soiree.\r
+\r
+"Bezukhov est ridicule, but he is so kind and good-natured. What\r
+pleasure is there to be so caustique?"\r
+\r
+"A forfeit!" cried a young man in militia uniform whom Julie called "mon\r
+chevalier," and who was going with her to Nizhni.\r
+\r
+In Julie's set, as in many other circles in Moscow, it had been agreed\r
+that they would speak nothing but Russian and that those who made a slip\r
+and spoke French should pay fines to the Committee of Voluntary\r
+Contributions.\r
+\r
+"Another forfeit for a Gallicism," said a Russian writer who was\r
+present. "'What pleasure is there to be' is not Russian!"\r
+\r
+"You spare no one," continued Julie to the young man without heeding the\r
+author's remark.\r
+\r
+"For caustique--I am guilty and will pay, and I am prepared to pay again\r
+for the pleasure of telling you the truth. For Gallicisms I won't be\r
+responsible," she remarked, turning to the author: "I have neither the\r
+money nor the time, like Prince Galitsyn, to engage a master to teach me\r
+Russian!"\r
+\r
+"Ah, here he is!" she added. "Quand on... No, no," she said to the\r
+militia officer, "you won't catch me. Speak of the sun and you see its\r
+rays!" and she smiled amiably at Pierre. "We were just talking of you,"\r
+she said with the facility in lying natural to a society woman. "We were\r
+saying that your regiment would be sure to be better than Mamonov's."\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't talk to me of my regiment," replied Pierre, kissing his\r
+hostess' hand and taking a seat beside her. "I am so sick of it."\r
+\r
+"You will, of course, command it yourself?" said Julie, directing a sly,\r
+sarcastic glance toward the militia officer.\r
+\r
+The latter in Pierre's presence had ceased to be caustic, and his face\r
+expressed perplexity as to what Julie's smile might mean. In spite of\r
+his absent-mindedness and good nature, Pierre's personality immediately\r
+checked any attempt to ridicule him to his face.\r
+\r
+"No," said Pierre, with a laughing glance at his big, stout body. "I\r
+should make too good a target for the French, besides I am afraid I\r
+should hardly be able to climb onto a horse."\r
+\r
+Among those whom Julie's guests happened to choose to gossip about were\r
+the Rostovs.\r
+\r
+"I hear that their affairs are in a very bad way," said Julie. "And he\r
+is so unreasonable, the count himself I mean. The Razumovskis wanted to\r
+buy his house and his estate near Moscow, but it drags on and on. He\r
+asks too much."\r
+\r
+"No, I think the sale will come off in a few days," said someone.\r
+"Though it is madness to buy anything in Moscow now."\r
+\r
+"Why?" asked Julie. "You don't think Moscow is in danger?"\r
+\r
+"Then why are you leaving?"\r
+\r
+"I? What a question! I am going because... well, because everyone is\r
+going: and besides--I am not Joan of Arc or an Amazon."\r
+\r
+"Well, of course, of course! Let me have some more strips of linen."\r
+\r
+"If he manages the business properly he will be able to pay off all his\r
+debts," said the militia officer, speaking of Rostov.\r
+\r
+"A kindly old man but not up to much. And why do they stay on so long in\r
+Moscow? They meant to leave for the country long ago. Natalie is quite\r
+well again now, isn't she?" Julie asked Pierre with a knowing smile.\r
+\r
+"They are waiting for their younger son," Pierre replied. "He joined\r
+Obolenski's Cossacks and went to Belaya Tserkov where the regiment is\r
+being formed. But now they have had him transferred to my regiment and\r
+are expecting him every day. The count wanted to leave long ago, but the\r
+countess won't on any account leave Moscow till her son returns."\r
+\r
+"I met them the day before yesterday at the Arkharovs'. Natalie has\r
+recovered her looks and is brighter. She sang a song. How easily some\r
+people get over everything!"\r
+\r
+"Get over what?" inquired Pierre, looking displeased.\r
+\r
+Julie smiled.\r
+\r
+"You know, Count, such knights as you are only found in Madame de\r
+Souza's novels."\r
+\r
+"What knights? What do you mean?" demanded Pierre, blushing.\r
+\r
+"Oh, come, my dear count! C'est la fable de tout Moscou. Je vous admire,\r
+ma parole d'honneur!" *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "It is the talk of all Moscow. My word, I admire you!"\r
+\r
+"Forfeit, forfeit!" cried the militia officer.\r
+\r
+"All right, one can't talk--how tiresome!"\r
+\r
+"What is 'the talk of all Moscow'?" Pierre asked angrily, rising to his\r
+feet.\r
+\r
+"Come now, Count, you know!"\r
+\r
+"I don't know anything about it," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"I know you were friendly with Natalie, and so... but I was always more\r
+friendly with Vera--that dear Vera."\r
+\r
+"No, madame!" Pierre continued in a tone of displeasure, "I have not\r
+taken on myself the role of Natalie Rostova's knight at all, and have\r
+not been to their house for nearly a month. But I cannot understand the\r
+cruelty..."\r
+\r
+"Qui s'excuse s'accuse," * said Julie, smiling and waving the lint\r
+triumphantly, and to have the last word she promptly changed the\r
+subject. "Do you know what I heard today? Poor Mary Bolkonskaya arrived\r
+in Moscow yesterday. Do you know that she has lost her father?"\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Who excuses himself, accuses himself."\r
+\r
+"Really? Where is she? I should like very much to see her," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"I spent the evening with her yesterday. She is going to their estate\r
+near Moscow either today or tomorrow morning, with her nephew."\r
+\r
+"Well, and how is she?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"She is well, but sad. But do you know who rescued her? It is quite a\r
+romance. Nicholas Rostov! She was surrounded, and they wanted to kill\r
+her and had wounded some of her people. He rushed in and saved her...."\r
+\r
+"Another romance," said the militia officer. "Really, this general\r
+flight has been arranged to get all the old maids married off. Catiche\r
+is one and Princess Bolkonskaya another."\r
+\r
+"Do you know, I really believe she is un petit peu amoureuse du jeune\r
+homme." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "A little bit in love with the young man."\r
+\r
+"Forfeit, forfeit, forfeit!"\r
+\r
+"But how could one say that in Russian?"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+When Pierre returned home he was handed two of Rostopchin's broadsheets\r
+that had been brought that day.\r
+\r
+The first declared that the report that Count Rostopchin had forbidden\r
+people to leave Moscow was false; on the contrary he was glad that\r
+ladies and tradesmen's wives were leaving the city. "There will be less\r
+panic and less gossip," ran the broadsheet "but I will stake my life on\r
+it that scoundrel will not enter Moscow." These words showed Pierre\r
+clearly for the first time that the French would enter Moscow. The\r
+second broadsheet stated that our headquarters were at Vyazma, that\r
+Count Wittgenstein had defeated the French, but that as many of the\r
+inhabitants of Moscow wished to be armed, weapons were ready for them at\r
+the arsenal: sabers, pistols, and muskets which could be had at a low\r
+price. The tone of the proclamation was not as jocose as in the former\r
+Chigirin talks. Pierre pondered over these broadsheets. Evidently the\r
+terrible stormcloud he had desired with the whole strength of his soul\r
+but which yet aroused involuntary horror in him was drawing near.\r
+\r
+"Shall I join the army and enter the service, or wait?" he asked himself\r
+for the hundredth time. He took a pack of cards that lay on the table\r
+and began to lay them out for a game of patience.\r
+\r
+"If this patience comes out," he said to himself after shuffling the\r
+cards, holding them in his hand, and lifting his head, "if it comes out,\r
+it means... what does it mean?"\r
+\r
+He had not decided what it should mean when he heard the voice of the\r
+eldest princess at the door asking whether she might come in.\r
+\r
+"Then it will mean that I must go to the army," said Pierre to himself.\r
+"Come in, come in!" he added to the princess.\r
+\r
+Only the eldest princess, the one with the stony face and long waist,\r
+was still living in Pierre's house. The two younger ones had both\r
+married.\r
+\r
+"Excuse my coming to you, cousin," she said in a reproachful and\r
+agitated voice. "You know some decision must be come to. What is going\r
+to happen? Everyone has left Moscow and the people are rioting. How is\r
+it that we are staying on?"\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, things seem satisfactory, ma cousine," said Pierre in\r
+the bantering tone he habitually adopted toward her, always feeling\r
+uncomfortable in the role of her benefactor.\r
+\r
+"Satisfactory, indeed! Very satisfactory! Barbara Ivanovna told me today\r
+how our troops are distinguishing themselves. It certainly does them\r
+credit! And the people too are quite mutinous--they no longer obey, even\r
+my maid has taken to being rude. At this rate they will soon begin\r
+beating us. One can't walk in the streets. But, above all, the French\r
+will be here any day now, so what are we waiting for? I ask just one\r
+thing of you, cousin," she went on, "arrange for me to be taken to\r
+Petersburg. Whatever I may be, I can't live under Bonaparte's rule."\r
+\r
+"Oh, come, ma cousine! Where do you get your information from? On the\r
+contrary..."\r
+\r
+"I won't submit to your Napoleon! Others may if they please.... If you\r
+don't want to do this..."\r
+\r
+"But I will, I'll give the order at once."\r
+\r
+The princess was apparently vexed at not having anyone to be angry with.\r
+Muttering to herself, she sat down on a chair.\r
+\r
+"But you have been misinformed," said Pierre. "Everything is quiet in\r
+the city and there is not the slightest danger. See! I've just been\r
+reading..." He showed her the broadsheet. "Count Rostopchin writes that\r
+he will stake his life on it that the enemy will not enter Moscow."\r
+\r
+"Oh, that count of yours!" said the princess malevolently. "He is a\r
+hypocrite, a rascal who has himself roused the people to riot. Didn't he\r
+write in those idiotic broadsheets that anyone, 'whoever it might be,\r
+should be dragged to the lockup by his hair'? (How silly!) 'And honor\r
+and glory to whoever captures him,' he says. This is what his cajolery\r
+has brought us to! Barbara Ivanovna told me the mob near killed her\r
+because she said something in French."\r
+\r
+"Oh, but it's so... You take everything so to heart," said Pierre, and\r
+began laying out his cards for patience.\r
+\r
+Although that patience did come out, Pierre did not join the army, but\r
+remained in deserted Moscow ever in the same state of agitation,\r
+irresolution, and alarm, yet at the same time joyfully expecting\r
+something terrible.\r
+\r
+Next day toward evening the princess set off, and Pierre's head steward\r
+came to inform him that the money needed for the equipment of his\r
+regiment could not be found without selling one of the estates. In\r
+general the head steward made out to Pierre that his project of raising\r
+a regiment would ruin him. Pierre listened to him, scarcely able to\r
+repress a smile.\r
+\r
+"Well then, sell it," said he. "What's to be done? I can't draw back\r
+now!"\r
+\r
+The worse everything became, especially his own affairs, the better was\r
+Pierre pleased and the more evident was it that the catastrophe he\r
+expected was approaching. Hardly anyone he knew was left in town. Julie\r
+had gone, and so had Princess Mary. Of his intimate friends only the\r
+Rostovs remained, but he did not go to see them.\r
+\r
+To distract his thoughts he drove that day to the village of Vorontsovo\r
+to see the great balloon Leppich was constructing to destroy the foe,\r
+and a trial balloon that was to go up next day. The balloon was not yet\r
+ready, but Pierre learned that it was being constructed by the Emperor's\r
+desire. The Emperor had written to Count Rostopchin as follows:\r
+\r
+As soon as Leppich is ready, get together a crew of reliable and\r
+intelligent men for his car and send a courier to General Kutuzov to let\r
+him know. I have informed him of the matter.\r
+\r
+Please impress upon Leppich to be very careful where he descends for the\r
+first time, that he may not make a mistake and fall into the enemy's\r
+hands. It is essential for him to combine his movements with those of\r
+the commander-in-chief.\r
+\r
+On his way home from Vorontsovo, as he was passing the Bolotnoe Place\r
+Pierre, seeing a large crowd round the Lobnoe Place, stopped and got out\r
+of his trap. A French cook accused of being a spy was being flogged. The\r
+flogging was only just over, and the executioner was releasing from the\r
+flogging bench a stout man with red whiskers, in blue stockings and a\r
+green jacket, who was moaning piteously. Another criminal, thin and\r
+pale, stood near. Judging by their faces they were both Frenchmen. With\r
+a frightened and suffering look resembling that on the thin Frenchman's\r
+face, Pierre pushed his way in through the crowd.\r
+\r
+"What is it? Who is it? What is it for?" he kept asking.\r
+\r
+But the attention of the crowd--officials, burghers, shopkeepers,\r
+peasants, and women in cloaks and in pelisses--was so eagerly centered\r
+on what was passing in Lobnoe Place that no one answered him. The stout\r
+man rose, frowned, shrugged his shoulders, and evidently trying to\r
+appear firm began to pull on his jacket without looking about him, but\r
+suddenly his lips trembled and he began to cry, in the way full-blooded\r
+grown-up men cry, though angry with himself for doing so. In the crowd\r
+people began talking loudly, to stifle their feelings of pity as it\r
+seemed to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"He's cook to some prince."\r
+\r
+"Eh, mounseer, Russian sauce seems to be sour to a Frenchman... sets his\r
+teeth on edge!" said a wrinkled clerk who was standing behind Pierre,\r
+when the Frenchman began to cry.\r
+\r
+The clerk glanced round, evidently hoping that his joke would be\r
+appreciated. Some people began to laugh, others continued to watch in\r
+dismay the executioner who was undressing the other man.\r
+\r
+Pierre choked, his face puckered, and he turned hastily away, went back\r
+to his trap muttering something to himself as he went, and took his\r
+seat. As they drove along he shuddered and exclaimed several times so\r
+audibly that the coachman asked him:\r
+\r
+"What is your pleasure?"\r
+\r
+"Where are you going?" shouted Pierre to the man, who was driving to\r
+Lubyanka Street.\r
+\r
+"To the Governor's, as you ordered," answered the coachman.\r
+\r
+"Fool! Idiot!" shouted Pierre, abusing his coachman--a thing he rarely\r
+did. "Home, I told you! And drive faster, blockhead!" "I must get away\r
+this very day," he murmured to himself.\r
+\r
+At the sight of the tortured Frenchman and the crowd surrounding the\r
+Lobnoe Place, Pierre had so definitely made up his mind that he could no\r
+longer remain in Moscow and would leave for the army that very day that\r
+it seemed to him that either he had told the coachman this or that the\r
+man ought to have known it for himself.\r
+\r
+On reaching home Pierre gave orders to Evstafey--his head coachman who\r
+knew everything, could do anything, and was known to all Moscow--that he\r
+would leave that night for the army at Mozhaysk, and that his saddle\r
+horses should be sent there. This could not all be arranged that day, so\r
+on Evstafey's representation Pierre had to put off his departure till\r
+next day to allow time for the relay horses to be sent on in advance.\r
+\r
+On the twenty-fourth the weather cleared up after a spell of rain, and\r
+after dinner Pierre left Moscow. When changing horses that night in\r
+Perkhushkovo, he learned that there had been a great battle that\r
+evening. (This was the battle of Shevardino.) He was told that there in\r
+Perkhushkovo the earth trembled from the firing, but nobody could answer\r
+his questions as to who had won. At dawn next day Pierre was approaching\r
+Mozhaysk.\r
+\r
+Every house in Mozhaysk had soldiers quartered in it, and at the hostel\r
+where Pierre was met by his groom and coachman there was no room to be\r
+had. It was full of officers.\r
+\r
+Everywhere in Mozhaysk and beyond it, troops were stationed or on the\r
+march. Cossacks, foot and horse soldiers, wagons, caissons, and cannon\r
+were everywhere. Pierre pushed forward as fast as he could, and the\r
+farther he left Moscow behind and the deeper he plunged into that sea of\r
+troops the more was he overcome by restless agitation and a new and\r
+joyful feeling he had not experienced before. It was a feeling akin to\r
+what he had felt at the Sloboda Palace during the Emperor's visit--a\r
+sense of the necessity of undertaking something and sacrificing\r
+something. He now experienced a glad consciousness that everything that\r
+constitutes men's happiness--the comforts of life, wealth, even life\r
+itself--is rubbish it is pleasant to throw away, compared with\r
+something... With what? Pierre could not say, and he did not try to\r
+determine for whom and for what he felt such particular delight in\r
+sacrificing everything. He was not occupied with the question of what to\r
+sacrifice for; the fact of sacrificing in itself afforded him a new and\r
+joyous sensation.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+On the twenty-fourth of August the battle of the Shevardino Redoubt was\r
+fought, on the twenty-fifth not a shot was fired by either side, and on\r
+the twenty-sixth the battle of Borodino itself took place.\r
+\r
+Why and how were the battles of Shevardino and Borodino given and\r
+accepted? Why was the battle of Borodino fought? There was not the least\r
+sense in it for either the French or the Russians. Its immediate result\r
+for the Russians was, and was bound to be, that we were brought nearer\r
+to the destruction of Moscow--which we feared more than anything in the\r
+world; and for the French its immediate result was that they were\r
+brought nearer to the destruction of their whole army--which they feared\r
+more than anything in the world. What the result must be was quite\r
+obvious, and yet Napoleon offered and Kutuzov accepted that battle.\r
+\r
+If the commanders had been guided by reason, it would seem that it must\r
+have been obvious to Napoleon that by advancing thirteen hundred miles\r
+and giving battle with a probability of losing a quarter of his army, he\r
+was advancing to certain destruction, and it must have been equally\r
+clear to Kutuzov that by accepting battle and risking the loss of a\r
+quarter of his army he would certainly lose Moscow. For Kutuzov this was\r
+mathematically clear, as it is that if when playing draughts I have one\r
+man less and go on exchanging, I shall certainly lose, and therefore\r
+should not exchange. When my opponent has sixteen men and I have\r
+fourteen, I am only one eighth weaker than he, but when I have exchanged\r
+thirteen more men he will be three times as strong as I am.\r
+\r
+Before the battle of Borodino our strength in proportion to the French\r
+was about as five to six, but after that battle it was little more than\r
+one to two: previously we had a hundred thousand against a hundred and\r
+twenty thousand; afterwards little more than fifty thousand against a\r
+hundred thousand. Yet the shrewd and experienced Kutuzov accepted the\r
+battle, while Napoleon, who was said to be a commander of genius, gave\r
+it, losing a quarter of his army and lengthening his lines of\r
+communication still more. If it is said that he expected to end the\r
+campaign by occupying Moscow as he had ended a previous campaign by\r
+occupying Vienna, there is much evidence to the contrary. Napoleon's\r
+historians themselves tell us that from Smolensk onwards he wished to\r
+stop, knew the danger of his extended position, and knew that the\r
+occupation of Moscow would not be the end of the campaign, for he had\r
+seen at Smolensk the state in which Russian towns were left to him, and\r
+had not received a single reply to his repeated announcements of his\r
+wish to negotiate.\r
+\r
+In giving and accepting battle at Borodino, Kutuzov acted involuntarily\r
+and irrationally. But later on, to fit what had occurred, the historians\r
+provided cunningly devised evidence of the foresight and genius of the\r
+generals who, of all the blind tools of history were the most enslaved\r
+and involuntary.\r
+\r
+The ancients have left us model heroic poems in which the heroes furnish\r
+the whole interest of the story, and we are still unable to accustom\r
+ourselves to the fact that for our epoch histories of that kind are\r
+meaningless.\r
+\r
+On the other question, how the battle of Borodino and the preceding\r
+battle of Shevardino were fought, there also exists a definite and well-\r
+known, but quite false, conception. All the historians describe the\r
+affair as follows:\r
+\r
+The Russian army, they say, in its retreat from Smolensk sought out for\r
+itself the best position for a general engagement and found such a\r
+position at Borodino.\r
+\r
+The Russians, they say, fortified this position in advance on the left\r
+of the highroad (from Moscow to Smolensk) and almost at a right angle to\r
+it, from Borodino to Utitsa, at the very place where the battle was\r
+fought.\r
+\r
+In front of this position, they say, a fortified outpost was set up on\r
+the Shevardino mound to observe the enemy. On the twenty-fourth, we are\r
+told, Napoleon attacked this advanced post and took it, and, on the\r
+twenty-sixth, attacked the whole Russian army, which was in position on\r
+the field of Borodino.\r
+\r
+So the histories say, and it is all quite wrong, as anyone who cares to\r
+look into the matter can easily convince himself.\r
+\r
+The Russians did not seek out the best position but, on the contrary,\r
+during the retreat passed many positions better than Borodino. They did\r
+not stop at any one of these positions because Kutuzov did not wish to\r
+occupy a position he had not himself chosen, because the popular demand\r
+for a battle had not yet expressed itself strongly enough, and because\r
+Miloradovich had not yet arrived with the militia, and for many other\r
+reasons. The fact is that other positions they had passed were stronger,\r
+and that the position at Borodino (the one where the battle was fought),\r
+far from being strong, was no more a position than any other spot one\r
+might find in the Russian Empire by sticking a pin into the map at\r
+hazard.\r
+\r
+Not only did the Russians not fortify the position on the field of\r
+Borodino to the left of, and at a right angle to, the highroad (that is,\r
+the position on which the battle took place), but never till the twenty-\r
+fifth of August, 1812, did they think that a battle might be fought\r
+there. This was shown first by the fact that there were no entrenchments\r
+there by the twenty fifth and that those begun on the twenty-fifth and\r
+twenty-sixth were not completed, and secondly, by the position of the\r
+Shevardino Redoubt. That redoubt was quite senseless in front of the\r
+position where the battle was accepted. Why was it more strongly\r
+fortified than any other post? And why were all efforts exhausted and\r
+six thousand men sacrificed to defend it till late at night on the\r
+twenty-fourth? A Cossack patrol would have sufficed to observe the\r
+enemy. Thirdly, as proof that the position on which the battle was\r
+fought had not been foreseen and that the Shevardino Redoubt was not an\r
+advanced post of that position, we have the fact that up to the twenty-\r
+fifth, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration were convinced that the Shevardino\r
+Redoubt was the left flank of the position, and that Kutuzov himself in\r
+his report, written in hot haste after the battle, speaks of the\r
+Shevardino Redoubt as the left flank of the position. It was much later,\r
+when reports on the battle of Borodino were written at leisure, that the\r
+incorrect and extraordinary statement was invented (probably to justify\r
+the mistakes of a commander-in-chief who had to be represented as\r
+infallible) that the Shevardino Redoubt was an advanced post--whereas in\r
+reality it was simply a fortified point on the left flank--and that the\r
+battle of Borodino was fought by us on an entrenched position previously\r
+selected, where as it was fought on a quite unexpected spot which was\r
+almost unentrenched.\r
+\r
+The case was evidently this: a position was selected along the river\r
+Kolocha--which crosses the highroad not at a right angle but at an acute\r
+angle--so that the left flank was at Shevardino, the right flank near\r
+the village of Novoe, and the center at Borodino at the confluence of\r
+the rivers Kolocha and Voyna.\r
+\r
+To anyone who looks at the field of Borodino without thinking of how the\r
+battle was actually fought, this position, protected by the river\r
+Kolocha, presents itself as obvious for an army whose object was to\r
+prevent an enemy from advancing along the Smolensk road to Moscow.\r
+\r
+Napoleon, riding to Valuevo on the twenty-fourth, did not see (as the\r
+history books say he did) the position of the Russians from Utitsa to\r
+Borodino (he could not have seen that position because it did not\r
+exist), nor did he see an advanced post of the Russian army, but while\r
+pursuing the Russian rearguard he came upon the left flank of the\r
+Russian position--at the Shevardino Redoubt--and unexpectedly for the\r
+Russians moved his army across the Kolocha. And the Russians, not having\r
+time to begin a general engagement, withdrew their left wing from the\r
+position they had intended to occupy and took up a new position which\r
+had not been foreseen and was not fortified. By crossing to the other\r
+side of the Kolocha to the left of the highroad, Napoleon shifted the\r
+whole forthcoming battle from right to left (looking from the Russian\r
+side) and transferred it to the plain between Utitsa, Semenovsk, and\r
+Borodino--a plain no more advantageous as a position than any other\r
+plain in Russia--and there the whole battle of the twenty-sixth of\r
+August took place.\r
+\r
+Had Napoleon not ridden out on the evening of the twenty-fourth to the\r
+Kolocha, and had he not then ordered an immediate attack on the redoubt\r
+but had begun the attack next morning, no one would have doubted that\r
+the Shevardino Redoubt was the left flank of our position, and the\r
+battle would have taken place where we expected it. In that case we\r
+should probably have defended the Shevardino Redoubt--our left flank--\r
+still more obstinately. We should have attacked Napoleon in the center\r
+or on the right, and the engagement would have taken place on the\r
+twenty-fifth, in the position we intended and had fortified. But as the\r
+attack on our left flank took place in the evening after the retreat of\r
+our rear guard (that is, immediately after the fight at Gridneva), and\r
+as the Russian commanders did not wish, or were not in time, to begin a\r
+general engagement then on the evening of the twenty-fourth, the first\r
+and chief action of the battle of Borodino was already lost on the\r
+twenty-fourth, and obviously led to the loss of the one fought on the\r
+twenty-sixth.\r
+\r
+After the loss of the Shevardino Redoubt, we found ourselves on the\r
+morning of the twenty-fifth without a position for our left flank, and\r
+were forced to bend it back and hastily entrench it where it chanced to\r
+be.\r
+\r
+Not only was the Russian army on the twenty-sixth defended by weak,\r
+unfinished entrenchments, but the disadvantage of that position was\r
+increased by the fact that the Russian commanders--not having fully\r
+realized what had happened, namely the loss of our position on the left\r
+flank and the shifting of the whole field of the forthcoming battle from\r
+right to left--maintained their extended position from the village of\r
+Novoe to Utitsa, and consequently had to move their forces from right to\r
+left during the battle. So it happened that throughout the whole battle\r
+the Russians opposed the entire French army launched against our left\r
+flank with but half as many men. (Poniatowski's action against Utitsa,\r
+and Uvarov's on the right flank against the French, were actions\r
+distinct from the main course of the battle.) So the battle of Borodino\r
+did not take place at all as (in an effort to conceal our commanders'\r
+mistakes even at the cost of diminishing the glory due to the Russian\r
+army and people) it has been described. The battle of Borodino was not\r
+fought on a chosen and entrenched position with forces only slightly\r
+weaker than those of the enemy, but, as a result of the loss of the\r
+Shevardino Redoubt, the Russians fought the battle of Borodino on an\r
+open and almost unentrenched position, with forces only half as numerous\r
+as the French; that is to say, under conditions in which it was not\r
+merely unthinkable to fight for ten hours and secure an indecisive\r
+result, but unthinkable to keep an army even from complete\r
+disintegration and flight.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+On the morning of the twenty-fifth Pierre was leaving Mozhaysk. At the\r
+descent of the high steep hill, down which a winding road led out of the\r
+town past the cathedral on the right, where a service was being held and\r
+the bells were ringing, Pierre got out of his vehicle and proceeded on\r
+foot. Behind him a cavalry regiment was coming down the hill preceded by\r
+its singers. Coming up toward him was a train of carts carrying men who\r
+had been wounded in the engagement the day before. The peasant drivers,\r
+shouting and lashing their horses, kept crossing from side to side. The\r
+carts, in each of which three or four wounded soldiers were lying or\r
+sitting, jolted over the stones that had been thrown on the steep\r
+incline to make it something like a road. The wounded, bandaged with\r
+rags, with pale cheeks, compressed lips, and knitted brows, held on to\r
+the sides of the carts as they were jolted against one another. Almost\r
+all of them stared with naive, childlike curiosity at Pierre's white hat\r
+and green swallow-tail coat.\r
+\r
+Pierre's coachman shouted angrily at the convoy of wounded to keep to\r
+one side of the road. The cavalry regiment, as it descended the hill\r
+with its singers, surrounded Pierre's carriage and blocked the road.\r
+Pierre stopped, being pressed against the side of the cutting in which\r
+the road ran. The sunshine from behind the hill did not penetrate into\r
+the cutting and there it was cold and damp, but above Pierre's head was\r
+the bright August sunshine and the bells sounded merrily. One of the\r
+carts with wounded stopped by the side of the road close to Pierre. The\r
+driver in his bast shoes ran panting up to it, placed a stone under one\r
+of its tireless hind wheels, and began arranging the breech-band on his\r
+little horse.\r
+\r
+One of the wounded, an old soldier with a bandaged arm who was following\r
+the cart on foot, caught hold of it with his sound hand and turned to\r
+look at Pierre.\r
+\r
+"I say, fellow countryman! Will they set us down here or take us on to\r
+Moscow?" he asked.\r
+\r
+Pierre was so deep in thought that he did not hear the question. He was\r
+looking now at the cavalry regiment that had met the convoy of wounded,\r
+now at the cart by which he was standing, in which two wounded men were\r
+sitting and one was lying. One of those sitting up in the cart had\r
+probably been wounded in the cheek. His whole head was wrapped in rags\r
+and one cheek was swollen to the size of a baby's head. His nose and\r
+mouth were twisted to one side. This soldier was looking at the\r
+cathedral and crossing himself. Another, a young lad, a fair-haired\r
+recruit as white as though there was no blood in his thin face, looked\r
+at Pierre kindly, with a fixed smile. The third lay prone so that his\r
+face was not visible. The cavalry singers were passing close by:\r
+\r
+\r
+Ah lost, quite lost... is my head so keen, Living in a foreign land.\r
+\r
+they sang their soldiers' dance song.\r
+\r
+As if responding to them but with a different sort of merriment, the\r
+metallic sound of the bells reverberated high above and the hot rays of\r
+the sun bathed the top of the opposite slope with yet another sort of\r
+merriment. But beneath the slope, by the cart with the wounded near the\r
+panting little nag where Pierre stood, it was damp, somber, and sad.\r
+\r
+The soldier with the swollen cheek looked angrily at the cavalry\r
+singers.\r
+\r
+"Oh, the coxcombs!" he muttered reproachfully.\r
+\r
+"It's not the soldiers only, but I've seen peasants today, too.... The\r
+peasants--even they have to go," said the soldier behind the cart,\r
+addressing Pierre with a sad smile. "No distinctions made nowadays....\r
+They want the whole nation to fall on them--in a word, it's Moscow! They\r
+want to make an end of it."\r
+\r
+In spite of the obscurity of the soldier's words Pierre understood what\r
+he wanted to say and nodded approval.\r
+\r
+The road was clear again; Pierre descended the hill and drove on.\r
+\r
+He kept looking to either side of the road for familiar faces, but only\r
+saw everywhere the unfamiliar faces of various military men of different\r
+branches of the service, who all looked with astonishment at his white\r
+hat and green tail coat.\r
+\r
+Having gone nearly three miles he at last met an acquaintance and\r
+eagerly addressed him. This was one of the head army doctors. He was\r
+driving toward Pierre in a covered gig, sitting beside a young surgeon,\r
+and on recognizing Pierre he told the Cossack who occupied the driver's\r
+seat to pull up.\r
+\r
+"Count! Your excellency, how come you to be here?" asked the doctor.\r
+\r
+"Well, you know, I wanted to see..."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, there will be something to see...."\r
+\r
+Pierre got out and talked to the doctor, explaining his intention of\r
+taking part in a battle.\r
+\r
+The doctor advised him to apply direct to Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+"Why should you be God knows where out of sight, during the battle?" he\r
+said, exchanging glances with his young companion. "Anyhow his Serene\r
+Highness knows you and will receive you graciously. That's what you must\r
+do."\r
+\r
+The doctor seemed tired and in a hurry.\r
+\r
+"You think so?... Ah, I also wanted to ask you where our position is\r
+exactly?" said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"The position?" repeated the doctor. "Well, that's not my line. Drive\r
+past Tatarinova, a lot of digging is going on there. Go up the hillock\r
+and you'll see."\r
+\r
+"Can one see from there?... If you would..."\r
+\r
+But the doctor interrupted him and moved toward his gig.\r
+\r
+"I would go with you but on my honor I'm up to here"--and he pointed to\r
+his throat. "I'm galloping to the commander of the corps. How do matters\r
+stand?... You know, Count, there'll be a battle tomorrow. Out of an army\r
+of a hundred thousand we must expect at least twenty thousand wounded,\r
+and we haven't stretchers, or bunks, or dressers, or doctors enough for\r
+six thousand. We have ten thousand carts, but we need other things as\r
+well--we must manage as best we can!"\r
+\r
+The strange thought that of the thousands of men, young and old, who had\r
+stared with merry surprise at his hat (perhaps the very men he had\r
+noticed), twenty thousand were inevitably doomed to wounds and death\r
+amazed Pierre.\r
+\r
+"They may die tomorrow; why are they thinking of anything but death?"\r
+And by some latent sequence of thought the descent of the Mozhaysk hill,\r
+the carts with the wounded, the ringing bells, the slanting rays of the\r
+sun, and the songs of the cavalrymen vividly recurred to his mind.\r
+\r
+"The cavalry ride to battle and meet the wounded and do not for a moment\r
+think of what awaits them, but pass by, winking at the wounded. Yet from\r
+among these men twenty thousand are doomed to die, and they wonder at my\r
+hat! Strange!" thought Pierre, continuing his way to Tatarinova.\r
+\r
+In front of a landowner's house to the left of the road stood carriages,\r
+wagons, and crowds of orderlies and sentinels. The commander-in-chief\r
+was putting up there, but just when Pierre arrived he was not in and\r
+hardly any of the staff were there--they had gone to the church service.\r
+Pierre drove on toward Gorki.\r
+\r
+When he had ascended the hill and reached the little village street, he\r
+saw for the first time peasant militiamen in their white shirts and with\r
+crosses on their caps, who, talking and laughing loudly, animated and\r
+perspiring, were at work on a huge knoll overgrown with grass to the\r
+right of the road.\r
+\r
+Some of them were digging, others were wheeling barrowloads of earth\r
+along planks, while others stood about doing nothing.\r
+\r
+Two officers were standing on the knoll, directing the men. On seeing\r
+these peasants, who were evidently still amused by the novelty of their\r
+position as soldiers, Pierre once more thought of the wounded men at\r
+Mozhaysk and understood what the soldier had meant when he said: "They\r
+want the whole nation to fall on them." The sight of these bearded\r
+peasants at work on the battlefield, with their queer, clumsy boots and\r
+perspiring necks, and their shirts opening from the left toward the\r
+middle, unfastened, exposing their sunburned collarbones, impressed\r
+Pierre more strongly with the solemnity and importance of the moment\r
+than anything he had yet seen or heard.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+Pierre stepped out of his carriage and, passing the toiling militiamen,\r
+ascended the knoll from which, according to the doctor, the battlefield\r
+could be seen.\r
+\r
+It was about eleven o'clock. The sun shone somewhat to the left and\r
+behind him and brightly lit up the enormous panorama which, rising like\r
+an amphitheater, extended before him in the clear rarefied atmosphere.\r
+\r
+From above on the left, bisecting that amphitheater, wound the Smolensk\r
+highroad, passing through a village with a white church some five\r
+hundred paces in front of the knoll and below it. This was Borodino.\r
+Below the village the road crossed the river by a bridge and, winding\r
+down and up, rose higher and higher to the village of Valuevo visible\r
+about four miles away, where Napoleon was then stationed. Beyond Valuevo\r
+the road disappeared into a yellowing forest on the horizon. Far in the\r
+distance in that birch and fir forest to the right of the road, the\r
+cross and belfry of the Kolocha Monastery gleamed in the sun. Here and\r
+there over the whole of that blue expanse, to right and left of the\r
+forest and the road, smoking campfires could be seen and indefinite\r
+masses of troops--ours and the enemy's. The ground to the right--along\r
+the course of the Kolocha and Moskva rivers--was broken and hilly.\r
+Between the hollows the villages of Bezubova and Zakharino showed in the\r
+distance. On the left the ground was more level; there were fields of\r
+grain, and the smoking ruins of Semenovsk, which had been burned down,\r
+could be seen.\r
+\r
+All that Pierre saw was so indefinite that neither the left nor the\r
+right side of the field fully satisfied his expectations. Nowhere could\r
+he see the battlefield he had expected to find, but only fields,\r
+meadows, troops, woods, the smoke of campfires, villages, mounds, and\r
+streams; and try as he would he could descry no military "position" in\r
+this place which teemed with life, nor could he even distinguish our\r
+troops from the enemy's.\r
+\r
+"I must ask someone who knows," he thought, and addressed an officer who\r
+was looking with curiosity at his huge unmilitary figure.\r
+\r
+"May I ask you," said Pierre, "what village that is in front?"\r
+\r
+"Burdino, isn't it?" said the officer, turning to his companion.\r
+\r
+"Borodino," the other corrected him.\r
+\r
+The officer, evidently glad of an opportunity for a talk, moved up to\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Are those our men there?" Pierre inquired.\r
+\r
+"Yes, and there, further on, are the French," said the officer. "There\r
+they are, there... you can see them."\r
+\r
+"Where? Where?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"One can see them with the naked eye... Why, there!"\r
+\r
+The officer pointed with his hand to the smoke visible on the left\r
+beyond the river, and the same stern and serious expression that Pierre\r
+had noticed on many of the faces he had met came into his face.\r
+\r
+"Ah, those are the French! And over there?..." Pierre pointed to a knoll\r
+on the left, near which some troops could be seen.\r
+\r
+"Those are ours."\r
+\r
+"Ah, ours! And there?..." Pierre pointed to another knoll in the\r
+distance with a big tree on it, near a village that lay in a hollow\r
+where also some campfires were smoking and something black was visible.\r
+\r
+"That's his again," said the officer. (It was the Shevardino Redoubt.)\r
+"It was ours yesterday, but now it is his."\r
+\r
+"Then how about our position?"\r
+\r
+"Our position?" replied the officer with a smile of satisfaction. "I can\r
+tell you quite clearly, because I constructed nearly all our\r
+entrenchments. There, you see? There's our center, at Borodino, just\r
+there," and he pointed to the village in front of them with the white\r
+church. "That's where one crosses the Kolocha. You see down there where\r
+the rows of hay are lying in the hollow, there's the bridge. That's our\r
+center. Our right flank is over there"--he pointed sharply to the right,\r
+far away in the broken ground--"That's where the Moskva River is, and we\r
+have thrown up three redoubts there, very strong ones. The left\r
+flank..." here the officer paused. "Well, you see, that's difficult to\r
+explain.... Yesterday our left flank was there at Shevardino, you see,\r
+where the oak is, but now we have withdrawn our left wing--now it is\r
+over there, do you see that village and the smoke? That's Semenovsk,\r
+yes, there," he pointed to Raevski's knoll. "But the battle will hardly\r
+be there. His having moved his troops there is only a ruse; he will\r
+probably pass round to the right of the Moskva. But wherever it may be,\r
+many a man will be missing tomorrow!" he remarked.\r
+\r
+An elderly sergeant who had approached the officer while he was giving\r
+these explanations had waited in silence for him to finish speaking, but\r
+at this point, evidently not liking the officer's remark, interrupted\r
+him.\r
+\r
+"Gabions must be sent for," said he sternly.\r
+\r
+The officer appeared abashed, as though he understood that one might\r
+think of how many men would be missing tomorrow but ought not to speak\r
+of it.\r
+\r
+"Well, send number three company again," the officer replied hurriedly.\r
+\r
+"And you, are you one of the doctors?"\r
+\r
+"No, I've come on my own," answered Pierre, and he went down the hill\r
+again, passing the militiamen.\r
+\r
+"Oh, those damned fellows!" muttered the officer who followed him,\r
+holding his nose as he ran past the men at work.\r
+\r
+"There they are... bringing her, coming... There they are... They'll be\r
+here in a minute..." voices were suddenly heard saying; and officers,\r
+soldiers, and militiamen began running forward along the road.\r
+\r
+A church procession was coming up the hill from Borodino. First along\r
+the dusty road came the infantry in ranks, bareheaded and with arms\r
+reversed. From behind them came the sound of church singing.\r
+\r
+Soldiers and militiamen ran bareheaded past Pierre toward the\r
+procession.\r
+\r
+"They are bringing her, our Protectress!... The Iberian Mother of God!"\r
+someone cried.\r
+\r
+"The Smolensk Mother of God," another corrected him.\r
+\r
+The militiamen, both those who had been in the village and those who had\r
+been at work on the battery, threw down their spades and ran to meet the\r
+church procession. Following the battalion that marched along the dusty\r
+road came priests in their vestments--one little old man in a hood with\r
+attendants and singers. Behind them soldiers and officers bore a large,\r
+dark-faced icon with an embossed metal cover. This was the icon that had\r
+been brought from Smolensk and had since accompanied the army. Behind,\r
+before, and on both sides, crowds of militiamen with bared heads walked,\r
+ran, and bowed to the ground.\r
+\r
+At the summit of the hill they stopped with the icon; the men who had\r
+been holding it up by the linen bands attached to it were relieved by\r
+others, the chanters relit their censers, and service began. The hot\r
+rays of the sun beat down vertically and a fresh soft wind played with\r
+the hair of the bared heads and with the ribbons decorating the icon.\r
+The singing did not sound loud under the open sky. An immense crowd of\r
+bareheaded officers, soldiers, and militiamen surrounded the icon.\r
+Behind the priest and a chanter stood the notabilities on a spot\r
+reserved for them. A bald general with a St. George's Cross on his neck\r
+stood just behind the priest's back, and without crossing himself (he\r
+was evidently a German) patiently awaited the end of the service, which\r
+he considered it necessary to hear to the end, probably to arouse the\r
+patriotism of the Russian people. Another general stood in a martial\r
+pose, crossing himself by shaking his hand in front of his chest while\r
+looking about him. Standing among the crowd of peasants, Pierre\r
+recognized several acquaintances among these notables, but did not look\r
+at them--his whole attention was absorbed in watching the serious\r
+expression on the faces of the crowd of soldiers and militiamen who were\r
+all gazing eagerly at the icon. As soon as the tired chanters, who were\r
+singing the service for the twentieth time that day, began lazily and\r
+mechanically to sing: "Save from calamity Thy servants, O Mother of\r
+God," and the priest and deacon chimed in: "For to Thee under God we all\r
+flee as to an inviolable bulwark and protection," there again kindled in\r
+all those faces the same expression of consciousness of the solemnity of\r
+the impending moment that Pierre had seen on the faces at the foot of\r
+the hill at Mozhaysk and momentarily on many and many faces he had met\r
+that morning; and heads were bowed more frequently and hair tossed back,\r
+and sighs and the sound men made as they crossed themselves were heard.\r
+\r
+The crowd round the icon suddenly parted and pressed against Pierre.\r
+Someone, a very important personage judging by the haste with which way\r
+was made for him, was approaching the icon.\r
+\r
+It was Kutuzov, who had been riding round the position and on his way\r
+back to Tatarinova had stopped where the service was being held. Pierre\r
+recognized him at once by his peculiar figure, which distinguished him\r
+from everybody else.\r
+\r
+With a long overcoat on his exceedingly stout, round-shouldered body,\r
+with uncovered white head and puffy face showing the white ball of the\r
+eye he had lost, Kutuzov walked with plunging, swaying gait into the\r
+crowd and stopped behind the priest. He crossed himself with an\r
+accustomed movement, bent till he touched the ground with his hand, and\r
+bowed his white head with a deep sigh. Behind Kutuzov was Bennigsen and\r
+the suite. Despite the presence of the commander-in-chief, who attracted\r
+the attention of all the superior officers, the militiamen and soldiers\r
+continued their prayers without looking at him.\r
+\r
+When the service was over, Kutuzov stepped up to the icon, sank heavily\r
+to his knees, bowed to the ground, and for a long time tried vainly to\r
+rise, but could not do so on account of his weakness and weight. His\r
+white head twitched with the effort. At last he rose, kissed the icon as\r
+a child does with naively pouting lips, and again bowed till he touched\r
+the ground with his hand. The other generals followed his example, then\r
+the officers, and after them with excited faces, pressing on one\r
+another, crowding, panting, and pushing, scrambled the soldiers and\r
+militiamen.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+Staggering amid the crush, Pierre looked about him.\r
+\r
+"Count Peter Kirilovich! How did you get here?" said a voice.\r
+\r
+Pierre looked round. Boris Drubetskoy, brushing his knees with his hand\r
+(he had probably soiled them when he, too, had knelt before the icon),\r
+came up to him smiling. Boris was elegantly dressed, with a slightly\r
+martial touch appropriate to a campaign. He wore a long coat and like\r
+Kutuzov had a whip slung across his shoulder.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Kutuzov had reached the village and seated himself in the\r
+shade of the nearest house, on a bench which one Cossack had run to\r
+fetch and another had hastily covered with a rug. An immense and\r
+brilliant suite surrounded him.\r
+\r
+The icon was carried further, accompanied by the throng. Pierre stopped\r
+some thirty paces from Kutuzov, talking to Boris.\r
+\r
+He explained his wish to be present at the battle and to see the\r
+position.\r
+\r
+"This is what you must do," said Boris. "I will do the honors of the\r
+camp to you. You will see everything best from where Count Bennigsen\r
+will be. I am in attendance on him, you know; I'll mention it to him.\r
+But if you want to ride round the position, come along with us. We are\r
+just going to the left flank. Then when we get back, do spend the night\r
+with me and we'll arrange a game of cards. Of course you know Dmitri\r
+Sergeevich? Those are his quarters," and he pointed to the third house\r
+in the village of Gorki.\r
+\r
+"But I should like to see the right flank. They say it's very strong,"\r
+said Pierre. "I should like to start from the Moskva River and ride\r
+round the whole position."\r
+\r
+"Well, you can do that later, but the chief thing is the left flank."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes. But where is Prince Bolkonski's regiment? Can you point it\r
+out to me?"\r
+\r
+"Prince Andrew's? We shall pass it and I'll take you to him."\r
+\r
+"What about the left flank?" asked Pierre\r
+\r
+"To tell you the truth, between ourselves, God only knows what state our\r
+left flank is in," said Boris confidentially lowering his voice. "It is\r
+not at all what Count Bennigsen intended. He meant to fortify that knoll\r
+quite differently, but..." Boris shrugged his shoulders, "his Serene\r
+Highness would not have it, or someone persuaded him. You see..." but\r
+Boris did not finish, for at that moment Kaysarov, Kutuzov's adjutant,\r
+came up to Pierre. "Ah, Kaysarov!" said Boris, addressing him with an\r
+unembarrassed smile, "I was just trying to explain our position to the\r
+count. It is amazing how his Serene Highness could so foresee the\r
+intentions of the French!"\r
+\r
+"You mean the left flank?" asked Kaysarov.\r
+\r
+"Yes, exactly; the left flank is now extremely strong."\r
+\r
+Though Kutuzov had dismissed all unnecessary men from the staff, Boris\r
+had contrived to remain at headquarters after the changes. He had\r
+established himself with Count Bennigsen, who, like all on whom Boris\r
+had been in attendance, considered young Prince Drubetskoy an invaluable\r
+man.\r
+\r
+In the higher command there were two sharply defined parties: Kutuzov's\r
+party and that of Bennigsen, the chief of staff. Boris belonged to the\r
+latter and no one else, while showing servile respect to Kutuzov, could\r
+so create an impression that the old fellow was not much good and that\r
+Bennigsen managed everything. Now the decisive moment of battle had come\r
+when Kutuzov would be destroyed and the power pass to Bennigsen, or even\r
+if Kutuzov won the battle it would be felt that everything was done by\r
+Bennigsen. In any case many great rewards would have to be given for\r
+tomorrow's action, and new men would come to the front. So Boris was\r
+full of nervous vivacity all day.\r
+\r
+After Kaysarov, others whom Pierre knew came up to him, and he had not\r
+time to reply to all the questions about Moscow that were showered upon\r
+him, or to listen to all that was told him. The faces all expressed\r
+animation and apprehension, but it seemed to Pierre that the cause of\r
+the excitement shown in some of these faces lay chiefly in questions of\r
+personal success; his mind, however, was occupied by the different\r
+expression he saw on other faces--an expression that spoke not of\r
+personal matters but of the universal questions of life and death.\r
+Kutuzov noticed Pierre's figure and the group gathered round him.\r
+\r
+"Call him to me," said Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+An adjutant told Pierre of his Serene Highness' wish, and Pierre went\r
+toward Kutuzov's bench. But a militiaman got there before him. It was\r
+Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"How did that fellow get here?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"He's a creature that wriggles in anywhere!" was the answer. "He has\r
+been degraded, you know. Now he wants to bob up again. He's been\r
+proposing some scheme or other and has crawled into the enemy's picket\r
+line at night.... He's a brave fellow."\r
+\r
+Pierre took off his hat and bowed respectfully to Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+"I concluded that if I reported to your Serene Highness you might send\r
+me away or say that you knew what I was reporting, but then I shouldn't\r
+lose anything..." Dolokhov was saying.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes."\r
+\r
+"But if I were right, I should be rendering a service to my Fatherland\r
+for which I am ready to die."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes."\r
+\r
+"And should your Serene Highness require a man who will not spare his\r
+skin, please think of me.... Perhaps I may prove useful to your Serene\r
+Highness."\r
+\r
+"Yes... Yes..." Kutuzov repeated, his laughing eye narrowing more and\r
+more as he looked at Pierre.\r
+\r
+Just then Boris, with his courtierlike adroitness, stepped up to\r
+Pierre's side near Kutuzov and in a most natural manner, without raising\r
+his voice, said to Pierre, as though continuing an interrupted\r
+conversation:\r
+\r
+"The militia have put on clean white shirts to be ready to die. What\r
+heroism, Count!"\r
+\r
+Boris evidently said this to Pierre in order to be overheard by his\r
+Serene Highness. He knew Kutuzov's attention would be caught by those\r
+words, and so it was.\r
+\r
+"What are you saying about the militia?" he asked Boris.\r
+\r
+"Preparing for tomorrow, your Serene Highness--for death--they have put\r
+on clean shirts."\r
+\r
+"Ah... a wonderful, a matchless people!" said Kutuzov; and he closed his\r
+eyes and swayed his head. "A matchless people!" he repeated with a sigh.\r
+\r
+"So you want to smell gunpowder?" he said to Pierre. "Yes, it's a\r
+pleasant smell. I have the honor to be one of your wife's adorers. Is\r
+she well? My quarters are at your service."\r
+\r
+And as often happens with old people, Kutuzov began looking about\r
+absent-mindedly as if forgetting all he wanted to say or do.\r
+\r
+Then, evidently remembering what he wanted, he beckoned to Andrew\r
+Kaysarov, his adjutant's brother.\r
+\r
+"Those verses... those verses of Marin's... how do they go, eh? Those he\r
+wrote about Gerakov: 'Lectures for the corps inditing'... Recite them,\r
+recite them!" said he, evidently preparing to laugh.\r
+\r
+Kaysarov recited.... Kutuzov smilingly nodded his head to the rhythm of\r
+the verses.\r
+\r
+When Pierre had left Kutuzov, Dolokhov came up to him and took his hand.\r
+\r
+"I am very glad to meet you here, Count," he said aloud, regardless of\r
+the presence of strangers and in a particularly resolute and solemn\r
+tone. "On the eve of a day when God alone knows who of us is fated to\r
+survive, I am glad of this opportunity to tell you that I regret the\r
+misunderstandings that occurred between us and should wish you not to\r
+have any ill feeling for me. I beg you to forgive me."\r
+\r
+Pierre looked at Dolokhov with a smile, not knowing what to say to him.\r
+With tears in his eyes Dolokhov embraced Pierre and kissed him.\r
+\r
+Boris said a few words to his general, and Count Bennigsen turned to\r
+Pierre and proposed that he should ride with him along the line.\r
+\r
+"It will interest you," said he.\r
+\r
+"Yes, very much," replied Pierre.\r
+\r
+Half an hour later Kutuzov left for Tatarinova, and Bennigsen and his\r
+suite, with Pierre among them, set out on their ride along the line.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+From Gorki, Bennigsen descended the highroad to the bridge which, when\r
+they had looked at it from the hill, the officer had pointed out as\r
+being the center of our position and where rows of fragrant new-mown hay\r
+lay by the riverside. They rode across that bridge into the village of\r
+Borodino and thence turned to the left, passing an enormous number of\r
+troops and guns, and came to a high knoll where militiamen were digging.\r
+This was the redoubt, as yet unnamed, which afterwards became known as\r
+the Raevski Redoubt, or the Knoll Battery, but Pierre paid no special\r
+attention to it. He did not know that it would become more memorable to\r
+him than any other spot on the plain of Borodino.\r
+\r
+They then crossed the hollow to Semenovsk, where the soldiers were\r
+dragging away the last logs from the huts and barns. Then they rode\r
+downhill and uphill, across a ryefield trodden and beaten down as if by\r
+hail, following a track freshly made by the artillery over the furrows\r
+of the plowed land, and reached some fleches * which were still being\r
+dug.\r
+\r
+\r
+* A kind of entrenchment.\r
+\r
+At the fleches Bennigsen stopped and began looking at the Shevardino\r
+Redoubt opposite, which had been ours the day before and where several\r
+horsemen could be descried. The officers said that either Napoleon or\r
+Murat was there, and they all gazed eagerly at this little group of\r
+horsemen. Pierre also looked at them, trying to guess which of the\r
+scarcely discernible figures was Napoleon. At last those mounted men\r
+rode away from the mound and disappeared.\r
+\r
+Bennigsen spoke to a general who approached him, and began explaining\r
+the whole position of our troops. Pierre listened to him, straining each\r
+faculty to understand the essential points of the impending battle, but\r
+was mortified to feel that his mental capacity was inadequate for the\r
+task. He could make nothing of it. Bennigsen stopped speaking and,\r
+noticing that Pierre was listening, suddenly said to him:\r
+\r
+"I don't think this interests you?"\r
+\r
+"On the contrary it's very interesting!" replied Pierre not quite\r
+truthfully.\r
+\r
+From the fleches they rode still farther to the left, along a road\r
+winding through a thick, low-growing birch wood. In the middle of the\r
+wood a brown hare with white feet sprang out and, scared by the tramp of\r
+the many horses, grew so confused that it leaped along the road in front\r
+of them for some time, arousing general attention and laughter, and only\r
+when several voices shouted at it did it dart to one side and disappear\r
+in the thicket. After going through the wood for about a mile and a half\r
+they came out on a glade where troops of Tuchkov's corps were stationed\r
+to defend the left flank.\r
+\r
+Here, at the extreme left flank, Bennigsen talked a great deal and with\r
+much heat, and, as it seemed to Pierre, gave orders of great military\r
+importance. In front of Tuchkov's troops was some high ground not\r
+occupied by troops. Bennigsen loudly criticized this mistake, saying\r
+that it was madness to leave a height which commanded the country around\r
+unoccupied and to place troops below it. Some of the generals expressed\r
+the same opinion. One in particular declared with martial heat that they\r
+were put there to be slaughtered. Bennigsen on his own authority ordered\r
+the troops to occupy the high ground. This disposition on the left flank\r
+increased Pierre's doubt of his own capacity to understand military\r
+matters. Listening to Bennigsen and the generals criticizing the\r
+position of the troops behind the hill, he quite understood them and\r
+shared their opinion, but for that very reason he could not understand\r
+how the man who put them there behind the hill could have made so gross\r
+and palpable a blunder.\r
+\r
+Pierre did not know that these troops were not, as Bennigsen supposed,\r
+put there to defend the position, but were in a concealed position as an\r
+ambush, that they should not be seen and might be able to strike an\r
+approaching enemy unexpectedly. Bennigsen did not know this and moved\r
+the troops forward according to his own ideas without mentioning the\r
+matter to the commander-in-chief.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIV\r
+\r
+On that bright evening of August 25, Prince Andrew lay leaning on his\r
+elbow in a broken-down shed in the village of Knyazkovo at the further\r
+end of his regiment's encampment. Through a gap in the broken wall he\r
+could see, beside the wooden fence, a row of thirty year-old birches\r
+with their lower branches lopped off, a field on which shocks of oats\r
+were standing, and some bushes near which rose the smoke of campfires--\r
+the soldiers' kitchens.\r
+\r
+Narrow and burdensome and useless to anyone as his life now seemed to\r
+him, Prince Andrew on the eve of battle felt agitated and irritable as\r
+he had done seven years before at Austerlitz.\r
+\r
+He had received and given the orders for next day's battle and had\r
+nothing more to do. But his thoughts--the simplest, clearest, and\r
+therefore most terrible thoughts--would give him no peace. He knew that\r
+tomorrow's battle would be the most terrible of all he had taken part\r
+in, and for the first time in his life the possibility of death\r
+presented itself to him--not in relation to any worldly matter or with\r
+reference to its effect on others, but simply in relation to himself, to\r
+his own soul--vividly, plainly, terribly, and almost as a certainty. And\r
+from the height of this perception all that had previously tormented and\r
+preoccupied him suddenly became illumined by a cold white light without\r
+shadows, without perspective, without distinction of outline. All life\r
+appeared to him like magic-lantern pictures at which he had long been\r
+gazing by artificial light through a glass. Now he suddenly saw those\r
+badly daubed pictures in clear daylight and without a glass. "Yes, yes!\r
+There they are, those false images that agitated, enraptured, and\r
+tormented me," said he to himself, passing in review the principal\r
+pictures of the magic lantern of life and regarding them now in the cold\r
+white daylight of his clear perception of death. "There they are, those\r
+rudely painted figures that once seemed splendid and mysterious. Glory,\r
+the good of society, love of a woman, the Fatherland itself--how\r
+important these pictures appeared to me, with what profound meaning they\r
+seemed to be filled! And it is all so simple, pale, and crude in the\r
+cold white light of this morning which I feel is dawning for me." The\r
+three great sorrows of his life held his attention in particular: his\r
+love for a woman, his father's death, and the French invasion which had\r
+overrun half Russia. "Love... that little girl who seemed to me brimming\r
+over with mystic forces! Yes, indeed, I loved her. I made romantic plans\r
+of love and happiness with her! Oh, what a boy I was!" he said aloud\r
+bitterly. "Ah me! I believed in some ideal love which was to keep her\r
+faithful to me for the whole year of my absence! Like the gentle dove in\r
+the fable she was to pine apart from me.... But it was much simpler\r
+really.... It was all very simple and horrible."\r
+\r
+"When my father built Bald Hills he thought the place was his: his land,\r
+his air, his peasants. But Napoleon came and swept him aside,\r
+unconscious of his existence, as he might brush a chip from his path,\r
+and his Bald Hills and his whole life fell to pieces. Princess Mary says\r
+it is a trial sent from above. What is the trial for, when he is not\r
+here and will never return? He is not here! For whom then is the trial\r
+intended? The Fatherland, the destruction of Moscow! And tomorrow I\r
+shall be killed, perhaps not even by a Frenchman but by one of our own\r
+men, by a soldier discharging a musket close to my ear as one of them\r
+did yesterday, and the French will come and take me by head and heels\r
+and fling me into a hole that I may not stink under their noses, and new\r
+conditions of life will arise, which will seem quite ordinary to others\r
+and about which I shall know nothing. I shall not exist..."\r
+\r
+He looked at the row of birches shining in the sunshine, with their\r
+motionless green and yellow foliage and white bark. "To die... to be\r
+killed tomorrow... That I should not exist... That all this should still\r
+be, but no me...."\r
+\r
+And the birches with their light and shade, the curly clouds, the smoke\r
+of the campfires, and all that was around him changed and seemed\r
+terrible and menacing. A cold shiver ran down his spine. He rose\r
+quickly, went out of the shed, and began to walk about.\r
+\r
+After he had returned, voices were heard outside the shed. "Who's that?"\r
+he cried.\r
+\r
+The red-nosed Captain Timokhin, formerly Dolokhov's squadron commander,\r
+but now from lack of officers a battalion commander, shyly entered the\r
+shed followed by an adjutant and the regimental paymaster.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew rose hastily, listened to the business they had come\r
+about, gave them some further instructions, and was about to dismiss\r
+them when he heard a familiar, lisping, voice behind the shed.\r
+\r
+"Devil take it!" said the voice of a man stumbling over something.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew looked out of the shed and saw Pierre, who had tripped\r
+over a pole on the ground and had nearly fallen, coming his way. It was\r
+unpleasant to Prince Andrew to meet people of his own set in general,\r
+and Pierre especially, for he reminded him of all the painful moments of\r
+his last visit to Moscow.\r
+\r
+"You? What a surprise!" said he. "What brings you here? This is\r
+unexpected!"\r
+\r
+As he said this his eyes and face expressed more than coldness--they\r
+expressed hostility, which Pierre noticed at once. He had approached the\r
+shed full of animation, but on seeing Prince Andrew's face he felt\r
+constrained and ill at ease.\r
+\r
+"I have come... simply... you know... come... it interests me," said\r
+Pierre, who had so often that day senselessly repeated that word\r
+"interesting." "I wish to see the battle."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, and what do the masonic brothers say about war? How would they\r
+stop it?" said Prince Andrew sarcastically. "Well, and how's Moscow? And\r
+my people? Have they reached Moscow at last?" he asked seriously.\r
+\r
+"Yes, they have. Julie Drubetskaya told me so. I went to see them, but\r
+missed them. They have gone to your estate near Moscow."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXV\r
+\r
+The officers were about to take leave, but Prince Andrew, apparently\r
+reluctant to be left alone with his friend, asked them to stay and have\r
+tea. Seats were brought in and so was the tea. The officers gazed with\r
+surprise at Pierre's huge stout figure and listened to his talk of\r
+Moscow and the position of our army, round which he had ridden. Prince\r
+Andrew remained silent, and his expression was so forbidding that Pierre\r
+addressed his remarks chiefly to the good-natured battalion commander.\r
+\r
+"So you understand the whole position of our troops?" Prince Andrew\r
+interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"Yes--that is, how do you mean?" said Pierre. "Not being a military man\r
+I can't say I have understood it fully, but I understand the general\r
+position."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, you know more than anyone else, be it who it may," said\r
+Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Oh!" said Pierre, looking over his spectacles in perplexity at Prince\r
+Andrew. "Well, and what do you think of Kutuzov's appointment?" he\r
+asked.\r
+\r
+"I was very glad of his appointment, that's all I know," replied Prince\r
+Andrew.\r
+\r
+"And tell me your opinion of Barclay de Tolly. In Moscow they are saying\r
+heaven knows what about him.... What do you think of him?"\r
+\r
+"Ask them," replied Prince Andrew, indicating the officers.\r
+\r
+Pierre looked at Timokhin with the condescendingly interrogative smile\r
+with which everybody involuntarily addressed that officer.\r
+\r
+"We see light again, since his Serenity has been appointed, your\r
+excellency," said Timokhin timidly, and continually turning to glance at\r
+his colonel.\r
+\r
+"Why so?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Well, to mention only firewood and fodder, let me inform you. Why, when\r
+we were retreating from Sventsyani we dare not touch a stick or a wisp\r
+of hay or anything. You see, we were going away, so he would get it all;\r
+wasn't it so, your excellency?" and again Timokhin turned to the prince.\r
+"But we daren't. In our regiment two officers were court-martialed for\r
+that kind of thing. But when his Serenity took command everything became\r
+straight forward. Now we see light..."\r
+\r
+"Then why was it forbidden?"\r
+\r
+Timokhin looked about in confusion, not knowing what or how to answer\r
+such a question. Pierre put the same question to Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Why, so as not to lay waste the country we were abandoning to the\r
+enemy," said Prince Andrew with venomous irony. "It is very sound: one\r
+can't permit the land to be pillaged and accustom the troops to\r
+marauding. At Smolensk too he judged correctly that the French might\r
+outflank us, as they had larger forces. But he could not understand\r
+this," cried Prince Andrew in a shrill voice that seemed to escape him\r
+involuntarily: "he could not understand that there, for the first time,\r
+we were fighting for Russian soil, and that there was a spirit in the\r
+men such as I had never seen before, that we had held the French for two\r
+days, and that that success had increased our strength tenfold. He\r
+ordered us to retreat, and all our efforts and losses went for nothing.\r
+He had no thought of betraying us, he tried to do the best he could, he\r
+thought out everything, and that is why he is unsuitable. He is\r
+unsuitable now, just because he plans out everything very thoroughly and\r
+accurately as every German has to. How can I explain?... Well, say your\r
+father has a German valet, and he is a splendid valet and satisfies your\r
+father's requirements better than you could, then it's all right to let\r
+him serve. But if your father is mortally sick you'll send the valet\r
+away and attend to your father with your own unpracticed, awkward hands,\r
+and will soothe him better than a skilled man who is a stranger could.\r
+So it has been with Barclay. While Russia was well, a foreigner could\r
+serve her and be a splendid minister; but as soon as she is in danger\r
+she needs one of her own kin. But in your club they have been making him\r
+out a traitor! They slander him as a traitor, and the only result will\r
+be that afterwards, ashamed of their false accusations, they will make\r
+him out a hero or a genius instead of a traitor, and that will be still\r
+more unjust. He is an honest and very punctilious German."\r
+\r
+"And they say he's a skillful commander," rejoined Pierre.\r
+\r
+"I don't understand what is meant by 'a skillful commander,'" replied\r
+Prince Andrew ironically.\r
+\r
+"A skillful commander?" replied Pierre. "Why, one who foresees all\r
+contingencies... and foresees the adversary's intentions."\r
+\r
+"But that's impossible," said Prince Andrew as if it were a matter\r
+settled long ago.\r
+\r
+Pierre looked at him in surprise.\r
+\r
+"And yet they say that war is like a game of chess?" he remarked.\r
+\r
+"Yes," replied Prince Andrew, "but with this little difference, that in\r
+chess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not\r
+limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always\r
+stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while\r
+in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes\r
+weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can\r
+never be known to anyone. Believe me," he went on, "if things depended\r
+on arrangements made by the staff, I should be there making\r
+arrangements, but instead of that I have the honor to serve here in the\r
+regiment with these gentlemen, and I consider that on us tomorrow's\r
+battle will depend and not on those others.... Success never depends,\r
+and never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even on numbers,\r
+and least of all on position."\r
+\r
+"But on what then?"\r
+\r
+"On the feeling that is in me and in him," he pointed to Timokhin, "and\r
+in each soldier."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew glanced at Timokhin, who looked at his commander in alarm\r
+and bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnity Prince\r
+Andrew now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain from\r
+expressing the thoughts that had suddenly occurred to him.\r
+\r
+"A battle is won by those who firmly resolve to win it! Why did we lose\r
+the battle at Austerlitz? The French losses were almost equal to ours,\r
+but very early we said to ourselves that we were losing the battle, and\r
+we did lose it. And we said so because we had nothing to fight for\r
+there, we wanted to get away from the battlefield as soon as we could.\r
+'We've lost, so let us run,' and we ran. If we had not said that till\r
+the evening, heaven knows what might not have happened. But tomorrow we\r
+shan't say it! You talk about our position, the left flank weak and the\r
+right flank too extended," he went on. "That's all nonsense, there's\r
+nothing of the kind. But what awaits us tomorrow? A hundred million most\r
+diverse chances which will be decided on the instant by the fact that\r
+our men or theirs run or do not run, and that this man or that man is\r
+killed, but all that is being done at present is only play. The fact is\r
+that those men with whom you have ridden round the position not only do\r
+not help matters, but hinder. They are only concerned with their own\r
+petty interests."\r
+\r
+"At such a moment?" said Pierre reproachfully.\r
+\r
+"At such a moment!" Prince Andrew repeated. "To them it is only a moment\r
+affording opportunities to undermine a rival and obtain an extra cross\r
+or ribbon. For me tomorrow means this: a Russian army of a hundred\r
+thousand and a French army of a hundred thousand have met to fight, and\r
+the thing is that these two hundred thousand men will fight and the side\r
+that fights more fiercely and spares itself least will win. And if you\r
+like I will tell you that whatever happens and whatever muddles those at\r
+the top may make, we shall win tomorrow's battle. Tomorrow, happen what\r
+may, we shall win!"\r
+\r
+"There now, your excellency! That's the truth, the real truth," said\r
+Timokhin. "Who would spare himself now? The soldiers in my battalion,\r
+believe me, wouldn't drink their vodka! 'It's not the day for that!'\r
+they say."\r
+\r
+All were silent. The officers rose. Prince Andrew went out of the shed\r
+with them, giving final orders to the adjutant. After they had gone\r
+Pierre approached Prince Andrew and was about to start a conversation\r
+when they heard the clatter of three horses' hoofs on the road not far\r
+from the shed, and looking in that direction Prince Andrew recognized\r
+Wolzogen and Clausewitz accompanied by a Cossack. They rode close by\r
+continuing to converse, and Prince Andrew involuntarily heard these\r
+words:\r
+\r
+"Der Krieg muss in Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug\r
+Preis geben," * said one of them.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "The war must be extended widely. I cannot sufficiently commend that\r
+view."\r
+\r
+"Oh, ja," said the other, "der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwächen, so\r
+kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privat-Personen in Achtung\r
+nehmen." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Oh, yes, the only aim is to weaken the enemy, so of course one cannot\r
+take into account the loss of private individuals."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no," agreed the other.\r
+\r
+"Extend widely!" said Prince Andrew with an angry snort, when they had\r
+ridden past. "In that 'extend' were my father, son, and sister, at Bald\r
+Hills. That's all the same to him! That's what I was saying to you--\r
+those German gentlemen won't win the battle tomorrow but will only make\r
+all the mess they can, because they have nothing in their German heads\r
+but theories not worth an empty eggshell and haven't in their hearts the\r
+one thing needed tomorrow--that which Timokhin has. They have yielded up\r
+all Europe to him, and have now come to teach us. Fine teachers!" and\r
+again his voice grew shrill.\r
+\r
+"So you think we shall win tomorrow's battle?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," answered Prince Andrew absently. "One thing I would do if I\r
+had the power," he began again, "I would not take prisoners. Why take\r
+prisoners? It's chivalry! The French have destroyed my home and are on\r
+their way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and are outraging me\r
+every moment. They are my enemies. In my opinion they are all criminals.\r
+And so thinks Timokhin and the whole army. They should be executed!\r
+Since they are my foes they cannot be my friends, whatever may have been\r
+said at Tilsit."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," muttered Pierre, looking with shining eyes at Prince Andrew.\r
+"I quite agree with you!"\r
+\r
+The question that had perturbed Pierre on the Mozhaysk hill and all that\r
+day now seemed to him quite clear and completely solved. He now\r
+understood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of the\r
+impending battle. All he had seen that day, all the significant and\r
+stern expressions on the faces he had seen in passing, were lit up for\r
+him by a new light. He understood that latent heat (as they say in\r
+physics) of patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen,\r
+and this explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly, and as\r
+it were lightheartedly.\r
+\r
+"Not take prisoners," Prince Andrew continued: "That by itself would\r
+quite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we have\r
+played at war--that's what's vile! We play at magnanimity and all that\r
+stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and\r
+sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she\r
+is so kindhearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eating the\r
+calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of\r
+chivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It's\r
+all rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged\r
+us and we humbugged them. They plunder other people's houses, issue\r
+false paper money, and worst of all they kill my children and my father,\r
+and then talk of rules of war and magnanimity to foes! Take no\r
+prisoners, but kill and be killed! He who has come to this as I have\r
+through the same sufferings..."\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, who had thought it was all the same to him whether or not\r
+Moscow was taken as Smolensk had been, was suddenly checked in his\r
+speech by an unexpected cramp in his throat. He paced up and down a few\r
+times in silence, but his eyes glittered feverishly and his lips\r
+quivered as he began speaking.\r
+\r
+"If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to war only\r
+when it was worth while going to certain death, as now. Then there would\r
+not be war because Paul Ivanovich had offended Michael Ivanovich. And\r
+when there was a war, like this one, it would be war! And then the\r
+determination of the troops would be quite different. Then all these\r
+Westphalians and Hessians whom Napoleon is leading would not follow him\r
+into Russia, and we should not go to fight in Austria and Prussia\r
+without knowing why. War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in\r
+life; and we ought to understand that and not play at war. We ought to\r
+accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in\r
+that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is\r
+now, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous. The military\r
+calling is the most highly honored.\r
+\r
+"But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the\r
+habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are\r
+spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country's\r
+inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud\r
+and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class\r
+are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance,\r
+cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the\r
+highest class, respected by everyone. All the kings, except the Chinese,\r
+wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the\r
+highest rewards.\r
+\r
+"They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill\r
+and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for\r
+having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they\r
+announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the\r
+greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear\r
+them?" exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. "Ah, my\r
+friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have\r
+begun to understand too much. And it doesn't do for man to taste of the\r
+tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!" he\r
+added.\r
+\r
+"However, you're sleepy, and it's time for me to sleep. Go back to\r
+Gorki!" said Prince Andrew suddenly.\r
+\r
+"Oh no!" Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with frightened,\r
+compassionate eyes.\r
+\r
+"Go, go! Before a battle one must have one's sleep out," repeated Prince\r
+Andrew.\r
+\r
+He came quickly up to Pierre and embraced and kissed him. "Good-bye, be\r
+off!" he shouted. "Whether we meet again or not..." and turning away\r
+hurriedly he entered the shed.\r
+\r
+It was already dark, and Pierre could not make out whether the\r
+expression of Prince Andrew's face was angry or tender.\r
+\r
+For some time he stood in silence considering whether he should follow\r
+him or go away. "No, he does not want it!" Pierre concluded. "And I know\r
+that this is our last meeting!" He sighed deeply and rode back to Gorki.\r
+\r
+On re-entering the shed Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but he could\r
+not sleep.\r
+\r
+He closed his eyes. One picture succeeded another in his imagination. On\r
+one of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled an evening\r
+in Petersburg. Natasha with animated and excited face was telling him\r
+how she had gone to look for mushrooms the previous summer and had lost\r
+her way in the big forest. She incoherently described the depths of the\r
+forest, her feelings, and a talk with a beekeeper she met, and\r
+constantly interrupted her story to say: "No, I can't! I'm not telling\r
+it right; no, you don't understand," though he encouraged her by saying\r
+that he did understand, and he really had understood all she wanted to\r
+say. But Natasha was not satisfied with her own words: she felt that\r
+they did not convey the passionately poetic feeling she had experienced\r
+that day and wished to convey. "He was such a delightful old man, and it\r
+was so dark in the forest... and he had such kind... No, I can't\r
+describe it," she had said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrew smiled\r
+now the same happy smile as then when he had looked into her eyes. "I\r
+understood her," he thought. "I not only understood her, but it was just\r
+that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that frankness of soul--\r
+that very soul of hers which seemed to be fettered by her body--it was\r
+that soul I loved in her... loved so strongly and happily..." and\r
+suddenly he remembered how his love had ended. "He did not need anything\r
+of that kind. He neither saw nor understood anything of the sort. He\r
+only saw in her a pretty and fresh young girl, with whom he did not\r
+deign to unite his fate. And I?... and he is still alive and gay!"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew jumped up as if someone had burned him, and again began\r
+pacing up and down in front of the shed.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVI\r
+\r
+On August 25, the eve of the battle of Borodino, M. de Beausset, prefect\r
+of the French Emperor's palace, arrived at Napoleon's quarters at\r
+Valuevo with Colonel Fabvier, the former from Paris and the latter from\r
+Madrid.\r
+\r
+Donning his court uniform, M. de Beausset ordered a box he had brought\r
+for the Emperor to be carried before him and entered the first\r
+compartment of Napoleon's tent, where he began opening the box while\r
+conversing with Napoleon's aides-de-camp who surrounded him.\r
+\r
+Fabvier, not entering the tent, remained at the entrance talking to some\r
+generals of his acquaintance.\r
+\r
+The Emperor Napoleon had not yet left his bedroom and was finishing his\r
+toilet. Slightly snorting and grunting, he presented now his back and\r
+now his plump hairy chest to the brush with which his valet was rubbing\r
+him down. Another valet, with his finger over the mouth of a bottle, was\r
+sprinkling Eau de Cologne on the Emperor's pampered body with an\r
+expression which seemed to say that he alone knew where and how much Eau\r
+de Cologne should be sprinkled. Napoleon's short hair was wet and matted\r
+on the forehead, but his face, though puffy and yellow, expressed\r
+physical satisfaction. "Go on, harder, go on!" he muttered to the valet\r
+who was rubbing him, slightly twitching and grunting. An aide-de-camp,\r
+who had entered the bedroom to report to the Emperor the number of\r
+prisoners taken in yesterday's action, was standing by the door after\r
+delivering his message, awaiting permission to withdraw. Napoleon,\r
+frowning, looked at him from under his brows.\r
+\r
+"No prisoners!" said he, repeating the aide-de-camp's words. "They are\r
+forcing us to exterminate them. So much the worse for the Russian\r
+army.... Go on... harder, harder!" he muttered, hunching his back and\r
+presenting his fat shoulders.\r
+\r
+"All right. Let Monsieur de Beausset enter, and Fabvier too," he said,\r
+nodding to the aide-de-camp.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sire," and the aide-de-camp disappeared through the door of the\r
+tent.\r
+\r
+Two valets rapidly dressed His Majesty, and wearing the blue uniform of\r
+the Guards he went with firm quick steps to the reception room.\r
+\r
+De Beausset's hands meanwhile were busily engaged arranging the present\r
+he had brought from the Empress, on two chairs directly in front of the\r
+entrance. But Napoleon had dressed and come out with such unexpected\r
+rapidity that he had not time to finish arranging the surprise.\r
+\r
+Napoleon noticed at once what they were about and guessed that they were\r
+not ready. He did not wish to deprive them of the pleasure of giving him\r
+a surprise, so he pretended not to see de Beausset and called Fabvier to\r
+him, listening silently and with a stern frown to what Fabvier told him\r
+of the heroism and devotion of his troops fighting at Salamanca, at the\r
+other end of Europe, with but one thought--to be worthy of their\r
+Emperor--and but one fear--to fail to please him. The result of that\r
+battle had been deplorable. Napoleon made ironic remarks during\r
+Fabvier's account, as if he had not expected that matters could go\r
+otherwise in his absence.\r
+\r
+"I must make up for that in Moscow," said Napoleon. "I'll see you\r
+later," he added, and summoned de Beausset, who by that time had\r
+prepared the surprise, having placed something on the chairs and covered\r
+it with a cloth.\r
+\r
+De Beausset bowed low, with that courtly French bow which only the old\r
+retainers of the Bourbons knew how to make, and approached him,\r
+presenting an envelope.\r
+\r
+Napoleon turned to him gaily and pulled his ear.\r
+\r
+"You have hurried here. I am very glad. Well, what is Paris saying?" he\r
+asked, suddenly changing his former stern expression for a most cordial\r
+tone.\r
+\r
+"Sire, all Paris regrets your absence," replied de Beausset as was\r
+proper.\r
+\r
+But though Napoleon knew that de Beausset had to say something of this\r
+kind, and though in his lucid moments he knew it was untrue, he was\r
+pleased to hear it from him. Again he honored him by touching his ear.\r
+\r
+"I am very sorry to have made you travel so far," said he.\r
+\r
+"Sire, I expected nothing less than to find you at the gates of Moscow,"\r
+replied de Beausset.\r
+\r
+Napoleon smiled and, lifting his head absent-mindedly, glanced to the\r
+right. An aide-de-camp approached with gliding steps and offered him a\r
+gold snuffbox, which he took.\r
+\r
+"Yes, it has happened luckily for you," he said, raising the open\r
+snuffbox to his nose. "You are fond of travel, and in three days you\r
+will see Moscow. You surely did not expect to see that Asiatic capital.\r
+You will have a pleasant journey."\r
+\r
+De Beausset bowed gratefully at this regard for his taste for travel (of\r
+which he had not till then been aware).\r
+\r
+"Ha, what's this?" asked Napoleon, noticing that all the courtiers were\r
+looking at something concealed under a cloth.\r
+\r
+With courtly adroitness de Beausset half turned and without turning his\r
+back to the Emperor retired two steps, twitching off the cloth at the\r
+same time, and said:\r
+\r
+"A present to Your Majesty from the Empress."\r
+\r
+It was a portrait, painted in bright colors by Gerard, of the son borne\r
+to Napoleon by the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, the boy whom for\r
+some reason everyone called "The King of Rome."\r
+\r
+A very pretty curly-headed boy with a look of the Christ in the Sistine\r
+Madonna was depicted playing at stick and ball. The ball represented the\r
+terrestrial globe and the stick in his other hand a scepter.\r
+\r
+Though it was not clear what the artist meant to express by depicting\r
+the so-called King of Rome spiking the earth with a stick, the allegory\r
+apparently seemed to Napoleon, as it had done to all who had seen it in\r
+Paris, quite clear and very pleasing.\r
+\r
+"The King of Rome!" he said, pointing to the portrait with a graceful\r
+gesture. "Admirable!"\r
+\r
+With the natural capacity of an Italian for changing the expression of\r
+his face at will, he drew nearer to the portrait and assumed a look of\r
+pensive tenderness. He felt that what he now said and did would be\r
+historical, and it seemed to him that it would now be best for him--\r
+whose grandeur enabled his son to play stick and ball with the\r
+terrestrial globe--to show, in contrast to that grandeur, the simplest\r
+paternal tenderness. His eyes grew dim, he moved forward, glanced round\r
+at a chair (which seemed to place itself under him), and sat down on it\r
+before the portrait. At a single gesture from him everyone went out on\r
+tiptoe, leaving the great man to himself and his emotion.\r
+\r
+Having sat still for a while he touched--himself not knowing why--the\r
+thick spot of paint representing the highest light in the portrait,\r
+rose, and recalled de Beausset and the officer on duty. He ordered the\r
+portrait to be carried outside his tent, that the Old Guard, stationed\r
+round it, might not be deprived of the pleasure of seeing the King of\r
+Rome, the son and heir of their adored monarch.\r
+\r
+And while he was doing M. de Beausset the honor of breakfasting with\r
+him, they heard, as Napoleon had anticipated, the rapturous cries of the\r
+officers and men of the Old Guard who had run up to see the portrait.\r
+\r
+"Vive l'Empereur! Vive le roi de Rome! Vive l'Empereur!" came those\r
+ecstatic cries.\r
+\r
+After breakfast Napoleon in de Beausset's presence dictated his order of\r
+the day to the army.\r
+\r
+"Short and energetic!" he remarked when he had read over the\r
+proclamation which he had dictated straight off without corrections. It\r
+ran:\r
+\r
+Soldiers! This is the battle you have so longed for. Victory depends on\r
+you. It is essential for us; it will give us all we need: comfortable\r
+quarters and a speedy return to our country. Behave as you did at\r
+Austerlitz, Friedland, Vitebsk, and Smolensk. Let our remotest posterity\r
+recall your achievements this day with pride. Let it be said of each of\r
+you: "He was in the great battle before Moscow!"\r
+\r
+"Before Moscow!" repeated Napoleon, and inviting M. de Beausset, who was\r
+so fond of travel, to accompany him on his ride, he went out of the tent\r
+to where the horses stood saddled.\r
+\r
+"Your Majesty is too kind!" replied de Beausset to the invitation to\r
+accompany the Emperor; he wanted to sleep, did not know how to ride and\r
+was afraid of doing so.\r
+\r
+But Napoleon nodded to the traveler, and de Beausset had to mount. When\r
+Napoleon came out of the tent the shouting of the Guards before his\r
+son's portrait grew still louder. Napoleon frowned.\r
+\r
+"Take him away!" he said, pointing with a gracefully majestic gesture to\r
+the portrait. "It is too soon for him to see a field of battle."\r
+\r
+De Beausset closed his eyes, bowed his head, and sighed deeply, to\r
+indicate how profoundly he valued and comprehended the Emperor's words.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVII\r
+\r
+On the twenty-fifth of August, so his historians tell us, Napoleon spent\r
+the whole day on horseback inspecting the locality, considering plans\r
+submitted to him by his marshals, and personally giving commands to his\r
+generals.\r
+\r
+The original line of the Russian forces along the river Kolocha had been\r
+dislocated by the capture of the Shevardino Redoubt on the twenty-\r
+fourth, and part of the line--the left flank--had been drawn back. That\r
+part of the line was not entrenched and in front of it the ground was\r
+more open and level than elsewhere. It was evident to anyone, military\r
+or not, that it was here the French should attack. It would seem that\r
+not much consideration was needed to reach this conclusion, nor any\r
+particular care or trouble on the part of the Emperor and his marshals,\r
+nor was there any need of that special and supreme quality called genius\r
+that people are so apt to ascribe to Napoleon; yet the historians who\r
+described the event later and the men who then surrounded Napoleon, and\r
+he himself, thought otherwise.\r
+\r
+Napoleon rode over the plain and surveyed the locality with a profound\r
+air and in silence, nodded with approval or shook his head dubiously,\r
+and without communicating to the generals around him the profound course\r
+of ideas which guided his decisions merely gave them his final\r
+conclusions in the form of commands. Having listened to a suggestion\r
+from Davout, who was now called Prince d'Eckmuhl, to turn the Russian\r
+left wing, Napoleon said it should not be done, without explaining why\r
+not. To a proposal made by General Campan (who was to attack the\r
+fleches) to lead his division through the woods, Napoleon agreed, though\r
+the so-called Duke of Elchingen (Ney) ventured to remark that a movement\r
+through the woods was dangerous and might disorder the division.\r
+\r
+Having inspected the country opposite the Shevardino Redoubt, Napoleon\r
+pondered a little in silence and then indicated the spots where two\r
+batteries should be set up by the morrow to act against the Russian\r
+entrenchments, and the places where, in line with them, the field\r
+artillery should be placed.\r
+\r
+After giving these and other commands he returned to his tent, and the\r
+dispositions for the battle were written down from his dictation.\r
+\r
+These dispositions, of which the French historians write with enthusiasm\r
+and other historians with profound respect, were as follows:\r
+\r
+At dawn the two new batteries established during the night on the plain\r
+occupied by the Prince d'Eckmuhl will open fire on the opposing\r
+batteries of the enemy.\r
+\r
+At the same time the commander of the artillery of the 1st Corps,\r
+General Pernetti, with thirty cannon of Campan's division and all the\r
+howitzers of Dessaix's and Friant's divisions, will move forward, open\r
+fire, and overwhelm with shellfire the enemy's battery, against which\r
+will operate:\r
+\r
+\r
+24 guns of the artillery of the Guards 30 guns of Campan's division\r
+\r
+and     8 guns of Friant's and Dessaix's divisions --\r
+\r
+in all 62 guns.\r
+\r
+The commander of the artillery of the 3rd Corps, General Fouche, will\r
+place the howitzers of the 3rd and 8th Corps, sixteen in all, on the\r
+flanks of the battery that is to bombard the entrenchment on the left,\r
+which will have forty guns in all directed against it.\r
+\r
+General Sorbier must be ready at the first order to advance with all the\r
+howitzers of the Guard's artillery against either one or other of the\r
+entrenchments.\r
+\r
+During the cannonade Prince Poniatowski is to advance through the wood\r
+on the village and turn the enemy's position.\r
+\r
+General Campan will move through the wood to seize the first\r
+fortification.\r
+\r
+After the advance has begun in this manner, orders will be given in\r
+accordance with the enemy's movements.\r
+\r
+The cannonade on the left flank will begin as soon as the guns of the\r
+right wing are heard. The sharpshooters of Morand's division and of the\r
+vice-King's division will open a heavy fire on seeing the attack\r
+commence on the right wing.\r
+\r
+The vice-King will occupy the village and cross by its three bridges,\r
+advancing to the same heights as Morand's and Gibrard's divisions, which\r
+under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt and come into\r
+line with the rest of the forces.\r
+\r
+All this must be done in good order (le tout se fera avec ordre et\r
+methode) as far as possible retaining troops in reserve.\r
+\r
+The Imperial Camp near Mozhaysk,\r
+\r
+September, 6, 1812.\r
+\r
+These dispositions, which are very obscure and confused if one allows\r
+oneself to regard the arrangements without religious awe of his genius,\r
+related to Napoleon's orders to deal with four points--four different\r
+orders. Not one of these was, or could be, carried out.\r
+\r
+In the disposition it is said first that the batteries placed on the\r
+spot chosen by Napoleon, with the guns of Pernetti and Fouche; which\r
+were to come in line with them, 102 guns in all, were to open fire and\r
+shower shells on the Russian fleches and redoubts. This could not be\r
+done, as from the spots selected by Napoleon the projectiles did not\r
+carry to the Russian works, and those 102 guns shot into the air until\r
+the nearest commander, contrary to Napoleon's instructions, moved them\r
+forward.\r
+\r
+The second order was that Poniatowski, moving to the village through the\r
+wood, should turn the Russian left flank. This could not be done and was\r
+not done, because Poniatowski, advancing on the village through the\r
+wood, met Tuchkov there barring his way, and could not and did not turn\r
+the Russian position.\r
+\r
+The third order was: General Campan will move through the wood to seize\r
+the first fortification. General Campan's division did not seize the\r
+first fortification but was driven back, for on emerging from the wood\r
+it had to reform under grapeshot, of which Napoleon was unaware.\r
+\r
+The fourth order was: The vice-King will occupy the village (Borodino)\r
+and cross by its three bridges, advancing to the same heights as\r
+Morand's and Gdrard's divisions (for whose movements no directions are\r
+given), which under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt\r
+and come into line with the rest of the forces.\r
+\r
+As far as one can make out, not so much from this unintelligible\r
+sentence as from the attempts the vice-King made to execute the orders\r
+given him, he was to advance from the left through Borodino to the\r
+redoubt while the divisions of Morand and Gerard were to advance\r
+simultaneously from the front.\r
+\r
+All this, like the other parts of the disposition, was not and could not\r
+be executed. After passing through Borodino the vice-King was driven\r
+back to the Kolocha and could get no farther; while the divisions of\r
+Morand and Gerard did not take the redoubt but were driven back, and the\r
+redoubt was only taken at the end of the battle by the cavalry (a thing\r
+probably unforeseen and not heard of by Napoleon). So not one of the\r
+orders in the disposition was, or could be, executed. But in the\r
+disposition it is said that, after the fight has commenced in this\r
+manner, orders will be given in accordance with the enemy's movements,\r
+and so it might be supposed that all necessary arrangements would be\r
+made by Napoleon during the battle. But this was not and could not be\r
+done, for during the whole battle Napoleon was so far away that, as\r
+appeared later, he could not know the course of the battle and not one\r
+of his orders during the fight could be executed.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVIII\r
+\r
+Many historians say that the French did not win the battle of Borodino\r
+because Napoleon had a cold, and that if he had not had a cold the\r
+orders he gave before and during the battle would have been still more\r
+full of genius and Russia would have been lost and the face of the world\r
+have been changed. To historians who believe that Russia was shaped by\r
+the will of one man--Peter the Great--and that France from a republic\r
+became an empire and French armies went to Russia at the will of one\r
+man--Napoleon--to say that Russia remained a power because Napoleon had\r
+a bad cold on the twenty-fourth of August may seem logical and\r
+convincing.\r
+\r
+If it had depended on Napoleon's will to fight or not to fight the\r
+battle of Borodino, and if this or that other arrangement depended on\r
+his will, then evidently a cold affecting the manifestation of his will\r
+might have saved Russia, and consequently the valet who omitted to bring\r
+Napoleon his waterproof boots on the twenty-fourth would have been the\r
+savior of Russia. Along that line of thought such a deduction is\r
+indubitable, as indubitable as the deduction Voltaire made in jest\r
+(without knowing what he was jesting at) when he saw that the Massacre\r
+of St. Bartholomew was due to Charles IX's stomach being deranged. But\r
+to men who do not admit that Russia was formed by the will of one man,\r
+Peter I, or that the French Empire was formed and the war with Russia\r
+begun by the will of one man, Napoleon, that argument seems not merely\r
+untrue and irrational, but contrary to all human reality. To the\r
+question of what causes historic events another answer presents itself,\r
+namely, that the course of human events is predetermined from on high--\r
+depends on the coincidence of the wills of all who take part in the\r
+events, and that a Napoleon's influence on the course of these events is\r
+purely external and fictitious.\r
+\r
+Strange as at first glance it may seem to suppose that the Massacre of\r
+St. Bartholomew was not due to Charles IX's will, though he gave the\r
+order for it and thought it was done as a result of that order; and\r
+strange as it may seem to suppose that the slaughter of eighty thousand\r
+men at Borodino was not due to Napoleon's will, though he ordered the\r
+commencement and conduct of the battle and thought it was done because\r
+he ordered it; strange as these suppositions appear, yet human dignity--\r
+which tells me that each of us is, if not more at least not less a man\r
+than the great Napoleon--demands the acceptance of that solution of the\r
+question, and historic investigation abundantly confirms it.\r
+\r
+At the battle of Borodino Napoleon shot at no one and killed no one.\r
+That was all done by the soldiers. Therefore it was not he who killed\r
+people.\r
+\r
+The French soldiers went to kill and be killed at the battle of Borodino\r
+not because of Napoleon's orders but by their own volition. The whole\r
+army--French, Italian, German, Polish, and Dutch--hungry, ragged, and\r
+weary of the campaign, felt at the sight of an army blocking their road\r
+to Moscow that the wine was drawn and must be drunk. Had Napoleon then\r
+forbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and\r
+have proceeded to fight the Russians because it was inevitable.\r
+\r
+When they heard Napoleon's proclamation offering them, as compensation\r
+for mutilation and death, the words of posterity about their having been\r
+in the battle before Moscow, they cried "Vive l'Empereur!" just as they\r
+had cried "Vive l'Empereur!" at the sight of the portrait of the boy\r
+piercing the terrestrial globe with a toy stick, and just as they would\r
+have cried "Vive l'Empereur!" at any nonsense that might be told them.\r
+There was nothing left for them to do but cry "Vive l'Empereur!" and go\r
+to fight, in order to get food and rest as conquerors in Moscow. So it\r
+was not because of Napoleon's commands that they killed their fellow\r
+men.\r
+\r
+And it was not Napoleon who directed the course of the battle, for none\r
+of his orders were executed and during the battle he did not know what\r
+was going on before him. So the way in which these people killed one\r
+another was not decided by Napoleon's will but occurred independently of\r
+him, in accord with the will of hundreds of thousands of people who took\r
+part in the common action. It only seemed to Napoleon that it all took\r
+place by his will. And so the question whether he had or had not a cold\r
+has no more historic interest than the cold of the least of the\r
+transport soldiers.\r
+\r
+Moreover, the assertion made by various writers that his cold was the\r
+cause of his dispositions not being as well-planned as on former\r
+occasions, and of his orders during the battle not being as good as\r
+previously, is quite baseless, which again shows that Napoleon's cold on\r
+the twenty-sixth of August was unimportant.\r
+\r
+The dispositions cited above are not at all worse, but are even better,\r
+than previous dispositions by which he had won victories. His pseudo-\r
+orders during the battle were also no worse than formerly, but much the\r
+same as usual. These dispositions and orders only seem worse than\r
+previous ones because the battle of Borodino was the first Napoleon did\r
+not win. The profoundest and most excellent dispositions and orders seem\r
+very bad, and every learned militarist criticizes them with looks of\r
+importance, when they relate to a battle that has been lost, and the\r
+very worst dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious people\r
+fill whole volumes to demonstrate their merits, when they relate to a\r
+battle that has been won.\r
+\r
+The dispositions drawn up by Weyrother for the battle of Austerlitz were\r
+a model of perfection for that kind of composition, but still they were\r
+criticized--criticized for their very perfection, for their excessive\r
+minuteness.\r
+\r
+Napoleon at the battle of Borodino fulfilled his office as\r
+representative of authority as well as, and even better than, at other\r
+battles. He did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle; he\r
+inclined to the most reasonable opinions, he made no confusion, did not\r
+contradict himself, did not get frightened or run away from the field of\r
+battle, but with his great tact and military experience carried out his\r
+role of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIX\r
+\r
+On returning from a second inspection of the lines, Napoleon remarked:\r
+\r
+"The chessmen are set up, the game will begin tomorrow!"\r
+\r
+Having ordered punch and summoned de Beausset, he began to talk to him\r
+about Paris and about some changes he meant to make in the Empress'\r
+household, surprising the prefect by his memory of minute details\r
+relating to the court.\r
+\r
+He showed an interest in trifles, joked about de Beausset's love of\r
+travel, and chatted carelessly, as a famous, self-confident surgeon who\r
+knows his job does when turning up his sleeves and putting on his apron\r
+while a patient is being strapped to the operating table. "The matter is\r
+in my hands and is clear and definite in my head. When the time comes to\r
+set to work I shall do it as no one else could, but now I can jest, and\r
+the more I jest and the calmer I am the more tranquil and confident you\r
+ought to be, and the more amazed at my genius."\r
+\r
+Having finished his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to rest before\r
+the serious business which, he considered, awaited him next day. He was\r
+so much interested in that task that he was unable to sleep, and in\r
+spite of his cold which had grown worse from the dampness of the\r
+evening, he went into the large division of the tent at three o'clock in\r
+the morning, loudly blowing his nose. He asked whether the Russians had\r
+not withdrawn, and was told that the enemy's fires were still in the\r
+same places. He nodded approval.\r
+\r
+The adjutant in attendance came into the tent.\r
+\r
+"Well, Rapp, do you think we shall do good business today?" Napoleon\r
+asked him.\r
+\r
+"Without doubt, sire," replied Rapp.\r
+\r
+Napoleon looked at him.\r
+\r
+"Do you remember, sire, what you did me the honor to say at Smolensk?"\r
+continued Rapp. "The wine is drawn and must be drunk."\r
+\r
+Napoleon frowned and sat silent for a long time leaning his head on his\r
+hand.\r
+\r
+"This poor army!" he suddenly remarked. "It has diminished greatly since\r
+Smolensk. Fortune is frankly a courtesan, Rapp. I have always said so\r
+and I am beginning to experience it. But the Guards, Rapp, the Guards\r
+are intact?" he remarked interrogatively.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sire," replied Rapp.\r
+\r
+Napoleon took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and glanced at his watch.\r
+He was not sleepy and it was still not nearly morning. It was impossible\r
+to give further orders for the sake of killing time, for the orders had\r
+all been given and were now being executed.\r
+\r
+"Have the biscuits and rice been served out to the regiments of the\r
+Guards?" asked Napoleon sternly.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sire."\r
+\r
+"The rice too?"\r
+\r
+Rapp replied that he had given the Emperor's order about the rice, but\r
+Napoleon shook his head in dissatisfaction as if not believing that his\r
+order had been executed. An attendant came in with punch. Napoleon\r
+ordered another glass to be brought for Rapp, and silently sipped his\r
+own.\r
+\r
+"I have neither taste nor smell," he remarked, sniffing at his glass.\r
+"This cold is tiresome. They talk about medicine--what is the good of\r
+medicine when it can't cure a cold! Corvisart gave me these lozenges but\r
+they don't help at all. What can doctors cure? One can't cure anything.\r
+Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its\r
+nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it\r
+will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies.\r
+Our body is like a perfect watch that should go for a certain time; the\r
+watchmaker cannot open it, he can only adjust it by fumbling, and that\r
+blindfold.... Yes, our body is just a machine for living, that is all."\r
+\r
+And having entered on the path of definition, of which he was fond,\r
+Napoleon suddenly and unexpectedly gave a new one.\r
+\r
+"Do you know, Rapp, what military art is?" asked he. "It is the art of\r
+being stronger than the enemy at a given moment. That's all."\r
+\r
+Rapp made no reply.\r
+\r
+"Tomorrow we shall have to deal with Kutuzov!" said Napoleon. "We shall\r
+see! Do you remember at Braunau he commanded an army for three weeks and\r
+did not once mount a horse to inspect his entrenchments.... We shall\r
+see!"\r
+\r
+He looked at his watch. It was still only four o'clock. He did not feel\r
+sleepy. The punch was finished and there was still nothing to do. He\r
+rose, walked to and fro, put on a warm overcoat and a hat, and went out\r
+of the tent. The night was dark and damp, a scarcely perceptible\r
+moisture was descending from above. Near by, the campfires were dimly\r
+burning among the French Guards, and in the distance those of the\r
+Russian line shone through the smoke. The weather was calm, and the\r
+rustle and tramp of the French troops already beginning to move to take\r
+up their positions were clearly audible.\r
+\r
+Napoleon walked about in front of his tent, looked at the fires and\r
+listened to these sounds, and as he was passing a tall guardsman in a\r
+shaggy cap, who was standing sentinel before his tent and had drawn\r
+himself up like a black pillar at sight of the Emperor, Napoleon stopped\r
+in front of him.\r
+\r
+"What year did you enter the service?" he asked with that affectation of\r
+military bluntness and geniality with which he always addressed the\r
+soldiers.\r
+\r
+The man answered the question.\r
+\r
+"Ah! One of the old ones! Has your regiment had its rice?"\r
+\r
+"It has, Your Majesty."\r
+\r
+Napoleon nodded and walked away.\r
+\r
+At half-past five Napoleon rode to the village of Shevardino.\r
+\r
+It was growing light, the sky was clearing, only a single cloud lay in\r
+the east. The abandoned campfires were burning themselves out in the\r
+faint morning light.\r
+\r
+On the right a single deep report of a cannon resounded and died away in\r
+the prevailing silence. Some minutes passed. A second and a third report\r
+shook the air, then a fourth and a fifth boomed solemnly near by on the\r
+right.\r
+\r
+The first shots had not yet ceased to reverberate before others rang out\r
+and yet more were heard mingling with and overtaking one another.\r
+\r
+Napoleon with his suite rode up to the Shevardino Redoubt where he\r
+dismounted. The game had begun.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXX\r
+\r
+On returning to Gorki after having seen Prince Andrew, Pierre ordered\r
+his groom to get the horses ready and to call him early in the morning,\r
+and then immediately fell asleep behind a partition in a corner Boris\r
+had given up to him.\r
+\r
+Before he was thoroughly awake next morning everybody had already left\r
+the hut. The panes were rattling in the little windows and his groom was\r
+shaking him.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency! Your excellency! Your excellency!" he kept repeating\r
+pertinaciously while he shook Pierre by the shoulder without looking at\r
+him, having apparently lost hope of getting him to wake up.\r
+\r
+"What? Has it begun? Is it time?" Pierre asked, waking up.\r
+\r
+"Hear the firing," said the groom, a discharged soldier. "All the\r
+gentlemen have gone out, and his Serene Highness himself rode past long\r
+ago."\r
+\r
+Pierre dressed hastily and ran out to the porch. Outside all was bright,\r
+fresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just bursting forth from behind a\r
+cloud that had concealed it, was shining, with rays still half broken by\r
+the clouds, over the roofs of the street opposite, on the dew-\r
+besprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, on the\r
+windows, the fence, and on Pierre's horses standing before the hut. The\r
+roar of guns sounded more distinct outside. An adjutant accompanied by a\r
+Cossack passed by at a sharp trot.\r
+\r
+"It's time, Count; it's time!" cried the adjutant.\r
+\r
+Telling the groom to follow him with the horses, Pierre went down the\r
+street to the knoll from which he had looked at the field of battle the\r
+day before. A crowd of military men was assembled there, members of the\r
+staff could be heard conversing in French, and Kutuzov's gray head in a\r
+white cap with a red band was visible, his gray nape sunk between his\r
+shoulders. He was looking through a field glass down the highroad before\r
+him.\r
+\r
+Mounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene before him,\r
+spellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama he had admired from that\r
+spot the day before, but now the whole place was full of troops and\r
+covered by smoke clouds from the guns, and the slanting rays of the\r
+bright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre, cast upon it\r
+through the clear morning air penetrating streaks of rosy, golden-tinted\r
+light and long dark shadows. The forest at the farthest extremity of the\r
+panorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-green\r
+color; its undulating outline was silhouetted against the horizon and\r
+was pierced beyond Valuevo by the Smolensk highroad crowded with troops.\r
+Nearer at hand glittered golden cornfields interspersed with copses.\r
+There were troops to be seen everywhere, in front and to the right and\r
+left. All this was vivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what impressed\r
+Pierre most of all was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodino\r
+and the hollows on both sides of the Kolocha.\r
+\r
+Above the Kolocha, in Borodino and on both sides of it, especially to\r
+the left where the Voyna flowing between its marshy banks falls into the\r
+Kolocha, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve, and to\r
+become translucent when the brilliant sun appeared and magically colored\r
+and outlined everything. The smoke of the guns mingled with this mist,\r
+and over the whole expanse and through that mist the rays of the morning\r
+sun were reflected, flashing back like lightning from the water, from\r
+the dew, and from the bayonets of the troops crowded together by the\r
+riverbanks and in Borodino. A white church could be seen through the\r
+mist, and here and there the roofs of huts in Borodino as well as dense\r
+masses of soldiers, or green ammunition chests and ordnance. And all\r
+this moved, or seemed to move, as the smoke and mist spread out over the\r
+whole space. Just as in the mist-enveloped hollow near Borodino, so\r
+along the entire line outside and above it and especially in the woods\r
+and fields to the left, in the valleys and on the summits of the high\r
+ground, clouds of powder smoke seemed continually to spring up out of\r
+nothing, now singly, now several at a time, some translucent, others\r
+dense, which, swelling, growing, rolling, and blending, extended over\r
+the whole expanse.\r
+\r
+These puffs of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of the firing\r
+produced the chief beauty of the spectacle.\r
+\r
+"Puff!"--suddenly a round compact cloud of smoke was seen merging from\r
+violet into gray and milky white, and "boom!" came the report a second\r
+later.\r
+\r
+"Puff! puff!"--and two clouds arose pushing one another and blending\r
+together; and "boom, boom!" came the sounds confirming what the eye had\r
+seen.\r
+\r
+Pierre glanced round at the first cloud, which he had seen as a round\r
+compact ball, and in its place already were balloons of smoke floating\r
+to one side, and--"puff" (with a pause)--"puff, puff!" three and then\r
+four more appeared and then from each, with the same interval--"boom--\r
+boom, boom!" came the fine, firm, precise sounds in reply. It seemed as\r
+if those smoke clouds sometimes ran and sometimes stood still while\r
+woods, fields, and glittering bayonets ran past them. From the left,\r
+over fields and bushes, those large balls of smoke were continually\r
+appearing followed by their solemn reports, while nearer still, in the\r
+hollows and woods, there burst from the muskets small cloudlets that had\r
+no time to become balls, but had their little echoes in just the same\r
+way. "Trakh-ta-ta-takh!" came the frequent crackle of musketry, but it\r
+was irregular and feeble in comparison with the reports of the cannon.\r
+\r
+Pierre wished to be there with that smoke, those shining bayonets, that\r
+movement, and those sounds. He turned to look at Kutuzov and his suite,\r
+to compare his impressions with those of others. They were all looking\r
+at the field of battle as he was, and, as it seemed to him, with the\r
+same feelings. All their faces were now shining with that latent warmth\r
+of feeling Pierre had noticed the day before and had fully understood\r
+after his talk with Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Go, my dear fellow, go... and Christ be with you!" Kutuzov was saying\r
+to a general who stood beside him, not taking his eye from the\r
+battlefield.\r
+\r
+Having received this order the general passed by Pierre on his way down\r
+the knoll.\r
+\r
+"To the crossing!" said the general coldly and sternly in reply to one\r
+of the staff who asked where he was going.\r
+\r
+"I'll go there too, I too!" thought Pierre, and followed the general.\r
+\r
+The general mounted a horse a Cossack had brought him. Pierre went to\r
+his groom who was holding his horses and, asking which was the quietest,\r
+clambered onto it, seized it by the mane, and turning out his toes\r
+pressed his heels against its sides and, feeling that his spectacles\r
+were slipping off but unable to let go of the mane and reins, he\r
+galloped after the general, causing the staff officers to smile as they\r
+watched him from the knoll.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXI\r
+\r
+Having descended the hill the general after whom Pierre was galloping\r
+turned sharply to the left, and Pierre, losing sight of him, galloped in\r
+among some ranks of infantry marching ahead of him. He tried to pass\r
+either in front of them or to the right or left, but there were soldiers\r
+everywhere, all with the same preoccupied expression and busy with some\r
+unseen but evidently important task. They all gazed with the same\r
+dissatisfied and inquiring expression at this stout man in a white hat,\r
+who for some unknown reason threatened to trample them under his horse's\r
+hoofs.\r
+\r
+"Why ride into the middle of the battalion?" one of them shouted at him.\r
+\r
+Another prodded his horse with the butt end of a musket, and Pierre,\r
+bending over his saddlebow and hardly able to control his shying horse,\r
+galloped ahead of the soldiers where there was a free space.\r
+\r
+There was a bridge ahead of him, where other soldiers stood firing.\r
+Pierre rode up to them. Without being aware of it he had come to the\r
+bridge across the Kolocha between Gorki and Borodino, which the French\r
+(having occupied Borodino) were attacking in the first phase of the\r
+battle. Pierre saw that there was a bridge in front of him and that\r
+soldiers were doing something on both sides of it and in the meadow,\r
+among the rows of new-mown hay which he had taken no notice of amid the\r
+smoke of the campfires the day before; but despite the incessant firing\r
+going on there he had no idea that this was the field of battle. He did\r
+not notice the sound of the bullets whistling from every side, or the\r
+projectiles that flew over him, did not see the enemy on the other side\r
+of the river, and for a long time did not notice the killed and wounded,\r
+though many fell near him. He looked about him with a smile which did\r
+not leave his face.\r
+\r
+"Why's that fellow in front of the line?" shouted somebody at him again.\r
+\r
+"To the left!... Keep to the right!" the men shouted to him.\r
+\r
+Pierre went to the right, and unexpectedly encountered one of Raevski's\r
+adjutants whom he knew. The adjutant looked angrily at him, evidently\r
+also intending to shout at him, but on recognizing him he nodded.\r
+\r
+"How have you got here?" he said, and galloped on.\r
+\r
+Pierre, feeling out of place there, having nothing to do, and afraid of\r
+getting in someone's way again, galloped after the adjutant.\r
+\r
+"What's happening here? May I come with you?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"One moment, one moment!" replied the adjutant, and riding up to a stout\r
+colonel who was standing in the meadow, he gave him some message and\r
+then addressed Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Why have you come here, Count?" he asked with a smile. "Still\r
+inquisitive?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," assented Pierre.\r
+\r
+But the adjutant turned his horse about and rode on.\r
+\r
+"Here it's tolerable," said he, "but with Bagration on the left flank\r
+they're getting it frightfully hot."\r
+\r
+"Really?" said Pierre. "Where is that?"\r
+\r
+"Come along with me to our knoll. We can get a view from there and in\r
+our battery it is still bearable," said the adjutant. "Will you come?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I'll come with you," replied Pierre, looking round for his groom.\r
+\r
+It was only now that he noticed wounded men staggering along or being\r
+carried on stretchers. On that very meadow he had ridden over the day\r
+before, a soldier was lying athwart the rows of scented hay, with his\r
+head thrown awkwardly back and his shako off.\r
+\r
+"Why haven't they carried him away?" Pierre was about to ask, but seeing\r
+the stern expression of the adjutant who was also looking that way, he\r
+checked himself.\r
+\r
+Pierre did not find his groom and rode along the hollow with the\r
+adjutant to Raevski's Redoubt. His horse lagged behind the adjutant's\r
+and jolted him at every step.\r
+\r
+"You don't seem to be used to riding, Count?" remarked the adjutant.\r
+\r
+"No it's not that, but her action seems so jerky," said Pierre in a\r
+puzzled tone.\r
+\r
+"Why... she's wounded!" said the adjutant. "In the off foreleg above the\r
+knee. A bullet, no doubt. I congratulate you, Count, on your baptism of\r
+fire!"\r
+\r
+Having ridden in the smoke past the Sixth Corps, behind the artillery\r
+which had been moved forward and was in action, deafening them with the\r
+noise of firing, they came to a small wood. There it was cool and quiet,\r
+with a scent of autumn. Pierre and the adjutant dismounted and walked up\r
+the hill on foot.\r
+\r
+"Is the general here?" asked the adjutant on reaching the knoll.\r
+\r
+"He was here a minute ago but has just gone that way," someone told him,\r
+pointing to the right.\r
+\r
+The adjutant looked at Pierre as if puzzled what to do with him now.\r
+\r
+"Don't trouble about me," said Pierre. "I'll go up onto the knoll if I\r
+may?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, do. You'll see everything from there and it's less dangerous, and\r
+I'll come for you."\r
+\r
+Pierre went to the battery and the adjutant rode on. They did not meet\r
+again, and only much later did Pierre learn that he lost an arm that\r
+day.\r
+\r
+The knoll to which Pierre ascended was that famous one afterwards known\r
+to the Russians as the Knoll Battery or Raevski's Redoubt, and to the\r
+French as la grande redoute, la fatale redoute, la redoute du centre,\r
+around which tens of thousands fell, and which the French regarded as\r
+the key to the whole position.\r
+\r
+This redoubt consisted of a knoll, on three sides of which trenches had\r
+been dug. Within the entrenchment stood ten guns that were being fired\r
+through openings in the earthwork.\r
+\r
+In line with the knoll on both sides stood other guns which also fired\r
+incessantly. A little behind the guns stood infantry. When ascending\r
+that knoll Pierre had no notion that this spot, on which small trenches\r
+had been dug and from which a few guns were firing, was the most\r
+important point of the battle.\r
+\r
+On the contrary, just because he happened to be there he thought it one\r
+of the least significant parts of the field.\r
+\r
+Having reached the knoll, Pierre sat down at one end of a trench\r
+surrounding the battery and gazed at what was going on around him with\r
+an unconsciously happy smile. Occasionally he rose and walked about the\r
+battery still with that same smile, trying not to obstruct the soldiers\r
+who were loading, hauling the guns, and continually running past him\r
+with bags and charges. The guns of that battery were being fired\r
+continually one after another with a deafening roar, enveloping the\r
+whole neighborhood in powder smoke.\r
+\r
+In contrast with the dread felt by the infantrymen placed in support,\r
+here in the battery where a small number of men busy at their work were\r
+separated from the rest by a trench, everyone experienced a common and\r
+as it were family feeling of animation.\r
+\r
+The intrusion of Pierre's nonmilitary figure in a white hat made an\r
+unpleasant impression at first. The soldiers looked askance at him with\r
+surprise and even alarm as they went past him. The senior artillery\r
+officer, a tall, long-legged, pockmarked man, moved over to Pierre as if\r
+to see the action of the farthest gun and looked at him with curiosity.\r
+\r
+A young round-faced officer, quite a boy still and evidently only just\r
+out of the Cadet College, who was zealously commanding the two guns\r
+entrusted to him, addressed Pierre sternly.\r
+\r
+"Sir," he said, "permit me to ask you to stand aside. You must not be\r
+here."\r
+\r
+The soldiers shook their heads disapprovingly as they looked at Pierre.\r
+But when they had convinced themselves that this man in the white hat\r
+was doing no harm, but either sat quietly on the slope of the trench\r
+with a shy smile or, politely making way for the soldiers, paced up and\r
+down the battery under fire as calmly as if he were on a boulevard,\r
+their feeling of hostile distrust gradually began to change into a\r
+kindly and bantering sympathy, such as soldiers feel for their dogs,\r
+cocks, goats, and in general for the animals that live with the\r
+regiment. The men soon accepted Pierre into their family, adopted him,\r
+gave him a nickname ("our gentleman"), and made kindly fun of him among\r
+themselves.\r
+\r
+A shell tore up the earth two paces from Pierre and he looked around\r
+with a smile as he brushed from his clothes some earth it had thrown up.\r
+\r
+"And how's it you're not afraid, sir, really now?" a red-faced, broad-\r
+shouldered soldier asked Pierre, with a grin that disclosed a set of\r
+sound, white teeth.\r
+\r
+"Are you afraid, then?" said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"What else do you expect?" answered the soldier. "She has no mercy, you\r
+know! When she comes spluttering down, out go your innards. One can't\r
+help being afraid," he said laughing.\r
+\r
+Several of the men, with bright kindly faces, stopped beside Pierre.\r
+They seemed not to have expected him to talk like anybody else, and the\r
+discovery that he did so delighted them.\r
+\r
+"It's the business of us soldiers. But in a gentleman it's wonderful!\r
+There's a gentleman for you!"\r
+\r
+"To your places!" cried the young officer to the men gathered round\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+The young officer was evidently exercising his duties for the first or\r
+second time and therefore treated both his superiors and the men with\r
+great precision and formality.\r
+\r
+The booming cannonade and the fusillade of musketry were growing more\r
+intense over the whole field, especially to the left where Bagration's\r
+fleches were, but where Pierre was the smoke of the firing made it\r
+almost impossible to distinguish anything. Moreover, his whole attention\r
+was engrossed by watching the family circle--separated from all else--\r
+formed by the men in the battery. His first unconscious feeling of\r
+joyful animation produced by the sights and sounds of the battlefield\r
+was now replaced by another, especially since he had seen that soldier\r
+lying alone in the hayfield. Now, seated on the slope of the trench, he\r
+observed the faces of those around him.\r
+\r
+By ten o'clock some twenty men had already been carried away from the\r
+battery; two guns were smashed and cannon balls fell more and more\r
+frequently on the battery and spent bullets buzzed and whistled around.\r
+But the men in the battery seemed not to notice this, and merry voices\r
+and jokes were heard on all sides.\r
+\r
+"A live one!" shouted a man as a whistling shell approached.\r
+\r
+"Not this way! To the infantry!" added another with loud laughter,\r
+seeing the shell fly past and fall into the ranks of the supports.\r
+\r
+"Are you bowing to a friend, eh?" remarked another, chaffing a peasant\r
+who ducked low as a cannon ball flew over.\r
+\r
+Several soldiers gathered by the wall of the trench, looking out to see\r
+what was happening in front.\r
+\r
+"They've withdrawn the front line, it has retired," said they, pointing\r
+over the earthwork.\r
+\r
+"Mind your own business," an old sergeant shouted at them. "If they've\r
+retired it's because there's work for them to do farther back."\r
+\r
+And the sergeant, taking one of the men by the shoulders, gave him a\r
+shove with his knee. This was followed by a burst of laughter.\r
+\r
+"To the fifth gun, wheel it up!" came shouts from one side.\r
+\r
+"Now then, all together, like bargees!" rose the merry voices of those\r
+who were moving the gun.\r
+\r
+"Oh, she nearly knocked our gentleman's hat off!" cried the red-faced\r
+humorist, showing his teeth chaffing Pierre. "Awkward baggage!" he added\r
+reproachfully to a cannon ball that struck a cannon wheel and a man's\r
+leg.\r
+\r
+"Now then, you foxes!" said another, laughing at some militiamen who,\r
+stooping low, entered the battery to carry away the wounded man.\r
+\r
+"So this gruel isn't to your taste? Oh, you crows! You're scared!" they\r
+shouted at the militiamen who stood hesitating before the man whose leg\r
+had been torn off.\r
+\r
+"There, lads... oh, oh!" they mimicked the peasants, "they don't like it\r
+at all!"\r
+\r
+Pierre noticed that after every ball that hit the redoubt, and after\r
+every loss, the liveliness increased more and more.\r
+\r
+As the flames of the fire hidden within come more and more vividly and\r
+rapidly from an approaching thundercloud, so, as if in opposition to\r
+what was taking place, the lightning of hidden fire growing more and\r
+more intense glowed in the faces of these men.\r
+\r
+Pierre did not look out at the battlefield and was not concerned to know\r
+what was happening there; he was entirely absorbed in watching this fire\r
+which burned ever more brightly and which he felt was flaming up in the\r
+same way in his own soul.\r
+\r
+At ten o'clock the infantry that had been among the bushes in front of\r
+the battery and along the Kamenka streamlet retreated. From the battery\r
+they could be seen running back past it carrying their wounded on their\r
+muskets. A general with his suite came to the battery, and after\r
+speaking to the colonel gave Pierre an angry look and went away again\r
+having ordered the infantry supports behind the battery to lie down, so\r
+as to be less exposed to fire. After this from amid the ranks of\r
+infantry to the right of the battery came the sound of a drum and shouts\r
+of command, and from the battery one saw how those ranks of infantry\r
+moved forward.\r
+\r
+Pierre looked over the wall of the trench and was particularly struck by\r
+a pale young officer who, letting his sword hang down, was walking\r
+backwards and kept glancing uneasily around.\r
+\r
+The ranks of the infantry disappeared amid the smoke but their long-\r
+drawn shout and rapid musketry firing could still be heard. A few\r
+minutes later crowds of wounded men and stretcher-bearers came back from\r
+that direction. Projectiles began to fall still more frequently in the\r
+battery. Several men were lying about who had not been removed. Around\r
+the cannon the men moved still more briskly and busily. No one any\r
+longer took notice of Pierre. Once or twice he was shouted at for being\r
+in the way. The senior officer moved with big, rapid strides from one\r
+gun to another with a frowning face. The young officer, with his face\r
+still more flushed, commanded the men more scrupulously than ever. The\r
+soldiers handed up the charges, turned, loaded, and did their business\r
+with strained smartness. They gave little jumps as they walked, as\r
+though they were on springs.\r
+\r
+The stormcloud had come upon them, and in every face the fire which\r
+Pierre had watched kindle burned up brightly. Pierre standing beside the\r
+commanding officer. The young officer, his hand to his shako, ran up to\r
+his superior.\r
+\r
+"I have the honor to report, sir, that only eight rounds are left. Are\r
+we to continue firing?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Grapeshot!" the senior shouted, without answering the question, looking\r
+over the wall of the trench.\r
+\r
+Suddenly something happened: the young officer gave a gasp and bending\r
+double sat down on the ground like a bird shot on the wing. Everything\r
+became strange, confused, and misty in Pierre's eyes.\r
+\r
+One cannon ball after another whistled by and struck the earthwork, a\r
+soldier, or a gun. Pierre, who had not noticed these sounds before, now\r
+heard nothing else. On the right of the battery soldiers shouting\r
+"Hurrah!" were running not forwards but backwards, it seemed to Pierre.\r
+\r
+A cannon ball struck the very end of the earth work by which he was\r
+standing, crumbling down the earth; a black ball flashed before his eyes\r
+and at the same instant plumped into something. Some militiamen who were\r
+entering the battery ran back.\r
+\r
+"All with grapeshot!" shouted the officer.\r
+\r
+The sergeant ran up to the officer and in a frightened whisper informed\r
+him (as a butler at dinner informs his master that there is no more of\r
+some wine asked for) that there were no more charges.\r
+\r
+"The scoundrels! What are they doing?" shouted the officer, turning to\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+The officer's face was red and perspiring and his eyes glittered under\r
+his frowning brow.\r
+\r
+"Run to the reserves and bring up the ammunition boxes!" he yelled,\r
+angrily avoiding Pierre with his eyes and speaking to his men.\r
+\r
+"I'll go," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+The officer, without answering him, strode across to the opposite side.\r
+\r
+"Don't fire.... Wait!" he shouted.\r
+\r
+The man who had been ordered to go for ammunition stumbled against\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Eh, sir, this is no place for you," said he, and ran down the slope.\r
+\r
+Pierre ran after him, avoiding the spot where the young officer was\r
+sitting.\r
+\r
+One cannon ball, another, and a third flew over him, falling in front,\r
+beside, and behind him. Pierre ran down the slope. "Where am I going?"\r
+he suddenly asked himself when he was already near the green ammunition\r
+wagons. He halted irresolutely, not knowing whether to return or go on.\r
+Suddenly a terrible concussion threw him backwards to the ground. At the\r
+same instant he was dazzled by a great flash of flame, and immediately a\r
+deafening roar, crackling, and whistling made his ears tingle.\r
+\r
+When he came to himself he was sitting on the ground leaning on his\r
+hands; the ammunition wagons he had been approaching no longer existed,\r
+only charred green boards and rags littered the scorched grass, and a\r
+horse, dangling fragments of its shaft behind it, galloped past, while\r
+another horse lay, like Pierre, on the ground, uttering prolonged and\r
+piercing cries.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXII\r
+\r
+Beside himself with terror Pierre jumped up and ran back to the battery,\r
+as to the only refuge from the horrors that surrounded him.\r
+\r
+On entering the earthwork he noticed that there were men doing something\r
+there but that no shots were being fired from the battery. He had no\r
+time to realize who these men were. He saw the senior officer lying on\r
+the earth wall with his back turned as if he were examining something\r
+down below and that one of the soldiers he had noticed before was\r
+struggling forward shouting "Brothers!" and trying to free himself from\r
+some men who were holding him by the arm. He also saw something else\r
+that was strange.\r
+\r
+But he had not time to realize that the colonel had been killed, that\r
+the soldier shouting "Brothers!" was a prisoner, and that another man\r
+had been bayoneted in the back before his eyes, for hardly had he run\r
+into the redoubt before a thin, sallow-faced, perspiring man in a blue\r
+uniform rushed on him sword in hand, shouting something. Instinctively\r
+guarding against the shock--for they had been running together at full\r
+speed before they saw one another--Pierre put out his hands and seized\r
+the man (a French officer) by the shoulder with one hand and by the\r
+throat with the other. The officer, dropping his sword, seized Pierre by\r
+his collar.\r
+\r
+For some seconds they gazed with frightened eyes at one another's\r
+unfamiliar faces and both were perplexed at what they had done and what\r
+they were to do next. "Am I taken prisoner or have I taken him\r
+prisoner?" each was thinking. But the French officer was evidently more\r
+inclined to think he had been taken prisoner because Pierre's strong\r
+hand, impelled by instinctive fear, squeezed his throat ever tighter and\r
+tighter. The Frenchman was about to say something, when just above their\r
+heads, terrible and low, a cannon ball whistled, and it seemed to Pierre\r
+that the French officer's head had been torn off, so swiftly had he\r
+ducked it.\r
+\r
+Pierre too bent his head and let his hands fall. Without further thought\r
+as to who had taken whom prisoner, the Frenchman ran back to the battery\r
+and Pierre ran down the slope stumbling over the dead and wounded who,\r
+it seemed to him, caught at his feet. But before he reached the foot of\r
+the knoll he was met by a dense crowd of Russian soldiers who,\r
+stumbling, tripping up, and shouting, ran merrily and wildly toward the\r
+battery. (This was the attack for which Ermolov claimed the credit,\r
+declaring that only his courage and good luck made such a feat possible:\r
+it was the attack in which he was said to have thrown some St. George's\r
+Crosses he had in his pocket into the battery for the first soldiers to\r
+take who got there.)\r
+\r
+The French who had occupied the battery fled, and our troops shouting\r
+"Hurrah!" pursued them so far beyond the battery that it was difficult\r
+to call them back.\r
+\r
+The prisoners were brought down from the battery and among them was a\r
+wounded French general, whom the officers surrounded. Crowds of wounded-\r
+-some known to Pierre and some unknown--Russians and French, with faces\r
+distorted by suffering, walked, crawled, and were carried on stretchers\r
+from the battery. Pierre again went up onto the knoll where he had spent\r
+over an hour, and of that family circle which had received him as a\r
+member he did not find a single one. There were many dead whom he did\r
+not know, but some he recognized. The young officer still sat in the\r
+same way, bent double, in a pool of blood at the edge of the earth wall.\r
+The red-faced man was still twitching, but they did not carry him away.\r
+\r
+Pierre ran down the slope once more.\r
+\r
+"Now they will stop it, now they will be horrified at what they have\r
+done!" he thought, aimlessly going toward a crowd of stretcher bearers\r
+moving from the battlefield.\r
+\r
+But behind the veil of smoke the sun was still high, and in front and\r
+especially to the left, near Semenovsk, something seemed to be seething\r
+in the smoke, and the roar of cannon and musketry did not diminish, but\r
+even increased to desperation like a man who, straining himself, shrieks\r
+with all his remaining strength.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIII\r
+\r
+The chief action of the battle of Borodino was fought within the seven\r
+thousand feet between Borodino and Bagration's fleches. Beyond that\r
+space there was, on the one side, a demonstration made by the Russians\r
+with Uvarov's cavalry at midday, and on the other side, beyond Utitsa,\r
+Poniatowski's collision with Tuchkov; but these two were detached and\r
+feeble actions in comparison with what took place in the center of the\r
+battlefield. On the field between Borodino and the fleches, beside the\r
+wood, the chief action of the day took place on an open space visible\r
+from both sides and was fought in the simplest and most artless way.\r
+\r
+The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundred\r
+guns.\r
+\r
+Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions,\r
+Campan's and Dessaix's, advanced from the French right, while Murat's\r
+troops advanced on Borodino from their left.\r
+\r
+From the Shevardino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the fleches were\r
+two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile as the crow flies\r
+to Borodino, so that Napoleon could not see what was happening there,\r
+especially as the smoke mingling with the mist hid the whole locality.\r
+The soldiers of Dessaix's division advancing against the fleches could\r
+only be seen till they had entered the hollow that lay between them and\r
+the fleches. As soon as they had descended into that hollow, the smoke\r
+of the guns and musketry on the fleches grew so dense that it covered\r
+the whole approach on that side of it. Through the smoke glimpses could\r
+be caught of something black--probably men--and at times the glint of\r
+bayonets. But whether they were moving or stationary, whether they were\r
+French or Russian, could not be discovered from the Shevardino Redoubt.\r
+\r
+The sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straight into\r
+Napoleon's face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked at the\r
+fleches. The smoke spread out before them, and at times it looked as if\r
+the smoke were moving, at times as if the troops moved. Sometimes shouts\r
+were heard through the firing, but it was impossible to tell what was\r
+being done there.\r
+\r
+Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, and in\r
+its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own and sometimes\r
+Russians, but when he looked again with the naked eye, he could not tell\r
+where what he had seen was.\r
+\r
+He descended the knoll and began walking up and down before it.\r
+\r
+Occasionally he stopped, listened to the firing, and gazed intently at\r
+the battlefield.\r
+\r
+But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where\r
+he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his\r
+generals had taken their stand, but even from the fleches themselves--in\r
+which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers,\r
+alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or maddened--\r
+even at those fleches themselves it was impossible to make out what was\r
+taking place. There for several hours amid incessant cannon and musketry\r
+fire, now Russians were seen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now infantry,\r
+and now cavalry: they appeared, fired, fell, collided, not knowing what\r
+to do with one another, screamed, and ran back again.\r
+\r
+From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies from his\r
+marshals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports of the progress of\r
+the action, but all these reports were false, both because it was\r
+impossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening at any given\r
+moment and because many of the adjutants did not go to the actual place\r
+of conflict but reported what they had heard from others; and also\r
+because while an adjutant was riding more than a mile to Napoleon\r
+circumstances changed and the news he brought was already becoming\r
+false. Thus an adjutant galloped up from Murat with tidings that\r
+Borodino had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolocha was in the\r
+hands of the French. The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wished the\r
+troops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form up\r
+on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given--almost as\r
+soon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodino--the bridge had been\r
+retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which Pierre\r
+had been present at the beginning of the battle.\r
+\r
+An adjutant galloped up from the fleches with a pale and frightened face\r
+and reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed, Campan\r
+wounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very time the adjutant had been\r
+told that the French had been repulsed, the fleches had in fact been\r
+recaptured by other French troops, and Davout was alive and only\r
+slightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarily untrustworthy\r
+reports Napoleon gave his orders, which had either been executed before\r
+he gave them or could not be and were not executed.\r
+\r
+The marshals and generals, who were nearer to the field of battle but,\r
+like Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting and only\r
+occasionally went within musket range, made their own arrangements\r
+without asking Napoleon and issued orders where and in what direction to\r
+fire and where cavalry should gallop and infantry should run. But even\r
+their orders, like Napoleon's, were seldom carried out, and then but\r
+partially. For the most part things happened contrary to their orders.\r
+Soldiers ordered to advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers\r
+ordered to remain where they were, suddenly, seeing Russians\r
+unexpectedly before them, sometimes rushed back and sometimes forward,\r
+and the cavalry dashed without orders in pursuit of the flying Russians.\r
+In this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semenovsk hollow\r
+and as soon as they reached the top of the incline turned round and\r
+galloped full speed back again. The infantry moved in the same way,\r
+sometimes running to quite other places than those they were ordered to\r
+go to. All orders as to where and when to move the guns, when to send\r
+infantry to shoot or horsemen to ride down the Russian infantry--all\r
+such orders were given by the officers on the spot nearest to the units\r
+concerned, without asking either Ney, Davout, or Murat, much less\r
+Napoleon. They did not fear getting into trouble for not fulfilling\r
+orders or for acting on their own initiative, for in battle what is at\r
+stake is what is dearest to man--his own life--and it sometimes seems\r
+that safety lies in running back, sometimes in running forward; and\r
+these men who were right in the heat of the battle acted according to\r
+the mood of the moment. In reality, however, all these movements forward\r
+and backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops. All\r
+their rushing and galloping at one another did little harm, the harm of\r
+disablement and death was caused by the balls and bullets that flew over\r
+the fields on which these men were floundering about. As soon as they\r
+left the place where the balls and bullets were flying about, their\r
+superiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them\r
+under discipline and under the influence of that discipline led them\r
+back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear of death\r
+they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance\r
+promptings of the throng.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIV\r
+\r
+Napoleon's generals--Davout, Ney, and Murat, who were near that region\r
+of fire and sometimes even entered it--repeatedly led into it huge\r
+masses of well-ordered troops. But contrary to what had always happened\r
+in their former battles, instead of the news they expected of the\r
+enemy's flight, these orderly masses returned thence as disorganized and\r
+terrified mobs. The generals re-formed them, but their numbers\r
+constantly decreased. In the middle of the day Murat sent his adjutant\r
+to Napoleon to demand reinforcements.\r
+\r
+Napoleon sat at the foot of the knoll, drinking punch, when Murat's\r
+adjutant galloped up with an assurance that the Russians would be routed\r
+if His Majesty would let him have another division.\r
+\r
+"Reinforcements?" said Napoleon in a tone of stern surprise, looking at\r
+the adjutant--a handsome lad with long black curls arranged like Murat's\r
+own--as though he did not understand his words.\r
+\r
+"Reinforcements!" thought Napoleon to himself. "How can they need\r
+reinforcements when they already have half the army directed against a\r
+weak, unentrenched Russian wing?"\r
+\r
+"Tell the King of Naples," said he sternly, "that it is not noon yet,\r
+and I don't yet see my chessboard clearly. Go!..."\r
+\r
+The handsome boy adjutant with the long hair sighed deeply without\r
+removing his hand from his hat and galloped back to where men were being\r
+slaughtered.\r
+\r
+Napoleon rose and having summoned Caulaincourt and Berthier began\r
+talking to them about matters unconnected with the battle.\r
+\r
+In the midst of this conversation, which was beginning to interest\r
+Napoleon, Berthier's eyes turned to look at a general with a suite, who\r
+was galloping toward the knoll on a lathering horse. It was Belliard.\r
+Having dismounted he went up to the Emperor with rapid strides and in a\r
+loud voice began boldly demonstrating the necessity of sending\r
+reinforcements. He swore on his honor that the Russians were lost if the\r
+Emperor would give another division.\r
+\r
+Napoleon shrugged his shoulders and continued to pace up and down\r
+without replying. Belliard began talking loudly and eagerly to the\r
+generals of the suite around him.\r
+\r
+"You are very fiery, Belliard," said Napoleon, when he again came up to\r
+the general. "In the heat of a battle it is easy to make a mistake. Go\r
+and have another look and then come back to me."\r
+\r
+Before Belliard was out of sight, a messenger from another part of the\r
+battlefield galloped up.\r
+\r
+"Now then, what do you want?" asked Napoleon in the tone of a man\r
+irritated at being continually disturbed.\r
+\r
+"Sire, the prince..." began the adjutant.\r
+\r
+"Asks for reinforcements?" said Napoleon with an angry gesture.\r
+\r
+The adjutant bent his head affirmatively and began to report, but the\r
+Emperor turned from him, took a couple of steps, stopped, came back, and\r
+called Berthier.\r
+\r
+"We must give reserves," he said, moving his arms slightly apart. "Who\r
+do you think should be sent there?" he asked of Berthier (whom he\r
+subsequently termed "that gosling I have made an eagle").\r
+\r
+"Send Claparede's division, sire," replied Berthier, who knew all the\r
+division's regiments, and battalions by heart.\r
+\r
+Napoleon nodded assent.\r
+\r
+The adjutant galloped to Claparede's division and a few minutes later\r
+the Young Guards stationed behind the knoll moved forward. Napoleon\r
+gazed silently in that direction.\r
+\r
+"No!" he suddenly said to Berthier. "I can't send Claparede. Send\r
+Friant's division."\r
+\r
+Though there was no advantage in sending Friant's division instead of\r
+Claparede's, and even an obvious inconvenience and delay in stopping\r
+Claparede and sending Friant now, the order was carried out exactly.\r
+Napoleon did not notice that in regard to his army he was playing the\r
+part of a doctor who hinders by his medicines--a role he so justly\r
+understood and condemned.\r
+\r
+Friant's division disappeared as the others had done into the smoke of\r
+the battlefield. From all sides adjutants continued to arrive at a\r
+gallop and as if by agreement all said the same thing. They all asked\r
+for reinforcements and all said that the Russians were holding their\r
+positions and maintaining a hellish fire under which the French army was\r
+melting away.\r
+\r
+Napoleon sat on a campstool, wrapped in thought.\r
+\r
+M. de Beausset, the man so fond of travel, having fasted since morning,\r
+came up to the Emperor and ventured respectfully to suggest lunch to His\r
+Majesty.\r
+\r
+"I hope I may now congratulate Your Majesty on a victory?" said he.\r
+\r
+Napoleon silently shook his head in negation. Assuming the negation to\r
+refer only to the victory and not to the lunch, M. de Beausset ventured\r
+with respectful jocularity to remark that there is no reason for not\r
+having lunch when one can get it.\r
+\r
+"Go away..." exclaimed Napoleon suddenly and morosely, and turned aside.\r
+\r
+A beatific smile of regret, repentance, and ecstasy beamed on M. de\r
+Beausset's face and he glided away to the other generals.\r
+\r
+Napoleon was experiencing a feeling of depression like that of an ever-\r
+lucky gambler who, after recklessly flinging money about and always\r
+winning, suddenly just when he has calculated all the chances of the\r
+game, finds that the more he considers his play the more surely he\r
+loses.\r
+\r
+His troops were the same, his generals the same, the same preparations\r
+had been made, the same dispositions, and the same proclamation courte\r
+et energique, he himself was still the same: he knew that and knew that\r
+he was now even more experienced and skillful than before. Even the\r
+enemy was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland--yet the terrible\r
+stroke of his arm had supernaturally become impotent.\r
+\r
+All the old methods that had been unfailingly crowned with success: the\r
+concentration of batteries on one point, an attack by reserves to break\r
+the enemy's line, and a cavalry attack by "the men of iron," all these\r
+methods had already been employed, yet not only was there no victory,\r
+but from all sides came the same news of generals killed and wounded, of\r
+reinforcements needed, of the impossibility of driving back the\r
+Russians, and of disorganization among his own troops.\r
+\r
+Formerly, after he had given two or three orders and uttered a few\r
+phrases, marshals and adjutants had come galloping up with\r
+congratulations and happy faces, announcing the trophies taken, the\r
+corps of prisoners, bundles of enemy eagles and standards, cannon and\r
+stores, and Murat had only begged leave to loose the cavalry to gather\r
+in the baggage wagons. So it had been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcola, Jena,\r
+Austerlitz, Wagram, and so on. But now something strange was happening\r
+to his troops.\r
+\r
+Despite news of the capture of the fleches, Napoleon saw that this was\r
+not the same, not at all the same, as what had happened in his former\r
+battles. He saw that what he was feeling was felt by all the men about\r
+him experienced in the art of war. All their faces looked dejected, and\r
+they all shunned one another's eyes--only a de Beausset could fail to\r
+grasp the meaning of what was happening.\r
+\r
+But Napoleon with his long experience of war well knew the meaning of a\r
+battle not gained by the attacking side in eight hours, after all\r
+efforts had been expended. He knew that it was a lost battle and that\r
+the least accident might now--with the fight balanced on such a strained\r
+center--destroy him and his army.\r
+\r
+When he ran his mind over the whole of this strange Russian campaign in\r
+which not one battle had been won, and in which not a flag, or cannon,\r
+or army corps had been captured in two months, when he looked at the\r
+concealed depression on the faces around him and heard reports of the\r
+Russians still holding their ground--a terrible feeling like a nightmare\r
+took possession of him, and all the unlucky accidents that might destroy\r
+him occurred to his mind. The Russians might fall on his left wing,\r
+might break through his center, he himself might be killed by a stray\r
+cannon ball. All this was possible. In former battles he had only\r
+considered the possibilities of success, but now innumerable unlucky\r
+chances presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like\r
+a dream in which a man fancies that a ruffian is coming to attack him,\r
+and raises his arm to strike that ruffian a terrible blow which he knows\r
+should annihilate him, but then feels that his arm drops powerless and\r
+limp like a rag, and the horror of unavoidable destruction seizes him in\r
+his helplessness.\r
+\r
+The news that the Russians were attacking the left flank of the French\r
+army aroused that horror in Napoleon. He sat silently on a campstool\r
+below the knoll, with head bowed and elbows on his knees. Berthier\r
+approached and suggested that they should ride along the line to\r
+ascertain the position of affairs.\r
+\r
+"What? What do you say?" asked Napoleon. "Yes, tell them to bring me my\r
+horse."\r
+\r
+He mounted and rode toward Semenovsk.\r
+\r
+Amid the powder smoke, slowly dispersing over the whole space through\r
+which Napoleon rode, horses and men were lying in pools of blood, singly\r
+or in heaps. Neither Napoleon nor any of his generals had ever before\r
+seen such horrors or so many slain in such a small area. The roar of\r
+guns, that had not ceased for ten hours, wearied the ear and gave a\r
+peculiar significance to the spectacle, as music does to tableaux\r
+vivants. Napoleon rode up the high ground at Semenovsk, and through the\r
+smoke saw ranks of men in uniforms of a color unfamiliar to him. They\r
+were Russians.\r
+\r
+The Russians stood in serried ranks behind Semenovsk village and its\r
+knoll, and their guns boomed incessantly along their line and sent forth\r
+clouds of smoke. It was no longer a battle: it was a continuous\r
+slaughter which could be of no avail either to the French or the\r
+Russians. Napoleon stopped his horse and again fell into the reverie\r
+from which Berthier had aroused him. He could not stop what was going on\r
+before him and around him and was supposed to be directed by him and to\r
+depend on him, and from its lack of success this affair, for the first\r
+time, seemed to him unnecessary and horrible.\r
+\r
+One of the generals rode up to Napoleon and ventured to offer to lead\r
+the Old Guard into action. Ney and Berthier, standing near Napoleon,\r
+exchanged looks and smiled contemptuously at this general's senseless\r
+offer.\r
+\r
+Napoleon bowed his head and remained silent a long time.\r
+\r
+"At eight hundred leagues from France, I will not have my Guard\r
+destroyed!" he said, and turning his horse rode back to Shevardino.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXV\r
+\r
+On the rug-covered bench where Pierre had seen him in the morning sat\r
+Kutuzov, his gray head hanging, his heavy body relaxed. He gave no\r
+orders, but only assented to or dissented from what others suggested.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, do that," he replied to various proposals. "Yes, yes: go,\r
+dear boy, and have a look," he would say to one or another of those\r
+about him; or, "No, don't, we'd better wait!" He listened to the reports\r
+that were brought him and gave directions when his subordinates demanded\r
+that of him; but when listening to the reports it seemed as if he were\r
+not interested in the import of the words spoken, but rather in\r
+something else--in the expression of face and tone of voice of those who\r
+were reporting. By long years of military experience he knew, and with\r
+the wisdom of age understood, that it is impossible for one man to\r
+direct hundreds of thousands of others struggling with death, and he\r
+knew that the result of a battle is decided not by the orders of a\r
+commander-in-chief, nor the place where the troops are stationed, nor by\r
+the number of cannon or of slaughtered men, but by that intangible force\r
+called the spirit of the army, and he watched this force and guided it\r
+in as far as that was in his power.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov's general expression was one of concentrated quiet attention,\r
+and his face wore a strained look as if he found it difficult to master\r
+the fatigue of his old and feeble body.\r
+\r
+At eleven o'clock they brought him news that the fleches captured by the\r
+French had been retaken, but that Prince Bagration was wounded. Kutuzov\r
+groaned and swayed his head.\r
+\r
+"Ride over to Prince Peter Ivanovich and find out about it exactly," he\r
+said to one of his adjutants, and then turned to the Duke of Wurttemberg\r
+who was standing behind him.\r
+\r
+"Will Your Highness please take command of the first army?"\r
+\r
+Soon after the duke's departure--before he could possibly have reached\r
+Semenovsk--his adjutant came back from him and told Kutuzov that the\r
+duke asked for more troops.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov made a grimace and sent an order to Dokhturov to take over the\r
+command of the first army, and a request to the duke--whom he said he\r
+could not spare at such an important moment--to return to him. When they\r
+brought him news that Murat had been taken prisoner, and the staff\r
+officers congratulated him, Kutuzov smiled.\r
+\r
+"Wait a little, gentlemen," said he. "The battle is won, and there is\r
+nothing extraordinary in the capture of Murat. Still, it is better to\r
+wait before we rejoice."\r
+\r
+But he sent an adjutant to take the news round the army.\r
+\r
+When Scherbinin came galloping from the left flank with news that the\r
+French had captured the fleches and the village of Semenovsk, Kutuzov,\r
+guessing by the sounds of the battle and by Scherbinin's looks that the\r
+news was bad, rose as if to stretch his legs and, taking Scherbinin's\r
+arm, led him aside.\r
+\r
+"Go, my dear fellow," he said to Ermolov, "and see whether something\r
+can't be done."\r
+\r
+Kutuzov was in Gorki, near the center of the Russian position. The\r
+attack directed by Napoleon against our left flank had been several\r
+times repulsed. In the center the French had not got beyond Borodino,\r
+and on their left flank Uvarov's cavalry had put the French to flight.\r
+\r
+Toward three o'clock the French attacks ceased. On the faces of all who\r
+came from the field of battle, and of those who stood around him,\r
+Kutuzov noticed an expression of extreme tension. He was satisfied with\r
+the day's success--a success exceeding his expectations, but the old\r
+man's strength was failing him. Several times his head dropped low as if\r
+it were falling and he dozed off. Dinner was brought him.\r
+\r
+Adjutant General Wolzogen, the man who when riding past Prince Andrew\r
+had said, "the war should be extended widely," and whom Bagration so\r
+detested, rode up while Kutuzov was at dinner. Wolzogen had come from\r
+Barclay de Tolly to report on the progress of affairs on the left flank.\r
+The sagacious Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of wounded men running\r
+back and the disordered rear of the army, weighed all the circumstances,\r
+concluded that the battle was lost, and sent his favorite officer to the\r
+commander in chief with that news.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov was chewing a piece of roast chicken with difficulty and glanced\r
+at Wolzogen with eyes that brightened under their puckering lids.\r
+\r
+Wolzogen, nonchalantly stretching his legs, approached Kutuzov with a\r
+half-contemptuous smile on his lips, scarcely touching the peak of his\r
+cap.\r
+\r
+He treated his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected nonchalance\r
+intended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he left it to\r
+Russians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he knew whom\r
+he was dealing with. "Der alte Herr" (as in their own set the Germans\r
+called Kutuzov) "is making himself very comfortable," thought Wolzogen,\r
+and looking severely at the dishes in front of Kutuzov he began to\r
+report to "the old gentleman" the position of affairs on the left flank\r
+as Barclay had ordered him to and as he himself had seen and understood\r
+it.\r
+\r
+"All the points of our position are in the enemy's hands and we cannot\r
+dislodge them for lack of troops, the men are running away and it is\r
+impossible to stop them," he reported.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov ceased chewing and fixed an astonished gaze on Wolzogen, as if\r
+not understanding what was said to him. Wolzogen, noticing "the old\r
+gentleman's" agitation, said with a smile:\r
+\r
+"I have not considered it right to conceal from your Serene Highness\r
+what I have seen. The troops are in complete disorder..."\r
+\r
+"You have seen? You have seen?..." Kutuzov shouted. Frowning and rising\r
+quickly, he went up to Wolzogen.\r
+\r
+"How... how dare you!..." he shouted, choking and making a threatening\r
+gesture with his trembling arms: "How dare you, sir, say that to me? You\r
+know nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me that his information\r
+is incorrect and that the real course of the battle is better known to\r
+me, the commander-in-chief, than to him."\r
+\r
+Wolzogen was about to make a rejoinder, but Kutuzov interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right\r
+flank. If you have seen amiss, sir, do not allow yourself to say what\r
+you don't know! Be so good as to ride to General Barclay and inform him\r
+of my firm intention to attack the enemy tomorrow," said Kutuzov\r
+sternly.\r
+\r
+All were silent, and the only sound audible was the heavy breathing of\r
+the panting old general.\r
+\r
+"They are repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave army!\r
+The enemy is beaten, and tomorrow we shall drive him from the sacred\r
+soil of Russia," said Kutuzov crossing himself, and he suddenly sobbed\r
+as his eyes filled with tears.\r
+\r
+Wolzogen, shrugging his shoulders and curling his lips, stepped silently\r
+aside, marveling at "the old gentleman's" conceited stupidity.\r
+\r
+"Ah, here he is, my hero!" said Kutuzov to a portly, handsome, dark-\r
+haired general who was just ascending the knoll.\r
+\r
+This was Raevski, who had spent the whole day at the most important part\r
+of the field of Borodino.\r
+\r
+Raevski reported that the troops were firmly holding their ground and\r
+that the French no longer ventured to attack.\r
+\r
+After hearing him, Kutuzov said in French:\r
+\r
+"Then you do not think, like some others, that we must retreat?"\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, your Highness, in indecisive actions it is always the\r
+most stubborn who remain victors," replied Raevski, "and in my\r
+opinion..."\r
+\r
+"Kaysarov!" Kutuzov called to his adjutant. "Sit down and write out the\r
+order of the day for tomorrow. And you," he continued, addressing\r
+another, "ride along the line and announce that tomorrow we attack."\r
+\r
+While Kutuzov was talking to Raevski and dictating the order of the day,\r
+Wolzogen returned from Barclay and said that General Barclay wished to\r
+have written confirmation of the order the field marshal had given.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov, without looking at Wolzogen, gave directions for the order to\r
+be written out which the former commander-in-chief, to avoid personal\r
+responsibility, very judiciously wished to receive.\r
+\r
+And by means of that mysterious indefinable bond which maintains\r
+throughout an army one and the same temper, known as "the spirit of the\r
+army," and which constitutes the sinew of war, Kutuzov's words, his\r
+order for a battle next day, immediately became known from one end of\r
+the army to the other.\r
+\r
+It was far from being the same words or the same order that reached the\r
+farthest links of that chain. The tales passing from mouth to mouth at\r
+different ends of the army did not even resemble what Kutuzov had said,\r
+but the sense of his words spread everywhere because what he said was\r
+not the outcome of cunning calculations, but of a feeling that lay in\r
+the commander-in-chief's soul as in that of every Russian.\r
+\r
+And on learning that tomorrow they were to attack the enemy, and hearing\r
+from the highest quarters a confirmation of what they wanted to believe,\r
+the exhausted, wavering men felt comforted and inspirited.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVI\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew's regiment was among the reserves which till after one\r
+o'clock were stationed inactive behind Semenovsk, under heavy artillery\r
+fire. Toward two o'clock the regiment, having already lost more than two\r
+hundred men, was moved forward into a trampled oatfield in the gap\r
+between Semenovsk and the Knoll Battery, where thousands of men perished\r
+that day and on which an intense, concentrated fire from several hundred\r
+enemy guns was directed between one and two o'clock.\r
+\r
+Without moving from that spot or firing a single shot the regiment here\r
+lost another third of its men. From in front and especially from the\r
+right, in the unlifting smoke the guns boomed, and out of the mysterious\r
+domain of smoke that overlay the whole space in front, quick hissing\r
+cannon balls and slow whistling shells flew unceasingly. At times, as if\r
+to allow them a respite, a quarter of an hour passed during which the\r
+cannon balls and shells all flew overhead, but sometimes several men\r
+were torn from the regiment in a minute and the slain were continually\r
+being dragged away and the wounded carried off.\r
+\r
+With each fresh blow less and less chance of life remained for those not\r
+yet killed. The regiment stood in columns of battalion, three hundred\r
+paces apart, but nevertheless the men were always in one and the same\r
+mood. All alike were taciturn and morose. Talk was rarely heard in the\r
+ranks, and it ceased altogether every time the thud of a successful shot\r
+and the cry of "stretchers!" was heard. Most of the time, by their\r
+officers' order, the men sat on the ground. One, having taken off his\r
+shako, carefully loosened the gathers of its lining and drew them tight\r
+again; another, rubbing some dry clay between his palms, polished his\r
+bayonet; another fingered the strap and pulled the buckle of his\r
+bandolier, while another smoothed and refolded his leg bands and put his\r
+boots on again. Some built little houses of the tufts in the plowed\r
+ground, or plaited baskets from the straw in the cornfield. All seemed\r
+fully absorbed in these pursuits. When men were killed or wounded, when\r
+rows of stretchers went past, when some troops retreated, and when great\r
+masses of the enemy came into view through the smoke, no one paid any\r
+attention to these things. But when our artillery or cavalry advanced or\r
+some of our infantry were seen to move forward, words of approval were\r
+heard on all sides. But the liveliest attention was attracted by\r
+occurrences quite apart from, and unconnected with, the battle. It was\r
+as if the minds of these morally exhausted men found relief in everyday,\r
+commonplace occurrences. A battery of artillery was passing in front of\r
+the regiment. The horse of an ammunition cart put its leg over a trace.\r
+"Hey, look at the trace horse!... Get her leg out! She'll fall.... Ah,\r
+they don't see it!" came identical shouts from the ranks all along the\r
+regiment. Another time, general attention was attracted by a small brown\r
+dog, coming heaven knows whence, which trotted in a preoccupied manner\r
+in front of the ranks with tail stiffly erect till suddenly a shell fell\r
+close by, when it yelped, tucked its tail between its legs, and darted\r
+aside. Yells and shrieks of laughter rose from the whole regiment. But\r
+such distractions lasted only a moment, and for eight hours the men had\r
+been inactive, without food, in constant fear of death, and their pale\r
+and gloomy faces grew ever paler and gloomier.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew, pale and gloomy like everyone in the regiment, paced up\r
+and down from the border of one patch to another, at the edge of the\r
+meadow beside an oatfield, with head bowed and arms behind his back.\r
+There was nothing for him to do and no orders to be given. Everything\r
+went on of itself. The killed were dragged from the front, the wounded\r
+carried away, and the ranks closed up. If any soldiers ran to the rear\r
+they returned immediately and hastily. At first Prince Andrew,\r
+considering it his duty to rouse the courage of the men and to set them\r
+an example, walked about among the ranks, but he soon became convinced\r
+that this was unnecessary and that there was nothing he could teach\r
+them. All the powers of his soul, as of every soldier there, were\r
+unconsciously bent on avoiding the contemplation of the horrors of their\r
+situation. He walked along the meadow, dragging his feet, rustling the\r
+grass, and gazing at the dust that covered his boots; now he took big\r
+strides trying to keep to the footprints left on the meadow by the\r
+mowers, then he counted his steps, calculating how often he must walk\r
+from one strip to another to walk a mile, then he stripped the flowers\r
+from the wormwood that grew along a boundary rut, rubbed them in his\r
+palms, and smelled their pungent, sweetly bitter scent. Nothing remained\r
+of the previous day's thoughts. He thought of nothing. He listened with\r
+weary ears to the ever-recurring sounds, distinguishing the whistle of\r
+flying projectiles from the booming of the reports, glanced at the\r
+tiresomely familiar faces of the men of the first battalion, and waited.\r
+"Here it comes... this one is coming our way again!" he thought,\r
+listening to an approaching whistle in the hidden region of smoke. "One,\r
+another! Again! It has hit...." He stopped and looked at the ranks. "No,\r
+it has gone over. But this one has hit!" And again he started trying to\r
+reach the boundary strip in sixteen paces. A whizz and a thud! Five\r
+paces from him, a cannon ball tore up the dry earth and disappeared. A\r
+chill ran down his back. Again he glanced at the ranks. Probably many\r
+had been hit--a large crowd had gathered near the second battalion.\r
+\r
+"Adjutant!" he shouted. "Order them not to crowd together."\r
+\r
+The adjutant, having obeyed this instruction, approached Prince Andrew.\r
+From the other side a battalion commander rode up.\r
+\r
+"Look out!" came a frightened cry from a soldier and, like a bird\r
+whirring in rapid flight and alighting on the ground, a shell dropped\r
+with little noise within two steps of Prince Andrew and close to the\r
+battalion commander's horse. The horse first, regardless of whether it\r
+was right or wrong to show fear, snorted, reared almost throwing the\r
+major, and galloped aside. The horse's terror infected the men.\r
+\r
+"Lie down!" cried the adjutant, throwing himself flat on the ground.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew hesitated. The smoking shell spun like a top between him\r
+and the prostrate adjutant, near a wormwood plant between the field and\r
+the meadow.\r
+\r
+"Can this be death?" thought Prince Andrew, looking with a quite new,\r
+envious glance at the grass, the wormwood, and the streamlet of smoke\r
+that curled up from the rotating black ball. "I cannot, I do not wish to\r
+die. I love life--I love this grass, this earth, this air...." He\r
+thought this, and at the same time remembered that people were looking\r
+at him.\r
+\r
+"It's shameful, sir!" he said to the adjutant. "What..."\r
+\r
+He did not finish speaking. At one and the same moment came the sound of\r
+an explosion, a whistle of splinters as from a breaking window frame, a\r
+suffocating smell of powder, and Prince Andrew started to one side,\r
+raising his arm, and fell on his chest. Several officers ran up to him.\r
+From the right side of his abdomen, blood was welling out making a large\r
+stain on the grass.\r
+\r
+The militiamen with stretchers who were called up stood behind the\r
+officers. Prince Andrew lay on his chest with his face in the grass,\r
+breathing heavily and noisily.\r
+\r
+"What are you waiting for? Come along!"\r
+\r
+The peasants went up and took him by his shoulders and legs, but he\r
+moaned piteously and, exchanging looks, they set him down again.\r
+\r
+"Pick him up, lift him, it's all the same!" cried someone.\r
+\r
+They again took him by the shoulders and laid him on the stretcher.\r
+\r
+"Ah, God! My God! What is it? The stomach? That means death! My God!"--\r
+voices among the officers were heard saying.\r
+\r
+"It flew a hair's breadth past my ear," said the adjutant.\r
+\r
+The peasants, adjusting the stretcher to their shoulders, started\r
+hurriedly along the path they had trodden down, to the dressing station.\r
+\r
+"Keep in step! Ah... those peasants!" shouted an officer, seizing by\r
+their shoulders and checking the peasants, who were walking unevenly and\r
+jolting the stretcher.\r
+\r
+"Get into step, Fedor... I say, Fedor!" said the foremost peasant.\r
+\r
+"Now that's right!" said the one behind joyfully, when he had got into\r
+step.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency! Eh, Prince!" said the trembling voice of Timokhin, who\r
+had run up and was looking down on the stretcher.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew opened his eyes and looked up at the speaker from the\r
+stretcher into which his head had sunk deep and again his eyelids\r
+drooped.\r
+\r
+The militiamen carried Prince Andrew to the dressing station by the\r
+wood, where wagons were stationed. The dressing station consisted of\r
+three tents with flaps turned back, pitched at the edge of a birch wood.\r
+In the wood, wagons and horses were standing. The horses were eating\r
+oats from their movable troughs and sparrows flew down and pecked the\r
+grains that fell. Some crows, scenting blood, flew among the birch trees\r
+cawing impatiently. Around the tents, over more than five acres,\r
+bloodstained men in various garbs stood, sat, or lay. Around the wounded\r
+stood crowds of soldier stretcher-bearers with dismal and attentive\r
+faces, whom the officers keeping order tried in vain to drive from the\r
+spot. Disregarding the officers' orders, the soldiers stood leaning\r
+against their stretchers and gazing intently, as if trying to comprehend\r
+the difficult problem of what was taking place before them. From the\r
+tents came now loud angry cries and now plaintive groans. Occasionally\r
+dressers ran out to fetch water, or to point out those who were to be\r
+brought in next. The wounded men awaiting their turn outside the tents\r
+groaned, sighed, wept, screamed, swore, or asked for vodka. Some were\r
+delirious. Prince Andrew's bearers, stepping over the wounded who had\r
+not yet been bandaged, took him, as a regimental commander, close up to\r
+one of the tents and there stopped, awaiting instructions. Prince Andrew\r
+opened his eyes and for a long time could not make out what was going on\r
+around him. He remembered the meadow, the wormwood, the field, the\r
+whirling black ball, and his sudden rush of passionate love of life. Two\r
+steps from him, leaning against a branch and talking loudly and\r
+attracting general attention, stood a tall, handsome, black-haired\r
+noncommissioned officer with a bandaged head. He had been wounded in the\r
+head and leg by bullets. Around him, eagerly listening to his talk, a\r
+crowd of wounded and stretcher-bearers was gathered.\r
+\r
+"We kicked him out from there so that he chucked everything, we grabbed\r
+the King himself!" cried he, looking around him with eyes that glittered\r
+with fever. "If only reserves had come up just then, lads, there\r
+wouldn't have been nothing left of him! I tell you surely..."\r
+\r
+Like all the others near the speaker, Prince Andrew looked at him with\r
+shining eyes and experienced a sense of comfort. "But isn't it all the\r
+same now?" thought he. "And what will be there, and what has there been\r
+here? Why was I so reluctant to part with life? There was something in\r
+this life I did not and do not understand."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVII\r
+\r
+One of the doctors came out of the tent in a bloodstained apron, holding\r
+a cigar between the thumb and little finger of one of his small\r
+bloodstained hands, so as not to smear it. He raised his head and looked\r
+about him, but above the level of the wounded men. He evidently wanted a\r
+little respite. After turning his head from right to left for some time,\r
+he sighed and looked down.\r
+\r
+"All right, immediately," he replied to a dresser who pointed Prince\r
+Andrew out to him, and he told them to carry him into the tent.\r
+\r
+Murmurs arose among the wounded who were waiting.\r
+\r
+"It seems that even in the next world only the gentry are to have a\r
+chance!" remarked one.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was carried in and laid on a table that had only just been\r
+cleared and which a dresser was washing down. Prince Andrew could not\r
+make out distinctly what was in that tent. The pitiful groans from all\r
+sides and the torturing pain in his thigh, stomach, and back distracted\r
+him. All he saw about him merged into a general impression of naked,\r
+bleeding human bodies that seemed to fill the whole of the low tent, as\r
+a few weeks previously, on that hot August day, such bodies had filled\r
+the dirty pond beside the Smolensk road. Yes, it was the same flesh, the\r
+same chair a canon, the sight of which had even then filled him with\r
+horror, as by a presentiment.\r
+\r
+There were three operating tables in the tent. Two were occupied, and on\r
+the third they placed Prince Andrew. For a little while he was left\r
+alone and involuntarily witnessed what was taking place on the other two\r
+tables. On the nearest one sat a Tartar, probably a Cossack, judging by\r
+the uniform thrown down beside him. Four soldiers were holding him, and\r
+a spectacled doctor was cutting into his muscular brown back.\r
+\r
+"Ooh, ooh, ooh!" grunted the Tartar, and suddenly lifting up his swarthy\r
+snub-nosed face with its high cheekbones, and baring his white teeth, he\r
+began to wriggle and twitch his body and utter piercing, ringing, and\r
+prolonged yells. On the other table, round which many people were\r
+crowding, a tall well-fed man lay on his back with his head thrown back.\r
+His curly hair, its color, and the shape of his head seemed strangely\r
+familiar to Prince Andrew. Several dressers were pressing on his chest\r
+to hold him down. One large, white, plump leg twitched rapidly all the\r
+time with a feverish tremor. The man was sobbing and choking\r
+convulsively. Two doctors--one of whom was pale and trembling--were\r
+silently doing something to this man's other, gory leg. When he had\r
+finished with the Tartar, whom they covered with an overcoat, the\r
+spectacled doctor came up to Prince Andrew, wiping his hands.\r
+\r
+He glanced at Prince Andrew's face and quickly turned away.\r
+\r
+"Undress him! What are you waiting for?" he cried angrily to the\r
+dressers.\r
+\r
+His very first, remotest recollections of childhood came back to Prince\r
+Andrew's mind when the dresser with sleeves rolled up began hastily to\r
+undo the buttons of his clothes and undressed him. The doctor bent down\r
+over the wound, felt it, and sighed deeply. Then he made a sign to\r
+someone, and the torturing pain in his abdomen caused Prince Andrew to\r
+lose consciousness. When he came to himself the splintered portions of\r
+his thighbone had been extracted, the torn flesh cut away, and the wound\r
+bandaged. Water was being sprinkled on his face. As soon as Prince\r
+Andrew opened his eyes, the doctor bent over, kissed him silently on the\r
+lips, and hurried away.\r
+\r
+After the sufferings he had been enduring, Prince Andrew enjoyed a\r
+blissful feeling such as he had not experienced for a long time. All the\r
+best and happiest moments of his life--especially his earliest\r
+childhood, when he used to be undressed and put to bed, and when leaning\r
+over him his nurse sang him to sleep and he, burying his head in the\r
+pillow, felt happy in the mere consciousness of life--returned to his\r
+memory, not merely as something past but as something present.\r
+\r
+The doctors were busily engaged with the wounded man the shape of whose\r
+head seemed familiar to Prince Andrew: they were lifting him up and\r
+trying to quiet him.\r
+\r
+"Show it to me.... Oh, ooh... Oh! Oh, ooh!" his frightened moans could\r
+be heard, subdued by suffering and broken by sobs.\r
+\r
+Hearing those moans Prince Andrew wanted to weep. Whether because he was\r
+dying without glory, or because he was sorry to part with life, or\r
+because of those memories of a childhood that could not return, or\r
+because he was suffering and others were suffering and that man near him\r
+was groaning so piteously--he felt like weeping childlike, kindly, and\r
+almost happy tears.\r
+\r
+The wounded man was shown his amputated leg stained with clotted blood\r
+and with the boot still on.\r
+\r
+"Oh! Oh, ooh!" he sobbed, like a woman.\r
+\r
+The doctor who had been standing beside him, preventing Prince Andrew\r
+from seeing his face, moved away.\r
+\r
+"My God! What is this? Why is he here?" said Prince Andrew to himself.\r
+\r
+In the miserable, sobbing, enfeebled man whose leg had just been\r
+amputated, he recognized Anatole Kuragin. Men were supporting him in\r
+their arms and offering him a glass of water, but his trembling, swollen\r
+lips could not grasp its rim. Anatole was sobbing painfully. "Yes, it is\r
+he! Yes, that man is somehow closely and painfully connected with me,"\r
+thought Prince Andrew, not yet clearly grasping what he saw before him.\r
+"What is the connection of that man with my childhood and life?" he\r
+asked himself without finding an answer. And suddenly a new unexpected\r
+memory from that realm of pure and loving childhood presented itself to\r
+him. He remembered Natasha as he had seen her for the first time at the\r
+ball in 1810, with her slender neck and arms and with a frightened happy\r
+face ready for rapture, and love and tenderness for her, stronger and\r
+more vivid than ever, awoke in his soul. He now remembered the\r
+connection that existed between himself and this man who was dimly\r
+gazing at him through tears that filled his swollen eyes. He remembered\r
+everything, and ecstatic pity and love for that man overflowed his happy\r
+heart.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew could no longer restrain himself and wept tender loving\r
+tears for his fellow men, for himself, and for his own and their errors.\r
+\r
+"Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for those\r
+who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on\r
+earth and which Princess Mary taught me and I did not understand--that\r
+is what made me sorry to part with life, that is what remained for me\r
+had I lived. But now it is too late. I know it!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVIII\r
+\r
+The terrible spectacle of the battlefield covered with dead and wounded,\r
+together with the heaviness of his head and the news that some twenty\r
+generals he knew personally had been killed or wounded, and the\r
+consciousness of the impotence of his once mighty arm, produced an\r
+unexpected impression on Napoleon who usually liked to look at the\r
+killed and wounded, thereby, he considered, testing his strength of\r
+mind. This day the horrible appearance of the battlefield overcame that\r
+strength of mind which he thought constituted his merit and his\r
+greatness. He rode hurriedly from the battlefield and returned to the\r
+Shevardino knoll, where he sat on his campstool, his sallow face swollen\r
+and heavy, his eyes dim, his nose red, and his voice hoarse,\r
+involuntarily listening, with downcast eyes, to the sounds of firing.\r
+With painful dejection he awaited the end of this action, in which he\r
+regarded himself as a participant and which he was unable to arrest. A\r
+personal, human feeling for a brief moment got the better of the\r
+artificial phantasm of life he had served so long. He felt in his own\r
+person the sufferings and death he had witnessed on the battlefield. The\r
+heaviness of his head and chest reminded him of the possibility of\r
+suffering and death for himself. At that moment he did not desire\r
+Moscow, or victory, or glory (what need had he for any more glory?). The\r
+one thing he wished for was rest, tranquillity, and freedom. But when he\r
+had been on the Semenovsk heights the artillery commander had proposed\r
+to him to bring several batteries of artillery up to those heights to\r
+strengthen the fire on the Russian troops crowded in front of Knyazkovo.\r
+Napoleon had assented and had given orders that news should be brought\r
+to him of the effect those batteries produced.\r
+\r
+An adjutant came now to inform him that the fire of two hundred guns had\r
+been concentrated on the Russians, as he had ordered, but that they\r
+still held their ground.\r
+\r
+"Our fire is mowing them down by rows, but still they hold on," said the\r
+adjutant.\r
+\r
+"They want more!..." said Napoleon in a hoarse voice.\r
+\r
+"Sire?" asked the adjutant who had not heard the remark.\r
+\r
+"They want more!" croaked Napoleon frowning. "Let them have it!"\r
+\r
+Even before he gave that order the thing he did not desire, and for\r
+which he gave the order only because he thought it was expected of him,\r
+was being done. And he fell back into that artificial realm of imaginary\r
+greatness, and again--as a horse walking a treadmill thinks it is doing\r
+something for itself--he submissively fulfilled the cruel, sad, gloomy,\r
+and inhuman role predestined for him.\r
+\r
+And not for that day and hour alone were the mind and conscience\r
+darkened of this man on whom the responsibility for what was happening\r
+lay more than on all the others who took part in it. Never to the end of\r
+his life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the\r
+significance of his actions which were too contrary to goodness and\r
+truth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to\r
+grasp their meaning. He could not disavow his actions, belauded as they\r
+were by half the world, and so he had to repudiate truth, goodness, and\r
+all humanity.\r
+\r
+Not only on that day, as he rode over the battlefield strewn with men\r
+killed and maimed (by his will as he believed), did he reckon as he\r
+looked at them how many Russians there were for each Frenchman and,\r
+deceiving himself, find reason for rejoicing in the calculation that\r
+there were five Russians for every Frenchman. Not on that day alone did\r
+he write in a letter to Paris that "the battle field was superb,"\r
+because fifty thousand corpses lay there, but even on the island of St.\r
+Helena in the peaceful solitude where he said he intended to devote his\r
+leisure to an account of the great deeds he had done, he wrote:\r
+\r
+The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times:\r
+it was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquillity and\r
+security of all; it was purely pacific and conservative.\r
+\r
+It was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties and the\r
+beginning of security. A new horizon and new labors were opening out,\r
+full of well-being and prosperity for all. The European system was\r
+already founded; all that remained was to organize it.\r
+\r
+Satisfied on these great points and with tranquility everywhere, I too\r
+should have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. Those ideas were\r
+stolen from me. In that reunion of great sovereigns we should have\r
+discussed our interests like one family, and have rendered account to\r
+the peoples as clerk to master.\r
+\r
+Europe would in this way soon have been, in fact, but one people, and\r
+anyone who traveled anywhere would have found himself always in the\r
+common fatherland. I should have demanded the freedom of all navigable\r
+rivers for everybody, that the seas should be common to all, and that\r
+the great standing armies should be reduced henceforth to mere guards\r
+for the sovereigns.\r
+\r
+On returning to France, to the bosom of the great, strong, magnificent,\r
+peaceful, and glorious fatherland, I should have proclaimed her\r
+frontiers immutable; all future wars purely defensive, all\r
+aggrandizement antinational. I should have associated my son in the\r
+Empire; my dictatorship would have been finished, and his constitutional\r
+reign would have begun.\r
+\r
+Paris would have been the capital of the world, and the French the envy\r
+of the nations!\r
+\r
+My leisure then, and my old age, would have been devoted, in company\r
+with the Empress and during the royal apprenticeship of my son, to\r
+leisurely visiting, with our own horses and like a true country couple,\r
+every corner of the Empire, receiving complaints, redressing wrongs, and\r
+scattering public buildings and benefactions on all sides and\r
+everywhere.\r
+\r
+Napoleon, predestined by Providence for the gloomy role of executioner\r
+of the peoples, assured himself that the aim of his actions had been the\r
+peoples' welfare and that he could control the fate of millions and by\r
+the employment of power confer benefactions.\r
+\r
+"Of four hundred thousand who crossed the Vistula," he wrote further of\r
+the Russian war, "half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles,\r
+Bavarians, Wurttembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, and\r
+Neapolitans. The Imperial army, strictly speaking, was one third\r
+composed of Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine,\r
+Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the\r
+Thirty-second Military Division, of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on: it\r
+included scarcely a hundred and forty thousand who spoke French. The\r
+Russian expedition actually cost France less than fifty thousand men;\r
+the Russian army in its retreat from Vilna to Moscow lost in the various\r
+battles four times more men than the French army; the burning of Moscow\r
+cost the lives of a hundred thousand Russians who died of cold and want\r
+in the woods; finally, in its march from Moscow to the Oder the Russian\r
+army also suffered from the severity of the season; so that by the time\r
+it reached Vilna it numbered only fifty thousand, and at Kalisch less\r
+than eighteen thousand."\r
+\r
+He imagined that the war with Russia came about by his will, and the\r
+horrors that occurred did not stagger his soul. He boldly took the whole\r
+responsibility for what happened, and his darkened mind found\r
+justification in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands who\r
+perished there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIX\r
+\r
+Several tens of thousands of the slain lay in diverse postures and\r
+various uniforms on the fields and meadows belonging to the Davydov\r
+family and to the crown serfs--those fields and meadows where for\r
+hundreds of years the peasants of Borodino, Gorki, Shevardino, and\r
+Semenovsk had reaped their harvests and pastured their cattle. At the\r
+dressing stations the grass and earth were soaked with blood for a space\r
+of some three acres around. Crowds of men of various arms, wounded and\r
+unwounded, with frightened faces, dragged themselves back to Mozhaysk\r
+from the one army and back to Valuevo from the other. Other crowds,\r
+exhausted and hungry, went forward led by their officers. Others held\r
+their ground and continued to fire.\r
+\r
+Over the whole field, previously so gaily beautiful with the glitter of\r
+bayonets and cloudlets of smoke in the morning sun, there now spread a\r
+mist of damp and smoke and a strange acid smell of saltpeter and blood.\r
+Clouds gathered and drops of rain began to fall on the dead and wounded,\r
+on the frightened, exhausted, and hesitating men, as if to say: "Enough,\r
+men! Enough! Cease... bethink yourselves! What are you doing?"\r
+\r
+To the men of both sides alike, worn out by want of food and rest, it\r
+began equally to appear doubtful whether they should continue to\r
+slaughter one another; all the faces expressed hesitation, and the\r
+question arose in every soul: "For what, for whom, must I kill and be\r
+killed?... You may go and kill whom you please, but I don't want to do\r
+so anymore!" By evening this thought had ripened in every soul. At any\r
+moment these men might have been seized with horror at what they were\r
+doing and might have thrown up everything and run away anywhere.\r
+\r
+But though toward the end of the battle the men felt all the horror of\r
+what they were doing, though they would have been glad to leave off,\r
+some incomprehensible, mysterious power continued to control them, and\r
+they still brought up the charges, loaded, aimed, and applied the match,\r
+though only one artilleryman survived out of every three, and though\r
+they stumbled and panted with fatigue, perspiring and stained with blood\r
+and powder. The cannon balls flew just as swiftly and cruelly from both\r
+sides, crushing human bodies, and that terrible work which was not done\r
+by the will of a man but at the will of Him who governs men and worlds\r
+continued.\r
+\r
+Anyone looking at the disorganized rear of the Russian army would have\r
+said that, if only the French made one more slight effort, it would\r
+disappear; and anyone looking at the rear of the French army would have\r
+said that the Russians need only make one more slight effort and the\r
+French would be destroyed. But neither the French nor the Russians made\r
+that effort, and the flame of battle burned slowly out.\r
+\r
+The Russians did not make that effort because they were not attacking\r
+the French. At the beginning of the battle they stood blocking the way\r
+to Moscow and they still did so at the end of the battle as at the\r
+beginning. But even had the aim of the Russians been to drive the French\r
+from their positions, they could not have made this last effort, for all\r
+the Russian troops had been broken up, there was no part of the Russian\r
+army that had not suffered in the battle, and though still holding their\r
+positions they had lost ONE HALF of their army.\r
+\r
+The French, with the memory of all their former victories during fifteen\r
+years, with the assurance of Napoleon's invincibility, with the\r
+consciousness that they had captured part of the battlefield and had\r
+lost only a quarter of their men and still had their Guards intact,\r
+twenty thousand strong, might easily have made that effort. The French\r
+who had attacked the Russian army in order to drive it from its position\r
+ought to have made that effort, for as long as the Russians continued to\r
+block the road to Moscow as before, the aim of the French had not been\r
+attained and all their efforts and losses were in vain. But the French\r
+did not make that effort. Some historians say that Napoleon need only\r
+have used his Old Guards, who were intact, and the battle would have\r
+been won. To speak of what would have happened had Napoleon sent his\r
+Guards is like talking of what would happen if autumn became spring. It\r
+could not be. Napoleon did not give his Guards, not because he did not\r
+want to, but because it could not be done. All the generals, officers,\r
+and soldiers of the French army knew it could not be done, because the\r
+flagging spirit of the troops would not permit it.\r
+\r
+It was not Napoleon alone who had experienced that nightmare feeling of\r
+the mighty arm being stricken powerless, but all the generals and\r
+soldiers of his army whether they had taken part in the battle or not,\r
+after all their experience of previous battles--when after one tenth of\r
+such efforts the enemy had fled--experienced a similar feeling of terror\r
+before an enemy who, after losing HALF his men, stood as threateningly\r
+at the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral force of the\r
+attacking French army was exhausted. Not that sort of victory which is\r
+defined by the capture of pieces of material fastened to sticks, called\r
+standards, and of the ground on which the troops had stood and were\r
+standing, but a moral victory that convinces the enemy of the moral\r
+superiority of his opponent and of his own impotence was gained by the\r
+Russians at Borodino. The French invaders, like an infuriated animal\r
+that has in its onslaught received a mortal wound, felt that they were\r
+perishing, but could not stop, any more than the Russian army, weaker by\r
+one half, could help swerving. By impetus gained, the French army was\r
+still able to roll forward to Moscow, but there, without further effort\r
+on the part of the Russians, it had to perish, bleeding from the mortal\r
+wound it had received at Borodino. The direct consequence of the battle\r
+of Borodino was Napoleon's senseless flight from Moscow, his retreat\r
+along the old Smolensk road, the destruction of the invading army of\r
+five hundred thousand men, and the downfall of Napoleonic France, on\r
+which at Borodino for the first time the hand of an opponent of stronger\r
+spirit had been laid.\r
+\r
+BOOK ELEVEN: 1812\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+Absolute continuity of motion is not comprehensible to the human mind.\r
+Laws of motion of any kind become comprehensible to man only when he\r
+examines arbitrarily selected elements of that motion; but at the same\r
+time, a large proportion of human error comes from the arbitrary\r
+division of continuous motion into discontinuous elements. There is a\r
+well known, so-called sophism of the ancients consisting in this, that\r
+Achilles could never catch up with a tortoise he was following, in spite\r
+of the fact that he traveled ten times as fast as the tortoise. By the\r
+time Achilles has covered the distance that separated him from the\r
+tortoise, the tortoise has covered one tenth of that distance ahead of\r
+him: when Achilles has covered that tenth, the tortoise has covered\r
+another one hundredth, and so on forever. This problem seemed to the\r
+ancients insoluble. The absurd answer (that Achilles could never\r
+overtake the tortoise) resulted from this: that motion was arbitrarily\r
+divided into discontinuous elements, whereas the motion both of Achilles\r
+and of the tortoise was continuous.\r
+\r
+By adopting smaller and smaller elements of motion we only approach a\r
+solution of the problem, but never reach it. Only when we have admitted\r
+the conception of the infinitely small, and the resulting geometrical\r
+progression with a common ratio of one tenth, and have found the sum of\r
+this progression to infinity, do we reach a solution of the problem.\r
+\r
+A modern branch of mathematics having achieved the art of dealing with\r
+the infinitely small can now yield solutions in other more complex\r
+problems of motion which used to appear insoluble.\r
+\r
+This modern branch of mathematics, unknown to the ancients, when dealing\r
+with problems of motion admits the conception of the infinitely small,\r
+and so conforms to the chief condition of motion (absolute continuity)\r
+and thereby corrects the inevitable error which the human mind cannot\r
+avoid when it deals with separate elements of motion instead of\r
+examining continuous motion.\r
+\r
+In seeking the laws of historical movement just the same thing happens.\r
+The movement of humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary\r
+human wills, is continuous.\r
+\r
+To understand the laws of this continuous movement is the aim of\r
+history. But to arrive at these laws, resulting from the sum of all\r
+those human wills, man's mind postulates arbitrary and disconnected\r
+units. The first method of history is to take an arbitrarily selected\r
+series of continuous events and examine it apart from others, though\r
+there is and can be no beginning to any event, for one event always\r
+flows uninterruptedly from another.\r
+\r
+The second method is to consider the actions of some one man--a king or\r
+a commander--as equivalent to the sum of many individual wills; whereas\r
+the sum of individual wills is never expressed by the activity of a\r
+single historic personage.\r
+\r
+Historical science in its endeavor to draw nearer to truth continually\r
+takes smaller and smaller units for examination. But however small the\r
+units it takes, we feel that to take any unit disconnected from others,\r
+or to assume a beginning of any phenomenon, or to say that the will of\r
+many men is expressed by the actions of any one historic personage, is\r
+in itself false.\r
+\r
+It needs no critical exertion to reduce utterly to dust any deductions\r
+drawn from history. It is merely necessary to select some larger or\r
+smaller unit as the subject of observation--as criticism has every right\r
+to do, seeing that whatever unit history observes must always be\r
+arbitrarily selected.\r
+\r
+Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the\r
+differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and\r
+attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of\r
+these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.\r
+\r
+The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe present an\r
+extraordinary movement of millions of people. Men leave their customary\r
+pursuits, hasten from one side of Europe to the other, plunder and\r
+slaughter one another, triumph and are plunged in despair, and for some\r
+years the whole course of life is altered and presents an intensive\r
+movement which first increases and then slackens. What was the cause of\r
+this movement, by what laws was it governed? asks the mind of man.\r
+\r
+The historians, replying to this question, lay before us the sayings and\r
+doings of a few dozen men in a building in the city of Paris, calling\r
+these sayings and doings "the Revolution"; then they give a detailed\r
+biography of Napoleon and of certain people favorable or hostile to him;\r
+tell of the influence some of these people had on others, and say: that\r
+is why this movement took place and those are its laws.\r
+\r
+But the mind of man not only refuses to believe this explanation, but\r
+plainly says that this method of explanation is fallacious, because in\r
+it a weaker phenomenon is taken as the cause of a stronger. The sum of\r
+human wills produced the Revolution and Napoleon, and only the sum of\r
+those wills first tolerated and then destroyed them.\r
+\r
+"But every time there have been conquests there have been conquerors;\r
+every time there has been a revolution in any state there have been\r
+great men," says history. And, indeed, human reason replies: every time\r
+conquerors appear there have been wars, but this does not prove that the\r
+conquerors caused the wars and that it is possible to find the laws of a\r
+war in the personal activity of a single man. Whenever I look at my\r
+watch and its hands point to ten, I hear the bells of the neighboring\r
+church; but because the bells begin to ring when the hands of the clock\r
+reach ten, I have no right to assume that the movement of the bells is\r
+caused by the position of the hands of the watch.\r
+\r
+Whenever I see the movement of a locomotive I hear the whistle and see\r
+the valves opening and wheels turning; but I have no right to conclude\r
+that the whistling and the turning of wheels are the cause of the\r
+movement of the engine.\r
+\r
+The peasants say that a cold wind blows in late spring because the oaks\r
+are budding, and really every spring cold winds do blow when the oak is\r
+budding. But though I do not know what causes the cold winds to blow\r
+when the oak buds unfold, I cannot agree with the peasants that the\r
+unfolding of the oak buds is the cause of the cold wind, for the force\r
+of the wind is beyond the influence of the buds. I see only a\r
+coincidence of occurrences such as happens with all the phenomena of\r
+life, and I see that however much and however carefully I observe the\r
+hands of the watch, and the valves and wheels of the engine, and the\r
+oak, I shall not discover the cause of the bells ringing, the engine\r
+moving, or of the winds of spring. To that I must entirely change my\r
+point of view and study the laws of the movement of steam, of the bells,\r
+and of the wind. History must do the same. And attempts in this\r
+direction have already been made.\r
+\r
+To study the laws of history we must completely change the subject of\r
+our observation, must leave aside kings, ministers, and generals, and\r
+study the common, infinitesimally small elements by which the masses are\r
+moved. No one can say in how far it is possible for man to advance in\r
+this way toward an understanding of the laws of history; but it is\r
+evident that only along that path does the possibility of discovering\r
+the laws of history lie, and that as yet not a millionth part as much\r
+mental effort has been applied in this direction by historians as has\r
+been devoted to describing the actions of various kings, commanders, and\r
+ministers and propounding the historians' own reflections concerning\r
+these actions.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+The forces of a dozen European nations burst into Russia. The Russian\r
+army and people avoided a collision till Smolensk was reached, and again\r
+from Smolensk to Borodino. The French army pushed on to Moscow, its\r
+goal, its impetus ever increasing as it neared its aim, just as the\r
+velocity of a falling body increases as it approaches the earth. Behind\r
+it were seven hundred miles of hunger-stricken, hostile country; ahead\r
+were a few dozen miles separating it from its goal. Every soldier in\r
+Napoleon's army felt this and the invasion moved on by its own momentum.\r
+\r
+The more the Russian army retreated the more fiercely a spirit of hatred\r
+of the enemy flared up, and while it retreated the army increased and\r
+consolidated. At Borodino a collision took place. Neither army was\r
+broken up, but the Russian army retreated immediately after the\r
+collision as inevitably as a ball recoils after colliding with another\r
+having a greater momentum, and with equal inevitability the ball of\r
+invasion that had advanced with such momentum rolled on for some\r
+distance, though the collision had deprived it of all its force.\r
+\r
+The Russians retreated eighty miles--to beyond Moscow--and the French\r
+reached Moscow and there came to a standstill. For five weeks after that\r
+there was not a single battle. The French did not move. As a bleeding,\r
+mortally wounded animal licks its wounds, they remained inert in Moscow\r
+for five weeks, and then suddenly, with no fresh reason, fled back: they\r
+made a dash for the Kaluga road, and (after a victory--for at Malo-\r
+Yaroslavets the field of conflict again remained theirs) without\r
+undertaking a single serious battle, they fled still more rapidly back\r
+to Smolensk, beyond Smolensk, beyond the Berezina, beyond Vilna, and\r
+farther still.\r
+\r
+On the evening of the twenty-sixth of August, Kutuzov and the whole\r
+Russian army were convinced that the battle of Borodino was a victory.\r
+Kutuzov reported so to the Emperor. He gave orders to prepare for a\r
+fresh conflict to finish the enemy and did this not to deceive anyone,\r
+but because he knew that the enemy was beaten, as everyone who had taken\r
+part in the battle knew it.\r
+\r
+But all that evening and next day reports came in one after another of\r
+unheard-of losses, of the loss of half the army, and a fresh battle\r
+proved physically impossible.\r
+\r
+It was impossible to give battle before information had been collected,\r
+the wounded gathered in, the supplies of ammunition replenished, the\r
+slain reckoned up, new officers appointed to replace those who had been\r
+killed, and before the men had had food and sleep. And meanwhile, the\r
+very next morning after the battle, the French army advanced of itself\r
+upon the Russians, carried forward by the force of its own momentum now\r
+seemingly increased in inverse proportion to the square of the distance\r
+from its aim. Kutuzov's wish was to attack next day, and the whole army\r
+desired to do so. But to make an attack the wish to do so is not\r
+sufficient, there must also be a possibility of doing it, and that\r
+possibility did not exist. It was impossible not to retreat a day's\r
+march, and then in the same way it was impossible not to retreat another\r
+and a third day's march, and at last, on the first of September when the\r
+army drew near Moscow--despite the strength of the feeling that had\r
+arisen in all ranks--the force of circumstances compelled it to retire\r
+beyond Moscow. And the troops retired one more, last, day's march, and\r
+abandoned Moscow to the enemy.\r
+\r
+For people accustomed to think that plans of campaign and battles are\r
+made by generals--as any one of us sitting over a map in his study may\r
+imagine how he would have arranged things in this or that battle--the\r
+questions present themselves: Why did Kutuzov during the retreat not do\r
+this or that? Why did he not take up a position before reaching Fili?\r
+Why did he not retire at once by the Kaluga road, abandoning Moscow? and\r
+so on. People accustomed to think in that way forget, or do not know,\r
+the inevitable conditions which always limit the activities of any\r
+commander in chief. The activity of a commander-in-chief does not at all\r
+resemble the activity we imagine to ourselves when we sit at ease in our\r
+studies examining some campaign on the map, with a certain number of\r
+troops on this and that side in a certain known locality, and begin our\r
+plans from some given moment. A commander-in-chief is never dealing with\r
+the beginning of any event--the position from which we always\r
+contemplate it. The commander-in-chief is always in the midst of a\r
+series of shifting events and so he never can at any moment consider the\r
+whole import of an event that is occurring. Moment by moment the event\r
+is imperceptibly shaping itself, and at every moment of this continuous,\r
+uninterrupted shaping of events the commander-in-chief is in the midst\r
+of a most complex play of intrigues, worries, contingencies,\r
+authorities, projects, counsels, threats, and deceptions and is\r
+continually obliged to reply to innumerable questions addressed to him,\r
+which constantly conflict with one another.\r
+\r
+Learned military authorities quite seriously tell us that Kutuzov should\r
+have moved his army to the Kaluga road long before reaching Fili, and\r
+that somebody actually submitted such a proposal to him. But a commander\r
+in chief, especially at a difficult moment, has always before him not\r
+one proposal but dozens simultaneously. And all these proposals, based\r
+on strategics and tactics, contradict each other.\r
+\r
+A commander-in-chief's business, it would seem, is simply to choose one\r
+of these projects. But even that he cannot do. Events and time do not\r
+wait. For instance, on the twenty-eighth it is suggested to him to cross\r
+to the Kaluga road, but just then an adjutant gallops up from\r
+Miloradovich asking whether he is to engage the French or retire. An\r
+order must be given him at once, that instant. And the order to retreat\r
+carries us past the turn to the Kaluga road. And after the adjutant\r
+comes the commissary general asking where the stores are to be taken,\r
+and the chief of the hospitals asks where the wounded are to go, and a\r
+courier from Petersburg brings a letter from the sovereign which does\r
+not admit of the possibility of abandoning Moscow, and the commander-in-\r
+chief's rival, the man who is undermining him (and there are always not\r
+merely one but several such), presents a new project diametrically\r
+opposed to that of turning to the Kaluga road, and the commander-in-\r
+chief himself needs sleep and refreshment to maintain his energy and a\r
+respectable general who has been overlooked in the distribution of\r
+rewards comes to complain, and the inhabitants of the district pray to\r
+be defended, and an officer sent to inspect the locality comes in and\r
+gives a report quite contrary to what was said by the officer previously\r
+sent; and a spy, a prisoner, and a general who has been on\r
+reconnaissance, all describe the position of the enemy's army\r
+differently. People accustomed to misunderstand or to forget these\r
+inevitable conditions of a commander-in-chief's actions describe to us,\r
+for instance, the position of the army at Fili and assume that the\r
+commander-in-chief could, on the first of September, quite freely decide\r
+whether to abandon Moscow or defend it; whereas, with the Russian army\r
+less than four miles from Moscow, no such question existed. When had\r
+that question been settled? At Drissa and at Smolensk and most palpably\r
+of all on the twenty-fourth of August at Shevardino and on the twenty-\r
+sixth at Borodino, and each day and hour and minute of the retreat from\r
+Borodino to Fili.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+When Ermolov, having been sent by Kutuzov to inspect the position, told\r
+the field marshal that it was impossible to fight there before Moscow\r
+and that they must retreat, Kutuzov looked at him in silence.\r
+\r
+"Give me your hand," said he and, turning it over so as to feel the\r
+pulse, added: "You are not well, my dear fellow. Think what you are\r
+saying!"\r
+\r
+Kutuzov could not yet admit the possibility of retreating beyond Moscow\r
+without a battle.\r
+\r
+On the Poklonny Hill, four miles from the Dorogomilov gate of Moscow,\r
+Kutuzov got out of his carriage and sat down on a bench by the roadside.\r
+A great crowd of generals gathered round him, and Count Rostopchin, who\r
+had come out from Moscow, joined them. This brilliant company separated\r
+into several groups who all discussed the advantages and disadvantages\r
+of the position, the state of the army, the plans suggested, the\r
+situation of Moscow, and military questions generally. Though they had\r
+not been summoned for the purpose, and though it was not so called, they\r
+all felt that this was really a council of war. The conversations all\r
+dealt with public questions. If anyone gave or asked for personal news,\r
+it was done in a whisper and they immediately reverted to general\r
+matters. No jokes, or laughter, or smiles even, were seen among all\r
+these men. They evidently all made an effort to hold themselves at the\r
+height the situation demanded. And all these groups, while talking among\r
+themselves, tried to keep near the commander-in-chief (whose bench\r
+formed the center of the gathering) and to speak so that he might\r
+overhear them. The commander in chief listened to what was being said\r
+and sometimes asked them to repeat their remarks, but did not himself\r
+take part in the conversations or express any opinion. After hearing\r
+what was being said by one or other of these groups he generally turned\r
+away with an air of disappointment, as though they were not speaking of\r
+anything he wished to hear. Some discussed the position that had been\r
+chosen, criticizing not the position itself so much as the mental\r
+capacity of those who had chosen it. Others argued that a mistake had\r
+been made earlier and that a battle should have been fought two days\r
+before. Others again spoke of the battle of Salamanca, which was\r
+described by Crosart, a newly arrived Frenchman in a Spanish uniform.\r
+(This Frenchman and one of the German princes serving with the Russian\r
+army were discussing the siege of Saragossa and considering the\r
+possibility of defending Moscow in a similar manner.) Count Rostopchin\r
+was telling a fourth group that he was prepared to die with the city\r
+train bands under the walls of the capital, but that he still could not\r
+help regretting having been left in ignorance of what was happening, and\r
+that had he known it sooner things would have been different.... A fifth\r
+group, displaying the profundity of their strategic perceptions,\r
+discussed the direction the troops would now have to take. A sixth group\r
+was talking absolute nonsense. Kutuzov's expression grew more and more\r
+preoccupied and gloomy. From all this talk he saw only one thing: that\r
+to defend Moscow was a physical impossibility in the full meaning of\r
+those words, that is to say, so utterly impossible that if any senseless\r
+commander were to give orders to fight, confusion would result but the\r
+battle would still not take place. It would not take place because the\r
+commanders not merely all recognized the position to be impossible, but\r
+in their conversations were only discussing what would happen after its\r
+inevitable abandonment. How could the commanders lead their troops to a\r
+field of battle they considered impossible to hold? The lower-grade\r
+officers and even the soldiers (who too reason) also considered the\r
+position impossible and therefore could not go to fight, fully convinced\r
+as they were of defeat. If Bennigsen insisted on the position being\r
+defended and others still discussed it, the question was no longer\r
+important in itself but only as a pretext for disputes and intrigue.\r
+This Kutuzov knew well.\r
+\r
+Bennigsen, who had chosen the position, warmly displayed his Russian\r
+patriotism (Kutuzov could not listen to this without wincing) by\r
+insisting that Moscow must be defended. His aim was as clear as daylight\r
+to Kutuzov: if the defense failed, to throw the blame on Kutuzov who had\r
+brought the army as far as the Sparrow Hills without giving battle; if\r
+it succeeded, to claim the success as his own; or if battle were not\r
+given, to clear himself of the crime of abandoning Moscow. But this\r
+intrigue did not now occupy the old man's mind. One terrible question\r
+absorbed him and to that question he heard no reply from anyone. The\r
+question for him now was: "Have I really allowed Napoleon to reach\r
+Moscow, and when did I do so? When was it decided? Can it have been\r
+yesterday when I ordered Platov to retreat, or was it the evening\r
+before, when I had a nap and told Bennigsen to issue orders? Or was it\r
+earlier still?... When, when was this terrible affair decided? Moscow\r
+must be abandoned. The army must retreat and the order to do so must be\r
+given." To give that terrible order seemed to him equivalent to\r
+resigning the command of the army. And not only did he love power to\r
+which he was accustomed (the honours awarded to Prince Prozorovski,\r
+under whom he had served in Turkey, galled him), but he was convinced\r
+that he was destined to save Russia and that that was why, against the\r
+Emperor's wish and by the will of the people, he had been chosen\r
+commander-in-chief. He was convinced that he alone could maintain\r
+command of the army in these difficult circumstances, and that in all\r
+the world he alone could encounter the invincible Napoleon without fear,\r
+and he was horrified at the thought of the order he had to issue. But\r
+something had to be decided, and these conversations around him which\r
+were assuming too free a character must be stopped.\r
+\r
+He called the most important generals to him.\r
+\r
+"My head, be it good or bad, must depend on itself," said he, rising\r
+from the bench, and he rode to Fili where his carriages were waiting.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+The Council of War began to assemble at two in the afternoon in the\r
+better and roomier part of Andrew Savostyanov's hut. The men, women, and\r
+children of the large peasant family crowded into the back room across\r
+the passage. Only Malasha, Andrew's six-year-old granddaughter whom his\r
+Serene Highness had petted and to whom he had given a lump of sugar\r
+while drinking his tea, remained on the top of the brick oven in the\r
+larger room. Malasha looked down from the oven with shy delight at the\r
+faces, uniforms, and decorations of the generals, who one after another\r
+came into the room and sat down on the broad benches in the corner under\r
+the icons. "Granddad" himself, as Malasha in her own mind called\r
+Kutuzov, sat apart in a dark corner behind the oven. He sat, sunk deep\r
+in a folding armchair, and continually cleared his throat and pulled at\r
+the collar of his coat which, though it was unbuttoned, still seemed to\r
+pinch his neck. Those who entered went up one by one to the field\r
+marshal; he pressed the hands of some and nodded to others. His adjutant\r
+Kaysarov was about to draw back the curtain of the window facing\r
+Kutuzov, but the latter moved his hand angrily and Kaysarov understood\r
+that his Serene Highness did not wish his face to be seen.\r
+\r
+Round the peasant's deal table, on which lay maps, plans, pencils, and\r
+papers, so many people gathered that the orderlies brought in another\r
+bench and put it beside the table. Ermolov, Kaysarov, and Toll, who had\r
+just arrived, sat down on this bench. In the foremost place, immediately\r
+under the icons, sat Barclay de Tolly, his high forehead merging into\r
+his bald crown. He had a St. George's Cross round his neck and looked\r
+pale and ill. He had been feverish for two days and was now shivering\r
+and in pain. Beside him sat Uvarov, who with rapid gesticulations was\r
+giving him some information, speaking in low tones as they all did.\r
+Chubby little Dokhturov was listening attentively with eyebrows raised\r
+and arms folded on his stomach. On the other side sat Count Ostermann-\r
+Tolstoy, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts. His broad head with its\r
+bold features and glittering eyes was resting on his hand. Raevski,\r
+twitching forward the black hair on his temples as was his habit,\r
+glanced now at Kutuzov and now at the door with a look of impatience.\r
+Konovnitsyn's firm, handsome, and kindly face was lit up by a tender,\r
+sly smile. His glance met Malasha's, and the expression of his eyes\r
+caused the little girl to smile.\r
+\r
+They were all waiting for Bennigsen, who on the pretext of inspecting\r
+the position was finishing his savory dinner. They waited for him from\r
+four till six o'clock and did not begin their deliberations all that\r
+time but talked in low tones of other matters.\r
+\r
+Only when Bennigsen had entered the hut did Kutuzov leave his corner and\r
+draw toward the table, but not near enough for the candles that had been\r
+placed there to light up his face.\r
+\r
+Bennigsen opened the council with the question: "Are we to abandon\r
+Russia's ancient and sacred capital without a struggle, or are we to\r
+defend it?" A prolonged and general silence followed. There was a frown\r
+on every face and only Kutuzov's angry grunts and occasional cough broke\r
+the silence. All eyes were gazing at him. Malasha too looked at\r
+"Granddad." She was nearest to him and saw how his face puckered; he\r
+seemed about to cry, but this did not last long.\r
+\r
+"Russia's ancient and sacred capital!" he suddenly said, repeating\r
+Bennigsen's words in an angry voice and thereby drawing attention to the\r
+false note in them. "Allow me to tell you, your excellency, that that\r
+question has no meaning for a Russian." (He lurched his heavy body\r
+forward.) "Such a question cannot be put; it is senseless! The question\r
+I have asked these gentlemen to meet to discuss is a military one. The\r
+question is that of saving Russia. Is it better to give up Moscow\r
+without a battle, or by accepting battle to risk losing the army as well\r
+as Moscow? That is the question on which I want your opinion," and he\r
+sank back in his chair.\r
+\r
+The discussion began. Bennigsen did not yet consider his game lost.\r
+Admitting the view of Barclay and others that a defensive battle at Fili\r
+was impossible, but imbued with Russian patriotism and the love of\r
+Moscow, he proposed to move troops from the right to the left flank\r
+during the night and attack the French right flank the following day.\r
+Opinions were divided, and arguments were advanced for and against that\r
+project. Ermolov, Dokhturov, and Raevski agreed with Bennigsen. Whether\r
+feeling it necessary to make a sacrifice before abandoning the capital\r
+or guided by other, personal considerations, these generals seemed not\r
+to understand that this council could not alter the inevitable course of\r
+events and that Moscow was in effect already abandoned. The other\r
+generals, however, understood it and, leaving aside the question of\r
+Moscow, spoke of the direction the army should take in its retreat.\r
+Malasha, who kept her eyes fixed on what was going on before her,\r
+understood the meaning of the council differently. It seemed to her that\r
+it was only a personal struggle between "Granddad" and "Long-coat" as\r
+she termed Bennigsen. She saw that they grew spiteful when they spoke to\r
+one another, and in her heart she sided with "Granddad." In the midst of\r
+the conversation she noticed "Granddad" give Bennigsen a quick, subtle\r
+glance, and then to her joys he saw that "Granddad" said something to\r
+"Long-coat" which settled him. Bennigsen suddenly reddened and paced\r
+angrily up and down the room. What so affected him was Kutuzov's calm\r
+and quiet comment on the advantage or disadvantage of Bennigsen's\r
+proposal to move troops by night from the right to the left flank to\r
+attack the French right wing.\r
+\r
+"Gentlemen," said Kutuzov, "I cannot approve of the count's plan. Moving\r
+troops in close proximity to an enemy is always dangerous, and military\r
+history supports that view. For instance..." Kutuzov seemed to reflect,\r
+searching for an example, then with a clear, naive look at Bennigsen he\r
+added: "Oh yes; take the battle of Friedland, which I think the count\r
+well remembers, and which was... not fully successful, only because our\r
+troops were rearranged too near the enemy..."\r
+\r
+There followed a momentary pause, which seemed very long to them all.\r
+\r
+The discussion recommenced, but pauses frequently occurred and they all\r
+felt that there was no more to be said.\r
+\r
+During one of these pauses Kutuzov heaved a deep sigh as if preparing to\r
+speak. They all looked at him.\r
+\r
+"Well, gentlemen, I see that it is I who will have to pay for the broken\r
+crockery," said he, and rising slowly he moved to the table. "Gentlemen,\r
+I have heard your views. Some of you will not agree with me. But I," he\r
+paused, "by the authority entrusted to me by my Sovereign and country,\r
+order a retreat."\r
+\r
+After that the generals began to disperse with the solemnity and\r
+circumspect silence of people who are leaving, after a funeral.\r
+\r
+Some of the generals, in low tones and in a strain very different from\r
+the way they had spoken during the council, communicated something to\r
+their commander-in-chief.\r
+\r
+Malasha, who had long been expected for supper, climbed carefully\r
+backwards down from the oven, her bare little feet catching at its\r
+projections, and slipping between the legs of the generals she darted\r
+out of the room.\r
+\r
+When he had dismissed the generals Kutuzov sat a long time with his\r
+elbows on the table, thinking always of the same terrible question:\r
+"When, when did the abandonment of Moscow become inevitable? When was\r
+that done which settled the matter? And who was to blame for it?"\r
+\r
+"I did not expect this," said he to his adjutant Schneider when the\r
+latter came in late that night. "I did not expect this! I did not think\r
+this would happen."\r
+\r
+"You should take some rest, your Serene Highness," replied Schneider.\r
+\r
+"But no! They shall eat horseflesh yet, like the Turks!" exclaimed\r
+Kutuzov without replying, striking the table with his podgy fist. "They\r
+shall too, if only..."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+At that very time, in circumstances even more important than retreating\r
+without a battle, namely the evacuation and burning of Moscow,\r
+Rostopchin, who is usually represented as being the instigator of that\r
+event, acted in an altogether different manner from Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+After the battle of Borodino the abandonment and burning of Moscow was\r
+as inevitable as the retreat of the army beyond Moscow without fighting.\r
+\r
+Every Russian might have predicted it, not by reasoning but by the\r
+feeling implanted in each of us and in our fathers.\r
+\r
+The same thing that took place in Moscow had happened in all the towns\r
+and villages on Russian soil beginning with Smolensk, without the\r
+participation of Count Rostopchin and his broadsheets. The people\r
+awaited the enemy unconcernedly, did not riot or become excited or tear\r
+anyone to pieces, but faced its fate, feeling within it the strength to\r
+find what it should do at that most difficult moment. And as soon as the\r
+enemy drew near the wealthy classes went away abandoning their property,\r
+while the poorer remained and burned and destroyed what was left.\r
+\r
+The consciousness that this would be so and would always be so was and\r
+is present in the heart of every Russian. And a consciousness of this,\r
+and a foreboding that Moscow would be taken, was present in Russian\r
+Moscow society in 1812. Those who had quitted Moscow already in July and\r
+at the beginning of August showed that they expected this. Those who\r
+went away, taking what they could and abandoning their houses and half\r
+their belongings, did so from the latent patriotism which expresses\r
+itself not by phrases or by giving one's children to save the fatherland\r
+and similar unnatural exploits, but unobtrusively, simply, organically,\r
+and therefore in the way that always produces the most powerful results.\r
+\r
+"It is disgraceful to run away from danger; only cowards are running\r
+away from Moscow," they were told. In his broadsheets Rostopchin\r
+impressed on them that to leave Moscow was shameful. They were ashamed\r
+to be called cowards, ashamed to leave, but still they left, knowing it\r
+had to be done. Why did they go? It is impossible to suppose that\r
+Rostopchin had scared them by his accounts of horrors Napoleon had\r
+committed in conquered countries. The first people to go away were the\r
+rich educated people who knew quite well that Vienna and Berlin had\r
+remained intact and that during Napoleon's occupation the inhabitants\r
+had spent their time pleasantly in the company of the charming Frenchmen\r
+whom the Russians, and especially the Russian ladies, then liked so\r
+much.\r
+\r
+They went away because for Russians there could be no question as to\r
+whether things would go well or ill under French rule in Moscow. It was\r
+out of the question to be under French rule, it would be the worst thing\r
+that could happen. They went away even before the battle of Borodino and\r
+still more rapidly after it, despite Rostopchin's calls to defend Moscow\r
+or the announcement of his intention to take the wonder-working icon of\r
+the Iberian Mother of God and go to fight, or of the balloons that were\r
+to destroy the French, and despite all the nonsense Rostopchin wrote in\r
+his broadsheets. They knew that it was for the army to fight, and that\r
+if it could not succeed it would not do to take young ladies and house\r
+serfs to the Three Hills quarter of Moscow to fight Napoleon, and that\r
+they must go away, sorry as they were to abandon their property to\r
+destruction. They went away without thinking of the tremendous\r
+significance of that immense and wealthy city being given over to\r
+destruction, for a great city with wooden buildings was certain when\r
+abandoned by its inhabitants to be burned. They went away each on his\r
+own account, and yet it was only in consequence of their going away that\r
+the momentous event was accomplished that will always remain the\r
+greatest glory of the Russian people. The lady who, afraid of being\r
+stopped by Count Rostopchin's orders, had already in June moved with her\r
+Negroes and her women jesters from Moscow to her Saratov estate, with a\r
+vague consciousness that she was not Bonaparte's servant, was really,\r
+simply, and truly carrying out the great work which saved Russia. But\r
+Count Rostopchin, who now taunted those who left Moscow and now had the\r
+government offices removed; now distributed quite useless weapons to the\r
+drunken rabble; now had processions displaying the icons, and now\r
+forbade Father Augustin to remove icons or the relics of saints; now\r
+seized all the private carts in Moscow and on one hundred and thirty-six\r
+of them removed the balloon that was being constructed by Leppich; now\r
+hinted that he would burn Moscow and related how he had set fire to his\r
+own house; now wrote a proclamation to the French solemnly upbraiding\r
+them for having destroyed his Orphanage; now claimed the glory of having\r
+hinted that he would burn Moscow and now repudiated the deed; now\r
+ordered the people to catch all spies and bring them to him, and now\r
+reproached them for doing so; now expelled all the French residents from\r
+Moscow, and now allowed Madame Aubert-Chalme (the center of the whole\r
+French colony in Moscow) to remain, but ordered the venerable old\r
+postmaster Klyucharev to be arrested and exiled for no particular\r
+offense; now assembled the people at the Three Hills to fight the French\r
+and now, to get rid of them, handed over to them a man to be killed and\r
+himself drove away by a back gate; now declared that he would not\r
+survive the fall of Moscow, and now wrote French verses in albums\r
+concerning his share in the affair--this man did not understand the\r
+meaning of what was happening but merely wanted to do something himself\r
+that would astonish people, to perform some patriotically heroic feat;\r
+and like a child he made sport of the momentous, and unavoidable event--\r
+the abandonment and burning of Moscow--and tried with his puny hand now\r
+to speed and now to stay the enormous, popular tide that bore him along\r
+with it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+Helene, having returned with the court from Vilna to Petersburg, found\r
+herself in a difficult position.\r
+\r
+In Petersburg she had enjoyed the special protection of a grandee who\r
+occupied one of the highest posts in the Empire. In Vilna she had formed\r
+an intimacy with a young foreign prince. When she returned to Petersburg\r
+both the magnate and the prince were there, and both claimed their\r
+rights. Helene was faced by a new problem--how to preserve her intimacy\r
+with both without offending either.\r
+\r
+What would have seemed difficult or even impossible to another woman did\r
+not cause the least embarrassment to Countess Bezukhova, who evidently\r
+deserved her reputation of being a very clever woman. Had she attempted\r
+concealment, or tried to extricate herself from her awkward position by\r
+cunning, she would have spoiled her case by acknowledging herself\r
+guilty. But Helene, like a really great man who can do whatever he\r
+pleases, at once assumed her own position to be correct, as she\r
+sincerely believed it to be, and that everyone else was to blame.\r
+\r
+The first time the young foreigner allowed himself to reproach her, she\r
+lifted her beautiful head and, half turning to him, said firmly: "That's\r
+just like a man--selfish and cruel! I expected nothing else. A woman\r
+sacrifices herself for you, she suffers, and this is her reward! What\r
+right have you, monseigneur, to demand an account of my attachments and\r
+friendships? He is a man who has been more than a father to me!" The\r
+prince was about to say something, but Helene interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"Well, yes," said she, "it may be that he has other sentiments for me\r
+than those of a father, but that is not a reason for me to shut my door\r
+on him. I am not a man, that I should repay kindness with ingratitude!\r
+Know, monseigneur, that in all that relates to my intimate feelings I\r
+render account only to God and to my conscience," she concluded, laying\r
+her hand on her beautiful, fully expanded bosom and looking up to\r
+heaven.\r
+\r
+"But for heaven's sake listen to me!"\r
+\r
+"Marry me, and I will be your slave!"\r
+\r
+"But that's impossible."\r
+\r
+"You won't deign to demean yourself by marrying me, you..." said Helene,\r
+beginning to cry.\r
+\r
+The prince tried to comfort her, but Helene, as if quite distraught,\r
+said through her tears that there was nothing to prevent her marrying,\r
+that there were precedents (there were up to that time very few, but she\r
+mentioned Napoleon and some other exalted personages), that she had\r
+never been her husband's wife, and that she had been sacrificed.\r
+\r
+"But the law, religion..." said the prince, already yielding.\r
+\r
+"The law, religion... What have they been invented for if they can't\r
+arrange that?" said Helene.\r
+\r
+The prince was surprised that so simple an idea had not occurred to him,\r
+and he applied for advice to the holy brethren of the Society of Jesus,\r
+with whom he was on intimate terms.\r
+\r
+A few days later at one of those enchanting fetes which Helene gave at\r
+her country house on the Stone Island, the charming Monsieur de Jobert,\r
+a man no longer young, with snow white hair and brilliant black eyes, a\r
+Jesuit a robe courte * was presented to her, and in the garden by the\r
+light of the illuminations and to the sound of music talked to her for a\r
+long time of the love of God, of Christ, of the Sacred Heart, and of the\r
+consolations the one true Catholic religion affords in this world and\r
+the next. Helene was touched, and more than once tears rose to her eyes\r
+and to those of Monsieur de Jobert and their voices trembled. A dance,\r
+for which her partner came to seek her, put an end to her discourse with\r
+her future directeur de conscience, but the next evening Monsieur de\r
+Jobert came to see Helene when she was alone, and after that often came\r
+again.\r
+\r
+\r
+* Lay member of the Society of Jesus.\r
+\r
+One day he took the countess to a Roman Catholic church, where she knelt\r
+down before the altar to which she was led. The enchanting, middle-aged\r
+Frenchman laid his hands on her head and, as she herself afterward\r
+described it, she felt something like a fresh breeze wafted into her\r
+soul. It was explained to her that this was la grace.\r
+\r
+After that a long-frocked abbe was brought to her. She confessed to him,\r
+and he absolved her from her sins. Next day she received a box\r
+containing the Sacred Host, which was left at her house for her to\r
+partake of. A few days later Helene learned with pleasure that she had\r
+now been admitted to the true Catholic Church and that in a few days the\r
+Pope himself would hear of her and would send her a certain document.\r
+\r
+All that was done around her and to her at this time, all the attention\r
+devoted to her by so many clever men and expressed in such pleasant,\r
+refined ways, and the state of dove-like purity she was now in (she wore\r
+only white dresses and white ribbons all that time) gave her pleasure,\r
+but her pleasure did not cause her for a moment to forget her aim. And\r
+as it always happens in contests of cunning that a stupid person gets\r
+the better of cleverer ones, Helene--having realized that the main\r
+object of all these words and all this trouble was, after converting her\r
+to Catholicism, to obtain money from her for Jesuit institutions (as to\r
+which she received indications)-before parting with her money insisted\r
+that the various operations necessary to free her from her husband\r
+should be performed. In her view the aim of every religion was merely to\r
+preserve certain proprieties while affording satisfaction to human\r
+desires. And with this aim, in one of her talks with her Father\r
+Confessor, she insisted on an answer to the question, in how far was she\r
+bound by her marriage?\r
+\r
+They were sitting in the twilight by a window in the drawing room. The\r
+scent of flowers came in at the window. Helene was wearing a white\r
+dress, transparent over her shoulders and bosom. The abbe, a well-fed\r
+man with a plump, clean-shaven chin, a pleasant firm mouth, and white\r
+hands meekly folded on his knees, sat close to Helene and, with a subtle\r
+smile on his lips and a peaceful look of delight at her beauty,\r
+occasionally glanced at her face as he explained his opinion on the\r
+subject. Helene with an uneasy smile looked at his curly hair and his\r
+plump, clean-shaven, blackish cheeks and every moment expected the\r
+conversation to take a fresh turn. But the abbe, though he evidently\r
+enjoyed the beauty of his companion, was absorbed in his mastery of the\r
+matter.\r
+\r
+The course of the Father Confessor's arguments ran as follows: "Ignorant\r
+of the import of what you were undertaking, you made a vow of conjugal\r
+fidelity to a man who on his part, by entering the married state without\r
+faith in the religious significance of marriage, committed an act of\r
+sacrilege. That marriage lacked the dual significance it should have\r
+had. Yet in spite of this your vow was binding. You swerved from it.\r
+What did you commit by so acting? A venial, or a mortal, sin? A venial\r
+sin, for you acted without evil intention. If now you married again with\r
+the object of bearing children, your sin might be forgiven. But the\r
+question is again a twofold one: firstly..."\r
+\r
+But suddenly Helene, who was getting bored, said with one of her\r
+bewitching smiles: "But I think that having espoused the true religion I\r
+cannot be bound by what a false religion laid upon me."\r
+\r
+The director of her conscience was astounded at having the case\r
+presented to him thus with the simplicity of Columbus' egg. He was\r
+delighted at the unexpected rapidity of his pupil's progress, but could\r
+not abandon the edifice of argument he had laboriously constructed.\r
+\r
+"Let us understand one another, Countess," said he with a smile, and\r
+began refuting his spiritual daughter's arguments.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+Helene understood that the question was very simple and easy from the\r
+ecclesiastical point of view, and that her directors were making\r
+difficulties only because they were apprehensive as to how the matter\r
+would be regarded by the secular authorities.\r
+\r
+So she decided that it was necessary to prepare the opinion of society.\r
+She provoked the jealousy of the elderly magnate and told him what she\r
+had told her other suitor; that is, she put the matter so that the only\r
+way for him to obtain a right over her was to marry her. The elderly\r
+magnate was at first as much taken aback by this suggestion of marriage\r
+with a woman whose husband was alive, as the younger man had been, but\r
+Helene's imperturbable conviction that it was as simple and natural as\r
+marrying a maiden had its effect on him too. Had Helene herself shown\r
+the least sign of hesitation, shame, or secrecy, her cause would\r
+certainly have been lost; but not only did she show no signs of secrecy\r
+or shame, on the contrary, with good-natured naivete she told her\r
+intimate friends (and these were all Petersburg) that both the prince\r
+and the magnate had proposed to her and that she loved both and was\r
+afraid of grieving either.\r
+\r
+A rumor immediately spread in Petersburg, not that Helene wanted to be\r
+divorced from her husband (had such a report spread many would have\r
+opposed so illegal an intention) but simply that the unfortunate and\r
+interesting Helene was in doubt which of the two men she should marry.\r
+The question was no longer whether this was possible, but only which was\r
+the better match and how the matter would be regarded at court. There\r
+were, it is true, some rigid individuals unable to rise to the height of\r
+such a question, who saw in the project a desecration of the sacrament\r
+of marriage, but there were not many such and they remained silent,\r
+while the majority were interested in Helene's good fortune and in the\r
+question which match would be the more advantageous. Whether it was\r
+right or wrong to remarry while one had a husband living they did not\r
+discuss, for that question had evidently been settled by people "wiser\r
+than you or me," as they said, and to doubt the correctness of that\r
+decision would be to risk exposing one's stupidity and incapacity to\r
+live in society.\r
+\r
+Only Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, who had come to Petersburg that\r
+summer to see one of her sons, allowed herself plainly to express an\r
+opinion contrary to the general one. Meeting Helene at a ball she\r
+stopped her in the middle of the room and, amid general silence, said in\r
+her gruff voice: "So wives of living men have started marrying again!\r
+Perhaps you think you have invented a novelty? You have been\r
+forestalled, my dear! It was thought of long ago. It is done in all the\r
+brothels," and with these words Marya Dmitrievna, turning up her wide\r
+sleeves with her usual threatening gesture and glancing sternly round,\r
+moved across the room.\r
+\r
+Though people were afraid of Marya Dmitrievna she was regarded in\r
+Petersburg as a buffoon, and so of what she had said they only noticed,\r
+and repeated in a whisper, the one coarse word she had used, supposing\r
+the whole sting of her remark to lie in that word.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili, who of late very often forgot what he had said and\r
+repeated one and the same thing a hundred times, remarked to his\r
+daughter whenever he chanced to see her:\r
+\r
+"Helene, I have a word to say to you," and he would lead her aside,\r
+drawing her hand downward. "I have heard of certain projects\r
+concerning... you know. Well my dear child, you know how your father's\r
+heart rejoices to know that you... You have suffered so much.... But, my\r
+dear child, consult only your own heart. That is all I have to say," and\r
+concealing his unvarying emotion he would press his cheek against his\r
+daughter's and move away.\r
+\r
+Bilibin, who had not lost his reputation of an exceedingly clever man,\r
+and who was one of the disinterested friends so brilliant a woman as\r
+Helene always has--men friends who can never change into lovers--once\r
+gave her his view of the matter at a small and intimate gathering.\r
+\r
+"Listen, Bilibin," said Helene (she always called friends of that sort\r
+by their surnames), and she touched his coat sleeve with her white,\r
+beringed fingers. "Tell me, as you would a sister, what I ought to do.\r
+Which of the two?"\r
+\r
+Bilibin wrinkled up the skin over his eyebrows and pondered, with a\r
+smile on his lips.\r
+\r
+"You are not taking me unawares, you know," said he. "As a true friend,\r
+I have thought and thought again about your affair. You see, if you\r
+marry the prince"--he meant the younger man--and he crooked one finger,\r
+"you forever lose the chance of marrying the other, and you will\r
+displease the court besides. (You know there is some kind of\r
+connection.) But if you marry the old count you will make his last days\r
+happy, and as widow of the Grand... the prince would no longer be making\r
+a mesalliance by marrying you," and Bilibin smoothed out his forehead.\r
+\r
+"That's a true friend!" said Helene beaming, and again touching\r
+Bilibin's sleeve. "But I love them, you know, and don't want to distress\r
+either of them. I would give my life for the happiness of them both."\r
+\r
+Bilibin shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that not even he could\r
+help in that difficulty.\r
+\r
+"Une maitresse-femme! * That's what is called putting things squarely.\r
+She would like to be married to all three at the same time," thought he.\r
+\r
+\r
+* A masterly woman.\r
+\r
+"But tell me, how will your husband look at the matter?" Bilibin asked,\r
+his reputation being so well established that he did not fear to ask so\r
+naive a question. "Will he agree?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, he loves me so!" said Helene, who for some reason imagined that\r
+Pierre too loved her. "He will do anything for me."\r
+\r
+Bilibin puckered his skin in preparation for something witty.\r
+\r
+"Even divorce you?" said he.\r
+\r
+Helene laughed.\r
+\r
+Among those who ventured to doubt the justifiability of the proposed\r
+marriage was Helene's mother, Princess Kuragina. She was continually\r
+tormented by jealousy of her daughter, and now that jealousy concerned a\r
+subject near to her own heart, she could not reconcile herself to the\r
+idea. She consulted a Russian priest as to the possibility of divorce\r
+and remarriage during a husband's lifetime, and the priest told her that\r
+it was impossible, and to her delight showed her a text in the Gospel\r
+which (as it seemed to him) plainly forbids remarriage while the husband\r
+is alive.\r
+\r
+Armed with these arguments, which appeared to her unanswerable, she\r
+drove to her daughter's early one morning so as to find her alone.\r
+\r
+Having listened to her mother's objections, Helene smiled blandly and\r
+ironically.\r
+\r
+"But it says plainly: 'Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced...'"\r
+said the old princess.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Maman, ne dites pas de betises. Vous ne comprenez rien. Dans ma\r
+position j'ai des devoirs," * said Helene changing from Russian, in\r
+which language she always felt that her case did not sound quite clear,\r
+into French which suited it better.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Oh, Mamma, don't talk nonsense! You don't understand anything. In my\r
+position I have obligations."\r
+\r
+"But, my dear...."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Mamma, how is it you don't understand that the Holy Father, who has\r
+the right to grant dispensations..."\r
+\r
+Just then the lady companion who lived with Helene came in to announce\r
+that His Highness was in the ballroom and wished to see her.\r
+\r
+"Non, dites-lui que je ne veux pas le voir, que je suis furieuse contre\r
+lui, parce qu'il m'a manque parole." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "No, tell him I don't wish to see him, I am furious with him for not\r
+keeping his word to me."\r
+\r
+"Comtesse, a tout peche misericorde," * said a fair-haired young man\r
+with a long face and nose, as he entered the room.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Countess, there is mercy for every sin."\r
+\r
+The old princess rose respectfully and curtsied. The young man who had\r
+entered took no notice of her. The princess nodded to her daughter and\r
+sidled out of the room.\r
+\r
+"Yes, she is right," thought the old princess, all her convictions\r
+dissipated by the appearance of His Highness. "She is right, but how is\r
+it that we in our irrecoverable youth did not know it? Yet it is so\r
+simple," she thought as she got into her carriage.\r
+\r
+By the beginning of August Helene's affairs were clearly defined and she\r
+wrote a letter to her husband--who, as she imagined, loved her very\r
+much--informing him of her intention to marry N.N. and of her having\r
+embraced the one true faith, and asking him to carry out all the\r
+formalities necessary for a divorce, which would be explained to him by\r
+the bearer of the letter.\r
+\r
+And so I pray God to have you, my friend, in His holy and powerful\r
+keeping--Your friend Helene.\r
+\r
+This letter was brought to Pierre's house when he was on the field of\r
+Borodino.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+Toward the end of the battle of Borodino, Pierre, having run down from\r
+Raevski's battery a second time, made his way through a gully to\r
+Knyazkovo with a crowd of soldiers, reached the dressing station, and\r
+seeing blood and hearing cries and groans hurried on, still entangled in\r
+the crowds of soldiers.\r
+\r
+The one thing he now desired with his whole soul was to get away quickly\r
+from the terrible sensations amid which he had lived that day and return\r
+to ordinary conditions of life and sleep quietly in a room in his own\r
+bed. He felt that only in the ordinary conditions of life would he be\r
+able to understand himself and all he had seen and felt. But such\r
+ordinary conditions of life were nowhere to be found.\r
+\r
+Though shells and bullets did not whistle over the road along which he\r
+was going, still on all sides there was what there had been on the field\r
+of battle. There were still the same suffering, exhausted, and sometimes\r
+strangely indifferent faces, the same blood, the same soldiers'\r
+overcoats, the same sounds of firing which, though distant now, still\r
+aroused terror, and besides this there were the foul air and the dust.\r
+\r
+Having gone a couple of miles along the Mozhaysk road, Pierre sat down\r
+by the roadside.\r
+\r
+Dusk had fallen, and the roar of guns died away. Pierre lay leaning on\r
+his elbow for a long time, gazing at the shadows that moved past him in\r
+the darkness. He was continually imagining that a cannon ball was flying\r
+toward him with a terrific whizz, and then he shuddered and sat up. He\r
+had no idea how long he had been there. In the middle of the night three\r
+soldiers, having brought some firewood, settled down near him and began\r
+lighting a fire.\r
+\r
+The soldiers, who threw sidelong glances at Pierre, got the fire to burn\r
+and placed an iron pot on it into which they broke some dried bread and\r
+put a little dripping. The pleasant odor of greasy viands mingled with\r
+the smell of smoke. Pierre sat up and sighed. The three soldiers were\r
+eating and talking among themselves, taking no notice of him.\r
+\r
+"And who may you be?" one of them suddenly asked Pierre, evidently\r
+meaning what Pierre himself had in mind, namely: "If you want to eat\r
+we'll give you some food, only let us know whether you are an honest\r
+man."\r
+\r
+"I, I..." said Pierre, feeling it necessary to minimize his social\r
+position as much as possible so as to be nearer to the soldiers and\r
+better understood by them. "By rights I am a militia officer, but my men\r
+are not here. I came to the battle and have lost them."\r
+\r
+"There now!" said one of the soldiers.\r
+\r
+Another shook his head.\r
+\r
+"Would you like a little mash?" the first soldier asked, and handed\r
+Pierre a wooden spoon after licking it clean.\r
+\r
+Pierre sat down by the fire and began eating the mash, as they called\r
+the food in the cauldron, and he thought it more delicious than any food\r
+he had ever tasted. As he sat bending greedily over it, helping himself\r
+to large spoonfuls and chewing one after another, his face was lit up by\r
+the fire and the soldiers looked at him in silence.\r
+\r
+"Where have you to go to? Tell us!" said one of them.\r
+\r
+"To Mozhaysk."\r
+\r
+"You're a gentleman, aren't you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"And what's your name?"\r
+\r
+"Peter Kirilych."\r
+\r
+"Well then, Peter Kirilych, come along with us, we'll take you there."\r
+\r
+In the total darkness the soldiers walked with Pierre to Mozhaysk.\r
+\r
+By the time they got near Mozhaysk and began ascending the steep hill\r
+into the town, the cocks were already crowing. Pierre went on with the\r
+soldiers, quite forgetting that his inn was at the bottom of the hill\r
+and that he had already passed it. He would not soon have remembered\r
+this, such was his state of forgetfulness, had he not halfway up the\r
+hill stumbled upon his groom, who had been to look for him in the town\r
+and was returning to the inn. The groom recognized Pierre in the\r
+darkness by his white hat.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency!" he said. "Why, we were beginning to despair! How is\r
+it you are on foot? And where are you going, please?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes!" said Pierre.\r
+\r
+The soldiers stopped.\r
+\r
+"So you've found your folk?" said one of them. "Well, good-by, Peter\r
+Kirilych--isn't it?"\r
+\r
+"Good-bye, Peter Kirilych!" Pierre heard the other voices repeat.\r
+\r
+"Good-bye!" he said and turned with his groom toward the inn.\r
+\r
+"I ought to give them something!" he thought, and felt in his pocket.\r
+"No, better not!" said another, inner voice.\r
+\r
+There was not a room to be had at the inn, they were all occupied.\r
+Pierre went out into the yard and, covering himself up head and all, lay\r
+down in his carriage.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+Scarcely had Pierre laid his head on the pillow before he felt himself\r
+falling asleep, but suddenly, almost with the distinctness of reality,\r
+he heard the boom, boom, boom of firing, the thud of projectiles, groans\r
+and cries, and smelled blood and powder, and a feeling of horror and\r
+dread of death seized him. Filled with fright he opened his eyes and\r
+lifted his head from under his cloak. All was tranquil in the yard. Only\r
+someone's orderly passed through the gateway, splashing through the mud,\r
+and talked to the innkeeper. Above Pierre's head some pigeons, disturbed\r
+by the movement he had made in sitting up, fluttered under the dark roof\r
+of the penthouse. The whole courtyard was permeated by a strong peaceful\r
+smell of stable yards, delightful to Pierre at that moment. He could see\r
+the clear starry sky between the dark roofs of two penthouses.\r
+\r
+"Thank God, there is no more of that!" he thought, covering up his head\r
+again. "Oh, what a terrible thing is fear, and how shamefully I yielded\r
+to it! But they... they were steady and calm all the time, to the\r
+end..." thought he.\r
+\r
+They, in Pierre's mind, were the soldiers, those who had been at the\r
+battery, those who had given him food, and those who had prayed before\r
+the icon. They, those strange men he had not previously known, stood out\r
+clearly and sharply from everyone else.\r
+\r
+"To be a soldier, just a soldier!" thought Pierre as he fell asleep, "to\r
+enter communal life completely, to be imbued by what makes them what\r
+they are. But how cast off all the superfluous, devilish burden of my\r
+outer man? There was a time when I could have done it. I could have run\r
+away from my father, as I wanted to. Or I might have been sent to serve\r
+as a soldier after the duel with Dolokhov." And the memory of the dinner\r
+at the English Club when he had challenged Dolokhov flashed through\r
+Pierre's mind, and then he remembered his benefactor at Torzhok. And now\r
+a picture of a solemn meeting of the lodge presented itself to his mind.\r
+It was taking place at the English Club and someone near and dear to him\r
+sat at the end of the table. "Yes, that is he! It is my benefactor. But\r
+he died!" thought Pierre. "Yes, he died, and I did not know he was\r
+alive. How sorry I am that he died, and how glad I am that he is alive\r
+again!" On one side of the table sat Anatole, Dolokhov, Nesvitski,\r
+Denisov, and others like them (in his dream the category to which these\r
+men belonged was as clearly defined in his mind as the category of those\r
+he termed they), and he heard those people, Anatole and Dolokhov,\r
+shouting and singing loudly; yet through their shouting the voice of his\r
+benefactor was heard speaking all the time and the sound of his words\r
+was as weighty and uninterrupted as the booming on the battlefield, but\r
+pleasant and comforting. Pierre did not understand what his benefactor\r
+was saying, but he knew (the categories of thoughts were also quite\r
+distinct in his dream) that he was talking of goodness and the\r
+possibility of being what they were. And they with their simple, kind,\r
+firm faces surrounded his benefactor on all sides. But though they were\r
+kindly they did not look at Pierre and did not know him. Wishing to\r
+speak and to attract their attention, he got up, but at that moment his\r
+legs grew cold and bare.\r
+\r
+He felt ashamed, and with one arm covered his legs from which his cloak\r
+had in fact slipped. For a moment as he was rearranging his cloak Pierre\r
+opened his eyes and saw the same penthouse roofs, posts, and yard, but\r
+now they were all bluish, lit up, and glittering with frost or dew.\r
+\r
+"It is dawn," thought Pierre. "But that's not what I want. I want to\r
+hear and understand my benefactor's words." Again he covered himself up\r
+with his cloak, but now neither the lodge nor his benefactor was there.\r
+There were only thoughts clearly expressed in words, thoughts that\r
+someone was uttering or that he himself was formulating.\r
+\r
+Afterwards when he recalled those thoughts Pierre was convinced that\r
+someone outside himself had spoken them, though the impressions of that\r
+day had evoked them. He had never, it seemed to him, been able to think\r
+and express his thoughts like that when awake.\r
+\r
+"To endure war is the most difficult subordination of man's freedom to\r
+the law of God," the voice had said. "Simplicity is submission to the\r
+will of God; you cannot escape from Him. And they are simple. They do\r
+not talk, but act. The spoken word is silver but the unspoken is golden.\r
+Man can be master of nothing while he fears death, but he who does not\r
+fear it possesses all. If there were no suffering, man would not know\r
+his limitations, would not know himself. The hardest thing (Pierre went\r
+on thinking, or hearing, in his dream) is to be able in your soul to\r
+unite the meaning of all. To unite all?" he asked himself. "No, not to\r
+unite. Thoughts cannot be united, but to harness all these thoughts\r
+together is what we need! Yes, one must harness them, must harness\r
+them!" he repeated to himself with inward rapture, feeling that these\r
+words and they alone expressed what he wanted to say and solved the\r
+question that tormented him.\r
+\r
+"Yes, one must harness, it is time to harness."\r
+\r
+"Time to harness, time to harness, your excellency! Your excellency!"\r
+some voice was repeating. "We must harness, it is time to harness...."\r
+\r
+It was the voice of the groom, trying to wake him. The sun shone\r
+straight into Pierre's face. He glanced at the dirty innyard in the\r
+middle of which soldiers were watering their lean horses at the pump\r
+while carts were passing out of the gate. Pierre turned away with\r
+repugnance, and closing his eyes quickly fell back on the carriage seat.\r
+"No, I don't want that, I don't want to see and understand that. I want\r
+to understand what was revealing itself to me in my dream. One second\r
+more and I should have understood it all! But what am I to do? Harness,\r
+but how can I harness everything?" and Pierre felt with horror that the\r
+meaning of all he had seen and thought in the dream had been destroyed.\r
+\r
+The groom, the coachman, and the innkeeper told Pierre that an officer\r
+had come with news that the French were already near Mozhaysk and that\r
+our men were leaving it.\r
+\r
+Pierre got up and, having told them to harness and overtake him, went on\r
+foot through the town.\r
+\r
+The troops were moving on, leaving about ten thousand wounded behind\r
+them. There were wounded in the yards, at the windows of the houses, and\r
+the streets were crowded with them. In the streets, around carts that\r
+were to take some of the wounded away, shouts, curses, and blows could\r
+be heard. Pierre offered the use of his carriage, which had overtaken\r
+him, to a wounded general he knew, and drove with him to Moscow. On the\r
+way Pierre was told of the death of his brother-in-law Anatole and of\r
+that of Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+On the thirteenth of August Pierre reached Moscow. Close to the gates of\r
+the city he was met by Count Rostopchin's adjutant.\r
+\r
+"We have been looking for you everywhere," said the adjutant. "The count\r
+wants to see you particularly. He asks you to come to him at once on a\r
+very important matter."\r
+\r
+Without going home, Pierre took a cab and drove to see the Moscow\r
+commander-in-chief.\r
+\r
+Count Rostopchin had only that morning returned to town from his summer\r
+villa at Sokolniki. The anteroom and reception room of his house were\r
+full of officials who had been summoned or had come for orders.\r
+Vasilchikov and Platov had already seen the count and explained to him\r
+that it was impossible to defend Moscow and that it would have to be\r
+surrendered. Though this news was being concealed from the inhabitants,\r
+the officials--the heads of the various government departments--knew\r
+that Moscow would soon be in the enemy's hands, just as Count Rostopchin\r
+himself knew it, and to escape personal responsibility they had all come\r
+to the governor to ask how they were to deal with their various\r
+departments.\r
+\r
+As Pierre was entering the reception room a courier from the army came\r
+out of Rostopchin's private room.\r
+\r
+In answer to questions with which he was greeted, the courier made a\r
+despairing gesture with his hand and passed through the room.\r
+\r
+While waiting in the reception room Pierre with weary eyes watched the\r
+various officials, old and young, military and civilian, who were there.\r
+They all seemed dissatisfied and uneasy. Pierre went up to a group of\r
+men, one of whom he knew. After greeting Pierre they continued their\r
+conversation.\r
+\r
+"If they're sent out and brought back again later on it will do no harm,\r
+but as things are now one can't answer for anything."\r
+\r
+"But you see what he writes..." said another, pointing to a printed\r
+sheet he held in his hand.\r
+\r
+"That's another matter. That's necessary for the people," said the\r
+first.\r
+\r
+"What is it?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Oh, it's a fresh broadsheet."\r
+\r
+Pierre took it and began reading.\r
+\r
+His Serene Highness has passed through Mozhaysk in order to join up with\r
+the troops moving toward him and has taken up a strong position where\r
+the enemy will not soon attack him. Forty eight guns with ammunition\r
+have been sent him from here, and his Serene Highness says he will\r
+defend Moscow to the last drop of blood and is even ready to fight in\r
+the streets. Do not be upset, brothers, that the law courts are closed;\r
+things have to be put in order, and we will deal with villains in our\r
+own way! When the time comes I shall want both town and peasant lads and\r
+will raise the cry a day or two beforehand, but they are not wanted yet\r
+so I hold my peace. An ax will be useful, a hunting spear not bad, but a\r
+three-pronged fork will be best of all: a Frenchman is no heavier than a\r
+sheaf of rye. Tomorrow after dinner I shall take the Iberian icon of the\r
+Mother of God to the wounded in the Catherine Hospital where we will\r
+have some water blessed. That will help them to get well quicker. I,\r
+too, am well now: one of my eyes was sore but now I am on the lookout\r
+with both.\r
+\r
+"But military men have told me that it is impossible to fight in the\r
+town," said Pierre, "and that the position..."\r
+\r
+"Well, of course! That's what we were saying," replied the first\r
+speaker.\r
+\r
+"And what does he mean by 'One of my eyes was sore but now I am on the\r
+lookout with both'?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"The count had a sty," replied the adjutant smiling, "and was very much\r
+upset when I told him people had come to ask what was the matter with\r
+him. By the by, Count," he added suddenly, addressing Pierre with a\r
+smile, "we heard that you have family troubles and that the countess,\r
+your wife..."\r
+\r
+"I have heard nothing," Pierre replied unconcernedly. "But what have you\r
+heard?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, well, you know people often invent things. I only say what I\r
+heard."\r
+\r
+"But what did you hear?"\r
+\r
+"Well, they say," continued the adjutant with the same smile, "that the\r
+countess, your wife, is preparing to go abroad. I expect it's\r
+nonsense...."\r
+\r
+"Possibly," remarked Pierre, looking about him absent-mindedly. "And who\r
+is that?" he asked, indicating a short old man in a clean blue peasant\r
+overcoat, with a big snow-white beard and eyebrows and a ruddy face.\r
+\r
+"He? That's a tradesman, that is to say, he's the restaurant keeper,\r
+Vereshchagin. Perhaps you have heard of that affair with the\r
+proclamation."\r
+\r
+"Oh, so that is Vereshchagin!" said Pierre, looking at the firm, calm\r
+face of the old man and seeking any indication of his being a traitor.\r
+\r
+"That's not he himself, that's the father of the fellow who wrote the\r
+proclamation," said the adjutant. "The young man is in prison and I\r
+expect it will go hard with him."\r
+\r
+An old gentleman wearing a star and another official, a German wearing a\r
+cross round his neck, approached the speaker.\r
+\r
+\r
+"It's a complicated story, you know," said the adjutant. "That\r
+proclamation appeared about two months ago. The count was informed of\r
+it. He gave orders to investigate the matter. Gabriel Ivanovich here\r
+made the inquiries. The proclamation had passed through exactly sixty-\r
+three hands. He asked one, 'From whom did you get it?' 'From so-and-so.'\r
+He went to the next one. 'From whom did you get it?' and so on till he\r
+reached Vereshchagin, a half educated tradesman, you know, 'a pet of a\r
+trader,'" said the adjutant smiling. "They asked him, 'Who gave it you?'\r
+And the point is that we knew whom he had it from. He could only have\r
+had it from the Postmaster. But evidently they had come to some\r
+understanding. He replied: 'From no one; I made it up myself.' They\r
+threatened and questioned him, but he stuck to that: 'I made it up\r
+myself.' And so it was reported to the count, who sent for the man.\r
+'From whom did you get the proclamation?' 'I wrote it myself.' Well, you\r
+know the count," said the adjutant cheerfully, with a smile of pride,\r
+"he flared up dreadfully--and just think of the fellow's audacity,\r
+lying, and obstinacy!"\r
+\r
+"And the count wanted him to say it was from Klyucharev? I understand!"\r
+said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Not at all," rejoined the adjutant in dismay. "Klyucharev had his own\r
+sins to answer for without that and that is why he has been banished.\r
+But the point is that the count was much annoyed. 'How could you have\r
+written it yourself?' said he, and he took up the Hamburg Gazette that\r
+was lying on the table. 'Here it is! You did not write it yourself but\r
+translated it, and translated it abominably, because you don't even know\r
+French, you fool.' And what do you think? 'No,' said he, 'I have not\r
+read any papers, I made it up myself.' 'If that's so, you're a traitor\r
+and I'll have you tried, and you'll be hanged! Say from whom you had\r
+it.' 'I have seen no papers, I made it up myself.' And that was the end\r
+of it. The count had the father fetched, but the fellow stuck to it. He\r
+was sent for trial and condemned to hard labor, I believe. Now the\r
+father has come to intercede for him. But he's a good-for-nothing lad!\r
+You know that sort of tradesman's son, a dandy and lady-killer. He\r
+attended some lectures somewhere and imagines that the devil is no match\r
+for him. That's the sort of fellow he is. His father keeps a cookshop\r
+here by the Stone Bridge, and you know there was a large icon of God\r
+Almighty painted with a scepter in one hand and an orb in the other.\r
+Well, he took that icon home with him for a few days and what did he do?\r
+He found some scoundrel of a painter..."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+In the middle of this fresh tale Pierre was summoned to the commander in\r
+chief.\r
+\r
+When he entered the private room Count Rostopchin, puckering his face,\r
+was rubbing his forehead and eyes with his hand. A short man was saying\r
+something, but when Pierre entered he stopped speaking and went out.\r
+\r
+"Ah, how do you do, great warrior?" said Rostopchin as soon as the short\r
+man had left the room. "We have heard of your prowess. But that's not\r
+the point. Between ourselves, mon cher, do you belong to the Masons?" he\r
+went on severely, as though there were something wrong about it which he\r
+nevertheless intended to pardon. Pierre remained silent. "I am well\r
+informed, my friend, but I am aware that there are Masons and I hope\r
+that you are not one of those who on pretense of saving mankind wish to\r
+ruin Russia."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I am a Mason," Pierre replied.\r
+\r
+"There, you see, mon cher! I expect you know that Messrs. Speranski and\r
+Magnitski have been deported to their proper place. Mr. Klyucharev has\r
+been treated in the same way, and so have others who on the plea of\r
+building up the temple of Solomon have tried to destroy the temple of\r
+their fatherland. You can understand that there are reasons for this and\r
+that I could not have exiled the Postmaster had he not been a harmful\r
+person. It has now come to my knowledge that you lent him your carriage\r
+for his removal from town, and that you have even accepted papers from\r
+him for safe custody. I like you and don't wish you any harm and--as you\r
+are only half my age--I advise you, as a father would, to cease all\r
+communication with men of that stamp and to leave here as soon as\r
+possible."\r
+\r
+"But what did Klyucharev do wrong, Count?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"That is for me to know, but not for you to ask," shouted Rostopchin.\r
+\r
+"If he is accused of circulating Napoleon's proclamation it is not\r
+proved that he did so," said Pierre without looking at Rostopchin, "and\r
+Vereshchagin..."\r
+\r
+"There we are!" Rostopchin shouted at Pierre louder than before,\r
+frowning suddenly. "Vereshchagin is a renegade and a traitor who will be\r
+punished as he deserves," said he with the vindictive heat with which\r
+people speak when recalling an insult. "But I did not summon you to\r
+discuss my actions, but to give you advice--or an order if you prefer\r
+it. I beg you to leave the town and break off all communication with\r
+such men as Klyucharev. And I will knock the nonsense out of anybody"--\r
+but probably realizing that he was shouting at Bezukhov who so far was\r
+not guilty of anything, he added, taking Pierre's hand in a friendly\r
+manner, "We are on the eve of a public disaster and I haven't time to be\r
+polite to everybody who has business with me. My head is sometimes in a\r
+whirl. Well, mon cher, what are you doing personally?"\r
+\r
+"Why, nothing," answered Pierre without raising his eyes or changing the\r
+thoughtful expression of his face.\r
+\r
+The count frowned.\r
+\r
+"A word of friendly advice, mon cher. Be off as soon as you can, that's\r
+all I have to tell you. Happy he who has ears to hear. Good-bye, my dear\r
+fellow. Oh, by the by!" he shouted through the doorway after Pierre, "is\r
+it true that the countess has fallen into the clutches of the holy\r
+fathers of the Society of Jesus?"\r
+\r
+Pierre did not answer and left Rostopchin's room more sullen and angry\r
+than he had ever before shown himself.\r
+\r
+When he reached home it was already getting dark. Some eight people had\r
+come to see him that evening: the secretary of a committee, the colonel\r
+of his battalion, his steward, his major-domo, and various petitioners.\r
+They all had business with Pierre and wanted decisions from him. Pierre\r
+did not understand and was not interested in any of these questions and\r
+only answered them in order to get rid of these people. When left alone\r
+at last he opened and read his wife's letter.\r
+\r
+"They, the soldiers at the battery, Prince Andrew killed... that old\r
+man... Simplicity is submission to God. Suffering is necessary... the\r
+meaning of all... one must harness... my wife is getting married... One\r
+must forget and understand..." And going to his bed he threw himself on\r
+it without undressing and immediately fell asleep.\r
+\r
+When he awoke next morning the major-domo came to inform him that a\r
+special messenger, a police officer, had come from Count Rostopchin to\r
+know whether Count Bezukhov had left or was leaving the town.\r
+\r
+A dozen persons who had business with Pierre were awaiting him in the\r
+drawing room. Pierre dressed hurriedly and, instead of going to see\r
+them, went to the back porch and out through the gate.\r
+\r
+From that time till the end of the destruction of Moscow no one of\r
+Bezukhov's household, despite all the search they made, saw Pierre again\r
+or knew where he was.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+The Rostovs remained in Moscow till the first of September, that is,\r
+till the eve of the enemy's entry into the city.\r
+\r
+After Petya had joined Obolenski's regiment of Cossacks and left for\r
+Belaya Tserkov where that regiment was forming, the countess was seized\r
+with terror. The thought that both her sons were at the war, had both\r
+gone from under her wing, that today or tomorrow either or both of them\r
+might be killed like the three sons of one of her acquaintances, struck\r
+her that summer for the first time with cruel clearness. She tried to\r
+get Nicholas back and wished to go herself to join Petya, or to get him\r
+an appointment somewhere in Petersburg, but neither of these proved\r
+possible. Petya could not return unless his regiment did so or unless he\r
+was transferred to another regiment on active service. Nicholas was\r
+somewhere with the army and had not sent a word since his last letter,\r
+in which he had given a detailed account of his meeting with Princess\r
+Mary. The countess did not sleep at night, or when she did fall asleep\r
+dreamed that she saw her sons lying dead. After many consultations and\r
+conversations, the count at last devised means to tranquillize her. He\r
+got Petya transferred from Obolenski's regiment to Bezukhov's, which was\r
+in training near Moscow. Though Petya would remain in the service, this\r
+transfer would give the countess the consolation of seeing at least one\r
+of her sons under her wing, and she hoped to arrange matters for her\r
+Petya so as not to let him go again, but always get him appointed to\r
+places where he could not possibly take part in a battle. As long as\r
+Nicholas alone was in danger the countess imagined that she loved her\r
+first-born more than all her other children and even reproached herself\r
+for it; but when her youngest: the scapegrace who had been bad at\r
+lessons, was always breaking things in the house and making himself a\r
+nuisance to everybody, that snub-nosed Petya with his merry black eyes\r
+and fresh rosy cheeks where soft down was just beginning to show--when\r
+he was thrown amid those big, dreadful, cruel men who were fighting\r
+somewhere about something and apparently finding pleasure in it--then\r
+his mother thought she loved him more, much more, than all her other\r
+children. The nearer the time came for Petya to return, the more uneasy\r
+grew the countess. She began to think she would never live to see such\r
+happiness. The presence of Sonya, of her beloved Natasha, or even of her\r
+husband irritated her. "What do I want with them? I want no one but\r
+Petya," she thought.\r
+\r
+At the end of August the Rostovs received another letter from Nicholas.\r
+He wrote from the province of Voronezh where he had been sent to procure\r
+remounts, but that letter did not set the countess at ease. Knowing that\r
+one son was out of danger she became the more anxious about Petya.\r
+\r
+Though by the twentieth of August nearly all the Rostovs' acquaintances\r
+had left Moscow, and though everybody tried to persuade the countess to\r
+get away as quickly as possible, she would not hear of leaving before\r
+her treasure, her adored Petya, returned. On the twenty-eighth of August\r
+he arrived. The passionate tenderness with which his mother received him\r
+did not please the sixteen-year-old officer. Though she concealed from\r
+him her intention of keeping him under her wing, Petya guessed her\r
+designs, and instinctively fearing that he might give way to emotion\r
+when with her--might "become womanish" as he termed it to himself--he\r
+treated her coldly, avoided her, and during his stay in Moscow attached\r
+himself exclusively to Natasha for whom he had always had a particularly\r
+brotherly tenderness, almost lover-like.\r
+\r
+Owing to the count's customary carelessness nothing was ready for their\r
+departure by the twenty-eighth of August and the carts that were to come\r
+from their Ryazan and Moscow estates to remove their household\r
+belongings did not arrive till the thirtieth.\r
+\r
+From the twenty-eighth till the thirty-first all Moscow was in a bustle\r
+and commotion. Every day thousands of men wounded at Borodino were\r
+brought in by the Dorogomilov gate and taken to various parts of Moscow,\r
+and thousands of carts conveyed the inhabitants and their possessions\r
+out by the other gates. In spite of Rostopchin's broadsheets, or because\r
+of them or independently of them, the strangest and most contradictory\r
+rumors were current in the town. Some said that no one was to be allowed\r
+to leave the city, others on the contrary said that all the icons had\r
+been taken out of the churches and everybody was to be ordered to leave.\r
+Some said there had been another battle after Borodino at which the\r
+French had been routed, while others on the contrary reported that the\r
+Russian army had been destroyed. Some talked about the Moscow militia\r
+which, preceded by the clergy, would go to the Three Hills; others\r
+whispered that Augustin had been forbidden to leave, that traitors had\r
+been seized, that the peasants were rioting and robbing people on their\r
+way from Moscow, and so on. But all this was only talk; in reality\r
+(though the Council of Fili, at which it was decided to abandon Moscow,\r
+had not yet been held) both those who went away and those who remained\r
+behind felt, though they did not show it, that Moscow would certainly be\r
+abandoned, and that they ought to get away as quickly as possible and\r
+save their belongings. It was felt that everything would suddenly break\r
+up and change, but up to the first of September nothing had done so. As\r
+a criminal who is being led to execution knows that he must die\r
+immediately, but yet looks about him and straightens the cap that is\r
+awry on his head, so Moscow involuntarily continued its wonted life,\r
+though it knew that the time of its destruction was near when the\r
+conditions of life to which its people were accustomed to submit would\r
+be completely upset.\r
+\r
+During the three days preceding the occupation of Moscow the whole\r
+Rostov family was absorbed in various activities. The head of the\r
+family, Count Ilya Rostov, continually drove about the city collecting\r
+the current rumors from all sides and gave superficial and hasty orders\r
+at home about the preparations for their departure.\r
+\r
+The countess watched the things being packed, was dissatisfied with\r
+everything, was constantly in pursuit of Petya who was always running\r
+away from her, and was jealous of Natasha with whom he spent all his\r
+time. Sonya alone directed the practical side of matters by getting\r
+things packed. But of late Sonya had been particularly sad and silent.\r
+Nicholas' letter in which he mentioned Princess Mary had elicited, in\r
+her presence, joyous comments from the countess, who saw an intervention\r
+of Providence in this meeting of the princess and Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"I was never pleased at Bolkonski's engagement to Natasha," said the\r
+countess, "but I always wanted Nicholas to marry the princess, and had a\r
+presentiment that it would happen. What a good thing it would be!"\r
+\r
+Sonya felt that this was true: that the only possibility of retrieving\r
+the Rostovs' affairs was by Nicholas marrying a rich woman, and that the\r
+princess was a good match. It was very bitter for her. But despite her\r
+grief, or perhaps just because of it, she took on herself all the\r
+difficult work of directing the storing and packing of their things and\r
+was busy for whole days. The count and countess turned to her when they\r
+had any orders to give. Petya and Natasha on the contrary, far from\r
+helping their parents, were generally a nuisance and a hindrance to\r
+everyone. Almost all day long the house resounded with their running\r
+feet, their cries, and their spontaneous laughter. They laughed and were\r
+gay not because there was any reason to laugh, but because gaiety and\r
+mirth were in their hearts and so everything that happened was a cause\r
+for gaiety and laughter to them. Petya was in high spirits because\r
+having left home a boy he had returned (as everybody told him) a fine\r
+young man, because he was at home, because he had left Belaya Tserkov\r
+where there was no hope of soon taking part in a battle and had come to\r
+Moscow where there was to be fighting in a few days, and chiefly because\r
+Natasha, whose lead he always followed, was in high spirits. Natasha was\r
+gay because she had been sad too long and now nothing reminded her of\r
+the cause of her sadness, and because she was feeling well. She was also\r
+happy because she had someone to adore her: the adoration of others was\r
+a lubricant the wheels of her machine needed to make them run freely--\r
+and Petya adored her. Above all, they were gay because there was a war\r
+near Moscow, there would be fighting at the town gates, arms were being\r
+given out, everybody was escaping--going away somewhere, and in general\r
+something extraordinary was happening, and that is always exciting,\r
+especially to the young.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+On Saturday, the thirty-first of August, everything in the Rostovs'\r
+house seemed topsy-turvy. All the doors were open, all the furniture was\r
+being carried out or moved about, and the mirrors and pictures had been\r
+taken down. There were trunks in the rooms, and hay, wrapping paper, and\r
+ropes were scattered about. The peasants and house serfs carrying out\r
+the things were treading heavily on the parquet floors. The yard was\r
+crowded with peasant carts, some loaded high and already corded up,\r
+others still empty.\r
+\r
+The voices and footsteps of the many servants and of the peasants who\r
+had come with the carts resounded as they shouted to one another in the\r
+yard and in the house. The count had been out since morning. The\r
+countess had a headache brought on by all the noise and turmoil and was\r
+lying down in the new sitting room with a vinegar compress on her head.\r
+Petya was not at home, he had gone to visit a friend with whom he meant\r
+to obtain a transfer from the militia to the active army. Sonya was in\r
+the ballroom looking after the packing of the glass and china. Natasha\r
+was sitting on the floor of her dismantled room with dresses, ribbons,\r
+and scarves strewn all about her, gazing fixedly at the floor and\r
+holding in her hands the old ball dress (already out of fashion) which\r
+she had worn at her first Petersburg ball.\r
+\r
+Natasha was ashamed of doing nothing when everyone else was so busy, and\r
+several times that morning had tried to set to work, but her heart was\r
+not in it, and she could not and did not know how to do anything except\r
+with all her heart and all her might. For a while she had stood beside\r
+Sonya while the china was being packed and tried to help, but soon gave\r
+it up and went to her room to pack her own things. At first she found it\r
+amusing to give away dresses and ribbons to the maids, but when that was\r
+done and what was left had still to be packed, she found it dull.\r
+\r
+"Dunyasha, you pack! You will, won't you, dear?" And when Dunyasha\r
+willingly promised to do it all for her, Natasha sat down on the floor,\r
+took her old ball dress, and fell into a reverie quite unrelated to what\r
+ought to have occupied her thoughts now. She was roused from her reverie\r
+by the talk of the maids in the next room (which was theirs) and by the\r
+sound of their hurried footsteps going to the back porch. Natasha got up\r
+and looked out of the window. An enormously long row of carts full of\r
+wounded men had stopped in the street.\r
+\r
+The housekeeper, the old nurse, the cooks, coachmen, maids, footmen,\r
+postilions, and scullions stood at the gate, staring at the wounded.\r
+\r
+Natasha, throwing a clean pocket handkerchief over her hair and holding\r
+an end of it in each hand, went out into the street.\r
+\r
+The former housekeeper, old Mavra Kuzminichna, had stepped out of the\r
+crowd by the gate, gone up to a cart with a hood constructed of bast\r
+mats, and was speaking to a pale young officer who lay inside. Natasha\r
+moved a few steps forward and stopped shyly, still holding her\r
+handkerchief, and listened to what the housekeeper was saying.\r
+\r
+"Then you have nobody in Moscow?" she was saying. "You would be more\r
+comfortable somewhere in a house... in ours, for instance... the family\r
+are leaving."\r
+\r
+"I don't know if it would be allowed," replied the officer in a weak\r
+voice. "Here is our commanding officer... ask him," and he pointed to a\r
+stout major who was walking back along the street past the row of carts.\r
+\r
+Natasha glanced with frightened eyes at the face of the wounded officer\r
+and at once went to meet the major.\r
+\r
+"May the wounded men stay in our house?" she asked.\r
+\r
+The major raised his hand to his cap with a smile.\r
+\r
+"Which one do you want, Ma'am'selle?" said he, screwing up his eyes and\r
+smiling.\r
+\r
+Natasha quietly repeated her question, and her face and whole manner\r
+were so serious, though she was still holding the ends of her\r
+handkerchief, that the major ceased smiling and after some reflection--\r
+as if considering in how far the thing was possible--replied in the\r
+affirmative.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, why not? They may," he said.\r
+\r
+With a slight inclination of her head, Natasha stepped back quickly to\r
+Mavra Kuzminichna, who stood talking compassionately to the officer.\r
+\r
+"They may. He says they may!" whispered Natasha.\r
+\r
+The cart in which the officer lay was turned into the Rostovs' yard, and\r
+dozens of carts with wounded men began at the invitation of the\r
+townsfolk to turn into the yards and to draw up at the entrances of the\r
+houses in Povarskaya Street. Natasha was evidently pleased to be dealing\r
+with new people outside the ordinary routine of her life. She and Mavra\r
+Kuzminichna tried to get as many of the wounded as possible into their\r
+yard.\r
+\r
+"Your Papa must be told, though," said Mavra Kuzminichna.\r
+\r
+"Never mind, never mind, what does it matter? For one day we can move\r
+into the drawing room. They can have all our half of the house."\r
+\r
+"There now, young lady, you do take things into your head! Even if we\r
+put them into the wing, the men's room, or the nurse's room, we must ask\r
+permission."\r
+\r
+"Well, I'll ask."\r
+\r
+Natasha ran into the house and went on tiptoe through the half-open door\r
+into the sitting room, where there was a smell of vinegar and Hoffman's\r
+drops.\r
+\r
+"Are you asleep, Mamma?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, what sleep-?" said the countess, waking up just as she was dropping\r
+into a doze.\r
+\r
+"Mamma darling!" said Natasha, kneeling by her mother and bringing her\r
+face close to her mother's, "I am sorry, forgive me, I'll never do it\r
+again; I woke you up! Mavra Kuzminichna has sent me: they have brought\r
+some wounded here--officers. Will you let them come? They have nowhere\r
+to go. I knew you'd let them come!" she said quickly all in one breath.\r
+\r
+"What officers? Whom have they brought? I don't understand anything\r
+about it," said the countess.\r
+\r
+Natasha laughed, and the countess too smiled slightly.\r
+\r
+"I knew you'd give permission... so I'll tell them," and, having kissed\r
+her mother, Natasha got up and went to the door.\r
+\r
+In the hall she met her father, who had returned with bad news.\r
+\r
+"We've stayed too long!" said the count with involuntary vexation. "The\r
+club is closed and the police are leaving."\r
+\r
+"Papa, is it all right--I've invited some of the wounded into the\r
+house?" said Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Of course it is," he answered absently. "That's not the point. I beg\r
+you not to indulge in trifles now, but to help to pack, and tomorrow we\r
+must go, go, go!...."\r
+\r
+And the count gave a similar order to the major-domo and the servants.\r
+\r
+At dinner Petya having returned home told them the news he had heard. He\r
+said the people had been getting arms in the Kremlin, and that though\r
+Rostopchin's broadsheet had said that he would sound a call two or three\r
+days in advance, the order had certainly already been given for everyone\r
+to go armed to the Three Hills tomorrow, and that there would be a big\r
+battle there.\r
+\r
+The countess looked with timid horror at her son's eager, excited face\r
+as he said this. She realized that if she said a word about his not\r
+going to the battle (she knew he enjoyed the thought of the impending\r
+engagement) he would say something about men, honor, and the fatherland-\r
+-something senseless, masculine, and obstinate which there would be no\r
+contradicting, and her plans would be spoiled; and so, hoping to arrange\r
+to leave before then and take Petya with her as their protector and\r
+defender, she did not answer him, but after dinner called the count\r
+aside and implored him with tears to take her away quickly, that very\r
+night if possible. With a woman's involuntary loving cunning she, who\r
+till then had not shown any alarm, said that she would die of fright if\r
+they did not leave that very night. Without any pretense she was now\r
+afraid of everything.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+Madame Schoss, who had been out to visit her daughter, increased the\r
+countess' fears still more by telling what she had seen at a spirit\r
+dealer's in Myasnitski Street. When returning by that street she had\r
+been unable to pass because of a drunken crowd rioting in front of the\r
+shop. She had taken a cab and driven home by a side street and the\r
+cabman had told her that the people were breaking open the barrels at\r
+the drink store, having received orders to do so.\r
+\r
+After dinner the whole Rostov household set to work with enthusiastic\r
+haste packing their belongings and preparing for their departure. The\r
+old count, suddenly setting to work, kept passing from the yard to the\r
+house and back again, shouting confused instructions to the hurrying\r
+people, and flurrying them still more. Petya directed things in the\r
+yard. Sonya, owing to the count's contradictory orders, lost her head\r
+and did not know what to do. The servants ran noisily about the house\r
+and yard, shouting and disputing. Natasha, with the ardor characteristic\r
+of all she did suddenly set to work too. At first her intervention in\r
+the business of packing was received skeptically. Everybody expected\r
+some prank from her and did not wish to obey her; but she resolutely and\r
+passionately demanded obedience, grew angry and nearly cried because\r
+they did not heed her, and at last succeeded in making them believe her.\r
+Her first exploit, which cost her immense effort and established her\r
+authority, was the packing of the carpets. The count had valuable\r
+Gobelin tapestries and Persian carpets in the house. When Natasha set to\r
+work two cases were standing open in the ballroom, one almost full up\r
+with crockery, the other with carpets. There was also much china\r
+standing on the tables, and still more was being brought in from the\r
+storeroom. A third case was needed and servants had gone to fetch it.\r
+\r
+"Sonya, wait a bit--we'll pack everything into these," said Natasha.\r
+\r
+"You can't, Miss, we have tried to," said the butler's assistant.\r
+\r
+"No, wait a minute, please."\r
+\r
+And Natasha began rapidly taking out of the case dishes and plates\r
+wrapped in paper.\r
+\r
+"The dishes must go in here among the carpets," said she.\r
+\r
+"Why, it's a mercy if we can get the carpets alone into three cases,"\r
+said the butler's assistant.\r
+\r
+"Oh, wait, please!" And Natasha began rapidly and deftly sorting out the\r
+things. "These aren't needed," said she, putting aside some plates of\r
+Kiev ware. "These--yes, these must go among the carpets," she said,\r
+referring to the Saxony china dishes.\r
+\r
+"Don't, Natasha! Leave it alone! We'll get it all packed," urged Sonya\r
+reproachfully.\r
+\r
+"What a young lady she is!" remarked the major-domo.\r
+\r
+But Natasha would not give in. She turned everything out and began\r
+quickly repacking, deciding that the inferior Russian carpets and\r
+unnecessary crockery should not be taken at all. When everything had\r
+been taken out of the cases, they recommenced packing, and it turned out\r
+that when the cheaper things not worth taking had nearly all been\r
+rejected, the valuable ones really did all go into the two cases. Only\r
+the lid of the case containing the carpets would not shut down. A few\r
+more things might have been taken out, but Natasha insisted on having\r
+her own way. She packed, repacked, pressed, made the butler's assistant\r
+and Petya--whom she had drawn into the business of packing--press on the\r
+lid, and made desperate efforts herself.\r
+\r
+"That's enough, Natasha," said Sonya. "I see you were right, but just\r
+take out the top one."\r
+\r
+"I won't!" cried Natasha, with one hand holding back the hair that hung\r
+over her perspiring face, while with the other she pressed down the\r
+carpets. "Now press, Petya! Press, Vasilich, press hard!" she cried.\r
+\r
+The carpets yielded and the lid closed; Natasha, clapping her hands,\r
+screamed with delight and tears fell from her eyes. But this only lasted\r
+a moment. She at once set to work afresh and they now trusted her\r
+completely. The count was not angry even when they told him that Natasha\r
+had countermanded an order of his, and the servants now came to her to\r
+ask whether a cart was sufficiently loaded, and whether it might be\r
+corded up. Thanks to Natasha's directions the work now went on\r
+expeditiously, unnecessary things were left, and the most valuable\r
+packed as compactly as possible.\r
+\r
+But hard as they all worked till quite late that night, they could not\r
+get everything packed. The countess had fallen asleep and the count,\r
+having put off their departure till next morning, went to bed.\r
+\r
+Sonya and Natasha slept in the sitting room without undressing.\r
+\r
+That night another wounded man was driven down the Povarskaya, and Mavra\r
+Kuzminichna, who was standing at the gate, had him brought into the\r
+Rostovs' yard. Mavra Kuzminichna concluded that he was a very important\r
+man. He was being conveyed in a caleche with a raised hood, and was\r
+quite covered by an apron. On the box beside the driver sat a venerable\r
+old attendant. A doctor and two soldiers followed the carriage in a\r
+cart.\r
+\r
+"Please come in here. The masters are going away and the whole house\r
+will be empty," said the old woman to the old attendant.\r
+\r
+"Well, perhaps," said he with a sigh. "We don't expect to get him home\r
+alive! We have a house of our own in Moscow, but it's a long way from\r
+here, and there's nobody living in it."\r
+\r
+"Do us the honor to come in, there's plenty of everything in the\r
+master's house. Come in," said Mavra Kuzminichna. "Is he very ill?" she\r
+asked.\r
+\r
+The attendant made a hopeless gesture.\r
+\r
+"We don't expect to get him home! We must ask the doctor."\r
+\r
+And the old servant got down from the box and went up to the cart.\r
+\r
+"All right!" said the doctor.\r
+\r
+The old servant returned to the caleche, looked into it, shook his head\r
+disconsolately, told the driver to turn into the yard, and stopped\r
+beside Mavra Kuzminichna.\r
+\r
+"O, Lord Jesus Christ!" she murmured.\r
+\r
+She invited them to take the wounded man into the house.\r
+\r
+"The masters won't object..." she said.\r
+\r
+But they had to avoid carrying the man upstairs, and so they took him\r
+into the wing and put him in the room that had been Madame Schoss'.\r
+\r
+This wounded man was Prince Andrew Bolkonski.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+Moscow's last day had come. It was a clear bright autumn day, a Sunday.\r
+The church bells everywhere were ringing for service, just as usual on\r
+Sundays. Nobody seemed yet to realize what awaited the city.\r
+\r
+Only two things indicated the social condition of Moscow--the rabble,\r
+that is the poor people, and the price of commodities. An enormous crowd\r
+of factory hands, house serfs, and peasants, with whom some officials,\r
+seminarists, and gentry were mingled, had gone early that morning to the\r
+Three Hills. Having waited there for Rostopchin who did not turn up,\r
+they became convinced that Moscow would be surrendered, and then\r
+dispersed all about the town to the public houses and cookshops. Prices\r
+too that day indicated the state of affairs. The price of weapons, of\r
+gold, of carts and horses, kept rising, but the value of paper money and\r
+city articles kept falling, so that by midday there were instances of\r
+carters removing valuable goods, such as cloth, and receiving in payment\r
+a half of what they carted, while peasant horses were fetching five\r
+hundred rubles each, and furniture, mirrors, and bronzes were being\r
+given away for nothing.\r
+\r
+In the Rostovs' staid old-fashioned house the dissolution of former\r
+conditions of life was but little noticeable. As to the serfs the only\r
+indication was that three out of their huge retinue disappeared during\r
+the night, but nothing was stolen; and as to the value of their\r
+possessions, the thirty peasant carts that had come in from their\r
+estates and which many people envied proved to be extremely valuable and\r
+they were offered enormous sums of money for them. Not only were huge\r
+sums offered for the horses and carts, but on the previous evening and\r
+early in the morning of the first of September, orderlies and servants\r
+sent by wounded officers came to the Rostovs' and wounded men dragged\r
+themselves there from the Rostovs' and from neighboring houses where\r
+they were accommodated, entreating the servants to try to get them a\r
+lift out of Moscow. The major-domo to whom these entreaties were\r
+addressed, though he was sorry for the wounded, resolutely refused,\r
+saying that he dare not even mention the matter to the count. Pity these\r
+wounded men as one might, it was evident that if they were given one\r
+cart there would be no reason to refuse another, or all the carts and\r
+one's own carriages as well. Thirty carts could not save all the wounded\r
+and in the general catastrophe one could not disregard oneself and one's\r
+own family. So thought the major-domo on his master's behalf.\r
+\r
+On waking up that morning Count Ilya Rostov left his bedroom softly, so\r
+as not to wake the countess who had fallen asleep only toward morning,\r
+and came out to the porch in his lilac silk dressing gown. In the yard\r
+stood the carts ready corded. The carriages were at the front porch. The\r
+major-domo stood at the porch talking to an elderly orderly and to a\r
+pale young officer with a bandaged arm. On seeing the count the major-\r
+domo made a significant and stern gesture to them both to go away.\r
+\r
+"Well, Vasilich, is everything ready?" asked the count, and stroking his\r
+bald head he looked good-naturedly at the officer and the orderly and\r
+nodded to them. (He liked to see new faces.)\r
+\r
+"We can harness at once, your excellency."\r
+\r
+"Well, that's right. As soon as the countess wakes we'll be off, God\r
+willing! What is it, gentlemen?" he added, turning to the officer. "Are\r
+you staying in my house?"\r
+\r
+The officer came nearer and suddenly his face flushed crimson.\r
+\r
+"Count, be so good as to allow me... for God's sake, to get into some\r
+corner of one of your carts! I have nothing here with me.... I shall be\r
+all right on a loaded cart..."\r
+\r
+Before the officer had finished speaking the orderly made the same\r
+request on behalf of his master.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, yes, yes!" said the count hastily. "I shall be very pleased,\r
+very pleased. Vasilich, you'll see to it. Just unload one or two carts.\r
+Well, what of it... do what's necessary..." said the count, muttering\r
+some indefinite order.\r
+\r
+But at the same moment an expression of warm gratitude on the officer's\r
+face had already sealed the order. The count looked around him. In the\r
+yard, at the gates, at the window of the wings, wounded officers and\r
+their orderlies were to be seen. They were all looking at the count and\r
+moving toward the porch.\r
+\r
+"Please step into the gallery, your excellency," said the major-domo.\r
+"What are your orders about the pictures?"\r
+\r
+The count went into the house with him, repeating his order not to\r
+refuse the wounded who asked for a lift.\r
+\r
+"Well, never mind, some of the things can be unloaded," he added in a\r
+soft, confidential voice, as though afraid of being overheard.\r
+\r
+At nine o'clock the countess woke up, and Matrena Timofeevna, who had\r
+been her lady's maid before her marriage and now performed a sort of\r
+chief gendarme's duty for her, came to say that Madame Schoss was much\r
+offended and the young ladies' summer dresses could not be left behind.\r
+On inquiry, the countess learned that Madame Schoss was offended because\r
+her trunk had been taken down from its cart, and all the loads were\r
+being uncorded and the luggage taken out of the carts to make room for\r
+wounded men whom the count in the simplicity of his heart had ordered\r
+that they should take with them. The countess sent for her husband.\r
+\r
+"What is this, my dear? I hear that the luggage is being unloaded."\r
+\r
+"You know, love, I wanted to tell you... Countess dear... an officer\r
+came to me to ask for a few carts for the wounded. After all, ours are\r
+things that can be bought but think what being left behind means to\r
+them!... Really now, in our own yard--we asked them in ourselves and\r
+there are officers among them.... You know, I think, my dear... let them\r
+be taken... where's the hurry?"\r
+\r
+The count spoke timidly, as he always did when talking of money matters.\r
+The countess was accustomed to this tone as a precursor of news of\r
+something detrimental to the children's interests, such as the building\r
+of a new gallery or conservatory, the inauguration of a private theater\r
+or an orchestra. She was accustomed always to oppose anything announced\r
+in that timid tone and considered it her duty to do so.\r
+\r
+She assumed her dolefully submissive manner and said to her husband:\r
+"Listen to me, Count, you have managed matters so that we are getting\r
+nothing for the house, and now you wish to throw away all our--all the\r
+children's property! You said yourself that we have a hundred thousand\r
+rubles' worth of things in the house. I don't consent, my dear, I don't!\r
+Do as you please! It's the government's business to look after the\r
+wounded; they know that. Look at the Lopukhins opposite, they cleared\r
+out everything two days ago. That's what other people do. It's only we\r
+who are such fools. If you have no pity on me, have some for the\r
+children."\r
+\r
+Flourishing his arms in despair the count left the room without\r
+replying.\r
+\r
+"Papa, what are you doing that for?" asked Natasha, who had followed him\r
+into her mother's room.\r
+\r
+"Nothing! What business is it of yours?" muttered the count angrily.\r
+\r
+"But I heard," said Natasha. "Why does Mamma object?"\r
+\r
+"What business is it of yours?" cried the count.\r
+\r
+Natasha stepped up to the window and pondered.\r
+\r
+"Papa! Here's Berg coming to see us," said she, looking out of the\r
+window.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+Berg, the Rostovs' son-in-law, was already a colonel wearing the orders\r
+of Vladimir and Anna, and he still filled the quiet and agreeable post\r
+of assistant to the head of the staff of the assistant commander of the\r
+first division of the Second Army.\r
+\r
+On the first of September he had come to Moscow from the army.\r
+\r
+He had nothing to do in Moscow, but he had noticed that everyone in the\r
+army was asking for leave to visit Moscow and had something to do there.\r
+So he considered it necessary to ask for leave of absence for family and\r
+domestic reasons.\r
+\r
+Berg drove up to his father-in-law's house in his spruce little trap\r
+with a pair of sleek roans, exactly like those of a certain prince. He\r
+looked attentively at the carts in the yard and while going up to the\r
+porch took out a clean pocket handkerchief and tied a knot in it.\r
+\r
+From the anteroom Berg ran with smooth though impatient steps into the\r
+drawing room, where he embraced the count, kissed the hands of Natasha\r
+and Sonya, and hastened to inquire after "Mamma's" health.\r
+\r
+"Health, at a time like this?" said the count. "Come, tell us the news!\r
+Is the army retreating or will there be another battle?"\r
+\r
+"God Almighty alone can decide the fate of our fatherland, Papa," said\r
+Berg. "The army is burning with a spirit of heroism and the leaders, so\r
+to say, have now assembled in council. No one knows what is coming. But\r
+in general I can tell you, Papa, that such a heroic spirit, the truly\r
+antique valor of the Russian army, which they--which it" (he corrected\r
+himself) "has shown or displayed in the battle of the twenty-sixth--\r
+there are no words worthy to do it justice! I tell you, Papa" (he smote\r
+himself on the breast as a general he had heard speaking had done, but\r
+Berg did it a trifle late for he should have struck his breast at the\r
+words "Russian army"), "I tell you frankly that we, the commanders, far\r
+from having to urge the men on or anything of that kind, could hardly\r
+restrain those... those... yes, those exploits of antique valor," he\r
+went on rapidly. "General Barclay de Tolly risked his life everywhere at\r
+the head of the troops, I can assure you. Our corps was stationed on a\r
+hillside. You can imagine!"\r
+\r
+And Berg related all that he remembered of the various tales he had\r
+heard those days. Natasha watched him with an intent gaze that confused\r
+him, as if she were trying to find in his face the answer to some\r
+question.\r
+\r
+"Altogether such heroism as was displayed by the Russian warriors cannot\r
+be imagined or adequately praised!" said Berg, glancing round at\r
+Natasha, and as if anxious to conciliate her, replying to her intent\r
+look with a smile. "'Russia is not in Moscow, she lives in the hearts of\r
+her sons!' Isn't it so, Papa?" said he.\r
+\r
+Just then the countess came in from the sitting room with a weary and\r
+dissatisfied expression. Berg hurriedly jumped up, kissed her hand,\r
+asked about her health, and, swaying his head from side to side to\r
+express sympathy, remained standing beside her.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mamma, I tell you sincerely that these are hard and sad times for\r
+every Russian. But why are you so anxious? You have still time to get\r
+away...."\r
+\r
+"I can't think what the servants are about," said the countess, turning\r
+to her husband. "I have just been told that nothing is ready yet.\r
+Somebody after all must see to things. One misses Mitenka at such times.\r
+There won't be any end to it."\r
+\r
+The count was about to say something, but evidently restrained himself.\r
+He got up from his chair and went to the door.\r
+\r
+At that moment Berg drew out his handkerchief as if to blow his nose\r
+and, seeing the knot in it, pondered, shaking his head sadly and\r
+significantly.\r
+\r
+"And I have a great favor to ask of you, Papa," said he.\r
+\r
+"Hm..." said the count, and stopped.\r
+\r
+"I was driving past Yusupov's house just now," said Berg with a laugh,\r
+"when the steward, a man I know, ran out and asked me whether I wouldn't\r
+buy something. I went in out of curiosity, you know, and there is a\r
+small chiffonier and a dressing table. You know how dear Vera wanted a\r
+chiffonier like that and how we had a dispute about it." (At the mention\r
+of the chiffonier and dressing table Berg involuntarily changed his tone\r
+to one of pleasure at his admirable domestic arrangements.) "And it's\r
+such a beauty! It pulls out and has a secret English drawer, you know!\r
+And dear Vera has long wanted one. I wish to give her a surprise, you\r
+see. I saw so many of those peasant carts in your yard. Please let me\r
+have one, I will pay the man well, and..."\r
+\r
+The count frowned and coughed.\r
+\r
+"Ask the countess, I don't give orders."\r
+\r
+"If it's inconvenient, please don't," said Berg. "Only I so wanted it,\r
+for dear Vera's sake."\r
+\r
+"Oh, go to the devil, all of you! To the devil, the devil, the devil..."\r
+cried the old count. "My head's in a whirl!"\r
+\r
+And he left the room. The countess began to cry.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mamma! Yes, these are very hard times!" said Berg.\r
+\r
+Natasha left the room with her father and, as if finding it difficult to\r
+reach some decision, first followed him and then ran downstairs.\r
+\r
+Petya was in the porch, engaged in giving out weapons to the servants\r
+who were to leave Moscow. The loaded carts were still standing in the\r
+yard. Two of them had been uncorded and a wounded officer was climbing\r
+into one of them helped by an orderly.\r
+\r
+"Do you know what it's about?" Petya asked Natasha.\r
+\r
+She understood that he meant what were their parents quarreling about.\r
+She did not answer.\r
+\r
+"It's because Papa wanted to give up all the carts to the wounded," said\r
+Petya. "Vasilich told me. I consider..."\r
+\r
+"I consider," Natasha suddenly almost shouted, turning her angry face to\r
+Petya, "I consider it so horrid, so abominable, so... I don't know what.\r
+Are we despicable Germans?"\r
+\r
+Her throat quivered with convulsive sobs and, afraid of weakening and\r
+letting the force of her anger run to waste, she turned and rushed\r
+headlong up the stairs.\r
+\r
+Berg was sitting beside the countess consoling her with the respectful\r
+attention of a relative. The count, pipe in hand, was pacing up and down\r
+the room, when Natasha, her face distorted by anger, burst in like a\r
+tempest and approached her mother with rapid steps.\r
+\r
+"It's horrid! It's abominable!" she screamed. "You can't possibly have\r
+ordered it!"\r
+\r
+Berg and the countess looked at her, perplexed and frightened. The count\r
+stood still at the window and listened.\r
+\r
+"Mamma, it's impossible: see what is going on in the yard!" she cried.\r
+"They will be left!..."\r
+\r
+"What's the matter with you? Who are 'they'? What do you want?"\r
+\r
+"Why, the wounded! It's impossible, Mamma. It's monstrous!... No, Mamma\r
+darling, it's not the thing. Please forgive me, darling.... Mamma, what\r
+does it matter what we take away? Only look what is going on in the\r
+yard... Mamma!... It's impossible!"\r
+\r
+The count stood by the window and listened without turning round.\r
+Suddenly he sniffed and put his face closer to the window.\r
+\r
+The countess glanced at her daughter, saw her face full of shame for her\r
+mother, saw her agitation, and understood why her husband did not turn\r
+to look at her now, and she glanced round quite disconcerted.\r
+\r
+"Oh, do as you like! Am I hindering anyone?" she said, not surrendering\r
+at once.\r
+\r
+"Mamma, darling, forgive me!"\r
+\r
+But the countess pushed her daughter away and went up to her husband.\r
+\r
+"My dear, you order what is right.... You know I don't understand about\r
+it," said she, dropping her eyes shamefacedly.\r
+\r
+"The eggs... the eggs are teaching the hen," muttered the count through\r
+tears of joy, and he embraced his wife who was glad to hide her look of\r
+shame on his breast.\r
+\r
+"Papa! Mamma! May I see to it? May I?..." asked Natasha. "We will still\r
+take all the most necessary things."\r
+\r
+The count nodded affirmatively, and Natasha, at the rapid pace at which\r
+she used to run when playing at tag, ran through the ballroom to the\r
+anteroom and downstairs into the yard.\r
+\r
+The servants gathered round Natasha, but could not believe the strange\r
+order she brought them until the count himself, in his wife's name,\r
+confirmed the order to give up all the carts to the wounded and take the\r
+trunks to the storerooms. When they understood that order the servants\r
+set to work at this new task with pleasure and zeal. It no longer seemed\r
+strange to them but on the contrary it seemed the only thing that could\r
+be done, just as a quarter of an hour before it had not seemed strange\r
+to anyone that the wounded should be left behind and the goods carted\r
+away but that had seemed the only thing to do.\r
+\r
+The whole household, as if to atone for not having done it sooner, set\r
+eagerly to work at the new task of placing the wounded in the carts. The\r
+wounded dragged themselves out of their rooms and stood with pale but\r
+happy faces round the carts. The news that carts were to be had spread\r
+to the neighboring houses, from which wounded men began to come into the\r
+Rostovs' yard. Many of the wounded asked them not to unload the carts\r
+but only to let them sit on the top of the things. But the work of\r
+unloading, once started, could not be arrested. It seemed not to matter\r
+whether all or only half the things were left behind. Cases full of\r
+china, bronzes, pictures, and mirrors that had been so carefully packed\r
+the night before now lay about the yard, and still they went on\r
+searching for and finding possibilities of unloading this or that and\r
+letting the wounded have another and yet another cart.\r
+\r
+"We can take four more men," said the steward. "They can have my trap,\r
+or else what is to become of them?"\r
+\r
+"Let them have my wardrobe cart," said the countess. "Dunyasha can go\r
+with me in the carriage."\r
+\r
+They unloaded the wardrobe cart and sent it to take wounded men from a\r
+house two doors off. The whole household, servants included, was bright\r
+and animated. Natasha was in a state of rapturous excitement such as she\r
+had not known for a long time.\r
+\r
+"What could we fasten this onto?" asked the servants, trying to fix a\r
+trunk on the narrow footboard behind a carriage. "We must keep at least\r
+one cart."\r
+\r
+"What's in it?" asked Natasha.\r
+\r
+"The count's books."\r
+\r
+"Leave it, Vasilich will put it away. It's not wanted."\r
+\r
+The phaeton was full of people and there was a doubt as to where Count\r
+Peter could sit.\r
+\r
+"On the box. You'll sit on the box, won't you, Petya?" cried Natasha.\r
+\r
+Sonya too was busy all this time, but the aim of her efforts was quite\r
+different from Natasha's. She was putting away the things that had to be\r
+left behind and making a list of them as the countess wished, and she\r
+tried to get as much taken away with them as possible.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+Before two o'clock in the afternoon the Rostovs' four carriages, packed\r
+full and with the horses harnessed, stood at the front door. One by one\r
+the carts with the wounded had moved out of the yard.\r
+\r
+The caleche in which Prince Andrew was being taken attracted Sonya's\r
+attention as it passed the front porch. With the help of a maid she was\r
+arranging a seat for the countess in the huge high coach that stood at\r
+the entrance.\r
+\r
+"Whose caleche is that?" she inquired, leaning out of the carriage\r
+window.\r
+\r
+"Why, didn't you know, Miss?" replied the maid. "The wounded prince: he\r
+spent the night in our house and is going with us."\r
+\r
+"But who is it? What's his name?"\r
+\r
+"It's our intended that was--Prince Bolkonski himself! They say he is\r
+dying," replied the maid with a sigh.\r
+\r
+Sonya jumped out of the coach and ran to the countess. The countess,\r
+tired out and already dressed in shawl and bonnet for her journey, was\r
+pacing up and down the drawing room, waiting for the household to\r
+assemble for the usual silent prayer with closed doors before starting.\r
+Natasha was not in the room.\r
+\r
+"Mamma," said Sonya, "Prince Andrew is here, mortally wounded. He is\r
+going with us."\r
+\r
+The countess opened her eyes in dismay and, seizing Sonya's arm, glanced\r
+around.\r
+\r
+"Natasha?" she murmured.\r
+\r
+At that moment this news had only one significance for both of them.\r
+They knew their Natasha, and alarm as to what would happen if she heard\r
+this news stifled all sympathy for the man they both liked.\r
+\r
+"Natasha does not know yet, but he is going with us," said Sonya.\r
+\r
+"You say he is dying?"\r
+\r
+Sonya nodded.\r
+\r
+The countess put her arms around Sonya and began to cry.\r
+\r
+"The ways of God are past finding out!" she thought, feeling that the\r
+Almighty Hand, hitherto unseen, was becoming manifest in all that was\r
+now taking place.\r
+\r
+"Well, Mamma? Everything is ready. What's the matter?" asked Natasha, as\r
+with animated face she ran into the room.\r
+\r
+"Nothing," answered the countess. "If everything is ready let us start."\r
+\r
+And the countess bent over her reticule to hide her agitated face. Sonya\r
+embraced Natasha and kissed her.\r
+\r
+Natasha looked at her inquiringly.\r
+\r
+"What is it? What has happened?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing... No..."\r
+\r
+"Is it something very bad for me? What is it?" persisted Natasha with\r
+her quick intuition.\r
+\r
+Sonya sighed and made no reply. The count, Petya, Madame Schoss, Mavra\r
+Kuzminichna, and Vasilich came into the drawing room and, having closed\r
+the doors, they all sat down and remained for some moments silently\r
+seated without looking at one another.\r
+\r
+The count was the first to rise, and with a loud sigh crossed himself\r
+before the icon. All the others did the same. Then the count embraced\r
+Mavra Kuzminichna and Vasilich, who were to remain in Moscow, and while\r
+they caught at his hand and kissed his shoulder he patted their backs\r
+lightly with some vaguely affectionate and comforting words. The\r
+countess went into the oratory and there Sonya found her on her knees\r
+before the icons that had been left here and there hanging on the wall.\r
+(The most precious ones, with which some family tradition was connected,\r
+were being taken with them.)\r
+\r
+In the porch and in the yard the men whom Petya had armed with swords\r
+and daggers, with trousers tucked inside their high boots and with belts\r
+and girdles tightened, were taking leave of those remaining behind.\r
+\r
+As is always the case at a departure, much had been forgotten or put in\r
+the wrong place, and for a long time two menservants stood one on each\r
+side of the open door and the carriage steps waiting to help the\r
+countess in, while maids rushed with cushions and bundles from the house\r
+to the carriages, the caleche, the phaeton, and back again.\r
+\r
+"They always will forget everything!" said the countess. "Don't you know\r
+I can't sit like that?"\r
+\r
+And Dunyasha, with clenched teeth, without replying but with an\r
+aggrieved look on her face, hastily got into the coach to rearrange the\r
+seat.\r
+\r
+"Oh, those servants!" said the count, swaying his head.\r
+\r
+Efim, the old coachman, who was the only one the countess trusted to\r
+drive her, sat perched up high on the box and did not so much as glance\r
+round at what was going on behind him. From thirty years' experience he\r
+knew it would be some time yet before the order, "Be off, in God's\r
+name!" would be given him: and he knew that even when it was said he\r
+would be stopped once or twice more while they sent back to fetch\r
+something that had been forgotten, and even after that he would again be\r
+stopped and the countess herself would lean out of the window and beg\r
+him for the love of heaven to drive carefully down the hill. He knew all\r
+this and therefore waited calmly for what would happen, with more\r
+patience than the horses, especially the near one, the chestnut Falcon,\r
+who was pawing the ground and champing his bit. At last all were seated,\r
+the carriage steps were folded and pulled up, the door was shut,\r
+somebody was sent for a traveling case, and the countess leaned out and\r
+said what she had to say. Then Efim deliberately doffed his hat and\r
+began crossing himself. The postilion and all the other servants did the\r
+same. "Off, in God's name!" said Efim, putting on his hat. "Start!" The\r
+postilion started the horses, the off pole horse tugged at his collar,\r
+the high springs creaked, and the body of the coach swayed. The footman\r
+sprang onto the box of the moving coach which jolted as it passed out of\r
+the yard onto the uneven roadway; the other vehicles jolted in their\r
+turn, and the procession of carriages moved up the street. In the\r
+carriages, the caleche, and the phaeton, all crossed themselves as they\r
+passed the church opposite the house. Those who were to remain in Moscow\r
+walked on either side of the vehicles seeing the travelers off.\r
+\r
+Rarely had Natasha experienced so joyful a feeling as now, sitting in\r
+the carriage beside the countess and gazing at the slowly receding walls\r
+of forsaken, agitated Moscow. Occasionally she leaned out of the\r
+carriage window and looked back and then forward at the long train of\r
+wounded in front of them. Almost at the head of the line she could see\r
+the raised hood of Prince Andrew's caleche. She did not know who was in\r
+it, but each time she looked at the procession her eyes sought that\r
+caleche. She knew it was right in front.\r
+\r
+In Kudrino, from the Nikitski, Presnya, and Podnovinsk Streets came\r
+several other trains of vehicles similar to the Rostovs', and as they\r
+passed along the Sadovaya Street the carriages and carts formed two rows\r
+abreast.\r
+\r
+As they were going round the Sukharev water tower Natasha, who was\r
+inquisitively and alertly scrutinizing the people driving or walking\r
+past, suddenly cried out in joyful surprise:\r
+\r
+"Dear me! Mamma, Sonya, look, it's he!"\r
+\r
+"Who? Who?"\r
+\r
+"Look! Yes, on my word, it's Bezukhov!" said Natasha, putting her head\r
+out of the carriage and staring at a tall, stout man in a coachman's\r
+long coat, who from his manner of walking and moving was evidently a\r
+gentleman in disguise, and who was passing under the arch of the\r
+Sukharev tower accompanied by a small, sallow-faced, beardless old man\r
+in a frieze coat.\r
+\r
+"Yes, it really is Bezukhov in a coachman's coat, with a queer-looking\r
+old boy. Really," said Natasha, "look, look!"\r
+\r
+"No, it's not he. How can you talk such nonsense?"\r
+\r
+"Mamma," screamed Natasha, "I'll stake my head it's he! I assure you!\r
+Stop, stop!" she cried to the coachman.\r
+\r
+But the coachman could not stop, for from the Meshchanski Street came\r
+more carts and carriages, and the Rostovs were being shouted at to move\r
+on and not block the way.\r
+\r
+In fact, however, though now much farther off than before, the Rostovs\r
+all saw Pierre--or someone extraordinarily like him--in a coachman's\r
+coat, going down the street with head bent and a serious face beside a\r
+small, beardless old man who looked like a footman. That old man noticed\r
+a face thrust out of the carriage window gazing at them, and\r
+respectfully touching Pierre's elbow said something to him and pointed\r
+to the carriage. Pierre, evidently engrossed in thought, could not at\r
+first understand him. At length when he had understood and looked in the\r
+direction the old man indicated, he recognized Natasha, and following\r
+his first impulse stepped instantly and rapidly toward the coach. But\r
+having taken a dozen steps he seemed to remember something and stopped.\r
+\r
+Natasha's face, leaning out of the window, beamed with quizzical\r
+kindliness.\r
+\r
+"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you! This is\r
+wonderful!" she cried, holding out her hand to him. "What are you doing?\r
+Why are you like this?"\r
+\r
+Pierre took her outstretched hand and kissed it awkwardly as he walked\r
+along beside her while the coach still moved on.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter, Count?" asked the countess in a surprised and\r
+commiserating tone.\r
+\r
+"What? What? Why? Don't ask me," said Pierre, and looked round at\r
+Natasha whose radiant, happy expression--of which he was conscious\r
+without looking at her--filled him with enchantment.\r
+\r
+"Are you remaining in Moscow, then?"\r
+\r
+Pierre hesitated.\r
+\r
+"In Moscow?" he said in a questioning tone. "Yes, in Moscow. Good-bye!"\r
+\r
+"Ah, if only I were a man? I'd certainly stay with you. How splendid!"\r
+said Natasha. "Mamma, if you'll let me, I'll stay!"\r
+\r
+Pierre glanced absently at Natasha and was about to say something, but\r
+the countess interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"You were at the battle, we heard."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I was," Pierre answered. "There will be another battle\r
+tomorrow..." he began, but Natasha interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"But what is the matter with you, Count? You are not like yourself...."\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me! I don't know myself. Tomorrow... But\r
+no! Good-bye, good-by!" he muttered. "It's an awful time!" and dropping\r
+behind the carriage he stepped onto the pavement.\r
+\r
+Natasha continued to lean out of the window for a long time, beaming at\r
+him with her kindly, slightly quizzical, happy smile.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+For the last two days, ever since leaving home, Pierre had been living\r
+in the empty house of his deceased benefactor, Bazdeev. This is how it\r
+happened.\r
+\r
+When he woke up on the morning after his return to Moscow and his\r
+interview with Count Rostopchin, he could not for some time make out\r
+where he was and what was expected of him. When he was informed that\r
+among others awaiting him in his reception room there was a Frenchman\r
+who had brought a letter from his wife, the Countess Helene, he felt\r
+suddenly overcome by that sense of confusion and hopelessness to which\r
+he was apt to succumb. He felt that everything was now at an end, all\r
+was in confusion and crumbling to pieces, that nobody was right or\r
+wrong, the future held nothing, and there was no escape from this\r
+position. Smiling unnaturally and muttering to himself, he first sat\r
+down on the sofa in an attitude of despair, then rose, went to the door\r
+of the reception room and peeped through the crack, returned flourishing\r
+his arms, and took up a book. His major-domo came in a second time to\r
+say that the Frenchman who had brought the letter from the countess was\r
+very anxious to see him if only for a minute, and that someone from\r
+Bazdeev's widow had called to ask Pierre to take charge of her husband's\r
+books, as she herself was leaving for the country.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, in a minute; wait... or no! No, of course... go and say I will\r
+come directly," Pierre replied to the major-domo.\r
+\r
+But as soon as the man had left the room Pierre took up his hat which\r
+was lying on the table and went out of his study by the other door.\r
+There was no one in the passage. He went along the whole length of this\r
+passage to the stairs and, frowning and rubbing his forehead with both\r
+hands, went down as far as the first landing. The hall porter was\r
+standing at the front door. From the landing where Pierre stood there\r
+was a second staircase leading to the back entrance. He went down that\r
+staircase and out into the yard. No one had seen him. But there were\r
+some carriages waiting, and as soon as Pierre stepped out of the gate\r
+the coachmen and the yard porter noticed him and raised their caps to\r
+him. When he felt he was being looked at he behaved like an ostrich\r
+which hides its head in a bush in order not to be seen: he hung his head\r
+and quickening his pace went down the street.\r
+\r
+Of all the affairs awaiting Pierre that day the sorting of Joseph\r
+Bazdeev's books and papers appeared to him the most necessary.\r
+\r
+He hired the first cab he met and told the driver to go to the\r
+Patriarch's Ponds, where the widow Bazdeev's house was.\r
+\r
+Continually turning round to look at the rows of loaded carts that were\r
+making their way from all sides out of Moscow, and balancing his bulky\r
+body so as not to slip out of the ramshackle old vehicle, Pierre,\r
+experiencing the joyful feeling of a boy escaping from school, began to\r
+talk to his driver.\r
+\r
+The man told him that arms were being distributed today at the Kremlin\r
+and that tomorrow everyone would be sent out beyond the Three Hills\r
+gates and a great battle would be fought there.\r
+\r
+Having reached the Patriarch's Ponds Pierre found the Bazdeevs' house,\r
+where he had not been for a long time past. He went up to the gate.\r
+Gerasim, that sallow beardless old man Pierre had seen at Torzhok five\r
+years before with Joseph Bazdeev, came out in answer to his knock.\r
+\r
+"At home?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Owing to the present state of things Sophia Danilovna has gone to the\r
+Torzhok estate with the children, your excellency."\r
+\r
+"I will come in all the same, I have to look through the books," said\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Be so good as to step in. Makar Alexeevich, the brother of my late\r
+master--may the kingdom of heaven be his--has remained here, but he is\r
+in a weak state as you know," said the old servant.\r
+\r
+Pierre knew that Makar Alexeevich was Joseph Bazdeev's half-insane\r
+brother and a hard drinker.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I know. Let us go in..." said Pierre and entered the house.\r
+\r
+A tall, bald-headed old man with a red nose, wearing a dressing gown and\r
+with galoshes on his bare feet, stood in the anteroom. On seeing Pierre\r
+he muttered something angrily and went away along the passage.\r
+\r
+"He was a very clever man but has now grown quite feeble, as your honor\r
+sees," said Gerasim. "Will you step into the study?" Pierre nodded. "As\r
+it was sealed up so it has remained, but Sophia Danilovna gave orders\r
+that if anyone should come from you they were to have the books."\r
+\r
+Pierre went into that gloomy study which he had entered with such\r
+trepidation in his benefactor's lifetime. The room, dusty and untouched\r
+since the death of Joseph Bazdeev was now even gloomier.\r
+\r
+Gerasim opened one of the shutters and left the room on tiptoe. Pierre\r
+went round the study, approached the cupboard in which the manuscripts\r
+were kept, and took out what had once been one of the most important,\r
+the holy of holies of the order. This was the authentic Scotch Acts with\r
+Bazdeev's notes and explanations. He sat down at the dusty writing\r
+table, and, having laid the manuscripts before him, opened them out,\r
+closed them, finally pushed them away, and resting his head on his hand\r
+sank into meditation.\r
+\r
+Gerasim looked cautiously into the study several times and saw Pierre\r
+always sitting in the same attitude.\r
+\r
+More than two hours passed and Gerasim took the liberty of making a\r
+slight noise at the door to attract his attention, but Pierre did not\r
+hear him.\r
+\r
+"Is the cabman to be discharged, your honor?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes!" said Pierre, rousing himself and rising hurriedly. "Look\r
+here," he added, taking Gerasim by a button of his coat and looking down\r
+at the old man with moist, shining, and ecstatic eyes, "I say, do you\r
+know that there is going to be a battle tomorrow?"\r
+\r
+"We heard so," replied the man.\r
+\r
+"I beg you not to tell anyone who I am, and to do what I ask you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, your excellency," replied Gerasim. "Will you have something to\r
+eat?"\r
+\r
+"No, but I want something else. I want peasant clothes and a pistol,"\r
+said Pierre, unexpectedly blushing.\r
+\r
+"Yes, your excellency," said Gerasim after thinking for a moment.\r
+\r
+All the rest of that day Pierre spent alone in his benefactor's study,\r
+and Gerasim heard him pacing restlessly from one corner to another and\r
+talking to himself. And he spent the night on a bed made up for him\r
+there.\r
+\r
+Gerasim, being a servant who in his time had seen many strange things,\r
+accepted Pierre's taking up his residence in the house without surprise,\r
+and seemed pleased to have someone to wait on. That same evening--\r
+without even asking himself what they were wanted for--he procured a\r
+coachman's coat and cap for Pierre, and promised to get him the pistol\r
+next day. Makar Alexeevich came twice that evening shuffling along in\r
+his galoshes as far as the door and stopped and looked ingratiatingly at\r
+Pierre. But as soon as Pierre turned toward him he wrapped his dressing\r
+gown around him with a shamefaced and angry look and hurried away. It\r
+was when Pierre (wearing the coachman's coat which Gerasim had procured\r
+for him and had disinfected by steam) was on his way with the old man to\r
+buy the pistol at the Sukharev market that he met the Rostovs.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+Kutuzov's order to retreat through Moscow to the Ryazan road was issued\r
+at night on the first of September.\r
+\r
+The first troops started at once, and during the night they marched\r
+slowly and steadily without hurry. At daybreak, however, those nearing\r
+the town at the Dorogomilov bridge saw ahead of them masses of soldiers\r
+crowding and hurrying across the bridge, ascending on the opposite side\r
+and blocking the streets and alleys, while endless masses of troops were\r
+bearing down on them from behind, and an unreasoning hurry and alarm\r
+overcame them. They all rushed forward to the bridge, onto it, and to\r
+the fords and the boats. Kutuzov himself had driven round by side\r
+streets to the other side of Moscow.\r
+\r
+By ten o'clock in the morning of the second of September, only the rear\r
+guard remained in the Dorogomilov suburb, where they had ample room. The\r
+main army was on the other side of Moscow or beyond it.\r
+\r
+At that very time, at ten in the morning of the second of September,\r
+Napoleon was standing among his troops on the Poklonny Hill looking at\r
+the panorama spread out before him. From the twenty-sixth of August to\r
+the second of September, that is from the battle of Borodino to the\r
+entry of the French into Moscow, during the whole of that agitating,\r
+memorable week, there had been the extraordinary autumn weather that\r
+always comes as a surprise, when the sun hangs low and gives more heat\r
+than in spring, when everything shines so brightly in the rare clear\r
+atmosphere that the eyes smart, when the lungs are strengthened and\r
+refreshed by inhaling the aromatic autumn air, when even the nights are\r
+warm, and when in those dark warm nights, golden stars startle and\r
+delight us continually by falling from the sky.\r
+\r
+At ten in the morning of the second of September this weather still\r
+held.\r
+\r
+The brightness of the morning was magical. Moscow seen from the Poklonny\r
+Hill lay spaciously spread out with her river, her gardens, and her\r
+churches, and she seemed to be living her usual life, her cupolas\r
+glittering like stars in the sunlight.\r
+\r
+The view of the strange city with its peculiar architecture, such as he\r
+had never seen before, filled Napoleon with the rather envious and\r
+uneasy curiosity men feel when they see an alien form of life that has\r
+no knowledge of them. This city was evidently living with the full force\r
+of its own life. By the indefinite signs which, even at a distance,\r
+distinguish a living body from a dead one, Napoleon from the Poklonny\r
+Hill perceived the throb of life in the town and felt, as it were, the\r
+breathing of that great and beautiful body.\r
+\r
+Every Russian looking at Moscow feels her to be a mother; every\r
+foreigner who sees her, even if ignorant of her significance as the\r
+mother city, must feel her feminine character, and Napoleon felt it.\r
+\r
+"Cette ville asiatique aux innombrables eglises, Moscou la sainte. La\r
+voila done enfin, cette fameuse ville! Il etait temps," * said he, and\r
+dismounting he ordered a plan of Moscow to be spread out before him, and\r
+summoned Lelorgne d'Ideville, the interpreter.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "That Asiatic city of the innumerable churches, holy Moscow! Here it\r
+is then at last, that famous city. It was high time."\r
+\r
+"A town captured by the enemy is like a maid who has lost her honor,"\r
+thought he (he had said so to Tuchkov at Smolensk). From that point of\r
+view he gazed at the Oriental beauty he had not seen before. It seemed\r
+strange to him that his long-felt wish, which had seemed unattainable,\r
+had at last been realized. In the clear morning light he gazed now at\r
+the city and now at the plan, considering its details, and the assurance\r
+of possessing it agitated and awed him.\r
+\r
+"But could it be otherwise?" he thought. "Here is this capital at my\r
+feet. Where is Alexander now, and of what is he thinking? A strange,\r
+beautiful, and majestic city; and a strange and majestic moment! In what\r
+light must I appear to them!" thought he, thinking of his troops. "Here\r
+she is, the reward for all those fainthearted men," he reflected,\r
+glancing at those near him and at the troops who were approaching and\r
+forming up. "One word from me, one movement of my hand, and that ancient\r
+capital of the Tsars would perish. But my clemency is always ready to\r
+descend upon the vanquished. I must be magnanimous and truly great. But\r
+no, it can't be true that I am in Moscow," he suddenly thought. "Yet\r
+here she is lying at my feet, with her golden domes and crosses\r
+scintillating and twinkling in the sunshine. But I shall spare her. On\r
+the ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism I will inscribe great\r
+words of justice and mercy.... It is just this which Alexander will feel\r
+most painfully, I know him." (It seemed to Napoleon that the chief\r
+import of what was taking place lay in the personal struggle between\r
+himself and Alexander.) "From the height of the Kremlin--yes, there is\r
+the Kremlin, yes--I will give them just laws; I will teach them the\r
+meaning of true civilization, I will make generations of boyars remember\r
+their conqueror with love. I will tell the deputation that I did not,\r
+and do not, desire war, that I have waged war only against the false\r
+policy of their court; that I love and respect Alexander and that in\r
+Moscow I will accept terms of peace worthy of myself and of my people. I\r
+do not wish to utilize the fortunes of war to humiliate an honored\r
+monarch. 'Boyars,' I will say to them, 'I do not desire war, I desire\r
+the peace and welfare of all my subjects.' However, I know their\r
+presence will inspire me, and I shall speak to them as I always do:\r
+clearly, impressively, and majestically. But can it be true that I am in\r
+Moscow? Yes, there she lies."\r
+\r
+"Qu'on m'amene les boyars," * said he to his suite.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Bring the boyars to me."\r
+\r
+A general with a brilliant suite galloped off at once to fetch the\r
+boyars.\r
+\r
+Two hours passed. Napoleon had lunched and was again standing in the\r
+same place on the Poklonny Hill awaiting the deputation. His speech to\r
+the boyars had already taken definite shape in his imagination. That\r
+speech was full of dignity and greatness as Napoleon understood it.\r
+\r
+He was himself carried away by the tone of magnanimity he intended to\r
+adopt toward Moscow. In his imagination he appointed days for assemblies\r
+at the palace of the Tsars, at which Russian notables and his own would\r
+mingle. He mentally appointed a governor, one who would win the hearts\r
+of the people. Having learned that there were many charitable\r
+institutions in Moscow he mentally decided that he would shower favors\r
+on them all. He thought that, as in Africa he had to put on a burnoose\r
+and sit in a mosque, so in Moscow he must be beneficent like the Tsars.\r
+And in order finally to touch the hearts of the Russians--and being like\r
+all Frenchmen unable to imagine anything sentimental without a reference\r
+to ma chere, ma tendre, ma pauvre mere * --he decided that he would\r
+place an inscription on all these establishments in large letters: "This\r
+establishment is dedicated to my dear mother." Or no, it should be\r
+simply: Maison de ma Mere, *(2) he concluded. "But am I really in\r
+Moscow? Yes, here it lies before me, but why is the deputation from the\r
+city so long in appearing?" he wondered.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "My dear, my tender, my poor mother."\r
+\r
+* (2) "House of my Mother."\r
+\r
+Meanwhile an agitated consultation was being carried on in whispers\r
+among his generals and marshals at the rear of his suite. Those sent to\r
+fetch the deputation had returned with the news that Moscow was empty,\r
+that everyone had left it. The faces of those who were not conferring\r
+together were pale and perturbed. They were not alarmed by the fact that\r
+Moscow had been abandoned by its inhabitants (grave as that fact\r
+seemed), but by the question how to tell the Emperor--without putting\r
+him in the terrible position of appearing ridiculous--that he had been\r
+awaiting the boyars so long in vain: that there were drunken mobs left\r
+in Moscow but no one else. Some said that a deputation of some sort must\r
+be scraped together, others disputed that opinion and maintained that\r
+the Emperor should first be carefully and skillfully prepared, and then\r
+told the truth.\r
+\r
+"He will have to be told, all the same," said some gentlemen of the\r
+suite. "But, gentlemen..."\r
+\r
+The position was the more awkward because the Emperor, meditating upon\r
+his magnanimous plans, was pacing patiently up and down before the\r
+outspread map, occasionally glancing along the road to Moscow from under\r
+his lifted hand with a bright and proud smile.\r
+\r
+"But it's impossible..." declared the gentlemen of the suite, shrugging\r
+their shoulders but not venturing to utter the implied word--le\r
+ridicule...\r
+\r
+At last the Emperor, tired of futile expectation, his actor's instinct\r
+suggesting to him that the sublime moment having been too long drawn out\r
+was beginning to lose its sublimity, gave a sign with his hand. A single\r
+report of a signaling gun followed, and the troops, who were already\r
+spread out on different sides of Moscow, moved into the city through\r
+Tver, Kaluga, and Dorogomilov gates. Faster and faster, vying with one\r
+another, they moved at the double or at a trot, vanishing amid the\r
+clouds of dust they raised and making the air ring with a deafening roar\r
+of mingling shouts.\r
+\r
+Drawn on by the movement of his troops Napoleon rode with them as far as\r
+the Dorogomilov gate, but there again stopped and, dismounting from his\r
+horse, paced for a long time by the Kammer-Kollezski rampart, awaiting\r
+the deputation.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people in it, perhaps a\r
+fiftieth part of its former inhabitants had remained, but it was empty.\r
+It was empty in the sense that a dying queenless hive is empty.\r
+\r
+In a queenless hive no life is left though to a superficial glance it\r
+seems as much alive as other hives.\r
+\r
+The bees circle round a queenless hive in the hot beams of the midday\r
+sun as gaily as around the living hives; from a distance it smells of\r
+honey like the others, and bees fly in and out in the same way. But one\r
+has only to observe that hive to realize that there is no longer any\r
+life in it. The bees do not fly in the same way, the smell and the sound\r
+that meet the beekeeper are not the same. To the beekeeper's tap on the\r
+wall of the sick hive, instead of the former instant unanimous humming\r
+of tens of thousands of bees with their abdomens threateningly\r
+compressed, and producing by the rapid vibration of their wings an\r
+aerial living sound, the only reply is a disconnected buzzing from\r
+different parts of the deserted hive. From the alighting board, instead\r
+of the former spirituous fragrant smell of honey and venom, and the warm\r
+whiffs of crowded life, comes an odor of emptiness and decay mingling\r
+with the smell of honey. There are no longer sentinels sounding the\r
+alarm with their abdomens raised, and ready to die in defense of the\r
+hive. There is no longer the measured quiet sound of throbbing activity,\r
+like the sound of boiling water, but diverse discordant sounds of\r
+disorder. In and out of the hive long black robber bees smeared with\r
+honey fly timidly and shiftily. They do not sting, but crawl away from\r
+danger. Formerly only bees laden with honey flew into the hive, and they\r
+flew out empty; now they fly out laden. The beekeeper opens the lower\r
+part of the hive and peers in. Instead of black, glossy bees--tamed by\r
+toil, clinging to one another's legs and drawing out the wax, with a\r
+ceaseless hum of labor--that used to hang in long clusters down to the\r
+floor of the hive, drowsy shriveled bees crawl about separately in\r
+various directions on the floor and walls of the hive. Instead of a\r
+neatly glued floor, swept by the bees with the fanning of their wings,\r
+there is a floor littered with bits of wax, excrement, dying bees\r
+scarcely moving their legs, and dead ones that have not been cleared\r
+away.\r
+\r
+The beekeeper opens the upper part of the hive and examines the super.\r
+Instead of serried rows of bees sealing up every gap in the combs and\r
+keeping the brood warm, he sees the skillful complex structures of the\r
+combs, but no longer in their former state of purity. All is neglected\r
+and foul. Black robber bees are swiftly and stealthily prowling about\r
+the combs, and the short home bees, shriveled and listless as if they\r
+were old, creep slowly about without trying to hinder the robbers,\r
+having lost all motive and all sense of life. Drones, bumblebees, wasps,\r
+and butterflies knock awkwardly against the walls of the hive in their\r
+flight. Here and there among the cells containing dead brood and honey\r
+an angry buzzing can sometimes be heard. Here and there a couple of\r
+bees, by force of habit and custom cleaning out the brood cells, with\r
+efforts beyond their strength laboriously drag away a dead bee or\r
+bumblebee without knowing why they do it. In another corner two old bees\r
+are languidly fighting, or cleaning themselves, or feeding one another,\r
+without themselves knowing whether they do it with friendly or hostile\r
+intent. In a third place a crowd of bees, crushing one another, attack\r
+some victim and fight and smother it, and the victim, enfeebled or\r
+killed, drops from above slowly and lightly as a feather, among the heap\r
+of corpses. The keeper opens the two center partitions to examine the\r
+brood cells. In place of the former close dark circles formed by\r
+thousands of bees sitting back to back and guarding the high mystery of\r
+generation, he sees hundreds of dull, listless, and sleepy shells of\r
+bees. They have almost all died unawares, sitting in the sanctuary they\r
+had guarded and which is now no more. They reek of decay and death. Only\r
+a few of them still move, rise, and feebly fly to settle on the enemy's\r
+hand, lacking the spirit to die stinging him; the rest are dead and fall\r
+as lightly as fish scales. The beekeeper closes the hive, chalks a mark\r
+on it, and when he has time tears out its contents and burns it clean.\r
+\r
+So in the same way Moscow was empty when Napoleon, weary, uneasy, and\r
+morose, paced up and down in front of the Kammer-Kollezski rampart,\r
+awaiting what to his mind was a necessary, if but formal, observance of\r
+the proprieties--a deputation.\r
+\r
+In various corners of Moscow there still remained a few people aimlessly\r
+moving about, following their old habits and hardly aware of what they\r
+were doing.\r
+\r
+When with due circumspection Napoleon was informed that Moscow was\r
+empty, he looked angrily at his informant, turned away, and silently\r
+continued to walk to and fro.\r
+\r
+"My carriage!" he said.\r
+\r
+He took his seat beside the aide-de-camp on duty and drove into the\r
+suburb. "Moscow deserted!" he said to himself. "What an incredible\r
+event!"\r
+\r
+He did not drive into the town, but put up at an inn in the Dorogomilov\r
+suburb.\r
+\r
+The coup de theatre had not come off.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+The Russian troops were passing through Moscow from two o'clock at night\r
+till two in the afternoon and bore away with them the wounded and the\r
+last of the inhabitants who were leaving.\r
+\r
+The greatest crush during the movement of the troops took place at the\r
+Stone, Moskva, and Yauza bridges.\r
+\r
+While the troops, dividing into two parts when passing around the\r
+Kremlin, were thronging the Moskva and the Stone bridges, a great many\r
+soldiers, taking advantage of the stoppage and congestion, turned back\r
+from the bridges and slipped stealthily and silently past the church of\r
+Vasili the Beatified and under the Borovitski gate, back up the hill to\r
+the Red Square where some instinct told them they could easily take\r
+things not belonging to them. Crowds of the kind seen at cheap sales\r
+filled all the passages and alleys of the Bazaar. But there were no\r
+dealers with voices of ingratiating affability inviting customers to\r
+enter; there were no hawkers, nor the usual motley crowd of female\r
+purchasers--but only soldiers, in uniforms and overcoats though without\r
+muskets, entering the Bazaar empty-handed and silently making their way\r
+out through its passages with bundles. Tradesmen and their assistants\r
+(of whom there were but few) moved about among the soldiers quite\r
+bewildered. They unlocked their shops and locked them up again, and\r
+themselves carried goods away with the help of their assistants. On the\r
+square in front of the Bazaar were drummers beating the muster call. But\r
+the roll of the drums did not make the looting soldiers run in the\r
+direction of the drum as formerly, but made them, on the contrary, run\r
+farther away. Among the soldiers in the shops and passages some men were\r
+to be seen in gray coats, with closely shaven heads. Two officers, one\r
+with a scarf over his uniform and mounted on a lean, dark-gray horse,\r
+the other in an overcoat and on foot, stood at the corner of Ilyinka\r
+Street, talking. A third officer galloped up to them.\r
+\r
+"The general orders them all to be driven out at once, without fail.\r
+This is outrageous! Half the men have dispersed."\r
+\r
+"Where are you off to?... Where?..." he shouted to three infantrymen\r
+without muskets who, holding up the skirts of their overcoats, were\r
+slipping past him into the Bazaar passage. "Stop, you rascals!"\r
+\r
+"But how are you going to stop them?" replied another officer. "There is\r
+no getting them together. The army should push on before the rest bolt,\r
+that's all!"\r
+\r
+"How can one push on? They are stuck there, wedged on the bridge, and\r
+don't move. Shouldn't we put a cordon round to prevent the rest from\r
+running away?"\r
+\r
+"Come, go in there and drive them out!" shouted the senior officer.\r
+\r
+The officer in the scarf dismounted, called up a drummer, and went with\r
+him into the arcade. Some soldiers started running away in a group. A\r
+shopkeeper with red pimples on his cheeks near the nose, and a calm,\r
+persistent, calculating expression on his plump face, hurriedly and\r
+ostentatiously approached the officer, swinging his arms.\r
+\r
+"Your honor!" said he. "Be so good as to protect us! We won't grudge\r
+trifles, you are welcome to anything--we shall be delighted! Pray!...\r
+I'll fetch a piece of cloth at once for such an honorable gentleman, or\r
+even two pieces with pleasure. For we feel how it is; but what's all\r
+this--sheer robbery! If you please, could not guards be placed if only\r
+to let us close the shop...."\r
+\r
+Several shopkeepers crowded round the officer.\r
+\r
+"Eh, what twaddle!" said one of them, a thin, stern-looking man. "When\r
+one's head is gone one doesn't weep for one's hair! Take what any of you\r
+like!" And flourishing his arm energetically he turned sideways to the\r
+officer.\r
+\r
+"It's all very well for you, Ivan Sidorych, to talk," said the first\r
+tradesman angrily. "Please step inside, your honor!"\r
+\r
+"Talk indeed!" cried the thin one. "In my three shops here I have a\r
+hundred thousand rubles' worth of goods. Can they be saved when the army\r
+has gone? Eh, what people! 'Against God's might our hands can't fight.'"\r
+\r
+"Come inside, your honor!" repeated the tradesman, bowing.\r
+\r
+The officer stood perplexed and his face showed indecision.\r
+\r
+"It's not my business!" he exclaimed, and strode on quickly down one of\r
+the passages.\r
+\r
+From one open shop came the sound of blows and vituperation, and just as\r
+the officer came up to it a man in a gray coat with a shaven head was\r
+flung out violently.\r
+\r
+This man, bent double, rushed past the tradesman and the officer. The\r
+officer pounced on the soldiers who were in the shops, but at that\r
+moment fearful screams reached them from the huge crowd on the Moskva\r
+bridge and the officer ran out into the square.\r
+\r
+"What is it? What is it?" he asked, but his comrade was already\r
+galloping off past Vasili the Beatified in the direction from which the\r
+screams came.\r
+\r
+The officer mounted his horse and rode after him. When he reached the\r
+bridge he saw two unlimbered guns, the infantry crossing the bridge,\r
+several overturned carts, and frightened and laughing faces among the\r
+troops. Beside the cannon a cart was standing to which two horses were\r
+harnessed. Four borzois with collars were pressing close to the wheels.\r
+The cart was loaded high, and at the very top, beside a child's chair\r
+with its legs in the air, sat a peasant woman uttering piercing and\r
+desperate shrieks. He was told by his fellow officers that the screams\r
+of the crowd and the shrieks of the woman were due to the fact that\r
+General Ermolov, coming up to the crowd and learning that soldiers were\r
+dispersing among the shops while crowds of civilians blocked the bridge,\r
+had ordered two guns to be unlimbered and made a show of firing at the\r
+bridge. The crowd, crushing one another, upsetting carts, and shouting\r
+and squeezing desperately, had cleared off the bridge and the troops\r
+were now moving forward.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+Meanwhile, the city itself was deserted. There was hardly anyone in the\r
+streets. The gates and shops were all closed, only here and there round\r
+the taverns solitary shouts or drunken songs could be heard. Nobody\r
+drove through the streets and footsteps were rarely heard. The\r
+Povarskaya was quite still and deserted. The huge courtyard of the\r
+Rostovs' house was littered with wisps of hay and with dung from the\r
+horses, and not a soul was to be seen there. In the great drawing room\r
+of the house, which had been left with all it contained, were two\r
+people. They were the yard porter Ignat, and the page boy Mishka,\r
+Vasilich's grandson who had stayed in Moscow with his grandfather.\r
+Mishka had opened the clavichord and was strumming on it with one\r
+finger. The yard porter, his arms akimbo, stood smiling with\r
+satisfaction before the large mirror.\r
+\r
+"Isn't it fine, eh, Uncle Ignat?" said the boy, suddenly beginning to\r
+strike the keyboard with both hands.\r
+\r
+"Only fancy!" answered Ignat, surprised at the broadening grin on his\r
+face in the mirror.\r
+\r
+"Impudence! Impudence!" they heard behind them the voice of Mavra\r
+Kuzminichna who had entered silently. "How he's grinning, the fat mug!\r
+Is that what you're here for? Nothing's cleared away down there and\r
+Vasilich is worn out. Just you wait a bit!"\r
+\r
+Ignat left off smiling, adjusted his belt, and went out of the room with\r
+meekly downcast eyes.\r
+\r
+"Aunt, I did it gently," said the boy.\r
+\r
+"I'll give you something gently, you monkey you!" cried Mavra\r
+Kuzminichna, raising her arm threateningly. "Go and get the samovar to\r
+boil for your grandfather."\r
+\r
+Mavra Kuzminichna flicked the dust off the clavichord and closed it, and\r
+with a deep sigh left the drawing room and locked its main door.\r
+\r
+Going out into the yard she paused to consider where she should go next-\r
+-to drink tea in the servants' wing with Vasilich, or into the storeroom\r
+to put away what still lay about.\r
+\r
+She heard the sound of quick footsteps in the quiet street. Someone\r
+stopped at the gate, and the latch rattled as someone tried to open it.\r
+Mavra Kuzminichna went to the gate.\r
+\r
+"Who do you want?"\r
+\r
+"The count--Count Ilya Andreevich Rostov."\r
+\r
+"And who are you?"\r
+\r
+"An officer, I have to see him," came the reply in a pleasant, well-bred\r
+Russian voice.\r
+\r
+Mavra Kuzminichna opened the gate and an officer of eighteen, with the\r
+round face of a Rostov, entered the yard.\r
+\r
+"They have gone away, sir. Went away yesterday at vespertime," said\r
+Mavra Kuzminichna cordially.\r
+\r
+The young officer standing in the gateway, as if hesitating whether to\r
+enter or not, clicked his tongue.\r
+\r
+"Ah, how annoying!" he muttered. "I should have come yesterday.... Ah,\r
+what a pity."\r
+\r
+Meanwhile, Mavra Kuzminichna was attentively and sympathetically\r
+examining the familiar Rostov features of the young man's face, his\r
+tattered coat and trodden-down boots.\r
+\r
+"What did you want to see the count for?" she asked.\r
+\r
+"Oh well... it can't be helped!" said he in a tone of vexation and\r
+placed his hand on the gate as if to leave.\r
+\r
+He again paused in indecision.\r
+\r
+"You see," he suddenly said, "I am a kinsman of the count's and he has\r
+been very kind to me. As you see" (he glanced with an amused air and\r
+good-natured smile at his coat and boots) "my things are worn out and I\r
+have no money, so I was going to ask the count..."\r
+\r
+Mavra Kuzminichna did not let him finish.\r
+\r
+"Just wait a minute, sir. One little moment," said she.\r
+\r
+And as soon as the officer let go of the gate handle she turned and,\r
+hurrying away on her old legs, went through the back yard to the\r
+servants' quarters.\r
+\r
+While Mavra Kuzminichna was running to her room the officer walked about\r
+the yard gazing at his worn-out boots with lowered head and a faint\r
+smile on his lips. "What a pity I've missed Uncle! What a nice old\r
+woman! Where has she run off to? And how am I to find the nearest way to\r
+overtake my regiment, which must by now be getting near the Rogozhski\r
+gate?" thought he. Just then Mavra Kuzminichna appeared from behind the\r
+corner of the house with a frightened yet resolute look, carrying a\r
+rolled-up check kerchief in her hand. While still a few steps from the\r
+officer she unfolded the kerchief and took out of it a white twenty-\r
+five-ruble assignat and hastily handed it to him.\r
+\r
+"If his excellency had been at home, as a kinsman he would of course...\r
+but as it is..."\r
+\r
+Mavra Kuzminichna grew abashed and confused. The officer did not\r
+decline, but took the note quietly and thanked her.\r
+\r
+"If the count had been at home..." Mavra Kuzminichna went on\r
+apologetically. "Christ be with you, sir! May God preserve you!" said\r
+she, bowing as she saw him out.\r
+\r
+Swaying his head and smiling as if amused at himself, the officer ran\r
+almost at a trot through the deserted streets toward the Yauza bridge to\r
+overtake his regiment.\r
+\r
+But Mavra Kuzminichna stood at the closed gate for some time with moist\r
+eyes, pensively swaying her head and feeling an unexpected flow of\r
+motherly tenderness and pity for the unknown young officer.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+From an unfinished house on the Varvarka, the ground floor of which was\r
+a dramshop, came drunken shouts and songs. On benches round the tables\r
+in a dirty little room sat some ten factory hands. Tipsy and perspiring,\r
+with dim eyes and wide-open mouths, they were all laboriously singing\r
+some song or other. They were singing discordantly, arduously, and with\r
+great effort, evidently not because they wished to sing, but because\r
+they wanted to show they were drunk and on a spree. One, a tall, fair-\r
+haired lad in a clean blue coat, was standing over the others. His face\r
+with its fine straight nose would have been handsome had it not been for\r
+his thin, compressed, twitching lips and dull, gloomy, fixed eyes.\r
+Evidently possessed by some idea, he stood over those who were singing,\r
+and solemnly and jerkily flourished above their heads his white arm with\r
+the sleeve turned up to the elbow, trying unnaturally to spread out his\r
+dirty fingers. The sleeve of his coat kept slipping down and he always\r
+carefully rolled it up again with his left hand, as if it were most\r
+important that the sinewy white arm he was flourishing should be bare.\r
+In the midst of the song cries were heard, and fighting and blows in the\r
+passage and porch. The tall lad waved his arm.\r
+\r
+"Stop it!" he exclaimed peremptorily. "There's a fight, lads!" And,\r
+still rolling up his sleeve, he went out to the porch.\r
+\r
+The factory hands followed him. These men, who under the leadership of\r
+the tall lad were drinking in the dramshop that morning, had brought the\r
+publican some skins from the factory and for this had had drink served\r
+them. The blacksmiths from a neighboring smithy, hearing the sounds of\r
+revelry in the tavern and supposing it to have been broken into, wished\r
+to force their way in too and a fight in the porch had resulted.\r
+\r
+The publican was fighting one of the smiths at the door, and when the\r
+workmen came out the smith, wrenching himself free from the tavern\r
+keeper, fell face downward on the pavement.\r
+\r
+Another smith tried to enter the doorway, pressing against the publican\r
+with his chest.\r
+\r
+The lad with the turned-up sleeve gave the smith a blow in the face and\r
+cried wildly: "They're fighting us, lads!"\r
+\r
+At that moment the first smith got up and, scratching his bruised face\r
+to make it bleed, shouted in a tearful voice: "Police! Murder!...\r
+They've killed a man, lads!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, gracious me, a man beaten to death--killed!..." screamed a woman\r
+coming out of a gate close by.\r
+\r
+A crowd gathered round the bloodstained smith.\r
+\r
+"Haven't you robbed people enough--taking their last shirts?" said a\r
+voice addressing the publican. "What have you killed a man for, you\r
+thief?"\r
+\r
+The tall lad, standing in the porch, turned his bleared eyes from the\r
+publican to the smith and back again as if considering whom he ought to\r
+fight now.\r
+\r
+"Murderer!" he shouted suddenly to the publican. "Bind him, lads!"\r
+\r
+"I daresay you would like to bind me!" shouted the publican, pushing\r
+away the men advancing on him, and snatching his cap from his head he\r
+flung it on the ground.\r
+\r
+As if this action had some mysterious and menacing significance, the\r
+workmen surrounding the publican paused in indecision.\r
+\r
+"I know the law very well, mates! I'll take the matter to the captain of\r
+police. You think I won't get to him? Robbery is not permitted to\r
+anybody now a days!" shouted the publican, picking up his cap.\r
+\r
+"Come along then! Come along then!" the publican and the tall young\r
+fellow repeated one after the other, and they moved up the street\r
+together.\r
+\r
+The bloodstained smith went beside them. The factory hands and others\r
+followed behind, talking and shouting.\r
+\r
+At the corner of the Moroseyka, opposite a large house with closed\r
+shutters and bearing a bootmaker's signboard, stood a score of thin,\r
+worn-out, gloomy-faced bootmakers, wearing overalls and long tattered\r
+coats.\r
+\r
+"He should pay folks off properly," a thin workingman, with frowning\r
+brows and a straggly beard, was saying.\r
+\r
+"But he's sucked our blood and now he thinks he's quit of us. He's been\r
+misleading us all the week and now that he's brought us to this pass\r
+he's made off."\r
+\r
+On seeing the crowd and the bloodstained man the workman ceased\r
+speaking, and with eager curiosity all the bootmakers joined the moving\r
+crowd.\r
+\r
+"Where are all the folks going?"\r
+\r
+"Why, to the police, of course!"\r
+\r
+"I say, is it true that we have been beaten?" "And what did you think?\r
+Look what folks are saying."\r
+\r
+Questions and answers were heard. The publican, taking advantage of the\r
+increased crowd, dropped behind and returned to his tavern.\r
+\r
+The tall youth, not noticing the disappearance of his foe, waved his\r
+bare arm and went on talking incessantly, attracting general attention\r
+to himself. It was around him that the people chiefly crowded, expecting\r
+answers from him to the questions that occupied all their minds.\r
+\r
+"He must keep order, keep the law, that's what the government is there\r
+for. Am I not right, good Christians?" said the tall youth, with a\r
+scarcely perceptible smile. "He thinks there's no government! How can\r
+one do without government? Or else there would be plenty who'd rob us."\r
+\r
+"Why talk nonsense?" rejoined voices in the crowd. "Will they give up\r
+Moscow like this? They told you that for fun, and you believed it!\r
+Aren't there plenty of troops on the march? Let him in, indeed! That's\r
+what the government is for. You'd better listen to what people are\r
+saying," said some of the mob pointing to the tall youth.\r
+\r
+By the wall of China-Town a smaller group of people were gathered round\r
+a man in a frieze coat who held a paper in his hand.\r
+\r
+"An ukase, they are reading an ukase! Reading an ukase!" cried voices in\r
+the crowd, and the people rushed toward the reader.\r
+\r
+The man in the frieze coat was reading the broadsheet of August 31. When\r
+the crowd collected round him he seemed confused, but at the demand of\r
+the tall lad who had pushed his way up to him, he began in a rather\r
+tremulous voice to read the sheet from the beginning.\r
+\r
+"Early tomorrow I shall go to his Serene Highness," he read ("Sirin\r
+Highness," said the tall fellow with a triumphant smile on his lips and\r
+a frown on his brow), "to consult with him to act, and to aid the army\r
+to exterminate these scoundrels. We too will take part..." the reader\r
+went on, and then paused ("Do you see," shouted the youth victoriously,\r
+"he's going to clear up the whole affair for you...."), "in destroying\r
+them, and will send these visitors to the devil. I will come back to\r
+dinner, and we'll set to work. We will do, completely do, and undo these\r
+scoundrels."\r
+\r
+The last words were read out in the midst of complete silence. The tall\r
+lad hung his head gloomily. It was evident that no one had understood\r
+the last part. In particular, the words "I will come back to dinner,"\r
+evidently displeased both reader and audience. The people's minds were\r
+tuned to a high pitch and this was too simple and needlessly\r
+comprehensible--it was what any one of them might have said and\r
+therefore was what an ukase emanating from the highest authority should\r
+not say.\r
+\r
+They all stood despondent and silent. The tall youth moved his lips and\r
+swayed from side to side.\r
+\r
+"We should ask him... that's he himself?"... "Yes, ask him indeed!...\r
+Why not? He'll explain"... voices in the rear of the crowd were suddenly\r
+heard saying, and the general attention turned to the police\r
+superintendent's trap which drove into the square attended by two\r
+mounted dragoons.\r
+\r
+The superintendent of police, who had gone that morning by Count\r
+Rostopchin's orders to burn the barges and had in connection with that\r
+matter acquired a large sum of money which was at that moment in his\r
+pocket, on seeing a crowd bearing down upon him told his coachman to\r
+stop.\r
+\r
+"What people are these?" he shouted to the men, who were moving singly\r
+and timidly in the direction of his trap.\r
+\r
+"What people are these?" he shouted again, receiving no answer.\r
+\r
+"Your honor..." replied the shopman in the frieze coat, "your honor, in\r
+accord with the proclamation of his highest excellency the count, they\r
+desire to serve, not sparing their lives, and it is not any kind of\r
+riot, but as his highest excellence said..."\r
+\r
+"The count has not left, he is here, and an order will be issued\r
+concerning you," said the superintendent of police. "Go on!" he ordered\r
+his coachman.\r
+\r
+The crowd halted, pressing around those who had heard what the\r
+superintendent had said, and looking at the departing trap.\r
+\r
+The superintendent of police turned round at that moment with a scared\r
+look, said something to his coachman, and his horses increased their\r
+speed.\r
+\r
+"It's a fraud, lads! Lead the way to him, himself!" shouted the tall\r
+youth. "Don't let him go, lads! Let him answer us! Keep him!" shouted\r
+different people and the people dashed in pursuit of the trap.\r
+\r
+Following the superintendent of police and talking loudly the crowd went\r
+in the direction of the Lubyanka Street.\r
+\r
+"There now, the gentry and merchants have gone away and left us to\r
+perish. Do they think we're dogs?" voices in the crowd were heard saying\r
+more and more frequently.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIV\r
+\r
+On the evening of the first of September, after his interview with\r
+Kutuzov, Count Rostopchin had returned to Moscow mortified and offended\r
+because he had not been invited to attend the council of war, and\r
+because Kutuzov had paid no attention to his offer to take part in the\r
+defense of the city; amazed also at the novel outlook revealed to him at\r
+the camp, which treated the tranquillity of the capital and its\r
+patriotic fervor as not merely secondary but quite irrelevant and\r
+unimportant matters. Distressed, offended, and surprised by all this,\r
+Rostopchin had returned to Moscow. After supper he lay down on a sofa\r
+without undressing, and was awakened soon after midnight by a courier\r
+bringing him a letter from Kutuzov. This letter requested the count to\r
+send police officers to guide the troops through the town, as the army\r
+was retreating to the Ryazan road beyond Moscow. This was not news to\r
+Rostopchin. He had known that Moscow would be abandoned not merely since\r
+his interview the previous day with Kutuzov on the Poklonny Hill but\r
+ever since the battle of Borodino, for all the generals who came to\r
+Moscow after that battle had said unanimously that it was impossible to\r
+fight another battle, and since then the government property had been\r
+removed every night, and half the inhabitants had left the city with\r
+Rostopchin's own permission. Yet all the same this information\r
+astonished and irritated the count, coming as it did in the form of a\r
+simple note with an order from Kutuzov, and received at night, breaking\r
+in on his beauty sleep.\r
+\r
+When later on in his memoirs Count Rostopchin explained his actions at\r
+this time, he repeatedly says that he was then actuated by two important\r
+considerations: to maintain tranquillity in Moscow and expedite the\r
+departure of the inhabitants. If one accepts this twofold aim all\r
+Rostopchin's actions appear irreproachable. "Why were the holy relics,\r
+the arms, ammunition, gunpowder, and stores of corn not removed? Why\r
+were thousands of inhabitants deceived into believing that Moscow would\r
+not be given up--and thereby ruined?" "To preserve the tranquillity of\r
+the city," explains Count Rostopchin. "Why were bundles of useless\r
+papers from the government offices, and Leppich's balloon and other\r
+articles removed?" "To leave the town empty," explains Count Rostopchin.\r
+One need only admit that public tranquillity is in danger and any action\r
+finds a justification.\r
+\r
+All the horrors of the reign of terror were based only on solicitude for\r
+public tranquillity.\r
+\r
+On what, then, was Count Rostopchin's fear for the tranquillity of\r
+Moscow based in 1812? What reason was there for assuming any probability\r
+of an uprising in the city? The inhabitants were leaving it and the\r
+retreating troops were filling it. Why should that cause the masses to\r
+riot?\r
+\r
+Neither in Moscow nor anywhere in Russia did anything resembling an\r
+insurrection ever occur when the enemy entered a town. More than ten\r
+thousand people were still in Moscow on the first and second of\r
+September, and except for a mob in the governor's courtyard, assembled\r
+there at his bidding, nothing happened. It is obvious that there would\r
+have been even less reason to expect a disturbance among the people if\r
+after the battle of Borodino, when the surrender of Moscow became\r
+certain or at least probable, Rostopchin instead of exciting the people\r
+by distributing arms and broadsheets had taken steps to remove all the\r
+holy relics, the gunpowder, munitions, and money, and had told the\r
+population plainly that the town would be abandoned.\r
+\r
+Rostopchin, though he had patriotic sentiments, was a sanguine and\r
+impulsive man who had always moved in the highest administrative circles\r
+and had no understanding at all of the people he supposed himself to be\r
+guiding. Ever since the enemy's entry into Smolensk he had in\r
+imagination been playing the role of director of the popular feeling of\r
+"the heart of Russia." Not only did it seem to him (as to all\r
+administrators) that he controlled the external actions of Moscow's\r
+inhabitants, but he also thought he controlled their mental attitude by\r
+means of his broadsheets and posters, written in a coarse tone which the\r
+people despise in their own class and do not understand from those in\r
+authority. Rostopchin was so pleased with the fine role of leader of\r
+popular feeling, and had grown so used to it, that the necessity of\r
+relinquishing that role and abandoning Moscow without any heroic display\r
+took him unawares and he suddenly felt the ground slip away from under\r
+his feet, so that he positively did not know what to do. Though he knew\r
+it was coming, he did not till the last moment wholeheartedly believe\r
+that Moscow would be abandoned, and did not prepare for it. The\r
+inhabitants left against his wishes. If the government offices were\r
+removed, this was only done on the demand of officials to whom the count\r
+yielded reluctantly. He was absorbed in the role he had created for\r
+himself. As is often the case with those gifted with an ardent\r
+imagination, though he had long known that Moscow would be abandoned he\r
+knew it only with his intellect, he did not believe it in his heart and\r
+did not adapt himself mentally to this new position of affairs.\r
+\r
+All his painstaking and energetic activity (in how far it was useful and\r
+had any effect on the people is another question) had been simply\r
+directed toward arousing in the masses his own feeling of patriotic\r
+hatred of the French.\r
+\r
+But when events assumed their true historical character, when expressing\r
+hatred for the French in words proved insufficient, when it was not even\r
+possible to express that hatred by fighting a battle, when self-\r
+confidence was of no avail in relation to the one question before\r
+Moscow, when the whole population streamed out of Moscow as one man,\r
+abandoning their belongings and proving by that negative action all the\r
+depth of their national feeling, then the role chosen by Rostopchin\r
+suddenly appeared senseless. He unexpectedly felt himself ridiculous,\r
+weak, and alone, with no ground to stand on.\r
+\r
+When, awakened from his sleep, he received that cold, peremptory note\r
+from Kutuzov, he felt the more irritated the more he felt himself to\r
+blame. All that he had been specially put in charge of, the state\r
+property which he should have removed, was still in Moscow and it was no\r
+longer possible to take the whole of it away.\r
+\r
+"Who is to blame for it? Who has let things come to such a pass?" he\r
+ruminated. "Not I, of course. I had everything ready. I had Moscow\r
+firmly in hand. And this is what they have let it come to! Villains!\r
+Traitors!" he thought, without clearly defining who the villains and\r
+traitors were, but feeling it necessary to hate those traitors whoever\r
+they might be who were to blame for the false and ridiculous position in\r
+which he found himself.\r
+\r
+All that night Count Rostopchin issued orders, for which people came to\r
+him from all parts of Moscow. Those about him had never seen the count\r
+so morose and irritable.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency, the Director of the Registrar's Department has sent\r
+for instructions... From the Consistory, from the Senate, from the\r
+University, from the Foundling Hospital, the Suffragan has sent...\r
+asking for information.... What are your orders about the Fire Brigade?\r
+From the governor of the prison... from the superintendent of the\r
+lunatic asylum..." All night long such announcements were continually\r
+being received by the count.\r
+\r
+To all these inquiries he gave brief and angry replies indicating that\r
+orders from him were not now needed, that the whole affair, carefully\r
+prepared by him, had now been ruined by somebody, and that that somebody\r
+would have to bear the whole responsibility for all that might happen.\r
+\r
+"Oh, tell that blockhead," he said in reply to the question from the\r
+Registrar's Department, "that he should remain to guard his documents.\r
+Now why are you asking silly questions about the Fire Brigade? They have\r
+horses, let them be off to Vladimir, and not leave them to the French."\r
+\r
+"Your excellency, the superintendent of the lunatic asylum has come:\r
+what are your commands?"\r
+\r
+"My commands? Let them go away, that's all.... And let the lunatics out\r
+into the town. When lunatics command our armies God evidently means\r
+these other madmen to be free."\r
+\r
+In reply to an inquiry about the convicts in the prison, Count\r
+Rostopchin shouted angrily at the governor:\r
+\r
+"Do you expect me to give you two battalions--which we have not got--for\r
+a convoy? Release them, that's all about it!"\r
+\r
+"Your excellency, there are some political prisoners, Meshkov,\r
+Vereshchagin..."\r
+\r
+"Vereshchagin! Hasn't he been hanged yet?" shouted Rostopchin. "Bring\r
+him to me!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXV\r
+\r
+Toward nine o'clock in the morning, when the troops were already moving\r
+through Moscow, nobody came to the count any more for instructions.\r
+Those who were able to get away were going of their own accord, those\r
+who remained behind decided for themselves what they must do.\r
+\r
+The count ordered his carriage that he might drive to Sokolniki, and sat\r
+in his study with folded hands, morose, sallow, and taciturn.\r
+\r
+In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is\r
+only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept\r
+going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every\r
+administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the\r
+sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark,\r
+holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself\r
+moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding\r
+on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the\r
+ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves\r
+independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer\r
+reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of\r
+appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant,\r
+useless, feeble man.\r
+\r
+Rostopchin felt this, and it was this which exasperated him.\r
+\r
+The superintendent of police, whom the crowd had stopped, went in to see\r
+him at the same time as an adjutant who informed the count that the\r
+horses were harnessed. They were both pale, and the superintendent of\r
+police, after reporting that he had executed the instructions he had\r
+received, informed the count that an immense crowd had collected in the\r
+courtyard and wished to see him.\r
+\r
+Without saying a word Rostopchin rose and walked hastily to his light,\r
+luxurious drawing room, went to the balcony door, took hold of the\r
+handle, let it go again, and went to the window from which he had a\r
+better view of the whole crowd. The tall lad was standing in front,\r
+flourishing his arm and saying something with a stern look. The blood-\r
+stained smith stood beside him with a gloomy face. A drone of voices was\r
+audible through the closed window.\r
+\r
+"Is my carriage ready?" asked Rostopchin, stepping back from the window.\r
+\r
+"It is, your excellency," replied the adjutant.\r
+\r
+Rostopchin went again to the balcony door.\r
+\r
+"But what do they want?" he asked the superintendent of police.\r
+\r
+"Your excellency, they say they have got ready, according to your\r
+orders, to go against the French, and they shouted something about\r
+treachery. But it is a turbulent crowd, your excellency--I hardly\r
+managed to get away from it. Your excellency, I venture to suggest..."\r
+\r
+"You may go. I don't need you to tell me what to do!" exclaimed\r
+Rostopchin angrily.\r
+\r
+He stood by the balcony door looking at the crowd.\r
+\r
+"This is what they have done with Russia! This is what they have done\r
+with me!" thought he, full of an irrepressible fury that welled up\r
+within him against the someone to whom what was happening might be\r
+attributed. As often happens with passionate people, he was mastered by\r
+anger but was still seeking an object on which to vent it. "Here is that\r
+mob, the dregs of the people," he thought as he gazed at the crowd:\r
+"this rabble they have roused by their folly! They want a victim," he\r
+thought as he looked at the tall lad flourishing his arm. And this\r
+thought occurred to him just because he himself desired a victim,\r
+something on which to vent his rage.\r
+\r
+"Is the carriage ready?" he asked again.\r
+\r
+"Yes, your excellency. What are your orders about Vereshchagin? He is\r
+waiting at the porch," said the adjutant.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" exclaimed Rostopchin, as if struck by an unexpected recollection.\r
+\r
+And rapidly opening the door he went resolutely out onto the balcony.\r
+The talking instantly ceased, hats and caps were doffed, and all eyes\r
+were raised to the count.\r
+\r
+"Good morning, lads!" said the count briskly and loudly. "Thank you for\r
+coming. I'll come out to you in a moment, but we must first settle with\r
+the villain. We must punish the villain who has caused the ruin of\r
+Moscow. Wait for me!"\r
+\r
+And the count stepped as briskly back into the room and slammed the door\r
+behind him.\r
+\r
+A murmur of approbation and satisfaction ran through the crowd. "He'll\r
+settle with all the villains, you'll see! And you said the French...\r
+He'll show you what law is!" the mob were saying as if reproving one\r
+another for their lack of confidence.\r
+\r
+A few minutes later an officer came hurriedly out of the front door,\r
+gave an order, and the dragoons formed up in line. The crowd moved\r
+eagerly from the balcony toward the porch. Rostopchin, coming out there\r
+with quick angry steps, looked hastily around as if seeking someone.\r
+\r
+"Where is he?" he inquired. And as he spoke he saw a young man coming\r
+round the corner of the house between two dragoons. He had a long thin\r
+neck, and his head, that had been half shaved, was again covered by\r
+short hair. This young man was dressed in a threadbare blue cloth coat\r
+lined with fox fur, that had once been smart, and dirty hempen convict\r
+trousers, over which were pulled his thin, dirty, trodden-down boots. On\r
+his thin, weak legs were heavy chains which hampered his irresolute\r
+movements.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Rostopchin, hurriedly turning away his eyes from the young\r
+man in the fur-lined coat and pointing to the bottom step of the porch.\r
+"Put him there."\r
+\r
+The young man in his clattering chains stepped clumsily to the spot\r
+indicated, holding away with one finger the coat collar which chafed his\r
+neck, turned his long neck twice this way and that, sighed, and\r
+submissively folded before him his thin hands, unused to work.\r
+\r
+For several seconds while the young man was taking his place on the step\r
+the silence continued. Only among the back rows of the people, who were\r
+all pressing toward the one spot, could sighs, groans, and the shuffling\r
+of feet be heard.\r
+\r
+While waiting for the young man to take his place on the step Rostopchin\r
+stood frowning and rubbing his face with his hand.\r
+\r
+"Lads!" said he, with a metallic ring in his voice. "This man,\r
+Vereshchagin, is the scoundrel by whose doing Moscow is perishing."\r
+\r
+The young man in the fur-lined coat, stooping a little, stood in a\r
+submissive attitude, his fingers clasped before him. His emaciated young\r
+face, disfigured by the half-shaven head, hung down hopelessly. At the\r
+count's first words he raised it slowly and looked up at him as if\r
+wishing to say something or at least to meet his eye. But Rostopchin did\r
+not look at him. A vein in the young man's long thin neck swelled like a\r
+cord and went blue behind the ear, and suddenly his face flushed.\r
+\r
+All eyes were fixed on him. He looked at the crowd, and rendered more\r
+hopeful by the expression he read on the faces there, he smiled sadly\r
+and timidly, and lowering his head shifted his feet on the step.\r
+\r
+"He has betrayed his Tsar and his country, he has gone over to\r
+Bonaparte. He alone of all the Russians has disgraced the Russian name,\r
+he has caused Moscow to perish," said Rostopchin in a sharp, even voice,\r
+but suddenly he glanced down at Vereshchagin who continued to stand in\r
+the same submissive attitude. As if inflamed by the sight, he raised his\r
+arm and addressed the people, almost shouting:\r
+\r
+"Deal with him as you think fit! I hand him over to you."\r
+\r
+The crowd remained silent and only pressed closer and closer to one\r
+another. To keep one another back, to breathe in that stifling\r
+atmosphere, to be unable to stir, and to await something unknown,\r
+uncomprehended, and terrible, was becoming unbearable. Those standing in\r
+front, who had seen and heard what had taken place before them, all\r
+stood with wide-open eyes and mouths, straining with all their strength,\r
+and held back the crowd that was pushing behind them.\r
+\r
+"Beat him!... Let the traitor perish and not disgrace the Russian name!"\r
+shouted Rostopchin. "Cut him down. I command it."\r
+\r
+Hearing not so much the words as the angry tone of Rostopchin's voice,\r
+the crowd moaned and heaved forward, but again paused.\r
+\r
+"Count!" exclaimed the timid yet theatrical voice of Vereshchagin in the\r
+midst of the momentary silence that ensued, "Count! One God is above us\r
+both...." He lifted his head and again the thick vein in his thin neck\r
+filled with blood and the color rapidly came and went in his face.\r
+\r
+He did not finish what he wished to say.\r
+\r
+"Cut him down! I command it..." shouted Rostopchin, suddenly growing\r
+pale like Vereshchagin.\r
+\r
+"Draw sabers!" cried the dragoon officer, drawing his own.\r
+\r
+Another still stronger wave flowed through the crowd and reaching the\r
+front ranks carried it swaying to the very steps of the porch. The tall\r
+youth, with a stony look on his face, and rigid and uplifted arm, stood\r
+beside Vereshchagin.\r
+\r
+"Saber him!" the dragoon officer almost whispered.\r
+\r
+And one of the soldiers, his face all at once distorted with fury,\r
+struck Vereshchagin on the head with the blunt side of his saber.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" cried Vereshchagin in meek surprise, looking round with a\r
+frightened glance as if not understanding why this was done to him. A\r
+similar moan of surprise and horror ran through the crowd. "O Lord!"\r
+exclaimed a sorrowful voice.\r
+\r
+But after the exclamation of surprise that had escaped from Vereshchagin\r
+he uttered a plaintive cry of pain, and that cry was fatal. The barrier\r
+of human feeling, strained to the utmost, that had held the crowd in\r
+check suddenly broke. The crime had begun and must now be completed. The\r
+plaintive moan of reproach was drowned by the threatening and angry roar\r
+of the crowd. Like the seventh and last wave that shatters a ship, that\r
+last irresistible wave burst from the rear and reached the front ranks,\r
+carrying them off their feet and engulfing them all. The dragoon was\r
+about to repeat his blow. Vereshchagin with a cry of horror, covering\r
+his head with his hands, rushed toward the crowd. The tall youth,\r
+against whom he stumbled, seized his thin neck with his hands and,\r
+yelling wildly, fell with him under the feet of the pressing, struggling\r
+crowd.\r
+\r
+Some beat and tore at Vereshchagin, others at the tall youth. And the\r
+screams of those that were being trampled on and of those who tried to\r
+rescue the tall lad only increased the fury of the crowd. It was a long\r
+time before the dragoons could extricate the bleeding youth, beaten\r
+almost to death. And for a long time, despite the feverish haste with\r
+which the mob tried to end the work that had been begun, those who were\r
+hitting, throttling, and tearing at Vereshchagin were unable to kill\r
+him, for the crowd pressed from all sides, swaying as one mass with them\r
+in the center and rendering it impossible for them either to kill him or\r
+let him go.\r
+\r
+"Hit him with an ax, eh!... Crushed?... Traitor, he sold Christ....\r
+Still alive... tenacious... serves him right! Torture serves a thief\r
+right. Use the hatchet!... What--still alive?"\r
+\r
+Only when the victim ceased to struggle and his cries changed to a long-\r
+drawn, measured death rattle did the crowd around his prostrate,\r
+bleeding corpse begin rapidly to change places. Each one came up,\r
+glanced at what had been done, and with horror, reproach, and\r
+astonishment pushed back again.\r
+\r
+"O Lord! The people are like wild beasts! How could he be alive?" voices\r
+in the crowd could be heard saying. "Quite a young fellow too... must\r
+have been a merchant's son. What men!... and they say he's not the right\r
+one.... How not the right one?... O Lord! And there's another has been\r
+beaten too--they say he's nearly done for.... Oh, the people... Aren't\r
+they afraid of sinning?..." said the same mob now, looking with pained\r
+distress at the dead body with its long, thin, half-severed neck and its\r
+livid face stained with blood and dust.\r
+\r
+A painstaking police officer, considering the presence of a corpse in\r
+his excellency's courtyard unseemly, told the dragoons to take it away.\r
+Two dragoons took it by its distorted legs and dragged it along the\r
+ground. The gory, dust-stained, half-shaven head with its long neck\r
+trailed twisting along the ground. The crowd shrank back from it.\r
+\r
+At the moment when Vereshchagin fell and the crowd closed in with savage\r
+yells and swayed about him, Rostopchin suddenly turned pale and, instead\r
+of going to the back entrance where his carriage awaited him, went with\r
+hurried steps and bent head, not knowing where and why, along the\r
+passage leading to the rooms on the ground floor. The count's face was\r
+white and he could not control the feverish twitching of his lower jaw.\r
+\r
+"This way, your excellency... Where are you going?... This way,\r
+please..." said a trembling, frightened voice behind him.\r
+\r
+Count Rostopchin was unable to reply and, turning obediently, went in\r
+the direction indicated. At the back entrance stood his caleche. The\r
+distant roar of the yelling crowd was audible even there. He hastily\r
+took his seat and told the coachman to drive him to his country house in\r
+Sokolniki.\r
+\r
+When they reached the Myasnitski Street and could no longer hear the\r
+shouts of the mob, the count began to repent. He remembered with\r
+dissatisfaction the agitation and fear he had betrayed before his\r
+subordinates. "The mob is terrible--disgusting," he said to himself in\r
+French. "They are like wolves whom nothing but flesh can appease."\r
+"Count! One God is above us both!"--Vereshchagin's words suddenly\r
+recurred to him, and a disagreeable shiver ran down his back. But this\r
+was only a momentary feeling and Count Rostopchin smiled disdainfully at\r
+himself. "I had other duties," thought he. "The people had to be\r
+appeased. Many other victims have perished and are perishing for the\r
+public good"--and he began thinking of his social duties to his family\r
+and to the city entrusted to him, and of himself--not himself as\r
+Theodore Vasilyevich Rostopchin (he fancied that Theodore Vasilyevich\r
+Rostopchin was sacrificing himself for the public good) but himself as\r
+governor, the representative of authority and of the Tsar. "Had I been\r
+simply Theodore Vasilyevich my course of action would have been quite\r
+different, but it was my duty to safeguard my life and dignity as\r
+commander-in-chief."\r
+\r
+Lightly swaying on the flexible springs of his carriage and no longer\r
+hearing the terrible sounds of the crowd, Rostopchin grew physically\r
+calm and, as always happens, as soon as he became physically tranquil\r
+his mind devised reasons why he should be mentally tranquil too. The\r
+thought which tranquillized Rostopchin was not a new one. Since the\r
+world began and men have killed one another no one has ever committed\r
+such a crime against his fellow man without comforting himself with this\r
+same idea. This idea is le bien public, the hypothetical welfare of\r
+other people.\r
+\r
+To a man not swayed by passion that welfare is never certain, but he who\r
+commits such a crime always knows just where that welfare lies. And\r
+Rostopchin now knew it.\r
+\r
+Not only did his reason not reproach him for what he had done, but he\r
+even found cause for self-satisfaction in having so successfully\r
+contrived to avail himself of a convenient opportunity to punish a\r
+criminal and at the same time pacify the mob.\r
+\r
+"Vereshchagin was tried and condemned to death," thought Rostopchin\r
+(though the Senate had only condemned Vereshchagin to hard labor), "he\r
+was a traitor and a spy. I could not let him go unpunished and so I have\r
+killed two birds with one stone: to appease the mob I gave them a victim\r
+and at the same time punished a miscreant."\r
+\r
+Having reached his country house and begun to give orders about domestic\r
+arrangements, the count grew quite tranquil.\r
+\r
+Half an hour later he was driving with his fast horses across the\r
+Sokolniki field, no longer thinking of what had occurred but considering\r
+what was to come. He was driving to the Yauza bridge where he had heard\r
+that Kutuzov was. Count Rostopchin was mentally preparing the angry and\r
+stinging reproaches he meant to address to Kutuzov for his deception. He\r
+would make that foxy old courtier feel that the responsibility for all\r
+the calamities that would follow the abandonment of the city and the\r
+ruin of Russia (as Rostopchin regarded it) would fall upon his doting\r
+old head. Planning beforehand what he would say to Kutuzov, Rostopchin\r
+turned angrily in his caleche and gazed sternly from side to side.\r
+\r
+The Sokolniki field was deserted. Only at the end of it, in front of the\r
+almshouse and the lunatic asylum, could be seen some people in white and\r
+others like them walking singly across the field shouting and\r
+gesticulating.\r
+\r
+One of these was running to cross the path of Count Rostopchin's\r
+carriage, and the count himself, his coachman, and his dragoons looked\r
+with vague horror and curiosity at these released lunatics and\r
+especially at the one running toward them.\r
+\r
+Swaying from side to side on his long, thin legs in his fluttering\r
+dressing gown, this lunatic was running impetuously, his gaze fixed on\r
+Rostopchin, shouting something in a hoarse voice and making signs to him\r
+to stop. The lunatic's solemn, gloomy face was thin and yellow, with its\r
+beard growing in uneven tufts. His black, agate pupils with saffron-\r
+yellow whites moved restlessly near the lower eyelids.\r
+\r
+"Stop! Pull up, I tell you!" he cried in a piercing voice, and again\r
+shouted something breathlessly with emphatic intonations and gestures.\r
+\r
+Coming abreast of the caleche he ran beside it.\r
+\r
+"Thrice have they slain me, thrice have I risen from the dead. They\r
+stoned me, crucified me... I shall rise... shall rise... shall rise.\r
+They have torn my body. The kingdom of God will be overthrown... Thrice\r
+will I overthrow it and thrice re-establish it!" he cried, raising his\r
+voice higher and higher.\r
+\r
+Count Rostopchin suddenly grew pale as he had done when the crowd closed\r
+in on Vereshchagin. He turned away. "Go fas... faster!" he cried in a\r
+trembling voice to his coachman. The caleche flew over the ground as\r
+fast as the horses could draw it, but for a long time Count Rostopchin\r
+still heard the insane despairing screams growing fainter in the\r
+distance, while his eyes saw nothing but the astonished, frightened,\r
+bloodstained face of "the traitor" in the fur-lined coat.\r
+\r
+Recent as that mental picture was, Rostopchin already felt that it had\r
+cut deep into his heart and drawn blood. Even now he felt clearly that\r
+the gory trace of that recollection would not pass with time, but that\r
+the terrible memory would, on the contrary, dwell in his heart ever more\r
+cruelly and painfully to the end of his life. He seemed still to hear\r
+the sound of his own words: "Cut him down! I command it...."\r
+\r
+"Why did I utter those words? It was by some accident I said them.... I\r
+need not have said them," he thought. "And then nothing would have\r
+happened." He saw the frightened and then infuriated face of the dragoon\r
+who dealt the blow, the look of silent, timid reproach that boy in the\r
+fur-lined coat had turned upon him. "But I did not do it for my own\r
+sake. I was bound to act that way.... The mob, the traitor... the public\r
+welfare," thought he.\r
+\r
+Troops were still crowding at the Yauza bridge. It was hot. Kutuzov,\r
+dejected and frowning, sat on a bench by the bridge toying with his whip\r
+in the sand when a caleche dashed up noisily. A man in a general's\r
+uniform with plumes in his hat went up to Kutuzov and said something in\r
+French. It was Count Rostopchin. He told Kutuzov that he had come\r
+because Moscow, the capital, was no more and only the army remained.\r
+\r
+"Things would have been different if your Serene Highness had not told\r
+me that you would not abandon Moscow without another battle; all this\r
+would not have happened," he said.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov looked at Rostopchin as if, not grasping what was said to him,\r
+he was trying to read something peculiar written at that moment on the\r
+face of the man addressing him. Rostopchin grew confused and became\r
+silent. Kutuzov slightly shook his head and not taking his penetrating\r
+gaze from Rostopchin's face muttered softly:\r
+\r
+"No! I shall not give up Moscow without a battle!"\r
+\r
+Whether Kutuzov was thinking of something entirely different when he\r
+spoke those words, or uttered them purposely, knowing them to be\r
+meaningless, at any rate Rostopchin made no reply and hastily left him.\r
+And strange to say, the Governor of Moscow, the proud Count Rostopchin,\r
+took up a Cossack whip and went to the bridge where he began with shouts\r
+to drive on the carts that blocked the way.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVI\r
+\r
+Toward four o'clock in the afternoon Murat's troops were entering\r
+Moscow. In front rode a detachment of Wurttemberg hussars and behind\r
+them rode the King of Naples himself accompanied by a numerous suite.\r
+\r
+About the middle of the Arbat Street, near the Church of the Miraculous\r
+Icon of St. Nicholas, Murat halted to await news from the advanced\r
+detachment as to the condition in which they had found the citadel, le\r
+Kremlin.\r
+\r
+Around Murat gathered a group of those who had remained in Moscow. They\r
+all stared in timid bewilderment at the strange, long-haired commander\r
+dressed up in feathers and gold.\r
+\r
+"Is that their Tsar himself? He's not bad!" low voices could be heard\r
+saying.\r
+\r
+An interpreter rode up to the group.\r
+\r
+"Take off your cap... your caps!" These words went from one to another\r
+in the crowd. The interpreter addressed an old porter and asked if it\r
+was far to the Kremlin. The porter, listening in perplexity to the\r
+unfamiliar Polish accent and not realizing that the interpreter was\r
+speaking Russian, did not understand what was being said to him and\r
+slipped behind the others.\r
+\r
+Murat approached the interpreter and told him to ask where the Russian\r
+army was. One of the Russians understood what was asked and several\r
+voices at once began answering the interpreter. A French officer,\r
+returning from the advanced detachment, rode up to Murat and reported\r
+that the gates of the citadel had been barricaded and that there was\r
+probably an ambuscade there.\r
+\r
+"Good!" said Murat and, turning to one of the gentlemen in his suite,\r
+ordered four light guns to be moved forward to fire at the gates.\r
+\r
+The guns emerged at a trot from the column following Murat and advanced\r
+up the Arbat. When they reached the end of the Vozdvizhenka Street they\r
+halted and drew in the Square. Several French officers superintended the\r
+placing of the guns and looked at the Kremlin through field glasses.\r
+\r
+The bells in the Kremlin were ringing for vespers, and this sound\r
+troubled the French. They imagined it to be a call to arms. A few\r
+infantrymen ran to the Kutafyev Gate. Beams and wooden screens had been\r
+put there, and two musket shots rang out from under the gate as soon as\r
+an officer and men began to run toward it. A general who was standing by\r
+the guns shouted some words of command to the officer, and the latter\r
+ran back again with his men.\r
+\r
+The sound of three more shots came from the gate.\r
+\r
+One shot struck a French soldier's foot, and from behind the screens\r
+came the strange sound of a few voices shouting. Instantly as at a word\r
+of command the expression of cheerful serenity on the faces of the\r
+French general, officers, and men changed to one of determined\r
+concentrated readiness for strife and suffering. To all of them from the\r
+marshal to the least soldier, that place was not the Vozdvizhenka,\r
+Mokhavaya, or Kutafyev Street, nor the Troitsa Gate (places familiar in\r
+Moscow), but a new battlefield which would probably prove sanguinary.\r
+And all made ready for that battle. The cries from the gates ceased. The\r
+guns were advanced, the artillerymen blew the ash off their linstocks,\r
+and an officer gave the word "Fire!" This was followed by two whistling\r
+sounds of canister shot, one after another. The shot rattled against the\r
+stone of the gate and upon the wooden beams and screens, and two\r
+wavering clouds of smoke rose over the Square.\r
+\r
+A few instants after the echo of the reports resounding over the stone-\r
+built Kremlin had died away the French heard a strange sound above their\r
+head. Thousands of crows rose above the walls and circled in the air,\r
+cawing and noisily flapping their wings. Together with that sound came a\r
+solitary human cry from the gateway and amid the smoke appeared the\r
+figure of a bareheaded man in a peasant's coat. He grasped a musket and\r
+took aim at the French. "Fire!" repeated the officer once more, and the\r
+reports of a musket and of two cannon shots were heard simultaneously.\r
+The gate was again hidden by smoke.\r
+\r
+Nothing more stirred behind the screens and the French infantry soldiers\r
+and officers advanced to the gate. In the gateway lay three wounded and\r
+four dead. Two men in peasant coats ran away at the foot of the wall,\r
+toward the Znamenka.\r
+\r
+"Clear that away!" said the officer, pointing to the beams and the\r
+corpses, and the French soldiers, after dispatching the wounded, threw\r
+the corpses over the parapet.\r
+\r
+Who these men were nobody knew. "Clear that away!" was all that was said\r
+of them, and they were thrown over the parapet and removed later on that\r
+they might not stink. Thiers alone dedicates a few eloquent lines to\r
+their memory: "These wretches had occupied the sacred citadel, having\r
+supplied themselves with guns from the arsenal, and fired" (the\r
+wretches) "at the French. Some of them were sabered and the Kremlin was\r
+purged of their presence."\r
+\r
+Murat was informed that the way had been cleared. The French entered the\r
+gates and began pitching their camp in the Senate Square. Out of the\r
+windows of the Senate House the soldiers threw chairs into the Square\r
+for fuel and kindled fires there.\r
+\r
+Other detachments passed through the Kremlin and encamped along the\r
+Moroseyka, the Lubyanka, and Pokrovka Streets. Others quartered\r
+themselves along the Vozdvizhenka, the Nikolski, and the Tverskoy\r
+Streets. No masters of the houses being found anywhere, the French were\r
+not billeted on the inhabitants as is usual in towns but lived in it as\r
+in a camp.\r
+\r
+Though tattered, hungry, worn out, and reduced to a third of their\r
+original number, the French entered Moscow in good marching order. It\r
+was a weary and famished, but still a fighting and menacing army. But it\r
+remained an army only until its soldiers had dispersed into their\r
+different lodgings. As soon as the men of the various regiments began to\r
+disperse among the wealthy and deserted houses, the army was lost\r
+forever and there came into being something nondescript, neither\r
+citizens nor soldiers but what are known as marauders. When five weeks\r
+later these same men left Moscow, they no longer formed an army. They\r
+were a mob of marauders, each carrying a quantity of articles which\r
+seemed to him valuable or useful. The aim of each man when he left\r
+Moscow was no longer, as it had been, to conquer, but merely to keep\r
+what he had acquired. Like a monkey which puts its paw into the narrow\r
+neck of a jug, and having seized a handful of nuts will not open its\r
+fist for fear of losing what it holds, and therefore perishes, the\r
+French when they left Moscow had inevitably to perish because they\r
+carried their loot with them, yet to abandon what they had stolen was as\r
+impossible for them as it is for the monkey to open its paw and let go\r
+of its nuts. Ten minutes after each regiment had entered a Moscow\r
+district, not a soldier or officer was left. Men in military uniforms\r
+and Hessian boots could be seen through the windows, laughing and\r
+walking through the rooms. In cellars and storerooms similar men were\r
+busy among the provisions, and in the yards unlocking or breaking open\r
+coach house and stable doors, lighting fires in kitchens and kneading\r
+and baking bread with rolled-up sleeves, and cooking; or frightening,\r
+amusing, or caressing women and children. There were many such men both\r
+in the shops and houses--but there was no army.\r
+\r
+Order after order was issued by the French commanders that day\r
+forbidding the men to disperse about the town, sternly forbidding any\r
+violence to the inhabitants or any looting, and announcing a roll call\r
+for that very evening. But despite all these measures the men, who had\r
+till then constituted an army, flowed all over the wealthy, deserted\r
+city with its comforts and plentiful supplies. As a hungry herd of\r
+cattle keeps well together when crossing a barren field, but gets out of\r
+hand and at once disperses uncontrollably as soon as it reaches rich\r
+pastures, so did the army disperse all over the wealthy city.\r
+\r
+No residents were left in Moscow, and the soldiers--like water\r
+percolating through sand--spread irresistibly through the city in all\r
+directions from the Kremlin into which they had first marched. The\r
+cavalry, on entering a merchant's house that had been abandoned and\r
+finding there stabling more than sufficient for their horses, went on,\r
+all the same, to the next house which seemed to them better. Many of\r
+them appropriated several houses, chalked their names on them, and\r
+quarreled and even fought with other companies for them. Before they had\r
+had time to secure quarters the soldiers ran out into the streets to see\r
+the city and, hearing that everything had been abandoned, rushed to\r
+places where valuables were to be had for the taking. The officers\r
+followed to check the soldiers and were involuntarily drawn into doing\r
+the same. In Carriage Row carriages had been left in the shops, and\r
+generals flocked there to select caleches and coaches for themselves.\r
+The few inhabitants who had remained invited commanding officers to\r
+their houses, hoping thereby to secure themselves from being plundered.\r
+There were masses of wealth and there seemed no end to it. All around\r
+the quarters occupied by the French were other regions still unexplored\r
+and unoccupied where, they thought, yet greater riches might be found.\r
+And Moscow engulfed the army ever deeper and deeper. When water is\r
+spilled on dry ground both the dry ground and the water disappear and\r
+mud results; and in the same way the entry of the famished army into the\r
+rich and deserted city resulted in fires and looting and the destruction\r
+of both the army and the wealthy city.\r
+\r
+The French attributed the Fire of Moscow au patriotisme feroce de\r
+Rostopchine, * the Russians to the barbarity of the French. In reality,\r
+however, it was not, and could not be, possible to explain the burning\r
+of Moscow by making any individual, or any group of people, responsible\r
+for it. Moscow was burned because it found itself in a position in which\r
+any town built of wood was bound to burn, quite apart from whether it\r
+had, or had not, a hundred and thirty inferior fire engines. Deserted\r
+Moscow had to burn as inevitably as a heap of shavings has to burn on\r
+which sparks continually fall for several days. A town built of wood,\r
+where scarcely a day passes without conflagrations when the house owners\r
+are in residence and a police force is present, cannot help burning when\r
+its inhabitants have left it and it is occupied by soldiers who smoke\r
+pipes, make campfires of the Senate chairs in the Senate Square, and\r
+cook themselves meals twice a day. In peacetime it is only necessary to\r
+billet troops in the villages of any district and the number of fires in\r
+that district immediately increases. How much then must the probability\r
+of fire be increased in an abandoned, wooden town where foreign troops\r
+are quartered. "Le patriotisme feroce de Rostopchine" and the barbarity\r
+of the French were not to blame in the matter. Moscow was set on fire by\r
+the soldiers' pipes, kitchens, and campfires, and by the carelessness of\r
+enemy soldiers occupying houses they did not own. Even if there was any\r
+arson (which is very doubtful, for no one had any reason to burn the\r
+houses--in any case a troublesome and dangerous thing to do), arson\r
+cannot be regarded as the cause, for the same thing would have happened\r
+without any incendiarism.\r
+\r
+\r
+* To Rostopchin's ferocious patriotism.\r
+\r
+However tempting it might be for the French to blame Rostopchin's\r
+ferocity and for Russians to blame the scoundrel Bonaparte, or later on\r
+to place an heroic torch in the hands of their own people, it is\r
+impossible not to see that there could be no such direct cause of the\r
+fire, for Moscow had to burn as every village, factory, or house must\r
+burn which is left by its owners and in which strangers are allowed to\r
+live and cook their porridge. Moscow was burned by its inhabitants, it\r
+is true, but by those who had abandoned it and not by those who remained\r
+in it. Moscow when occupied by the enemy did not remain intact like\r
+Berlin, Vienna, and other towns, simply because its inhabitants\r
+abandoned it and did not welcome the French with bread and salt, nor\r
+bring them the keys of the city.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVII\r
+\r
+The absorption of the French by Moscow, radiating starwise as it did,\r
+only reached the quarter where Pierre was staying by the evening of the\r
+second of September.\r
+\r
+After the last two days spent in solitude and unusual circumstances,\r
+Pierre was in a state bordering on insanity. He was completely obsessed\r
+by one persistent thought. He did not know how or when this thought had\r
+taken such possession of him, but he remembered nothing of the past,\r
+understood nothing of the present, and all he saw and heard appeared to\r
+him like a dream.\r
+\r
+He had left home only to escape the intricate tangle of life's demands\r
+that enmeshed him, and which in his present condition he was unable to\r
+unravel. He had gone to Joseph Alexeevich's house, on the plea of\r
+sorting the deceased's books and papers, only in search of rest from\r
+life's turmoil, for in his mind the memory of Joseph Alexeevich was\r
+connected with a world of eternal, solemn, and calm thoughts, quite\r
+contrary to the restless confusion into which he felt himself being\r
+drawn. He sought a quiet refuge, and in Joseph Alexeevich's study he\r
+really found it. When he sat with his elbows on the dusty writing table\r
+in the deathlike stillness of the study, calm and significant memories\r
+of the last few days rose one after another in his imagination,\r
+particularly of the battle of Borodino and of that vague sense of his\r
+own insignificance and insincerity compared with the truth, simplicity,\r
+and strength of the class of men he mentally classed as they. When\r
+Gerasim roused him from his reverie the idea occurred to him of taking\r
+part in the popular defense of Moscow which he knew was projected. And\r
+with that object he had asked Gerasim to get him a peasant's coat and a\r
+pistol, confiding to him his intentions of remaining in Joseph\r
+Alexeevich's house and keeping his name secret. Then during the first\r
+day spent in inaction and solitude (he tried several times to fix his\r
+attention on the masonic manuscripts, but was unable to do so) the idea\r
+that had previously occurred to him of the cabalistic significance of\r
+his name in connection with Bonaparte's more than once vaguely presented\r
+itself. But the idea that he, L'russe Besuhof, was destined to set a\r
+limit to the power of the Beast was as yet only one of the fancies that\r
+often passed through his mind and left no trace behind.\r
+\r
+When, having bought the coat merely with the object of taking part among\r
+the people in the defense of Moscow, Pierre had met the Rostovs and\r
+Natasha had said to him: "Are you remaining in Moscow?... How splendid!"\r
+the thought flashed into his mind that it really would be a good thing,\r
+even if Moscow were taken, for him to remain there and do what he was\r
+predestined to do.\r
+\r
+Next day, with the sole idea of not sparing himself and not lagging in\r
+any way behind them, Pierre went to the Three Hills gate. But when he\r
+returned to the house convinced that Moscow would not be defended, he\r
+suddenly felt that what before had seemed to him merely a possibility\r
+had now become absolutely necessary and inevitable. He must remain in\r
+Moscow, concealing his name, and must meet Napoleon and kill him, and\r
+either perish or put an end to the misery of all Europe--which it seemed\r
+to him was solely due to Napoleon.\r
+\r
+Pierre knew all the details of the attempt on Bonaparte's life in 1809\r
+by a German student in Vienna, and knew that the student had been shot.\r
+And the risk to which he would expose his life by carrying out his\r
+design excited him still more.\r
+\r
+Two equally strong feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to this purpose.\r
+The first was a feeling of the necessity of sacrifice and suffering in\r
+view of the common calamity, the same feeling that had caused him to go\r
+to Mozhaysk on the twenty-fifth and to make his way to the very thick of\r
+the battle and had now caused him to run away from his home and, in\r
+place of the luxury and comfort to which he was accustomed, to sleep on\r
+a hard sofa without undressing and eat the same food as Gerasim. The\r
+other was that vague and quite Russian feeling of contempt for\r
+everything conventional, artificial, and human--for everything the\r
+majority of men regard as the greatest good in the world. Pierre had\r
+first experienced this strange and fascinating feeling at the Sloboda\r
+Palace, when he had suddenly felt that wealth, power, and life--all that\r
+men so painstakingly acquire and guard--if it has any worth has so only\r
+by reason of the joy with which it can all be renounced.\r
+\r
+It was the feeling that induces a volunteer recruit to spend his last\r
+penny on drink, and a drunken man to smash mirrors or glasses for no\r
+apparent reason and knowing that it will cost him all the money he\r
+possesses: the feeling which causes a man to perform actions which from\r
+an ordinary point of view are insane, to test, as it were, his personal\r
+power and strength, affirming the existence of a higher, nonhuman\r
+criterion of life.\r
+\r
+From the very day Pierre had experienced this feeling for the first time\r
+at the Sloboda Palace he had been continuously under its influence, but\r
+only now found full satisfaction for it. Moreover, at this moment Pierre\r
+was supported in his design and prevented from renouncing it by what he\r
+had already done in that direction. If he were now to leave Moscow like\r
+everyone else, his flight from home, the peasant coat, the pistol, and\r
+his announcement to the Rostovs that he would remain in Moscow would all\r
+become not merely meaningless but contemptible and ridiculous, and to\r
+this Pierre was very sensitive.\r
+\r
+Pierre's physical condition, as is always the case, corresponded to his\r
+mental state. The unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he drank during\r
+those days, the absence of wine and cigars, his dirty unchanged linen,\r
+two almost sleepless nights passed on a short sofa without bedding--all\r
+this kept him in a state of excitement bordering on insanity.\r
+\r
+It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The French had already entered\r
+Moscow. Pierre knew this, but instead of acting he only thought about\r
+his undertaking, going over its minutest details in his mind. In his\r
+fancy he did not clearly picture to himself either the striking of the\r
+blow or the death of Napoleon, but with extraordinary vividness and\r
+melancholy enjoyment imagined his own destruction and heroic endurance.\r
+\r
+"Yes, alone, for the sake of all, I must do it or perish!" he thought.\r
+"Yes, I will approach... and then suddenly... with pistol or dagger? But\r
+that is all the same! 'It is not I but the hand of Providence that\r
+punishes thee,' I shall say," thought he, imagining what he would say\r
+when killing Napoleon. "Well then, take me and execute me!" he went on,\r
+speaking to himself and bowing his head with a sad but firm expression.\r
+\r
+While Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was talking to himself\r
+in this way, the study door opened and on the threshold appeared the\r
+figure of Makar Alexeevich, always so timid before but now quite\r
+transformed.\r
+\r
+His dressing gown was unfastened, his face red and distorted. He was\r
+obviously drunk. On seeing Pierre he grew confused at first, but\r
+noticing embarrassment on Pierre's face immediately grew bold and,\r
+staggering on his thin legs, advanced into the middle of the room.\r
+\r
+"They're frightened," he said confidentially in a hoarse voice. "I say I\r
+won't surrender, I say... Am I not right, sir?"\r
+\r
+He paused and then suddenly seeing the pistol on the table seized it\r
+with unexpected rapidity and ran out into the corridor.\r
+\r
+Gerasim and the porter, who had followed Makar Alexeevich, stopped him\r
+in the vestibule and tried to take the pistol from him. Pierre, coming\r
+out into the corridor, looked with pity and repulsion at the half-crazy\r
+old man. Makar Alexeevich, frowning with exertion, held on to the pistol\r
+and screamed hoarsely, evidently with some heroic fancy in his head.\r
+\r
+"To arms! Board them! No, you shan't get it," he yelled.\r
+\r
+"That will do, please, that will do. Have the goodness--please, sir, to\r
+let go! Please, sir..." pleaded Gerasim, trying carefully to steer Makar\r
+Alexeevich by the elbows back to the door.\r
+\r
+"Who are you? Bonaparte!..." shouted Makar Alexeevich.\r
+\r
+"That's not right, sir. Come to your room, please, and rest. Allow me to\r
+have the pistol."\r
+\r
+"Be off, thou base slave! Touch me not! See this?" shouted Makar\r
+Alexeevich, brandishing the pistol. "Board them!"\r
+\r
+"Catch hold!" whispered Gerasim to the porter.\r
+\r
+They seized Makar Alexeevich by the arms and dragged him to the door.\r
+\r
+The vestibule was filled with the discordant sounds of a struggle and of\r
+a tipsy, hoarse voice.\r
+\r
+Suddenly a fresh sound, a piercing feminine scream, reverberated from\r
+the porch and the cook came running into the vestibule.\r
+\r
+"It's them! Gracious heavens! O Lord, four of them, horsemen!" she\r
+cried.\r
+\r
+Gerasim and the porter let Makar Alexeevich go, and in the now silent\r
+corridor the sound of several hands knocking at the front door could be\r
+heard.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVIII\r
+\r
+Pierre, having decided that until he had carried out his design he would\r
+disclose neither his identity nor his knowledge of French, stood at the\r
+half-open door of the corridor, intending to conceal himself as soon as\r
+the French entered. But the French entered and still Pierre did not\r
+retire--an irresistible curiosity kept him there.\r
+\r
+There were two of them. One was an officer--a tall, soldierly, handsome\r
+man--the other evidently a private or an orderly, sunburned, short, and\r
+thin, with sunken cheeks and a dull expression. The officer walked in\r
+front, leaning on a stick and slightly limping. When he had advanced a\r
+few steps he stopped, having apparently decided that these were good\r
+quarters, turned round to the soldiers standing at the entrance, and in\r
+a loud voice of command ordered them to put up the horses. Having done\r
+that, the officer, lifting his elbow with a smart gesture, stroked his\r
+mustache and lightly touched his hat.\r
+\r
+"Bonjour, la compagnie!" * said he gaily, smiling and looking about him.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Good day, everybody!"\r
+\r
+No one gave any reply.\r
+\r
+"Vous etes le bourgeois?" * the officer asked Gerasim.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Are you the master here?"\r
+\r
+Gerasim gazed at the officer with an alarmed and inquiring look.\r
+\r
+"Quartier, quartier, logement!" said the officer, looking down at the\r
+little man with a condescending and good-natured smile. "Les francais\r
+sont de bons enfants. Que diable! Voyons! Ne nous fachons pas, mon\r
+vieux!" * added he, clapping the scared and silent Gerasim on the\r
+shoulder. "Well, does no one speak French in this establishment?" he\r
+asked again in French, looking around and meeting Pierre's eyes. Pierre\r
+moved away from the door.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Quarters, quarters, lodgings! The French are good fellows. What the\r
+devil! There, don't let us be cross, old fellow!"\r
+\r
+Again the officer turned to Gerasim and asked him to show him the rooms\r
+in the house.\r
+\r
+"Master, not here--don't understand... me, you..." said Gerasim, trying\r
+to render his words more comprehensible by contorting them.\r
+\r
+Still smiling, the French officer spread out his hands before Gerasim's\r
+nose, intimating that he did not understand him either, and moved,\r
+limping, to the door at which Pierre was standing. Pierre wished to go\r
+away and conceal himself, but at that moment he saw Makar Alexeevich\r
+appearing at the open kitchen door with the pistol in his hand. With a\r
+madman's cunning, Makar Alexeevich eyed the Frenchman, raised his\r
+pistol, and took aim.\r
+\r
+"Board them!" yelled the tipsy man, trying to press the trigger. Hearing\r
+the yell the officer turned round, and at the same moment Pierre threw\r
+himself on the drunkard. Just when Pierre snatched at and struck up the\r
+pistol Makar Alexeevich at last got his fingers on the trigger, there\r
+was a deafening report, and all were enveloped in a cloud of smoke. The\r
+Frenchman turned pale and rushed to the door.\r
+\r
+Forgetting his intention of concealing his knowledge of French, Pierre,\r
+snatching away the pistol and throwing it down, ran up to the officer\r
+and addressed him in French.\r
+\r
+"You are not wounded?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"I think not," answered the Frenchman, feeling himself over. "But I have\r
+had a lucky escape this time," he added, pointing to the damaged plaster\r
+of the wall. "Who is that man?" said he, looking sternly at Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I am really in despair at what has occurred," said Pierre rapidly,\r
+quite forgetting the part he had intended to play. "He is an unfortunate\r
+madman who did not know what he was doing."\r
+\r
+The officer went up to Makar Alexeevich and took him by the collar.\r
+\r
+Makar Alexeevich was standing with parted lips, swaying, as if about to\r
+fall asleep, as he leaned against the wall.\r
+\r
+"Brigand! You shall pay for this," said the Frenchman, letting go of\r
+him. "We French are merciful after victory, but we do not pardon\r
+traitors," he added, with a look of gloomy dignity and a fine energetic\r
+gesture.\r
+\r
+Pierre continued, in French, to persuade the officer not to hold that\r
+drunken imbecile to account. The Frenchman listened in silence with the\r
+same gloomy expression, but suddenly turned to Pierre with a smile. For\r
+a few seconds he looked at him in silence. His handsome face assumed a\r
+melodramatically gentle expression and he held out his hand.\r
+\r
+"You have saved my life. You are French," said he.\r
+\r
+For a Frenchman that deduction was indubitable. Only a Frenchman could\r
+perform a great deed, and to save his life--the life of M. Ramballe,\r
+captain of the 13th Light Regiment--was undoubtedly a very great deed.\r
+\r
+But however indubitable that conclusion and the officer's conviction\r
+based upon it, Pierre felt it necessary to disillusion him.\r
+\r
+"I am Russian," he said quickly.\r
+\r
+"Tut, tut, tut! Tell that to others," said the officer, waving his\r
+finger before his nose and smiling. "You shall tell me all about that\r
+presently. I am delighted to meet a compatriot. Well, and what are we to\r
+do with this man?" he added, addressing himself to Pierre as to a\r
+brother.\r
+\r
+Even if Pierre were not a Frenchman, having once received that loftiest\r
+of human appellations he could not renounce it, said the officer's look\r
+and tone. In reply to his last question Pierre again explained who Makar\r
+Alexeevich was and how just before their arrival that drunken imbecile\r
+had seized the loaded pistol which they had not had time to recover from\r
+him, and begged the officer to let the deed go unpunished.\r
+\r
+The Frenchman expanded his chest and made a majestic gesture with his\r
+arm.\r
+\r
+"You have saved my life! You are French. You ask his pardon? I grant it\r
+you. Lead that man away!" said he quickly and energetically, and taking\r
+the arm of Pierre whom he had promoted to be a Frenchman for saving his\r
+life, he went with him into the room.\r
+\r
+The soldiers in the yard, hearing the shot, came into the passage asking\r
+what had happened, and expressed their readiness to punish the culprits,\r
+but the officer sternly checked them.\r
+\r
+"You will be called in when you are wanted," he said.\r
+\r
+The soldiers went out again, and the orderly, who had meanwhile had time\r
+to visit the kitchen, came up to his officer.\r
+\r
+"Captain, there is soup and a leg of mutton in the kitchen," said he.\r
+"Shall I serve them up?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, and some wine," answered the captain.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIX\r
+\r
+When the French officer went into the room with Pierre the latter again\r
+thought it his duty to assure him that he was not French and wished to\r
+go away, but the officer would not hear of it. He was so very polite,\r
+amiable, good-natured, and genuinely grateful to Pierre for saving his\r
+life that Pierre had not the heart to refuse, and sat down with him in\r
+the parlor--the first room they entered. To Pierre's assurances that he\r
+was not a Frenchman, the captain, evidently not understanding how anyone\r
+could decline so flattering an appellation, shrugged his shoulders and\r
+said that if Pierre absolutely insisted on passing for a Russian let it\r
+be so, but for all that he would be forever bound to Pierre by gratitude\r
+for saving his life.\r
+\r
+Had this man been endowed with the slightest capacity for perceiving the\r
+feelings of others, and had he at all understood what Pierre's feelings\r
+were, the latter would probably have left him, but the man's animated\r
+obtuseness to everything other than himself disarmed Pierre.\r
+\r
+"A Frenchman or a Russian prince incognito," said the officer, looking\r
+at Pierre's fine though dirty linen and at the ring on his finger. "I\r
+owe my life to you and offer you my friendship. A Frenchman never\r
+forgets either an insult or a service. I offer you my friendship. That\r
+is all I can say."\r
+\r
+There was so much good nature and nobility (in the French sense of the\r
+word) in the officer's voice, in the expression of his face and in his\r
+gestures, that Pierre, unconsciously smiling in response to the\r
+Frenchman's smile, pressed the hand held out to him.\r
+\r
+"Captain Ramballe, of the 13th Light Regiment, Chevalier of the Legion\r
+of Honor for the affair on the seventh of September," he introduced\r
+himself, a self-satisfied irrepressible smile puckering his lips under\r
+his mustache. "Will you now be so good as to tell me with whom I have\r
+the honor of conversing so pleasantly, instead of being in the ambulance\r
+with that maniac's bullet in my body?"\r
+\r
+Pierre replied that he could not tell him his name and, blushing, began\r
+to try to invent a name and to say something about his reason for\r
+concealing it, but the Frenchman hastily interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"Oh, please!" said he. "I understand your reasons. You are an officer...\r
+a superior officer perhaps. You have borne arms against us. That's not\r
+my business. I owe you my life. That is enough for me. I am quite at\r
+your service. You belong to the gentry?" he concluded with a shade of\r
+inquiry in his tone. Pierre bent his head. "Your baptismal name, if you\r
+please. That is all I ask. Monsieur Pierre, you say.... That's all I\r
+want to know."\r
+\r
+When the mutton and an omelet had been served and a samovar and vodka\r
+brought, with some wine which the French had taken from a Russian cellar\r
+and brought with them, Ramballe invited Pierre to share his dinner, and\r
+himself began to eat greedily and quickly like a healthy and hungry man,\r
+munching his food rapidly with his strong teeth, continually smacking\r
+his lips, and repeating--"Excellent! Delicious!" His face grew red and\r
+was covered with perspiration. Pierre was hungry and shared the dinner\r
+with pleasure. Morel, the orderly, brought some hot water in a saucepan\r
+and placed a bottle of claret in it. He also brought a bottle of kvass,\r
+taken from the kitchen for them to try. That beverage was already known\r
+to the French and had been given a special name. They called it limonade\r
+de cochon (pig's lemonade), and Morel spoke well of the limonade de\r
+cochon he had found in the kitchen. But as the captain had the wine they\r
+had taken while passing through Moscow, he left the kvass to Morel and\r
+applied himself to the bottle of Bordeaux. He wrapped the bottle up to\r
+its neck in a table napkin and poured out wine for himself and for\r
+Pierre. The satisfaction of his hunger and the wine rendered the captain\r
+still more lively and he chatted incessantly all through dinner.\r
+\r
+"Yes, my dear Monsieur Pierre, I owe you a fine votive candle for saving\r
+me from that maniac.... You see, I have bullets enough in my body\r
+already. Here is one I got at Wagram" (he touched his side) "and a\r
+second at Smolensk"--he showed a scar on his cheek--"and this leg which\r
+as you see does not want to march, I got that on the seventh at the\r
+great battle of la Moskowa. Sacre Dieu! It was splendid! That deluge of\r
+fire was worth seeing. It was a tough job you set us there, my word! You\r
+may be proud of it! And on my honor, in spite of the cough I caught\r
+there, I should be ready to begin again. I pity those who did not see\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"I was there," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Bah, really? So much the better! You are certainly brave foes. The\r
+great redoubt held out well, by my pipe!" continued the Frenchman. "And\r
+you made us pay dear for it. I was at it three times--sure as I sit\r
+here. Three times we reached the guns and three times we were thrown\r
+back like cardboard figures. Oh, it was beautiful, Monsieur Pierre! Your\r
+grenadiers were splendid, by heaven! I saw them close up their ranks six\r
+times in succession and march as if on parade. Fine fellows! Our King of\r
+Naples, who knows what's what, cried 'Bravo!' Ha, ha! So you are one of\r
+us soldiers!" he added, smiling, after a momentary pause. "So much the\r
+better, so much the better, Monsieur Pierre! Terrible in battle...\r
+gallant... with the fair" (he winked and smiled), "that's what the\r
+French are, Monsieur Pierre, aren't they?"\r
+\r
+The captain was so naively and good-humoredly gay, so real, and so\r
+pleased with himself that Pierre almost winked back as he looked merrily\r
+at him. Probably the word "gallant" turned the captain's thoughts to the\r
+state of Moscow.\r
+\r
+"Apropos, tell me please, is it true that the women have all left\r
+Moscow? What a queer idea! What had they to be afraid of?"\r
+\r
+"Would not the French ladies leave Paris if the Russians entered it?"\r
+asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Ha, ha, ha!" The Frenchman emitted a merry, sanguine chuckle, patting\r
+Pierre on the shoulder. "What a thing to say!" he exclaimed. "Paris?...\r
+But Paris, Paris..."\r
+\r
+"Paris--the capital of the world," Pierre finished his remark for him.\r
+\r
+The captain looked at Pierre. He had a habit of stopping short in the\r
+middle of his talk and gazing intently with his laughing, kindly eyes.\r
+\r
+"Well, if you hadn't told me you were Russian, I should have wagered\r
+that you were Parisian! You have that... I don't know what, that..." and\r
+having uttered this compliment, he again gazed at him in silence.\r
+\r
+"I have been in Paris. I spent years there," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, one sees that plainly. Paris!... A man who doesn't know Paris\r
+is a savage. You can tell a Parisian two leagues off. Paris is Talma, la\r
+Duchenois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards," and noticing that his\r
+conclusion was weaker than what had gone before, he added quickly:\r
+"There is only one Paris in the world. You have been to Paris and have\r
+remained Russian. Well, I don't esteem you the less for it."\r
+\r
+Under the influence of the wine he had drunk, and after the days he had\r
+spent alone with his depressing thoughts, Pierre involuntarily enjoyed\r
+talking with this cheerful and good-natured man.\r
+\r
+"To return to your ladies--I hear they are lovely. What a wretched idea\r
+to go and bury themselves in the steppes when the French army is in\r
+Moscow. What a chance those girls have missed! Your peasants, now--\r
+that's another thing; but you civilized people, you ought to know us\r
+better than that. We took Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, Warsaw,\r
+all the world's capitals.... We are feared, but we are loved. We are\r
+nice to know. And then the Emperor..." he began, but Pierre interrupted\r
+him.\r
+\r
+"The Emperor," Pierre repeated, and his face suddenly became sad and\r
+embarrassed, "is the Emperor...?"\r
+\r
+"The Emperor? He is generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius--that's\r
+what the Emperor is! It is I, Ramballe, who tell you so.... I assure you\r
+I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an emigrant count.... But\r
+that man has vanquished me. He has taken hold of me. I could not resist\r
+the sight of the grandeur and glory with which he has covered France.\r
+When I understood what he wanted--when I saw that he was preparing a bed\r
+of laurels for us, you know, I said to myself: 'That is a monarch,' and\r
+I devoted myself to him! So there! Oh yes, mon cher, he is the greatest\r
+man of the ages past or future."\r
+\r
+"Is he in Moscow?" Pierre stammered with a guilty look.\r
+\r
+The Frenchman looked at his guilty face and smiled.\r
+\r
+"No, he will make his entry tomorrow," he replied, and continued his\r
+talk.\r
+\r
+Their conversation was interrupted by the cries of several voices at the\r
+gate and by Morel, who came to say that some Wurttemberg hussars had\r
+come and wanted to put up their horses in the yard where the captain's\r
+horses were. This difficulty had arisen chiefly because the hussars did\r
+not understand what was said to them in French.\r
+\r
+The captain had their senior sergeant called in, and in a stern voice\r
+asked him to what regiment he belonged, who was his commanding officer,\r
+and by what right he allowed himself to claim quarters that were already\r
+occupied. The German who knew little French, answered the two first\r
+questions by giving the names of his regiment and of his commanding\r
+officer, but in reply to the third question which he did not understand\r
+said, introducing broken French into his own German, that he was the\r
+quartermaster of the regiment and his commander had ordered him to\r
+occupy all the houses one after another. Pierre, who knew German,\r
+translated what the German said to the captain and gave the captain's\r
+reply to the Wurttemberg hussar in German. When he had understood what\r
+was said to him, the German submitted and took his men elsewhere. The\r
+captain went out into the porch and gave some orders in a loud voice.\r
+\r
+When he returned to the room Pierre was sitting in the same place as\r
+before, with his head in his hands. His face expressed suffering. He\r
+really was suffering at that moment. When the captain went out and he\r
+was left alone, suddenly he came to himself and realized the position he\r
+was in. It was not that Moscow had been taken or that the happy\r
+conquerors were masters in it and were patronizing him. Painful as that\r
+was it was not that which tormented Pierre at the moment. He was\r
+tormented by the consciousness of his own weakness. The few glasses of\r
+wine he had drunk and the conversation with this good-natured man had\r
+destroyed the mood of concentrated gloom in which he had spent the last\r
+few days and which was essential for the execution of his design. The\r
+pistol, dagger, and peasant coat were ready. Napoleon was to enter the\r
+town next day. Pierre still considered that it would be a useful and\r
+worthy action to slay the evildoer, but now he felt that he would not do\r
+it. He did not know why, but he felt a foreboding that he would not\r
+carry out his intention. He struggled against the confession of his\r
+weakness but dimly felt that he could not overcome it and that his\r
+former gloomy frame of mind, concerning vengeance, killing, and self-\r
+sacrifice, had been dispersed like dust by contact with the first man he\r
+met.\r
+\r
+The captain returned to the room, limping slightly and whistling a tune.\r
+\r
+The Frenchman's chatter which had previously amused Pierre now repelled\r
+him. The tune he was whistling, his gait, and the gesture with which he\r
+twirled his mustache, all now seemed offensive. "I will go away\r
+immediately. I won't say another word to him," thought Pierre. He\r
+thought this, but still sat in the same place. A strange feeling of\r
+weakness tied him to the spot; he wished to get up and go away, but\r
+could not do so.\r
+\r
+The captain, on the other hand, seemed very cheerful. He paced up and\r
+down the room twice. His eyes shone and his mustache twitched as if he\r
+were smiling to himself at some amusing thought.\r
+\r
+"The colonel of those Wurttembergers is delightful," he suddenly said.\r
+"He's a German, but a nice fellow all the same.... But he's a German."\r
+He sat down facing Pierre. "By the way, you know German, then?"\r
+\r
+Pierre looked at him in silence.\r
+\r
+"What is the German for 'shelter'?"\r
+\r
+"Shelter?" Pierre repeated. "The German for shelter is Unterkunft."\r
+\r
+"How do you say it?" the captain asked quickly and doubtfully.\r
+\r
+"Unterkunft," Pierre repeated.\r
+\r
+"Onterkoff," said the captain and looked at Pierre for some seconds with\r
+laughing eyes. "These Germans are first-rate fools, don't you think so,\r
+Monsieur Pierre?" he concluded.\r
+\r
+"Well, let's have another bottle of this Moscow Bordeaux, shall we?\r
+Morel will warm us up another little bottle. Morel!" he called out\r
+gaily.\r
+\r
+Morel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at Pierre\r
+by the candlelight and was evidently struck by the troubled expression\r
+on his companion's face. Ramballe, with genuine distress and sympathy in\r
+his face, went up to Pierre and bent over him.\r
+\r
+"There now, we're sad," said he, touching Pierre's hand. "Have I upset\r
+you? No, really, have you anything against me?" he asked Pierre.\r
+"Perhaps it's the state of affairs?"\r
+\r
+Pierre did not answer, but looked cordially into the Frenchman's eyes\r
+whose expression of sympathy was pleasing to him.\r
+\r
+"Honestly, without speaking of what I owe you, I feel friendship for\r
+you. Can I do anything for you? Dispose of me. It is for life and death.\r
+I say it with my hand on my heart!" said he, striking his chest.\r
+\r
+"Thank you," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+The captain gazed intently at him as he had done when he learned that\r
+"shelter" was Unterkunft in German, and his face suddenly brightened.\r
+\r
+"Well, in that case, I drink to our friendship!" he cried gaily, filling\r
+two glasses with wine.\r
+\r
+Pierre took one of the glasses and emptied it. Ramballe emptied his too,\r
+again pressed Pierre's hand, and leaned his elbows on the table in a\r
+pensive attitude.\r
+\r
+"Yes, my dear friend," he began, "such is fortune's caprice. Who would\r
+have said that I should be a soldier and a captain of dragoons in the\r
+service of Bonaparte, as we used to call him? Yet here I am in Moscow\r
+with him. I must tell you, mon cher," he continued in the sad and\r
+measured tones of a man who intends to tell a long story, "that our name\r
+is one of the most ancient in France."\r
+\r
+And with a Frenchman's easy and naive frankness the captain told Pierre\r
+the story of his ancestors, his childhood, youth, and manhood, and all\r
+about his relations and his financial and family affairs, "ma pauvre\r
+mere" playing of course an important part in the story.\r
+\r
+"But all that is only life's setting, the real thing is love--love! Am I\r
+not right, Monsieur Pierre?" said he, growing animated. "Another glass?"\r
+\r
+Pierre again emptied his glass and poured himself out a third.\r
+\r
+"Oh, women, women!" and the captain, looking with glistening eyes at\r
+Pierre, began talking of love and of his love affairs.\r
+\r
+There were very many of these, as one could easily believe, looking at\r
+the officer's handsome, self-satisfied face, and noting the eager\r
+enthusiasm with which he spoke of women. Though all Ramballe's love\r
+stories had the sensual character which Frenchmen regard as the special\r
+charm and poetry of love, yet he told his story with such sincere\r
+conviction that he alone had experienced and known all the charm of love\r
+and he described women so alluringly that Pierre listened to him with\r
+curiosity.\r
+\r
+It was plain that l'amour which the Frenchman was so fond of was not\r
+that low and simple kind that Pierre had once felt for his wife, nor was\r
+it the romantic love stimulated by himself that he experienced for\r
+Natasha. (Ramballe despised both these kinds of love equally: the one he\r
+considered the "love of clodhoppers" and the other the "love of\r
+simpletons.") L'amour which the Frenchman worshiped consisted\r
+principally in the unnaturalness of his relation to the woman and in a\r
+combination of incongruities giving the chief charm to the feeling.\r
+\r
+Thus the captain touchingly recounted the story of his love for a\r
+fascinating marquise of thirty-five and at the same time for a charming,\r
+innocent child of seventeen, daughter of the bewitching marquise. The\r
+conflict of magnanimity between the mother and the daughter, ending in\r
+the mother's sacrificing herself and offering her daughter in marriage\r
+to her lover, even now agitated the captain, though it was the memory of\r
+a distant past. Then he recounted an episode in which the husband played\r
+the part of the lover, and he--the lover--assumed the role of the\r
+husband, as well as several droll incidents from his recollections of\r
+Germany, where "shelter" is called Unterkunft and where the husbands eat\r
+sauerkraut and the young girls are "too blonde."\r
+\r
+Finally, the latest episode in Poland still fresh in the captain's\r
+memory, and which he narrated with rapid gestures and glowing face, was\r
+of how he had saved the life of a Pole (in general, the saving of life\r
+continually occurred in the captain's stories) and the Pole had\r
+entrusted to him his enchanting wife (parisienne de coeur) while himself\r
+entering the French service. The captain was happy, the enchanting\r
+Polish lady wished to elope with him, but, prompted by magnanimity, the\r
+captain restored the wife to the husband, saying as he did so: "I have\r
+saved your life, and I save your honor!" Having repeated these words the\r
+captain wiped his eyes and gave himself a shake, as if driving away the\r
+weakness which assailed him at this touching recollection.\r
+\r
+Listening to the captain's tales, Pierre--as often happens late in the\r
+evening and under the influence of wine--followed all that was told him,\r
+understood it all, and at the same time followed a train of personal\r
+memories which, he knew not why, suddenly arose in his mind. While\r
+listening to these love stories his own love for Natasha unexpectedly\r
+rose to his mind, and going over the pictures of that love in his\r
+imagination he mentally compared them with Ramballe's tales. Listening\r
+to the story of the struggle between love and duty, Pierre saw before\r
+his eyes every minutest detail of his last meeting with the object of\r
+his love at the Sukharev water tower. At the time of that meeting it had\r
+not produced an effect upon him--he had not even once recalled it. But\r
+now it seemed to him that that meeting had had in it something very\r
+important and poetic.\r
+\r
+"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you," he now seemed to\r
+hear the words she had uttered and to see before him her eyes, her\r
+smile, her traveling hood, and a stray lock of her hair... and there\r
+seemed to him something pathetic and touching in all this.\r
+\r
+Having finished his tale about the enchanting Polish lady, the captain\r
+asked Pierre if he had ever experienced a similar impulse to sacrifice\r
+himself for love and a feeling of envy of the legitimate husband.\r
+\r
+Challenged by this question Pierre raised his head and felt a need to\r
+express the thoughts that filled his mind. He began to explain that he\r
+understood love for a women somewhat differently. He said that in all\r
+his life he had loved and still loved only one woman, and that she could\r
+never be his.\r
+\r
+"Tiens!" said the captain.\r
+\r
+Pierre then explained that he had loved this woman from his earliest\r
+years, but that he had not dared to think of her because she was too\r
+young, and because he had been an illegitimate son without a name.\r
+Afterwards when he had received a name and wealth he dared not think of\r
+her because he loved her too well, placing her far above everything in\r
+the world, and especially therefore above himself.\r
+\r
+When he had reached this point, Pierre asked the captain whether he\r
+understood that.\r
+\r
+The captain made a gesture signifying that even if he did not understand\r
+it he begged Pierre to continue.\r
+\r
+"Platonic love, clouds..." he muttered.\r
+\r
+Whether it was the wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or the\r
+thought that this man did not, and never would, know any of those who\r
+played a part in his story, or whether it was all these things together,\r
+something loosened Pierre's tongue. Speaking thickly and with a faraway\r
+look in his shining eyes, he told the whole story of his life: his\r
+marriage, Natasha's love for his best friend, her betrayal of him, and\r
+all his own simple relations with her. Urged on by Ramballe's questions\r
+he also told what he had at first concealed--his own position and even\r
+his name.\r
+\r
+More than anything else in Pierre's story the captain was impressed by\r
+the fact that Pierre was very rich, had two mansions in Moscow, and that\r
+he had abandoned everything and not left the city, but remained there\r
+concealing his name and station.\r
+\r
+When it was late at night they went out together into the street. The\r
+night was warm and light. To the left of the house on the Pokrovka a\r
+fire glowed--the first of those that were beginning in Moscow. To the\r
+right and high up in the sky was the sickle of the waning moon and\r
+opposite to it hung that bright comet which was connected in Pierre's\r
+heart with his love. At the gate stood Gerasim, the cook, and two\r
+Frenchmen. Their laughter and their mutually incomprehensible remarks in\r
+two languages could be heard. They were looking at the glow seen in the\r
+town.\r
+\r
+There was nothing terrible in the one small, distant fire in the immense\r
+city.\r
+\r
+Gazing at the high starry sky, at the moon, at the comet, and at the\r
+glow from the fire, Pierre experienced a joyful emotion. "There now, how\r
+good it is, what more does one need?" thought he. And suddenly\r
+remembering his intention he grew dizzy and felt so faint that he leaned\r
+against the fence to save himself from falling.\r
+\r
+Without taking leave of his new friend, Pierre left the gate with\r
+unsteady steps and returning to his room lay down on the sofa and\r
+immediately fell asleep.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXX\r
+\r
+The glow of the first fire that began on the second of September was\r
+watched from the various roads by the fugitive Muscovites and by the\r
+retreating troops, with many different feelings.\r
+\r
+The Rostov party spent the night at Mytishchi, fourteen miles from\r
+Moscow. They had started so late on the first of September, the road had\r
+been so blocked by vehicles and troops, so many things had been\r
+forgotten for which servants were sent back, that they had decided to\r
+spend that night at a place three miles out of Moscow. The next morning\r
+they woke late and were again delayed so often that they only got as far\r
+as Great Mytishchi. At ten o'clock that evening the Rostov family and\r
+the wounded traveling with them were all distributed in the yards and\r
+huts of that large village. The Rostovs' servants and coachmen and the\r
+orderlies of the wounded officers, after attending to their masters, had\r
+supper, fed the horses, and came out into the porches.\r
+\r
+In a neighboring hut lay Raevski's adjutant with a fractured wrist. The\r
+awful pain he suffered made him moan incessantly and piteously, and his\r
+moaning sounded terrible in the darkness of the autumn night. He had\r
+spent the first night in the same yard as the Rostovs. The countess said\r
+she had been unable to close her eyes on account of his moaning, and at\r
+Mytishchi she moved into a worse hut simply to be farther away from the\r
+wounded man.\r
+\r
+In the darkness of the night one of the servants noticed, above the high\r
+body of a coach standing before the porch, the small glow of another\r
+fire. One glow had long been visible and everybody knew that it was\r
+Little Mytishchi burning--set on fire by Mamonov's Cossacks.\r
+\r
+"But look here, brothers, there's another fire!" remarked an orderly.\r
+\r
+All turned their attention to the glow.\r
+\r
+"But they told us Little Mytishchi had been set on fire by Mamonov's\r
+Cossacks."\r
+\r
+"But that's not Mytishchi, it's farther away."\r
+\r
+"Look, it must be in Moscow!"\r
+\r
+Two of the gazers went round to the other side of the coach and sat down\r
+on its steps.\r
+\r
+"It's more to the left, why, Little Mytishchi is over there, and this is\r
+right on the other side."\r
+\r
+Several men joined the first two.\r
+\r
+"See how it's flaring," said one. "That's a fire in Moscow: either in\r
+the Sushchevski or the Rogozhski quarter."\r
+\r
+No one replied to this remark and for some time they all gazed silently\r
+at the spreading flames of the second fire in the distance.\r
+\r
+Old Daniel Terentich, the count's valet (as he was called), came up to\r
+the group and shouted at Mishka.\r
+\r
+"What are you staring at, you good-for-nothing?... The count will be\r
+calling and there's nobody there; go and gather the clothes together."\r
+\r
+"I only ran out to get some water," said Mishka.\r
+\r
+"But what do you think, Daniel Terentich? Doesn't it look as if that\r
+glow were in Moscow?" remarked one of the footmen.\r
+\r
+Daniel Terentich made no reply, and again for a long time they were all\r
+silent. The glow spread, rising and falling, farther and farther still.\r
+\r
+"God have mercy.... It's windy and dry..." said another voice.\r
+\r
+"Just look! See what it's doing now. O Lord! You can even see the crows\r
+flying. Lord have mercy on us sinners!"\r
+\r
+"They'll put it out, no fear!"\r
+\r
+"Who's to put it out?" Daniel Terentich, who had hitherto been silent,\r
+was heard to say. His voice was calm and deliberate. "Moscow it is,\r
+brothers," said he. "Mother Moscow, the white..." his voice faltered,\r
+and he gave way to an old man's sob.\r
+\r
+And it was as if they had all only waited for this to realize the\r
+significance for them of the glow they were watching. Sighs were heard,\r
+words of prayer, and the sobbing of the count's old valet.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXI\r
+\r
+The valet, returning to the cottage, informed the count that Moscow was\r
+burning. The count donned his dressing gown and went out to look. Sonya\r
+and Madame Schoss, who had not yet undressed, went out with him. Only\r
+Natasha and the countess remained in the room. Petya was no longer with\r
+the family, he had gone on with his regiment which was making for\r
+Troitsa.\r
+\r
+The countess, on hearing that Moscow was on fire, began to cry. Natasha,\r
+pale, with a fixed look, was sitting on the bench under the icons just\r
+where she had sat down on arriving and paid no attention to her father's\r
+words. She was listening to the ceaseless moaning of the adjutant, three\r
+houses off.\r
+\r
+"Oh, how terrible," said Sonya returning from the yard chilled and\r
+frightened. "I believe the whole of Moscow will burn, there's an awful\r
+glow! Natasha, do look! You can see it from the window," she said to her\r
+cousin, evidently wishing to distract her mind.\r
+\r
+But Natasha looked at her as if not understanding what was said to her\r
+and again fixed her eyes on the corner of the stove. She had been in\r
+this condition of stupor since the morning, when Sonya, to the surprise\r
+and annoyance of the countess, had for some unaccountable reason found\r
+it necessary to tell Natasha of Prince Andrew's wound and of his being\r
+with their party. The countess had seldom been so angry with anyone as\r
+she was with Sonya. Sonya had cried and begged to be forgiven and now,\r
+as if trying to atone for her fault, paid unceasing attention to her\r
+cousin.\r
+\r
+"Look, Natasha, how dreadfully it is burning!" said she.\r
+\r
+"What's burning?" asked Natasha. "Oh, yes, Moscow."\r
+\r
+And as if in order not to offend Sonya and to get rid of her, she turned\r
+her face to the window, looked out in such a way that it was evident\r
+that she could not see anything, and again settled down in her former\r
+attitude.\r
+\r
+"But you didn't see it!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, really I did," Natasha replied in a voice that pleaded to be left\r
+in peace.\r
+\r
+Both the countess and Sonya understood that, naturally, neither Moscow\r
+nor the burning of Moscow nor anything else could seem of importance to\r
+Natasha.\r
+\r
+The count returned and lay down behind the partition. The countess went\r
+up to her daughter and touched her head with the back of her hand as she\r
+was wont to do when Natasha was ill, then touched her forehead with her\r
+lips as if to feel whether she was feverish, and finally kissed her.\r
+\r
+"You are cold. You are trembling all over. You'd better lie down," said\r
+the countess.\r
+\r
+"Lie down? All right, I will. I'll lie down at once," said Natasha.\r
+\r
+When Natasha had been told that morning that Prince Andrew was seriously\r
+wounded and was traveling with their party, she had at first asked many\r
+questions: Where was he going? How was he wounded? Was it serious? And\r
+could she see him? But after she had been told that she could not see\r
+him, that he was seriously wounded but that his life was not in danger,\r
+she ceased to ask questions or to speak at all, evidently disbelieving\r
+what they told her, and convinced that say what she might she would\r
+still be told the same. All the way she had sat motionless in a corner\r
+of the coach with wide open eyes, and the expression in them which the\r
+countess knew so well and feared so much, and now she sat in the same\r
+way on the bench where she had seated herself on arriving. She was\r
+planning something and either deciding or had already decided something\r
+in her mind. The countess knew this, but what it might be she did not\r
+know, and this alarmed and tormented her.\r
+\r
+"Natasha, undress, darling; lie down on my bed."\r
+\r
+A bed had been made on a bedstead for the countess only. Madame Schoss\r
+and the two girls were to sleep on some hay on the floor.\r
+\r
+"No, Mamma, I will lie down here on the floor," Natasha replied\r
+irritably and she went to the window and opened it. Through the open\r
+window the moans of the adjutant could be heard more distinctly. She put\r
+her head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw her slim neck\r
+shaking with sobs and throbbing against the window frame. Natasha knew\r
+it was not Prince Andrew who was moaning. She knew Prince Andrew was in\r
+the same yard as themselves and in a part of the hut across the passage;\r
+but this dreadful incessant moaning made her sob. The countess exchanged\r
+a look with Sonya.\r
+\r
+"Lie down, darling; lie down, my pet," said the countess, softly\r
+touching Natasha's shoulders. "Come, lie down."\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes... I'll lie down at once," said Natasha, and began hurriedly\r
+undressing, tugging at the tapes of her petticoat.\r
+\r
+When she had thrown off her dress and put on a dressing jacket, she sat\r
+down with her foot under her on the bed that had been made up on the\r
+floor, jerked her thin and rather short plait of hair to the front, and\r
+began replaiting it. Her long, thin, practiced fingers rapidly\r
+unplaited, replaited, and tied up her plait. Her head moved from side to\r
+side from habit, but her eyes, feverishly wide, looked fixedly before\r
+her. When her toilet for the night was finished she sank gently onto the\r
+sheet spread over the hay on the side nearest the door.\r
+\r
+"Natasha, you'd better lie in the middle," said Sonya.\r
+\r
+"I'll stay here," muttered Natasha. "Do lie down," she added crossly,\r
+and buried her face in the pillow.\r
+\r
+The countess, Madame Schoss, and Sonya undressed hastily and lay down.\r
+The small lamp in front of the icons was the only light left in the\r
+room. But in the yard there was a light from the fire at Little\r
+Mytishchi a mile and a half away, and through the night came the noise\r
+of people shouting at a tavern Mamonov's Cossacks had set up across the\r
+street, and the adjutant's unceasing moans could still be heard.\r
+\r
+For a long time Natasha listened attentively to the sounds that reached\r
+her from inside and outside the room and did not move. First she heard\r
+her mother praying and sighing and the creaking of her bed under her,\r
+then Madame Schoss' familiar whistling snore and Sonya's gentle\r
+breathing. Then the countess called to Natasha. Natasha did not answer.\r
+\r
+"I think she's asleep, Mamma," said Sonya softly.\r
+\r
+After a short silence the countess spoke again but this time no one\r
+replied.\r
+\r
+Soon after that Natasha heard her mother's even breathing. Natasha did\r
+not move, though her little bare foot, thrust out from under the quilt,\r
+was growing cold on the bare floor.\r
+\r
+As if to celebrate a victory over everybody, a cricket chirped in a\r
+crack in the wall. A cock crowed far off and another replied near by.\r
+The shouting in the tavern had died down; only the moaning of the\r
+adjutant was heard. Natasha sat up.\r
+\r
+"Sonya, are you asleep? Mamma?" she whispered.\r
+\r
+No one replied. Natasha rose slowly and carefully, crossed herself, and\r
+stepped cautiously on the cold and dirty floor with her slim, supple,\r
+bare feet. The boards of the floor creaked. Stepping cautiously from one\r
+foot to the other she ran like a kitten the few steps to the door and\r
+grasped the cold door handle.\r
+\r
+It seemed to her that something heavy was beating rhythmically against\r
+all the walls of the room: it was her own heart, sinking with alarm and\r
+terror and overflowing with love.\r
+\r
+She opened the door and stepped across the threshold and onto the cold,\r
+damp earthen floor of the passage. The cold she felt refreshed her. With\r
+her bare feet she touched a sleeping man, stepped over him, and opened\r
+the door into the part of the hut where Prince Andrew lay. It was dark\r
+in there. In the farthest corner, on a bench beside a bed on which\r
+something was lying, stood a tallow candle with a long, thick, and\r
+smoldering wick.\r
+\r
+From the moment she had been told that morning of Prince Andrew's wound\r
+and his presence there, Natasha had resolved to see him. She did not\r
+know why she had to, she knew the meeting would be painful, but felt the\r
+more convinced that it was necessary.\r
+\r
+All day she had lived only in hope of seeing him that night. But now\r
+that the moment had come she was filled with dread of what she might\r
+see. How was he maimed? What was left of him? Was he like that incessant\r
+moaning of the adjutant's? Yes, he was altogether like that. In her\r
+imagination he was that terrible moaning personified. When she saw an\r
+indistinct shape in the corner, and mistook his knees raised under the\r
+quilt for his shoulders, she imagined a horrible body there, and stood\r
+still in terror. But an irresistible impulse drew her forward. She\r
+cautiously took one step and then another, and found herself in the\r
+middle of a small room containing baggage. Another man--Timokhin--was\r
+lying in a corner on the benches beneath the icons, and two others--the\r
+doctor and a valet--lay on the floor.\r
+\r
+The valet sat up and whispered something. Timokhin, kept awake by the\r
+pain in his wounded leg, gazed with wide-open eyes at this strange\r
+apparition of a girl in a white chemise, dressing jacket, and nightcap.\r
+The valet's sleepy, frightened exclamation, "What do you want? What's\r
+the matter?" made Natasha approach more swiftly to what was lying in the\r
+corner. Horribly unlike a man as that body looked, she must see him. She\r
+passed the valet, the snuff fell from the candle wick, and she saw\r
+Prince Andrew clearly with his arms outside the quilt, and such as she\r
+had always seen him.\r
+\r
+He was the same as ever, but the feverish color of his face, his\r
+glittering eyes rapturously turned toward her, and especially his neck,\r
+delicate as a child's, revealed by the turn-down collar of his shirt,\r
+gave him a peculiarly innocent, childlike look, such as she had never\r
+seen on him before. She went up to him and with a swift, flexible,\r
+youthful movement dropped on her knees.\r
+\r
+He smiled and held out his hand to her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXII\r
+\r
+Seven days had passed since Prince Andrew found himself in the ambulance\r
+station on the field of Borodino. His feverish state and the\r
+inflammation of his bowels, which were injured, were in the doctor's\r
+opinion sure to carry him off. But on the seventh day he ate with\r
+pleasure a piece of bread with some tea, and the doctor noticed that his\r
+temperature was lower. He had regained consciousness that morning. The\r
+first night after they left Moscow had been fairly warm and he had\r
+remained in the caleche, but at Mytishchi the wounded man himself asked\r
+to be taken out and given some tea. The pain caused by his removal into\r
+the hut had made him groan aloud and again lose consciousness. When he\r
+had been placed on his camp bed he lay for a long time motionless with\r
+closed eyes. Then he opened them and whispered softly: "And the tea?"\r
+His remembering such a small detail of everyday life astonished the\r
+doctor. He felt Prince Andrew's pulse, and to his surprise and\r
+dissatisfaction found it had improved. He was dissatisfied because he\r
+knew by experience that if his patient did not die now, he would do so a\r
+little later with greater suffering. Timokhin, the red-nosed major of\r
+Prince Andrew's regiment, had joined him in Moscow and was being taken\r
+along with him, having been wounded in the leg at the battle of\r
+Borodino. They were accompanied by a doctor, Prince Andrew's valet, his\r
+coachman, and two orderlies.\r
+\r
+They gave Prince Andrew some tea. He drank it eagerly, looking with\r
+feverish eyes at the door in front of him as if trying to understand and\r
+remember something.\r
+\r
+"I don't want any more. Is Timokhin here?" he asked.\r
+\r
+Timokhin crept along the bench to him.\r
+\r
+"I am here, your excellency."\r
+\r
+"How's your wound?"\r
+\r
+"Mine, sir? All right. But how about you?"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew again pondered as if trying to remember something.\r
+\r
+"Couldn't one get a book?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"What book?"\r
+\r
+"The Gospels. I haven't one."\r
+\r
+The doctor promised to procure it for him and began to ask how he was\r
+feeling. Prince Andrew answered all his questions reluctantly but\r
+reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under him as he was\r
+uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak\r
+with which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome smell of\r
+mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful\r
+place. The doctor was very much displeased about something and made a\r
+change in the dressings, turning the wounded man over so that he groaned\r
+again and grew unconscious and delirious from the agony. He kept asking\r
+them to get him the book and put it under him.\r
+\r
+"What trouble would it be to you?" he said. "I have not got one. Please\r
+get it for me and put it under for a moment," he pleaded in a piteous\r
+voice.\r
+\r
+The doctor went into the passage to wash his hands.\r
+\r
+"You fellows have no conscience," said he to the valet who was pouring\r
+water over his hands. "For just one moment I didn't look after you...\r
+It's such pain, you know, that I wonder how he can bear it."\r
+\r
+"By the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought we had put something under him!"\r
+said the valet.\r
+\r
+The first time Prince Andrew understood where he was and what was the\r
+matter with him and remembered being wounded and how was when he asked\r
+to be carried into the hut after his caleche had stopped at Mytishchi.\r
+After growing confused from pain while being carried into the hut he\r
+again regained consciousness, and while drinking tea once more recalled\r
+all that had happened to him, and above all vividly remembered the\r
+moment at the ambulance station when, at the sight of the sufferings of\r
+a man he disliked, those new thoughts had come to him which promised him\r
+happiness. And those thoughts, though now vague and indefinite, again\r
+possessed his soul. He remembered that he had now a new source of\r
+happiness and that this happiness had something to do with the Gospels.\r
+That was why he asked for a copy of them. The uncomfortable position in\r
+which they had put him and turned him over again confused his thoughts,\r
+and when he came to himself a third time it was in the complete\r
+stillness of the night. Everybody near him was sleeping. A cricket\r
+chirped from across the passage; someone was shouting and singing in the\r
+street; cockroaches rustled on the table, on the icons, and on the\r
+walls, and a big fly flopped at the head of the bed and around the\r
+candle beside him, the wick of which was charred and had shaped itself\r
+like a mushroom.\r
+\r
+His mind was not in a normal state. A healthy man usually thinks of,\r
+feels, and remembers innumerable things simultaneously, but has the\r
+power and will to select one sequence of thoughts or events on which to\r
+fix his whole attention. A healthy man can tear himself away from the\r
+deepest reflections to say a civil word to someone who comes in and can\r
+then return again to his own thoughts. But Prince Andrew's mind was not\r
+in a normal state in that respect. All the powers of his mind were more\r
+active and clearer than ever, but they acted apart from his will. Most\r
+diverse thoughts and images occupied him simultaneously. At times his\r
+brain suddenly began to work with a vigor, clearness, and depth it had\r
+never reached when he was in health, but suddenly in the midst of its\r
+work it would turn to some unexpected idea and he had not the strength\r
+to turn it back again.\r
+\r
+"Yes, a new happiness was revealed to me of which man cannot be\r
+deprived," he thought as he lay in the semidarkness of the quiet hut,\r
+gazing fixedly before him with feverish wide open eyes. "A happiness\r
+lying beyond material forces, outside the material influences that act\r
+on man--a happiness of the soul alone, the happiness of loving. Every\r
+man can understand it, but to conceive it and enjoin it was possible\r
+only for God. But how did God enjoin that law? And why was the Son...?"\r
+\r
+And suddenly the sequence of these thoughts broke off, and Prince Andrew\r
+heard (without knowing whether it was a delusion or reality) a soft\r
+whispering voice incessantly and rhythmically repeating "piti-piti-\r
+piti," and then "titi," and then again "piti-piti-piti," and "ti-ti"\r
+once more. At the same time he felt that above his face, above the very\r
+middle of it, some strange airy structure was being erected out of\r
+slender needles or splinters, to the sound of this whispered music. He\r
+felt that he had to balance carefully (though it was difficult) so that\r
+this airy structure should not collapse; but nevertheless it kept\r
+collapsing and again slowly rising to the sound of whispered rhythmic\r
+music--"it stretches, stretches, spreading out and stretching," said\r
+Prince Andrew to himself. While listening to this whispering and feeling\r
+the sensation of this drawing out and the construction of this edifice\r
+of needles, he also saw by glimpses a red halo round the candle, and\r
+heard the rustle of the cockroaches and the buzzing of the fly that\r
+flopped against his pillow and his face. Each time the fly touched his\r
+face it gave him a burning sensation and yet to his surprise it did not\r
+destroy the structure, though it knocked against the very region of his\r
+face where it was rising. But besides this there was something else of\r
+importance. It was something white by the door--the statue of a sphinx,\r
+which also oppressed him.\r
+\r
+"But perhaps that's my shirt on the table," he thought, "and that's my\r
+legs, and that is the door, but why is it always stretching and drawing\r
+itself out, and 'piti-piti-piti' and 'ti-ti' and 'piti-piti-piti'...?\r
+That's enough, please leave off!" Prince Andrew painfully entreated\r
+someone. And suddenly thoughts and feelings again swam to the surface of\r
+his mind with peculiar clearness and force.\r
+\r
+"Yes--love," he thought again quite clearly. "But not love which loves\r
+for something, for some quality, for some purpose, or for some reason,\r
+but the love which I--while dying--first experienced when I saw my enemy\r
+and yet loved him. I experienced that feeling of love which is the very\r
+essence of the soul and does not require an object. Now again I feel\r
+that bliss. To love one's neighbors, to love one's enemies, to love\r
+everything, to love God in all His manifestations. It is possible to\r
+love someone dear to you with human love, but an enemy can only be loved\r
+by divine love. That is why I experienced such joy when I felt that I\r
+loved that man. What has become of him? Is he alive?...\r
+\r
+"When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but\r
+divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can\r
+destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul. Yet how many people have\r
+I hated in my life? And of them all, I loved and hated none as I did\r
+her." And he vividly pictured to himself Natasha, not as he had done in\r
+the past with nothing but her charms which gave him delight, but for the\r
+first time picturing to himself her soul. And he understood her\r
+feelings, her sufferings, shame, and remorse. He now understood for the\r
+first time all the cruelty of his rejection of her, the cruelty of his\r
+rupture with her. "If only it were possible for me to see her once more!\r
+Just once, looking into those eyes to say..."\r
+\r
+"Piti-piti-piti and ti-ti and piti-piti-piti boom!" flopped the fly...\r
+And his attention was suddenly carried into another world, a world of\r
+reality and delirium in which something particular was happening. In\r
+that world some structure was still being erected and did not fall,\r
+something was still stretching out, and the candle with its red halo was\r
+still burning, and the same shirtlike sphinx lay near the door; but\r
+besides all this something creaked, there was a whiff of fresh air, and\r
+a new white sphinx appeared, standing at the door. And that sphinx had\r
+the pale face and shining eyes of the very Natasha of whom he had just\r
+been thinking.\r
+\r
+"Oh, how oppressive this continual delirium is," thought Prince Andrew,\r
+trying to drive that face from his imagination. But the face remained\r
+before him with the force of reality and drew nearer. Prince Andrew\r
+wished to return to that former world of pure thought, but he could not,\r
+and delirium drew him back into its domain. The soft whispering voice\r
+continued its rhythmic murmur, something oppressed him and stretched\r
+out, and the strange face was before him. Prince Andrew collected all\r
+his strength in an effort to recover his senses, he moved a little, and\r
+suddenly there was a ringing in his ears, a dimness in his eyes, and\r
+like a man plunged into water he lost consciousness. When he came to\r
+himself, Natasha, that same living Natasha whom of all people he most\r
+longed to love with this new pure divine love that had been revealed to\r
+him, was kneeling before him. He realized that it was the real living\r
+Natasha, and he was not surprised but quietly happy. Natasha, motionless\r
+on her knees (she was unable to stir), with frightened eyes riveted on\r
+him, was restraining her sobs. Her face was pale and rigid. Only in the\r
+lower part of it something quivered.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew sighed with relief, smiled, and held out his hand.\r
+\r
+"You?" he said. "How fortunate!"\r
+\r
+With a rapid but careful movement Natasha drew nearer to him on her\r
+knees and, taking his hand carefully, bent her face over it and began\r
+kissing it, just touching it lightly with her lips.\r
+\r
+"Forgive me!" she whispered, raising her head and glancing at him.\r
+"Forgive me!"\r
+\r
+"I love you," said Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+"Forgive...!"\r
+\r
+"Forgive what?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Forgive me for what I ha-ve do-ne!" faltered Natasha in a scarcely\r
+audible, broken whisper, and began kissing his hand more rapidly, just\r
+touching it with her lips.\r
+\r
+"I love you more, better than before," said Prince Andrew, lifting her\r
+face with his hand so as to look into her eyes.\r
+\r
+Those eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at him timidly,\r
+compassionately, and with joyous love. Natasha's thin pale face, with\r
+its swollen lips, was more than plain--it was dreadful. But Prince\r
+Andrew did not see that, he saw her shining eyes which were beautiful.\r
+They heard the sound of voices behind them.\r
+\r
+Peter the valet, who was now wide awake, had roused the doctor.\r
+Timokhin, who had not slept at all because of the pain in his leg, had\r
+long been watching all that was going on, carefully covering his bare\r
+body with the sheet as he huddled up on his bench.\r
+\r
+"What's this?" said the doctor, rising from his bed. "Please go away,\r
+madam!"\r
+\r
+At that moment a maid sent by the countess, who had noticed her\r
+daughter's absence, knocked at the door.\r
+\r
+Like a somnambulist aroused from her sleep Natasha went out of the room\r
+and, returning to her hut, fell sobbing on her bed.\r
+\r
+From that time, during all the rest of the Rostovs' journey, at every\r
+halting place and wherever they spent a night, Natasha never left the\r
+wounded Bolkonski, and the doctor had to admit that he had not expected\r
+from a young girl either such firmness or such skill in nursing a\r
+wounded man.\r
+\r
+Dreadful as the countess imagined it would be should Prince Andrew die\r
+in her daughter's arms during the journey--as, judging by what the\r
+doctor said, it seemed might easily happen--she could not oppose\r
+Natasha. Though with the intimacy now established between the wounded\r
+man and Natasha the thought occurred that should he recover their former\r
+engagement would be renewed, no one--least of all Natasha and Prince\r
+Andrew--spoke of this: the unsettled question of life and death, which\r
+hung not only over Bolkonski but over all Russia, shut out all other\r
+considerations.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIII\r
+\r
+On the third of September Pierre awoke late. His head was aching, the\r
+clothes in which he had slept without undressing felt uncomfortable on\r
+his body, and his mind had a dim consciousness of something shameful he\r
+had done the day before. That something shameful was his yesterday's\r
+conversation with Captain Ramballe.\r
+\r
+It was eleven by the clock, but it seemed peculiarly dark out of doors.\r
+Pierre rose, rubbed his eyes, and seeing the pistol with an engraved\r
+stock which Gerasim had replaced on the writing table, he remembered\r
+where he was and what lay before him that very day.\r
+\r
+"Am I not too late?" he thought. "No, probably he won't make his entry\r
+into Moscow before noon."\r
+\r
+Pierre did not allow himself to reflect on what lay before him, but\r
+hastened to act.\r
+\r
+After arranging his clothes, he took the pistol and was about to go out.\r
+But it then occurred to him for the first time that he certainly could\r
+not carry the weapon in his hand through the streets. It was difficult\r
+to hide such a big pistol even under his wide coat. He could not carry\r
+it unnoticed in his belt or under his arm. Besides, it had been\r
+discharged, and he had not had time to reload it. "No matter, dagger\r
+will do," he said to himself, though when planning his design he had\r
+more than once come to the conclusion that the chief mistake made by the\r
+student in 1809 had been to try to kill Napoleon with a dagger. But as\r
+his chief aim consisted not in carrying out his design, but in proving\r
+to himself that he would not abandon his intention and was doing all he\r
+could to achieve it, Pierre hastily took the blunt jagged dagger in a\r
+green sheath which he had bought at the Sukharev market with the pistol,\r
+and hid it under his waistcoat.\r
+\r
+Having tied a girdle over his coat and pulled his cap low on his head,\r
+Pierre went down the corridor, trying to avoid making a noise or meeting\r
+the captain, and passed out into the street.\r
+\r
+The conflagration, at which he had looked with so much indifference the\r
+evening before, had greatly increased during the night. Moscow was on\r
+fire in several places. The buildings in Carriage Row, across the river,\r
+in the Bazaar and the Povarskoy, as well as the barges on the Moskva\r
+River and the timber yards by the Dorogomilov Bridge, were all ablaze.\r
+\r
+Pierre's way led through side streets to the Povarskoy and from there to\r
+the church of St. Nicholas on the Arbat, where he had long before\r
+decided that the deed should be done. The gates of most of the houses\r
+were locked and the shutters up. The streets and lanes were deserted.\r
+The air was full of smoke and the smell of burning. Now and then he met\r
+Russians with anxious and timid faces, and Frenchmen with an air not of\r
+the city but of the camp, walking in the middle of the streets. Both the\r
+Russians and the French looked at Pierre with surprise. Besides his\r
+height and stoutness, and the strange morose look of suffering in his\r
+face and whole figure, the Russians stared at Pierre because they could\r
+not make out to what class he could belong. The French followed him with\r
+astonishment in their eyes chiefly because Pierre, unlike all the other\r
+Russians who gazed at the French with fear and curiosity, paid no\r
+attention to them. At the gate of one house three Frenchmen, who were\r
+explaining something to some Russians who did not understand them,\r
+stopped Pierre asking if he did not know French.\r
+\r
+Pierre shook his head and went on. In another side street a sentinel\r
+standing beside a green caisson shouted at him, but only when the shout\r
+was threateningly repeated and he heard the click of the man's musket as\r
+he raised it did Pierre understand that he had to pass on the other side\r
+of the street. He heard nothing and saw nothing of what went on around\r
+him. He carried his resolution within himself in terror and haste, like\r
+something dreadful and alien to him, for, after the previous night's\r
+experience, he was afraid of losing it. But he was not destined to bring\r
+his mood safely to his destination. And even had he not been hindered by\r
+anything on the way, his intention could not now have been carried out,\r
+for Napoleon had passed the Arbat more than four hours previously on his\r
+way from the Dorogomilov suburb to the Kremlin, and was now sitting in a\r
+very gloomy frame of mind in a royal study in the Kremlin, giving\r
+detailed and exact orders as to measures to be taken immediately to\r
+extinguish the fire, to prevent looting, and to reassure the\r
+inhabitants. But Pierre did not know this; he was entirely absorbed in\r
+what lay before him, and was tortured--as those are who obstinately\r
+undertake a task that is impossible for them not because of its\r
+difficulty but because of its incompatibility with their natures--by the\r
+fear of weakening at the decisive moment and so losing his self-esteem.\r
+\r
+Though he heard and saw nothing around him he found his way by instinct\r
+and did not go wrong in the side streets that led to the Povarskoy.\r
+\r
+As Pierre approached that street the smoke became denser and denser--he\r
+even felt the heat of the fire. Occasionally curly tongues of flame rose\r
+from under the roofs of the houses. He met more people in the streets\r
+and they were more excited. But Pierre, though he felt that something\r
+unusual was happening around him, did not realize that he was\r
+approaching the fire. As he was going along a foot path across a wide-\r
+open space adjoining the Povarskoy on one side and the gardens of Prince\r
+Gruzinski's house on the other, Pierre suddenly heard the desperate\r
+weeping of a woman close to him. He stopped as if awakening from a dream\r
+and lifted his head.\r
+\r
+By the side of the path, on the dusty dry grass, all sorts of household\r
+goods lay in a heap: featherbeds, a samovar, icons, and trunks. On the\r
+ground, beside the trunks, sat a thin woman no longer young, with long,\r
+prominent upper teeth, and wearing a black cloak and cap. This woman,\r
+swaying to and fro and muttering something, was choking with sobs. Two\r
+girls of about ten and twelve, dressed in dirty short frocks and cloaks,\r
+were staring at their mother with a look of stupefaction on their pale\r
+frightened faces. The youngest child, a boy of about seven, who wore an\r
+overcoat and an immense cap evidently not his own, was crying in his old\r
+nurse's arms. A dirty, barefooted maid was sitting on a trunk, and,\r
+having undone her pale-colored plait, was pulling it straight and\r
+sniffing at her singed hair. The woman's husband, a short, round-\r
+shouldered man in the undress uniform of a civilian official, with\r
+sausage-shaped whiskers and showing under his square-set cap the hair\r
+smoothly brushed forward over his temples, with expressionless face was\r
+moving the trunks, which were placed one on another, and was dragging\r
+some garments from under them.\r
+\r
+As soon as she saw Pierre, the woman almost threw herself at his feet.\r
+\r
+"Dear people, good Christians, save me, help me, dear friends... help\r
+us, somebody," she muttered between her sobs. "My girl... My daughter!\r
+My youngest daughter is left behind. She's burned! Ooh! Was it for this\r
+I nursed you.... Ooh!"\r
+\r
+"Don't, Mary Nikolievna!" said her husband to her in a low voice,\r
+evidently only to justify himself before the stranger. "Sister must have\r
+taken her, or else where can she be?" he added.\r
+\r
+"Monster! Villain!" shouted the woman angrily, suddenly ceasing to weep.\r
+"You have no heart, you don't feel for your own child! Another man would\r
+have rescued her from the fire. But this is a monster and neither a man\r
+nor a father! You, honored sir, are a noble man," she went on,\r
+addressing Pierre rapidly between her sobs. "The fire broke out\r
+alongside, and blew our way, the maid called out 'Fire!' and we rushed\r
+to collect our things. We ran out just as we were.... This is what we\r
+have brought away.... The icons, and my dowry bed, all the rest is lost.\r
+We seized the children. But not Katie! Ooh! O Lord!..." and again she\r
+began to sob. "My child, my dear one! Burned, burned!"\r
+\r
+"But where was she left?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+From the expression of his animated face the woman saw that this man\r
+might help her.\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear sir!" she cried, seizing him by the legs. "My benefactor, set\r
+my heart at ease.... Aniska, go, you horrid girl, show him the way!" she\r
+cried to the maid, angrily opening her mouth and still farther exposing\r
+her long teeth.\r
+\r
+"Show me the way, show me, I... I'll do it," gasped Pierre rapidly.\r
+\r
+The dirty maidservant stepped from behind the trunk, put up her plait,\r
+sighed, and went on her short, bare feet along the path. Pierre felt as\r
+if he had come back to life after a heavy swoon. He held his head\r
+higher, his eyes shone with the light of life, and with swift steps he\r
+followed the maid, overtook her, and came out on the Povarskoy. The\r
+whole street was full of clouds of black smoke. Tongues of flame here\r
+and there broke through that cloud. A great number of people crowded in\r
+front of the conflagration. In the middle of the street stood a French\r
+general saying something to those around him. Pierre, accompanied by the\r
+maid, was advancing to the spot where the general stood, but the French\r
+soldiers stopped him.\r
+\r
+"On ne passe pas!" * cried a voice.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "You can't pass!"\r
+\r
+"This way, uncle," cried the girl. "We'll pass through the side street,\r
+by the Nikulins'!"\r
+\r
+Pierre turned back, giving a spring now and then to keep up with her.\r
+She ran across the street, turned down a side street to the left, and,\r
+passing three houses, turned into a yard on the right.\r
+\r
+"It's here, close by," said she and, running across the yard, opened a\r
+gate in a wooden fence and, stopping, pointed out to him a small wooden\r
+wing of the house, which was burning brightly and fiercely. One of its\r
+sides had fallen in, another was on fire, and bright flames issued from\r
+the openings of the windows and from under the roof.\r
+\r
+As Pierre passed through the fence gate, he was enveloped by hot air and\r
+involuntarily stopped.\r
+\r
+"Which is it? Which is your house?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Ooh!" wailed the girl, pointing to the wing. "That's it, that was our\r
+lodging. You've burned to death, our treasure, Katie, my precious little\r
+missy! Ooh!" lamented Aniska, who at the sight of the fire felt that she\r
+too must give expression to her feelings.\r
+\r
+Pierre rushed to the wing, but the heat was so great that he\r
+involuntarily passed round in a curve and came upon the large house that\r
+was as yet burning only at one end, just below the roof, and around\r
+which swarmed a crowd of Frenchmen. At first Pierre did not realize what\r
+these men, who were dragging something out, were about; but seeing\r
+before him a Frenchman hitting a peasant with a blunt saber and trying\r
+to take from him a fox-fur coat, he vaguely understood that looting was\r
+going on there, but he had no time to dwell on that idea.\r
+\r
+The sounds of crackling and the din of falling walls and ceilings, the\r
+whistle and hiss of the flames, the excited shouts of the people, and\r
+the sight of the swaying smoke, now gathering into thick black clouds\r
+and now soaring up with glittering sparks, with here and there dense\r
+sheaves of flame (now red and now like golden fish scales creeping along\r
+the walls), and the heat and smoke and rapidity of motion, produced on\r
+Pierre the usual animating effects of a conflagration. It had a\r
+peculiarly strong effect on him because at the sight of the fire he felt\r
+himself suddenly freed from the ideas that had weighed him down. He felt\r
+young, bright, adroit, and resolute. He ran round to the other side of\r
+the lodge and was about to dash into that part of it which was still\r
+standing, when just above his head he heard several voices shouting and\r
+then a cracking sound and the ring of something heavy falling close\r
+beside him.\r
+\r
+Pierre looked up and saw at a window of the large house some Frenchmen\r
+who had just thrown out the drawer of a chest, filled with metal\r
+articles. Other French soldiers standing below went up to the drawer.\r
+\r
+"What does this fellow want?" shouted one of them referring to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"There's a child in that house. Haven't you seen a child?" cried Pierre.\r
+\r
+"What's he talking about? Get along!" said several voices, and one of\r
+the soldiers, evidently afraid that Pierre might want to take from them\r
+some of the plate and bronzes that were in the drawer, moved\r
+threateningly toward him.\r
+\r
+"A child?" shouted a Frenchman from above. "I did hear something\r
+squealing in the garden. Perhaps it's his brat that the fellow is\r
+looking for. After all, one must be human, you know...."\r
+\r
+"Where is it? Where?" said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"There! There!" shouted the Frenchman at the window, pointing to the\r
+garden at the back of the house. "Wait a bit--I'm coming down."\r
+\r
+And a minute or two later the Frenchman, a black-eyed fellow with a spot\r
+on his cheek, in shirt sleeves, really did jump out of a window on the\r
+ground floor, and clapping Pierre on the shoulder ran with him into the\r
+garden.\r
+\r
+"Hurry up, you others!" he called out to his comrades. "It's getting\r
+hot."\r
+\r
+When they reached a gravel path behind the house the Frenchman pulled\r
+Pierre by the arm and pointed to a round, graveled space where a three-\r
+year-old girl in a pink dress was lying under a seat.\r
+\r
+"There is your child! Oh, a girl, so much the better!" said the\r
+Frenchman. "Good-bye, Fatty. We must be human, we are all mortal you\r
+know!" and the Frenchman with the spot on his cheek ran back to his\r
+comrades.\r
+\r
+Breathless with joy, Pierre ran to the little girl and was going to take\r
+her in his arms. But seeing a stranger the sickly, scrofulous-looking\r
+child, unattractively like her mother, began to yell and run away.\r
+Pierre, however, seized her and lifted her in his arms. She screamed\r
+desperately and angrily and tried with her little hands to pull Pierre's\r
+hands away and to bite them with her slobbering mouth. Pierre was seized\r
+by a sense of horror and repulsion such as he had experienced when\r
+touching some nasty little animal. But he made an effort not to throw\r
+the child down and ran with her to the large house. It was now, however,\r
+impossible to get back the way he had come; the maid, Aniska, was no\r
+longer there, and Pierre with a feeling of pity and disgust pressed the\r
+wet, painfully sobbing child to himself as tenderly as he could and ran\r
+with her through the garden seeking another way out.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIV\r
+\r
+Having run through different yards and side streets, Pierre got back\r
+with his little burden to the Gruzinski garden at the corner of the\r
+Povarskoy. He did not at first recognize the place from which he had set\r
+out to look for the child, so crowded was it now with people and goods\r
+that had been dragged out of the houses. Besides Russian families who\r
+had taken refuge here from the fire with their belongings, there were\r
+several French soldiers in a variety of clothing. Pierre took no notice\r
+of them. He hurried to find the family of that civil servant in order to\r
+restore the daughter to her mother and go to save someone else. Pierre\r
+felt that he had still much to do and to do quickly. Glowing with the\r
+heat and from running, he felt at that moment more strongly than ever\r
+the sense of youth, animation, and determination that had come on him\r
+when he ran to save the child. She had now become quiet and, clinging\r
+with her little hands to Pierre's coat, sat on his arm gazing about her\r
+like some little wild animal. He glanced at her occasionally with a\r
+slight smile. He fancied he saw something pathetically innocent in that\r
+frightened, sickly little face.\r
+\r
+He did not find the civil servant or his wife where he had left them. He\r
+walked among the crowd with rapid steps, scanning the various faces he\r
+met. Involuntarily he noticed a Georgian or Armenian family consisting\r
+of a very handsome old man of Oriental type, wearing a new, cloth-\r
+covered, sheepskin coat and new boots, an old woman of similar type, and\r
+a young woman. That very young woman seemed to Pierre the perfection of\r
+Oriental beauty, with her sharply outlined, arched, black eyebrows and\r
+the extraordinarily soft, bright color of her long, beautiful,\r
+expressionless face. Amid the scattered property and the crowd on the\r
+open space, she, in her rich satin cloak with a bright lilac shawl on\r
+her head, suggested a delicate exotic plant thrown out onto the snow.\r
+She was sitting on some bundles a little behind the old woman, and\r
+looked from under her long lashes with motionless, large, almond-shaped\r
+eyes at the ground before her. Evidently she was aware of her beauty and\r
+fearful because of it. Her face struck Pierre and, hurrying along by the\r
+fence, he turned several times to look at her. When he had reached the\r
+fence, still without finding those he sought, he stopped and looked\r
+about him.\r
+\r
+With the child in his arms his figure was now more conspicuous than\r
+before, and a group of Russians, both men and women, gathered about him.\r
+\r
+"Have you lost anyone, my dear fellow? You're of the gentry yourself,\r
+aren't you? Whose child is it?" they asked him.\r
+\r
+Pierre replied that the child belonged to a woman in a black coat who\r
+had been sitting there with her other children, and he asked whether\r
+anyone knew where she had gone.\r
+\r
+"Why, that must be the Anferovs," said an old deacon, addressing a\r
+pockmarked peasant woman. "Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy!" he added\r
+in his customary bass.\r
+\r
+"The Anferovs? No," said the woman. "They left in the morning. That must\r
+be either Mary Nikolievna's or the Ivanovs'!"\r
+\r
+"He says 'a woman,' and Mary Nikolievna is a lady," remarked a house\r
+serf.\r
+\r
+"Do you know her? She's thin, with long teeth," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"That's Mary Nikolievna! They went inside the garden when these wolves\r
+swooped down," said the woman, pointing to the French soldiers.\r
+\r
+"O Lord, have mercy!" added the deacon.\r
+\r
+"Go over that way, they're there. It's she! She kept on lamenting and\r
+crying," continued the woman. "It's she. Here, this way!"\r
+\r
+But Pierre was not listening to the woman. He had for some seconds been\r
+intently watching what was going on a few steps away. He was looking at\r
+the Armenian family and at two French soldiers who had gone up to them.\r
+One of these, a nimble little man, was wearing a blue coat tied round\r
+the waist with a rope. He had a nightcap on his head and his feet were\r
+bare. The other, whose appearance particularly struck Pierre, was a\r
+long, lank, round-shouldered, fair-haired man, slow in his movements and\r
+with an idiotic expression of face. He wore a woman's loose gown of\r
+frieze, blue trousers, and large torn Hessian boots. The little\r
+barefooted Frenchman in the blue coat went up to the Armenians and,\r
+saying something, immediately seized the old man by his legs and the old\r
+man at once began pulling off his boots. The other in the frieze gown\r
+stopped in front of the beautiful Armenian girl and with his hands in\r
+his pockets stood staring at her, motionless and silent.\r
+\r
+"Here, take the child!" said Pierre peremptorily and hurriedly to the\r
+woman, handing the little girl to her. "Give her back to them, give her\r
+back!" he almost shouted, putting the child, who began screaming, on the\r
+ground, and again looking at the Frenchman and the Armenian family.\r
+\r
+The old man was already sitting barefoot. The little Frenchman had\r
+secured his second boot and was slapping one boot against the other. The\r
+old man was saying something in a voice broken by sobs, but Pierre\r
+caught but a glimpse of this, his whole attention was directed to the\r
+Frenchman in the frieze gown who meanwhile, swaying slowly from side to\r
+side, had drawn nearer to the young woman and taking his hands from his\r
+pockets had seized her by the neck.\r
+\r
+The beautiful Armenian still sat motionless and in the same attitude,\r
+with her long lashes drooping as if she did not see or feel what the\r
+soldier was doing to her.\r
+\r
+While Pierre was running the few steps that separated him from the\r
+Frenchman, the tall marauder in the frieze gown was already tearing from\r
+her neck the necklace the young Armenian was wearing, and the young\r
+woman, clutching at her neck, screamed piercingly.\r
+\r
+"Let that woman alone!" exclaimed Pierre hoarsely in a furious voice,\r
+seizing the soldier by his round shoulders and throwing him aside.\r
+\r
+The soldier fell, got up, and ran away. But his comrade, throwing down\r
+the boots and drawing his sword, moved threateningly toward Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Voyons, Pas de betises!" * he cried.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Look here, no nonsense!"\r
+\r
+Pierre was in such a transport of rage that he remembered nothing and\r
+his strength increased tenfold. He rushed at the barefooted Frenchman\r
+and, before the latter had time to draw his sword, knocked him off his\r
+feet and hammered him with his fists. Shouts of approval were heard from\r
+the crowd around, and at the same moment a mounted patrol of French\r
+uhlans appeared from round the corner. The uhlans came up at a trot to\r
+Pierre and the Frenchman and surrounded them. Pierre remembered nothing\r
+of what happened after that. He only remembered beating someone and\r
+being beaten and finally feeling that his hands were bound and that a\r
+crowd of French soldiers stood around him and were searching him.\r
+\r
+"Lieutenant, he has a dagger," were the first words Pierre understood.\r
+\r
+"Ah, a weapon?" said the officer and turned to the barefooted soldier\r
+who had been arrested with Pierre. "All right, you can tell all about it\r
+at the court-martial." Then he turned to Pierre. "Do you speak French?"\r
+\r
+Pierre looked around him with bloodshot eyes and did not reply. His face\r
+probably looked very terrible, for the officer said something in a\r
+whisper and four more uhlans left the ranks and placed themselves on\r
+both sides of Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Do you speak French?" the officer asked again, keeping at a distance\r
+from Pierre. "Call the interpreter."\r
+\r
+A little man in Russian civilian clothes rode out from the ranks, and by\r
+his clothes and manner of speaking Pierre at once knew him to be a\r
+French salesman from one of the Moscow shops.\r
+\r
+"He does not look like a common man," said the interpreter, after a\r
+searching look at Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Ah, he looks very much like an incendiary," remarked the officer. "And\r
+ask him who he is," he added.\r
+\r
+"Who are you?" asked the interpreter in poor Russian. "You must answer\r
+the chief."\r
+\r
+"I will not tell you who I am. I am your prisoner--take me!" Pierre\r
+suddenly replied in French.\r
+\r
+"Ah, ah!" muttered the officer with a frown. "Well then, march!"\r
+\r
+A crowd had collected round the uhlans. Nearest to Pierre stood the\r
+pockmarked peasant woman with the little girl, and when the patrol\r
+started she moved forward.\r
+\r
+"Where are they taking you to, you poor dear?" said she. "And the little\r
+girl, the little girl, what am I to do with her if she's not theirs?"\r
+said the woman.\r
+\r
+"What does that woman want?" asked the officer.\r
+\r
+Pierre was as if intoxicated. His elation increased at the sight of the\r
+little girl he had saved.\r
+\r
+"What does she want?" he murmured. "She is bringing me my daughter whom\r
+I have just saved from the flames," said he. "Good-bye!" And without\r
+knowing how this aimless lie had escaped him, he went along with\r
+resolute and triumphant steps between the French soldiers.\r
+\r
+The French patrol was one of those sent out through the various streets\r
+of Moscow by Durosnel's order to put a stop to the pillage, and\r
+especially to catch the incendiaries who, according to the general\r
+opinion which had that day originated among the higher French officers,\r
+were the cause of the conflagrations. After marching through a number of\r
+streets the patrol arrested five more Russian suspects: a small\r
+shopkeeper, two seminary students, a peasant, and a house serf, besides\r
+several looters. But of all these various suspected characters, Pierre\r
+was considered to be the most suspicious of all. When they had all been\r
+brought for the night to a large house on the Zubov Rampart that was\r
+being used as a guardhouse, Pierre was placed apart under strict guard.\r
+\r
+BOOK TWELVE: 1812\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+In Petersburg at that time a complicated struggle was being carried on\r
+with greater heat than ever in the highest circles, between the parties\r
+of Rumyantsev, the French, Marya Fedorovna, the Tsarevich, and others,\r
+drowned as usual by the buzzing of the court drones. But the calm,\r
+luxurious life of Petersburg, concerned only about phantoms and\r
+reflections of real life, went on in its old way and made it hard,\r
+except by a great effort, to realize the danger and the difficult\r
+position of the Russian people. There were the same receptions and\r
+balls, the same French theater, the same court interests and service\r
+interests and intrigues as usual. Only in the very highest circles were\r
+attempts made to keep in mind the difficulties of the actual position.\r
+Stories were whispered of how differently the two Empresses behaved in\r
+these difficult circumstances. The Empress Marya, concerned for the\r
+welfare of the charitable and educational institutions under her\r
+patronage, had given directions that they should all be removed to\r
+Kazan, and the things belonging to these institutions had already been\r
+packed up. The Empress Elisabeth, however, when asked what instructions\r
+she would be pleased to give--with her characteristic Russian patriotism\r
+had replied that she could give no directions about state institutions\r
+for that was the affair of the sovereign, but as far as she personally\r
+was concerned she would be the last to quit Petersburg.\r
+\r
+At Anna Pavlovna's on the twenty-sixth of August, the very day of the\r
+battle of Borodino, there was a soiree, the chief feature of which was\r
+to be the reading of a letter from His Lordship the Bishop when sending\r
+the Emperor an icon of the Venerable Sergius. It was regarded as a model\r
+of ecclesiastical, patriotic eloquence. Prince Vasili himself, famed for\r
+his elocution, was to read it. (He used to read at the Empress'.) The\r
+art of his reading was supposed to lie in rolling out the words, quite\r
+independently of their meaning, in a loud and singsong voice alternating\r
+between a despairing wail and a tender murmur, so that the wail fell\r
+quite at random on one word and the murmur on another. This reading, as\r
+was always the case at Anna Pavlovna's soirees, had a political\r
+significance. That evening she expected several important personages who\r
+had to be made ashamed of their visits to the French theater and aroused\r
+to a patriotic temper. A good many people had already arrived, but Anna\r
+Pavlovna, not yet seeing all those whom she wanted in her drawing room,\r
+did not let the reading begin but wound up the springs of a general\r
+conversation.\r
+\r
+The news of the day in Petersburg was the illness of Countess Bezukhova.\r
+She had fallen ill unexpectedly a few days previously, had missed\r
+several gatherings of which she was usually ornament, and was said to be\r
+receiving no one, and instead of the celebrated Petersburg doctors who\r
+usually attended her had entrusted herself to some Italian doctor who\r
+was treating her in some new and unusual way.\r
+\r
+They all knew very well that the enchanting countess' illness arose from\r
+an inconvenience resulting from marrying two husbands at the same time,\r
+and that the Italian's cure consisted in removing such inconvenience;\r
+but in Anna Pavlovna's presence no one dared to think of this or even\r
+appear to know it.\r
+\r
+"They say the poor countess is very ill. The doctor says it is angina\r
+pectoris."\r
+\r
+"Angina? Oh, that's a terrible illness!"\r
+\r
+"They say that the rivals are reconciled, thanks to the angina..." and\r
+the word angina was repeated with great satisfaction.\r
+\r
+"The count is pathetic, they say. He cried like a child when the doctor\r
+told him the case was dangerous."\r
+\r
+"Oh, it would be a terrible loss, she is an enchanting woman."\r
+\r
+"You are speaking of the poor countess?" said Anna Pavlovna, coming up\r
+just then. "I sent to ask for news, and hear that she is a little\r
+better. Oh, she is certainly the most charming woman in the world," she\r
+went on, with a smile at her own enthusiasm. "We belong to different\r
+camps, but that does not prevent my esteeming her as she deserves. She\r
+is very unfortunate!" added Anna Pavlovna.\r
+\r
+Supposing that by these words Anna Pavlovna was somewhat lifting the\r
+veil from the secret of the countess' malady, an unwary young man\r
+ventured to express surprise that well known doctors had not been called\r
+in and that the countess was being attended by a charlatan who might\r
+employ dangerous remedies.\r
+\r
+"Your information may be better than mine," Anna Pavlovna suddenly and\r
+venomously retorted on the inexperienced young man, "but I know on good\r
+authority that this doctor is a very learned and able man. He is private\r
+physician to the Queen of Spain."\r
+\r
+And having thus demolished the young man, Anna Pavlovna turned to\r
+another group where Bilibin was talking about the Austrians: having\r
+wrinkled up his face he was evidently preparing to smooth it out again\r
+and utter one of his mots.\r
+\r
+"I think it is delightful," he said, referring to a diplomatic note that\r
+had been sent to Vienna with some Austrian banners captured from the\r
+French by Wittgenstein, "the hero of Petropol" as he was then called in\r
+Petersburg.\r
+\r
+"What? What's that?" asked Anna Pavlovna, securing silence for the mot,\r
+which she had heard before.\r
+\r
+And Bilibin repeated the actual words of the diplomatic dispatch, which\r
+he had himself composed.\r
+\r
+"The Emperor returns these Austrian banners," said Bilibin, "friendly\r
+banners gone astray and found on a wrong path," and his brow became\r
+smooth again.\r
+\r
+"Charming, charming!" observed Prince Vasili.\r
+\r
+"The path to Warsaw, perhaps," Prince Hippolyte remarked loudly and\r
+unexpectedly. Everybody looked at him, understanding what he meant.\r
+Prince Hippolyte himself glanced around with amused surprise. He knew no\r
+more than the others what his words meant. During his diplomatic career\r
+he had more than once noticed that such utterances were received as very\r
+witty, and at every opportunity he uttered in that way the first words\r
+that entered his head. "It may turn out very well," he thought, "but if\r
+not, they'll know how to arrange matters." And really, during the\r
+awkward silence that ensued, that insufficiently patriotic person\r
+entered whom Anna Pavlovna had been waiting for and wished to convert,\r
+and she, smiling and shaking a finger at Hippolyte, invited Prince\r
+Vasili to the table and bringing him two candles and the manuscript\r
+begged him to begin. Everyone became silent.\r
+\r
+"Most Gracious Sovereign and Emperor!" Prince Vasili sternly declaimed,\r
+looking round at his audience as if to inquire whether anyone had\r
+anything to say to the contrary. But no one said anything. "Moscow, our\r
+ancient capital, the New Jerusalem, receives her Christ"--he placed a\r
+sudden emphasis on the word her--"as a mother receives her zealous sons\r
+into her arms, and through the gathering mists, foreseeing the brilliant\r
+glory of thy rule, sings in exultation, 'Hosanna, blessed is he that\r
+cometh!'"\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili pronounced these last words in a tearful voice.\r
+\r
+Bilibin attentively examined his nails, and many of those present\r
+appeared intimidated, as if asking in what they were to blame. Anna\r
+Pavlovna whispered the next words in advance, like an old woman\r
+muttering the prayer at Communion: "Let the bold and insolent\r
+Goliath..." she whispered.\r
+\r
+Prince Vasili continued.\r
+\r
+"Let the bold and insolent Goliath from the borders of France encompass\r
+the realms of Russia with death-bearing terrors; humble Faith, the sling\r
+of the Russian David, shall suddenly smite his head in his bloodthirsty\r
+pride. This icon of the Venerable Sergius, the servant of God and\r
+zealous champion of old of our country's weal, is offered to Your\r
+Imperial Majesty. I grieve that my waning strength prevents rejoicing in\r
+the sight of your most gracious presence. I raise fervent prayers to\r
+Heaven that the Almighty may exalt the race of the just, and mercifully\r
+fulfill the desires of Your Majesty."\r
+\r
+"What force! What a style!" was uttered in approval both of reader and\r
+of author.\r
+\r
+Animated by that address Anna Pavlovna's guests talked for a long time\r
+of the state of the fatherland and offered various conjectures as to the\r
+result of the battle to be fought in a few days.\r
+\r
+"You will see," said Anna Pavlovna, "that tomorrow, on the Emperor's\r
+birthday, we shall receive news. I have a favorable presentiment!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna's presentiment was in fact fulfilled. Next day during the\r
+service at the palace church in honor of the Emperor's birthday, Prince\r
+Volkonski was called out of the church and received a dispatch from\r
+Prince Kutuzov. It was Kutuzov's report, written from Tatarinova on the\r
+day of the battle. Kutuzov wrote that the Russians had not retreated a\r
+step, that the French losses were much heavier than ours, and that he\r
+was writing in haste from the field of battle before collecting full\r
+information. It followed that there must have been a victory. And at\r
+once, without leaving the church, thanks were rendered to the Creator\r
+for His help and for the victory.\r
+\r
+Anna Pavlovna's presentiment was justified, and all that morning a\r
+joyously festive mood reigned in the city. Everyone believed the victory\r
+to have been complete, and some even spoke of Napoleon's having been\r
+captured, of his deposition, and of the choice of a new ruler for\r
+France.\r
+\r
+It is very difficult for events to be reflected in their real strength\r
+and completeness amid the conditions of court life and far from the\r
+scene of action. General events involuntarily group themselves around\r
+some particular incident. So now the courtiers' pleasure was based as\r
+much on the fact that the news had arrived on the Emperor's birthday as\r
+on the fact of the victory itself. It was like a successfully arranged\r
+surprise. Mention was made in Kutuzov's report of the Russian losses,\r
+among which figured the names of Tuchkov, Bagration, and Kutaysov. In\r
+the Petersburg world this sad side of the affair again involuntarily\r
+centered round a single incident: Kutaysov's death. Everybody knew him,\r
+the Emperor liked him, and he was young and interesting. That day\r
+everyone met with the words:\r
+\r
+"What a wonderful coincidence! Just during the service. But what a loss\r
+Kutaysov is! How sorry I am!"\r
+\r
+"What did I tell about Kutuzov?" Prince Vasili now said with a prophet's\r
+pride. "I always said he was the only man capable of defeating\r
+Napoleon."\r
+\r
+But next day no news arrived from the army and the public mood grew\r
+anxious. The courtiers suffered because of the suffering the suspense\r
+occasioned the Emperor.\r
+\r
+"Fancy the Emperor's position!" said they, and instead of extolling\r
+Kutuzov as they had done the day before, they condemned him as the cause\r
+of the Emperor's anxiety. That day Prince Vasili no longer boasted of\r
+his protege Kutuzov, but remained silent when the commander-in-chief was\r
+mentioned. Moreover, toward evening, as if everything conspired to make\r
+Petersburg society anxious and uneasy, a terrible piece of news was\r
+added. Countess Helene Bezukhova had suddenly died of that terrible\r
+malady it had been so agreeable to mention. Officially, at large\r
+gatherings, everyone said that Countess Bezukhova had died of a terrible\r
+attack of angina pectoris, but in intimate circles details were\r
+mentioned of how the private physician of the Queen of Spain had\r
+prescribed small doses of a certain drug to produce a certain effect;\r
+but Helene, tortured by the fact that the old count suspected her and\r
+that her husband to whom she had written (that wretched, profligate\r
+Pierre) had not replied, had suddenly taken a very large dose of the\r
+drug, and had died in agony before assistance could be rendered her. It\r
+was said that Prince Vasili and the old count had turned upon the\r
+Italian, but the latter had produced such letters from the unfortunate\r
+deceased that they had immediately let the matter drop.\r
+\r
+Talk in general centered round three melancholy facts: the Emperor's\r
+lack of news, the loss of Kutuzov, and the death of Helene.\r
+\r
+On the third day after Kutuzov's report a country gentleman arrived from\r
+Moscow, and news of the surrender of Moscow to the French spread through\r
+the whole town. This was terrible! What a position for the Emperor to be\r
+in! Kutuzov was a traitor, and Prince Vasili during the visits of\r
+condolence paid to him on the occasion of his daughter's death said of\r
+Kutuzov, whom he had formerly praised (it was excusable for him in his\r
+grief to forget what he had said), that it was impossible to expect\r
+anything else from a blind and depraved old man.\r
+\r
+"I only wonder that the fate of Russia could have been entrusted to such\r
+a man."\r
+\r
+As long as this news remained unofficial it was possible to doubt it,\r
+but the next day the following communication was received from Count\r
+Rostopchin:\r
+\r
+Prince Kutuzov's adjutant has brought me a letter in which he demands\r
+police officers to guide the army to the Ryazan road. He writes that he\r
+is regretfully abandoning Moscow. Sire! Kutuzov's action decides the\r
+fate of the capital and of your empire! Russia will shudder to learn of\r
+the abandonment of the city in which her greatness is centered and in\r
+which lie the ashes of your ancestors! I shall follow the army. I have\r
+had everything removed, and it only remains for me to weep over the fate\r
+of my fatherland.\r
+\r
+On receiving this dispatch the Emperor sent Prince Volkonski to Kutuzov\r
+with the following rescript:\r
+\r
+Prince Michael Ilarionovich! Since the twenty-ninth of August I have\r
+received no communication from you, yet on the first of September I\r
+received from the commander-in-chief of Moscow, via Yaroslavl, the sad\r
+news that you, with the army, have decided to abandon Moscow. You can\r
+yourself imagine the effect this news has had on me, and your silence\r
+increases my astonishment. I am sending this by Adjutant-General Prince\r
+Volkonski, to hear from you the situation of the army and the reasons\r
+that have induced you to take this melancholy decision.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+Nine days after the abandonment of Moscow, a messenger from Kutuzov\r
+reached Petersburg with the official announcement of that event. This\r
+messenger was Michaud, a Frenchman who did not know Russian, but who was\r
+quoique etranger, russe de coeur et d'ame, * as he said of himself.\r
+\r
+\r
+* Though a foreigner, Russian in heart and soul.\r
+\r
+The Emperor at once received this messenger in his study at the palace\r
+on Stone Island. Michaud, who had never seen Moscow before the campaign\r
+and who did not know Russian, yet felt deeply moved (as he wrote) when\r
+he appeared before notre tres gracieux souverain * with the news of the\r
+burning of Moscow, dont les flammes eclairaient sa route. *(2)\r
+\r
+\r
+* Our most gracious sovereign.\r
+\r
+* (2) Whose flames illumined his route.\r
+\r
+Though the source of M. Michaud's chagrin must have been different from\r
+that which caused Russians to grieve, he had such a sad face when shown\r
+into the Emperor's study that the latter at once asked:\r
+\r
+"Have you brought me sad news, Colonel?"\r
+\r
+"Very sad, sire," replied Michaud, lowering his eyes with a sigh. "The\r
+abandonment of Moscow."\r
+\r
+"Have they surrendered my ancient capital without a battle?" asked the\r
+Emperor quickly, his face suddenly flushing.\r
+\r
+Michaud respectfully delivered the message Kutuzov had entrusted to him,\r
+which was that it had been impossible to fight before Moscow, and that\r
+as the only remaining choice was between losing the army as well as\r
+Moscow, or losing Moscow alone, the field marshal had to choose the\r
+latter.\r
+\r
+The Emperor listened in silence, not looking at Michaud.\r
+\r
+"Has the enemy entered the city?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sire, and Moscow is now in ashes. I left it all in flames,"\r
+replied Michaud in a decided tone, but glancing at the Emperor he was\r
+frightened by what he had done.\r
+\r
+The Emperor began to breathe heavily and rapidly, his lower lip\r
+trembled, and tears instantly appeared in his fine blue eyes.\r
+\r
+But this lasted only a moment. He suddenly frowned, as if blaming\r
+himself for his weakness, and raising his head addressed Michaud in a\r
+firm voice:\r
+\r
+"I see, Colonel, from all that is happening, that Providence requires\r
+great sacrifices of us... I am ready to submit myself in all things to\r
+His will; but tell me, Michaud, how did you leave the army when it saw\r
+my ancient capital abandoned without a battle? Did you not notice\r
+discouragement?..."\r
+\r
+Seeing that his most gracious ruler was calm once more, Michaud also\r
+grew calm, but was not immediately ready to reply to the Emperor's\r
+direct and relevant question which required a direct answer.\r
+\r
+"Sire, will you allow me to speak frankly as befits a loyal soldier?" he\r
+asked to gain time.\r
+\r
+"Colonel, I always require it," replied the Emperor. "Conceal nothing\r
+from me, I wish to know absolutely how things are."\r
+\r
+"Sire!" said Michaud with a subtle, scarcely perceptible smile on his\r
+lips, having now prepared a well-phrased reply, "sire, I left the whole\r
+army, from its chiefs to the lowest soldier, without exception in\r
+desperate and agonized terror..."\r
+\r
+"How is that?" the Emperor interrupted him, frowning sternly. "Would\r
+misfortune make my Russians lose heart?... Never!"\r
+\r
+Michaud had only waited for this to bring out the phrase he had\r
+prepared.\r
+\r
+"Sire," he said, with respectful playfulness, "they are only afraid lest\r
+Your Majesty, in the goodness of your heart, should allow yourself to be\r
+persuaded to make peace. They are burning for the combat," declared this\r
+representative of the Russian nation, "and to prove to Your Majesty by\r
+the sacrifice of their lives how devoted they are...."\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said the Emperor reassured, and with a kindly gleam in his eyes,\r
+he patted Michaud on the shoulder. "You set me at ease, Colonel."\r
+\r
+He bent his head and was silent for some time.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, go back to the army," he said, drawing himself up to his\r
+full height and addressing Michaud with a gracious and majestic gesture,\r
+"and tell our brave men and all my good subjects wherever you go that\r
+when I have not a soldier left I shall put myself at the head of my\r
+beloved nobility and my good peasants and so use the last resources of\r
+my empire. It still offers me more than my enemies suppose," said the\r
+Emperor growing more and more animated; "but should it ever be ordained\r
+by Divine Providence," he continued, raising to heaven his fine eyes\r
+shining with emotion, "that my dynasty should cease to reign on the\r
+throne of my ancestors, then after exhausting all the means at my\r
+command, I shall let my beard grow to here" (he pointed halfway down his\r
+chest) "and go and eat potatoes with the meanest of my peasants, rather\r
+than sign the disgrace of my country and of my beloved people whose\r
+sacrifices I know how to appreciate."\r
+\r
+Having uttered these words in an agitated voice the Emperor suddenly\r
+turned away as if to hide from Michaud the tears that rose to his eyes,\r
+and went to the further end of his study. Having stood there a few\r
+moments, he strode back to Michaud and pressed his arm below the elbow\r
+with a vigorous movement. The Emperor's mild and handsome face was\r
+flushed and his eyes gleamed with resolution and anger.\r
+\r
+"Colonel Michaud, do not forget what I say to you here, perhaps we may\r
+recall it with pleasure someday... Napoleon or I," said the Emperor,\r
+touching his breast. "We can no longer both reign together. I have\r
+learned to know him, and he will not deceive me any more...."\r
+\r
+And the Emperor paused, with a frown.\r
+\r
+When he heard these words and saw the expression of firm resolution in\r
+the Emperor's eyes, Michaud--quoique etranger, russe de coeur et d'ame--\r
+at that solemn moment felt himself enraptured by all that he had heard\r
+(as he used afterwards to say), and gave expression to his own feelings\r
+and those of the Russian people whose representative he considered\r
+himself to be, in the following words:\r
+\r
+"Sire!" said he, "Your Majesty is at this moment signing the glory of\r
+the nation and the salvation of Europe!"\r
+\r
+With an inclination of the head the Emperor dismissed him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+It is natural for us who were not living in those days to imagine that\r
+when half Russia had been conquered and the inhabitants were fleeing to\r
+distant provinces, and one levy after another was being raised for the\r
+defense of the fatherland, all Russians from the greatest to the least\r
+were solely engaged in sacrificing themselves, saving their fatherland,\r
+or weeping over its downfall. The tales and descriptions of that time\r
+without exception speak only of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion,\r
+despair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians. But it was not really\r
+so. It appears so to us because we see only the general historic\r
+interest of that time and do not see all the personal human interests\r
+that people had. Yet in reality those personal interests of the moment\r
+so much transcend the general interests that they always prevent the\r
+public interest from being felt or even noticed. Most of the people at\r
+that time paid no attention to the general progress of events but were\r
+guided only by their private interests, and they were the very people\r
+whose activities at that period were most useful.\r
+\r
+Those who tried to understand the general course of events and to take\r
+part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism were the most useless members\r
+of society, they saw everything upside down, and all they did for the\r
+common good turned out to be useless and foolish--like Pierre's and\r
+Mamonov's regiments which looted Russian villages, and the lint the\r
+young ladies prepared and that never reached the wounded, and so on.\r
+Even those, fond of intellectual talk and of expressing their feelings,\r
+who discussed Russia's position at the time involuntarily introduced\r
+into their conversation either a shade of pretense and falsehood or\r
+useless condemnation and anger directed against people accused of\r
+actions no one could possibly be guilty of. In historic events the rule\r
+forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially\r
+applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part\r
+in an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to\r
+realize it his efforts are fruitless.\r
+\r
+The more closely a man was engaged in the events then taking place in\r
+Russia the less did he realize their significance. In Petersburg and in\r
+the provinces at a distance from Moscow, ladies, and gentlemen in\r
+militia uniforms, wept for Russia and its ancient capital and talked of\r
+self-sacrifice and so on; but in the army which retired beyond Moscow\r
+there was little talk or thought of Moscow, and when they caught sight\r
+of its burned ruins no one swore to be avenged on the French, but they\r
+thought about their next pay, their next quarters, of Matreshka the\r
+vivandiere, and like matters.\r
+\r
+As the war had caught him in the service, Nicholas Rostov took a close\r
+and prolonged part in the defense of his country, but did so casually,\r
+without any aim at self-sacrifice, and he therefore looked at what was\r
+going on in Russia without despair and without dismally racking his\r
+brains over it. Had he been asked what he thought of the state of\r
+Russia, he would have said that it was not his business to think about\r
+it, that Kutuzov and others were there for that purpose, but that he had\r
+heard that the regiments were to be made up to their full strength, that\r
+fighting would probably go on for a long time yet, and that things being\r
+so it was quite likely he might be in command of a regiment in a couple\r
+of years' time.\r
+\r
+As he looked at the matter in this way, he learned that he was being\r
+sent to Voronezh to buy remounts for his division, not only without\r
+regret at being prevented from taking part in the coming battle, but\r
+with the greatest pleasure--which he did not conceal and which his\r
+comrades fully understood.\r
+\r
+A few days before the battle of Borodino, Nicholas received the\r
+necessary money and warrants, and having sent some hussars on in\r
+advance, he set out with post horses for Voronezh.\r
+\r
+Only a man who has experienced it--that is, has passed some months\r
+continuously in an atmosphere of campaigning and war--can understand the\r
+delight Nicholas felt when he escaped from the region covered by the\r
+army's foraging operations, provision trains, and hospitals. When--free\r
+from soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a camp--he saw villages\r
+with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen's country houses, fields\r
+where cattle were grazing, posthouses with stationmasters asleep in\r
+them, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time. What for\r
+a long while specially surprised and delighted him were the women, young\r
+and healthy, without a dozen officers making up to each of them; women,\r
+too, who were pleased and flattered that a passing officer should joke\r
+with them.\r
+\r
+In the highest spirits Nicholas arrived at night at a hotel in Voronezh,\r
+ordered things he had long been deprived of in camp, and next day, very\r
+clean-shaven and in a full-dress uniform he had not worn for a long\r
+time, went to present himself to the authorities.\r
+\r
+The commander of the militia was a civilian general, an old man who was\r
+evidently pleased with his military designation and rank. He received\r
+Nicholas brusquely (imagining this to be characteristically military)\r
+and questioned him with an important air, as if considering the general\r
+progress of affairs and approving and disapproving with full right to do\r
+so. Nicholas was in such good spirits that this merely amused him.\r
+\r
+From the commander of the militia he drove to the governor. The governor\r
+was a brisk little man, very simple and affable. He indicated the stud\r
+farms at which Nicholas might procure horses, recommended to him a horse\r
+dealer in the town and a landowner fourteen miles out of town who had\r
+the best horses, and promised to assist him in every way.\r
+\r
+"You are Count Ilya Rostov's son? My wife was a great friend of your\r
+mother's. We are at home on Thursdays--today is Thursday, so please come\r
+and see us quite informally," said the governor, taking leave of him.\r
+\r
+Immediately on leaving the governor's, Nicholas hired post horses and,\r
+taking his squadron quartermaster with him, drove at a gallop to the\r
+landowner, fourteen miles away, who had the stud. Everything seemed to\r
+him pleasant and easy during that first part of his stay in Voronezh\r
+and, as usually happens when a man is in a pleasant state of mind,\r
+everything went well and easily.\r
+\r
+The landowner to whom Nicholas went was a bachelor, an old cavalryman, a\r
+horse fancier, a sportsman, the possessor of some century-old brandy and\r
+some old Hungarian wine, who had a snuggery where he smoked, and who\r
+owned some splendid horses.\r
+\r
+In very few words Nicholas bought seventeen picked stallions for six\r
+thousand rubles--to serve, as he said, as samples of his remounts. After\r
+dining and taking rather too much of the Hungarian wine, Nicholas--\r
+having exchanged kisses with the landowner, with whom he was already on\r
+the friendliest terms--galloped back over abominable roads, in the\r
+brightest frame of mind, continually urging on the driver so as to be in\r
+time for the governor's party.\r
+\r
+When he had changed, poured water over his head, and scented himself,\r
+Nicholas arrived at the governor's rather late, but with the phrase\r
+"better late than never" on his lips.\r
+\r
+It was not a ball, nor had dancing been announced, but everyone knew\r
+that Catherine Petrovna would play valses and the ecossaise on the\r
+clavichord and that there would be dancing, and so everyone had come as\r
+to a ball.\r
+\r
+Provincial life in 1812 went on very much as usual, but with this\r
+difference, that it was livelier in the towns in consequence of the\r
+arrival of many wealthy families from Moscow, and as in everything that\r
+went on in Russia at that time a special recklessness was noticeable, an\r
+"in for a penny, in for a pound--who cares?" spirit, and the inevitable\r
+small talk, instead of turning on the weather and mutual acquaintances,\r
+now turned on Moscow, the army, and Napoleon.\r
+\r
+The society gathered together at the governor's was the best in\r
+Voronezh.\r
+\r
+There were a great many ladies and some of Nicholas' Moscow\r
+acquaintances, but there were no men who could at all vie with the\r
+cavalier of St. George, the hussar remount officer, the good-natured and\r
+well-bred Count Rostov. Among the men was an Italian prisoner, an\r
+officer of the French army; and Nicholas felt that the presence of that\r
+prisoner enhanced his own importance as a Russian hero. The Italian was,\r
+as it were, a war trophy. Nicholas felt this, it seemed to him that\r
+everyone regarded the Italian in the same light, and he treated him\r
+cordially though with dignity and restraint.\r
+\r
+As soon as Nicholas entered in his hussar uniform, diffusing around him\r
+a fragrance of perfume and wine, and had uttered the words "better late\r
+than never" and heard them repeated several times by others, people\r
+clustered around him; all eyes turned on him, and he felt at once that\r
+he had entered into his proper position in the province--that of a\r
+universal favorite: a very pleasant position, and intoxicatingly so\r
+after his long privations. At posting stations, at inns, and in the\r
+landowner's snuggery, maidservants had been flattered by his notice, and\r
+here too at the governor's party there were (as it seemed to Nicholas)\r
+an inexhaustible number of pretty young women, married and unmarried,\r
+impatiently awaiting his notice. The women and girls flirted with him\r
+and, from the first day, the people concerned themselves to get this\r
+fine young daredevil of an hussar married and settled down. Among these\r
+was the governor's wife herself, who welcomed Rostov as a near relative\r
+and called him "Nicholas."\r
+\r
+Catherine Petrovna did actually play valses and the ecossaise, and\r
+dancing began in which Nicholas still further captivated the provincial\r
+society by his agility. His particularly free manner of dancing even\r
+surprised them all. Nicholas was himself rather surprised at the way he\r
+danced that evening. He had never danced like that in Moscow and would\r
+even have considered such a very free and easy manner improper and in\r
+bad form, but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by\r
+something unusual, something they would have to accept as the regular\r
+thing in the capital though new to them in the provinces.\r
+\r
+All the evening Nicholas paid attention to a blue-eyed, plump and\r
+pleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials.\r
+With the naive conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men's\r
+wives were created for them, Rostov did not leave the lady's side and\r
+treated her husband in a friendly and conspiratorial style, as if,\r
+without speaking of it, they knew how capitally Nicholas and the lady\r
+would get on together. The husband, however, did not seem to share that\r
+conviction and tried to behave morosely with Rostov. But the latter's\r
+good-natured naivete was so boundless that sometimes even he\r
+involuntarily yielded to Nicholas' good humor. Toward the end of the\r
+evening, however, as the wife's face grew more flushed and animated, the\r
+husband's became more and more melancholy and solemn, as though there\r
+were but a given amount of animation between them and as the wife's\r
+share increased the husband's diminished.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+Nicholas sat leaning slightly forward in an armchair, bending closely\r
+over the blonde lady and paying her mythological compliments with a\r
+smile that never left his face. Jauntily shifting the position of his\r
+legs in their tight riding breeches, diffusing an odor of perfume, and\r
+admiring his partner, himself, and the fine outlines of his legs in\r
+their well-fitting Hessian boots, Nicholas told the blonde lady that he\r
+wished to run away with a certain lady here in Voronezh.\r
+\r
+"Which lady?"\r
+\r
+"A charming lady, a divine one. Her eyes" (Nicholas looked at his\r
+partner) "are blue, her mouth coral and ivory; her figure" (he glanced\r
+at her shoulders) "like Diana's...."\r
+\r
+The husband came up and sullenly asked his wife what she was talking\r
+about.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Nikita Ivanych!" cried Nicholas, rising politely, and as if wishing\r
+Nikita Ivanych to share his joke, he began to tell him of his intention\r
+to elope with a blonde lady.\r
+\r
+The husband smiled gloomily, the wife gaily. The governor's good-natured\r
+wife came up with a look of disapproval.\r
+\r
+"Anna Ignatyevna wants to see you, Nicholas," said she, pronouncing the\r
+name so that Nicholas at once understood that Anna Ignatyevna was a very\r
+important person. "Come, Nicholas! You know you let me call you so?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, Aunt. Who is she?"\r
+\r
+"Anna Ignatyevna Malvintseva. She has heard from her niece how you\r
+rescued her... Can you guess?"\r
+\r
+"I rescued such a lot of them!" said Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"Her niece, Princess Bolkonskaya. She is here in Voronezh with her aunt.\r
+Oho! How you blush. Why, are...?"\r
+\r
+"Not a bit! Please don't, Aunt!"\r
+\r
+"Very well, very well!... Oh, what a fellow you are!"\r
+\r
+The governor's wife led him up to a tall and very stout old lady with a\r
+blue headdress, who had just finished her game of cards with the most\r
+important personages of the town. This was Malvintseva, Princess Mary's\r
+aunt on her mother's side, a rich, childless widow who always lived in\r
+Voronezh. When Rostov approached her she was standing settling up for\r
+the game. She looked at him and, screwing up her eyes sternly, continued\r
+to upbraid the general who had won from her.\r
+\r
+"Very pleased, mon cher," she then said, holding out her hand to\r
+Nicholas. "Pray come and see me."\r
+\r
+After a few words about Princess Mary and her late father, whom\r
+Malvintseva had evidently not liked, and having asked what Nicholas knew\r
+of Prince Andrew, who also was evidently no favorite of hers, the\r
+important old lady dismissed Nicholas after repeating her invitation to\r
+come to see her.\r
+\r
+Nicholas promised to come and blushed again as he bowed. At the mention\r
+of Princess Mary he experienced a feeling of shyness and even of fear,\r
+which he himself did not understand.\r
+\r
+When he had parted from Malvintseva Nicholas wished to return to the\r
+dancing, but the governor's little wife placed her plump hand on his\r
+sleeve and, saying that she wanted to have a talk with him, led him to\r
+her sitting room, from which those who were there immediately withdrew\r
+so as not to be in her way.\r
+\r
+"Do you know, dear boy," began the governor's wife with a serious\r
+expression on her kind little face, "that really would be the match for\r
+you: would you like me to arrange it?"\r
+\r
+"Whom do you mean, Aunt?" asked Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"I will make a match for you with the princess. Catherine Petrovna\r
+speaks of Lily, but I say, no--the princess! Do you want me to do it? I\r
+am sure your mother will be grateful to me. What a charming girl she is,\r
+really! And she is not at all so plain, either."\r
+\r
+"Not at all," replied Nicholas as if offended at the idea. "As befits a\r
+soldier, Aunt, I don't force myself on anyone or refuse anything," he\r
+said before he had time to consider what he was saying.\r
+\r
+"Well then, remember, this is not a joke!"\r
+\r
+"Of course not!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," the governor's wife said as if talking to herself. "But, my\r
+dear boy, among other things you are too attentive to the other, the\r
+blonde. One is sorry for the husband, really...."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, we are good friends with him," said Nicholas in the simplicity\r
+of his heart; it did not enter his head that a pastime so pleasant to\r
+himself might not be pleasant to someone else.\r
+\r
+"But what nonsense I have been saying to the governor's wife!" thought\r
+Nicholas suddenly at supper. "She will really begin to arrange a\r
+match... and Sonya...?" And on taking leave of the governor's wife, when\r
+she again smilingly said to him, "Well then, remember!" he drew her\r
+aside.\r
+\r
+"But see here, to tell the truth, Aunt..."\r
+\r
+"What is it, my dear? Come, let's sit down here," said she.\r
+\r
+Nicholas suddenly felt a desire and need to tell his most intimate\r
+thoughts (which he would not have told to his mother, his sister, or his\r
+friend) to this woman who was almost a stranger. When he afterwards\r
+recalled that impulse to unsolicited and inexplicable frankness which\r
+had very important results for him, it seemed to him--as it seems to\r
+everyone in such cases--that it was merely some silly whim that seized\r
+him: yet that burst of frankness, together with other trifling events,\r
+had immense consequences for him and for all his family.\r
+\r
+"You see, Aunt, Mamma has long wanted me to marry an heiress, but the\r
+very idea of marrying for money is repugnant to me."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, I understand," said the governor's wife.\r
+\r
+"But Princess Bolkonskaya--that's another matter. I will tell you the\r
+truth. In the first place I like her very much, I feel drawn to her; and\r
+then, after I met her under such circumstances--so strangely, the idea\r
+often occurred to me: 'This is fate.' Especially if you remember that\r
+Mamma had long been thinking of it; but I had never happened to meet her\r
+before, somehow it had always happened that we did not meet. And as long\r
+as my sister Natasha was engaged to her brother it was of course out of\r
+the question for me to think of marrying her. And it must needs happen\r
+that I should meet her just when Natasha's engagement had been broken\r
+off... and then everything... So you see... I never told this to anyone\r
+and never will, only to you."\r
+\r
+The governor's wife pressed his elbow gratefully.\r
+\r
+"You know Sonya, my cousin? I love her, and promised to marry her, and\r
+will do so.... So you see there can be no question about-" said Nicholas\r
+incoherently and blushing.\r
+\r
+"My dear boy, what a way to look at it! You know Sonya has nothing and\r
+you yourself say your Papa's affairs are in a very bad way. And what\r
+about your mother? It would kill her, that's one thing. And what sort of\r
+life would it be for Sonya--if she's a girl with a heart? Your mother in\r
+despair, and you all ruined.... No, my dear, you and Sonya ought to\r
+understand that."\r
+\r
+Nicholas remained silent. It comforted him to hear these arguments.\r
+\r
+"All the same, Aunt, it is impossible," he rejoined with a sigh, after a\r
+short pause. "Besides, would the princess have me? And besides, she is\r
+now in mourning. How can one think of it!"\r
+\r
+"But you don't suppose I'm going to get you married at once? There is\r
+always a right way of doing things," replied the governor's wife.\r
+\r
+"What a matchmaker you are, Aunt..." said Nicholas, kissing her plump\r
+little hand.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+On reaching Moscow after her meeting with Rostov, Princess Mary had\r
+found her nephew there with his tutor, and a letter from Prince Andrew\r
+giving her instructions how to get to her Aunt Malvintseva at Voronezh.\r
+That feeling akin to temptation which had tormented her during her\r
+father's illness, since his death, and especially since her meeting with\r
+Rostov was smothered by arrangements for the journey, anxiety about her\r
+brother, settling in a new house, meeting new people, and attending to\r
+her nephew's education. She was sad. Now, after a month passed in quiet\r
+surroundings, she felt more and more deeply the loss of her father which\r
+was associated in her mind with the ruin of Russia. She was agitated and\r
+incessantly tortured by the thought of the dangers to which her brother,\r
+the only intimate person now remaining to her, was exposed. She was\r
+worried too about her nephew's education for which she had always felt\r
+herself incompetent, but in the depths of her soul she felt at peace--a\r
+peace arising from consciousness of having stifled those personal dreams\r
+and hopes that had been on the point of awakening within her and were\r
+related to her meeting with Rostov.\r
+\r
+The day after her party the governor's wife came to see Malvintseva and,\r
+after discussing her plan with the aunt, remarked that though under\r
+present circumstances a formal betrothal was, of course, not to be\r
+thought of, all the same the young people might be brought together and\r
+could get to know one another. Malvintseva expressed approval, and the\r
+governor's wife began to speak of Rostov in Mary's presence, praising\r
+him and telling how he had blushed when Princess Mary's name was\r
+mentioned. But Princess Mary experienced a painful rather than a joyful\r
+feeling--her mental tranquillity was destroyed, and desires, doubts,\r
+self-reproach, and hopes reawoke.\r
+\r
+During the two days that elapsed before Rostov called, Princess Mary\r
+continually thought of how she ought to behave to him. First she decided\r
+not to come to the drawing room when he called to see her aunt--that it\r
+would not be proper for her, in her deep mourning, to receive visitors;\r
+then she thought this would be rude after what he had done for her; then\r
+it occurred to her that her aunt and the governor's wife had intentions\r
+concerning herself and Rostov--their looks and words at times seemed to\r
+confirm this supposition--then she told herself that only she, with her\r
+sinful nature, could think this of them: they could not forget that\r
+situated as she was, while still wearing deep mourning, such matchmaking\r
+would be an insult to her and to her father's memory. Assuming that she\r
+did go down to see him, Princess Mary imagined the words he would say to\r
+her and what she would say to him, and these words sometimes seemed\r
+undeservedly cold and then to mean too much. More than anything she\r
+feared lest the confusion she felt might overwhelm her and betray her as\r
+soon as she saw him.\r
+\r
+But when on Sunday after church the footman announced in the drawing\r
+room that Count Rostov had called, the princess showed no confusion,\r
+only a slight blush suffused her cheeks and her eyes lit up with a new\r
+and radiant light.\r
+\r
+"You have met him, Aunt?" said she in a calm voice, unable herself to\r
+understand that she could be outwardly so calm and natural.\r
+\r
+When Rostov entered the room, the princess dropped her eyes for an\r
+instant, as if to give the visitor time to greet her aunt, and then just\r
+as Nicholas turned to her she raised her head and met his look with\r
+shining eyes. With a movement full of dignity and grace she half rose\r
+with a smile of pleasure, held out her slender, delicate hand to him,\r
+and began to speak in a voice in which for the first time new deep\r
+womanly notes vibrated. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in the drawing\r
+room, looked at Princess Mary in bewildered surprise. Herself a\r
+consummate coquette, she could not have maneuvered better on meeting a\r
+man she wished to attract.\r
+\r
+"Either black is particularly becoming to her or she really has greatly\r
+improved without my having noticed it. And above all, what tact and\r
+grace!" thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.\r
+\r
+Had Princess Mary been capable of reflection at that moment, she would\r
+have been more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the change that\r
+had taken place in herself. From the moment she recognized that dear,\r
+loved face, a new life force took possession of her and compelled her to\r
+speak and act apart from her own will. From the time Rostov entered, her\r
+face became suddenly transformed. It was as if a light had been kindled\r
+in a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skillful, artistic\r
+work on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless,\r
+was suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty. For the first\r
+time all that pure, spiritual, inward travail through which she had\r
+lived appeared on the surface. All her inward labor, her dissatisfaction\r
+with herself, her sufferings, her strivings after goodness, her\r
+meekness, love, and self-sacrifice--all this now shone in those radiant\r
+eyes, in her delicate smile, and in every trait of her gentle face.\r
+\r
+Rostov saw all this as clearly as if he had known her whole life. He\r
+felt that the being before him was quite different from, and better\r
+than, anyone he had met before, and above all better than himself.\r
+\r
+Their conversation was very simple and unimportant. They spoke of the\r
+war, and like everyone else unconsciously exaggerated their sorrow about\r
+it; they spoke of their last meeting--Nicholas trying to change the\r
+subject--they talked of the governor's kind wife, of Nicholas'\r
+relations, and of Princess Mary's.\r
+\r
+She did not talk about her brother, diverting the conversation as soon\r
+as her aunt mentioned Andrew. Evidently she could speak of Russia's\r
+misfortunes with a certain artificiality, but her brother was too near\r
+her heart and she neither could nor would speak lightly of him. Nicholas\r
+noticed this, as he noticed every shade of Princess Mary's character\r
+with an observation unusual to him, and everything confirmed his\r
+conviction that she was a quite unusual and extraordinary being.\r
+Nicholas blushed and was confused when people spoke to him about the\r
+princess (as she did when he was mentioned) and even when he thought of\r
+her, but in her presence he felt quite at ease, and said not at all what\r
+he had prepared, but what, quite appropriately, occurred to him at the\r
+moment.\r
+\r
+When a pause occurred during his short visit, Nicholas, as is usual when\r
+there are children, turned to Prince Andrew's little son, caressing him\r
+and asking whether he would like to be an hussar. He took the boy on his\r
+knee, played with him, and looked round at Princess Mary. With a\r
+softened, happy, timid look she watched the boy she loved in the arms of\r
+the man she loved. Nicholas also noticed that look and, as if\r
+understanding it, flushed with pleasure and began to kiss the boy with\r
+good natured playfulness.\r
+\r
+As she was in mourning Princess Mary did not go out into society, and\r
+Nicholas did not think it the proper thing to visit her again; but all\r
+the same the governor's wife went on with her matchmaking, passing on to\r
+Nicholas the flattering things Princess Mary said of him and vice versa,\r
+and insisting on his declaring himself to Princess Mary. For this\r
+purpose she arranged a meeting between the young people at the bishop's\r
+house before Mass.\r
+\r
+Though Rostov told the governor's wife that he would not make any\r
+declaration to Princess Mary, he promised to go.\r
+\r
+As at Tilsit Rostov had not allowed himself to doubt that what everybody\r
+considered right was right, so now, after a short but sincere struggle\r
+between his effort to arrange his life by his own sense of justice, and\r
+in obedient submission to circumstances, he chose the latter and yielded\r
+to the power he felt irresistibly carrying him he knew not where. He\r
+knew that after his promise to Sonya it would be what he deemed base to\r
+declare his feelings to Princess Mary. And he knew that he would never\r
+act basely. But he also knew (or rather felt at the bottom of his heart)\r
+that by resigning himself now to the force of circumstances and to those\r
+who were guiding him, he was not only doing nothing wrong, but was doing\r
+something very important--more important than anything he had ever done\r
+in his life.\r
+\r
+After meeting Princess Mary, though the course of his life went on\r
+externally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him\r
+and he often thought about her. But he never thought about her as he had\r
+thought of all the young ladies without exception whom he had met in\r
+society, nor as he had for a long time, and at one time rapturously,\r
+thought about Sonya. He had pictured each of those young ladies as\r
+almost all honest-hearted young men do, that is, as a possible wife,\r
+adapting her in his imagination to all the conditions of married life: a\r
+white dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, his wife's carriage,\r
+little ones, Mamma and Papa, their relations to her, and so on--and\r
+these pictures of the future had given him pleasure. But with Princess\r
+Mary, to whom they were trying to get him engaged, he could never\r
+picture anything of future married life. If he tried, his pictures\r
+seemed incongruous and false. It made him afraid.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+The dreadful news of the battle of Borodino, of our losses in killed and\r
+wounded, and the still more terrible news of the loss of Moscow reached\r
+Voronezh in the middle of September. Princess Mary, having learned of\r
+her brother's wound only from the Gazette and having no definite news of\r
+him, prepared (so Nicholas heard, he had not seen her again himself) to\r
+set off in search of Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+When he received the news of the battle of Borodino and the abandonment\r
+of Moscow, Rostov was not seized with despair, anger, the desire for\r
+vengeance, or any feeling of that kind, but everything in Voronezh\r
+suddenly seemed to him dull and tiresome, and he experienced an\r
+indefinite feeling of shame and awkwardness. The conversations he heard\r
+seemed to him insincere; he did not know how to judge all these affairs\r
+and felt that only in the regiment would everything again become clear\r
+to him. He made haste to finish buying the horses, and often became\r
+unreasonably angry with his servant and squadron quartermaster.\r
+\r
+A few days before his departure a special thanksgiving, at which\r
+Nicholas was present, was held in the cathedral for the Russian victory.\r
+He stood a little behind the governor and held himself with military\r
+decorum through the service, meditating on a great variety of subjects.\r
+When the service was over the governor's wife beckoned him to her.\r
+\r
+"Have you seen the princess?" she asked, indicating with a movement of\r
+her head a lady standing on the opposite side, beyond the choir.\r
+\r
+Nicholas immediately recognized Princess Mary not so much by the profile\r
+he saw under her bonnet as by the feeling of solicitude, timidity, and\r
+pity that immediately overcame him. Princess Mary, evidently engrossed\r
+by her thoughts, was crossing herself for the last time before leaving\r
+the church.\r
+\r
+Nicholas looked at her face with surprise. It was the same face he had\r
+seen before, there was the same general expression of refined, inner,\r
+spiritual labor, but now it was quite differently lit up. There was a\r
+pathetic expression of sorrow, prayer, and hope in it. As had occurred\r
+before when she was present, Nicholas went up to her without waiting to\r
+be prompted by the governor's wife and not asking himself whether or not\r
+it was right and proper to address her here in church, and told her he\r
+had heard of her trouble and sympathized with his whole soul. As soon as\r
+she heard his voice a vivid glow kindled in her face, lighting up both\r
+her sorrow and her joy.\r
+\r
+"There is one thing I wanted to tell you, Princess," said Rostov. "It is\r
+that if your brother, Prince Andrew Nikolievich, were not living, it\r
+would have been at once announced in the Gazette, as he is a colonel."\r
+\r
+The princess looked at him, not grasping what he was saying, but cheered\r
+by the expression of regretful sympathy on his face.\r
+\r
+"And I have known so many cases of a splinter wound" (the Gazette said\r
+it was a shell) "either proving fatal at once or being very slight,"\r
+continued Nicholas. "We must hope for the best, and I am sure..."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary interrupted him.\r
+\r
+"Oh, that would be so dread..." she began and, prevented by agitation\r
+from finishing, she bent her head with a movement as graceful as\r
+everything she did in his presence and, looking up at him gratefully,\r
+went out, following her aunt.\r
+\r
+That evening Nicholas did not go out, but stayed at home to settle some\r
+accounts with the horse dealers. When he had finished that business it\r
+was already too late to go anywhere but still too early to go to bed,\r
+and for a long time he paced up and down the room, reflecting on his\r
+life, a thing he rarely did.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary had made an agreeable impression on him when he had met\r
+her in Smolensk province. His having encountered her in such exceptional\r
+circumstances, and his mother having at one time mentioned her to him as\r
+a good match, had drawn his particular attention to her. When he met her\r
+again in Voronezh the impression she made on him was not merely pleasing\r
+but powerful. Nicholas had been struck by the peculiar moral beauty he\r
+observed in her at this time. He was, however, preparing to go away and\r
+it had not entered his head to regret that he was thus depriving himself\r
+of chances of meeting her. But that day's encounter in church had, he\r
+felt, sunk deeper than was desirable for his peace of mind. That pale,\r
+sad, refined face, that radiant look, those gentle graceful gestures,\r
+and especially the deep and tender sorrow expressed in all her features\r
+agitated him and evoked his sympathy. In men Rostov could not bear to\r
+see the expression of a higher spiritual life (that was why he did not\r
+like Prince Andrew) and he referred to it contemptuously as philosophy\r
+and dreaminess, but in Princess Mary that very sorrow which revealed the\r
+depth of a whole spiritual world foreign to him was an irresistible\r
+attraction.\r
+\r
+"She must be a wonderful woman. A real angel!" he said to himself. "Why\r
+am I not free? Why was I in such a hurry with Sonya?" And he\r
+involuntarily compared the two: the lack of spirituality in the one and\r
+the abundance of it in the other--a spirituality he himself lacked and\r
+therefore valued most highly. He tried to picture what would happen were\r
+he free. How he would propose to her and how she would become his wife.\r
+But no, he could not imagine that. He felt awed, and no clear picture\r
+presented itself to his mind. He had long ago pictured to himself a\r
+future with Sonya, and that was all clear and simple just because it had\r
+all been thought out and he knew all there was in Sonya, but it was\r
+impossible to picture a future with Princess Mary, because he did not\r
+understand her but simply loved her.\r
+\r
+Reveries about Sonya had had something merry and playful in them, but to\r
+dream of Princess Mary was always difficult and a little frightening.\r
+\r
+"How she prayed!" he thought. "It was plain that her whole soul was in\r
+her prayer. Yes, that was the prayer that moves mountains, and I am sure\r
+her prayer will be answered. Why don't I pray for what I want?" he\r
+suddenly thought. "What do I want? To be free, released from Sonya...\r
+She was right," he thought, remembering what the governor's wife had\r
+said: "Nothing but misfortune can come of marrying Sonya. Muddles, grief\r
+for Mamma... business difficulties... muddles, terrible muddles!\r
+Besides, I don't love her--not as I should. O, God! release me from this\r
+dreadful, inextricable position!" he suddenly began to pray. "Yes,\r
+prayer can move mountains, but one must have faith and not pray as\r
+Natasha and I used to as children, that the snow might turn into sugar--\r
+and then run out into the yard to see whether it had done so. No, but I\r
+am not praying for trifles now," he thought as he put his pipe down in a\r
+corner, and folding his hands placed himself before the icon. Softened\r
+by memories of Princess Mary he began to pray as he had not done for a\r
+long time. Tears were in his eyes and in his throat when the door opened\r
+and Lavrushka came in with some papers.\r
+\r
+"Blockhead! Why do you come in without being called?" cried Nicholas,\r
+quickly changing his attitude.\r
+\r
+"From the governor," said Lavrushka in a sleepy voice. "A courier has\r
+arrived and there's a letter for you."\r
+\r
+"Well, all right, thanks. You can go!"\r
+\r
+Nicholas took the two letters, one of which was from his mother and the\r
+other from Sonya. He recognized them by the handwriting and opened\r
+Sonya's first. He had read only a few lines when he turned pale and his\r
+eyes opened wide with fear and joy.\r
+\r
+"No, it's not possible!" he cried aloud.\r
+\r
+Unable to sit still he paced up and down the room holding the letter and\r
+reading it. He glanced through it, then read it again, and then again,\r
+and standing still in the middle of the room he raised his shoulders,\r
+stretching out his hands, with his mouth wide open and his eyes fixed.\r
+What he had just been praying for with confidence that God would hear\r
+him had come to pass; but Nicholas was as much astonished as if it were\r
+something extraordinary and unexpected, and as if the very fact that it\r
+had happened so quickly proved that it had not come from God to whom he\r
+had prayed, but by some ordinary coincidence.\r
+\r
+This unexpected and, as it seemed to Nicholas, quite voluntary letter\r
+from Sonya freed him from the knot that fettered him and from which\r
+there had seemed no escape. She wrote that the last unfortunate events--\r
+the loss of almost the whole of the Rostovs' Moscow property--and the\r
+countess' repeatedly expressed wish that Nicholas should marry Princess\r
+Bolkonskaya, together with his silence and coldness of late, had all\r
+combined to make her decide to release him from his promise and set him\r
+completely free.\r
+\r
+It would be too painful to me to think that I might be a cause of sorrow\r
+or discord in the family that has been so good to me (she wrote), and my\r
+love has no aim but the happiness of those I love; so, Nicholas, I beg\r
+you to consider yourself free, and to be assured that, in spite of\r
+everything, no one can love you more than does\r
+\r
+Your Sonya\r
+\r
+Both letters were written from Troitsa. The other, from the countess,\r
+described their last days in Moscow, their departure, the fire, and the\r
+destruction of all their property. In this letter the countess also\r
+mentioned that Prince Andrew was among the wounded traveling with them;\r
+his state was very critical, but the doctor said there was now more\r
+hope. Sonya and Natasha were nursing him.\r
+\r
+Next day Nicholas took his mother's letter and went to see Princess\r
+Mary. Neither he nor she said a word about what "Natasha nursing him"\r
+might mean, but thanks to this letter Nicholas suddenly became almost as\r
+intimate with the princess as if they were relations.\r
+\r
+The following day he saw Princess Mary off on her journey to Yaroslavl,\r
+and a few days later left to rejoin his regiment.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+Sonya's letter written from Troitsa, which had come as an answer to\r
+Nicholas' prayer, was prompted by this: the thought of getting Nicholas\r
+married to an heiress occupied the old countess' mind more and more. She\r
+knew that Sonya was the chief obstacle to this happening, and Sonya's\r
+life in the countess' house had grown harder and harder, especially\r
+after they had received a letter from Nicholas telling of his meeting\r
+with Princess Mary in Bogucharovo. The countess let no occasion slip of\r
+making humiliating or cruel allusions to Sonya.\r
+\r
+But a few days before they left Moscow, moved and excited by all that\r
+was going on, she called Sonya to her and, instead of reproaching and\r
+making demands on her, tearfully implored her to sacrifice herself and\r
+repay all that the family had done for her by breaking off her\r
+engagement with Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"I shall not be at peace till you promise me this."\r
+\r
+Sonya burst into hysterical tears and replied through her sobs that she\r
+would do anything and was prepared for anything, but gave no actual\r
+promise and could not bring herself to decide to do what was demanded of\r
+her. She must sacrifice herself for the family that had reared and\r
+brought her up. To sacrifice herself for others was Sonya's habit. Her\r
+position in the house was such that only by sacrifice could she show her\r
+worth, and she was accustomed to this and loved doing it. But in all her\r
+former acts of self-sacrifice she had been happily conscious that they\r
+raised her in her own esteem and in that of others, and so made her more\r
+worthy of Nicholas whom she loved more than anything in the world. But\r
+now they wanted her to sacrifice the very thing that constituted the\r
+whole reward for her self-sacrifice and the whole meaning of her life.\r
+And for the first time she felt bitterness against those who had been\r
+her benefactors only to torture her the more painfully; she felt jealous\r
+of Natasha who had never experienced anything of this sort, had never\r
+needed to sacrifice herself, but made others sacrifice themselves for\r
+her and yet was beloved by everybody. And for the first time Sonya felt\r
+that out of her pure, quiet love for Nicholas a passionate feeling was\r
+beginning to grow up which was stronger than principle, virtue, or\r
+religion. Under the influence of this feeling Sonya, whose life of\r
+dependence had taught her involuntarily to be secretive, having answered\r
+the countess in vague general terms, avoided talking with her and\r
+resolved to wait till she should see Nicholas, not in order to set him\r
+free but on the contrary at that meeting to bind him to her forever.\r
+\r
+The bustle and terror of the Rostovs' last days in Moscow stifled the\r
+gloomy thoughts that oppressed Sonya. She was glad to find escape from\r
+them in practical activity. But when she heard of Prince Andrew's\r
+presence in their house, despite her sincere pity for him and for\r
+Natasha, she was seized by a joyful and superstitious feeling that God\r
+did not intend her to be separated from Nicholas. She knew that Natasha\r
+loved no one but Prince Andrew and had never ceased to love him. She\r
+knew that being thrown together again under such terrible circumstances\r
+they would again fall in love with one another, and that Nicholas would\r
+then not be able to marry Princess Mary as they would be within the\r
+prohibited degrees of affinity. Despite all the terror of what had\r
+happened during those last days and during the first days of their\r
+journey, this feeling that Providence was intervening in her personal\r
+affairs cheered Sonya.\r
+\r
+At the Troitsa monastery the Rostovs first broke their journey for a\r
+whole day.\r
+\r
+Three large rooms were assigned to them in the monastery hostelry, one\r
+of which was occupied by Prince Andrew. The wounded man was much better\r
+that day and Natasha was sitting with him. In the next room sat the\r
+count and countess respectfully conversing with the prior, who was\r
+calling on them as old acquaintances and benefactors of the monastery.\r
+Sonya was there too, tormented by curiosity as to what Prince Andrew and\r
+Natasha were talking about. She heard the sound of their voices through\r
+the door. That door opened and Natasha came out, looking excited. Not\r
+noticing the monk, who had risen to greet her and was drawing back the\r
+wide sleeve on his right arm, she went up to Sonya and took her hand.\r
+\r
+"Natasha, what are you about? Come here!" said the countess.\r
+\r
+Natasha went up to the monk for his blessing, and he advised her to pray\r
+for aid to God and His saint.\r
+\r
+As soon as the prior withdrew, Natasha took her friend by the hand and\r
+went with her into the unoccupied room.\r
+\r
+"Sonya, will he live?" she asked. "Sonya, how happy I am, and how\r
+unhappy!... Sonya, dovey, everything is as it used to be. If only he\r
+lives! He cannot... because... because... of" and Natasha burst into\r
+tears.\r
+\r
+"Yes! I knew it! Thank God!" murmured Sonya. "He will live."\r
+\r
+Sonya was not less agitated than her friend by the latter's fear and\r
+grief and by her own personal feelings which she shared with no one.\r
+Sobbing, she kissed and comforted Natasha. "If only he lives!" she\r
+thought. Having wept, talked, and wiped away their tears, the two\r
+friends went together to Prince Andrew's door. Natasha opened it\r
+cautiously and glanced into the room, Sonya standing beside her at the\r
+half-open door.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew was lying raised high on three pillows. His pale face was\r
+calm, his eyes closed, and they could see his regular breathing.\r
+\r
+"O, Natasha!" Sonya suddenly almost screamed, catching her companion's\r
+arm and stepping back from the door.\r
+\r
+"What? What is it?" asked Natasha.\r
+\r
+"It's that, that..." said Sonya, with a white face and trembling lips.\r
+\r
+Natasha softly closed the door and went with Sonya to the window, not\r
+yet understanding what the latter was telling her.\r
+\r
+"You remember," said Sonya with a solemn and frightened expression. "You\r
+remember when I looked in the mirror for you... at Otradnoe at\r
+Christmas? Do you remember what I saw?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes!" cried Natasha opening her eyes wide, and vaguely recalling\r
+that Sonya had told her something about Prince Andrew whom she had seen\r
+lying down.\r
+\r
+"You remember?" Sonya went on. "I saw it then and told everybody, you\r
+and Dunyasha. I saw him lying on a bed," said she, making a gesture with\r
+her hand and a lifted finger at each detail, "and that he had his eyes\r
+closed and was covered just with a pink quilt, and that his hands were\r
+folded," she concluded, convincing herself that the details she had just\r
+seen were exactly what she had seen in the mirror.\r
+\r
+She had in fact seen nothing then but had mentioned the first thing that\r
+came into her head, but what she had invented then seemed to her now as\r
+real as any other recollection. She not only remembered what she had\r
+then said--that he turned to look at her and smiled and was covered with\r
+something red--but was firmly convinced that she had then seen and said\r
+that he was covered with a pink quilt and that his eyes were closed.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, it really was pink!" cried Natasha, who now thought she too\r
+remembered the word pink being used, and saw in this the most\r
+extraordinary and mysterious part of the prediction.\r
+\r
+"But what does it mean?" she added meditatively.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I don't know, it is all so strange," replied Sonya, clutching at\r
+her head.\r
+\r
+A few minutes later Prince Andrew rang and Natasha went to him, but\r
+Sonya, feeling unusually excited and touched, remained at the window\r
+thinking about the strangeness of what had occurred.\r
+\r
+They had an opportunity that day to send letters to the army, and the\r
+countess was writing to her son.\r
+\r
+"Sonya!" said the countess, raising her eyes from her letter as her\r
+niece passed, "Sonya, won't you write to Nicholas?" She spoke in a soft,\r
+tremulous voice, and in the weary eyes that looked over her spectacles\r
+Sonya read all that the countess meant to convey with these words. Those\r
+eyes expressed entreaty, shame at having to ask, fear of a refusal, and\r
+readiness for relentless hatred in case of such refusal.\r
+\r
+Sonya went up to the countess and, kneeling down, kissed her hand.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mamma, I will write," said she.\r
+\r
+Sonya was softened, excited, and touched by all that had occurred that\r
+day, especially by the mysterious fulfillment she had just seen of her\r
+vision. Now that she knew that the renewal of Natasha's relations with\r
+Prince Andrew would prevent Nicholas from marrying Princess Mary, she\r
+was joyfully conscious of a return of that self-sacrificing spirit in\r
+which she was accustomed to live and loved to live. So with a joyful\r
+consciousness of performing a magnanimous deed--interrupted several\r
+times by the tears that dimmed her velvety black eyes--she wrote that\r
+touching letter the arrival of which had so amazed Nicholas.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+The officer and soldiers who had arrested Pierre treated him with\r
+hostility but yet with respect, in the guardhouse to which he was taken.\r
+In their attitude toward him could still be felt both uncertainty as to\r
+who he might be--perhaps a very important person--and hostility as a\r
+result of their recent personal conflict with him.\r
+\r
+But when the guard was relieved next morning, Pierre felt that for the\r
+new guard--both officers and men--he was not as interesting as he had\r
+been to his captors; and in fact the guard of the second day did not\r
+recognize in this big, stout man in a peasant coat the vigorous person\r
+who had fought so desperately with the marauder and the convoy and had\r
+uttered those solemn words about saving a child; they saw in him only\r
+No. 17 of the captured Russians, arrested and detained for some reason\r
+by order of the Higher Command. If they noticed anything remarkable\r
+about Pierre, it was only his unabashed, meditative concentration and\r
+thoughtfulness, and the way he spoke French, which struck them as\r
+surprisingly good. In spite of this he was placed that day with the\r
+other arrested suspects, as the separate room he had occupied was\r
+required by an officer.\r
+\r
+All the Russians confined with Pierre were men of the lowest class and,\r
+recognizing him as a gentleman, they all avoided him, more especially as\r
+he spoke French. Pierre felt sad at hearing them making fun of him.\r
+\r
+That evening he learned that all these prisoners (he, probably, among\r
+them) were to be tried for incendiarism. On the third day he was taken\r
+with the others to a house where a French general with a white mustache\r
+sat with two colonels and other Frenchmen with scarves on their arms.\r
+With the precision and definiteness customary in addressing prisoners,\r
+and which is supposed to preclude human frailty, Pierre like the others\r
+was questioned as to who he was, where he had been, with what object,\r
+and so on.\r
+\r
+These questions, like questions put at trials generally, left the\r
+essence of the matter aside, shut out the possibility of that essence's\r
+being revealed, and were designed only to form a channel through which\r
+the judges wished the answers of the accused to flow so as to lead to\r
+the desired result, namely a conviction. As soon as Pierre began to say\r
+anything that did not fit in with that aim, the channel was removed and\r
+the water could flow to waste. Pierre felt, moreover, what the accused\r
+always feel at their trial, perplexity as to why these questions were\r
+put to him. He had a feeling that it was only out of condescension or a\r
+kind of civility that this device of placing a channel was employed. He\r
+knew he was in these men's power, that only by force had they brought\r
+him there, that force alone gave them the right to demand answers to\r
+their questions, and that the sole object of that assembly was to\r
+inculpate him. And so, as they had the power and wish to inculpate him,\r
+this expedient of an inquiry and trial seemed unnecessary. It was\r
+evident that any answer would lead to conviction. When asked what he was\r
+doing when he was arrested, Pierre replied in a rather tragic manner\r
+that he was restoring to its parents a child he had saved from the\r
+flames. Why had he fought the marauder? Pierre answered that he "was\r
+protecting a woman," and that "to protect a woman who was being insulted\r
+was the duty of every man; that..." They interrupted him, for this was\r
+not to the point. Why was he in the yard of a burning house where\r
+witnesses had seen him? He replied that he had gone out to see what was\r
+happening in Moscow. Again they interrupted him: they had not asked\r
+where he was going, but why he was found near the fire? Who was he? they\r
+asked, repeating their first question, which he had declined to answer.\r
+Again he replied that he could not answer it.\r
+\r
+"Put that down, that's bad... very bad," sternly remarked the general\r
+with the white mustache and red flushed face.\r
+\r
+On the fourth day fires broke out on the Zubovski rampart.\r
+\r
+Pierre and thirteen others were moved to the coach house of a merchant's\r
+house near the Crimean bridge. On his way through the streets Pierre\r
+felt stifled by the smoke which seemed to hang over the whole city.\r
+Fires were visible on all sides. He did not then realize the\r
+significance of the burning of Moscow, and looked at the fires with\r
+horror.\r
+\r
+He passed four days in the coach house near the Crimean bridge and\r
+during that time learned, from the talk of the French soldiers, that all\r
+those confined there were awaiting a decision which might come any day\r
+from the marshal. What marshal this was, Pierre could not learn from the\r
+soldiers. Evidently for them "the marshal" represented a very high and\r
+rather mysterious power.\r
+\r
+These first days, before the eighth of September when the prisoners were\r
+had up for a second examination, were the hardest of all for Pierre.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+On the eighth of September an officer--a very important one judging by\r
+the respect the guards showed him--entered the coach house where the\r
+prisoners were. This officer, probably someone on the staff, was holding\r
+a paper in his hand, and called over all the Russians there, naming\r
+Pierre as "the man who does not give his name." Glancing indolently and\r
+indifferently at all the prisoners, he ordered the officer in charge to\r
+have them decently dressed and tidied up before taking them to the\r
+marshal. An hour later a squad of soldiers arrived and Pierre with\r
+thirteen others was led to the Virgin's Field. It was a fine day, sunny\r
+after rain, and the air was unusually pure. The smoke did not hang low\r
+as on the day when Pierre had been taken from the guardhouse on the\r
+Zubovski rampart, but rose through the pure air in columns. No flames\r
+were seen, but columns of smoke rose on all sides, and all Moscow as far\r
+as Pierre could see was one vast charred ruin. On all sides there were\r
+waste spaces with only stoves and chimney stacks still standing, and\r
+here and there the blackened walls of some brick houses. Pierre gazed at\r
+the ruins and did not recognize districts he had known well. Here and\r
+there he could see churches that had not been burned. The Kremlin, which\r
+was not destroyed, gleamed white in the distance with its towers and the\r
+belfry of Ivan the Great. The domes of the New Convent of the Virgin\r
+glittered brightly and its bells were ringing particularly clearly.\r
+These bells reminded Pierre that it was Sunday and the feast of the\r
+Nativity of the Virgin. But there seemed to be no one to celebrate this\r
+holiday: everywhere were blackened ruins, and the few Russians to be\r
+seen were tattered and frightened people who tried to hide when they saw\r
+the French.\r
+\r
+It was plain that the Russian nest was ruined and destroyed, but in\r
+place of the Russian order of life that had been destroyed, Pierre\r
+unconsciously felt that a quite different, firm, French order had been\r
+established over this ruined nest. He felt this in the looks of the\r
+soldiers who, marching in regular ranks briskly and gaily, were\r
+escorting him and the other criminals; he felt it in the looks of an\r
+important French official in a carriage and pair driven by a soldier,\r
+whom they met on the way. He felt it in the merry sounds of regimental\r
+music he heard from the left side of the field, and felt and realized it\r
+especially from the list of prisoners the French officer had read out\r
+when he came that morning. Pierre had been taken by one set of soldiers\r
+and led first to one and then to another place with dozens of other men,\r
+and it seemed that they might have forgotten him, or confused him with\r
+the others. But no: the answers he had given when questioned had come\r
+back to him in his designation as "the man who does not give his name,"\r
+and under that appellation, which to Pierre seemed terrible, they were\r
+now leading him somewhere with unhesitating assurance on their faces\r
+that he and all the other prisoners were exactly the ones they wanted\r
+and that they were being taken to the proper place. Pierre felt himself\r
+to be an insignificant chip fallen among the wheels of a machine whose\r
+action he did not understand but which was working well.\r
+\r
+He and the other prisoners were taken to the right side of the Virgin's\r
+Field, to a large white house with an immense garden not far from the\r
+convent. This was Prince Shcherbitov's house, where Pierre had often\r
+been in other days, and which, as he learned from the talk of the\r
+soldiers, was now occupied by the marshal, the Duke of Eckmuhl (Davout).\r
+\r
+They were taken to the entrance and led into the house one by one.\r
+Pierre was the sixth to enter. He was conducted through a glass gallery,\r
+an anteroom, and a hall, which were familiar to him, into a long low\r
+study at the door of which stood an adjutant.\r
+\r
+Davout, spectacles on nose, sat bent over a table at the further end of\r
+the room. Pierre went close up to him, but Davout, evidently consulting\r
+a paper that lay before him, did not look up. Without raising his eyes,\r
+he said in a low voice:\r
+\r
+"Who are you?"\r
+\r
+Pierre was silent because he was incapable of uttering a word. To him\r
+Davout was not merely a French general, but a man notorious for his\r
+cruelty. Looking at his cold face, as he sat like a stern schoolmaster\r
+who was prepared to wait awhile for an answer, Pierre felt that every\r
+instant of delay might cost him his life; but he did not know what to\r
+say. He did not venture to repeat what he had said at his first\r
+examination, yet to disclose his rank and position was dangerous and\r
+embarrassing. So he was silent. But before he had decided what to do,\r
+Davout raised his head, pushed his spectacles back on his forehead,\r
+screwed up his eyes, and looked intently at him.\r
+\r
+"I know that man," he said in a cold, measured tone, evidently\r
+calculated to frighten Pierre.\r
+\r
+The chill that had been running down Pierre's back now seized his head\r
+as in a vise.\r
+\r
+"You cannot know me, General, I have never seen you..."\r
+\r
+"He is a Russian spy," Davout interrupted, addressing another general\r
+who was present, but whom Pierre had not noticed.\r
+\r
+Davout turned away. With an unexpected reverberation in his voice Pierre\r
+rapidly began:\r
+\r
+"No, monseigneur," he said, suddenly remembering that Davout was a duke.\r
+"No, monseigneur, you cannot have known me. I am a militia officer and\r
+have not quitted Moscow."\r
+\r
+"Your name?" asked Davout.\r
+\r
+"Bezukhov."\r
+\r
+"What proof have I that you are not lying?"\r
+\r
+"Monseigneur!" exclaimed Pierre, not in an offended but in a pleading\r
+voice.\r
+\r
+Davout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked\r
+at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war\r
+and law, that look established human relations between the two men. At\r
+that moment an immense number of things passed dimly through both their\r
+minds, and they realized that they were both children of humanity and\r
+were brothers.\r
+\r
+At the first glance, when Davout had only raised his head from the\r
+papers where human affairs and lives were indicated by numbers, Pierre\r
+was merely a circumstance, and Davout could have shot him without\r
+burdening his conscience with an evil deed, but now he saw in him a\r
+human being. He reflected for a moment.\r
+\r
+"How can you show me that you are telling the truth?" said Davout\r
+coldly.\r
+\r
+Pierre remembered Ramballe, and named him and his regiment and the\r
+street where the house was.\r
+\r
+"You are not what you say," returned Davout.\r
+\r
+In a trembling, faltering voice Pierre began adducing proofs of the\r
+truth of his statements.\r
+\r
+But at that moment an adjutant entered and reported something to Davout.\r
+\r
+Davout brightened up at the news the adjutant brought, and began\r
+buttoning up his uniform. It seemed that he had quite forgotten Pierre.\r
+\r
+When the adjutant reminded him of the prisoner, he jerked his head in\r
+Pierre's direction with a frown and ordered him to be led away. But\r
+where they were to take him Pierre did not know: back to the coach house\r
+or to the place of execution his companions had pointed out to him as\r
+they crossed the Virgin's Field.\r
+\r
+He turned his head and saw that the adjutant was putting another\r
+question to Davout.\r
+\r
+"Yes, of course!" replied Davout, but what this "yes" meant, Pierre did\r
+not know.\r
+\r
+Pierre could not afterwards remember how he went, whether it was far, or\r
+in which direction. His faculties were quite numbed, he was stupefied,\r
+and noticing nothing around him went on moving his legs as the others\r
+did till they all stopped and he stopped too. The only thought in his\r
+mind at that time was: who was it that had really sentenced him to\r
+death? Not the men on the commission that had first examined him--not\r
+one of them wished to or, evidently, could have done it. It was not\r
+Davout, who had looked at him in so human a way. In another moment\r
+Davout would have realized that he was doing wrong, but just then the\r
+adjutant had come in and interrupted him. The adjutant, also, had\r
+evidently had no evil intent though he might have refrained from coming\r
+in. Then who was executing him, killing him, depriving him of life--him,\r
+Pierre, with all his memories, aspirations, hopes, and thoughts? Who was\r
+doing this? And Pierre felt that it was no one.\r
+\r
+It was a system--a concurrence of circumstances.\r
+\r
+A system of some sort was killing him--Pierre--depriving him of life, of\r
+everything, annihilating him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+From Prince Shcherbatov's house the prisoners were led straight down the\r
+Virgin's Field, to the left of the nunnery, as far as a kitchen garden\r
+in which a post had been set up. Beyond that post a fresh pit had been\r
+dug in the ground, and near the post and the pit a large crowd stood in\r
+a semicircle. The crowd consisted of a few Russians and many of\r
+Napoleon's soldiers who were not on duty--Germans, Italians, and\r
+Frenchmen, in a variety of uniforms. To the right and left of the post\r
+stood rows of French troops in blue uniforms with red epaulets and high\r
+boots and shakos.\r
+\r
+The prisoners were placed in a certain order, according to the list\r
+(Pierre was sixth), and were led to the post. Several drums suddenly\r
+began to beat on both sides of them, and at that sound Pierre felt as if\r
+part of his soul had been torn away. He lost the power of thinking or\r
+understanding. He could only hear and see. And he had only one wish--\r
+that the frightful thing that had to happen should happen quickly.\r
+Pierre looked round at his fellow prisoners and scrutinized them.\r
+\r
+The two first were convicts with shaven heads. One was tall and thin,\r
+the other dark, shaggy, and sinewy, with a flat nose. The third was a\r
+domestic serf, about forty-five years old, with grizzled hair and a\r
+plump, well-nourished body. The fourth was a peasant, a very handsome\r
+man with a broad, light-brown beard and black eyes. The fifth was a\r
+factory hand, a thin, sallow-faced lad of eighteen in a loose coat.\r
+\r
+Pierre heard the French consulting whether to shoot them separately or\r
+two at a time. "In couples," replied the officer in command in a calm\r
+voice. There was a stir in the ranks of the soldiers and it was evident\r
+that they were all hurrying--not as men hurry to do something they\r
+understand, but as people hurry to finish a necessary but unpleasant and\r
+incomprehensible task.\r
+\r
+A French official wearing a scarf came up to the right of the row of\r
+prisoners and read out the sentence in Russian and in French.\r
+\r
+Then two pairs of Frenchmen approached the criminals and at the\r
+officer's command took the two convicts who stood first in the row. The\r
+convicts stopped when they reached the post and, while sacks were being\r
+brought, looked dumbly around as a wounded beast looks at an approaching\r
+huntsman. One crossed himself continually, the other scratched his back\r
+and made a movement of the lips resembling a smile. With hurried hands\r
+the soldiers blindfolded them, drawing the sacks over their heads, and\r
+bound them to the post.\r
+\r
+Twelve sharpshooters with muskets stepped out of the ranks with a firm\r
+regular tread and halted eight paces from the post. Pierre turned away\r
+to avoid seeing what was going to happen. Suddenly a crackling, rolling\r
+noise was heard which seemed to him louder than the most terrific\r
+thunder, and he looked round. There was some smoke, and the Frenchmen\r
+were doing something near the pit, with pale faces and trembling hands.\r
+Two more prisoners were led up. In the same way and with similar looks,\r
+these two glanced vainly at the onlookers with only a silent appeal for\r
+protection in their eyes, evidently unable to understand or believe what\r
+was going to happen to them. They could not believe it because they\r
+alone knew what their life meant to them, and so they neither understood\r
+nor believed that it could be taken from them.\r
+\r
+Again Pierre did not wish to look and again turned away; but again the\r
+sound as of a frightful explosion struck his ear, and at the same moment\r
+he saw smoke, blood, and the pale, scared faces of the Frenchmen who\r
+were again doing something by the post, their trembling hands impeding\r
+one another. Pierre, breathing heavily, looked around as if asking what\r
+it meant. The same question was expressed in all the looks that met his.\r
+\r
+On the faces of all the Russians and of the French soldiers and officers\r
+without exception, he read the same dismay, horror, and conflict that\r
+were in his own heart. "But who, after all, is doing this? They are all\r
+suffering as I am. Who then is it? Who?" flashed for an instant through\r
+his mind.\r
+\r
+"Sharpshooters of the 86th, forward!" shouted someone. The fifth\r
+prisoner, the one next to Pierre, was led away--alone. Pierre did not\r
+understand that he was saved, that he and the rest had been brought\r
+there only to witness the execution. With ever-growing horror, and no\r
+sense of joy or relief, he gazed at what was taking place. The fifth man\r
+was the factory lad in the loose cloak. The moment they laid hands on\r
+him he sprang aside in terror and clutched at Pierre. (Pierre shuddered\r
+and shook himself free.) The lad was unable to walk. They dragged him\r
+along, holding him up under the arms, and he screamed. When they got him\r
+to the post he grew quiet, as if he suddenly understood something.\r
+Whether he understood that screaming was useless or whether he thought\r
+it incredible that men should kill him, at any rate he took his stand at\r
+the post, waiting to be blindfolded like the others, and like a wounded\r
+animal looked around him with glittering eyes.\r
+\r
+Pierre was no longer able to turn away and close his eyes. His curiosity\r
+and agitation, like that of the whole crowd, reached the highest pitch\r
+at this fifth murder. Like the others this fifth man seemed calm; he\r
+wrapped his loose cloak closer and rubbed one bare foot with the other.\r
+\r
+When they began to blindfold him he himself adjusted the knot which hurt\r
+the back of his head; then when they propped him against the\r
+bloodstained post, he leaned back and, not being comfortable in that\r
+position, straightened himself, adjusted his feet, and leaned back again\r
+more comfortably. Pierre did not take his eyes from him and did not miss\r
+his slightest movement.\r
+\r
+Probably a word of command was given and was followed by the reports of\r
+eight muskets; but try as he would Pierre could not afterwards remember\r
+having heard the slightest sound of the shots. He only saw how the\r
+workman suddenly sank down on the cords that held him, how blood showed\r
+itself in two places, how the ropes slackened under the weight of the\r
+hanging body, and how the workman sat down, his head hanging unnaturally\r
+and one leg bent under him. Pierre ran up to the post. No one hindered\r
+him. Pale, frightened people were doing something around the workman.\r
+The lower jaw of an old Frenchman with a thick mustache trembled as he\r
+untied the ropes. The body collapsed. The soldiers dragged it awkwardly\r
+from the post and began pushing it into the pit.\r
+\r
+They all plainly and certainly knew that they were criminals who must\r
+hide the traces of their guilt as quickly as possible.\r
+\r
+Pierre glanced into the pit and saw that the factory lad was lying with\r
+his knees close up to his head and one shoulder higher than the other.\r
+That shoulder rose and fell rhythmically and convulsively, but spadefuls\r
+of earth were already being thrown over the whole body. One of the\r
+soldiers, evidently suffering, shouted gruffly and angrily at Pierre to\r
+go back. But Pierre did not understand him and remained near the post,\r
+and no one drove him away.\r
+\r
+When the pit had been filled up a command was given. Pierre was taken\r
+back to his place, and the rows of troops on both sides of the post made\r
+a half turn and went past it at a measured pace. The twenty-four\r
+sharpshooters with discharged muskets, standing in the center of the\r
+circle, ran back to their places as the companies passed by.\r
+\r
+Pierre gazed now with dazed eyes at these sharpshooters who ran in\r
+couples out of the circle. All but one rejoined their companies. This\r
+one, a young soldier, his face deadly pale, his shako pushed back, and\r
+his musket resting on the ground, still stood near the pit at the spot\r
+from which he had fired. He swayed like a drunken man, taking some steps\r
+forward and back to save himself from falling. An old, noncommissioned\r
+officer ran out of the ranks and taking him by the elbow dragged him to\r
+his company. The crowd of Russians and Frenchmen began to disperse. They\r
+all went away silently and with drooping heads.\r
+\r
+"That will teach them to start fires," said one of the Frenchmen.\r
+\r
+Pierre glanced round at the speaker and saw that it was a soldier who\r
+was trying to find some relief after what had been done, but was not\r
+able to do so. Without finishing what he had begun to say he made a\r
+hopeless movement with his arm and went away.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+After the execution Pierre was separated from the rest of the prisoners\r
+and placed alone in a small, ruined, and befouled church.\r
+\r
+Toward evening a noncommissioned officer entered with two soldiers and\r
+told him that he had been pardoned and would now go to the barracks for\r
+the prisoners of war. Without understanding what was said to him, Pierre\r
+got up and went with the soldiers. They took him to the upper end of the\r
+field, where there were some sheds built of charred planks, beams, and\r
+battens, and led him into one of them. In the darkness some twenty\r
+different men surrounded Pierre. He looked at them without understanding\r
+who they were, why they were there, or what they wanted of him. He heard\r
+what they said, but did not understand the meaning of the words and made\r
+no kind of deduction from or application of them. He replied to\r
+questions they put to him, but did not consider who was listening to his\r
+replies, nor how they would understand them. He looked at their faces\r
+and figures, but they all seemed to him equally meaningless.\r
+\r
+From the moment Pierre had witnessed those terrible murders committed by\r
+men who did not wish to commit them, it was as if the mainspring of his\r
+life, on which everything depended and which made everything appear\r
+alive, had suddenly been wrenched out and everything had collapsed into\r
+a heap of meaningless rubbish. Though he did not acknowledge it to\r
+himself, his faith in the right ordering of the universe, in humanity,\r
+in his own soul, and in God, had been destroyed. He had experienced this\r
+before, but never so strongly as now. When similar doubts had assailed\r
+him before, they had been the result of his own wrongdoing, and at the\r
+bottom of his heart he had felt that relief from his despair and from\r
+those doubts was to be found within himself. But now he felt that the\r
+universe had crumbled before his eyes and only meaningless ruins\r
+remained, and this not by any fault of his own. He felt that it was not\r
+in his power to regain faith in the meaning of life.\r
+\r
+Around him in the darkness men were standing and evidently something\r
+about him interested them greatly. They were telling him something and\r
+asking him something. Then they led him away somewhere, and at last he\r
+found himself in a corner of the shed among men who were laughing and\r
+talking on all sides.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, mates... that very prince who..." some voice at the other\r
+end of the shed was saying, with a strong emphasis on the word who.\r
+\r
+Sitting silent and motionless on a heap of straw against the wall,\r
+Pierre sometimes opened and sometimes closed his eyes. But as soon as he\r
+closed them he saw before him the dreadful face of the factory lad--\r
+especially dreadful because of its simplicity--and the faces of the\r
+murderers, even more dreadful because of their disquiet. And he opened\r
+his eyes again and stared vacantly into the darkness around him.\r
+\r
+Beside him in a stooping position sat a small man of whose presence he\r
+was first made aware by a strong smell of perspiration which came from\r
+him every time he moved. This man was doing something to his legs in the\r
+darkness, and though Pierre could not see his face he felt that the man\r
+continually glanced at him. On growing used to the darkness Pierre saw\r
+that the man was taking off his leg bands, and the way he did it aroused\r
+Pierre's interest.\r
+\r
+Having unwound the string that tied the band on one leg, he carefully\r
+coiled it up and immediately set to work on the other leg, glancing up\r
+at Pierre. While one hand hung up the first string the other was already\r
+unwinding the band on the second leg. In this way, having carefully\r
+removed the leg bands by deft circular motions of his arm following one\r
+another uninterruptedly, the man hung the leg bands up on some pegs\r
+fixed above his head. Then he took out a knife, cut something, closed\r
+the knife, placed it under the head of his bed, and, seating himself\r
+comfortably, clasped his arms round his lifted knees and fixed his eyes\r
+on Pierre. The latter was conscious of something pleasant, comforting,\r
+and well-rounded in these deft movements, in the man's well-ordered\r
+arrangements in his corner, and even in his very smell, and he looked at\r
+the man without taking his eyes from him.\r
+\r
+"You've seen a lot of trouble, sir, eh?" the little man suddenly said.\r
+\r
+And there was so much kindliness and simplicity in his singsong voice\r
+that Pierre tried to reply, but his jaw trembled and he felt tears\r
+rising to his eyes. The little fellow, giving Pierre no time to betray\r
+his confusion, instantly continued in the same pleasant tones:\r
+\r
+"Eh, lad, don't fret!" said he, in the tender singsong caressing voice\r
+old Russian peasant women employ. "Don't fret, friend--'suffer an hour,\r
+live for an age!' that's how it is, my dear fellow. And here we live,\r
+thank heaven, without offense. Among these folk, too, there are good men\r
+as well as bad," said he, and still speaking, he turned on his knees\r
+with a supple movement, got up, coughed, and went off to another part of\r
+the shed.\r
+\r
+"Eh, you rascal!" Pierre heard the same kind voice saying at the other\r
+end of the shed. "So you've come, you rascal? She remembers... Now, now,\r
+that'll do!"\r
+\r
+And the soldier, pushing away a little dog that was jumping up at him,\r
+returned to his place and sat down. In his hands he had something\r
+wrapped in a rag.\r
+\r
+"Here, eat a bit, sir," said he, resuming his former respectful tone as\r
+he unwrapped and offered Pierre some baked potatoes. "We had soup for\r
+dinner and the potatoes are grand!"\r
+\r
+Pierre had not eaten all day and the smell of the potatoes seemed\r
+extremely pleasant to him. He thanked the soldier and began to eat.\r
+\r
+"Well, are they all right?" said the soldier with a smile. "You should\r
+do like this."\r
+\r
+He took a potato, drew out his clasp knife, cut the potato into two\r
+equal halves on the palm of his hand, sprinkled some salt on it from the\r
+rag, and handed it to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"The potatoes are grand!" he said once more. "Eat some like that!"\r
+\r
+Pierre thought he had never eaten anything that tasted better.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'm all right," said he, "but why did they shoot those poor\r
+fellows? The last one was hardly twenty."\r
+\r
+"Tss, tt...!" said the little man. "Ah, what a sin... what a sin!" he\r
+added quickly, and as if his words were always waiting ready in his\r
+mouth and flew out involuntarily he went on: "How was it, sir, that you\r
+stayed in Moscow?"\r
+\r
+"I didn't think they would come so soon. I stayed accidentally," replied\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+"And how did they arrest you, dear lad? At your house?"\r
+\r
+"No, I went to look at the fire, and they arrested me there, and tried\r
+me as an incendiary."\r
+\r
+"Where there's law there's injustice," put in the little man.\r
+\r
+"And have you been here long?" Pierre asked as he munched the last of\r
+the potato.\r
+\r
+"I? It was last Sunday they took me, out of a hospital in Moscow."\r
+\r
+"Why, are you a soldier then?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, we are soldiers of the Apsheron regiment. I was dying of fever. We\r
+weren't told anything. There were some twenty of us lying there. We had\r
+no idea, never guessed at all."\r
+\r
+"And do you feel sad here?" Pierre inquired.\r
+\r
+"How can one help it, lad? My name is Platon, and the surname is\r
+Karataev," he added, evidently wishing to make it easier for Pierre to\r
+address him. "They call me 'little falcon' in the regiment. How is one\r
+to help feeling sad? Moscow--she's the mother of cities. How can one see\r
+all this and not feel sad? But 'the maggot gnaws the cabbage, yet dies\r
+first'; that's what the old folks used to tell us," he added rapidly.\r
+\r
+"What? What did you say?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Who? I?" said Karataev. "I say things happen not as we plan but as God\r
+judges," he replied, thinking that he was repeating what he had said\r
+before, and immediately continued:\r
+\r
+"Well, and you, have you a family estate, sir? And a house? So you have\r
+abundance, then? And a housewife? And your old parents, are they still\r
+living?" he asked.\r
+\r
+And though it was too dark for Pierre to see, he felt that a suppressed\r
+smile of kindliness puckered the soldier's lips as he put these\r
+questions. He seemed grieved that Pierre had no parents, especially that\r
+he had no mother.\r
+\r
+"A wife for counsel, a mother-in-law for welcome, but there's none as\r
+dear as one's own mother!" said he. "Well, and have you little ones?" he\r
+went on asking.\r
+\r
+Again Pierre's negative answer seemed to distress him, and he hastened\r
+to add:\r
+\r
+"Never mind! You're young folks yet, and please God may still have some.\r
+The great thing is to live in harmony...."\r
+\r
+"But it's all the same now," Pierre could not help saying.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my dear fellow!" rejoined Karataev, "never decline a prison or a\r
+beggar's sack!"\r
+\r
+He seated himself more comfortably and coughed, evidently preparing to\r
+tell a long story.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear fellow, I was still living at home," he began. "We had a\r
+well-to-do homestead, plenty of land, we peasants lived well and our\r
+house was one to thank God for. When Father and we went out mowing there\r
+were seven of us. We lived well. We were real peasants. It so\r
+happened..."\r
+\r
+And Platon Karataev told a long story of how he had gone into someone's\r
+copse to take wood, how he had been caught by the keeper, had been\r
+tried, flogged, and sent to serve as a soldier.\r
+\r
+"Well, lad," and a smile changed the tone of his voice "we thought it\r
+was a misfortune but it turned out a blessing! If it had not been for my\r
+sin, my brother would have had to go as a soldier. But he, my younger\r
+brother, had five little ones, while I, you see, only left a wife\r
+behind. We had a little girl, but God took her before I went as a\r
+soldier. I come home on leave and I'll tell you how it was, I look and\r
+see that they are living better than before. The yard full of cattle,\r
+the women at home, two brothers away earning wages, and only Michael the\r
+youngest, at home. Father, he says, 'All my children are the same to me:\r
+it hurts the same whichever finger gets bitten. But if Platon hadn't\r
+been shaved for a soldier, Michael would have had to go.' called us all\r
+to him and, will you believe it, placed us in front of the icons.\r
+'Michael,' he says, 'come here and bow down to his feet; and you, young\r
+woman, you bow down too; and you, grandchildren, also bow down before\r
+him! Do you understand?' he says. That's how it is, dear fellow. Fate\r
+looks for a head. But we are always judging, 'that's not well--that's\r
+not right!' Our luck is like water in a dragnet: you pull at it and it\r
+bulges, but when you've drawn it out it's empty! That's how it is."\r
+\r
+And Platon shifted his seat on the straw.\r
+\r
+After a short silence he rose.\r
+\r
+"Well, I think you must be sleepy," said he, and began rapidly crossing\r
+himself and repeating:\r
+\r
+"Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus\r
+Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ, have\r
+mercy on us and save us!" he concluded, then bowed to the ground, got\r
+up, sighed, and sat down again on his heap of straw. "That's the way.\r
+Lay me down like a stone, O God, and raise me up like a loaf," he\r
+muttered as he lay down, pulling his coat over him.\r
+\r
+"What prayer was that you were saying?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Eh?" murmured Platon, who had almost fallen asleep. "What was I saying?\r
+I was praying. Don't you pray?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do," said Pierre. "But what was that you said: Frola and Lavra?"\r
+\r
+"Well, of course," replied Platon quickly, "the horses' saints. One must\r
+pity the animals too. Eh, the rascal! Now you've curled up and got warm,\r
+you daughter of a bitch!" said Karataev, touching the dog that lay at\r
+his feet, and again turning over he fell asleep immediately.\r
+\r
+Sounds of crying and screaming came from somewhere in the distance\r
+outside, and flames were visible through the cracks of the shed, but\r
+inside it was quiet and dark. For a long time Pierre did not sleep, but\r
+lay with eyes open in the darkness, listening to the regular snoring of\r
+Platon who lay beside him, and he felt that the world that had been\r
+shattered was once more stirring in his soul with a new beauty and on\r
+new and unshakable foundations.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+Twenty-three soldiers, three officers, and two officials were confined\r
+in the shed in which Pierre had been placed and where he remained for\r
+four weeks.\r
+\r
+When Pierre remembered them afterwards they all seemed misty figures to\r
+him except Platon Karataev, who always remained in his mind a most vivid\r
+and precious memory and the personification of everything Russian,\r
+kindly, and round. When Pierre saw his neighbor next morning at dawn the\r
+first impression of him, as of something round, was fully confirmed:\r
+Platon's whole figure--in a French overcoat girdled with a cord, a\r
+soldier's cap, and bast shoes--was round. His head was quite round, his\r
+back, chest, shoulders, and even his arms, which he held as if ever\r
+ready to embrace something, were rounded, his pleasant smile and his\r
+large, gentle brown eyes were also round.\r
+\r
+Platon Karataev must have been fifty, judging by his stories of\r
+campaigns he had been in, told as by an old soldier. He did not himself\r
+know his age and was quite unable to determine it. But his brilliantly\r
+white, strong teeth which showed in two unbroken semicircles when he\r
+laughed--as he often did--were all sound and good, there was not a gray\r
+hair in his beard or on his head, and his whole body gave an impression\r
+of suppleness and especially of firmness and endurance.\r
+\r
+His face, despite its fine, rounded wrinkles, had an expression of\r
+innocence and youth, his voice was pleasant and musical. But the chief\r
+peculiarity of his speech was its directness and appositeness. It was\r
+evident that he never considered what he had said or was going to say,\r
+and consequently the rapidity and justice of his intonation had an\r
+irresistible persuasiveness.\r
+\r
+His physical strength and agility during the first days of his\r
+imprisonment were such that he seemed not to know what fatigue and\r
+sickness meant. Every night before lying down, he said: "Lord, lay me\r
+down as a stone and raise me up as a loaf!" and every morning on getting\r
+up, he said: "I lay down and curled up, I get up and shake myself." And\r
+indeed he only had to lie down, to fall asleep like a stone, and he only\r
+had to shake himself, to be ready without a moment's delay for some\r
+work, just as children are ready to play directly they awake. He could\r
+do everything, not very well but not badly. He baked, cooked, sewed,\r
+planed, and mended boots. He was always busy, and only at night allowed\r
+himself conversation--of which he was fond--and songs. He did not sing\r
+like a trained singer who knows he is listened to, but like the birds,\r
+evidently giving vent to the sounds in the same way that one stretches\r
+oneself or walks about to get rid of stiffness, and the sounds were\r
+always high-pitched, mournful, delicate, and almost feminine, and his\r
+face at such times was very serious.\r
+\r
+Having been taken prisoner and allowed his beard to grow, he seemed to\r
+have thrown off all that had been forced upon him--everything military\r
+and alien to himself--and had returned to his former peasant habits.\r
+\r
+"A soldier on leave--a shirt outside breeches," he would say.\r
+\r
+He did not like talking about his life as a soldier, though he did not\r
+complain, and often mentioned that he had not been flogged once during\r
+the whole of his army service. When he related anything it was generally\r
+some old and evidently precious memory of his "Christian" life, as he\r
+called his peasant existence. The proverbs, of which his talk was full,\r
+were for the most part not the coarse and indecent saws soldiers employ,\r
+but those folk sayings which taken without a context seem so\r
+insignificant, but when used appositely suddenly acquire a significance\r
+of profound wisdom.\r
+\r
+He would often say the exact opposite of what he had said on a previous\r
+occasion, yet both would be right. He liked to talk and he talked well,\r
+adorning his speech with terms of endearment and with folk sayings which\r
+Pierre thought he invented himself, but the chief charm of his talk lay\r
+in the fact that the commonest events--sometimes just such as Pierre had\r
+witnessed without taking notice of them--assumed in Karataev's a\r
+character of solemn fitness. He liked to hear the folk tales one of the\r
+soldiers used to tell of an evening (they were always the same), but\r
+most of all he liked to hear stories of real life. He would smile\r
+joyfully when listening to such stories, now and then putting in a word\r
+or asking a question to make the moral beauty of what he was told clear\r
+to himself. Karataev had no attachments, friendships, or love, as Pierre\r
+understood them, but loved and lived affectionately with everything life\r
+brought him in contact with, particularly with man--not any particular\r
+man, but those with whom he happened to be. He loved his dog, his\r
+comrades, the French, and Pierre who was his neighbor, but Pierre felt\r
+that in spite of Karataev's affectionate tenderness for him (by which he\r
+unconsciously gave Pierre's spiritual life its due) he would not have\r
+grieved for a moment at parting from him. And Pierre began to feel in\r
+the same way toward Karataev.\r
+\r
+To all the other prisoners Platon Karataev seemed a most ordinary\r
+soldier. They called him "little falcon" or "Platosha," chaffed him\r
+good-naturedly, and sent him on errands. But to Pierre he always\r
+remained what he had seemed that first night: an unfathomable, rounded,\r
+eternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth.\r
+\r
+Platon Karataev knew nothing by heart except his prayers. When he began\r
+to speak he seemed not to know how he would conclude.\r
+\r
+Sometimes Pierre, struck by the meaning of his words, would ask him to\r
+repeat them, but Platon could never recall what he had said a moment\r
+before, just as he never could repeat to Pierre the words of his\r
+favorite song: native and birch tree and my heart is sick occurred in\r
+it, but when spoken and not sung, no meaning could be got out of it. He\r
+did not, and could not, understand the meaning of words apart from their\r
+context. Every word and action of his was the manifestation of an\r
+activity unknown to him, which was his life. But his life, as he\r
+regarded it, had no meaning as a separate thing. It had meaning only as\r
+part of a whole of which he was always conscious. His words and actions\r
+flowed from him as evenly, inevitably, and spontaneously as fragrance\r
+exhales from a flower. He could not understand the value or significance\r
+of any word or deed taken separately.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+When Princess Mary heard from Nicholas that her brother was with the\r
+Rostovs at Yaroslavl she at once prepared to go there, in spite of her\r
+aunt's efforts to dissuade her--and not merely to go herself but to take\r
+her nephew with her. Whether it were difficult or easy, possible or\r
+impossible, she did not ask and did not want to know: it was her duty,\r
+not only to herself, to be near her brother who was perhaps dying, but\r
+to do everything possible to take his son to him, and so she prepared to\r
+set off. That she had not heard from Prince Andrew himself, Princess\r
+Mary attributed to his being too weak to write or to his considering the\r
+long journey too hard and too dangerous for her and his son.\r
+\r
+In a few days Princess Mary was ready to start. Her equipages were the\r
+huge family coach in which she had traveled to Voronezh, a semiopen\r
+trap, and a baggage cart. With her traveled Mademoiselle Bourienne,\r
+little Nicholas and his tutor, her old nurse, three maids, Tikhon, and a\r
+young footman and courier her aunt had sent to accompany her.\r
+\r
+The usual route through Moscow could not be thought of, and the\r
+roundabout way Princess Mary was obliged to take through Lipetsk,\r
+Ryazan, Vladimir, and Shuya was very long and, as post horses were not\r
+everywhere obtainable, very difficult, and near Ryazan where the French\r
+were said to have shown themselves was even dangerous.\r
+\r
+During this difficult journey Mademoiselle Bourienne, Dessalles, and\r
+Princess Mary's servants were astonished at her energy and firmness of\r
+spirit. She went to bed later and rose earlier than any of them, and no\r
+difficulties daunted her. Thanks to her activity and energy, which\r
+infected her fellow travelers, they approached Yaroslavl by the end of\r
+the second week.\r
+\r
+The last days of her stay in Voronezh had been the happiest of her life.\r
+Her love for Rostov no longer tormented or agitated her. It filled her\r
+whole soul, had become an integral part of herself, and she no longer\r
+struggled against it. Latterly she had become convinced that she loved\r
+and was beloved, though she never said this definitely to herself in\r
+words. She had become convinced of it at her last interview with\r
+Nicholas, when he had come to tell her that her brother was with the\r
+Rostovs. Not by a single word had Nicholas alluded to the fact that\r
+Prince Andrew's relations with Natasha might, if he recovered, be\r
+renewed, but Princess Mary saw by his face that he knew and thought of\r
+this.\r
+\r
+Yet in spite of that, his relation to her--considerate, delicate, and\r
+loving--not only remained unchanged, but it sometimes seemed to Princess\r
+Mary that he was even glad that the family connection between them\r
+allowed him to express his friendship more freely. She knew that she\r
+loved for the first and only time in her life and felt that she was\r
+beloved, and was happy in regard to it.\r
+\r
+But this happiness on one side of her spiritual nature did not prevent\r
+her feeling grief for her brother with full force; on the contrary, that\r
+spiritual tranquility on the one side made it the more possible for her\r
+to give full play to her feeling for her brother. That feeling was so\r
+strong at the moment of leaving Voronezh that those who saw her off, as\r
+they looked at her careworn, despairing face, felt sure she would fall\r
+ill on the journey. But the very difficulties and preoccupations of the\r
+journey, which she took so actively in hand, saved her for a while from\r
+her grief and gave her strength.\r
+\r
+As always happens when traveling, Princess Mary thought only of the\r
+journey itself, forgetting its object. But as she approached Yaroslavl\r
+the thought of what might await her there--not after many days, but that\r
+very evening--again presented itself to her and her agitation increased\r
+to its utmost limit.\r
+\r
+The courier who had been sent on in advance to find out where the\r
+Rostovs were staying in Yaroslavl, and in what condition Prince Andrew\r
+was, when he met the big coach just entering the town gates was appalled\r
+by the terrible pallor of the princess' face that looked out at him from\r
+the window.\r
+\r
+"I have found out everything, your excellency: the Rostovs are staying\r
+at the merchant Bronnikov's house, in the Square not far from here,\r
+right above the Volga," said the courier.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary looked at him with frightened inquiry, not understanding\r
+why he did not reply to what she chiefly wanted to know: how was her\r
+brother? Mademoiselle Bourienne put that question for her.\r
+\r
+"How is the prince?" she asked.\r
+\r
+"His excellency is staying in the same house with them."\r
+\r
+"Then he is alive," thought Princess Mary, and asked in a low voice:\r
+"How is he?"\r
+\r
+"The servants say he is still the same."\r
+\r
+What "still the same" might mean Princess Mary did not ask, but with an\r
+unnoticed glance at little seven-year-old Nicholas, who was sitting in\r
+front of her looking with pleasure at the town, she bowed her head and\r
+did not raise it again till the heavy coach, rumbling, shaking and\r
+swaying, came to a stop. The carriage steps clattered as they were let\r
+down.\r
+\r
+The carriage door was opened. On the left there was water--a great\r
+river--and on the right a porch. There were people at the entrance:\r
+servants, and a rosy girl with a large plait of black hair, smiling as\r
+it seemed to Princess Mary in an unpleasantly affected way. (This was\r
+Sonya.) Princess Mary ran up the steps. "This way, this way!" said the\r
+girl, with the same artificial smile, and the princess found herself in\r
+the hall facing an elderly woman of Oriental type, who came rapidly to\r
+meet her with a look of emotion. This was the countess. She embraced\r
+Princess Mary and kissed her.\r
+\r
+"Mon enfant!" she muttered, "je vous aime et vous connais depuis\r
+longtemps." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "My child! I love you and have known you a long time."\r
+\r
+\r
+Despite her excitement, Princess Mary realized that this was the\r
+countess and that it was necessary to say something to her. Hardly\r
+knowing how she did it, she contrived to utter a few polite phrases in\r
+French in the same tone as those that had been addressed to her, and\r
+asked: "How is he?"\r
+\r
+"The doctor says that he is not in danger," said the countess, but as\r
+she spoke she raised her eyes with a sigh, and her gesture conveyed a\r
+contradiction of her words.\r
+\r
+"Where is he? Can I see him--can I?" asked the princess.\r
+\r
+"One moment, Princess, one moment, my dear! Is this his son?" said the\r
+countess, turning to little Nicholas who was coming in with Dessalles.\r
+"There will be room for everybody, this is a big house. Oh, what a\r
+lovely boy!"\r
+\r
+The countess took Princess Mary into the drawing room, where Sonya was\r
+talking to Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess caressed the boy, and\r
+the old count came in and welcomed the princess. He had changed very\r
+much since Princess Mary had last seen him. Then he had been a brisk,\r
+cheerful, self-assured old man; now he seemed a pitiful, bewildered\r
+person. While talking to Princess Mary he continually looked round as if\r
+asking everyone whether he was doing the right thing. After the\r
+destruction of Moscow and of his property, thrown out of his accustomed\r
+groove he seemed to have lost the sense of his own significance and to\r
+feel that there was no longer a place for him in life.\r
+\r
+In spite of her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible, and\r
+her vexation that at the moment when all she wanted was to see him they\r
+should be trying to entertain her and pretending to admire her nephew,\r
+the princess noticed all that was going on around her and felt the\r
+necessity of submitting, for a time, to this new order of things which\r
+she had entered. She knew it to be necessary, and though it was hard for\r
+her she was not vexed with these people.\r
+\r
+"This is my niece," said the count, introducing Sonya--"You don't know\r
+her, Princess?"\r
+\r
+Princess Mary turned to Sonya and, trying to stifle the hostile feeling\r
+that arose in her toward the girl, she kissed her. But she felt\r
+oppressed by the fact that the mood of everyone around her was so far\r
+from what was in her own heart.\r
+\r
+"Where is he?" she asked again, addressing them all.\r
+\r
+"He is downstairs. Natasha is with him," answered Sonya, flushing. "We\r
+have sent to ask. I think you must be tired, Princess."\r
+\r
+Tears of vexation showed themselves in Princess Mary's eyes. She turned\r
+away and was about to ask the countess again how to go to him, when\r
+light, impetuous, and seemingly buoyant steps were heard at the door.\r
+The princess looked round and saw Natasha coming in, almost running--\r
+that Natasha whom she had liked so little at their meeting in Moscow\r
+long since.\r
+\r
+But hardly had the princess looked at Natasha's face before she realized\r
+that here was a real comrade in her grief, and consequently a friend.\r
+She ran to meet her, embraced her, and began to cry on her shoulder.\r
+\r
+As soon as Natasha, sitting at the head of Prince Andrew's bed, heard of\r
+Princess Mary's arrival, she softly left his room and hastened to her\r
+with those swift steps that had sounded buoyant to Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+There was only one expression on her agitated face when she ran into the\r
+drawing room--that of love--boundless love for him, for her, and for all\r
+that was near to the man she loved; and of pity, suffering for others,\r
+and passionate desire to give herself entirely to helping them. It was\r
+plain that at that moment there was in Natasha's heart no thought of\r
+herself or of her own relations with Prince Andrew.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary, with her acute sensibility, understood all this at the\r
+first glance at Natasha's face, and wept on her shoulder with sorrowful\r
+pleasure.\r
+\r
+"Come, come to him, Mary," said Natasha, leading her into the other\r
+room.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary raised her head, dried her eyes, and turned to Natasha.\r
+She felt that from her she would be able to understand and learn\r
+everything.\r
+\r
+"How..." she began her question but stopped short.\r
+\r
+She felt that it was impossible to ask, or to answer, in words.\r
+Natasha's face and eyes would have to tell her all more clearly and\r
+profoundly.\r
+\r
+Natasha was gazing at her, but seemed afraid and in doubt whether to say\r
+all she knew or not; she seemed to feel that before those luminous eyes\r
+which penetrated into the very depths of her heart, it was impossible\r
+not to tell the whole truth which she saw. And suddenly, Natasha's lips\r
+twitched, ugly wrinkles gathered round her mouth, and covering her face\r
+with her hands she burst into sobs.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary understood.\r
+\r
+But she still hoped, and asked, in words she herself did not trust:\r
+\r
+"But how is his wound? What is his general condition?"\r
+\r
+"You, you... will see," was all Natasha could say.\r
+\r
+They sat a little while downstairs near his room till they had left off\r
+crying and were able to go to him with calm faces.\r
+\r
+"How has his whole illness gone? Is it long since he grew worse? When\r
+did this happen?" Princess Mary inquired.\r
+\r
+Natasha told her that at first there had been danger from his feverish\r
+condition and the pain he suffered, but at Troitsa that had passed and\r
+the doctor had only been afraid of gangrene. That danger had also\r
+passed. When they reached Yaroslavl the wound had begun to fester\r
+(Natasha knew all about such things as festering) and the doctor had\r
+said that the festering might take a normal course. Then fever set in,\r
+but the doctor had said the fever was not very serious.\r
+\r
+"But two days ago this suddenly happened," said Natasha, struggling with\r
+her sobs. "I don't know why, but you will see what he is like."\r
+\r
+"Is he weaker? Thinner?" asked the princess.\r
+\r
+"No, it's not that, but worse. You will see. O, Mary, he is too good, he\r
+cannot, cannot live, because..."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+When Natasha opened Prince Andrew's door with a familiar movement and\r
+let Princess Mary pass into the room before her, the princess felt the\r
+sobs in her throat. Hard as she had tried to prepare herself, and now\r
+tried to remain tranquil, she knew that she would be unable to look at\r
+him without tears.\r
+\r
+The princess understood what Natasha had meant by the words: "two days\r
+ago this suddenly happened." She understood those words to mean that he\r
+had suddenly softened and that this softening and gentleness were signs\r
+of approaching death. As she stepped to the door she already saw in\r
+imagination Andrew's face as she remembered it in childhood, a gentle,\r
+mild, sympathetic face which he had rarely shown, and which therefore\r
+affected her very strongly. She was sure he would speak soft, tender\r
+words to her such as her father had uttered before his death, and that\r
+she would not be able to bear it and would burst into sobs in his\r
+presence. Yet sooner or later it had to be, and she went in. The sobs\r
+rose higher and higher in her throat as she more and more clearly\r
+distinguished his form and her shortsighted eyes tried to make out his\r
+features, and then she saw his face and met his gaze.\r
+\r
+He was lying in a squirrel-fur dressing gown on a divan, surrounded by\r
+pillows. He was thin and pale. In one thin, translucently white hand he\r
+held a handkerchief, while with the other he stroked the delicate\r
+mustache he had grown, moving his fingers slowly. His eyes gazed at them\r
+as they entered.\r
+\r
+On seeing his face and meeting his eyes Princess Mary's pace suddenly\r
+slackened, she felt her tears dry up and her sobs ceased. She suddenly\r
+felt guilty and grew timid on catching the expression of his face and\r
+eyes.\r
+\r
+"But in what am I to blame?" she asked herself. And his cold, stern look\r
+replied: "Because you are alive and thinking of the living, while I..."\r
+\r
+In the deep gaze that seemed to look not outwards but inwards there was\r
+an almost hostile expression as he slowly regarded his sister and\r
+Natasha.\r
+\r
+He kissed his sister, holding her hand in his as was their wont.\r
+\r
+"How are you, Mary? How did you manage to get here?" said he in a voice\r
+as calm and aloof as his look.\r
+\r
+Had he screamed in agony, that scream would not have struck such horror\r
+into Princess Mary's heart as the tone of his voice.\r
+\r
+"And have you brought little Nicholas?" he asked in the same slow, quiet\r
+manner and with an obvious effort to remember.\r
+\r
+"How are you now?" said Princess Mary, herself surprised at what she was\r
+saying.\r
+\r
+"That, my dear, you must ask the doctor," he replied, and again making\r
+an evident effort to be affectionate, he said with his lips only (his\r
+words clearly did not correspond to his thoughts):\r
+\r
+"Merci, chere amie, d'etre venue." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Thank you for coming, my dear."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary pressed his hand. The pressure made him wince just\r
+perceptibly. He was silent, and she did not know what to say. She now\r
+understood what had happened to him two days before. In his words, his\r
+tone, and especially in that calm, almost antagonistic look could be\r
+felt an estrangement from everything belonging to this world, terrible\r
+in one who is alive. Evidently only with an effort did he understand\r
+anything living; but it was obvious that he failed to understand, not\r
+because he lacked the power to do so but because he understood something\r
+else--something the living did not and could not understand--and which\r
+wholly occupied his mind.\r
+\r
+"There, you see how strangely fate has brought us together," said he,\r
+breaking the silence and pointing to Natasha. "She looks after me all\r
+the time."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary heard him and did not understand how he could say such a\r
+thing. He, the sensitive, tender Prince Andrew, how could he say that,\r
+before her whom he loved and who loved him? Had he expected to live he\r
+could not have said those words in that offensively cold tone. If he had\r
+not known that he was dying, how could he have failed to pity her and\r
+how could he speak like that in her presence? The only explanation was\r
+that he was indifferent, because something else, much more important,\r
+had been revealed to him.\r
+\r
+The conversation was cold and disconnected and continually broke off.\r
+\r
+"Mary came by way of Ryazan," said Natasha.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew did not notice that she called his sister Mary, and only\r
+after calling her so in his presence did Natasha notice it herself.\r
+\r
+"Really?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"They told her that all Moscow has been burned down, and that..."\r
+\r
+Natasha stopped. It was impossible to talk. It was plain that he was\r
+making an effort to listen, but could not do so.\r
+\r
+"Yes, they say it's burned," he said. "It's a great pity," and he gazed\r
+straight before him, absently stroking his mustache with his fingers.\r
+\r
+"And so you have met Count Nicholas, Mary?" Prince Andrew suddenly said,\r
+evidently wishing to speak pleasantly to them. "He wrote here that he\r
+took a great liking to you," he went on simply and calmly, evidently\r
+unable to understand all the complex significance his words had for\r
+living people. "If you liked him too, it would be a good thing for you\r
+to get married," he added rather more quickly, as if pleased at having\r
+found words he had long been seeking.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary heard his words but they had no meaning for her, except as\r
+a proof of how far away he now was from everything living.\r
+\r
+"Why talk of me?" she said quietly and glanced at Natasha.\r
+\r
+Natasha, who felt her glance, did not look at her. All three were again\r
+silent.\r
+\r
+"Andrew, would you like..." Princess Mary suddenly said in a trembling\r
+voice, "would you like to see little Nicholas? He is always talking\r
+about you!"\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew smiled just perceptibly and for the first time, but\r
+Princess Mary, who knew his face so well, saw with horror that he did\r
+not smile with pleasure or affection for his son, but with quiet, gentle\r
+irony because he thought she was trying what she believed to be the last\r
+means of arousing him.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I shall be very glad to see him. Is he quite well?"\r
+\r
+When little Nicholas was brought into Prince Andrew's room he looked at\r
+his father with frightened eyes, but did not cry, because no one else\r
+was crying. Prince Andrew kissed him and evidently did not know what to\r
+say to him.\r
+\r
+When Nicholas had been led away, Princess Mary again went up to her\r
+brother, kissed him, and unable to restrain her tears any longer began\r
+to cry.\r
+\r
+He looked at her attentively.\r
+\r
+"Is it about Nicholas?" he asked.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary nodded her head, weeping.\r
+\r
+"Mary, you know the Gosp..." but he broke off.\r
+\r
+"What did you say?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing. You mustn't cry here," he said, looking at her with the same\r
+cold expression.\r
+\r
+When Princess Mary began to cry, he understood that she was crying at\r
+the thought that little Nicholas would be left without a father. With a\r
+great effort he tried to return to life and to see things from their\r
+point of view.\r
+\r
+"Yes, to them it must seem sad!" he thought. "But how simple it is.\r
+\r
+"The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father\r
+feedeth them," he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Mary;\r
+"but no, they will take it their own way, they won't understand! They\r
+can't understand that all those feelings they prize so--all our\r
+feelings, all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary.\r
+We cannot understand one another," and he remained silent.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew's little son was seven. He could scarcely read, and knew\r
+nothing. After that day he lived through many things, gaining knowledge,\r
+observation, and experience, but had he possessed all the faculties he\r
+afterwards acquired, he could not have had a better or more profound\r
+understanding of the meaning of the scene he had witnessed between his\r
+father, Mary, and Natasha, than he had then. He understood it\r
+completely, and, leaving the room without crying, went silently up to\r
+Natasha who had come out with him and looked shyly at her with his\r
+beautiful, thoughtful eyes, then his uplifted, rosy upper lip trembled\r
+and leaning his head against her he began to cry.\r
+\r
+After that he avoided Dessalles and the countess who caressed him and\r
+either sat alone or came timidly to Princess Mary, or to Natasha of whom\r
+he seemed even fonder than of his aunt, and clung to them quietly and\r
+shyly.\r
+\r
+When Princess Mary had left Prince Andrew she fully understood what\r
+Natasha's face had told her. She did not speak any more to Natasha of\r
+hopes of saving his life. She took turns with her beside his sofa, and\r
+did not cry any more, but prayed continually, turning in soul to that\r
+Eternal and Unfathomable, whose presence above the dying man was now so\r
+evident.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+Not only did Prince Andrew know he would die, but he felt that he was\r
+dying and was already half dead. He was conscious of an aloofness from\r
+everything earthly and a strange and joyous lightness of existence.\r
+Without haste or agitation he awaited what was coming. That inexorable,\r
+eternal, distant, and unknown the presence of which he had felt\r
+continually all his life--was now near to him and, by the strange\r
+lightness he experienced, almost comprehensible and palpable...\r
+\r
+\r
+Formerly he had feared the end. He had twice experienced that terribly\r
+tormenting fear of death--the end--but now he no longer understood that\r
+fear.\r
+\r
+He had felt it for the first time when the shell spun like a top before\r
+him, and he looked at the fallow field, the bushes, and the sky, and\r
+knew that he was face to face with death. When he came to himself after\r
+being wounded and the flower of eternal, unfettered love had instantly\r
+unfolded itself in his soul as if freed from the bondage of life that\r
+had restrained it, he no longer feared death and ceased to think about\r
+it.\r
+\r
+During the hours of solitude, suffering, and partial delirium he spent\r
+after he was wounded, the more deeply he penetrated into the new\r
+principle of eternal love revealed to him, the more he unconsciously\r
+detached himself from earthly life. To love everything and everybody and\r
+always to sacrifice oneself for love meant not to love anyone, not to\r
+live this earthly life. And the more imbued he became with that\r
+principle of love, the more he renounced life and the more completely he\r
+destroyed that dreadful barrier which--in the absence of such love--\r
+stands between life and death. When during those first days he\r
+remembered that he would have to die, he said to himself: "Well, what of\r
+it? So much the better!"\r
+\r
+But after the night in Mytishchi when, half delirious, he had seen her\r
+for whom he longed appear before him and, having pressed her hand to his\r
+lips, had shed gentle, happy tears, love for a particular woman again\r
+crept unobserved into his heart and once more bound him to life. And\r
+joyful and agitating thoughts began to occupy his mind. Recalling the\r
+moment at the ambulance station when he had seen Kuragin, he could not\r
+now regain the feeling he then had, but was tormented by the question\r
+whether Kuragin was alive. And he dared not inquire.\r
+\r
+His illness pursued its normal physical course, but what Natasha\r
+referred to when she said: "This suddenly happened," had occurred two\r
+days before Princess Mary arrived. It was the last spiritual struggle\r
+between life and death, in which death gained the victory. It was the\r
+unexpected realization of the fact that he still valued life as\r
+presented to him in the form of his love for Natasha, and a last, though\r
+ultimately vanquished, attack of terror before the unknown.\r
+\r
+It was evening. As usual after dinner he was slightly feverish, and his\r
+thoughts were preternaturally clear. Sonya was sitting by the table. He\r
+began to doze. Suddenly a feeling of happiness seized him.\r
+\r
+"Ah, she has come!" thought he.\r
+\r
+And so it was: in Sonya's place sat Natasha who had just come in\r
+noiselessly.\r
+\r
+Since she had begun looking after him, he had always experienced this\r
+physical consciousness of her nearness. She was sitting in an armchair\r
+placed sideways, screening the light of the candle from him, and was\r
+knitting a stocking. She had learned to knit stockings since Prince\r
+Andrew had casually mentioned that no one nursed the sick so well as old\r
+nurses who knit stockings, and that there is something soothing in the\r
+knitting of stockings. The needles clicked lightly in her slender,\r
+rapidly moving hands, and he could clearly see the thoughtful profile of\r
+her drooping face. She moved, and the ball rolled off her knees. She\r
+started, glanced round at him, and screening the candle with her hand\r
+stooped carefully with a supple and exact movement, picked up the ball,\r
+and regained her former position.\r
+\r
+He looked at her without moving and saw that she wanted to draw a deep\r
+breath after stooping, but refrained from doing so and breathed\r
+cautiously.\r
+\r
+At the Troitsa monastery they had spoken of the past, and he had told\r
+her that if he lived he would always thank God for his wound which had\r
+brought them together again, but after that they never spoke of the\r
+future.\r
+\r
+"Can it or can it not be?" he now thought as he looked at her and\r
+listened to the light click of the steel needles. "Can fate have brought\r
+me to her so strangely only for me to die?... Is it possible that the\r
+truth of life has been revealed to me only to show me that I have spent\r
+my life in falsity? I love her more than anything in the world! But what\r
+am I to do if I love her?" he thought, and he involuntarily groaned,\r
+from a habit acquired during his sufferings.\r
+\r
+On hearing that sound Natasha put down the stocking, leaned nearer to\r
+him, and suddenly, noticing his shining eyes, stepped lightly up to him\r
+and bent over him.\r
+\r
+"You are not asleep?"\r
+\r
+"No, I have been looking at you a long time. I felt you come in. No one\r
+else gives me that sense of soft tranquillity that you do... that light.\r
+I want to weep for joy."\r
+\r
+Natasha drew closer to him. Her face shone with rapturous joy.\r
+\r
+"Natasha, I love you too much! More than anything in the world."\r
+\r
+"And I!"--She turned away for an instant. "Why too much?" she asked.\r
+\r
+"Why too much?... Well, what do you, what do you feel in your soul, your\r
+whole soul--shall I live? What do you think?"\r
+\r
+"I am sure of it, sure!" Natasha almost shouted, taking hold of both his\r
+hands with a passionate movement.\r
+\r
+He remained silent awhile.\r
+\r
+"How good it would be!" and taking her hand he kissed it.\r
+\r
+Natasha felt happy and agitated, but at once remembered that this would\r
+not do and that he had to be quiet.\r
+\r
+"But you have not slept," she said, repressing her joy. "Try to sleep...\r
+please!"\r
+\r
+He pressed her hand and released it, and she went back to the candle and\r
+sat down again in her former position. Twice she turned and looked at\r
+him, and her eyes met his beaming at her. She set herself a task on her\r
+stocking and resolved not to turn round till it was finished.\r
+\r
+Soon he really shut his eyes and fell asleep. He did not sleep long and\r
+suddenly awoke with a start and in a cold perspiration.\r
+\r
+As he fell asleep he had still been thinking of the subject that now\r
+always occupied his mind--about life and death, and chiefly about death.\r
+He felt himself nearer to it.\r
+\r
+"Love? What is love?" he thought.\r
+\r
+"Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I\r
+understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only\r
+because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to\r
+die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and\r
+eternal source." These thoughts seemed to him comforting. But they were\r
+only thoughts. Something was lacking in them, they were not clear, they\r
+were too one-sidedly personal and brain-spun. And there was the former\r
+agitation and obscurity. He fell asleep.\r
+\r
+He dreamed that he was lying in the room he really was in, but that he\r
+was quite well and unwounded. Many various, indifferent, and\r
+insignificant people appeared before him. He talked to them and\r
+discussed something trivial. They were preparing to go away somewhere.\r
+Prince Andrew dimly realized that all this was trivial and that he had\r
+more important cares, but he continued to speak, surprising them by\r
+empty witticisms. Gradually, unnoticed, all these persons began to\r
+disappear and a single question, that of the closed door, superseded all\r
+else. He rose and went to the door to bolt and lock it. Everything\r
+depended on whether he was, or was not, in time to lock it. He went, and\r
+tried to hurry, but his legs refused to move and he knew he would not be\r
+in time to lock the door though he painfully strained all his powers. He\r
+was seized by an agonizing fear. And that fear was the fear of death. It\r
+stood behind the door. But just when he was clumsily creeping toward the\r
+door, that dreadful something on the other side was already pressing\r
+against it and forcing its way in. Something not human--death--was\r
+breaking in through that door, and had to be kept out. He seized the\r
+door, making a final effort to hold it back--to lock it was no longer\r
+possible--but his efforts were weak and clumsy and the door, pushed from\r
+behind by that terror, opened and closed again.\r
+\r
+Once again it pushed from outside. His last superhuman efforts were vain\r
+and both halves of the door noiselessly opened. It entered, and it was\r
+death, and Prince Andrew died.\r
+\r
+But at the instant he died, Prince Andrew remembered that he was asleep,\r
+and at the very instant he died, having made an effort, he awoke.\r
+\r
+"Yes, it was death! I died--and woke up. Yes, death is an awakening!"\r
+And all at once it grew light in his soul and the veil that had till\r
+then concealed the unknown was lifted from his spiritual vision. He felt\r
+as if powers till then confined within him had been liberated, and that\r
+strange lightness did not again leave him.\r
+\r
+When, waking in a cold perspiration, he moved on the divan, Natasha went\r
+up and asked him what was the matter. He did not answer and looked at\r
+her strangely, not understanding.\r
+\r
+That was what had happened to him two days before Princess Mary's\r
+arrival. From that day, as the doctor expressed it, the wasting fever\r
+assumed a malignant character, but what the doctor said did not interest\r
+Natasha, she saw the terrible moral symptoms which to her were more\r
+convincing.\r
+\r
+From that day an awakening from life came to Prince Andrew together with\r
+his awakening from sleep. And compared to the duration of life it did\r
+not seem to him slower than an awakening from sleep compared to the\r
+duration of a dream.\r
+\r
+There was nothing terrible or violent in this comparatively slow\r
+awakening.\r
+\r
+His last days and hours passed in an ordinary and simple way. Both\r
+Princess Mary and Natasha, who did not leave him, felt this. They did\r
+not weep or shudder and during these last days they themselves felt that\r
+they were not attending on him (he was no longer there, he had left\r
+them) but on what reminded them most closely of him--his body. Both felt\r
+this so strongly that the outward and terrible side of death did not\r
+affect them and they did not feel it necessary to foment their grief.\r
+Neither in his presence nor out of it did they weep, nor did they ever\r
+talk to one another about him. They felt that they could not express in\r
+words what they understood.\r
+\r
+They both saw that he was sinking slowly and quietly, deeper and deeper,\r
+away from them, and they both knew that this had to be so and that it\r
+was right.\r
+\r
+He confessed, and received communion: everyone came to take leave of\r
+him. When they brought his son to him, he pressed his lips to the boy's\r
+and turned away, not because he felt it hard and sad (Princess Mary and\r
+Natasha understood that) but simply because he thought it was all that\r
+was required of him, but when they told him to bless the boy, he did\r
+what was demanded and looked round as if asking whether there was\r
+anything else he should do.\r
+\r
+When the last convulsions of the body, which the spirit was leaving,\r
+occurred, Princess Mary and Natasha were present.\r
+\r
+"Is it over?" said Princess Mary when his body had for a few minutes\r
+lain motionless, growing cold before them. Natasha went up, looked at\r
+the dead eyes, and hastened to close them. She closed them but did not\r
+kiss them, but clung to that which reminded her most nearly of him--his\r
+body.\r
+\r
+"Where has he gone? Where is he now?..."\r
+\r
+When the body, washed and dressed, lay in the coffin on a table,\r
+everyone came to take leave of him and they all wept.\r
+\r
+Little Nicholas cried because his heart was rent by painful perplexity.\r
+The countess and Sonya cried from pity for Natasha and because he was no\r
+more. The old count cried because he felt that before long, he, too,\r
+must take the same terrible step.\r
+\r
+Natasha and Princess Mary also wept now, but not because of their own\r
+personal grief; they wept with a reverent and softening emotion which\r
+had taken possession of their souls at the consciousness of the simple\r
+and solemn mystery of death that had been accomplished in their\r
+presence.\r
+\r
+BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but\r
+the desire to find those causes is implanted in man's soul. And without\r
+considering the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions any one of\r
+which taken separately may seem to be the cause, he snatches at the\r
+first approximation to a cause that seems to him intelligible and says:\r
+"This is the cause!" In historical events (where the actions of men are\r
+the subject of observation) the first and most primitive approximation\r
+to present itself was the will of the gods and, after that, the will of\r
+those who stood in the most prominent position--the heroes of history.\r
+But we need only penetrate to the essence of any historic event--which\r
+lies in the activity of the general mass of men who take part in it--to\r
+be convinced that the will of the historic hero does not control the\r
+actions of the mass but is itself continually controlled. It may seem to\r
+be a matter of indifference whether we understand the meaning of\r
+historical events this way or that; yet there is the same difference\r
+between a man who says that the people of the West moved on the East\r
+because Napoleon wished it and a man who says that this happened because\r
+it had to happen, as there is between those who declared that the earth\r
+was stationary and that the planets moved round it and those who\r
+admitted that they did not know what upheld the earth, but knew there\r
+were laws directing its movement and that of the other planets. There\r
+is, and can be, no cause of an historical event except the one cause of\r
+all causes. But there are laws directing events, and some of these laws\r
+are known to us while we are conscious of others we cannot comprehend.\r
+The discovery of these laws is only possible when we have quite\r
+abandoned the attempt to find the cause in the will of some one man,\r
+just as the discovery of the laws of the motion of the planets was\r
+possible only when men abandoned the conception of the fixity of the\r
+earth.\r
+\r
+The historians consider that, next to the battle of Borodino and the\r
+occupation of Moscow by the enemy and its destruction by fire, the most\r
+important episode of the war of 1812 was the movement of the Russian\r
+army from the Ryazana to the Kaluga road and to the Tarutino camp--the\r
+so-called flank march across the Krasnaya Pakhra River. They ascribe the\r
+glory of that achievement of genius to different men and dispute as to\r
+whom the honor is due. Even foreign historians, including the French,\r
+acknowledge the genius of the Russian commanders when they speak of that\r
+flank march. But it is hard to understand why military writers, and\r
+following them others, consider this flank march to be the profound\r
+conception of some one man who saved Russia and destroyed Napoleon. In\r
+the first place it is hard to understand where the profundity and genius\r
+of this movement lay, for not much mental effort was needed to see that\r
+the best position for an army when it is not being attacked is where\r
+there are most provisions; and even a dull boy of thirteen could have\r
+guessed that the best position for an army after its retreat from Moscow\r
+in 1812 was on the Kaluga road. So it is impossible to understand by\r
+what reasoning the historians reach the conclusion that this maneuver\r
+was a profound one. And it is even more difficult to understand just why\r
+they think that this maneuver was calculated to save Russia and destroy\r
+the French; for this flank march, had it been preceded, accompanied, or\r
+followed by other circumstances, might have proved ruinous to the\r
+Russians and salutary for the French. If the position of the Russian\r
+army really began to improve from the time of that march, it does not at\r
+all follow that the march was the cause of it.\r
+\r
+That flank march might not only have failed to give any advantage to the\r
+Russian army, but might in other circumstances have led to its\r
+destruction. What would have happened had Moscow not burned down? If\r
+Murat had not lost sight of the Russians? If Napoleon had not remained\r
+inactive? If the Russian army at Krasnaya Pakhra had given battle as\r
+Bennigsen and Barclay advised? What would have happened had the French\r
+attacked the Russians while they were marching beyond the Pakhra? What\r
+would have happened if on approaching Tarutino, Napoleon had attacked\r
+the Russians with but a tenth of the energy he had shown when he\r
+attacked them at Smolensk? What would have happened had the French moved\r
+on Petersburg?... In any of these eventualities the flank march that\r
+brought salvation might have proved disastrous.\r
+\r
+The third and most incomprehensible thing is that people studying\r
+history deliberately avoid seeing that this flank march cannot be\r
+attributed to any one man, that no one ever foresaw it, and that in\r
+reality, like the retreat from Fili, it did not suggest itself to anyone\r
+in its entirety, but resulted--moment by moment, step by step, event by\r
+event--from an endless number of most diverse circumstances and was only\r
+seen in its entirety when it had been accomplished and belonged to the\r
+past.\r
+\r
+At the council at Fili the prevailing thought in the minds of the\r
+Russian commanders was the one naturally suggesting itself, namely, a\r
+direct retreat by the Nizhni road. In proof of this there is the fact\r
+that the majority of the council voted for such a retreat, and above all\r
+there is the well-known conversation after the council, between the\r
+commander in chief and Lanskoy, who was in charge of the commissariat\r
+department. Lanskoy informed the commander-in-chief that the army\r
+supplies were for the most part stored along the Oka in the Tula and\r
+Ryazan provinces, and that if they retreated on Nizhni the army would be\r
+separated from its supplies by the broad river Oka, which cannot be\r
+crossed early in winter. This was the first indication of the necessity\r
+of deviating from what had previously seemed the most natural course--a\r
+direct retreat on Nizhni-Novgorod. The army turned more to the south,\r
+along the Ryazan road and nearer to its supplies. Subsequently the\r
+inactivity of the French (who even lost sight of the Russian army),\r
+concern for the safety of the arsenal at Tula, and especially the\r
+advantages of drawing nearer to its supplies caused the army to turn\r
+still further south to the Tula road. Having crossed over, by a forced\r
+march, to the Tula road beyond the Pakhra, the Russian commanders\r
+intended to remain at Podolsk and had no thought of the Tarutino\r
+position; but innumerable circumstances and the reappearance of French\r
+troops who had for a time lost touch with the Russians, and projects of\r
+giving battle, and above all the abundance of provisions in Kaluga\r
+province, obliged our army to turn still more to the south and to cross\r
+from the Tula to the Kaluga road and go to Tarutino, which was between\r
+the roads along which those supplies lay. Just as it is impossible to\r
+say when it was decided to abandon Moscow, so it is impossible to say\r
+precisely when, or by whom, it was decided to move to Tarutino. Only\r
+when the army had got there, as the result of innumerable and varying\r
+forces, did people begin to assure themselves that they had desired this\r
+movement and long ago foreseen its result.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+The famous flank movement merely consisted in this: after the advance of\r
+the French had ceased, the Russian army, which had been continually\r
+retreating straight back from the invaders, deviated from that direct\r
+course and, not finding itself pursued, was naturally drawn toward the\r
+district where supplies were abundant.\r
+\r
+If instead of imagining to ourselves commanders of genius leading the\r
+Russian army, we picture that army without any leaders, it could not\r
+have done anything but make a return movement toward Moscow, describing\r
+an arc in the direction where most provisions were to be found and where\r
+the country was richest.\r
+\r
+That movement from the Nizhni to the Ryazan, Tula, and Kaluga roads was\r
+so natural that even the Russian marauders moved in that direction, and\r
+demands were sent from Petersburg for Kutuzov to take his army that way.\r
+At Tarutino Kutuzov received what was almost a reprimand from the\r
+Emperor for having moved his army along the Ryazan road, and the\r
+Emperor's letter indicated to him the very position he had already\r
+occupied near Kaluga.\r
+\r
+Having rolled like a ball in the direction of the impetus given by the\r
+whole campaign and by the battle of Borodino, the Russian army--when the\r
+strength of that impetus was exhausted and no fresh push was received--\r
+assumed the position natural to it.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov's merit lay, not in any strategic maneuver of genius, as it is\r
+called, but in the fact that he alone understood the significance of\r
+what had happened. He alone then understood the meaning of the French\r
+army's inactivity, he alone continued to assert that the battle of\r
+Borodino had been a victory, he alone--who as commander-in-chief might\r
+have been expected to be eager to attack--employed his whole strength to\r
+restrain the Russian army from useless engagements.\r
+\r
+The beast wounded at Borodino was lying where the fleeing hunter had\r
+left him; but whether he was still alive, whether he was strong and\r
+merely lying low, the hunter did not know. Suddenly the beast was heard\r
+to moan.\r
+\r
+The moan of that wounded beast (the French army) which betrayed its\r
+calamitous condition was the sending of Lauriston to Kutuzov's camp with\r
+overtures for peace.\r
+\r
+Napoleon, with his usual assurance that whatever entered his head was\r
+right, wrote to Kutuzov the first words that occurred to him, though\r
+they were meaningless.\r
+\r
+MONSIEUR LE PRINCE KOUTOUZOV: I am sending one of my adjutants-general\r
+to discuss several interesting questions with you. I beg your Highness\r
+to credit what he says to you, especially when he expresses the\r
+sentiment of esteem and special regard I have long entertained for your\r
+person. This letter having no other object, I pray God, monsieur le\r
+Prince Koutouzov, to keep you in His holy and gracious protection!\r
+\r
+NAPOLEON MOSCOW, OCTOBER 30, 1812\r
+\r
+Kutuzov replied: "I should be cursed by posterity were I looked on as\r
+the initiator of a settlement of any sort. Such is the present spirit of\r
+my nation." But he continued to exert all his powers to restrain his\r
+troops from attacking.\r
+\r
+During the month that the French troops were pillaging in Moscow and the\r
+Russian troops were quietly encamped at Tarutino, a change had taken\r
+place in the relative strength of the two armies--both in spirit and in\r
+number--as a result of which the superiority had passed to the Russian\r
+side. Though the condition and numbers of the French army were unknown\r
+to the Russians, as soon as that change occurred the need of attacking\r
+at once showed itself by countless signs. These signs were: Lauriston's\r
+mission; the abundance of provisions at Tarutino; the reports coming in\r
+from all sides of the inactivity and disorder of the French; the flow of\r
+recruits to our regiments; the fine weather; the long rest the Russian\r
+soldiers had enjoyed, and the impatience to do what they had been\r
+assembled for, which usually shows itself in an army that has been\r
+resting; curiosity as to what the French army, so long lost sight of,\r
+was doing; the boldness with which our outposts now scouted close up to\r
+the French stationed at Tarutino; the news of easy successes gained by\r
+peasants and guerrilla troops over the French, the envy aroused by this;\r
+the desire for revenge that lay in the heart of every Russian as long as\r
+the French were in Moscow, and (above all) a dim consciousness in every\r
+soldier's mind that the relative strength of the armies had changed and\r
+that the advantage was now on our side. There was a substantial change\r
+in the relative strength, and an advance had become inevitable. And at\r
+once, as a clock begins to strike and chime as soon as the minute hand\r
+has completed a full circle, this change was shown by an increased\r
+activity, whirring, and chiming in the higher spheres.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+The Russian army was commanded by Kutuzov and his staff, and also by the\r
+Emperor from Petersburg. Before the news of the abandonment of Moscow\r
+had been received in Petersburg, a detailed plan of the whole campaign\r
+had been drawn up and sent to Kutuzov for his guidance. Though this plan\r
+had been drawn up on the supposition that Moscow was still in our hands,\r
+it was approved by the staff and accepted as a basis for action. Kutuzov\r
+only replied that movements arranged from a distance were always\r
+difficult to execute. So fresh instructions were sent for the solution\r
+of difficulties that might be encountered, as well as fresh people who\r
+were to watch Kutuzov's actions and report upon them.\r
+\r
+Besides this, the whole staff of the Russian army was now reorganized.\r
+The posts left vacant by Bagration, who had been killed, and by Barclay,\r
+who had gone away in dudgeon, had to be filled. Very serious\r
+consideration was given to the question whether it would be better to\r
+put A in B's place and B in D's, or on the contrary to put D in A's\r
+place, and so on--as if anything more than A's or B's satisfaction\r
+depended on this.\r
+\r
+As a result of the hostility between Kutuzov and Bennigsen, his Chief of\r
+Staff, the presence of confidential representatives of the Emperor, and\r
+these transfers, a more than usually complicated play of parties was\r
+going on among the staff of the army. A was undermining B, D was\r
+undermining C, and so on in all possible combinations and permutations.\r
+In all these plottings the subject of intrigue was generally the conduct\r
+of the war, which all these men believed they were directing; but this\r
+affair of the war went on independently of them, as it had to go: that\r
+is, never in the way people devised, but flowing always from the\r
+essential attitude of the masses. Only in the highest spheres did all\r
+these schemes, crossings, and interminglings appear to be a true\r
+reflection of what had to happen.\r
+\r
+Prince Michael Ilarionovich! (wrote the Emperor on the second of October\r
+in a letter that reached Kutuzov after the battle at Tarutino) Since\r
+September 2 Moscow has been in the hands of the enemy. Your last reports\r
+were written on the twentieth, and during all this time not only has no\r
+action been taken against the enemy or for the relief of the ancient\r
+capital, but according to your last report you have even retreated\r
+farther. Serpukhov is already occupied by an enemy detachment and Tula\r
+with its famous arsenal so indispensable to the army, is in danger. From\r
+General Wintzingerode's reports, I see that an enemy corps of ten\r
+thousand men is moving on the Petersburg road. Another corps of several\r
+thousand men is moving on Dmitrov. A third has advanced along the\r
+Vladimir road, and a fourth, rather considerable detachment is stationed\r
+between Ruza and Mozhaysk. Napoleon himself was in Moscow as late as the\r
+twenty-fifth. In view of all this information, when the enemy has\r
+scattered his forces in large detachments, and with Napoleon and his\r
+Guards in Moscow, is it possible that the enemy's forces confronting you\r
+are so considerable as not to allow of your taking the offensive? On the\r
+contrary, he is probably pursuing you with detachments, or at most with\r
+an army corps much weaker than the army entrusted to you. It would seem\r
+that, availing yourself of these circumstances, you might advantageously\r
+attack a weaker one and annihilate him, or at least oblige him to\r
+retreat, retaining in our hands an important part of the provinces now\r
+occupied by the enemy, and thereby averting danger from Tula and other\r
+towns in the interior. You will be responsible if the enemy is able to\r
+direct a force of any size against Petersburg to threaten this capital\r
+in which it has not been possible to retain many troops; for with the\r
+army entrusted to you, and acting with resolution and energy, you have\r
+ample means to avert this fresh calamity. Remember that you have still\r
+to answer to our offended country for the loss of Moscow. You have\r
+experienced my readiness to reward you. That readiness will not weaken\r
+in me, but I and Russia have a right to expect from you all the zeal,\r
+firmness, and success which your intellect, military talent, and the\r
+courage of the troops you command justify us in expecting.\r
+\r
+But by the time this letter, which proved that the real relation of the\r
+forces had already made itself felt in Petersburg, was dispatched,\r
+Kutuzov had found himself unable any longer to restrain the army he\r
+commanded from attacking and a battle had taken place.\r
+\r
+On the second of October a Cossack, Shapovalov, who was out scouting,\r
+killed one hare and wounded another. Following the wounded hare he made\r
+his way far into the forest and came upon the left flank of Murat's\r
+army, encamped there without any precautions. The Cossack laughingly\r
+told his comrades how he had almost fallen into the hands of the French.\r
+A cornet, hearing the story, informed his commander.\r
+\r
+The Cossack was sent for and questioned. The Cossack officers wished to\r
+take advantage of this chance to capture some horses, but one of the\r
+superior officers, who was acquainted with the higher authorities,\r
+reported the incident to a general on the staff. The state of things on\r
+the staff had of late been exceedingly strained. Ermolov had been to see\r
+Bennigsen a few days previously and had entreated him to use his\r
+influence with the commander-in-chief to induce him to take the\r
+offensive.\r
+\r
+"If I did not know you I should think you did not want what you are\r
+asking for. I need only advise anything and his Highness is sure to do\r
+the opposite," replied Bennigsen.\r
+\r
+The Cossack's report, confirmed by horse patrols who were sent out, was\r
+the final proof that events had matured. The tightly coiled spring was\r
+released, the clock began to whirr and the chimes to play. Despite all\r
+his supposed power, his intellect, his experience, and his knowledge of\r
+men, Kutuzov--having taken into consideration the Cossack's report, a\r
+note from Bennigsen who sent personal reports to the Emperor, the wishes\r
+he supposed the Emperor to hold, and the fact that all the generals\r
+expressed the same wish--could no longer check the inevitable movement,\r
+and gave the order to do what he regarded as useless and harmful--gave\r
+his approval, that is, to the accomplished fact.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+Bennigsen's note and the Cossack's information that the left flank of\r
+the French was unguarded were merely final indications that it was\r
+necessary to order an attack, and it was fixed for the fifth of October.\r
+\r
+On the morning of the fourth of October Kutuzov signed the dispositions.\r
+Toll read them to Ermolov, asking him to attend to the further\r
+arrangements.\r
+\r
+"All right--all right. I haven't time just now," replied Ermolov, and\r
+left the hut.\r
+\r
+The dispositions drawn up by Toll were very good. As in the Austerlitz\r
+dispositions, it was written--though not in German this time:\r
+\r
+"The First Column will march here and here," "the Second Column will\r
+march there and there," and so on; and on paper, all these columns\r
+arrived at their places at the appointed time and destroyed the enemy.\r
+Everything had been admirably thought out as is usual in dispositions,\r
+and as is always the case, not a single column reached its place at the\r
+appointed time.\r
+\r
+When the necessary number of copies of the dispositions had been\r
+prepared, an officer was summoned and sent to deliver them to Ermolov to\r
+deal with. A young officer of the Horse Guards, Kutuzov's orderly,\r
+pleased at the importance of the mission entrusted to him, went to\r
+Ermolov's quarters.\r
+\r
+"Gone away," said Ermolov's orderly.\r
+\r
+The officer of the Horse Guards went to a general with whom Ermolov was\r
+often to be found.\r
+\r
+"No, and the general's out too."\r
+\r
+The officer, mounting his horse, rode off to someone else.\r
+\r
+"No, he's gone out."\r
+\r
+"If only they don't make me responsible for this delay! What a nuisance\r
+it is!" thought the officer, and he rode round the whole camp. One man\r
+said he had seen Ermolov ride past with some other generals, others said\r
+he must have returned home. The officer searched till six o'clock in the\r
+evening without even stopping to eat. Ermolov was nowhere to be found\r
+and no one knew where he was. The officer snatched a little food at a\r
+comrade's, and rode again to the vanguard to find Miloradovich.\r
+Miloradovich too was away, but here he was told that he had gone to a\r
+ball at General Kikin's and that Ermolov was probably there too.\r
+\r
+"But where is it?"\r
+\r
+"Why, there, over at Echkino," said a Cossack officer, pointing to a\r
+country house in the far distance.\r
+\r
+"What, outside our line?"\r
+\r
+"They've put two regiments as outposts, and they're having such a spree\r
+there, it's awful! Two bands and three sets of singers!"\r
+\r
+The officer rode out beyond our lines to Echkino. While still at a\r
+distance he heard as he rode the merry sounds of a soldier's dance song\r
+proceeding from the house.\r
+\r
+"In the meadows... in the meadows!" he heard, accompanied by whistling\r
+and the sound of a torban, drowned every now and then by shouts. These\r
+sounds made his spirits rise, but at the same time he was afraid that he\r
+would be blamed for not having executed sooner the important order\r
+entrusted to him. It was already past eight o'clock. He dismounted and\r
+went up into the porch of a large country house which had remained\r
+intact between the Russian and French forces. In the refreshment room\r
+and the hall, footmen were bustling about with wine and viands. Groups\r
+of singers stood outside the windows. The officer was admitted and\r
+immediately saw all the chief generals of the army together, and among\r
+them Ermolov's big imposing figure. They all had their coats unbuttoned\r
+and were standing in a semicircle with flushed and animated faces,\r
+laughing loudly. In the middle of the room a short handsome general with\r
+a red face was dancing the trepak with much spirit and agility.\r
+\r
+"Ha, ha, ha! Bravo, Nicholas Ivanych! Ha, ha, ha!"\r
+\r
+The officer felt that by arriving with important orders at such a moment\r
+he was doubly to blame, and he would have preferred to wait; but one of\r
+the generals espied him and, hearing what he had come about, informed\r
+Ermolov.\r
+\r
+Ermolov came forward with a frown on his face and, hearing what the\r
+officer had to say, took the papers from him without a word.\r
+\r
+"You think he went off just by chance?" said a comrade, who was on the\r
+staff that evening, to the officer of the Horse Guards, referring to\r
+Ermolov. "It was a trick. It was done on purpose to get Konovnitsyn into\r
+trouble. You'll see what a mess there'll be tomorrow."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+Next day the decrepit Kutuzov, having given orders to be called early,\r
+said his prayers, dressed, and, with an unpleasant consciousness of\r
+having to direct a battle he did not approve of, got into his caleche\r
+and drove from Letashovka (a village three and a half miles from\r
+Tarutino) to the place where the attacking columns were to meet. He sat\r
+in the caleche, dozing and waking up by turns, and listening for any\r
+sound of firing on the right as an indication that the action had begun.\r
+But all was still quiet. A damp dull autumn morning was just dawning. On\r
+approaching Tarutino Kutuzov noticed cavalrymen leading their horses to\r
+water across the road along which he was driving. Kutuzov looked at them\r
+searchingly, stopped his carriage, and inquired what regiment they\r
+belonged to. They belonged to a column that should have been far in\r
+front and in ambush long before then. "It may be a mistake," thought the\r
+old commander-in-chief. But a little further on he saw infantry\r
+regiments with their arms piled and the soldiers, only partly dressed,\r
+eating their rye porridge and carrying fuel. He sent for an officer. The\r
+officer reported that no order to advance had been received.\r
+\r
+"How! Not rec..." Kutuzov began, but checked himself immediately and\r
+sent for a senior officer. Getting out of his caleche, he waited with\r
+drooping head and breathing heavily, pacing silently up and down. When\r
+Eykhen, the officer of the general staff whom he had summoned, appeared,\r
+Kutuzov went purple in the face, not because that officer was to blame\r
+for the mistake, but because he was an object of sufficient importance\r
+for him to vent his wrath on. Trembling and panting the old man fell\r
+into that state of fury in which he sometimes used to roll on the\r
+ground, and he fell upon Eykhen, threatening him with his hands,\r
+shouting and loading him with gross abuse. Another man, Captain Brozin,\r
+who happened to turn up and who was not at all to blame, suffered the\r
+same fate.\r
+\r
+"What sort of another blackguard are you? I'll have you shot!\r
+Scoundrels!" yelled Kutuzov in a hoarse voice, waving his arms and\r
+reeling.\r
+\r
+He was suffering physically. He, the commander-in-chief, a Serene\r
+Highness who everybody said possessed powers such as no man had ever had\r
+in Russia, to be placed in this position--made the laughingstock of the\r
+whole army! "I needn't have been in such a hurry to pray about today, or\r
+have kept awake thinking everything over all night," thought he to\r
+himself. "When I was a chit of an officer no one would have dared to\r
+mock me so... and now!" He was in a state of physical suffering as if\r
+from corporal punishment, and could not avoid expressing it by cries of\r
+anger and distress. But his strength soon began to fail him, and looking\r
+about him, conscious of having said much that was amiss, he again got\r
+into his caleche and drove back in silence.\r
+\r
+His wrath, once expended, did not return, and blinking feebly he\r
+listened to excuses and self-justifications (Ermolov did not come to see\r
+him till the next day) and to the insistence of Bennigsen, Konovnitsyn,\r
+and Toll that the movement that had miscarried should be executed next\r
+day. And once more Kutuzov had to consent.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+Next day the troops assembled in their appointed places in the evening\r
+and advanced during the night. It was an autumn night with dark purple\r
+clouds, but no rain. The ground was damp but not muddy, and the troops\r
+advanced noiselessly, only occasionally a jingling of the artillery\r
+could be faintly heard. The men were forbidden to talk out loud, to\r
+smoke their pipes, or to strike a light, and they tried to prevent their\r
+horses neighing. The secrecy of the undertaking heightened its charm and\r
+they marched gaily. Some columns, supposing they had reached their\r
+destination, halted, piled arms, and settled down on the cold ground,\r
+but the majority marched all night and arrived at places where they\r
+evidently should not have been.\r
+\r
+Only Count Orlov-Denisov with his Cossacks (the least important\r
+detachment of all) got to his appointed place at the right time. This\r
+detachment halted at the outskirts of a forest, on the path leading from\r
+the village of Stromilova to Dmitrovsk.\r
+\r
+Toward dawn, Count Orlov-Denisov, who had dozed off, was awakened by a\r
+deserter from the French army being brought to him. This was a Polish\r
+sergeant of Poniatowski's corps, who explained in Polish that he had\r
+come over because he had been slighted in the service: that he ought\r
+long ago to have been made an officer, that he was braver than any of\r
+them, and so he had left them and wished to pay them out. He said that\r
+Murat was spending the night less than a mile from where they were, and\r
+that if they would let him have a convoy of a hundred men he would\r
+capture him alive. Count Orlov-Denisov consulted his fellow officers.\r
+\r
+The offer was too tempting to be refused. Everyone volunteered to go and\r
+everybody advised making the attempt. After much disputing and arguing,\r
+Major-General Grekov with two Cossack regiments decided to go with the\r
+Polish sergeant.\r
+\r
+"Now, remember," said Count Orlov-Denisov to the sergeant at parting,\r
+"if you have been lying I'll have you hanged like a dog; but if it's\r
+true you shall have a hundred gold pieces!"\r
+\r
+Without replying, the sergeant, with a resolute air, mounted and rode\r
+away with Grekov whose men had quickly assembled. They disappeared into\r
+the forest, and Count Orlov-Denisov, having seen Grekov off, returned,\r
+shivering from the freshness of the early dawn and excited by what he\r
+had undertaken on his own responsibility, and began looking at the enemy\r
+camp, now just visible in the deceptive light of dawn and the dying\r
+campfires. Our columns ought to have begun to appear on an open\r
+declivity to his right. He looked in that direction, but though the\r
+columns would have been visible quite far off, they were not to be seen.\r
+It seemed to the count that things were beginning to stir in the French\r
+camp, and his keen-sighted adjutant confirmed this.\r
+\r
+"Oh, it is really too late," said Count Orlov, looking at the camp.\r
+\r
+As often happens when someone we have trusted is no longer before our\r
+eyes, it suddenly seemed quite clear and obvious to him that the\r
+sergeant was an impostor, that he had lied, and that the whole Russian\r
+attack would be ruined by the absence of those two regiments, which he\r
+would lead away heaven only knew where. How could one capture a\r
+commander-in-chief from among such a mass of troops!\r
+\r
+"I am sure that rascal was lying," said the count.\r
+\r
+"They can still be called back," said one of his suite, who like Count\r
+Orlov felt distrustful of the adventure when he looked at the enemy's\r
+camp.\r
+\r
+"Eh? Really... what do you think? Should we let them go on or not?"\r
+\r
+"Will you have them fetched back?"\r
+\r
+"Fetch them back, fetch them back!" said Count Orlov with sudden\r
+determination, looking at his watch. "It will be too late. It is quite\r
+light."\r
+\r
+And the adjutant galloped through the forest after Grekov. When Grekov\r
+returned, Count Orlov-Denisov, excited both by the abandoned attempt and\r
+by vainly awaiting the infantry columns that still did not appear, as\r
+well as by the proximity of the enemy, resolved to advance. All his men\r
+felt the same excitement.\r
+\r
+"Mount!" he commanded in a whisper. The men took their places and\r
+crossed themselves.... "Forward, with God's aid!"\r
+\r
+"Hurrah-ah-ah!" reverberated in the forest, and the Cossack companies,\r
+trailing their lances and advancing one after another as if poured out\r
+of a sack, dashed gaily across the brook toward the camp.\r
+\r
+One desperate, frightened yell from the first French soldier who saw the\r
+Cossacks, and all who were in the camp, undressed and only just waking\r
+up, ran off in all directions, abandoning cannons, muskets, and horses.\r
+\r
+Had the Cossacks pursued the French, without heeding what was behind and\r
+around them, they would have captured Murat and everything there. That\r
+was what the officers desired. But it was impossible to make the\r
+Cossacks budge when once they had got booty and prisoners. None of them\r
+listened to orders. Fifteen hundred prisoners and thirty-eight guns were\r
+taken on the spot, besides standards and (what seemed most important to\r
+the Cossacks) horses, saddles, horsecloths, and the like. All this had\r
+to be dealt with, the prisoners and guns secured, the booty divided--not\r
+without some shouting and even a little fighting among themselves--and\r
+it was on this that the Cossacks all busied themselves.\r
+\r
+The French, not being farther pursued, began to recover themselves: they\r
+formed into detachments and began firing. Orlov-Denisov, still waiting\r
+for the other columns to arrive, advanced no further.\r
+\r
+Meantime, according to the dispositions which said that "the First\r
+Column will march" and so on, the infantry of the belated columns,\r
+commanded by Bennigsen and directed by Toll, had started in due order\r
+and, as always happens, had got somewhere, but not to their appointed\r
+places. As always happens the men, starting cheerfully, began to halt;\r
+murmurs were heard, there was a sense of confusion, and finally a\r
+backward movement. Adjutants and generals galloped about, shouted, grew\r
+angry, quarreled, said they had come quite wrong and were late, gave\r
+vent to a little abuse, and at last gave it all up and went forward,\r
+simply to get somewhere. "We shall get somewhere or other!" And they did\r
+indeed get somewhere, though not to their right places; a few eventually\r
+even got to their right place, but too late to be of any use and only in\r
+time to be fired at. Toll, who in this battle played the part of\r
+Weyrother at Austerlitz, galloped assiduously from place to place,\r
+finding everything upside down everywhere. Thus he stumbled on Bagovut's\r
+corps in a wood when it was already broad daylight, though the corps\r
+should long before have joined Orlov-Denisov. Excited and vexed by the\r
+failure and supposing that someone must be responsible for it, Toll\r
+galloped up to the commander of the corps and began upbraiding him\r
+severely, saying that he ought to be shot. General Bagovut, a fighting\r
+old soldier of placid temperament, being also upset by all the delay,\r
+confusion, and cross-purposes, fell into a rage to everybody's surprise\r
+and quite contrary to his usual character and said disagreeable things\r
+to Toll.\r
+\r
+"I prefer not to take lessons from anyone, but I can die with my men as\r
+well as anybody," he said, and advanced with a single division.\r
+\r
+Coming out onto a field under the enemy's fire, this brave general went\r
+straight ahead, leading his men under fire, without considering in his\r
+agitation whether going into action now, with a single division, would\r
+be of any use or no. Danger, cannon balls, and bullets were just what he\r
+needed in his angry mood. One of the first bullets killed him, and other\r
+bullets killed many of his men. And his division remained under fire for\r
+some time quite uselessly.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+Meanwhile another column was to have attacked the French from the front,\r
+but Kutuzov accompanied that column. He well knew that nothing but\r
+confusion would come of this battle undertaken against his will, and as\r
+far as was in his power held the troops back. He did not advance.\r
+\r
+He rode silently on his small gray horse, indolently answering\r
+suggestions that they should attack.\r
+\r
+"The word attack is always on your tongue, but you don't see that we are\r
+unable to execute complicated maneuvers," said he to Miloradovich who\r
+asked permission to advance.\r
+\r
+"We couldn't take Murat prisoner this morning or get to the place in\r
+time, and nothing can be done now!" he replied to someone else.\r
+\r
+When Kutuzov was informed that at the French rear--where according to\r
+the reports of the Cossacks there had previously been nobody--there were\r
+now two battalions of Poles, he gave a sidelong glance at Ermolov who\r
+was behind him and to whom he had not spoken since the previous day.\r
+\r
+"You see! They are asking to attack and making plans of all kinds, but\r
+as soon as one gets to business nothing is ready, and the enemy,\r
+forewarned, takes measures accordingly."\r
+\r
+Ermolov screwed up his eyes and smiled faintly on hearing these words.\r
+He understood that for him the storm had blown over, and that Kutuzov\r
+would content himself with that hint.\r
+\r
+"He's having a little fun at my expense," said Ermolov softly, nudging\r
+with his knee Raevski who was at his side.\r
+\r
+Soon after this, Ermolov moved up to Kutuzov and respectfully remarked:\r
+\r
+"It is not too late yet, your Highness--the enemy has not gone away--if\r
+you were to order an attack! If not, the Guards will not so much as see\r
+a little smoke."\r
+\r
+Kutuzov did not reply, but when they reported to him that Murat's troops\r
+were in retreat he ordered an advance, though at every hundred paces he\r
+halted for three quarters of an hour.\r
+\r
+The whole battle consisted in what Orlov-Denisov's Cossacks had done:\r
+the rest of the army merely lost some hundreds of men uselessly.\r
+\r
+In consequence of this battle Kutuzov received a diamond decoration, and\r
+Bennigsen some diamonds and a hundred thousand rubles, others also\r
+received pleasant recognitions corresponding to their various grades,\r
+and following the battle fresh changes were made in the staff.\r
+\r
+"That's how everything is done with us, all topsy-turvy!" said the\r
+Russian officers and generals after the Tarutino battle, letting it be\r
+understood that some fool there is doing things all wrong but that we\r
+ourselves should not have done so, just as people speak today. But\r
+people who talk like that either do not know what they are talking about\r
+or deliberately deceive themselves. No battle--Tarutino, Borodino, or\r
+Austerlitz--takes place as those who planned it anticipated. That is an\r
+essential condition.\r
+\r
+A countless number of free forces (for nowhere is man freer than during\r
+a battle, where it is a question of life and death) influence the course\r
+taken by the fight, and that course never can be known in advance and\r
+never coincides with the direction of any one force.\r
+\r
+If many simultaneously and variously directed forces act on a given\r
+body, the direction of its motion cannot coincide with any one of those\r
+forces, but will always be a mean--what in mechanics is represented by\r
+the diagonal of a parallelogram of forces.\r
+\r
+If in the descriptions given by historians, especially French ones, we\r
+find their wars and battles carried out in accordance with previously\r
+formed plans, the only conclusion to be drawn is that those descriptions\r
+are false.\r
+\r
+The battle of Tarutino obviously did not attain the aim Toll had in\r
+view--to lead the troops into action in the order prescribed by the\r
+dispositions; nor that which Count Orlov-Denisov may have had in view--\r
+to take Murat prisoner; nor the result of immediately destroying the\r
+whole corps, which Bennigsen and others may have had in view; nor the\r
+aim of the officer who wished to go into action to distinguish himself;\r
+nor that of the Cossack who wanted more booty than he got, and so on.\r
+But if the aim of the battle was what actually resulted and what all the\r
+Russians of that day desired--to drive the French out of Russia and\r
+destroy their army--it is quite clear that the battle of Tarutino, just\r
+because of its incongruities, was exactly what was wanted at that stage\r
+of the campaign. It would be difficult and even impossible to imagine\r
+any result more opportune than the actual outcome of this battle. With a\r
+minimum of effort and insignificant losses, despite the greatest\r
+confusion, the most important results of the whole campaign were\r
+attained: the transition from retreat to advance, an exposure of the\r
+weakness of the French, and the administration of that shock which\r
+Napoleon's army had only awaited to begin its flight.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+Napoleon enters Moscow after the brilliant victory de la Moskowa; there\r
+can be no doubt about the victory for the battlefield remains in the\r
+hands of the French. The Russians retreat and abandon their ancient\r
+capital. Moscow, abounding in provisions, arms, munitions, and\r
+incalculable wealth, is in Napoleon's hands. The Russian army, only half\r
+the strength of the French, does not make a single attempt to attack for\r
+a whole month. Napoleon's position is most brilliant. He can either fall\r
+on the Russian army with double its strength and destroy it; negotiate\r
+an advantageous peace, or in case of a refusal make a menacing move on\r
+Petersburg, or even, in the case of a reverse, return to Smolensk or\r
+Vilna; or remain in Moscow; in short, no special genius would seem to be\r
+required to retain the brilliant position the French held at that time.\r
+For that, only very simple and easy steps were necessary: not to allow\r
+the troops to loot, to prepare winter clothing--of which there was\r
+sufficient in Moscow for the whole army--and methodically to collect the\r
+provisions, of which (according to the French historians) there were\r
+enough in Moscow to supply the whole army for six months. Yet Napoleon,\r
+that greatest of all geniuses, who the historians declare had control of\r
+the army, took none of these steps.\r
+\r
+He not merely did nothing of the kind, but on the contrary he used his\r
+power to select the most foolish and ruinous of all the courses open to\r
+him. Of all that Napoleon might have done: wintering in Moscow,\r
+advancing on Petersburg or on Nizhni-Novgorod, or retiring by a more\r
+northerly or more southerly route (say by the road Kutuzov afterwards\r
+took), nothing more stupid or disastrous can be imagined than what he\r
+actually did. He remained in Moscow till October, letting the troops\r
+plunder the city; then, hesitating whether to leave a garrison behind\r
+him, he quitted Moscow, approached Kutuzov without joining battle,\r
+turned to the right and reached Malo-Yaroslavets, again without\r
+attempting to break through and take the road Kutuzov took, but retiring\r
+instead to Mozhaysk along the devastated Smolensk road. Nothing more\r
+stupid than that could have been devised, or more disastrous for the\r
+army, as the sequel showed. Had Napoleon's aim been to destroy his army,\r
+the most skillful strategist could hardly have devised any series of\r
+actions that would so completely have accomplished that purpose,\r
+independently of anything the Russian army might do.\r
+\r
+Napoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed his\r
+army because he wished to, or because he was very stupid, would be as\r
+unjust as to say that he had brought his troops to Moscow because he\r
+wished to and because he was very clever and a genius.\r
+\r
+In both cases his personal activity, having no more force than the\r
+personal activity of any soldier, merely coincided with the laws that\r
+guided the event.\r
+\r
+The historians quite falsely represent Napoleon's faculties as having\r
+weakened in Moscow, and do so only because the results did not justify\r
+his actions. He employed all his ability and strength to do the best he\r
+could for himself and his army, as he had done previously and as he did\r
+subsequently in 1813. His activity at that time was no less astounding\r
+than it was in Egypt, in Italy, in Austria, and in Prussia. We do not\r
+know for certain in how far his genius was genuine in Egypt--where forty\r
+centuries looked down upon his grandeur--for his great exploits there\r
+are all told us by Frenchmen. We cannot accurately estimate his genius\r
+in Austria or Prussia, for we have to draw our information from French\r
+or German sources, and the incomprehensible surrender of whole corps\r
+without fighting and of fortresses without a siege must incline Germans\r
+to recognize his genius as the only explanation of the war carried on in\r
+Germany. But we, thank God, have no need to recognize his genius in\r
+order to hide our shame. We have paid for the right to look at the\r
+matter plainly and simply, and we will not abandon that right.\r
+\r
+His activity in Moscow was as amazing and as full of genius as\r
+elsewhere. Order after order and plan after plan were issued by him from\r
+the time he entered Moscow till the time he left it. The absence of\r
+citizens and of a deputation, and even the burning of Moscow, did not\r
+disconcert him. He did not lose sight either of the welfare of his army\r
+or of the doings of the enemy, or of the welfare of the people of\r
+Russia, or of the direction of affairs in Paris, or of diplomatic\r
+considerations concerning the terms of the anticipated peace.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+With regard to military matters, Napoleon immediately on his entry into\r
+Moscow gave General Sabastiani strict orders to observe the movements of\r
+the Russian army, sent army corps out along the different roads, and\r
+charged Murat to find Kutuzov. Then he gave careful directions about the\r
+fortification of the Kremlin, and drew up a brilliant plan for a future\r
+campaign over the whole map of Russia.\r
+\r
+With regard to diplomatic questions, Napoleon summoned Captain Yakovlev,\r
+who had been robbed and was in rags and did not know how to get out of\r
+Moscow, minutely explained to him his whole policy and his magnanimity,\r
+and having written a letter to the Emperor Alexander in which he\r
+considered it his duty to inform his Friend and Brother that Rostopchin\r
+had managed affairs badly in Moscow, he dispatched Yakovlev to\r
+Petersburg.\r
+\r
+Having similarly explained his views and his magnanimity to Tutolmin, he\r
+dispatched that old man also to Petersburg to negotiate.\r
+\r
+With regard to legal matters, immediately after the fires he gave orders\r
+to find and execute the incendiaries. And the scoundrel Rostopchin was\r
+punished by an order to burn down his houses.\r
+\r
+With regard to administrative matters, Moscow was granted a\r
+constitution. A municipality was established and the following\r
+announcement issued:\r
+\r
+INHABITANTS OF MOSCOW!\r
+\r
+Your misfortunes are cruel, but His Majesty the Emperor and King desires\r
+to arrest their course. Terrible examples have taught you how he\r
+punishes disobedience and crime. Strict measures have been taken to put\r
+an end to disorder and to re-establish public security. A paternal\r
+administration, chosen from among yourselves, will form your\r
+municipality or city government. It will take care of you, of your\r
+needs, and of your welfare. Its members will be distinguished by a red\r
+ribbon worn across the shoulder, and the mayor of the city will wear a\r
+white belt as well. But when not on duty they will only wear a red\r
+ribbon round the left arm.\r
+\r
+The city police is established on its former footing, and better order\r
+already prevails in consequence of its activity. The government has\r
+appointed two commissaries general, or chiefs of police, and twenty\r
+commissaries or captains of wards have been appointed to the different\r
+wards of the city. You will recognize them by the white ribbon they will\r
+wear on the left arm. Several churches of different denominations are\r
+open, and divine service is performed in them unhindered. Your fellow\r
+citizens are returning every day to their homes and orders have been\r
+given that they should find in them the help and protection due to their\r
+misfortunes. These are the measures the government has adopted to re-\r
+establish order and relieve your condition. But to achieve this aim it\r
+is necessary that you should add your efforts and should, if possible,\r
+forget the misfortunes you have suffered, should entertain the hope of a\r
+less cruel fate, should be certain that inevitable and ignominious death\r
+awaits those who make any attempt on your persons or on what remains of\r
+your property, and finally that you should not doubt that these will be\r
+safeguarded, since such is the will of the greatest and most just of\r
+monarchs. Soldiers and citizens, of whatever nation you may be, re-\r
+establish public confidence, the source of the welfare of a state, live\r
+like brothers, render mutual aid and protection one to another, unite to\r
+defeat the intentions of the evil-minded, obey the military and civil\r
+authorities, and your tears will soon cease to flow!\r
+\r
+With regard to supplies for the army, Napoleon decreed that all the\r
+troops in turn should enter Moscow a la maraude * to obtain provisions\r
+for themselves, so that the army might have its future provided for.\r
+\r
+\r
+* As looters.\r
+\r
+With regard to religion, Napoleon ordered the priests to be brought back\r
+and services to be again performed in the churches.\r
+\r
+With regard to commerce and to provisioning the army, the following was\r
+placarded everywhere:\r
+\r
+PROCLAMATION!\r
+\r
+You, peaceful inhabitants of Moscow, artisans and workmen whom\r
+misfortune has driven from the city, and you scattered tillers of the\r
+soil, still kept out in the fields by groundless fear, listen!\r
+Tranquillity is returning to this capital and order is being restored in\r
+it. Your fellow countrymen are emerging boldly from their hiding places\r
+on finding that they are respected. Any violence to them or to their\r
+property is promptly punished. His Majesty the Emperor and King protects\r
+them, and considers no one among you his enemy except those who disobey\r
+his orders. He desires to end your misfortunes and restore you to your\r
+homes and families. Respond, therefore, to his benevolent intentions and\r
+come to us without fear. Inhabitants, return with confidence to your\r
+abodes! You will soon find means of satisfying your needs. Craftsmen and\r
+industrious artisans, return to your work, your houses, your shops,\r
+where the protection of guards awaits you! You shall receive proper pay\r
+for your work. And lastly you too, peasants, come from the forests where\r
+you are hiding in terror, return to your huts without fear, in full\r
+assurance that you will find protection! Markets are established in the\r
+city where peasants can bring their surplus supplies and the products of\r
+the soil. The government has taken the following steps to ensure freedom\r
+of sale for them: (1) From today, peasants, husbandmen, and those living\r
+in the neighborhood of Moscow may without any danger bring their\r
+supplies of all kinds to two appointed markets, of which one is on the\r
+Mokhovaya Street and the other at the Provision Market. (2) Such\r
+supplies will be bought from them at such prices as seller and buyer may\r
+agree on, and if a seller is unable to obtain a fair price he will be\r
+free to take his goods back to his village and no one may hinder him\r
+under any pretense. (3) Sunday and Wednesday of each week are appointed\r
+as the chief market days and to that end a sufficient number of troops\r
+will be stationed along the highroads on Tuesdays and Saturdays at such\r
+distances from the town as to protect the carts. (4) Similar measures\r
+will be taken that peasants with their carts and horses may meet with no\r
+hindrance on their return journey. (5) Steps will immediately be taken\r
+to re-establish ordinary trading.\r
+\r
+Inhabitants of the city and villages, and you, workingmen and artisans,\r
+to whatever nation you belong, you are called on to carry out the\r
+paternal intentions of His Majesty the Emperor and King and to co-\r
+operate with him for the public welfare! Lay your respect and confidence\r
+at his feet and do not delay to unite with us!\r
+\r
+With the object of raising the spirits of the troops and of the people,\r
+reviews were constantly held and rewards distributed. The Emperor rode\r
+through the streets to comfort the inhabitants, and, despite his\r
+preoccupation with state affairs, himself visited the theaters that were\r
+established by his order.\r
+\r
+In regard to philanthropy, the greatest virtue of crowned heads,\r
+Napoleon also did all in his power. He caused the words Maison de ma\r
+Mere to be inscribed on the charitable institutions, thereby combining\r
+tender filial affection with the majestic benevolence of a monarch. He\r
+visited the Foundling Hospital and, allowing the orphans saved by him to\r
+kiss his white hands, graciously conversed with Tutolmin. Then, as\r
+Thiers eloquently recounts, he ordered his soldiers to be paid in forged\r
+Russian money which he had prepared: "Raising the use of these means by\r
+an act worthy of himself and of the French army, he let relief be\r
+distributed to those who had been burned out. But as food was too\r
+precious to be given to foreigners, who were for the most part enemies,\r
+Napoleon preferred to supply them with money with which to purchase food\r
+from outside, and had paper rubles distributed to them."\r
+\r
+With reference to army discipline, orders were continually being issued\r
+to inflict severe punishment for the nonperformance of military duties\r
+and to suppress robbery.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+But strange to say, all these measures, efforts, and plans--which were\r
+not at all worse than others issued in similar circumstances--did not\r
+affect the essence of the matter but, like the hands of a clock detached\r
+from the mechanism, swung about in an arbitrary and aimless way without\r
+engaging the cogwheels.\r
+\r
+With reference to the military side--the plan of campaign--that work of\r
+genius of which Thiers remarks that, "His genius never devised anything\r
+more profound, more skillful, or more admirable," and enters into a\r
+polemic with M. Fain to prove that this work of genius must be referred\r
+not to the fourth but to the fifteenth of October--that plan never was\r
+or could be executed, for it was quite out of touch with the facts of\r
+the case. The fortifying of the Kremlin, for which la Mosquee (as\r
+Napoleon termed the church of Basil the Beatified) was to have been\r
+razed to the ground, proved quite useless. The mining of the Kremlin\r
+only helped toward fulfilling Napoleon's wish that it should be blown up\r
+when he left Moscow--as a child wants the floor on which he has hurt\r
+himself to be beaten. The pursuit of the Russian army, about which\r
+Napoleon was so concerned, produced an unheard-of result. The French\r
+generals lost touch with the Russian army of sixty thousand men, and\r
+according to Thiers it was only eventually found, like a lost pin, by\r
+the skill--and apparently the genius--of Murat.\r
+\r
+With reference to diplomacy, all Napoleon's arguments as to his\r
+magnanimity and justice, both to Tutolmin and to Yakovlev (whose chief\r
+concern was to obtain a greatcoat and a conveyance), proved useless;\r
+Alexander did not receive these envoys and did not reply to their\r
+embassage.\r
+\r
+With regard to legal matters, after the execution of the supposed\r
+incendiaries the rest of Moscow burned down.\r
+\r
+With regard to administrative matters, the establishment of a\r
+municipality did not stop the robberies and was only of use to certain\r
+people who formed part of that municipality and under pretext of\r
+preserving order looted Moscow or saved their own property from being\r
+looted.\r
+\r
+With regard to religion, as to which in Egypt matters had so easily been\r
+settled by Napoleon's visit to a mosque, no results were achieved. Two\r
+or three priests who were found in Moscow did try to carry out\r
+Napoleon's wish, but one of them was slapped in the face by a French\r
+soldier while conducting service, and a French official reported of\r
+another that: "The priest whom I found and invited to say Mass cleaned\r
+and locked up the church. That night the doors were again broken open,\r
+the padlocks smashed, the books mutilated, and other disorders\r
+perpetrated."\r
+\r
+With reference to commerce, the proclamation to industrious workmen and\r
+to peasants evoked no response. There were no industrious workmen, and\r
+the peasants caught the commissaries who ventured too far out of town\r
+with the proclamation and killed them.\r
+\r
+As to the theaters for the entertainment of the people and the troops,\r
+these did not meet with success either. The theaters set up in the\r
+Kremlin and in Posnyakov's house were closed again at once because the\r
+actors and actresses were robbed.\r
+\r
+Even philanthropy did not have the desired effect. The genuine as well\r
+as the false paper money which flooded Moscow lost its value. The\r
+French, collecting booty, cared only for gold. Not only was the paper\r
+money valueless which Napoleon so graciously distributed to the\r
+unfortunate, but even silver lost its value in relation to gold.\r
+\r
+But the most amazing example of the ineffectiveness of the orders given\r
+by the authorities at that time was Napoleon's attempt to stop the\r
+looting and re-establish discipline.\r
+\r
+This is what the army authorities were reporting:\r
+\r
+"Looting continues in the city despite the decrees against it. Order is\r
+not yet restored and not a single merchant is carrying on trade in a\r
+lawful manner. The sutlers alone venture to trade, and they sell stolen\r
+goods."\r
+\r
+"The neighborhood of my ward continues to be pillaged by soldiers of the\r
+3rd Corps who, not satisfied with taking from the unfortunate\r
+inhabitants hiding in the cellars the little they have left, even have\r
+the ferocity to wound them with their sabers, as I have repeatedly\r
+witnessed."\r
+\r
+"Nothing new, except that the soldiers are robbing and pillaging--\r
+October 9."\r
+\r
+"Robbery and pillaging continue. There is a band of thieves in our\r
+district who ought to be arrested by a strong force--October 11."\r
+\r
+"The Emperor is extremely displeased that despite the strict orders to\r
+stop pillage, parties of marauding Guards are continually seen returning\r
+to the Kremlin. Among the Old Guard disorder and pillage were renewed\r
+more violently than ever yesterday evening, last night, and today. The\r
+Emperor sees with regret that the picked soldiers appointed to guard his\r
+person, who should set an example of discipline, carry disobedience to\r
+such a point that they break into the cellars and stores containing army\r
+supplies. Others have disgraced themselves to the extent of disobeying\r
+sentinels and officers, and have abused and beaten them."\r
+\r
+"The Grand Marshal of the palace," wrote the governor, "complains\r
+bitterly that in spite of repeated orders, the soldiers continue to\r
+commit nuisances in all the courtyards and even under the very windows\r
+of the Emperor."\r
+\r
+That army, like a herd of cattle run wild and trampling underfoot the\r
+provender which might have saved it from starvation, disintegrated and\r
+perished with each additional day it remained in Moscow. But it did not\r
+go away.\r
+\r
+It began to run away only when suddenly seized by a panic caused by the\r
+capture of transport trains on the Smolensk road, and by the battle of\r
+Tarutino. The news of that battle of Tarutino, unexpectedly received by\r
+Napoleon at a review, evoked in him a desire to punish the Russians\r
+(Thiers says), and he issued the order for departure which the whole\r
+army was demanding.\r
+\r
+Fleeing from Moscow the soldiers took with them everything they had\r
+stolen. Napoleon, too, carried away his own personal tresor, but on\r
+seeing the baggage trains that impeded the army, he was (Thiers says)\r
+horror-struck. And yet with his experience of war he did not order all\r
+the superfluous vehicles to be burned, as he had done with those of a\r
+certain marshal when approaching Moscow. He gazed at the caleches and\r
+carriages in which soldiers were riding and remarked that it was a very\r
+good thing, as those vehicles could be used to carry provisions, the\r
+sick, and the wounded.\r
+\r
+The plight of the whole army resembled that of a wounded animal which\r
+feels it is perishing and does not know what it is doing. To study the\r
+skillful tactics and aims of Napoleon and his army from the time it\r
+entered Moscow till it was destroyed is like studying the dying leaps\r
+and shudders of a mortally wounded animal. Very often a wounded animal,\r
+hearing a rustle, rushes straight at the hunter's gun, runs forward and\r
+back again, and hastens its own end. Napoleon, under pressure from his\r
+whole army, did the same thing. The rustle of the battle of Tarutino\r
+frightened the beast, and it rushed forward onto the hunter's gun,\r
+reached him, turned back, and finally--like any wild beast--ran back\r
+along the most disadvantageous and dangerous path, where the old scent\r
+was familiar.\r
+\r
+During the whole of that period Napoleon, who seems to us to have been\r
+the leader of all these movements--as the figurehead of a ship may seem\r
+to a savage to guide the vessel--acted like a child who, holding a\r
+couple of strings inside a carriage, thinks he is driving it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+Early in the morning of the sixth of October Pierre went out of the\r
+shed, and on returning stopped by the door to play with a little blue-\r
+gray dog, with a long body and short bandy legs, that jumped about him.\r
+This little dog lived in their shed, sleeping beside Karataev at night;\r
+it sometimes made excursions into the town but always returned again.\r
+Probably it had never had an owner, and it still belonged to nobody and\r
+had no name. The French called it Azor; the soldier who told stories\r
+called it Femgalka; Karataev and others called it Gray, or sometimes\r
+Flabby. Its lack of a master, a name, or even of a breed or any definite\r
+color did not seem to trouble the blue-gray dog in the least. Its furry\r
+tail stood up firm and round as a plume, its bandy legs served it so\r
+well that it would often gracefully lift a hind leg and run very easily\r
+and quickly on three legs, as if disdaining to use all four. Everything\r
+pleased it. Now it would roll on its back, yelping with delight, now\r
+bask in the sun with a thoughtful air of importance, and now frolic\r
+about playing with a chip of wood or a straw.\r
+\r
+Pierre's attire by now consisted of a dirty torn shirt (the only remnant\r
+of his former clothing), a pair of soldier's trousers which by\r
+Karataev's advice he tied with string round the ankles for warmth, and a\r
+peasant coat and cap. Physically he had changed much during this time.\r
+He no longer seemed stout, though he still had the appearance of\r
+solidity and strength hereditary in his family. A beard and mustache\r
+covered the lower part of his face, and a tangle of hair, infested with\r
+lice, curled round his head like a cap. The look of his eyes was\r
+resolute, calm, and animatedly alert, as never before. The former\r
+slackness which had shown itself even in his eyes was now replaced by an\r
+energetic readiness for action and resistance. His feet were bare.\r
+\r
+Pierre first looked down the field across which vehicles and horsemen\r
+were passing that morning, then into the distance across the river, then\r
+at the dog who was pretending to be in earnest about biting him, and\r
+then at his bare feet which he placed with pleasure in various\r
+positions, moving his dirty thick big toes. Every time he looked at his\r
+bare feet a smile of animated self-satisfaction flitted across his face.\r
+The sight of them reminded him of all he had experienced and learned\r
+during these weeks and this recollection was pleasant to him.\r
+\r
+For some days the weather had been calm and clear with slight frosts in\r
+the mornings--what is called an "old wives' summer."\r
+\r
+In the sunshine the air was warm, and that warmth was particularly\r
+pleasant with the invigorating freshness of the morning frost still in\r
+the air.\r
+\r
+On everything--far and near--lay the magic crystal glitter seen only at\r
+that time of autumn. The Sparrow Hills were visible in the distance,\r
+with the village, the church, and the large white house. The bare trees,\r
+the sand, the bricks and roofs of the houses, the green church spire,\r
+and the corners of the white house in the distance, all stood out in the\r
+transparent air in most delicate outline and with unnatural clearness.\r
+Near by could be seen the familiar ruins of a half-burned mansion\r
+occupied by the French, with lilac bushes still showing dark green\r
+beside the fence. And even that ruined and befouled house--which in dull\r
+weather was repulsively ugly--seemed quietly beautiful now, in the\r
+clear, motionless brilliance.\r
+\r
+A French corporal, with coat unbuttoned in a homely way, a skullcap on\r
+his head, and a short pipe in his mouth, came from behind a corner of\r
+the shed and approached Pierre with a friendly wink.\r
+\r
+"What sunshine, Monsieur Kiril!" (Their name for Pierre.) "Eh? Just like\r
+spring!"\r
+\r
+And the corporal leaned against the door and offered Pierre his pipe,\r
+though whenever he offered it Pierre always declined it.\r
+\r
+"To be on the march in such weather..." he began.\r
+\r
+Pierre inquired what was being said about leaving, and the corporal told\r
+him that nearly all the troops were starting and there ought to be an\r
+order about the prisoners that day. Sokolov, one of the soldiers in the\r
+shed with Pierre, was dying, and Pierre told the corporal that something\r
+should be done about him. The corporal replied that Pierre need not\r
+worry about that as they had an ambulance and a permanent hospital and\r
+arrangements would be made for the sick, and that in general everything\r
+that could happen had been foreseen by the authorities.\r
+\r
+"Besides, Monsieur Kiril, you have only to say a word to the captain,\r
+you know. He is a man who never forgets anything. Speak to the captain\r
+when he makes his round, he will do anything for you."\r
+\r
+(The captain of whom the corporal spoke often had long chats with Pierre\r
+and showed him all sorts of favors.)\r
+\r
+"'You see, St. Thomas,' he said to me the other day. 'Monsieur Kiril is\r
+a man of education, who speaks French. He is a Russian seigneur who has\r
+had misfortunes, but he is a man. He knows what's what.... If he wants\r
+anything and asks me, he won't get a refusal. When one has studied, you\r
+see, one likes education and well-bred people.' It is for your sake I\r
+mention it, Monsieur Kiril. The other day if it had not been for you\r
+that affair would have ended ill."\r
+\r
+And after chatting a while longer, the corporal went away. (The affair\r
+he had alluded to had happened a few days before--a fight between the\r
+prisoners and the French soldiers, in which Pierre had succeeded in\r
+pacifying his comrades.) Some of the prisoners who had heard Pierre\r
+talking to the corporal immediately asked what the Frenchman had said.\r
+While Pierre was repeating what he had been told about the army leaving\r
+Moscow, a thin, sallow, tattered French soldier came up to the door of\r
+the shed. Rapidly and timidly raising his fingers to his forehead by way\r
+of greeting, he asked Pierre whether the soldier Platoche to whom he had\r
+given a shirt to sew was in that shed.\r
+\r
+A week before the French had had boot leather and linen issued to them,\r
+which they had given out to the prisoners to make up into boots and\r
+shirts for them.\r
+\r
+"Ready, ready, dear fellow!" said Karataev, coming out with a neatly\r
+folded shirt.\r
+\r
+Karataev, on account of the warm weather and for convenience at work,\r
+was wearing only trousers and a tattered shirt as black as soot. His\r
+hair was bound round, workman fashion, with a wisp of lime-tree bast,\r
+and his round face seemed rounder and pleasanter than ever.\r
+\r
+"A promise is own brother to performance! I said Friday and here it is,\r
+ready," said Platon, smiling and unfolding the shirt he had sewn.\r
+\r
+The Frenchman glanced around uneasily and then, as if overcoming his\r
+hesitation, rapidly threw off his uniform and put on the shirt. He had a\r
+long, greasy, flowered silk waistcoat next to his sallow, thin bare\r
+body, but no shirt. He was evidently afraid the prisoners looking on\r
+would laugh at him, and thrust his head into the shirt hurriedly. None\r
+of the prisoners said a word.\r
+\r
+"See, it fits well!" Platon kept repeating, pulling the shirt straight.\r
+\r
+The Frenchman, having pushed his head and hands through, without raising\r
+his eyes, looked down at the shirt and examined the seams.\r
+\r
+"You see, dear man, this is not a sewing shop, and I had no proper\r
+tools; and, as they say, one needs a tool even to kill a louse," said\r
+Platon with one of his round smiles, obviously pleased with his work.\r
+\r
+"It's good, quite good, thank you," said the Frenchman, in French, "but\r
+there must be some linen left over.\r
+\r
+"It will fit better still when it sets to your body," said Karataev,\r
+still admiring his handiwork. "You'll be nice and comfortable...."\r
+\r
+"Thanks, thanks, old fellow.... But the bits left over?" said the\r
+Frenchman again and smiled. He took out an assignation ruble note and\r
+gave it to Karataev. "But give me the pieces that are over."\r
+\r
+Pierre saw that Platon did not want to understand what the Frenchman was\r
+saying, and he looked on without interfering. Karataev thanked the\r
+Frenchman for the money and went on admiring his own work. The Frenchman\r
+insisted on having the pieces returned that were left over and asked\r
+Pierre to translate what he said.\r
+\r
+"What does he want the bits for?" said Karataev. "They'd make fine leg\r
+bands for us. Well, never mind."\r
+\r
+And Karataev, with a suddenly changed and saddened expression, took a\r
+small bundle of scraps from inside his shirt and gave it to the\r
+Frenchman without looking at him. "Oh dear!" muttered Karataev and went\r
+away. The Frenchman looked at the linen, considered for a moment, then\r
+looked inquiringly at Pierre and, as if Pierre's look had told him\r
+something, suddenly blushed and shouted in a squeaky voice:\r
+\r
+"Platoche! Eh, Platoche! Keep them yourself!" And handing back the odd\r
+bits he turned and went out.\r
+\r
+"There, look at that," said Karataev, swaying his head. "People said\r
+they were not Christians, but they too have souls. It's what the old\r
+folk used to say: 'A sweating hand's an open hand, a dry hand's close.'\r
+He's naked, but yet he's given it back."\r
+\r
+Karataev smiled thoughtfully and was silent awhile looking at the\r
+pieces.\r
+\r
+"But they'll make grand leg bands, dear friend," he said, and went back\r
+into the shed.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+Four weeks had passed since Pierre had been taken prisoner and though\r
+the French had offered to move him from the men's to the officers' shed,\r
+he had stayed in the shed where he was first put.\r
+\r
+In burned and devastated Moscow Pierre experienced almost the extreme\r
+limits of privation a man can endure; but thanks to his physical\r
+strength and health, of which he had till then been unconscious, and\r
+thanks especially to the fact that the privations came so gradually that\r
+it was impossible to say when they began, he endured his position not\r
+only lightly but joyfully. And just at this time he obtained the\r
+tranquillity and ease of mind he had formerly striven in vain to reach.\r
+He had long sought in different ways that tranquillity of mind, that\r
+inner harmony which had so impressed him in the soldiers at the battle\r
+of Borodino. He had sought it in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the\r
+dissipations of town life, in wine, in heroic feats of self-sacrifice,\r
+and in romantic love for Natasha; he had sought it by reasoning--and all\r
+these quests and experiments had failed him. And now without thinking\r
+about it he had found that peace and inner harmony only through the\r
+horror of death, through privation, and through what he recognized in\r
+Karataev.\r
+\r
+Those dreadful moments he had lived through at the executions had as it\r
+were forever washed away from his imagination and memory the agitating\r
+thoughts and feelings that had formerly seemed so important. It did not\r
+now occur to him to think of Russia, or the war, or politics, or\r
+Napoleon. It was plain to him that all these things were no business of\r
+his, and that he was not called on to judge concerning them and\r
+therefore could not do so. "Russia and summer weather are not bound\r
+together," he thought, repeating words of Karataev's which he found\r
+strangely consoling. His intention of killing Napoleon and his\r
+calculations of the cabalistic number of the beast of the Apocalypse now\r
+seemed to him meaningless and even ridiculous. His anger with his wife\r
+and anxiety that his name should not be smirched now seemed not merely\r
+trivial but even amusing. What concern was it of his that somewhere or\r
+other that woman was leading the life she preferred? What did it matter\r
+to anybody, and especially to him, whether or not they found out that\r
+their prisoner's name was Count Bezukhov?\r
+\r
+He now often remembered his conversation with Prince Andrew and quite\r
+agreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrew's thoughts somewhat\r
+differently. Prince Andrew had thought and said that happiness could\r
+only be negative, but had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony\r
+as though he was really saying that all desire for positive happiness is\r
+implanted in us merely to torment us and never be satisfied. But Pierre\r
+believed it without any mental reservation. The absence of suffering,\r
+the satisfaction of one's needs and consequent freedom in the choice of\r
+one's occupation, that is, of one's way of life, now seemed to Pierre to\r
+be indubitably man's highest happiness. Here and now for the first time\r
+he fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating when he wanted to eat,\r
+drinking when he wanted to drink, sleeping when he wanted to sleep, of\r
+warmth when he was cold, of talking to a fellow man when he wished to\r
+talk and to hear a human voice. The satisfaction of one's needs--good\r
+food, cleanliness, and freedom--now that he was deprived of all this,\r
+seemed to Pierre to constitute perfect happiness; and the choice of\r
+occupation, that is, of his way of life--now that that was so\r
+restricted--seemed to him such an easy matter that he forgot that a\r
+superfluity of the comforts of life destroys all joy in satisfying one's\r
+needs, while great freedom in the choice of occupation--such freedom as\r
+his wealth, his education, and his social position had given him in his\r
+own life--is just what makes the choice of occupation insolubly\r
+difficult and destroys the desire and possibility of having an\r
+occupation.\r
+\r
+All Pierre's daydreams now turned on the time when he would be free. Yet\r
+subsequently, and for the rest of his life, he thought and spoke with\r
+enthusiasm of that month of captivity, of those irrecoverable, strong,\r
+joyful sensations, and chiefly of the complete peace of mind and inner\r
+freedom which he experienced only during those weeks.\r
+\r
+When on the first day he got up early, went out of the shed at dawn, and\r
+saw the cupolas and crosses of the New Convent of the Virgin still dark\r
+at first, the hoarfrost on the dusty grass, the Sparrow Hills, and the\r
+wooded banks above the winding river vanishing in the purple distance,\r
+when he felt the contact of the fresh air and heard the noise of the\r
+crows flying from Moscow across the field, and when afterwards light\r
+gleamed from the east and the sun's rim appeared solemnly from behind a\r
+cloud, and the cupolas and crosses, the hoarfrost, the distance and the\r
+river, all began to sparkle in the glad light--Pierre felt a new joy and\r
+strength in life such as he had never before known. And this not only\r
+stayed with him during the whole of his imprisonment, but even grew in\r
+strength as the hardships of his position increased.\r
+\r
+That feeling of alertness and of readiness for anything was still\r
+further strengthened in him by the high opinion his fellow prisoners\r
+formed of him soon after his arrival at the shed. With his knowledge of\r
+languages, the respect shown him by the French, his simplicity, his\r
+readiness to give anything asked of him (he received the allowance of\r
+three rubles a week made to officers); with his strength, which he\r
+showed to the soldiers by pressing nails into the walls of the hut; his\r
+gentleness to his companions, and his capacity for sitting still and\r
+thinking without doing anything (which seemed to them incomprehensible),\r
+he appeared to them a rather mysterious and superior being. The very\r
+qualities that had been a hindrance, if not actually harmful, to him in\r
+the world he had lived in--his strength, his disdain for the comforts of\r
+life, his absent-mindedness and simplicity--here among these people gave\r
+him almost the status of a hero. And Pierre felt that their opinion\r
+placed responsibilities upon him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+The French evacuation began on the night between the sixth and seventh\r
+of October: kitchens and sheds were dismantled, carts loaded, and troops\r
+and baggage trains started.\r
+\r
+At seven in the morning a French convoy in marching trim, wearing shakos\r
+and carrying muskets, knapsacks, and enormous sacks, stood in front of\r
+the sheds, and animated French talk mingled with curses sounded all\r
+along the lines.\r
+\r
+In the shed everyone was ready, dressed, belted, shod, and only awaited\r
+the order to start. The sick soldier, Sokolov, pale and thin with dark\r
+shadows round his eyes, alone sat in his place barefoot and not dressed.\r
+His eyes, prominent from the emaciation of his face, gazed inquiringly\r
+at his comrades who were paying no attention to him, and he moaned\r
+regularly and quietly. It was evidently not so much his sufferings that\r
+caused him to moan (he had dysentery) as his fear and grief at being\r
+left alone.\r
+\r
+Pierre, girt with a rope round his waist and wearing shoes Karataev had\r
+made for him from some leather a French soldier had torn off a tea chest\r
+and brought to have his boots mended with, went up to the sick man and\r
+squatted down beside him.\r
+\r
+"You know, Sokolov, they are not all going away! They have a hospital\r
+here. You may be better off than we others," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"O Lord! Oh, it will be the death of me! O Lord!" moaned the man in a\r
+louder voice.\r
+\r
+"I'll go and ask them again directly," said Pierre, rising and going to\r
+the door of the shed.\r
+\r
+Just as Pierre reached the door, the corporal who had offered him a pipe\r
+the day before came up to it with two soldiers. The corporal and\r
+soldiers were in marching kit with knapsacks and shakos that had metal\r
+straps, and these changed their familiar faces.\r
+\r
+The corporal came, according to orders, to shut the door. The prisoners\r
+had to be counted before being let out.\r
+\r
+"Corporal, what will they do with the sick man?..." Pierre began.\r
+\r
+But even as he spoke he began to doubt whether this was the corporal he\r
+knew or a stranger, so unlike himself did the corporal seem at that\r
+moment. Moreover, just as Pierre was speaking a sharp rattle of drums\r
+was suddenly heard from both sides. The corporal frowned at Pierre's\r
+words and, uttering some meaningless oaths, slammed the door. The shed\r
+became semidark, and the sharp rattle of the drums on two sides drowned\r
+the sick man's groans.\r
+\r
+"There it is!... It again!..." said Pierre to himself, and an\r
+involuntary shudder ran down his spine. In the corporal's changed face,\r
+in the sound of his voice, in the stirring and deafening noise of the\r
+drums, he recognized that mysterious, callous force which compelled\r
+people against their will to kill their fellow men--that force the\r
+effect of which he had witnessed during the executions. To fear or to\r
+try to escape that force, to address entreaties or exhortations to those\r
+who served as its tools, was useless. Pierre knew this now. One had to\r
+wait and endure. He did not again go to the sick man, nor turn to look\r
+at him, but stood frowning by the door of the hut.\r
+\r
+When that door was opened and the prisoners, crowding against one\r
+another like a flock of sheep, squeezed into the exit, Pierre pushed his\r
+way forward and approached that very captain who as the corporal had\r
+assured him was ready to do anything for him. The captain was also in\r
+marching kit, and on his cold face appeared that same it which Pierre\r
+had recognized in the corporal's words and in the roll of the drums.\r
+\r
+"Pass on, pass on!" the captain reiterated, frowning sternly, and\r
+looking at the prisoners who thronged past him.\r
+\r
+Pierre went up to him, though he knew his attempt would be vain.\r
+\r
+"What now?" the officer asked with a cold look as if not recognizing\r
+Pierre.\r
+\r
+Pierre told him about the sick man.\r
+\r
+"He'll manage to walk, devil take him!" said the captain. "Pass on, pass\r
+on!" he continued without looking at Pierre.\r
+\r
+"But he is dying," Pierre again began.\r
+\r
+"Be so good..." shouted the captain, frowning angrily.\r
+\r
+"Dram-da-da-dam, dam-dam..." rattled the drums, and Pierre understood\r
+that this mysterious force completely controlled these men and that it\r
+was now useless to say any more.\r
+\r
+The officer prisoners were separated from the soldiers and told to march\r
+in front. There were about thirty officers, with Pierre among them, and\r
+about three hundred men.\r
+\r
+The officers, who had come from the other sheds, were all strangers to\r
+Pierre and much better dressed than he. They looked at him and at his\r
+shoes mistrustfully, as at an alien. Not far from him walked a fat major\r
+with a sallow, bloated, angry face, who was wearing a Kazan dressing\r
+gown tied round with a towel, and who evidently enjoyed the respect of\r
+his fellow prisoners. He kept one hand, in which he clasped his tobacco\r
+pouch, inside the bosom of his dressing gown and held the stem of his\r
+pipe firmly with the other. Panting and puffing, the major grumbled and\r
+growled at everybody because he thought he was being pushed and that\r
+they were all hurrying when they had nowhere to hurry to and were all\r
+surprised at something when there was nothing to be surprised at.\r
+Another, a thin little officer, was speaking to everyone, conjecturing\r
+where they were now being taken and how far they would get that day. An\r
+official in felt boots and wearing a commissariat uniform ran round from\r
+side to side and gazed at the ruins of Moscow, loudly announcing his\r
+observations as to what had been burned down and what this or that part\r
+of the city was that they could see. A third officer, who by his accent\r
+was a Pole, disputed with the commissariat officer, arguing that he was\r
+mistaken in his identification of the different wards of Moscow.\r
+\r
+"What are you disputing about?" said the major angrily. "What does it\r
+matter whether it is St. Nicholas or St. Blasius? You see it's burned\r
+down, and there's an end of it.... What are you pushing for? Isn't the\r
+road wide enough?" said he, turning to a man behind him who was not\r
+pushing him at all.\r
+\r
+"Oh, oh, oh! What have they done?" the prisoners on one side and another\r
+were heard saying as they gazed on the charred ruins. "All beyond the\r
+river, and Zubova, and in the Kremlin.... Just look! There's not half of\r
+it left. Yes, I told you--the whole quarter beyond the river, and so it\r
+is."\r
+\r
+"Well, you know it's burned, so what's the use of talking?" said the\r
+major.\r
+\r
+As they passed near a church in the Khamovniki (one of the few unburned\r
+quarters of Moscow) the whole mass of prisoners suddenly started to one\r
+side and exclamations of horror and disgust were heard.\r
+\r
+"Ah, the villains! What heathens! Yes; dead, dead, so he is... And\r
+smeared with something!"\r
+\r
+Pierre too drew near the church where the thing was that evoked these\r
+exclamations, and dimly made out something leaning against the palings\r
+surrounding the church. From the words of his comrades who saw better\r
+than he did, he found that this was the body of a man, set upright\r
+against the palings with its face smeared with soot.\r
+\r
+"Go on! What the devil... Go on! Thirty thousand devils!..." the convoy\r
+guards began cursing and the French soldiers, with fresh virulence,\r
+drove away with their swords the crowd of prisoners who were gazing at\r
+the dead man.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+Through the cross streets of the Khamovniki quarter the prisoners\r
+marched, followed only by their escort and the vehicles and wagons\r
+belonging to that escort, but when they reached the supply stores they\r
+came among a huge and closely packed train of artillery mingled with\r
+private vehicles.\r
+\r
+At the bridge they all halted, waiting for those in front to get across.\r
+From the bridge they had a view of endless lines of moving baggage\r
+trains before and behind them. To the right, where the Kaluga road turns\r
+near Neskuchny, endless rows of troops and carts stretched away into the\r
+distance. These were troops of Beauharnais' corps which had started\r
+before any of the others. Behind, along the riverside and across the\r
+Stone Bridge, were Ney's troops and transport.\r
+\r
+Davout's troops, in whose charge were the prisoners, were crossing the\r
+Crimean bridge and some were already debouching into the Kaluga road.\r
+But the baggage trains stretched out so that the last of Beauharnais'\r
+train had not yet got out of Moscow and reached the Kaluga road when the\r
+vanguard of Ney's army was already emerging from the Great Ordynka\r
+Street.\r
+\r
+When they had crossed the Crimean bridge the prisoners moved a few steps\r
+forward, halted, and again moved on, and from all sides vehicles and men\r
+crowded closer and closer together. They advanced the few hundred paces\r
+that separated the bridge from the Kaluga road, taking more than an hour\r
+to do so, and came out upon the square where the streets of the\r
+Transmoskva ward and the Kaluga road converge, and the prisoners jammed\r
+close together had to stand for some hours at that crossway. From all\r
+sides, like the roar of the sea, were heard the rattle of wheels, the\r
+tramp of feet, and incessant shouts of anger and abuse. Pierre stood\r
+pressed against the wall of a charred house, listening to that noise\r
+which mingled in his imagination with the roll of the drums.\r
+\r
+To get a better view, several officer prisoners climbed onto the wall of\r
+the half-burned house against which Pierre was leaning.\r
+\r
+"What crowds! Just look at the crowds!... They've loaded goods even on\r
+the cannon! Look there, those are furs!" they exclaimed. "Just see what\r
+the blackguards have looted.... There! See what that one has behind in\r
+the cart.... Why, those are settings taken from some icons, by\r
+heaven!... Oh, the rascals!... See how that fellow has loaded himself\r
+up, he can hardly walk! Good lord, they've even grabbed those\r
+chaises!... See that fellow there sitting on the trunks.... Heavens!\r
+They're fighting."\r
+\r
+"That's right, hit him on the snout--on his snout! Like this, we shan't\r
+get away before evening. Look, look there.... Why, that must be\r
+Napoleon's own. See what horses! And the monograms with a crown! It's\r
+like a portable house.... That fellow's dropped his sack and doesn't see\r
+it. Fighting again... A woman with a baby, and not bad-looking either!\r
+Yes, I dare say, that's the way they'll let you pass... Just look,\r
+there's no end to it. Russian wenches, by heaven, so they are! In\r
+carriages--see how comfortably they've settled themselves!"\r
+\r
+Again, as at the church in Khamovniki, a wave of general curiosity bore\r
+all the prisoners forward onto the road, and Pierre, thanks to his\r
+stature, saw over the heads of the others what so attracted their\r
+curiosity. In three carriages involved among the munition carts, closely\r
+squeezed together, sat women with rouged faces, dressed in glaring\r
+colors, who were shouting something in shrill voices.\r
+\r
+From the moment Pierre had recognized the appearance of the mysterious\r
+force nothing had seemed to him strange or dreadful: neither the corpse\r
+smeared with soot for fun nor these women hurrying away nor the burned\r
+ruins of Moscow. All that he now witnessed scarcely made an impression\r
+on him--as if his soul, making ready for a hard struggle, refused to\r
+receive impressions that might weaken it.\r
+\r
+The women's vehicles drove by. Behind them came more carts, soldiers,\r
+wagons, soldiers, gun carriages, carriages, soldiers, ammunition carts,\r
+more soldiers, and now and then women.\r
+\r
+Pierre did not see the people as individuals but saw their movement.\r
+\r
+All these people and horses seemed driven forward by some invisible\r
+power. During the hour Pierre watched them they all came flowing from\r
+the different streets with one and the same desire to get on quickly;\r
+they all jostled one another, began to grow angry and to fight, white\r
+teeth gleamed, brows frowned, ever the same words of abuse flew from\r
+side to side, and all the faces bore the same swaggeringly resolute and\r
+coldly cruel expression that had struck Pierre that morning on the\r
+corporal's face when the drums were beating.\r
+\r
+It was not till nearly evening that the officer commanding the escort\r
+collected his men and with shouts and quarrels forced his way in among\r
+the baggage trains, and the prisoners, hemmed in on all sides, emerged\r
+onto the Kaluga road.\r
+\r
+They marched very quickly, without resting, and halted only when the sun\r
+began to set. The baggage carts drew up close together and the men began\r
+to prepare for their night's rest. They all appeared angry and\r
+dissatisfied. For a long time, oaths, angry shouts, and fighting could\r
+be heard from all sides. A carriage that followed the escort ran into\r
+one of the carts and knocked a hole in it with its pole. Several\r
+soldiers ran toward the cart from different sides: some beat the\r
+carriage horses on their heads, turning them aside, others fought among\r
+themselves, and Pierre saw that one German was badly wounded on the head\r
+by a sword.\r
+\r
+It seemed that all these men, now that they had stopped amid fields in\r
+the chill dusk of the autumn evening, experienced one and the same\r
+feeling of unpleasant awakening from the hurry and eagerness to push on\r
+that had seized them at the start. Once at a standstill they all seemed\r
+to understand that they did not yet know where they were going, and that\r
+much that was painful and difficult awaited them on this journey.\r
+\r
+During this halt the escort treated the prisoners even worse than they\r
+had done at the start. It was here that the prisoners for the first time\r
+received horseflesh for their meat ration.\r
+\r
+From the officer down to the lowest soldier they showed what seemed like\r
+personal spite against each of the prisoners, in unexpected contrast to\r
+their former friendly relations.\r
+\r
+This spite increased still more when, on calling over the roll of\r
+prisoners, it was found that in the bustle of leaving Moscow one Russian\r
+soldier, who had pretended to suffer from colic, had escaped. Pierre saw\r
+a Frenchman beat a Russian soldier cruelly for straying too far from the\r
+road, and heard his friend the captain reprimand and threaten to court-\r
+martial a noncommissioned officer on account of the escape of the\r
+Russian. To the noncommissioned officer's excuse that the prisoner was\r
+ill and could not walk, the officer replied that the order was to shoot\r
+those who lagged behind. Pierre felt that that fatal force which had\r
+crushed him during the executions, but which he had not felt during his\r
+imprisonment, now again controlled his existence. It was terrible, but\r
+he felt that in proportion to the efforts of that fatal force to crush\r
+him, there grew and strengthened in his soul a power of life independent\r
+of it.\r
+\r
+He ate his supper of buckwheat soup with horseflesh and chatted with his\r
+comrades.\r
+\r
+Neither Pierre nor any of the others spoke of what they had seen in\r
+Moscow, or of the roughness of their treatment by the French, or of the\r
+order to shoot them which had been announced to them. As if in reaction\r
+against the worsening of their position they were all particularly\r
+animated and gay. They spoke of personal reminiscences, of amusing\r
+scenes they had witnessed during the campaign, and avoided all talk of\r
+their present situation.\r
+\r
+The sun had set long since. Bright stars shone out here and there in the\r
+sky. A red glow as of a conflagration spread above the horizon from the\r
+rising full moon, and that vast red ball swayed strangely in the gray\r
+haze. It grew light. The evening was ending, but the night had not yet\r
+come. Pierre got up and left his new companions, crossing between the\r
+campfires to the other side of the road where he had been told the\r
+common soldier prisoners were stationed. He wanted to talk to them. On\r
+the road he was stopped by a French sentinel who ordered him back.\r
+\r
+Pierre turned back, not to his companions by the campfire, but to an\r
+unharnessed cart where there was nobody. Tucking his legs under him and\r
+dropping his head he sat down on the cold ground by the wheel of the\r
+cart and remained motionless a long while sunk in thought. Suddenly he\r
+burst out into a fit of his broad, good-natured laughter, so loud that\r
+men from various sides turned with surprise to see what this strange and\r
+evidently solitary laughter could mean.\r
+\r
+"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Pierre. And he said aloud to himself: "The soldier\r
+did not let me pass. They took me and shut me up. They hold me captive.\r
+What, me? Me? My immortal soul? Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!..." and he laughed\r
+till tears started to his eyes.\r
+\r
+A man got up and came to see what this queer big fellow was laughing at\r
+all by himself. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, went farther away from\r
+the inquisitive man, and looked around him.\r
+\r
+The huge, endless bivouac that had previously resounded with the\r
+crackling of campfires and the voices of many men had grown quiet, the\r
+red campfires were growing paler and dying down. High up in the light\r
+sky hung the full moon. Forests and fields beyond the camp, unseen\r
+before, were now visible in the distance. And farther still, beyond\r
+those forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitless distance\r
+lured one to itself. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the twinkling\r
+stars in its faraway depths. "And all that is me, all that is within me,\r
+and it is all I!" thought Pierre. "And they caught all that and put it\r
+into a shed boarded up with planks!" He smiled, and went and lay down to\r
+sleep beside his companions.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+In the early days of October another envoy came to Kutuzov with a letter\r
+from Napoleon proposing peace and falsely dated from Moscow, though\r
+Napoleon was already not far from Kutuzov on the old Kaluga road.\r
+Kutuzov replied to this letter as he had done to the one formerly\r
+brought by Lauriston, saying that there could be no question of peace.\r
+\r
+Soon after that a report was received from Dorokhov's guerrilla\r
+detachment operating to the left of Tarutino that troops of Broussier's\r
+division had been seen at Forminsk and that being separated from the\r
+rest of the French army they might easily be destroyed. The soldiers and\r
+officers again demanded action. Generals on the staff, excited by the\r
+memory of the easy victory at Tarutino, urged Kutuzov to carry out\r
+Dorokhov's suggestion. Kutuzov did not consider any offensive necessary.\r
+The result was a compromise which was inevitable: a small detachment was\r
+sent to Forminsk to attack Broussier.\r
+\r
+By a strange coincidence, this task, which turned out to be a most\r
+difficult and important one, was entrusted to Dokhturov--that same\r
+modest little Dokhturov whom no one had described to us as drawing up\r
+plans of battles, dashing about in front of regiments, showering crosses\r
+on batteries, and so on, and who was thought to be and was spoken of as\r
+undecided and undiscerning--but whom we find commanding wherever the\r
+position was most difficult all through the Russo-French wars from\r
+Austerlitz to the year 1813. At Austerlitz he remained last at the\r
+Augezd dam, rallying the regiments, saving what was possible when all\r
+were flying and perishing and not a single general was left in the rear\r
+guard. Ill with fever he went to Smolensk with twenty thousand men to\r
+defend the town against Napoleon's whole army. In Smolensk, at the\r
+Malakhov Gate, he had hardly dozed off in a paroxysm of fever before he\r
+was awakened by the bombardment of the town--and Smolensk held out all\r
+day long. At the battle of Borodino, when Bagration was killed and nine\r
+tenths of the men of our left flank had fallen and the full force of the\r
+French artillery fire was directed against it, the man sent there was\r
+this same irresolute and undiscerning Dokhturov--Kutuzov hastening to\r
+rectify a mistake he had made by sending someone else there first. And\r
+the quiet little Dokhturov rode thither, and Borodino became the\r
+greatest glory of the Russian army. Many heroes have been described to\r
+us in verse and prose, but of Dokhturov scarcely a word has been said.\r
+\r
+It was Dokhturov again whom they sent to Forminsk and from there to\r
+Malo-Yaroslavets, the place where the last battle with the French was\r
+fought and where the obvious disintegration of the French army began;\r
+and we are told of many geniuses and heroes of that period of the\r
+campaign, but of Dokhturov nothing or very little is said and that\r
+dubiously. And this silence about Dokhturov is the clearest testimony to\r
+his merit.\r
+\r
+It is natural for a man who does not understand the workings of a\r
+machine to imagine that a shaving that has fallen into it by chance and\r
+is interfering with its action and tossing about in it is its most\r
+important part. The man who does not understand the construction of the\r
+machine cannot conceive that the small connecting cogwheel which\r
+revolves quietly is one of the most essential parts of the machine, and\r
+not the shaving which merely harms and hinders the working.\r
+\r
+On the tenth of October when Dokhturov had gone halfway to Forminsk and\r
+stopped at the village of Aristovo, preparing faithfully to execute the\r
+orders he had received, the whole French army having, in its convulsive\r
+movement, reached Murat's position apparently in order to give battle--\r
+suddenly without any reason turned off to the left onto the new Kaluga\r
+road and began to enter Forminsk, where only Broussier had been till\r
+then. At that time Dokhturov had under his command, besides Dorokhov's\r
+detachment, the two small guerrilla detachments of Figner and Seslavin.\r
+\r
+On the evening of October 11 Seslavin came to the Aristovo headquarters\r
+with a French guardsman he had captured. The prisoner said that the\r
+troops that had entered Forminsk that day were the vanguard of the whole\r
+army, that Napoleon was there and the whole army had left Moscow four\r
+days previously. That same evening a house serf who had come from\r
+Borovsk said he had seen an immense army entering the town. Some\r
+Cossacks of Dokhturov's detachment reported having sighted the French\r
+Guards marching along the road to Borovsk. From all these reports it was\r
+evident that where they had expected to meet a single division there was\r
+now the whole French army marching from Moscow in an unexpected\r
+direction--along the Kaluga road. Dokhturov was unwilling to undertake\r
+any action, as it was not clear to him now what he ought to do. He had\r
+been ordered to attack Forminsk. But only Broussier had been there at\r
+that time and now the whole French army was there. Ermolov wished to act\r
+on his own judgment, but Dokhturov insisted that he must have Kutuzov's\r
+instructions. So it was decided to send a dispatch to the staff.\r
+\r
+For this purpose a capable officer, Bolkhovitinov, was chosen, who was\r
+to explain the whole affair by word of mouth, besides delivering a\r
+written report. Toward midnight Bolkhovitinov, having received the\r
+dispatch and verbal instructions, galloped off to the General Staff\r
+accompanied by a Cossack with spare horses.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+It was a warm, dark, autumn night. It had been raining for four days.\r
+Having changed horses twice and galloped twenty miles in an hour and a\r
+half over a sticky, muddy road, Bolkhovitinov reached Litashevka after\r
+one o'clock at night. Dismounting at a cottage on whose wattle fence\r
+hung a signboard, GENERAL STAFF, and throwing down his reins, he entered\r
+a dark passage.\r
+\r
+"The general on duty, quick! It's very important!" said he to someone\r
+who had risen and was sniffing in the dark passage.\r
+\r
+"He has been very unwell since the evening and this is the third night\r
+he has not slept," said the orderly pleadingly in a whisper. "You should\r
+wake the captain first."\r
+\r
+"But this is very important, from General Dokhturov," said\r
+Bolkhovitinov, entering the open door which he had found by feeling in\r
+the dark.\r
+\r
+The orderly had gone in before him and began waking somebody.\r
+\r
+"Your honor, your honor! A courier."\r
+\r
+"What? What's that? From whom?" came a sleepy voice.\r
+\r
+"From Dokhturov and from Alexey Petrovich. Napoleon is at Forminsk,"\r
+said Bolkhovitinov, unable to see in the dark who was speaking but\r
+guessing by the voice that it was not Konovnitsyn.\r
+\r
+The man who had wakened yawned and stretched himself.\r
+\r
+"I don't like waking him," he said, fumbling for something. "He is very\r
+ill. Perhaps this is only a rumor."\r
+\r
+"Here is the dispatch," said Bolkhovitinov. "My orders are to give it at\r
+once to the general on duty."\r
+\r
+"Wait a moment, I'll light a candle. You damned rascal, where do you\r
+always hide it?" said the voice of the man who was stretching himself,\r
+to the orderly. (This was Shcherbinin, Konovnitsyn's adjutant.) "I've\r
+found it, I've found it!" he added.\r
+\r
+The orderly was striking a light and Shcherbinin was fumbling for\r
+something on the candlestick.\r
+\r
+"Oh, the nasty beasts!" said he with disgust.\r
+\r
+By the light of the sparks Bolkhovitinov saw Shcherbinin's youthful face\r
+as he held the candle, and the face of another man who was still asleep.\r
+This was Konovnitsyn.\r
+\r
+When the flame of the sulphur splinters kindled by the tinder burned up,\r
+first blue and then red, Shcherbinin lit the tallow candle, from the\r
+candlestick of which the cockroaches that had been gnawing it were\r
+running away, and looked at the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was bespattered\r
+all over with mud and had smeared his face by wiping it with his sleeve.\r
+\r
+"Who gave the report?" inquired Shcherbinin, taking the envelope.\r
+\r
+"The news is reliable," said Bolkhovitinov. "Prisoners, Cossacks, and\r
+the scouts all say the same thing."\r
+\r
+"There's nothing to be done, we'll have to wake him," said Shcherbinin,\r
+rising and going up to the man in the nightcap who lay covered by a\r
+greatcoat. "Peter Petrovich!" said he. (Konovnitsyn did not stir.) "To\r
+the General Staff!" he said with a smile, knowing that those words would\r
+be sure to arouse him.\r
+\r
+And in fact the head in the nightcap was lifted at once. On\r
+Konovnitsyn's handsome, resolute face with cheeks flushed by fever,\r
+there still remained for an instant a faraway dreamy expression remote\r
+from present affairs, but then he suddenly started and his face assumed\r
+its habitual calm and firm appearance.\r
+\r
+"Well, what is it? From whom?" he asked immediately but without hurry,\r
+blinking at the light.\r
+\r
+While listening to the officer's report Konovnitsyn broke the seal and\r
+read the dispatch. Hardly had he done so before he lowered his legs in\r
+their woolen stockings to the earthen floor and began putting on his\r
+boots. Then he took off his nightcap, combed his hair over his temples,\r
+and donned his cap.\r
+\r
+"Did you get here quickly? Let us go to his Highness."\r
+\r
+Konovnitsyn had understood at once that the news brought was of great\r
+importance and that no time must be lost. He did not consider or ask\r
+himself whether the news was good or bad. That did not interest him. He\r
+regarded the whole business of the war not with his intelligence or his\r
+reason but by something else. There was within him a deep unexpressed\r
+conviction that all would be well, but that one must not trust to this\r
+and still less speak about it, but must only attend to one's own work.\r
+And he did his work, giving his whole strength to the task.\r
+\r
+Peter Petrovich Konovnitsyn, like Dokhturov, seems to have been included\r
+merely for propriety's sake in the list of the so-called heroes of 1812-\r
+-the Barclays, Raevskis, Ermolovs, Platovs, and Miloradoviches. Like\r
+Dokhturov he had the reputation of being a man of very limited capacity\r
+and information, and like Dokhturov he never made plans of battle but\r
+was always found where the situation was most difficult. Since his\r
+appointment as general on duty he had always slept with his door open,\r
+giving orders that every messenger should be allowed to wake him up. In\r
+battle he was always under fire, so that Kutuzov reproved him for it and\r
+feared to send him to the front, and like Dokhturov he was one of those\r
+unnoticed cogwheels that, without clatter or noise, constitute the most\r
+essential part of the machine.\r
+\r
+Coming out of the hut into the damp, dark night Konovnitsyn frowned--\r
+partly from an increased pain in his head and partly at the unpleasant\r
+thought that occurred to him, of how all that nest of influential men on\r
+the staff would be stirred up by this news, especially Bennigsen, who\r
+ever since Tarutino had been at daggers drawn with Kutuzov; and how they\r
+would make suggestions, quarrel, issue orders, and rescind them. And\r
+this premonition was disagreeable to him though he knew it could not be\r
+helped.\r
+\r
+And in fact Toll, to whom he went to communicate the news, immediately\r
+began to expound his plans to a general sharing his quarters, until\r
+Konovnitsyn, who listened in weary silence, reminded him that they must\r
+go to see his Highness.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+Kutuzov like all old people did not sleep much at night. He often fell\r
+asleep unexpectedly in the daytime, but at night, lying on his bed\r
+without undressing, he generally remained awake thinking.\r
+\r
+So he lay now on his bed, supporting his large, heavy, scarred head on\r
+his plump hand, with his one eye open, meditating and peering into the\r
+darkness.\r
+\r
+Since Bennigsen, who corresponded with the Emperor and had more\r
+influence than anyone else on the staff, had begun to avoid him, Kutuzov\r
+was more at ease as to the possibility of himself and his troops being\r
+obliged to take part in useless aggressive movements. The lesson of the\r
+Tarutino battle and of the day before it, which Kutuzov remembered with\r
+pain, must, he thought, have some effect on others too.\r
+\r
+"They must understand that we can only lose by taking the offensive.\r
+Patience and time are my warriors, my champions," thought Kutuzov. He\r
+knew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will fall\r
+of itself when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree\r
+is harmed, and your teeth are set on edge. Like an experienced sportsman\r
+he knew that the beast was wounded, and wounded as only the whole\r
+strength of Russia could have wounded it, but whether it was mortally\r
+wounded or not was still an undecided question. Now by the fact of\r
+Lauriston and Barthelemi having been sent, and by the reports of the\r
+guerrillas, Kutuzov was almost sure that the wound was mortal. But he\r
+needed further proofs and it was necessary to wait.\r
+\r
+"They want to run to see how they have wounded it. Wait and we shall\r
+see! Continual maneuvers, continual advances!" thought he. "What for?\r
+Only to distinguish themselves! As if fighting were fun. They are like\r
+children from whom one can't get any sensible account of what has\r
+happened because they all want to show how well they can fight. But\r
+that's not what is needed now.\r
+\r
+"And what ingenious maneuvers they all propose to me! It seems to them\r
+that when they have thought of two or three contingencies" (he\r
+remembered the general plan sent him from Petersburg) "they have\r
+foreseen everything. But the contingencies are endless."\r
+\r
+The undecided question as to whether the wound inflicted at Borodino was\r
+mortal or not had hung over Kutuzov's head for a whole month. On the one\r
+hand the French had occupied Moscow. On the other Kutuzov felt assured\r
+with all his being that the terrible blow into which he and all the\r
+Russians had put their whole strength must have been mortal. But in any\r
+case proofs were needed; he had waited a whole month for them and grew\r
+more impatient the longer he waited. Lying on his bed during those\r
+sleepless nights he did just what he reproached those younger generals\r
+for doing. He imagined all sorts of possible contingencies, just like\r
+the younger men, but with this difference, that he saw thousands of\r
+contingencies instead of two or three and based nothing on them. The\r
+longer he thought the more contingencies presented themselves. He\r
+imagined all sorts of movements of the Napoleonic army as a whole or in\r
+sections--against Petersburg, or against him, or to outflank him. He\r
+thought too of the possibility (which he feared most of all) that\r
+Napoleon might fight him with his own weapon and remain in Moscow\r
+awaiting him. Kutuzov even imagined that Napoleon's army might turn back\r
+through Medyn and Yukhnov, but the one thing he could not foresee was\r
+what happened--the insane, convulsive stampede of Napoleon's army during\r
+its first eleven days after leaving Moscow: a stampede which made\r
+possible what Kutuzov had not yet even dared to think of--the complete\r
+extermination of the French. Dorokhov's report about Broussier's\r
+division, the guerrillas' reports of distress in Napoleon's army, rumors\r
+of preparations for leaving Moscow, all confirmed the supposition that\r
+the French army was beaten and preparing for flight. But these were only\r
+suppositions, which seemed important to the younger men but not to\r
+Kutuzov. With his sixty years' experience he knew what value to attach\r
+to rumors, knew how apt people who desire anything are to group all news\r
+so that it appears to confirm what they desire, and he knew how readily\r
+in such cases they omit all that makes for the contrary. And the more he\r
+desired it the less he allowed himself to believe it. This question\r
+absorbed all his mental powers. All else was to him only life's\r
+customary routine. To such customary routine belonged his conversations\r
+with the staff, the letters he wrote from Tarutino to Madame de Stael,\r
+the reading of novels, the distribution of awards, his correspondence\r
+with Petersburg, and so on. But the destruction of the French, which he\r
+alone foresaw, was his heart's one desire.\r
+\r
+On the night of the eleventh of October he lay leaning on his arm and\r
+thinking of that.\r
+\r
+There was a stir in the next room and he heard the steps of Toll,\r
+Konovnitsyn, and Bolkhovitinov.\r
+\r
+"Eh, who's there? Come in, come in! What news?" the field marshal called\r
+out to them.\r
+\r
+While a footman was lighting a candle, Toll communicated the substance\r
+of the news.\r
+\r
+"Who brought it?" asked Kutuzov with a look which, when the candle was\r
+lit, struck Toll by its cold severity.\r
+\r
+"There can be no doubt about it, your Highness."\r
+\r
+"Call him in, call him here."\r
+\r
+Kutuzov sat up with one leg hanging down from the bed and his big paunch\r
+resting against the other which was doubled under him. He screwed up his\r
+seeing eye to scrutinize the messenger more carefully, as if wishing to\r
+read in his face what preoccupied his own mind.\r
+\r
+"Tell me, tell me, friend," said he to Bolkhovitinov in his low, aged\r
+voice, as he pulled together the shirt which gaped open on his chest,\r
+"come nearer--nearer. What news have you brought me? Eh? That Napoleon\r
+has left Moscow? Are you sure? Eh?"\r
+\r
+Bolkhovitinov gave a detailed account from the beginning of all he had\r
+been told to report.\r
+\r
+"Speak quicker, quicker! Don't torture me!" Kutuzov interrupted him.\r
+\r
+Bolkhovitinov told him everything and was then silent, awaiting\r
+instructions. Toll was beginning to say something but Kutuzov checked\r
+him. He tried to say something, but his face suddenly puckered and\r
+wrinkled; he waved his arm at Toll and turned to the opposite side of\r
+the room, to the corner darkened by the icons that hung there.\r
+\r
+"O Lord, my Creator, Thou has heard our prayer..." said he in a\r
+tremulous voice with folded hands. "Russia is saved. I thank Thee, O\r
+Lord!" and he wept.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+From the time he received this news to the end of the campaign all\r
+Kutuzov's activity was directed toward restraining his troops, by\r
+authority, by guile, and by entreaty, from useless attacks, maneuvers,\r
+or encounters with the perishing enemy. Dokhturov went to Malo-\r
+Yaroslavets, but Kutuzov lingered with the main army and gave orders for\r
+the evacuation of Kaluga--a retreat beyond which town seemed to him\r
+quite possible.\r
+\r
+Everywhere Kutuzov retreated, but the enemy without waiting for his\r
+retreat fled in the opposite direction.\r
+\r
+Napoleon's historians describe to us his skilled maneuvers at Tarutino\r
+and Malo-Yaroslavets, and make conjectures as to what would have\r
+happened had Napoleon been in time to penetrate into the rich southern\r
+provinces.\r
+\r
+But not to speak of the fact that nothing prevented him from advancing\r
+into those southern provinces (for the Russian army did not bar his\r
+way), the historians forget that nothing could have saved his army, for\r
+then already it bore within itself the germs of inevitable ruin. How\r
+could that army--which had found abundant supplies in Moscow and had\r
+trampled them underfoot instead of keeping them, and on arriving at\r
+Smolensk had looted provisions instead of storing them--how could that\r
+army recuperate in Kaluga province, which was inhabited by Russians such\r
+as those who lived in Moscow, and where fire had the same property of\r
+consuming what was set ablaze?\r
+\r
+That army could not recover anywhere. Since the battle of Borodino and\r
+the pillage of Moscow it had borne within itself, as it were, the\r
+chemical elements of dissolution.\r
+\r
+The members of what had once been an army--Napoleon himself and all his\r
+soldiers fled--without knowing whither, each concerned only to make his\r
+escape as quickly as possible from this position, of the hopelessness of\r
+which they were all more or less vaguely conscious.\r
+\r
+So it came about that at the council at Malo-Yaroslavets, when the\r
+generals pretending to confer together expressed various opinions, all\r
+mouths were closed by the opinion uttered by the simple-minded soldier\r
+Mouton who, speaking last, said what they all felt: that the one thing\r
+needful was to get away as quickly as possible; and no one, not even\r
+Napoleon, could say anything against that truth which they all\r
+recognized.\r
+\r
+But though they all realized that it was necessary to get away, there\r
+still remained a feeling of shame at admitting that they must flee. An\r
+external shock was needed to overcome that shame, and this shock came in\r
+due time. It was what the French called "le hourra de l'Empereur."\r
+\r
+The day after the council at Malo-Yaroslavets Napoleon rode out early in\r
+the morning amid the lines of his army with his suite of marshals and an\r
+escort, on the pretext of inspecting the army and the scene of the\r
+previous and of the impending battle. Some Cossacks on the prowl for\r
+booty fell in with the Emperor and very nearly captured him. If the\r
+Cossacks did not capture Napoleon then, what saved him was the very\r
+thing that was destroying the French army, the booty on which the\r
+Cossacks fell. Here as at Tarutino they went after plunder, leaving the\r
+men. Disregarding Napoleon they rushed after the plunder and Napoleon\r
+managed to escape.\r
+\r
+When les enfants du Don might so easily have taken the Emperor himself\r
+in the midst of his army, it was clear that there was nothing for it but\r
+to fly as fast as possible along the nearest, familiar road. Napoleon\r
+with his forty-year-old stomach understood that hint, not feeling his\r
+former agility and boldness, and under the influence of the fright the\r
+Cossacks had given him he at once agreed with Mouton and issued orders--\r
+as the historians tell us--to retreat by the Smolensk road.\r
+\r
+That Napoleon agreed with Mouton, and that the army retreated, does not\r
+prove that Napoleon caused it to retreat, but that the forces which\r
+influenced the whole army and directed it along the Mozhaysk (that is,\r
+the Smolensk) road acted simultaneously on him also.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+A man in motion always devises an aim for that motion. To be able to go\r
+a thousand miles he must imagine that something good awaits him at the\r
+end of those thousand miles. One must have the prospect of a promised\r
+land to have the strength to move.\r
+\r
+The promised land for the French during their advance had been Moscow,\r
+during their retreat it was their native land. But that native land was\r
+too far off, and for a man going a thousand miles it is absolutely\r
+necessary to set aside his final goal and to say to himself: "Today I\r
+shall get to a place twenty-five miles off where I shall rest and spend\r
+the night," and during the first day's journey that resting place\r
+eclipses his ultimate goal and attracts all his hopes and desires. And\r
+the impulses felt by a single person are always magnified in a crowd.\r
+\r
+For the French retreating along the old Smolensk road, the final goal--\r
+their native land--was too remote, and their immediate goal was\r
+Smolensk, toward which all their desires and hopes, enormously\r
+intensified in the mass, urged them on. It was not that they knew that\r
+much food and fresh troops awaited them in Smolensk, nor that they were\r
+told so (on the contrary their superior officers, and Napoleon himself,\r
+knew that provisions were scarce there), but because this alone could\r
+give them strength to move on and endure their present privations. So\r
+both those who knew and those who did not know deceived themselves, and\r
+pushed on to Smolensk as to a promised land.\r
+\r
+Coming out onto the highroad the French fled with surprising energy and\r
+unheard-of rapidity toward the goal they had fixed on. Besides the\r
+common impulse which bound the whole crowd of French into one mass and\r
+supplied them with a certain energy, there was another cause binding\r
+them together--their great numbers. As with the physical law of gravity,\r
+their enormous mass drew the individual human atoms to itself. In their\r
+hundreds of thousands they moved like a whole nation.\r
+\r
+Each of them desired nothing more than to give himself up as a prisoner\r
+to escape from all this horror and misery; but on the one hand the force\r
+of this common attraction to Smolensk, their goal, drew each of them in\r
+the same direction; on the other hand an army corps could not surrender\r
+to a company, and though the French availed themselves of every\r
+convenient opportunity to detach themselves and to surrender on the\r
+slightest decent pretext, such pretexts did not always occur. Their very\r
+numbers and their crowded and swift movement deprived them of that\r
+possibility and rendered it not only difficult but impossible for the\r
+Russians to stop this movement, to which the French were directing all\r
+their energies. Beyond a certain limit no mechanical disruption of the\r
+body could hasten the process of decomposition.\r
+\r
+A lump of snow cannot be melted instantaneously. There is a certain\r
+limit of time in less than which no amount of heat can melt the snow. On\r
+the contrary the greater the heat the more solidified the remaining snow\r
+becomes.\r
+\r
+Of the Russian commanders Kutuzov alone understood this. When the flight\r
+of the French army along the Smolensk road became well defined, what\r
+Konovnitsyn had foreseen on the night of the eleventh of October began\r
+to occur. The superior officers all wanted to distinguish themselves, to\r
+cut off, to seize, to capture, and to overthrow the French, and all\r
+clamored for action.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov alone used all his power (and such power is very limited in the\r
+case of any commander-in-chief) to prevent an attack.\r
+\r
+He could not tell them what we say now: "Why fight, why block the road,\r
+losing our own men and inhumanly slaughtering unfortunate wretches? What\r
+is the use of that, when a third of their army has melted away on the\r
+road from Moscow to Vyazma without any battle?" But drawing from his\r
+aged wisdom what they could understand, he told them of the golden\r
+bridge, and they laughed at and slandered him, flinging themselves on,\r
+rending and exulting over the dying beast.\r
+\r
+Ermolov, Miloradovich, Platov, and others in proximity to the French\r
+near Vyazma could not resist their desire to cut off and break up two\r
+French corps, and by way of reporting their intention to Kutuzov they\r
+sent him a blank sheet of paper in an envelope.\r
+\r
+And try as Kutuzov might to restrain the troops, our men attacked,\r
+trying to bar the road. Infantry regiments, we are told, advanced to the\r
+attack with music and with drums beating, and killed and lost thousands\r
+of men.\r
+\r
+But they did not cut off or overthrow anybody and the French army,\r
+closing up more firmly at the danger, continued, while steadily melting\r
+away, to pursue its fatal path to Smolensk.\r
+\r
+BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+The Battle of Borodino, with the occupation of Moscow that followed it\r
+and the flight of the French without further conflicts, is one of the\r
+most instructive phenomena in history.\r
+\r
+All historians agree that the external activity of states and nations in\r
+their conflicts with one another is expressed in wars, and that as a\r
+direct result of greater or less success in war the political strength\r
+of states and nations increases or decreases.\r
+\r
+Strange as may be the historical account of how some king or emperor,\r
+having quarreled with another, collects an army, fights his enemy's\r
+army, gains a victory by killing three, five, or ten thousand men, and\r
+subjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of several millions, all the\r
+facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm the truth of the\r
+statement that the greater or lesser success of one army against another\r
+is the cause, or at least an essential indication, of an increase or\r
+decrease in the strength of the nation--even though it is unintelligible\r
+why the defeat of an army--a hundredth part of a nation--should oblige\r
+that whole nation to submit. An army gains a victory, and at once the\r
+rights of the conquering nation have increased to the detriment of the\r
+defeated. An army has suffered defeat, and at once a people loses its\r
+rights in proportion to the severity of the reverse, and if its army\r
+suffers a complete defeat the nation is quite subjugated.\r
+\r
+So according to history it has been found from the most ancient times,\r
+and so it is to our own day. All Napoleon's wars serve to confirm this\r
+rule. In proportion to the defeat of the Austrian army Austria loses its\r
+rights, and the rights and the strength of France increase. The\r
+victories of the French at Jena and Auerstadt destroy the independent\r
+existence of Prussia.\r
+\r
+But then, in 1812, the French gain a victory near Moscow. Moscow is\r
+taken and after that, with no further battles, it is not Russia that\r
+ceases to exist, but the French army of six hundred thousand, and then\r
+Napoleonic France itself. To strain the facts to fit the rules of\r
+history: to say that the field of battle at Borodino remained in the\r
+hands of the Russians, or that after Moscow there were other battles\r
+that destroyed Napoleon's army, is impossible.\r
+\r
+After the French victory at Borodino there was no general engagement nor\r
+any that were at all serious, yet the French army ceased to exist. What\r
+does this mean? If it were an example taken from the history of China,\r
+we might say that it was not an historic phenomenon (which is the\r
+historians' usual expedient when anything does not fit their standards);\r
+if the matter concerned some brief conflict in which only a small number\r
+of troops took part, we might treat it as an exception; but this event\r
+occurred before our fathers' eyes, and for them it was a question of the\r
+life or death of their fatherland, and it happened in the greatest of\r
+all known wars.\r
+\r
+The period of the campaign of 1812 from the battle of Borodino to the\r
+expulsion of the French proved that the winning of a battle does not\r
+produce a conquest and is not even an invariable indication of conquest;\r
+it proved that the force which decides the fate of peoples lies not in\r
+the conquerors, nor even in armies and battles, but in something else.\r
+\r
+The French historians, describing the condition of the French army\r
+before it left Moscow, affirm that all was in order in the Grand Army,\r
+except the cavalry, the artillery, and the transport--there was no\r
+forage for the horses or the cattle. That was a misfortune no one could\r
+remedy, for the peasants of the district burned their hay rather than\r
+let the French have it.\r
+\r
+The victory gained did not bring the usual results because the peasants\r
+Karp and Vlas (who after the French had evacuated Moscow drove in their\r
+carts to pillage the town, and in general personally failed to manifest\r
+any heroic feelings), and the whole innumerable multitude of such\r
+peasants, did not bring their hay to Moscow for the high price offered\r
+them, but burned it instead.\r
+\r
+Let us imagine two men who have come out to fight a duel with rapiers\r
+according to all the rules of the art of fencing. The fencing has gone\r
+on for some time; suddenly one of the combatants, feeling himself\r
+wounded and understanding that the matter is no joke but concerns his\r
+life, throws down his rapier, and seizing the first cudgel that comes to\r
+hand begins to brandish it. Then let us imagine that the combatant who\r
+so sensibly employed the best and simplest means to attain his end was\r
+at the same time influenced by traditions of chivalry and, desiring to\r
+conceal the facts of the case, insisted that he had gained his victory\r
+with the rapier according to all the rules of art. One can imagine what\r
+confusion and obscurity would result from such an account of the duel.\r
+\r
+The fencer who demanded a contest according to the rules of fencing was\r
+the French army; his opponent who threw away the rapier and snatched up\r
+the cudgel was the Russian people; those who try to explain the matter\r
+according to the rules of fencing are the historians who have described\r
+the event.\r
+\r
+After the burning of Smolensk a war began which did not follow any\r
+previous traditions of war. The burning of towns and villages, the\r
+retreats after battles, the blow dealt at Borodino and the renewed\r
+retreat, the burning of Moscow, the capture of marauders, the seizure of\r
+transports, and the guerrilla war were all departures from the rules.\r
+\r
+Napoleon felt this, and from the time he took up the correct fencing\r
+attitude in Moscow and instead of his opponent's rapier saw a cudgel\r
+raised above his head, he did not cease to complain to Kutuzov and to\r
+the Emperor Alexander that the war was being carried on contrary to all\r
+the rules--as if there were any rules for killing people. In spite of\r
+the complaints of the French as to the nonobservance of the rules, in\r
+spite of the fact that to some highly placed Russians it seemed rather\r
+disgraceful to fight with a cudgel and they wanted to assume a pose en\r
+quarte or en tierce according to all the rules, and to make an adroit\r
+thrust en prime, and so on--the cudgel of the people's war was lifted\r
+with all its menacing and majestic strength, and without consulting\r
+anyone's tastes or rules and regardless of anything else, it rose and\r
+fell with stupid simplicity, but consistently, and belabored the French\r
+till the whole invasion had perished.\r
+\r
+And it is well for a people who do not--as the French did in 1813--\r
+salute according to all the rules of art, and, presenting the hilt of\r
+their rapier gracefully and politely, hand it to their magnanimous\r
+conqueror, but at the moment of trial, without asking what rules others\r
+have adopted in similar cases, simply and easily pick up the first\r
+cudgel that comes to hand and strike with it till the feeling of\r
+resentment and revenge in their soul yields to a feeling of contempt and\r
+compassion.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+One of the most obvious and advantageous departures from the so-called\r
+laws of war is the action of scattered groups against men pressed\r
+together in a mass. Such action always occurs in wars that take on a\r
+national character. In such actions, instead of two crowds opposing each\r
+other, the men disperse, attack singly, run away when attacked by\r
+stronger forces, but again attack when opportunity offers. This was done\r
+by the guerrillas in Spain, by the mountain tribes in the Caucasus, and\r
+by the Russians in 1812.\r
+\r
+People have called this kind of war "guerrilla warfare" and assume that\r
+by so calling it they have explained its meaning. But such a war does\r
+not fit in under any rule and is directly opposed to a well-known rule\r
+of tactics which is accepted as infallible. That rule says that an\r
+attacker should concentrate his forces in order to be stronger than his\r
+opponent at the moment of conflict.\r
+\r
+Guerrilla war (always successful, as history shows) directly infringes\r
+that rule.\r
+\r
+This contradiction arises from the fact that military science assumes\r
+the strength of an army to be identical with its numbers. Military\r
+science says that the more troops the greater the strength. Les gros\r
+bataillons ont toujours raison. *\r
+\r
+\r
+* Large battalions are always victorious.\r
+\r
+For military science to say this is like defining momentum in mechanics\r
+by reference to the mass only: stating that momenta are equal or unequal\r
+to each other simply because the masses involved are equal or unequal.\r
+\r
+Momentum (quantity of motion) is the product of mass and velocity.\r
+\r
+In military affairs the strength of an army is the product of its mass\r
+and some unknown x.\r
+\r
+Military science, seeing in history innumerable instances of the fact\r
+that the size of any army does not coincide with its strength and that\r
+small detachments defeat larger ones, obscurely admits the existence of\r
+this unknown factor and tries to discover it--now in a geometric\r
+formation, now in the equipment employed, now, and most usually, in the\r
+genius of the commanders. But the assignment of these various meanings\r
+to the factor does not yield results which accord with the historic\r
+facts.\r
+\r
+Yet it is only necessary to abandon the false view (adopted to gratify\r
+the "heroes") of the efficacy of the directions issued in wartime by\r
+commanders, in order to find this unknown quantity.\r
+\r
+That unknown quantity is the spirit of the army, that is to say, the\r
+greater or lesser readiness to fight and face danger felt by all the men\r
+composing an army, quite independently of whether they are, or are not,\r
+fighting under the command of a genius, in two--or three-line formation,\r
+with cudgels or with rifles that repeat thirty times a minute. Men who\r
+want to fight will always put themselves in the most advantageous\r
+conditions for fighting.\r
+\r
+The spirit of an army is the factor which multiplied by the mass gives\r
+the resulting force. To define and express the significance of this\r
+unknown factor--the spirit of an army--is a problem for science.\r
+\r
+This problem is only solvable if we cease arbitrarily to substitute for\r
+the unknown x itself the conditions under which that force becomes\r
+apparent--such as the commands of the general, the equipment employed,\r
+and so on--mistaking these for the real significance of the factor, and\r
+if we recognize this unknown quantity in its entirety as being the\r
+greater or lesser desire to fight and to face danger. Only then,\r
+expressing known historic facts by equations and comparing the relative\r
+significance of this factor, can we hope to define the unknown.\r
+\r
+Ten men, battalions, or divisions, fighting fifteen men, battalions, or\r
+divisions, conquer--that is, kill or take captive--all the others, while\r
+themselves losing four, so that on the one side four and on the other\r
+fifteen were lost. Consequently the four were equal to the fifteen, and\r
+therefore 4x = 15y. Consequently x/y = 15/4. This equation does not give\r
+us the value of the unknown factor but gives us a ratio between two\r
+unknowns. And by bringing variously selected historic units (battles,\r
+campaigns, periods of war) into such equations, a series of numbers\r
+could be obtained in which certain laws should exist and might be\r
+discovered.\r
+\r
+The tactical rule that an army should act in masses when attacking, and\r
+in smaller groups in retreat, unconsciously confirms the truth that the\r
+strength of an army depends on its spirit. To lead men forward under\r
+fire more discipline (obtainable only by movement in masses) is needed\r
+than is needed to resist attacks. But this rule which leaves out of\r
+account the spirit of the army continually proves incorrect and is in\r
+particularly striking contrast to the facts when some strong rise or\r
+fall in the spirit of the troops occurs, as in all national wars.\r
+\r
+The French, retreating in 1812--though according to tactics they should\r
+have separated into detachments to defend themselves--congregated into a\r
+mass because the spirit of the army had so fallen that only the mass\r
+held the army together. The Russians, on the contrary, ought according\r
+to tactics to have attacked in mass, but in fact they split up into\r
+small units, because their spirit had so risen that separate\r
+individuals, without orders, dealt blows at the French without needing\r
+any compulsion to induce them to expose themselves to hardships and\r
+dangers.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+The so-called partisan war began with the entry of the French into\r
+Smolensk.\r
+\r
+Before partisan warfare had been officially recognized by the\r
+government, thousands of enemy stragglers, marauders, and foragers had\r
+been destroyed by the Cossacks and the peasants, who killed them off as\r
+instinctively as dogs worry a stray mad dog to death. Denis Davydov,\r
+with his Russian instinct, was the first to recognize the value of this\r
+terrible cudgel which regardless of the rules of military science\r
+destroyed the French, and to him belongs the credit for taking the first\r
+step toward regularizing this method of warfare.\r
+\r
+On August 24 Davydov's first partisan detachment was formed and then\r
+others were recognized. The further the campaign progressed the more\r
+numerous these detachments became.\r
+\r
+The irregulars destroyed the great army piecemeal. They gathered the\r
+fallen leaves that dropped of themselves from that withered tree--the\r
+French army--and sometimes shook that tree itself. By October, when the\r
+French were fleeing toward Smolensk, there were hundreds of such\r
+companies, of various sizes and characters. There were some that adopted\r
+all the army methods and had infantry, artillery, staffs, and the\r
+comforts of life. Others consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were\r
+also small scratch groups of foot and horse, and groups of peasants and\r
+landowners that remained unknown. A sacristan commanded one party which\r
+captured several hundred prisoners in the course of a month; and there\r
+was Vasilisa, the wife of a village elder, who slew hundreds of the\r
+French.\r
+\r
+The partisan warfare flamed up most fiercely in the latter days of\r
+October. Its first period had passed: when the partisans themselves,\r
+amazed at their own boldness, feared every minute to be surrounded and\r
+captured by the French, and hid in the forests without unsaddling,\r
+hardly daring to dismount and always expecting to be pursued. By the end\r
+of October this kind of warfare had taken definite shape: it had become\r
+clear to all what could be ventured against the French and what could\r
+not. Now only the commanders of detachments with staffs, and moving\r
+according to rules at a distance from the French, still regarded many\r
+things as impossible. The small bands that had started their activities\r
+long before and had already observed the French closely considered\r
+things possible which the commanders of the big detachments did not dare\r
+to contemplate. The Cossacks and peasants who crept in among the French\r
+now considered everything possible.\r
+\r
+On October 22, Denisov (who was one of the irregulars) was with his\r
+group at the height of the guerrilla enthusiasm. Since early morning he\r
+and his party had been on the move. All day long he had been watching\r
+from the forest that skirted the highroad a large French convoy of\r
+cavalry baggage and Russian prisoners separated from the rest of the\r
+army, which--as was learned from spies and prisoners--was moving under a\r
+strong escort to Smolensk. Besides Denisov and Dolokhov (who also led a\r
+small party and moved in Denisov's vicinity), the commanders of some\r
+large divisions with staffs also knew of this convoy and, as Denisov\r
+expressed it, were sharpening their teeth for it. Two of the commanders\r
+of large parties--one a Pole and the other a German--sent invitations to\r
+Denisov almost simultaneously, requesting him to join up with their\r
+divisions to attack the convoy.\r
+\r
+"No, bwother, I have gwown mustaches myself," said Denisov on reading\r
+these documents, and he wrote to the German that, despite his heartfelt\r
+desire to serve under so valiant and renowned a general, he had to forgo\r
+that pleasure because he was already under the command of the Polish\r
+general. To the Polish general he replied to the same effect, informing\r
+him that he was already under the command of the German.\r
+\r
+Having arranged matters thus, Denisov and Dolokhov intended, without\r
+reporting matters to the higher command, to attack and seize that convoy\r
+with their own small forces. On October 22 it was moving from the\r
+village of Mikulino to that of Shamshevo. To the left of the road\r
+between Mikulino and Shamshevo there were large forests, extending in\r
+some places up to the road itself though in others a mile or more back\r
+from it. Through these forests Denisov and his party rode all day,\r
+sometimes keeping well back in them and sometimes coming to the very\r
+edge, but never losing sight of the moving French. That morning,\r
+Cossacks of Denisov's party had seized and carried off into the forest\r
+two wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had stuck in the mud not\r
+far from Mikulino where the forest ran close to the road. Since then,\r
+and until evening, the party had watched the movements of the French\r
+without attacking. It was necessary to let the French reach Shamshevo\r
+quietly without alarming them and then, after joining Dolokhov who was\r
+to come that evening to a consultation at a watchman's hut in the forest\r
+less than a mile from Shamshevo, to surprise the French at dawn, falling\r
+like an avalanche on their heads from two sides, and rout and capture\r
+them all at one blow.\r
+\r
+In their rear, more than a mile from Mikulino where the forest came\r
+right up to the road, six Cossacks were posted to report if any fresh\r
+columns of French should show themselves.\r
+\r
+Beyond Shamshevo, Dolokhov was to observe the road in the same way, to\r
+find out at what distance there were other French troops. They reckoned\r
+that the convoy had fifteen hundred men. Denisov had two hundred, and\r
+Dolokhov might have as many more, but the disparity of numbers did not\r
+deter Denisov. All that he now wanted to know was what troops these were\r
+and to learn that he had to capture a "tongue"--that is, a man from the\r
+enemy column. That morning's attack on the wagons had been made so\r
+hastily that the Frenchmen with the wagons had all been killed; only a\r
+little drummer boy had been taken alive, and as he was a straggler he\r
+could tell them nothing definite about the troops in that column.\r
+\r
+Denisov considered it dangerous to make a second attack for fear of\r
+putting the whole column on the alert, so he sent Tikhon Shcherbaty, a\r
+peasant of his party, to Shamshevo to try and seize at least one of the\r
+French quartermasters who had been sent on in advance.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+It was a warm rainy autumn day. The sky and the horizon were both the\r
+color of muddy water. At times a sort of mist descended, and then\r
+suddenly heavy slanting rain came down.\r
+\r
+Denisov in a felt cloak and a sheepskin cap from which the rain ran down\r
+was riding a thin thoroughbred horse with sunken sides. Like his horse,\r
+which turned its head and laid its ears back, he shrank from the driving\r
+rain and gazed anxiously before him. His thin face with its short, thick\r
+black beard looked angry.\r
+\r
+Beside Denisov rode an esaul, * Denisov's fellow worker, also in felt\r
+cloak and sheepskin cap, and riding a large sleek Don horse.\r
+\r
+\r
+* A captain of Cossacks.\r
+\r
+Esaul Lovayski the Third was a tall man as straight as an arrow, pale-\r
+faced, fair-haired, with narrow light eyes and with calm self-\r
+satisfaction in his face and bearing. Though it was impossible to say in\r
+what the peculiarity of the horse and rider lay, yet at first glance at\r
+the esaul and Denisov one saw that the latter was wet and uncomfortable\r
+and was a man mounted on a horse, while looking at the esaul one saw\r
+that he was as comfortable and as much at ease as always and that he was\r
+not a man who had mounted a horse, but a man who was one with his horse,\r
+a being consequently possessed of twofold strength.\r
+\r
+A little ahead of them walked a peasant guide, wet to the skin and\r
+wearing a gray peasant coat and a white knitted cap.\r
+\r
+A little behind, on a poor, small, lean Kirghiz mount with an enormous\r
+tail and mane and a bleeding mouth, rode a young officer in a blue\r
+French overcoat.\r
+\r
+Beside him rode an hussar, with a boy in a tattered French uniform and\r
+blue cap behind him on the crupper of his horse. The boy held on to the\r
+hussar with cold, red hands, and raising his eyebrows gazed about him\r
+with surprise. This was the French drummer boy captured that morning.\r
+\r
+Behind them along the narrow, sodden, cutup forest road came hussars in\r
+threes and fours, and then Cossacks: some in felt cloaks, some in French\r
+greatcoats, and some with horsecloths over their heads. The horses,\r
+being drenched by the rain, all looked black whether chestnut or bay.\r
+Their necks, with their wet, close-clinging manes, looked strangely\r
+thin. Steam rose from them. Clothes, saddles, reins, were all wet,\r
+slippery, and sodden, like the ground and the fallen leaves that strewed\r
+the road. The men sat huddled up trying not to stir, so as to warm the\r
+water that had trickled to their bodies and not admit the fresh cold\r
+water that was leaking in under their seats, their knees, and at the\r
+back of their necks. In the midst of the outspread line of Cossacks two\r
+wagons, drawn by French horses and by saddled Cossack horses that had\r
+been hitched on in front, rumbled over the tree stumps and branches and\r
+splashed through the water that lay in the ruts.\r
+\r
+Denisov's horse swerved aside to avoid a pool in the track and bumped\r
+his rider's knee against a tree.\r
+\r
+"Oh, the devil!" exclaimed Denisov angrily, and showing his teeth he\r
+struck his horse three times with his whip, splashing himself and his\r
+comrades with mud.\r
+\r
+Denisov was out of sorts both because of the rain and also from hunger\r
+(none of them had eaten anything since morning), and yet more because he\r
+still had no news from Dolokhov and the man sent to capture a "tongue"\r
+had not returned.\r
+\r
+"There'll hardly be another such chance to fall on a transport as today.\r
+It's too risky to attack them by oneself, and if we put it off till\r
+another day one of the big guerrilla detachments will snatch the prey\r
+from under our noses," thought Denisov, continually peering forward,\r
+hoping to see a messenger from Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+On coming to a path in the forest along which he could see far to the\r
+right, Denisov stopped.\r
+\r
+"There's someone coming," said he.\r
+\r
+The esaul looked in the direction Denisov indicated.\r
+\r
+"There are two, an officer and a Cossack. But it is not presupposable\r
+that it is the lieutenant colonel himself," said the esaul, who was fond\r
+of using words the Cossacks did not know.\r
+\r
+The approaching riders having descended a decline were no longer\r
+visible, but they reappeared a few minutes later. In front, at a weary\r
+gallop and using his leather whip, rode an officer, disheveled and\r
+drenched, whose trousers had worked up to above his knees. Behind him,\r
+standing in the stirrups, trotted a Cossack. The officer, a very young\r
+lad with a broad rosy face and keen merry eyes, galloped up to Denisov\r
+and handed him a sodden envelope.\r
+\r
+"From the general," said the officer. "Please excuse its not being quite\r
+dry."\r
+\r
+Denisov, frowning, took the envelope and opened it.\r
+\r
+"There, they kept telling us: 'It's dangerous, it's dangerous,'" said\r
+the officer, addressing the esaul while Denisov was reading the\r
+dispatch. "But Komarov and I"--he pointed to the Cossack--"were\r
+prepared. We have each of us two pistols.... But what's this?" he asked,\r
+noticing the French drummer boy. "A prisoner? You've already been in\r
+action? May I speak to him?"\r
+\r
+"Wostov! Petya!" exclaimed Denisov, having run through the dispatch.\r
+"Why didn't you say who you were?" and turning with a smile he held out\r
+his hand to the lad.\r
+\r
+The officer was Petya Rostov.\r
+\r
+All the way Petya had been preparing himself to behave with Denisov as\r
+befitted a grownup man and an officer--without hinting at their previous\r
+acquaintance. But as soon as Denisov smiled at him Petya brightened up,\r
+blushed with pleasure, forgot the official manner he had been\r
+rehearsing, and began telling him how he had already been in a battle\r
+near Vyazma and how a certain hussar had distinguished himself there.\r
+\r
+"Well, I am glad to see you," Denisov interrupted him, and his face\r
+again assumed its anxious expression.\r
+\r
+"Michael Feoklitych," said he to the esaul, "this is again fwom that\r
+German, you know. He"--he indicated Petya--"is serving under him."\r
+\r
+And Denisov told the esaul that the dispatch just delivered was a\r
+repetition of the German general's demand that he should join forces\r
+with him for an attack on the transport.\r
+\r
+"If we don't take it tomowwow, he'll snatch it fwom under our noses," he\r
+added.\r
+\r
+While Denisov was talking to the esaul, Petya--abashed by Denisov's cold\r
+tone and supposing that it was due to the condition of his trousers--\r
+furtively tried to pull them down under his greatcoat so that no one\r
+should notice it, while maintaining as martial an air as possible.\r
+\r
+"Will there be any orders, your honor?" he asked Denisov, holding his\r
+hand at the salute and resuming the game of adjutant and general for\r
+which he had prepared himself, "or shall I remain with your honor?"\r
+\r
+"Orders?" Denisov repeated thoughtfully. "But can you stay till\r
+tomowwow?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, please... May I stay with you?" cried Petya.\r
+\r
+"But, just what did the genewal tell you? To weturn at once?" asked\r
+Denisov.\r
+\r
+Petya blushed.\r
+\r
+"He gave me no instructions. I think I could?" he returned, inquiringly.\r
+\r
+"Well, all wight," said Denisov.\r
+\r
+And turning to his men he directed a party to go on to the halting place\r
+arranged near the watchman's hut in the forest, and told the officer on\r
+the Kirghiz horse (who performed the duties of an adjutant) to go and\r
+find out where Dolokhov was and whether he would come that evening.\r
+Denisov himself intended going with the esaul and Petya to the edge of\r
+the forest where it reached out to Shamshevo, to have a look at the part\r
+of the French bivouac they were to attack next day.\r
+\r
+"Well, old fellow," said he to the peasant guide, "lead us to\r
+Shamshevo."\r
+\r
+Denisov, Petya, and the esaul, accompanied by some Cossacks and the\r
+hussar who had the prisoner, rode to the left across a ravine to the\r
+edge of the forest.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+The rain had stopped, and only the mist was falling and drops from the\r
+trees. Denisov, the esaul, and Petya rode silently, following the\r
+peasant in the knitted cap who, stepping lightly with outturned toes and\r
+moving noiselessly in his bast shoes over the roots and wet leaves,\r
+silently led them to the edge of the forest.\r
+\r
+He ascended an incline, stopped, looked about him, and advanced to where\r
+the screen of trees was less dense. On reaching a large oak tree that\r
+had not yet shed its leaves, he stopped and beckoned mysteriously to\r
+them with his hand.\r
+\r
+Denisov and Petya rode up to him. From the spot where the peasant was\r
+standing they could see the French. Immediately beyond the forest, on a\r
+downward slope, lay a field of spring rye. To the right, beyond a steep\r
+ravine, was a small village and a landowner's house with a broken roof.\r
+In the village, in the house, in the garden, by the well, by the pond,\r
+over all the rising ground, and all along the road uphill from the\r
+bridge leading to the village, not more than five hundred yards away,\r
+crowds of men could be seen through the shimmering mist. Their un-\r
+Russian shouting at their horses which were straining uphill with the\r
+carts, and their calls to one another, could be clearly heard.\r
+\r
+"Bwing the prisoner here," said Denisov in a low voice, not taking his\r
+eyes off the French.\r
+\r
+A Cossack dismounted, lifted the boy down, and took him to Denisov.\r
+Pointing to the French troops, Denisov asked him what these and those of\r
+them were. The boy, thrusting his cold hands into his pockets and\r
+lifting his eyebrows, looked at Denisov in affright, but in spite of an\r
+evident desire to say all he knew gave confused answers, merely\r
+assenting to everything Denisov asked him. Denisov turned away from him\r
+frowning and addressed the esaul, conveying his own conjectures to him.\r
+\r
+Petya, rapidly turning his head, looked now at the drummer boy, now at\r
+Denisov, now at the esaul, and now at the French in the village and\r
+along the road, trying not to miss anything of importance.\r
+\r
+"Whether Dolokhov comes or not, we must seize it, eh?" said Denisov with\r
+a merry sparkle in his eyes.\r
+\r
+"It is a very suitable spot," said the esaul.\r
+\r
+"We'll send the infantwy down by the swamps," Denisov continued.\r
+"They'll cweep up to the garden; you'll wide up fwom there with the\r
+Cossacks"--he pointed to a spot in the forest beyond the village--"and I\r
+with my hussars fwom here. And at the signal shot..."\r
+\r
+"The hollow is impassable--there's a swamp there," said the esaul. "The\r
+horses would sink. We must ride round more to the left...."\r
+\r
+While they were talking in undertones the crack of a shot sounded from\r
+the low ground by the pond, a puff of white smoke appeared, then\r
+another, and the sound of hundreds of seemingly merry French voices\r
+shouting together came up from the slope. For a moment Denisov and the\r
+esaul drew back. They were so near that they thought they were the cause\r
+of the firing and shouting. But the firing and shouting did not relate\r
+to them. Down below, a man wearing something red was running through the\r
+marsh. The French were evidently firing and shouting at him.\r
+\r
+"Why, that's our Tikhon," said the esaul.\r
+\r
+"So it is! It is!"\r
+\r
+"The wascal!" said Denisov.\r
+\r
+"He'll get away!" said the esaul, screwing up his eyes.\r
+\r
+The man whom they called Tikhon, having run to the stream, plunged in so\r
+that the water splashed in the air, and, having disappeared for an\r
+instant, scrambled out on all fours, all black with the wet, and ran on.\r
+The French who had been pursuing him stopped.\r
+\r
+"Smart, that!" said the esaul.\r
+\r
+"What a beast!" said Denisov with his former look of vexation. "What has\r
+he been doing all this time?"\r
+\r
+"Who is he?" asked Petya.\r
+\r
+"He's our plastun. I sent him to capture a 'tongue.'"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes," said Petya, nodding at the first words Denisov uttered as if\r
+he understood it all, though he really did not understand anything of\r
+it.\r
+\r
+Tikhon Shcherbaty was one of the most indispensable men in their band.\r
+He was a peasant from Pokrovsk, near the river Gzhat. When Denisov had\r
+come to Pokrovsk at the beginning of his operations and had as usual\r
+summoned the village elder and asked him what he knew about the French,\r
+the elder, as though shielding himself, had replied, as all village\r
+elders did, that he had neither seen nor heard anything of them. But\r
+when Denisov explained that his purpose was to kill the French, and\r
+asked if no French had strayed that way, the elder replied that some\r
+"more-orderers" had really been at their village, but that Tikhon\r
+Shcherbaty was the only man who dealt with such matters. Denisov had\r
+Tikhon called and, having praised him for his activity, said a few words\r
+in the elder's presence about loyalty to the Tsar and the country and\r
+the hatred of the French that all sons of the fatherland should cherish.\r
+\r
+"We don't do the French any harm," said Tikhon, evidently frightened by\r
+Denisov's words. "We only fooled about with the lads for fun, you know!\r
+We killed a score or so of 'more-orderers,' but we did no harm else..."\r
+\r
+Next day when Denisov had left Pokrovsk, having quite forgotten about\r
+this peasant, it was reported to him that Tikhon had attached himself to\r
+their party and asked to be allowed to remain with it. Denisov gave\r
+orders to let him do so.\r
+\r
+Tikhon, who at first did rough work, laying campfires, fetching water,\r
+flaying dead horses, and so on, soon showed a great liking and aptitude\r
+for partisan warfare. At night he would go out for booty and always\r
+brought back French clothing and weapons, and when told to would bring\r
+in French captives also. Denisov then relieved him from drudgery and\r
+began taking him with him when he went out on expeditions and had him\r
+enrolled among the Cossacks.\r
+\r
+Tikhon did not like riding, and always went on foot, never lagging\r
+behind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carried\r
+rather as a joke), a pike and an ax, which latter he used as a wolf uses\r
+its teeth, with equal ease picking fleas out of its fur or crunching\r
+thick bones. Tikhon with equal accuracy would split logs with blows at\r
+arm's length, or holding the head of the ax would cut thin little pegs\r
+or carve spoons. In Denisov's party he held a peculiar and exceptional\r
+position. When anything particularly difficult or nasty had to be done--\r
+to push a cart out of the mud with one's shoulders, pull a horse out of\r
+a swamp by its tail, skin it, slink in among the French, or walk more\r
+than thirty miles in a day--everybody pointed laughingly at Tikhon.\r
+\r
+"It won't hurt that devil--he's as strong as a horse!" they said of him.\r
+\r
+Once a Frenchman Tikhon was trying to capture fired a pistol at him and\r
+shot him in the fleshy part of the back. That wound (which Tikhon\r
+treated only with internal and external applications of vodka) was the\r
+subject of the liveliest jokes by the whole detachment--jokes in which\r
+Tikhon readily joined.\r
+\r
+"Hallo, mate! Never again? Gave you a twist?" the Cossacks would banter\r
+him. And Tikhon, purposely writhing and making faces, pretended to be\r
+angry and swore at the French with the funniest curses. The only effect\r
+of this incident on Tikhon was that after being wounded he seldom\r
+brought in prisoners.\r
+\r
+He was the bravest and most useful man in the party. No one found more\r
+opportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed more Frenchmen,\r
+and consequently he was made the buffoon of all the Cossacks and hussars\r
+and willingly accepted that role. Now he had been sent by Denisov\r
+overnight to Shamshevo to capture a "tongue." But whether because he had\r
+not been content to take only one Frenchman or because he had slept\r
+through the night, he had crept by day into some bushes right among the\r
+French and, as Denisov had witnessed from above, had been detected by\r
+them.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+After talking for some time with the esaul about next day's attack,\r
+which now, seeing how near they were to the French, he seemed to have\r
+definitely decided on, Denisov turned his horse and rode back.\r
+\r
+"Now, my lad, we'll go and get dwy," he said to Petya.\r
+\r
+As they approached the watchhouse Denisov stopped, peering into the\r
+forest. Among the trees a man with long legs and long, swinging arms,\r
+wearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazan hat, was approaching\r
+with long, light steps. He had a musketoon over his shoulder and an ax\r
+stuck in his girdle. When he espied Denisov he hastily threw something\r
+into the bushes, removed his sodden hat by its floppy brim, and\r
+approached his commander. It was Tikhon. His wrinkled and pockmarked\r
+face and narrow little eyes beamed with self-satisfied merriment. He\r
+lifted his head high and gazed at Denisov as if repressing a laugh.\r
+\r
+"Well, where did you disappear to?" inquired Denisov.\r
+\r
+"Where did I disappear to? I went to get Frenchmen," answered Tikhon\r
+boldly and hurriedly, in a husky but melodious bass voice.\r
+\r
+"Why did you push yourself in there by daylight? You ass! Well, why\r
+haven't you taken one?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I took one all right," said Tikhon.\r
+\r
+"Where is he?"\r
+\r
+"You see, I took him first thing at dawn," Tikhon continued, spreading\r
+out his flat feet with outturned toes in their bast shoes. "I took him\r
+into the forest. Then I see he's no good and think I'll go and fetch a\r
+likelier one."\r
+\r
+"You see?... What a wogue--it's just as I thought," said Denisov to the\r
+esaul. "Why didn't you bwing that one?"\r
+\r
+"What was the good of bringing him?" Tikhon interrupted hastily and\r
+angrily--"that one wouldn't have done for you. As if I don't know what\r
+sort you want!"\r
+\r
+"What a bwute you are!... Well?"\r
+\r
+"I went for another one," Tikhon continued, "and I crept like this\r
+through the wood and lay down." (He suddenly lay down on his stomach\r
+with a supple movement to show how he had done it.) "One turned up and I\r
+grabbed him, like this." (He jumped up quickly and lightly.) "'Come\r
+along to the colonel,' I said. He starts yelling, and suddenly there\r
+were four of them. They rushed at me with their little swords. So I went\r
+for them with my ax, this way: 'What are you up to?' says I. 'Christ be\r
+with you!'" shouted Tikhon, waving his arms with an angry scowl and\r
+throwing out his chest.\r
+\r
+"Yes, we saw from the hill how you took to your heels through the\r
+puddles!" said the esaul, screwing up his glittering eyes.\r
+\r
+Petya badly wanted to laugh, but noticed that they all refrained from\r
+laughing. He turned his eyes rapidly from Tikhon's face to the esaul's\r
+and Denisov's, unable to make out what it all meant.\r
+\r
+"Don't play the fool!" said Denisov, coughing angrily. "Why didn't you\r
+bwing the first one?"\r
+\r
+Tikhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other,\r
+then suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming, foolish grin,\r
+disclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that was why he was called\r
+Shcherbaty--the gap-toothed). Denisov smiled, and Petya burst into a\r
+peal of merry laughter in which Tikhon himself joined.\r
+\r
+"Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing," said Tikhon. "The clothes\r
+on him--poor stuff! How could I bring him? And so rude, your honor! Why,\r
+he says: 'I'm a general's son myself, I won't go!' he says."\r
+\r
+"You are a bwute!" said Denisov. "I wanted to question..."\r
+\r
+"But I questioned him," said Tikhon. "He said he didn't know much.\r
+'There are a lot of us,' he says, 'but all poor stuff--only soldiers in\r
+name,' he says. 'Shout loud at them,' he says, 'and you'll take them\r
+all,'" Tikhon concluded, looking cheerfully and resolutely into\r
+Denisov's eyes.\r
+\r
+"I'll give you a hundwed sharp lashes--that'll teach you to play the\r
+fool!" said Denisov severely.\r
+\r
+"But why are you angry?" remonstrated Tikhon, "just as if I'd never seen\r
+your Frenchmen! Only wait till it gets dark and I'll fetch you any of\r
+them you want--three if you like."\r
+\r
+"Well, let's go," said Denisov, and rode all the way to the watchhouse\r
+in silence and frowning angrily.\r
+\r
+Tikhon followed behind and Petya heard the Cossacks laughing with him\r
+and at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into the bushes.\r
+\r
+When the fit of laughter that had seized him at Tikhon's words and smile\r
+had passed and Petya realized for a moment that this Tikhon had killed a\r
+man, he felt uneasy. He looked round at the captive drummer boy and felt\r
+a pang in his heart. But this uneasiness lasted only a moment. He felt\r
+it necessary to hold his head higher, to brace himself, and to question\r
+the esaul with an air of importance about tomorrow's undertaking, that\r
+he might not be unworthy of the company in which he found himself.\r
+\r
+The officer who had been sent to inquire met Denisov on the way with the\r
+news that Dolokhov was soon coming and that all was well with him.\r
+\r
+Denisov at once cheered up and, calling Petya to him, said: "Well, tell\r
+me about yourself."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+Petya, having left his people after their departure from Moscow, joined\r
+his regiment and was soon taken as orderly by a general commanding a\r
+large guerrilla detachment. From the time he received his commission,\r
+and especially since he had joined the active army and taken part in the\r
+battle of Vyazma, Petya had been in a constant state of blissful\r
+excitement at being grown-up and in a perpetual ecstatic hurry not to\r
+miss any chance to do something really heroic. He was highly delighted\r
+with what he saw and experienced in the army, but at the same time it\r
+always seemed to him that the really heroic exploits were being\r
+performed just where he did not happen to be. And he was always in a\r
+hurry to get where he was not.\r
+\r
+When on the twenty-first of October his general expressed a wish to send\r
+somebody to Denisov's detachment, Petya begged so piteously to be sent\r
+that the general could not refuse. But when dispatching him he recalled\r
+Petya's mad action at the battle of Vyazma, where instead of riding by\r
+the road to the place to which he had been sent, he had galloped to the\r
+advanced line under the fire of the French and had there twice fired his\r
+pistol. So now the general explicitly forbade his taking part in any\r
+action whatever of Denisov's. That was why Petya had blushed and grown\r
+confused when Denisov asked him whether he could stay. Before they had\r
+ridden to the outskirts of the forest Petya had considered he must carry\r
+out his instructions strictly and return at once. But when he saw the\r
+French and saw Tikhon and learned that there would certainly be an\r
+attack that night, he decided, with the rapidity with which young people\r
+change their views, that the general, whom he had greatly respected till\r
+then, was a rubbishy German, that Denisov was a hero, the esaul a hero,\r
+and Tikhon a hero too, and that it would be shameful for him to leave\r
+them at a moment of difficulty.\r
+\r
+It was already growing dusk when Denisov, Petya, and the esaul rode up\r
+to the watchhouse. In the twilight saddled horses could be seen, and\r
+Cossacks and hussars who had rigged up rough shelters in the glade and\r
+were kindling glowing fires in a hollow of the forest where the French\r
+could not see the smoke. In the passage of the small watchhouse a\r
+Cossack with sleeves rolled up was chopping some mutton. In the room\r
+three officers of Denisov's band were converting a door into a tabletop.\r
+Petya took off his wet clothes, gave them to be dried, and at once began\r
+helping the officers to fix up the dinner table.\r
+\r
+In ten minutes the table was ready and a napkin spread on it. On the\r
+table were vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, roast mutton, and salt.\r
+\r
+Sitting at table with the officers and tearing the fat savory mutton\r
+with his hands, down which the grease trickled, Petya was in an ecstatic\r
+childish state of love for all men, and consequently of confidence that\r
+others loved him in the same way.\r
+\r
+"So then what do you think, Vasili Dmitrich?" said he to Denisov. "It's\r
+all right my staying a day with you?" And not waiting for a reply he\r
+answered his own question: "You see I was told to find out--well, I am\r
+finding out.... Only do let me into the very... into the chief... I\r
+don't want a reward... But I want..."\r
+\r
+Petya clenched his teeth and looked around, throwing back his head and\r
+flourishing his arms.\r
+\r
+"Into the vewy chief..." Denisov repeated with a smile.\r
+\r
+"Only, please let me command something, so that I may really command..."\r
+Petya went on. "What would it be to you?... Oh, you want a knife?" he\r
+said, turning to an officer who wished to cut himself a piece of mutton.\r
+\r
+And he handed him his clasp knife. The officer admired it.\r
+\r
+"Please keep it. I have several like it," said Petya, blushing.\r
+"Heavens! I was quite forgetting!" he suddenly cried. "I have some\r
+raisins, fine ones; you know, seedless ones. We have a new sutler and he\r
+has such capital things. I bought ten pounds. I am used to something\r
+sweet. Would you like some?..." and Petya ran out into the passage to\r
+his Cossack and brought back some bags which contained about five pounds\r
+of raisins. "Have some, gentlemen, have some!"\r
+\r
+"You want a coffeepot, don't you?" he asked the esaul. "I bought a\r
+capital one from our sutler! He has splendid things. And he's very\r
+honest, that's the chief thing. I'll be sure to send it to you. Or\r
+perhaps your flints are giving out, or are worn out--that happens\r
+sometimes, you know. I have brought some with me, here they are"--and he\r
+showed a bag--"a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please take\r
+as many as you want, or all if you like...."\r
+\r
+Then suddenly, dismayed lest he had said too much, Petya stopped and\r
+blushed.\r
+\r
+He tried to remember whether he had not done anything else that was\r
+foolish. And running over the events of the day he remembered the French\r
+drummer boy. "It's capital for us here, but what of him? Where have they\r
+put him? Have they fed him? Haven't they hurt his feelings?" he thought.\r
+But having caught himself saying too much about the flints, he was now\r
+afraid to speak out.\r
+\r
+"I might ask," he thought, "but they'll say: 'He's a boy himself and so\r
+he pities the boy.' I'll show them tomorrow whether I'm a boy. Will it\r
+seem odd if I ask?" Petya thought. "Well, never mind!" and immediately,\r
+blushing and looking anxiously at the officers to see if they appeared\r
+ironical, he said:\r
+\r
+"May I call in that boy who was taken prisoner and give him something to\r
+eat?... Perhaps..."\r
+\r
+"Yes, he's a poor little fellow," said Denisov, who evidently saw\r
+nothing shameful in this reminder. "Call him in. His name is Vincent\r
+Bosse. Have him fetched."\r
+\r
+"I'll call him," said Petya.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, call him. A poor little fellow," Denisov repeated.\r
+\r
+Petya was standing at the door when Denisov said this. He slipped in\r
+between the officers, came close to Denisov, and said:\r
+\r
+"Let me kiss you, dear old fellow! Oh, how fine, how splendid!"\r
+\r
+And having kissed Denisov he ran out of the hut.\r
+\r
+"Bosse! Vincent!" Petya cried, stopping outside the door.\r
+\r
+"Who do you want, sir?" asked a voice in the darkness.\r
+\r
+Petya replied that he wanted the French lad who had been captured that\r
+day.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Vesenny?" said a Cossack.\r
+\r
+Vincent, the boy's name, had already been changed by the Cossacks into\r
+Vesenny (vernal) and into Vesenya by the peasants and soldiers. In both\r
+these adaptations the reference to spring (vesna) matched the impression\r
+made by the young lad.\r
+\r
+"He is warming himself there by the bonfire. Ho, Vesenya! Vesenya!--\r
+Vesenny!" laughing voices were heard calling to one another in the\r
+darkness.\r
+\r
+"He's a smart lad," said an hussar standing near Petya. "We gave him\r
+something to eat a while ago. He was awfully hungry!"\r
+\r
+The sound of bare feet splashing through the mud was heard in the\r
+darkness, and the drummer boy came to the door.\r
+\r
+"Ah, c'est vous!" said Petya. "Voulez-vous manger? N'ayez pas peur, on\r
+ne vous fera pas de mal," * he added shyly and affectionately, touching\r
+the boy's hand. "Entrez, entrez." *(2)\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Ah, it's you! Do you want something to eat? Don't be afraid, they\r
+won't hurt you."\r
+\r
+* (2) "Come in, come in."\r
+\r
+"Merci, monsieur," * said the drummer boy in a trembling almost childish\r
+voice, and he began scraping his dirty feet on the threshold.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Thank you, sir."\r
+\r
+There were many things Petya wanted to say to the drummer boy, but did\r
+not dare to. He stood irresolutely beside him in the passage. Then in\r
+the darkness he took the boy's hand and pressed it.\r
+\r
+"Come in, come in!" he repeated in a gentle whisper. "Oh, what can I do\r
+for him?" he thought, and opening the door he let the boy pass in first.\r
+\r
+When the boy had entered the hut, Petya sat down at a distance from him,\r
+considering it beneath his dignity to pay attention to him. But he\r
+fingered the money in his pocket and wondered whether it would seem\r
+ridiculous to give some to the drummer boy.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+The arrival of Dolokhov diverted Petya's attention from the drummer boy,\r
+to whom Denisov had had some mutton and vodka given, and whom he had had\r
+dressed in a Russian coat so that he might be kept with their band and\r
+not sent away with the other prisoners. Petya had heard in the army many\r
+stories of Dolokhov's extraordinary bravery and of his cruelty to the\r
+French, so from the moment he entered the hut Petya did not take his\r
+eyes from him, but braced himself up more and more and held his head\r
+high, that he might not be unworthy even of such company.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov's appearance amazed Petya by its simplicity.\r
+\r
+Denisov wore a Cossack coat, had a beard, had an icon of Nicholas the\r
+Wonder-Worker on his breast, and his way of speaking and everything he\r
+did indicated his unusual position. But Dolokhov, who in Moscow had worn\r
+a Persian costume, had now the appearance of a most correct officer of\r
+the Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a Guardsman's padded coat with\r
+an Order of St. George at his buttonhole and a plain forage cap set\r
+straight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of the\r
+room, and without greeting anyone went up to Denisov and began\r
+questioning him about the matter in hand. Denisov told him of the\r
+designs the large detachments had on the transport, of the message Petya\r
+had brought, and his own replies to both generals. Then he told him all\r
+he knew of the French detachment.\r
+\r
+"That's so. But we must know what troops they are and their numbers,"\r
+said Dolokhov. "It will be necessary to go there. We can't start the\r
+affair without knowing for certain how many there are. I like to work\r
+accurately. Here now--wouldn't one of these gentlemen like to ride over\r
+to the French camp with me? I have brought a spare uniform."\r
+\r
+"I, I... I'll go with you!" cried Petya.\r
+\r
+"There's no need for you to go at all," said Denisov, addressing\r
+Dolokhov, "and as for him, I won't let him go on any account."\r
+\r
+"I like that!" exclaimed Petya. "Why shouldn't I go?"\r
+\r
+"Because it's useless."\r
+\r
+"Well, you must excuse me, because... because... I shall go, and that's\r
+all. You'll take me, won't you?" he said, turning to Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"Why not?" Dolokhov answered absently, scrutinizing the face of the\r
+French drummer boy. "Have you had that youngster with you long?" he\r
+asked Denisov.\r
+\r
+"He was taken today but he knows nothing. I'm keeping him with me."\r
+\r
+"Yes, and where do you put the others?" inquired Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"Where? I send them away and take a weceipt for them," shouted Denisov,\r
+suddenly flushing. "And I say boldly that I have not a single man's life\r
+on my conscience. Would it be difficult for you to send thirty or thwee\r
+hundwed men to town under escort, instead of staining--I speak bluntly--\r
+staining the honor of a soldier?"\r
+\r
+"That kind of amiable talk would be suitable from this young count of\r
+sixteen," said Dolokhov with cold irony, "but it's time for you to drop\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"Why, I've not said anything! I only say that I'll certainly go with\r
+you," said Petya shyly.\r
+\r
+"But for you and me, old fellow, it's time to drop these amenities,"\r
+continued Dolokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of\r
+this subject which irritated Denisov. "Now, why have you kept this lad?"\r
+he went on, swaying his head. "Because you are sorry for him! Don't we\r
+know those 'receipts' of yours? You send a hundred men away, and thirty\r
+get there. The rest either starve or get killed. So isn't it all the\r
+same not to send them?"\r
+\r
+The esaul, screwing up his light-colored eyes, nodded approvingly.\r
+\r
+"That's not the point. I'm not going to discuss the matter. I do not\r
+wish to take it on my conscience. You say they'll die. All wight. Only\r
+not by my fault!"\r
+\r
+Dolokhov began laughing.\r
+\r
+"Who has told them not to capture me these twenty times over? But if\r
+they did catch me they'd string me up to an aspen tree, and with all\r
+your chivalry just the same." He paused. "However, we must get to work.\r
+Tell the Cossack to fetch my kit. I have two French uniforms in it.\r
+Well, are you coming with me?" he asked Petya.\r
+\r
+"I? Yes, yes, certainly!" cried Petya, blushing almost to tears and\r
+glancing at Denisov.\r
+\r
+While Dolokhov had been disputing with Denisov what should be done with\r
+prisoners, Petya had once more felt awkward and restless; but again he\r
+had no time to grasp fully what they were talking about. "If grown-up,\r
+distinguished men think so, it must be necessary and right," thought he.\r
+"But above all Denisov must not dare to imagine that I'll obey him and\r
+that he can order me about. I will certainly go to the French camp with\r
+Dolokhov. If he can, so can I!"\r
+\r
+And to all Denisov's persuasions, Petya replied that he too was\r
+accustomed to do everything accurately and not just anyhow, and that he\r
+never considered personal danger.\r
+\r
+"For you'll admit that if we don't know for sure how many of them there\r
+are... hundreds of lives may depend on it, while there are only two of\r
+us. Besides, I want to go very much and certainly will go, so don't\r
+hinder me," said he. "It will only make things worse..."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+Having put on French greatcoats and shakos, Petya and Dolokhov rode to\r
+the clearing from which Denisov had reconnoitered the French camp, and\r
+emerging from the forest in pitch darkness they descended into the\r
+hollow. On reaching the bottom, Dolokhov told the Cossacks accompanying\r
+him to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along the road to the\r
+bridge. Petya, his heart in his mouth with excitement, rode by his side.\r
+\r
+"If we're caught, I won't be taken alive! I have a pistol," whispered\r
+he.\r
+\r
+"Don't talk Russian," said Dolokhov in a hurried whisper, and at that\r
+very moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: "Qui vive?" *\r
+and the click of a musket.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Who goes there?"\r
+\r
+The blood rushed to Petya's face and he grasped his pistol.\r
+\r
+"Lanciers du 6-me," * replied Dolokhov, neither hastening nor slackening\r
+his horse's pace.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Lancers of the 6th Regiment."\r
+\r
+The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.\r
+\r
+"Mot d'ordre." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Password."\r
+\r
+Dolokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk.\r
+\r
+"Dites donc, le colonel Gerard est ici?" * he asked.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Tell me, is Colonel Gerard here?"\r
+\r
+"Mot d'ordre," repeated the sentinel, barring the way and not replying.\r
+\r
+"Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le\r
+mot d'ordre..." cried Dolokhov suddenly flaring up and riding straight\r
+at the sentinel. "Je vous demande si le colonel est ici." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "When an officer is making his round, sentinels don't ask him for the\r
+password.... I am asking you if the colonel is here."\r
+\r
+And without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had stepped\r
+aside, Dolokhov rode up the incline at a walk.\r
+\r
+Noticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dolokhov stopped\r
+him and inquired where the commander and officers were. The man, a\r
+soldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came close up to\r
+Dolokhov's horse, touched it with his hand, and explained simply and in\r
+a friendly way that the commander and the officers were higher up the\r
+hill to the right in the courtyard of the farm, as he called the\r
+landowner's house.\r
+\r
+Having ridden up the road, on both sides of which French talk could be\r
+heard around the campfires, Dolokhov turned into the courtyard of the\r
+landowner's house. Having ridden in, he dismounted and approached a big\r
+blazing campfire, around which sat several men talking noisily.\r
+Something was boiling in a small cauldron at the edge of the fire and a\r
+soldier in a peaked cap and blue overcoat, lit up by the fire, was\r
+kneeling beside it stirring its contents with a ramrod.\r
+\r
+"Oh, he's a hard nut to crack," said one of the officers who was sitting\r
+in the shadow at the other side of the fire.\r
+\r
+"He'll make them get a move on, those fellows!" said another, laughing.\r
+\r
+Both fell silent, peering out through the darkness at the sound of\r
+Dolokhov's and Petya's steps as they advanced to the fire leading their\r
+horses.\r
+\r
+"Bonjour, messieurs!" * said Dolokhov loudly and clearly.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Good day, gentlemen."\r
+\r
+There was a stir among the officers in the shadow beyond the fire, and\r
+one tall, long-necked officer, walking round the fire, came up to\r
+Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+"Is that you, Clement?" he asked. "Where the devil...?" But, noticing\r
+his mistake, he broke off short and, with a frown, greeted Dolokhov as a\r
+stranger, asking what he could do for him.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov said that he and his companion were trying to overtake their\r
+regiment, and addressing the company in general asked whether they knew\r
+anything of the 6th Regiment. None of them knew anything, and Petya\r
+thought the officers were beginning to look at him and Dolokhov with\r
+hostility and suspicion. For some seconds all were silent.\r
+\r
+"If you were counting on the evening soup, you have come too late," said\r
+a voice from behind the fire with a repressed laugh.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov replied that they were not hungry and must push on farther that\r
+night.\r
+\r
+He handed the horses over to the soldier who was stirring the pot and\r
+squatted down on his heels by the fire beside the officer with the long\r
+neck. That officer did not take his eyes from Dolokhov and again asked\r
+to what regiment he belonged. Dolokhov, as if he had not heard the\r
+question, did not reply, but lighting a short French pipe which he took\r
+from his pocket began asking the officer in how far the road before them\r
+was safe from Cossacks.\r
+\r
+"Those brigands are everywhere," replied an officer from behind the\r
+fire.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov remarked that the Cossacks were a danger only to stragglers\r
+such as his companion and himself, "but probably they would not dare to\r
+attack large detachments?" he added inquiringly. No one replied.\r
+\r
+"Well, now he'll come away," Petya thought every moment as he stood by\r
+the campfire listening to the talk.\r
+\r
+But Dolokhov restarted the conversation which had dropped and began\r
+putting direct questions as to how many men there were in the battalion,\r
+how many battalions, and how many prisoners. Asking about the Russian\r
+prisoners with that detachment, Dolokhov said:\r
+\r
+"A horrid business dragging these corpses about with one! It would be\r
+better to shoot such rabble," and burst into loud laughter, so strange\r
+that Petya thought the French would immediately detect their disguise,\r
+and involuntarily took a step back from the campfire.\r
+\r
+No one replied a word to Dolokhov's laughter, and a French officer whom\r
+they could not see (he lay wrapped in a greatcoat) rose and whispered\r
+something to a companion. Dolokhov got up and called to the soldier who\r
+was holding their horses.\r
+\r
+"Will they bring our horses or not?" thought Petya, instinctively\r
+drawing nearer to Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+The horses were brought.\r
+\r
+"Good evening, gentlemen," said Dolokhov.\r
+\r
+Petya wished to say "Good night" but could not utter a word. The\r
+officers were whispering together. Dolokhov was a long time mounting his\r
+horse which would not stand still, then he rode out of the yard at a\r
+footpace. Petya rode beside him, longing to look round to see whether or\r
+not the French were running after them, but not daring to.\r
+\r
+Coming out onto the road Dolokhov did not ride back across the open\r
+country, but through the village. At one spot he stopped and listened.\r
+"Do you hear?" he asked. Petya recognized the sound of Russian voices\r
+and saw the dark figures of Russian prisoners round their campfires.\r
+When they had descended to the bridge Petya and Dolokhov rode past the\r
+sentinel, who without saying a word paced morosely up and down it, then\r
+they descended into the hollow where the Cossacks awaited them.\r
+\r
+"Well now, good-by. Tell Denisov, 'at the first shot at daybreak,'" said\r
+Dolokhov and was about to ride away, but Petya seized hold of him.\r
+\r
+"Really!" he cried, "you are such a hero! Oh, how fine, how splendid!\r
+How I love you!"\r
+\r
+"All right, all right!" said Dolokhov. But Petya did not let go of him\r
+and Dolokhov saw through the gloom that Petya was bending toward him and\r
+wanted to kiss him. Dolokhov kissed him, laughed, turned his horse, and\r
+vanished into the darkness.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+Having returned to the watchman's hut, Petya found Denisov in the\r
+passage. He was awaiting Petya's return in a state of agitation,\r
+anxiety, and self-reproach for having let him go.\r
+\r
+"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "Yes, thank God!" he repeated, listening to\r
+Petya's rapturous account. "But, devil take you, I haven't slept because\r
+of you! Well, thank God. Now lie down. We can still get a nap before\r
+morning."\r
+\r
+"But... no," said Petya, "I don't want to sleep yet. Besides I know\r
+myself, if I fall asleep it's finished. And then I am used to not\r
+sleeping before a battle."\r
+\r
+He sat awhile in the hut joyfully recalling the details of his\r
+expedition and vividly picturing to himself what would happen next day.\r
+\r
+Then, noticing that Denisov was asleep, he rose and went out of doors.\r
+\r
+It was still quite dark outside. The rain was over, but drops were still\r
+falling from the trees. Near the watchman's hut the black shapes of the\r
+Cossacks' shanties and of horses tethered together could be seen. Behind\r
+the hut the dark shapes of the two wagons with their horses beside them\r
+were discernible, and in the hollow the dying campfire gleamed red. Not\r
+all the Cossacks and hussars were asleep; here and there, amid the\r
+sounds of falling drops and the munching of the horses near by, could be\r
+heard low voices which seemed to be whispering.\r
+\r
+Petya came out, peered into the darkness, and went up to the wagons.\r
+Someone was snoring under them, and around them stood saddled horses\r
+munching their oats. In the dark Petya recognized his own horse, which\r
+he called "Karabakh" though it was of Ukranian breed, and went up to it.\r
+\r
+"Well, Karabakh! We'll do some service tomorrow," said he, sniffing its\r
+nostrils and kissing it.\r
+\r
+"Why aren't you asleep, sir?" said a Cossack who was sitting under a\r
+wagon.\r
+\r
+"No, ah... Likhachev--isn't that your name? Do you know I have only just\r
+come back! We've been into the French camp."\r
+\r
+And Petya gave the Cossack a detailed account not only of his ride but\r
+also of his object, and why he considered it better to risk his life\r
+than to act "just anyhow."\r
+\r
+"Well, you should get some sleep now," said the Cossack.\r
+\r
+"No, I am used to this," said Petya. "I say, aren't the flints in your\r
+pistols worn out? I brought some with me. Don't you want any? You can\r
+have some."\r
+\r
+The Cossack bent forward from under the wagon to get a closer look at\r
+Petya.\r
+\r
+"Because I am accustomed to doing everything accurately," said Petya.\r
+"Some fellows do things just anyhow, without preparation, and then\r
+they're sorry for it afterwards. I don't like that."\r
+\r
+"Just so," said the Cossack.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, another thing! Please, my dear fellow, will you sharpen my\r
+saber for me? It's got bl..." (Petya feared to tell a lie, and the saber\r
+never had been sharpened.) "Can you do it?"\r
+\r
+"Of course I can."\r
+\r
+Likhachev got up, rummaged in his pack, and soon Petya heard the warlike\r
+sound of steel on whetstone. He climbed onto the wagon and sat on its\r
+edge. The Cossack was sharpening the saber under the wagon.\r
+\r
+"I say! Are the lads asleep?" asked Petya.\r
+\r
+"Some are, and some aren't--like us."\r
+\r
+"Well, and that boy?"\r
+\r
+"Vesenny? Oh, he's thrown himself down there in the passage. Fast asleep\r
+after his fright. He was that glad!"\r
+\r
+After that Petya remained silent for a long time, listening to the\r
+sounds. He heard footsteps in the darkness and a black figure appeared.\r
+\r
+"What are you sharpening?" asked a man coming up to the wagon.\r
+\r
+"Why, this gentleman's saber."\r
+\r
+"That's right," said the man, whom Petya took to be an hussar. "Was the\r
+cup left here?"\r
+\r
+"There, by the wheel!"\r
+\r
+The hussar took the cup.\r
+\r
+"It must be daylight soon," said he, yawning, and went away.\r
+\r
+Petya ought to have known that he was in a forest with Denisov's\r
+guerrilla band, less than a mile from the road, sitting on a wagon\r
+captured from the French beside which horses were tethered, that under\r
+it Likhachev was sitting sharpening a saber for him, that the big dark\r
+blotch to the right was the watchman's hut, and the red blotch below to\r
+the left was the dying embers of a campfire, that the man who had come\r
+for the cup was an hussar who wanted a drink; but he neither knew nor\r
+waited to know anything of all this. He was in a fairy kingdom where\r
+nothing resembled reality. The big dark blotch might really be the\r
+watchman's hut or it might be a cavern leading to the very depths of the\r
+earth. Perhaps the red spot was a fire, or it might be the eye of an\r
+enormous monster. Perhaps he was really sitting on a wagon, but it might\r
+very well be that he was not sitting on a wagon but on a terribly high\r
+tower from which, if he fell, he would have to fall for a whole day or a\r
+whole month, or go on falling and never reach the bottom. Perhaps it was\r
+just the Cossack, Likhachev, who was sitting under the wagon, but it\r
+might be the kindest, bravest, most wonderful, most splendid man in the\r
+world, whom no one knew of. It might really have been that the hussar\r
+came for water and went back into the hollow, but perhaps he had simply\r
+vanished--disappeared altogether and dissolved into nothingness.\r
+\r
+Nothing Petya could have seen now would have surprised him. He was in a\r
+fairy kingdom where everything was possible.\r
+\r
+He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth.\r
+It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly\r
+sailing as if unveiling the stars. Sometimes it looked as if the clouds\r
+were passing, and a clear black sky appeared. Sometimes it seemed as if\r
+the black spaces were clouds. Sometimes the sky seemed to be rising\r
+high, high overhead, and then it seemed to sink so low that one could\r
+touch it with one's hand.\r
+\r
+Petya's eyes began to close and he swayed a little.\r
+\r
+The trees were dripping. Quiet talking was heard. The horses neighed and\r
+jostled one another. Someone snored.\r
+\r
+"Ozheg-zheg, Ozheg-zheg..." hissed the saber against the whetstone, and\r
+suddenly Petya heard an harmonious orchestra playing some unknown,\r
+sweetly solemn hymn. Petya was as musical as Natasha and more so than\r
+Nicholas, but had never learned music or thought about it, and so the\r
+melody that unexpectedly came to his mind seemed to him particularly\r
+fresh and attractive. The music became more and more audible. The melody\r
+grew and passed from one instrument to another. And what was played was\r
+a fugue--though Petya had not the least conception of what a fugue is.\r
+Each instrument--now resembling a violin and now a horn, but better and\r
+clearer than violin or horn--played its own part, and before it had\r
+finished the melody merged with another instrument that began almost the\r
+same air, and then with a third and a fourth; and they all blended into\r
+one and again became separate and again blended, now into solemn church\r
+music, now into something dazzlingly brilliant and triumphant.\r
+\r
+"Oh--why, that was in a dream!" Petya said to himself, as he lurched\r
+forward. "It's in my ears. But perhaps it's music of my own. Well, go\r
+on, my music! Now!..."\r
+\r
+He closed his eyes, and, from all sides as if from a distance, sounds\r
+fluttered, grew into harmonies, separated, blended, and again all\r
+mingled into the same sweet and solemn hymn. "Oh, this is delightful! As\r
+much as I like and as I like!" said Petya to himself. He tried to\r
+conduct that enormous orchestra.\r
+\r
+"Now softly, softly die away!" and the sounds obeyed him. "Now fuller,\r
+more joyful. Still more and more joyful!" And from an unknown depth rose\r
+increasingly triumphant sounds. "Now voices join in!" ordered Petya. And\r
+at first from afar he heard men's voices and then women's. The voices\r
+grew in harmonious triumphant strength, and Petya listened to their\r
+surpassing beauty in awe and joy.\r
+\r
+With a solemn triumphal march there mingled a song, the drip from the\r
+trees, and the hissing of the saber, "Ozheg-zheg-zheg..." and again the\r
+horses jostled one another and neighed, not disturbing the choir but\r
+joining in it.\r
+\r
+Petya did not know how long this lasted: he enjoyed himself all the\r
+time, wondered at his enjoyment and regretted that there was no one to\r
+share it. He was awakened by Likhachev's kindly voice.\r
+\r
+"It's ready, your honor; you can split a Frenchman in half with it!"\r
+\r
+Petya woke up.\r
+\r
+"It's getting light, it's really getting light!" he exclaimed.\r
+\r
+The horses that had previously been invisible could now be seen to their\r
+very tails, and a watery light showed itself through the bare branches.\r
+Petya shook himself, jumped up, took a ruble from his pocket and gave it\r
+to Likhachev; then he flourished the saber, tested it, and sheathed it.\r
+The Cossacks were untying their horses and tightening their saddle\r
+girths.\r
+\r
+"And here's the commander," said Likhachev.\r
+\r
+Denisov came out of the watchman's hut and, having called Petya, gave\r
+orders to get ready.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+The men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness, tightened\r
+their saddle girths, and formed companies. Denisov stood by the\r
+watchman's hut giving final orders. The infantry of the detachment\r
+passed along the road and quickly disappeared amid the trees in the mist\r
+of early dawn, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. The esaul\r
+gave some orders to his men. Petya held his horse by the bridle,\r
+impatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face, having been bathed in\r
+cold water, was all aglow, and his eyes were particularly brilliant.\r
+Cold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed rhythmically.\r
+\r
+"Well, is ev'wything weady?" asked Denisov. "Bwing the horses."\r
+\r
+The horses were brought. Denisov was angry with the Cossack because the\r
+saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted. Petya put his\r
+foot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if to nip his leg, but\r
+Petya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and,\r
+turning to look at the hussars starting in the darkness behind him, rode\r
+up to Denisov.\r
+\r
+"Vasili Dmitrich, entrust me with some commission! Please... for God's\r
+sake...!" said he.\r
+\r
+Denisov seemed to have forgotten Petya's very existence. He turned to\r
+glance at him.\r
+\r
+"I ask one thing of you," he said sternly, "to obey me and not shove\r
+yourself forward anywhere."\r
+\r
+He did not say another word to Petya but rode in silence all the way.\r
+When they had come to the edge of the forest it was noticeably growing\r
+light over the field. Denisov talked in whispers with the esaul and the\r
+Cossacks rode past Petya and Denisov. When they had all ridden by,\r
+Denisov touched his horse and rode down the hill. Slipping onto their\r
+haunches and sliding, the horses descended with their riders into the\r
+ravine. Petya rode beside Denisov, the pulsation of his body constantly\r
+increasing. It was getting lighter and lighter, but the mist still hid\r
+distant objects. Having reached the valley, Denisov looked back and\r
+nodded to a Cossack beside him.\r
+\r
+"The signal!" said he.\r
+\r
+The Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. In an instant the tramp\r
+of horses galloping forward was heard, shouts came from various sides,\r
+and then more shots.\r
+\r
+At the first sound of trampling hoofs and shouting, Petya lashed his\r
+horse and loosening his rein galloped forward, not heeding Denisov who\r
+shouted at him. It seemed to Petya that at the moment the shot was fired\r
+it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge.\r
+Cossacks were galloping along the road in front of him. On the bridge he\r
+collided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, but he galloped on. In\r
+front of him soldiers, probably Frenchmen, were running from right to\r
+left across the road. One of them fell in the mud under his horse's\r
+feet.\r
+\r
+Cossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with something. From the midst\r
+of that crowd terrible screams arose. Petya galloped up, and the first\r
+thing he saw was the pale face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman,\r
+clutching the handle of a lance that had been aimed at him.\r
+\r
+"Hurrah!... Lads!... ours!" shouted Petya, and giving rein to his\r
+excited horse he galloped forward along the village street.\r
+\r
+He could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hussars, and ragged\r
+Russian prisoners, who had come running from both sides of the road,\r
+were shouting something loudly and incoherently. A gallant-looking\r
+Frenchman, in a blue overcoat, capless, and with a frowning red face,\r
+had been defending himself against the hussars. When Petya galloped up\r
+the Frenchman had already fallen. "Too late again!" flashed through\r
+Petya's mind and he galloped on to the place from which the rapid firing\r
+could be heard. The shots came from the yard of the landowner's house he\r
+had visited the night before with Dolokhov. The French were making a\r
+stand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly overgrown with\r
+bushes and were firing at the Cossacks who crowded at the gateway.\r
+Through the smoke, as he approached the gate, Petya saw Dolokhov, whose\r
+face was of a pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men. "Go round! Wait\r
+for the infantry!" he exclaimed as Petya rode up to him.\r
+\r
+"Wait?... Hurrah-ah-ah!" shouted Petya, and without pausing a moment\r
+galloped to the place whence came the sounds of firing and where the\r
+smoke was thickest.\r
+\r
+A volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past, while others plashed\r
+against something. The Cossacks and Dolokhov galloped after Petya into\r
+the gateway of the courtyard. In the dense wavering smoke some of the\r
+French threw down their arms and ran out of the bushes to meet the\r
+Cossacks, while others ran down the hill toward the pond. Petya was\r
+galloping along the courtyard, but instead of holding the reins he waved\r
+both his arms about rapidly and strangely, slipping farther and farther\r
+to one side in his saddle. His horse, having galloped up to a campfire\r
+that was smoldering in the morning light, stopped suddenly, and Petya\r
+fell heavily on to the wet ground. The Cossacks saw that his arms and\r
+legs jerked rapidly though his head was quite motionless. A bullet had\r
+pierced his skull.\r
+\r
+After speaking to the senior French officer, who came out of the house\r
+with a white handkerchief tied to his sword and announced that they\r
+surrendered, Dolokhov dismounted and went up to Petya, who lay\r
+motionless with outstretched arms.\r
+\r
+"Done for!" he said with a frown, and went to the gate to meet Denisov\r
+who was riding toward him.\r
+\r
+"Killed?" cried Denisov, recognizing from a distance the unmistakably\r
+lifeless attitude--very familiar to him--in which Petya's body was\r
+lying.\r
+\r
+"Done for!" repeated Dolokhov as if the utterance of these words\r
+afforded him pleasure, and he went quickly up to the prisoners, who were\r
+surrounded by Cossacks who had hurried up. "We won't take them!" he\r
+called out to Denisov.\r
+\r
+Denisov did not reply; he rode up to Petya, dismounted, and with\r
+trembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-bespattered\r
+face which had already gone white.\r
+\r
+"I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones... take them all!" he\r
+recalled Petya's words. And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at the\r
+sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denisov turned away, walked to\r
+the wattle fence, and seized hold of it.\r
+\r
+Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denisov and Dolokhov was Pierre\r
+Bezukhov.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+During the whole of their march from Moscow no fresh orders had been\r
+issued by the French authorities concerning the party of prisoners among\r
+whom was Pierre. On the twenty-second of October that party was no\r
+longer with the same troops and baggage trains with which it had left\r
+Moscow. Half the wagons laden with hardtack that had traveled the first\r
+stages with them had been captured by Cossacks, the other half had gone\r
+on ahead. Not one of those dismounted cavalrymen who had marched in\r
+front of the prisoners was left; they had all disappeared. The artillery\r
+the prisoners had seen in front of them during the first days was now\r
+replaced by Marshal Junot's enormous baggage train, convoyed by\r
+Westphalians. Behind the prisoners came a cavalry baggage train.\r
+\r
+From Vyazma onwards the French army, which had till then moved in three\r
+columns, went on as a single group. The symptoms of disorder that Pierre\r
+had noticed at their first halting place after leaving Moscow had now\r
+reached the utmost limit.\r
+\r
+The road along which they moved was bordered on both sides by dead\r
+horses; ragged men who had fallen behind from various regiments\r
+continually changed about, now joining the moving column, now again\r
+lagging behind it.\r
+\r
+Several times during the march false alarms had been given and the\r
+soldiers of the escort had raised their muskets, fired, and run\r
+headlong, crushing one another, but had afterwards reassembled and\r
+abused each other for their causeless panic.\r
+\r
+These three groups traveling together--the cavalry stores, the convoy of\r
+prisoners, and Junot's baggage train--still constituted a separate and\r
+united whole, though each of the groups was rapidly melting away.\r
+\r
+Of the artillery baggage train which had consisted of a hundred and\r
+twenty wagons, not more than sixty now remained; the rest had been\r
+captured or left behind. Some of Junot's wagons also had been captured\r
+or abandoned. Three wagons had been raided and robbed by stragglers from\r
+Davout's corps. From the talk of the Germans Pierre learned that a\r
+larger guard had been allotted to that baggage train than to the\r
+prisoners, and that one of their comrades, a German soldier, had been\r
+shot by the marshal's own order because a silver spoon belonging to the\r
+marshal had been found in his possession.\r
+\r
+The group of prisoners had melted away most of all. Of the three hundred\r
+and thirty men who had set out from Moscow fewer than a hundred now\r
+remained. The prisoners were more burdensome to the escort than even the\r
+cavalry saddles or Junot's baggage. They understood that the saddles and\r
+Junot's spoon might be of some use, but that cold and hungry soldiers\r
+should have to stand and guard equally cold and hungry Russians who\r
+froze and lagged behind on the road (in which case the order was to\r
+shoot them) was not merely incomprehensible but revolting. And the\r
+escort, as if afraid, in the grievous condition they themselves were in,\r
+of giving way to the pity they felt for the prisoners and so rendering\r
+their own plight still worse, treated them with particular moroseness\r
+and severity.\r
+\r
+At Dorogobuzh while the soldiers of the convoy, after locking the\r
+prisoners in a stable, had gone off to pillage their own stores, several\r
+of the soldier prisoners tunneled under the wall and ran away, but were\r
+recaptured by the French and shot.\r
+\r
+The arrangement adopted when they started, that the officer prisoners\r
+should be kept separate from the rest, had long since been abandoned.\r
+All who could walk went together, and after the third stage Pierre had\r
+rejoined Karataev and the gray-blue bandy-legged dog that had chosen\r
+Karataev for its master.\r
+\r
+On the third day after leaving Moscow Karataev again fell ill with the\r
+fever he had suffered from in the hospital in Moscow, and as he grew\r
+gradually weaker Pierre kept away from him. Pierre did not know why, but\r
+since Karataev had begun to grow weaker it had cost him an effort to go\r
+near him. When he did so and heard the subdued moaning with which\r
+Karataev generally lay down at the halting places, and when he smelled\r
+the odor emanating from him which was now stronger than before, Pierre\r
+moved farther away and did not think about him.\r
+\r
+While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect\r
+but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for\r
+happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple\r
+human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from\r
+superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had\r
+learned still another new, consolatory truth--that nothing in this world\r
+is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man\r
+can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he\r
+need be unhappy and lack freedom. He learned that suffering and freedom\r
+have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the\r
+person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as\r
+he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled\r
+while the other was warming; and that when he had put on tight dancing\r
+shoes he had suffered just as he did now when he walked with bare feet\r
+that were covered with sores--his footgear having long since fallen to\r
+pieces. He discovered that when he had married his wife--of his own free\r
+will as it had seemed to him--he had been no more free than now when\r
+they locked him up at night in a stable. Of all that he himself\r
+subsequently termed his sufferings, but which at the time he scarcely\r
+felt, the worst was the state of his bare, raw, and scab-covered feet.\r
+(The horseflesh was appetizing and nourishing, the saltpeter flavor of\r
+the gunpowder they used instead of salt was even pleasant; there was no\r
+great cold, it was always warm walking in the daytime, and at night\r
+there were the campfires; the lice that devoured him warmed his body.)\r
+The one thing that was at first hard to bear was his feet.\r
+\r
+After the second day's march Pierre, having examined his feet by the\r
+campfire, thought it would be impossible to walk on them; but when\r
+everybody got up he went along, limping, and, when he had warmed up,\r
+walked without feeling the pain, though at night his feet were more\r
+terrible to look at than before. However, he did not look at them now,\r
+but thought of other things.\r
+\r
+Only now did Pierre realize the full strength of life in man and the\r
+saving power he has of transferring his attention from one thing to\r
+another, which is like the safety valve of a boiler that allows\r
+superfluous steam to blow off when the pressure exceeds a certain limit.\r
+\r
+He did not see and did not hear how they shot the prisoners who lagged\r
+behind, though more than a hundred perished in that way. He did not\r
+think of Karataev who grew weaker every day and evidently would soon\r
+have to share that fate. Still less did Pierre think about himself. The\r
+harder his position became and the more terrible the future, the more\r
+independent of that position in which he found himself were the joyful\r
+and comforting thoughts, memories, and imaginings that came to him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+At midday on the twenty-second of October Pierre was going uphill along\r
+the muddy, slippery road, looking at his feet and at the roughness of\r
+the way. Occasionally he glanced at the familiar crowd around him and\r
+then again at his feet. The former and the latter were alike familiar\r
+and his own. The blue-gray bandy legged dog ran merrily along the side\r
+of the road, sometimes in proof of its agility and self-satisfaction\r
+lifting one hind leg and hopping along on three, and then again going on\r
+all four and rushing to bark at the crows that sat on the carrion. The\r
+dog was merrier and sleeker than it had been in Moscow. All around lay\r
+the flesh of different animals--from men to horses--in various stages of\r
+decomposition; and as the wolves were kept off by the passing men the\r
+dog could eat all it wanted.\r
+\r
+It had been raining since morning and had seemed as if at any moment it\r
+might cease and the sky clear, but after a short break it began raining\r
+harder than before. The saturated road no longer absorbed the water,\r
+which ran along the ruts in streams.\r
+\r
+Pierre walked along, looking from side to side, counting his steps in\r
+threes, and reckoning them off on his fingers. Mentally addressing the\r
+rain, he repeated: "Now then, now then, go on! Pelt harder!"\r
+\r
+It seemed to him that he was thinking of nothing, but far down and deep\r
+within him his soul was occupied with something important and\r
+comforting. This something was a most subtle spiritual deduction from a\r
+conversation with Karataev the day before.\r
+\r
+At their yesterday's halting place, feeling chilly by a dying campfire,\r
+Pierre had got up and gone to the next one, which was burning better.\r
+There Platon Karataev was sitting covered up--head and all--with his\r
+greatcoat as if it were a vestment, telling the soldiers in his\r
+effective and pleasant though now feeble voice a story Pierre knew. It\r
+was already past midnight, the hour when Karataev was usually free of\r
+his fever and particularly lively. When Pierre reached the fire and\r
+heard Platon's voice enfeebled by illness, and saw his pathetic face\r
+brightly lit up by the blaze, he felt a painful prick at his heart. His\r
+feeling of pity for this man frightened him and he wished to go away,\r
+but there was no other fire, and Pierre sat down, trying not to look at\r
+Platon.\r
+\r
+"Well, how are you?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"How am I? If we grumble at sickness, God won't grant us death," replied\r
+Platon, and at once resumed the story he had begun.\r
+\r
+"And so, brother," he continued, with a smile on his pale emaciated face\r
+and a particularly happy light in his eyes, "you see, brother..."\r
+\r
+Pierre had long been familiar with that story. Karataev had told it to\r
+him alone some half-dozen times and always with a specially joyful\r
+emotion. But well as he knew it, Pierre now listened to that tale as to\r
+something new, and the quiet rapture Karataev evidently felt as he told\r
+it communicated itself also to Pierre. The story was of an old merchant\r
+who lived a good and God-fearing life with his family, and who went once\r
+to the Nizhni fair with a companion--a rich merchant.\r
+\r
+Having put up at an inn they both went to sleep, and next morning his\r
+companion was found robbed and with his throat cut. A bloodstained knife\r
+was found under the old merchant's pillow. He was tried, knouted, and\r
+his nostrils having been torn off, "all in due form" as Karataev put it,\r
+he was sent to hard labor in Siberia.\r
+\r
+"And so, brother" (it was at this point that Pierre came up), "ten years\r
+or more passed by. The old man was living as a convict, submitting as he\r
+should and doing no wrong. Only he prayed to God for death. Well, one\r
+night the convicts were gathered just as we are, with the old man among\r
+them. And they began telling what each was suffering for, and how they\r
+had sinned against God. One told how he had taken a life, another had\r
+taken two, a third had set a house on fire, while another had simply\r
+been a vagrant and had done nothing. So they asked the old man: 'What\r
+are you being punished for, Daddy?'--'I, my dear brothers,' said he, 'am\r
+being punished for my own and other men's sins. But I have not killed\r
+anyone or taken anything that was not mine, but have only helped my\r
+poorer brothers. I was a merchant, my dear brothers, and had much\r
+property. 'And he went on to tell them all about it in due order. 'I\r
+don't grieve for myself,' he says, 'God, it seems, has chastened me.\r
+Only I am sorry for my old wife and the children,' and the old man began\r
+to weep. Now it happened that in the group was the very man who had\r
+killed the other merchant. 'Where did it happen, Daddy?' he said. 'When,\r
+and in what month?' He asked all about it and his heart began to ache.\r
+So he comes up to the old man like this, and falls down at his feet!\r
+'You are perishing because of me, Daddy,' he says. 'It's quite true,\r
+lads, that this man,' he says, 'is being tortured innocently and for\r
+nothing! I,' he says, 'did that deed, and I put the knife under your\r
+head while you were asleep. Forgive me, Daddy,' he says, 'for Christ's\r
+sake!'"\r
+\r
+Karataev paused, smiling joyously as he gazed into the fire, and he drew\r
+the logs together.\r
+\r
+"And the old man said, 'God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His\r
+sight. I suffer for my own sins,' and he wept bitter tears. Well, and\r
+what do you think, dear friends?" Karataev continued, his face\r
+brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now had\r
+to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his story:\r
+"What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the\r
+authorities. 'I have taken six lives,' he says (he was a great sinner),\r
+'but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don't let him suffer\r
+because of me.' So he confessed and it was all written down and the\r
+papers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, and while\r
+they were judging, what with one thing and another, filling in the\r
+papers all in due form--the authorities I mean--time passed. The affair\r
+reached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar's decree came: to set the\r
+merchant free and give him a compensation that had been awarded. The\r
+paper arrived and they began to look for the old man. 'Where is the old\r
+man who has been suffering innocently and in vain? A paper has come from\r
+the Tsar!' so they began looking for him," here Karataev's lower jaw\r
+trembled, "but God had already forgiven him--he was dead! That's how it\r
+was, dear fellows!" Karataev concluded and sat for a long time silent,\r
+gazing before him with a smile.\r
+\r
+And Pierre's soul was dimly but joyfully filled not by the story itself\r
+but by its mysterious significance: by the rapturous joy that lit up\r
+Karataev's face as he told it, and the mystic significance of that joy.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+"A vos places!" * suddenly cried a voice.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "To your places."\r
+\r
+A pleasant feeling of excitement and an expectation of something joyful\r
+and solemn was aroused among the soldiers of the convoy and the\r
+prisoners. From all sides came shouts of command, and from the left came\r
+smartly dressed cavalrymen on good horses, passing the prisoners at a\r
+trot. The expression on all faces showed the tension people feel at the\r
+approach of those in authority. The prisoners thronged together and were\r
+pushed off the road. The convoy formed up.\r
+\r
+"The Emperor! The Emperor! The Marshal! The Duke!" and hardly had the\r
+sleek cavalry passed, before a carriage drawn by six gray horses rattled\r
+by. Pierre caught a glimpse of a man in a three-cornered hat with a\r
+tranquil look on his handsome, plump, white face. It was one of the\r
+marshals. His eye fell on Pierre's large and striking figure, and in the\r
+expression with which he frowned and looked away Pierre thought he\r
+detected sympathy and a desire to conceal that sympathy.\r
+\r
+The general in charge of the stores galloped after the carriage with a\r
+red and frightened face, whipping up his skinny horse. Several officers\r
+formed a group and some soldiers crowded round them. Their faces all\r
+looked excited and worried.\r
+\r
+"What did he say? What did he say?" Pierre heard them ask.\r
+\r
+While the marshal was passing, the prisoners had huddled together in a\r
+crowd, and Pierre saw Karataev whom he had not yet seen that morning. He\r
+sat in his short overcoat leaning against a birch tree. On his face,\r
+besides the look of joyful emotion it had worn yesterday while telling\r
+the tale of the merchant who suffered innocently, there was now an\r
+expression of quiet solemnity.\r
+\r
+Karataev looked at Pierre with his kindly round eyes now filled with\r
+tears, evidently wishing him to come near that he might say something to\r
+him. But Pierre was not sufficiently sure of himself. He made as if he\r
+did not notice that look and moved hastily away.\r
+\r
+When the prisoners again went forward Pierre looked round. Karataev was\r
+still sitting at the side of the road under the birch tree and two\r
+Frenchmen were talking over his head. Pierre did not look round again\r
+but went limping up the hill.\r
+\r
+From behind, where Karataev had been sitting, came the sound of a shot.\r
+Pierre heard it plainly, but at that moment he remembered that he had\r
+not yet finished reckoning up how many stages still remained to\r
+Smolensk--a calculation he had begun before the marshal went by. And he\r
+again started reckoning. Two French soldiers ran past Pierre, one of\r
+whom carried a lowered and smoking gun. They both looked pale, and in\r
+the expression on their faces--one of them glanced timidly at Pierre--\r
+there was something resembling what he had seen on the face of the young\r
+soldier at the execution. Pierre looked at the soldier and remembered\r
+that, two days before, that man had burned his shirt while drying it at\r
+the fire and how they had laughed at him.\r
+\r
+Behind him, where Karataev had been sitting, the dog began to howl.\r
+"What a stupid beast! Why is it howling?" thought Pierre.\r
+\r
+His comrades, the prisoner soldiers walking beside him, avoided looking\r
+back at the place where the shot had been fired and the dog was howling,\r
+just as Pierre did, but there was a set look on all their faces.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+The stores, the prisoners, and the marshal's baggage train stopped at\r
+the village of Shamshevo. The men crowded together round the campfires.\r
+Pierre went up to the fire, ate some roast horseflesh, lay down with his\r
+back to the fire, and immediately fell asleep. He again slept as he had\r
+done at Mozhaysk after the battle of Borodino.\r
+\r
+Again real events mingled with dreams and again someone, he or another,\r
+gave expression to his thoughts, and even to the same thoughts that had\r
+been expressed in his dream at Mozhaysk.\r
+\r
+"Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that\r
+movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness\r
+of the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than\r
+all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in innocent\r
+sufferings."\r
+\r
+"Karataev!" came to Pierre's mind.\r
+\r
+And suddenly he saw vividly before him a long-forgotten, kindly old man\r
+who had given him geography lessons in Switzerland. "Wait a bit," said\r
+the old man, and showed Pierre a globe. This globe was alive--a\r
+vibrating ball without fixed dimensions. Its whole surface consisted of\r
+drops closely pressed together, and all these drops moved and changed\r
+places, sometimes several of them merging into one, sometimes one\r
+dividing into many. Each drop tried to spread out and occupy as much\r
+space as possible, but others striving to do the same compressed it,\r
+sometimes destroyed it, and sometimes merged with it.\r
+\r
+"That is life," said the old teacher.\r
+\r
+"How simple and clear it is," thought Pierre. "How is it I did not know\r
+it before?"\r
+\r
+"God is in the midst, and each drop tries to expand so as to reflect Him\r
+to the greatest extent. And it grows, merges, disappears from the\r
+surface, sinks to the depths, and again emerges. There now, Karataev has\r
+spread out and disappeared. Do you understand, my child?" said the\r
+teacher.\r
+\r
+"Do you understand, damn you?" shouted a voice, and Pierre woke up.\r
+\r
+He lifted himself and sat up. A Frenchman who had just pushed a Russian\r
+soldier away was squatting by the fire, engaged in roasting a piece of\r
+meat stuck on a ramrod. His sleeves were rolled up and his sinewy,\r
+hairy, red hands with their short fingers deftly turned the ramrod. His\r
+brown morose face with frowning brows was clearly visible by the glow of\r
+the charcoal.\r
+\r
+"It's all the same to him," he muttered, turning quickly to a soldier\r
+who stood behind him. "Brigand! Get away!"\r
+\r
+And twisting the ramrod he looked gloomily at Pierre, who turned away\r
+and gazed into the darkness. A prisoner, the Russian soldier the\r
+Frenchman had pushed away, was sitting near the fire patting something\r
+with his hand. Looking more closely Pierre recognized the blue-gray dog,\r
+sitting beside the soldier, wagging its tail.\r
+\r
+"Ah, he's come?" said Pierre. "And Plat-" he began, but did not finish.\r
+\r
+Suddenly and simultaneously a crowd of memories awoke in his fancy--of\r
+the look Platon had given him as he sat under the tree, of the shot\r
+heard from that spot, of the dog's howl, of the guilty faces of the two\r
+Frenchmen as they ran past him, of the lowered and smoking gun, and of\r
+Karataev's absence at this halt--and he was on the point of realizing\r
+that Karataev had been killed, but just at that instant, he knew not\r
+why, the recollection came to his mind of a summer evening he had spent\r
+with a beautiful Polish lady on the veranda of his house in Kiev. And\r
+without linking up the events of the day or drawing a conclusion from\r
+them, Pierre closed his eyes, seeing a vision of the country in\r
+summertime mingled with memories of bathing and of the liquid, vibrating\r
+globe, and he sank into water so that it closed over his head.\r
+\r
+Before sunrise he was awakened by shouts and loud and rapid firing.\r
+French soldiers were running past him.\r
+\r
+"The Cossacks!" one of them shouted, and a moment later a crowd of\r
+Russians surrounded Pierre.\r
+\r
+For a long time he could not understand what was happening to him. All\r
+around he heard his comrades sobbing with joy.\r
+\r
+"Brothers! Dear fellows! Darlings!" old soldiers exclaimed, weeping, as\r
+they embraced Cossacks and hussars.\r
+\r
+The hussars and Cossacks crowded round the prisoners; one offered them\r
+clothes, another boots, and a third bread. Pierre sobbed as he sat among\r
+them and could not utter a word. He hugged the first soldier who\r
+approached him, and kissed him, weeping.\r
+\r
+Dolokhov stood at the gate of the ruined house, letting a crowd of\r
+disarmed Frenchmen pass by. The French, excited by all that had\r
+happened, were talking loudly among themselves, but as they passed\r
+Dolokhov who gently switched his boots with his whip and watched them\r
+with cold glassy eyes that boded no good, they became silent. On the\r
+opposite side stood Dolokhov's Cossack, counting the prisoners and\r
+marking off each hundred with a chalk line on the gate.\r
+\r
+"How many?" Dolokhov asked the Cossack.\r
+\r
+"The second hundred," replied the Cossack.\r
+\r
+"Filez, filez!" * Dolokhov kept saying, having adopted this expression\r
+from the French, and when his eyes met those of the prisoners they\r
+flashed with a cruel light.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Get along, get along!"\r
+\r
+Denisov, bareheaded and with a gloomy face, walked behind some Cossacks\r
+who were carrying the body of Petya Rostov to a hole that had been dug\r
+in the garden.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+After the twenty-eighth of October when the frosts began, the flight of\r
+the French assumed a still more tragic character, with men freezing, or\r
+roasting themselves to death at the campfires, while carriages with\r
+people dressed in furs continued to drive past, carrying away the\r
+property that had been stolen by the Emperor, kings, and dukes; but the\r
+process of the flight and disintegration of the French army went on\r
+essentially as before.\r
+\r
+From Moscow to Vyazma the French army of seventy-three thousand men not\r
+reckoning the Guards (who did nothing during the whole war but pillage)\r
+was reduced to thirty-six thousand, though not more than five thousand\r
+had fallen in battle. From this beginning the succeeding terms of the\r
+progression could be determined mathematically. The French army melted\r
+away and perished at the same rate from Moscow to Vyazma, from Vyazma to\r
+Smolensk, from Smolensk to the Berezina, and from the Berezina to Vilna-\r
+-independently of the greater or lesser intensity of the cold, the\r
+pursuit, the barring of the way, or any other particular conditions.\r
+Beyond Vyazma the French army instead of moving in three columns huddled\r
+together into one mass, and so went on to the end. Berthier wrote to his\r
+Emperor (we know how far commanding officers allow themselves to diverge\r
+from the truth in describing the condition of an army) and this is what\r
+he said:\r
+\r
+I deem it my duty to report to Your Majesty the condition of the various\r
+corps I have had occasion to observe during different stages of the last\r
+two or three days' march. They are almost disbanded. Scarcely a quarter\r
+of the soldiers remain with the standards of their regiments, the others\r
+go off by themselves in different directions hoping to find food and\r
+escape discipline. In general they regard Smolensk as the place where\r
+they hope to recover. During the last few days many of the men have been\r
+seen to throw away their cartridges and their arms. In such a state of\r
+affairs, whatever your ultimate plans may be, the interest of Your\r
+Majesty's service demands that the army should be rallied at Smolensk\r
+and should first of all be freed from ineffectives, such as dismounted\r
+cavalry, unnecessary baggage, and artillery material that is no longer\r
+in proportion to the present forces. The soldiers, who are worn out with\r
+hunger and fatigue, need these supplies as well as a few days' rest.\r
+Many have died these last days on the road or at the bivouacs. This\r
+state of things is continually becoming worse and makes one fear that\r
+unless a prompt remedy is applied the troops will no longer be under\r
+control in case of an engagement.\r
+\r
+November 9: twenty miles from Smolensk.\r
+\r
+After staggering into Smolensk which seemed to them a promised land, the\r
+French, searching for food, killed one another, sacked their own stores,\r
+and when everything had been plundered fled farther.\r
+\r
+They all went without knowing whither or why they were going. Still less\r
+did that genius, Napoleon, know it, for no one issued any orders to him.\r
+But still he and those about him retained their old habits: wrote\r
+commands, letters, reports, and orders of the day; called one another\r
+sire, mon cousin, prince d'Eckmuhl, roi de Naples, and so on. But these\r
+orders and reports were only on paper, nothing in them was acted upon\r
+for they could not be carried out, and though they entitled one another\r
+Majesties, Highnesses, or Cousins, they all felt that they were\r
+miserable wretches who had done much evil for which they had now to pay.\r
+And though they pretended to be concerned about the army, each was\r
+thinking only of himself and of how to get away quickly and save\r
+himself.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+The movements of the Russian and French armies during the campaign from\r
+Moscow back to the Niemen were like those in a game of Russian\r
+blindman's bluff, in which two players are blindfolded and one of them\r
+occasionally rings a little bell to inform the catcher of his\r
+whereabouts. First he rings his bell fearlessly, but when he gets into a\r
+tight place he runs away as quietly as he can, and often thinking to\r
+escape runs straight into his opponent's arms.\r
+\r
+At first while they were still moving along the Kaluga road, Napoleon's\r
+armies made their presence known, but later when they reached the\r
+Smolensk road they ran holding the clapper of their bell tight--and\r
+often thinking they were escaping ran right into the Russians.\r
+\r
+Owing to the rapidity of the French flight and the Russian pursuit and\r
+the consequent exhaustion of the horses, the chief means of\r
+approximately ascertaining the enemy's position--by cavalry scouting--\r
+was not available. Besides, as a result of the frequent and rapid change\r
+of position by each army, even what information was obtained could not\r
+be delivered in time. If news was received one day that the enemy had\r
+been in a certain position the day before, by the third day when\r
+something could have been done, that army was already two days' march\r
+farther on and in quite another position.\r
+\r
+One army fled and the other pursued. Beyond Smolensk there were several\r
+different roads available for the French, and one would have thought\r
+that during their stay of four days they might have learned where the\r
+enemy was, might have arranged some more advantageous plan and\r
+undertaken something new. But after a four days' halt the mob, with no\r
+maneuvers or plans, again began running along the beaten track, neither\r
+to the right nor to the left but along the old--the worst--road, through\r
+Krasnoe and Orsha.\r
+\r
+Expecting the enemy from behind and not in front, the French separated\r
+in their flight and spread out over a distance of twenty-four hours. In\r
+front of them all fled the Emperor, then the kings, then the dukes. The\r
+Russian army, expecting Napoleon to take the road to the right beyond\r
+the Dnieper--which was the only reasonable thing for him to do--\r
+themselves turned to the right and came out onto the highroad at\r
+Krasnoe. And here as in a game of blindman's buff the French ran into\r
+our vanguard. Seeing their enemy unexpectedly the French fell into\r
+confusion and stopped short from the sudden fright, but then they\r
+resumed their flight, abandoning their comrades who were farther behind.\r
+Then for three days separate portions of the French army--first Murat's\r
+(the vice-king's), then Davout's, and then Ney's--ran, as it were, the\r
+gauntlet of the Russian army. They abandoned one another, abandoned all\r
+their heavy baggage, their artillery, and half their men, and fled,\r
+getting past the Russians by night by making semicircles to the right.\r
+\r
+Ney, who came last, had been busying himself blowing up the walls of\r
+Smolensk which were in nobody's way, because despite the unfortunate\r
+plight of the French or because of it, they wished to punish the floor\r
+against which they had hurt themselves. Ney, who had had a corps of ten\r
+thousand men, reached Napoleon at Orsha with only one thousand men left,\r
+having abandoned all the rest and all his cannon, and having crossed the\r
+Dnieper at night by stealth at a wooded spot.\r
+\r
+From Orsha they fled farther along the road to Vilna, still playing at\r
+blindman's buff with the pursuing army. At the Berezina they again\r
+became disorganized, many were drowned and many surrendered, but those\r
+who got across the river fled farther. Their supreme chief donned a fur\r
+coat and, having seated himself in a sleigh, galloped on alone,\r
+abandoning his companions. The others who could do so drove away too,\r
+leaving those who could not to surrender or die.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+This campaign consisted in a flight of the French during which they did\r
+all they could to destroy themselves. From the time they turned onto the\r
+Kaluga road to the day their leader fled from the army, none of the\r
+movements of the crowd had any sense. So one might have thought that\r
+regarding this period of the campaign the historians, who attributed the\r
+actions of the mass to the will of one man, would have found it\r
+impossible to make the story of the retreat fit their theory. But no!\r
+Mountains of books have been written by the historians about this\r
+campaign, and everywhere are described Napoleon's arrangements, the\r
+maneuvers, and his profound plans which guided the army, as well as the\r
+military genius shown by his marshals.\r
+\r
+The retreat from Malo-Yaroslavets when he had a free road into a well-\r
+supplied district and the parallel road was open to him along which\r
+Kutuzov afterwards pursued him--this unnecessary retreat along a\r
+devastated road--is explained to us as being due to profound\r
+considerations. Similarly profound considerations are given for his\r
+retreat from Smolensk to Orsha. Then his heroism at Krasnoe is\r
+described, where he is reported to have been prepared to accept battle\r
+and take personal command, and to have walked about with a birch stick\r
+and said:\r
+\r
+"J'ai assez fait l'empereur; il est temps de faire le general," * but\r
+nevertheless immediately ran away again, abandoning to its fate the\r
+scattered fragments of the army he left behind.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "I have acted the Emperor long enough; it is time to act the general."\r
+\r
+Then we are told of the greatness of soul of the marshals, especially of\r
+Ney--a greatness of soul consisting in this: that he made his way by\r
+night around through the forest and across the Dnieper and escaped to\r
+Orsha, abandoning standards, artillery, and nine tenths of his men.\r
+\r
+And lastly, the final departure of the great Emperor from his heroic\r
+army is presented to us by the historians as something great and\r
+characteristic of genius. Even that final running away, described in\r
+ordinary language as the lowest depth of baseness which every child is\r
+taught to be ashamed of--even that act finds justification in the\r
+historians' language.\r
+\r
+When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical\r
+ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that\r
+humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving\r
+conception of "greatness." "Greatness," it seems, excludes the standards\r
+of right and wrong. For the "great" man nothing is wrong, there is no\r
+atrocity for which a "great" man can be blamed.\r
+\r
+"C'est grand!" * say the historians, and there no longer exists either\r
+good or evil but only "grand" and "not grand." Grand is good, not grand\r
+is bad. Grand is the characteristic, in their conception, of some\r
+special animals called "heroes." And Napoleon, escaping home in a warm\r
+fur coat and leaving to perish those who were not merely his comrades\r
+but were (in his opinion) men he had brought there, feels que c'est\r
+grand, *(2) and his soul is tranquil.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "It is great."\r
+\r
+* (2) That it is great.\r
+\r
+"Du sublime (he saw something sublime in himself) au ridicule il n'y a\r
+qu'un pas," * said he. And the whole world for fifty years has been\r
+repeating: "Sublime! Grand! Napoleon le Grand!" Du sublime au ridicule\r
+il n'y a qu'un pas.\r
+\r
+\r
+* "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step."\r
+\r
+And it occurs to no one that to admit a greatness not commensurable with\r
+the standard of right and wrong is merely to admit one's own nothingness\r
+and immeasurable meanness.\r
+\r
+For us with the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, no human\r
+actions are incommensurable. And there is no greatness where simplicity,\r
+goodness, and truth are absent.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+What Russian, reading the account of the last part of the campaign of\r
+1812, has not experienced an uncomfortable feeling of regret,\r
+dissatisfaction, and perplexity? Who has not asked himself how it is\r
+that the French were not all captured or destroyed when our three armies\r
+surrounded them in superior numbers, when the disordered French, hungry\r
+and freezing, surrendered in crowds, and when (as the historians relate)\r
+the aim of the Russians was to stop the French, to cut them off, and\r
+capture them all?\r
+\r
+How was it that the Russian army, which when numerically weaker than the\r
+French had given battle at Borodino, did not achieve its purpose when it\r
+had surrounded the French on three sides and when its aim was to capture\r
+them? Can the French be so enormously superior to us that when we had\r
+surrounded them with superior forces we could not beat them? How could\r
+that happen?\r
+\r
+History (or what is called by that name) replying to these questions\r
+says that this occurred because Kutuzov and Tormasov and Chichagov, and\r
+this man and that man, did not execute such and such maneuvers...\r
+\r
+But why did they not execute those maneuvers? And why if they were\r
+guilty of not carrying out a prearranged plan were they not tried and\r
+punished? But even if we admitted that Kutuzov, Chichagov, and others\r
+were the cause of the Russian failures, it is still incomprehensible\r
+why, the position of the Russian army being what it was at Krasnoe and\r
+at the Berezina (in both cases we had superior forces), the French army\r
+with its marshals, kings, and Emperor was not captured, if that was what\r
+the Russians aimed at.\r
+\r
+The explanation of this strange fact given by Russian military\r
+historians (to the effect that Kutuzov hindered an attack) is unfounded,\r
+for we know that he could not restrain the troops from attacking at\r
+Vyazma and Tarutino.\r
+\r
+Why was the Russian army--which with inferior forces had withstood the\r
+enemy in full strength at Borodino--defeated at Krasnoe and the Berezina\r
+by the disorganized crowds of the French when it was numerically\r
+superior?\r
+\r
+If the aim of the Russians consisted in cutting off and capturing\r
+Napoleon and his marshals--and that aim was not merely frustrated but\r
+all attempts to attain it were most shamefully baffled--then this last\r
+period of the campaign is quite rightly considered by the French to be a\r
+series of victories, and quite wrongly considered victorious by Russian\r
+historians.\r
+\r
+The Russian military historians in so far as they submit to claims of\r
+logic must admit that conclusion, and in spite of their lyrical\r
+rhapsodies about valor, devotion, and so forth, must reluctantly admit\r
+that the French retreat from Moscow was a series of victories for\r
+Napoleon and defeats for Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+But putting national vanity entirely aside one feels that such a\r
+conclusion involves a contradiction, since the series of French\r
+victories brought the French complete destruction, while the series of\r
+Russian defeats led to the total destruction of their enemy and the\r
+liberation of their country.\r
+\r
+The source of this contradiction lies in the fact that the historians\r
+studying the events from the letters of the sovereigns and the generals,\r
+from memoirs, reports, projects, and so forth, have attributed to this\r
+last period of the war of 1812 an aim that never existed, namely that of\r
+cutting off and capturing Napoleon with his marshals and his army.\r
+\r
+There never was or could have been such an aim, for it would have been\r
+senseless and its attainment quite impossible.\r
+\r
+It would have been senseless, first because Napoleon's disorganized army\r
+was flying from Russia with all possible speed, that is to say, was\r
+doing just what every Russian desired. So what was the use of performing\r
+various operations on the French who were running away as fast as they\r
+possibly could?\r
+\r
+Secondly, it would have been senseless to block the passage of men whose\r
+whole energy was directed to flight.\r
+\r
+Thirdly, it would have been senseless to sacrifice one's own troops in\r
+order to destroy the French army, which without external interference\r
+was destroying itself at such a rate that, though its path was not\r
+blocked, it could not carry across the frontier more than it actually\r
+did in December, namely a hundredth part of the original army.\r
+\r
+Fourthly, it would have been senseless to wish to take captive the\r
+Emperor, kings, and dukes--whose capture would have been in the highest\r
+degree embarrassing for the Russians, as the most adroit diplomatists of\r
+the time (Joseph de Maistre and others) recognized. Still more senseless\r
+would have been the wish to capture army corps of the French, when our\r
+own army had melted away to half before reaching Krasnoe and a whole\r
+division would have been needed to convoy the corps of prisoners, and\r
+when our men were not always getting full rations and the prisoners\r
+already taken were perishing of hunger.\r
+\r
+All the profound plans about cutting off and capturing Napoleon and his\r
+army were like the plan of a market gardener who, when driving out of\r
+his garden a cow that had trampled down the beds he had planted, should\r
+run to the gate and hit the cow on the head. The only thing to be said\r
+in excuse of that gardener would be that he was very angry. But not even\r
+that could be said for those who drew up this project, for it was not\r
+they who had suffered from the trampled beds.\r
+\r
+But besides the fact that cutting off Napoleon with his army would have\r
+been senseless, it was impossible.\r
+\r
+It was impossible first because--as experience shows that a three-mile\r
+movement of columns on a battlefield never coincides with the plans--the\r
+probability of Chichagov, Kutuzov, and Wittgenstein effecting a junction\r
+on time at an appointed place was so remote as to be tantamount to\r
+impossibility, as in fact thought Kutuzov, who when he received the plan\r
+remarked that diversions planned over great distances do not yield the\r
+desired results.\r
+\r
+Secondly it was impossible, because to paralyze the momentum with which\r
+Napoleon's army was retiring, incomparably greater forces than the\r
+Russians possessed would have been required.\r
+\r
+Thirdly it was impossible, because the military term "to cut off" has no\r
+meaning. One can cut off a slice of bread, but not an army. To cut off\r
+an army--to bar its road--is quite impossible, for there is always\r
+plenty of room to avoid capture and there is the night when nothing can\r
+be seen, as the military scientists might convince themselves by the\r
+example of Krasnoe and of the Berezina. It is only possible to capture\r
+prisoners if they agree to be captured, just as it is only possible to\r
+catch a swallow if it settles on one's hand. Men can only be taken\r
+prisoners if they surrender according to the rules of strategy and\r
+tactics, as the Germans did. But the French troops quite rightly did not\r
+consider that this suited them, since death by hunger and cold awaited\r
+them in flight or captivity alike.\r
+\r
+Fourthly and chiefly it was impossible, because never since the world\r
+began has a war been fought under such conditions as those that obtained\r
+in 1812, and the Russian army in its pursuit of the French strained its\r
+strength to the utmost and could not have done more without destroying\r
+itself.\r
+\r
+During the movement of the Russian army from Tarutino to Krasnoe it lost\r
+fifty thousand sick or stragglers, that is a number equal to the\r
+population of a large provincial town. Half the men fell out of the army\r
+without a battle.\r
+\r
+And it is of this period of the campaign--when the army lacked boots and\r
+sheepskin coats, was short of provisions and without vodka, and was\r
+camping out at night for months in the snow with fifteen degrees of\r
+frost, when there were only seven or eight hours of daylight and the\r
+rest was night in which the influence of discipline cannot be\r
+maintained, when men were taken into that region of death where\r
+discipline fails, not for a few hours only as in a battle, but for\r
+months, where they were every moment fighting death from hunger and\r
+cold, when half the army perished in a single month--it is of this\r
+period of the campaign that the historians tell us how Miloradovich\r
+should have made a flank march to such and such a place, Tormasov to\r
+another place, and Chichagov should have crossed (more than knee-deep in\r
+snow) to somewhere else, and how so-and-so "routed" and "cut off" the\r
+French and so on and so on.\r
+\r
+The Russians, half of whom died, did all that could and should have been\r
+done to attain an end worthy of the nation, and they are not to blame\r
+because other Russians, sitting in warm rooms, proposed that they should\r
+do what was impossible.\r
+\r
+All that strange contradiction now difficult to understand between the\r
+facts and the historical accounts only arises because the historians\r
+dealing with the matter have written the history of the beautiful words\r
+and sentiments of various generals, and not the history of the events.\r
+\r
+To them the words of Miloradovich seem very interesting, and so do their\r
+surmises and the rewards this or that general received; but the question\r
+of those fifty thousand men who were left in hospitals and in graves\r
+does not even interest them, for it does not come within the range of\r
+their investigation.\r
+\r
+Yet one need only discard the study of the reports and general plans and\r
+consider the movement of those hundreds of thousands of men who took a\r
+direct part in the events, and all the questions that seemed insoluble\r
+easily and simply receive an immediate and certain solution.\r
+\r
+The aim of cutting off Napoleon and his army never existed except in the\r
+imaginations of a dozen people. It could not exist because it was\r
+senseless and unattainable.\r
+\r
+The people had a single aim: to free their land from invasion. That aim\r
+was attained in the first place of itself, as the French ran away, and\r
+so it was only necessary not to stop their flight. Secondly it was\r
+attained by the guerrilla warfare which was destroying the French, and\r
+thirdly by the fact that a large Russian army was following the French,\r
+ready to use its strength in case their movement stopped.\r
+\r
+The Russian army had to act like a whip to a running animal. And the\r
+experienced driver knew it was better to hold the whip raised as a\r
+menace than to strike the running animal on the head.\r
+\r
+BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+When seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror: substance\r
+similar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a\r
+beloved and intimate human being that is dying, besides this horror at\r
+the extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which\r
+like a physical wound is sometimes fatal and sometimes heals, but always\r
+aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch.\r
+\r
+After Prince Andrew's death Natasha and Princess Mary alike felt this.\r
+Drooping in spirit and closing their eyes before the menacing cloud of\r
+death that overhung them, they dared not look life in the face. They\r
+carefully guarded their open wounds from any rough and painful contact.\r
+Everything: a carriage passing rapidly in the street, a summons to\r
+dinner, the maid's inquiry what dress to prepare, or worse still any\r
+word of insincere or feeble sympathy, seemed an insult, painfully\r
+irritated the wound, interrupting that necessary quiet in which they\r
+both tried to listen to the stern and dreadful choir that still\r
+resounded in their imagination, and hindered their gazing into those\r
+mysterious limitless vistas that for an instant had opened out before\r
+them.\r
+\r
+Only when alone together were they free from such outrage and pain. They\r
+spoke little even to one another, and when they did it was of very\r
+unimportant matters.\r
+\r
+Both avoided any allusion to the future. To admit the possibility of a\r
+future seemed to them to insult his memory. Still more carefully did\r
+they avoid anything relating to him who was dead. It seemed to them that\r
+what they had lived through and experienced could not be expressed in\r
+words, and that any reference to the details of his life infringed the\r
+majesty and sacredness of the mystery that had been accomplished before\r
+their eyes.\r
+\r
+Continued abstention from speech, and constant avoidance of everything\r
+that might lead up to the subject--this halting on all sides at the\r
+boundary of what they might not mention--brought before their minds with\r
+still greater purity and clearness what they were both feeling.\r
+\r
+But pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.\r
+Princess Mary, in her position as absolute and independent arbiter of\r
+her own fate and guardian and instructor of her nephew, was the first to\r
+be called back to life from that realm of sorrow in which she had dwelt\r
+for the first fortnight. She received letters from her relations to\r
+which she had to reply; the room in which little Nicholas had been put\r
+was damp and he began to cough; Alpatych came to Yaroslavl with reports\r
+on the state of their affairs and with advice and suggestions that they\r
+should return to Moscow to the house on the Vozdvizhenka Street, which\r
+had remained uninjured and needed only slight repairs. Life did not\r
+stand still and it was necessary to live. Hard as it was for Princess\r
+Mary to emerge from the realm of secluded contemplation in which she had\r
+lived till then, and sorry and almost ashamed as she felt to leave\r
+Natasha alone, yet the cares of life demanded her attention and she\r
+involuntarily yielded to them. She went through the accounts with\r
+Alpatych, conferred with Dessalles about her nephew, and gave orders and\r
+made preparations for the journey to Moscow.\r
+\r
+Natasha remained alone and, from the time Princess Mary began making\r
+preparations for departure, held aloof from her too.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary asked the countess to let Natasha go with her to Moscow,\r
+and both parents gladly accepted this offer, for they saw their daughter\r
+losing strength every day and thought that a change of scene and the\r
+advice of Moscow doctors would be good for her.\r
+\r
+"I am not going anywhere," Natasha replied when this was proposed to\r
+her. "Do please just leave me alone!" And she ran out of the room, with\r
+difficulty refraining from tears of vexation and irritation rather than\r
+of sorrow.\r
+\r
+After she felt herself deserted by Princes Mary and alone in her grief,\r
+Natasha spent most of the time in her room by herself, sitting huddled\r
+up feet and all in the corner of the sofa, tearing and twisting\r
+something with her slender nervous fingers and gazing intently and\r
+fixedly at whatever her eyes chanced to fall on. This solitude exhausted\r
+and tormented her but she was in absolute need of it. As soon as anyone\r
+entered she got up quickly, changed her position and expression, and\r
+picked up a book or some sewing, evidently waiting impatiently for the\r
+intruder to go.\r
+\r
+She felt all the time as if she might at any moment penetrate that on\r
+which--with a terrible questioning too great for her strength--her\r
+spiritual gaze was fixed.\r
+\r
+One day toward the end of December Natasha, pale and thin, dressed in a\r
+black woolen gown, her plaited hair negligently twisted into a knot, was\r
+crouched feet and all in the corner of her sofa, nervously crumpling and\r
+smoothing out the end of her sash while she looked at a corner of the\r
+door.\r
+\r
+She was gazing in the direction in which he had gone--to the other side\r
+of life. And that other side of life, of which she had never before\r
+thought and which had formerly seemed to her so far away and improbable,\r
+was now nearer and more akin and more comprehensible than this side of\r
+life, where everything was either emptiness and desolation or suffering\r
+and indignity.\r
+\r
+She was gazing where she knew him to be; but she could not imagine him\r
+otherwise than as he had been here. She now saw him again as he had been\r
+at Mytishchi, at Troitsa, and at Yaroslavl.\r
+\r
+She saw his face, heard his voice, repeated his words and her own, and\r
+sometimes devised other words they might have spoken.\r
+\r
+There he is lying back in an armchair in his velvet cloak, leaning his\r
+head on his thin pale hand. His chest is dreadfully hollow and his\r
+shoulders raised. His lips are firmly closed, his eyes glitter, and a\r
+wrinkle comes and goes on his pale forehead. One of his legs twitches\r
+just perceptibly, but rapidly. Natasha knows that he is struggling with\r
+terrible pain. "What is that pain like? Why does he have that pain? What\r
+does he feel? How does it hurt him?" thought Natasha. He noticed her\r
+watching him, raised his eyes, and began to speak seriously:\r
+\r
+"One thing would be terrible," said he: "to bind oneself forever to a\r
+suffering man. It would be continual torture." And he looked searchingly\r
+at her. Natasha as usual answered before she had time to think what she\r
+would say. She said: "This can't go on--it won't. You will get well--\r
+quite well."\r
+\r
+She now saw him from the commencement of that scene and relived what she\r
+had then felt. She recalled his long sad and severe look at those words\r
+and understood the meaning of the rebuke and despair in that protracted\r
+gaze.\r
+\r
+"I agreed," Natasha now said to herself, "that it would be dreadful if\r
+he always continued to suffer. I said it then only because it would have\r
+been dreadful for him, but he understood it differently. He thought it\r
+would be dreadful for me. He then still wished to live and feared death.\r
+And I said it so awkwardly and stupidly! I did not say what I meant. I\r
+thought quite differently. Had I said what I thought, I should have\r
+said: even if he had to go on dying, to die continually before my eyes,\r
+I should have been happy compared with what I am now. Now there is\r
+nothing... nobody. Did he know that? No, he did not and never will know\r
+it. And now it will never, never be possible to put it right." And now\r
+he again seemed to be saying the same words to her, only in her\r
+imagination Natasha this time gave him a different answer. She stopped\r
+him and said: "Terrible for you, but not for me! You know that for me\r
+there is nothing in life but you, and to suffer with you is the greatest\r
+happiness for me," and he took her hand and pressed it as he had pressed\r
+it that terrible evening four days before his death. And in her\r
+imagination she said other tender and loving words which she might have\r
+said then but only spoke now: "I love thee!... thee! I love, love..."\r
+she said, convulsively pressing her hands and setting her teeth with a\r
+desperate effort...\r
+\r
+She was overcome by sweet sorrow and tears were already rising in her\r
+eyes; then she suddenly asked herself to whom she was saying this. Again\r
+everything was shrouded in hard, dry perplexity, and again with a\r
+strained frown she peered toward the world where he was. And now, now it\r
+seemed to her she was penetrating the mystery.... But at the instant\r
+when it seemed that the incomprehensible was revealing itself to her a\r
+loud rattle of the door handle struck painfully on her ears. Dunyasha,\r
+her maid, entered the room quickly and abruptly with a frightened look\r
+on her face and showing no concern for her mistress.\r
+\r
+"Come to your Papa at once, please!" said she with a strange, excited\r
+look. "A misfortune... about Peter Ilynich... a letter," she finished\r
+with a sob.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+Besides a feeling of aloofness from everybody Natasha was feeling a\r
+special estrangement from the members of her own family. All of them--\r
+her father, mother, and Sonya--were so near to her, so familiar, so\r
+commonplace, that all their words and feelings seemed an insult to the\r
+world in which she had been living of late, and she felt not merely\r
+indifferent to them but regarded them with hostility. She heard\r
+Dunyasha's words about Peter Ilynich and a misfortune, but did not grasp\r
+them.\r
+\r
+"What misfortune? What misfortune can happen to them? They just live\r
+their own old, quiet, and commonplace life," thought Natasha.\r
+\r
+As she entered the ballroom her father was hurriedly coming out of her\r
+mother's room. His face was puckered up and wet with tears. He had\r
+evidently run out of that room to give vent to the sobs that were\r
+choking him. When he saw Natasha he waved his arms despairingly and\r
+burst into convulsively painful sobs that distorted his soft round face.\r
+\r
+"Pe... Petya... Go, go, she... is calling..." and weeping like a child\r
+and quickly shuffling on his feeble legs to a chair, he almost fell into\r
+it, covering his face with his hands.\r
+\r
+Suddenly an electric shock seemed to run through Natasha's whole being.\r
+Terrible anguish struck her heart, she felt a dreadful ache as if\r
+something was being torn inside her and she were dying. But the pain was\r
+immediately followed by a feeling of release from the oppressive\r
+constraint that had prevented her taking part in life. The sight of her\r
+father, the terribly wild cries of her mother that she heard through the\r
+door, made her immediately forget herself and her own grief.\r
+\r
+She ran to her father, but he feebly waved his arm, pointing to her\r
+mother's door. Princess Mary, pale and with quivering chin, came out\r
+from that room and taking Natasha by the arm said something to her.\r
+Natasha neither saw nor heard her. She went in with rapid steps, pausing\r
+at the door for an instant as if struggling with herself, and then ran\r
+to her mother.\r
+\r
+The countess was lying in an armchair in a strange and awkward position,\r
+stretching out and beating her head against the wall. Sonya and the\r
+maids were holding her arms.\r
+\r
+"Natasha! Natasha!..." cried the countess. "It's not true... it's not\r
+true... He's lying... Natasha!" she shrieked, pushing those around her\r
+away. "Go away, all of you; it's not true! Killed!... ha, ha, ha!...\r
+It's not true!"\r
+\r
+Natasha put one knee on the armchair, stooped over her mother, embraced\r
+her, and with unexpected strength raised her, turned her face toward\r
+herself, and clung to her.\r
+\r
+"Mummy!... darling!... I am here, my dearest Mummy," she kept on\r
+whispering, not pausing an instant.\r
+\r
+She did not let go of her mother but struggled tenderly with her,\r
+demanded a pillow and hot water, and unfastened and tore open her\r
+mother's dress.\r
+\r
+"My dearest darling... Mummy, my precious!..." she whispered\r
+incessantly, kissing her head, her hands, her face, and feeling her own\r
+irrepressible and streaming tears tickling her nose and cheeks.\r
+\r
+The countess pressed her daughter's hand, closed her eyes, and became\r
+quiet for a moment. Suddenly she sat up with unaccustomed swiftness,\r
+glanced vacantly around her, and seeing Natasha began to press her\r
+daughter's head with all her strength. Then she turned toward her\r
+daughter's face which was wincing with pain and gazed long at it.\r
+\r
+"Natasha, you love me?" she said in a soft trustful whisper. "Natasha,\r
+you would not deceive me? You'll tell me the whole truth?"\r
+\r
+Natasha looked at her with eyes full of tears and in her look there was\r
+nothing but love and an entreaty for forgiveness.\r
+\r
+"My darling Mummy!" she repeated, straining all the power of her love to\r
+find some way of taking on herself the excess of grief that crushed her\r
+mother.\r
+\r
+And again in a futile struggle with reality her mother, refusing to\r
+believe that she could live when her beloved boy was killed in the bloom\r
+of life, escaped from reality into a world of delirium.\r
+\r
+Natasha did not remember how that day passed nor that night, nor the\r
+next day and night. She did not sleep and did not leave her mother. Her\r
+persevering and patient love seemed completely to surround the countess\r
+every moment, not explaining or consoling, but recalling her to life.\r
+\r
+During the third night the countess kept very quiet for a few minutes,\r
+and Natasha rested her head on the arm of her chair and closed her eyes,\r
+but opened them again on hearing the bedstead creak. The countess was\r
+sitting up in bed and speaking softly.\r
+\r
+"How glad I am you have come. You are tired. Won't you have some tea?"\r
+Natasha went up to her. "You have improved in looks and grown more\r
+manly," continued the countess, taking her daughter's hand.\r
+\r
+"Mamma! What are you saying..."\r
+\r
+"Natasha, he is no more, no more!"\r
+\r
+And embracing her daughter, the countess began to weep for the first\r
+time.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+Princess Mary postponed her departure. Sonya and the count tried to\r
+replace Natasha but could not. They saw that she alone was able to\r
+restrain her mother from unreasoning despair. For three weeks Natasha\r
+remained constantly at her mother's side, sleeping on a lounge chair in\r
+her room, making her eat and drink, and talking to her incessantly\r
+because the mere sound of her tender, caressing tones soothed her\r
+mother.\r
+\r
+The mother's wounded spirit could not heal. Petya's death had torn from\r
+her half her life. When the news of Petya's death had come she had been\r
+a fresh and vigorous woman of fifty, but a month later she left her room\r
+a listless old woman taking no interest in life. But the same blow that\r
+almost killed the countess, this second blow, restored Natasha to life.\r
+\r
+A spiritual wound produced by a rending of the spiritual body is like a\r
+physical wound and, strange as it may seem, just as a deep wound may\r
+heal and its edges join, physical and spiritual wounds alike can yet\r
+heal completely only as the result of a vital force from within.\r
+\r
+Natasha's wound healed in that way. She thought her life was ended, but\r
+her love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that the essence of\r
+life--love--was still active within her. Love awoke and so did life.\r
+\r
+Prince Andrew's last days had bound Princess Mary and Natasha together;\r
+this new sorrow brought them still closer to one another. Princess Mary\r
+put off her departure, and for three weeks looked after Natasha as if\r
+she had been a sick child. The last weeks passed in her mother's bedroom\r
+had strained Natasha's physical strength.\r
+\r
+One afternoon noticing Natasha shivering with fever, Princess Mary took\r
+her to her own room and made her lie down on the bed. Natasha lay down,\r
+but when Princess Mary had drawn the blinds and was going away she\r
+called her back.\r
+\r
+"I don't want to sleep, Mary, sit by me a little."\r
+\r
+"You are tired--try to sleep."\r
+\r
+"No, no. Why did you bring me away? She will be asking for me."\r
+\r
+"She is much better. She spoke so well today," said Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+Natasha lay on the bed and in the semidarkness of the room scanned\r
+Princess Mary's face.\r
+\r
+"Is she like him?" thought Natasha. "Yes, like and yet not like. But she\r
+is quite original, strange, new, and unknown. And she loves me. What is\r
+in her heart? All that is good. But how? What is her mind like? What\r
+does she think about me? Yes, she is splendid!"\r
+\r
+"Mary," she said timidly, drawing Princess Mary's hand to herself,\r
+"Mary, you mustn't think me wicked. No? Mary darling, how I love you!\r
+Let us be quite, quite friends."\r
+\r
+And Natasha, embracing her, began kissing her face and hands, making\r
+Princess Mary feel shy but happy by this demonstration of her feelings.\r
+\r
+From that day a tender and passionate friendship such as exists only\r
+between women was established between Princess Mary and Natasha. They\r
+were continually kissing and saying tender things to one another and\r
+spent most of their time together. When one went out the other became\r
+restless and hastened to rejoin her. Together they felt more in harmony\r
+with one another than either of them felt with herself when alone. A\r
+feeling stronger than friendship sprang up between them; an exclusive\r
+feeling of life being possible only in each other's presence.\r
+\r
+Sometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes after they were already\r
+in bed they would begin talking and go on till morning. They spoke most\r
+of what was long past. Princess Mary spoke of her childhood, of her\r
+mother, her father, and her daydreams; and Natasha, who with a passive\r
+lack of understanding had formerly turned away from that life of\r
+devotion, submission, and the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice, now\r
+feeling herself bound to Princess Mary by affection, learned to love her\r
+past too and to understand a side of life previously incomprehensible to\r
+her. She did not think of applying submission and self-abnegation to her\r
+own life, for she was accustomed to seek other joys, but she understood\r
+and loved in another those previously incomprehensible virtues. For\r
+Princess Mary, listening to Natasha's tales of childhood and early\r
+youth, there also opened out a new and hitherto uncomprehended side of\r
+life: belief in life and its enjoyment.\r
+\r
+Just as before, they never mentioned him so as not to lower (as they\r
+thought) their exalted feelings by words; but this silence about him had\r
+the effect of making them gradually begin to forget him without being\r
+conscious of it.\r
+\r
+Natasha had grown thin and pale and physically so weak that they all\r
+talked about her health, and this pleased her. But sometimes she was\r
+suddenly overcome by fear not only of death but of sickness, weakness,\r
+and loss of good looks, and involuntarily she examined her bare arm\r
+carefully, surprised at its thinness, and in the morning noticed her\r
+drawn and, as it seemed to her, piteous face in her glass. It seemed to\r
+her that things must be so, and yet it was dreadfully sad.\r
+\r
+One day she went quickly upstairs and found herself out of breath.\r
+Unconsciously she immediately invented a reason for going down, and\r
+then, testing her strength, ran upstairs again, observing the result.\r
+\r
+Another time when she called Dunyasha her voice trembled, so she called\r
+again--though she could hear Dunyasha coming--called her in the deep\r
+chest tones in which she had been wont to sing, and listened attentively\r
+to herself.\r
+\r
+She did not know and would not have believed it, but beneath the layer\r
+of slime that covered her soul and seemed to her impenetrable, delicate\r
+young shoots of grass were already sprouting, which taking root would so\r
+cover with their living verdure the grief that weighed her down that it\r
+would soon no longer be seen or noticed. The wound had begun to heal\r
+from within.\r
+\r
+At the end of January Princess Mary left for Moscow, and the count\r
+insisted on Natasha's going with her to consult the doctors.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+After the encounter at Vyazma, where Kutuzov had been unable to hold\r
+back his troops in their anxiety to overwhelm and cut off the enemy and\r
+so on, the farther movement of the fleeing French, and of the Russians\r
+who pursued them, continued as far as Krasnoe without a battle. The\r
+flight was so rapid that the Russian army pursuing the French could not\r
+keep up with them; cavalry and artillery horses broke down, and the\r
+information received of the movements of the French was never reliable.\r
+\r
+The men in the Russian army were so worn out by this continuous marching\r
+at the rate of twenty-seven miles a day that they could not go any\r
+faster.\r
+\r
+To realize the degree of exhaustion of the Russian army it is only\r
+necessary to grasp clearly the meaning of the fact that, while not\r
+losing more than five thousand killed and wounded after Tarutino and\r
+less than a hundred prisoners, the Russian army which left that place a\r
+hundred thousand strong reached Krasnoe with only fifty thousand.\r
+\r
+The rapidity of the Russian pursuit was just as destructive to our army\r
+as the flight of the French was to theirs. The only difference was that\r
+the Russian army moved voluntarily, with no such threat of destruction\r
+as hung over the French, and that the sick Frenchmen were left behind in\r
+enemy hands while the sick Russians left behind were among their own\r
+people. The chief cause of the wastage of Napoleon's army was the\r
+rapidity of its movement, and a convincing proof of this is the\r
+corresponding decrease of the Russian army.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov as far as was in his power, instead of trying to check the\r
+movement of the French as was desired in Petersburg and by the Russian\r
+army generals, directed his whole activity here, as he had done at\r
+Tarutino and Vyazma, to hastening it on while easing the movement of our\r
+army.\r
+\r
+But besides this, since the exhaustion and enormous diminution of the\r
+army caused by the rapidity of the advance had become evident, another\r
+reason for slackening the pace and delaying presented itself to Kutuzov.\r
+The aim of the Russian army was to pursue the French. The road the\r
+French would take was unknown, and so the closer our troops trod on\r
+their heels the greater distance they had to cover. Only by following at\r
+some distance could one cut across the zigzag path of the French. All\r
+the artful maneuvers suggested by our generals meant fresh movements of\r
+the army and a lengthening of its marches, whereas the only reasonable\r
+aim was to shorten those marches. To that end Kutuzov's activity was\r
+directed during the whole campaign from Moscow to Vilna--not casually or\r
+intermittently but so consistently that he never once deviated from it.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov felt and knew--not by reasoning or science but with the whole of\r
+his Russian being--what every Russian soldier felt: that the French were\r
+beaten, that the enemy was flying and must be driven out; but at the\r
+same time he like the soldiers realized all the hardship of this march,\r
+the rapidity of which was unparalleled for such a time of the year.\r
+\r
+But to the generals, especially the foreign ones in the Russian army,\r
+who wished to distinguish themselves, to astonish somebody, and for some\r
+reason to capture a king or a duke--it seemed that now--when any battle\r
+must be horrible and senseless--was the very time to fight and conquer\r
+somebody. Kutuzov merely shrugged his shoulders when one after another\r
+they presented projects of maneuvers to be made with those soldiers--\r
+ill-shod, insufficiently clad, and half starved--who within a month and\r
+without fighting a battle had dwindled to half their number, and who at\r
+the best if the flight continued would have to go a greater distance\r
+than they had already traversed, before they reached the frontier.\r
+\r
+This longing to distinguish themselves, to maneuver, to overthrow, and\r
+to cut off showed itself particularly whenever the Russians stumbled on\r
+the French army.\r
+\r
+So it was at Krasnoe, where they expected to find one of the three\r
+French columns and stumbled instead on Napoleon himself with sixteen\r
+thousand men. Despite all Kutuzov's efforts to avoid that ruinous\r
+encounter and to preserve his troops, the massacre of the broken mob of\r
+French soldiers by worn-out Russians continued at Krasnoe for three\r
+days.\r
+\r
+Toll wrote a disposition: "The first column will march to so and so,"\r
+etc. And as usual nothing happened in accord with the disposition.\r
+Prince Eugene of Wurttemberg fired from a hill over the French crowds\r
+that were running past, and demanded reinforcements which did not\r
+arrive. The French, avoiding the Russians, dispersed and hid themselves\r
+in the forest by night, making their way round as best they could, and\r
+continued their flight.\r
+\r
+Miloradovich, who said he did not want to know anything about the\r
+commissariat affairs of his detachment, and could never be found when he\r
+was wanted--that chevalier sans peur et sans reproche * as he styled\r
+himself--who was fond of parleys with the French, sent envoys demanding\r
+their surrender, wasted time, and did not do what he was ordered to do.\r
+\r
+\r
+* Knight without fear and without reproach.\r
+\r
+"I give you that column, lads," he said, riding up to the troops and\r
+pointing out the French to the cavalry.\r
+\r
+And the cavalry, with spurs and sabers urging on horses that could\r
+scarcely move, trotted with much effort to the column presented to them-\r
+-that is to say, to a crowd of Frenchmen stark with cold, frost-bitten,\r
+and starving--and the column that had been presented to them threw down\r
+its arms and surrendered as it had long been anxious to do.\r
+\r
+At Krasnoe they took twenty-six thousand prisoners, several hundred\r
+cannon, and a stick called a "marshal's staff," and disputed as to who\r
+had distinguished himself and were pleased with their achievement--\r
+though they much regretted not having taken Napoleon, or at least a\r
+marshal or a hero of some sort, and reproached one another and\r
+especially Kutuzov for having failed to do so.\r
+\r
+These men, carried away by their passions, were but blind tools of the\r
+most melancholy law of necessity, but considered themselves heroes and\r
+imagined that they were accomplishing a most noble and honorable deed.\r
+They blamed Kutuzov and said that from the very beginning of the\r
+campaign he had prevented their vanquishing Napoleon, that he thought of\r
+nothing but satisfying his passions and would not advance from the Linen\r
+Factories because he was comfortable there, that at Krasnoe he checked\r
+the advance because on learning that Napoleon was there he had quite\r
+lost his head, and that it was probable that he had an understanding\r
+with Napoleon and had been bribed by him, and so on, and so on.\r
+\r
+Not only did his contemporaries, carried away by their passions, talk in\r
+this way, but posterity and history have acclaimed Napoleon as grand,\r
+while Kutuzov is described by foreigners as a crafty, dissolute, weak\r
+old courtier, and by Russians as something indefinite--a sort of puppet\r
+useful only because he had a Russian name.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+In 1812 and 1813 Kutuzov was openly accused of blundering. The Emperor\r
+was dissatisfied with him. And in a history recently written by order of\r
+the Highest Authorities it is said that Kutuzov was a cunning court\r
+liar, frightened of the name of Napoleon, and that by his blunders at\r
+Krasnoe and the Berezina he deprived the Russian army of the glory of\r
+complete victory over the French. *\r
+\r
+\r
+* History of the year 1812. The character of Kutuzov and reflections on\r
+the unsatisfactory results of the battles at Krasnoe, by Bogdanovich.\r
+\r
+Such is the fate not of great men (grands hommes) whom the Russian mind\r
+does not acknowledge, but of those rare and always solitary individuals\r
+who, discerning the will of Providence, submit their personal will to\r
+it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd punish such men for discerning\r
+the higher laws.\r
+\r
+For Russian historians, strange and terrible to say, Napoleon--that most\r
+insignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even in exile, showed\r
+human dignity--Napoleon is the object of adulation and enthusiasm; he is\r
+grand. But Kutuzov--the man who from the beginning to the end of his\r
+activity in 1812, never once swerving by word or deed from Borodino to\r
+Vilna, presented an example exceptional in history of self-sacrifice and\r
+a present consciousness of the future importance of what was happening--\r
+Kutuzov seems to them something indefinite and pitiful, and when\r
+speaking of him and of the year 1812 they always seem a little ashamed.\r
+\r
+And yet it is difficult to imagine an historical character whose\r
+activity was so unswervingly directed to a single aim; and it would be\r
+difficult to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant with the will\r
+of the whole people. Still more difficult would it be to find an\r
+instance in history of the aim of an historical personage being so\r
+completely accomplished as that to which all Kutuzov's efforts were\r
+directed in 1812.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov never talked of "forty centuries looking down from the\r
+Pyramids," of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of what\r
+he intended to accomplish or had accomplished; in general he said\r
+nothing about himself, adopted no pose, always appeared to be the\r
+simplest and most ordinary of men, and said the simplest and most\r
+ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de\r
+Stael, read novels, liked the society of pretty women, jested with\r
+generals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted those who tried\r
+to prove anything to him. When Count Rostopchin at the Yauza bridge\r
+galloped up to Kutuzov with personal reproaches for having caused the\r
+destruction of Moscow, and said: "How was it you promised not to abandon\r
+Moscow without a battle?" Kutuzov replied: "And I shall not abandon\r
+Moscow without a battle," though Moscow was then already abandoned. When\r
+Arakcheev, coming to him from the Emperor, said that Ermolov ought to be\r
+appointed chief of the artillery, Kutuzov replied: "Yes, I was just\r
+saying so myself," though a moment before he had said quite the\r
+contrary. What did it matter to him--who then alone amid a senseless\r
+crowd understood the whole tremendous significance of what was\r
+happening--what did it matter to him whether Rostopchin attributed the\r
+calamities of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could it matter to\r
+him who was appointed chief of the artillery.\r
+\r
+Not merely in these cases but continually did that old man--who by\r
+experience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts and the\r
+words serving as their expression are not what move people--use quite\r
+meaningless words that happened to enter his head.\r
+\r
+But that man, so heedless of his words, did not once during the whole\r
+time of his activity utter one word inconsistent with the single aim\r
+toward which he moved throughout the whole war. Obviously in spite of\r
+himself, in very diverse circumstances, he repeatedly expressed his real\r
+thoughts with the bitter conviction that he would not be understood.\r
+Beginning with the battle of Borodino, from which time his disagreement\r
+with those about him began, he alone said that the battle of Borodino\r
+was a victory, and repeated this both verbally and in his dispatches and\r
+reports up to the time of his death. He alone said that the loss of\r
+Moscow is not the loss of Russia. In reply to Lauriston's proposal of\r
+peace, he said: There can be no peace, for such is the people's will. He\r
+alone during the retreat of the French said that all our maneuvers are\r
+useless, everything is being accomplished of itself better than we could\r
+desire; that the enemy must be offered "a golden bridge"; that neither\r
+the Tarutino, the Vyazma, nor the Krasnoe battles were necessary; that\r
+we must keep some force to reach the frontier with, and that he would\r
+not sacrifice a single Russian for ten Frenchmen.\r
+\r
+And this courtier, as he is described to us, who lies to Arakcheev to\r
+please the Emperor, he alone--incurring thereby the Emperor's\r
+displeasure--said in Vilna that to carry the war beyond the frontier is\r
+useless and harmful.\r
+\r
+Nor do words alone prove that only he understood the meaning of the\r
+events. His actions--without the smallest deviation--were all directed\r
+to one and the same threefold end: (1) to brace all his strength for\r
+conflict with the French, (2) to defeat them, and (3) to drive them out\r
+of Russia, minimizing as far as possible the sufferings of our people\r
+and of our army.\r
+\r
+This procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was "Patience and Time," this\r
+enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodino, investing the\r
+preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity. This Kutuzov who before\r
+the battle of Austerlitz began said that it would be lost, he alone, in\r
+contradiction to everyone else, declared till his death that Borodino\r
+was a victory, despite the assurance of generals that the battle was\r
+lost and despite the fact that for an army to have to retire after\r
+winning a battle was unprecedented. He alone during the whole retreat\r
+insisted that battles, which were useless then, should not be fought,\r
+and that a new war should not be begun nor the frontiers of Russia\r
+crossed.\r
+\r
+It is easy now to understand the significance of these events--if only\r
+we abstain from attributing to the activity of the mass aims that\r
+existed only in the heads of a dozen individuals--for the events and\r
+results now lie before us.\r
+\r
+But how did that old man, alone, in opposition to the general opinion,\r
+so truly discern the importance of the people's view of the events that\r
+in all his activity he was never once untrue to it?\r
+\r
+The source of that extraordinary power of penetrating the meaning of the\r
+events then occuring lay in the national feeling which he possessed in\r
+full purity and strength.\r
+\r
+Only the recognition of the fact that he possessed this feeling caused\r
+the people in so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsar's wish, to\r
+select him--an old man in disfavor--to be their representative in the\r
+national war. And only that feeling placed him on that highest human\r
+pedestal from which he, the commander-in-chief, devoted all his powers\r
+not to slaying and destroying men but to saving and showing pity on\r
+them.\r
+\r
+That simple, modest, and therefore truly great, figure could not be cast\r
+in the false mold of a European hero--the supposed ruler of men--that\r
+history has invented.\r
+\r
+To a lackey no man can be great, for a lackey has his own conception of\r
+greatness.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+The fifth of November was the first day of what is called the battle of\r
+Krasnoe. Toward evening--after much disputing and many mistakes made by\r
+generals who did not go to their proper places, and after adjutants had\r
+been sent about with counterorders--when it had become plain that the\r
+enemy was everywhere in flight and that there could and would be no\r
+battle, Kutuzov left Krasnoe and went to Dobroe whither his headquarters\r
+had that day been transferred.\r
+\r
+The day was clear and frosty. Kutuzov rode to Dobroe on his plump little\r
+white horse, followed by an enormous suite of discontented generals who\r
+whispered among themselves behind his back. All along the road groups of\r
+French prisoners captured that day (there were seven thousand of them)\r
+were crowding to warm themselves at campfires. Near Dobroe an immense\r
+crowd of tattered prisoners, buzzing with talk and wrapped and bandaged\r
+in anything they had been able to get hold of, were standing in the road\r
+beside a long row of unharnessed French guns. At the approach of the\r
+commander-in-chief the buzz of talk ceased and all eyes were fixed on\r
+Kutuzov who, wearing a white cap with a red band and a padded overcoat\r
+that bulged on his round shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his\r
+white horse. One of the generals was reporting to him where the guns and\r
+prisoners had been captured.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov seemed preoccupied and did not listen to what the general was\r
+saying. He screwed up his eyes with a dissatisfied look as he gazed\r
+attentively and fixedly at these prisoners, who presented a specially\r
+wretched appearance. Most of them were disfigured by frost-bitten noses\r
+and cheeks, and nearly all had red, swollen and festering eyes.\r
+\r
+One group of the French stood close to the road, and two of them, one of\r
+whom had his face covered with sores, were tearing a piece of raw flesh\r
+with their hands. There was something horrible and bestial in the\r
+fleeting glance they threw at the riders and in the malevolent\r
+expression with which, after a glance at Kutuzov, the soldier with the\r
+sores immediately turned away and went on with what he was doing.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov looked long and intently at these two soldiers. He puckered his\r
+face, screwed up his eyes, and pensively swayed his head. At another\r
+spot he noticed a Russian soldier laughingly patting a Frenchman on the\r
+shoulder, saying something to him in a friendly manner, and Kutuzov with\r
+the same expression on his face again swayed his head.\r
+\r
+"What were you saying?" he asked the general, who continuing his report\r
+directed the commander-in-chief's attention to some standards captured\r
+from the French and standing in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment.\r
+\r
+"Ah, the standards!" said Kutuzov, evidently detaching himself with\r
+difficulty from the thoughts that preoccupied him.\r
+\r
+He looked about him absently. Thousands of eyes were looking at him from\r
+all sides awaiting a word from him.\r
+\r
+He stopped in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment, sighed deeply, and\r
+closed his eyes. One of his suite beckoned to the soldiers carrying the\r
+standards to advance and surround the commander-in-chief with them.\r
+Kutuzov was silent for a few seconds and then, submitting with evident\r
+reluctance to the duty imposed by his position, raised his head and\r
+began to speak. A throng of officers surrounded him. He looked\r
+attentively around at the circle of officers, recognizing several of\r
+them.\r
+\r
+"I thank you all!" he said, addressing the soldiers and then again the\r
+officers. In the stillness around him his slowly uttered words were\r
+distinctly heard. "I thank you all for your hard and faithful service.\r
+The victory is complete and Russia will not forget you! Honor to you\r
+forever."\r
+\r
+He paused and looked around.\r
+\r
+"Lower its head, lower it!" he said to a soldier who had accidentally\r
+lowered the French eagle he was holding before the Preobrazhensk\r
+standards. "Lower, lower, that's it. Hurrah lads!" he added, addressing\r
+the men with a rapid movement of his chin.\r
+\r
+"Hur-r-rah!" roared thousands of voices.\r
+\r
+While the soldiers were shouting Kutuzov leaned forward in his saddle\r
+and bowed his head, and his eye lit up with a mild and apparently ironic\r
+gleam.\r
+\r
+"You see, brothers..." said he when the shouts had ceased... and all at\r
+once his voice and the expression of his face changed. It was no longer\r
+the commander-in-chief speaking but an ordinary old man who wanted to\r
+tell his comrades something very important.\r
+\r
+There was a stir among the throng of officers and in the ranks of the\r
+soldiers, who moved that they might hear better what he was going to\r
+say.\r
+\r
+"You see, brothers, I know it's hard for you, but it can't be helped!\r
+Bear up; it won't be for long now! We'll see our visitors off and then\r
+we'll rest. The Tsar won't forget your service. It is hard for you, but\r
+still you are at home while they--you see what they have come to," said\r
+he, pointing to the prisoners. "Worse off than our poorest beggars.\r
+While they were strong we didn't spare ourselves, but now we may even\r
+pity them. They are human beings too. Isn't it so, lads?"\r
+\r
+He looked around, and in the direct, respectful, wondering gaze fixed\r
+upon him he read sympathy with what he had said. His face grew brighter\r
+and brighter with an old man's mild smile, which drew the corners of his\r
+lips and eyes into a cluster of wrinkles. He ceased speaking and bowed\r
+his head as if in perplexity.\r
+\r
+"But after all who asked them here? Serves them right, the bloody\r
+bastards!" he cried, suddenly lifting his head.\r
+\r
+And flourishing his whip he rode off at a gallop for the first time\r
+during the whole campaign, and left the broken ranks of the soldiers\r
+laughing joyfully and shouting "Hurrah!"\r
+\r
+Kutuzov's words were hardly understood by the troops. No one could have\r
+repeated the field marshal's address, begun solemnly and then changing\r
+into an old man's simplehearted talk; but the hearty sincerity of that\r
+speech, the feeling of majestic triumph combined with pity for the foe\r
+and consciousness of the justice of our cause, exactly expressed by that\r
+old man's good-natured expletives, was not merely understood but lay in\r
+the soul of every soldier and found expression in their joyous and long-\r
+sustained shouts. Afterwards when one of the generals addressed Kutuzov\r
+asking whether he wished his caleche to be sent for, Kutuzov in\r
+answering unexpectedly gave a sob, being evidently greatly moved.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+When the troops reached their night's halting place on the eighth of\r
+November, the last day of the Krasnoe battles, it was already growing\r
+dusk. All day it had been calm and frosty with occasional lightly\r
+falling snow and toward evening it began to clear. Through the falling\r
+snow a purple-black and starry sky showed itself and the frost grew\r
+keener.\r
+\r
+An infantry regiment which had left Tarutino three thousand strong but\r
+now numbered only nine hundred was one of the first to arrive that night\r
+at its halting place--a village on the highroad. The quartermasters who\r
+met the regiment announced that all the huts were full of sick and dead\r
+Frenchmen, cavalrymen, and members of the staff. There was only one hut\r
+available for the regimental commander.\r
+\r
+The commander rode up to his hut. The regiment passed through the\r
+village and stacked its arms in front of the last huts.\r
+\r
+Like some huge many-limbed animal, the regiment began to prepare its\r
+lair and its food. One part of it dispersed and waded knee-deep through\r
+the snow into a birch forest to the right of the village, and\r
+immediately the sound of axes and swords, the crashing of branches, and\r
+merry voices could be heard from there. Another section amid the\r
+regimental wagons and horses which were standing in a group was busy\r
+getting out caldrons and rye biscuit, and feeding the horses. A third\r
+section scattered through the village arranging quarters for the staff\r
+officers, carrying out the French corpses that were in the huts, and\r
+dragging away boards, dry wood, and thatch from the roofs, for the\r
+campfires, or wattle fences to serve for shelter.\r
+\r
+Some fifteen men with merry shouts were shaking down the high wattle\r
+wall of a shed, the roof of which had already been removed.\r
+\r
+"Now then, all together--shove!" cried the voices, and the huge surface\r
+of the wall, sprinkled with snow and creaking with frost, was seen\r
+swaying in the gloom of the night. The lower stakes cracked more and\r
+more and at last the wall fell, and with it the men who had been pushing\r
+it. Loud, coarse laughter and joyous shouts ensued.\r
+\r
+"Now then, catch hold in twos! Hand up the lever! That's it... Where are\r
+you shoving to?"\r
+\r
+"Now, all together! But wait a moment, boys... With a song!"\r
+\r
+All stood silent, and a soft, pleasant velvety voice began to sing. At\r
+the end of the third verse as the last note died away, twenty voices\r
+roared out at once: "Oo-oo-oo-oo! That's it. All together! Heave away,\r
+boys!..." but despite their united efforts the wattle hardly moved, and\r
+in the silence that followed the heavy breathing of the men was audible.\r
+\r
+"Here, you of the Sixth Company! Devils that you are! Lend a hand...\r
+will you? You may want us one of these days."\r
+\r
+Some twenty men of the Sixth Company who were on their way into the\r
+village joined the haulers, and the wattle wall, which was about thirty-\r
+five feet long and seven feet high, moved forward along the village\r
+street, swaying, pressing upon and cutting the shoulders of the gasping\r
+men.\r
+\r
+"Get along... Falling? What are you stopping for? There now..."\r
+\r
+Merry senseless words of abuse flowed freely.\r
+\r
+"What are you up to?" suddenly came the authoritative voice of a\r
+sergeant major who came upon the men who were hauling their burden.\r
+"There are gentry here; the general himself is in that hut, and you\r
+foul-mouthed devils, you brutes, I'll give it to you!" shouted he,\r
+hitting the first man who came in his way a swinging blow on the back.\r
+"Can't you make less noise?"\r
+\r
+The men became silent. The soldier who had been struck groaned and wiped\r
+his face, which had been scratched till it bled by his falling against\r
+the wattle.\r
+\r
+"There, how that devil hits out! He's made my face all bloody," said he\r
+in a frightened whisper when the sergeant major had passed on.\r
+\r
+"Don't you like it?" said a laughing voice, and moderating their tones\r
+the men moved forward.\r
+\r
+When they were out of the village they began talking again as loud as\r
+before, interlarding their talk with the same aimless expletives.\r
+\r
+In the hut which the men had passed, the chief officers had gathered and\r
+were in animated talk over their tea about the events of the day and the\r
+maneuvers suggested for tomorrow. It was proposed to make a flank march\r
+to the left, cut off the Vice-King (Murat) and capture him.\r
+\r
+By the time the soldiers had dragged the wattle fence to its place the\r
+campfires were blazing on all sides ready for cooking, the wood\r
+crackled, the snow was melting, and black shadows of soldiers flitted to\r
+and fro all over the occupied space where the snow had been trodden\r
+down.\r
+\r
+Axes and choppers were plied all around. Everything was done without any\r
+orders being given. Stores of wood were brought for the night, shelters\r
+were rigged up for the officers, caldrons were being boiled, and muskets\r
+and accouterments put in order.\r
+\r
+The wattle wall the men had brought was set up in a semicircle by the\r
+Eighth Company as a shelter from the north, propped up by musket rests,\r
+and a campfire was built before it. They beat the tattoo, called the\r
+roll, had supper, and settled down round the fires for the night--some\r
+repairing their footgear, some smoking pipes, and some stripping\r
+themselves naked to steam the lice out of their shirts.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+One would have thought that under the almost incredibly wretched\r
+conditions the Russian soldiers were in at that time--lacking warm boots\r
+and sheepskin coats, without a roof over their heads, in the snow with\r
+eighteen degrees of frost, and without even full rations (the\r
+commissariat did not always keep up with the troops)--they would have\r
+presented a very sad and depressing spectacle.\r
+\r
+On the contrary, the army had never under the best material conditions\r
+presented a more cheerful and animated aspect. This was because all who\r
+began to grow depressed or who lost strength were sifted out of the army\r
+day by day. All the physically or morally weak had long since been left\r
+behind and only the flower of the army--physically and mentally--\r
+remained.\r
+\r
+More men collected behind the wattle fence of the Eighth Company than\r
+anywhere else. Two sergeants major were sitting with them and their\r
+campfire blazed brighter than others. For leave to sit by their wattle\r
+they demanded contributions of fuel.\r
+\r
+"Eh, Makeev! What has become of you, you son of a bitch? Are you lost or\r
+have the wolves eaten you? Fetch some more wood!" shouted a red-haired\r
+and red-faced man, screwing up his eyes and blinking because of the\r
+smoke but not moving back from the fire. "And you, Jackdaw, go and fetch\r
+some wood!" said he to another soldier.\r
+\r
+This red-haired man was neither a sergeant nor a corporal, but being\r
+robust he ordered about those weaker than himself. The soldier they\r
+called "Jackdaw," a thin little fellow with a sharp nose, rose\r
+obediently and was about to go but at that instant there came into the\r
+light of the fire the slender, handsome figure of a young soldier\r
+carrying a load of wood.\r
+\r
+"Bring it here--that's fine!"\r
+\r
+They split up the wood, pressed it down on the fire, blew at it with\r
+their mouths, and fanned it with the skirts of their greatcoats, making\r
+the flames hiss and crackle. The men drew nearer and lit their pipes.\r
+The handsome young soldier who had brought the wood, setting his arms\r
+akimbo, began stamping his cold feet rapidly and deftly on the spot\r
+where he stood.\r
+\r
+"Mother! The dew is cold but clear.... It's well that I'm a\r
+musketeer..." he sang, pretending to hiccough after each syllable.\r
+\r
+"Look out, your soles will fly off!" shouted the red-haired man,\r
+noticing that the sole of the dancer's boot was hanging loose. "What a\r
+fellow you are for dancing!"\r
+\r
+The dancer stopped, pulled off the loose piece of leather, and threw it\r
+on the fire.\r
+\r
+"Right enough, friend," said he, and, having sat down, took out of his\r
+knapsack a scrap of blue French cloth, and wrapped it round his foot.\r
+"It's the steam that spoils them," he added, stretching out his feet\r
+toward the fire.\r
+\r
+"They'll soon be issuing us new ones. They say that when we've finished\r
+hammering them, we're to receive double kits!"\r
+\r
+"And that son of a bitch Petrov has lagged behind after all, it seems,"\r
+said one sergeant major.\r
+\r
+"I've had an eye on him this long while," said the other.\r
+\r
+"Well, he's a poor sort of soldier..."\r
+\r
+"But in the Third Company they say nine men were missing yesterday."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it's all very well, but when a man's feet are frozen how can he\r
+walk?"\r
+\r
+"Eh? Don't talk nonsense!" said a sergeant major.\r
+\r
+"Do you want to be doing the same?" said an old soldier, turning\r
+reproachfully to the man who had spoken of frozen feet.\r
+\r
+"Well, you know," said the sharp-nosed man they called Jackdaw in a\r
+squeaky and unsteady voice, raising himself at the other side of the\r
+fire, "a plump man gets thin, but for a thin one it's death. Take me,\r
+now! I've got no strength left," he added, with sudden resolution\r
+turning to the sergeant major. "Tell them to send me to hospital; I'm\r
+aching all over; anyway I shan't be able to keep up."\r
+\r
+"That'll do, that'll do!" replied the sergeant major quietly.\r
+\r
+The soldier said no more and the talk went on.\r
+\r
+"What a lot of those Frenchies were taken today, and the fact is that\r
+not one of them had what you might call real boots on," said a soldier,\r
+starting a new theme. "They were no more than make-believes."\r
+\r
+"The Cossacks have taken their boots. They were clearing the hut for the\r
+colonel and carried them out. It was pitiful to see them, boys," put in\r
+the dancer. "As they turned them over one seemed still alive and, would\r
+you believe it, he jabbered something in their lingo."\r
+\r
+"But they're a clean folk, lads," the first man went on; "he was white--\r
+as white as birchbark--and some of them are such fine fellows, you might\r
+think they were nobles."\r
+\r
+"Well, what do you think? They make soldiers of all classes there."\r
+\r
+"But they don't understand our talk at all," said the dancer with a\r
+puzzled smile. "I asked him whose subject he was, and he jabbered in his\r
+own way. A queer lot!"\r
+\r
+"But it's strange, friends," continued the man who had wondered at their\r
+whiteness, "the peasants at Mozhaysk were saying that when they began\r
+burying the dead--where the battle was you know--well, those dead had\r
+been lying there for nearly a month, and says the peasant, 'they lie as\r
+white as paper, clean, and not as much smell as a puff of powder\r
+smoke.'"\r
+\r
+"Was it from the cold?" asked someone.\r
+\r
+"You're a clever fellow! From the cold indeed! Why, it was hot. If it\r
+had been from the cold, ours would not have rotted either. 'But,' he\r
+says, 'go up to ours and they are all rotten and maggoty. So,' he says,\r
+'we tie our faces up with kerchiefs and turn our heads away as we drag\r
+them off: we can hardly do it. But theirs,' he says, 'are white as paper\r
+and not so much smell as a whiff of gunpowder.'"\r
+\r
+All were silent.\r
+\r
+"It must be from their food," said the sergeant major. "They used to\r
+gobble the same food as the gentry."\r
+\r
+No one contradicted him.\r
+\r
+"That peasant near Mozhaysk where the battle was said the men were all\r
+called up from ten villages around and they carted for twenty days and\r
+still didn't finish carting the dead away. And as for the wolves, he\r
+says..."\r
+\r
+"That was a real battle," said an old soldier. "It's the only one worth\r
+remembering; but since that... it's only been tormenting folk."\r
+\r
+"And do you know, Daddy, the day before yesterday we ran at them and, my\r
+word, they didn't let us get near before they just threw down their\r
+muskets and went on their knees. 'Pardon!' they say. That's only one\r
+case. They say Platov took 'Poleon himself twice. But he didn't know the\r
+right charm. He catches him and catches him--no good! He turns into a\r
+bird in his hands and flies away. And there's no way of killing him\r
+either."\r
+\r
+"You're a first-class liar, Kiselev, when I come to look at you!"\r
+\r
+"Liar, indeed! It's the real truth."\r
+\r
+"If he fell into my hands, when I'd caught him I'd bury him in the\r
+ground with an aspen stake to fix him down. What a lot of men he's\r
+ruined!"\r
+\r
+"Well, anyhow we're going to end it. He won't come here again," remarked\r
+the old soldier, yawning.\r
+\r
+The conversation flagged, and the soldiers began settling down to sleep.\r
+\r
+"Look at the stars. It's wonderful how they shine! You would think the\r
+women had spread out their linen," said one of the men, gazing with\r
+admiration at the Milky Way.\r
+\r
+"That's a sign of a good harvest next year."\r
+\r
+"We shall want some more wood."\r
+\r
+"You warm your back and your belly gets frozen. That's queer."\r
+\r
+"O Lord!"\r
+\r
+"What are you pushing for? Is the fire only for you? Look how he's\r
+sprawling!"\r
+\r
+In the silence that ensued, the snoring of those who had fallen asleep\r
+could be heard. Others turned over and warmed themselves, now and again\r
+exchanging a few words. From a campfire a hundred paces off came a sound\r
+of general, merry laughter.\r
+\r
+"Hark at them roaring there in the Fifth Company!" said one of the\r
+soldiers, "and what a lot of them there are!"\r
+\r
+One of the men got up and went over to the Fifth Company.\r
+\r
+"They're having such fun," said he, coming back. "Two Frenchies have\r
+turned up. One's quite frozen and the other's an awful swaggerer. He's\r
+singing songs...."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'll go across and have a look...."\r
+\r
+And several of the men went over to the Fifth Company.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+The fifth company was bivouacking at the very edge of the forest. A huge\r
+campfire was blazing brightly in the midst of the snow, lighting up the\r
+branches of trees heavy with hoarfrost.\r
+\r
+About midnight they heard the sound of steps in the snow of the forest,\r
+and the crackling of dry branches.\r
+\r
+"A bear, lads," said one of the men.\r
+\r
+They all raised their heads to listen, and out of the forest into the\r
+bright firelight stepped two strangely clad human figures clinging to\r
+one another.\r
+\r
+These were two Frenchmen who had been hiding in the forest. They came up\r
+to the fire, hoarsely uttering something in a language our soldiers did\r
+not understand. One was taller than the other; he wore an officer's hat\r
+and seemed quite exhausted. On approaching the fire he had been going to\r
+sit down, but fell. The other, a short sturdy soldier with a shawl tied\r
+round his head, was stronger. He raised his companion and said\r
+something, pointing to his mouth. The soldiers surrounded the Frenchmen,\r
+spread a greatcoat on the ground for the sick man, and brought some\r
+buckwheat porridge and vodka for both of them.\r
+\r
+The exhausted French officer was Ramballe and the man with his head\r
+wrapped in the shawl was Morel, his orderly.\r
+\r
+When Morel had drunk some vodka and finished his bowl of porridge he\r
+suddenly became unnaturally merry and chattered incessantly to the\r
+soldiers, who could not understand him. Ramballe refused food and\r
+resting his head on his elbow lay silent beside the campfire, looking at\r
+the Russian soldiers with red and vacant eyes. Occasionally he emitted a\r
+long-drawn groan and then again became silent. Morel, pointing to his\r
+shoulders, tried to impress on the soldiers the fact that Ramballe was\r
+an officer and ought to be warmed. A Russian officer who had come up to\r
+the fire sent to ask his colonel whether he would not take a French\r
+officer into his hut to warm him, and when the messenger returned and\r
+said that the colonel wished the officer to be brought to him, Ramballe\r
+was told to go. He rose and tried to walk, but staggered and would have\r
+fallen had not a soldier standing by held him up.\r
+\r
+"You won't do it again, eh?" said one of the soldiers, winking and\r
+turning mockingly to Ramballe.\r
+\r
+"Oh, you fool! Why talk rubbish, lout that you are--a real peasant!"\r
+came rebukes from all sides addressed to the jesting soldier.\r
+\r
+They surrounded Ramballe, lifted him on the crossed arms of two\r
+soldiers, and carried him to the hut. Ramballe put his arms around their\r
+necks while they carried him and began wailing plaintively:\r
+\r
+"Oh, you fine fellows, my kind, kind friends! These are men! Oh, my\r
+brave, kind friends," and he leaned his head against the shoulder of one\r
+of the men like a child.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Morel was sitting in the best place by the fire, surrounded by\r
+the soldiers.\r
+\r
+Morel, a short sturdy Frenchman with inflamed and streaming eyes, was\r
+wearing a woman's cloak and had a shawl tied woman fashion round his\r
+head over his cap. He was evidently tipsy, and was singing a French song\r
+in a hoarse broken voice, with an arm thrown round the nearest soldier.\r
+The soldiers simply held their sides as they watched him.\r
+\r
+"Now then, now then, teach us how it goes! I'll soon pick it up. How is\r
+it?" said the man--a singer and a wag--whom Morel was embracing.\r
+\r
+"Vive Henri Quatre! Vive ce roi valiant!" sang Morel, winking. "Ce\r
+diable a quatre..." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "Long live Henry the Fourth, that valiant king! That rowdy devil."\r
+\r
+"Vivarika! Vif-seruvaru! Sedyablyaka!" repeated the soldier, flourishing\r
+his arm and really catching the tune.\r
+\r
+"Bravo! Ha, ha, ha!" rose their rough, joyous laughter from all sides.\r
+\r
+Morel, wrinkling up his face, laughed too.\r
+\r
+"Well, go on, go on!"\r
+\r
+\r
+"Qui eut le triple talent, De boire, de battre, Et d'etre un vert\r
+galant." *\r
+\r
+\r
+* Who had a triple talent For drinking, for fighting, And for being a\r
+gallant old boy...\r
+\r
+"It goes smoothly, too. Well, now, Zaletaev!"\r
+\r
+"Ke..." Zaletaev, brought out with effort: "ke-e-e-e," he drawled,\r
+laboriously pursing his lips, "le-trip-ta-la-de-bu-de-ba, e de-tra-va-\r
+ga-la" he sang.\r
+\r
+"Fine! Just like the Frenchie! Oh, ho ho! Do you want some more to eat?"\r
+\r
+"Give him some porridge: it takes a long time to get filled up after\r
+starving."\r
+\r
+They gave him some more porridge and Morel with a laugh set to work on\r
+his third bowl. All the young soldiers smiled gaily as they watched him.\r
+The older men, who thought it undignified to amuse themselves with such\r
+nonsense, continued to lie at the opposite side of the fire, but one\r
+would occasionally raise himself on an elbow and glance at Morel with a\r
+smile.\r
+\r
+"They are men too," said one of them as he wrapped himself up in his\r
+coat. "Even wormwood grows on its own root."\r
+\r
+"O Lord, O Lord! How starry it is! Tremendous! That means a hard\r
+frost...."\r
+\r
+They all grew silent. The stars, as if knowing that no one was looking\r
+at them, began to disport themselves in the dark sky: now flaring up,\r
+now vanishing, now trembling, they were busy whispering something\r
+gladsome and mysterious to one another.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+The French army melted away at the uniform rate of a mathematical\r
+progression; and that crossing of the Berezina about which so much has\r
+been written was only one intermediate stage in its destruction, and not\r
+at all the decisive episode of the campaign. If so much has been and\r
+still is written about the Berezina, on the French side this is only\r
+because at the broken bridge across that river the calamities their army\r
+had been previously enduring were suddenly concentrated at one moment\r
+into a tragic spectacle that remained in every memory, and on the\r
+Russian side merely because in Petersburg--far from the seat of war--a\r
+plan (again one of Pfuel's) had been devised to catch Napoleon in a\r
+strategic trap at the Berezina River. Everyone assured himself that all\r
+would happen according to plan, and therefore insisted that it was just\r
+the crossing of the Berezina that destroyed the French army. In reality\r
+the results of the crossing were much less disastrous to the French--in\r
+guns and men lost--than Krasnoe had been, as the figures show.\r
+\r
+The sole importance of the crossing of the Berezina lies in the fact\r
+that it plainly and indubitably proved the fallacy of all the plans for\r
+cutting off the enemy's retreat and the soundness of the only possible\r
+line of action--the one Kutuzov and the general mass of the army\r
+demanded--namely, simply to follow the enemy up. The French crowd fled\r
+at a continually increasing speed and all its energy was directed to\r
+reaching its goal. It fled like a wounded animal and it was impossible\r
+to block its path. This was shown not so much by the arrangements it\r
+made for crossing as by what took place at the bridges. When the bridges\r
+broke down, unarmed soldiers, people from Moscow and women with children\r
+who were with the French transport, all--carried on by vis inertiae--\r
+pressed forward into boats and into the ice-covered water and did not,\r
+surrender.\r
+\r
+That impulse was reasonable. The condition of fugitives and of pursuers\r
+was equally bad. As long as they remained with their own people each\r
+might hope for help from his fellows and the definite place he held\r
+among them. But those who surrendered, while remaining in the same\r
+pitiful plight, would be on a lower level to claim a share in the\r
+necessities of life. The French did not need to be informed of the fact\r
+that half the prisoners--with whom the Russians did not know what to do-\r
+-perished of cold and hunger despite their captors' desire to save them;\r
+they felt that it could not be otherwise. The most compassionate Russian\r
+commanders, those favorable to the French--and even the Frenchmen in the\r
+Russian service--could do nothing for the prisoners. The French perished\r
+from the conditions to which the Russian army was itself exposed. It was\r
+impossible to take bread and clothes from our hungry and indispensable\r
+soldiers to give to the French who, though not harmful, or hated, or\r
+guilty, were simply unnecessary. Some Russians even did that, but they\r
+were exceptions.\r
+\r
+Certain destruction lay behind the French but in front there was hope.\r
+Their ships had been burned, there was no salvation save in collective\r
+flight, and on that the whole strength of the French was concentrated.\r
+\r
+The farther they fled the more wretched became the plight of the\r
+remnant, especially after the Berezina, on which (in consequence of the\r
+Petersburg plan) special hopes had been placed by the Russians, and the\r
+keener grew the passions of the Russian commanders, who blamed one\r
+another and Kutuzov most of all. Anticipation that the failure of the\r
+Petersburg Berezina plan would be attributed to Kutuzov led to\r
+dissatisfaction, contempt, and ridicule, more and more strongly\r
+expressed. The ridicule and contempt were of course expressed in a\r
+respectful form, making it impossible for him to ask wherein he was to\r
+blame. They did not talk seriously to him; when reporting to him or\r
+asking for his sanction they appeared to be fulfilling a regrettable\r
+formality, but they winked behind his back and tried to mislead him at\r
+every turn.\r
+\r
+Because they could not understand him all these people assumed that it\r
+was useless to talk to the old man; that he would never grasp the\r
+profundity of their plans, that he would answer with his phrases (which\r
+they thought were mere phrases) about a "golden bridge," about the\r
+impossibility of crossing the frontier with a crowd of tatterdemalions,\r
+and so forth. They had heard all that before. And all he said--that it\r
+was necessary to await provisions, or that the men had no boots--was so\r
+simple, while what they proposed was so complicated and clever, that it\r
+was evident that he was old and stupid and that they, though not in\r
+power, were commanders of genius.\r
+\r
+After the junction with the army of the brilliant admiral and Petersburg\r
+hero Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff reached their\r
+maximum. Kutuzov saw this and merely sighed and shrugged his shoulders.\r
+Only once, after the affair of the Berezina, did he get angry and write\r
+to Bennigsen (who reported separately to the Emperor) the following\r
+letter:\r
+\r
+"On account of your spells of ill health, will your excellency please be\r
+so good as to set off for Kaluga on receipt of this, and there await\r
+further commands and appointments from His Imperial Majesty."\r
+\r
+But after Bennigsen's departure, the Grand Duke Tsarevich Constantine\r
+Pavlovich joined the army. He had taken part in the beginning of the\r
+campaign but had subsequently been removed from the army by Kutuzov. Now\r
+having come to the army, he informed Kutuzov of the Emperor's\r
+displeasure at the poor success of our forces and the slowness of their\r
+advance. The Emperor intended to join the army personally in a few days'\r
+time.\r
+\r
+The old man, experienced in court as well as in military affairs--this\r
+same Kutuzov who in August had been chosen commander-in-chief against\r
+the sovereign's wishes and who had removed the Grand Duke and heir--\r
+apparent from the army--who on his own authority and contrary to the\r
+Emperor's will had decided on the abandonment of Moscow, now realized at\r
+once that his day was over, that his part was played, and that the power\r
+he was supposed to hold was no longer his. And he understood this not\r
+merely from the attitude of the court. He saw on the one hand that the\r
+military business in which he had played his part was ended and felt\r
+that his mission was accomplished; and at the same time he began to be\r
+conscious of the physical weariness of his aged body and of the\r
+necessity of physical rest.\r
+\r
+On the twenty-ninth of November Kutuzov entered Vilna--his "dear Vilna"\r
+as he called it. Twice during his career Kutuzov had been governor of\r
+Vilna. In that wealthy town, which had not been injured, he found old\r
+friends and associations, besides the comforts of life of which he had\r
+so long been deprived. And he suddenly turned from the cares of army and\r
+state and, as far as the passions that seethed around him allowed,\r
+immersed himself in the quiet life to which he had formerly been\r
+accustomed, as if all that was taking place and all that had still to be\r
+done in the realm of history did not concern him at all.\r
+\r
+Chichagov, one of the most zealous "cutters-off" and "breakers-up," who\r
+had first wanted to effect a diversion in Greece and then in Warsaw but\r
+never wished to go where he was sent: Chichagov, noted for the boldness\r
+with which he spoke to the Emperor, and who considered Kutuzov to be\r
+under an obligation to him because when he was sent to make peace with\r
+Turkey in 1811 independently of Kutuzov, and found that peace had\r
+already been concluded, he admitted to the Emperor that the merit of\r
+securing that peace was really Kutuzov's; this Chichagov was the first\r
+to meet Kutuzov at the castle where the latter was to stay. In undress\r
+naval uniform, with a dirk, and holding his cap under his arm, he handed\r
+Kutuzov a garrison report and the keys of the town. The contemptuously\r
+respectful attitude of the younger men to the old man in his dotage was\r
+expressed in the highest degree by the behavior of Chichagov, who knew\r
+of the accusations that were being directed against Kutuzov.\r
+\r
+When speaking to Chichagov, Kutuzov incidentally mentioned that the\r
+vehicles packed with china that had been captured from him at Borisov\r
+had been recovered and would be restored to him.\r
+\r
+"You mean to imply that I have nothing to eat out of.... On the\r
+contrary, I can supply you with everything even if you want to give\r
+dinner parties," warmly replied Chichagov, who tried by every word he\r
+spoke to prove his own rectitude and therefore imagined Kutuzov to be\r
+animated by the same desire.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov, shrugging his shoulders, replied with his subtle penetrating\r
+smile: "I meant merely to say what I said."\r
+\r
+Contrary to the Emperor's wish Kutuzov detained the greater part of the\r
+army at Vilna. Those about him said that he became extraordinarily slack\r
+and physically feeble during his stay in that town. He attended to army\r
+affairs reluctantly, left everything to his generals, and while awaiting\r
+the Emperor's arrival led a dissipated life.\r
+\r
+Having left Petersburg on the seventh of December with his suite--Count\r
+Tolstoy, Prince Volkonski, Arakcheev, and others--the Emperor reached\r
+Vilna on the eleventh, and in his traveling sleigh drove straight to the\r
+castle. In spite of the severe frost some hundred generals and staff\r
+officers in full parade uniform stood in front of the castle, as well as\r
+a guard of honor of the Semenov regiment.\r
+\r
+A courier who galloped to the castle in advance, in a troyka with three\r
+foam-flecked horses, shouted "Coming!" and Konovnitsyn rushed into the\r
+vestibule to inform Kutuzov, who was waiting in the hall porter's little\r
+lodge.\r
+\r
+A minute later the old man's large stout figure in full-dress uniform,\r
+his chest covered with orders and a scarf drawn round his stomach,\r
+waddled out into the porch. He put on his hat with its peaks to the\r
+sides and, holding his gloves in his hand and walking with an effort\r
+sideways down the steps to the level of the street, took in his hand the\r
+report he had prepared for the Emperor.\r
+\r
+There was running to and fro and whispering; another troyka flew\r
+furiously up, and then all eyes were turned on an approaching sleigh in\r
+which the figures of the Emperor and Volkonski could already be\r
+descried.\r
+\r
+From the habit of fifty years all this had a physically agitating effect\r
+on the old general. He carefully and hastily felt himself all over,\r
+readjusted his hat, and pulling himself together drew himself up and, at\r
+the very moment when the Emperor, having alighted from the sleigh,\r
+lifted his eyes to him, handed him the report and began speaking in his\r
+smooth, ingratiating voice.\r
+\r
+The Emperor with a rapid glance scanned Kutuzov from head to foot,\r
+frowned for an instant, but immediately mastering himself went up to the\r
+old man, extended his arms and embraced him. And this embrace too, owing\r
+to a long-standing impression related to his innermost feelings, had its\r
+usual effect on Kutuzov and he gave a sob.\r
+\r
+The Emperor greeted the officers and the Semenov guard, and again\r
+pressing the old man's hand went with him into the castle.\r
+\r
+When alone with the field marshal the Emperor expressed his\r
+dissatisfaction at the slowness of the pursuit and at the mistakes made\r
+at Krasnoe and the Berezina, and informed him of his intentions for a\r
+future campaign abroad. Kutuzov made no rejoinder or remark. The same\r
+submissive, expressionless look with which he had listened to the\r
+Emperor's commands on the field of Austerlitz seven years before settled\r
+on his face now.\r
+\r
+When Kutuzov came out of the study and with lowered head was crossing\r
+the ballroom with his heavy waddling gait, he was arrested by someone's\r
+voice saying:\r
+\r
+"Your Serene Highness!"\r
+\r
+Kutuzov raised his head and looked for a long while into the eyes of\r
+Count Tolstoy, who stood before him holding a silver salver on which lay\r
+a small object. Kutuzov seemed not to understand what was expected of\r
+him.\r
+\r
+Suddenly he seemed to remember; a scarcely perceptible smile flashed\r
+across his puffy face, and bowing low and respectfully he took the\r
+object that lay on the salver. It was the Order of St. George of the\r
+First Class.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+Next day the field marshal gave a dinner and ball which the Emperor\r
+honored by his presence. Kutuzov had received the Order of St. George of\r
+the First Class and the Emperor showed him the highest honors, but\r
+everyone knew of the imperial dissatisfaction with him. The proprieties\r
+were observed and the Emperor was the first to set that example, but\r
+everybody understood that the old man was blameworthy and good-for-\r
+nothing. When Kutuzov, conforming to a custom of Catherine's day,\r
+ordered the standards that had been captured to be lowered at the\r
+Emperor's feet on his entering the ballroom, the Emperor made a wry face\r
+and muttered something in which some people caught the words, "the old\r
+comedian."\r
+\r
+The Emperor's displeasure with Kutuzov was specially increased at Vilna\r
+by the fact that Kutuzov evidently could not or would not understand the\r
+importance of the coming campaign.\r
+\r
+When on the following morning the Emperor said to the officers assembled\r
+about him: "You have not only saved Russia, you have saved Europe!" they\r
+all understood that the war was not ended.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov alone would not see this and openly expressed his opinion that\r
+no fresh war could improve the position or add to the glory of Russia,\r
+but could only spoil and lower the glorious position that Russia had\r
+gained. He tried to prove to the Emperor the impossibility of levying\r
+fresh troops, spoke of the hardships already endured by the people, of\r
+the possibility of failure and so forth.\r
+\r
+This being the field marshal's frame of mind he was naturally regarded\r
+as merely a hindrance and obstacle to the impending war.\r
+\r
+To avoid unpleasant encounters with the old man, the natural method was\r
+to do what had been done with him at Austerlitz and with Barclay at the\r
+beginning of the Russian campaign--to transfer the authority to the\r
+Emperor himself, thus cutting the ground from under the commander in\r
+chief's feet without upsetting the old man by informing him of the\r
+change.\r
+\r
+With this object his staff was gradually reconstructed and its real\r
+strength removed and transferred to the Emperor. Toll, Konovnitsyn, and\r
+Ermolov received fresh appointments. Everyone spoke loudly of the field\r
+marshal's great weakness and failing health.\r
+\r
+His health had to be bad for his place to be taken away and given to\r
+another. And in fact his health was poor.\r
+\r
+So naturally, simply, and gradually--just as he had come from Turkey to\r
+the Treasury in Petersburg to recruit the militia, and then to the army\r
+when he was needed there--now when his part was played out, Kutuzov's\r
+place was taken by a new and necessary performer.\r
+\r
+The war of 1812, besides its national significance dear to every Russian\r
+heart, was now to assume another, a European, significance.\r
+\r
+The movement of peoples from west to east was to be succeeded by a\r
+movement of peoples from east to west, and for this fresh war another\r
+leader was necessary, having qualities and views differing from\r
+Kutuzov's and animated by different motives.\r
+\r
+Alexander I was as necessary for the movement of the peoples from east\r
+to west and for the refixing of national frontiers as Kutuzov had been\r
+for the salvation and glory of Russia.\r
+\r
+Kutuzov did not understand what Europe, the balance of power, or\r
+Napoleon meant. He could not understand it. For the representative of\r
+the Russian people, after the enemy had been destroyed and Russia had\r
+been liberated and raised to the summit of her glory, there was nothing\r
+left to do as a Russian. Nothing remained for the representative of the\r
+national war but to die, and Kutuzov died.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+As generally happens, Pierre did not feel the full effects of the\r
+physical privation and strain he had suffered as prisoner until after\r
+they were over. After his liberation he reached Orel, and on the third\r
+day there, when preparing to go to Kiev, he fell ill and was laid up for\r
+three months. He had what the doctors termed "bilious fever." But\r
+despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him, and gave him\r
+medicines to drink, he recovered.\r
+\r
+Scarcely any impression was left on Pierre's mind by all that happened\r
+to him from the time of his rescue till his illness. He remembered only\r
+the dull gray weather now rainy and now snowy, internal physical\r
+distress, and pains in his feet and side. He remembered a general\r
+impression of the misfortunes and sufferings of people and of being\r
+worried by the curiosity of officers and generals who questioned him, he\r
+also remembered his difficulty in procuring a conveyance and horses, and\r
+above all he remembered his incapacity to think and feel all that time.\r
+On the day of his rescue he had seen the body of Petya Rostov. That same\r
+day he had learned that Prince Andrew, after surviving the battle of\r
+Borodino for more than a month had recently died in the Rostovs' house\r
+at Yaroslavl, and Denisov who told him this news also mentioned Helene's\r
+death, supposing that Pierre had heard of it long before. All this at\r
+the time seemed merely strange to Pierre: he felt he could not grasp its\r
+significance. Just then he was only anxious to get away as quickly as\r
+possible from places where people were killing one another, to some\r
+peaceful refuge where he could recover himself, rest, and think over all\r
+the strange new facts he had learned; but on reaching Orel he\r
+immediately fell ill. When he came to himself after his illness he saw\r
+in attendance on him two of his servants, Terenty and Vaska, who had\r
+come from Moscow; and also his cousin the eldest princess, who had been\r
+living on his estate at Elets and hearing of his rescue and illness had\r
+come to look after him.\r
+\r
+It was only gradually during his convalescence that Pierre lost the\r
+impressions he had become accustomed to during the last few months and\r
+got used to the idea that no one would oblige him to go anywhere\r
+tomorrow, that no one would deprive him of his warm bed, and that he\r
+would be sure to get his dinner, tea, and supper. But for a long time in\r
+his dreams he still saw himself in the conditions of captivity. In the\r
+same way little by little he came to understand the news he had been\r
+told after his rescue, about the death of Prince Andrew, the death of\r
+his wife, and the destruction of the French.\r
+\r
+A joyous feeling of freedom--that complete inalienable freedom natural\r
+to man which he had first experienced at the first halt outside Moscow--\r
+filled Pierre's soul during his convalescence. He was surprised to find\r
+that this inner freedom, which was independent of external conditions,\r
+now had as it were an additional setting of external liberty. He was\r
+alone in a strange town, without acquaintances. No one demanded anything\r
+of him or sent him anywhere. He had all he wanted: the thought of his\r
+wife which had been a continual torment to him was no longer there,\r
+since she was no more.\r
+\r
+"Oh, how good! How splendid!" said he to himself when a cleanly laid\r
+table was moved up to him with savory beef tea, or when he lay down for\r
+the night on a soft clean bed, or when he remembered that the French had\r
+gone and that his wife was no more. "Oh, how good, how splendid!"\r
+\r
+And by old habit he asked himself the question: "Well, and what then?\r
+What am I going to do?" And he immediately gave himself the answer:\r
+"Well, I shall live. Ah, how splendid!"\r
+\r
+The very question that had formerly tormented him, the thing he had\r
+continually sought to find--the aim of life--no longer existed for him\r
+now. That search for the aim of life had not merely disappeared\r
+temporarily--he felt that it no longer existed for him and could not\r
+present itself again. And this very absence of an aim gave him the\r
+complete, joyous sense of freedom which constituted his happiness at\r
+this time.\r
+\r
+He could not see an aim, for he now had faith--not faith in any kind of\r
+rule, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest\r
+God. Formerly he had sought Him in aims he set himself. That search for\r
+an aim had been simply a search for God, and suddenly in his captivity\r
+he had learned not by words or reasoning but by direct feeling what his\r
+nurse had told him long ago: that God is here and everywhere. In his\r
+captivity he had learned that in Karataev God was greater, more infinite\r
+and unfathomable than in the Architect of the Universe recognized by the\r
+Freemasons. He felt like a man who after straining his eyes to see into\r
+the far distance finds what he sought at his very feet. All his life he\r
+had looked over the heads of the men around him, when he should have\r
+merely looked in front of him without straining his eyes.\r
+\r
+In the past he had never been able to find that great inscrutable\r
+infinite something. He had only felt that it must exist somewhere and\r
+had looked for it. In everything near and comprehensible he had only\r
+what was limited, petty, commonplace, and senseless. He had equipped\r
+himself with a mental telescope and looked into remote space, where\r
+petty worldliness hiding itself in misty distance had seemed to him\r
+great and infinite merely because it was not clearly seen. And such had\r
+European life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, and philanthropy\r
+seemed to him. But even then, at moments of weakness as he had accounted\r
+them, his mind had penetrated to those distances and he had there seen\r
+the same pettiness, worldliness, and senselessness. Now, however, he had\r
+learned to see the great, eternal, and infinite in everything, and\r
+therefore--to see it and enjoy its contemplation--he naturally threw\r
+away the telescope through which he had till now gazed over men's heads,\r
+and gladly regarded the ever-changing, eternally great, unfathomable,\r
+and infinite life around him. And the closer he looked the more tranquil\r
+and happy he became. That dreadful question, "What for?" which had\r
+formerly destroyed all his mental edifices, no longer existed for him.\r
+To that question, "What for?" a simple answer was now always ready in\r
+his soul: "Because there is a God, that God without whose will not one\r
+hair falls from a man's head."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+In external ways Pierre had hardly changed at all. In appearance he was\r
+just what he used to be. As before he was absent-minded and seemed\r
+occupied not with what was before his eyes but with something special of\r
+his own. The difference between his former and present self was that\r
+formerly when he did not grasp what lay before him or was said to him,\r
+he had puckered his forehead painfully as if vainly seeking to\r
+distinguish something at a distance. At present he still forgot what was\r
+said to him and still did not see what was before his eyes, but he now\r
+looked with a scarcely perceptible and seemingly ironic smile at what\r
+was before him and listened to what was said, though evidently seeing\r
+and hearing something quite different. Formerly he had appeared to be a\r
+kindhearted but unhappy man, and so people had been inclined to avoid\r
+him. Now a smile at the joy of life always played round his lips, and\r
+sympathy for others, shone in his eyes with a questioning look as to\r
+whether they were as contented as he was, and people felt pleased by his\r
+presence.\r
+\r
+Previously he had talked a great deal, grew excited when he talked, and\r
+seldom listened; now he was seldom carried away in conversation and knew\r
+how to listen so that people readily told him their most intimate\r
+secrets.\r
+\r
+The princess, who had never liked Pierre and had been particularly\r
+hostile to him since she had felt herself under obligations to him after\r
+the old count's death, now after staying a short time in Orel--where she\r
+had come intending to show Pierre that in spite of his ingratitude she\r
+considered it her duty to nurse him--felt to her surprise and vexation\r
+that she had become fond of him. Pierre did not in any way seek her\r
+approval, he merely studied her with interest. Formerly she had felt\r
+that he regarded her with indifference and irony, and so had shrunk into\r
+herself as she did with others and had shown him only the combative side\r
+of her nature; but now he seemed to be trying to understand the most\r
+intimate places of her heart, and, mistrustfully at first but afterwards\r
+gratefully, she let him see the hidden, kindly sides of her character.\r
+\r
+The most cunning man could not have crept into her confidence more\r
+successfully, evoking memories of the best times of her youth and\r
+showing sympathy with them. Yet Pierre's cunning consisted simply in\r
+finding pleasure in drawing out the human qualities of the embittered,\r
+hard, and (in her own way) proud princess.\r
+\r
+"Yes, he is a very, very kind man when he is not under the influence of\r
+bad people but of people such as myself," thought she.\r
+\r
+His servants too--Terenty and Vaska--in their own way noticed the change\r
+that had taken place in Pierre. They considered that he had become much\r
+"simpler." Terenty, when he had helped him undress and wished him good\r
+night, often lingered with his master's boots in his hands and clothes\r
+over his arm, to see whether he would not start a talk. And Pierre,\r
+noticing that Terenty wanted a chat, generally kept him there.\r
+\r
+"Well, tell me... now, how did you get food?" he would ask.\r
+\r
+And Terenty would begin talking of the destruction of Moscow, and of the\r
+old count, and would stand for a long time holding the clothes and\r
+talking, or sometimes listening to Pierre's stories, and then would go\r
+out into the hall with a pleasant sense of intimacy with his master and\r
+affection for him.\r
+\r
+The doctor who attended Pierre and visited him every day, though he\r
+considered it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man whose every moment\r
+was of value to suffering humanity, would sit for hours with Pierre\r
+telling him his favorite anecdotes and his observations on the\r
+characters of his patients in general, and especially of the ladies.\r
+\r
+"It's a pleasure to talk to a man like that; he is not like our\r
+provincials," he would say.\r
+\r
+There were several prisoners from the French army in Orel, and the\r
+doctor brought one of them, a young Italian, to see Pierre.\r
+\r
+This officer began visiting Pierre, and the princess used to make fun of\r
+the tenderness the Italian expressed for him.\r
+\r
+The Italian seemed happy only when he could come to see Pierre, talk\r
+with him, tell him about his past, his life at home, and his love, and\r
+pour out to him his indignation against the French and especially\r
+against Napoleon.\r
+\r
+"If all Russians are in the least like you, it is sacrilege to fight\r
+such a nation," he said to Pierre. "You, who have suffered so from the\r
+French, do not even feel animosity toward them."\r
+\r
+Pierre had evoked the passionate affection of the Italian merely by\r
+evoking the best side of his nature and taking a pleasure in so doing.\r
+\r
+During the last days of Pierre's stay in Orel his old masonic\r
+acquaintance Count Willarski, who had introduced him to the lodge in\r
+1807, came to see him. Willarski was married to a Russian heiress who\r
+had a large estate in Orel province, and he occupied a temporary post in\r
+the commissariat department in that town.\r
+\r
+Hearing that Bezukhov was in Orel, Willarski, though they had never been\r
+intimate, came to him with the professions of friendship and intimacy\r
+that people who meet in a desert generally express for one another.\r
+Willarski felt dull in Orel and was pleased to meet a man of his own\r
+circle and, as he supposed, of similar interests.\r
+\r
+But to his surprise Willarski soon noticed that Pierre had lagged much\r
+behind the times, and had sunk, as he expressed it to himself, into\r
+apathy and egotism.\r
+\r
+"You are letting yourself go, my dear fellow," he said.\r
+\r
+But for all that Willarski found it pleasanter now than it had been\r
+formerly to be with Pierre, and came to see him every day. To Pierre as\r
+he looked at and listened to Willarski, it seemed strange to think that\r
+he had been like that himself but a short time before.\r
+\r
+Willarski was a married man with a family, busy with his family affairs,\r
+his wife's affairs, and his official duties. He regarded all these\r
+occupations as hindrances to life, and considered that they were all\r
+contemptible because their aim was the welfare of himself and his\r
+family. Military, administrative, political, and masonic interests\r
+continually absorbed his attention. And Pierre, without trying to change\r
+the other's views and without condemning him, but with the quiet,\r
+joyful, and amused smile now habitual to him, was interested in this\r
+strange though very familiar phenomenon.\r
+\r
+There was a new feature in Pierre's relations with Willarski, with the\r
+princess, with the doctor, and with all the people he now met, which\r
+gained for him the general good will. This was his acknowledgment of the\r
+impossibility of changing a man's convictions by words, and his\r
+recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing\r
+things each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of\r
+each individual which used to excite and irritate Pierre now became a\r
+basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he took in, other\r
+people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between\r
+men's opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased\r
+him and drew from him an amused and gentle smile.\r
+\r
+In practical matters Pierre unexpectedly felt within himself a center of\r
+gravity he had previously lacked. Formerly all pecuniary questions,\r
+especially requests for money to which, as an extremely wealthy man, he\r
+was very exposed, produced in him a state of hopeless agitation and\r
+perplexity. "To give or not to give?" he had asked himself. "I have it\r
+and he needs it. But someone else needs it still more. Who needs it\r
+most? And perhaps they are both impostors?" In the old days he had been\r
+unable to find a way out of all these surmises and had given to all who\r
+asked as long as he had anything to give. Formerly he had been in a\r
+similar state of perplexity with regard to every question concerning his\r
+property, when one person advised one thing and another something else.\r
+\r
+Now to his surprise he found that he no longer felt either doubt or\r
+perplexity about these questions. There was now within him a judge who\r
+by some rule unknown to him decided what should or should not be done.\r
+\r
+He was as indifferent as heretofore to money matters, but now he felt\r
+certain of what ought and what ought not to be done. The first time he\r
+had recourse to his new judge was when a French prisoner, a colonel,\r
+came to him and, after talking a great deal about his exploits,\r
+concluded by making what amounted to a demand that Pierre should give\r
+him four thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre\r
+refused without the least difficulty or effort, and was afterwards\r
+surprised how simple and easy had been what used to appear so\r
+insurmountably difficult. At the same time that he refused the colonel's\r
+demand he made up his mind that he must have recourse to artifice when\r
+leaving Orel, to induce the Italian officer to accept some money of\r
+which he was evidently in need. A further proof to Pierre of his own\r
+more settled outlook on practical matters was furnished by his decision\r
+with regard to his wife's debts and to the rebuilding of his houses in\r
+and near Moscow.\r
+\r
+His head steward came to him at Orel and Pierre reckoned up with him his\r
+diminished income. The burning of Moscow had cost him, according to the\r
+head steward's calculation, about two million rubles.\r
+\r
+To console Pierre for these losses the head steward gave him an estimate\r
+showing that despite these losses his income would not be diminished but\r
+would even be increased if he refused to pay his wife's debts which he\r
+was under no obligation to meet, and did not rebuild his Moscow house\r
+and the country house on his Moscow estate, which had cost him eighty\r
+thousand rubles a year and brought in nothing.\r
+\r
+"Yes, of course that's true," said Pierre with a cheerful smile. "I\r
+don't need all that at all. By being ruined I have become much richer."\r
+\r
+But in January Savelich came from Moscow and gave him an account of the\r
+state of things there, and spoke of the estimate an architect had made\r
+of the cost of rebuilding the town and country houses, speaking of this\r
+as of a settled matter. About the same time he received letters from\r
+Prince Vasili and other Petersburg acquaintances speaking of his wife's\r
+debts. And Pierre decided that the steward's proposals which had so\r
+pleased him were wrong and that he must go to Petersburg and settle his\r
+wife's affairs and must rebuild in Moscow. Why this was necessary he did\r
+not know, but he knew for certain that it was necessary. His income\r
+would be reduced by three fourths, but he felt it must be done.\r
+\r
+Willarski was going to Moscow and they agreed to travel together.\r
+\r
+During the whole time of his convalescence in Orel Pierre had\r
+experienced a feeling of joy, freedom, and life; but when during his\r
+journey he found himself in the open world and saw hundreds of new\r
+faces, that feeling was intensified. Throughout his journey he felt like\r
+a schoolboy on holiday. Everyone--the stagecoach driver, the post-house\r
+overseers, the peasants on the roads and in the villages--had a new\r
+significance for him. The presence and remarks of Willarski who\r
+continually deplored the ignorance and poverty of Russia and its\r
+backwardness compared with Europe only heightened Pierre's pleasure.\r
+Where Willarski saw deadness Pierre saw an extraordinary strength and\r
+vitality--the strength which in that vast space amid the snows\r
+maintained the life of this original, peculiar, and unique people. He\r
+did not contradict Willarski and even seemed to agree with him--an\r
+apparent agreement being the simplest way to avoid discussions that\r
+could lead to nothing--and he smiled joyfully as he listened to him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+It would be difficult to explain why and whither ants whose heap has\r
+been destroyed are hurrying: some from the heap dragging bits of\r
+rubbish, larvae, and corpses, others back to the heap, or why they\r
+jostle, overtake one another, and fight, and it would be equally\r
+difficult to explain what caused the Russians after the departure of the\r
+French to throng to the place that had formerly been Moscow. But when we\r
+watch the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity, energy, and\r
+immense number of the delving insects prove that despite the destruction\r
+of the heap, something indestructible, which though intangible is the\r
+real strength of the colony, still exists; and similarly, though in\r
+Moscow in the month of October there was no government and no churches,\r
+shrines, riches, or houses--it was still the Moscow it had been in\r
+August. All was destroyed, except something intangible yet powerful and\r
+indestructible.\r
+\r
+The motives of those who thronged from all sides to Moscow after it had\r
+been cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal, and at first\r
+for the most part savage and brutal. One motive only they all had in\r
+common: a desire to get to the place that had been called Moscow, to\r
+apply their activities there.\r
+\r
+Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in a\r
+fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on. By the autumn of 1813 the\r
+number, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in\r
+1812.\r
+\r
+The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks of Wintzingerode's\r
+detachment, peasants from the adjacent villages, and residents who had\r
+fled from Moscow and had been hiding in its vicinity. The Russians who\r
+entered Moscow, finding it plundered, plundered it in their turn. They\r
+continued what the French had begun. Trains of peasant carts came to\r
+Moscow to carry off to the villages what had been abandoned in the\r
+ruined houses and the streets. The Cossacks carried off what they could\r
+to their camps, and the householders seized all they could find in other\r
+houses and moved it to their own, pretending that it was their property.\r
+\r
+But the first plunderers were followed by a second and a third\r
+contingent, and with increasing numbers plundering became more and more\r
+difficult and assumed more definite forms.\r
+\r
+The French found Moscow abandoned but with all the organizations of\r
+regular life, with diverse branches of commerce and craftsmanship, with\r
+luxury, and governmental and religious institutions. These forms were\r
+lifeless but still existed. There were bazaars, shops, warehouses,\r
+market stalls, granaries--for the most part still stocked with goods--\r
+and there were factories and workshops, palaces and wealthy houses\r
+filled with luxuries, hospitals, prisons, government offices, churches,\r
+and cathedrals. The longer the French remained the more these forms of\r
+town life perished, until finally all was merged into one confused,\r
+lifeless scene of plunder.\r
+\r
+The more the plundering by the French continued, the more both the\r
+wealth of Moscow and the strength of its plunderers was destroyed. But\r
+plundering by the Russians, with which the reoccupation of the city\r
+began, had an opposite effect: the longer it continued and the greater\r
+the number of people taking part in it the more rapidly was the wealth\r
+of the city and its regular life restored.\r
+\r
+Besides the plunderers, very various people, some drawn by curiosity,\r
+some by official duties, some by self-interest--house owners, clergy,\r
+officials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and peasants--streamed into\r
+Moscow as blood flows to the heart.\r
+\r
+Within a week the peasants who came with empty carts to carry off\r
+plunder were stopped by the authorities and made to cart the corpses out\r
+of the town. Other peasants, having heard of their comrades'\r
+discomfiture, came to town bringing rye, oats, and hay, and beat down\r
+one another's prices to below what they had been in former days. Gangs\r
+of carpenters hoping for high pay arrived in Moscow every day, and on\r
+all sides logs were being hewn, new houses built, and old, charred ones\r
+repaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths. Cookshops and taverns were\r
+opened in partially burned houses. The clergy resumed the services in\r
+many churches that had not been burned. Donors contributed Church\r
+property that had been stolen. Government clerks set up their baize-\r
+covered tables and their pigeonholes of documents in small rooms. The\r
+higher authorities and the police organized the distribution of goods\r
+left behind by the French. The owners of houses in which much property\r
+had been left, brought there from other houses, complained of the\r
+injustice of taking everything to the Faceted Palace in the Kremlin;\r
+others insisted that as the French had gathered things from different\r
+houses into this or that house, it would be unfair to allow its owner to\r
+keep all that was found there. They abused the police and bribed them,\r
+made out estimates at ten times their value for government stores that\r
+had perished in the fire, and demanded relief. And Count Rostopchin\r
+wrote proclamations.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+At the end of January Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex of\r
+his house which had not been burned. He called on Count Rostopchin and\r
+on some acquaintances who were back in Moscow, and he intended to leave\r
+for Petersburg two days later. Everybody was celebrating the victory,\r
+everything was bubbling with life in the ruined but reviving city.\r
+Everyone was pleased to see Pierre, everyone wished to meet him, and\r
+everyone questioned him about what he had seen. Pierre felt particularly\r
+well disposed toward them all, but was now instinctively on his guard\r
+for fear of binding himself in any way. To all questions put to him--\r
+whether important or quite trifling--such as: Where would he live? Was\r
+he going to rebuild? When was he going to Petersburg and would he mind\r
+taking a parcel for someone?--he replied: "Yes, perhaps," or, "I think\r
+so," and so on.\r
+\r
+He had heard that the Rostovs were at Kostroma but the thought of\r
+Natasha seldom occurred to him. If it did it was only as a pleasant\r
+memory of the distant past. He felt himself not only free from social\r
+obligations but also from that feeling which, it seemed to him, he had\r
+aroused in himself.\r
+\r
+On the third day after his arrival he heard from the Drubetskoys that\r
+Princess Mary was in Moscow. The death, sufferings, and last days of\r
+Prince Andrew had often occupied Pierre's thoughts and now recurred to\r
+him with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner that Princess Mary was\r
+in Moscow and living in her house--which had not been burned--in\r
+Vozdvizhenka Street, he drove that same evening to see her.\r
+\r
+On his way to the house Pierre kept thinking of Prince Andrew, of their\r
+friendship, of his various meetings with him, and especially of the last\r
+one at Borodino.\r
+\r
+"Is it possible that he died in the bitter frame of mind he was then in?\r
+Is it possible that the meaning of life was not disclosed to him before\r
+he died?" thought Pierre. He recalled Karataev and his death and\r
+involuntarily began to compare these two men, so different, and yet so\r
+similar in that they had both lived and both died and in the love he\r
+felt for both of them.\r
+\r
+Pierre drove up to the house of the old prince in a most serious mood.\r
+The house had escaped the fire; it showed signs of damage but its\r
+general aspect was unchanged. The old footman, who met Pierre with a\r
+stern face as if wishing to make the visitor feel that the absence of\r
+the old prince had not disturbed the order of things in the house,\r
+informed him that the princess had gone to her own apartments, and that\r
+she received on Sundays.\r
+\r
+"Announce me. Perhaps she will see me," said Pierre.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir," said the man. "Please step into the portrait gallery."\r
+\r
+A few minutes later the footman returned with Dessalles, who brought\r
+word from the princess that she would be very glad to see Pierre if he\r
+would excuse her want of ceremony and come upstairs to her apartment.\r
+\r
+In a rather low room lit by one candle sat the princess and with her\r
+another person dressed in black. Pierre remembered that the princess\r
+always had lady companions, but who they were and what they were like he\r
+never knew or remembered. "This must be one of her companions," he\r
+thought, glancing at the lady in the black dress.\r
+\r
+The princess rose quickly to meet him and held out her hand.\r
+\r
+"Yes," she said, looking at his altered face after he had kissed her\r
+hand, "so this is how we meet again. He spoke of you even at the very\r
+last," she went on, turning her eyes from Pierre to her companion with a\r
+shyness that surprised him for an instant.\r
+\r
+"I was so glad to hear of your safety. It was the first piece of good\r
+news we had received for a long time."\r
+\r
+Again the princess glanced round at her companion with even more\r
+uneasiness in her manner and was about to add something, but Pierre\r
+interrupted her.\r
+\r
+"Just imagine--I knew nothing about him!" said he. "I thought he had\r
+been killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only know\r
+that he fell in with the Rostovs.... What a strange coincidence!"\r
+\r
+Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the\r
+companion's face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and,\r
+as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion\r
+in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not\r
+hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+But when he mentioned the Rostovs, Princess Mary's face expressed still\r
+greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre's face to\r
+that of the lady in the black dress and said:\r
+\r
+"Do you really not recognize her?"\r
+\r
+Pierre looked again at the companion's pale, delicate face with its\r
+black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long forgotten\r
+and more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive eyes.\r
+\r
+"But no, it can't be!" he thought. "This stern, thin, pale face that\r
+looks so much older! It cannot be she. It merely reminds me of her." But\r
+at that moment Princess Mary said, "Natasha!" And with difficulty,\r
+effort, and stress, like the opening of a door grown rusty on its\r
+hinges, a smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from\r
+that opening door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre with\r
+a happiness he had long forgotten and of which he had not even been\r
+thinking--especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him, and\r
+enveloped him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer possible,\r
+it was Natasha and he loved her.\r
+\r
+At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess Mary,\r
+and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had been unaware.\r
+He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He tried to hide his\r
+agitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more clearly--clearer\r
+than any words could have done--did he betray to himself, to her, and to\r
+Princess Mary that he loved her.\r
+\r
+"No, it's only the unexpectedness of it," thought Pierre. But as soon as\r
+he tried to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess Mary he\r
+again glanced at Natasha, and a still-deeper flush suffused his face and\r
+a still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and fear seized his soul. He\r
+became confused in his speech and stopped in the middle of what he was\r
+saying.\r
+\r
+Pierre had failed to notice Natasha because he did not at all expect to\r
+see her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the change in\r
+her since he last saw her was immense. She had grown thin and pale, but\r
+that was not what made her unrecognizable; she was unrecognizable at the\r
+moment he entered because on that face whose eyes had always shone with\r
+a suppressed smile of the joy of life, now when he first entered and\r
+glanced at her there was not the least shadow of a smile: only her eyes\r
+were kindly attentive and sadly interrogative.\r
+\r
+Pierre's confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natasha's part,\r
+but only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her whole face.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+"She has come to stay with me," said Princess Mary. "The count and\r
+countess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a dreadful\r
+state; but it was necessary for Natasha herself to see a doctor. They\r
+insisted on her coming with me."\r
+\r
+"Yes, is there a family free from sorrow now?" said Pierre, addressing\r
+Natasha. "You know it happened the very day we were rescued. I saw him.\r
+What a delightful boy he was!"\r
+\r
+Natasha looked at him, and by way of answer to his words her eyes\r
+widened and lit up.\r
+\r
+"What can one say or think of as a consolation?" said Pierre. "Nothing!\r
+Why had such a splendid boy, so full of life, to die?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, in these days it would be hard to live without faith..." remarked\r
+Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, that is really true," Pierre hastily interrupted her.\r
+\r
+"Why is it true?" Natasha asked, looking attentively into Pierre's eyes.\r
+\r
+"How can you ask why?" said Princess Mary. "The thought alone of what\r
+awaits..."\r
+\r
+Natasha without waiting for Princess Mary to finish again looked\r
+inquiringly at Pierre.\r
+\r
+"And because," Pierre continued, "only one who believes that there is a\r
+God ruling us can bear a loss such as hers and... yours."\r
+\r
+Natasha had already opened her mouth to speak but suddenly stopped.\r
+Pierre hurriedly turned away from her and again addressed Princess Mary,\r
+asking about his friend's last days.\r
+\r
+Pierre's confusion had now almost vanished, but at the same time he felt\r
+that his freedom had also completely gone. He felt that there was now a\r
+judge of his every word and action whose judgment mattered more to him\r
+than that of all the rest of the world. As he spoke now he was\r
+considering what impression his words would make on Natasha. He did not\r
+purposely say things to please her, but whatever he was saying he\r
+regarded from her standpoint.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary--reluctantly as is usual in such cases--began telling of\r
+the condition in which she had found Prince Andrew. But Pierre's face\r
+quivering with emotion, his questions and his eager restless expression,\r
+gradually compelled her to go into details which she feared to recall\r
+for her own sake.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, and so...?" Pierre kept saying as he leaned toward her with\r
+his whole body and eagerly listened to her story. "Yes, yes... so he\r
+grew tranquil and softened? With all his soul he had always sought one\r
+thing--to be perfectly good--so he could not be afraid of death. The\r
+faults he had--if he had any--were not of his making. So he did\r
+soften?... What a happy thing that he saw you again," he added, suddenly\r
+turning to Natasha and looking at her with eyes full of tears.\r
+\r
+Natasha's face twitched. She frowned and lowered her eyes for a moment.\r
+She hesitated for an instant whether to speak or not.\r
+\r
+"Yes, that was happiness," she then said in her quiet voice with its\r
+deep chest notes. "For me it certainly was happiness." She paused. "And\r
+he... he... he said he was wishing for it at the very moment I entered\r
+the room...."\r
+\r
+Natasha's voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped hands on her\r
+knees, and then controlling herself with an evident effort lifted her\r
+head and began to speak rapidly.\r
+\r
+"We knew nothing of it when we started from Moscow. I did not dare to\r
+ask about him. Then suddenly Sonya told me he was traveling with us. I\r
+had no idea and could not imagine what state he was in, all I wanted was\r
+to see him and be with him," she said, trembling, and breathing quickly.\r
+\r
+And not letting them interrupt her she went on to tell what she had\r
+never yet mentioned to anyone--all she had lived through during those\r
+three weeks of their journey and life at Yaroslavl.\r
+\r
+Pierre listened to her with lips parted and eyes fixed upon her full of\r
+tears. As he listened he did not think of Prince Andrew, nor of death,\r
+nor of what she was telling. He listened to her and felt only pity for\r
+her, for what she was suffering now while she was speaking.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary, frowning in her effort to hold back her tears, sat beside\r
+Natasha, and heard for the first time the story of those last days of\r
+her brother's and Natasha's love.\r
+\r
+Evidently Natasha needed to tell that painful yet joyful tale.\r
+\r
+She spoke, mingling most trifling details with the intimate secrets of\r
+her soul, and it seemed as if she could never finish. Several times she\r
+repeated the same thing twice.\r
+\r
+Dessalles' voice was heard outside the door asking whether little\r
+Nicholas might come in to say good night.\r
+\r
+"Well, that's all--everything," said Natasha.\r
+\r
+She got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran to the door\r
+which was hidden by curtains, struck her head against it, and rushed\r
+from the room with a moan either of pain or sorrow.\r
+\r
+Pierre gazed at the door through which she had disappeared and did not\r
+understand why he suddenly felt all alone in the world.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary roused him from his abstraction by drawing his attention\r
+to her nephew who had entered the room.\r
+\r
+At that moment of emotional tenderness young Nicholas' face, which\r
+resembled his father's, affected Pierre so much that when he had kissed\r
+the boy he got up quickly, took out his handkerchief, and went to the\r
+window. He wished to take leave of Princess Mary, but she would not let\r
+him go.\r
+\r
+"No, Natasha and I sometimes don't go to sleep till after two, so please\r
+don't go. I will order supper. Go downstairs, we will come immediately."\r
+\r
+Before Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: "This is the first\r
+time she has talked of him like that."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room; a few minutes\r
+later he heard footsteps and Princess Mary entered with Natasha. Natasha\r
+was calm, though a severe and grave expression had again settled on her\r
+face. They all three of them now experienced that feeling of awkwardness\r
+which usually follows after a serious and heartfelt talk. It is\r
+impossible to go back to the same conversation, to talk of trifles is\r
+awkward, and yet the desire to speak is there and silence seems like\r
+affectation. They went silently to table. The footmen drew back the\r
+chairs and pushed them up again. Pierre unfolded his cold table napkin\r
+and, resolving to break the silence, looked at Natasha and at Princess\r
+Mary. They had evidently both formed the same resolution; the eyes of\r
+both shone with satisfaction and a confession that besides sorrow life\r
+also has joy.\r
+\r
+"Do you take vodka, Count?" asked Princess Mary, and those words\r
+suddenly banished the shadows of the past. "Now tell us about yourself,"\r
+said she. "One hears such improbable wonders about you."\r
+\r
+"Yes," replied Pierre with the smile of mild irony now habitual to him.\r
+"They even tell me wonders I myself never dreamed of! Mary Abramovna\r
+invited me to her house and kept telling me what had happened, or ought\r
+to have happened, to me. Stepan Stepanych also instructed me how I ought\r
+to tell of my experiences. In general I have noticed that it is very\r
+easy to be an interesting man (I am an interesting man now); people\r
+invite me out and tell me all about myself."\r
+\r
+Natasha smiled and was on the point of speaking.\r
+\r
+"We have been told," Princess Mary interrupted her, "that you lost two\r
+millions in Moscow. Is that true?"\r
+\r
+"But I am three times as rich as before," returned Pierre.\r
+\r
+Though the position was now altered by his decision to pay his wife's\r
+debts and to rebuild his houses, Pierre still maintained that he had\r
+become three times as rich as before.\r
+\r
+"What I have certainly gained is freedom," he began seriously, but did\r
+not continue, noticing that this theme was too egotistic.\r
+\r
+"And are you building?"\r
+\r
+"Yes. Savelich says I must!"\r
+\r
+"Tell me, you did not know of the countess' death when you decided to\r
+remain in Moscow?" asked Princess Mary and immediately blushed, noticing\r
+that her question, following his mention of freedom, ascribed to his\r
+words a meaning he had perhaps not intended.\r
+\r
+"No," answered Pierre, evidently not considering awkward the meaning\r
+Princess Mary had given to his words. "I heard of it in Orel and you\r
+cannot imagine how it shocked me. We were not an exemplary couple," he\r
+added quickly, glancing at Natasha and noticing on her face curiosity as\r
+to how he would speak of his wife, "but her death shocked me terribly.\r
+When two people quarrel they are always both in fault, and one's own\r
+guilt suddenly becomes terribly serious when the other is no longer\r
+alive. And then such a death... without friends and without consolation!\r
+I am very, very sorry for her," he concluded, and was pleased to notice\r
+a look of glad approval on Natasha's face.\r
+\r
+"Yes, and so you are once more an eligible bachelor," said Princess\r
+Mary.\r
+\r
+Pierre suddenly flushed crimson and for a long time tried not to look at\r
+Natasha. When he ventured to glance her way again her face was cold,\r
+stern, and he fancied even contemptuous.\r
+\r
+"And did you really see and speak to Napoleon, as we have been told?"\r
+said Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+Pierre laughed.\r
+\r
+"No, not once! Everybody seems to imagine that being taken prisoner\r
+means being Napoleon's guest. Not only did I never see him but I heard\r
+nothing about him--I was in much lower company!"\r
+\r
+Supper was over, and Pierre who at first declined to speak about his\r
+captivity was gradually led on to do so.\r
+\r
+"But it's true that you remained in Moscow to kill Napoleon?" Natasha\r
+asked with a slight smile. "I guessed it then when we met at the\r
+Sukharev tower, do you remember?"\r
+\r
+Pierre admitted that it was true, and from that was gradually led by\r
+Princess Mary's questions and especially by Natasha's into giving a\r
+detailed account of his adventures.\r
+\r
+At first he spoke with the amused and mild irony now customary with him\r
+toward everybody and especially toward himself, but when he came to\r
+describe the horrors and sufferings he had witnessed he was\r
+unconsciously carried away and began speaking with the suppressed\r
+emotion of a man re-experiencing in recollection strong impressions he\r
+has lived through.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary with a gentle smile looked now at Pierre and now at\r
+Natasha. In the whole narrative she saw only Pierre and his goodness.\r
+Natasha, leaning on her elbow, the expression of her face constantly\r
+changing with the narrative, watched Pierre with an attention that never\r
+wandered--evidently herself experiencing all that he described. Not only\r
+her look, but her exclamations and the brief questions she put, showed\r
+Pierre that she understood just what he wished to convey. It was clear\r
+that she understood not only what he said but also what he wished to,\r
+but could not, express in words. The account Pierre gave of the incident\r
+with the child and the woman for protecting whom he was arrested was\r
+this: "It was an awful sight--children abandoned, some in the flames...\r
+One was snatched out before my eyes... and there were women who had\r
+their things snatched off and their earrings torn out..." he flushed and\r
+grew confused. "Then a patrol arrived and all the men--all those who\r
+were not looting, that is--were arrested, and I among them."\r
+\r
+"I am sure you're not telling us everything; I am sure you did\r
+something..." said Natasha and pausing added, "something fine?"\r
+\r
+Pierre continued. When he spoke of the execution he wanted to pass over\r
+the horrible details, but Natasha insisted that he should not omit\r
+anything.\r
+\r
+Pierre began to tell about Karataev, but paused. By this time he had\r
+risen from the table and was pacing the room, Natasha following him with\r
+her eyes. Then he added:\r
+\r
+"No, you can't understand what I learned from that illiterate man--that\r
+simple fellow."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, go on!" said Natasha. "Where is he?"\r
+\r
+"They killed him almost before my eyes."\r
+\r
+And Pierre, his voice trembling continually, went on to tell of the last\r
+days of their retreat, of Karataev's illness and his death.\r
+\r
+He told of his adventures as he had never yet recalled them. He now, as\r
+it were, saw a new meaning in all he had gone through. Now that he was\r
+telling it all to Natasha he experienced that pleasure which a man has\r
+when women listen to him--not clever women who when listening either try\r
+to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity\r
+offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their\r
+own and promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their\r
+little mental workshop--but the pleasure given by real women gifted with\r
+a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself.\r
+Natasha without knowing it was all attention: she did not lose a word,\r
+no single quiver in Pierre's voice, no look, no twitch of a muscle in\r
+his face, nor a single gesture. She caught the unfinished word in its\r
+flight and took it straight into her open heart, divining the secret\r
+meaning of all Pierre's mental travail.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary understood his story and sympathized with him, but she now\r
+saw something else that absorbed all her attention. She saw the\r
+possibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre, and the\r
+first thought of this filled her heart with gladness.\r
+\r
+It was three o'clock in the morning. The footmen came in with sad and\r
+stern faces to change the candles, but no one noticed them.\r
+\r
+Pierre finished his story. Natasha continued to look at him intently\r
+with bright, attentive, and animated eyes, as if trying to understand\r
+something more which he had perhaps left untold. Pierre in shamefaced\r
+and happy confusion glanced occasionally at her, and tried to think what\r
+to say next to introduce a fresh subject. Princess Mary was silent. It\r
+occurred to none of them that it was three o'clock and time to go to\r
+bed.\r
+\r
+"People speak of misfortunes and sufferings," remarked Pierre, "but if\r
+at this moment I were asked: 'Would you rather be what you were before\r
+you were taken prisoner, or go through all this again?' then for\r
+heaven's sake let me again have captivity and horseflesh! We imagine\r
+that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is\r
+only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is\r
+happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you," he added,\r
+turning to Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," she said, answering something quite different. "I too should\r
+wish nothing but to relive it all from the beginning."\r
+\r
+Pierre looked intently at her.\r
+\r
+"Yes, and nothing more," said Natasha.\r
+\r
+"It's not true, not true!" cried Pierre. "I am not to blame for being\r
+alive and wishing to live--nor you either."\r
+\r
+Suddenly Natasha bent her head, covered her face with her hands, and\r
+began to cry.\r
+\r
+"What is it, Natasha?" said Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+"Nothing, nothing." She smiled at Pierre through her tears. "Good night!\r
+It is time for bed."\r
+\r
+Pierre rose and took his leave.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary and Natasha met as usual in the bedroom. They talked of\r
+what Pierre had told them. Princess Mary did not express her opinion of\r
+Pierre nor did Natasha speak of him.\r
+\r
+"Well, good night, Mary!" said Natasha. "Do you know, I am often afraid\r
+that by not speaking of him" (she meant Prince Andrew) "for fear of not\r
+doing justice to our feelings, we forget him."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary sighed deeply and thereby acknowledged the justice of\r
+Natasha's remark, but she did not express agreement in words.\r
+\r
+"Is it possible to forget?" said she.\r
+\r
+"It did me so much good to tell all about it today. It was hard and\r
+painful, but good, very good!" said Natasha. "I am sure he really loved\r
+him. That is why I told him... Was it all right?" she added, suddenly\r
+blushing.\r
+\r
+"To tell Pierre? Oh, yes. What a splendid man he is!" said Princess\r
+Mary.\r
+\r
+"Do you know, Mary..." Natasha suddenly said with a mischievous smile\r
+such as Princess Mary had not seen on her face for a long time, "he has\r
+somehow grown so clean, smooth, and fresh--as if he had just come out of\r
+a Russian bath; do you understand? Out of a moral bath. Isn't it true?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," replied Princess Mary. "He has greatly improved."\r
+\r
+"With a short coat and his hair cropped; just as if, well, just as if he\r
+had come straight from the bath... Papa used to..."\r
+\r
+"I understand why he" (Prince Andrew) "liked no one so much as him,"\r
+said Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+"Yes, and yet he is quite different. They say men are friends when they\r
+are quite different. That must be true. Really he is quite unlike him--\r
+in everything."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but he's wonderful."\r
+\r
+"Well, good night," said Natasha.\r
+\r
+And the same mischievous smile lingered for a long time on her face as\r
+if it had been forgotten there.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+It was a long time before Pierre could fall asleep that night. He paced\r
+up and down his room, now turning his thoughts on a difficult problem\r
+and frowning, now suddenly shrugging his shoulders and wincing, and now\r
+smiling happily.\r
+\r
+He was thinking of Prince Andrew, of Natasha, and of their love, at one\r
+moment jealous of her past, then reproaching himself for that feeling.\r
+It was already six in the morning and he still paced up and down the\r
+room.\r
+\r
+"Well, what's to be done if it cannot be avoided? What's to be done?\r
+Evidently it has to be so," said he to himself, and hastily undressing\r
+he got into bed, happy and agitated but free from hesitation or\r
+indecision.\r
+\r
+"Strange and impossible as such happiness seems, I must do everything\r
+that she and I may be man and wife," he told himself.\r
+\r
+A few days previously Pierre had decided to go to Petersburg on the\r
+Friday. When he awoke on the Thursday, Savelich came to ask him about\r
+packing for the journey.\r
+\r
+"What, to Petersburg? What is Petersburg? Who is there in Petersburg?"\r
+he asked involuntarily, though only to himself. "Oh, yes, long ago\r
+before this happened I did for some reason mean to go to Petersburg," he\r
+reflected. "Why? But perhaps I shall go. What a good fellow he is and\r
+how attentive, and how he remembers everything," he thought, looking at\r
+Savelich's old face, "and what a pleasant smile he has!"\r
+\r
+"Well, Savelich, do you still not wish to accept your freedom?" Pierre\r
+asked him.\r
+\r
+"What's the good of freedom to me, your excellency? We lived under the\r
+late count--the kingdom of heaven be his!--and we have lived under you\r
+too, without ever being wronged."\r
+\r
+"And your children?"\r
+\r
+"The children will live just the same. With such masters one can live."\r
+\r
+"But what about my heirs?" said Pierre. "Supposing I suddenly marry...\r
+it might happen," he added with an involuntary smile.\r
+\r
+"If I may take the liberty, your excellency, it would be a good thing."\r
+\r
+"How easy he thinks it," thought Pierre. "He doesn't know how terrible\r
+it is and how dangerous. Too soon or too late... it is terrible!"\r
+\r
+"So what are your orders? Are you starting tomorrow?" asked Savelich.\r
+\r
+"No, I'll put it off for a bit. I'll tell you later. You must forgive\r
+the trouble I have put you to," said Pierre, and seeing Savelich smile,\r
+he thought: "But how strange it is that he should not know that now\r
+there is no Petersburg for me, and that that must be settled first of\r
+all! But probably he knows it well enough and is only pretending. Shall\r
+I have a talk with him and see what he thinks?" Pierre reflected. "No,\r
+another time."\r
+\r
+At breakfast Pierre told the princess, his cousin, that he had been to\r
+see Princess Mary the day before and had there met--"Whom do you think?\r
+Natasha Rostova!"\r
+\r
+The princess seemed to see nothing more extraordinary in that than if he\r
+had seen Anna Semenovna.\r
+\r
+"Do you know her?" asked Pierre.\r
+\r
+"I have seen the princess," she replied. "I heard that they were\r
+arranging a match for her with young Rostov. It would be a very good\r
+thing for the Rostovs, they are said to be utterly ruined."\r
+\r
+"No; I mean do you know Natasha Rostova?"\r
+\r
+"I heard about that affair of hers at the time. It was a great pity."\r
+\r
+"No, she either doesn't understand or is pretending," thought Pierre.\r
+"Better not say anything to her either."\r
+\r
+The princess too had prepared provisions for Pierre's journey.\r
+\r
+"How kind they all are," thought Pierre. "What is surprising is that\r
+they should trouble about these things now when it can no longer be of\r
+interest to them. And all for me!"\r
+\r
+On the same day the Chief of Police came to Pierre, inviting him to send\r
+a representative to the Faceted Palace to recover things that were to be\r
+returned to their owners that day.\r
+\r
+"And this man too," thought Pierre, looking into the face of the Chief\r
+of Police. "What a fine, good-looking officer and how kind. Fancy\r
+bothering about such trifles now! And they actually say he is not honest\r
+and takes bribes. What nonsense! Besides, why shouldn't he take bribes?\r
+That's the way he was brought up, and everybody does it. But what a\r
+kind, pleasant face and how he smiles as he looks at me."\r
+\r
+Pierre went to Princess Mary's to dinner.\r
+\r
+As he drove through the streets past the houses that had been burned\r
+down, he was surprised by the beauty of those ruins. The picturesqueness\r
+of the chimney stacks and tumble-down walls of the burned-out quarters\r
+of the town, stretching out and concealing one another, reminded him of\r
+the Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabmen he met and their passengers, the\r
+carpenters cutting the timber for new houses with axes, the women\r
+hawkers, and the shopkeepers, all looked at him with cheerful beaming\r
+eyes that seemed to say: "Ah, there he is! Let's see what will come of\r
+it!"\r
+\r
+At the entrance to Princess Mary's house Pierre felt doubtful whether he\r
+had really been there the night before and really seen Natasha and\r
+talked to her. "Perhaps I imagined it; perhaps I shall go in and find no\r
+one there." But he had hardly entered the room before he felt her\r
+presence with his whole being by the loss of his sense of freedom. She\r
+was in the same black dress with soft folds and her hair was done the\r
+same way as the day before, yet she was quite different. Had she been\r
+like this when he entered the day before he could not for a moment have\r
+failed to recognize her.\r
+\r
+She was as he had known her almost as a child and later on as Prince\r
+Andrew's fiancee. A bright questioning light shone in her eyes, and on\r
+her face was a friendly and strangely roguish expression.\r
+\r
+Pierre dined with them and would have spent the whole evening there, but\r
+Princess Mary was going to vespers and Pierre left the house with her.\r
+\r
+Next day he came early, dined, and stayed the whole evening. Though\r
+Princess Mary and Natasha were evidently glad to see their visitor and\r
+though all Pierre's interest was now centered in that house, by the\r
+evening they had talked over everything and the conversation passed from\r
+one trivial topic to another and repeatedly broke off. He stayed so long\r
+that Princess Mary and Natasha exchanged glances, evidently wondering\r
+when he would go. Pierre noticed this but could not go. He felt uneasy\r
+and embarrassed, but sat on because he simply could not get up and take\r
+his leave.\r
+\r
+Princess Mary, foreseeing no end to this, rose first, and complaining of\r
+a headache began to say good night.\r
+\r
+"So you are going to Petersburg tomorrow?" she asked.\r
+\r
+"No, I am not going," Pierre replied hastily, in a surprised tone and as\r
+though offended. "Yes... no... to Petersburg? Tomorrow--but I won't say\r
+good-by yet. I will call round in case you have any commissions for me,"\r
+said he, standing before Princess Mary and turning red, but not taking\r
+his departure.\r
+\r
+Natasha gave him her hand and went out. Princess Mary on the other hand\r
+instead of going away sank into an armchair, and looked sternly and\r
+intently at him with her deep, radiant eyes. The weariness she had\r
+plainly shown before had now quite passed off. With a deep and long-\r
+drawn sigh she seemed to be prepared for a lengthy talk.\r
+\r
+When Natasha left the room Pierre's confusion and awkwardness\r
+immediately vanished and were replaced by eager excitement. He quickly\r
+moved an armchair toward Princess Mary.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I wanted to tell you," said he, answering her look as if she had\r
+spoken. "Princess, help me! What am I to do? Can I hope? Princess, my\r
+dear friend, listen! I know it all. I know I am not worthy of her, I\r
+know it's impossible to speak of it now. But I want to be a brother to\r
+her. No, not that, I don't, I can't..."\r
+\r
+He paused and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands.\r
+\r
+"Well," he went on with an evident effort at self-control and coherence.\r
+"I don't know when I began to love her, but I have loved her and her\r
+alone all my life, and I love her so that I cannot imagine life without\r
+her. I cannot propose to her at present, but the thought that perhaps\r
+she might someday be my wife and that I may be missing that\r
+possibility... that possibility... is terrible. Tell me, can I hope?\r
+Tell me what I am to do, dear princess!" he added after a pause, and\r
+touched her hand as she did not reply.\r
+\r
+"I am thinking of what you have told me," answered Princess Mary. "This\r
+is what I will say. You are right that to speak to her of love at\r
+present..."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary stopped. She was going to say that to speak of love was\r
+impossible, but she stopped because she had seen by the sudden change in\r
+Natasha two days before that she would not only not be hurt if Pierre\r
+spoke of his love, but that it was the very thing she wished for.\r
+\r
+"To speak to her now wouldn't do," said the princess all the same.\r
+\r
+"But what am I to do?"\r
+\r
+"Leave it to me," said Princess Mary. "I know..."\r
+\r
+Pierre was looking into Princess Mary's eyes.\r
+\r
+"Well?... Well?..." he said.\r
+\r
+"I know that she loves... will love you," Princess Mary corrected\r
+herself.\r
+\r
+Before her words were out, Pierre had sprung up and with a frightened\r
+expression seized Princess Mary's hand.\r
+\r
+"What makes you think so? You think I may hope? You think...?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I think so," said Princess Mary with a smile. "Write to her\r
+parents, and leave it to me. I will tell her when I can. I wish it to\r
+happen and my heart tells me it will."\r
+\r
+"No, it cannot be! How happy I am! But it can't be.... How happy I am!\r
+No, it can't be!" Pierre kept saying as he kissed Princess Mary's hands.\r
+\r
+"Go to Petersburg, that will be best. And I will write to you," she\r
+said.\r
+\r
+"To Petersburg? Go there? Very well, I'll go. But I may come again\r
+tomorrow?"\r
+\r
+Next day Pierre came to say good-by. Natasha was less animated than she\r
+had been the day before; but that day as he looked at her Pierre\r
+sometimes felt as if he was vanishing and that neither he nor she\r
+existed any longer, that nothing existed but happiness. "Is it possible?\r
+No, it can't be," he told himself at every look, gesture, and word that\r
+filled his soul with joy.\r
+\r
+When on saying good-by he took her thin, slender hand, he could not help\r
+holding it a little longer in his own.\r
+\r
+"Is it possible that this hand, that face, those eyes, all this treasure\r
+of feminine charm so strange to me now, is it possible that it will one\r
+day be mine forever, as familiar to me as I am to myself?... No, that's\r
+impossible!..."\r
+\r
+"Good-bye, Count," she said aloud. "I shall look forward very much to\r
+your return," she added in a whisper.\r
+\r
+And these simple words, her look, and the expression on her face which\r
+accompanied them, formed for two months the subject of inexhaustible\r
+memories, interpretations, and happy meditations for Pierre. "'I shall\r
+look forward very much to your return....' Yes, yes, how did she say it?\r
+Yes, 'I shall look forward very much to your return.' Oh, how happy I\r
+am! What is happening to me? How happy I am!" said Pierre to himself.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+There was nothing in Pierre's soul now at all like what had troubled it\r
+during his courtship of Helene.\r
+\r
+He did not repeat to himself with a sickening feeling of shame the words\r
+he had spoken, or say: "Oh, why did I not say that?" and, "Whatever made\r
+me say 'Je vous aime'?" On the contrary, he now repeated in imagination\r
+every word that he or Natasha had spoken and pictured every detail of\r
+her face and smile, and did not wish to diminish or add anything, but\r
+only to repeat it again and again. There was now not a shadow of doubt\r
+in his mind as to whether what he had undertaken was right or wrong.\r
+Only one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind: "Wasn't it all a\r
+dream? Isn't Princess Mary mistaken? Am I not too conceited and self-\r
+confident? I believe all this--and suddenly Princess Mary will tell her,\r
+and she will be sure to smile and say: 'How strange! He must be deluding\r
+himself. Doesn't he know that he is a man, just a man, while I...? I am\r
+something altogether different and higher.'"\r
+\r
+That was the only doubt often troubling Pierre. He did not now make any\r
+plans. The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable that if only\r
+he could attain it, it would be the end of all things. Everything ended\r
+with that.\r
+\r
+A joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself incapable,\r
+possessed him. The whole meaning of life--not for him alone but for the\r
+whole world--seemed to him centered in his love and the possibility of\r
+being loved by her. At times everybody seemed to him to be occupied with\r
+one thing only--his future happiness. Sometimes it seemed to him that\r
+other people were all as pleased as he was himself and merely tried to\r
+hide that pleasure by pretending to be busy with other interests. In\r
+every word and gesture he saw allusions to his happiness. He often\r
+surprised those he met by his significantly happy looks and smiles which\r
+seemed to express a secret understanding between him and them. And when\r
+he realized that people might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied\r
+them with his whole heart and felt a desire somehow to explain to them\r
+that all that occupied them was a mere frivolous trifle unworthy of\r
+attention.\r
+\r
+When it was suggested to him that he should enter the civil service, or\r
+when the war or any general political affairs were discussed on the\r
+assumption that everybody's welfare depended on this or that issue of\r
+events, he would listen with a mild and pitying smile and surprise\r
+people by his strange comments. But at this time he saw everybody--both\r
+those who, as he imagined, understood the real meaning of life (that is,\r
+what he was feeling) and those unfortunates who evidently did not\r
+understand it--in the bright light of the emotion that shone within\r
+himself, and at once without any effort saw in everyone he met\r
+everything that was good and worthy of being loved.\r
+\r
+When dealing with the affairs and papers of his dead wife, her memory\r
+aroused in him no feeling but pity that she had not known the bliss he\r
+now knew. Prince Vasili, who having obtained a new post and some fresh\r
+decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a\r
+pathetic, kindly old man much to be pitied.\r
+\r
+Often in afterlife Pierre recalled this period of blissful insanity. All\r
+the views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained true\r
+for him always. He not only did not renounce them subsequently, but when\r
+he was in doubt or inwardly at variance, he referred to the views he had\r
+held at this time of his madness and they always proved correct.\r
+\r
+"I may have appeared strange and queer then," he thought, "but I was not\r
+so mad as I seemed. On the contrary I was then wiser and had more\r
+insight than at any other time, and understood all that is worth\r
+understanding in life, because... because I was happy."\r
+\r
+Pierre's insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to\r
+discover personal attributes which he termed "good qualities" in people\r
+before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by\r
+loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving\r
+them.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+After Pierre's departure that first evening, when Natasha had said to\r
+Princess Mary with a gaily mocking smile: "He looks just, yes, just as\r
+if he had come out of a Russian bath--in a short coat and with his hair\r
+cropped," something hidden and unknown to herself, but irrepressible,\r
+awoke in Natasha's soul.\r
+\r
+Everything: her face, walk, look, and voice, was suddenly altered. To\r
+her own surprise a power of life and hope of happiness rose to the\r
+surface and demanded satisfaction. From that evening she seemed to have\r
+forgotten all that had happened to her. She no longer complained of her\r
+position, did not say a word about the past, and no longer feared to\r
+make happy plans for the future. She spoke little of Pierre, but when\r
+Princess Mary mentioned him a long-extinguished light once more kindled\r
+in her eyes and her lips curved with a strange smile.\r
+\r
+\r
+The change that took place in Natasha at first surprised Princess Mary;\r
+but when she understood its meaning it grieved her. "Can she have loved\r
+my brother so little as to be able to forget him so soon?" she thought\r
+when she reflected on the change. But when she was with Natasha she was\r
+not vexed with her and did not reproach her. The reawakened power of\r
+life that had seized Natasha was so evidently irrepressible and\r
+unexpected by her that in her presence Princess Mary felt that she had\r
+no right to reproach her even in her heart.\r
+\r
+Natasha gave herself up so fully and frankly to this new feeling that\r
+she did not try to hide the fact that she was no longer sad, but bright\r
+and cheerful.\r
+\r
+When Princess Mary returned to her room after her nocturnal talk with\r
+Pierre, Natasha met her on the threshold.\r
+\r
+"He has spoken? Yes? He has spoken?" she repeated.\r
+\r
+And a joyful yet pathetic expression which seemed to beg forgiveness for\r
+her joy settled on Natasha's face.\r
+\r
+"I wanted to listen at the door, but I knew you would tell me."\r
+\r
+Understandable and touching as the look with which Natasha gazed at her\r
+seemed to Princess Mary, and sorry as she was to see her agitation,\r
+these words pained her for a moment. She remembered her brother and his\r
+love.\r
+\r
+"But what's to be done? She can't help it," thought the princess.\r
+\r
+And with a sad and rather stern look she told Natasha all that Pierre\r
+had said. On hearing that he was going to Petersburg Natasha was\r
+astounded.\r
+\r
+"To Petersburg!" she repeated as if unable to understand.\r
+\r
+But noticing the grieved expression on Princess Mary's face she guessed\r
+the reason of that sadness and suddenly began to cry.\r
+\r
+"Mary," said she, "tell me what I should do! I am afraid of being bad.\r
+Whatever you tell me, I will do. Tell me...."\r
+\r
+"You love him?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," whispered Natasha.\r
+\r
+"Then why are you crying? I am happy for your sake," said Princess Mary,\r
+who because of those tears quite forgave Natasha's joy.\r
+\r
+"It won't be just yet--someday. Think what fun it will be when I am his\r
+wife and you marry Nicholas!"\r
+\r
+"Natasha, I have asked you not to speak of that. Let us talk about you."\r
+\r
+They were silent awhile.\r
+\r
+"But why go to Petersburg?" Natasha suddenly asked, and hastily replied\r
+to her own question. "But no, no, he must... Yes, Mary, He must...."\r
+\r
+FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+Seven years had passed. The storm-tossed sea of European history had\r
+subsided within its shores and seemed to have become calm. But the\r
+mysterious forces that move humanity (mysterious because the laws of\r
+their motion are unknown to us) continued to operate.\r
+\r
+Though the surface of the sea of history seemed motionless, the movement\r
+of humanity went on as unceasingly as the flow of time. Various groups\r
+of people formed and dissolved, the coming formation and dissolution of\r
+kingdoms and displacement of peoples was in course of preparation.\r
+\r
+The sea of history was not driven spasmodically from shore to shore as\r
+previously. It was seething in its depths. Historic figures were not\r
+borne by the waves from one shore to another as before. They now seemed\r
+to rotate on one spot. The historical figures at the head of armies, who\r
+formerly reflected the movement of the masses by ordering wars,\r
+campaigns, and battles, now reflected the restless movement by political\r
+and diplomatic combinations, laws, and treaties.\r
+\r
+The historians call this activity of the historical figures "the\r
+reaction."\r
+\r
+In dealing with this period they sternly condemn the historical\r
+personages who, in their opinion, caused what they describe as the\r
+reaction. All the well-known people of that period, from Alexander and\r
+Napoleon to Madame de Stael, Photius, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand,\r
+and the rest, pass before their stern judgment seat and are acquitted or\r
+condemned according to whether they conduced to progress or to reaction.\r
+\r
+According to their accounts a reaction took place at that time in Russia\r
+also, and the chief culprit was Alexander I, the same man who according\r
+to them was the chief cause of the liberal movement at the commencement\r
+of his reign, being the savior of Russia.\r
+\r
+There is no one in Russian literature now, from schoolboy essayist to\r
+learned historian, who does not throw his little stone at Alexander for\r
+things he did wrong at this period of his reign.\r
+\r
+"He ought to have acted in this way and in that way. In this case he did\r
+well and in that case badly. He behaved admirably at the beginning of\r
+his reign and during 1812, but acted badly by giving a constitution to\r
+Poland, forming the Holy Alliance, entrusting power to Arakcheev,\r
+favoring Golitsyn and mysticism, and afterwards Shishkov and Photius. He\r
+also acted badly by concerning himself with the active army and\r
+disbanding the Semenov regiment."\r
+\r
+It would take a dozen pages to enumerate all the reproaches the\r
+historians address to him, based on their knowledge of what is good for\r
+humanity.\r
+\r
+What do these reproaches mean?\r
+\r
+Do not the very actions for which the historians praise Alexander I (the\r
+liberal attempts at the beginning of his reign, his struggle with\r
+Napoleon, the firmness he displayed in 1812 and the campaign of 1813)\r
+flow from the same sources--the circumstances of his birth, education,\r
+and life--that made his personality what it was and from which the\r
+actions for which they blame him (the Holy Alliance, the restoration of\r
+Poland, and the reaction of 1820 and later) also flowed?\r
+\r
+In what does the substance of those reproaches lie?\r
+\r
+It lies in the fact that an historic character like Alexander I,\r
+standing on the highest possible pinnacle of human power with the\r
+blinding light of history focused upon him; a character exposed to those\r
+strongest of all influences: the intrigues, flattery, and self-deception\r
+inseparable from power; a character who at every moment of his life felt\r
+a responsibility for all that was happening in Europe; and not a\r
+fictitious but a live character who like every man had his personal\r
+habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth--that\r
+this character--though not lacking in virtue (the historians do not\r
+accuse him of that)--had not the same conception of the welfare of\r
+humanity fifty years ago as a present-day professor who from his youth\r
+upwards has been occupied with learning: that is, with books and\r
+lectures and with taking notes from them.\r
+\r
+But even if we assume that fifty years ago Alexander I was mistaken in\r
+his view of what was good for the people, we must inevitably assume that\r
+the historian who judges Alexander will also after the lapse of some\r
+time turn out to be mistaken in his view of what is good for humanity.\r
+This assumption is all the more natural and inevitable because, watching\r
+the movement of history, we see that every year and with each new\r
+writer, opinion as to what is good for mankind changes; so that what\r
+once seemed good, ten years later seems bad, and vice versa. And what is\r
+more, we find at one and the same time quite contradictory views as to\r
+what is bad and what is good in history: some people regard giving a\r
+constitution to Poland and forming the Holy Alliance as praiseworthy in\r
+Alexander, while others regard it as blameworthy.\r
+\r
+The activity of Alexander or of Napoleon cannot be called useful or\r
+harmful, for it is impossible to say for what it was useful or harmful.\r
+If that activity displeases somebody, this is only because it does not\r
+agree with his limited understanding of what is good. Whether the\r
+preservation of my father's house in Moscow, or the glory of the Russian\r
+arms, or the prosperity of the Petersburg and other universities, or the\r
+freedom of Poland or the greatness of Russia, or the balance of power in\r
+Europe, or a certain kind of European culture called "progress" appear\r
+to me to be good or bad, I must admit that besides these things the\r
+action of every historic character has other more general purposes\r
+inaccessible to me.\r
+\r
+But let us assume that what is called science can harmonize all\r
+contradictions and possesses an unchanging standard of good and bad by\r
+which to try historic characters and events; let us say that Alexander\r
+could have done everything differently; let us say that with guidance\r
+from those who blame him and who profess to know the ultimate aim of the\r
+movement of humanity, he might have arranged matters according to the\r
+program his present accusers would have given him--of nationality,\r
+freedom, equality, and progress (these, I think, cover the ground). Let\r
+us assume that this program was possible and had then been formulated,\r
+and that Alexander had acted on it. What would then have become of the\r
+activity of all those who opposed the tendency that then prevailed in\r
+the government--an activity that in the opinion of the historians was\r
+good and beneficent? Their activity would not have existed: there would\r
+have been no life, there would have been nothing.\r
+\r
+If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of\r
+life is destroyed.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+If we assume as the historians do that great men lead humanity to the\r
+attainment of certain ends--the greatness of Russia or of France, the\r
+balance of power in Europe, the diffusion of the ideas of the\r
+Revolution, general progress, or anything else--then it is impossible to\r
+explain the facts of history without introducing the conceptions of\r
+chance and genius.\r
+\r
+If the aim of the European wars at the beginning of the nineteenth\r
+century had been the aggrandizement of Russia, that aim might have been\r
+accomplished without all the preceding wars and without the invasion. If\r
+the aim was the aggrandizement of France, that might have been attained\r
+without the Revolution and without the Empire. If the aim was the\r
+dissemination of ideas, the printing press could have accomplished that\r
+much better than warfare. If the aim was the progress of civilization,\r
+it is easy to see that there are other ways of diffusing civilization\r
+more expedient than by the destruction of wealth and of human lives.\r
+\r
+Why did it happen in this and not in some other way?\r
+\r
+Because it happened so! "Chance created the situation; genius utilized\r
+it," says history.\r
+\r
+But what is chance? What is genius?\r
+\r
+The words chance and genius do not denote any really existing thing and\r
+therefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a certain stage of\r
+understanding of phenomena. I do not know why a certain event occurs; I\r
+think that I cannot know it; so I do not try to know it and I talk about\r
+chance. I see a force producing effects beyond the scope of ordinary\r
+human agencies; I do not understand why this occurs and I talk of\r
+genius.\r
+\r
+To a herd of rams, the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a\r
+special enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the others\r
+must seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing conjunction\r
+of genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances that this ram,\r
+who instead of getting into the general fold every evening goes into a\r
+special enclosure where there are oats--that this very ram, swelling\r
+with fat, is killed for meat.\r
+\r
+But the rams need only cease to suppose that all that happens to them\r
+happens solely for the attainment of their sheepish aims; they need only\r
+admit that what happens to them may also have purposes beyond their ken,\r
+and they will at once perceive a unity and coherence in what happened to\r
+the ram that was fattened. Even if they do not know for what purpose\r
+they are fattened, they will at least know that all that happened to the\r
+ram did not happen accidentally, and will no longer need the conceptions\r
+of chance or genius.\r
+\r
+Only by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately\r
+intelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our\r
+ken, may we discern the sequence of experiences in the lives of historic\r
+characters and perceive the cause of the effect they produce\r
+(incommensurable with ordinary human capabilities), and then the words\r
+chance and genius become superfluous.\r
+\r
+We need only confess that we do not know the purpose of the European\r
+convulsions and that we know only the facts--that is, the murders, first\r
+in France, then in Italy, in Africa, in Prussia, in Austria, in Spain,\r
+and in Russia--and that the movements from the west to the east and from\r
+the east to the west form the essence and purpose of these events, and\r
+not only shall we have no need to see exceptional ability and genius in\r
+Napoleon and Alexander, but we shall be unable to consider them to be\r
+anything but like other men, and we shall not be obliged to have\r
+recourse to chance for an explanation of those small events which made\r
+these people what they were, but it will be clear that all those small\r
+events were inevitable.\r
+\r
+By discarding a claim to knowledge of the ultimate purpose, we shall\r
+clearly perceive that just as one cannot imagine a blossom or seed for\r
+any single plant better suited to it than those it produces, so it is\r
+impossible to imagine any two people more completely adapted down to the\r
+smallest detail for the purpose they had to fulfill, than Napoleon and\r
+Alexander with all their antecedents.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+The fundamental and essential significance of the European events of the\r
+beginning of the nineteenth century lies in the movement of the mass of\r
+the European peoples from west to east and afterwards from east to west.\r
+The commencement of that movement was the movement from west to east.\r
+For the peoples of the west to be able to make their warlike movement to\r
+Moscow it was necessary: (1) that they should form themselves into a\r
+military group of a size able to endure a collision with the warlike\r
+military group of the east, (2) that they should abandon all established\r
+traditions and customs, and (3) that during their military movement they\r
+should have at their head a man who could justify to himself and to them\r
+the deceptions, robberies, and murders which would have to be committed\r
+during that movement.\r
+\r
+And beginning with the French Revolution the old inadequately large\r
+group was destroyed, as well as the old habits and traditions, and step\r
+by step a group was formed of larger dimensions with new customs and\r
+traditions, and a man was produced who would stand at the head of the\r
+coming movement and bear the responsibility for all that had to be done.\r
+\r
+A man without convictions, without habits, without traditions, without a\r
+name, and not even a Frenchman, emerges--by what seem the strangest\r
+chances--from among all the seething French parties, and without joining\r
+any one of them is borne forward to a prominent position.\r
+\r
+The ignorance of his colleagues, the weakness and insignificance of his\r
+opponents, the frankness of his falsehoods, and the dazzling and self-\r
+confident limitations of this man raise him to the head of the army. The\r
+brilliant qualities of the soldiers of the army sent to Italy, his\r
+opponents' reluctance to fight, and his own childish audacity and self-\r
+confidence secure him military fame. Innumerable so-called chances\r
+accompany him everywhere. The disfavor into which he falls with the\r
+rulers of France turns to his advantage. His attempts to avoid his\r
+predestined path are unsuccessful: he is not received into the Russian\r
+service, and the appointment he seeks in Turkey comes to nothing. During\r
+the war in Italy he is several times on the verge of destruction and\r
+each time is saved in an unexpected manner. Owing to various diplomatic\r
+considerations the Russian armies--just those which might have destroyed\r
+his prestige--do not appear upon the scene till he is no longer there.\r
+\r
+On his return from Italy he finds the government in Paris in a process\r
+of dissolution in which all those who are in it are inevitably wiped out\r
+and destroyed. And by chance an escape from this dangerous position\r
+presents itself in the form of an aimless and senseless expedition to\r
+Africa. Again so-called chance accompanies him. Impregnable Malta\r
+surrenders without a shot; his most reckless schemes are crowned with\r
+success. The enemy's fleet, which subsequently did not let a single boat\r
+pass, allows his entire army to elude it. In Africa a whole series of\r
+outrages are committed against the almost unarmed inhabitants. And the\r
+men who commit these crimes, especially their leader, assure themselves\r
+that this is admirable, this is glory--it resembles Caesar and Alexander\r
+the Great and is therefore good.\r
+\r
+This ideal of glory and grandeur--which consists not merely in\r
+considering nothing wrong that one does but in priding oneself on every\r
+crime one commits, ascribing to it an incomprehensible supernatural\r
+significance--that ideal, destined to guide this man and his associates,\r
+had scope for its development in Africa. Whatever he does succeeds. The\r
+plague does not touch him. The cruelty of murdering prisoners is not\r
+imputed to him as a fault. His childishly rash, uncalled-for, and\r
+ignoble departure from Africa, leaving his comrades in distress, is set\r
+down to his credit, and again the enemy's fleet twice lets him slip\r
+past. When, intoxicated by the crimes he has committed so successfully,\r
+he reaches Paris, the dissolution of the republican government, which a\r
+year earlier might have ruined him, has reached its extreme limit, and\r
+his presence there now as a newcomer free from party entanglements can\r
+only serve to exalt him--and though he himself has no plan, he is quite\r
+ready for his new role.\r
+\r
+He had no plan, he was afraid of everything, but the parties snatched at\r
+him and demanded his participation.\r
+\r
+He alone--with his ideal of glory and grandeur developed in Italy and\r
+Egypt, his insane self-adulation, his boldness in crime and frankness in\r
+lying--he alone could justify what had to be done.\r
+\r
+He is needed for the place that awaits him, and so almost apart from his\r
+will and despite his indecision, his lack of a plan, and all his\r
+mistakes, he is drawn into a conspiracy that aims at seizing power and\r
+the conspiracy is crowned with success.\r
+\r
+He is pushed into a meeting of the legislature. In alarm he wishes to\r
+flee, considering himself lost. He pretends to fall into a swoon and\r
+says senseless things that should have ruined him. But the once proud\r
+and shrewd rulers of France, feeling that their part is played out, are\r
+even more bewildered than he, and do not say the words they should have\r
+said to destroy him and retain their power.\r
+\r
+Chance, millions of chances, give him power, and all men as if by\r
+agreement co-operate to confirm that power. Chance forms the characters\r
+of the rulers of France, who submit to him; chance forms the character\r
+of Paul I of Russia who recognizes his government; chance contrives a\r
+plot against him which not only fails to harm him but confirms his\r
+power. Chance puts the Duc d'Enghien in his hands and unexpectedly\r
+causes him to kill him--thereby convincing the mob more forcibly than in\r
+any other way that he had the right, since he had the might. Chance\r
+contrives that though he directs all his efforts to prepare an\r
+expedition against England (which would inevitably have ruined him) he\r
+never carries out that intention, but unexpectedly falls upon Mack and\r
+the Austrians, who surrender without a battle. Chance and genius give\r
+him the victory at Austerlitz; and by chance all men, not only the\r
+French but all Europe--except England which does not take part in the\r
+events about to happen--despite their former horror and detestation of\r
+his crimes, now recognize his authority, the title he has given himself,\r
+and his ideal of grandeur and glory, which seems excellent and\r
+reasonable to them all.\r
+\r
+As if measuring themselves and preparing for the coming movement, the\r
+western forces push toward the east several times in 1805, 1806, 1807,\r
+and 1809, gaining strength and growing. In 1811 the group of people that\r
+had formed in France unites into one group with the peoples of Central\r
+Europe. The strength of the justification of the man who stands at the\r
+head of the movement grows with the increased size of the group. During\r
+the ten-year preparatory period this man had formed relations with all\r
+the crowned heads of Europe. The discredited rulers of the world can\r
+oppose no reasonable ideal to the insensate Napoleonic ideal of glory\r
+and grandeur. One after another they hasten to display their\r
+insignificance before him. The King of Prussia sends his wife to seek\r
+the great man's mercy; the Emperor of Austria considers it a favor that\r
+this man receives a daughter of the Caesars into his bed; the Pope, the\r
+guardian of all that the nations hold sacred, utilizes religion for the\r
+aggrandizement of the great man. It is not Napoleon who prepares himself\r
+for the accomplishment of his role, so much as all those round him who\r
+prepare him to take on himself the whole responsibility for what is\r
+happening and has to happen. There is no step, no crime or petty fraud\r
+he commits, which in the mouths of those around him is not at once\r
+represented as a great deed. The most suitable fete the Germans can\r
+devise for him is a celebration of Jena and Auerstadt. Not only is he\r
+great, but so are his ancestors, his brothers, his stepsons, and his\r
+brothers-in-law. Everything is done to deprive him of the remains of his\r
+reason and to prepare him for his terrible part. And when he is ready so\r
+too are the forces.\r
+\r
+The invasion pushes eastward and reaches its final goal--Moscow. That\r
+city is taken; the Russian army suffers heavier losses than the opposing\r
+armies had suffered in the former war from Austerlitz to Wagram. But\r
+suddenly instead of those chances and that genius which hitherto had so\r
+consistently led him by an uninterrupted series of successes to the\r
+predestined goal, an innumerable sequence of inverse chances occur--from\r
+the cold in his head at Borodino to the sparks which set Moscow on fire,\r
+and the frosts--and instead of genius, stupidity and immeasurable\r
+baseness become evident.\r
+\r
+The invaders flee, turn back, flee again, and all the chances are now\r
+not for Napoleon but always against him.\r
+\r
+A countermovement is then accomplished from east to west with a\r
+remarkable resemblance to the preceding movement from west to east.\r
+Attempted drives from east to west--similar to the contrary movements of\r
+1805, 1807, and 1809--precede the great westward movement; there is the\r
+same coalescence into a group of enormous dimensions; the same adhesion\r
+of the people of Central Europe to the movement; the same hesitation\r
+midway, and the same increasing rapidity as the goal is approached.\r
+\r
+Paris, the ultimate goal, is reached. The Napoleonic government and army\r
+are destroyed. Napoleon himself is no longer of any account; all his\r
+actions are evidently pitiful and mean, but again an inexplicable chance\r
+occurs. The allies detest Napoleon whom they regard as the cause of\r
+their sufferings. Deprived of power and authority, his crimes and his\r
+craft exposed, he should have appeared to them what he appeared ten\r
+years previously and one year later--an outlawed brigand. But by some\r
+strange chance no one perceives this. His part is not yet ended. The man\r
+who ten years before and a year later was considered an outlawed brigand\r
+is sent to an island two days' sail from France, which for some reason\r
+is presented to him as his dominion, and guards are given to him and\r
+millions of money are paid him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+The flood of nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The\r
+waves of the great movement abate, and on the calm surface eddies are\r
+formed in which float the diplomatists, who imagine that they have\r
+caused the floods to abate.\r
+\r
+But the smooth sea again suddenly becomes disturbed. The diplomatists\r
+think that their disagreements are the cause of this fresh pressure of\r
+natural forces; they anticipate war between their sovereigns; the\r
+position seems to them insoluble. But the wave they feel to be rising\r
+does not come from the quarter they expect. It rises again from the same\r
+point as before--Paris. The last backwash of the movement from the west\r
+occurs: a backwash which serves to solve the apparently insuperable\r
+diplomatic difficulties and ends the military movement of that period of\r
+history.\r
+\r
+The man who had devastated France returns to France alone, without any\r
+conspiracy and without soldiers. Any guard might arrest him, but by\r
+strange chance no one does so and all rapturously greet the man they\r
+cursed the day before and will curse again a month later.\r
+\r
+This man is still needed to justify the final collective act.\r
+\r
+That act is performed.\r
+\r
+The last role is played. The actor is bidden to disrobe and wash off his\r
+powder and paint: he will not be wanted any more.\r
+\r
+And some years pass during which he plays a pitiful comedy to himself in\r
+solitude on his island, justifying his actions by intrigues and lies\r
+when the justification is no longer needed, and displaying to the whole\r
+world what it was that people had mistaken for strength as long as an\r
+unseen hand directed his actions.\r
+\r
+The manager having brought the drama to a close and stripped the actor\r
+shows him to us.\r
+\r
+"See what you believed in! This is he! Do you now see that it was not he\r
+but I who moved you?"\r
+\r
+But dazed by the force of the movement, it was long before people\r
+understood this.\r
+\r
+Still greater coherence and inevitability is seen in the life of\r
+Alexander I, the man who stood at the head of the countermovement from\r
+east to west.\r
+\r
+What was needed for him who, overshadowing others, stood at the head of\r
+that movement from east to west?\r
+\r
+What was needed was a sense of justice and a sympathy with European\r
+affairs, but a remote sympathy not dulled by petty interests; a moral\r
+superiority over those sovereigns of the day who co-operated with him; a\r
+mild and attractive personality; and a personal grievance against\r
+Napoleon. And all this was found in Alexander I; all this had been\r
+prepared by innumerable so-called chances in his life: his education,\r
+his early liberalism, the advisers who surrounded him, and by\r
+Austerlitz, and Tilsit, and Erfurt.\r
+\r
+During the national war he was inactive because he was not needed. But\r
+as soon as the necessity for a general European war presented itself he\r
+appeared in his place at the given moment and, uniting the nations of\r
+Europe, led them to the goal.\r
+\r
+The goal is reached. After the final war of 1815 Alexander possesses all\r
+possible power. How does he use it?\r
+\r
+Alexander I--the pacifier of Europe, the man who from his early years\r
+had striven only for his people's welfare, the originator of the liberal\r
+innovations in his fatherland--now that he seemed to possess the utmost\r
+power and therefore to have the possibility of bringing about the\r
+welfare of his peoples--at the time when Napoleon in exile was drawing\r
+up childish and mendacious plans of how he would have made mankind happy\r
+had he retained power--Alexander I, having fulfilled his mission and\r
+feeling the hand of God upon him, suddenly recognizes the insignificance\r
+of that supposed power, turns away from it, and gives it into the hands\r
+of contemptible men whom he despises, saying only:\r
+\r
+"Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy Name!... I too am a man like the\r
+rest of you. Let me live like a man and think of my soul and of God."\r
+\r
+As the sun and each atom of ether is a sphere complete in itself, and\r
+yet at the same time only a part of a whole too immense for man to\r
+comprehend, so each individual has within himself his own aims and yet\r
+has them to serve a general purpose incomprehensible to man.\r
+\r
+A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid of\r
+bees and declares that bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the\r
+bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and says it exists to suck the\r
+fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from\r
+flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey.\r
+Another beekeeper who has studied the life of the hive more closely says\r
+that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the young bees and rear a\r
+queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices\r
+that the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil\r
+fertilizes the latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee's\r
+existence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that the\r
+bee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the\r
+bee. But the ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first,\r
+the second, or any of the processes the human mind can discern. The\r
+higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes, the\r
+more obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our\r
+comprehension.\r
+\r
+All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to\r
+other manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic\r
+characters and nations.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+Natasha's wedding to Bezukhov, which took place in 1813, was the last\r
+happy event in the family of the old Rostovs. Count Ilya Rostov died\r
+that same year and, as always happens, after the father's death the\r
+family group broke up.\r
+\r
+The events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and the flight\r
+from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natasha's despair, Petya's death,\r
+and the old countess' grief fell blow after blow on the old count's\r
+head. He seemed to be unable to understand the meaning of all these\r
+events, and bowed his old head in a spiritual sense as if expecting and\r
+inviting further blows which would finish him. He seemed now frightened\r
+and distraught and now unnaturally animated and enterprising.\r
+\r
+The arrangements for Natasha's marriage occupied him for a while. He\r
+ordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear cheerful, but\r
+his cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to be: on the contrary it\r
+evoked the compassion of those who knew and liked him.\r
+\r
+When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to\r
+complain of depression. A few days later he fell ill and took to his\r
+bed. He realized from the first that he would not get up again, despite\r
+the doctor's encouragement. The countess passed a fortnight in an\r
+armchair by his pillow without undressing. Every time she gave him his\r
+medicine he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. On his last day,\r
+sobbing, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for having\r
+dissipated their property--that being the chief fault of which he was\r
+conscious. After receiving communion and unction he quietly died; and\r
+next day a throng of acquaintances who came to pay their last respects\r
+to the deceased filled the house rented by the Rostovs. All these\r
+acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house and had so\r
+often laughed at him, now said, with a common feeling of self-reproach\r
+and emotion, as if justifying themselves: "Well, whatever he may have\r
+been he was a most worthy man. You don't meet such men nowadays.... And\r
+which of us has not weaknesses of his own?"\r
+\r
+It was just when the count's affairs had become so involved that it was\r
+impossible to say what would happen if he lived another year that he\r
+unexpectedly died.\r
+\r
+Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when the news of his\r
+father's death reached him. He at once resigned his commission, and\r
+without waiting for it to be accepted took leave of absence and went to\r
+Moscow. The state of the count's affairs became quite obvious a month\r
+after his death, surprising everyone by the immense total of small debts\r
+the existence of which no one had suspected. The debts amounted to\r
+double the value of the property.\r
+\r
+Friends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance. But\r
+he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father's memory, which he\r
+held sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing and accepted the\r
+inheritance together with the obligation to pay the debts.\r
+\r
+The creditors who had so long been silent, restrained by a vague but\r
+powerful influence exerted on them while he lived by the count's\r
+careless good nature, all proceeded to enforce their claims at once. As\r
+always happens in such cases rivalry sprang up as to which should get\r
+paid first, and those who like Mitenka held promissory notes given them\r
+as presents now became the most exacting of the creditors. Nicholas was\r
+allowed no respite and no peace, and those who had seemed to pity the\r
+old man--the cause of their losses (if they were losses)--now\r
+remorselessly pursued the young heir who had voluntarily undertaken the\r
+debts and was obviously not guilty of contracting them.\r
+\r
+Not one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate was sold by\r
+auction for half its value, and half the debts still remained unpaid.\r
+Nicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles offered him by his brother-in-\r
+law Bezukhov to pay off debts he regarded as genuinely due for value\r
+received. And to avoid being imprisoned for the remainder, as the\r
+creditors threatened, he re-entered the government service.\r
+\r
+He could not rejoin the army where he would have been made colonel at\r
+the next vacancy, for his mother now clung to him as her one hold on\r
+life; and so despite his reluctance to remain in Moscow among people who\r
+had known him before, and despite his abhorrence of the civil service,\r
+he accepted a post in Moscow in that service, doffed the uniform of\r
+which he was so fond, and moved with his mother and Sonya to a small\r
+house on the Sivtsev Vrazhek.\r
+\r
+Natasha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time and had no\r
+clear idea of Nicholas' circumstances. Having borrowed money from his\r
+brother-in-law, Nicholas tried to hide his wretched condition from him.\r
+His position was the more difficult because with his salary of twelve\r
+hundred rubles he had not only to keep himself, his mother, and Sonya,\r
+but had to shield his mother from knowledge of their poverty. The\r
+countess could not conceive of life without the luxurious conditions she\r
+had been used to from childhood and, unable to realize how hard it was\r
+for her son, kept demanding now a carriage (which they did not keep) to\r
+send for a friend, now some expensive article of food for herself, or\r
+wine for her son, or money to buy a present as a surprise for Natasha or\r
+Sonya, or for Nicholas himself.\r
+\r
+Sonya kept house, attended on her aunt, read to her, put up with her\r
+whims and secret ill-will, and helped Nicholas to conceal their poverty\r
+from the old countess. Nicholas felt himself irredeemably indebted to\r
+Sonya for all she was doing for his mother and greatly admired her\r
+patience and devotion, but tried to keep aloof from her.\r
+\r
+He seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect, and\r
+because there was nothing to reproach her with. She had all that people\r
+are valued for, but little that could have made him love her. He felt\r
+that the more he valued her the less he loved her. He had taken her at\r
+her word when she wrote giving him his freedom and now behaved as if all\r
+that had passed between them had been long forgotten and could never in\r
+any case be renewed.\r
+\r
+Nicholas' position became worse and worse. The idea of putting something\r
+aside out of his salary proved a dream. Not only did he not save\r
+anything, but to comply with his mother's demands he even incurred some\r
+small debts. He could see no way out of this situation. The idea of\r
+marrying some rich woman, which was suggested to him by his female\r
+relations, was repugnant to him. The other way out--his mother's death--\r
+never entered his head. He wished for nothing and hoped for nothing, and\r
+deep in his heart experienced a gloomy and stern satisfaction in an\r
+uncomplaining endurance of his position. He tried to avoid his old\r
+acquaintances with their commiseration and offensive offers of\r
+assistance; he avoided all distraction and recreation, and even at home\r
+did nothing but play cards with his mother, pace silently up and down\r
+the room, and smoke one pipe after another. He seemed carefully to\r
+cherish within himself the gloomy mood which alone enabled him to endure\r
+his position.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+At the beginning of winter Princess Mary came to Moscow. From reports\r
+current in town she learned how the Rostovs were situated, and how "the\r
+son has sacrificed himself for his mother," as people were saying.\r
+\r
+"I never expected anything else of him," said Princess Mary to herself,\r
+feeling a joyous sense of her love for him. Remembering her friendly\r
+relations with all the Rostovs which had made her almost a member of the\r
+family, she thought it her duty to go to see them. But remembering her\r
+relations with Nicholas in Voronezh she was shy about doing so. Making a\r
+great effort she did however go to call on them a few weeks after her\r
+arrival in Moscow.\r
+\r
+Nicholas was the first to meet her, as the countess' room could only be\r
+reached through his. But instead of being greeted with pleasure as she\r
+had expected, at his first glance at her his face assumed a cold, stiff,\r
+proud expression she had not seen on it before. He inquired about her\r
+health, led the way to his mother, and having sat there for five minutes\r
+left the room.\r
+\r
+When the princess came out of the countess' room Nicholas met her again,\r
+and with marked solemnity and stiffness accompanied her to the anteroom.\r
+To her remarks about his mother's health he made no reply. "What's that\r
+to you? Leave me in peace," his looks seemed to say.\r
+\r
+"Why does she come prowling here? What does she want? I can't bear these\r
+ladies and all these civilities!" said he aloud in Sonya's presence,\r
+evidently unable to repress his vexation, after the princess' carriage\r
+had disappeared.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Nicholas, how can you talk like that?" cried Sonya, hardly able to\r
+conceal her delight. "She is so kind and Mamma is so fond of her!"\r
+\r
+Nicholas did not reply and tried to avoid speaking of the princess any\r
+more. But after her visit the old countess spoke of her several times a\r
+day.\r
+\r
+She sang her praises, insisted that her son must call on her, expressed\r
+a wish to see her often, but yet always became ill-humored when she\r
+began to talk about her.\r
+\r
+Nicholas tried to keep silence when his mother spoke of the princess,\r
+but his silence irritated her.\r
+\r
+"She is a very admirable and excellent young woman," said she, "and you\r
+must go and call on her. You would at least be seeing somebody, and I\r
+think it must be dull for you only seeing us."\r
+\r
+"But I don't in the least want to, Mamma."\r
+\r
+"You used to want to, and now you don't. Really I don't understand you,\r
+my dear. One day you are dull, and the next you refuse to see anyone."\r
+\r
+"But I never said I was dull."\r
+\r
+"Why, you said yourself you don't want even to see her. She is a very\r
+admirable young woman and you always liked her, but now suddenly you\r
+have got some notion or other in your head. You hide everything from\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"Not at all, Mamma."\r
+\r
+"If I were asking you to do something disagreeable now--but I only ask\r
+you to return a call. One would think mere politeness required it....\r
+Well, I have asked you, and now I won't interfere any more since you\r
+have secrets from your mother."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, I'll go if you wish it."\r
+\r
+"It doesn't matter to me. I only wish it for your sake."\r
+\r
+Nicholas sighed, bit his mustache, and laid out the cards for a\r
+patience, trying to divert his mother's attention to another topic.\r
+\r
+The same conversation was repeated next day and the day after, and the\r
+day after that.\r
+\r
+After her visit to the Rostovs and her unexpectedly chilly reception by\r
+Nicholas, Princess Mary confessed to herself that she had been right in\r
+not wishing to be the first to call.\r
+\r
+"I expected nothing else," she told herself, calling her pride to her\r
+aid. "I have nothing to do with him and I only wanted to see the old\r
+lady, who was always kind to me and to whom I am under many\r
+obligations."\r
+\r
+But she could not pacify herself with these reflections; a feeling akin\r
+to remorse troubled her when she thought of her visit. Though she had\r
+firmly resolved not to call on the Rostovs again and to forget the whole\r
+matter, she felt herself all the time in an awkward position. And when\r
+she asked herself what distressed her, she had to admit that it was her\r
+relation to Rostov. His cold, polite manner did not express his feeling\r
+for her (she knew that) but it concealed something, and until she could\r
+discover what that something was, she felt that she could not be at\r
+ease.\r
+\r
+One day in midwinter when sitting in the schoolroom attending to her\r
+nephew's lessons, she was informed that Rostov had called. With a firm\r
+resolution not to betray herself and not show her agitation, she sent\r
+for Mademoiselle Bourienne and went with her to the drawing room.\r
+\r
+Her first glance at Nicholas' face told her that he had only come to\r
+fulfill the demands of politeness, and she firmly resolved to maintain\r
+the tone in which he addressed her.\r
+\r
+They spoke of the countess' health, of their mutual friends, of the\r
+latest war news, and when the ten minutes required by propriety had\r
+elapsed after which a visitor may rise, Nicholas got up to say good-by.\r
+\r
+With Mademoiselle Bourienne's help the princess had maintained the\r
+conversation very well, but at the very last moment, just when he rose,\r
+she was so tired of talking of what did not interest her, and her mind\r
+was so full of the question why she alone was granted so little\r
+happiness in life, that in a fit of absent-mindedness she sat still, her\r
+luminous eyes gazing fixedly before her, not noticing that he had risen.\r
+\r
+Nicholas glanced at her and, wishing to appear not to notice her\r
+abstraction, made some remark to Mademoiselle Bourienne and then again\r
+looked at the princess. She still sat motionless with a look of\r
+suffering on her gentle face. He suddenly felt sorry for her and was\r
+vaguely conscious that he might be the cause of the sadness her face\r
+expressed. He wished to help her and say something pleasant, but could\r
+think of nothing to say.\r
+\r
+"Good-bye, Princess!" said he.\r
+\r
+She started, flushed, and sighed deeply.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said as if waking up. "Are you going\r
+already, Count? Well then, good-by! Oh, but the cushion for the\r
+countess!"\r
+\r
+"Wait a moment, I'll fetch it," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, and she\r
+left the room.\r
+\r
+They both sat silent, with an occasional glance at one another.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Princess," said Nicholas at last with a sad smile, "it doesn't\r
+seem long ago since we first met at Bogucharovo, but how much water has\r
+flowed since then! In what distress we all seemed to be then, yet I\r
+would give much to bring back that time... but there's no bringing it\r
+back."\r
+\r
+Princess Mary gazed intently into his eyes with her own luminous ones as\r
+he said this. She seemed to be trying to fathom the hidden meaning of\r
+his words which would explain his feeling for her.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," said she, "but you have no reason to regret the past, Count.\r
+As I understand your present life, I think you will always recall it\r
+with satisfaction, because the self-sacrifice that fills it now..."\r
+\r
+"I cannot accept your praise," he interrupted her hurriedly. "On the\r
+contrary I continually reproach myself.... But this is not at all an\r
+interesting or cheerful subject."\r
+\r
+His face again resumed its former stiff and cold expression. But the\r
+princess had caught a glimpse of the man she had known and loved, and it\r
+was to him that she now spoke.\r
+\r
+"I thought you would allow me to tell you this," she said. "I had come\r
+so near to you... and to all your family that I thought you would not\r
+consider my sympathy misplaced, but I was mistaken," and suddenly her\r
+voice trembled. "I don't know why," she continued, recovering herself,\r
+"but you used to be different, and..."\r
+\r
+"There are a thousand reasons why," laying special emphasis on the why.\r
+"Thank you, Princess," he added softly. "Sometimes it is hard."\r
+\r
+"So that's why! That's why!" a voice whispered in Princess Mary's soul.\r
+"No, it was not only that gay, kind, and frank look, not only that\r
+handsome exterior, that I loved in him. I divined his noble, resolute,\r
+self-sacrificing spirit too," she said to herself. "Yes, he is poor now\r
+and I am rich.... Yes, that's the only reason.... Yes, were it not for\r
+that..." And remembering his former tenderness, and looking now at his\r
+kind, sorrowful face, she suddenly understood the cause of his coldness.\r
+\r
+"But why, Count, why?" she almost cried, unconsciously moving closer to\r
+him. "Why? Tell me. You must tell me!"\r
+\r
+He was silent.\r
+\r
+"I don't understand your why, Count," she continued, "but it's hard for\r
+me... I confess it. For some reason you wish to deprive me of our former\r
+friendship. And that hurts me." There were tears in her eyes and in her\r
+voice. "I have had so little happiness in life that every loss is hard\r
+for me to bear.... Excuse me, good-by!" and suddenly she began to cry\r
+and was hurrying from the room.\r
+\r
+"Princess, for God's sake!" he exclaimed, trying to stop her.\r
+"Princess!"\r
+\r
+She turned round. For a few seconds they gazed silently into one\r
+another's eyes--and what had seemed impossible and remote suddenly\r
+became possible, inevitable, and very near.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+In the winter of 1813 Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved to Bald\r
+Hills with his wife, his mother, and Sonya.\r
+\r
+Within four years he had paid off all his remaining debts without\r
+selling any of his wife's property, and having received a small\r
+inheritance on the death of a cousin he paid his debt to Pierre as well.\r
+\r
+In another three years, by 1820, he had so managed his affairs that he\r
+was able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and was negotiating\r
+to buy back Otradnoe--that being his pet dream.\r
+\r
+Having started farming from necessity, he soon grew so devoted to it\r
+that it became his favorite and almost his sole occupation. Nicholas was\r
+a plain farmer: he did not like innovations, especially the English ones\r
+then coming into vogue. He laughed at theoretical treatises on estate\r
+management, disliked factories, the raising of expensive products, and\r
+the buying of expensive seed corn, and did not make a hobby of any\r
+particular part of the work on his estate. He always had before his\r
+mind's eye the estate as a whole and not any particular part of it. The\r
+chief thing in his eyes was not the nitrogen in the soil, nor the oxygen\r
+in the air, nor manures, nor special plows, but that most important\r
+agent by which nitrogen, oxygen, manure, and plow were made effective--\r
+the peasant laborer. When Nicholas first began farming and began to\r
+understand its different branches, it was the serf who especially\r
+attracted his attention. The peasant seemed to him not merely a tool,\r
+but also a judge of farming and an end in himself. At first he watched\r
+the serfs, trying to understand their aims and what they considered good\r
+and bad, and only pretended to direct them and give orders while in\r
+reality learning from them their methods, their manner of speech, and\r
+their judgment of what was good and bad. Only when he had understood the\r
+peasants' tastes and aspirations, had learned to talk their language, to\r
+grasp the hidden meaning of their words, and felt akin to them did he\r
+begin boldly to manage his serfs, that is, to perform toward them the\r
+duties demanded of him. And Nicholas' management produced very brilliant\r
+results.\r
+\r
+Guided by some gift of insight, on taking up the management of the\r
+estates he at once unerringly appointed as bailiff, village elder, and\r
+delegate, the very men the serfs would themselves have chosen had they\r
+had the right to choose, and these posts never changed hands. Before\r
+analyzing the properties of manure, before entering into the debit and\r
+credit (as he ironically called it), he found out how many cattle the\r
+peasants had and increased the number by all possible means. He kept the\r
+peasant families together in the largest groups possible, not allowing\r
+the family groups to divide into separate households. He was hard alike\r
+on the lazy, the depraved, and the weak, and tried to get them expelled\r
+from the commune.\r
+\r
+He was as careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants' hay and\r
+corn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops sown and\r
+harvested so early and so well, or got so good a return, as did\r
+Nicholas.\r
+\r
+He disliked having anything to do with the domestic serfs--the "drones"\r
+as he called them--and everyone said he spoiled them by his laxity. When\r
+a decision had to be taken regarding a domestic serf, especially if one\r
+had to be punished, he always felt undecided and consulted everybody in\r
+the house; but when it was possible to have a domestic serf conscripted\r
+instead of a land worker he did so without the least hesitation. He\r
+never felt any hesitation in dealing with the peasants. He knew that his\r
+every decision would be approved by them all with very few exceptions.\r
+\r
+He did not allow himself either to be hard on or punish a man, or to\r
+make things easy for or reward anyone, merely because he felt inclined\r
+to do so. He could not have said by what standard he judged what he\r
+should or should not do, but the standard was quite firm and definite in\r
+his own mind.\r
+\r
+Often, speaking with vexation of some failure or irregularity, he would\r
+say: "What can one do with our Russian peasants?" and imagined that he\r
+could not bear them.\r
+\r
+Yet he loved "our Russian peasants" and their way of life with his whole\r
+soul, and for that very reason had understood and assimilated the one\r
+way and manner of farming which produced good results.\r
+\r
+Countess Mary was jealous of this passion of her husband's and regretted\r
+that she could not share it; but she could not understand the joys and\r
+vexations he derived from that world, to her so remote and alien. She\r
+could not understand why he was so particularly animated and happy when,\r
+after getting up at daybreak and spending the whole morning in the\r
+fields or on the threshing floor, he returned from the sowing or mowing\r
+or reaping to have tea with her. She did not understand why he spoke\r
+with such admiration and delight of the farming of the thrifty and well-\r
+to-do peasant Matthew Ermishin, who with his family had carted corn all\r
+night; or of the fact that his (Nicholas') sheaves were already stacked\r
+before anyone else had his harvest in. She did not understand why he\r
+stepped out from the window to the veranda and smiled under his mustache\r
+and winked so joyfully, when warm steady rain began to fall on the dry\r
+and thirsty shoots of the young oats, or why when the wind carried away\r
+a threatening cloud during the hay harvest he would return from the\r
+barn, flushed, sunburned, and perspiring, with a smell of wormwood and\r
+gentian in his hair and, gleefully rubbing his hands, would say: "Well,\r
+one more day and my grain and the peasants' will all be under cover."\r
+\r
+Still less did she understand why he, kindhearted and always ready to\r
+anticipate her wishes, should become almost desperate when she brought\r
+him a petition from some peasant men or women who had appealed to her to\r
+be excused some work; why he, that kind Nicholas, should obstinately\r
+refuse her, angrily asking her not to interfere in what was not her\r
+business. She felt he had a world apart, which he loved passionately and\r
+which had laws she had not fathomed.\r
+\r
+Sometimes when, trying to understand him, she spoke of the good work he\r
+was doing for his serfs, he would be vexed and reply: "Not in the least;\r
+it never entered my head and I wouldn't do that for their good! That's\r
+all poetry and old wives' talk--all that doing good to one's neighbor!\r
+What I want is that our children should not have to go begging. I must\r
+put our affairs in order while I am alive, that's all. And to do that,\r
+order and strictness are essential.... That's all about it!" said he,\r
+clenching his vigorous fist. "And fairness, of course," he added, "for\r
+if the peasant is naked and hungry and has only one miserable horse, he\r
+can do no good either for himself or for me."\r
+\r
+And all Nicholas did was fruitful--probably just because he refused to\r
+allow himself to think that he was doing good to others for virtue's\r
+sake. His means increased rapidly; serfs from neighboring estates came\r
+to beg him to buy them, and long after his death the memory of his\r
+administration was devoutly preserved among the serfs. "He was a\r
+master... the peasants' affairs first and then his own. Of course he was\r
+not to be trifled with either--in a word, he was a real master!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+One matter connected with his management sometimes worried Nicholas, and\r
+that was his quick temper together with his old hussar habit of making\r
+free use of his fists. At first he saw nothing reprehensible in this,\r
+but in the second year of his marriage his view of that form of\r
+punishment suddenly changed.\r
+\r
+Once in summer he had sent for the village elder from Bogucharovo, a man\r
+who had succeeded to the post when Dron died and who was accused of\r
+dishonesty and various irregularities. Nicholas went out into the porch\r
+to question him, and immediately after the elder had given a few replies\r
+the sound of cries and blows were heard. On returning to lunch Nicholas\r
+went up to his wife, who sat with her head bent low over her embroidery\r
+frame, and as usual began to tell her what he had been doing that\r
+morning. Among other things he spoke of the Bogucharovo elder. Countess\r
+Mary turned red and then pale, but continued to sit with head bowed and\r
+lips compressed and gave her husband no reply.\r
+\r
+"Such an insolent scoundrel!" he cried, growing hot again at the mere\r
+recollection of him. "If he had told me he was drunk and did not see...\r
+But what is the matter with you, Mary?" he suddenly asked.\r
+\r
+Countess Mary raised her head and tried to speak, but hastily looked\r
+down again and her lips puckered.\r
+\r
+"Why, whatever is the matter, my dearest?"\r
+\r
+The looks of the plain Countess Mary always improved when she was in\r
+tears. She never cried from pain or vexation, but always from sorrow or\r
+pity, and when she wept her radiant eyes acquired an irresistible charm.\r
+\r
+The moment Nicholas took her hand she could no longer restrain herself\r
+and began to cry.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas, I saw it... he was to blame, but why do you... Nicholas!" and\r
+she covered her face with her hands.\r
+\r
+Nicholas said nothing. He flushed crimson, left her side, and paced up\r
+and down the room. He understood what she was weeping about, but could\r
+not in his heart at once agree with her that what he had regarded from\r
+childhood as quite an everyday event was wrong. "Is it just\r
+sentimentality, old wives' tales, or is she right?" he asked himself.\r
+Before he had solved that point he glanced again at her face filled with\r
+love and pain, and he suddenly realized that she was right and that he\r
+had long been sinning against himself.\r
+\r
+"Mary," he said softly, going up to her, "it will never happen again; I\r
+give you my word. Never," he repeated in a trembling voice like a boy\r
+asking for forgiveness.\r
+\r
+The tears flowed faster still from the countess' eyes. She took his hand\r
+and kissed it.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas, when did you break your cameo?" she asked to change the\r
+subject, looking at his finger on which he wore a ring with a cameo of\r
+Laocoon's head.\r
+\r
+"Today--it was the same affair. Oh, Mary, don't remind me of it!" and\r
+again he flushed. "I give you my word of honor it shan't occur again,\r
+and let this always be a reminder to me," and he pointed to the broken\r
+ring.\r
+\r
+After that, when in discussions with his village elders or stewards the\r
+blood rushed to his face and his fists began to clench, Nicholas would\r
+turn the broken ring on his finger and would drop his eyes before the\r
+man who was making him angry. But he did forget himself once or twice\r
+within a twelvemonth, and then he would go and confess to his wife, and\r
+would again promise that this should really be the very last time.\r
+\r
+"Mary, you must despise me!" he would say. "I deserve it."\r
+\r
+"You should go, go away at once, if you don't feel strong enough to\r
+control yourself," she would reply sadly, trying to comfort her husband.\r
+\r
+Among the gentry of the province Nicholas was respected but not liked.\r
+He did not concern himself with the interests of his own class, and\r
+consequently some thought him proud and others thought him stupid. The\r
+whole summer, from spring sowing to harvest, he was busy with the work\r
+on his farm. In autumn he gave himself up to hunting with the same\r
+business-like seriousness--leaving home for a month, or even two, with\r
+his hunt. In winter he visited his other villages or spent his time\r
+reading. The books he read were chiefly historical, and on these he\r
+spent a certain sum every year. He was collecting, as he said, a serious\r
+library, and he made it a rule to read through all the books he bought.\r
+He would sit in his study with a grave air, reading--a task he first\r
+imposed upon himself as a duty, but which afterwards became a habit\r
+affording him a special kind of pleasure and a consciousness of being\r
+occupied with serious matters. In winter, except for business\r
+excursions, he spent most of his time at home making himself one with\r
+his family and entering into all the details of his children's relations\r
+with their mother. The harmony between him and his wife grew closer and\r
+closer and he daily discovered fresh spiritual treasures in her.\r
+\r
+From the time of his marriage Sonya had lived in his house. Before that,\r
+Nicholas had told his wife all that had passed between himself and\r
+Sonya, blaming himself and commending her. He had asked Princess Mary to\r
+be gentle and kind to his cousin. She thoroughly realized the wrong he\r
+had done Sonya, felt herself to blame toward her, and imagined that her\r
+wealth had influenced Nicholas' choice. She could not find fault with\r
+Sonya in any way and tried to be fond of her, but often felt ill-will\r
+toward her which she could not overcome.\r
+\r
+Once she had a talk with her friend Natasha about Sonya and about her\r
+own injustice toward her.\r
+\r
+"You know," said Natasha, "you have read the Gospels a great deal--there\r
+is a passage in them that just fits Sonya."\r
+\r
+"What?" asked Countess Mary, surprised.\r
+\r
+"'To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be\r
+taken away.' You remember? She is one that hath not; why, I don't know.\r
+Perhaps she lacks egotism, I don't know, but from her is taken away, and\r
+everything has been taken away. Sometimes I am dreadfully sorry for her.\r
+Formerly I very much wanted Nicholas to marry her, but I always had a\r
+sort of presentiment that it would not come off. She is a sterile\r
+flower, you know--like some strawberry blossoms. Sometimes I am sorry\r
+for her, and sometimes I think she doesn't feel it as you or I would."\r
+\r
+Though Countess Mary told Natasha that those words in the Gospel must be\r
+understood differently, yet looking at Sonya she agreed with Natasha's\r
+explanation. It really seemed that Sonya did not feel her position\r
+trying, and had grown quite reconciled to her lot as a sterile flower.\r
+She seemed to be fond not so much of individuals as of the family as a\r
+whole. Like a cat, she had attached herself not to the people but to the\r
+home. She waited on the old countess, petted and spoiled the children,\r
+was always ready to render the small services for which she had a gift,\r
+and all this was unconsciously accepted from her with insufficient\r
+gratitude.\r
+\r
+The country seat at Bald Hills had been rebuilt, though not on the same\r
+scale as under the old prince.\r
+\r
+The buildings, begun under straitened circumstances, were more than\r
+simple. The immense house on the old stone foundations was of wood,\r
+plastered only inside. It had bare deal floors and was furnished with\r
+very simple hard sofas, armchairs, tables, and chairs made by their own\r
+serf carpenters out of their own birchwood. The house was spacious and\r
+had rooms for the house serfs and apartments for visitors. Whole\r
+families of the Rostovs' and Bolkonskis' relations sometimes came to\r
+Bald Hills with sixteen horses and dozens of servants and stayed for\r
+months. Besides that, four times a year, on the name days and birthdays\r
+of the hosts, as many as a hundred visitors would gather there for a day\r
+or two. The rest of the year life pursued its unbroken routine with its\r
+ordinary occupations, and its breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and suppers,\r
+provided out of the produce of the estate.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+It was the eve of St. Nicholas, the fifth of December, 1820. Natasha had\r
+been staying at her brother's with her husband and children since early\r
+autumn. Pierre had gone to Petersburg on business of his own for three\r
+weeks as he said, but had remained there nearly seven weeks and was\r
+expected back every minute.\r
+\r
+Besides the Bezukhov family, Nicholas' old friend the retired General\r
+Vasili Dmitrich Denisov was staying with the Rostovs this fifth of\r
+December.\r
+\r
+On the sixth, which was his name day when the house would be full of\r
+visitors, Nicholas knew he would have to exchange his Tartar tunic for a\r
+tail coat, and put on narrow boots with pointed toes, and drive to the\r
+new church he had built, and then receive visitors who would come to\r
+congratulate him, offer them refreshments, and talk about the elections\r
+of the nobility; but he considered himself entitled to spend the eve of\r
+that day in his usual way. He examined the bailiff's accounts of the\r
+village in Ryazan which belonged to his wife's nephew, wrote two\r
+business letters, and walked over to the granaries, cattle yards and\r
+stables before dinner. Having taken precautions against the general\r
+drunkenness to be expected on the morrow because it was a great saint's\r
+day, he returned to dinner, and without having time for a private talk\r
+with his wife sat down at the long table laid for twenty persons, at\r
+which the whole household had assembled. At that table were his mother,\r
+his mother's old lady companion Belova, his wife, their three children\r
+with their governess and tutor, his wife's nephew with his tutor, Sonya,\r
+Denisov, Natasha, her three children, their governess, and old Michael\r
+Ivanovich, the late prince's architect, who was living on in retirement\r
+at Bald Hills.\r
+\r
+Countess Mary sat at the other end of the table. When her husband took\r
+his place she concluded, from the rapid manner in which after taking up\r
+his table napkin he pushed back the tumbler and wineglass standing\r
+before him, that he was out of humor, as was sometimes the case when he\r
+came in to dinner straight from the farm--especially before the soup.\r
+Countess Mary well knew that mood of his, and when she herself was in a\r
+good frame of mind quietly waited till he had had his soup and then\r
+began to talk to him and make him admit that there was no cause for his\r
+ill-humor. But today she quite forgot that and was hurt that he should\r
+be angry with her without any reason, and she felt unhappy. She asked\r
+him where he had been. He replied. She again inquired whether everything\r
+was going well on the farm. Her unnatural tone made him wince\r
+unpleasantly and he replied hastily.\r
+\r
+"Then I'm not mistaken," thought Countess Mary. "Why is he cross with\r
+me?" She concluded from his tone that he was vexed with her and wished\r
+to end the conversation. She knew her remarks sounded unnatural, but\r
+could not refrain from asking some more questions.\r
+\r
+Thanks to Denisov the conversation at table soon became general and\r
+lively, and she did not talk to her husband. When they left the table\r
+and went as usual to thank the old countess, Countess Mary held out her\r
+hand and kissed her husband, and asked him why he was angry with her.\r
+\r
+"You always have such strange fancies! I didn't even think of being\r
+angry," he replied.\r
+\r
+But the word always seemed to her to imply: "Yes, I am angry but I won't\r
+tell you why."\r
+\r
+Nicholas and his wife lived together so happily that even Sonya and the\r
+old countess, who felt jealous and would have liked them to disagree,\r
+could find nothing to reproach them with; but even they had their\r
+moments of antagonism. Occasionally, and it was always just after they\r
+had been happiest together, they suddenly had a feeling of estrangement\r
+and hostility, which occurred most frequently during Countess Mary's\r
+pregnancies, and this was such a time.\r
+\r
+"Well, messieurs et mesdames," said Nicholas loudly and with apparent\r
+cheerfulness (it seemed to Countess Mary that he did it on purpose to\r
+vex her), "I have been on my feet since six this morning. Tomorrow I\r
+shall have to suffer, so today I'll go and rest."\r
+\r
+And without a word to his wife he went to the little sitting room and\r
+lay down on the sofa.\r
+\r
+"That's always the way," thought Countess Mary. "He talks to everyone\r
+except me. I see... I see that I am repulsive to him, especially when I\r
+am in this condition." She looked down at her expanded figure and in the\r
+glass at her pale, sallow, emaciated face in which her eyes now looked\r
+larger than ever.\r
+\r
+And everything annoyed her--Denisov's shouting and laughter, Natasha's\r
+talk, and especially a quick glance Sonya gave her.\r
+\r
+Sonya was always the first excuse Countess Mary found for feeling\r
+irritated.\r
+\r
+Having sat awhile with her visitors without understanding anything of\r
+what they were saying, she softly left the room and went to the nursery.\r
+\r
+The children were playing at "going to Moscow" in a carriage made of\r
+chairs and invited her to go with them. She sat down and played with\r
+them a little, but the thought of her husband and his unreasonable\r
+crossness worried her. She got up and, walking on tiptoe with\r
+difficulty, went to the small sitting room.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps he is not asleep; I'll have an explanation with him," she said\r
+to herself. Little Andrew, her eldest boy, imitating his mother,\r
+followed her on tiptoe. She did not notice him.\r
+\r
+"Mary, dear, I think he is asleep--he was so tired," said Sonya, meeting\r
+her in the large sitting room (it seemed to Countess Mary that she\r
+crossed her path everywhere). "Andrew may wake him."\r
+\r
+Countess Mary looked round, saw little Andrew following her, felt that\r
+Sonya was right, and for that very reason flushed and with evident\r
+difficulty refrained from saying something harsh. She made no reply, but\r
+to avoid obeying Sonya beckoned to Andrew to follow her quietly and went\r
+to the door. Sonya went away by another door. From the room in which\r
+Nicholas was sleeping came the sound of his even breathing, every\r
+slightest tone of which was familiar to his wife. As she listened to it\r
+she saw before her his smooth handsome forehead, his mustache, and his\r
+whole face, as she had so often seen it in the stillness of the night\r
+when he slept. Nicholas suddenly moved and cleared his throat. And at\r
+that moment little Andrew shouted from outside the door: "Papa! Mamma's\r
+standing here!" Countess Mary turned pale with fright and made signs to\r
+the boy. He grew silent, and quiet ensued for a moment, terrible to\r
+Countess Mary. She knew how Nicholas disliked being waked. Then through\r
+the door she heard Nicholas clearing his throat again and stirring, and\r
+his voice said crossly:\r
+\r
+"I can't get a moment's peace.... Mary, is that you? Why did you bring\r
+him here?"\r
+\r
+"I only came in to look and did not notice... forgive me..."\r
+\r
+Nicholas coughed and said no more. Countess Mary moved away from the\r
+door and took the boy back to the nursery. Five minutes later little\r
+black-eyed three-year-old Natasha, her father's pet, having learned from\r
+her brother that Papa was asleep and Mamma was in the sitting room, ran\r
+to her father unobserved by her mother. The dark-eyed little girl boldly\r
+opened the creaking door, went up to the sofa with energetic steps of\r
+her sturdy little legs, and having examined the position of her father,\r
+who was asleep with his back to her, rose on tiptoe and kissed the hand\r
+which lay under his head. Nicholas turned with a tender smile on his\r
+face.\r
+\r
+"Natasha, Natasha!" came Countess Mary's frightened whisper from the\r
+door. "Papa wants to sleep."\r
+\r
+"No, Mamma, he doesn't want to sleep," said little Natasha with\r
+conviction. "He's laughing."\r
+\r
+Nicholas lowered his legs, rose, and took his daughter in his arms.\r
+\r
+"Come in, Mary," he said to his wife.\r
+\r
+She went in and sat down by her husband.\r
+\r
+"I did not notice him following me," she said timidly. "I just looked\r
+in."\r
+\r
+Holding his little girl with one arm, Nicholas glanced at his wife and,\r
+seeing her guilty expression, put his other arm around her and kissed\r
+her hair.\r
+\r
+"May I kiss Mamma?" he asked Natasha.\r
+\r
+Natasha smiled bashfully.\r
+\r
+"Again!" she commanded, pointing with a peremptory gesture to the spot\r
+where Nicholas had placed the kiss.\r
+\r
+"I don't know why you think I am cross," said Nicholas, replying to the\r
+question he knew was in his wife's mind.\r
+\r
+"You have no idea how unhappy, how lonely, I feel when you are like\r
+that. It always seems to me..."\r
+\r
+"Mary, don't talk nonsense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" he\r
+said gaily.\r
+\r
+"It seems to be that you can't love me, that I am so plain... always...\r
+and now... in this cond..."\r
+\r
+"Oh, how absurd you are! It is not beauty that endears, it's love that\r
+makes us see beauty. It is only Malvinas and women of that kind who are\r
+loved for their beauty. But do I love my wife? I don't love her, but...\r
+I don't know how to put it. Without you, or when something comes between\r
+us like this, I seem lost and can't do anything. Now do I love my\r
+finger? I don't love it, but just try to cut it off!"\r
+\r
+"I'm not like that myself, but I understand. So you're not angry with\r
+me?"\r
+\r
+"Awfully angry!" he said, smiling and getting up. And smoothing his hair\r
+he began to pace the room.\r
+\r
+"Do you know, Mary, what I've been thinking?" he began, immediately\r
+thinking aloud in his wife's presence now that they had made it up.\r
+\r
+He did not ask if she was ready to listen to him. He did not care. A\r
+thought had occurred to him and so it belonged to her also. And he told\r
+her of his intention to persuade Pierre to stay with them till spring.\r
+\r
+Countess Mary listened till he had finished, made some remark, and in\r
+her turn began thinking aloud. Her thoughts were about the children.\r
+\r
+"You can see the woman in her already," she said in French, pointing to\r
+little Natasha. "You reproach us women with being illogical. Here is our\r
+logic. I say: 'Papa wants to sleep!' but she says, 'No, he's laughing.'\r
+And she was right," said Countess Mary with a happy smile.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes." And Nicholas, taking his little daughter in his strong hand,\r
+lifted her high, placed her on his shoulder, held her by the legs, and\r
+paced the room with her. There was an expression of carefree happiness\r
+on the faces of both father and daughter.\r
+\r
+"But you know you may be unfair. You are too fond of this one," his wife\r
+whispered in French.\r
+\r
+"Yes, but what am I to do?... I try not to show..."\r
+\r
+At that moment they heard the sound of the door pulley and footsteps in\r
+the hall and anteroom, as if someone had arrived.\r
+\r
+"Somebody has come."\r
+\r
+"I am sure it is Pierre. I will go and see," said Countess Mary and left\r
+the room.\r
+\r
+In her absence Nicholas allowed himself to give his little daughter a\r
+gallop round the room. Out of breath, he took the laughing child quickly\r
+from his shoulder and pressed her to his heart. His capers reminded him\r
+of dancing, and looking at the child's round happy little face he\r
+thought of what she would be like when he was an old man, taking her\r
+into society and dancing the mazurka with her as his old father had\r
+danced Daniel Cooper with his daughter.\r
+\r
+"It is he, it is he, Nicholas!" said Countess Mary, re-entering the room\r
+a few minutes later. "Now our Natasha has come to life. You should have\r
+seen her ecstasy, and how he caught it for having stayed away so long.\r
+Well, come along now, quick, quick! It's time you two were parted," she\r
+added, looking smilingly at the little girl who clung to her father.\r
+\r
+Nicholas went out holding the child by the hand.\r
+\r
+Countess Mary remained in the sitting room.\r
+\r
+"I should never, never have believed that one could be so happy," she\r
+whispered to herself. A smile lit up her face but at the same time she\r
+sighed, and her deep eyes expressed a quiet sadness as though she felt,\r
+through her happiness, that there is another sort of happiness\r
+unattainable in this life and of which she involuntarily thought at that\r
+instant.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+Natasha had married in the early spring of 1813, and in 1820 already had\r
+three daughters besides a son for whom she had longed and whom she was\r
+now nursing. She had grown stouter and broader, so that it was difficult\r
+to recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively Natasha of\r
+former days. Her features were more defined and had a calm, soft, and\r
+serene expression. In her face there was none of the ever-glowing\r
+animation that had formerly burned there and constituted its charm. Now\r
+her face and body were often all that one saw, and her soul was not\r
+visible at all. All that struck the eye was a strong, handsome, and\r
+fertile woman. The old fire very rarely kindled in her face now. That\r
+happened only when, as was the case that day, her husband returned home,\r
+or a sick child was convalescent, or when she and Countess Mary spoke of\r
+Prince Andrew (she never mentioned him to her husband, who she imagined\r
+was jealous of Prince Andrew's memory), or on the rare occasions when\r
+something happened to induce her to sing, a practice she had quite\r
+abandoned since her marriage. At the rare moments when the old fire did\r
+kindle in her handsome, fully developed body she was even more\r
+attractive than in former days.\r
+\r
+Since their marriage Natasha and her husband had lived in Moscow, in\r
+Petersburg, on their estate near Moscow, or with her mother, that is to\r
+say, in Nicholas' house. The young Countess Bezukhova was not often seen\r
+in society, and those who met her there were not pleased with her and\r
+found her neither attractive nor amiable. Not that Natasha liked\r
+solitude--she did not know whether she liked it or not, she even thought\r
+that she did not--but with her pregnancies, her confinements, the\r
+nursing of her children, and sharing every moment of her husband's life,\r
+she had demands on her time which could be satisfied only by renouncing\r
+society. All who had known Natasha before her marriage wondered at the\r
+change in her as at something extraordinary. Only the old countess with\r
+her maternal instinct had realized that all Natasha's outbursts had been\r
+due to her need of children and a husband--as she herself had once\r
+exclaimed at Otradnoe not so much in fun as in earnest--and her mother\r
+was now surprised at the surprise expressed by those who had never\r
+understood Natasha, and she kept saying that she had always known that\r
+Natasha would make an exemplary wife and mother.\r
+\r
+"Only she lets her love of her husband and children overflow all\r
+bounds," said the countess, "so that it even becomes absurd."\r
+\r
+Natasha did not follow the golden rule advocated by clever folk,\r
+especially by the French, which says that a girl should not let herself\r
+go when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be\r
+even more careful of her appearance than when she was unmarried, and\r
+should fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her\r
+husband. Natasha on the contrary had at once abandoned all her witchery,\r
+of which her singing had been an unusually powerful part. She gave it up\r
+just because it was so powerfully seductive. She took no pains with her\r
+manners or with delicacy of speech, or with her toilet, or to show\r
+herself to her husband in her most becoming attitudes, or to avoid\r
+inconveniencing him by being too exacting. She acted in contradiction to\r
+all those rules. She felt that the allurements instinct had formerly\r
+taught her to use would now be merely ridiculous in the eyes of her\r
+husband, to whom she had from the first moment given herself up\r
+entirely--that is, with her whole soul, leaving no corner of it hidden\r
+from him. She felt that her unity with her husband was not maintained by\r
+the poetic feelings that had attracted him to her, but by something\r
+else--indefinite but firm as the bond between her own body and soul.\r
+\r
+To fluff out her curls, put on fashionable dresses, and sing romantic\r
+songs to fascinate her husband would have seemed as strange as to adorn\r
+herself to attract herself. To adorn herself for others might perhaps\r
+have been agreeable--she did not know--but she had no time at all for\r
+it. The chief reason for devoting no time either to singing, to dress,\r
+or to choosing her words was that she really had no time to spare for\r
+these things.\r
+\r
+We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in a\r
+subject however trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so\r
+trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one's entire\r
+attention is devoted to it.\r
+\r
+The subject which wholly engrossed Natasha's attention was her family:\r
+that is, her husband whom she had to keep so that he should belong\r
+entirely to her and to the home, and the children whom she had to bear,\r
+bring into the world, nurse, and bring up.\r
+\r
+And the deeper she penetrated, not with her mind only but with her whole\r
+soul, her whole being, into the subject that absorbed her, the larger\r
+did that subject grow and the weaker and more inadequate did her powers\r
+appear, so that she concentrated them wholly on that one thing and yet\r
+was unable to accomplish all that she considered necessary.\r
+\r
+There were then as now conversations and discussions about women's\r
+rights, the relations of husband and wife and their freedom and rights,\r
+though these themes were not yet termed questions as they are now; but\r
+these topics were not merely uninteresting to Natasha, she positively\r
+did not understand them.\r
+\r
+These questions, then as now, existed only for those who see nothing in\r
+marriage but the pleasure married people get from one another, that is,\r
+only the beginnings of marriage and not its whole significance, which\r
+lies in the family.\r
+\r
+Discussions and questions of that kind, which are like the question of\r
+how to get the greatest gratification from one's dinner, did not then\r
+and do not now exist for those for whom the purpose of a dinner is the\r
+nourishment it affords; and the purpose of marriage is the family.\r
+\r
+If the purpose of dinner is to nourish the body, a man who eats two\r
+dinners at once may perhaps get more enjoyment but will not attain his\r
+purpose, for his stomach will not digest the two dinners.\r
+\r
+If the purpose of marriage is the family, the person who wishes to have\r
+many wives or husbands may perhaps obtain much pleasure, but in that\r
+case will not have a family.\r
+\r
+If the purpose of food is nourishment and the purpose of marriage is the\r
+family, the whole question resolves itself into not eating more than one\r
+can digest, and not having more wives or husbands than are needed for\r
+the family--that is, one wife or one husband. Natasha needed a husband.\r
+A husband was given her and he gave her a family. And she not only saw\r
+no need of any other or better husband, but as all the powers of her\r
+soul were intent on serving that husband and family, she could not\r
+imagine and saw no interest in imagining how it would be if things were\r
+different.\r
+\r
+Natasha did not care for society in general, but prized the more the\r
+society of her relatives--Countess Mary, and her brother, her mother,\r
+and Sonya. She valued the company of those to whom she could come\r
+striding disheveled from the nursery in her dressing gown, and with\r
+joyful face show a yellow instead of a green stain on baby's napkin, and\r
+from whom she could hear reassuring words to the effect that baby was\r
+much better.\r
+\r
+To such an extent had Natasha let herself go that the way she dressed\r
+and did her hair, her ill-chosen words, and her jealousy--she was\r
+jealous of Sonya, of the governess, and of every woman, pretty or plain-\r
+-were habitual subjects of jest to those about her. The general opinion\r
+was that Pierre was under his wife's thumb, which was really true. From\r
+the very first days of their married life Natasha had announced her\r
+demands. Pierre was greatly surprised by his wife's view, to him a\r
+perfectly novel one, that every moment of his life belonged to her and\r
+to the family. His wife's demands astonished him, but they also\r
+flattered him, and he submitted to them.\r
+\r
+Pierre's subjection consisted in the fact that he not only dared not\r
+flirt with, but dared not even speak smilingly to, any other woman; did\r
+not dare dine at the club as a pastime, did not dare spend money on a\r
+whim, and did not dare absent himself for any length of time, except on\r
+business--in which his wife included his intellectual pursuits, which\r
+she did not in the least understand but to which she attributed great\r
+importance. To make up for this, at home Pierre had the right to\r
+regulate his life and that of the whole family exactly as he chose. At\r
+home Natasha placed herself in the position of a slave to her husband,\r
+and the whole household went on tiptoe when he was occupied--that is,\r
+was reading or writing in his study. Pierre had but to show a partiality\r
+for anything to get just what he liked done always. He had only to\r
+express a wish and Natasha would jump up and run to fulfill it.\r
+\r
+The entire household was governed according to Pierre's supposed orders,\r
+that is, by his wishes which Natasha tried to guess. Their way of life\r
+and place of residence, their acquaintances and ties, Natasha's\r
+occupations, the children's upbringing, were all selected not merely\r
+with regard to Pierre's expressed wishes, but to what Natasha from the\r
+thoughts he expressed in conversation supposed his wishes to be. And she\r
+deduced the essentials of his wishes quite correctly, and having once\r
+arrived at them clung to them tenaciously. When Pierre himself wanted to\r
+change his mind she would fight him with his own weapons.\r
+\r
+Thus in a time of trouble ever memorable to him after the birth of their\r
+first child who was delicate, when they had to change the wet nurse\r
+three times and Natasha fell ill from despair, Pierre one day told her\r
+of Rousseau's view, with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet nurse\r
+is unnatural and harmful. When her next baby was born, despite the\r
+opposition of her mother, the doctors, and even of her husband himself--\r
+who were all vigorously opposed to her nursing her baby herself, a thing\r
+then unheard of and considered injurious--she insisted on having her own\r
+way, and after that nursed all her babies herself.\r
+\r
+It very often happened that in a moment of irritation husband and wife\r
+would have a dispute, but long afterwards Pierre to his surprise and\r
+delight would find in his wife's ideas and actions the very thought\r
+against which she had argued, but divested of everything superfluous\r
+that in the excitement of the dispute he had added when expressing his\r
+opinion.\r
+\r
+After seven years of marriage Pierre had the joyous and firm\r
+consciousness that he was not a bad man, and he felt this because he saw\r
+himself reflected in his wife. He felt the good and bad within himself\r
+inextricably mingled and overlapping. But only what was really good in\r
+him was reflected in his wife, all that was not quite good was rejected.\r
+And this was not the result of logical reasoning but was a direct and\r
+mysterious reflection.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+Two months previously when Pierre was already staying with the Rostovs\r
+he had received a letter from Prince Theodore, asking him to come to\r
+Petersburg to confer on some important questions that were being\r
+discussed there by a society of which Pierre was one of the principal\r
+founders.\r
+\r
+On reading that letter (she always read her husband's letters) Natasha\r
+herself suggested that he should go to Petersburg, though she would feel\r
+his absence very acutely. She attributed immense importance to all her\r
+husband's intellectual and abstract interests though she did not\r
+understand them, and she always dreaded being a hindrance to him in such\r
+matters. To Pierre's timid look of inquiry after reading the letter she\r
+replied by asking him to go, but to fix a definite date for his return.\r
+He was given four weeks' leave of absence.\r
+\r
+Ever since that leave of absence had expired, more than a fortnight\r
+before, Natasha had been in a constant state of alarm, depression, and\r
+irritability.\r
+\r
+Denisov, now a general on the retired list and much dissatisfied with\r
+the present state of affairs, had arrived during that fortnight. He\r
+looked at Natasha with sorrow and surprise as at a bad likeness of a\r
+person once dear. A dull, dejected look, random replies, and talk about\r
+the nursery was all he saw and heard from his former enchantress.\r
+\r
+Natasha was sad and irritable all that time, especially when her mother,\r
+her brother, Sonya, or Countess Mary in their efforts to console her\r
+tried to excuse Pierre and suggested reasons for his delay in returning.\r
+\r
+"It's all nonsense, all rubbish--those discussions which lead to nothing\r
+and all those idiotic societies!" Natasha declared of the very affairs\r
+in the immense importance of which she firmly believed.\r
+\r
+And she would go to the nursery to nurse Petya, her only boy. No one\r
+else could tell her anything so comforting or so reasonable as this\r
+little three-month-old creature when he lay at her breast and she was\r
+conscious of the movement of his lips and the snuffling of his little\r
+nose. That creature said: "You are angry, you are jealous, you would\r
+like to pay him out, you are afraid--but here am I! And I am he..." and\r
+that was unanswerable. It was more than true.\r
+\r
+During that fortnight of anxiety Natasha resorted to the baby for\r
+comfort so often, and fussed over him so much, that she overfed him and\r
+he fell ill. She was terrified by his illness, and yet that was just\r
+what she needed. While attending to him she bore the anxiety about her\r
+husband more easily.\r
+\r
+She was nursing her boy when the sound of Pierre's sleigh was heard at\r
+the front door, and the old nurse--knowing how to please her mistress--\r
+entered the room inaudibly but hurriedly and with a beaming face.\r
+\r
+"Has he come?" Natasha asked quickly in a whisper, afraid to move lest\r
+she should rouse the dozing baby.\r
+\r
+"He's come, ma'am," whispered the nurse.\r
+\r
+The blood rushed to Natasha's face and her feet involuntarily moved, but\r
+she could not jump up and run out. The baby again opened his eyes and\r
+looked at her. "You're here?" he seemed to be saying, and again lazily\r
+smacked his lips.\r
+\r
+Cautiously withdrawing her breast, Natasha rocked him a little, handed\r
+him to the nurse, and went with rapid steps toward the door. But at the\r
+door she stopped as if her conscience reproached her for having in her\r
+joy left the child too soon, and she glanced round. The nurse with\r
+raised elbows was lifting the infant over the rail of his cot.\r
+\r
+"Go, ma'am! Don't worry, go!" she whispered, smiling, with the kind of\r
+familiarity that grows up between a nurse and her mistress.\r
+\r
+Natasha ran with light footsteps to the anteroom.\r
+\r
+Denisov, who had come out of the study into the dancing room with his\r
+pipe, now for the first time recognized the old Natasha. A flood of\r
+brilliant, joyful light poured from her transfigured face.\r
+\r
+"He's come!" she exclaimed as she ran past, and Denisov felt that he too\r
+was delighted that Pierre, whom he did not much care for, had returned.\r
+\r
+On reaching the vestibule Natasha saw a tall figure in a fur coat\r
+unwinding his scarf. "It's he! It's really he! He has come!" she said to\r
+herself, and rushing at him embraced him, pressed his head to her\r
+breast, and then pushed him back and gazed at his ruddy, happy face,\r
+covered with hoarfrost. "Yes, it is he, happy and contented..."\r
+\r
+Then all at once she remembered the tortures of suspense she had\r
+experienced for the last fortnight, and the joy that had lit up her face\r
+vanished; she frowned and overwhelmed Pierre with a torrent of\r
+reproaches and angry words.\r
+\r
+"Yes, it's all very well for you. You are pleased, you've had a good\r
+time.... But what about me? You might at least have shown consideration\r
+for the children. I am nursing and my milk was spoiled.... Petya was at\r
+death's door. But you were enjoying yourself. Yes, enjoying..."\r
+\r
+Pierre knew he was not to blame, for he could not have come sooner; he\r
+knew this outburst was unseemly and would blow over in a minute or two;\r
+above all he knew that he himself was bright and happy. He wanted to\r
+smile but dared not even think of doing so. He made a piteous,\r
+frightened face and bent down.\r
+\r
+"I could not, on my honor. But how is Petya?"\r
+\r
+"All right now. Come along! I wonder you're not ashamed! If only you\r
+could see what I was like without you, how I suffered!"\r
+\r
+"You are well?"\r
+\r
+"Come, come!" she said, not letting go of his arm. And they went to\r
+their rooms.\r
+\r
+When Nicholas and his wife came to look for Pierre he was in the nursery\r
+holding his baby son, who was again awake, on his huge right palm and\r
+dandling him. A blissful bright smile was fixed on the baby's broad face\r
+with its toothless open mouth. The storm was long since over and there\r
+was bright, joyous sunshine on Natasha's face as she gazed tenderly at\r
+her husband and child.\r
+\r
+"And have you talked everything well over with Prince Theodore?" she\r
+asked.\r
+\r
+"Yes, capitally."\r
+\r
+"You see, he holds it up." (She meant the baby's head.) "But how he did\r
+frighten me... You've seen the princess? Is it true she's in love with\r
+that..."\r
+\r
+"Yes, just fancy..."\r
+\r
+At that moment Nicholas and Countess Mary came in. Pierre with the baby\r
+on his hand stooped, kissed them, and replied to their inquiries. But in\r
+spite of much that was interesting and had to be discussed, the baby\r
+with the little cap on its unsteady head evidently absorbed all his\r
+attention.\r
+\r
+"How sweet!" said Countess Mary, looking at and playing with the baby.\r
+"Now, Nicholas," she added, turning to her husband, "I can't understand\r
+how it is you don't see the charm of these delicious marvels."\r
+\r
+"I don't and can't," replied Nicholas, looking coldly at the baby. "A\r
+lump of flesh. Come along, Pierre!"\r
+\r
+"And yet he's such an affectionate father," said Countess Mary,\r
+vindicating her husband, "but only after they are a year old or so..."\r
+\r
+"Now, Pierre nurses them splendidly," said Natasha. "He says his hand is\r
+just made for a baby's seat. Just look!"\r
+\r
+"Only not for this..." Pierre suddenly exclaimed with a laugh, and\r
+shifting the baby he gave him to the nurse.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+As in every large household, there were at Bald Hills several perfectly\r
+distinct worlds which merged into one harmonious whole, though each\r
+retained its own peculiarities and made concessions to the others. Every\r
+event, joyful or sad, that took place in that house was important to all\r
+these worlds, but each had its own special reasons to rejoice or grieve\r
+over that occurrence independently of the others.\r
+\r
+For instance, Pierre's return was a joyful and important event and they\r
+all felt it to be so.\r
+\r
+The servants--the most reliable judges of their masters because they\r
+judge not by their conversation or expressions of feeling but by their\r
+acts and way of life--were glad of Pierre's return because they knew\r
+that when he was there Count Nicholas would cease going every day to\r
+attend to the estate, and would be in better spirits and temper, and\r
+also because they would all receive handsome presents for the holidays.\r
+\r
+The children and their governesses were glad of Pierre's return because\r
+no one else drew them into the social life of the household as he did.\r
+He alone could play on the clavichord that ecossaise (his only piece) to\r
+which, as he said, all possible dances could be danced, and they felt\r
+sure he had brought presents for them all.\r
+\r
+Young Nicholas, now a slim lad of fifteen, delicate and intelligent,\r
+with curly light-brown hair and beautiful eyes, was delighted because\r
+Uncle Pierre as he called him was the object of his rapturous and\r
+passionate affection. No one had instilled into him this love for Pierre\r
+whom he saw only occasionally. Countess Mary who had brought him up had\r
+done her utmost to make him love her husband as she loved him, and\r
+little Nicholas did love his uncle, but loved him with just a shade of\r
+contempt. Pierre, however, he adored. He did not want to be an hussar or\r
+a Knight of St. George like his uncle Nicholas; he wanted to be learned,\r
+wise, and kind like Pierre. In Pierre's presence his face always shone\r
+with pleasure and he flushed and was breathless when Pierre spoke to\r
+him. He did not miss a single word he uttered, and would afterwards,\r
+with Dessalles or by himself, recall and reconsider the meaning of\r
+everything Pierre had said. Pierre's past life and his unhappiness prior\r
+to 1812 (of which young Nicholas had formed a vague poetic picture from\r
+some words he had overheard), his adventures in Moscow, his captivity,\r
+Platon Karataev (of whom he had heard from Pierre), his love for Natasha\r
+(of whom the lad was also particularly fond), and especially Pierre's\r
+friendship with the father whom Nicholas could not remember--all this\r
+made Pierre in his eyes a hero and a saint.\r
+\r
+From broken remarks about Natasha and his father, from the emotion with\r
+which Pierre spoke of that dead father, and from the careful, reverent\r
+tenderness with which Natasha spoke of him, the boy, who was only just\r
+beginning to guess what love is, derived the notion that his father had\r
+loved Natasha and when dying had left her to his friend. But the father\r
+whom the boy did not remember appeared to him a divinity who could not\r
+be pictured, and of whom he never thought without a swelling heart and\r
+tears of sadness and rapture. So the boy also was happy that Pierre had\r
+arrived.\r
+\r
+The guests welcomed Pierre because he always helped to enliven and unite\r
+any company he was in.\r
+\r
+The grown-up members of the family, not to mention his wife, were\r
+pleased to have back a friend whose presence made life run more smoothly\r
+and peacefully.\r
+\r
+The old ladies were pleased with the presents he brought them, and\r
+especially that Natasha would now be herself again.\r
+\r
+Pierre felt the different outlooks of these various worlds and made\r
+haste to satisfy all their expectations.\r
+\r
+Though the most absent-minded and forgetful of men, Pierre, with the aid\r
+of a list his wife drew up, had now bought everything, not forgetting\r
+his mother--and brother-in-law's commissions, nor the dress material for\r
+a present to Belova, nor toys for his wife's nephews. In the early days\r
+of his marriage it had seemed strange to him that his wife should expect\r
+him not to forget to procure all the things he undertook to buy, and he\r
+had been taken aback by her serious annoyance when on his first trip he\r
+forgot everything. But in time he grew used to this demand. Knowing that\r
+Natasha asked nothing for herself, and gave him commissions for others\r
+only when he himself had offered to undertake them, he now found an\r
+unexpected and childlike pleasure in this purchase of presents for\r
+everyone in the house, and never forgot anything. If he now incurred\r
+Natasha's censure it was only for buying too many and too expensive\r
+things. To her other defects (as most people thought them, but which to\r
+Pierre were qualities) of untidiness and neglect of herself, she now\r
+added stinginess.\r
+\r
+From the time that Pierre began life as a family man on a footing\r
+entailing heavy expenditure, he had noticed to his surprise that he\r
+spent only half as much as before, and that his affairs--which had been\r
+in disorder of late, chiefly because of his first wife's debts--had\r
+begun to improve.\r
+\r
+Life was cheaper because it was circumscribed: that most expensive\r
+luxury, the kind of life that can be changed at any moment, was no\r
+longer his nor did he wish for it. He felt that his way of life had now\r
+been settled once for all till death and that to change it was not in\r
+his power, and so that way of life proved economical.\r
+\r
+With a merry, smiling face Pierre was sorting his purchases.\r
+\r
+"What do you think of this?" said he, unrolling a piece of stuff like a\r
+shopman.\r
+\r
+Natasha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest daughter on her\r
+lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband to the things he\r
+showed her.\r
+\r
+"That's for Belova? Excellent!" She felt the quality of the material.\r
+"It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+Pierre told her the price.\r
+\r
+"Too dear!" Natasha remarked. "How pleased the children will be and\r
+Mamma too! Only you need not have bought me this," she added, unable to\r
+suppress a smile as she gazed admiringly at a gold comb set with pearls,\r
+of a kind then just coming into fashion.\r
+\r
+"Adele tempted me: she kept on telling me to buy it," returned Pierre.\r
+\r
+"When am I to wear it?" and Natasha stuck it in her coil of hair. "When\r
+I take little Masha into society? Perhaps they will be fashionable again\r
+by then. Well, let's go now."\r
+\r
+And collecting the presents they went first to the nursery and then to\r
+the old countess' rooms.\r
+\r
+The countess was sitting with her companion Belova, playing grand-\r
+patience as usual, when Pierre and Natasha came into the drawing room\r
+with parcels under their arms.\r
+\r
+The countess was now over sixty, was quite gray, and wore a cap with a\r
+frill that surrounded her face. Her face had shriveled, her upper lip\r
+had sunk in, and her eyes were dim.\r
+\r
+After the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession, she\r
+felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and left\r
+without aim or object for her existence. She ate, drank, slept, or kept\r
+awake, but did not live. Life gave her no new impressions. She wanted\r
+nothing from life but tranquillity, and that tranquillity only death\r
+could give her. But until death came she had to go on living, that is,\r
+to use her vital forces. A peculiarity one sees in very young children\r
+and very old people was particularly evident in her. Her life had no\r
+external aims--only a need to exercise her various functions and\r
+inclinations was apparent. She had to eat, sleep, think, speak, weep,\r
+work, give vent to her anger, and so on, merely because she had a\r
+stomach, a brain, muscles, nerves, and a liver. She did these things not\r
+under any external impulse as people in the full vigor of life do, when\r
+behind the purpose for which they strive that of exercising their\r
+functions remains unnoticed. She talked only because she physically\r
+needed to exercise her tongue and lungs. She cried as a child does,\r
+because her nose had to be cleared, and so on. What for people in their\r
+full vigor is an aim was for her evidently merely a pretext.\r
+\r
+Thus in the morning--especially if she had eaten anything rich the day\r
+before--she felt a need of being angry and would choose as the handiest\r
+pretext Belova's deafness.\r
+\r
+She would begin to say something to her in a low tone from the other end\r
+of the room.\r
+\r
+"It seems a little warmer today, my dear," she would murmur.\r
+\r
+And when Belova replied: "Oh yes, they've come," she would mutter\r
+angrily: "O Lord! How stupid and deaf she is!"\r
+\r
+Another pretext would be her snuff, which would seem too dry or too damp\r
+or not rubbed fine enough. After these fits of irritability her face\r
+would grow yellow, and her maids knew by infallible symptoms when Belova\r
+would again be deaf, the snuff damp, and the countess' face yellow. Just\r
+as she needed to work off her spleen so she had sometimes to exercise\r
+her still-existing faculty of thinking--and the pretext for that was a\r
+game of patience. When she needed to cry, the deceased count would be\r
+the pretext. When she wanted to be agitated, Nicholas and his health\r
+would be the pretext, and when she felt a need to speak spitefully, the\r
+pretext would be Countess Mary. When her vocal organs needed exercise,\r
+which was usually toward seven o'clock when she had had an after-dinner\r
+rest in a darkened room, the pretext would be the retelling of the same\r
+stories over and over again to the same audience.\r
+\r
+The old lady's condition was understood by the whole household though no\r
+one ever spoke of it, and they all made every possible effort to satisfy\r
+her needs. Only by a rare glance exchanged with a sad smile between\r
+Nicholas, Pierre, Natasha, and Countess Mary was the common\r
+understanding of her condition expressed.\r
+\r
+But those glances expressed something more: they said that she had\r
+played her part in life, that what they now saw was not her whole self,\r
+that we must all become like her, and that they were glad to yield to\r
+her, to restrain themselves for this once precious being formerly as\r
+full of life as themselves, but now so much to be pitied. "Memento\r
+mori," said these glances.\r
+\r
+Only the really heartless, the stupid ones of that household, and the\r
+little children failed to understand this and avoided her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+When Pierre and his wife entered the drawing room the countess was in\r
+one of her customary states in which she needed the mental exertion of\r
+playing patience, and so--though by force of habit she greeted him with\r
+the words she always used when Pierre or her son returned after an\r
+absence: "High time, my dear, high time! We were all weary of waiting\r
+for you. Well, thank God!" and received her presents with another\r
+customary remark: "It's not the gift that's precious, my dear, but that\r
+you give it to me, an old woman..."--yet it was evident that she was not\r
+pleased by Pierre's arrival at that moment when it diverted her\r
+attention from the unfinished game.\r
+\r
+She finished her game of patience and only then examined the presents.\r
+They consisted of a box for cards, of splendid workmanship, a bright-\r
+blue Sevres tea cup with shepherdesses depicted on it and with a lid,\r
+and a gold snuffbox with the count's portrait on the lid which Pierre\r
+had had done by a miniaturist in Petersburg. The countess had long\r
+wished for such a box, but as she did not want to cry just then she\r
+glanced indifferently at the portrait and gave her attention chiefly to\r
+the box for cards.\r
+\r
+"Thank you, my dear, you have cheered me up," said she as she always\r
+did. "But best of all you have brought yourself back--for I never saw\r
+anything like it, you ought to give your wife a scolding! What are we to\r
+do with her? She is like a mad woman when you are away. Doesn't see\r
+anything, doesn't remember anything," she went on, repeating her usual\r
+phrases. "Look, Anna Timofeevna," she added to her companion, "see what\r
+a box for cards my son has brought us!"\r
+\r
+Belova admired the presents and was delighted with her dress material.\r
+\r
+Though Pierre, Natasha, Nicholas, Countess Mary, and Denisov had much to\r
+talk about that they could not discuss before the old countess--not that\r
+anything was hidden from her, but because she had dropped so far\r
+behindhand in many things that had they begun to converse in her\r
+presence they would have had to answer inopportune questions and to\r
+repeat what they had already told her many times: that so-and-so was\r
+dead and so-and-so was married, which she would again be unable to\r
+remember--yet they sat at tea round the samovar in the drawing room from\r
+habit, and Pierre answered the countess' questions as to whether Prince\r
+Vasili had aged and whether Countess Mary Alexeevna had sent greetings\r
+and still thought of them, and other matters that interested no one and\r
+to which she herself was indifferent.\r
+\r
+Conversation of this kind, interesting to no one yet unavoidable,\r
+continued all through teatime. All the grown-up members of the family\r
+were assembled near the round tea table at which Sonya presided beside\r
+the samovar. The children with their tutors and governesses had had tea\r
+and their voices were audible from the next room. At tea all sat in\r
+their accustomed places: Nicholas beside the stove at a small table\r
+where his tea was handed to him; Milka, the old gray borzoi bitch\r
+(daughter of the first Milka), with a quite gray face and large black\r
+eyes that seemed more prominent than ever, lay on the armchair beside\r
+him; Denisov, whose curly hair, mustache, and whiskers had turned half\r
+gray, sat beside countess Mary with his general's tunic unbuttoned;\r
+Pierre sat between his wife and the old countess. He spoke of what he\r
+knew might interest the old lady and that she could understand. He told\r
+her of external social events and of the people who had formed the\r
+circle of her contemporaries and had once been a real, living, and\r
+distinct group, but who were now for the most part scattered about the\r
+world and like herself were garnering the last ears of the harvests they\r
+had sown in earlier years. But to the old countess those contemporaries\r
+of hers seemed to be the only serious and real society. Natasha saw by\r
+Pierre's animation that his visit had been interesting and that he had\r
+much to tell them but dare not say it before the old countess. Denisov,\r
+not being a member of the family, did not understand Pierre's caution\r
+and being, as a malcontent, much interested in what was occurring in\r
+Petersburg, kept urging Pierre to tell them about what had happened in\r
+the Semenovsk regiment, then about Arakcheev, and then about the Bible\r
+Society. Once or twice Pierre was carried away and began to speak of\r
+these things, but Nicholas and Natasha always brought him back to the\r
+health of Prince Ivan and Countess Mary Alexeevna.\r
+\r
+"Well, and all this idiocy--Gossner and Tatawinova?" Denisov asked. "Is\r
+that weally still going on?"\r
+\r
+\r
+"Going on?" Pierre exclaimed. "Why more than ever! The Bible Society is\r
+the whole government now!"\r
+\r
+"What is that, mon cher ami?" asked the countess, who had finished her\r
+tea and evidently needed a pretext for being angry after her meal. "What\r
+are you saying about the government? I don't understand."\r
+\r
+"Well, you know, Maman," Nicholas interposed, knowing how to translate\r
+things into his mother's language, "Prince Alexander Golitsyn has\r
+founded a society and in consequence has great influence, they say."\r
+\r
+"Arakcheev and Golitsyn," incautiously remarked Pierre, "are now the\r
+whole government! And what a government! They see treason everywhere and\r
+are afraid of everything."\r
+\r
+"Well, and how is Prince Alexander to blame? He is a most estimable man.\r
+I used to meet him at Mary Antonovna's," said the countess in an\r
+offended tone; and still more offended that they all remained silent,\r
+she went on: "Nowadays everyone finds fault. A Gospel Society! Well, and\r
+what harm is there in that?" and she rose (everybody else got up too)\r
+and with a severe expression sailed back to her table in the sitting\r
+room.\r
+\r
+The melancholy silence that followed was broken by the sounds of the\r
+children's voices and laughter from the next room. Evidently some jolly\r
+excitement was going on there.\r
+\r
+"Finished, finished!" little Natasha's gleeful yell rose above them all.\r
+\r
+Pierre exchanged glances with Countess Mary and Nicholas (Natasha he\r
+never lost sight of) and smiled happily.\r
+\r
+"That's delightful music!" said he.\r
+\r
+"It means that Anna Makarovna has finished her stocking," said Countess\r
+Mary.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'll go and see," said Pierre, jumping up. "You know," he added,\r
+stopping at the door, "why I'm especially fond of that music? It is\r
+always the first thing that tells me all is well. When I was driving\r
+here today, the nearer I got to the house the more anxious I grew. As I\r
+entered the anteroom I heard Andrusha's peals of laughter and that meant\r
+that all was well."\r
+\r
+"I know! I know that feeling," said Nicholas. "But I mustn't go there--\r
+those stockings are to be a surprise for me."\r
+\r
+Pierre went to the children, and the shouting and laughter grew still\r
+louder.\r
+\r
+"Come, Anna Makarovna," Pierre's voice was heard saying, "come here into\r
+the middle of the room and at the word of command, 'One, two,' and when\r
+I say 'three'... You stand here, and you in my arms--well now! One,\r
+two!..." said Pierre, and a silence followed: "three!" and a rapturously\r
+breathless cry of children's voices filled the room. "Two, two!" they\r
+shouted.\r
+\r
+This meant two stockings, which by a secret process known only to\r
+herself Anna Makarovna used to knit at the same time on the same\r
+needles, and which, when they were ready, she always triumphantly drew,\r
+one out of the other, in the children's presence.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+Soon after this the children came in to say good night. They kissed\r
+everyone, the tutors and governesses made their bows, and they went out.\r
+Only young Nicholas and his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered to the\r
+boy to come downstairs.\r
+\r
+"No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me stay," replied\r
+Nicholas Bolkonski also in a whisper.\r
+\r
+"Ma tante, please let me stay," said he, going up to his aunt.\r
+\r
+His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess Mary\r
+glanced at him and turned to Pierre.\r
+\r
+"When you are here he can't tear himself away," she said.\r
+\r
+"I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles. Good night!" said\r
+Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned to young\r
+Nicholas with a smile. "You and I haven't seen anything of one another\r
+yet... How like he is growing, Mary!" he added, addressing Countess\r
+Mary.\r
+\r
+"Like my father?" asked the boy, flushing crimson and looking up at\r
+Pierre with bright, ecstatic eyes.\r
+\r
+Pierre nodded, and went on with what he had been saying when the\r
+children had interrupted. Countess Mary sat down doing woolwork; Natasha\r
+did not take her eyes off her husband. Nicholas and Denisov rose, asked\r
+for their pipes, smoked, went to fetch more tea from Sonya--who sat\r
+weary but resolute at the samovar--and questioned Pierre. The curly-\r
+headed, delicate boy sat with shining eyes unnoticed in a corner,\r
+starting every now and then and muttering something to himself, and\r
+evidently experiencing a new and powerful emotion as he turned his curly\r
+head, with his thin neck exposed by his turn-down collar, toward the\r
+place where Pierre sat.\r
+\r
+The conversation turned on the contemporary gossip about those in power,\r
+in which most people see the chief interest of home politics. Denisov,\r
+dissatisfied with the government on account of his own disappointments\r
+in the service, heard with pleasure of the things done in Petersburg\r
+which seemed to him stupid, and made forcible and sharp comments on what\r
+Pierre told them.\r
+\r
+"One used to have to be a German--now one must dance with Tatawinova and\r
+Madame Kwudener, and wead Ecka'tshausen and the bwethwen. Oh, they\r
+should let that fine fellow Bonaparte loose--he'd knock all this\r
+nonsense out of them! Fancy giving the command of the Semenov wegiment\r
+to a fellow like that Schwa'tz!" he cried.\r
+\r
+Nicholas, though free from Denisov's readiness to find fault with\r
+everything, also thought that discussion of the government was a very\r
+serious and weighty matter, and the fact that A had been appointed\r
+Minister of This and B Governor General of That, and that the Emperor\r
+had said so-and-so and this minister so-and-so, seemed to him very\r
+important. And so he thought it necessary to take an interest in these\r
+things and to question Pierre. The questions put by these two kept the\r
+conversation from changing its ordinary character of gossip about the\r
+higher government circles.\r
+\r
+But Natasha, knowing all her husband's ways and ideas, saw that he had\r
+long been wishing but had been unable to divert the conversation to\r
+another channel and express his own deeply felt idea for the sake of\r
+which he had gone to Petersburg to consult with his new friend Prince\r
+Theodore, and she helped him by asking how his affairs with Prince\r
+Theodore had gone.\r
+\r
+"What was it about?" asked Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"Always the same thing," said Pierre, looking round at his listeners.\r
+"Everybody sees that things are going so badly that they cannot be\r
+allowed to go on so and that it is the duty of all decent men to\r
+counteract it as far as they can."\r
+\r
+"What can decent men do?" Nicholas inquired, frowning slightly. "What\r
+can be done?"\r
+\r
+"Why, this..."\r
+\r
+"Come into my study," said Nicholas.\r
+\r
+Natasha, who had long expected to be fetched to nurse her baby, now\r
+heard the nurse calling her and went to the nursery. Countess Mary\r
+followed her. The men went into the study and little Nicholas Bolkonski\r
+followed them unnoticed by his uncle and sat down at the writing table\r
+in a shady corner by the window.\r
+\r
+"Well, what would you do?" asked Denisov.\r
+\r
+"Always some fantastic schemes," said Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"Why this," began Pierre, not sitting down but pacing the room,\r
+sometimes stopping short, gesticulating, and lisping: "the position in\r
+Petersburg is this: the Emperor does not look into anything. He has\r
+abandoned himself altogether to this mysticism" (Pierre could not\r
+tolerate mysticism in anyone now). "He seeks only for peace, and only\r
+these people sans foi ni loi * can give it him--people who recklessly\r
+hack at and strangle everything--Magnitski, Arakcheev, and tutti\r
+quanti.... You will agree that if you did not look after your estates\r
+yourself but only wanted a quiet life, the harsher your steward was the\r
+more readily your object might be attained," he said to Nicholas.\r
+\r
+\r
+* Without faith or law.\r
+\r
+"Well, what does that lead up to?" said Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"Well, everything is going to ruin! Robbery in the law courts, in the\r
+army nothing but flogging, drilling, and Military Settlements; the\r
+people are tortured, enlightenment is suppressed. All that is young and\r
+honest is crushed! Everyone sees that this cannot go on. Everything is\r
+strained to such a degree that it will certainly break," said Pierre (as\r
+those who examine the actions of any government have always said since\r
+governments began). "I told them just one thing in Petersburg."\r
+\r
+"Told whom?"\r
+\r
+"Well, you know whom," said Pierre, with a meaning glance from under his\r
+brows. "Prince Theodore and all those. To encourage culture and\r
+philanthropy is all very well of course. The aim is excellent but in the\r
+present circumstances something else is needed."\r
+\r
+At that moment Nicholas noticed the presence of his nephew. His face\r
+darkened and he went up to the boy.\r
+\r
+"Why are you here?"\r
+\r
+"Why? Let him be," said Pierre, taking Nicholas by the arm and\r
+continuing. "That is not enough, I told them. Something else is needed.\r
+When you stand expecting the overstrained string to snap at any moment,\r
+when everyone is expecting the inevitable catastrophe, as many as\r
+possible must join hands as closely as they can to withstand the general\r
+calamity. Everything that is young and strong is being enticed away and\r
+depraved. One is lured by women, another by honors, a third by ambition\r
+or money, and they go over to that camp. No independent men, such as you\r
+or I, are left. What I say is widen the scope of our society, let the\r
+mot d'ordre be not virtue alone but independence and action as well!"\r
+\r
+Nicholas, who had left his nephew, irritably pushed up an armchair, sat\r
+down in it, and listened to Pierre, coughing discontentedly and frowning\r
+more and more.\r
+\r
+"But action with what aim?" he cried. "And what position will you adopt\r
+toward the government?"\r
+\r
+"Why, the position of assistants. The society need not be secret if the\r
+government allows it. Not merely is it not hostile to government, but it\r
+is a society of true conservatives--a society of gentlemen in the full\r
+meaning of that word. It is only to prevent some Pugachev or other from\r
+killing my children and yours, and Arakcheev from sending me off to some\r
+Military Settlement. We join hands only for the public welfare and the\r
+general safety."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but it's a secret society and therefore a hostile and harmful one\r
+which can only cause harm."\r
+\r
+"Why? Did the Tugendbund which saved Europe" (they did not then venture\r
+to suggest that Russia had saved Europe) "do any harm? The Tugendbund is\r
+an alliance of virtue: it is love, mutual help... it is what Christ\r
+preached on the Cross."\r
+\r
+Natasha, who had come in during the conversation, looked joyfully at her\r
+husband. It was not what he was saying that pleased her--that did not\r
+even interest her, for it seemed to her that was all extremely simple\r
+and that she had known it a long time (it seemed so to her because she\r
+knew that it sprang from Pierre's whole soul), but it was his animated\r
+and enthusiastic appearance that made her glad.\r
+\r
+The boy with the thin neck stretching out from the turn-down collar--\r
+whom everyone had forgotten--gazed at Pierre with even greater and more\r
+rapturous joy. Every word of Pierre's burned into his heart, and with a\r
+nervous movement of his fingers he unconsciously broke the sealing wax\r
+and quill pens his hands came upon on his uncle's table.\r
+\r
+"It is not at all what you suppose; but that is what the German\r
+Tugendbund was, and what I am proposing."\r
+\r
+"No, my fwiend! The Tugendbund is all vewy well for the sausage eaters,\r
+but I don't understand it and can't even pwonounce it," interposed\r
+Denisov in a loud and resolute voice. "I agwee that evewything here is\r
+wotten and howwible, but the Tugendbund I don't understand. If we're not\r
+satisfied, let us have a bunt of our own. That's all wight. Je suis\r
+vot'e homme!" *\r
+\r
+\r
+* "I'm your man."\r
+\r
+Pierre smiled, Natasha began to laugh, but Nicholas knitted his brows\r
+still more and began proving to Pierre that there was no prospect of any\r
+great change and that all the danger he spoke of existed only in his\r
+imagination. Pierre maintained the contrary, and as his mental faculties\r
+were greater and more resourceful, Nicholas felt himself cornered. This\r
+made him still angrier, for he was fully convinced, not by reasoning but\r
+by something within him stronger than reason, of the justice of his\r
+opinion.\r
+\r
+"I will tell you this," he said, rising and trying with nervously\r
+twitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner, but finally\r
+abandoning the attempt. "I can't prove it to you. You say that\r
+everything here is rotten and that an overthrow is coming: I don't see\r
+it. But you also say that our oath of allegiance is a conditional\r
+matter, and to that I reply: 'You are my best friend, as you know, but\r
+if you formed a secret society and began working against the government-\r
+-be it what it may--I know it is my duty to obey the government. And if\r
+Arakcheev ordered me to lead a squadron against you and cut you down, I\r
+should not hesitate an instant, but should do it.' And you may argue\r
+about that as you like!"\r
+\r
+An awkward silence followed these words. Natasha was the first to speak,\r
+defending her husband and attacking her brother. Her defense was weak\r
+and inapt but she attained her object. The conversation was resumed, and\r
+no longer in the unpleasantly hostile tone of Nicholas' last remark.\r
+\r
+When they all got up to go in to supper, little Nicholas Bolkonski went\r
+up to Pierre, pale and with shining, radiant eyes.\r
+\r
+"Uncle Pierre, you... no... If Papa were alive... would he agree with\r
+you?" he asked.\r
+\r
+And Pierre suddenly realized what a special, independent, complex, and\r
+powerful process of thought and feeling must have been going on in this\r
+boy during that conversation, and remembering all he had said he\r
+regretted that the lad should have heard him. He had, however, to give\r
+him an answer.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I think so," he said reluctantly, and left the study.\r
+\r
+The lad looked down and seemed now for the first time to notice what he\r
+had done to the things on the table. He flushed and went up to Nicholas.\r
+\r
+"Uncle, forgive me, I did that... unintentionally," he said, pointing to\r
+the broken sealing wax and pens.\r
+\r
+Nicholas started angrily.\r
+\r
+"All right, all right," he said, throwing the bits under the table.\r
+\r
+And evidently suppressing his vexation with difficulty, he turned away\r
+from the boy.\r
+\r
+"You ought not to have been here at all," he said.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+The conversation at supper was not about politics or societies, but\r
+turned on the subject Nicholas liked best--recollections of 1812.\r
+Denisov started these and Pierre was particularly agreeable and amusing\r
+about them. The family separated on the most friendly terms.\r
+\r
+After supper Nicholas, having undressed in his study and given\r
+instructions to the steward who had been waiting for him, went to the\r
+bedroom in his dressing gown, where he found his wife still at her\r
+table, writing.\r
+\r
+"What are you writing, Mary?" Nicholas asked.\r
+\r
+Countess Mary blushed. She was afraid that what she was writing would\r
+not be understood or approved by her husband.\r
+\r
+She had wanted to conceal what she was writing from him, but at the same\r
+time was glad he had surprised her at it and that she would now have to\r
+tell him.\r
+\r
+"A diary, Nicholas," she replied, handing him a blue exercise book\r
+filled with her firm, bold writing.\r
+\r
+"A diary?" Nicholas repeated with a shade of irony, and he took up the\r
+book.\r
+\r
+It was in French.\r
+\r
+December 4. Today when Andrusha (her eldest boy) woke up he did not wish\r
+to dress and Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. He was naughty and\r
+obstinate. I tried threats, but he only grew angrier. Then I took the\r
+matter in hand: I left him alone and began with nurse's help to get the\r
+other children up, telling him that I did not love him. For a long time\r
+he was silent, as if astonished, then he jumped out of bed, ran to me in\r
+his shirt, and sobbed so that I could not calm him for a long time. It\r
+was plain that what troubled him most was that he had grieved me.\r
+Afterwards in the evening when I gave him his ticket, he again began\r
+crying piteously and kissing me. One can do anything with him by\r
+tenderness.\r
+\r
+"What is a 'ticket'?" Nicholas inquired.\r
+\r
+"I have begun giving the elder ones marks every evening, showing how\r
+they have behaved."\r
+\r
+Nicholas looked into the radiant eyes that were gazing at him, and\r
+continued to turn over the pages and read. In the diary was set down\r
+everything in the children's lives that seemed noteworthy to their\r
+mother as showing their characters or suggesting general reflections on\r
+educational methods. They were for the most part quite insignificant\r
+trifles, but did not seem so to the mother or to the father either, now\r
+that he read this diary about his children for the first time.\r
+\r
+Under the date "5" was entered:\r
+\r
+Mitya was naughty at table. Papa said he was to have no pudding. He had\r
+none, but looked so unhappily and greedily at the others while they were\r
+eating! I think that punishment by depriving children of sweets only\r
+develops their greediness. Must tell Nicholas this.\r
+\r
+Nicholas put down the book and looked at his wife. The radiant eyes\r
+gazed at him questioningly: would he approve or disapprove of her diary?\r
+There could be no doubt not only of his approval but also of his\r
+admiration for his wife.\r
+\r
+Perhaps it need not be done so pedantically, thought Nicholas, or even\r
+done at all, but this untiring, continual spiritual effort of which the\r
+sole aim was the children's moral welfare delighted him. Had Nicholas\r
+been able to analyze his feelings he would have found that his steady,\r
+tender, and proud love of his wife rested on his feeling of wonder at\r
+her spirituality and at the lofty moral world, almost beyond his reach,\r
+in which she had her being.\r
+\r
+He was proud of her intelligence and goodness, recognized his own\r
+insignificance beside her in the spiritual world, and rejoiced all the\r
+more that she with such a soul not only belonged to him but was part of\r
+himself.\r
+\r
+"I quite, quite approve, my dearest!" said he with a significant look,\r
+and after a short pause he added: "And I behaved badly today. You\r
+weren't in the study. We began disputing--Pierre and I--and I lost my\r
+temper. But he is impossible: such a child! I don't know what would\r
+become of him if Natasha didn't keep him in hand.... Have you any idea\r
+why he went to Petersburg? They have formed..."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I know," said Countess Mary. "Natasha told me."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, you know," Nicholas went on, growing hot at the mere\r
+recollection of their discussion, "he wanted to convince me that it is\r
+every honest man's duty to go against the government, and that the oath\r
+of allegiance and duty... I am sorry you weren't there. They all fell on\r
+me--Denisov and Natasha... Natasha is absurd. How she rules over him!\r
+And yet there need only be a discussion and she has no words of her own\r
+but only repeats his sayings..." added Nicholas, yielding to that\r
+irresistible inclination which tempts us to judge those nearest and\r
+dearest to us. He forgot that what he was saying about Natasha could\r
+have been applied word for word to himself in relation to his wife.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I have noticed that," said Countess Mary.\r
+\r
+"When I told him that duty and the oath were above everything, he\r
+started proving goodness knows what! A pity you were not there--what\r
+would you have said?"\r
+\r
+"As I see it you were quite right, and I told Natasha so. Pierre says\r
+everybody is suffering, tortured, and being corrupted, and that it is\r
+our duty to help our neighbor. Of course he is right there," said\r
+Countess Mary, "but he forgets that we have other duties nearer to us,\r
+duties indicated to us by God Himself, and that though we might expose\r
+ourselves to risks we must not risk our children."\r
+\r
+"Yes, that's it! That's just what I said to him," put in Nicholas, who\r
+fancied he really had said it. "But they insisted on their own view:\r
+love of one's neighbor and Christianity--and all this in the presence of\r
+young Nicholas, who had gone into my study and broke all my things."\r
+\r
+"Ah, Nicholas, do you know I am often troubled about little Nicholas,"\r
+said Countess Mary. "He is such an exceptional boy. I am afraid I\r
+neglect him in favor of my own: we all have children and relations while\r
+he has no one. He is constantly alone with his thoughts."\r
+\r
+"Well, I don't think you need reproach yourself on his account. All that\r
+the fondest mother could do for her son you have done and are doing for\r
+him, and of course I am glad of it. He is a fine lad, a fine lad! This\r
+evening he listened to Pierre in a sort of trance, and fancy--as we were\r
+going in to supper I looked and he had broken everything on my table to\r
+bits, and he told me of it himself at once! I never knew him to tell an\r
+untruth. A fine lad, a fine lad!" repeated Nicholas, who at heart was\r
+not fond of Nicholas Bolkonski but was always anxious to recognize that\r
+he was a fine lad.\r
+\r
+"Still, I am not the same as his own mother," said Countess Mary. "I\r
+feel I am not the same and it troubles me. A wonderful boy, but I am\r
+dreadfully afraid for him. It would be good for him to have companions."\r
+\r
+"Well it won't be for long. Next summer I'll take him to Petersburg,"\r
+said Nicholas. "Yes, Pierre always was a dreamer and always will be," he\r
+continued, returning to the talk in the study which had evidently\r
+disturbed him. "Well, what business is it of mine what goes on there--\r
+whether Arakcheev is bad, and all that? What business was it of mine\r
+when I married and was so deep in debt that I was threatened with\r
+prison, and had a mother who could not see or understand it? And then\r
+there are you and the children and our affairs. Is it for my own\r
+pleasure that I am at the farm or in the office from morning to night?\r
+No, but I know I must work to comfort my mother, to repay you, and not\r
+to leave the children such beggars as I was."\r
+\r
+Countess Mary wanted to tell him that man does not live by bread alone\r
+and that he attached too much importance to these matters. But she knew\r
+she must not say this and that it would be useless to do so. She only\r
+took his hand and kissed it. He took this as a sign of approval and a\r
+confirmation of his thoughts, and after a few minutes' reflection\r
+continued to think aloud.\r
+\r
+"You know, Mary, today Elias Mitrofanych" (this was his overseer) "came\r
+back from the Tambov estate and told me they are already offering eighty\r
+thousand rubles for the forest."\r
+\r
+And with an eager face Nicholas began to speak of the possibility of\r
+repurchasing Otradnoe before long, and added: "Another ten years of life\r
+and I shall leave the children... in an excellent position."\r
+\r
+Countess Mary listened to her husband and understood all that he told\r
+her. She knew that when he thought aloud in this way he would sometimes\r
+ask her what he had been saying, and be vexed if he noticed that she had\r
+been thinking about something else. But she had to force herself to\r
+attend, for what he was saying did not interest her at all. She looked\r
+at him and did not think, but felt, about something different. She felt\r
+a submissive tender love for this man who would never understand all\r
+that she understood, and this seemed to make her love for him still\r
+stronger and added a touch of passionate tenderness. Besides this\r
+feeling which absorbed her altogether and hindered her from following\r
+the details of her husband's plans, thoughts that had no connection with\r
+what he was saying flitted through her mind. She thought of her nephew.\r
+Her husband's account of the boy's agitation while Pierre was speaking\r
+struck her forcibly, and various traits of his gentle, sensitive\r
+character recurred to her mind; and while thinking of her nephew she\r
+thought also of her own children. She did not compare them with him, but\r
+compared her feeling for them with her feeling for him, and felt with\r
+regret that there was something lacking in her feeling for young\r
+Nicholas.\r
+\r
+Sometimes it seemed to her that this difference arose from the\r
+difference in their ages, but she felt herself to blame toward him and\r
+promised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the impossible--in\r
+this life to love her husband, her children, little Nicholas, and all\r
+her neighbors, as Christ loved mankind. Countess Mary's soul always\r
+strove toward the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could\r
+therefore never be at peace. A stern expression of the lofty, secret\r
+suffering of a soul burdened by the body appeared on her face. Nicholas\r
+gazed at her. "O God! What will become of us if she dies, as I always\r
+fear when her face is like that?" thought he, and placing himself before\r
+the icon he began to say his evening prayers.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+Natasha and Pierre, left alone, also began to talk as only a husband and\r
+wife can talk, that is, with extraordinary clearness and rapidity,\r
+understanding and expressing each other's thoughts in ways contrary to\r
+all rules of logic, without premises, deductions, or conclusions, and in\r
+a quite peculiar way. Natasha was so used to this kind of talk with her\r
+husband that for her it was the surest sign of something being wrong\r
+between them if Pierre followed a line of logical reasoning. When he\r
+began proving anything, or talking argumentatively and calmly and she,\r
+led on by his example, began to do the same, she knew that they were on\r
+the verge of a quarrel.\r
+\r
+From the moment they were alone and Natasha came up to him with wide-\r
+open happy eyes, and quickly seizing his head pressed it to her bosom,\r
+saying: "Now you are all mine, mine! You won't escape!"--from that\r
+moment this conversation began, contrary to all the laws of logic and\r
+contrary to them because quite different subjects were talked about at\r
+one and the same time. This simultaneous discussion of many topics did\r
+not prevent a clear understanding but on the contrary was the surest\r
+sign that they fully understood one another.\r
+\r
+Just as in a dream when all is uncertain, unreasoning, and\r
+contradictory, except the feeling that guides the dream, so in this\r
+intercourse contrary to all laws of reason, the words themselves were\r
+not consecutive and clear but only the feeling that prompted them.\r
+\r
+Natasha spoke to Pierre about her brother's life and doings, of how she\r
+had suffered and lacked life during his own absence, and of how she was\r
+fonder than ever of Mary, and how Mary was in every way better than\r
+herself. In saying this Natasha was sincere in acknowledging Mary's\r
+superiority, but at the same time by saying it she made a demand on\r
+Pierre that he should, all the same, prefer her to Mary and to all other\r
+women, and that now, especially after having seen many women in\r
+Petersburg, he should tell her so afresh.\r
+\r
+Pierre, answering Natasha's words, told her how intolerable it had been\r
+for him to meet ladies at dinners and balls in Petersburg.\r
+\r
+"I have quite lost the knack of talking to ladies," he said. "It was\r
+simply dull. Besides, I was very busy."\r
+\r
+Natasha looked intently at him and went on:\r
+\r
+"Mary is so splendid," she said. "How she understands children! It is as\r
+if she saw straight into their souls. Yesterday, for instance, Mitya was\r
+naughty..."\r
+\r
+"How like his father he is," Pierre interjected.\r
+\r
+Natasha knew why he mentioned Mitya's likeness to Nicholas: the\r
+recollection of his dispute with his brother-in-law was unpleasant and\r
+he wanted to know what Natasha thought of it.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas has the weakness of never agreeing with anything not generally\r
+accepted. But I understand that you value what opens up a fresh line,"\r
+said she, repeating words Pierre had once uttered.\r
+\r
+"No, the chief point is that to Nicholas ideas and discussions are an\r
+amusement--almost a pastime," said Pierre. "For instance, he is\r
+collecting a library and has made it a rule not to buy a new book till\r
+he has read what he had already bought--Sismondi and Rousseau and\r
+Montesquieu," he added with a smile. "You know how much I..." he began\r
+to soften down what he had said; but Natasha interrupted him to show\r
+that this was unnecessary.\r
+\r
+"So you say ideas are an amusement to him...."\r
+\r
+"Yes, and for me nothing else is serious. All the time in Petersburg I\r
+saw everyone as in a dream. When I am taken up by a thought, all else is\r
+mere amusement."\r
+\r
+"Ah, I'm so sorry I wasn't there when you met the children," said\r
+Natasha. "Which was most delighted? Lisa, I'm sure."\r
+\r
+"Yes," Pierre replied, and went on with what was in his mind. "Nicholas\r
+says we ought not to think. But I can't help it. Besides, when I was in\r
+Petersburg I felt (I can say this to you) that the whole affair would go\r
+to pieces without me--everyone was pulling his own way. But I succeeded\r
+in uniting them all; and then my idea is so clear and simple. You see, I\r
+don't say that we ought to oppose this and that. We may be mistaken.\r
+What I say is: 'Join hands, you who love the right, and let there be but\r
+one banner--that of active virtue.' Prince Sergey is a fine fellow and\r
+clever."\r
+\r
+Natasha would have had no doubt as to the greatness of Pierre's idea,\r
+but one thing disconcerted her. "Can a man so important and necessary to\r
+society be also my husband? How did this happen?" She wished to express\r
+this doubt to him. "Now who could decide whether he is really cleverer\r
+than all the others?" she asked herself, and passed in review all those\r
+whom Pierre most respected. Judging by what he had said there was no one\r
+he had respected so highly as Platon Karataev.\r
+\r
+"Do you know what I am thinking about?" she asked. "About Platon\r
+Karataev. Would he have approved of you now, do you think?"\r
+\r
+Pierre was not at all surprised at this question. He understood his\r
+wife's line of thought.\r
+\r
+"Platon Karataev?" he repeated, and pondered, evidently sincerely trying\r
+to imagine Karataev's opinion on the subject. "He would not have\r
+understood... yet perhaps he would."\r
+\r
+"I love you awfully!" Natasha suddenly said. "Awfully, awfully!"\r
+\r
+"No, he would not have approved," said Pierre, after reflection. "What\r
+he would have approved of is our family life. He was always so anxious\r
+to find seemliness, happiness, and peace in everything, and I should\r
+have been proud to let him see us. There now--you talk of my absence,\r
+but you wouldn't believe what a special feeling I have for you after a\r
+separation...."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I should think..." Natasha began.\r
+\r
+"No, it's not that. I never leave off loving you. And one couldn't love\r
+more, but this is something special.... Yes, of course-" he did not\r
+finish because their eyes meeting said the rest.\r
+\r
+"What nonsense it is," Natasha suddenly exclaimed, "about honeymoons,\r
+and that the greatest happiness is at first! On the contrary, now is the\r
+best of all. If only you did not go away! Do you remember how we\r
+quarreled? And it was always my fault. Always mine. And what we\r
+quarreled about--I don't even remember!"\r
+\r
+"Always about the same thing," said Pierre with a smile. "Jealo..."\r
+\r
+"Don't say it! I can't bear it!" Natasha cried, and her eyes glittered\r
+coldly and vindictively. "Did you see her?" she added, after a pause.\r
+\r
+"No, and if I had I shouldn't have recognized her."\r
+\r
+They were silent for a while.\r
+\r
+"Oh, do you know? While you were talking in the study I was looking at\r
+you," Natasha began, evidently anxious to disperse the cloud that had\r
+come over them. "You are as like him as two peas--like the boy." (She\r
+meant her little son.) "Oh, it's time to go to him.... The milk's\r
+come.... But I'm sorry to leave you."\r
+\r
+They were silent for a few seconds. Then suddenly turning to one another\r
+at the same time they both began to speak. Pierre began with self-\r
+satisfaction and enthusiasm, Natasha with a quiet, happy smile. Having\r
+interrupted one another they both stopped to let the other continue.\r
+\r
+"No. What did you say? Go on, go on."\r
+\r
+"No, you go on, I was talking nonsense," said Natasha.\r
+\r
+Pierre finished what he had begun. It was the sequel to his complacent\r
+reflections on his success in Petersburg. At that moment it seemed to\r
+him that he was chosen to give a new direction to the whole of Russian\r
+society and to the whole world.\r
+\r
+"I only wished to say that ideas that have great results are always\r
+simple ones. My whole idea is that if vicious people are united and\r
+constitute a power, then honest folk must do the same. Now that's simple\r
+enough."\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"And what were you going to say?"\r
+\r
+"I? Only nonsense."\r
+\r
+"But all the same?"\r
+\r
+"Oh nothing, only a trifle," said Natasha, smilingly still more\r
+brightly. "I only wanted to tell you about Petya: today nurse was coming\r
+to take him from me, and he laughed, shut his eyes, and clung to me. I'm\r
+sure he thought he was hiding. Awfully sweet! There, now he's crying.\r
+Well, good-by!" and she left the room.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile downstairs in young Nicholas Bolkonski's bedroom a little lamp\r
+was burning as usual. (The boy was afraid of the dark and they could not\r
+cure him of it.) Dessalles slept propped up on four pillows and his\r
+Roman nose emitted sounds of rhythmic snoring. Little Nicholas, who had\r
+just waked up in a cold perspiration, sat up in bed and gazed before him\r
+with wide-open eyes. He had awaked from a terrible dream. He had dreamed\r
+that he and Uncle Pierre, wearing helmets such as were depicted in his\r
+Plutarch, were leading a huge army. The army was made up of white\r
+slanting lines that filled the air like the cobwebs that float about in\r
+autumn and which Dessalles called les fils de la Vierge. In front was\r
+Glory, which was similar to those threads but rather thicker. He and\r
+Pierre were borne along lightly and joyously, nearer and nearer to their\r
+goal. Suddenly the threads that moved them began to slacken and become\r
+entangled and it grew difficult to move. And Uncle Nicholas stood before\r
+them in a stern and threatening attitude.\r
+\r
+"Have you done this?" he said, pointing to some broken sealing wax and\r
+pens. "I loved you, but I have orders from Arakcheev and will kill the\r
+first of you who moves forward." Little Nicholas turned to look at\r
+Pierre but Pierre was no longer there. In his place was his father--\r
+Prince Andrew--and his father had neither shape nor form, but he\r
+existed, and when little Nicholas perceived him he grew faint with love:\r
+he felt himself powerless, limp, and formless. His father caressed and\r
+pitied him. But Uncle Nicholas came nearer and nearer to them. Terror\r
+seized young Nicholas and he awoke.\r
+\r
+"My father!" he thought. (Though there were two good portraits of Prince\r
+Andrew in the house, Nicholas never imagined him in human form.) "My\r
+father has been with me and caressed me. He approved of me and of Uncle\r
+Pierre. Whatever he may tell me, I will do it. Mucius Scaevola burned\r
+his hand. Why should not the same sort of thing happen to me? I know\r
+they want me to learn. And I will learn. But someday I shall have\r
+finished learning, and then I will do something. I only pray God that\r
+something may happen to me such as happened to Plutarch's men, and I\r
+will act as they did. I will do better. Everyone shall know me, love me,\r
+and be delighted with me!" And suddenly his bosom heaved with sobs and\r
+he began to cry.\r
+\r
+"Are you ill?" he heard Dessalles' voice asking.\r
+\r
+"No," answered Nicholas, and lay back on his pillow.\r
+\r
+"He is good and kind and I am fond of him!" he thought of Dessalles.\r
+"But Uncle Pierre! Oh, what a wonderful man he is! And my father? Oh,\r
+Father, Father! Yes, I will do something with which even he would be\r
+satisfied...."\r
+\r
+SECOND EPILOGUE\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+History is the life of nations and of humanity. To seize and put into\r
+words, to describe directly the life of humanity or even of a single\r
+nation, appears impossible.\r
+\r
+The ancient historians all employed one and the same method to describe\r
+and seize the apparently elusive--the life of a people. They described\r
+the activity of individuals who ruled the people, and regarded the\r
+activity of those men as representing the activity of the whole nation.\r
+\r
+The question: how did individuals make nations act as they wished and by\r
+what was the will of these individuals themselves guided? the ancients\r
+met by recognizing a divinity which subjected the nations to the will of\r
+a chosen man, and guided the will of that chosen man so as to accomplish\r
+ends that were predestined.\r
+\r
+For the ancients these questions were solved by a belief in the direct\r
+participation of the Deity in human affairs.\r
+\r
+Modern history, in theory, rejects both these principles.\r
+\r
+It would seem that having rejected the belief of the ancients in man's\r
+subjection to the Deity and in a predetermined aim toward which nations\r
+are led, modern history should study not the manifestations of power but\r
+the causes that produce it. But modern history has not done this. Having\r
+in theory rejected the view held by the ancients, it still follows them\r
+in practice.\r
+\r
+Instead of men endowed with divine authority and directly guided by the\r
+will of God, modern history has given us either heroes endowed with\r
+extraordinary, superhuman capacities, or simply men of very various\r
+kinds, from monarchs to journalists, who lead the masses. Instead of the\r
+former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations,\r
+which ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of\r
+humanity, modern history has postulated its own aims--the welfare of the\r
+French, German, or English people, or, in its highest abstraction, the\r
+welfare and civilization of humanity in general, by which is usually\r
+meant that of the peoples occupying a small northwesterly portion of a\r
+large continent.\r
+\r
+Modern history has rejected the beliefs of the ancients without\r
+replacing them by a new conception, and the logic of the situation has\r
+obliged the historians, after they had apparently rejected the divine\r
+authority of the kings and the "fate" of the ancients, to reach the same\r
+conclusion by another road, that is, to recognize (1) nations guided by\r
+individual men, and (2) the existence of a known aim to which these\r
+nations and humanity at large are tending.\r
+\r
+At the basis of the works of all the modern historians from Gibbon to\r
+Buckle, despite their seeming disagreements and the apparent novelty of\r
+their outlooks, lie those two old, unavoidable assumptions.\r
+\r
+In the first place the historian describes the activity of individuals\r
+who in his opinion have directed humanity (one historian considers only\r
+monarchs, generals, and ministers as being such men, while another\r
+includes also orators, learned men, reformers, philosophers, and poets).\r
+Secondly, it is assumed that the goal toward which humanity is being led\r
+is known to the historians: to one of them this goal is the greatness of\r
+the Roman, Spanish, or French realm; to another it is liberty, equality,\r
+and a certain kind of civilization of a small corner of the world called\r
+Europe.\r
+\r
+In 1789 a ferment arises in Paris; it grows, spreads, and is expressed\r
+by a movement of peoples from west to east. Several times it moves\r
+eastward and collides with a countermovement from the east westward. In\r
+1812 it reaches its extreme limit, Moscow, and then, with remarkable\r
+symmetry, a countermovement occurs from east to west, attracting to it,\r
+as the first movement had done, the nations of middle Europe. The\r
+counter movement reaches the starting point of the first movement in the\r
+west--Paris--and subsides.\r
+\r
+During that twenty-year period an immense number of fields were left\r
+untilled, houses were burned, trade changed its direction, millions of\r
+men migrated, were impoverished, or were enriched, and millions of\r
+Christian men professing the law of love of their fellows slew one\r
+another.\r
+\r
+What does all this mean? Why did it happen? What made those people burn\r
+houses and slay their fellow men? What were the causes of these events?\r
+What force made men act so? These are the instinctive, plain, and most\r
+legitimate questions humanity asks itself when it encounters the\r
+monuments and tradition of that period.\r
+\r
+For a reply to these questions the common sense of mankind turns to the\r
+science of history, whose aim is to enable nations and humanity to know\r
+themselves.\r
+\r
+If history had retained the conception of the ancients it would have\r
+said that God, to reward or punish his people, gave Napoleon power and\r
+directed his will to the fulfillment of the divine ends, and that reply\r
+would have been clear and complete. One might believe or disbelieve in\r
+the divine significance of Napoleon, but for anyone believing in it\r
+there would have been nothing unintelligible in the history of that\r
+period, nor would there have been any contradictions.\r
+\r
+But modern history cannot give that reply. Science does not admit the\r
+conception of the ancients as to the direct participation of the Deity\r
+in human affairs, and therefore history ought to give other answers.\r
+\r
+Modern history replying to these questions says: you want to know what\r
+this movement means, what caused it, and what force produced these\r
+events? Then listen:\r
+\r
+"Louis XIV was a very proud and self-confident man; he had such and such\r
+mistresses and such and such ministers and he ruled France badly. His\r
+descendants were weak men and they too ruled France badly. And they had\r
+such and such favorites and such and such mistresses. Moreover, certain\r
+men wrote some books at that time. At the end of the eighteenth century\r
+there were a couple of dozen men in Paris who began to talk about all\r
+men being free and equal. This caused people all over France to begin to\r
+slash at and drown one another. They killed the king and many other\r
+people. At that time there was in France a man of genius--Napoleon. He\r
+conquered everybody everywhere--that is, he killed many people because\r
+he was a great genius. And for some reason he went to kill Africans, and\r
+killed them so well and was so cunning and wise that when he returned to\r
+France he ordered everybody to obey him, and they all obeyed him. Having\r
+become an Emperor he again went out to kill people in Italy, Austria,\r
+and Prussia. And there too he killed a great many. In Russia there was\r
+an Emperor, Alexander, who decided to restore order in Europe and\r
+therefore fought against Napoleon. In 1807 he suddenly made friends with\r
+him, but in 1811 they again quarreled and again began killing many\r
+people. Napoleon led six hundred thousand men into Russia and captured\r
+Moscow; then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and the Emperor\r
+Alexander, helped by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to\r
+arm against the disturber of its peace. All Napoleon's allies suddenly\r
+became his enemies and their forces advanced against the fresh forces he\r
+raised. The Allies defeated Napoleon, entered Paris, forced Napoleon to\r
+abdicate, and sent him to the island of Elba, not depriving him of the\r
+title of Emperor and showing him every respect, though five years before\r
+and one year later they all regarded him as an outlaw and a brigand.\r
+Then Louis XVIII, who till then had been the laughingstock both of the\r
+French and the Allies, began to reign. And Napoleon, shedding tears\r
+before his Old Guards, renounced the throne and went into exile. Then\r
+the skillful statesmen and diplomatists (especially Talleyrand, who\r
+managed to sit down in a particular chair before anyone else and thereby\r
+extended the frontiers of France) talked in Vienna and by these\r
+conversations made the nations happy or unhappy. Suddenly the\r
+diplomatists and monarchs nearly quarreled and were on the point of\r
+again ordering their armies to kill one another, but just then Napoleon\r
+arrived in France with a battalion, and the French, who had been hating\r
+him, immediately all submitted to him. But the Allied monarchs were\r
+angry at this and went to fight the French once more. And they defeated\r
+the genius Napoleon and, suddenly recognizing him as a brigand, sent him\r
+to the island of St. Helena. And the exile, separated from the beloved\r
+France so dear to his heart, died a lingering death on that rock and\r
+bequeathed his great deeds to posterity. But in Europe a reaction\r
+occurred and the sovereigns once again all began to oppress their\r
+subjects."\r
+\r
+It would be a mistake to think that this is ironic--a caricature of the\r
+historical accounts. On the contrary it is a very mild expression of the\r
+contradictory replies, not meeting the questions, which all the\r
+historians give, from the compilers of memoirs and the histories of\r
+separate states to the writers of general histories and the new\r
+histories of the culture of that period.\r
+\r
+The strangeness and absurdity of these replies arise from the fact that\r
+modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one has asked.\r
+\r
+If the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of\r
+humanity and of the peoples, the first question--in the absence of a\r
+reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible--is: what is the\r
+power that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies\r
+either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very\r
+proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books.\r
+\r
+All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not\r
+what was asked. All that would be interesting if we recognized a divine\r
+power based on itself and always consistently directing its nations\r
+through Napoleons, Louis-es, and writers; but we do not acknowledge such\r
+a power, and therefore before speaking about Napoleons, Louis-es, and\r
+authors, we ought to be shown the connection existing between these men\r
+and the movement of the nations.\r
+\r
+If instead of a divine power some other force has appeared, it should be\r
+explained in what this new force consists, for the whole interest of\r
+history lies precisely in that force.\r
+\r
+History seems to assume that this force is self-evident and known to\r
+everyone. But in spite of every desire to regard it as known, anyone\r
+reading many historical works cannot help doubting whether this new\r
+force, so variously understood by the historians themselves, is really\r
+quite well known to everybody.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+What force moves the nations?\r
+\r
+Biographical historians and historians of separate nations understand\r
+this force as a power inherent in heroes and rulers. In their narration\r
+events occur solely by the will of a Napoleon, and Alexander, or in\r
+general of the persons they describe. The answers given by this kind of\r
+historian to the question of what force causes events to happen are\r
+satisfactory only as long as there is but one historian to each event.\r
+As soon as historians of different nationalities and tendencies begin to\r
+describe the same event, the replies they give immediately lose all\r
+meaning, for this force is understood by them all not only differently\r
+but often in quite contradictory ways. One historian says that an event\r
+was produced by Napoleon's power, another that it was produced by\r
+Alexander's, a third that it was due to the power of some other person.\r
+Besides this, historians of that kind contradict each other even in\r
+their statement as to the force on which the authority of some\r
+particular person was based. Thiers, a Bonapartist, says that Napoleon's\r
+power was based on his virtue and genius. Lanfrey, a Republican, says it\r
+was based on his trickery and deception of the people. So the historians\r
+of this class, by mutually destroying one another's positions, destroy\r
+the understanding of the force which produces events, and furnish no\r
+reply to history's essential question.\r
+\r
+Writers of universal history who deal with all the nations seem to\r
+recognize how erroneous is the specialist historians' view of the force\r
+which produces events. They do not recognize it as a power inherent in\r
+heroes and rulers, but as the resultant of a multiplicity of variously\r
+directed forces. In describing a war or the subjugation of a people, a\r
+general historian looks for the cause of the event not in the power of\r
+one man, but in the interaction of many persons connected with the\r
+event.\r
+\r
+According to this view the power of historical personages, represented\r
+as the product of many forces, can no longer, it would seem, be regarded\r
+as a force that itself produces events. Yet in most cases universal\r
+historians still employ the conception of power as a force that itself\r
+produces events, and treat it as their cause. In their exposition, an\r
+historic character is first the product of his time, and his power only\r
+the resultant of various forces, and then his power is itself a force\r
+producing events. Gervinus, Schlosser, and others, for instance, at one\r
+time prove Napoleon to be a product of the Revolution, of the ideas of\r
+1789 and so forth, and at another plainly say that the campaign of 1812\r
+and other things they do not like were simply the product of Napoleon's\r
+misdirected will, and that the very ideas of 1789 were arrested in their\r
+development by Napoleon's caprice. The ideas of the Revolution and the\r
+general temper of the age produced Napoleon's power. But Napoleon's\r
+power suppressed the ideas of the Revolution and the general temper of\r
+the age.\r
+\r
+This curious contradiction is not accidental. Not only does it occur at\r
+every step, but the universal historians' accounts are all made up of a\r
+chain of such contradictions. This contradiction occurs because after\r
+entering the field of analysis the universal historians stop halfway.\r
+\r
+To find component forces equal to the composite or resultant force, the\r
+sum of the components must equal the resultant. This condition is never\r
+observed by the universal historians, and so to explain the resultant\r
+forces they are obliged to admit, in addition to the insufficient\r
+components, another unexplained force affecting the resultant action.\r
+\r
+Specialist historians describing the campaign of 1813 or the restoration\r
+of the Bourbons plainly assert that these events were produced by the\r
+will of Alexander. But the universal historian Gervinus, refuting this\r
+opinion of the specialist historian, tries to prove that the campaign of\r
+1813 and the restoration of the Bourbons were due to other things beside\r
+Alexander's will--such as the activity of Stein, Metternich, Madame de\r
+Stael, Talleyrand, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and others. The historian\r
+evidently decomposes Alexander's power into the components: Talleyrand,\r
+Chateaubriand, and the rest--but the sum of the components, that is, the\r
+interactions of Chateaubriand, Talleyrand, Madame de Stael, and the\r
+others, evidently does not equal the resultant, namely the phenomenon of\r
+millions of Frenchmen submitting to the Bourbons. That Chateaubriand,\r
+Madame de Stael, and others spoke certain words to one another only\r
+affected their mutual relations but does not account for the submission\r
+of millions. And therefore to explain how from these relations of theirs\r
+the submission of millions of people resulted--that is, how component\r
+forces equal to one A gave a resultant equal to a thousand times A--the\r
+historian is again obliged to fall back on power--the force he had\r
+denied--and to recognize it as the resultant of the forces, that is, he\r
+has to admit an unexplained force acting on the resultant. And that is\r
+just what the universal historians do, and consequently they not only\r
+contradict the specialist historians but contradict themselves.\r
+\r
+Peasants having no clear idea of the cause of rain, say, according to\r
+whether they want rain or fine weather: "The wind has blown the clouds\r
+away," or, "The wind has brought up the clouds." And in the same way the\r
+universal historians sometimes, when it pleases them and fits in with\r
+their theory, say that power is the result of events, and sometimes,\r
+when they want to prove something else, say that power produces events.\r
+\r
+A third class of historians--the so-called historians of culture--\r
+following the path laid down by the universal historians who sometimes\r
+accept writers and ladies as forces producing events--again take that\r
+force to be something quite different. They see it in what is called\r
+culture--in mental activity.\r
+\r
+The historians of culture are quite consistent in regard to their\r
+progenitors, the writers of universal histories, for if historical\r
+events may be explained by the fact that certain persons treated one\r
+another in such and such ways, why not explain them by the fact that\r
+such and such people wrote such and such books? Of the immense number of\r
+indications accompanying every vital phenomenon, these historians select\r
+the indication of intellectual activity and say that this indication is\r
+the cause. But despite their endeavors to prove that the cause of events\r
+lies in intellectual activity, only by a great stretch can one admit\r
+that there is any connection between intellectual activity and the\r
+movement of peoples, and in no case can one admit that intellectual\r
+activity controls people's actions, for that view is not confirmed by\r
+such facts as the very cruel murders of the French Revolution resulting\r
+from the doctrine of the equality of man, or the very cruel wars and\r
+executions resulting from the preaching of love.\r
+\r
+But even admitting as correct all the cunningly devised arguments with\r
+which these histories are filled--admitting that nations are governed by\r
+some undefined force called an idea--history's essential question still\r
+remains unanswered, and to the former power of monarchs and to the\r
+influence of advisers and other people introduced by the universal\r
+historians, another, newer force--the idea--is added, the connection of\r
+which with the masses needs explanation. It is possible to understand\r
+that Napoleon had power and so events occurred; with some effort one may\r
+even conceive that Napoleon together with other influences was the cause\r
+of an event; but how a book, Le Contrat Social, had the effect of making\r
+Frenchmen begin to drown one another cannot be understood without an\r
+explanation of the causal nexus of this new force with the event.\r
+\r
+Undoubtedly some relation exists between all who live contemporaneously,\r
+and so it is possible to find some connection between the intellectual\r
+activity of men and their historical movements, just as such a\r
+connection may be found between the movements of humanity and commerce,\r
+handicraft, gardening, or anything else you please. But why intellectual\r
+activity is considered by the historians of culture to be the cause or\r
+expression of the whole historical movement is hard to understand. Only\r
+the following considerations can have led the historians to such a\r
+conclusion: (1) that history is written by learned men, and so it is\r
+natural and agreeable for them to think that the activity of their class\r
+supplies the basis of the movement of all humanity, just as a similar\r
+belief is natural and agreeable to traders, agriculturists, and soldiers\r
+(if they do not express it, that is merely because traders and soldiers\r
+do not write history), and (2) that spiritual activity, enlightenment,\r
+civilization, culture, ideas, are all indistinct, indefinite conceptions\r
+under whose banner it is very easy to use words having a still less\r
+definite meaning, and which can therefore be readily introduced into any\r
+theory.\r
+\r
+But not to speak of the intrinsic quality of histories of this kind\r
+(which may possibly even be of use to someone for something) the\r
+histories of culture, to which all general histories tend more and more\r
+to approximate, are significant from the fact that after seriously and\r
+minutely examining various religious, philosophic, and political\r
+doctrines as causes of events, as soon as they have to describe an\r
+actual historic event such as the campaign of 1812 for instance, they\r
+involuntarily describe it as resulting from an exercise of power--and\r
+say plainly that that was the result of Napoleon's will. Speaking so,\r
+the historians of culture involuntarily contradict themselves, and show\r
+that the new force they have devised does not account for what happens\r
+in history, and that history can only be explained by introducing a\r
+power which they apparently do not recognize.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+A locomotive is moving. Someone asks: "What moves it?" A peasant says\r
+the devil moves it. Another man says the locomotive moves because its\r
+wheels go round. A third asserts that the cause of its movement lies in\r
+the smoke which the wind carries away.\r
+\r
+The peasant is irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation. To\r
+refute him someone would have to prove to him that there is no devil, or\r
+another peasant would have to explain to him that it is not the devil\r
+but a German, who moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result of the\r
+contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. But the man who\r
+says that the movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself, for\r
+having once begun to analyze he ought to go on and explain further why\r
+the wheels go round; and till he has reached the ultimate cause of the\r
+movement of the locomotive in the pressure of steam in the boiler, he\r
+has no right to stop in his search for the cause. The man who explains\r
+the movement of the locomotive by the smoke that is carried back has\r
+noticed that the wheels do not supply an explanation and has taken the\r
+first sign that occurs to him and in his turn has offered that as an\r
+explanation.\r
+\r
+The only conception that can explain the movement of the locomotive is\r
+that of a force commensurate with the movement observed.\r
+\r
+The only conception that can explain the movement of the peoples is that\r
+of some force commensurate with the whole movement of the peoples.\r
+\r
+Yet to supply this conception various historians take forces of\r
+different kinds, all of which are incommensurate with the movement\r
+observed. Some see it as a force directly inherent in heroes, as the\r
+peasant sees the devil in the locomotive; others as a force resulting\r
+from several other forces, like the movement of the wheels; others again\r
+as an intellectual influence, like the smoke that is blown away.\r
+\r
+So long as histories are written of separate individuals, whether\r
+Caesars, Alexanders, Luthers, or Voltaires, and not the histories of\r
+all, absolutely all those who take part in an event, it is quite\r
+impossible to describe the movement of humanity without the conception\r
+of a force compelling men to direct their activity toward a certain end.\r
+And the only such conception known to historians is that of power.\r
+\r
+This conception is the one handle by means of which the material of\r
+history, as at present expounded, can be dealt with, and anyone who\r
+breaks that handle off, as Buckle did, without finding some other method\r
+of treating historical material, merely deprives himself of the one\r
+possible way of dealing with it. The necessity of the conception of\r
+power as an explanation of historical events is best demonstrated by the\r
+universal historians and historians of culture themselves, for they\r
+professedly reject that conception but inevitably have recourse to it at\r
+every step.\r
+\r
+In dealing with humanity's inquiry, the science of history up to now is\r
+like money in circulation--paper money and coin. The biographies and\r
+special national histories are like paper money. They can be used and\r
+can circulate and fulfill their purpose without harm to anyone and even\r
+advantageously, as long as no one asks what is the security behind them.\r
+You need only forget to ask how the will of heroes produces events, and\r
+such histories as Thiers' will be interesting and instructive and may\r
+perhaps even possess a tinge of poetry. But just as doubts of the real\r
+value of paper money arise either because, being easy to make, too much\r
+of it gets made or because people try to exchange it for gold, so also\r
+doubts concerning the real value of such histories arise either because\r
+too many of them are written or because in his simplicity of heart\r
+someone inquires: by what force did Napoleon do this?--that is, wants to\r
+exchange the current paper money for the real gold of actual\r
+comprehension.\r
+\r
+The writers of universal histories and of the history of culture are\r
+like people who, recognizing the defects of paper money, decide to\r
+substitute for it money made of metal that has not the specific gravity\r
+of gold. It may indeed make jingling coin, but will do no more than\r
+that. Paper money may deceive the ignorant, but nobody is deceived by\r
+tokens of base metal that have no value but merely jingle. As gold is\r
+gold only if it is serviceable not merely for exchange but also for use,\r
+so universal historians will be valuable only when they can reply to\r
+history's essential question: what is power? The universal historians\r
+give contradictory replies to that question, while the historians of\r
+culture evade it and answer something quite different. And as counters\r
+of imitation gold can be used only among a group of people who agree to\r
+accept them as gold, or among those who do not know the nature of gold,\r
+so universal historians and historians of culture, not answering\r
+humanity's essential question, serve as currency for some purposes of\r
+their own, only in universities and among the mass of readers who have a\r
+taste for what they call "serious reading."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+Having abandoned the conception of the ancients as to the divine\r
+subjection of the will of a nation to some chosen man and the subjection\r
+of that man's will to the Deity, history cannot without contradictions\r
+take a single step till it has chosen one of two things: either a return\r
+to the former belief in the direct intervention of the Deity in human\r
+affairs or a definite explanation of the meaning of the force producing\r
+historical events and termed "power."\r
+\r
+A return to the first is impossible, the belief has been destroyed; and\r
+so it is essential to explain what is meant by power.\r
+\r
+Napoleon ordered an army to be raised and go to war. We are so\r
+accustomed to that idea and have become so used to it that the question:\r
+why did six hundred thousand men go to fight when Napoleon uttered\r
+certain words, seems to us senseless. He had the power and so what he\r
+ordered was done.\r
+\r
+This reply is quite satisfactory if we believe that the power was given\r
+him by God. But as soon as we do not admit that, it becomes essential to\r
+determine what is this power of one man over others.\r
+\r
+It cannot be the direct physical power of a strong man over a weak one--\r
+a domination based on the application or threat of physical force, like\r
+the power of Hercules; nor can it be based on the effect of moral force,\r
+as in their simplicity some historians think who say that the leading\r
+figures in history are heroes, that is, men gifted with a special\r
+strength of soul and mind called genius. This power cannot be based on\r
+the predominance of moral strength, for, not to mention heroes such as\r
+Napoleon about whose moral qualities opinions differ widely, history\r
+shows us that neither a Louis XI nor a Metternich, who ruled over\r
+millions of people, had any particular moral qualities, but on the\r
+contrary were generally morally weaker than any of the millions they\r
+ruled over.\r
+\r
+If the source of power lies neither in the physical nor in the moral\r
+qualities of him who possesses it, it must evidently be looked for\r
+elsewhere--in the relation to the people of the man who wields the\r
+power.\r
+\r
+And that is how power is understood by the science of jurisprudence,\r
+that exchange bank of history which offers to exchange history's\r
+understanding of power for true gold.\r
+\r
+Power is the collective will of the people transferred, by expressed or\r
+tacit consent, to their chosen rulers.\r
+\r
+In the domain of jurisprudence, which consists of discussions of how a\r
+state and power might be arranged were it possible for all that to be\r
+arranged, it is all very clear; but when applied to history that\r
+definition of power needs explanation.\r
+\r
+The science of jurisprudence regards the state and power as the ancients\r
+regarded fire--namely, as something existing absolutely. But for\r
+history, the state and power are merely phenomena, just as for modern\r
+physics fire is not an element but a phenomenon.\r
+\r
+From this fundamental difference between the view held by history and\r
+that held by jurisprudence, it follows that jurisprudence can tell\r
+minutely how in its opinion power should be constituted and what power--\r
+existing immutably outside time--is, but to history's questions about\r
+the meaning of the mutations of power in time it can answer nothing.\r
+\r
+If power be the collective will of the people transferred to their\r
+ruler, was Pugachev a representative of the will of the people? If not,\r
+then why was Napoleon I? Why was Napoleon III a criminal when he was\r
+taken prisoner at Boulogne, and why, later on, were those criminals whom\r
+he arrested?\r
+\r
+Do palace revolutions--in which sometimes only two or three people take\r
+part--transfer the will of the people to a new ruler? In international\r
+relations, is the will of the people also transferred to their\r
+conqueror? Was the will of the Confederation of the Rhine transferred to\r
+Napoleon in 1806? Was the will of the Russian people transferred to\r
+Napoleon in 1809, when our army in alliance with the French went to\r
+fight the Austrians?\r
+\r
+To these questions three answers are possible:\r
+\r
+Either to assume (1) that the will of the people is always\r
+unconditionally transferred to the ruler or rulers they have chosen, and\r
+that therefore every emergence of a new power, every struggle against\r
+the power once appointed, should be absolutely regarded as an\r
+infringement of the real power; or (2) that the will of the people is\r
+transferred to the rulers conditionally, under definite and known\r
+conditions, and to show that all limitations, conflicts, and even\r
+destructions of power result from a nonobservance by the rulers of the\r
+conditions under which their power was entrusted to them; or (3) that\r
+the will of the people is delegated to the rulers conditionally, but\r
+that the conditions are unknown and indefinite, and that the appearance\r
+of several authorities, their struggles and their falls, result solely\r
+from the greater or lesser fulfillment by the rulers of these unknown\r
+conditions on which the will of the people is transferred from some\r
+people to others.\r
+\r
+And these are the three ways in which the historians do explain the\r
+relation of the people to their rulers.\r
+\r
+Some historians--those biographical and specialist historians already\r
+referred to--in their simplicity failing to understand the question of\r
+the meaning of power, seem to consider that the collective will of the\r
+people is unconditionally transferred to historical persons, and\r
+therefore when describing some single state they assume that particular\r
+power to be the one absolute and real power, and that any other force\r
+opposing this is not a power but a violation of power--mere violence.\r
+\r
+Their theory, suitable for primitive and peaceful periods of history,\r
+has the inconvenience--in application to complex and stormy periods in\r
+the life of nations during which various powers arise simultaneously and\r
+struggle with one another--that a Legitimist historian will prove that\r
+the National Convention, the Directory, and Bonaparte were mere\r
+infringers of the true power, while a Republican and a Bonapartist will\r
+prove: the one that the Convention and the other that the Empire was the\r
+real power, and that all the others were violations of power. Evidently\r
+the explanations furnished by these historians being mutually\r
+contradictory can only satisfy young children.\r
+\r
+Recognizing the falsity of this view of history, another set of\r
+historians say that power rests on a conditional delegation of the will\r
+of the people to their rulers, and that historical leaders have power\r
+only conditionally on carrying out the program that the will of the\r
+people has by tacit agreement prescribed to them. But what this program\r
+consists in these historians do not say, or if they do they continually\r
+contradict one another.\r
+\r
+Each historian, according to his view of what constitutes a nation's\r
+progress, looks for these conditions in the greatness, wealth, freedom,\r
+or enlightenment of citizens of France or some other country. But not to\r
+mention the historians' contradictions as to the nature of this program-\r
+-or even admitting that some one general program of these conditions\r
+exists--the facts of history almost always contradict that theory. If\r
+the conditions under which power is entrusted consist in the wealth,\r
+freedom, and enlightenment of the people, how is it that Louis XIV and\r
+Ivan the Terrible end their reigns tranquilly, while Louis XVI and\r
+Charles I are executed by their people? To this question historians\r
+reply that Louis XIV's activity, contrary to the program, reacted on\r
+Louis XVI. But why did it not react on Louis XIV or on Louis XV--why\r
+should it react just on Louis XVI? And what is the time limit for such\r
+reactions? To these questions there are and can be no answers. Equally\r
+little does this view explain why for several centuries the collective\r
+will is not withdrawn from certain rulers and their heirs, and then\r
+suddenly during a period of fifty years is transferred to the\r
+Convention, to the Directory, to Napoleon, to Alexander, to Louis XVIII,\r
+to Napoleon again, to Charles X, to Louis Philippe, to a Republican\r
+government, and to Napoleon III. When explaining these rapid transfers\r
+of the people's will from one individual to another, especially in view\r
+of international relations, conquests, and alliances, the historians are\r
+obliged to admit that some of these transfers are not normal delegations\r
+of the people's will but are accidents dependent on cunning, on\r
+mistakes, on craft, or on the weakness of a diplomatist, a ruler, or a\r
+party leader. So that the greater part of the events of history--civil\r
+wars, revolutions, and conquests--are presented by these historians not\r
+as the results of free transferences of the people's will, but as\r
+results of the ill-directed will of one or more individuals, that is,\r
+once again, as usurpations of power. And so these historians also see\r
+and admit historical events which are exceptions to the theory.\r
+\r
+These historians resemble a botanist who, having noticed that some\r
+plants grow from seeds producing two cotyledons, should insist that all\r
+that grows does so by sprouting into two leaves, and that the palm, the\r
+mushroom, and even the oak, which blossom into full growth and no longer\r
+resemble two leaves, are deviations from the theory.\r
+\r
+Historians of the third class assume that the will of the people is\r
+transferred to historic personages conditionally, but that the\r
+conditions are unknown to us. They say that historical personages have\r
+power only because they fulfill the will of the people which has been\r
+delegated to them.\r
+\r
+But in that case, if the force that moves nations lies not in the\r
+historic leaders but in the nations themselves, what significance have\r
+those leaders?\r
+\r
+The leaders, these historians tell us, express the will of the people:\r
+the activity of the leaders represents the activity of the people.\r
+\r
+But in that case the question arises whether all the activity of the\r
+leaders serves as an expression of the people's will or only some part\r
+of it. If the whole activity of the leaders serves as the expression of\r
+the people's will, as some historians suppose, then all the details of\r
+the court scandals contained in the biographies of a Napoleon or a\r
+Catherine serve to express the life of the nation, which is evident\r
+nonsense; but if it is only some particular side of the activity of an\r
+historical leader which serves to express the people's life, as other\r
+so-called "philosophical" historians believe, then to determine which\r
+side of the activity of a leader expresses the nation's life, we have\r
+first of all to know in what the nation's life consists.\r
+\r
+Met by this difficulty historians of that class devise some most\r
+obscure, impalpable, and general abstraction which can cover all\r
+conceivable occurrences, and declare this abstraction to be the aim of\r
+humanity's movement. The most usual generalizations adopted by almost\r
+all the historians are: freedom, equality, enlightenment, progress,\r
+civilization, and culture. Postulating some generalization as the goal\r
+of the movement of humanity, the historians study the men of whom the\r
+greatest number of monuments have remained: kings, ministers, generals,\r
+authors, reformers, popes, and journalists, to the extent to which in\r
+their opinion these persons have promoted or hindered that abstraction.\r
+But as it is in no way proved that the aim of humanity does consist in\r
+freedom, equality, enlightenment, or civilization, and as the connection\r
+of the people with the rulers and enlighteners of humanity is only based\r
+on the arbitrary assumption that the collective will of the people is\r
+always transferred to the men whom we have noticed, it happens that the\r
+activity of the millions who migrate, burn houses, abandon agriculture,\r
+and destroy one another never is expressed in the account of the\r
+activity of some dozen people who did not burn houses, practice\r
+agriculture, or slay their fellow creatures.\r
+\r
+History proves this at every turn. Is the ferment of the peoples of the\r
+west at the end of the eighteenth century and their drive eastward\r
+explained by the activity of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, their mistresses\r
+and ministers, and by the lives of Napoleon, Rousseau, Diderot,\r
+Beaumarchais, and others?\r
+\r
+Is the movement of the Russian people eastward to Kazan and Siberia\r
+expressed by details of the morbid character of Ivan the Terrible and by\r
+his correspondence with Kurbski?\r
+\r
+Is the movement of the peoples at the time of the Crusades explained by\r
+the life and activity of the Godfreys and the Louis-es and their ladies?\r
+For us that movement of the peoples from west to east, without leaders,\r
+with a crowd of vagrants, and with Peter the Hermit, remains\r
+incomprehensible. And yet more incomprehensible is the cessation of that\r
+movement when a rational and sacred aim for the Crusade--the deliverance\r
+of Jerusalem--had been clearly defined by historic leaders. Popes,\r
+kings, and knights incited the peoples to free the Holy Land; but the\r
+people did not go, for the unknown cause which had previously impelled\r
+them to go no longer existed. The history of the Godfreys and the\r
+Minnesingers can evidently not cover the life of the peoples. And the\r
+history of the Godfreys and the Minnesingers has remained the history of\r
+Godfreys and Minnesingers, but the history of the life of the peoples\r
+and their impulses has remained unknown.\r
+\r
+Still less does the history of authors and reformers explain to us the\r
+life of the peoples.\r
+\r
+The history of culture explains to us the impulses and conditions of\r
+life and thought of a writer or a reformer. We learn that Luther had a\r
+hot temper and said such and such things; we learn that Rousseau was\r
+suspicious and wrote such and such books; but we do not learn why after\r
+the Reformation the peoples massacred one another, nor why during the\r
+French Revolution they guillotined one another.\r
+\r
+If we unite both these kinds of history, as is done by the newest\r
+historians, we shall have the history of monarchs and writers, but not\r
+the history of the life of the peoples.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+The life of the nations is not contained in the lives of a few men, for\r
+the connection between those men and the nations has not been found. The\r
+theory that this connection is based on the transference of the\r
+collective will of a people to certain historical personages is an\r
+hypothesis unconfirmed by the experience of history.\r
+\r
+The theory of the transference of the collective will of the people to\r
+historic persons may perhaps explain much in the domain of jurisprudence\r
+and be essential for its purposes, but in its application to history, as\r
+soon as revolutions, conquests, or civil wars occur--that is, as soon as\r
+history begins--that theory explains nothing.\r
+\r
+The theory seems irrefutable just because the act of transference of the\r
+people's will cannot be verified, for it never occurred.\r
+\r
+Whatever happens and whoever may stand at the head of affairs, the\r
+theory can always say that such and such a person took the lead because\r
+the collective will was transferred to him.\r
+\r
+The replies this theory gives to historical questions are like the\r
+replies of a man who, watching the movements of a herd of cattle and\r
+paying no attention to the varying quality of the pasturage in different\r
+parts of the field, or to the driving of the herdsman, should attribute\r
+the direction the herd takes to what animal happens to be at its head.\r
+\r
+"The herd goes in that direction because the animal in front leads it\r
+and the collective will of all the other animals is vested in that\r
+leader." This is what historians of the first class say--those who\r
+assume the unconditional transference of the people's will.\r
+\r
+"If the animals leading the herd change, this happens because the\r
+collective will of all the animals is transferred from one leader to\r
+another, according to whether the animal is or is not leading them in\r
+the direction selected by the whole herd." Such is the reply historians\r
+who assume that the collective will of the people is delegated to rulers\r
+under conditions which they regard as known. (With this method of\r
+observation it often happens that the observer, influenced by the\r
+direction he himself prefers, regards those as leaders who, owing to the\r
+people's change of direction, are no longer in front, but on one side,\r
+or even in the rear.)\r
+\r
+"If the animals in front are continually changing and the direction of\r
+the whole herd is constantly altered, this is because in order to follow\r
+a given direction the animals transfer their will to the animals that\r
+have attracted our attention, and to study the movements of the herd we\r
+must watch the movements of all the prominent animals moving on all\r
+sides of the herd." So say the third class of historians who regard all\r
+historical persons, from monarchs to journalists, as the expression of\r
+their age.\r
+\r
+The theory of the transference of the will of the people to historic\r
+persons is merely a paraphrase--a restatement of the question in other\r
+words.\r
+\r
+What causes historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the\r
+collective will of the people transferred to one person. Under what\r
+condition is the will of the people delegated to one person? On\r
+condition that that person expresses the will of the whole people. That\r
+is, power is power: in other words, power is a word the meaning of which\r
+we do not understand.\r
+\r
+If the realm of human knowledge were confined to abstract reasoning,\r
+then having subjected to criticism the explanation of "power" that\r
+juridical science gives us, humanity would conclude that power is merely\r
+a word and has no real existence. But to understand phenomena man has,\r
+besides abstract reasoning, experience by which he verifies his\r
+reflections. And experience tells us that power is not merely a word but\r
+an actually existing phenomenon.\r
+\r
+Not to speak of the fact that no description of the collective activity\r
+of men can do without the conception of power, the existence of power is\r
+proved both by history and by observing contemporary events.\r
+\r
+Whenever an event occurs a man appears or men appear, by whose will the\r
+event seems to have taken place. Napoleon III issues a decree and the\r
+French go to Mexico. The King of Prussia and Bismarck issue decrees and\r
+an army enters Bohemia. Napoleon I issues a decree and an army enters\r
+Russia. Alexander I gives a command and the French submit to the\r
+Bourbons. Experience shows us that whatever event occurs it is always\r
+related to the will of one or of several men who have decreed it.\r
+\r
+The historians, in accord with the old habit of acknowledging divine\r
+intervention in human affairs, want to see the cause of events in the\r
+expression of the will of someone endowed with power, but that\r
+supposition is not confirmed either by reason or by experience.\r
+\r
+On the one side reflection shows that the expression of a man's will--\r
+his words--are only part of the general activity expressed in an event,\r
+as for instance in a war or a revolution, and so without assuming an\r
+incomprehensible, supernatural force--a miracle--one cannot admit that\r
+words can be the immediate cause of the movements of millions of men. On\r
+the other hand, even if we admitted that words could be the cause of\r
+events, history shows that the expression of the will of historical\r
+personages does not in most cases produce any effect, that is to say,\r
+their commands are often not executed, and sometimes the very opposite\r
+of what they order occurs.\r
+\r
+Without admitting divine intervention in the affairs of humanity we\r
+cannot regard "power" as the cause of events.\r
+\r
+Power, from the standpoint of experience, is merely the relation that\r
+exists between the expression of someone's will and the execution of\r
+that will by others.\r
+\r
+To explain the conditions of that relationship we must first establish a\r
+conception of the expression of will, referring it to man and not to the\r
+Deity.\r
+\r
+If the Deity issues a command, expresses His will, as ancient history\r
+tells us, the expression of that will is independent of time and is not\r
+caused by anything, for the Divinity is not controlled by an event. But\r
+speaking of commands that are the expression of the will of men acting\r
+in time and in relation to one another, to explain the connection of\r
+commands with events we must restore: (1) the condition of all that\r
+takes place: the continuity of movement in time both of the events and\r
+of the person who commands, and (2) the inevitability of the connection\r
+between the person commanding and those who execute his command.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+Only the expression of the will of the Deity, not dependent on time, can\r
+relate to a whole series of events occurring over a period of years or\r
+centuries, and only the Deity, independent of everything, can by His\r
+sole will determine the direction of humanity's movement; but man acts\r
+in time and himself takes part in what occurs.\r
+\r
+Reinstating the first condition omitted, that of time, we see that no\r
+command can be executed without some preceding order having been given\r
+rendering the execution of the last command possible.\r
+\r
+No command ever appears spontaneously, or itself covers a whole series\r
+of occurrences; but each command follows from another, and never refers\r
+to a whole series of events but always to one moment only of an event.\r
+\r
+When, for instance, we say that Napoleon ordered armies to go to war, we\r
+combine in one simultaneous expression a whole series of consecutive\r
+commands dependent one on another. Napoleon could not have commanded an\r
+invasion of Russia and never did so. Today he ordered such and such\r
+papers to be written to Vienna, to Berlin, and to Petersburg; tomorrow\r
+such and such decrees and orders to the army, the fleet, the\r
+commissariat, and so on and so on--millions of commands, which formed a\r
+whole series corresponding to a series of events which brought the\r
+French armies into Russia.\r
+\r
+If throughout his reign Napoleon gave commands concerning an invasion of\r
+England and expended on no other undertaking so much time and effort,\r
+and yet during his whole reign never once attempted to execute that\r
+design but undertook an expedition into Russia, with which country he\r
+considered it desirable to be in alliance (a conviction he repeatedly\r
+expressed)--this came about because his commands did not correspond to\r
+the course of events in the first case, but did so correspond in the\r
+latter.\r
+\r
+For an order to be certainly executed, it is necessary that a man should\r
+order what can be executed. But to know what can and what cannot be\r
+executed is impossible, not only in the case of Napoleon's invasion of\r
+Russia in which millions participated, but even in the simplest event,\r
+for in either case millions of obstacles may arise to prevent its\r
+execution. Every order executed is always one of an immense number\r
+unexecuted. All the impossible orders inconsistent with the course of\r
+events remain unexecuted. Only the possible ones get linked up with a\r
+consecutive series of commands corresponding to a series of events, and\r
+are executed.\r
+\r
+Our false conception that an event is caused by a command which precedes\r
+it is due to the fact that when the event has taken place and out of\r
+thousands of others those few commands which were consistent with that\r
+event have been executed, we forget about the others that were not\r
+executed because they could not be. Apart from that, the chief source of\r
+our error in this matter is due to the fact that in the historical\r
+accounts a whole series of innumerable, diverse, and petty events, such\r
+for instance as all those which led the French armies to Russia, is\r
+generalized into one event in accord with the result produced by that\r
+series of events, and corresponding with this generalization the whole\r
+series of commands is also generalized into a single expression of will.\r
+\r
+We say that Napoleon wished to invade Russia and invaded it. In reality\r
+in all Napoleon's activity we never find anything resembling an\r
+expression of that wish, but find a series of orders, or expressions of\r
+his will, very variously and indefinitely directed. Amid a long series\r
+of unexecuted orders of Napoleon's one series, for the campaign of 1812,\r
+was carried out--not because those orders differed in any way from the\r
+other, unexecuted orders but because they coincided with the course of\r
+events that led the French army into Russia; just as in stencil work\r
+this or that figure comes out not because the color was laid on from\r
+this side or in that way, but because it was laid on from all sides over\r
+the figure cut in the stencil.\r
+\r
+So that examining the relation in time of the commands to the events, we\r
+find that a command can never be the cause of the event, but that a\r
+certain definite dependence exists between the two.\r
+\r
+To understand in what this dependence consists it is necessary to\r
+reinstate another omitted condition of every command proceeding not from\r
+the Deity but from a man, which is, that the man who gives the command\r
+himself takes part in the event.\r
+\r
+This relation of the commander to those he commands is just what is\r
+called power. This relation consists in the following:\r
+\r
+For common action people always unite in certain combinations, in which\r
+regardless of the difference of the aims set for the common action, the\r
+relation between those taking part in it is always the same.\r
+\r
+Men uniting in these combinations always assume such relations toward\r
+one another that the larger number take a more direct share, and the\r
+smaller number a less direct share, in the collective action for which\r
+they have combined.\r
+\r
+Of all the combinations in which men unite for collective action one of\r
+the most striking and definite examples is an army.\r
+\r
+Every army is composed of lower grades of the service--the rank and\r
+file--of whom there are always the greatest number; of the next higher\r
+military rank--corporals and noncommissioned officers of whom there are\r
+fewer, and of still-higher officers of whom there are still fewer, and\r
+so on to the highest military command which is concentrated in one\r
+person.\r
+\r
+A military organization may be quite correctly compared to a cone, of\r
+which the base with the largest diameter consists of the rank and file;\r
+the next higher and smaller section of the cone consists of the next\r
+higher grades of the army, and so on to the apex, the point of which\r
+will represent the commander-in-chief.\r
+\r
+The soldiers, of whom there are the most, form the lower section of the\r
+cone and its base. The soldier himself does the stabbing, hacking,\r
+burning, and pillaging, and always receives orders for these actions\r
+from men above him; he himself never gives an order. The noncommissioned\r
+officers (of whom there are fewer) perform the action itself less\r
+frequently than the soldiers, but they already give commands. An officer\r
+still less often acts directly himself, but commands still more\r
+frequently. A general does nothing but command the troops, indicates the\r
+objective, and hardly ever uses a weapon himself. The commander-in-chief\r
+never takes direct part in the action itself, but only gives general\r
+orders concerning the movement of the mass of the troops. A similar\r
+relation of people to one another is seen in every combination of men\r
+for common activity--in agriculture, trade, and every administration.\r
+\r
+And so without particularly analyzing all the contiguous sections of a\r
+cone and of the ranks of an army, or the ranks and positions in any\r
+administrative or public business whatever from the lowest to the\r
+highest, we see a law by which men, to take associated action, combine\r
+in such relations that the more directly they participate in performing\r
+the action the less they can command and the more numerous they are,\r
+while the less their direct participation in the action itself, the more\r
+they command and the fewer of them there are; rising in this way from\r
+the lowest ranks to the man at the top, who takes the least direct share\r
+in the action and directs his activity chiefly to commanding.\r
+\r
+This relation of the men who command to those they command is what\r
+constitutes the essence of the conception called power.\r
+\r
+Having restored the condition of time under which all events occur, we\r
+find that a command is executed only when it is related to a\r
+corresponding series of events. Restoring the essential condition of\r
+relation between those who command and those who execute, we find that\r
+by the very nature of the case those who command take the smallest part\r
+in the action itself and that their activity is exclusively directed to\r
+commanding.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+When an event is taking place people express their opinions and wishes\r
+about it, and as the event results from the collective activity of many\r
+people, some one of the opinions or wishes expressed is sure to be\r
+fulfilled if but approximately. When one of the opinions expressed is\r
+fulfilled, that opinion gets connected with the event as a command\r
+preceding it.\r
+\r
+Men are hauling a log. Each of them expresses his opinion as to how and\r
+where to haul it. They haul the log away, and it happens that this is\r
+done as one of them said. He ordered it. There we have command and power\r
+in their primary form. The man who worked most with his hands could not\r
+think so much about what he was doing, or reflect on or command what\r
+would result from the common activity; while the man who commanded more\r
+would evidently work less with his hands on account of his greater\r
+verbal activity.\r
+\r
+When some larger concourse of men direct their activity to a common aim\r
+there is a yet sharper division of those who, because their activity is\r
+given to directing and commanding, take less part in the direct work.\r
+\r
+When a man works alone he always has a certain set of reflections which\r
+as it seems to him directed his past activity, justify his present\r
+activity, and guide him in planning his future actions. Just the same is\r
+done by a concourse of people, allowing those who do not take a direct\r
+part in the activity to devise considerations, justifications, and\r
+surmises concerning their collective activity.\r
+\r
+For reasons known or unknown to us the French began to drown and kill\r
+one another. And corresponding to the event its justification appears in\r
+people's belief that this was necessary for the welfare of France, for\r
+liberty, and for equality. People ceased to kill one another, and this\r
+event was accompanied by its justification in the necessity for a\r
+centralization of power, resistance to Europe, and so on. Men went from\r
+the west to the east killing their fellow men, and the event was\r
+accompanied by phrases about the glory of France, the baseness of\r
+England, and so on. History shows us that these justifications of the\r
+events have no common sense and are all contradictory, as in the case of\r
+killing a man as the result of recognizing his rights, and the killing\r
+of millions in Russia for the humiliation of England. But these\r
+justifications have a very necessary significance in their own day.\r
+\r
+These justifications release those who produce the events from moral\r
+responsibility. These temporary aims are like the broom fixed in front\r
+of a locomotive to clear the snow from the rails in front: they clear\r
+men's moral responsibilities from their path.\r
+\r
+Without such justification there would be no reply to the simplest\r
+question that presents itself when examining each historical event. How\r
+is it that millions of men commit collective crimes--make war, commit\r
+murder, and so on?\r
+\r
+With the present complex forms of political and social life in Europe\r
+can any event that is not prescribed, decreed, or ordered by monarchs,\r
+ministers, parliaments, or newspapers be imagined? Is there any\r
+collective action which cannot find its justification in political\r
+unity, in patriotism, in the balance of power, or in civilization? So\r
+that every event that occurs inevitably coincides with some expressed\r
+wish and, receiving a justification, presents itself as the result of\r
+the will of one man or of several men.\r
+\r
+In whatever direction a ship moves, the flow of the waves it cuts will\r
+always be noticeable ahead of it. To those on board the ship the\r
+movement of those waves will be the only perceptible motion.\r
+\r
+Only by watching closely moment by moment the movement of that flow and\r
+comparing it with the movement of the ship do we convince ourselves that\r
+every bit of it is occasioned by the forward movement of the ship, and\r
+that we were led into error by the fact that we ourselves were\r
+imperceptibly moving.\r
+\r
+We see the same if we watch moment by moment the movement of historical\r
+characters (that is, re-establish the inevitable condition of all that\r
+occurs--the continuity of movement in time) and do not lose sight of the\r
+essential connection of historical persons with the masses.\r
+\r
+When the ship moves in one direction there is one and the same wave\r
+ahead of it, when it turns frequently the wave ahead of it also turns\r
+frequently. But wherever it may turn there always will be the wave\r
+anticipating its movement.\r
+\r
+Whatever happens it always appears that just that event was foreseen and\r
+decreed. Wherever the ship may go, the rush of water which neither\r
+directs nor increases its movement foams ahead of it, and at a distance\r
+seems to us not merely to move of itself but to govern the ship's\r
+movement also.\r
+\r
+Examining only those expressions of the will of historical persons\r
+which, as commands, were related to events, historians have assumed that\r
+the events depended on those commands. But examining the events\r
+themselves and the connection in which the historical persons stood to\r
+the people, we have found that they and their orders were dependent on\r
+events. The incontestable proof of this deduction is that, however many\r
+commands were issued, the event does not take place unless there are\r
+other causes for it, but as soon as an event occurs--be it what it may--\r
+then out of all the continually expressed wishes of different people\r
+some will always be found which by their meaning and their time of\r
+utterance are related as commands to the events.\r
+\r
+Arriving at this conclusion we can reply directly and positively to\r
+these two essential questions of history:\r
+\r
+(1) What is power?\r
+\r
+(2) What force produces the movement of the nations?\r
+\r
+(1) Power is the relation of a given person to other individuals, in\r
+which the more this person expresses opinions, predictions, and\r
+justifications of the collective action that is performed, the less is\r
+his participation in that action.\r
+\r
+(2) The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by intellectual\r
+activity, nor even by a combination of the two as historians have\r
+supposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in the\r
+events, and who always combine in such a way that those taking the\r
+largest direct share in the event take on themselves the least\r
+responsibility and vice versa.\r
+\r
+Morally the wielder of power appears to cause the event; physically it\r
+is those who submit to the power. But as the moral activity is\r
+inconceivable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in\r
+the one nor in the other but in the union of the two.\r
+\r
+Or in other words, the conception of a cause is inapplicable to the\r
+phenomena we are examining.\r
+\r
+In the last analysis we reach the circle of infinity--that final limit\r
+to which in every domain of thought man's reason arrives if it is not\r
+playing with the subject. Electricity produces heat, heat produces\r
+electricity. Atoms attract each other and atoms repel one another.\r
+\r
+Speaking of the interaction of heat and electricity and of atoms, we\r
+cannot say why this occurs, and we say that it is so because it is\r
+inconceivable otherwise, because it must be so and that it is a law. The\r
+same applies to historical events. Why war and revolution occur we do\r
+not know. We only know that to produce the one or the other action,\r
+people combine in a certain formation in which they all take part, and\r
+we say that this is so because it is unthinkable otherwise, or in other\r
+words that it is a law.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+If history dealt only with external phenomena, the establishment of this\r
+simple and obvious law would suffice and we should have finished our\r
+argument. But the law of history relates to man. A particle of matter\r
+cannot tell us that it does not feel the law of attraction or repulsion\r
+and that that law is untrue, but man, who is the subject of history,\r
+says plainly: I am free and am therefore not subject to the law.\r
+\r
+The presence of the problem of man's free will, though unexpressed, is\r
+felt at every step of history.\r
+\r
+All seriously thinking historians have involuntarily encountered this\r
+question. All the contradictions and obscurities of history and the\r
+false path historical science has followed are due solely to the lack of\r
+a solution of that question.\r
+\r
+If the will of every man were free, that is, if each man could act as he\r
+pleased, all history would be a series of disconnected incidents.\r
+\r
+If in a thousand years even one man in a million could act freely, that\r
+is, as he chose, it is evident that one single free act of that man's in\r
+violation of the laws governing human action would destroy the\r
+possibility of the existence of any laws for the whole of humanity.\r
+\r
+If there be a single law governing the actions of men, free will cannot\r
+exist, for then man's will is subject to that law.\r
+\r
+In this contradiction lies the problem of free will, which from most\r
+ancient times has occupied the best human minds and from most ancient\r
+times has been presented in its whole tremendous significance.\r
+\r
+The problem is that regarding man as a subject of observation from\r
+whatever point of view--theological, historical, ethical, or\r
+philosophic--we find a general law of necessity to which he (like all\r
+that exists) is subject. But regarding him from within ourselves as what\r
+we are conscious of, we feel ourselves to be free.\r
+\r
+This consciousness is a source of self-cognition quite apart from and\r
+independent of reason. Through his reason man observes himself, but only\r
+through consciousness does he know himself.\r
+\r
+Apart from consciousness of self no observation or application of reason\r
+is conceivable.\r
+\r
+To understand, observe, and draw conclusions, man must first of all be\r
+conscious of himself as living. A man is only conscious of himself as a\r
+living being by the fact that he wills, that is, is conscious of his\r
+volition. But his will--which forms the essence of his life--man\r
+recognizes (and can but recognize) as free.\r
+\r
+If, observing himself, man sees that his will is always directed by one\r
+and the same law (whether he observes the necessity of taking food,\r
+using his brain, or anything else) he cannot recognize this never-\r
+varying direction of his will otherwise than as a limitation of it. Were\r
+it not free it could not be limited. A man's will seems to him to be\r
+limited just because he is not conscious of it except as free.\r
+\r
+You say: I am not free. But I have lifted my hand and let it fall.\r
+Everyone understands that this illogical reply is an irrefutable\r
+demonstration of freedom.\r
+\r
+That reply is the expression of a consciousness that is not subject to\r
+reason.\r
+\r
+If the consciousness of freedom were not a separate and independent\r
+source of self-consciousness it would be subject to reasoning and to\r
+experience, but in fact such subjection does not exist and is\r
+inconceivable.\r
+\r
+A series of experiments and arguments proves to every man that he, as an\r
+object of observation, is subject to certain laws, and man submits to\r
+them and never resists the laws of gravity or impermeability once he has\r
+become acquainted with them. But the same series of experiments and\r
+arguments proves to him that the complete freedom of which he is\r
+conscious in himself is impossible, and that his every action depends on\r
+his organization, his character, and the motives acting upon him; yet\r
+man never submits to the deductions of these experiments and arguments.\r
+Having learned from experiment and argument that a stone falls\r
+downwards, a man indubitably believes this and always expects the law\r
+that he has learned to be fulfilled.\r
+\r
+But learning just as certainly that his will is subject to laws, he does\r
+not and cannot believe this.\r
+\r
+However often experiment and reasoning may show a man that under the\r
+same conditions and with the same character he will do the same thing as\r
+before, yet when under the same conditions and with the same character\r
+he approaches for the thousandth time the action that always ends in the\r
+same way, he feels as certainly convinced as before the experiment that\r
+he can act as he pleases. Every man, savage or sage, however\r
+incontestably reason and experiment may prove to him that it is\r
+impossible to imagine two different courses of action in precisely the\r
+same conditions, feels that without this irrational conception (which\r
+constitutes the essence of freedom) he cannot imagine life. He feels\r
+that however impossible it may be, it is so, for without this conception\r
+of freedom not only would he be unable to understand life, but he would\r
+be unable to live for a single moment.\r
+\r
+He could not live, because all man's efforts, all his impulses to life,\r
+are only efforts to increase freedom. Wealth and poverty, fame and\r
+obscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and\r
+disease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger,\r
+virtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom.\r
+\r
+A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of\r
+life.\r
+\r
+If the conception of freedom appears to reason to be a senseless\r
+contradiction like the possibility of performing two actions at one and\r
+the same instant of time, or of an effect without a cause, that only\r
+proves that consciousness is not subject to reason.\r
+\r
+This unshakable, irrefutable consciousness of freedom, uncontrolled by\r
+experiment or argument, recognized by all thinkers and felt by everyone\r
+without exception, this consciousness without which no conception of man\r
+is possible constitutes the other side of the question.\r
+\r
+Man is the creation of an all-powerful, all-good, and all-seeing God.\r
+What is sin, the conception of which arises from the consciousness of\r
+man's freedom? That is a question for theology.\r
+\r
+The actions of men are subject to general immutable laws expressed in\r
+statistics. What is man's responsibility to society, the conception of\r
+which results from the conception of freedom? That is a question for\r
+jurisprudence.\r
+\r
+Man's actions proceed from his innate character and the motives acting\r
+upon him. What is conscience and the perception of right and wrong in\r
+actions that follows from the consciousness of freedom? That is a\r
+question for ethics.\r
+\r
+Man in connection with the general life of humanity appears subject to\r
+laws which determine that life. But the same man apart from that\r
+connection appears to be free. How should the past life of nations and\r
+of humanity be regarded--as the result of the free, or as the result of\r
+the constrained, activity of man? That is a question for history.\r
+\r
+Only in our self-confident day of the popularization of knowledge--\r
+thanks to that most powerful engine of ignorance, the diffusion of\r
+printed matter--has the question of the freedom of will been put on a\r
+level on which the question itself cannot exist. In our time the\r
+majority of so-called advanced people--that is, the crowd of\r
+ignoramuses--have taken the work of the naturalists who deal with one\r
+side of the question for a solution of the whole problem.\r
+\r
+They say and write and print that the soul and freedom do not exist, for\r
+the life of man is expressed by muscular movements and muscular\r
+movements are conditioned by the activity of the nerves; the soul and\r
+free will do not exist because at an unknown period of time we sprang\r
+from the apes. They say this, not at all suspecting that thousands of\r
+years ago that same law of necessity which with such ardor they are now\r
+trying to prove by physiology and comparative zoology was not merely\r
+acknowledged by all the religions and all the thinkers, but has never\r
+been denied. They do not see that the role of the natural sciences in\r
+this matter is merely to serve as an instrument for the illumination of\r
+one side of it. For the fact that, from the point of view of\r
+observation, reason and the will are merely secretions of the brain, and\r
+that man following the general law may have developed from lower animals\r
+at some unknown period of time, only explains from a fresh side the\r
+truth admitted thousands of years ago by all the religious and\r
+philosophic theories--that from the point of view of reason man is\r
+subject to the law of necessity; but it does not advance by a hair's\r
+breadth the solution of the question, which has another, opposite, side,\r
+based on the consciousness of freedom.\r
+\r
+If men descended from the apes at an unknown period of time, that is as\r
+comprehensible as that they were made from a handful of earth at a\r
+certain period of time (in the first case the unknown quantity is the\r
+time, in the second case it is the origin); and the question of how\r
+man's consciousness of freedom is to be reconciled with the law of\r
+necessity to which he is subject cannot be solved by comparative\r
+physiology and zoology, for in a frog, a rabbit, or an ape, we can\r
+observe only the muscular nervous activity, but in man we observe\r
+consciousness as well as the muscular and nervous activity.\r
+\r
+The naturalists and their followers, thinking they can solve this\r
+question, are like plasterers set to plaster one side of the walls of a\r
+church who, availing themselves of the absence of the chief\r
+superintendent of the work, should in an access of zeal plaster over the\r
+windows, icons, woodwork, and still unbuttressed walls, and should be\r
+delighted that from their point of view as plasterers, everything is now\r
+so smooth and regular.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+For the solution of the question of free will or inevitability, history\r
+has this advantage over other branches of knowledge in which the\r
+question is dealt with, that for history this question does not refer to\r
+the essence of man's free will but its manifestation in the past and\r
+under certain conditions.\r
+\r
+In regard to this question, history stands to the other sciences as\r
+experimental science stands to abstract science.\r
+\r
+The subject for history is not man's will itself but our presentation of\r
+it.\r
+\r
+And so for history, the insoluble mystery presented by the\r
+incompatibility of free will and inevitability does not exist as it does\r
+for theology, ethics, and philosophy. History surveys a presentation of\r
+man's life in which the union of these two contradictions has already\r
+taken place.\r
+\r
+In actual life each historic event, each human action, is very clearly\r
+and definitely understood without any sense of contradiction, although\r
+each event presents itself as partly free and partly compulsory.\r
+\r
+To solve the question of how freedom and necessity are combined and what\r
+constitutes the essence of these two conceptions, the philosophy of\r
+history can and should follow a path contrary to that taken by other\r
+sciences. Instead of first defining the conceptions of freedom and\r
+inevitability in themselves, and then ranging the phenomena of life\r
+under those definitions, history should deduce a definition of the\r
+conception of freedom and inevitability themselves from the immense\r
+quantity of phenomena of which it is cognizant and that always appear\r
+dependent on these two elements.\r
+\r
+Whatever presentation of the activity of many men or of an individual we\r
+may consider, we always regard it as the result partly of man's free\r
+will and partly of the law of inevitability.\r
+\r
+Whether we speak of the migration of the peoples and the incursions of\r
+the barbarians, or of the decrees of Napoleon III, or of someone's\r
+action an hour ago in choosing one direction out of several for his\r
+walk, we are unconscious of any contradiction. The degree of freedom and\r
+inevitability governing the actions of these people is clearly defined\r
+for us.\r
+\r
+Our conception of the degree of freedom often varies according to\r
+differences in the point of view from which we regard the event, but\r
+every human action appears to us as a certain combination of freedom and\r
+inevitability. In every action we examine we see a certain measure of\r
+freedom and a certain measure of inevitability. And always the more\r
+freedom we see in any action the less inevitability do we perceive, and\r
+the more inevitability the less freedom.\r
+\r
+The proportion of freedom to inevitability decreases and increases\r
+according to the point of view from which the action is regarded, but\r
+their relation is always one of inverse proportion.\r
+\r
+A sinking man who clutches at another and drowns him; or a hungry mother\r
+exhausted by feeding her baby, who steals some food; or a man trained to\r
+discipline who on duty at the word of command kills a defenseless man--\r
+seem less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to the law of\r
+necessity, to one who knows the circumstances in which these people were\r
+placed, and more free to one who does not know that the man was himself\r
+drowning, that the mother was hungry, that the soldier was in the ranks,\r
+and so on. Similarly a man who committed a murder twenty years ago and\r
+has since lived peaceably and harmlessly in society seems less guilty\r
+and his action more due to the law of inevitability, to someone who\r
+considers his action after twenty years have elapsed than to one who\r
+examined it the day after it was committed. And in the same way every\r
+action of an insane, intoxicated, or highly excited man appears less\r
+free and more inevitable to one who knows the mental condition of him\r
+who committed the action, and seems more free and less inevitable to one\r
+who does not know it. In all these cases the conception of freedom is\r
+increased or diminished and the conception of compulsion is\r
+correspondingly decreased or increased, according to the point of view\r
+from which the action is regarded. So that the greater the conception of\r
+necessity the smaller the conception of freedom and vice versa.\r
+\r
+Religion, the common sense of mankind, the science of jurisprudence, and\r
+history itself understand alike this relation between necessity and\r
+freedom.\r
+\r
+All cases without exception in which our conception of freedom and\r
+necessity is increased and diminished depend on three considerations:\r
+\r
+(1) The relation to the external world of the man who commits the deeds.\r
+\r
+(2) His relation to time.\r
+\r
+(3) His relation to the causes leading to the action.\r
+\r
+The first consideration is the clearness of our perception of the man's\r
+relation to the external world and the greater or lesser clearness of\r
+our understanding of the definite position occupied by the man in\r
+relation to everything coexisting with him. This is what makes it\r
+evident that a drowning man is less free and more subject to necessity\r
+than one standing on dry ground, and that makes the actions of a man\r
+closely connected with others in a thickly populated district, or of one\r
+bound by family, official, or business duties, seem certainly less free\r
+and more subject to necessity than those of a man living in solitude and\r
+seclusion.\r
+\r
+If we consider a man alone, apart from his relation to everything around\r
+him, each action of his seems to us free. But if we see his relation to\r
+anything around him, if we see his connection with anything whatever--\r
+with a man who speaks to him, a book he reads, the work on which he is\r
+engaged, even with the air he breathes or the light that falls on the\r
+things about him--we see that each of these circumstances has an\r
+influence on him and controls at least some side of his activity. And\r
+the more we perceive of these influences the more our conception of his\r
+freedom diminishes and the more our conception of the necessity that\r
+weighs on him increases.\r
+\r
+The second consideration is the more or less evident time relation of\r
+the man to the world and the clearness of our perception of the place\r
+the man's action occupies in time. That is the ground which makes the\r
+fall of the first man, resulting in the production of the human race,\r
+appear evidently less free than a man's entry into marriage today. It is\r
+the reason why the life and activity of people who lived centuries ago\r
+and are connected with me in time cannot seem to me as free as the life\r
+of a contemporary, the consequences of which are still unknown to me.\r
+\r
+The degree of our conception of freedom or inevitability depends in this\r
+respect on the greater or lesser lapse of time between the performance\r
+of the action and our judgment of it.\r
+\r
+If I examine an act I performed a moment ago in approximately the same\r
+circumstances as those I am in now, my action appears to me undoubtedly\r
+free. But if I examine an act performed a month ago, then being in\r
+different circumstances, I cannot help recognizing that if that act had\r
+not been committed much that resulted from it--good, agreeable, and even\r
+essential--would not have taken place. If I reflect on an action still\r
+more remote, ten years ago or more, then the consequences of my action\r
+are still plainer to me and I find it hard to imagine what would have\r
+happened had that action not been performed. The farther I go back in\r
+memory, or what is the same thing the farther I go forward in my\r
+judgment, the more doubtful becomes my belief in the freedom of my\r
+action.\r
+\r
+In history we find a very similar progress of conviction concerning the\r
+part played by free will in the general affairs of humanity. A\r
+contemporary event seems to us to be indubitably the doing of all the\r
+known participants, but with a more remote event we already see its\r
+inevitable results which prevent our considering anything else possible.\r
+And the farther we go back in examining events the less arbitrary do\r
+they appear.\r
+\r
+The Austro-Prussian war appears to us undoubtedly the result of the\r
+crafty conduct of Bismarck, and so on. The Napoleonic wars still seem to\r
+us, though already questionably, to be the outcome of their heroes'\r
+will. But in the Crusades we already see an event occupying its definite\r
+place in history and without which we cannot imagine the modern history\r
+of Europe, though to the chroniclers of the Crusades that event appeared\r
+as merely due to the will of certain people. In regard to the migration\r
+of the peoples it does not enter anyone's head today to suppose that the\r
+renovation of the European world depended on Attila's caprice. The\r
+farther back in history the object of our observation lies, the more\r
+doubtful does the free will of those concerned in the event become and\r
+the more manifest the law of inevitability.\r
+\r
+The third consideration is the degree to which we apprehend that endless\r
+chain of causation inevitably demanded by reason, in which each\r
+phenomenon comprehended, and therefore man's every action, must have its\r
+definite place as a result of what has gone before and as a cause of\r
+what will follow.\r
+\r
+The better we are acquainted with the physiological, psychological, and\r
+historical laws deduced by observation and by which man is controlled,\r
+and the more correctly we perceive the physiological, psychological, and\r
+historical causes of the action, and the simpler the action we are\r
+observing and the less complex the character and mind of the man in\r
+question, the more subject to inevitability and the less free do our\r
+actions and those of others appear.\r
+\r
+When we do not at all understand the cause of an action, whether a\r
+crime, a good action, or even one that is simply nonmoral, we ascribe a\r
+greater amount of freedom to it. In the case of a crime we most urgently\r
+demand the punishment for such an act; in the case of a virtuous act we\r
+rate its merit most highly. In an indifferent case we recognize in it\r
+more individuality, originality, and independence. But if even one of\r
+the innumerable causes of the act is known to us we recognize a certain\r
+element of necessity and are less insistent on punishment for the crime,\r
+or the acknowledgment of the merit of the virtuous act, or the freedom\r
+of the apparently original action. That a criminal was reared among male\r
+factors mitigates his fault in our eyes. The self-sacrifice of a father\r
+or mother, or self-sacrifice with the possibility of a reward, is more\r
+comprehensible than gratuitous self-sacrifice, and therefore seems less\r
+deserving of sympathy and less the result of free will. The founder of a\r
+sect or party, or an inventor, impresses us less when we know how or by\r
+what the way was prepared for his activity. If we have a large range of\r
+examples, if our observation is constantly directed to seeking the\r
+correlation of cause and effect in people's actions, their actions\r
+appear to us more under compulsion and less free the more correctly we\r
+connect the effects with the causes. If we examined simple actions and\r
+had a vast number of such actions under observation, our conception of\r
+their inevitability would be still greater. The dishonest conduct of the\r
+son of a dishonest father, the misconduct of a woman who had fallen into\r
+bad company, a drunkard's relapse into drunkenness, and so on are\r
+actions that seem to us less free the better we understand their cause.\r
+If the man whose actions we are considering is on a very low stage of\r
+mental development, like a child, a madman, or a simpleton--then,\r
+knowing the causes of the act and the simplicity of the character and\r
+intelligence in question, we see so large an element of necessity and so\r
+little free will that as soon as we know the cause prompting the action\r
+we can foretell the result.\r
+\r
+On these three considerations alone is based the conception of\r
+irresponsibility for crimes and the extenuating circumstances admitted\r
+by all legislative codes. The responsibility appears greater or less\r
+according to our greater or lesser knowledge of the circumstances in\r
+which the man was placed whose action is being judged, and according to\r
+the greater or lesser interval of time between the commission of the\r
+action and its investigation, and according to the greater or lesser\r
+understanding of the causes that led to the action.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+Thus our conception of free will and inevitability gradually diminishes\r
+or increases according to the greater or lesser connection with the\r
+external world, the greater or lesser remoteness of time, and the\r
+greater or lesser dependence on the causes in relation to which we\r
+contemplate a man's life.\r
+\r
+So that if we examine the case of a man whose connection with the\r
+external world is well known, where the time between the action and its\r
+examination is great, and where the causes of the action are most\r
+accessible, we get the conception of a maximum of inevitability and a\r
+minimum of free will. If we examine a man little dependent on external\r
+conditions, whose action was performed very recently, and the causes of\r
+whose action are beyond our ken, we get the conception of a minimum of\r
+inevitability and a maximum of freedom.\r
+\r
+In neither case--however we may change our point of view, however plain\r
+we may make to ourselves the connection between the man and the external\r
+world, however inaccessible it may be to us, however long or short the\r
+period of time, however intelligible or incomprehensible the causes of\r
+the action may be--can we ever conceive either complete freedom or\r
+complete necessity.\r
+\r
+(1) To whatever degree we may imagine a man to be exempt from the\r
+influence of the external world, we never get a conception of freedom in\r
+space. Every human action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds\r
+him and by his own body. I lift my arm and let it fall. My action seems\r
+to me free; but asking myself whether I could raise my arm in every\r
+direction, I see that I raised it in the direction in which there was\r
+least obstruction to that action either from things around me or from\r
+the construction of my own body. I chose one out of all the possible\r
+directions because in it there were fewest obstacles. For my action to\r
+be free it was necessary that it should encounter no obstacles. To\r
+conceive of a man being free we must imagine him outside space, which is\r
+evidently impossible.\r
+\r
+(2) However much we approximate the time of judgment to the time of the\r
+deed, we never get a conception of freedom in time. For if I examine an\r
+action committed a second ago I must still recognize it as not being\r
+free, for it is irrevocably linked to the moment at which it was\r
+committed. Can I lift my arm? I lift it, but ask myself: could I have\r
+abstained from lifting my arm at the moment that has already passed? To\r
+convince myself of this I do not lift it the next moment. But I am not\r
+now abstaining from doing so at the first moment when I asked the\r
+question. Time has gone by which I could not detain, the arm I then\r
+lifted is no longer the same as the arm I now refrain from lifting, nor\r
+is the air in which I lifted it the same that now surrounds me. The\r
+moment in which the first movement was made is irrevocable, and at that\r
+moment I could make only one movement, and whatever movement I made\r
+would be the only one. That I did not lift my arm a moment later does\r
+not prove that I could have abstained from lifting it then. And since I\r
+could make only one movement at that single moment of time, it could not\r
+have been any other. To imagine it as free, it is necessary to imagine\r
+it in the present, on the boundary between the past and the future--that\r
+is, outside time, which is impossible.\r
+\r
+(3) However much the difficulty of understanding the causes may be\r
+increased, we never reach a conception of complete freedom, that is, an\r
+absence of cause. However inaccessible to us may be the cause of the\r
+expression of will in any action, our own or another's, the first demand\r
+of reason is the assumption of and search for a cause, for without a\r
+cause no phenomenon is conceivable. I raise my arm to perform an action\r
+independently of any cause, but my wish to perform an action without a\r
+cause is the cause of my action.\r
+\r
+But even if--imagining a man quite exempt from all influences, examining\r
+only his momentary action in the present, unevoked by any cause--we were\r
+to admit so infinitely small a remainder of inevitability as equaled\r
+zero, we should even then not have arrived at the conception of complete\r
+freedom in man, for a being uninfluenced by the external world, standing\r
+outside of time and independent of cause, is no longer a man.\r
+\r
+In the same way we can never imagine the action of a man quite devoid of\r
+freedom and entirely subject to the law of inevitability.\r
+\r
+(1) However we may increase our knowledge of the conditions of space in\r
+which man is situated, that knowledge can never be complete, for the\r
+number of those conditions is as infinite as the infinity of space. And\r
+therefore so long as not all the conditions influencing men are defined,\r
+there is no complete inevitability but a certain measure of freedom\r
+remains.\r
+\r
+(2) However we may prolong the period of time between the action we are\r
+examining and the judgment upon it, that period will be finite, while\r
+time is infinite, and so in this respect too there can never be absolute\r
+inevitability.\r
+\r
+(3) However accessible may be the chain of causation of any action, we\r
+shall never know the whole chain since it is endless, and so again we\r
+never reach absolute inevitability.\r
+\r
+But besides this, even if, admitting the remaining minimum of freedom to\r
+equal zero, we assumed in some given case--as for instance in that of a\r
+dying man, an unborn babe, or an idiot--complete absence of freedom, by\r
+so doing we should destroy the very conception of man in the case we are\r
+examining, for as soon as there is no freedom there is also no man. And\r
+so the conception of the action of a man subject solely to the law of\r
+inevitability without any element of freedom is just as impossible as\r
+the conception of a man's completely free action.\r
+\r
+And so to imagine the action of a man entirely subject to the law of\r
+inevitability without any freedom, we must assume the knowledge of an\r
+infinite number of space relations, an infinitely long period of time,\r
+and an infinite series of causes.\r
+\r
+To imagine a man perfectly free and not subject to the law of\r
+inevitability, we must imagine him all alone, beyond space, beyond time,\r
+and free from dependence on cause.\r
+\r
+In the first case, if inevitability were possible without freedom we\r
+should have reached a definition of inevitability by the laws of\r
+inevitability itself, that is, a mere form without content.\r
+\r
+In the second case, if freedom were possible without inevitability we\r
+should have arrived at unconditioned freedom beyond space, time, and\r
+cause, which by the fact of its being unconditioned and unlimited would\r
+be nothing, or mere content without form.\r
+\r
+We should in fact have reached those two fundamentals of which man's\r
+whole outlook on the universe is constructed--the incomprehensible\r
+essence of life, and the laws defining that essence.\r
+\r
+Reason says: (1) space with all the forms of matter that give it\r
+visibility is infinite, and cannot be imagined otherwise. (2) Time is\r
+infinite motion without a moment of rest and is unthinkable otherwise.\r
+(3) The connection between cause and effect has no beginning and can\r
+have no end.\r
+\r
+Consciousness says: (1) I alone am, and all that exists is but me,\r
+consequently I include space. (2) I measure flowing time by the fixed\r
+moment of the present in which alone I am conscious of myself as living,\r
+consequently I am outside time. (3) I am beyond cause, for I feel myself\r
+to be the cause of every manifestation of my life.\r
+\r
+Reason gives expression to the laws of inevitability. Consciousness\r
+gives expression to the essence of freedom.\r
+\r
+Freedom not limited by anything is the essence of life, in man's\r
+consciousness. Inevitability without content is man's reason in its\r
+three forms.\r
+\r
+Freedom is the thing examined. Inevitability is what examines. Freedom\r
+is the content. Inevitability is the form.\r
+\r
+Only by separating the two sources of cognition, related to one another\r
+as form to content, do we get the mutually exclusive and separately\r
+incomprehensible conceptions of freedom and inevitability.\r
+\r
+Only by uniting them do we get a clear conception of man's life.\r
+\r
+Apart from these two concepts which in their union mutually define one\r
+another as form and content, no conception of life is possible.\r
+\r
+All that we know of the life of man is merely a certain relation of free\r
+will to inevitability, that is, of consciousness to the laws of reason.\r
+\r
+All that we know of the external world of nature is only a certain\r
+relation of the forces of nature to inevitability, or of the essence of\r
+life to the laws of reason.\r
+\r
+The great natural forces lie outside us and we are not conscious of\r
+them; we call those forces gravitation, inertia, electricity, animal\r
+force, and so on, but we are conscious of the force of life in man and\r
+we call that freedom.\r
+\r
+But just as the force of gravitation, incomprehensible in itself but\r
+felt by every man, is understood by us only to the extent to which we\r
+know the laws of inevitability to which it is subject (from the first\r
+knowledge that all bodies have weight, up to Newton's law), so too the\r
+force of free will, incomprehensible in itself but of which everyone is\r
+conscious, is intelligible to us only in as far as we know the laws of\r
+inevitability to which it is subject (from the fact that every man dies,\r
+up to the knowledge of the most complex economic and historic laws).\r
+\r
+All knowledge is merely a bringing of this essence of life under the\r
+laws of reason.\r
+\r
+Man's free will differs from every other force in that man is directly\r
+conscious of it, but in the eyes of reason it in no way differs from any\r
+other force. The forces of gravitation, electricity, or chemical\r
+affinity are only distinguished from one another in that they are\r
+differently defined by reason. Just so the force of man's free will is\r
+distinguished by reason from the other forces of nature only by the\r
+definition reason gives it. Freedom, apart from necessity, that is,\r
+apart from the laws of reason that define it, differs in no way from\r
+gravitation, or heat, or the force that makes things grow; for reason,\r
+it is only a momentary undefinable sensation of life.\r
+\r
+And as the undefinable essence of the force moving the heavenly bodies,\r
+the undefinable essence of the forces of heat and electricity, or of\r
+chemical affinity, or of the vital force, forms the content of\r
+astronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and so on, just in the\r
+same way does the force of free will form the content of history. But\r
+just as the subject of every science is the manifestation of this\r
+unknown essence of life while that essence itself can only be the\r
+subject of metaphysics, even the manifestation of the force of free will\r
+in human beings in space, in time, and in dependence on cause forms the\r
+subject of history, while free will itself is the subject of\r
+metaphysics.\r
+\r
+In the experimental sciences what we know we call the laws of\r
+inevitability, what is unknown to us we call vital force. Vital force is\r
+only an expression for the unknown remainder over and above what we know\r
+of the essence of life.\r
+\r
+So also in history what is known to us we call laws of inevitability,\r
+what is unknown we call free will. Free will is for history only an\r
+expression for the unknown remainder of what we know about the laws of\r
+human life.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+History examines the manifestations of man's free will in connection\r
+with the external world in time and in dependence on cause, that is, it\r
+defines this freedom by the laws of reason, and so history is a science\r
+only in so far as this free will is defined by those laws.\r
+\r
+The recognition of man's free will as something capable of influencing\r
+historical events, that is, as not subject to laws, is the same for\r
+history as the recognition of a free force moving the heavenly bodies\r
+would be for astronomy.\r
+\r
+That assumption would destroy the possibility of the existence of laws,\r
+that is, of any science whatever. If there is even a single body moving\r
+freely, then the laws of Kepler and Newton are negatived and no\r
+conception of the movement of the heavenly bodies any longer exists. If\r
+any single action is due to free will, then not a single historical law\r
+can exist, nor any conception of historical events.\r
+\r
+For history, lines exist of the movement of human wills, one end of\r
+which is hidden in the unknown but at the other end of which a\r
+consciousness of man's will in the present moves in space, time, and\r
+dependence on cause.\r
+\r
+The more this field of motion spreads out before our eyes, the more\r
+evident are the laws of that movement. To discover and define those laws\r
+is the problem of history.\r
+\r
+From the standpoint from which the science of history now regards its\r
+subject on the path it now follows, seeking the causes of events in\r
+man's freewill, a scientific enunciation of those laws is impossible,\r
+for however man's free will may be restricted, as soon as we recognize\r
+it as a force not subject to law, the existence of law becomes\r
+impossible.\r
+\r
+Only by reducing this element of free will to the infinitesimal, that\r
+is, by regarding it as an infinitely small quantity, can we convince\r
+ourselves of the absolute inaccessibility of the causes, and then\r
+instead of seeking causes, history will take the discovery of laws as\r
+its problem.\r
+\r
+The search for these laws has long been begun and the new methods of\r
+thought which history must adopt are being worked out simultaneously\r
+with the self-destruction toward which--ever dissecting and dissecting\r
+the causes of phenomena--the old method of history is moving.\r
+\r
+All human sciences have traveled along that path. Arriving at\r
+infinitesimals, mathematics, the most exact of sciences, abandons the\r
+process of analysis and enters on the new process of the integration of\r
+unknown, infinitely small, quantities. Abandoning the conception of\r
+cause, mathematics seeks law, that is, the property common to all\r
+unknown, infinitely small, elements.\r
+\r
+In another form but along the same path of reflection the other sciences\r
+have proceeded. When Newton enunciated the law of gravity he did not say\r
+that the sun or the earth had a property of attraction; he said that all\r
+bodies from the largest to the smallest have the property of attracting\r
+one another, that is, leaving aside the question of the cause of the\r
+movement of the bodies, he expressed the property common to all bodies\r
+from the infinitely large to the infinitely small. The same is done by\r
+the natural sciences: leaving aside the question of cause, they seek for\r
+laws. History stands on the same path. And if history has for its object\r
+the study of the movement of the nations and of humanity and not the\r
+narration of episodes in the lives of individuals, it too, setting aside\r
+the conception of cause, should seek the laws common to all the\r
+inseparably interconnected infinitesimal elements of free will.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+From the time the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the mere\r
+recognition of the fact that it was not the sun but the earth that moves\r
+sufficed to destroy the whole cosmography of the ancients. By disproving\r
+that law it might have been possible to retain the old conception of the\r
+movements of the bodies, but without disproving it, it would seem\r
+impossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. But even after the\r
+discovery of the law of Copernicus the Ptolemaic worlds were still\r
+studied for a long time.\r
+\r
+From the time the first person said and proved that the number of births\r
+or of crimes is subject to mathematical laws, and that this or that mode\r
+of government is determined by certain geographical and economic\r
+conditions, and that certain relations of population to soil produce\r
+migrations of peoples, the foundations on which history had been built\r
+were destroyed in their essence.\r
+\r
+By refuting these new laws the former view of history might have been\r
+retained; but without refuting them it would seem impossible to continue\r
+studying historic events as the results of man's free will. For if a\r
+certain mode of government was established or certain migrations of\r
+peoples took place in consequence of such and such geographic,\r
+ethnographic, or economic conditions, then the free will of those\r
+individuals who appear to us to have established that mode of government\r
+or occasioned the migrations can no longer be regarded as the cause.\r
+\r
+And yet the former history continues to be studied side by side with the\r
+laws of statistics, geography, political economy, comparative philology,\r
+and geology, which directly contradict its assumptions.\r
+\r
+The struggle between the old views and the new was long and stubbornly\r
+fought out in physical philosophy. Theology stood on guard for the old\r
+views and accused the new of violating revelation. But when truth\r
+conquered, theology established itself just as firmly on the new\r
+foundation.\r
+\r
+Just as prolonged and stubborn is the struggle now proceeding between\r
+the old and the new conception of history, and theology in the same way\r
+stands on guard for the old view, and accuses the new view of subverting\r
+revelation.\r
+\r
+In the one case as in the other, on both sides the struggle provokes\r
+passion and stifles truth. On the one hand there is fear and regret for\r
+the loss of the whole edifice constructed through the ages, on the other\r
+is the passion for destruction.\r
+\r
+To the men who fought against the rising truths of physical philosophy,\r
+it seemed that if they admitted that truth it would destroy faith in\r
+God, in the creation of the firmament, and in the miracle of Joshua the\r
+son of Nun. To the defenders of the laws of Copernicus and Newton, to\r
+Voltaire for example, it seemed that the laws of astronomy destroyed\r
+religion, and he utilized the law of gravitation as a weapon against\r
+religion.\r
+\r
+Just so it now seems as if we have only to admit the law of\r
+inevitability, to destroy the conception of the soul, of good and evil,\r
+and all the institutions of state and church that have been built up on\r
+those conceptions.\r
+\r
+So too, like Voltaire in his time, uninvited defenders of the law of\r
+inevitability today use that law as a weapon against religion, though\r
+the law of inevitability in history, like the law of Copernicus in\r
+astronomy, far from destroying, even strengthens the foundation on which\r
+the institutions of state and church are erected.\r
+\r
+As in the question of astronomy then, so in the question of history now,\r
+the whole difference of opinion is based on the recognition or\r
+nonrecognition of something absolute, serving as the measure of visible\r
+phenomena. In astronomy it was the immovability of the earth, in history\r
+it is the independence of personality--free will.\r
+\r
+As with astronomy the difficulty of recognizing the motion of the earth\r
+lay in abandoning the immediate sensation of the earth's fixity and of\r
+the motion of the planets, so in history the difficulty of recognizing\r
+the subjection of personality to the laws of space, time, and cause lies\r
+in renouncing the direct feeling of the independence of one's own\r
+personality. But as in astronomy the new view said: "It is true that we\r
+do not feel the movement of the earth, but by admitting its immobility\r
+we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting its motion (which we do not\r
+feel) we arrive at laws," so also in history the new view says: "It is\r
+true that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by admitting our\r
+free will we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our dependence on\r
+the external world, on time, and on cause, we arrive at laws."\r
+\r
+In the first case it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of an\r
+unreal immobility in space and to recognize a motion we did not feel; in\r
+the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that\r
+does not exist, and to recognize a dependence of which we are not\r
+conscious.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy\r
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