WAR AND PEACE

By Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi

BOOK ONE: 1805

CHAPTER I
"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the
Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war, if
you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that
Antichrist—I really believe he is Antichrist—I will have nothing more
to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful
slave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened
you—sit down and tell me all the news."
It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna
Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya
Fedorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man
of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her
reception. Anna Pavlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as
she said, suffering from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St.
Petersburg, used only by the elite.
All her invitations without exception, written in French, and
delivered by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:
"If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the
prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible, I
shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10—Annette
Scherer."
"Heavens! what a virulent attack!" replied the prince, not in the least
disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an
embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on
his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that
refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought,
and with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of
importance who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to
Anna Pavlovna, kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented,
and shining head, and complacently seated himself on the sofa.
"First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend's mind
at rest," said he without altering his tone, beneath the politeness and
affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony could be
discerned.
"Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times
like these if one has any feeling?" said Anna Pavlovna. "You are
staying the whole evening, I hope?"
"And the fete at the English ambassador's? Today is Wednesday. I
must put in an appearance there," said the prince. "My daughter is
coming for me to take me there."
"I thought today's fete had been canceled. I confess all these
festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome."
"If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have
been put off," said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force of
habit said things he did not even wish to be believed.
"Don't tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosiltsev's
dispatch? You know everything."
"What can one say about it?" replied the prince in a cold, listless
tone. "What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has
burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours."
 Prince Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale
part. Anna Pavlovna Scherer on the contrary, despite her forty years,
overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had
become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel
like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the
expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though
it did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips
expressed, as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her
charming defect, which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it
necessary, to correct.
In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pavlovna
burst out:
"Oh, don't speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don't understand things,
but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She is
betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign
recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one thing
I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform the
noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will not
forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of
revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of
this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just
one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her
commercial spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor
Alexander's loftiness of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She
wanted to find, and still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What
answer did Novosiltsev get? None. The English have not understood
and cannot understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants
nothing for himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what
have they promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they
will not perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is
invincible, and that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don't
believe a word that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous
Prussian neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty
destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!"
She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.
"I think," said the prince with a smile, "that if you had been sent
instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King of
Prussia's consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me a
cup of tea?"
"In a moment. A propos," she added, becoming calm again, "I am
expecting two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart,
who is connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of
the best French families. He is one of the genuine emigres, the good
ones. And also the Abbe Morio. Do you know that profound thinker?
He has been received by the Emperor. Had you heard?"
"I shall be delighted to meet them," said the prince. "But tell me," he
added with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred to him,
though the question he was about to ask was the chief motive of his
visit, "is it true that the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke to be
appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts is a poor
creature."
Prince Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were
trying through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna to secure it for
the baron.
Anna Pavlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor
anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was
pleased with.
"Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by
her sister," was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.
As she named the Empress, Anna Pavlovna's face suddenly assumed
an expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled
with sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious
patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron
Funke beaucoup d'estime, and again her face clouded over with
sadness.
The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly
and courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pavlovna
wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak he had done of a man
recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so
she said:
"Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter
came out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is
amazingly beautiful."
The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.
"I often think," she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer to
the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political and
social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate
conversation—"I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life
are distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children? I
don't speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don't like him," she added in a
tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows. "Two such
charming children. And really you appreciate them less than anyone,
and so you don't deserve to have them."
 And she smiled her ecstatic smile.
"I can't help it," said the prince. "Lavater would have said I lack the
bump of paternity."
"Don't joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I
am dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves" (and her
face assumed its melancholy expression), "he was mentioned at Her
Majesty's and you were pitied...."
The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly,
awaiting a reply. He frowned.
"What would you have me do?" he said at last. "You know I did all a
father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools.
Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That is
the only difference between them." He said this smiling in a way more
natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round his mouth
very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and unpleasant.
"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a
father there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna
Pavlovna, looking up pensively.
"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my
children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That is
how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped!"
He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a
gesture. Anna Pavlovna meditated.
"Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?"
she asked. "They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and
though I don't feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person
who is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess
Mary Bolkonskaya."
Prince Vasili did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory
and perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a
movement of the head that he was considering this information.
"Do you know," he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad
current of his thoughts, "that Anatole is costing me forty thousand
rubles a year? And," he went on after a pause, "what will it be in five
years, if he goes on like this?" Presently he added: "That's what we
fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours rich?"
"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is the
well-known Prince Bolkonski who had to retire from the army under
the late Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is very
clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She has
a brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately. He is
an aide-de-camp of Kutuzov's and will be here tonight."
"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna
Pavlovna's hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange
that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-slafe
with an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich and
of good family and that's all I want."
And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the
maid of honor's hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro as he
lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.
"Attendez," said Anna Pavlovna, reflecting, "I'll speak to Lise, young
Bolkonski's wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can be
arranged. It shall be on your family's behalf that I'll start my
apprenticeship as old maid."

CHAPTER II
Anna Pavlovna's drawing room was gradually filling. The highest
Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age
and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged.
Prince Vasili's daughter, the beautiful Helene, came to take her father
to the ambassador's entertainment; she wore a ball dress and her badge
as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess Bolkonskaya, known as
la femme la plus seduisante de Petersbourg, * was also there. She had
been married during the previous winter, and being pregnant did not go
to any large gatherings, but only to small receptions. Prince Vasili's
son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart, whom he introduced. The
Abbe Morio and many others had also come.

* The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.

To each new arrival Anna Pavlovna said, "You have not yet seen my
aunt," or "You do not know my aunt?" and very gravely conducted him
or her to a little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her cap, who
had come sailing in from another room as soon as the guests began to
arrive; and slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her aunt, Anna
Pavlovna mentioned each one's name and then left them.
Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom
not one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of
them cared about; Anna Pavlovna observed these greetings with
mournful and solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to
each of them in the same words, about their health and her own, and the
health of Her Majesty, "who, thank God, was better today." And each
visitor, though politeness prevented his showing impatience, left the
old woman with a sense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty
and did not return to her the whole evening.
The young Princess Bolkonskaya had brought some work in a gold-
embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a delicate
dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her teeth, but it lifted
all the more sweetly, and was especially charming when she
occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always the case
with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect—the shortness of her
upper lip and her half-open mouth—seemed to be her own special and
peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty
young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life and health,
and carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull dispirited young
ones who looked at her, after being in her company and talking to her a
little while, felt as if they too were becoming, like her, full of life and
health. All who talked to her, and at each word saw her bright smile
and the constant gleam of her white teeth, thought that they were in a
specially amiable mood that day.
The little princess went round the table with quick, short, swaying
steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her dress sat
down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was doing was a
pleasure to herself and to all around her. "I have brought my work,"
said she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all present.
"Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick on me," she
added, turning to her hostess. "You wrote that it was to be quite a small
reception, and just see how badly I am dressed." And she spread out her
arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed, dainty gray dress,
girdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast.
"Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than anyone
else," replied Anna Pavlovna.
"You know," said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in
French, turning to a general, "my husband is deserting me? He is going
to get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?" she
added, addressing Prince Vasili, and without waiting for an answer she
turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Helene.
"What a delightful woman this little princess is!" said Prince Vasili
to Anna Pavlovna.
One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with
close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable at
that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout young
man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov, a well-known grandee
of Catherine's time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man had
not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had only just
returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this was his first
appearance in society. Anna Pavlovna greeted him with the nod she
accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room. But in spite of
this lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and fear, as at the sight of
something too large and unsuited to the place, came over her face when
she saw Pierre enter. Though he was certainly rather bigger than the
other men in the room, her anxiety could only have reference to the
clever though shy, but observant and natural, expression which
distinguished him from everyone else in that drawing room.
"It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor
invalid," said Anna Pavlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her
aunt as she conducted him to her.
Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look
round as if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to
the little princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate acquaintance.
Anna Pavlovna's alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the
aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty's health.
Anna Pavlovna in dismay detained him with the words: "Do you know
the Abbe Morio? He is a most interesting man."
"Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very
interesting but hardly feasible."
"You think so?" rejoined Anna Pavlovna in order to say something
and get away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now
committed a reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady before
she had finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak to
another who wished to get away. With his head bent, and his big feet
spread apart, he began explaining his reasons for thinking the abbe's
plan chimerical.
"We will talk of it later," said Anna Pavlovna with a smile.
And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to
behave, she resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and
watch, ready to help at any point where the conversation might happen
to flag. As the foreman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands to
work, goes round and notices here a spindle that has stopped or there
one that creaks or makes more noise than it should, and hastens to
check the machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna Pavlovna moved
about her drawing room, approaching now a silent, now a too-noisy
group, and by a word or slight rearrangement kept the conversational
machine in steady, proper, and regular motion. But amid these cares her
anxiety about Pierre was evident. She kept an anxious watch on him
when he approached the group round Mortemart to listen to what was
being said there, and again when he passed to another group whose
center was the abbe.
Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna
Pavlovna's was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all the
intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like a child in
a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of missing any
clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the self-confident and
refined expression on the faces of those present he was always
expecting to hear something very profound. At last he came up to
Morio. Here the conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting
for an opportunity to express his own views, as young people are fond
of doing.

CHAPTER III
Anna Pavlovna's reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed
steadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt,
beside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn
face was rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company
had settled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed round
the abbe. Another, of young people, was grouped round the beautiful
Princess Helene, Prince Vasili's daughter, and the little Princess
Bolkonskaya, very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump for her age.
The third group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna Pavlovna.
The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and
polished manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out
of politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in
which he found himself. Anna Pavlovna was obviously serving him up
as a treat to her guests. As a clever maitre d'hotel serves up as a
specially choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in
the kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pavlovna served up to her
guests, first the vicomte and then the abbe, as peculiarly choice
morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the
murder of the Duc d'Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d'Enghien
had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular
reasons for Buonaparte's hatred of him.
 "Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte," said Anna Pavlovna, with
a pleasant feeling that there was something a la Louis XV in the sound
of that sentence: "Contez nous cela, Vicomte."
The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his
willingness to comply. Anna Pavlovna arranged a group round him,
inviting everyone to listen to his tale.
"The vicomte knew the duc personally," whispered Anna Pavlovna
to of the guests. "The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur," said she to
another. "How evidently he belongs to the best society," said she to a
third; and the vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest
and most advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef
on a hot dish.
The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile.
"Come over here, Helene, dear," said Anna Pavlovna to the beautiful
young princess who was sitting some way off, the center of another
group.
The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with
which she had first entered the room—the smile of a perfectly beautiful
woman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss and
ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling
diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her, not
looking at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each
the privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and shapely shoulders,
back, and bosom—which in the fashion of those days were very much
exposed—and she seemed to bring the glamour of a ballroom with her
as she moved toward Anna Pavlovna. Helene was so lovely that not
only did she not show any trace of coquetry, but on the contrary she
even appeared shy of her unquestionable and all too victorious beauty.
She seemed to wish, but to be unable, to diminish its effect.
"How lovely!" said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte lifted his
shoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by something
extraordinary when she took her seat opposite and beamed upon him
also with her unchanging smile.
"Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience," said he,
smilingly inclining his head.
The princess rested her bare round arm on a little table and
considered a reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited. All the time the
story was being told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful
round arm, altered in shape by its pressure on the table, now at her still
more beautiful bosom, on which she readjusted a diamond necklace.
From time to time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and whenever
the story produced an effect she glanced at Anna Pavlovna, at once
adopted just the expression she saw on the maid of honor's face, and
again relapsed into her radiant smile.
The little princess had also left the tea table and followed Helene.
"Wait a moment, I'll get my work.... Now then, what are you
thinking of?" she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte. "Fetch me my
workbag."
There was a general movement as the princess, smiling and talking
merrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily arranged herself in her
seat.
"Now I am all right," she said, and asking the vicomte to begin, she
took up her work.
Prince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined the circle and
moving a chair close to hers seated himself beside her.
Le charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary
resemblance to his beautiful sister, but yet more by the fact that in spite
of this resemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features were like his
sister's, but while in her case everything was lit up by a joyous, self-
satisfied, youthful, and constant smile of animation, and by the
wonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the contrary was
dulled by imbecility and a constant expression of sullen self-
confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes, nose, and
mouth all seemed puckered into a vacant, wearied grimace, and his
arms and legs always fell into unnatural positions.
"It's not going to be a ghost story?" said he, sitting down beside the
princess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if without this instrument
he could not begin to speak.
"Why no, my dear fellow," said the astonished narrator, shrugging
his shoulders.
"Because I hate ghost stories," said Prince Hippolyte in a tone which
showed that he only understood the meaning of his words after he had
uttered them.
He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure
whether what he said was very witty or very stupid. He was dressed in
a dark-green dress coat, knee breeches of the color of cuisse de nymphe
effrayee, as he called it, shoes, and silk stockings.
The vicomte told his tale very neatly. It was an anecdote, then
current, to the effect that the Duc d'Enghien had gone secretly to Paris
to visit Mademoiselle George; that at her house he came upon
Bonaparte, who also enjoyed the famous actress' favors, and that in his
presence Napoleon happened to fall into one of the fainting fits to
which he was subject, and was thus at the duc's mercy. The latter
spared him, and this magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by
death.
The story was very pretty and interesting, especially at the point
where the rivals suddenly recognized one another; and the ladies
looked agitated.
"Charming!" said Anna Pavlovna with an inquiring glance at the
little princess.
"Charming!" whispered the little princess, sticking the needle into
her work as if to testify that the interest and fascination of the story
prevented her from going on with it.
The vicomte appreciated this silent praise and smiling gratefully
prepared to continue, but just then Anna Pavlovna, who had kept a
watchful eye on the young man who so alarmed her, noticed that he
was talking too loudly and vehemently with the abbe, so she hurried to
the rescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbe
about the balance of power, and the latter, evidently interested by the
young man's simple-minded eagerness, was explaining his pet theory.
Both were talking and listening too eagerly and too naturally, which
was why Anna Pavlovna disapproved.
"The means are... the balance of power in Europe and the rights of
the people," the abbe was saying. "It is only necessary for one powerful
nation like Russia—barbaric as she is said to be—to place herself
disinterestedly at the head of an alliance having for its object the
maintenance of the balance of power of Europe, and it would save the
world!"
"But how are you to get that balance?" Pierre was beginning.
At that moment Anna Pavlovna came up and, looking severely at
Pierre, asked the Italian how he stood Russian climate. The Italian's
face instantly changed and assumed an offensively affected, sugary
expression, evidently habitual to him when conversing with women.
"I am so enchanted by the brilliancy of the wit and culture of the
society, more especially of the feminine society, in which I have had
the honor of being received, that I have not yet had time to think of the
climate," said he.
Not letting the abbe and Pierre escape, Anna Pavlovna, the more
conveniently to keep them under observation, brought them into the
larger circle.
 CHAPTER IV
Just then another visitor entered the drawing room: Prince Andrew
Bolkonski, the little princess' husband. He was a very handsome young
man, of medium height, with firm, clearcut features. Everything about
him, from his weary, bored expression to his quiet, measured step,
offered a most striking contrast to his quiet, little wife. It was evident
that he not only knew everyone in the drawing room, but had found
them to be so tiresome that it wearied him to look at or listen to them.
And among all these faces that he found so tedious, none seemed to
bore him so much as that of his pretty wife. He turned away from her
with a grimace that distorted his handsome face, kissed Anna
Pavlovna's hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned the whole company.
"You are off to the war, Prince?" said Anna Pavlovna.
"General Kutuzov," said Bolkonski, speaking French and stressing
the last syllable of the general's name like a Frenchman, "has been
pleased to take me as an aide-de-camp...."
"And Lise, your wife?"
"She will go to the country."
"Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?"
"Andre," said his wife, addressing her husband in the same
coquettish manner in which she spoke to other men, "the vicomte has
been telling us such a tale about Mademoiselle George and
Buonaparte!"
Prince Andrew screwed up his eyes and turned away. Pierre, who
from the moment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him
with glad, affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before he
looked round Prince Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance
with whoever was touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre's beaming
face he gave him an unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile.
"There now!... So you, too, are in the great world?" said he to Pierre.
"I knew you would be here," replied Pierre. "I will come to supper
with you. May I?" he added in a low voice so as not to disturb the
vicomte who was continuing his story.
 "No, impossible!" said Prince Andrew, laughing and pressing
Pierre's hand to show that there was no need to ask the question. He
wished to say something more, but at that moment Prince Vasili and his
daughter got up to go and the two young men rose to let them pass.
"You must excuse me, dear Vicomte," said Prince Vasili to the
Frenchman, holding him down by the sleeve in a friendly way to
prevent his rising. "This unfortunate fete at the ambassador's deprives
me of a pleasure, and obliges me to interrupt you. I am very sorry to
leave your enchanting party," said he, turning to Anna Pavlovna.
His daughter, Princess Helene, passed between the chairs, lightly
holding up the folds of her dress, and the smile shone still more
radiantly on her beautiful face. Pierre gazed at her with rapturous,
almost frightened, eyes as she passed him.
"Very lovely," said Prince Andrew.
"Very," said Pierre.
In passing Prince Vasili seized Pierre's hand and said to Anna
Pavlovna: "Educate this bear for me! He has been staying with me a
whole month and this is the first time I have seen him in society.
Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of clever
women."
Anna Pavlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She
knew his father to be a connection of Prince Vasili's. The elderly lady
who had been sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and overtook
Prince Vasili in the anteroom. All the affectation of interest she had
assumed had left her kindly and tear-worn face and it now expressed
only anxiety and fear.
"How about my son Boris, Prince?" said she, hurrying after him into
the anteroom. "I can't remain any longer in Petersburg. Tell me what
news I may take back to my poor boy."
Although Prince Vasili listened reluctantly and not very politely to
the elderly lady, even betraying some impatience, she gave him an
ingratiating and appealing smile, and took his hand that he might not go
away.
"What would it cost you to say a word to the Emperor, and then he
would be transferred to the Guards at once?" said she.
"Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can," answered Prince
Vasili, "but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I should advise you
to appeal to Rumyantsev through Prince Golitsyn. That would be the
best way."
 The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskaya, belonging to one of the
best families in Russia, but she was poor, and having long been out of
society had lost her former influential connections. She had now come
to Petersburg to procure an appointment in the Guards for her only son.
It was, in fact, solely to meet Prince Vasili that she had obtained an
invitation to Anna Pavlovna's reception and had sat listening to the
vicomte's story. Prince Vasili's words frightened her, an embittered
look clouded her once handsome face, but only for a moment; then she
smiled again and clutched Prince Vasili's arm more tightly.
"Listen to me, Prince," said she. "I have never yet asked you for
anything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my
father's friendship for you; but now I entreat you for God's sake to do
this for my son—and I shall always regard you as a benefactor," she
added hurriedly. "No, don't be angry, but promise! I have asked
Golitsyn and he has refused. Be the kindhearted man you always were,"
she said, trying to smile though tears were in her eyes.
"Papa, we shall be late," said Princess Helene, turning her beautiful
head and looking over her classically molded shoulder as she stood
waiting by the door.
Influence in society, however, is a capital which has to be
economized if it is to last. Prince Vasili knew this, and having once
realized that if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him, he would
soon be unable to ask for himself, he became chary of using his
influence. But in Princess Drubetskaya's case he felt, after her second
appeal, something like qualms of conscience. She had reminded him of
what was quite true; he had been indebted to her father for the first
steps in his career. Moreover, he could see by her manners that she was
one of those women—mostly mothers—who, having once made up
their minds, will not rest until they have gained their end, and are
prepared if necessary to go on insisting day after day and hour after
hour, and even to make scenes. This last consideration moved him.
"My dear Anna Mikhaylovna," said he with his usual familiarity and
weariness of tone, "it is almost impossible for me to do what you ask;
but to prove my devotion to you and how I respect your father's
memory, I will do the impossible—your son shall be transferred to the
Guards. Here is my hand on it. Are you satisfied?"
"My dear benefactor! This is what I expected from you—I knew
your kindness!" He turned to go.
"Wait—just a word! When he has been transferred to the Guards..."
she faltered. "You are on good terms with Michael Ilarionovich
Kutuzov... recommend Boris to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at rest,
and then..."
 Prince Vasili smiled.
"No, I won't promise that. You don't know how Kutuzov is pestered
since his appointment as Commander in Chief. He told me himself that
all the Moscow ladies have conspired to give him all their sons as
adjutants."
"No, but do promise! I won't let you go! My dear benefactor..."
"Papa," said his beautiful daughter in the same tone as before, "we
shall be late."
"Well, au revoir! Good-by! You hear her?"
"Then tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?"
"Certainly; but about Kutuzov, I don't promise."
"Do promise, do promise, Vasili!" cried Anna Mikhaylovna as he
went, with the smile of a coquettish girl, which at one time probably
came naturally to her, but was now very ill-suited to her careworn face.
Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit employed
all the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone her face
resumed its former cold, artificial expression. She returned to the group
where the vicomte was still talking, and again pretended to listen, while
waiting till it would be time to leave. Her task was accomplished.

CHAPTER V
"And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at
Milan?" asked Anna Pavlovna, "and of the comedy of the people of
Genoa and Lucca laying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte,
and Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions
of the nations? Adorable! It is enough to make one's head whirl! It is as
if the whole world had gone crazy."
Prince Andrew looked Anna Pavlovna straight in the face with a
sarcastic smile.
"'Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touche!' * They say he was very
fine when he said that," he remarked, repeating the words in Italian:
"'Dio mi l'ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!'"
 * God has given it to me, let him who touches
it beware!

"I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run
over," Anna Pavlovna continued. "The sovereigns will not be able to
endure this man who is a menace to everything."
"The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia," said the vicomte, polite
but hopeless: "The sovereigns, madame... What have they done for
Louis XVII, for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!" and he
became more animated. "And believe me, they are reaping the reward
of their betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are
sending ambassadors to compliment the usurper."
And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.
Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time
through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the
little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing the Conde
coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much gravity
as if she had asked him to do it.
"Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules d'azur—maison Conde," said
he.
The princess listened, smiling.
"If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year longer," the
vicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a matter with which
he is better acquainted than anyone else, does not listen to others but
follows the current of his own thoughts, "things will have gone too far.
By intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French society—I mean
good French society—will have been forever destroyed, and then..."
He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre wished to
make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pavlovna,
who had him under observation, interrupted:
"The Emperor Alexander," said she, with the melancholy which
always accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family, "has
declared that he will leave it to the French people themselves to choose
their own form of government; and I believe that once free from the
usurper, the whole nation will certainly throw itself into the arms of its
rightful king," she concluded, trying to be amiable to the royalist
emigrant.
"That is doubtful," said Prince Andrew. "Monsieur le Vicomte quite
rightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I think it will
be difficult to return to the old regime."
 "From what I have heard," said Pierre, blushing and breaking into the
conversation, "almost all the aristocracy has already gone over to
Bonaparte's side."
"It is the Buonapartists who say that," replied the vicomte without
looking at Pierre. "At the present time it is difficult to know the real
state of French public opinion."
"Bonaparte has said so," remarked Prince Andrew with a sarcastic
smile.
It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming his
remarks at him, though without looking at him.
"'I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow it,'" Prince
Andrew continued after a short silence, again quoting Napoleon's
words. "'I opened my antechambers and they crowded in.' I do not
know how far he was justified in saying so."
"Not in the least," replied the vicomte. "After the murder of the duc
even the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some
people," he went on, turning to Anna Pavlovna, "he ever was a hero,
after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and
one hero less on earth."
Before Anna Pavlovna and the others had time to smile their
appreciation of the vicomte's epigram, Pierre again broke into the
conversation, and though Anna Pavlovna felt sure he would say
something inappropriate, she was unable to stop him.
"The execution of the Duc d'Enghien," declared Monsieur Pierre,
"was a political necessity, and it seems to me that Napoleon showed
greatness of soul by not fearing to take on himself the whole
responsibility of that deed."
"Dieu! Mon Dieu!" muttered Anna Pavlovna in a terrified whisper.
"What, Monsieur Pierre... Do you consider that assassination shows
greatness of soul?" said the little princess, smiling and drawing her
work nearer to her.
"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed several voices.
"Capital!" said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began slapping his
knee with the palm of his hand.
The vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked solemnly
at his audience over his spectacles and continued.
"I say so," he continued desperately, "because the Bourbons fled
from the Revolution leaving the people to anarchy, and Napoleon alone
understood the Revolution and quelled it, and so for the general good,
he could not stop short for the sake of one man's life."
"Won't you come over to the other table?" suggested Anna Pavlovna.
But Pierre continued his speech without heeding her.
"No," cried he, becoming more and more eager, "Napoleon is great
because he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses,
preserved all that was good in it—equality of citizenship and freedom
of speech and of the press—and only for that reason did he obtain
power."
"Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself of it to
commit murder he had restored it to the rightful king, I should have
called him a great man," remarked the vicomte.
"He could not do that. The people only gave him power that he might
rid them of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a great
man. The Revolution was a grand thing!" continued Monsieur Pierre,
betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme
youth and his wish to express all that was in his mind.
"What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?... Well, after that...
But won't you come to this other table?" repeated Anna Pavlovna.
"Rousseau's Contrat social," said the vicomte with a tolerant smile.
"I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas."
"Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide," again interjected an
ironical voice.
"Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is most
important. What is important are the rights of man, emancipation from
prejudices, and equality of citizenship, and all these ideas Napoleon has
retained in full force."
"Liberty and equality," said the vicomte contemptuously, as if at last
deciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish his words were,
"high-sounding words which have long been discredited. Who does not
love liberty and equality? Even our Saviour preached liberty and
equality. Have people since the Revolution become happier? On the
contrary. We wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it."
Prince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from Pierre to the
vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first moment of
Pierre's outburst Anna Pavlovna, despite her social experience, was
horror-struck. But when she saw that Pierre's sacrilegious words had
not exasperated the vicomte, and had convinced herself that it was
impossible to stop him, she rallied her forces and joined the vicomte in
a vigorous attack on the orator.
"But, my dear Monsieur Pierre," said she, "how do you explain the
fact of a great man executing a duc—or even an ordinary man who—is
innocent and untried?"
"I should like," said the vicomte, "to ask how monsieur explains the
18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was a swindle, and not at
all like the conduct of a great man!"
"And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!" said the
little princess, shrugging her shoulders.
"He's a low fellow, say what you will," remarked Prince Hippolyte.
Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them all and smiled.
His smile was unlike the half-smile of other people. When he smiled,
his grave, even rather gloomy, look was instantaneously replaced by
another—a childlike, kindly, even rather silly look, which seemed to
ask forgiveness.
The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw clearly that
this young Jacobin was not so terrible as his words suggested. All were
silent.
"How do you expect him to answer you all at once?" said Prince
Andrew. "Besides, in the actions of a statesman one has to distinguish
between his acts as a private person, as a general, and as an emperor.
So it seems to me."
"Yes, yes, of course!" Pierre chimed in, pleased at the arrival of this
reinforcement.
"One must admit," continued Prince Andrew, "that Napoleon as a
man was great on the bridge of Arcola, and in the hospital at Jaffa
where he gave his hand to the plague-stricken; but... but there are other
acts which it is difficult to justify."
Prince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down the
awkwardness of Pierre's remarks, rose and made a sign to his wife that
it was time to go.
Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to everyone to
attend, and asking them all to be seated began:
"I was told a charming Moscow story today and must treat you to it.
Excuse me, Vicomte—I must tell it in Russian or the point will be
lost...." And Prince Hippolyte began to tell his story in such Russian as
a Frenchman would speak after spending about a year in Russia.
Everyone waited, so emphatically and eagerly did he demand their
attention to his story.
"There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very stingy. She
must have two footmen behind her carriage, and very big ones. That
was her taste. And she had a lady's maid, also big. She said..."
Here Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his ideas with
difficulty.
"She said... Oh yes! She said, 'Girl,' to the maid, 'put on a livery, get
up behind the carriage, and come with me while I make some calls.'"
Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing long before
his audience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the narrator.
Several persons, among them the elderly lady and Anna Pavlovna, did
however smile.
"She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl lost her hat and
her long hair came down...." Here he could contain himself no longer
and went on, between gasps of laughter: "And the whole world
knew...."
And so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why he had
told it, or why it had to be told in Russian, still Anna Pavlovna and the
others appreciated Prince Hippolyte's social tact in so agreeably ending
Pierre's unpleasant and unamiable outburst. After the anecdote the
conversation broke up into insignificant small talk about the last and
next balls, about theatricals, and who would meet whom, and when and
where.

CHAPTER VI
Having thanked Anna Pavlovna for her charming soiree, the guests
began to take their leave.
Pierre was ungainly. Stout, about the average height, broad, with
huge red hands; he did not know, as the saying is, how to enter a
drawing room and still less how to leave one; that is, how to say
something particularly agreeable before going away. Besides this he
was absent-minded. When he rose to go, he took up instead of his own,
the general's three-cornered hat, and held it, pulling at the plume, till
the general asked him to restore it. All his absent-mindedness and
inability to enter a room and converse in it was, however, redeemed by
his kindly, simple, and modest expression. Anna Pavlovna turned
toward him and, with a Christian mildness that expressed forgiveness
of his indiscretion, nodded and said: "I hope to see you again, but I also
hope you will change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre."
When she said this, he did not reply and only bowed, but again
everybody saw his smile, which said nothing, unless perhaps,
"Opinions are opinions, but you see what a capital, good-natured fellow
I am." And everyone, including Anna Pavlovna, felt this.
Prince Andrew had gone out into the hall, and, turning his shoulders
to the footman who was helping him on with his cloak, listened
indifferently to his wife's chatter with Prince Hippolyte who had also
come into the hall. Prince Hippolyte stood close to the pretty, pregnant
princess, and stared fixedly at her through his eyeglass.
"Go in, Annette, or you will catch cold," said the little princess,
taking leave of Anna Pavlovna. "It is settled," she added in a low voice.
Anna Pavlovna had already managed to speak to Lise about the
match she contemplated between Anatole and the little princess' sister-
in-law.
"I rely on you, my dear," said Anna Pavlovna, also in a low tone.
"Write to her and let me know how her father looks at the matter. Au
revoir!"—and she left the hall.
Prince Hippolyte approached the little princess and, bending his face
close to her, began to whisper something.
Two footmen, the princess' and his own, stood holding a shawl and a
cloak, waiting for the conversation to finish. They listened to the
French sentences which to them were meaningless, with an air of
understanding but not wishing to appear to do so. The princess as usual
spoke smilingly and listened with a laugh.
"I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador's," said Prince
Hippolyte "-so dull-. It has been a delightful evening, has it not?
Delightful!"
"They say the ball will be very good," replied the princess, drawing
up her downy little lip. "All the pretty women in society will be there."
"Not all, for you will not be there; not all," said Prince Hippolyte
smiling joyfully; and snatching the shawl from the footman, whom he
even pushed aside, he began wrapping it round the princess. Either
from awkwardness or intentionally (no one could have said which)
after the shawl had been adjusted he kept his arm around her for a long
time, as though embracing her.
 Still smiling, she gracefully moved away, turning and glancing at her
husband. Prince Andrew's eyes were closed, so weary and sleepy did he
seem.
"Are you ready?" he asked his wife, looking past her.
Prince Hippolyte hurriedly put on his cloak, which in the latest
fashion reached to his very heels, and, stumbling in it, ran out into the
porch following the princess, whom a footman was helping into the
carriage.
"Princesse, au revoir," cried he, stumbling with his tongue as well as
with his feet.
The princess, picking up her dress, was taking her seat in the dark
carriage, her husband was adjusting his saber; Prince Hippolyte, under
pretense of helping, was in everyone's way.
"Allow me, sir," said Prince Andrew in Russian in a cold,
disagreeable tone to Prince Hippolyte who was blocking his path.
"I am expecting you, Pierre," said the same voice, but gently and
affectionately.
The postilion started, the carriage wheels rattled. Prince Hippolyte
laughed spasmodically as he stood in the porch waiting for the vicomte
whom he had promised to take home.
"Well, mon cher," said the vicomte, having seated himself beside
Hippolyte in the carriage, "your little princess is very nice, very nice
indeed, quite French," and he kissed the tips of his fingers. Hippolyte
burst out laughing.
"Do you know, you are a terrible chap for all your innocent airs,"
continued the vicomte. "I pity the poor husband, that little officer who
gives himself the airs of a monarch."
Hippolyte spluttered again, and amid his laughter said, "And you
were saying that the Russian ladies are not equal to the French? One
has to know how to deal with them."
Pierre reaching the house first went into Prince Andrew's study like
one quite at home, and from habit immediately lay down on the sofa,
took from the shelf the first book that came to his hand (it was Caesar's
Commentaries), and resting on his elbow, began reading it in the
middle.
"What have you done to Mlle Scherer? She will be quite ill now,"
said Prince Andrew, as he entered the study, rubbing his small white
hands.
 Pierre turned his whole body, making the sofa creak. He lifted his
eager face to Prince Andrew, smiled, and waved his hand.
"That abbe is very interesting but he does not see the thing in the
right light.... In my opinion perpetual peace is possible but—I do not
know how to express it... not by a balance of political power...."
It was evident that Prince Andrew was not interested in such abstract
conversation.
"One can't everywhere say all one thinks, mon cher. Well, have you
at last decided on anything? Are you going to be a guardsman or a
diplomatist?" asked Prince Andrew after a momentary silence.
Pierre sat up on the sofa, with his legs tucked under him.
"Really, I don't yet know. I don't like either the one or the other."
"But you must decide on something! Your father expects it."
Pierre at the age of ten had been sent abroad with an abbe as tutor,
and had remained away till he was twenty. When he returned to
Moscow his father dismissed the abbe and said to the young man,
"Now go to Petersburg, look round, and choose your profession. I will
agree to anything. Here is a letter to Prince Vasili, and here is money.
Write to me all about it, and I will help you in everything." Pierre had
already been choosing a career for three months, and had not decided
on anything. It was about this choice that Prince Andrew was speaking.
Pierre rubbed his forehead.
"But he must be a Freemason," said he, referring to the abbe whom
he had met that evening.
"That is all nonsense." Prince Andrew again interrupted him, "let us
talk business. Have you been to the Horse Guards?"
"No, I have not; but this is what I have been thinking and wanted to
tell you. There is a war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for
freedom I could understand it and should be the first to enter the army;
but to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world is
not right."
Prince Andrew only shrugged his shoulders at Pierre's childish
words. He put on the air of one who finds it impossible to reply to such
nonsense, but it would in fact have been difficult to give any other
answer than the one Prince Andrew gave to this naive question.
"If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no
wars," he said.
"And that would be splendid," said Pierre.
 Prince Andrew smiled ironically.
"Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about..."
"Well, why are you going to the war?" asked Pierre.
"What for? I don't know. I must. Besides that I am going..." He
paused. "I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit
me!"

CHAPTER VII
The rustle of a woman's dress was heard in the next room. Prince
Andrew shook himself as if waking up, and his face assumed the look it
had had in Anna Pavlovna's drawing room. Pierre removed his feet
from the sofa. The princess came in. She had changed her gown for a
house dress as fresh and elegant as the other. Prince Andrew rose and
politely placed a chair for her.
"How is it," she began, as usual in French, settling down briskly and
fussily in the easy chair, "how is it Annette never got married? How
stupid you men all are not to have married her! Excuse me for saying
so, but you have no sense about women. What an argumentative fellow
you are, Monsieur Pierre!"
"And I am still arguing with your husband. I can't understand why he
wants to go to the war," replied Pierre, addressing the princess with
none of the embarrassment so commonly shown by young men in their
intercourse with young women.
The princess started. Evidently Pierre's words touched her to the
quick.
"Ah, that is just what I tell him!" said she. "I don't understand it; I
don't in the least understand why men can't live without wars. How is it
that we women don't want anything of the kind, don't need it? Now you
shall judge between us. I always tell him: Here he is Uncle's aide-de-
camp, a most brilliant position. He is so well known, so much
appreciated by everyone. The other day at the Apraksins' I heard a lady
asking, 'Is that the famous Prince Andrew?' I did indeed." She laughed.
"He is so well received everywhere. He might easily become aide-de-
camp to the Emperor. You know the Emperor spoke to him most
graciously. Annette and I were speaking of how to arrange it. What do
you think?"
 Pierre looked at his friend and, noticing that he did not like the
conversation, gave no reply.
"When are you starting?" he asked.
"Oh, don't speak of his going, don't! I won't hear it spoken of," said
the princess in the same petulantly playful tone in which she had
spoken to Hippolyte in the drawing room and which was so plainly ill-
suited to the family circle of which Pierre was almost a member.
"Today when I remembered that all these delightful associations must
be broken off... and then you know, Andre..." (she looked significantly
at her husband) "I'm afraid, I'm afraid!" she whispered, and a shudder
ran down her back.
Her husband looked at her as if surprised to notice that someone
besides Pierre and himself was in the room, and addressed her in a tone
of frigid politeness.
"What is it you are afraid of, Lise? I don't understand," said he.
"There, what egotists men all are: all, all egotists! Just for a whim of
his own, goodness only knows why, he leaves me and locks me up
alone in the country."
"With my father and sister, remember," said Prince Andrew gently.
"Alone all the same, without my friends.... And he expects me not to
be afraid."
Her tone was now querulous and her lip drawn up, giving her not a
joyful, but an animal, squirrel-like expression. She paused as if she felt
it indecorous to speak of her pregnancy before Pierre, though the gist of
the matter lay in that.
"I still can't understand what you are afraid of," said Prince Andrew
slowly, not taking his eyes off his wife.
The princess blushed, and raised her arms with a gesture of despair.
"No, Andrew, I must say you have changed. Oh, how you have..."
"Your doctor tells you to go to bed earlier," said Prince Andrew.
"You had better go."
The princess said nothing, but suddenly her short downy lip
quivered. Prince Andrew rose, shrugged his shoulders, and walked
about the room.
Pierre looked over his spectacles with naive surprise, now at him and
now at her, moved as if about to rise too, but changed his mind.
 "Why should I mind Monsieur Pierre being here?" exclaimed the
little princess suddenly, her pretty face all at once distorted by a tearful
grimace. "I have long wanted to ask you, Andrew, why you have
changed so to me? What have I done to you? You are going to the war
and have no pity for me. Why is it?"
"Lise!" was all Prince Andrew said. But that one word expressed an
entreaty, a threat, and above all conviction that she would herself regret
her words. But she went on hurriedly:
"You treat me like an invalid or a child. I see it all! Did you behave
like that six months ago?"
"Lise, I beg you to desist," said Prince Andrew still more
emphatically.
Pierre, who had been growing more and more agitated as he listened
to all this, rose and approached the princess. He seemed unable to bear
the sight of tears and was ready to cry himself.
"Calm yourself, Princess! It seems so to you because... I assure you I
myself have experienced... and so... because... No, excuse me! An
outsider is out of place here... No, don't distress yourself... Good-by!"
Prince Andrew caught him by the hand.
"No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind to wish to deprive me of
the pleasure of spending the evening with you."
"No, he thinks only of himself," muttered the princess without
restraining her angry tears.
"Lise!" said Prince Andrew dryly, raising his voice to the pitch
which indicates that patience is exhausted.
Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression of the princess' pretty
face changed into a winning and piteous look of fear. Her beautiful
eyes glanced askance at her husband's face, and her own assumed the
timid, deprecating expression of a dog when it rapidly but feebly wags
its drooping tail.
"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" she muttered, and lifting her dress with one
hand she went up to her husband and kissed him on the forehead.
"Good night, Lise," said he, rising and courteously kissing her hand
as he would have done to a stranger.
 CHAPTER VIII
The friends were silent. Neither cared to begin talking. Pierre
continually glanced at Prince Andrew; Prince Andrew rubbed his
forehead with his small hand.
"Let us go and have supper," he said with a sigh, going to the door.
They entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious dining
room. Everything from the table napkins to the silver, china, and glass
bore that imprint of newness found in the households of the newly
married. Halfway through supper Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on
the table and, with a look of nervous agitation such as Pierre had never
before seen on his face, began to talk—as one who has long had
something on his mind and suddenly determines to speak out.
"Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's my advice: never marry
till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of,
and until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have
seen her plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable
mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing—or all that is
good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles. Yes!
Yes! Yes! Don't look at me with such surprise. If you marry expecting
anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every step that for
you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing room, where you will
be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an idiot!... But what's the
good?..." and he waved his arm.
Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face seem different
and the good-natured expression still more apparent, and gazed at his
friend in amazement.
"My wife," continued Prince Andrew, "is an excellent woman, one
of those rare women with whom a man's honor is safe; but, O God,
what would I not give now to be unmarried! You are the first and only
one to whom I mention this, because I like you."
As he said this Prince Andrew was less than ever like that Bolkonski
who had lolled in Anna Pavlovna's easy chairs and with half-closed
eyes had uttered French phrases between his teeth. Every muscle of his
thin face was now quivering with nervous excitement; his eyes, in
which the fire of life had seemed extinguished, now flashed with
brilliant light. It was evident that the more lifeless he seemed at
ordinary times, the more impassioned he became in these moments of
almost morbid irritation.
"You don't understand why I say this," he continued, "but it is the
whole story of life. You talk of Bonaparte and his career," said he
(though Pierre had not mentioned Bonaparte), "but Bonaparte when he
worked went step by step toward his goal. He was free, he had nothing
but his aim to consider, and he reached it. But tie yourself up with a
woman and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom! And all you
have of hope and strength merely weighs you down and torments you
with regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and triviality—these
are the enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I am now going to the
war, the greatest war there ever was, and I know nothing and am fit for
nothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic wit," continued Prince
Andrew, "and at Anna Pavlovna's they listen to me. And that stupid set
without whom my wife cannot exist, and those women... If you only
knew what those society women are, and women in general! My father
is right. Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything—that's what women
are when you see them in their true colors! When you meet them in
society it seems as if there were something in them, but there's nothing,
nothing, nothing! No, don't marry, my dear fellow; don't marry!"
concluded Prince Andrew.
"It seems funny to me," said Pierre, "that you, you should consider
yourself incapable and your life a spoiled life. You have everything
before you, everything. And you..."
He did not finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he
thought of his friend and how much he expected of him in the future.
"How can he talk like that?" thought Pierre. He considered his friend
a model of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the highest
degree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which might be best
described as strength of will. Pierre was always astonished at Prince
Andrew's calm manner of treating everybody, his extraordinary
memory, his extensive reading (he had read everything, knew
everything, and had an opinion about everything), but above all at his
capacity for work and study. And if Pierre was often struck by
Andrew's lack of capacity for philosophical meditation (to which he
himself was particularly addicted), he regarded even this not as a defect
but as a sign of strength.
Even in the best, most friendly and simplest relations of life, praise
and commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary to wheels
that they may run smoothly.
"My part is played out," said Prince Andrew. "What's the use of
talking about me? Let us talk about you," he added after a silence,
smiling at his reassuring thoughts.
That smile was immediately reflected on Pierre's face.
"But what is there to say about me?" said Pierre, his face relaxing
into a careless, merry smile. "What am I? An illegitimate son!" He
suddenly blushed crimson, and it was plain that he had made a great
effort to say this. "Without a name and without means... And it
really..." But he did not say what "it really" was. "For the present I am
free and am all right. Only I haven't the least idea what I am to do; I
wanted to consult you seriously."
Prince Andrew looked kindly at him, yet his glance—friendly and
affectionate as it was—expressed a sense of his own superiority.
"I am fond of you, especially as you are the one live man among our
whole set. Yes, you're all right! Choose what you will; it's all the same.
You'll be all right anywhere. But look here: give up visiting those
Kuragins and leading that sort of life. It suits you so badly—all this
debauchery, dissipation, and the rest of it!"
"What would you have, my dear fellow?" answered Pierre, shrugging
his shoulders. "Women, my dear fellow; women!"
"I don't understand it," replied Prince Andrew. "Women who are
comme il faut, that's a different matter; but the Kuragins' set of women,
'women and wine' I don't understand!"
Pierre was staying at Prince Vasili Kuragin's and sharing the
dissipated life of his son Anatole, the son whom they were planning to
reform by marrying him to Prince Andrew's sister.
"Do you know?" said Pierre, as if suddenly struck by a happy
thought, "seriously, I have long been thinking of it.... Leading such a
life I can't decide or think properly about anything. One's head aches,
and one spends all one's money. He asked me for tonight, but I won't
go."
"You give me your word of honor not to go?"
"On my honor!"

CHAPTER IX
It was past one o'clock when Pierre left his friend. It was a cloudless,
northern, summer night. Pierre took an open cab intending to drive
straight home. But the nearer he drew to the house the more he felt the
impossibility of going to sleep on such a night. It was light enough to
see a long way in the deserted street and it seemed more like morning
or evening than night. On the way Pierre remembered that Anatole
Kuragin was expecting the usual set for cards that evening, after which
there was generally a drinking bout, finishing with visits of a kind
Pierre was very fond of.
"I should like to go to Kuragin's," thought he.
But he immediately recalled his promise to Prince Andrew not to go
there. Then, as happens to people of weak character, he desired so
passionately once more to enjoy that dissipation he was so accustomed
to that he decided to go. The thought immediately occurred to him that
his promise to Prince Andrew was of no account, because before he
gave it he had already promised Prince Anatole to come to his
gathering; "besides," thought he, "all such 'words of honor' are
conventional things with no definite meaning, especially if one
considers that by tomorrow one may be dead, or something so
extraordinary may happen to one that honor and dishonor will be all the
same!" Pierre often indulged in reflections of this sort, nullifying all his
decisions and intentions. He went to Kuragin's.
Reaching the large house near the Horse Guards' barracks, in which
Anatole lived, Pierre entered the lighted porch, ascended the stairs, and
went in at the open door. There was no one in the anteroom; empty
bottles, cloaks, and overshoes were lying about; there was a smell of
alcohol, and sounds of voices and shouting in the distance.
Cards and supper were over, but the visitors had not yet dispersed.
Pierre threw off his cloak and entered the first room, in which were the
remains of supper. A footman, thinking no one saw him, was drinking
on the sly what was left in the glasses. From the third room came
sounds of laughter, the shouting of familiar voices, the growling of a
bear, and general commotion. Some eight or nine young men were
crowding anxiously round an open window. Three others were romping
with a young bear, one pulling him by the chain and trying to set him at
the others.
"I bet a hundred on Stevens!" shouted one.
"Mind, no holding on!" cried another.
"I bet on Dolokhov!" cried a third. "Kuragin, you part our hands."
"There, leave Bruin alone; here's a bet on."
"At one draught, or he loses!" shouted a fourth.
"Jacob, bring a bottle!" shouted the host, a tall, handsome fellow
who stood in the midst of the group, without a coat, and with his fine
linen shirt unfastened in front. "Wait a bit, you fellows.... Here is Petya!
Good man!" cried he, addressing Pierre.
 Another voice, from a man of medium height with clear blue eyes,
particularly striking among all these drunken voices by its sober ring,
cried from the window: "Come here; part the bets!" This was
Dolokhov, an officer of the Semenov regiment, a notorious gambler
and duelist, who was living with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking about
him merrily.
"I don't understand. What's it all about?"
"Wait a bit, he is not drunk yet! A bottle here," said Anatole, taking a
glass from the table he went up to Pierre.
"First of all you must drink!"
Pierre drank one glass after another, looking from under his brows at
the tipsy guests who were again crowding round the window, and
listening to their chatter. Anatole kept on refilling Pierre's glass while
explaining that Dolokhov was betting with Stevens, an English naval
officer, that he would drink a bottle of rum sitting on the outer ledge of
the third floor window with his legs hanging out.
"Go on, you must drink it all," said Anatole, giving Pierre the last
glass, "or I won't let you go!"
"No, I won't," said Pierre, pushing Anatole aside, and he went up to
the window.
Dolokhov was holding the Englishman's hand and clearly and
distinctly repeating the terms of the bet, addressing himself particularly
to Anatole and Pierre.
Dolokhov was of medium height, with curly hair and light-blue eyes.
He was about twenty-five. Like all infantry officers he wore no
mustache, so that his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was
clearly seen. The lines of that mouth were remarkably finely curved.
The middle of the upper lip formed a sharp wedge and closed firmly on
the firm lower one, and something like two distinct smiles played
continually round the two corners of the mouth; this, together with the
resolute, insolent intelligence of his eyes, produced an effect which
made it impossible not to notice his face. Dolokhov was a man of small
means and no connections. Yet, though Anatole spent tens of thousands
of rubles, Dolokhov lived with him and had placed himself on such a
footing that all who knew them, including Anatole himself, respected
him more than they did Anatole. Dolokhov could play all games and
nearly always won. However much he drank, he never lost his
clearheadedness. Both Kuragin and Dolokhov were at that time
notorious among the rakes and scapegraces of Petersburg.
The bottle of rum was brought. The window frame which prevented
anyone from sitting on the outer sill was being forced out by two
footmen, who were evidently flurried and intimidated by the directions
and shouts of the gentlemen around.
Anatole with his swaggering air strode up to the window. He wanted
to smash something. Pushing away the footmen he tugged at the frame,
but could not move it. He smashed a pane.
"You have a try, Hercules," said he, turning to Pierre.
Pierre seized the crossbeam, tugged, and wrenched the oak frame out
with a crash.
"Take it right out, or they'll think I'm holding on," said Dolokhov.
"Is the Englishman bragging?... Eh? Is it all right?" said Anatole.
"First-rate," said Pierre, looking at Dolokhov, who with a bottle of
rum in his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of
the sky, the dawn merging with the afterglow of sunset, was visible.
Dolokhov, the bottle of rum still in his hand, jumped onto the
window sill. "Listen!" cried he, standing there and addressing those in
the room. All were silent.
"I bet fifty imperials"—he spoke French that the Englishman might
understand him, but he did, not speak it very well—"I bet fifty
imperials... or do you wish to make it a hundred?" added he, addressing
the Englishman.
"No, fifty," replied the latter.
"All right. Fifty imperials... that I will drink a whole bottle of rum
without taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window on this
spot" (he stooped and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the window)
"and without holding on to anything. Is that right?"
"Quite right," said the Englishman.
Anatole turned to the Englishman and taking him by one of the
buttons of his coat and looking down at him—the Englishman was
short—began repeating the terms of the wager to him in English.
"Wait!" cried Dolokhov, hammering with the bottle on the window
sill to attract attention. "Wait a bit, Kuragin. Listen! If anyone else does
the same, I will pay him a hundred imperials. Do you understand?"
The Englishman nodded, but gave no indication whether he intended
to accept this challenge or not. Anatole did not release him, and though
he kept nodding to show that he understood, Anatole went on
translating Dolokhov's words into English. A thin young lad, an hussar
of the Life Guards, who had been losing that evening, climbed on the
window sill, leaned over, and looked down.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" he muttered, looking down from the window at the
stones of the pavement.
"Shut up!" cried Dolokhov, pushing him away from the window. The
lad jumped awkwardly back into the room, tripping over his spurs.
Placing the bottle on the window sill where he could reach it easily,
Dolokhov climbed carefully and slowly through the window and
lowered his legs. Pressing against both sides of the window, he
adjusted himself on his seat, lowered his hands, moved a little to the
right and then to the left, and took up the bottle. Anatole brought two
candles and placed them on the window sill, though it was already quite
light. Dolokhov's back in his white shirt, and his curly head, were lit up
from both sides. Everyone crowded to the window, the Englishman in
front. Pierre stood smiling but silent. One man, older than the others
present, suddenly pushed forward with a scared and angry look and
wanted to seize hold of Dolokhov's shirt.
"I say, this is folly! He'll be killed," said this more sensible man.
Anatole stopped him.
"Don't touch him! You'll startle him and then he'll be killed. Eh?...
What then?... Eh?"
Dolokhov turned round and, again holding on with both hands,
arranged himself on his seat.
"If anyone comes meddling again," said he, emitting the words
separately through his thin compressed lips, "I will throw him down
there. Now then!"
Saying this he again turned round, dropped his hands, took the bottle
and lifted it to his lips, threw back his head, and raised his free hand to
balance himself. One of the footmen who had stooped to pick up some
broken glass remained in that position without taking his eyes from the
window and from Dolokhov's back. Anatole stood erect with staring
eyes. The Englishman looked on sideways, pursing up his lips. The
man who had wished to stop the affair ran to a corner of the room and
threw himself on a sofa with his face to the wall. Pierre hid his face,
from which a faint smile forgot to fade though his features now
expressed horror and fear. All were still. Pierre took his hands from his
eyes. Dolokhov still sat in the same position, only his head was thrown
further back till his curly hair touched his shirt collar, and the hand
holding the bottle was lifted higher and higher and trembled with the
effort. The bottle was emptying perceptibly and rising still higher and
his head tilting yet further back. "Why is it so long?" thought Pierre. It
seemed to him that more than half an hour had elapsed. Suddenly
Dolokhov made a backward movement with his spine, and his arm
trembled nervously; this was sufficient to cause his whole body to slip
as he sat on the sloping ledge. As he began slipping down, his head and
arm wavered still more with the strain. One hand moved as if to clutch
the window sill, but refrained from touching it. Pierre again covered his
eyes and thought he would never open them again. Suddenly he was
aware of a stir all around. He looked up: Dolokhov was standing on the
window sill, with a pale but radiant face.
"It's empty."
He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it neatly.
Dolokhov jumped down. He smelt strongly of rum.
"Well done!... Fine fellow!... There's a bet for you!... Devil take
you!" came from different sides.
The Englishman took out his purse and began counting out the
money. Dolokhov stood frowning and did not speak. Pierre jumped
upon the window sill.
"Gentlemen, who wishes to bet with me? I'll do the same thing!" he
suddenly cried. "Even without a bet, there! Tell them to bring me a
bottle. I'll do it.... Bring a bottle!"
"Let him do it, let him do it," said Dolokhov, smiling.
"What next? Have you gone mad?... No one would let you!... Why,
you go giddy even on a staircase," exclaimed several voices.
"I'll drink it! Let's have a bottle of rum!" shouted Pierre, banging the
table with a determined and drunken gesture and preparing to climb out
of the window.
They seized him by his arms; but he was so strong that everyone who
touched him was sent flying.
"No, you'll never manage him that way," said Anatole. "Wait a bit
and I'll get round him.... Listen! I'll take your bet tomorrow, but now
we are all going to ——'s."
"Come on then," cried Pierre. "Come on!... And we'll take Bruin with
us."
And he caught the bear, took it in his arms, lifted it from the ground,
and began dancing round the room with it.
 CHAPTER X
Prince Vasili kept the promise he had given to Princess Drubetskaya
who had spoken to him on behalf of her only son Boris on the evening
of Anna Pavlovna's soiree. The matter was mentioned to the Emperor,
an exception made, and Boris transferred into the regiment of Semenov
Guards with the rank of cornet. He received, however, no appointment
to Kutuzov's staff despite all Anna Mikhaylovna's endeavors and
entreaties. Soon after Anna Pavlovna's reception Anna Mikhaylovna
returned to Moscow and went straight to her rich relations, the Rostovs,
with whom she stayed when in the town and where her darling Bory,
who had only just entered a regiment of the line and was being at once
transferred to the Guards as a cornet, had been educated from
childhood and lived for years at a time. The Guards had already left
Petersburg on the tenth of August, and her son, who had remained in
Moscow for his equipment, was to join them on the march to
Radzivilov.
It was St. Natalia's day and the name day of two of the Rostovs—the
mother and the youngest daughter—both named Nataly. Ever since the
morning, carriages with six horses had been coming and going
continually, bringing visitors to the Countess Rostova's big house on
the Povarskaya, so well known to all Moscow. The countess herself and
her handsome eldest daughter were in the drawing-room with the
visitors who came to congratulate, and who constantly succeeded one
another in relays.
The countess was a woman of about forty-five, with a thin Oriental
type of face, evidently worn out with childbearing—she had had
twelve. A languor of motion and speech, resulting from weakness, gave
her a distinguished air which inspired respect. Princess Anna
Mikhaylovna Drubetskaya, who as a member of the household was also
seated in the drawing room, helped to receive and entertain the visitors.
The young people were in one of the inner rooms, not considering it
necessary to take part in receiving the visitors. The count met the guests
and saw them off, inviting them all to dinner.
"I am very, very grateful to you, mon cher," or "ma chere"—he
called everyone without exception and without the slightest variation in
his tone, "my dear," whether they were above or below him in rank—"I
thank you for myself and for our two dear ones whose name day we are
keeping. But mind you come to dinner or I shall be offended, ma chere!
On behalf of the whole family I beg you to come, mon cher!" These
words he repeated to everyone without exception or variation, and with
the same expression on his full, cheerful, clean-shaven face, the same
firm pressure of the hand and the same quick, repeated bows. As soon
as he had seen a visitor off he returned to one of those who were still in
the drawing room, drew a chair toward him or her, and jauntily
spreading out his legs and putting his hands on his knees with the air of
a man who enjoys life and knows how to live, he swayed to and fro
with dignity, offered surmises about the weather, or touched on
questions of health, sometimes in Russian and sometimes in very bad
but self-confident French; then again, like a man weary but unflinching
in the fulfillment of duty, he rose to see some visitors off and, stroking
his scanty gray hairs over his bald patch, also asked them to dinner.
Sometimes on his way back from the anteroom he would pass through
the conservatory and pantry into the large marble dining hall, where
tables were being set out for eighty people; and looking at the footmen,
who were bringing in silver and china, moving tables, and unfolding
damask table linen, he would call Dmitri Vasilevich, a man of good
family and the manager of all his affairs, and while looking with
pleasure at the enormous table would say: "Well, Dmitri, you'll see that
things are all as they should be? That's right! The great thing is the
serving, that's it." And with a complacent sigh he would return to the
drawing room.
"Marya Lvovna Karagina and her daughter!" announced the
countess' gigantic footman in his bass voice, entering the drawing
room. The countess reflected a moment and took a pinch from a gold
snuffbox with her husband's portrait on it.
"I'm quite worn out by these callers. However, I'll see her and no
more. She is so affected. Ask her in," she said to the footman in a sad
voice, as if saying: "Very well, finish me off."
A tall, stout, and proud-looking woman, with a round-faced smiling
daughter, entered the drawing room, their dresses rustling.
"Dear Countess, what an age... She has been laid up, poor child... at
the Razumovski's ball... and Countess Apraksina... I was so
delighted..." came the sounds of animated feminine voices, interrupting
one another and mingling with the rustling of dresses and the scraping
of chairs. Then one of those conversations began which last out until, at
the first pause, the guests rise with a rustle of dresses and say, "I am so
delighted... Mamma's health... and Countess Apraksina..." and then,
again rustling, pass into the anteroom, put on cloaks or mantles, and
drive away. The conversation was on the chief topic of the day: the
illness of the wealthy and celebrated beau of Catherine's day, Count
Bezukhov, and about his illegitimate son Pierre, the one who had
behaved so improperly at Anna Pavlovna's reception.
"I am so sorry for the poor count," said the visitor. "He is in such bad
health, and now this vexation about his son is enough to kill him!"
 "What is that?" asked the countess as if she did not know what the
visitor alluded to, though she had already heard about the cause of
Count Bezukhov's distress some fifteen times.
"That's what comes of a modern education," exclaimed the visitor.
"It seems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do
as he liked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible
things that he has been expelled by the police."
"You don't say so!" replied the countess.
"He chose his friends badly," interposed Anna Mikhaylovna. "Prince
Vasili's son, he, and a certain Dolokhov have, it is said, been up to
heaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it. Dolokhov
has been degraded to the ranks and Bezukhov's son sent back to
Moscow. Anatole Kuragin's father managed somehow to get his son's
affair hushed up, but even he was ordered out of Petersburg."
"But what have they been up to?" asked the countess.
"They are regular brigands, especially Dolokhov," replied the visitor.
"He is a son of Marya Ivanovna Dolokhova, such a worthy woman, but
there, just fancy! Those three got hold of a bear somewhere, put it in a
carriage, and set off with it to visit some actresses! The police tried to
interfere, and what did the young men do? They tied a policeman and
the bear back to back and put the bear into the Moyka Canal. And there
was the bear swimming about with the policeman on his back!"
"What a nice figure the policeman must have cut, my dear!" shouted
the count, dying with laughter.
"Oh, how dreadful! How can you laugh at it, Count?"
Yet the ladies themselves could not help laughing.
"It was all they could do to rescue the poor man," continued the
visitor. "And to think it is Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov's son who
amuses himself in this sensible manner! And he was said to be so well
educated and clever. This is all that his foreign education has done for
him! I hope that here in Moscow no one will receive him, in spite of his
money. They wanted to introduce him to me, but I quite declined: I
have my daughters to consider."
"Why do you say this young man is so rich?" asked the countess,
turning away from the girls, who at once assumed an air of inattention.
"His children are all illegitimate. I think Pierre also is illegitimate."
The visitor made a gesture with her hand.
"I should think he has a score of them."
 Princess Anna Mikhaylovna intervened in the conversation,
evidently wishing to show her connections and knowledge of what
went on in society.
"The fact of the matter is," said she significantly, and also in a half
whisper, "everyone knows Count Cyril's reputation.... He has lost count
of his children, but this Pierre was his favorite."
"How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!" remarked
the countess. "I have never seen a handsomer man."
"He is very much altered now," said Anna Mikhaylovna. "Well, as I
was saying, Prince Vasili is the next heir through his wife, but the
count is very fond of Pierre, looked after his education, and wrote to the
Emperor about him; so that in the case of his death—and he is so ill
that he may die at any moment, and Dr. Lorrain has come from
Petersburg—no one knows who will inherit his immense fortune, Pierre
or Prince Vasili. Forty thousand serfs and millions of rubles! I know it
all very well for Prince Vasili told me himself. Besides, Cyril
Vladimirovich is my mother's second cousin. He's also my Bory's
godfather," she added, as if she attached no importance at all to the fact.
"Prince Vasili arrived in Moscow yesterday. I hear he has come on
some inspection business," remarked the visitor.
"Yes, but between ourselves," said the princess, "that is a pretext.
The fact is he has come to see Count Cyril Vladimirovich, hearing how
ill he is."
"But do you know, my dear, that was a capital joke," said the count;
and seeing that the elder visitor was not listening, he turned to the
young ladies. "I can just imagine what a funny figure that policeman
cut!"
And as he waved his arms to impersonate the policeman, his portly
form again shook with a deep ringing laugh, the laugh of one who
always eats well and, in particular, drinks well. "So do come and dine
with us!" he said.

CHAPTER XI
Silence ensued. The countess looked at her callers, smiling affably,
but not concealing the fact that she would not be distressed if they now
rose and took their leave. The visitor's daughter was already smoothing
down her dress with an inquiring look at her mother, when suddenly
from the next room were heard the footsteps of boys and girls running
to the door and the noise of a chair falling over, and a girl of thirteen,
hiding something in the folds of her short muslin frock, darted in and
stopped short in the middle of the room. It was evident that she had not
intended her flight to bring her so far. Behind her in the doorway
appeared a student with a crimson coat collar, an officer of the Guards,
a girl of fifteen, and a plump rosy-faced boy in a short jacket.
The count jumped up and, swaying from side to side, spread his arms
wide and threw them round the little girl who had run in.
"Ah, here she is!" he exclaimed laughing. "My pet, whose name day
it is. My dear pet!"
"Ma chere, there is a time for everything," said the countess with
feigned severity. "You spoil her, Ilya," she added, turning to her
husband.
"How do you do, my dear? I wish you many happy returns of your
name day," said the visitor. "What a charming child," she added,
addressing the mother.
This black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not pretty but full of life—with
childish bare shoulders which after her run heaved and shook her
bodice, with black curls tossed backward, thin bare arms, little legs in
lace-frilled drawers, and feet in low slippers—was just at that charming
age when a girl is no longer a child, though the child is not yet a young
woman. Escaping from her father she ran to hide her flushed face in the
lace of her mother's mantilla—not paying the least attention to her
severe remark—and began to laugh. She laughed, and in fragmentary
sentences tried to explain about a doll which she produced from the
folds of her frock.
"Do you see?... My doll... Mimi... You see..." was all Natasha
managed to utter (to her everything seemed funny). She leaned against
her mother and burst into such a loud, ringing fit of laughter that even
the prim visitor could not help joining in.
"Now then, go away and take your monstrosity with you," said the
mother, pushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and
turning to the visitor she added: "She is my youngest girl."
Natasha, raising her face for a moment from her mother's mantilla,
glanced up at her through tears of laughter, and again hid her face.
The visitor, compelled to look on at this family scene, thought it
necessary to take some part in it.
"Tell me, my dear," said she to Natasha, "is Mimi a relation of
yours? A daughter, I suppose?"
 Natasha did not like the visitor's tone of condescension to childish
things. She did not reply, but looked at her seriously.
Meanwhile the younger generation: Boris, the officer, Anna
Mikhaylovna's son; Nicholas, the undergraduate, the count's eldest son;
Sonya, the count's fifteen-year-old niece, and little Petya, his youngest
boy, had all settled down in the drawing room and were obviously
trying to restrain within the bounds of decorum the excitement and
mirth that shone in all their faces. Evidently in the back rooms, from
which they had dashed out so impetuously, the conversation had been
more amusing than the drawing-room talk of society scandals, the
weather, and Countess Apraksina. Now and then they glanced at one
another, hardly able to suppress their laughter.
The two young men, the student and the officer, friends from
childhood, were of the same age and both handsome fellows, though
not alike. Boris was tall and fair, and his calm and handsome face had
regular, delicate features. Nicholas was short with curly hair and an
open expression. Dark hairs were already showing on his upper lip, and
his whole face expressed impetuosity and enthusiasm. Nicholas blushed
when he entered the drawing room. He evidently tried to find
something to say, but failed. Boris on the contrary at once found his
footing, and related quietly and humorously how he had known that
doll Mimi when she was still quite a young lady, before her nose was
broken; how she had aged during the five years he had known her, and
how her head had cracked right across the skull. Having said this he
glanced at Natasha. She turned away from him and glanced at her
younger brother, who was screwing up his eyes and shaking with
suppressed laughter, and unable to control herself any longer, she
jumped up and rushed from the room as fast as her nimble little feet
would carry her. Boris did not laugh.
"You were meaning to go out, weren't you, Mamma? Do you want
the carriage?" he asked his mother with a smile.
"Yes, yes, go and tell them to get it ready," she answered, returning
his smile.
Boris quietly left the room and went in search of Natasha. The plump
boy ran after them angrily, as if vexed that their program had been
disturbed.

CHAPTER XII
 The only young people remaining in the drawing room, not counting
the young lady visitor and the countess' eldest daughter (who was four
years older than her sister and behaved already like a grown-up
person), were Nicholas and Sonya, the niece. Sonya was a slender little
brunette with a tender look in her eyes which were veiled by long
lashes, thick black plaits coiling twice round her head, and a tawny tint
in her complexion and especially in the color of her slender but
graceful and muscular arms and neck. By the grace of her movements,
by the softness and flexibility of her small limbs, and by a certain
coyness and reserve of manner, she reminded one of a pretty, half-
grown kitten which promises to become a beautiful little cat. She
evidently considered it proper to show an interest in the general
conversation by smiling, but in spite of herself her eyes under their
thick long lashes watched her cousin who was going to join the army,
with such passionate girlish adoration that her smile could not for a
single instant impose upon anyone, and it was clear that the kitten had
settled down only to spring up with more energy and again play with
her cousin as soon as they too could, like Natasha and Boris, escape
from the drawing room.
"Ah yes, my dear," said the count, addressing the visitor and pointing
to Nicholas, "his friend Boris has become an officer, and so for
friendship's sake he is leaving the university and me, his old father, and
entering the military service, my dear. And there was a place and
everything waiting for him in the Archives Department! Isn't that
friendship?" remarked the count in an inquiring tone.
"But they say that war has been declared," replied the visitor.
"They've been saying so a long while," said the count, "and they'll
say so again and again, and that will be the end of it. My dear, there's
friendship for you," he repeated. "He's joining the hussars."
The visitor, not knowing what to say, shook her head.
"It's not at all from friendship," declared Nicholas, flaring up and
turning away as if from a shameful aspersion. "It is not from friendship
at all; I simply feel that the army is my vocation."
He glanced at his cousin and the young lady visitor; and they were
both regarding him with a smile of approbation.
"Schubert, the colonel of the Pavlograd Hussars, is dining with us
today. He has been here on leave and is taking Nicholas back with him.
It can't be helped!" said the count, shrugging his shoulders and
speaking playfully of a matter that evidently distressed him.
"I have already told you, Papa," said his son, "that if you don't wish
to let me go, I'll stay. But I know I am no use anywhere except in the
army; I am not a diplomat or a government clerk.—I don't know how to
hide what I feel." As he spoke he kept glancing with the flirtatiousness
of a handsome youth at Sonya and the young lady visitor.
The little kitten, feasting her eyes on him, seemed ready at any
moment to start her gambols again and display her kittenish nature.
"All right, all right!" said the old count. "He always flares up! This
Buonaparte has turned all their heads; they all think of how he rose
from an ensign and became Emperor. Well, well, God grant it," he
added, not noticing his visitor's sarcastic smile.
The elders began talking about Bonaparte. Julie Karagina turned to
young Rostov.
"What a pity you weren't at the Arkharovs' on Thursday. It was so
dull without you," said she, giving him a tender smile.
The young man, flattered, sat down nearer to her with a coquettish
smile, and engaged the smiling Julie in a confidential conversation
without at all noticing that his involuntary smile had stabbed the heart
of Sonya, who blushed and smiled unnaturally. In the midst of his talk
he glanced round at her. She gave him a passionately angry glance, and
hardly able to restrain her tears and maintain the artificial smile on her
lips, she got up and left the room. All Nicholas' animation vanished. He
waited for the first pause in the conversation, and then with a distressed
face left the room to find Sonya.
"How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their
sleeves!" said Anna Mikhaylovna, pointing to Nicholas as he went out.
"Cousinage—dangereux voisinage;" * she added.

* Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.

"Yes," said the countess when the brightness these young people had
brought into the room had vanished; and as if answering a question no
one had put but which was always in her mind, "and how much
suffering, how much anxiety one has had to go through that we might
rejoice in them now! And yet really the anxiety is greater now than the
joy. One is always, always anxious! Especially just at this age, so
dangerous both for girls and boys."
"It all depends on the bringing up," remarked the visitor.
"Yes, you're quite right," continued the countess. "Till now I have
always, thank God, been my children's friend and had their full
confidence," said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who
imagine that their children have no secrets from them. "I know I shall
always be my daughters' first confidante, and that if Nicholas, with his
impulsive nature, does get into mischief (a boy can't help it), he will all
the same never be like those Petersburg young men."
"Yes, they are splendid, splendid youngsters," chimed in the count,
who always solved questions that seemed to him perplexing by
deciding that everything was splendid. "Just fancy: wants to be an
hussar. What's one to do, my dear?"
"What a charming creature your younger girl is," said the visitor; "a
little volcano!"
"Yes, a regular volcano," said the count. "Takes after me! And what
a voice she has; though she's my daughter, I tell the truth when I say
she'll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an Italian to
give her lessons."
"Isn't she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to train it at
that age."
"Oh no, not at all too young!" replied the count. "Why, our mothers
used to be married at twelve or thirteen."
"And she's in love with Boris already. Just fancy!" said the countess
with a gentle smile, looking at Boris' and went on, evidently concerned
with a thought that always occupied her: "Now you see if I were to be
severe with her and to forbid it... goodness knows what they might be
up to on the sly" (she meant that they would be kissing), "but as it is, I
know every word she utters. She will come running to me of her own
accord in the evening and tell me everything. Perhaps I spoil her, but
really that seems the best plan. With her elder sister I was stricter."
"Yes, I was brought up quite differently," remarked the handsome
elder daughter, Countess Vera, with a smile.
But the smile did not enhance Vera's beauty as smiles generally do;
on the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore unpleasant,
expression. Vera was good-looking, not at all stupid, quick at learning,
was well brought up, and had a pleasant voice; what she said was true
and appropriate, yet, strange to say, everyone—the visitors and
countess alike—turned to look at her as if wondering why she had said
it, and they all felt awkward.
"People are always too clever with their eldest children and try to
make something exceptional of them," said the visitor.
"What's the good of denying it, my dear? Our dear countess was too
clever with Vera," said the count. "Well, what of that? She's turned out
splendidly all the same," he added, winking at Vera.
The guests got up and took their leave, promising to return to dinner.
 "What manners! I thought they would never go," said the countess,
when she had seen her guests out.

CHAPTER XIII
When Natasha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as
the conservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the
conversation in the drawing room, waiting for Boris to come out. She
was already growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at
his not coming at once, when she heard the young man's discreet steps
approaching neither quickly nor slowly. At this Natasha dashed swiftly
among the flower tubs and hid there.
Boris paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a
little dust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror
examined his handsome face. Natasha, very still, peered out from her
ambush, waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before
the glass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natasha was about
to call him but changed her mind. "Let him look for me," thought she.
Hardly had Boris gone than Sonya, flushed, in tears, and muttering
angrily, came in at the other door. Natasha checked her first impulse to
run out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching—as under an
invisible cap—to see what went on in the world. She was experiencing
a new and peculiar pleasure. Sonya, muttering to herself, kept looking
round toward the drawing-room door. It opened and Nicholas came in.
"Sonya, what is the matter with you? How can you?" said he,
running up to her.
"It's nothing, nothing; leave me alone!" sobbed Sonya.
"Ah, I know what it is."
"Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!"
"So-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like
that, for a mere fancy?" said Nicholas taking her hand.
Sonya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natasha, not stirring
and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes.
"What will happen now?" thought she.
"Sonya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are
everything!" said Nicholas. "And I will prove it to you."
 "I don't like you to talk like that."
"Well, then, I won't; only forgive me, Sonya!" He drew her to him
and kissed her.
"Oh, how nice," thought Natasha; and when Sonya and Nicholas had
gone out of the conservatory she followed and called Boris to her.
"Boris, come here," said she with a sly and significant look. "I have
something to tell you. Here, here!" and she led him into the
conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.
Boris followed her, smiling.
"What is the something?" asked he.
She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had
thrown down on one of the tubs, picked it up.
"Kiss the doll," said she.
Boris looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not
reply.
"Don't you want to? Well, then, come here," said she, and went
further in among the plants and threw down the doll. "Closer, closer!"
she whispered.
She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity
and fear appeared on her flushed face.
"And me? Would you like to kiss me?" she whispered almost
inaudibly, glancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and
almost crying from excitement.
Boris blushed.
"How funny you are!" he said, bending down to her and blushing
still more, but he waited and did nothing.
Suddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced
him so that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and,
tossing back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.
Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the
tubs and stood, hanging her head.
"Natasha," he said, "you know that I love you, but..."
"You are in love with me?" Natasha broke in.
"Yes, I am, but please don't let us do like that.... In another four
years... then I will ask for your hand."
 Natasha considered.
"Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen," she counted on her slender little
fingers. "All right! Then it's settled?"
A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.
"Settled!" replied Boris.
"Forever?" said the little girl. "Till death itself?"
She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the
adjoining sitting room.

CHAPTER XIV
After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave
orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to
dinner all who came "to congratulate." The countess wished to have a
tete-a-tete talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna
Mikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from
Petersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face,
drew her chair nearer to that of the countess.
"With you I will be quite frank," said Anna Mikhaylovna. "There are
not many left of us old friends! That's why I so value your friendship."
Anna Mikhaylovna looked at Vera and paused. The countess pressed
her friend's hand.
"Vera," she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a
favorite, "how is it you have so little tact? Don't you see you are not
wanted here? Go to the other girls, or..."
The handsome Vera smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all
hurt.
"If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone," she replied
as she rose to go to her own room.
But as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples sitting,
one pair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully. Sonya
was sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses for her,
the first he had ever written. Boris and Natasha were at the other
window and ceased talking when Vera entered. Sonya and Natasha
looked at Vera with guilty, happy faces.
 It was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love; but
apparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Vera.
"How often have I asked you not to take my things?" she said. "You
have a room of your own," and she took the inkstand from Nicholas.
"In a minute, in a minute," he said, dipping his pen.
"You always manage to do things at the wrong time," continued
Vera. "You came rushing into the drawing room so that everyone felt
ashamed of you."
Though what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no
one replied, and the four simply looked at one another. She lingered in
the room with the inkstand in her hand.
"And at your age what secrets can there be between Natasha and
Boris, or between you two? It's all nonsense!"
"Now, Vera, what does it matter to you?" said Natasha in defense,
speaking very gently.
She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to
everyone.
"Very silly," said Vera. "I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!"
"All have secrets of their own," answered Natasha, getting warmer.
"We don't interfere with you and Berg."
"I should think not," said Vera, "because there can never be anything
wrong in my behavior. But I'll just tell Mamma how you are behaving
with Boris."
"Natalya Ilynichna behaves very well to me," remarked Boris. "I
have nothing to complain of."
"Don't, Boris! You are such a diplomat that it is really tiresome,"
said Natasha in a mortified voice that trembled slightly. (She used the
word "diplomat," which was just then much in vogue among the
children, in the special sense they attached to it.) "Why does she bother
me?" And she added, turning to Vera, "You'll never understand it,
because you've never loved anyone. You have no heart! You are a
Madame de Genlis and nothing more" (this nickname, bestowed on
Vera by Nicholas, was considered very stinging), "and your greatest
pleasure is to be unpleasant to people! Go and flirt with Berg as much
as you please," she finished quickly.
"I shall at any rate not run after a young man before visitors..."
 "Well, now you've done what you wanted," put in Nicholas—"said
unpleasant things to everyone and upset them. Let's go to the nursery."
All four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room.
"The unpleasant things were said to me," remarked Vera, "I said
none to anyone."
"Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!" shouted laughing voices
through the door.
The handsome Vera, who produced such an irritating and unpleasant
effect on everyone, smiled and, evidently unmoved by what had been
said to her, went to the looking glass and arranged her hair and scarf.
Looking at her own handsome face she seemed to become still colder
and calmer.
In the drawing room the conversation was still going on.
"Ah, my dear," said the countess, "my life is not all roses either.
Don't I know that at the rate we are living our means won't last long?
It's all the Club and his easygoing nature. Even in the country do we get
any rest? Theatricals, hunting, and heaven knows what besides! But
don't let's talk about me; tell me how you managed everything. I often
wonder at you, Annette—how at your age you can rush off alone in a
carriage to Moscow, to Petersburg, to those ministers and great people,
and know how to deal with them all! It's quite astonishing. How did
you get things settled? I couldn't possibly do it."
"Ah, my love," answered Anna Mikhaylovna, "God grant you never
know what it is to be left a widow without means and with a son you
love to distraction! One learns many things then," she added with a
certain pride. "That lawsuit taught me much. When I want to see one of
those big people I write a note: 'Princess So-and-So desires an
interview with So and-So,' and then I take a cab and go myself two,
three, or four times—till I get what I want. I don't mind what they think
of me."
"Well, and to whom did you apply about Bory?" asked the countess.
"You see yours is already an officer in the Guards, while my Nicholas
is going as a cadet. There's no one to interest himself for him. To whom
did you apply?"
"To Prince Vasili. He was so kind. He at once agreed to everything,
and put the matter before the Emperor," said Princess Anna
Mikhaylovna enthusiastically, quite forgetting all the humiliation she
had endured to gain her end.
"Has Prince Vasili aged much?" asked the countess. "I have not seen
him since we acted together at the Rumyantsovs' theatricals. I expect he
has forgotten me. He paid me attentions in those days," said the
countess, with a smile.
"He is just the same as ever," replied Anna Mikhaylovna,
"overflowing with amiability. His position has not turned his head at
all. He said to me, 'I am sorry I can do so little for you, dear Princess. I
am at your command.' Yes, he is a fine fellow and a very kind relation.
But, Nataly, you know my love for my son: I would do anything for his
happiness! And my affairs are in such a bad way that my position is
now a terrible one," continued Anna Mikhaylovna, sadly, dropping her
voice. "My wretched lawsuit takes all I have and makes no progress.
Would you believe it, I have literally not a penny and don't know how
to equip Boris." She took out her handkerchief and began to cry. "I
need five hundred rubles, and have only one twenty-five-ruble note. I
am in such a state.... My only hope now is in Count Cyril
Vladimirovich Bezukhov. If he will not assist his godson—you know
he is Bory's godfather—and allow him something for his maintenance,
all my trouble will have been thrown away.... I shall not be able to
equip him."
The countess' eyes filled with tears and she pondered in silence.
"I often think, though, perhaps it's a sin," said the princess, "that here
lives Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov so rich, all alone... that
tremendous fortune... and what is his life worth? It's a burden to him,
and Bory's life is only just beginning...."
"Surely he will leave something to Boris," said the countess.
"Heaven only knows, my dear! These rich grandees are so selfish.
Still, I will take Boris and go to see him at once, and I shall speak to
him straight out. Let people think what they will of me, it's really all the
same to me when my son's fate is at stake." The princess rose. "It's now
two o'clock and you dine at four. There will just be time."
And like a practical Petersburg lady who knows how to make the
most of time, Anna Mikhaylovna sent someone to call her son, and
went into the anteroom with him.
"Good-by, my dear," said she to the countess who saw her to the
door, and added in a whisper so that her son should not hear, "Wish me
good luck."
"Are you going to Count Cyril Vladimirovich, my dear?" said the
count coming out from the dining hall into the anteroom, and he added:
"If he is better, ask Pierre to dine with us. He has been to the house,
you know, and danced with the children. Be sure to invite him, my
dear. We will see how Taras distinguishes himself today. He says
Count Orlov never gave such a dinner as ours will be!"
 CHAPTER XV
"My dear Boris," said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna to her son as
Countess Rostova's carriage in which they were seated drove over the
straw covered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril
Vladimirovich Bezukhov's house. "My dear Boris," said the mother,
drawing her hand from beneath her old mantle and laying it timidly and
tenderly on her son's arm, "be affectionate and attentive to him. Count
Cyril Vladimirovich is your godfather after all, your future depends on
him. Remember that, my dear, and be nice to him, as you so well know
how to be."
"If only I knew that anything besides humiliation would come of
it..." answered her son coldly. "But I have promised and will do it for
your sake."
Although the hall porter saw someone's carriage standing at the
entrance, after scrutinizing the mother and son (who without asking to
be announced had passed straight through the glass porch between the
rows of statues in niches) and looking significantly at the lady's old
cloak, he asked whether they wanted the count or the princesses, and,
hearing that they wished to see the count, said his excellency was worse
today, and that his excellency was not receiving anyone.
"We may as well go back," said the son in French.
"My dear!" exclaimed his mother imploringly, again laying her hand
on his arm as if that touch might soothe or rouse him.
Boris said no more, but looked inquiringly at his mother without
taking off his cloak.
"My friend," said Anna Mikhaylovna in gentle tones, addressing the
hall porter, "I know Count Cyril Vladimirovich is very ill... that's why I
have come... I am a relation. I shall not disturb him, my friend... I only
need see Prince Vasili Sergeevich: he is staying here, is he not? Please
announce me."
The hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, and turned
away.
"Princess Drubetskaya to see Prince Vasili Sergeevich," he called to
a footman dressed in knee breeches, shoes, and a swallow-tail coat,
who ran downstairs and looked over from the halfway landing.
 The mother smoothed the folds of her dyed silk dress before a large
Venetian mirror in the wall, and in her trodden-down shoes briskly
ascended the carpeted stairs.
"My dear," she said to her son, once more stimulating him by a
touch, "you promised me!"
The son, lowering his eyes, followed her quietly.
They entered the large hall, from which one of the doors led to the
apartments assigned to Prince Vasili.
Just as the mother and son, having reached the middle of the hall,
were about to ask their way of an elderly footman who had sprung up
as they entered, the bronze handle of one of the doors turned and Prince
Vasili came out—wearing a velvet coat with a single star on his breast,
as was his custom when at home—taking leave of a good-looking,
dark-haired man. This was the celebrated Petersburg doctor, Lorrain.
"Then it is certain?" said the prince.
"Prince, humanum est errare, * but..." replied the doctor, swallowing
his r's, and pronouncing the Latin words with a French accent.

* To err is human.

"Very well, very well..."

Seeing Anna Mikhaylovna and her son, Prince Vasili dismissed the
doctor with a bow and approached them silently and with a look of
inquiry. The son noticed that an expression of profound sorrow
suddenly clouded his mother's face, and he smiled slightly.
"Ah, Prince! In what sad circumstances we meet again! And how is
our dear invalid?" said she, as though unaware of the cold offensive
look fixed on her.
Prince Vasili stared at her and at Boris questioningly and perplexed.
Boris bowed politely. Prince Vasili without acknowledging the bow
turned to Anna Mikhaylovna, answering her query by a movement of
the head and lips indicating very little hope for the patient.
"Is it possible?" exclaimed Anna Mikhaylovna. "Oh, how awful! It is
terrible to think.... This is my son," she added, indicating Boris. "He
wanted to thank you himself."
Boris bowed again politely.
"Believe me, Prince, a mother's heart will never forget what you
have done for us."
 "I am glad I was able to do you a service, my dear Anna
Mikhaylovna," said Prince Vasili, arranging his lace frill, and in tone
and manner, here in Moscow to Anna Mikhaylovna whom he had
placed under an obligation, assuming an air of much greater importance
than he had done in Petersburg at Anna Scherer's reception.
"Try to serve well and show yourself worthy," added he, addressing
Boris with severity. "I am glad.... Are you here on leave?" he went on
in his usual tone of indifference.
"I am awaiting orders to join my new regiment, your excellency,"
replied Boris, betraying neither annoyance at the prince's brusque
manner nor a desire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly
and respectfully that the prince gave him a searching glance.
"Are you living with your mother?"
"I am living at Countess Rostova's," replied Boris, again adding,
"your excellency."
"That is, with Ilya Rostov who married Nataly Shinshina," said Anna
Mikhaylovna.
"I know, I know," answered Prince Vasili in his monotonous voice.
"I never could understand how Nataly made up her mind to marry that
unlicked bear! A perfectly absurd and stupid fellow, and a gambler too,
I am told."
"But a very kind man, Prince," said Anna Mikhaylovna with a
pathetic smile, as though she too knew that Count Rostov deserved this
censure, but asked him not to be too hard on the poor old man. "What
do the doctors say?" asked the princess after a pause, her worn face
again expressing deep sorrow.
"They give little hope," replied the prince.
"And I should so like to thank Uncle once for all his kindness to me
and Boris. He is his godson," she added, her tone suggesting that this
fact ought to give Prince Vasili much satisfaction.
Prince Vasili became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikhaylovna
saw that he was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezukhov's
fortune, and hastened to reassure him.
"If it were not for my sincere affection and devotion to Uncle," said
she, uttering the word with peculiar assurance and unconcern, "I know
his character: noble, upright... but you see he has no one with him
except the young princesses.... They are still young...." She bent her
head and continued in a whisper: "Has he performed his final duty,
Prince? How priceless are those last moments! It can make things no
worse, and it is absolutely necessary to prepare him if he is so ill. We
women, Prince," and she smiled tenderly, "always know how to say
these things. I absolutely must see him, however painful it may be for
me. I am used to suffering."
Evidently the prince understood her, and also understood, as he had
done at Anna Pavlovna's, that it would be difficult to get rid of Anna
Mikhaylovna.
"Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna
Mikhaylovna?" said he. "Let us wait until evening. The doctors are
expecting a crisis."
"But one cannot delay, Prince, at such a moment! Consider that the
welfare of his soul is at stake. Ah, it is awful: the duties of a
Christian..."
A door of one of the inner rooms opened and one of the princesses,
the count's niece, entered with a cold, stern face. The length of her body
was strikingly out of proportion to her short legs. Prince Vasili turned
to her.
"Well, how is he?"
"Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise..." said the
princess, looking at Anna Mikhaylovna as at a stranger.
"Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you," said Anna Mikhaylovna with a
happy smile, ambling lightly up to the count's niece. "I have come, and
am at your service to help you nurse my uncle. I imagine what you
have gone through," and she sympathetically turned up her eyes.
The princess gave no reply and did not even smile, but left the room
as Anna Mikhaylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position
she had conquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasili
to take a seat beside her.
"Boris," she said to her son with a smile, "I shall go in to see the
count, my uncle; but you, my dear, had better go to Pierre meanwhile
and don't forget to give him the Rostovs' invitation. They ask him to
dinner. I suppose he won't go?" she continued, turning to the prince.
"On the contrary," replied the prince, who had plainly become
depressed, "I shall be only too glad if you relieve me of that young
man.... Here he is, and the count has not once asked for him."
He shrugged his shoulders. A footman conducted Boris down one
flight of stairs and up another, to Pierre's rooms.
 CHAPTER XVI
Pierre, after all, had not managed to choose a career for himself in
Petersburg, and had been expelled from there for riotous conduct and
sent to Moscow. The story told about him at Count Rostov's was true.
Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He had now been
for some days in Moscow and was staying as usual at his father's house.
Though he expected that the story of his escapade would be already
known in Moscow and that the ladies about his father—who were never
favorably disposed toward him—would have used it to turn the count
against him, he nevertheless on the day of his arrival went to his
father's part of the house. Entering the drawing room, where the
princesses spent most of their time, he greeted the ladies, two of whom
were sitting at embroidery frames while a third read aloud. It was the
eldest who was reading—the one who had met Anna Mikhaylovna. The
two younger ones were embroidering: both were rosy and pretty and
they differed only in that one had a little mole on her lip which made
her much prettier. Pierre was received as if he were a corpse or a leper.
The eldest princess paused in her reading and silently stared at him
with frightened eyes; the second assumed precisely the same
expression; while the youngest, the one with the mole, who was of a
cheerful and lively disposition, bent over her frame to hide a smile
probably evoked by the amusing scene she foresaw. She drew her wool
down through the canvas and, scarcely able to refrain from laughing,
stooped as if trying to make out the pattern.
"How do you do, cousin?" said Pierre. "You don't recognize me?"
"I recognize you only too well, too well."
"How is the count? Can I see him?" asked Pierre, awkwardly as
usual, but unabashed.
"The count is suffering physically and mentally, and apparently you
have done your best to increase his mental sufferings."
"Can I see the count?" Pierre again asked.
"Hm.... If you wish to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see
him... Olga, go and see whether Uncle's beef tea is ready—it is almost
time," she added, giving Pierre to understand that they were busy, and
busy making his father comfortable, while evidently he, Pierre, was
only busy causing him annoyance.
 Olga went out. Pierre stood looking at the sisters; then he bowed and
said: "Then I will go to my rooms. You will let me know when I can
see him."
And he left the room, followed by the low but ringing laughter of the
sister with the mole.
Next day Prince Vasili had arrived and settled in the count's house.
He sent for Pierre and said to him: "My dear fellow, if you are going to
behave here as you did in Petersburg, you will end very badly; that is
all I have to say to you. The count is very, very ill, and you must not
see him at all."
Since then Pierre had not been disturbed and had spent the whole
time in his rooms upstairs.
When Boris appeared at his door Pierre was pacing up and down his
room, stopping occasionally at a corner to make menacing gestures at
the wall, as if running a sword through an invisible foe, and glaring
savagely over his spectacles, and then again resuming his walk,
muttering indistinct words, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating.
"England is done for," said he, scowling and pointing his finger at
someone unseen. "Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to the rights of
man, is sentenced to..." But before Pierre—who at that moment
imagined himself to be Napoleon in person and to have just effected the
dangerous crossing of the Straits of Dover and captured London—
could pronounce Pitt's sentence, he saw a well-built and handsome
young officer entering his room. Pierre paused. He had left Moscow
when Boris was a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten him, but in
his usual impulsive and hearty way he took Boris by the hand with a
friendly smile.
"Do you remember me?" asked Boris quietly with a pleasant smile.
"I have come with my mother to see the count, but it seems he is not
well."
"Yes, it seems he is ill. People are always disturbing him," answered
Pierre, trying to remember who this young man was.
Boris felt that Pierre did not recognize him but did not consider it
necessary to introduce himself, and without experiencing the least
embarrassment looked Pierre straight in the face.
"Count Rostov asks you to come to dinner today," said he, after a
considerable pause which made Pierre feel uncomfortable.
"Ah, Count Rostov!" exclaimed Pierre joyfully. "Then you are his
son, Ilya? Only fancy, I didn't know you at first. Do you remember how
we went to the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot?... It's such an
age..."
"You are mistaken," said Boris deliberately, with a bold and slightly
sarcastic smile. "I am Boris, son of Princess Anna Mikhaylovna
Drubetskaya. Rostov, the father, is Ilya, and his son is Nicholas. I never
knew any Madame Jacquot."
Pierre shook his head and arms as if attacked by mosquitoes or bees.
"Oh dear, what am I thinking about? I've mixed everything up. One
has so many relatives in Moscow! So you are Boris? Of course. Well,
now we know where we are. And what do you think of the Boulogne
expedition? The English will come off badly, you know, if Napoleon
gets across the Channel. I think the expedition is quite feasible. If only
Villeneuve doesn't make a mess of things!"
Boris knew nothing about the Boulogne expedition; he did not read
the papers and it was the first time he had heard Villeneuve's name.
"We here in Moscow are more occupied with dinner parties and
scandal than with politics," said he in his quiet ironical tone. "I know
nothing about it and have not thought about it. Moscow is chiefly busy
with gossip," he continued. "Just now they are talking about you and
your father."
Pierre smiled in his good-natured way as if afraid for his
companion's sake that the latter might say something he would
afterwards regret. But Boris spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly, looking
straight into Pierre's eyes.
"Moscow has nothing else to do but gossip," Boris went on.
"Everybody is wondering to whom the count will leave his fortune,
though he may perhaps outlive us all, as I sincerely hope he will..."
"Yes, it is all very horrid," interrupted Pierre, "very horrid."
Pierre was still afraid that this officer might inadvertently say
something disconcerting to himself.
"And it must seem to you," said Boris flushing slightly, but not
changing his tone or attitude, "it must seem to you that everyone is
trying to get something out of the rich man?"
"So it does," thought Pierre.
"But I just wish to say, to avoid misunderstandings, that you are
quite mistaken if you reckon me or my mother among such people. We
are very poor, but for my own part at any rate, for the very reason that
your father is rich, I don't regard myself as a relation of his, and neither
I nor my mother would ever ask or take anything from him."
 For a long time Pierre could not understand, but when he did, he
jumped up from the sofa, seized Boris under the elbow in his quick,
clumsy way, and, blushing far more than Boris, began to speak with a
feeling of mingled shame and vexation.
"Well, this is strange! Do you suppose I... who could think?... I know
very well..."
But Boris again interrupted him.
"I am glad I have spoken out fully. Perhaps you did not like it? You
must excuse me," said he, putting Pierre at ease instead of being put at
ease by him, "but I hope I have not offended you. I always make it a
rule to speak out... Well, what answer am I to take? Will you come to
dinner at the Rostovs'?"
And Boris, having apparently relieved himself of an onerous duty
and extricated himself from an awkward situation and placed another in
it, became quite pleasant again.
"No, but I say," said Pierre, calming down, "you are a wonderful
fellow! What you have just said is good, very good. Of course you
don't know me. We have not met for such a long time... not since we
were children. You might think that I... I understand, quite understand.
I could not have done it myself, I should not have had the courage, but
it's splendid. I am very glad to have made your acquaintance. It's
queer," he added after a pause, "that you should have suspected me!"
He began to laugh. "Well, what of it! I hope we'll get better
acquainted," and he pressed Boris' hand. "Do you know, I have not
once been in to see the count. He has not sent for me.... I am sorry for
him as a man, but what can one do?"
"And so you think Napoleon will manage to get an army across?"
asked Boris with a smile.
Pierre saw that Boris wished to change the subject, and being of the
same mind he began explaining the advantages and disadvantages of
the Boulogne expedition.
A footman came in to summon Boris—the princess was going.
Pierre, in order to make Boris' better acquaintance, promised to come to
dinner, and warmly pressing his hand looked affectionately over his
spectacles into Boris' eyes. After he had gone Pierre continued pacing
up and down the room for a long time, no longer piercing an imaginary
foe with his imaginary sword, but smiling at the remembrance of that
pleasant, intelligent, and resolute young man.
As often happens in early youth, especially to one who leads a lonely
life, he felt an unaccountable tenderness for this young man and made
up his mind that they would be friends.
 Prince Vasili saw the princess off. She held a handkerchief to her
eyes and her face was tearful.
"It is dreadful, dreadful!" she was saying, "but cost me what it may I
shall do my duty. I will come and spend the night. He must not be left
like this. Every moment is precious. I can't think why his nieces put it
off. Perhaps God will help me to find a way to prepare him!... Adieu,
Prince! May God support you..."
"Adieu, ma bonne," answered Prince Vasili turning away from her.
"Oh, he is in a dreadful state," said the mother to her son when they
were in the carriage. "He hardly recognizes anybody."
"I don't understand, Mamma—what is his attitude to Pierre?" asked
the son.
"The will will show that, my dear; our fate also depends on it."
"But why do you expect that he will leave us anything?"
"Ah, my dear! He is so rich, and we are so poor!"
"Well, that is hardly a sufficient reason, Mamma..."
"Oh, Heaven! How ill he is!" exclaimed the mother.

CHAPTER XVII
After Anna Mikhaylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count
Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov, Countess Rostova sat for a long time
all alone applying her handkerchief to her eyes. At last she rang.
"What is the matter with you, my dear?" she said crossly to the maid
who kept her waiting some minutes. "Don't you wish to serve me?
Then I'll find you another place."
The countess was upset by her friend's sorrow and humiliating
poverty, and was therefore out of sorts, a state of mind which with her
always found expression in calling her maid "my dear" and speaking to
her with exaggerated politeness.
"I am very sorry, ma'am," answered the maid.
"Ask the count to come to me."
 The count came waddling in to see his wife with a rather guilty look
as usual.
"Well, little countess? What a saute of game au madere we are to
have, my dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Taras were not
ill-spent. He is worth it!"
He sat down by his wife, his elbows on his knees and his hands
ruffling his gray hair.
"What are your commands, little countess?"
"You see, my dear... What's that mess?" she said, pointing to his
waistcoat. "It's the saute, most likely," she added with a smile. "Well,
you see, Count, I want some money."
Her face became sad.
"Oh, little countess!"... and the count began bustling to get out his
pocketbook.
"I want a great deal, Count! I want five hundred rubles," and taking
out her cambric handkerchief she began wiping her husband's
waistcoat.
"Yes, immediately, immediately! Hey, who's there?" he called out in
a tone only used by persons who are certain that those they call will
rush to obey the summons. "Send Dmitri to me!"
Dmitri, a man of good family who had been brought up in the count's
house and now managed all his affairs, stepped softly into the room.
"This is what I want, my dear fellow," said the count to the
deferential young man who had entered. "Bring me..." he reflected a
moment, "yes, bring me seven hundred rubles, yes! But mind, don't
bring me such tattered and dirty notes as last time, but nice clean ones
for the countess."
"Yes, Dmitri, clean ones, please," said the countess, sighing deeply.
"When would you like them, your excellency?" asked Dmitri.
"Allow me to inform you... But, don't be uneasy," he added, noticing
that the count was beginning to breathe heavily and quickly which was
always a sign of approaching anger. "I was forgetting... Do you wish it
brought at once?"
"Yes, yes; just so! Bring it. Give it to the countess."
"What a treasure that Dmitri is," added the count with a smile when
the young man had departed. "There is never any 'impossible' with him.
That's a thing I hate! Everything is possible."
 "Ah, money, Count, money! How much sorrow it causes in the
world," said the countess. "But I am in great need of this sum."
"You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift," said the count,
and having kissed his wife's hand he went back to his study.
When Anna Mikhaylovna returned from Count Bezukhov's the
money, all in clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the
countess' little table, and Anna Mikhaylovna noticed that something
was agitating her.
"Well, my dear?" asked the countess.
"Oh, what a terrible state he is in! One would not know him, he is so
ill! I was only there a few moments and hardly said a word..."
"Annette, for heaven's sake don't refuse me," the countess began,
with a blush that looked very strange on her thin, dignified, elderly
face, and she took the money from under the handkerchief.
Anna Mikhaylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be
ready to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment.
"This is for Boris from me, for his outfit."
Anna Mikhaylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The
countess wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because
they were kindhearted, and because they—friends from childhood—
had to think about such a base thing as money, and because their youth
was over.... But those tears were pleasant to them both.

CHAPTER XVIII
Countess Rostova, with her daughters and a large number of guests,
was already seated in the drawing room. The count took the gentlemen
into his study and showed them his choice collection of Turkish pipes.
From time to time he went out to ask: "Hasn't she come yet?" They
were expecting Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, known in society as
le terrible dragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but for
common sense and frank plainness of speech. Marya Dmitrievna was
known to the Imperial family as well as to all Moscow and Petersburg,
and both cities wondered at her, laughed privately at her rudenesses,
and told good stories about her, while none the less all without
exception respected and feared her.
 In the count's room, which was full of tobacco smoke, they talked of
war that had been announced in a manifesto, and about the recruiting.
None of them had yet seen the manifesto, but they all knew it had
appeared. The count sat on the sofa between two guests who were
smoking and talking. He neither smoked nor talked, but bending his
head first to one side and then to the other watched the smokers with
evident pleasure and listened to the conversation of his two neighbors,
whom he egged on against each other.
One of them was a sallow, clean-shaven civilian with a thin and
wrinkled face, already growing old, though he was dressed like a most
fashionable young man. He sat with his legs up on the sofa as if quite at
home and, having stuck an amber mouthpiece far into his mouth, was
inhaling the smoke spasmodically and screwing up his eyes. This was
an old bachelor, Shinshin, a cousin of the countess', a man with "a
sharp tongue" as they said in Moscow society. He seemed to be
condescending to his companion. The latter, a fresh, rosy officer of the
Guards, irreproachably washed, brushed, and buttoned, held his pipe in
the middle of his mouth and with red lips gently inhaled the smoke,
letting it escape from his handsome mouth in rings. This was
Lieutenant Berg, an officer in the Semenov regiment with whom Boris
was to travel to join the army, and about whom Natasha had, teased her
elder sister Vera, speaking of Berg as her "intended." The count sat
between them and listened attentively. His favorite occupation when
not playing boston, a card game he was very fond of, was that of
listener, especially when he succeeded in setting two loquacious talkers
at one another.
"Well, then, old chap, mon tres honorable Alphonse Karlovich," said
Shinshin, laughing ironically and mixing the most ordinary Russian
expressions with the choicest French phrases—which was a peculiarity
of his speech. "Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l'etat; * you
want to make something out of your company?"

* You expect to make an income out of the

government.

"No, Peter Nikolaevich; I only want to show that in the cavalry the
advantages are far less than in the infantry. Just consider my own
position now, Peter Nikolaevich..."
Berg always spoke quietly, politely, and with great precision. His
conversation always related entirely to himself; he would remain calm
and silent when the talk related to any topic that had no direct bearing
on himself. He could remain silent for hours without being at all put out
of countenance himself or making others uncomfortable, but as soon as
the conversation concerned himself he would begin to talk
circumstantially and with evident satisfaction.
"Consider my position, Peter Nikolaevich. Were I in the cavalry I
should get not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even
with the rank of lieutenant; but as it is I receive two hundred and
thirty," said he, looking at Shinshin and the count with a joyful,
pleasant smile, as if it were obvious to him that his success must always
be the chief desire of everyone else.
"Besides that, Peter Nikolaevich, by exchanging into the Guards I
shall be in a more prominent position," continued Berg, "and vacancies
occur much more frequently in the Foot Guards. Then just think what
can be done with two hundred and thirty rubles! I even manage to put a
little aside and to send something to my father," he went on, emitting a
smoke ring.
"La balance y est... * A German knows how to skin a flint, as the
proverb says," remarked Shinshin, moving his pipe to the other side of
his mouth and winking at the count.

* So that squares matters.

The count burst out laughing. The other guests seeing that Shinshin
was talking came up to listen. Berg, oblivious of irony or indifference,
continued to explain how by exchanging into the Guards he had already
gained a step on his old comrades of the Cadet Corps; how in wartime
the company commander might get killed and he, as senior in the
company, might easily succeed to the post; how popular he was with
everyone in the regiment, and how satisfied his father was with him.
Berg evidently enjoyed narrating all this, and did not seem to suspect
that others, too, might have their own interests. But all he said was so
prettily sedate, and the naivete of his youthful egotism was so obvious,
that he disarmed his hearers.
"Well, my boy, you'll get along wherever you go—foot or horse—
that I'll warrant," said Shinshin, patting him on the shoulder and taking
his feet off the sofa.
Berg smiled joyously. The count, by his guests, went into the
drawing room.
It was just the moment before a big dinner when the assembled
guests, expecting the summons to zakuska, * avoid engaging in any
long conversation but think it necessary to move about and talk, in
order to show that they are not at all impatient for their food. The host
and hostess look toward the door, and now and then glance at one
another, and the visitors try to guess from these glances who, or what,
they are waiting for—some important relation who has not yet arrived,
or a dish that is not yet ready.

* Hors d'oeuvres.

Pierre had come just at dinnertime and was sitting awkwardly in the
middle of the drawing room on the first chair he had come across,
blocking the way for everyone. The countess tried to make him talk,
but he went on naively looking around through his spectacles as if in
search of somebody and answered all her questions in monosyllables.
He was in the way and was the only one who did not notice the fact.
Most of the guests, knowing of the affair with the bear, looked with
curiosity at this big, stout, quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy,
modest fellow could have played such a prank on a policeman.
"You have only lately arrived?" the countess asked him.
"Oui, madame," replied he, looking around him.
"You have not yet seen my husband?"
"Non, madame." He smiled quite inappropriately.
"You have been in Paris recently, I believe? I suppose it's very
interesting."
"Very interesting."
The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikhaylovna. The latter
understood that she was being asked to entertain this young man, and
sitting down beside him she began to speak about his father; but he
answered her, as he had the countess, only in monosyllables. The other
guests were all conversing with one another. "The Razumovskis... It
was charming... You are very kind... Countess Apraksina..." was heard
on all sides. The countess rose and went into the ballroom.
"Marya Dmitrievna?" came her voice from there.
"Herself," came the answer in a rough voice, and Marya Dmitrievna
entered the room.
All the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very
oldest rose. Marya Dmitrievna paused at the door. Tall and stout,
holding high her fifty-year-old head with its gray curls, she stood
surveying the guests, and leisurely arranged her wide sleeves as if
rolling them up. Marya Dmitrievna always spoke in Russian.
"Health and happiness to her whose name day we are keeping and to
her children," she said, in her loud, full-toned voice which drowned all
others. "Well, you old sinner," she went on, turning to the count who
was kissing her hand, "you're feeling dull in Moscow, I daresay?
Nowhere to hunt with your dogs? But what is to be done, old man? Just
see how these nestlings are growing up," and she pointed to the girls.
"You must look for husbands for them whether you like it or not...."
"Well," said she, "how's my Cossack?" (Marya Dmitrievna always
called Natasha a Cossack) and she stroked the child's arm as she came
up fearless and gay to kiss her hand. "I know she's a scamp of a girl,
but I like her."
She took a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings from her huge reticule
and, having given them to the rosy Natasha, who beamed with the
pleasure of her saint's-day fete, turned away at once and addressed
herself to Pierre.
"Eh, eh, friend! Come here a bit," said she, assuming a soft high tone
of voice. "Come here, my friend..." and she ominously tucked up her
sleeves still higher. Pierre approached, looking at her in a childlike way
through his spectacles.
"Come nearer, come nearer, friend! I used to be the only one to tell
your father the truth when he was in favor, and in your case it's my
evident duty." She paused. All were silent, expectant of what was to
follow, for this was dearly only a prelude.
"A fine lad! My word! A fine lad!... His father lies on his deathbed
and he amuses himself setting a policeman astride a bear! For shame,
sir, for shame! It would be better if you went to the war."
She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly
keep from laughing.
"Well, I suppose it is time we were at table?" said Marya
Dmitrievna.
The count went in first with Marya Dmitrievna, the countess
followed on the arm of a colonel of hussars, a man of importance to
them because Nicholas was to go with him to the regiment; then came
Anna Mikhaylovna with Shinshin. Berg gave his arm to Vera. The
smiling Julie Karagina went in with Nicholas. After them other couples
followed, filling the whole dining hall, and last of all the children,
tutors, and governesses followed singly. The footmen began moving
about, chairs scraped, the band struck up in the gallery, and the guests
settled down in their places. Then the strains of the count's household
band were replaced by the clatter of knives and forks, the voices of
visitors, and the soft steps of the footmen. At one end of the table sat
the countess with Marya Dmitrievna on her right and Anna
Mikhaylovna on her left, the other lady visitors were farther down. At
the other end sat the count, with the hussar colonel on his left and
Shinshin and the other male visitors on his right. Midway down the
long table on one side sat the grownup young people: Vera beside Berg,
and Pierre beside Boris; and on the other side, the children, tutors, and
governesses. From behind the crystal decanters and fruit vases the
count kept glancing at his wife and her tall cap with its light-blue
ribbons, and busily filled his neighbors' glasses, not neglecting his own.
The countess in turn, without omitting her duties as hostess, threw
significant glances from behind the pineapples at her husband whose
face and bald head seemed by their redness to contrast more than usual
with his gray hair. At the ladies' end an even chatter of voices was
heard all the time, at the men's end the voices sounded louder and
louder, especially that of the colonel of hussars who, growing more and
more flushed, ate and drank so much that the count held him up as a
pattern to the other guests. Berg with tender smiles was saying to Vera
that love is not an earthly but a heavenly feeling. Boris was telling his
new friend Pierre who the guests were and exchanging glances with
Natasha, who was sitting opposite. Pierre spoke little but examined the
new faces, and ate a great deal. Of the two soups he chose turtle with
savory patties and went on to the game without omitting a single dish
or one of the wines. These latter the butler thrust mysteriously forward,
wrapped in a napkin, from behind the next man's shoulders and
whispered: "Dry Madeira"... "Hungarian"... or "Rhine wine" as the case
might be. Of the four crystal glasses engraved with the count's
monogram that stood before his plate, Pierre held out one at random
and drank with enjoyment, gazing with ever-increasing amiability at
the other guests. Natasha, who sat opposite, was looking at Boris as
girls of thirteen look at the boy they are in love with and have just
kissed for the first time. Sometimes that same look fell on Pierre, and
that funny lively little girl's look made him inclined to laugh without
knowing why.
Nicholas sat at some distance from Sonya, beside Julie Karagina, to
whom he was again talking with the same involuntary smile. Sonya
wore a company smile but was evidently tormented by jealousy; now
she turned pale, now blushed and strained every nerve to overhear what
Nicholas and Julie were saying to one another. The governess kept
looking round uneasily as if preparing to resent any slight that might be
put upon the children. The German tutor was trying to remember all the
dishes, wines, and kinds of dessert, in order to send a full description of
the dinner to his people in Germany; and he felt greatly offended when
the butler with a bottle wrapped in a napkin passed him by. He
frowned, trying to appear as if he did not want any of that wine, but
was mortified because no one would understand that it was not to
quench his thirst or from greediness that he wanted it, but simply from
a conscientious desire for knowledge.
 CHAPTER XIX
At the men's end of the table the talk grew more and more animated.
The colonel told them that the declaration of war had already appeared
in Petersburg and that a copy, which he had himself seen, had that day
been forwarded by courier to the commander in chief.
"And why the deuce are we going to fight Bonaparte?" remarked
Shinshin. "He has stopped Austria's cackle and I fear it will be our turn
next."
The colonel was a stout, tall, plethoric German, evidently devoted to
the service and patriotically Russian. He resented Shinshin's remark.
"It is for the reasson, my goot sir," said he, speaking with a German
accent, "for the reasson zat ze Emperor knows zat. He declares in ze
manifessto zat he cannot fiew wiz indifference ze danger vreatening
Russia and zat ze safety and dignity of ze Empire as vell as ze sanctity
of its alliances..." he spoke this last word with particular emphasis as if
in it lay the gist of the matter.
Then with the unerring official memory that characterized him he
repeated from the opening words of the manifesto:
... and the wish, which constitutes the Emperor's sole and absolute
aim—to establish peace in Europe on firm foundations—has now
decided him to despatch part of the army abroad and to create a new
condition for the attainment of that purpose.
"Zat, my dear sir, is vy..." he concluded, drinking a tumbler of wine
with dignity and looking to the count for approval.
"Connaissez-vous le Proverbe: * 'Jerome, Jerome, do not roam, but
turn spindles at home!'?" said Shinshin, puckering his brows and
smiling. "Cela nous convient a merveille.*(2) Suvorov now—he knew
what he was about; yet they beat him a plate couture,*(3) and where are
we to find Suvorovs now? Je vous demande un peu,"*(4) said he,
continually changing from French to Russian.

*Do you know the proverb?

*(2) That suits us down to the ground.

*(3) Hollow.
 *(4) I just ask you that.

"Ve must vight to the last tr-r-op of our plood!" said the colonel,
thumping the table; "and ve must tie for our Emperor, and zen all vill
pe vell. And ve must discuss it as little as po-o-ossible"... he dwelt
particularly on the word possible... "as po-o-ossible," he ended, again
turning to the count. "Zat is how ve old hussars look at it, and zere's an
end of it! And how do you, a young man and a young hussar, how do
you judge of it?" he added, addressing Nicholas, who when he heard
that the war was being discussed had turned from his partner with eyes
and ears intent on the colonel.
"I am quite of your opinion," replied Nicholas, flaming up, turning
his plate round and moving his wineglasses about with as much
decision and desperation as though he were at that moment facing some
great danger. "I am convinced that we Russians must die or conquer,"
he concluded, conscious—as were others—after the words were uttered
that his remarks were too enthusiastic and emphatic for the occasion
and were therefore awkward.
"What you said just now was splendid!" said his partner Julie.
Sonya trembled all over and blushed to her ears and behind them and
down to her neck and shoulders while Nicholas was speaking.
Pierre listened to the colonel's speech and nodded approvingly.
"That's fine," said he.
"The young man's a real hussar!" shouted the colonel, again
thumping the table.
"What are you making such a noise about over there?" Marya
Dmitrievna's deep voice suddenly inquired from the other end of the
table. "What are you thumping the table for?" she demanded of the
hussar, "and why are you exciting yourself? Do you think the French
are here?"
"I am speaking ze truce," replied the hussar with a smile.
"It's all about the war," the count shouted down the table. "You know
my son's going, Marya Dmitrievna? My son is going."
"I have four sons in the army but still I don't fret. It is all in God's
hands. You may die in your bed or God may spare you in a battle,"
replied Marya Dmitrievna's deep voice, which easily carried the whole
length of the table.
"That's true!"
 Once more the conversations concentrated, the ladies' at the one end
and the men's at the other.
"You won't ask," Natasha's little brother was saying; "I know you
won't ask!"
"I will," replied Natasha.
Her face suddenly flushed with reckless and joyous resolution. She
half rose, by a glance inviting Pierre, who sat opposite, to listen to what
was coming, and turning to her mother:
"Mamma!" rang out the clear contralto notes of her childish voice,
audible the whole length of the table.
"What is it?" asked the countess, startled; but seeing by her
daughter's face that it was only mischief, she shook a finger at her
sternly with a threatening and forbidding movement of her head.
The conversation was hushed.
"Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?" and Natasha's voice
sounded still more firm and resolute.
The countess tried to frown, but could not. Marya Dmitrievna shook
her fat finger.
"Cossack!" she said threateningly.
Most of the guests, uncertain how to regard this sally, looked at the
elders.
"You had better take care!" said the countess.
"Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?" Natasha again cried
boldly, with saucy gaiety, confident that her prank would be taken in
good part.
Sonya and fat little Petya doubled up with laughter.
"You see! I have asked," whispered Natasha to her little brother and
to Pierre, glancing at him again.
"Ice pudding, but you won't get any," said Marya Dmitrievna.
Natasha saw there was nothing to be afraid of and so she braved even
Marya Dmitrievna.
"Marya Dmitrievna! What kind of ice pudding? I don't like ice
cream."
"Carrot ices."
 "No! What kind, Marya Dmitrievna? What kind?" she almost
screamed; "I want to know!"
Marya Dmitrievna and the countess burst out laughing, and all the
guests joined in. Everyone laughed, not at Marya Dmitrievna's answer
but at the incredible boldness and smartness of this little girl who had
dared to treat Marya Dmitrievna in this fashion.
Natasha only desisted when she had been told that there would be
pineapple ice. Before the ices, champagne was served round. The band
again struck up, the count and countess kissed, and the guests, leaving
their seats, went up to "congratulate" the countess, and reached across
the table to clink glasses with the count, with the children, and with one
another. Again the footmen rushed about, chairs scraped, and in the
same order in which they had entered but with redder faces, the guests
returned to the drawing room and to the count's study.

CHAPTER XX
The card tables were drawn out, sets made up for boston, and the
count's visitors settled themselves, some in the two drawing rooms,
some in the sitting room, some in the library.
The count, holding his cards fanwise, kept himself with difficulty
from dropping into his usual after-dinner nap, and laughed at
everything. The young people, at the countess' instigation, gathered
round the clavichord and harp. Julie by general request played first.
After she had played a little air with variations on the harp, she joined
the other young ladies in begging Natasha and Nicholas, who were
noted for their musical talent, to sing something. Natasha, who was
treated as though she were grown up, was evidently very proud of this
but at the same time felt shy.
"What shall we sing?" she said.
"'The Brook,'" suggested Nicholas.
"Well, then, let's be quick. Boris, come here," said Natasha. "But
where is Sonya?"
She looked round and seeing that her friend was not in the room ran
to look for her.
Running into Sonya's room and not finding her there, Natasha ran to
the nursery, but Sonya was not there either. Natasha concluded that she
must be on the chest in the passage. The chest in the passage was the
place of mourning for the younger female generation in the Rostov
household. And there in fact was Sonya lying face downward on
Nurse's dirty feather bed on the top of the chest, crumpling her gauzy
pink dress under her, hiding her face with her slender fingers, and
sobbing so convulsively that her bare little shoulders shook. Natasha's
face, which had been so radiantly happy all that saint's day, suddenly
changed: her eyes became fixed, and then a shiver passed down her
broad neck and the corners of her mouth drooped.
"Sonya! What is it? What is the matter?... Oo... Oo... Oo...!" And
Natasha's large mouth widened, making her look quite ugly, and she
began to wail like a baby without knowing why, except that Sonya was
crying. Sonya tried to lift her head to answer but could not, and hid her
face still deeper in the bed. Natasha wept, sitting on the blue-striped
feather bed and hugging her friend. With an effort Sonya sat up and
began wiping her eyes and explaining.
"Nicholas is going away in a week's time, his... papers... have come...
he told me himself... but still I should not cry," and she showed a paper
she held in her hand—with the verses Nicholas had written, "still, I
should not cry, but you can't... no one can understand... what a soul he
has!"
And she began to cry again because he had such a noble soul.
"It's all very well for you... I am not envious... I love you and Boris
also," she went on, gaining a little strength; "he is nice... there are no
difficulties in your way.... But Nicholas is my cousin... one would have
to... the Metropolitan himself... and even then it can't be done. And
besides, if she tells Mamma" (Sonya looked upon the countess as her
mother and called her so) "that I am spoiling Nicholas' career and am
heartless and ungrateful, while truly... God is my witness," and she
made the sign of the cross, "I love her so much, and all of you, only
Vera... And what for? What have I done to her? I am so grateful to you
that I would willingly sacrifice everything, only I have nothing...."
Sonya could not continue, and again hid her face in her hands and in
the feather bed. Natasha began consoling her, but her face showed that
she understood all the gravity of her friend's trouble.
"Sonya," she suddenly exclaimed, as if she had guessed the true
reason of her friend's sorrow, "I'm sure Vera has said something to you
since dinner? Hasn't she?"
"Yes, these verses Nicholas wrote himself and I copied some others,
and she found them on my table and said she'd show them to Mamma,
and that I was ungrateful, and that Mamma would never allow him to
marry me, but that he'll marry Julie. You see how he's been with her all
day... Natasha, what have I done to deserve it?..."
And again she began to sob, more bitterly than before. Natasha lifted
her up, hugged her, and, smiling through her tears, began comforting
her.
"Sonya, don't believe her, darling! Don't believe her! Do you
remember how we and Nicholas, all three of us, talked in the sitting
room after supper? Why, we settled how everything was to be. I don't
quite remember how, but don't you remember that it could all be
arranged and how nice it all was? There's Uncle Shinshin's brother has
married his first cousin. And we are only second cousins, you know.
And Boris says it is quite possible. You know I have told him all about
it. And he is so clever and so good!" said Natasha. "Don't you cry,
Sonya, dear love, darling Sonya!" and she kissed her and laughed.
"Vera's spiteful; never mind her! And all will come right and she won't
say anything to Mamma. Nicholas will tell her himself, and he doesn't
care at all for Julie."
Natasha kissed her on the hair.
Sonya sat up. The little kitten brightened, its eyes shone, and it
seemed ready to lift its tail, jump down on its soft paws, and begin
playing with the ball of worsted as a kitten should.
"Do you think so?... Really? Truly?" she said, quickly smoothing her
frock and hair.
"Really, truly!" answered Natasha, pushing in a crisp lock that had
strayed from under her friend's plaits.
Both laughed.
"Well, let's go and sing 'The Brook.'"
"Come along!"
"Do you know, that fat Pierre who sat opposite me is so funny!" said
Natasha, stopping suddenly. "I feel so happy!"
And she set off at a run along the passage.
Sonya, shaking off some down which clung to her and tucking away
the verses in the bosom of her dress close to her bony little chest, ran
after Natasha down the passage into the sitting room with flushed face
and light, joyous steps. At the visitors' request the young people sang
the quartette, "The Brook," with which everyone was delighted. Then
Nicholas sang a song he had just learned:
 At nighttime in the moon's fair glow
How sweet, as fancies wander free,
To feel that in this world there's one
Who still is thinking but of thee!

That while her fingers touch the harp

Wafting sweet music o'er the lea,
It is for thee thus swells her heart,
Sighing its message out to thee...

A day or two, then bliss unspoilt,

But oh! till then I cannot live!...

He had not finished the last verse before the young people began to
get ready to dance in the large hall, and the sound of the feet and the
coughing of the musicians were heard from the gallery.
Pierre was sitting in the drawing-room where Shinshin had engaged
him, as a man recently returned from abroad, in a political conversation
in which several others joined but which bored Pierre. When the music
began Natasha came in and walking straight up to Pierre said, laughing
and blushing:
"Mamma told me to ask you to join the dancers."
"I am afraid of mixing the figures," Pierre replied; "but if you will be
my teacher..." And lowering his big arm he offered it to the slender
little girl.
While the couples were arranging themselves and the musicians
tuning up, Pierre sat down with his little partner. Natasha was perfectly
happy; she was dancing with a grown-up man, who had been abroad.
She was sitting in a conspicuous place and talking to him like a grown-
up lady. She had a fan in her hand that one of the ladies had given her
to hold. Assuming quite the pose of a society woman (heaven knows
when and where she had learned it) she talked with her partner, fanning
herself and smiling over the fan.
"Dear, dear! Just look at her!" exclaimed the countess as she crossed
the ballroom, pointing to Natasha.
Natasha blushed and laughed.
"Well, really, Mamma! Why should you? What is there to be
surprised at?"
In the midst of the third ecossaise there was a clatter of chairs being
pushed back in the sitting room where the count and Marya Dmitrievna
had been playing cards with the majority of the more distinguished and
older visitors. They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long,
and replacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ballroom. First
came Marya Dmitrievna and the count, both with merry countenances.
The count, with playful ceremony somewhat in ballet style, offered his
bent arm to Marya Dmitrievna. He drew himself up, a smile of
debonair gallantry lit up his face and as soon as the last figure of the
ecossaise was ended, he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted
up to their gallery, addressing the first violin:
"Semen! Do you know the Daniel Cooper?"
This was the count's favorite dance, which he had danced in his
youth. (Strictly speaking, Daniel Cooper was one figure of the
anglaise.)
"Look at Papa!" shouted Natasha to the whole company, and quite
forgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up partner she bent her
curly head to her knees and made the whole room ring with her
laughter.
And indeed everybody in the room looked with a smile of pleasure at
the jovial old gentleman, who standing beside his tall and stout partner,
Marya Dmitrievna, curved his arms, beat time, straightened his
shoulders, turned out his toes, tapped gently with his foot, and, by a
smile that broadened his round face more and more, prepared the
onlookers for what was to follow. As soon as the provocatively gay
strains of Daniel Cooper (somewhat resembling those of a merry
peasant dance) began to sound, all the doorways of the ballroom were
suddenly filled by the domestic serfs—the men on one side and the
women on the other—who with beaming faces had come to see their
master making merry.
"Just look at the master! A regular eagle he is!" loudly remarked the
nurse, as she stood in one of the doorways.
The count danced well and knew it. But his partner could not and did
not want to dance well. Her enormous figure stood erect, her powerful
arms hanging down (she had handed her reticule to the countess), and
only her stern but handsome face really joined in the dance. What was
expressed by the whole of the count's plump figure, in Marya
Dmitrievna found expression only in her more and more beaming face
and quivering nose. But if the count, getting more and more into the
swing of it, charmed the spectators by the unexpectedness of his adroit
maneuvers and the agility with which he capered about on his light feet,
Marya Dmitrievna produced no less impression by slight exertions—
the least effort to move her shoulders or bend her arms when turning, or
stamp her foot—which everyone appreciated in view of her size and
habitual severity. The dance grew livelier and livelier. The other
couples could not attract a moment's attention to their own evolutions
and did not even try to do so. All were watching the count and Marya
Dmitrievna. Natasha kept pulling everyone by sleeve or dress, urging
them to "look at Papa!" though as it was they never took their eyes off
the couple. In the intervals of the dance the count, breathing deeply,
waved and shouted to the musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and
faster; lightly, more lightly, and yet more lightly whirled the count,
flying round Marya Dmitrievna, now on his toes, now on his heels;
until, turning his partner round to her seat, he executed the final pas,
raising his soft foot backwards, bowing his perspiring head, smiling
and making a wide sweep with his arm, amid a thunder of applause and
laughter led by Natasha. Both partners stood still, breathing heavily and
wiping their faces with their cambric handkerchiefs.
"That's how we used to dance in our time, ma chere," said the count.
"That was a Daniel Cooper!" exclaimed Marya Dmitrievna, tucking
up her sleeves and puffing heavily.

CHAPTER XXI
While in the Rostovs' ballroom the sixth anglaise was being danced,
to a tune in which the weary musicians blundered, and while tired
footmen and cooks were getting the supper, Count Bezukhov had a
sixth stroke. The doctors pronounced recovery impossible. After a mute
confession, communion was administered to the dying man,
preparations made for the sacrament of unction, and in his house there
was the bustle and thrill of suspense usual at such moments. Outside
the house, beyond the gates, a group of undertakers, who hid whenever
a carriage drove up, waited in expectation of an important order for an
expensive funeral. The Military Governor of Moscow, who had been
assiduous in sending aides-de-camp to inquire after the count's health,
came himself that evening to bid a last farewell to the celebrated
grandee of Catherine's court, Count Bezukhov.
The magnificent reception room was crowded. Everyone stood up
respectfully when the Military Governor, having stayed about half an
hour alone with the dying man, passed out, slightly acknowledging
their bows and trying to escape as quickly as possible from the glances
fixed on him by the doctors, clergy, and relatives of the family. Prince
Vasili, who had grown thinner and paler during the last few days,
escorted him to the door, repeating something to him several times in
low tones.
When the Military Governor had gone, Prince Vasili sat down all
alone on a chair in the ballroom, crossing one leg high over the other,
leaning his elbow on his knee and covering his face with his hand.
After sitting so for a while he rose, and, looking about him with
frightened eyes, went with unusually hurried steps down the long
corridor leading to the back of the house, to the room of the eldest
princess.
Those who were in the dimly lit reception room spoke in nervous
whispers, and, whenever anyone went into or came from the dying
man's room, grew silent and gazed with eyes full of curiosity or
expectancy at his door, which creaked slightly when opened.
"The limits of human life... are fixed and may not be o'erpassed,"
said an old priest to a lady who had taken a seat beside him and was
listening naively to his words.
"I wonder, is it not too late to administer unction?" asked the lady,
adding the priest's clerical title, as if she had no opinion of her own on
the subject.
"Ah, madam, it is a great sacrament," replied the priest, passing his
hand over the thin grizzled strands of hair combed back across his bald
head.
"Who was that? The Military Governor himself?" was being asked at
the other side of the room. "How young-looking he is!"
"Yes, and he is over sixty. I hear the count no longer recognizes
anyone. They wished to administer the sacrament of unction."
"I knew someone who received that sacrament seven times."
The second princess had just come from the sickroom with her eyes
red from weeping and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a
graceful pose under a portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbow on a
table.
"Beautiful," said the doctor in answer to a remark about the weather.
"The weather is beautiful, Princess; and besides, in Moscow one feels
as if one were in the country."
"Yes, indeed," replied the princess with a sigh. "So he may have
something to drink?"
Lorrain considered.
"Has he taken his medicine?"
"Yes."
The doctor glanced at his watch.
"Take a glass of boiled water and put a pinch of cream of tartar," and
he indicated with his delicate fingers what he meant by a pinch.
 "Dere has neffer been a gase," a German doctor was saying to an
aide-de-camp, "dat one liffs after de sird stroke."
"And what a well-preserved man he was!" remarked the aide-de-
camp. "And who will inherit his wealth?" he added in a whisper.
"It von't go begging," replied the German with a smile.
Everyone again looked toward the door, which creaked as the second
princess went in with the drink she had prepared according to Lorrain's
instructions. The German doctor went up to Lorrain.
"Do you think he can last till morning?" asked the German,
addressing Lorrain in French which he pronounced badly.
Lorrain, pursing up his lips, waved a severely negative finger before
his nose.
"Tonight, not later," said he in a low voice, and he moved away with
a decorous smile of self-satisfaction at being able clearly to understand
and state the patient's condition.
Meanwhile Prince Vasili had opened the door into the princess'
room.
In this room it was almost dark; only two tiny lamps were burning
before the icons and there was a pleasant scent of flowers and burnt
pastilles. The room was crowded with small pieces of furniture,
whatnots, cupboards, and little tables. The quilt of a high, white feather
bed was just visible behind a screen. A small dog began to bark.
"Ah, is it you, cousin?"
She rose and smoothed her hair, which was as usual so extremely
smooth that it seemed to be made of one piece with her head and
covered with varnish.
"Has anything happened?" she asked. "I am so terrified."
"No, there is no change. I only came to have a talk about business,
Catiche," * muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on the chair
she had just vacated. "You have made the place warm, I must say," he
remarked. "Well, sit down: let's have a talk."

*Catherine.

"I thought perhaps something had happened," she said with her
unchanging stonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the
prince, she prepared to listen.
"I wished to get a nap, mon cousin, but I can't."
 "Well, my dear?" said Prince Vasili, taking her hand and bending it
downwards as was his habit.
It was plain that this "well?" referred to much that they both
understood without naming.
The princess, who had a straight, rigid body, abnormally long for her
legs, looked directly at Prince Vasili with no sign of emotion in her
prominent gray eyes. Then she shook her head and glanced up at the
icons with a sigh. This might have been taken as an expression of
sorrow and devotion, or of weariness and hope of resting before long.
Prince Vasili understood it as an expression of weariness.
"And I?" he said; "do you think it is easier for me? I am as worn out
as a post horse, but still I must have a talk with you, Catiche, a very
serious talk."
Prince Vasili said no more and his cheeks began to twitch nervously,
now on one side, now on the other, giving his face an unpleasant
expression which was never to be seen on it in a drawing room. His
eyes too seemed strange; at one moment they looked impudently sly
and at the next glanced round in alarm.
The princess, holding her little dog on her lap with her thin bony
hands, looked attentively into Prince Vasili's eyes evidently resolved
not to be the first to break silence, if she had to wait till morning.
"Well, you see, my dear princess and cousin, Catherine Semenovna,"
continued Prince Vasili, returning to his theme, apparently not without
an inner struggle; "at such a moment as this one must think of
everything. One must think of the future, of all of you... I love you all,
like children of my own, as you know."
The princess continued to look at him without moving, and with the
same dull expression.
"And then of course my family has also to be considered," Prince
Vasili went on, testily pushing away a little table without looking at
her. "You know, Catiche, that we—you three sisters, Mamontov, and
my wife—are the count's only direct heirs. I know, I know how hard it
is for you to talk or think of such matters. It is no easier for me; but, my
dear, I am getting on for sixty and must be prepared for anything. Do
you know I have sent for Pierre? The count," pointing to his portrait,
"definitely demanded that he should be called."
Prince Vasili looked questioningly at the princess, but could not
make out whether she was considering what he had just said or whether
she was simply looking at him.
 "There is one thing I constantly pray God to grant, mon cousin," she
replied, "and it is that He would be merciful to him and would allow his
noble soul peacefully to leave this..."
"Yes, yes, of course," interrupted Prince Vasili impatiently, rubbing
his bald head and angrily pulling back toward him the little table that he
had pushed away. "But... in short, the fact is... you know yourself that
last winter the count made a will by which he left all his property, not
to us his direct heirs, but to Pierre."
"He has made wills enough!" quietly remarked the princess. "But he
cannot leave the estate to Pierre. Pierre is illegitimate."
"But, my dear," said Prince Vasili suddenly, clutching the little table
and becoming more animated and talking more rapidly: "what if a letter
has been written to the Emperor in which the count asks for Pierre's
legitimation? Do you understand that in consideration of the count's
services, his request would be granted?..."
The princess smiled as people do who think they know more about
the subject under discussion than those they are talking with.
"I can tell you more," continued Prince Vasili, seizing her hand, "that
letter was written, though it was not sent, and the Emperor knew of it.
The only question is, has it been destroyed or not? If not, then as soon
as all is over," and Prince Vasili sighed to intimate what he meant by
the words all is over, "and the count's papers are opened, the will and
letter will be delivered to the Emperor, and the petition will certainly be
granted. Pierre will get everything as the legitimate son."
"And our share?" asked the princess smiling ironically, as if anything
might happen, only not that.
"But, my poor Catiche, it is as clear as daylight! He will then be the
legal heir to everything and you won't get anything. You must know,
my dear, whether the will and letter were written, and whether they
have been destroyed or not. And if they have somehow been
overlooked, you ought to know where they are, and must find them,
because..."
"What next?" the princess interrupted, smiling sardonically and not
changing the expression of her eyes. "I am a woman, and you think we
are all stupid; but I know this: an illegitimate son cannot inherit... un
batard!" * she added, as if supposing that this translation of the word
would effectively prove to Prince Vasili the invalidity of his contention.

* A bastard.
 "Well, really, Catiche! Can't you understand! You are so intelligent,
how is it you don't see that if the count has written a letter to the
Emperor begging him to recognize Pierre as legitimate, it follows that
Pierre will not be Pierre but will become Count Bezukhov, and will
then inherit everything under the will? And if the will and letter are not
destroyed, then you will have nothing but the consolation of having
been dutiful et tout ce qui s'ensuit! * That's certain."

* And all that follows therefrom.

"I know the will was made, but I also know that it is invalid; and
you, mon cousin, seem to consider me a perfect fool," said the princess
with the expression women assume when they suppose they are saying
something witty and stinging.
"My dear Princess Catherine Semenovna," began Prince Vasili
impatiently, "I came here not to wrangle with you, but to talk about
your interests as with a kinswoman, a good, kind, true relation. And I
tell you for the tenth time that if the letter to the Emperor and the will
in Pierre's favor are among the count's papers, then, my dear girl, you
and your sisters are not heiresses! If you don't believe me, then believe
an expert. I have just been talking to Dmitri Onufrich" (the family
solicitor) "and he says the same."
At this a sudden change evidently took place in the princess' ideas;
her thin lips grew white, though her eyes did not change, and her voice
when she began to speak passed through such transitions as she herself
evidently did not expect.
"That would be a fine thing!" said she. "I never wanted anything and
I don't now."
She pushed the little dog off her lap and smoothed her dress.
"And this is gratitude—this is recognition for those who have
sacrificed everything for his sake!" she cried. "It's splendid! Fine! I
don't want anything, Prince."
"Yes, but you are not the only one. There are your sisters..." replied
Prince Vasili.
But the princess did not listen to him.
"Yes, I knew it long ago but had forgotten. I knew that I could expect
nothing but meanness, deceit, envy, intrigue, and ingratitude—the
blackest ingratitude—in this house..."
"Do you or do you not know where that will is?" insisted Prince
Vasili, his cheeks twitching more than ever.
 "Yes, I was a fool! I still believed in people, loved them, and
sacrificed myself. But only the base, the vile succeed! I know who has
been intriguing!"
The princess wished to rise, but the prince held her by the hand. She
had the air of one who has suddenly lost faith in the whole human race.
She gave her companion an angry glance.
"There is still time, my dear. You must remember, Catiche, that it
was all done casually in a moment of anger, of illness, and was
afterwards forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to rectify his mistake, to
ease his last moments by not letting him commit this injustice, and not
to let him die feeling that he is rendering unhappy those who..."
"Who sacrificed everything for him," chimed in the princess, who
would again have risen had not the prince still held her fast, "though he
never could appreciate it. No, mon cousin," she added with a sigh, "I
shall always remember that in this world one must expect no reward,
that in this world there is neither honor nor justice. In this world one
has to be cunning and cruel."
"Now come, come! Be reasonable. I know your excellent heart."
"No, I have a wicked heart."
"I know your heart," repeated the prince. "I value your friendship and
wish you to have as good an opinion of me. Don't upset yourself, and
let us talk sensibly while there is still time, be it a day or be it but an
hour.... Tell me all you know about the will, and above all where it is.
You must know. We will take it at once and show it to the count. He
has, no doubt, forgotten it and will wish to destroy it. You understand
that my sole desire is conscientiously to carry out his wishes; that is my
only reason for being here. I came simply to help him and you."
"Now I see it all! I know who has been intriguing—I know!" cried
the princess.
"That's not the point, my dear."
"It's that protege of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskaya, that
Anna Mikhaylovna whom I would not take for a housemaid... the
infamous, vile woman!"
"Do not let us lose any time..."
"Ah, don't talk to me! Last winter she wheedled herself in here and
told the count such vile, disgraceful things about us, especially about
Sophie—I can't repeat them—that it made the count quite ill and he
would not see us for a whole fortnight. I know it was then he wrote this
vile, infamous paper, but I thought the thing was invalid."
 "We've got to it at last—why did you not tell me about it sooner?"
"It's in the inlaid portfolio that he keeps under his pillow," said the
princess, ignoring his question. "Now I know! Yes; if I have a sin, a
great sin, it is hatred of that vile woman!" almost shrieked the princess,
now quite changed. "And what does she come worming herself in here
for? But I will give her a piece of my mind. The time will come!"

CHAPTER XXII
While these conversations were going on in the reception room and
the princess' room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for)
and Anna Mikhaylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him)
was driving into the court of Count Bezukhov's house. As the wheels
rolled softly over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikhaylovna,
having turned with words of comfort to her companion, realized that he
was asleep in his corner and woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre
followed Anna Mikhaylovna out of the carriage, and only then began to
think of the interview with his dying father which awaited him. He
noticed that they had not come to the front entrance but to the back
door. While he was getting down from the carriage steps two men, who
looked like tradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in the
shadow of the wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several other
men of the same kind hiding in the shadow of the house on both sides.
But neither Anna Mikhaylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who
could not help seeing these people, took any notice of them. "It seems
to be all right," Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikhaylovna. She
hurriedly ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to
Pierre, who was lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why
it was necessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had
to go by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikhaylovna's air of
assurance and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely
necessary. Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by
some men who, carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots
clattering. These men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna
Mikhaylovna pass and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them
there.
"Is this the way to the princesses' apartments?" asked Anna
Mikhaylovna of one of them.
"Yes," replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as if anything were
now permissible; "the door to the left, ma'am."
 "Perhaps the count did not ask for me," said Pierre when he reached
the landing. "I'd better go to my own room."
Anna Mikhaylovna paused and waited for him to come up.
"Ah, my friend!" she said, touching his arm as she had done her son's
when speaking to him that afternoon, "believe me I suffer no less than
you do, but be a man!"
"But really, hadn't I better go away?" he asked, looking kindly at her
over his spectacles.
"Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have been done
you. Think that he is your father... perhaps in the agony of death." She
sighed. "I have loved you like a son from the first. Trust yourself to me,
Pierre. I shall not forget your interests."
Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had
to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikhaylovna who
was already opening a door.
This door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the
princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been in
this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of these
rooms. Anna Mikhaylovna, addressing a maid who was hurrying past
with a decanter on a tray as "my dear" and "my sweet," asked about the
princess' health and then led Pierre along a stone passage. The first
door on the left led into the princesses' apartments. The maid with the
decanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything in the house
was done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna in
passing instinctively glanced into the room, where Prince Vasili and the
eldest princess were sitting close together talking. Seeing them pass,
Prince Vasili drew back with obvious impatience, while the princess
jumped up and with a gesture of desperation slammed the door with all
her might.
This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted
on Prince Vasili's face so out of keeping with his dignity that Pierre
stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his guide. Anna
Mikhaylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed,
as if to say that this was no more than she had expected.
"Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests," said she in
reply to his look, and went still faster along the passage.
Pierre could not make out what it was all about, and still less what
"watching over his interests" meant, but he decided that all these things
had to be. From the passage they went into a large, dimly lit room
adjoining the count's reception room. It was one of those sumptuous but
cold apartments known to Pierre only from the front approach, but even
in this room there now stood an empty bath, and water had been spilled
on the carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer and by a
servant who passed out on tiptoe without heeding them. They went into
the reception room familiar to Pierre, with two Italian windows opening
into the conservatory, with its large bust and full length portrait of
Catherine the Great. The same people were still sitting here in almost
the same positions as before, whispering to one another. All became
silent and turned to look at the pale tear-worn Anna Mikhaylovna as
she entered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre who, hanging his head,
meekly followed her.
Anna Mikhaylovna's face expressed a consciousness that the decisive
moment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg lady she
now, keeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room even more
boldly than that afternoon. She felt that as she brought with her the
person the dying man wished to see, her own admission was assured.
Casting a rapid glance at all those in the room and noticing the count's
confessor there, she glided up to him with a sort of amble, not exactly
bowing yet seeming to grow suddenly smaller, and respectfully
received the blessing first of one and then of another priest.
"God be thanked that you are in time," said she to one of the priests;
"all we relatives have been in such anxiety. This young man is the
count's son," she added more softly. "What a terrible moment!"
Having said this she went up to the doctor.
"Dear doctor," said she, "this young man is the count's son. Is there
any hope?"
The doctor cast a rapid glance upwards and silently shrugged his
shoulders. Anna Mikhaylovna with just the same movement raised her
shoulders and eyes, almost closing the latter, sighed, and moved away
from the doctor to Pierre. To him, in a particularly respectful and
tenderly sad voice, she said:
"Trust in His mercy!" and pointing out a small sofa for him to sit and
wait for her, she went silently toward the door that everyone was
watching and it creaked very slightly as she disappeared behind it.
Pierre, having made up his mind to obey his monitress implicitly,
moved toward the sofa she had indicated. As soon as Anna
Mikhaylovna had disappeared he noticed that the eyes of all in the
room turned to him with something more than curiosity and sympathy.
He noticed that they whispered to one another, casting significant looks
at him with a kind of awe and even servility. A deference such as he
had never before received was shown him. A strange lady, the one who
had been talking to the priests, rose and offered him her seat; an aide-
de-camp picked up and returned a glove Pierre had dropped; the
doctors became respectfully silent as he passed by, and moved to make
way for him. At first Pierre wished to take another seat so as not to
trouble the lady, and also to pick up the glove himself and to pass round
the doctors who were not even in his way; but all at once he felt that
this would not do, and that tonight he was a person obliged to perform
some sort of awful rite which everyone expected of him, and that he
was therefore bound to accept their services. He took the glove in
silence from the aide-de-camp, and sat down in the lady's chair, placing
his huge hands symmetrically on his knees in the naive attitude of an
Egyptian statue, and decided in his own mind that all was as it should
be, and that in order not to lose his head and do foolish things he must
not act on his own ideas tonight, but must yield himself up entirely to
the will of those who were guiding him.
Not two minutes had passed before Prince Vasili with head erect
majestically entered the room. He was wearing his long coat with three
stars on his breast. He seemed to have grown thinner since the morning;
his eyes seemed larger than usual when he glanced round and noticed
Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (a thing he never used to do),
and drew it downwards as if wishing to ascertain whether it was firmly
fixed on.
"Courage, courage, my friend! He has asked to see you. That is
well!" and he turned to go.
But Pierre thought it necessary to ask: "How is..." and hesitated, not
knowing whether it would be proper to call the dying man "the count,"
yet ashamed to call him "father."
"He had another stroke about half an hour ago. Courage, my
friend..."
Pierre's mind was in such a confused state that the word "stroke"
suggested to him a blow from something. He looked at Prince Vasili in
perplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack of illness.
Prince Vasili said something to Lorrain in passing and went through the
door on tiptoe. He could not walk well on tiptoe and his whole body
jerked at each step. The eldest princess followed him, and the priests
and deacons and some servants also went in at the door. Through that
door was heard a noise of things being moved about, and at last Anna
Mikhaylovna, still with the same expression, pale but resolute in the
discharge of duty, ran out and touching Pierre lightly on the arm said:
"The divine mercy is inexhaustible! Unction is about to be
administered. Come."
Pierre went in at the door, stepping on the soft carpet, and noticed
that the strange lady, the aide-de-camp, and some of the servants, all
followed him in, as if there were now no further need for permission to
enter that room.

CHAPTER XXIII
Pierre well knew this large room divided by columns and an arch, its
walls hung round with Persian carpets. The part of the room behind the
columns, with a high silk-curtained mahogany bedstead on one side and
on the other an immense case containing icons, was brightly
illuminated with red light like a Russian church during evening service.
Under the gleaming icons stood a long invalid chair, and in that chair
on snowy-white smooth pillows, evidently freshly changed, Pierre
saw—covered to the waist by a bright green quilt—the familiar,
majestic figure of his father, Count Bezukhov, with that gray mane of
hair above his broad forehead which reminded one of a lion, and the
deep characteristically noble wrinkles of his handsome, ruddy face. He
lay just under the icons; his large thick hands outside the quilt. Into the
right hand, which was lying palm downwards, a wax taper had been
thrust between forefinger and thumb, and an old servant, bending over
from behind the chair, held it in position. By the chair stood the priests,
their long hair falling over their magnificent glittering vestments, with
lighted tapers in their hands, slowly and solemnly conducting the
service. A little behind them stood the two younger princesses holding
handkerchiefs to their eyes, and just in front of them their eldest sister,
Catiche, with a vicious and determined look steadily fixed on the icons,
as though declaring to all that she could not answer for herself should
she glance round. Anna Mikhaylovna, with a meek, sorrowful, and all-
forgiving expression on her face, stood by the door near the strange
lady. Prince Vasili in front of the door, near the invalid chair, a wax
taper in his left hand, was leaning his left arm on the carved back of a
velvet chair he had turned round for the purpose, and was crossing
himself with his right hand, turning his eyes upward each time he
touched his forehead. His face wore a calm look of piety and
resignation to the will of God. "If you do not understand these
sentiments," he seemed to be saying, "so much the worse for you!"
Behind him stood the aide-de-camp, the doctors, and the
menservants; the men and women had separated as in church. All were
silently crossing themselves, and the reading of the church service, the
subdued chanting of deep bass voices, and in the intervals sighs and the
shuffling of feet were the only sounds that could be heard. Anna
Mikhaylovna, with an air of importance that showed that she felt she
quite knew what she was about, went across the room to where Pierre
was standing and gave him a taper. He lit it and, distracted by
observing those around him, began crossing himself with the hand that
held the taper.
Sophie, the rosy, laughter-loving, youngest princess with the mole,
watched him. She smiled, hid her face in her handkerchief, and
remained with it hidden for awhile; then looking up and seeing Pierre
she again began to laugh. She evidently felt unable to look at him
without laughing, but could not resist looking at him: so to be out of
temptation she slipped quietly behind one of the columns. In the midst
of the service the voices of the priests suddenly ceased, they whispered
to one another, and the old servant who was holding the count's hand
got up and said something to the ladies. Anna Mikhaylovna stepped
forward and, stooping over the dying man, beckoned to Lorrain from
behind her back. The French doctor held no taper; he was leaning
against one of the columns in a respectful attitude implying that he, a
foreigner, in spite of all differences of faith, understood the full
importance of the rite now being performed and even approved of it.
He now approached the sick man with the noiseless step of one in full
vigor of life, with his delicate white fingers raised from the green quilt
the hand that was free, and turning sideways felt the pulse and reflected
a moment. The sick man was given something to drink, there was a stir
around him, then the people resumed their places and the service
continued. During this interval Pierre noticed that Prince Vasili left the
chair on which he had been leaning, and—with an air which intimated
that he knew what he was about and if others did not understand him it
was so much the worse for them—did not go up to the dying man, but
passed by him, joined the eldest princess, and moved with her to the
side of the room where stood the high bedstead with its silken
hangings. On leaving the bed both Prince Vasili and the princess passed
out by a back door, but returned to their places one after the other
before the service was concluded. Pierre paid no more attention to this
occurrence than to the rest of what went on, having made up his mind
once for all that what he saw happening around him that evening was in
some way essential.
The chanting of the service ceased, and the voice of the priest was
heard respectfully congratulating the dying man on having received the
sacrament. The dying man lay as lifeless and immovable as before.
Around him everyone began to stir: steps were audible and whispers,
among which Anna Mikhaylovna's was the most distinct.
Pierre heard her say:
"Certainly he must be moved onto the bed; here it will be
impossible..."
 The sick man was so surrounded by doctors, princesses, and servants
that Pierre could no longer see the reddish-yellow face with its gray
mane—which, though he saw other faces as well, he had not lost sight
of for a single moment during the whole service. He judged by the
cautious movements of those who crowded round the invalid chair that
they had lifted the dying man and were moving him.
"Catch hold of my arm or you'll drop him!" he heard one of the
servants say in a frightened whisper. "Catch hold from underneath.
Here!" exclaimed different voices; and the heavy breathing of the
bearers and the shuffling of their feet grew more hurried, as if the
weight they were carrying were too much for them.
As the bearers, among whom was Anna Mikhaylovna, passed the
young man he caught a momentary glimpse between their heads and
backs of the dying man's high, stout, uncovered chest and powerful
shoulders, raised by those who were holding him under the armpits, and
of his gray, curly, leonine head. This head, with its remarkably broad
brow and cheekbones, its handsome, sensual mouth, and its cold,
majestic expression, was not disfigured by the approach of death. It was
the same as Pierre remembered it three months before, when the count
had sent him to Petersburg. But now this head was swaying helplessly
with the uneven movements of the bearers, and the cold listless gaze
fixed itself upon nothing.
After a few minutes' bustle beside the high bedstead, those who had
carried the sick man dispersed. Anna Mikhaylovna touched Pierre's
hand and said, "Come." Pierre went with her to the bed on which the
sick man had been laid in a stately pose in keeping with the ceremony
just completed. He lay with his head propped high on the pillows. His
hands were symmetrically placed on the green silk quilt, the palms
downward. When Pierre came up the count was gazing straight at him,
but with a look the significance of which could not be understood by
mortal man. Either this look meant nothing but that as long as one has
eyes they must look somewhere, or it meant too much. Pierre hesitated,
not knowing what to do, and glanced inquiringly at his guide. Anna
Mikhaylovna made a hurried sign with her eyes, glancing at the sick
man's hand and moving her lips as if to send it a kiss. Pierre, carefully
stretching his neck so as not to touch the quilt, followed her suggestion
and pressed his lips to the large boned, fleshy hand. Neither the hand
nor a single muscle of the count's face stirred. Once more Pierre looked
questioningly at Anna Mikhaylovna to see what he was to do next.
Anna Mikhaylovna with her eyes indicated a chair that stood beside the
bed. Pierre obediently sat down, his eyes asking if he were doing right.
Anna Mikhaylovna nodded approvingly. Again Pierre fell into the
naively symmetrical pose of an Egyptian statue, evidently distressed
that his stout and clumsy body took up so much room and doing his
utmost to look as small as possible. He looked at the count, who still
gazed at the spot where Pierre's face had been before he sat down.
Anna Mikhaylovna indicated by her attitude her consciousness of the
pathetic importance of these last moments of meeting between the
father and son. This lasted about two minutes, which to Pierre seemed
an hour. Suddenly the broad muscles and lines of the count's face began
to twitch. The twitching increased, the handsome mouth was drawn to
one side (only now did Pierre realize how near death his father was),
and from that distorted mouth issued an indistinct, hoarse sound. Anna
Mikhaylovna looked attentively at the sick man's eyes, trying to guess
what he wanted; she pointed first to Pierre, then to some drink, then
named Prince Vasili in an inquiring whisper, then pointed to the quilt.
The eyes and face of the sick man showed impatience. He made an
effort to look at the servant who stood constantly at the head of the bed.
"Wants to turn on the other side," whispered the servant, and got up
to turn the count's heavy body toward the wall.
Pierre rose to help him.
While the count was being turned over, one of his arms fell back
helplessly and he made a fruitless effort to pull it forward. Whether he
noticed the look of terror with which Pierre regarded that lifeless arm,
or whether some other thought flitted across his dying brain, at any rate
he glanced at the refractory arm, at Pierre's terror-stricken face, and
again at the arm, and on his face a feeble, piteous smile appeared, quite
out of keeping with his features, that seemed to deride his own
helplessness. At sight of this smile Pierre felt an unexpected quivering
in his breast and a tickling in his nose, and tears dimmed his eyes. The
sick man was turned on to his side with his face to the wall. He sighed.
"He is dozing," said Anna Mikhaylovna, observing that one of the
princesses was coming to take her turn at watching. "Let us go."
Pierre went out.

CHAPTER XXIV
There was now no one in the reception room except Prince Vasili
and the eldest princess, who were sitting under the portrait of Catherine
the Great and talking eagerly. As soon as they saw Pierre and his
companion they became silent, and Pierre thought he saw the princess
hide something as she whispered:
"I can't bear the sight of that woman."
 "Catiche has had tea served in the small drawing room," said Prince
Vasili to Anna Mikhaylovna. "Go and take something, my poor Anna
Mikhaylovna, or you will not hold out."
To Pierre he said nothing, merely giving his arm a sympathetic
squeeze below the shoulder. Pierre went with Anna Mikhaylovna into
the small drawing room.
"There is nothing so refreshing after a sleepless night as a cup of this
delicious Russian tea," Lorrain was saying with an air of restrained
animation as he stood sipping tea from a delicate Chinese handleless
cup before a table on which tea and a cold supper were laid in the small
circular room. Around the table all who were at Count Bezukhov's
house that night had gathered to fortify themselves. Pierre well
remembered this small circular drawing room with its mirrors and little
tables. During balls given at the house Pierre, who did not know how to
dance, had liked sitting in this room to watch the ladies who, as they
passed through in their ball dresses with diamonds and pearls on their
bare shoulders, looked at themselves in the brilliantly lighted mirrors
which repeated their reflections several times. Now this same room was
dimly lighted by two candles. On one small table tea things and supper
dishes stood in disorder, and in the middle of the night a motley throng
of people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly whispering, and
betraying by every word and movement that they none of them forgot
what was happening and what was about to happen in the bedroom.
Pierre did not eat anything though he would very much have liked to.
He looked inquiringly at his monitress and saw that she was again
going on tiptoe to the reception room where they had left Prince Vasili
and the eldest princess. Pierre concluded that this also was essential,
and after a short interval followed her. Anna Mikhaylovna was standing
beside the princess, and they were both speaking in excited whispers.
"Permit me, Princess, to know what is necessary and what is not
necessary," said the younger of the two speakers, evidently in the same
state of excitement as when she had slammed the door of her room.
"But, my dear princess," answered Anna Mikhaylovna blandly but
impressively, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other
from passing, "won't this be too much for poor Uncle at a moment
when he needs repose? Worldly conversation at a moment when his
soul is already prepared..."
Prince Vasili was seated in an easy chair in his familiar attitude, with
one leg crossed high above the other. His cheeks, which were so flabby
that they looked heavier below, were twitching violently; but he wore
the air of a man little concerned in what the two ladies were saying.
"Come, my dear Anna Mikhaylovna, let Catiche do as she pleases.
You know how fond the count is of her."
 "I don't even know what is in this paper," said the younger of the two
ladies, addressing Prince Vasili and pointing to an inlaid portfolio she
held in her hand. "All I know is that his real will is in his writing table,
and this is a paper he has forgotten...."
She tried to pass Anna Mikhaylovna, but the latter sprang so as to
bar her path.
"I know, my dear, kind princess," said Anna Mikhaylovna, seizing
the portfolio so firmly that it was plain she would not let go easily.
"Dear princess, I beg and implore you, have some pity on him! Je vous
en conjure..."
The princess did not reply. Their efforts in the struggle for the
portfolio were the only sounds audible, but it was evident that if the
princess did speak, her words would not be flattering to Anna
Mikhaylovna. Though the latter held on tenaciously, her voice lost
none of its honeyed firmness and softness.
"Pierre, my dear, come here. I think he will not be out of place in a
family consultation; is it not so, Prince?"
"Why don't you speak, cousin?" suddenly shrieked the princess so
loud that those in the drawing room heard her and were startled. "Why
do you remain silent when heaven knows who permits herself to
interfere, making a scene on the very threshold of a dying man's room?
Intriguer!" she hissed viciously, and tugged with all her might at the
portfolio.
But Anna Mikhaylovna went forward a step or two to keep her hold
on the portfolio, and changed her grip.
Prince Vasili rose. "Oh!" said he with reproach and surprise, "this is
absurd! Come, let go I tell you."
The princess let go.
"And you too!"
But Anna Mikhaylovna did not obey him.
"Let go, I tell you! I will take the responsibility. I myself will go and
ask him, I!... does that satisfy you?"
"But, Prince," said Anna Mikhaylovna, "after such a solemn
sacrament, allow him a moment's peace! Here, Pierre, tell them your
opinion," said she, turning to the young man who, having come quite
close, was gazing with astonishment at the angry face of the princess
which had lost all dignity, and at the twitching cheeks of Prince Vasili.
 "Remember that you will answer for the consequences," said Prince
Vasili severely. "You don't know what you are doing."
"Vile woman!" shouted the princess, darting unexpectedly at Anna
Mikhaylovna and snatching the portfolio from her.
Prince Vasili bent his head and spread out his hands.
At this moment that terrible door, which Pierre had watched so long
and which had always opened so quietly, burst noisily open and banged
against the wall, and the second of the three sisters rushed out wringing
her hands.
"What are you doing!" she cried vehemently. "He is dying and you
leave me alone with him!"
Her sister dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikhaylovna, stooping,
quickly caught up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom.
The eldest princess and Prince Vasili, recovering themselves, followed
her. A few minutes later the eldest sister came out with a pale hard
face, again biting her underlip. At sight of Pierre her expression showed
an irrepressible hatred.
"Yes, now you may be glad!" said she; "this is what you have been
waiting for." And bursting into tears she hid her face in her
handkerchief and rushed from the room.
Prince Vasili came next. He staggered to the sofa on which Pierre
was sitting and dropped onto it, covering his face with his hand. Pierre
noticed that he was pale and that his jaw quivered and shook as if in an
ague.
"Ah, my friend!" said he, taking Pierre by the elbow; and there was
in his voice a sincerity and weakness Pierre had never observed in it
before. "How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? I
am near sixty, dear friend... I too... All will end in death, all! Death is
awful..." and he burst into tears.
Anna Mikhaylovna came out last. She approached Pierre with slow,
quiet steps.
"Pierre!" she said.
Pierre gave her an inquiring look. She kissed the young man on his
forehead, wetting him with her tears. Then after a pause she said:
"He is no more...."
Pierre looked at her over his spectacles.
 "Come, I will go with you. Try to weep, nothing gives such relief as
tears."
She led him into the dark drawing room and Pierre was glad no one
could see his face. Anna Mikhaylovna left him, and when she returned
he was fast asleep with his head on his arm.
In the morning Anna Mikhaylovna said to Pierre:
"Yes, my dear, this is a great loss for us all, not to speak of you. But
God will support you: you are young, and are now, I hope, in command
of an immense fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you
well enough to be sure that this will not turn your head, but it imposes
duties on you, and you must be a man."
Pierre was silent.
"Perhaps later on I may tell you, my dear boy, that if I had not been
there, God only knows what would have happened! You know, Uncle
promised me only the day before yesterday not to forget Boris. But he
had no time. I hope, my dear friend, you will carry out your father's
wish?"
Pierre understood nothing of all this and coloring shyly looked in
silence at Princess Anna Mikhaylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna
Mikhaylovna returned to the Rostovs' and went to bed. On waking in
the morning she told the Rostovs and all her acquaintances the details
of Count Bezukhov's death. She said the count had died as she would
herself wish to die, that his end was not only touching but edifying. As
to the last meeting between father and son, it was so touching that she
could not think of it without tears, and did not know which had
behaved better during those awful moments—the father who so
remembered everything and everybody at last and had spoken such
pathetic words to the son, or Pierre, whom it had been pitiful to see, so
stricken was he with grief, though he tried hard to hide it in order not to
sadden his dying father. "It is painful, but it does one good. It uplifts
the soul to see such men as the old count and his worthy son," said she.
Of the behavior of the eldest princess and Prince Vasili she spoke
disapprovingly, but in whispers and as a great secret.

CHAPTER XXV
At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andreevich Bolkonski's estate, the
arrival of young Prince Andrew and his wife was daily expected, but
this expectation did not upset the regular routine of life in the old
prince's household. General in Chief Prince Nicholas Andreevich
(nicknamed in society, "the King of Prussia") ever since the Emperor
Paul had exiled him to his country estate had lived there continuously
with his daughter, Princess Mary, and her companion, Mademoiselle
Bourienne. Though in the new reign he was free to return to the
capitals, he still continued to live in the country, remarking that anyone
who wanted to see him could come the hundred miles from Moscow to
Bald Hills, while he himself needed no one and nothing. He used to say
that there are only two sources of human vice—idleness and
superstition, and only two virtues—activity and intelligence. He
himself undertook his daughter's education, and to develop these two
cardinal virtues in her gave her lessons in algebra and geometry till she
was twenty, and arranged her life so that her whole time was occupied.
He was himself always occupied: writing his memoirs, solving
problems in higher mathematics, turning snuffboxes on a lathe,
working in the garden, or superintending the building that was always
going on at his estate. As regularity is a prime condition facilitating
activity, regularity in his household was carried to the highest point of
exactitude. He always came to table under precisely the same
conditions, and not only at the same hour but at the same minute. With
those about him, from his daughter to his serfs, the prince was sharp
and invariably exacting, so that without being a hardhearted man he
inspired such fear and respect as few hardhearted men would have
aroused. Although he was in retirement and had now no influence in
political affairs, every high official appointed to the province in which
the prince's estate lay considered it his duty to visit him and waited in
the lofty antechamber just as the architect, gardener, or Princess Mary
did, till the prince appeared punctually to the appointed hour. Everyone
sitting in this antechamber experienced the same feeling of respect and
even fear when the enormously high study door opened and showed the
figure of a rather small old man, with powdered wig, small withered
hands, and bushy gray eyebrows which, when he frowned, sometimes
hid the gleam of his shrewd, youthfully glittering eyes.
On the morning of the day that the young couple were to arrive,
Princess Mary entered the antechamber as usual at the time appointed
for the morning greeting, crossing herself with trepidation and
repeating a silent prayer. Every morning she came in like that, and
every morning prayed that the daily interview might pass off well.
An old powdered manservant who was sitting in the antechamber
rose quietly and said in a whisper: "Please walk in."
Through the door came the regular hum of a lathe. The princess
timidly opened the door which moved noiselessly and easily. She
paused at the entrance. The prince was working at the lathe and after
glancing round continued his work.
 The enormous study was full of things evidently in constant use. The
large table covered with books and plans, the tall glass-fronted
bookcases with keys in the locks, the high desk for writing while
standing up, on which lay an open exercise book, and the lathe with
tools laid ready to hand and shavings scattered around—all indicated
continuous, varied, and orderly activity. The motion of the small foot
shod in a Tartar boot embroidered with silver, and the firm pressure of
the lean sinewy hand, showed that the prince still possessed the
tenacious endurance and vigor of hardy old age. After a few more turns
of the lathe he removed his foot from the pedal, wiped his chisel,
dropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and, approaching
the table, summoned his daughter. He never gave his children a
blessing, so he simply held out his bristly cheek (as yet unshaven) and,
regarding her tenderly and attentively, said severely:
"Quite well? All right then, sit down." He took the exercise book
containing lessons in geometry written by himself and drew up a chair
with his foot.
"For tomorrow!" said he, quickly finding the page and making a
scratch from one paragraph to another with his hard nail.
The princess bent over the exercise book on the table.
"Wait a bit, here's a letter for you," said the old man suddenly, taking
a letter addressed in a woman's hand from a bag hanging above the
table, onto which he threw it.
At the sight of the letter red patches showed themselves on the
princess' face. She took it quickly and bent her head over it.
"From Heloise?" asked the prince with a cold smile that showed his
still sound, yellowish teeth.
"Yes, it's from Julie," replied the princess with a timid glance and a
timid smile.
"I'll let two more letters pass, but the third I'll read," said the prince
sternly; "I'm afraid you write much nonsense. I'll read the third!"
"Read this if you like, Father," said the princess, blushing still more
and holding out the letter.
"The third, I said the third!" cried the prince abruptly, pushing the
letter away, and leaning his elbows on the table he drew toward him the
exercise book containing geometrical figures.
"Well, madam," he began, stooping over the book close to his
daughter and placing an arm on the back of the chair on which she sat,
so that she felt herself surrounded on all sides by the acrid scent of old
age and tobacco, which she had known so long. "Now, madam, these
triangles are equal; please note that the angle ABC..."
The princess looked in a scared way at her father's eyes glittering
close to her; the red patches on her face came and went, and it was
plain that she understood nothing and was so frightened that her fear
would prevent her understanding any of her father's further
explanations, however clear they might be. Whether it was the teacher's
fault or the pupil's, this same thing happened every day: the princess'
eyes grew dim, she could not see and could not hear anything, but was
only conscious of her stern father's withered face close to her, of his
breath and the smell of him, and could think only of how to get away
quickly to her own room to make out the problem in peace. The old
man was beside himself: moved the chair on which he was sitting
noisily backward and forward, made efforts to control himself and not
become vehement, but almost always did become vehement, scolded,
and sometimes flung the exercise book away.
The princess gave a wrong answer.
"Well now, isn't she a fool!" shouted the prince, pushing the book
aside and turning sharply away; but rising immediately, he paced up
and down, lightly touched his daughter's hair and sat down again.
He drew up his chair, and continued to explain.
"This won't do, Princess; it won't do," said he, when Princess Mary,
having taken and closed the exercise book with the next day's lesson,
was about to leave: "Mathematics are most important, madam! I don't
want to have you like our silly ladies. Get used to it and you'll like it,"
and he patted her cheek. "It will drive all the nonsense out of your
head."
She turned to go, but he stopped her with a gesture and took an uncut
book from the high desk.
"Here is some sort of Key to the Mysteries that your Heloise has sent
you. Religious! I don't interfere with anyone's belief... I have looked at
it. Take it. Well, now go. Go."
He patted her on the shoulder and himself closed the door after her.
Princess Mary went back to her room with the sad, scared expression
that rarely left her and which made her plain, sickly face yet plainer.
She sat down at her writing table, on which stood miniature portraits
and which was littered with books and papers. The princess was as
untidy as her father was tidy. She put down the geometry book and
eagerly broke the seal of her letter. It was from her most intimate friend
from childhood; that same Julie Karagina who had been at the Rostovs'
name-day party.
 Julie wrote in French:
Dear and precious Friend, How terrible and frightful a thing is
separation! Though I tell myself that half my life and half my happiness
are wrapped up in you, and that in spite of the distance separating us
our hearts are united by indissoluble bonds, my heart rebels against fate
and in spite of the pleasures and distractions around me I cannot
overcome a certain secret sorrow that has been in my heart ever since
we parted. Why are we not together as we were last summer, in your
big study, on the blue sofa, the confidential sofa? Why cannot I now, as
three months ago, draw fresh moral strength from your look, so gentle,
calm, and penetrating, a look I loved so well and seem to see before me
as I write?
Having read thus far, Princess Mary sighed and glanced into the
mirror which stood on her right. It reflected a weak, ungraceful figure
and thin face. Her eyes, always sad, now looked with particular
hopelessness at her reflection in the glass. "She flatters me," thought
the princess, turning away and continuing to read. But Julie did not
flatter her friend, the princess' eyes—large, deep and luminous (it
seemed as if at times there radiated from them shafts of warm light)—
were so beautiful that very often in spite of the plainness of her face
they gave her an attraction more powerful than that of beauty. But the
princess never saw the beautiful expression of her own eyes—the look
they had when she was not thinking of herself. As with everyone, her
face assumed a forced unnatural expression as soon as she looked in a
glass. She went on reading:
All Moscow talks of nothing but war. One of my two brothers is
already abroad, the other is with the Guards, who are starting on their
march to the frontier. Our dear Emperor has left Petersburg and it is
thought intends to expose his precious person to the chances of war.
God grant that the Corsican monster who is destroying the peace of
Europe may be overthrown by the angel whom it has pleased the
Almighty, in His goodness, to give us as sovereign! To say nothing of
my brothers, this war has deprived me of one of the associations nearest
my heart. I mean young Nicholas Rostov, who with his enthusiasm
could not bear to remain inactive and has left the university to join the
army. I will confess to you, dear Mary, that in spite of his extreme
youth his departure for the army was a great grief to me. This young
man, of whom I spoke to you last summer, is so noble-minded and full
of that real youthfulness which one seldom finds nowadays among our
old men of twenty and, particularly, he is so frank and has so much
heart. He is so pure and poetic that my relations with him, transient as
they were, have been one of the sweetest comforts to my poor heart,
which has already suffered so much. Someday I will tell you about our
parting and all that was said then. That is still too fresh. Ah, dear friend,
you are happy not to know these poignant joys and sorrows. You are
fortunate, for the latter are generally the stronger! I know very well that
Count Nicholas is too young ever to be more to me than a friend, but
this sweet friendship, this poetic and pure intimacy, were what my heart
needed. But enough of this! The chief news, about which all Moscow
gossips, is the death of old Count Bezukhov, and his inheritance.
Fancy! The three princesses have received very little, Prince Vasili
nothing, and it is Monsieur Pierre who has inherited all the property
and has besides been recognized as legitimate; so that he is now Count
Bezukhov and possessor of the finest fortune in Russia. It is rumored
that Prince Vasili played a very despicable part in this affair and that he
returned to Petersburg quite crestfallen.
I confess I understand very little about all these matters of wills and
inheritance; but I do know that since this young man, whom we all used
to know as plain Monsieur Pierre, has become Count Bezukhov and the
owner of one of the largest fortunes in Russia, I am much amused to
watch the change in the tone and manners of the mammas burdened by
marriageable daughters, and of the young ladies themselves, toward
him, though, between you and me, he always seemed to me a poor sort
of fellow. As for the past two years people have amused themselves by
finding husbands for me (most of whom I don't even know), the
matchmaking chronicles of Moscow now speak of me as the future
Countess Bezukhova. But you will understand that I have no desire for
the post. A propos of marriages: do you know that a while ago that
universal auntie Anna Mikhaylovna told me, under the seal of strict
secrecy, of a plan of marriage for you. It is neither more nor less than
with Prince Vasili's son Anatole, whom they wish to reform by
marrying him to someone rich and distinguee, and it is on you that his
relations' choice has fallen. I don't know what you will think of it, but I
consider it my duty to let you know of it. He is said to be very
handsome and a terrible scapegrace. That is all I have been able to find
out about him.
But enough of gossip. I am at the end of my second sheet of paper,
and Mamma has sent for me to go and dine at the Apraksins'. Read the
mystical book I am sending you; it has an enormous success here.
Though there are things in it difficult for the feeble human mind to
grasp, it is an admirable book which calms and elevates the soul.
Adieu! Give my respects to monsieur your father and my compliments
to Mademoiselle Bourienne. I embrace you as I love you.
JULIE
P.S. Let me have news of your brother and his charming little wife.
The princess pondered awhile with a thoughtful smile and her
luminous eyes lit up so that her face was entirely transformed. Then she
suddenly rose and with her heavy tread went up to the table. She took a
sheet of paper and her hand moved rapidly over it. This is the reply she
wrote, also in French:
Dear and precious Friend, Your letter of the 13th has given me great
delight. So you still love me, my romantic Julie? Separation, of which
you say so much that is bad, does not seem to have had its usual effect
on you. You complain of our separation. What then should I say, if I
dared complain, I who am deprived of all who are dear to me? Ah, if
we had not religion to console us life would be very sad. Why do you
suppose that I should look severely on your affection for that young
man? On such matters I am only severe with myself. I understand such
feelings in others, and if never having felt them I cannot approve of
them, neither do I condemn them. Only it seems to me that Christian
love, love of one's neighbor, love of one's enemy, is worthier, sweeter,
and better than the feelings which the beautiful eyes of a young man
can inspire in a romantic and loving young girl like yourself.
The news of Count Bezukhov's death reached us before your letter
and my father was much affected by it. He says the count was the last
representative but one of the great century, and that it is his own turn
now, but that he will do all he can to let his turn come as late as
possible. God preserve us from that terrible misfortune!
I cannot agree with you about Pierre, whom I knew as a child. He
always seemed to me to have an excellent heart, and that is the quality I
value most in people. As to his inheritance and the part played by
Prince Vasili, it is very sad for both. Ah, my dear friend, our divine
Saviour's words, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, are terribly
true. I pity Prince Vasili but am still more sorry for Pierre. So young,
and burdened with such riches—to what temptations he will be
exposed! If I were asked what I desire most on earth, it would be to be
poorer than the poorest beggar. A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the
volume you have sent me and which has such success in Moscow. Yet
since you tell me that among some good things it contains others which
our weak human understanding cannot grasp, it seems to me rather
useless to spend time in reading what is unintelligible and can therefore
bear no fruit. I never could understand the fondness some people have
for confusing their minds by dwelling on mystical books that merely
awaken their doubts and excite their imagination, giving them a bent
for exaggeration quite contrary to Christian simplicity. Let us rather
read the Epistles and Gospels. Let us not seek to penetrate what
mysteries they contain; for how can we, miserable sinners that we are,
know the terrible and holy secrets of Providence while we remain in
this flesh which forms an impenetrable veil between us and the Eternal?
Let us rather confine ourselves to studying those sublime rules which
our divine Saviour has left for our guidance here below. Let us try to
conform to them and follow them, and let us be persuaded that the less
we let our feeble human minds roam, the better we shall please God,
who rejects all knowledge that does not come from Him; and the less
we seek to fathom what He has been pleased to conceal from us, the
sooner will He vouchsafe its revelation to us through His divine Spirit.
My father has not spoken to me of a suitor, but has only told me that
he has received a letter and is expecting a visit from Prince Vasili. In
regard to this project of marriage for me, I will tell you, dear sweet
friend, that I look on marriage as a divine institution to which we must
conform. However painful it may be to me, should the Almighty lay the
duties of wife and mother upon me I shall try to perform them as
faithfully as I can, without disquieting myself by examining my
feelings toward him whom He may give me for husband.
I have had a letter from my brother, who announces his speedy
arrival at Bald Hills with his wife. This pleasure will be but a brief one,
however, for he will leave, us again to take part in this unhappy war
into which we have been drawn, God knows how or why. Not only
where you are—at the heart of affairs and of the world—is the talk all
of war, even here amid fieldwork and the calm of nature—which
townsfolk consider characteristic of the country—rumors of war are
heard and painfully felt. My father talks of nothing but marches and
countermarches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day
before yesterday during my daily walk through the village I witnessed a
heartrending scene.... It was a convoy of conscripts enrolled from our
people and starting to join the army. You should have seen the state of
the mothers, wives, and children of the men who were going and
should have heard the sobs. It seems as though mankind has forgotten
the laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of
injuries—and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing one
another.
Adieu, dear and kind friend; may our divine Saviour and His most
Holy Mother keep you in their holy and all-powerful care!
MARY
"Ah, you are sending off a letter, Princess? I have already dispatched
mine. I have written to my poor mother," said the smiling
Mademoiselle Bourienne rapidly, in her pleasant mellow tones and
with guttural r's. She brought into Princess Mary's strenuous, mournful,
and gloomy world a quite different atmosphere, careless, lighthearted,
and self-satisfied.
"Princess, I must warn you," she added, lowering her voice and
evidently listening to herself with pleasure, and speaking with
exaggerated grasseyement, "the prince has been scolding Michael
Ivanovich. He is in a very bad humor, very morose. Be prepared."
 "Ah, dear friend," replied Princess Mary, "I have asked you never to
warn me of the humor my father is in. I do not allow myself to judge
him and would not have others do so."
The princess glanced at her watch and, seeing that she was five
minutes late in starting her practice on the clavichord, went into the
sitting room with a look of alarm. Between twelve and two o'clock, as
the day was mapped out, the prince rested and the princess played the
clavichord.

CHAPTER XXVI
The gray-haired valet was sitting drowsily listening to the snoring of
the prince, who was in his large study. From the far side of the house
through the closed doors came the sound of difficult passages—twenty
times repeated—of a sonata by Dussek.
Just then a closed carriage and another with a hood drove up to the
porch. Prince Andrew got out of the carriage, helped his little wife to
alight, and let her pass into the house before him. Old Tikhon, wearing
a wig, put his head out of the door of the antechamber, reported in a
whisper that the prince was sleeping, and hastily closed the door.
Tikhon knew that neither the son's arrival nor any other unusual event
must be allowed to disturb the appointed order of the day. Prince
Andrew apparently knew this as well as Tikhon; he looked at his watch
as if to ascertain whether his father's habits had changed since he was at
home last, and, having assured himself that they had not, he turned to
his wife.
"He will get up in twenty minutes. Let us go across to Mary's room,"
he said.
The little princess had grown stouter during this time, but her eyes
and her short, downy, smiling lip lifted when she began to speak just as
merrily and prettily as ever.
"Why, this is a palace!" she said to her husband, looking around with
the expression with which people compliment their host at a ball. "Let's
come, quick, quick!" And with a glance round, she smiled at Tikhon, at
her husband, and at the footman who accompanied them.
"Is that Mary practicing? Let's go quietly and take her by surprise."
Prince Andrew followed her with a courteous but sad expression.
 "You've grown older, Tikhon," he said in passing to the old man,
who kissed his hand.
Before they reached the room from which the sounds of the
clavichord came, the pretty, fair haired Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle
Bourienne, rushed out apparently beside herself with delight.
"Ah! what joy for the princess!" exclaimed she: "At last! I must let
her know."
"No, no, please not... You are Mademoiselle Bourienne," said the
little princess, kissing her. "I know you already through my sister-in-
law's friendship for you. She was not expecting us?"
They went up to the door of the sitting room from which came the
sound of the oft-repeated passage of the sonata. Prince Andrew stopped
and made a grimace, as if expecting something unpleasant.
The little princess entered the room. The passage broke off in the
middle, a cry was heard, then Princess Mary's heavy tread and the
sound of kissing. When Prince Andrew went in the two princesses, who
had only met once before for a short time at his wedding, were in each
other's arms warmly pressing their lips to whatever place they
happened to touch. Mademoiselle Bourienne stood near them pressing
her hand to her heart, with a beatific smile and obviously equally ready
to cry or to laugh. Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders and frowned,
as lovers of music do when they hear a false note. The two women let
go of one another, and then, as if afraid of being too late, seized each
other's hands, kissing them and pulling them away, and again began
kissing each other on the face, and then to Prince Andrew's surprise
both began to cry and kissed again. Mademoiselle Bourienne also
began to cry. Prince Andrew evidently felt ill at ease, but to the two
women it seemed quite natural that they should cry, and apparently it
never entered their heads that it could have been otherwise at this
meeting.
"Ah! my dear!... Ah! Mary!" they suddenly exclaimed, and then
laughed. "I dreamed last night..."—"You were not expecting us?..."
"Ah! Mary, you have got thinner?..." "And you have grown stouter!..."
"I knew the princess at once," put in Mademoiselle Bourienne.
"And I had no idea!..." exclaimed Princess Mary. "Ah, Andrew, I did
not see you."
Prince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another, and
he told her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess Mary had
turned toward her brother, and through her tears the loving, warm,
gentle look of her large luminous eyes, very beautiful at that moment,
rested on Prince Andrew's face.
 The little princess talked incessantly, her short, downy upper lip
continually and rapidly touching her rosy nether lip when necessary
and drawing up again next moment when her face broke into a smile of
glittering teeth and sparkling eyes. She told of an accident they had had
on the Spasski Hill which might have been serious for her in her
condition, and immediately after that informed them that she had left
all her clothes in Petersburg and that heaven knew what she would have
to dress in here; and that Andrew had quite changed, and that Kitty
Odyntsova had married an old man, and that there was a suitor for
Mary, a real one, but that they would talk of that later. Princess Mary
was still looking silently at her brother and her beautiful eyes were full
of love and sadness. It was plain that she was following a train of
thought independent of her sister-in-law's words. In the midst of a
description of the last Petersburg fete she addressed her brother:
"So you are really going to the war, Andrew?" she said sighing.
Lise sighed too.
"Yes, and even tomorrow," replied her brother.
"He is leaving me here, God knows why, when he might have had
promotion..."
Princess Mary did not listen to the end, but continuing her train of
thought turned to her sister-in-law with a tender glance at her figure.
"Is it certain?" she said.
The face of the little princess changed. She sighed and said: "Yes,
quite certain. Ah! it is very dreadful..."
Her lip descended. She brought her face close to her sister-in-law's
and unexpectedly again began to cry.
"She needs rest," said Prince Andrew with a frown. "Don't you, Lise?
Take her to your room and I'll go to Father. How is he? Just the same?"
"Yes, just the same. Though I don't know what your opinion will be,"
answered the princess joyfully.
"And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the
lathe?" asked Prince Andrew with a scarcely perceptible smile which
showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he was
aware of his weaknesses.
"The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and
my geometry lessons," said Princess Mary gleefully, as if her lessons in
geometry were among the greatest delights of her life.
 When the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the
old prince to get up, Tikhon came to call the young prince to his father.
The old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor of his
son's arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while he
dressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in old-fashioned
style, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and when Prince
Andrew entered his father's dressing room (not with the contemptuous
look and manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face
with which he talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting on a large
leather-covered chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, entrusting his
head to Tikhon.
"Ah! here's the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?" said the old
man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tikhon was
holding fast to plait, would allow.
"You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like this
he'll soon have us, too, for his subjects! How are you?" And he held out
his cheek.
The old man was in a good temper after his nap before dinner. (He
used to say that a nap "after dinner was silver—before dinner, golden.")
He cast happy, sidelong glances at his son from under his thick, bushy
eyebrows. Prince Andrew went up and kissed his father on the spot
indicated to him. He made no reply on his father's favorite topic—
making fun of the military men of the day, and more particularly of
Bonaparte.
"Yes, Father, I have come to you and brought my wife who is
pregnant," said Prince Andrew, following every movement of his
father's face with an eager and respectful look. "How is your health?"
"Only fools and rakes fall ill, my boy. You know me: I am busy from
morning till night and abstemious, so of course I am well."
"Thank God," said his son smiling.
"God has nothing to do with it! Well, go on," he continued, returning
to his hobby; "tell me how the Germans have taught you to fight
Bonaparte by this new science you call 'strategy.'"
Prince Andrew smiled.
"Give me time to collect my wits, Father," said he, with a smile that
showed that his father's foibles did not prevent his son from loving and
honoring him. "Why, I have not yet had time to settle down!"
"Nonsense, nonsense!" cried the old man, shaking his pigtail to see
whether it was firmly plaited, and grasping his by the hand. "The house
for your wife is ready. Princess Mary will take her there and show her
over, and they'll talk nineteen to the dozen. That's their woman's way! I
am glad to have her. Sit down and talk. About Mikhelson's army I
understand—Tolstoy's too... a simultaneous expedition.... But what's
the southern army to do? Prussia is neutral... I know that. What about
Austria?" said he, rising from his chair and pacing up and down the
room followed by Tikhon, who ran after him, handing him different
articles of clothing. "What of Sweden? How will they cross
Pomerania?"
Prince Andrew, seeing that his father insisted, began—at first
reluctantly, but gradually with more and more animation, and from
habit changing unconsciously from Russian to French as he went on—
to explain the plan of operation for the coming campaign. He explained
how an army, ninety thousand strong, was to threaten Prussia so as to
bring her out of her neutrality and draw her into the war; how part of
that army was to join some Swedish forces at Stralsund; how two
hundred and twenty thousand Austrians, with a hundred thousand
Russians, were to operate in Italy and on the Rhine; how fifty thousand
Russians and as many English were to land at Naples, and how a total
force of five hundred thousand men was to attack the French from
different sides. The old prince did not evince the least interest during
this explanation, but as if he were not listening to it continued to dress
while walking about, and three times unexpectedly interrupted. Once he
stopped it by shouting: "The white one, the white one!"
This meant that Tikhon was not handing him the waistcoat he
wanted. Another time he interrupted, saying:
"And will she soon be confined?" and shaking his head reproachfully
said: "That's bad! Go on, go on."
The third interruption came when Prince Andrew was finishing his
description. The old man began to sing, in the cracked voice of old age:
"Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre. Dieu sait quand reviendra." *

* "Marlborough is going to the wars; God knows

when he'll
return."

His son only smiled.

"I don't say it's a plan I approve of," said the son; "I am only telling
you what it is. Napoleon has also formed his plan by now, not worse
than this one."
"Well, you've told me nothing new," and the old man repeated,
meditatively and rapidly:
"Dieu sait quand reviendra. Go to the dining room."
 CHAPTER XXVII
At the appointed hour the prince, powdered and shaven, entered the
dining room where his daughter-in-law, Princess Mary, and
Mademoiselle Bourienne were already awaiting him together with his
architect, who by a strange caprice of his employer's was admitted to
table though the position of that insignificant individual was such as
could certainly not have caused him to expect that honor. The prince,
who generally kept very strictly to social distinctions and rarely
admitted even important government officials to his table, had
unexpectedly selected Michael Ivanovich (who always went into a
corner to blow his nose on his checked handkerchief) to illustrate the
theory that all men are equals, and had more than once impressed on
his daughter that Michael Ivanovich was "not a whit worse than you or
I." At dinner the prince usually spoke to the taciturn Michael Ivanovich
more often than to anyone else.
In the dining room, which like all the rooms in the house was
exceedingly lofty, the members of the household and the footmen—one
behind each chair—stood waiting for the prince to enter. The head
butler, napkin on arm, was scanning the setting of the table, making
signs to the footmen, and anxiously glancing from the clock to the door
by which the prince was to enter. Prince Andrew was looking at a large
gilt frame, new to him, containing the genealogical tree of the Princes
Bolkonski, opposite which hung another such frame with a badly
painted portrait (evidently by the hand of the artist belonging to the
estate) of a ruling prince, in a crown—an alleged descendant of Rurik
and ancestor of the Bolkonskis. Prince Andrew, looking again at that
genealogical tree, shook his head, laughing as a man laughs who looks
at a portrait so characteristic of the original as to be amusing.
"How thoroughly like him that is!" he said to Princess Mary, who
had come up to him.
Princess Mary looked at her brother in surprise. She did not
understand what he was laughing at. Everything her father did inspired
her with reverence and was beyond question.
"Everyone has his Achilles' heel," continued Prince Andrew. "Fancy,
with his powerful mind, indulging in such nonsense!"
Princess Mary could not understand the boldness of her brother's
criticism and was about to reply, when the expected footsteps were
heard coming from the study. The prince walked in quickly and jauntily
as was his wont, as if intentionally contrasting the briskness of his
manners with the strict formality of his house. At that moment the great
clock struck two and another with a shrill tone joined in from the
drawing room. The prince stood still; his lively glittering eyes from
under their thick, bushy eyebrows sternly scanned all present and rested
on the little princess. She felt, as courtiers do when the Tsar enters, the
sensation of fear and respect which the old man inspired in all around
him. He stroked her hair and then patted her awkwardly on the back of
her neck.
"I'm glad, glad, to see you," he said, looking attentively into her eyes,
and then quickly went to his place and sat down. "Sit down, sit down!
Sit down, Michael Ianovich!"
He indicated a place beside him to his daughter-in-law. A footman
moved the chair for her.
"Ho, ho!" said the old man, casting his eyes on her rounded figure.
"You've been in a hurry. That's bad!"
He laughed in his usual dry, cold, unpleasant way, with his lips only
and not with his eyes.
"You must walk, walk as much as possible, as much as possible," he
said.
The little princess did not, or did not wish to, hear his words. She
was silent and seemed confused. The prince asked her about her father,
and she began to smile and talk. He asked about mutual acquaintances,
and she became still more animated and chattered away giving him
greetings from various people and retailing the town gossip.
"Countess Apraksina, poor thing, has lost her husband and she has
cried her eyes out," she said, growing more and more lively.
As she became animated the prince looked at her more and more
sternly, and suddenly, as if he had studied her sufficiently and had
formed a definite idea of her, he turned away and addressed Michael
Ivanovich.
"Well, Michael Ivanovich, our Bonaparte will be having a bad time
of it. Prince Andrew" (he always spoke thus of his son) "has been
telling me what forces are being collected against him! While you and I
never thought much of him."
Michael Ivanovich did not at all know when "you and I" had said
such things about Bonaparte, but understanding that he was wanted as a
peg on which to hang the prince's favorite topic, he looked inquiringly
at the young prince, wondering what would follow.
 "He is a great tactician!" said the prince to his son, pointing to the
architect.
And the conversation again turned on the war, on Bonaparte, and the
generals and statesmen of the day. The old prince seemed convinced
not only that all the men of the day were mere babies who did not know
the A B C of war or of politics, and that Bonaparte was an insignificant
little Frenchy, successful only because there were no longer any
Potemkins or Suvorovs left to oppose him; but he was also convinced
that there were no political difficulties in Europe and no real war, but
only a sort of puppet show at which the men of the day were playing,
pretending to do something real. Prince Andrew gaily bore with his
father's ridicule of the new men, and drew him on and listened to him
with evident pleasure.
"The past always seems good," said he, "but did not Suvorov himself
fall into a trap Moreau set him, and from which he did not know how to
escape?"
"Who told you that? Who?" cried the prince. "Suvorov!" And he
jerked away his plate, which Tikhon briskly caught. "Suvorov!...
Consider, Prince Andrew. Two... Frederick and Suvorov; Moreau!...
Moreau would have been a prisoner if Suvorov had had a free hand; but
he had the Hofs-kriegs-wurst-schnapps-Rath on his hands. It would
have puzzled the devil himself! When you get there you'll find out what
those Hofs-kriegs-wurst-Raths are! Suvorov couldn't manage them so
what chance has Michael Kutuzov? No, my dear boy," he continued,
"you and your generals won't get on against Buonaparte; you'll have to
call in the French, so that birds of a feather may fight together. The
German, Pahlen, has been sent to New York in America, to fetch the
Frenchman, Moreau," he said, alluding to the invitation made that year
to Moreau to enter the Russian service.... "Wonderful!... Were the
Potemkins, Suvorovs, and Orlovs Germans? No, lad, either you fellows
have all lost your wits, or I have outlived mine. May God help you, but
we'll see what will happen. Buonaparte has become a great commander
among them! Hm!..."
"I don't at all say that all the plans are good," said Prince Andrew, "I
am only surprised at your opinion of Bonaparte. You may laugh as
much as you like, but all the same Bonaparte is a great general!"
"Michael Ivanovich!" cried the old prince to the architect who, busy
with his roast meat, hoped he had been forgotten: "Didn't I tell you
Buonaparte was a great tactician? Here, he says the same thing."
"To be sure, your excellency," replied the architect.
The prince again laughed his frigid laugh.
 "Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got
splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans. And only
idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began
everybody has beaten the Germans. They beat no one—except one
another. He made his reputation fighting them."
And the prince began explaining all the blunders which, according to
him, Bonaparte had made in his campaigns and even in politics. His
son made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were
presented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion. He
listened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily wondered how this
old man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and
discuss so minutely and acutely all the recent European military and
political events.
"You think I'm an old man and don't understand the present state of
affairs?" concluded his father. "But it troubles me. I don't sleep at night.
Come now, where has this great commander of yours shown his skill?"
he concluded.
"That would take too long to tell," answered the son.
"Well, then go to your Buonaparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne, here's
another admirer of that powder-monkey emperor of yours," he
exclaimed in excellent French.
"You know, Prince, I am not a Bonapartist!"
"Dieu sait quand reviendra..." hummed the prince out of tune and,
with a laugh still more so, he quitted the table.
The little princess during the whole discussion and the rest of the
dinner sat silent, glancing with a frightened look now at her father-in-
law and now at Princess Mary. When they left the table she took her
sister-in-law's arm and drew her into another room.
"What a clever man your father is," said she; "perhaps that is why I
am afraid of him."
"Oh, he is so kind!" answered Princess Mary.

CHAPTER XXVIII
Prince Andrew was to leave next evening. The old prince, not
altering his routine, retired as usual after dinner. The little princess was
in her sister-in-law's room. Prince Andrew in a traveling coat without
epaulettes had been packing with his valet in the rooms assigned to
him. After inspecting the carriage himself and seeing the trunks put in,
he ordered the horses to be harnessed. Only those things he always kept
with him remained in his room; a small box, a large canteen fitted with
silver plate, two Turkish pistols and a saber—a present from his father
who had brought it from the siege of Ochakov. All these traveling
effects of Prince Andrew's were in very good order: new, clean, and in
cloth covers carefully tied with tapes.
When starting on a journey or changing their mode of life, men
capable of reflection are generally in a serious frame of mind. At such
moments one reviews the past and plans for the future. Prince Andrew's
face looked very thoughtful and tender. With his hands behind him he
paced briskly from corner to corner of the room, looking straight before
him and thoughtfully shaking his head. Did he fear going to the war, or
was he sad at leaving his wife?—perhaps both, but evidently he did not
wish to be seen in that mood, for hearing footsteps in the passage he
hurriedly unclasped his hands, stopped at a table as if tying the cover of
the small box, and assumed his usual tranquil and impenetrable
expression. It was the heavy tread of Princess Mary that he heard.
"I hear you have given orders to harness," she cried, panting (she had
apparently been running), "and I did so wish to have another talk with
you alone! God knows how long we may again be parted. You are not
angry with me for coming? You have changed so, Andrusha," she
added, as if to explain such a question.
She smiled as she uttered his pet name, "Andrusha." It was obviously
strange to her to think that this stern handsome man should be
Andrusha—the slender mischievous boy who had been her playfellow
in childhood.
"And where is Lise?" he asked, answering her question only by a
smile.
"She was so tired that she has fallen asleep on the sofa in my room.
Oh, Andrew! What a treasure of a wife you have," said she, sitting
down on the sofa, facing her brother. "She is quite a child: such a dear,
merry child. I have grown so fond of her."
Prince Andrew was silent, but the princess noticed the ironical and
contemptuous look that showed itself on his face.
"One must be indulgent to little weaknesses; who is free from them,
Andrew? Don't forget that she has grown up and been educated in
society, and so her position now is not a rosy one. We should enter into
everyone's situation. Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. * Think
what it must be for her, poor thing, after what she has been used to, to
be parted from her husband and be left alone in the country, in her
condition! It's very hard."

* To understand all is to forgive all.

Prince Andrew smiled as he looked at his sister, as we smile at those

we think we thoroughly understand.
"You live in the country and don't think the life terrible," he replied.
"I... that's different. Why speak of me? I don't want any other life,
and can't, for I know no other. But think, Andrew: for a young society
woman to be buried in the country during the best years of her life, all
alone—for Papa is always busy, and I... well, you know what poor
resources I have for entertaining a woman used to the best society.
There is only Mademoiselle Bourienne...."
"I don't like your Mademoiselle Bourienne at all," said Prince
Andrew.
"No? She is very nice and kind and, above all, she's much to be
pitied. She has no one, no one. To tell the truth, I don't need her, and
she's even in my way. You know I always was a savage, and now am
even more so. I like being alone.... Father likes her very much. She and
Michael Ivanovich are the two people to whom he is always gentle and
kind, because he has been a benefactor to them both. As Sterne says:
'We don't love people so much for the good they have done us, as for
the good we have done them.' Father took her when she was homeless
after losing her own father. She is very good-natured, and my father
likes her way of reading. She reads to him in the evenings and reads
splendidly."
"To be quite frank, Mary, I expect Father's character sometimes
makes things trying for you, doesn't it?" Prince Andrew asked
suddenly.
Princess Mary was first surprised and then aghast at this question.
"For me? For me?... Trying for me!..." said she.
"He always was rather harsh; and now I should think he's getting
very trying," said Prince Andrew, apparently speaking lightly of their
father in order to puzzle or test his sister.
"You are good in every way, Andrew, but you have a kind of
intellectual pride," said the princess, following the train of her own
thoughts rather than the trend of the conversation—"and that's a great
sin. How can one judge Father? But even if one might, what feeling
except veneration could such a man as my father evoke? And I am so
contented and happy with him. I only wish you were all as happy as I
am."
Her brother shook his head incredulously.
"The only thing that is hard for me... I will tell you the truth,
Andrew... is Father's way of treating religious subjects. I don't
understand how a man of his immense intellect can fail to see what is
as clear as day, and can go so far astray. That is the only thing that
makes me unhappy. But even in this I can see lately a shade of
improvement. His satire has been less bitter of late, and there was a
monk he received and had a long talk with."
"Ah! my dear, I am afraid you and your monk are wasting your
powder," said Prince Andrew banteringly yet tenderly.
"Ah! mon ami, I only pray, and hope that God will hear me.
Andrew..." she said timidly after a moment's silence, "I have a great
favor to ask of you."
"What is it, dear?"
"No—promise that you will not refuse! It will give you no trouble
and is nothing unworthy of you, but it will comfort me. Promise,
Andrusha!..." said she, putting her hand in her reticule but not yet
taking out what she was holding inside it, as if what she held were the
subject of her request and must not be shown before the request was
granted.
She looked timidly at her brother.
"Even if it were a great deal of trouble..." answered Prince Andrew,
as if guessing what it was about.
"Think what you please! I know you are just like Father. Think as
you please, but do this for my sake! Please do! Father's father, our
grandfather, wore it in all his wars." (She still did not take out what she
was holding in her reticule.) "So you promise?"
"Of course. What is it?"
"Andrew, I bless you with this icon and you must promise me you
will never take it off. Do you promise?"
"If it does not weigh a hundredweight and won't break my neck... To
please you..." said Prince Andrew. But immediately, noticing the
pained expression his joke had brought to his sister's face, he repented
and added: "I am glad; really, dear, I am very glad."
"Against your will He will save and have mercy on you and bring
you to Himself, for in Him alone is truth and peace," said she in a voice
trembling with emotion, solemnly holding up in both hands before her
brother a small, oval, antique, dark-faced icon of the Saviour in a gold
setting, on a finely wrought silver chain.
She crossed herself, kissed the icon, and handed it to Andrew.
"Please, Andrew, for my sake!..."
Rays of gentle light shone from her large, timid eyes. Those eyes lit
up the whole of her thin, sickly face and made it beautiful. Her brother
would have taken the icon, but she stopped him. Andrew understood,
crossed himself and kissed the icon. There was a look of tenderness, for
he was touched, but also a gleam of irony on his face.
"Thank you, my dear." She kissed him on the forehead and sat down
again on the sofa. They were silent for a while.
"As I was saying to you, Andrew, be kind and generous as you
always used to be. Don't judge Lise harshly," she began. "She is so
sweet, so good-natured, and her position now is a very hard one."
"I do not think I have complained of my wife to you, Masha, or
blamed her. Why do you say all this to me?"
Red patches appeared on Princess Mary's face and she was silent as
if she felt guilty.
"I have said nothing to you, but you have already been talked to. And
I am sorry for that," he went on.
The patches grew deeper on her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She
tried to say something but could not. Her brother had guessed right: the
little princess had been crying after dinner and had spoken of her
forebodings about her confinement, and how she dreaded it, and had
complained of her fate, her father-in-law, and her husband. After crying
she had fallen asleep. Prince Andrew felt sorry for his sister.
"Know this, Masha: I can't reproach, have not reproached, and never
shall reproach my wife with anything, and I cannot reproach myself
with anything in regard to her; and that always will be so in whatever
circumstances I may be placed. But if you want to know the truth... if
you want to know whether I am happy? No! Is she happy? No! But
why this is so I don't know..."
As he said this he rose, went to his sister, and, stooping, kissed her
forehead. His fine eyes lit up with a thoughtful, kindly, and
unaccustomed brightness, but he was looking not at his sister but over
her head toward the darkness of the open doorway.
 "Let us go to her, I must say good-by. Or—go and wake and I'll
come in a moment. Petrushka!" he called to his valet: "Come here, take
these away. Put this on the seat and this to the right."
Princess Mary rose and moved to the door, then stopped and said:
"Andrew, if you had faith you would have turned to God and asked
Him to give you the love you do not feel, and your prayer would have
been answered."
"Well, may be!" said Prince Andrew. "Go, Masha; I'll come
immediately."
On the way to his sister's room, in the passage which connected one
wing with the other, Prince Andrew met Mademoiselle Bourienne
smiling sweetly. It was the third time that day that, with an ecstatic and
artless smile, she had met him in secluded passages.
"Oh! I thought you were in your room," she said, for some reason
blushing and dropping her eyes.
Prince Andrew looked sternly at her and an expression of anger
suddenly came over his face. He said nothing to her but looked at her
forehead and hair, without looking at her eyes, with such contempt that
the Frenchwoman blushed and went away without a word. When he
reached his sister's room his wife was already awake and her merry
voice, hurrying one word after another, came through the open door.
She was speaking as usual in French, and as if after long self-restraint
she wished to make up for lost time.
"No, but imagine the old Countess Zubova, with false curls and her
mouth full of false teeth, as if she were trying to cheat old age.... Ha,
ha, ha! Mary!"
This very sentence about Countess Zubova and this same laugh
Prince Andrew had already heard from his wife in the presence of
others some five times. He entered the room softly. The little princess,
plump and rosy, was sitting in an easy chair with her work in her hands,
talking incessantly, repeating Petersburg reminiscences and even
phrases. Prince Andrew came up, stroked her hair, and asked if she felt
rested after their journey. She answered him and continued her chatter.
The coach with six horses was waiting at the porch. It was an autumn
night, so dark that the coachman could not see the carriage pole.
Servants with lanterns were bustling about in the porch. The immense
house was brilliant with lights shining through its lofty windows. The
domestic serfs were crowding in the hall, waiting to bid good-by to the
young prince. The members of the household were all gathered in the
reception hall: Michael Ivanovich, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess
Mary, and the little princess. Prince Andrew had been called to his
father's study as the latter wished to say good-by to him alone. All were
waiting for them to come out.
When Prince Andrew entered the study the old man in his old-age
spectacles and white dressing gown, in which he received no one but
his son, sat at the table writing. He glanced round.
"Going?" And he went on writing.
"I've come to say good-by."
"Kiss me here," and he touched his cheek: "Thanks, thanks!"
"What do you thank me for?"
"For not dilly-dallying and not hanging to a woman's apron strings.
The Service before everything. Thanks, thanks!" And he went on
writing, so that his quill spluttered and squeaked. "If you have anything
to say, say it. These two things can be done together," he added.
"About my wife... I am ashamed as it is to leave her on your
hands..."
"Why talk nonsense? Say what you want."
"When her confinement is due, send to Moscow for an accoucheur....
Let him be here...."
The old prince stopped writing and, as if not understanding, fixed his
stern eyes on his son.
"I know that no one can help if nature does not do her work," said
Prince Andrew, evidently confused. "I know that out of a million cases
only one goes wrong, but it is her fancy and mine. They have been
telling her things. She has had a dream and is frightened."
"Hm... Hm..." muttered the old prince to himself, finishing what he
was writing. "I'll do it."
He signed with a flourish and suddenly turning to his son began to
laugh.
"It's a bad business, eh?"
"What is bad, Father?"
"The wife!" said the old prince, briefly and significantly.
"I don't understand!" said Prince Andrew.
"No, it can't be helped, lad," said the prince. "They're all like that;
one can't unmarry. Don't be afraid; I won't tell anyone, but you know it
yourself."
 He seized his son by the hand with small bony fingers, shook it,
looked straight into his son's face with keen eyes which seemed to see
through him, and again laughed his frigid laugh.
The son sighed, thus admitting that his father had understood him.
The old man continued to fold and seal his letter, snatching up and
throwing down the wax, the seal, and the paper, with his accustomed
rapidity.
"What's to be done? She's pretty! I will do everything. Make your
mind easy," said he in abrupt sentences while sealing his letter.
Andrew did not speak; he was both pleased and displeased that his
father understood him. The old man got up and gave the letter to his
son.
"Listen!" said he; "don't worry about your wife: what can be done
shall be. Now listen! Give this letter to Michael Ilarionovich. * I have
written that he should make use of you in proper places and not keep
you long as an adjutant: a bad position! Tell him I remember and like
him. Write and tell me how he receives you. If he is all right—serve
him. Nicholas Bolkonski's son need not serve under anyone if he is in
disfavor. Now come here."

*Kutuzov.

He spoke so rapidly that he did not finish half his words, but his son
was accustomed to understand him. He led him to the desk, raised the
lid, drew out a drawer, and took out an exercise book filled with his
bold, tall, close handwriting.
"I shall probably die before you. So remember, these are my
memoirs; hand them to the Emperor after my death. Now here is a
Lombard bond and a letter; it is a premium for the man who writes a
history of Suvorov's wars. Send it to the Academy. Here are some
jottings for you to read when I am gone. You will find them useful."
Andrew did not tell his father that he would no doubt live a long time
yet. He felt that he must not say it.
"I will do it all, Father," he said.
"Well, now, good-by!" He gave his son his hand to kiss, and
embraced him. "Remember this, Prince Andrew, if they kill you it will
hurt me, your old father..." he paused unexpectedly, and then in a
querulous voice suddenly shrieked: "but if I hear that you have not
behaved like a son of Nicholas Bolkonski, I shall be ashamed!"
 "You need not have said that to me, Father," said the son with a
smile.
The old man was silent.
"I also wanted to ask you," continued Prince Andrew, "if I'm killed
and if I have a son, do not let him be taken away from you—as I said
yesterday... let him grow up with you.... Please."
"Not let the wife have him?" said the old man, and laughed.
They stood silent, facing one another. The old man's sharp eyes were
fixed straight on his son's. Something twitched in the lower part of the
old prince's face.
"We've said good-by. Go!" he suddenly shouted in a loud, angry
voice, opening his door.
"What is it? What?" asked both princesses when they saw for a
moment at the door Prince Andrew and the figure of the old man in a
white dressing gown, spectacled and wigless, shouting in an angry
voice.
Prince Andrew sighed and made no reply.
"Well!" he said, turning to his wife.
And this "Well!" sounded coldly ironic, as if he were saying,: "Now
go through your performance."
"Andrew, already!" said the little princess, turning pale and looking
with dismay at her husband.
He embraced her. She screamed and fell unconscious on his
shoulder.
He cautiously released the shoulder she leaned on, looked into her
face, and carefully placed her in an easy chair.
"Adieu, Mary," said he gently to his sister, taking her by the hand
and kissing her, and then he left the room with rapid steps.
The little princess lay in the armchair, Mademoiselle Bourienne
chafing her temples. Princess Mary, supporting her sister-in-law, still
looked with her beautiful eyes full of tears at the door through which
Prince Andrew had gone and made the sign of the cross in his direction.
From the study, like pistol shots, came the frequent sound of the old
man angrily blowing his nose. Hardly had Prince Andrew gone when
the study door opened quickly and the stern figure of the old man in the
white dressing gown looked out.
 "Gone? That's all right!" said he; and looking angrily at the
unconscious little princess, he shook his head reprovingly and slammed
the door.

BOOK TWO: 1805

CHAPTER I
In October, 1805, a Russian army was occupying the villages and
towns of the Archduchy of Austria, and yet other regiments freshly
arriving from Russia were settling near the fortress of Braunau and
burdening the inhabitants on whom they were quartered. Braunau was
the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, Kutuzov.
On October 11, 1805, one of the infantry regiments that had just
reached Braunau had halted half a mile from the town, waiting to be
inspected by the commander in chief. Despite the un-Russian
appearance of the locality and surroundings—fruit gardens, stone
fences, tiled roofs, and hills in the distance—and despite the fact that
the inhabitants (who gazed with curiosity at the soldiers) were not
Russians, the regiment had just the appearance of any Russian regiment
preparing for an inspection anywhere in the heart of Russia.
On the evening of the last day's march an order had been received
that the commander in chief would inspect the regiment on the march.
Though the words of the order were not clear to the regimental
commander, and the question arose whether the troops were to be in
marching order or not, it was decided at a consultation between the
battalion commanders to present the regiment in parade order, on the
principle that it is always better to "bow too low than not bow low
enough." So the soldiers, after a twenty-mile march, were kept mending
and cleaning all night long without closing their eyes, while the
adjutants and company commanders calculated and reckoned, and by
morning the regiment—instead of the straggling, disorderly crowd it
had been on its last march the day before—presented a well-ordered
array of two thousand men each of whom knew his place and his duty,
had every button and every strap in place, and shone with cleanliness.
And not only externally was all in order, but had it pleased the
commander in chief to look under the uniforms he would have found
on every man a clean shirt, and in every knapsack the appointed
number of articles, "awl, soap, and all," as the soldiers say. There was
only one circumstance concerning which no one could be at ease. It
was the state of the soldiers' boots. More than half the men's boots were
in holes. But this defect was not due to any fault of the regimental
commander, for in spite of repeated demands boots had not been issued
by the Austrian commissariat, and the regiment had marched some
seven hundred miles.
The commander of the regiment was an elderly, choleric, stout, and
thick-set general with grizzled eyebrows and whiskers, and wider from
chest to back than across the shoulders. He had on a brand-new uniform
showing the creases where it had been folded and thick gold epaulettes
which seemed to stand rather than lie down on his massive shoulders.
He had the air of a man happily performing one of the most solemn
duties of his life. He walked about in front of the line and at every step
pulled himself up, slightly arching his back. It was plain that the
commander admired his regiment, rejoiced in it, and that his whole
mind was engrossed by it, yet his strut seemed to indicate that, besides
military matters, social interests and the fair sex occupied no small part
of his thoughts.
"Well, Michael Mitrich, sir?" he said, addressing one of the battalion
commanders who smilingly pressed forward (it was plain that they both
felt happy). "We had our hands full last night. However, I think the
regiment is not a bad one, eh?"
The battalion commander perceived the jovial irony and laughed.
"It would not be turned off the field even on the Tsaritsin Meadow."
"What?" asked the commander.
At that moment, on the road from the town on which signalers had
been posted, two men appeared on horse back. They were an aide-de-
camp followed by a Cossack.
The aide-de-camp was sent to confirm the order which had not been
clearly worded the day before, namely, that the commander in chief
wished to see the regiment just in the state in which it had been on the
march: in their greatcoats, and packs, and without any preparation
whatever.
A member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had come to Kutuzov
the day before with proposals and demands for him to join up with the
army of the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutuzov, not
considering this junction advisable, meant, among other arguments in
support of his view, to show the Austrian general the wretched state in
which the troops arrived from Russia. With this object he intended to
meet the regiment; so the worse the condition it was in, the better
pleased the commander in chief would be. Though the aide-de-camp
did not know these circumstances, he nevertheless delivered the
definite order that the men should be in their greatcoats and in
marching order, and that the commander in chief would otherwise be
dissatisfied. On hearing this the regimental commander hung his head,
silently shrugged his shoulders, and spread out his arms with a choleric
gesture.
"A fine mess we've made of it!" he remarked.
"There now! Didn't I tell you, Michael Mitrich, that if it was said 'on
the march' it meant in greatcoats?" said he reproachfully to the battalion
commander. "Oh, my God!" he added, stepping resolutely forward.
"Company commanders!" he shouted in a voice accustomed to
command. "Sergeants major!... How soon will he be here?" he asked
the aide-de-camp with a respectful politeness evidently relating to the
personage he was referring to.
"In an hour's time, I should say."
"Shall we have time to change clothes?"
"I don't know, General...."
The regimental commander, going up to the line himself, ordered the
soldiers to change into their greatcoats. The company commanders ran
off to their companies, the sergeants major began bustling (the
greatcoats were not in very good condition), and instantly the squares
that had up to then been in regular order and silent began to sway and
stretch and hum with voices. On all sides soldiers were running to and
fro, throwing up their knapsacks with a jerk of their shoulders and
pulling the straps over their heads, unstrapping their overcoats and
drawing the sleeves on with upraised arms.
In half an hour all was again in order, only the squares had become
gray instead of black. The regimental commander walked with his jerky
steps to the front of the regiment and examined it from a distance.
"Whatever is this? This!" he shouted and stood still. "Commander of
the third company!"
"Commander of the third company wanted by the general!...
commander to the general... third company to the commander." The
words passed along the lines and an adjutant ran to look for the missing
officer.
When the eager but misrepeated words had reached their destination
in a cry of: "The general to the third company," the missing officer
appeared from behind his company and, though he was a middle-aged
man and not in the habit of running, trotted awkwardly stumbling on
his toes toward the general. The captain's face showed the uneasiness of
a schoolboy who is told to repeat a lesson he has not learned. Spots
appeared on his nose, the redness of which was evidently due to
intemperance, and his mouth twitched nervously. The general looked
the captain up and down as he came up panting, slackening his pace as
he approached.
"You will soon be dressing your men in petticoats! What is this?"
shouted the regimental commander, thrusting forward his jaw and
pointing at a soldier in the ranks of the third company in a greatcoat of
bluish cloth, which contrasted with the others. "What have you been
after? The commander in chief is expected and you leave your place?
Eh? I'll teach you to dress the men in fancy coats for a parade.... Eh...?"
The commander of the company, with his eyes fixed on his superior,
pressed two fingers more and more rigidly to his cap, as if in this
pressure lay his only hope of salvation.
"Well, why don't you speak? Whom have you got there dressed up as
a Hungarian?" said the commander with an austere gibe.
"Your excellency..."
"Well, your excellency, what? Your excellency! But what about your
excellency?... nobody knows."
"Your excellency, it's the officer Dolokhov, who has been reduced to
the ranks," said the captain softly.
"Well? Has he been degraded into a field marshal, or into a soldier?
If a soldier, he should be dressed in regulation uniform like the others."
"Your excellency, you gave him leave yourself, on the march."
"Gave him leave? Leave? That's just like you young men," said the
regimental commander cooling down a little. "Leave indeed.... One
says a word to you and you... What?" he added with renewed irritation,
"I beg you to dress your men decently."
And the commander, turning to look at the adjutant, directed his
jerky steps down the line. He was evidently pleased at his own display
of anger and walking up to the regiment wished to find a further excuse
for wrath. Having snapped at an officer for an unpolished badge, at
another because his line was not straight, he reached the third company.
"H-o-o-w are you standing? Where's your leg? Your leg?" shouted
the commander with a tone of suffering in his voice, while there were
still five men between him and Dolokhov with his bluish-gray uniform.
 Dolokhov slowly straightened his bent knee, looking straight with
his clear, insolent eyes in the general's face.
"Why a blue coat? Off with it... Sergeant major! Change his coat...
the ras..." he did not finish.
"General, I must obey orders, but I am not bound to endure..."
Dolokhov hurriedly interrupted.
"No talking in the ranks!... No talking, no talking!"
"Not bound to endure insults," Dolokhov concluded in loud, ringing
tones.
The eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general became
silent, angrily pulling down his tight scarf.
"I request you to have the goodness to change your coat," he said as
he turned away.

CHAPTER II
"He's coming!" shouted the signaler at that moment.
The regimental commander, flushing, ran to his horse, seized the
stirrup with trembling hands, threw his body across the saddle, righted
himself, drew his saber, and with a happy and resolute countenance,
opening his mouth awry, prepared to shout. The regiment fluttered like
a bird preening its plumage and became motionless.
"Att-ention!" shouted the regimental commander in a soul-shaking
voice which expressed joy for himself, severity for the regiment, and
welcome for the approaching chief.
Along the broad country road, edged on both sides by trees, came a
high, light blue Viennese caleche, slightly creaking on its springs and
drawn by six horses at a smart trot. Behind the caleche galloped the
suite and a convoy of Croats. Beside Kutuzov sat an Austrian general,
in a white uniform that looked strange among the Russian black ones.
The caleche stopped in front of the regiment. Kutuzov and the Austrian
general were talking in low voices and Kutuzov smiled slightly as
treading heavily he stepped down from the carriage just as if those two
thousand men breathlessly gazing at him and the regimental
commander did not exist.
 The word of command rang out, and again the regiment quivered, as
with a jingling sound it presented arms. Then amidst a dead silence the
feeble voice of the commander in chief was heard. The regiment
roared, "Health to your ex... len... len... lency!" and again all became
silent. At first Kutuzov stood still while the regiment moved; then he
and the general in white, accompanied by the suite, walked between the
ranks.
From the way the regimental commander saluted the commander in
chief and devoured him with his eyes, drawing himself up
obsequiously, and from the way he walked through the ranks behind
the generals, bending forward and hardly able to restrain his jerky
movements, and from the way he darted forward at every word or
gesture of the commander in chief, it was evident that he performed his
duty as a subordinate with even greater zeal than his duty as a
commander. Thanks to the strictness and assiduity of its commander
the regiment, in comparison with others that had reached Braunau at
the same time, was in splendid condition. There were only 217 sick and
stragglers. Everything was in good order except the boots.
Kutuzov walked through the ranks, sometimes stopping to say a few
friendly words to officers he had known in the Turkish war, sometimes
also to the soldiers. Looking at their boots he several times shook his
head sadly, pointing them out to the Austrian general with an
expression which seemed to say that he was not blaming anyone, but
could not help noticing what a bad state of things it was. The
regimental commander ran forward on each such occasion, fearing to
miss a single word of the commander in chief's regarding the regiment.
Behind Kutuzov, at a distance that allowed every softly spoken word to
be heard, followed some twenty men of his suite. These gentlemen
talked among themselves and sometimes laughed. Nearest of all to the
commander in chief walked a handsome adjutant. This was Prince
Bolkonski. Beside him was his comrade Nesvitski, a tall staff officer,
extremely stout, with a kindly, smiling, handsome face and moist eyes.
Nesvitski could hardly keep from laughter provoked by a swarthy
hussar officer who walked beside him. This hussar, with a grave face
and without a smile or a change in the expression of his fixed eyes,
watched the regimental commander's back and mimicked his every
movement. Each time the commander started and bent forward, the
hussar started and bent forward in exactly the same manner. Nesvitski
laughed and nudged the others to make them look at the wag.
Kutuzov walked slowly and languidly past thousands of eyes which
were starting from their sockets to watch their chief. On reaching the
third company he suddenly stopped. His suite, not having expected this,
involuntarily came closer to him.
 "Ah, Timokhin!" said he, recognizing the red-nosed captain who had
been reprimanded on account of the blue greatcoat.
One would have thought it impossible for a man to stretch himself
more than Timokhin had done when he was reprimanded by the
regimental commander, but now that the commander in chief addressed
him he drew himself up to such an extent that it seemed he could not
have sustained it had the commander in chief continued to look at him,
and so Kutuzov, who evidently understood his case and wished him
nothing but good, quickly turned away, a scarcely perceptible smile
flitting over his scarred and puffy face.
"Another Ismail comrade," said he. "A brave officer! Are you
satisfied with him?" he asked the regimental commander.
And the latter—unconscious that he was being reflected in the hussar
officer as in a looking glass—started, moved forward, and answered:
"Highly satisfied, your excellency!"
"We all have our weaknesses," said Kutuzov smiling and walking
away from him. "He used to have a predilection for Bacchus."
The regimental commander was afraid he might be blamed for this
and did not answer. The hussar at that moment noticed the face of the
red-nosed captain and his drawn-in stomach, and mimicked his
expression and pose with such exactitude that Nesvitski could not help
laughing. Kutuzov turned round. The officer evidently had complete
control of his face, and while Kutuzov was turning managed to make a
grimace and then assume a most serious, deferential, and innocent
expression.
The third company was the last, and Kutuzov pondered, apparently
trying to recollect something. Prince Andrew stepped forward from
among the suite and said in French:
"You told me to remind you of the officer Dolokhov, reduced to the
ranks in this regiment."
"Where is Dolokhov?" asked Kutuzov.
Dolokhov, who had already changed into a soldier's gray greatcoat,
did not wait to be called. The shapely figure of the fair-haired soldier,
with his clear blue eyes, stepped forward from the ranks, went up to the
commander in chief, and presented arms.
"Have you a complaint to make?" Kutuzov asked with a slight
frown.
"This is Dolokhov," said Prince Andrew.
 "Ah!" said Kutuzov. "I hope this will be a lesson to you. Do your
duty. The Emperor is gracious, and I shan't forget you if you deserve
well."
The clear blue eyes looked at the commander in chief just as boldly
as they had looked at the regimental commander, seeming by their
expression to tear open the veil of convention that separates a
commander in chief so widely from a private.
"One thing I ask of your excellency," Dolokhov said in his firm,
ringing, deliberate voice. "I ask an opportunity to atone for my fault
and prove my devotion to His Majesty the Emperor and to Russia!"
Kutuzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes with which he had
turned from Captain Timokhin again flitted over his face. He turned
away with a grimace as if to say that everything Dolokhov had said to
him and everything he could say had long been known to him, that he
was weary of it and it was not at all what he wanted. He turned away
and went to the carriage.
The regiment broke up into companies, which went to their
appointed quarters near Braunau, where they hoped to receive boots
and clothes and to rest after their hard marches.
"You won't bear me a grudge, Prokhor Ignatych?" said the
regimental commander, overtaking the third company on its way to its
quarters and riding up to Captain Timokhin who was walking in front.
(The regimental commander's face now that the inspection was happily
over beamed with irrepressible delight.) "It's in the Emperor's service...
it can't be helped... one is sometimes a bit hasty on parade... I am the
first to apologize, you know me!... He was very pleased!" And he held
out his hand to the captain.
"Don't mention it, General, as if I'd be so bold!" replied the captain,
his nose growing redder as he gave a smile which showed where two
front teeth were missing that had been knocked out by the butt end of a
gun at Ismail.
"And tell Mr. Dolokhov that I won't forget him—he may be quite
easy. And tell me, please—I've been meaning to ask—how is he
behaving himself, and in general..."
"As far as the service goes he is quite punctilious, your excellency;
but his character..." said Timokhin.
"And what about his character?" asked the regimental commander.
"It's different on different days," answered the captain. "One day he
is sensible, well educated, and good-natured, and the next he's a wild
beast.... In Poland, if you please, he nearly killed a Jew."
 "Oh, well, well!" remarked the regimental commander. "Still, one
must have pity on a young man in misfortune. You know he has
important connections... Well, then, you just..."
"I will, your excellency," said Timokhin, showing by his smile that
he understood his commander's wish.
"Well, of course, of course!"
The regimental commander sought out Dolokhov in the ranks and,
reining in his horse, said to him:
"After the next affair... epaulettes."
Dolokhov looked round but did not say anything, nor did the
mocking smile on his lips change.
"Well, that's all right," continued the regimental commander. "A cup
of vodka for the men from me," he added so that the soldiers could
hear. "I thank you all! God be praised!" and he rode past that company
and overtook the next one.
"Well, he's really a good fellow, one can serve under him," said
Timokhin to the subaltern beside him.
"In a word, a hearty one..." said the subaltern, laughing (the
regimental commander was nicknamed King of Hearts).
The cheerful mood of their officers after the inspection infected the
soldiers. The company marched on gaily. The soldiers' voices could be
heard on every side.
"And they said Kutuzov was blind of one eye?"
"And so he is! Quite blind!"
"No, friend, he is sharper-eyed than you are. Boots and leg bands...
he noticed everything..."
"When he looked at my feet, friend... well, thinks I..."
"And that other one with him, the Austrian, looked as if he were
smeared with chalk—as white as flour! I suppose they polish him up as
they do the guns."
"I say, Fedeshon!... Did he say when the battles are to begin? You
were near him. Everybody said that Buonaparte himself was at
Braunau."
"Buonaparte himself!... Just listen to the fool, what he doesn't know!
The Prussians are up in arms now. The Austrians, you see, are putting
them down. When they've been put down, the war with Buonaparte will
begin. And he says Buonaparte is in Braunau! Shows you're a fool.
You'd better listen more carefully!"
"What devils these quartermasters are! See, the fifth company is
turning into the village already... they will have their buckwheat cooked
before we reach our quarters."
"Give me a biscuit, you devil!"
"And did you give me tobacco yesterday? That's just it, friend! Ah,
well, never mind, here you are."
"They might call a halt here or we'll have to do another four miles
without eating."
"Wasn't it fine when those Germans gave us lifts! You just sit still
and are drawn along."
"And here, friend, the people are quite beggarly. There they all
seemed to be Poles—all under the Russian crown—but here they're all
regular Germans."
"Singers to the front" came the captain's order.
And from the different ranks some twenty men ran to the front. A
drummer, their leader, turned round facing the singers, and flourishing
his arm, began a long-drawn-out soldiers' song, commencing with the
words: "Morning dawned, the sun was rising," and concluding: "On
then, brothers, on to glory, led by Father Kamenski." This song had
been composed in the Turkish campaign and now being sung in
Austria, the only change being that the words "Father Kamenski" were
replaced by "Father Kutuzov."
Having jerked out these last words as soldiers do and waved his arms
as if flinging something to the ground, the drummer—a lean, handsome
soldier of forty—looked sternly at the singers and screwed up his eyes.
Then having satisfied himself that all eyes were fixed on him, he raised
both arms as if carefully lifting some invisible but precious object
above his head and, holding it there for some seconds, suddenly flung it
down and began:
"Oh, my bower, oh, my bower...!"
"Oh, my bower new...!" chimed in twenty voices, and the castanet
player, in spite of the burden of his equipment, rushed out to the front
and, walking backwards before the company, jerked his shoulders and
flourished his castanets as if threatening someone. The soldiers,
swinging their arms and keeping time spontaneously, marched with
long steps. Behind the company the sound of wheels, the creaking of
springs, and the tramp of horses' hoofs were heard. Kutuzov and his
suite were returning to the town. The commander in chief made a sign
that the men should continue to march at ease, and he and all his suite
showed pleasure at the sound of the singing and the sight of the dancing
soldier and the gay and smartly marching men. In the second file from
the right flank, beside which the carriage passed the company, a blue-
eyed soldier involuntarily attracted notice. It was Dolokhov marching
with particular grace and boldness in time to the song and looking at
those driving past as if he pitied all who were not at that moment
marching with the company. The hussar cornet of Kutuzov's suite who
had mimicked the regimental commander, fell back from the carriage
and rode up to Dolokhov.
Hussar cornet Zherkov had at one time, in Petersburg, belonged to
the wild set led by Dolokhov. Zherkov had met Dolokhov abroad as a
private and had not seen fit to recognize him. But now that Kutuzov
had spoken to the gentleman ranker, he addressed him with the
cordiality of an old friend.
"My dear fellow, how are you?" said he through the singing, making
his horse keep pace with the company.
"How am I?" Dolokhov answered coldly. "I am as you see."
The lively song gave a special flavor to the tone of free and easy
gaiety with which Zherkov spoke, and to the intentional coldness of
Dolokhov's reply.
"And how do you get on with the officers?" inquired Zherkov.
"All right. They are good fellows. And how have you wriggled onto
the staff?"
"I was attached; I'm on duty."
Both were silent.
"She let the hawk fly upward from her wide right sleeve," went the
song, arousing an involuntary sensation of courage and cheerfulness.
Their conversation would probably have been different but for the
effect of that song.
"Is it true that Austrians have been beaten?" asked Dolokhov.
"The devil only knows! They say so."
"I'm glad," answered Dolokhov briefly and clearly, as the song
demanded.
"I say, come round some evening and we'll have a game of faro!"
said Zherkov.
 "Why, have you too much money?"
"Do come."
"I can't. I've sworn not to. I won't drink and won't play till I get
reinstated."
"Well, that's only till the first engagement."
"We shall see."
They were again silent.
"Come if you need anything. One can at least be of use on the
staff..."
Dolokhov smiled. "Don't trouble. If I want anything, I won't beg—
I'll take it!"
"Well, never mind; I only..."
"And I only..."
"Good-by."
"Good health..."

"It's a long, long way.

To my native land..."

Zherkov touched his horse with the spurs; it pranced excitedly from
foot to foot uncertain with which to start, then settled down, galloped
past the company, and overtook the carriage, still keeping time to the
song.

CHAPTER III
On returning from the review, Kutuzov took the Austrian general
into his private room and, calling his adjutant, asked for some papers
relating to the condition of the troops on their arrival, and the letters
that had come from the Archduke Ferdinand, who was in command of
the advanced army. Prince Andrew Bolkonski came into the room with
the required papers. Kutuzov and the Austrian member of the
Hofkriegsrath were sitting at the table on which a plan was spread out.
 "Ah!..." said Kutuzov glancing at Bolkonski as if by this exclamation
he was asking the adjutant to wait, and he went on with the
conversation in French.
"All I can say, General," said he with a pleasant elegance of
expression and intonation that obliged one to listen to each deliberately
spoken word. It was evident that Kutuzov himself listened with
pleasure to his own voice. "All I can say, General, is that if the matter
depended on my personal wishes, the will of His Majesty the Emperor
Francis would have been fulfilled long ago. I should long ago have
joined the archduke. And believe me on my honour that to me
personally it would be a pleasure to hand over the supreme command
of the army into the hands of a better informed and more skillful
general—of whom Austria has so many—and to lay down all this
heavy responsibility. But circumstances are sometimes too strong for
us, General."
And Kutuzov smiled in a way that seemed to say, "You are quite at
liberty not to believe me and I don't even care whether you do or not,
but you have no grounds for telling me so. And that is the whole point."
The Austrian general looked dissatisfied, but had no option but to
reply in the same tone.
"On the contrary," he said, in a querulous and angry tone that
contrasted with his flattering words, "on the contrary, your excellency's
participation in the common action is highly valued by His Majesty;
but we think the present delay is depriving the splendid Russian troops
and their commander of the laurels they have been accustomed to win
in their battles," he concluded his evidently prearranged sentence.
Kutuzov bowed with the same smile.
"But that is my conviction, and judging by the last letter with which
His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand has honored me, I imagine that
the Austrian troops, under the direction of so skillful a leader as
General Mack, have by now already gained a decisive victory and no
longer need our aid," said Kutuzov.
The general frowned. Though there was no definite news of an
Austrian defeat, there were many circumstances confirming the
unfavorable rumors that were afloat, and so Kutuzov's suggestion of an
Austrian victory sounded much like irony. But Kutuzov went on
blandly smiling with the same expression, which seemed to say that he
had a right to suppose so. And, in fact, the last letter he had received
from Mack's army informed him of a victory and stated strategically
the position of the army was very favorable.
 "Give me that letter," said Kutuzov turning to Prince Andrew.
"Please have a look at it"—and Kutuzov with an ironical smile about
the corners of his mouth read to the Austrian general the following
passage, in German, from the Archduke Ferdinand's letter:
We have fully concentrated forces of nearly seventy thousand men
with which to attack and defeat the enemy should he cross the Lech.
Also, as we are masters of Ulm, we cannot be deprived of the
advantage of commanding both sides of the Danube, so that should the
enemy not cross the Lech, we can cross the Danube, throw ourselves on
his line of communications, recross the river lower down, and frustrate
his intention should he try to direct his whole force against our faithful
ally. We shall therefore confidently await the moment when the
Imperial Russian army will be fully equipped, and shall then, in
conjunction with it, easily find a way to prepare for the enemy the fate
he deserves.
Kutuzov sighed deeply on finishing this paragraph and looked at the
member of the Hofkriegsrath mildly and attentively.
"But you know the wise maxim your excellency, advising one to
expect the worst," said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to have
done with jests and to come to business. He involuntarily looked round
at the aide-de-camp.
"Excuse me, General," interrupted Kutuzov, also turning to Prince
Andrew. "Look here, my dear fellow, get from Kozlovski all the reports
from our scouts. Here are two letters from Count Nostitz and here is
one from His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand and here are these," he
said, handing him several papers, "make a neat memorandum in French
out of all this, showing all the news we have had of the movements of
the Austrian army, and then give it to his excellency."
Prince Andrew bowed his head in token of having understood from
the first not only what had been said but also what Kutuzov would have
liked to tell him. He gathered up the papers and with a bow to both,
stepped softly over the carpet and went out into the waiting room.
Though not much time had passed since Prince Andrew had left
Russia, he had changed greatly during that period. In the expression of
his face, in his movements, in his walk, scarcely a trace was left of his
former affected languor and indolence. He now looked like a man who
has time to think of the impression he makes on others, but is occupied
with agreeable and interesting work. His face expressed more
satisfaction with himself and those around him, his smile and glance
were brighter and more attractive.
Kutuzov, whom he had overtaken in Poland, had received him very
kindly, promised not to forget him, distinguished him above the other
adjutants, and had taken him to Vienna and given him the more serious
commissions. From Vienna Kutuzov wrote to his old comrade, Prince
Andrew's father.
Your son bids fair to become an officer distinguished by his industry,
firmness, and expedition. I consider myself fortunate to have such a
subordinate by me.
On Kutuzov's staff, among his fellow officers and in the army
generally, Prince Andrew had, as he had had in Petersburg society, two
quite opposite reputations. Some, a minority, acknowledged him to be
different from themselves and from everyone else, expected great
things of him, listened to him, admired, and imitated him, and with
them Prince Andrew was natural and pleasant. Others, the majority,
disliked him and considered him conceited, cold, and disagreeable. But
among these people Prince Andrew knew how to take his stand so that
they respected and even feared him.
Coming out of Kutuzov's room into the waiting room with the papers
in his hand Prince Andrew came up to his comrade, the aide-de-camp
on duty, Kozlovski, who was sitting at the window with a book.
"Well, Prince?" asked Kozlovski.
"I am ordered to write a memorandum explaining why we are not
advancing."
"And why is it?"
Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders.
"Any news from Mack?"
"No."
"If it were true that he has been beaten, news would have come."
"Probably," said Prince Andrew moving toward the outer door.
But at that instant a tall Austrian general in a greatcoat, with the
order of Maria Theresa on his neck and a black bandage round his
head, who had evidently just arrived, entered quickly, slamming the
door. Prince Andrew stopped short.
"Commander in Chief Kutuzov?" said the newly arrived general
speaking quickly with a harsh German accent, looking to both sides and
advancing straight toward the inner door.
"The commander in chief is engaged," said Kozlovski, going
hurriedly up to the unknown general and blocking his way to the door.
"Whom shall I announce?"
 The unknown general looked disdainfully down at Kozlovski, who
was rather short, as if surprised that anyone should not know him.
"The commander in chief is engaged," repeated Kozlovski calmly.
The general's face clouded, his lips quivered and trembled. He took
out a notebook, hurriedly scribbled something in pencil, tore out the
leaf, gave it to Kozlovski, stepped quickly to the window, and threw
himself into a chair, gazing at those in the room as if asking, "Why do
they look at me?" Then he lifted his head, stretched his neck as if he
intended to say something, but immediately, with affected indifference,
began to hum to himself, producing a queer sound which immediately
broke off. The door of the private room opened and Kutuzov appeared
in the doorway. The general with the bandaged head bent forward as
though running away from some danger, and, making long, quick
strides with his thin legs, went up to Kutuzov.
"Vous voyez le malheureux Mack," he uttered in a broken voice.
Kutuzov's face as he stood in the open doorway remained perfectly
immobile for a few moments. Then wrinkles ran over his face like a
wave and his forehead became smooth again, he bowed his head
respectfully, closed his eyes, silently let Mack enter his room before
him, and closed the door himself behind him.
The report which had been circulated that the Austrians had been
beaten and that the whole army had surrendered at Ulm proved to be
correct. Within half an hour adjutants had been sent in various
directions with orders which showed that the Russian troops, who had
hitherto been inactive, would also soon have to meet the enemy.
Prince Andrew was one of those rare staff officers whose chief
interest lay in the general progress of the war. When he saw Mack and
heard the details of his disaster he understood that half the campaign
was lost, understood all the difficulties of the Russian army's position,
and vividly imagined what awaited it and the part he would have to
play. Involuntarily he felt a joyful agitation at the thought of the
humiliation of arrogant Austria and that in a week's time he might,
perhaps, see and take part in the first Russian encounter with the French
since Suvorov met them. He feared that Bonaparte's genius might
outweigh all the courage of the Russian troops, and at the same time
could not admit the idea of his hero being disgraced.
Excited and irritated by these thoughts Prince Andrew went toward
his room to write to his father, to whom he wrote every day. In the
corridor he met Nesvitski, with whom he shared a room, and the wag
Zherkov; they were as usual laughing.
 "Why are you so glum?" asked Nesvitski noticing Prince Andrew's
pale face and glittering eyes.
"There's nothing to be gay about," answered Bolkonski.
Just as Prince Andrew met Nesvitski and Zherkov, there came
toward them from the other end of the corridor, Strauch, an Austrian
general who on Kutuzov's staff in charge of the provisioning of the
Russian army, and the member of the Hofkriegsrath who had arrived
the previous evening. There was room enough in the wide corridor for
the generals to pass the three officers quite easily, but Zherkov, pushing
Nesvitski aside with his arm, said in a breathless voice,
"They're coming!... they're coming!... Stand aside, make way, please
make way!"
The generals were passing by, looking as if they wished to avoid
embarrassing attentions. On the face of the wag Zherkov there suddenly
appeared a stupid smile of glee which he seemed unable to suppress.
"Your excellency," said he in German, stepping forward and
addressing the Austrian general, "I have the honor to congratulate you."
He bowed his head and scraped first with one foot and then with the
other, awkwardly, like a child at a dancing lesson.
The member of the Hofkriegsrath looked at him severely but, seeing
the seriousness of his stupid smile, could not but give him a moment's
attention. He screwed up his eyes showing that he was listening.
"I have the honor to congratulate you. General Mack has arrived,
quite well, only a little bruised just here," he added, pointing with a
beaming smile to his head.
The general frowned, turned away, and went on.
"Gott, wie naiv!" * said he angrily, after he had gone a few steps.

* "Good God, what simplicity!"

Nesvitski with a laugh threw his arms round Prince Andrew, but
Bolkonski, turning still paler, pushed him away with an angry look and
turned to Zherkov. The nervous irritation aroused by the appearance of
Mack, the news of his defeat, and the thought of what lay before the
Russian army found vent in anger at Zherkov's untimely jest.
"If you, sir, choose to make a buffoon of yourself," he said sharply,
with a slight trembling of the lower jaw, "I can't prevent your doing so;
but I warn you that if you dare to play the fool in my presence, I will
teach you to behave yourself."
 Nesvitski and Zherkov were so surprised by this outburst that they
gazed at Bolkonski silently with wide-open eyes.
"What's the matter? I only congratulated them," said Zherkov.
"I am not jesting with you; please be silent!" cried Bolkonski, and
taking Nesvitski's arm he left Zherkov, who did not know what to say.
"Come, what's the matter, old fellow?" said Nesvitski trying to
soothe him.
"What's the matter?" exclaimed Prince Andrew standing still in his
excitement. "Don't you understand that either we are officers serving
our Tsar and our country, rejoicing in the successes and grieving at the
misfortunes of our common cause, or we are merely lackeys who care
nothing for their master's business. Quarante mille hommes massacres
et l'armee de nos allies detruite, et vous trouvez la le mot pour rire," *
he said, as if strengthening his views by this French sentence. "C'est
bien pour un garcon de rien comme cet individu dont vous avez fait un
ami, mais pas pour vous, pas pour vous. *(2) Only a hobbledehoy could
amuse himself in this way," he added in Russian—but pronouncing the
word with a French accent—having noticed that Zherkov could still
hear him.

* "Forty thousand men massacred and the army of

our allies
destroyed, and you find that a cause for
jesting!"

* (2) "It is all very well for that good-for-

nothing fellow
of whom you have made a friend, but not for
you, not for
you."

He waited a moment to see whether the cornet would answer, but he

turned and went out of the corridor.

CHAPTER IV
The Pavlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The
squadron in which Nicholas Rostov served as a cadet was quartered in
the German village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were
assigned to cavalry-captain Denisov, the squadron commander, known
throughout the whole cavalry division as Vaska Denisov. Cadet
Rostov, ever since he had overtaken the regiment in Poland, had lived
with the squadron commander.
On October 11, the day when all was astir at headquarters over the
news of Mack's defeat, the camp life of the officers of this squadron
was proceeding as usual. Denisov, who had been losing at cards all
night, had not yet come home when Rostov rode back early in the
morning from a foraging expedition. Rostov in his cadet uniform, with
a jerk to his horse, rode up to the porch, swung his leg over the saddle
with a supple youthful movement, stood for a moment in the stirrup as
if loathe to part from his horse, and at last sprang down and called to
his orderly.
"Ah, Bondarenko, dear friend!" said he to the hussar who rushed up
headlong to the horse. "Walk him up and down, my dear fellow," he
continued, with that gay brotherly cordiality which goodhearted young
people show to everyone when they are happy.
"Yes, your excellency," answered the Ukrainian gaily, tossing his
head.
"Mind, walk him up and down well!"
Another hussar also rushed toward the horse, but Bondarenko had
already thrown the reins of the snaffle bridle over the horse's head. It
was evident that the cadet was liberal with his tips and that it paid to
serve him. Rostov patted the horse's neck and then his flank, and
lingered for a moment.
"Splendid! What a horse he will be!" he thought with a smile, and
holding up his saber, his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the porch.
His landlord, who in a waistcoat and a pointed cap, pitchfork in hand,
was clearing manure from the cowhouse, looked out, and his face
immediately brightened on seeing Rostov. "Schon gut Morgen! Schon
gut Morgen!" * he said winking with a merry smile, evidently pleased
to greet the young man.

* "A very good morning! A very good morning!"

"Schon fleissig?" * said Rostov with the same gay brotherly smile
which did not leave his eager face. "Hoch Oestreicher! Hoch Russen!
Kaiser Alexander hoch!" *(2) said he, quoting words often repeated by
the German landlord.

* "Busy already?"
 * (2) "Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the
Russians!
Hurrah for Emperor Alexander!"

The German laughed, came out of the cowshed, pulled off his cap,
and waving it above his head cried:
"Und die ganze Welt hoch!" *

* "And hurrah for the whole world!"

Rostov waved his cap above his head like the German and cried
laughing, "Und vivat die ganze Welt!" Though neither the German
cleaning his cowshed nor Rostov back with his platoon from foraging
for hay had any reason for rejoicing, they looked at each other with
joyful delight and brotherly love, wagged their heads in token of their
mutual affection, and parted smiling, the German returning to his
cowshed and Rostov going to the cottage he occupied with Denisov.
"What about your master?" he asked Lavrushka, Denisov's orderly,
whom all the regiment knew for a rogue.
"Hasn't been in since the evening. Must have been losing," answered
Lavrushka. "I know by now, if he wins he comes back early to brag
about it, but if he stays out till morning it means he's lost and will come
back in a rage. Will you have coffee?"
"Yes, bring some."
Ten minutes later Lavrushka brought the coffee. "He's coming!" said
he. "Now for trouble!" Rostov looked out of the window and saw
Denisov coming home. Denisov was a small man with a red face,
sparkling black eyes, and black tousled mustache and hair. He wore an
unfastened cloak, wide breeches hanging down in creases, and a
crumpled shako on the back of his head. He came up to the porch
gloomily, hanging his head.
"Lavwuska!" he shouted loudly and angrily, "take it off, blockhead!"
"Well, I am taking it off," replied Lavrushka's voice.
"Ah, you're up already," said Denisov, entering the room.
"Long ago," answered Rostov, "I have already been for the hay, and
have seen Fraulein Mathilde."
"Weally! And I've been losing, bwother. I lost yesterday like a
damned fool!" cried Denisov, not pronouncing his r's. "Such ill luck!
Such ill luck. As soon as you left, it began and went on. Hullo there!
Tea!"
 Puckering up his face though smiling, and showing his short strong
teeth, he began with stubby fingers of both hands to ruffle up his thick
tangled black hair.
"And what devil made me go to that wat?" (an officer nicknamed
"the rat") he said, rubbing his forehead and whole face with both hands.
"Just fancy, he didn't let me win a single cahd, not one cahd."
He took the lighted pipe that was offered to him, gripped it in his fist,
and tapped it on the floor, making the sparks fly, while he continued to
shout.
"He lets one win the singles and collahs it as soon as one doubles it;
gives the singles and snatches the doubles!"
He scattered the burning tobacco, smashed the pipe, and threw it
away. Then he remained silent for a while, and all at once looked
cheerfully with his glittering, black eyes at Rostov.
"If at least we had some women here; but there's nothing foh one to
do but dwink. If we could only get to fighting soon. Hullo, who's
there?" he said, turning to the door as he heard a tread of heavy boots
and the clinking of spurs that came to a stop, and a respectful cough.
"The squadron quartermaster!" said Lavrushka.
Denisov's face puckered still more.
"Wetched!" he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in
it. "Wostov, deah fellow, just see how much there is left and shove the
purse undah the pillow," he said, and went out to the quartermaster.
Rostov took the money and, mechanically arranging the old and new
coins in separate piles, began counting them.
"Ah! Telyanin! How d'ye do? They plucked me last night," came
Denisov's voice from the next room.
"Where? At Bykov's, at the rat's... I knew it," replied a piping voice,
and Lieutenant Telyanin, a small officer of the same squadron, entered
the room.
Rostov thrust the purse under the pillow and shook the damp little
hand which was offered him. Telyanin for some reason had been
transferred from the Guards just before this campaign. He behaved very
well in the regiment but was not liked; Rostov especially detested him
and was unable to overcome or conceal his groundless antipathy to the
man.
"Well, young cavalryman, how is my Rook behaving?" he asked.
(Rook was a young horse Telyanin had sold to Rostov.)
 The lieutenant never looked the man he was speaking to straight in
the face; his eyes continually wandered from one object to another.
"I saw you riding this morning..." he added.
"Oh, he's all right, a good horse," answered Rostov, though the horse
for which he had paid seven hundred rubbles was not worth half that
sum. "He's begun to go a little lame on the left foreleg," he added.
"The hoof's cracked! That's nothing. I'll teach you what to do and
show you what kind of rivet to use."
"Yes, please do," said Rostov.
"I'll show you, I'll show you! It's not a secret. And it's a horse you'll
thank me for."
"Then I'll have it brought round," said Rostov wishing to avoid
Telyanin, and he went out to give the order.
In the passage Denisov, with a pipe, was squatting on the threshold
facing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing Rostov,
Denisov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder with his
thumb to the room where Telyanin was sitting, he frowned and gave a
shudder of disgust.
"Ugh! I don't like that fellow," he said, regardless of the
quartermaster's presence.
Rostov shrugged his shoulders as much as to say: "Nor do I, but
what's one to do?" and, having given his order, he returned to Telyanin.
Telyanin was sitting in the same indolent pose in which Rostov had
left him, rubbing his small white hands.
"Well there certainly are disgusting people," thought Rostov as he
entered.
"Have you told them to bring the horse?" asked Telyanin, getting up
and looking carelessly about him.
"I have."
"Let us go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denisov about
yesterday's order. Have you got it, Denisov?"
"Not yet. But where are you off to?"
"I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse," said Telyanin.
They went through the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant
explained how to rivet the hoof and went away to his own quarters.
 When Rostov went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage
on the table. Denisov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a
sheet of paper. He looked gloomily in Rostov's face and said: "I am
witing to her."
He leaned his elbows on the table with his pen in his hand and,
evidently glad of a chance to say quicker in words what he wanted to
write, told Rostov the contents of his letter.
"You see, my fwiend," he said, "we sleep when we don't love. We
are childwen of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God, one is
pua' as on the first day of cweation... Who's that now? Send him to the
devil, I'm busy!" he shouted to Lavrushka, who went up to him not in
the least abashed.
"Who should it be? You yourself told him to come. It's the
quartermaster for the money."
Denisov frowned and was about to shout some reply but stopped.
"Wetched business," he muttered to himself. "How much is left in
the puhse?" he asked, turning to Rostov.
"Seven new and three old imperials."
"Oh, it's wetched! Well, what are you standing there for, you
sca'cwow? Call the quahtehmasteh," he shouted to Lavrushka.
"Please, Denisov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know,"
said Rostov, blushing.
"Don't like bowwowing from my own fellows, I don't," growled
Denisov.
"But if you won't accept money from me like a comrade, you will
offend me. Really I have some," Rostov repeated.
"No, I tell you."
And Denisov went to the bed to get the purse from under the pillow.
"Where have you put it, Wostov?"
"Under the lower pillow."
"It's not there."
Denisov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not there.
"That's a miwacle."
"Wait, haven't you dropped it?" said Rostov, picking up the pillows
one at a time and shaking them.
 He pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not there.
"Dear me, can I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking that you
kept it under your head like a treasure," said Rostov. "I put it just here.
Where is it?" he asked, turning to Lavrushka.
"I haven't been in the room. It must be where you put it."
"But it isn't?..."
"You're always like that; you thwow a thing down anywhere and
forget it. Feel in your pockets."
"No, if I hadn't thought of it being a treasure," said Rostov, "but I
remember putting it there."
Lavrushka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed and
under the table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of
the room. Denisov silently watched Lavrushka's movements, and when
the latter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be
found Denisov glanced at Rostov.
"Wostov, you've not been playing schoolboy twicks..."
Rostov felt Denisov's gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes, and
instantly dropped them again. All the blood which had seemed
congested somewhere below his throat rushed to his face and eyes. He
could not draw breath.
"And there hasn't been anyone in the room except the lieutenant and
yourselves. It must be here somewhere," said Lavrushka.
"Now then, you devil's puppet, look alive and hunt for it!" shouted
Denisov, suddenly, turning purple and rushing at the man with a
threatening gesture. "If the purse isn't found I'll flog you, I'll flog you
all."
Rostov, his eyes avoiding Denisov, began buttoning his coat,
buckled on his saber, and put on his cap.
"I must have that purse, I tell you," shouted Denisov, shaking his
orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall.
"Denisov, let him alone, I know who has taken it," said Rostov,
going toward the door without raising his eyes. Denisov paused,
thought a moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostov hinted at,
seized his arm.
"Nonsense!" he cried, and the veins on his forehead and neck stood
out like cords. "You are mad, I tell you. I won't allow it. The purse is
here! I'll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be found."
 "I know who has taken it," repeated Rostov in an unsteady voice, and
went to the door.
"And I tell you, don't you dahe to do it!" shouted Denisov, rushing at
the cadet to restrain him.
But Rostov pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though
Denisov were his worst enemy, firmly fixed his eyes directly on his
face.
"Do you understand what you're saying?" he said in a trembling
voice. "There was no one else in the room except myself. So that if it is
not so, then..."
He could not finish, and ran out of the room.
"Ah, may the devil take you and evewybody," were the last words
Rostov heard.
Rostov went to Telyanin's quarters.
"The master is not in, he's gone to headquarters," said Telyanin's
orderly. "Has something happened?" he added, surprised at the cadet's
troubled face.
"No, nothing."
"You've only just missed him," said the orderly.
The headquarters were situated two miles away from Salzeneck, and
Rostov, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was
an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostov rode up to it
and saw Telyanin's horse at the porch.
In the second room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting over a dish of
sausages and a bottle of wine.
"Ah, you've come here too, young man!" he said, smiling and raising
his eyebrows.
"Yes," said Rostov as if it cost him a great deal to utter the word; and
he sat down at the nearest table.
Both were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in
the room. No one spoke and the only sounds heard were the clatter of
knives and the munching of the lieutenant.
When Telyanin had finished his lunch he took out of his pocket a
double purse and, drawing its rings aside with his small, white, turned-
up fingers, drew out a gold imperial, and lifting his eyebrows gave it to
the waiter.
 "Please be quick," he said.
The coin was a new one. Rostov rose and went up to Telyanin.
"Allow me to look at your purse," he said in a low, almost inaudible,
voice.
With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyanin handed him the
purse.
"Yes, it's a nice purse. Yes, yes," he said, growing suddenly pale, and
added, "Look at it, young man."
Rostov took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in it,
and looked at Telyanin. The lieutenant was looking about in his usual
way and suddenly seemed to grow very merry.
"If we get to Vienna I'll get rid of it there but in these wretched little
towns there's nowhere to spend it," said he. "Well, let me have it, young
man, I'm going."
Rostov did not speak.
"And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite
decently here," continued Telyanin. "Now then, let me have it."
He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostov let go of
it. Telyanin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it into the
pocket of his riding breeches, with his eyebrows lifted and his mouth
slightly open, as if to say, "Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in my
pocket and that's quite simple and is no one else's business."
"Well, young man?" he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted
brows he glanced into Rostov's eyes.
Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyanin's eyes to
Rostov's and back, and back again and again in an instant.
"Come here," said Rostov, catching hold of Telyanin's arm and
almost dragging him to the window. "That money is Denisov's; you
took it..." he whispered just above Telyanin's ear.
"What? What? How dare you? What?" said Telyanin.
But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty
for pardon. As soon as Rostov heard them, an enormous load of doubt
fell from him. He was glad, and at the same instant began to pity the
miserable man who stood before him, but the task he had begun had to
be completed.
 "Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine," muttered
Telyanin, taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room.
"We must have an explanation..."
"I know it and shall prove it," said Rostov.
"I..."
Every muscle of Telyanin's pale, terrified face began to quiver, his
eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not rising
to Rostov's face, and his sobs were audible.
"Count!... Don't ruin a young fellow... here is this wretched money,
take it..." He threw it on the table. "I have an old father and mother!..."
Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin's eyes, and went out of
the room without a word. But at the door he stopped and then retraced
his steps. "O God," he said with tears in his eyes, "how could you do
it?"
"Count..." said Telyanin drawing nearer to him.
"Don't touch me," said Rostov, drawing back. "If you need it, take
the money," and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.

CHAPTER V
That same evening there was an animated discussion among the
squadron's officers in Denisov's quarters.
"And I tell you, Rostov, that you must apologize to the colonel!" said
a tall, grizzly-haired staff captain, with enormous mustaches and many
wrinkles on his large features, to Rostov who was crimson with
excitement.
The staff captain, Kirsten, had twice been reduced to the ranks for
affairs of honor and had twice regained his commission.
"I will allow no one to call me a liar!" cried Rostov. "He told me I
lied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He may keep me on duty
every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make me
apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it
beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then..."
"You just wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen," interrupted the
staff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache. "You
tell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an officer has
stolen..."
"I'm not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of
other officers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but I am
not a diplomatist. That's why I joined the hussars, thinking that here
one would not need finesse; and he tells me that I am lying—so let him
give me satisfaction..."
"That's all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that's not the point.
Ask Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet to demand
satisfaction of his regimental commander?"
Denisov sat gloomily biting his mustache and listening to the
conversation, evidently with no wish to take part in it. He answered the
staff captain's question by a disapproving shake of his head.
"You speak to the colonel about this nasty business before other
officers," continued the staff captain, "and Bogdanich" (the colonel was
called Bogdanich) "shuts you up."
"He did not shut me up, he said I was telling an untruth."
"Well, have it so, and you talked a lot of nonsense to him and must
apologize."
"Not on any account!" exclaimed Rostov.
"I did not expect this of you," said the staff captain seriously and
severely. "You don't wish to apologize, but, man, it's not only to him
but to the whole regiment—all of us—you're to blame all round. The
case is this: you ought to have thought the matter over and taken
advice; but no, you go and blurt it all straight out before the officers.
Now what was the colonel to do? Have the officer tried and disgrace
the whole regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of one
scoundrel? Is that how you look at it? We don't see it like that. And
Bogdanich was a brick: he told you you were saying what was not true.
It's not pleasant, but what's to be done, my dear fellow? You landed
yourself in it. And now, when one wants to smooth the thing over,
some conceit prevents your apologizing, and you wish to make the
whole affair public. You are offended at being put on duty a bit, but
why not apologize to an old and honorable officer? Whatever
Bogdanich may be, anyway he is an honorable and brave old colonel!
You're quick at taking offense, but you don't mind disgracing the whole
regiment!" The staff captain's voice began to tremble. "You have been
in the regiment next to no time, my lad, you're here today and
tomorrow you'll be appointed adjutant somewhere and can snap your
fingers when it is said 'There are thieves among the Pavlograd officers!'
But it's not all the same to us! Am I not right, Denisov? It's not the
same!"
Denisov remained silent and did not move, but occasionally looked
with his glittering black eyes at Rostov.
"You value your own pride and don't wish to apologize," continued
the staff captain, "but we old fellows, who have grown up in and, God
willing, are going to die in the regiment, we prize the honor of the
regiment, and Bogdanich knows it. Oh, we do prize it, old fellow! And
all this is not right, it's not right! You may take offense or not but I
always stick to mother truth. It's not right!"
And the staff captain rose and turned away from Rostov.

"That's twue, devil take it!" shouted Denisov,

jumping up. "Now then,
Wostov, now then!"

Rostov, growing red and pale alternately, looked

first at one
officer and then at the other.

"No, gentlemen, no... you mustn't think... I quite understand. You're

wrong to think that of me... I... for me... for the honor of the regiment
I'd... Ah well, I'll show that in action, and for me the honor of the flag...
Well, never mind, it's true I'm to blame, to blame all round. Well, what
else do you want?..."
"Come, that's right, Count!" cried the staff captain, turning round and
clapping Rostov on the shoulder with his big hand.
"I tell you," shouted Denisov, "he's a fine fellow."
"That's better, Count," said the staff captain, beginning to address
Rostov by his title, as if in recognition of his confession. "Go and
apologize, your excellency. Yes, go!"
"Gentlemen, I'll do anything. No one shall hear a word from me,"
said Rostov in an imploring voice, "but I can't apologize, by God I
can't, do what you will! How can I go and apologize like a little boy
asking forgiveness?"
Denisov began to laugh.
"It'll be worse for you. Bogdanich is vindictive and you'll pay for
your obstinacy," said Kirsten.
"No, on my word it's not obstinacy! I can't describe the feeling. I
can't..."
 "Well, it's as you like," said the staff captain. "And what has become
of that scoundrel?" he asked Denisov.
"He has weported himself sick, he's to be stwuck off the list
tomowwow," muttered Denisov.
"It is an illness, there's no other way of explaining it," said the staff
captain.
"Illness or not, he'd better not cwoss my path. I'd kill him!" shouted
Denisov in a bloodthirsty tone.
Just then Zherkov entered the room.
"What brings you here?" cried the officers turning to the newcomer.
"We're to go into action, gentlemen! Mack has surrendered with his
whole army."
"It's not true!"
"I've seen him myself!"
"What? Saw the real Mack? With hands and feet?"
"Into action! Into action! Bring him a bottle for such news! But how
did you come here?"
"I've been sent back to the regiment all on account of that devil,
Mack. An Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on
Mack's arrival... What's the matter, Rostov? You look as if you'd just
come out of a hot bath."
"Oh, my dear fellow, we're in such a stew here these last two days."
The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by
Zherkov. They were under orders to advance next day.
"We're going into action, gentlemen!"
"Well, thank God! We've been sitting here too long!"

CHAPTER VI
Kutuzov fell back toward Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges
over the rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October 23
the Russian troops were crossing the river Enns. At midday the Russian
baggage train, the artillery, and columns of troops were defiling
through the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge.
It was a warm, rainy, autumnal day. The wide expanse that opened
out before the heights on which the Russian batteries stood guarding
the bridge was at times veiled by a diaphanous curtain of slanting rain,
and then, suddenly spread out in the sunlight, far-distant objects could
be clearly seen glittering as though freshly varnished. Down below, the
little town could be seen with its white, red-roofed houses, its cathedral,
and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed jostling masses of
Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, vessels, an island, and a
castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the confluence of the
Enns and the Danube became visible, and the rocky left bank of the
Danube covered with pine forests, with a mystic background of green
treetops and bluish gorges. The turrets of a convent stood out beyond a
wild virgin pine forest, and far away on the other side of the Enns the
enemy's horse patrols could be discerned.
Among the field guns on the brow of the hill the general in command
of the rearguard stood with a staff officer, scanning the country through
his fieldglass. A little behind them Nesvitski, who had been sent to the
rearguard by the commander in chief, was sitting on the trail of a gun
carriage. A Cossack who accompanied him had handed him a knapsack
and a flask, and Nesvitski was treating some officers to pies and real
doppelkummel. The officers gladly gathered round him, some on their
knees, some squatting Turkish fashion on the wet grass.
"Yes, the Austrian prince who built that castle was no fool. It's a fine
place! Why are you not eating anything, gentlemen?" Nesvitski was
saying.
"Thank you very much, Prince," answered one of the officers,
pleased to be talking to a staff officer of such importance. "It's a lovely
place! We passed close to the park and saw two deer... and what a
splendid house!"
"Look, Prince," said another, who would have dearly liked to take
another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the
countryside—"See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there
in the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging
something. They'll ransack that castle," he remarked with evident
approval.
"So they will," said Nesvitski. "No, but what I should like," added
he, munching a pie in his moist-lipped handsome mouth, "would be to
slip in over there."
He pointed with a smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed
and gleamed.
 "That would be fine, gentlemen!"
The officers laughed.
"Just to flutter the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls among
them. On my word I'd give five years of my life for it!"
"They must be feeling dull, too," said one of the bolder officers,
laughing.
Meanwhile the staff officer standing in front pointed out something
to the general, who looked through his field glass.
"Yes, so it is, so it is," said the general angrily, lowering the field
glass and shrugging his shoulders, "so it is! They'll be fired on at the
crossing. And why are they dawdling there?"
On the opposite side the enemy could be seen by the naked eye, and
from their battery a milk-white cloud arose. Then came the distant
report of a shot, and our troops could be seen hurrying to the crossing.
Nesvitski rose, puffing, and went up to the general, smiling.
"Would not your excellency like a little refreshment?" he said.
"It's a bad business," said the general without answering him, "our
men have been wasting time."
"Hadn't I better ride over, your excellency?" asked Nesvitski.
"Yes, please do," answered the general, and he repeated the order
that had already once been given in detail: "and tell the hussars that
they are to cross last and to fire the bridge as I ordered; and the
inflammable material on the bridge must be reinspected."
"Very good," answered Nesvitski.
He called the Cossack with his horse, told him to put away the
knapsack and flask, and swung his heavy person easily into the saddle.
"I'll really call in on the nuns," he said to the officers who watched
him smilingly, and he rode off by the winding path down the hill.
"Now then, let's see how far it will carry, Captain. Just try!" said the
general, turning to an artillery officer. "Have a little fun to pass the
time."
"Crew, to your guns!" commanded the officer.
In a moment the men came running gaily from their campfires and
began loading.
"One!" came the command.
 Number one jumped briskly aside. The gun rang out with a
deafening metallic roar, and a whistling grenade flew above the heads
of our troops below the hill and fell far short of the enemy, a little
smoke showing the spot where it burst.
The faces of officers and men brightened up at the sound. Everyone
got up and began watching the movements of our troops below, as
plainly visible as if but a stone's throw away, and the movements of the
approaching enemy farther off. At the same instant the sun came fully
out from behind the clouds, and the clear sound of the solitary shot and
the brilliance of the bright sunshine merged in a single joyous and
spirited impression.

CHAPTER VII
Two of the enemy's shots had already flown across the bridge, where
there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvitski, who had
alighted from his horse and whose big body was jammed against the
railings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack who stood a few steps
behind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each time Prince
Nesvitski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed him back again
and pressed him against the railings, and all he could do was to smile.
"What a fine fellow you are, friend!" said the Cossack to a convoy
soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were
crowded together close to his wheels and his horses. "What a fellow!
You can't wait a moment! Don't you see the general wants to pass?"
But the convoyman took no notice of the word "general" and shouted
at the soldiers who were blocking his way. "Hi there, boys! Keep to the
left! Wait a bit." But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder to
shoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a dense
mass. Looking down over the rails Prince Nesvitski saw the rapid,
noisy little waves of the Enns, which rippling and eddying round the
piles of the bridge chased each other along. Looking on the bridge he
saw equally uniform living waves of soldiers, shoulder straps, covered
shakos, knapsacks, bayonets, long muskets, and, under the shakos,
faces with broad cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and listless tired
expressions, and feet that moved through the sticky mud that covered
the planks of the bridge. Sometimes through the monotonous waves of
men, like a fleck of white foam on the waves of the Enns, an officer, in
a cloak and with a type of face different from that of the men, squeezed
his way along; sometimes like a chip of wood whirling in the river, an
hussar on foot, an orderly, or a townsman was carried through the
waves of infantry; and sometimes like a log floating down the river, an
officers' or company's baggage wagon, piled high, leather covered, and
hemmed in on all sides, moved across the bridge.
"It's as if a dam had burst," said the Cossack hopelessly. "Are there
many more of you to come?"
"A million all but one!" replied a waggish soldier in a torn coat, with
a wink, and passed on followed by another, an old man.
"If he" (he meant the enemy) "begins popping at the bridge now,"
said the old soldier dismally to a comrade, "you'll forget to scratch
yourself."
That soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting on a cart.
"Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?" said an
orderly, running behind the cart and fumbling in the back of it.
And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry
soldiers who had evidently been drinking.
"And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth with the butt end
of his gun..." a soldier whose greatcoat was well tucked up said gaily,
with a wide swing of his arm.
"Yes, the ham was just delicious..." answered another with a loud
laugh. And they, too, passed on, so that Nesvitski did not learn who had
been struck on the teeth, or what the ham had to do with it.
"Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they think they'll all
be killed," a sergeant was saying angrily and reproachfully.
"As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean," said a young soldier
with an enormous mouth, hardly refraining from laughing, "I felt like
dying of fright. I did, 'pon my word, I got that frightened!" said he, as if
bragging of having been frightened.
That one also passed. Then followed a cart unlike any that had gone
before. It was a German cart with a pair of horses led by a German, and
seemed loaded with a whole houseful of effects. A fine brindled cow
with a large udder was attached to the cart behind. A woman with an
unweaned baby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl with bright
red cheeks were sitting on some feather beds. Evidently these fugitives
were allowed to pass by special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers
turned toward the women, and while the vehicle was passing at foot
pace all the soldiers' remarks related to the two young ones. Every face
bore almost the same smile, expressing unseemly thoughts about the
women.
 "Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!"
"Sell me the missis," said another soldier, addressing the German,
who, angry and frightened, strode energetically along with downcast
eyes.
"See how smart she's made herself! Oh, the devils!"
"There, Fedotov, you should be quartered on them!"
"I have seen as much before now, mate!"
"Where are you going?" asked an infantry officer who was eating an
apple, also half smiling as he looked at the handsome girl.
The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand.
"Take it if you like," said the officer, giving the girl an apple.
The girl smiled and took it. Nesvitski like the rest of the men on the
bridge did not take his eyes off the women till they had passed. When
they had gone by, the same stream of soldiers followed, with the same
kind of talk, and at last all stopped. As often happens, the horses of a
convoy wagon became restive at the end of the bridge, and the whole
crowd had to wait.
"And why are they stopping? There's no proper order!" said the
soldiers. "Where are you shoving to? Devil take you! Can't you wait?
It'll be worse if he fires the bridge. See, here's an officer jammed in
too"—different voices were saying in the crowd, as the men looked at
one another, and all pressed toward the exit from the bridge.
Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvitski
suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly
approaching... something big, that splashed into the water.
"Just see where it carries to!" a soldier near by said sternly, looking
round at the sound.
"Encouraging us to get along quicker," said another uneasily.
The crowd moved on again. Nesvitski realized that it was a cannon
ball.
"Hey, Cossack, my horse!" he said. "Now, then, you there! get out of
the way! Make way!"
With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and shouting
continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed themselves to make
way for him, but again pressed on him so that they jammed his leg, and
those nearest him were not to blame for they were themselves pressed
still harder from behind.
 "Nesvitski, Nesvitski! you numskull!" came a hoarse voice from
behind him.
Nesvitski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but
separated by the living mass of moving infantry, Vaska Denisov, red
and shaggy, with his cap on the back of his black head and a cloak
hanging jauntily over his shoulder.
"Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!" shouted Denisov
evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with their bloodshot
whites glittering and rolling as he waved his sheathed saber in a small
bare hand as red as his face.
"Ah, Vaska!" joyfully replied Nesvitski. "What's up with you?"
"The squadwon can't pass," shouted Vaska Denisov, showing his
white teeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which
twitched its ears as the bayonets touched it, and snorted, spurting white
foam from his bit, tramping the planks of the bridge with his hoofs, and
apparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider let him. "What
is this? They're like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of the way!... Let us
pass!... Stop there, you devil with the cart! I'll hack you with my
saber!" he shouted, actually drawing his saber from its scabbard and
flourishing it.
The soldiers crowded against one another with terrified faces, and
Denisov joined Nesvitski.
"How's it you're not drunk today?" said Nesvitski when the other had
ridden up to him.
"They don't even give one time to dwink!" answered Vaska Denisov.
"They keep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo all day. If they mean to
fight, let's fight. But the devil knows what this is."
"What a dandy you are today!" said Nesvitski, looking at Denisov's
new cloak and saddlecloth.
Denisov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief that
diffused a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvitski's nose.
"Of course. I'm going into action! I've shaved, bwushed my teeth,
and scented myself."
The imposing figure of Nesvitski followed by his Cossack, and the
determination of Denisov who flourished his sword and shouted
frantically, had such an effect that they managed to squeeze through to
the farther side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Beside the bridge
Nesvitski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order, and
having done this he rode back.
 Having cleared the way Denisov stopped at the end of the bridge.
Carelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing the
ground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he watched his squadron draw
nearer. Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping,
resounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in
front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began to
emerge on his side of it.
The infantry who had been stopped crowded near the bridge in the
trampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of ill-will,
estrangement, and ridicule with which troops of different arms usually
encounter one another at the clean, smart hussars who moved past them
in regular order.
"Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!" said one.
"What good are they? They're led about just for show!" remarked
another.
"Don't kick up the dust, you infantry!" jested an hussar whose
prancing horse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers.
"I'd like to put you on a two days' march with a knapsack! Your fine
cords would soon get a bit rubbed," said an infantryman, wiping the
mud off his face with his sleeve. "Perched up there, you're more like a
bird than a man."
"There now, Zikin, they ought to put you on a horse. You'd look
fine," said a corporal, chaffing a thin little soldier who bent under the
weight of his knapsack.
"Take a stick between your legs, that'll suit you for a horse!" the
hussar shouted back.

CHAPTER VIII
The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing
together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last the
baggage wagons had all crossed, the crush was less, and the last
battalion came onto the bridge. Only Denisov's squadron of hussars
remained on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who could
be seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was not yet visible from
the bridge, for the horizon as seen from the valley through which the
river flowed was formed by the rising ground only half a mile away. At
the foot of the hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of our
Cossack scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the
high ground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen. These were
the French. A group of Cossack scouts retired down the hill at a trot.
All the officers and men of Denisov's squadron, though they tried to
talk of other things and to look in other directions, thought only of what
was there on the hilltop, and kept constantly looking at the patches
appearing on the skyline, which they knew to be the enemy's troops.
The weather had cleared again since noon and the sun was descending
brightly upon the Danube and the dark hills around it. It was calm, and
at intervals the bugle calls and the shouts of the enemy could be heard
from the hill. There was no one now between the squadron and the
enemy except a few scattered skirmishers. An empty space of some
seven hundred yards was all that separated them. The enemy ceased
firing, and that stern, threatening, inaccessible, and intangible line
which separates two hostile armies was all the more clearly felt.
"One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line
dividing the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death.
And what is there? Who is there?—there beyond that field, that tree,
that roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You
fear and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must
be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will
inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are
strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such
excitedly animated and healthy men." So thinks, or at any rate feels,
anyone who comes in sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives a
particular glamour and glad keenness of impression to everything that
takes place at such moments.
On the high ground where the enemy was, the smoke of a cannon
rose, and a ball flew whistling over the heads of the hussar squadron.
The officers who had been standing together rode off to their places.
The hussars began carefully aligning their horses. Silence fell on the
whole squadron. All were looking at the enemy in front and at the
squadron commander, awaiting the word of command. A second and a
third cannon ball flew past. Evidently they were firing at the hussars,
but the balls with rapid rhythmic whistle flew over the heads of the
horsemen and fell somewhere beyond them. The hussars did not look
round, but at the sound of each shot, as at the word of command, the
whole squadron with its rows of faces so alike yet so different, holding
its breath while the ball flew past, rose in the stirrups and sank back
again. The soldiers without turning their heads glanced at one another,
curious to see their comrades' impression. Every face, from Denisov's
to that of the bugler, showed one common expression of conflict,
irritation, and excitement, around chin and mouth. The quartermaster
frowned, looking at the soldiers as if threatening to punish them. Cadet
Mironov ducked every time a ball flew past. Rostov on the left flank,
mounted on his Rook—a handsome horse despite its game leg—had
the happy air of a schoolboy called up before a large audience for an
examination in which he feels sure he will distinguish himself. He was
glancing at everyone with a clear, bright expression, as if asking them
to notice how calmly he sat under fire. But despite himself, on his face
too that same indication of something new and stern showed round the
mouth.
"Who's that curtseying there? Cadet Miwonov! That's not wight!
Look at me," cried Denisov who, unable to keep still on one spot, kept
turning his horse in front of the squadron.
The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Vaska Denisov, and his whole
short sturdy figure with the sinewy hairy hand and stumpy fingers in
which he held the hilt of his naked saber, looked just as it usually did,
especially toward evening when he had emptied his second bottle; he
was only redder than usual. With his shaggy head thrown back like
birds when they drink, pressing his spurs mercilessly into the sides of
his good horse, Bedouin, and sitting as though falling backwards in the
saddle, he galloped to the other flank of the squadron and shouted in a
hoarse voice to the men to look to their pistols. He rode up to Kirsten.
The staff captain on his broad-backed, steady mare came at a walk to
meet him. His face with its long mustache was serious as always, only
his eyes were brighter than usual.
"Well, what about it?" said he to Denisov. "It won't come to a fight.
You'll see—we shall retire."
"The devil only knows what they're about!" muttered Denisov. "Ah,
Wostov," he cried noticing the cadet's bright face, "you've got it at
last."
And he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the cadet. Rostov
felt perfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the bridge.
Denisov galloped up to him.
"Your excellency! Let us attack them! I'll dwive them off."
"Attack indeed!" said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering up his
face as if driving off a troublesome fly. "And why are you stopping
here? Don't you see the skirmishers are retreating? Lead the squadron
back."
The squadron crossed the bridge and drew out of range of fire
without having lost a single man. The second squadron that had been in
the front line followed them across and the last Cossacks quitted the
farther side of the river.
The two Pavlograd squadrons, having crossed the bridge, retired up
the hill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl Bogdanich Schubert,
came up to Denisov's squadron and rode at a footpace not far from
Rostov, without taking any notice of him although they were now
meeting for the first time since their encounter concerning Telyanin.
Rostov, feeling that he was at the front and in the power of a man
toward whom he now admitted that he had been to blame, did not lift
his eyes from the colonel's athletic back, his nape covered with light
hair, and his red neck. It seemed to Rostov that Bogdanich was only
pretending not to notice him, and that his whole aim now was to test
the cadet's courage, so he drew himself up and looked around him
merrily; then it seemed to him that Bogdanich rode so near in order to
show him his courage. Next he thought that his enemy would send the
squadron on a desperate attack just to punish him—Rostov. Then he
imagined how, after the attack, Bogdanich would come up to him as he
lay wounded and would magnanimously extend the hand of
reconciliation.
The high-shouldered figure of Zherkov, familiar to the Pavlograds as
he had but recently left their regiment, rode up to the colonel. After his
dismissal from headquarters Zherkov had not remained in the regiment,
saying he was not such a fool as to slave at the front when he could get
more rewards by doing nothing on the staff, and had succeeded in
attaching himself as an orderly officer to Prince Bagration. He now
came to his former chief with an order from the commander of the rear
guard.
"Colonel," he said, addressing Rostov's enemy with an air of gloomy
gravity and glancing round at his comrades, "there is an order to stop
and fire the bridge."
"An order to who?" asked the colonel morosely.
"I don't myself know 'to who,'" replied the cornet in a serious tone,
"but the prince told me to 'go and tell the colonel that the hussars must
return quickly and fire the bridge.'"
Zherkov was followed by an officer of the suite who rode up to the
colonel of hussars with the same order. After him the stout Nesvitski
came galloping up on a Cossack horse that could scarcely carry his
weight.
"How's this, Colonel?" he shouted as he approached. "I told you to
fire the bridge, and now someone has gone and blundered; they are all
beside themselves over there and one can't make anything out."
The colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned to
Nesvitski.
"You spoke to me of inflammable material," said he, "but you said
nothing about firing it."
 "But, my dear sir," said Nesvitski as he drew up, taking off his cap
and smoothing his hair wet with perspiration with his plump hand,
"wasn't I telling you to fire the bridge, when inflammable material had
been put in position?"
"I am not your 'dear sir,' Mr. Staff Officer, and you did not tell me to
burn the bridge! I know the service, and it is my habit orders strictly to
obey. You said the bridge would be burned, but who would it burn, I
could not know by the holy spirit!"
"Ah, that's always the way!" said Nesvitski with a wave of the hand.
"How did you get here?" said he, turning to Zherkov.
"On the same business. But you are damp! Let me wring you out!"
"You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer..." continued the colonel in an
offended tone.
"Colonel," interrupted the officer of the suite, "You must be quick or
the enemy will bring up his guns to use grapeshot."
The colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at the stout
staff officer, and at Zherkov, and he frowned.
"I will the bridge fire," he said in a solemn tone as if to announce
that in spite of all the unpleasantness he had to endure he would still do
the right thing.
Striking his horse with his long muscular legs as if it were to blame
for everything, the colonel moved forward and ordered the second
squadron, that in which Rostov was serving under Denisov, to return to
the bridge.
"There, it's just as I thought," said Rostov to himself. "He wishes to
test me!" His heart contracted and the blood rushed to his face. "Let
him see whether I am a coward!" he thought.
Again on all the bright faces of the squadron the serious expression
appeared that they had worn when under fire. Rostov watched his
enemy, the colonel, closely—to find in his face confirmation of his own
conjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostov, and looked as
he always did when at the front, solemn and stern. Then came the word
of command.
"Look sharp! Look sharp!" several voices repeated around him.
Their sabers catching in the bridles and their spurs jingling, the
hussars hastily dismounted, not knowing what they were to do. The
men were crossing themselves. Rostov no longer looked at the colonel,
he had no time. He was afraid of falling behind the hussars, so much
afraid that his heart stood still. His hand trembled as he gave his horse
into an orderly's charge, and he felt the blood rush to his heart with a
thud. Denisov rode past him, leaning back and shouting something.
Rostov saw nothing but the hussars running all around him, their spurs
catching and their sabers clattering.
"Stretchers!" shouted someone behind him.
Rostov did not think what this call for stretchers meant; he ran on,
trying only to be ahead of the others; but just at the bridge, not looking
at the ground, he came on some sticky, trodden mud, stumbled, and fell
on his hands. The others outstripped him.
"At boss zides, Captain," he heard the voice of the colonel, who,
having ridden ahead, had pulled up his horse near the bridge, with a
triumphant, cheerful face.
Rostov wiping his muddy hands on his breeches looked at his enemy
and was about to run on, thinking that the farther he went to the front
the better. But Bogdanich, without looking at or recognizing Rostov,
shouted to him:
"Who's that running on the middle of the bridge? To the right! Come
back, Cadet!" he cried angrily; and turning to Denisov, who, showing
off his courage, had ridden on to the planks of the bridge:
"Why run risks, Captain? You should dismount," he said.
"Oh, every bullet has its billet," answered Vaska Denisov, turning in
his saddle.
Meanwhile Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite were
standing together out of range of the shots, watching, now the small
group of men with yellow shakos, dark-green jackets braided with cord,
and blue riding breeches, who were swarming near the bridge, and then
at what was approaching in the distance from the opposite side—the
blue uniforms and groups with horses, easily recognizable as artillery.
"Will they burn the bridge or not? Who'll get there first? Will they
get there and fire the bridge or will the French get within grapeshot
range and wipe them out?" These were the questions each man of the
troops on the high ground above the bridge involuntarily asked himself
with a sinking heart—watching the bridge and the hussars in the bright
evening light and the blue tunics advancing from the other side with
their bayonets and guns.
"Ugh. The hussars will get it hot!" said Nesvitski; "they are within
grapeshot range now."
"He shouldn't have taken so many men," said the officer of the suite.
 "True enough," answered Nesvitski; "two smart fellows could have
done the job just as well."
"Ah, your excellency," put in Zherkov, his eyes fixed on the hussars,
but still with that naive air that made it impossible to know whether he
was speaking in jest or in earnest. "Ah, your excellency! How you look
at things! Send two men? And who then would give us the Vladimir
medal and ribbon? But now, even if they do get peppered, the squadron
may be recommended for honors and he may get a ribbon. Our
Bogdanich knows how things are done."
"There now!" said the officer of the suite, "that's grapeshot."
He pointed to the French guns, the limbers of which were being
detached and hurriedly removed.
On the French side, amid the groups with cannon, a cloud of smoke
appeared, then a second and a third almost simultaneously, and at the
moment when the first report was heard a fourth was seen. Then two
reports one after another, and a third.
"Oh! Oh!" groaned Nesvitski as if in fierce pain, seizing the officer
of the suite by the arm. "Look! A man has fallen! Fallen, fallen!"
"Two, I think."
"If I were Tsar I would never go to war," said Nesvitski, turning
away.
The French guns were hastily reloaded. The infantry in their blue
uniforms advanced toward the bridge at a run. Smoke appeared again
but at irregular intervals, and grapeshot cracked and rattled onto the
bridge. But this time Nesvitski could not see what was happening there,
as a dense cloud of smoke arose from it. The hussars had succeeded in
setting it on fire and the French batteries were now firing at them, no
longer to hinder them but because the guns were trained and there was
someone to fire at.
The French had time to fire three rounds of grapeshot before the
hussars got back to their horses. Two were misdirected and the shot
went too high, but the last round fell in the midst of a group of hussars
and knocked three of them over.
Rostov, absorbed by his relations with Bogdanich, had paused on the
bridge not knowing what to do. There was no one to hew down (as he
had always imagined battles to himself), nor could he help to fire the
bridge because he had not brought any burning straw with him like the
other soldiers. He stood looking about him, when suddenly he heard a
rattle on the bridge as if nuts were being spilt, and the hussar nearest to
him fell against the rails with a groan. Rostov ran up to him with the
others. Again someone shouted, "Stretchers!" Four men seized the
hussar and began lifting him.
"Oooh! For Christ's sake let me alone!" cried the wounded man, but
still he was lifted and laid on the stretcher.
Nicholas Rostov turned away and, as if searching for something,
gazed into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, and at
the sun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm, and how
deep! How bright and glorious was the setting sun! With what soft
glitter the waters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer still were the
faraway blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious
gorges, and the pine forests veiled in the mist of their summits... There
was peace and happiness... "I should wish for nothing else, nothing, if
only I were there," thought Rostov. "In myself alone and in that
sunshine there is so much happiness; but here... groans, suffering, fear,
and this uncertainty and hurry... There—they are shouting again, and
again are all running back somewhere, and I shall run with them, and it,
death, is here above me and around... Another instant and I shall never
again see the sun, this water, that gorge!..."
At that instant the sun began to hide behind the clouds, and other
stretchers came into view before Rostov. And the fear of death and of
the stretchers, and love of the sun and of life, all merged into one
feeling of sickening agitation.
"O Lord God! Thou who art in that heaven, save, forgive, and protect
me!" Rostov whispered.
The hussars ran back to the men who held their horses; their voices
sounded louder and calmer, the stretchers disappeared from sight.
"Well, fwiend? So you've smelt powdah!" shouted Vaska Denisov
just above his ear.
"It's all over; but I am a coward—yes, a coward!" thought Rostov,
and sighing deeply he took Rook, his horse, which stood resting one
foot, from the orderly and began to mount.
"Was that grapeshot?" he asked Denisov.
"Yes and no mistake!" cried Denisov. "You worked like wegular
bwicks and it's nasty work! An attack's pleasant work! Hacking away at
the dogs! But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them shooting at
you like a target."
And Denisov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostov,
composed of the colonel, Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer from the
suite.
 "Well, it seems that no one has noticed," thought Rostov. And this
was true. No one had taken any notice, for everyone knew the sensation
which the cadet under fire for the first time had experienced.
"Here's something for you to report," said Zherkov. "See if I don't
get promoted to a sublieutenancy."
"Inform the prince that I the bridge fired!" said the colonel
triumphantly and gaily.
"And if he asks about the losses?"
"A trifle," said the colonel in his bass voice: "two hussars wounded,
and one knocked out," he added, unable to restrain a happy smile, and
pronouncing the phrase "knocked out" with ringing distinctness.

CHAPTER IX
Pursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the
command of Bonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly
to it, losing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of
supplies, and compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything
that had been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men
commanded by Kutuzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube,
stopping where overtaken by the enemy and fighting rearguard actions
only as far as necessary to enable it to retreat without losing its heavy
equipment. There had been actions at Lambach, Amstetten, and Melk;
but despite the courage and endurance—acknowledged even by the
enemy—with which the Russians fought, the only consequence of these
actions was a yet more rapid retreat. Austrian troops that had escaped
capture at Ulm and had joined Kutuzov at Braunau now separated from
the Russian army, and Kutuzov was left with only his own weak and
exhausted forces. The defense of Vienna was no longer to be thought
of. Instead of an offensive, the plan of which, carefully prepared in
accord with the modern science of strategics, had been handed to
Kutuzov when he was in Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, the
sole and almost unattainable aim remaining for him was to effect a
junction with the forces that were advancing from Russia, without
losing his army as Mack had done at Ulm.
On the twenty-eighth of October Kutuzov with his army crossed to
the left bank of the Danube and took up a position for the first time
with the river between himself and the main body of the French. On the
thirtieth he attacked Mortier's division, which was on the left bank, and
broke it up. In this action for the first time trophies were taken: banners,
cannon, and two enemy generals. For the first time, after a fortnight's
retreat, the Russian troops had halted and after a fight had not only held
the field but had repulsed the French. Though the troops were ill-clad,
exhausted, and had lost a third of their number in killed, wounded, sick,
and stragglers; though a number of sick and wounded had been
abandoned on the other side of the Danube with a letter in which
Kutuzov entrusted them to the humanity of the enemy; and though the
big hospitals and the houses in Krems converted into military hospitals
could no longer accommodate all the sick and wounded, yet the stand
made at Krems and the victory over Mortier raised the spirits of the
army considerably. Throughout the whole army and at headquarters
most joyful though erroneous rumors were rife of the imaginary
approach of columns from Russia, of some victory gained by the
Austrians, and of the retreat of the frightened Bonaparte.
Prince Andrew during the battle had been in attendance on the
Austrian General Schmidt, who was killed in the action. His horse had
been wounded under him and his own arm slightly grazed by a bullet.
As a mark of the commander in chief's special favor he was sent with
the news of this victory to the Austrian court, now no longer at Vienna
(which was threatened by the French) but at Brunn. Despite his
apparently delicate build Prince Andrew could endure physical fatigue
far better than many very muscular men, and on the night of the battle,
having arrived at Krems excited but not weary, with dispatches from
Dokhturov to Kutuzov, he was sent immediately with a special dispatch
to Brunn. To be so sent meant not only a reward but an important step
toward promotion.
The night was dark but starry, the road showed black in the snow
that had fallen the previous day—the day of the battle. Reviewing his
impressions of the recent battle, picturing pleasantly to himself the
impression his news of a victory would create, or recalling the send-off
given him by the commander in chief and his fellow officers, Prince
Andrew was galloping along in a post chaise enjoying the feelings of a
man who has at length begun to attain a long-desired happiness. As
soon as he closed his eyes his ears seemed filled with the rattle of the
wheels and the sensation of victory. Then he began to imagine that the
Russians were running away and that he himself was killed, but he
quickly roused himself with a feeling of joy, as if learning afresh that
this was not so but that on the contrary the French had run away. He
again recalled all the details of the victory and his own calm courage
during the battle, and feeling reassured he dozed off.... The dark starry
night was followed by a bright cheerful morning. The snow was
thawing in the sunshine, the horses galloped quickly, and on both sides
of the road were forests of different kinds, fields, and villages.
 At one of the post stations he overtook a convoy of Russian
wounded. The Russian officer in charge of the transport lolled back in
the front cart, shouting and scolding a soldier with coarse abuse. In
each of the long German carts six or more pale, dirty, bandaged men
were being jolted over the stony road. Some of them were talking (he
heard Russian words), others were eating bread; the more severely
wounded looked silently, with the languid interest of sick children, at
the envoy hurrying past them.
Prince Andrew told his driver to stop, and asked a soldier in what
action they had been wounded. "Day before yesterday, on the Danube,"
answered the soldier. Prince Andrew took out his purse and gave the
soldier three gold pieces.
"That's for them all," he said to the officer who came up.
"Get well soon, lads!" he continued, turning to the soldiers. "There's
plenty to do still."
"What news, sir?" asked the officer, evidently anxious to start a
conversation.
"Good news!... Go on!" he shouted to the driver, and they galloped
on.
It was already quite dark when Prince Andrew rattled over the paved
streets of Brunn and found himself surrounded by high buildings, the
lights of shops, houses, and street lamps, fine carriages, and all that
atmosphere of a large and active town which is always so attractive to a
soldier after camp life. Despite his rapid journey and sleepless night,
Prince Andrew when he drove up to the palace felt even more vigorous
and alert than he had done the day before. Only his eyes gleamed
feverishly and his thoughts followed one another with extraordinary
clearness and rapidity. He again vividly recalled the details of the
battle, no longer dim, but definite and in the concise form in which he
imagined himself stating them to the Emperor Francis. He vividly
imagined the casual questions that might be put to him and the answers
he would give. He expected to be at once presented to the Emperor. At
the chief entrance to the palace, however, an official came running out
to meet him, and learning that he was a special messenger led him to
another entrance.
"To the right from the corridor, Euer Hochgeboren! There you will
find the adjutant on duty," said the official. "He will conduct you to the
Minister of War."
The adjutant on duty, meeting Prince Andrew, asked him to wait,
and went in to the Minister of War. Five minutes later he returned and
bowing with particular courtesy ushered Prince Andrew before him
along a corridor to the cabinet where the Minister of War was at work.
The adjutant by his elaborate courtesy appeared to wish to ward off any
attempt at familiarity on the part of the Russian messenger.
Prince Andrew's joyous feeling was considerably weakened as he
approached the door of the minister's room. He felt offended, and
without his noticing it the feeling of offense immediately turned into
one of disdain which was quite uncalled for. His fertile mind instantly
suggested to him a point of view which gave him a right to despise the
adjutant and the minister. "Away from the smell of powder, they
probably think it easy to gain victories!" he thought. His eyes narrowed
disdainfully, he entered the room of the Minister of War with peculiarly
deliberate steps. This feeling of disdain was heightened when he saw
the minister seated at a large table reading some papers and making
pencil notes on them, and for the first two or three minutes taking no
notice of his arrival. A wax candle stood at each side of the minister's
bent bald head with its gray temples. He went on reading to the end,
without raising his eyes at the opening of the door and the sound of
footsteps.
"Take this and deliver it," said he to his adjutant, handing him the
papers and still taking no notice of the special messenger.
Prince Andrew felt that either the actions of Kutuzov's army
interested the Minister of War less than any of the other matters he was
concerned with, or he wanted to give the Russian special messenger
that impression. "But that is a matter of perfect indifference to me," he
thought. The minister drew the remaining papers together, arranged
them evenly, and then raised his head. He had an intellectual and
distinctive head, but the instant he turned to Prince Andrew the firm,
intelligent expression on his face changed in a way evidently deliberate
and habitual to him. His face took on the stupid artificial smile (which
does not even attempt to hide its artificiality) of a man who is
continually receiving many petitioners one after another.
"From General Field Marshal Kutuzov?" he asked. "I hope it is good
news? There has been an encounter with Mortier? A victory? It was
high time!"
He took the dispatch which was addressed to him and began to read
it with a mournful expression.
"Oh, my God! My God! Schmidt!" he exclaimed in German. "What
a calamity! What a calamity!"
Having glanced through the dispatch he laid it on the table and
looked at Prince Andrew, evidently considering something.
 "Ah what a calamity! You say the affair was decisive? But Mortier is
not captured." Again he pondered. "I am very glad you have brought
good news, though Schmidt's death is a heavy price to pay for the
victory. His Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I
thank you! You must have a rest. Be at the levee tomorrow after the
parade. However, I will let you know."
The stupid smile, which had left his face while he was speaking,
reappeared.
"Au revoir! Thank you very much. His Majesty will probably desire
to see you," he added, bowing his head.
When Prince Andrew left the palace he felt that all the interest and
happiness the victory had afforded him had been now left in the
indifferent hands of the Minister of War and the polite adjutant. The
whole tenor of his thoughts instantaneously changed; the battle seemed
the memory of a remote event long past.

CHAPTER X
Prince Andrew stayed at Brunn with Bilibin, a Russian acquaintance
of his in the diplomatic service.
"Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor," said
Bilibin as he came out to meet Prince Andrew. "Franz, put the prince's
things in my bedroom," said he to the servant who was ushering
Bolkonski in. "So you're a messenger of victory, eh? Splendid! And I
am sitting here ill, as you see."
After washing and dressing, Prince Andrew came into the diplomat's
luxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilibin
settled down comfortably beside the fire.
After his journey and the campaign during which he had been
deprived of all the comforts of cleanliness and all the refinements of
life, Prince Andrew felt a pleasant sense of repose among luxurious
surroundings such as he had been accustomed to from childhood.
Besides it was pleasant, after his reception by the Austrians, to speak if
not in Russian (for they were speaking French) at least with a Russian
who would, he supposed, share the general Russian antipathy to the
Austrians which was then particularly strong.
Bilibin was a man of thirty-five, a bachelor, and of the same circle as
Prince Andrew. They had known each other previously in Petersburg,
but had become more intimate when Prince Andrew was in Vienna
with Kutuzov. Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave
promise of rising high in the military profession, so to an even greater
extent Bilibin gave promise of rising in his diplomatic career. He still a
young man but no longer a young diplomat, as he had entered the
service at the age of sixteen, had been in Paris and Copenhagen, and
now held a rather important post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister
and our ambassador in Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not
one of those many diplomats who are esteemed because they have
certain negative qualities, avoid doing certain things, and speak French.
He was one of those, who, liking work, knew how to do it, and despite
his indolence would sometimes spend a whole night at his writing
table. He worked well whatever the import of his work. It was not the
question "What for?" but the question "How?" that interested him.
What the diplomatic matter might be he did not care, but it gave him
great pleasure to prepare a circular, memorandum, or report, skillfully,
pointedly, and elegantly. Bilibin's services were valued not only for
what he wrote, but also for his skill in dealing and conversing with
those in the highest spheres.
Bilibin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be
made elegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to
say something striking and took part in a conversation only when that
was possible. His conversation was always sprinkled with wittily
original, finished phrases of general interest. These sayings were
prepared in the inner laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if
intentionally, so that insignificant society people might carry them from
drawing room to drawing room. And, in fact, Bilibin's witticisms were
hawked about in the Viennese drawing rooms and often had an
influence on matters considered important.
His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which
always looked as clean and well washed as the tips of one's fingers
after a Russian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the
principal play of expression on his face. Now his forehead would
pucker into deep folds and his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows
would descend and deep wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small,
deep-set eyes always twinkled and looked out straight.
"Well, now tell me about your exploits," said he.
Bolkonski, very modestly without once mentioning himself,
described the engagement and his reception by the Minister of War.
"They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of
skittles," said he in conclusion.
Bilibin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.
 "Cependant, mon cher," he remarked, examining his nails from a
distance and puckering the skin above his left eye, "malgre la haute
estime que je professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j'avoue que
votre victoire n'est pas des plus victorieuses." *

* "But my dear fellow, with all my respect for

the Orthodox
Russian army, I must say that your victory was
not
particularly victorious."

He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those words

in Russian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis.
"Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier
and his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers!
Where's the victory?"
"But seriously," said Prince Andrew, "we can at any rate say without
boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm..."
"Why didn't you capture one, just one, marshal for us?"
"Because not everything happens as one expects or with the
smoothness of a parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at their
rear by seven in the morning but had not reached it by five in the
afternoon."
"And why didn't you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to
have been there at seven in the morning," returned Bilibin with a smile.
"You ought to have been there at seven in the morning."
"Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by diplomatic
methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?" retorted Prince Andrew
in the same tone.
"I know," interrupted Bilibin, "you're thinking it's very easy to take
marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but still why didn't
you capture him? So don't be surprised if not only the Minister of War
but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and King Francis is not
much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor secretary of the Russian
Embassy, do not feel any need in token of my joy to give my Franz a
thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to the Prater... True, we have no
Prater here..."
He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his
forehead.
"It is now my turn to ask you 'why?' mon cher," said Bolkonski. "I
confess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic subtleties
here beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can't make it out. Mack loses
a whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke Karl give no
signs of life and make blunder after blunder. Kutuzov alone at last
gains a real victory, destroying the spell of the invincibility of the
French, and the Minister of War does not even care to hear the details."
"That's just it, my dear fellow. You see it's hurrah for the Tsar, for
Russia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is beautiful, but what do
we, I mean the Austrian court, care for your victories? Bring us nice
news of a victory by the Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one archduke's
as good as another, as you know) and even if it is only over a fire
brigade of Bonaparte's, that will be another story and we'll fire off some
cannon! But this sort of thing seems done on purpose to vex us. The
Archduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke Ferdinand disgraces
himself. You abandon Vienna, give up its defense—as much as to say:
'Heaven is with us, but heaven help you and your capital!' The one
general whom we all loved, Schmidt, you expose to a bullet, and then
you congratulate us on the victory! Admit that more irritating news
than yours could not have been conceived. It's as if it had been done on
purpose, on purpose. Besides, suppose you did gain a brilliant victory,
if even the Archduke Karl gained a victory, what effect would that have
on the general course of events? It's too late now when Vienna is
occupied by the French army!"
"What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?"
"Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schonbrunn, and the count,
our dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders."
After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception, and
especially after having dined, Bolkonski felt that he could not take in
the full significance of the words he heard.
"Count Lichtenfels was here this morning," Bilibin continued, "and
showed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna was
fully described: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement... You see that
your victory is not a matter for great rejoicing and that you can't be
received as a savior."
"Really I don't care about that, I don't care at all," said Prince
Andrew, beginning to understand that his news of the battle before
Krems was really of small importance in view of such events as the fall
of Austria's capital. "How is it Vienna was taken? What of the bridge
and its celebrated bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard reports
that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?" he said.
"Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is
defending us—doing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending us.
But Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been taken
and I hope it will not be, for it is mined and orders have been given to
blow it up. Otherwise we should long ago have been in the mountains
of Bohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad quarter of
an hour between two fires."
"But still this does not mean that the campaign is over," said Prince
Andrew.
"Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they daren't
say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign, it won't be
your skirmishing at Durrenstein, or gunpowder at all, that will decide
the matter, but those who devised it," said Bilibin quoting one of his
own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and pausing. "The
only question is what will come of the meeting between the Emperor
Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia joins the Allies,
Austria's hand will be forced and there will be war. If not it is merely a
question of settling where the preliminaries of the new Campo Formio
are to be drawn up."
"What an extraordinary genius!" Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed,
clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, "and what luck
the man has!"
"Buonaparte?" said Bilibin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead to
indicate that he was about to say something witty. "Buonaparte?" he
repeated, accentuating the u: "I think, however, now that he lays down
laws for Austria at Schonbrunn, il faut lui faire grace de l'u! * I shall
certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply Bonaparte!"

* "We must let him off the u!"

"But joking apart," said Prince Andrew, "do you really think the
campaign is over?"
"This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is not
used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the first place
because her provinces have been pillaged—they say the Holy Russian
army loots terribly—her army is destroyed, her capital taken, and all
this for the beaux yeux * of His Sardinian Majesty. And therefore—this
is between ourselves—I instinctively feel that we are being deceived,
my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and projects for peace,
a secret peace concluded separately."

* Fine eyes.

"Impossible!" cried Prince Andrew. "That would be too base."

 "If we live we shall see," replied Bilibin, his face again becoming
smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.
When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay
down in a clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant
pillows, he felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far,
far away from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria's treachery,
Bonaparte's new triumph, tomorrow's levee and parade, and the
audience with the Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts.
He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of
musketry and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and
now again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the
hill, the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode
forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around,
and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since
childhood.
He woke up...
"Yes, that all happened!" he said, and, smiling happily to himself
like a child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber.

CHAPTER XI
Next day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions, the first
thought that came into his mind was that today he had to be presented
to the Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite
Austrian adjutant, Bilibin, and last night's conversation. Having dressed
for his attendance at court in full parade uniform, which he had not
worn for a long time, he went into Bilibin's study fresh, animated, and
handsome, with his hand bandaged. In the study were four gentlemen
of the diplomatic corps. With Prince Hippolyte Kuragin, who was a
secretary to the embassy, Bolkonski was already acquainted. Bilibin
introduced him to the others.
The gentlemen assembled at Bilibin's were young, wealthy, gay
society men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which
Bilibin, their leader, called les notres. * This set, consisting almost
exclusively of diplomats, evidently had its own interests which had
nothing to do with war or politics but related to high society, to certain
women, and to the official side of the service. These gentlemen
received Prince Andrew as one of themselves, an honor they did not
extend to many. From politeness and to start conversation, they asked
him a few questions about the army and the battle, and then the talk
went off into merry jests and gossip.

* Ours.

"But the best of it was," said one, telling of the misfortune of a

fellow diplomat, "that the Chancellor told him flatly that his
appointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it.
Can you fancy the figure he cut?..."
"But the worst of it, gentlemen—I am giving Kuragin away to you—
is that that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is taking
advantage of it!"
Prince Hippolyte was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over its
arm. He began to laugh.
"Tell me about that!" he said.
"Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!" cried several voices.
"You, Bolkonski, don't know," said Bilibin turning to Prince
Andrew, "that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of the
Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing
among the women!"
"La femme est la compagne de l'homme," * announced Prince
Hippolyte, and began looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs.

* "Woman is man's companion."

Bilibin and the rest of "ours" burst out laughing in Hippolyte's face,
and Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom—he had to admit—he
had almost been jealous on his wife's account, was the butt of this set.
"Oh, I must give you a treat," Bilibin whispered to Bolkonski.
"Kuragin is exquisite when he discusses politics—you should see his
gravity!"
He sat down beside Hippolyte and wrinkling his forehead began
talking to him about politics. Prince Andrew and the others gathered
round these two.
"The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance," began
Hippolyte gazing round with importance at the others, "without
expressing... as in its last note... you understand... Besides, unless His
Majesty the Emperor derogates from the principle of our alliance...
"Wait, I have not finished..." he said to Prince Andrew, seizing him
by the arm, "I believe that intervention will be stronger than
nonintervention. And..." he paused. "Finally one cannot impute the
nonreceipt of our dispatch of November 18. That is how it will end."
And he released Bolkonski's arm to indicate that he had now quite
finished.
"Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy
golden mouth!" said Bilibin, and the mop of hair on his head moved
with satisfaction.
Everybody laughed, and Hippolyte louder than anyone. He was
evidently distressed, and breathed painfully, but could not restrain the
wild laughter that convulsed his usually impassive features.
"Well now, gentlemen," said Bilibin, "Bolkonski is my guest in this
house and in Brunn itself. I want to entertain him as far as I can, with
all the pleasures of life here. If we were in Vienna it would be easy, but
here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult, and I beg you
all to help me. Brunn's attractions must be shown him. You can
undertake the theater, I society, and you, Hippolyte, of course the
women."
"We must let him see Amelie, she's exquisite!" said one of "ours,"
kissing his finger tips.
"In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane
interests," said Bilibin.
"I shall scarcely be able to avail myself of your hospitality,
gentlemen, it is already time for me to go," replied Prince Andrew
looking at his watch.
"Where to?"
"To the Emperor."
"Oh! Oh! Oh! Well, au revoir, Bolkonski! Au revoir, Prince! Come
back early to dinner," cried several voices. "We'll take you in hand."
"When speaking to the Emperor, try as far as you can to praise the
way that provisions are supplied and the routes indicated," said Bilibin,
accompanying him to the hall.
"I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I know the facts, I
can't," replied Bolkonski, smiling.
"Well, talk as much as you can, anyway. He has a passion for giving
audiences, but he does not like talking himself and can't do it, as you
will see."
 CHAPTER XII
At the levee Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as he
had been told to, and the Emperor Francis merely looked fixedly into
his face and just nodded to him with his long head. But after it was
over, the adjutant he had seen the previous day ceremoniously informed
Bolkonski that the Emperor desired to give him an audience. The
Emperor Francis received him standing in the middle of the room.
Before the conversation began Prince Andrew was struck by the fact
that the Emperor seemed confused and blushed as if not knowing what
to say.
"Tell me, when did the battle begin?" he asked hurriedly.
Prince Andrew replied. Then followed other questions just as simple:
"Was Kutuzov well? When had he left Krems?" and so on. The
Emperor spoke as if his sole aim were to put a given number of
questions—the answers to these questions, as was only too evident, did
not interest him.
"At what o'clock did the battle begin?" asked the Emperor.
"I cannot inform Your Majesty at what o'clock the battle began at the
front, but at Durrenstein, where I was, our attack began after five in the
afternoon," replied Bolkonski growing more animated and expecting
that he would have a chance to give a reliable account, which he had
ready in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor smiled
and interrupted him.
"How many miles?"
"From where to where, Your Majesty?"
"From Durrenstein to Krems."
"Three and a half miles, Your Majesty."
"The French have abandoned the left bank?"
"According to the scouts the last of them crossed on rafts during the
night."
"Is there sufficient forage in Krems?"
"Forage has not been supplied to the extent..."
 The Emperor interrupted him.
"At what o'clock was General Schmidt killed?"
"At seven o'clock, I believe."
"At seven o'clock? It's very sad, very sad!"
The Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew
withdrew and was immediately surrounded by courtiers on all sides.
Everywhere he saw friendly looks and heard friendly words.
Yesterday's adjutant reproached him for not having stayed at the
palace, and offered him his own house. The Minister of War came up
and congratulated him on the Maria Theresa Order of the third grade,
which the Emperor was conferring on him. The Empress' chamberlain
invited him to see Her Majesty. The archduchess also wished to see
him. He did not know whom to answer, and for a few seconds collected
his thoughts. Then the Russian ambassador took him by the shoulder,
led him to the window, and began to talk to him.
Contrary to Bilibin's forecast the news he had brought was joyfully
received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutuzov was awarded
the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army received
rewards. Bolkonski was invited everywhere, and had to spend the
whole morning calling on the principal Austrian dignitaries. Between
four and five in the afternoon, having made all his calls, he was
returning to Bilibin's house thinking out a letter to his father about the
battle and his visit to Brunn. At the door he found a vehicle half full of
luggage. Franz, Bilibin's man, was dragging a portmanteau with some
difficulty out of the front door.
Before returning to Bilibin's Prince Andrew had gone to a bookshop
to provide himself with some books for the campaign, and had spent
some time in the shop.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Oh, your excellency!" said Franz, with difficulty rolling the
portmanteau into the vehicle, "we are to move on still farther. The
scoundrel is again at our heels!"
"Eh? What?" asked Prince Andrew.
Bilibin came out to meet him. His usually calm face showed
excitement.
"There now! Confess that this is delightful," said he. "This affair of
the Thabor Bridge, at Vienna.... They have crossed without striking a
blow!"
Prince Andrew could not understand.
 "But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in
the town knows?"
"I come from the archduchess'. I heard nothing there."
"And you didn't see that everybody is packing up?"
"I did not... What is it all about?" inquired Prince Andrew
impatiently.
"What's it all about? Why, the French have crossed the bridge that
Auersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up: so Murat is
now rushing along the road to Brunn and will be here in a day or two."
"What? Here? But why did they not blow up the bridge, if it was
mined?"
"That is what I ask you. No one, not even Bonaparte, knows why."
Bolkonski shrugged his shoulders.
"But if the bridge is crossed it means that the army too is lost? It will
be cut off," said he.
"That's just it," answered Bilibin. "Listen! The French entered
Vienna as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday, those
gentlemen, messieurs les marechaux, * Murat, Lannes, and Belliard,
mount and ride to the bridge. (Observe that all three are Gascons.)
'Gentlemen,' says one of them, 'you know the Thabor Bridge is mined
and doubly mined and that there are menacing fortifications at its head
and an army of fifteen thousand men has been ordered to blow up the
bridge and not let us cross? But it will please our sovereign the
Emperor Napoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and take it!'
'Yes, let's!' say the others. And off they go and take the bridge, cross it,
and now with their whole army are on this side of the Danube,
marching on us, you, and your lines of communication."

* The marshalls.

"Stop jesting," said Prince Andrew sadly and seriously. This news
grieved him and yet he was pleased.
As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless
situation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead it
out of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift him from
the ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to fame!
Listening to Bilibin he was already imagining how on reaching the
army he would give an opinion at the war council which would be the
only one that could save the army, and how he alone would be
entrusted with the executing of the plan.
 "Stop this jesting," he said
"I am not jesting," Bilibin went on. "Nothing is truer or sadder.
These gentlemen ride onto the bridge alone and wave white
handkerchiefs; they assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals,
are on their way to negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter
the tete-de-pont. * They spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that
the war is over, that the Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with
Bonaparte, that they desire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The
officer sends for Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers,
crack jokes, sit on the cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to
the bridge unobserved, flings the bags of incendiary material into the
water, and approaches the tete-de-pont. At length appears the lieutenant
general, our dear Prince Auersperg von Mautern himself. 'Dearest foe!
Flower of the Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars Hostilities are
ended, we can shake one another's hand.... The Emperor Napoleon
burns with impatience to make Prince Auersperg's acquaintance.' In a
word, those gentlemen, Gascons indeed, so bewildered him with fine
words, and he is so flattered by his rapidly established intimacy with
the French marshals, and so dazzled by the sight of Murat's mantle and
ostrich plumes, qu'il n'y voit que du feu, et oublie celui qu'il devait faire
faire sur l'ennemi!" *(2) In spite of the animation of his speech, Bilibin
did not forget to pause after this mot to give time for its due
appreciation. "The French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes the
guns, and the bridge is taken! But what is best of all," he went on, his
excitement subsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, "is
that the sergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the signal
to fire the mines and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing that the
French troops were running onto the bridge, was about to fire, but
Lannes stayed his hand. The sergeant, who was evidently wiser than his
general, goes up to Auersperg and says: 'Prince, you are being
deceived, here are the French!' Murat, seeing that all is lost if the
sergeant is allowed to speak, turns to Auersperg with feigned
astonishment (he is a true Gascon) and says: 'I don't recognize the
world-famous Austrian discipline, if you allow a subordinate to address
you like that!' It was a stroke of genius. Prince Auersperg feels his
dignity at stake and orders the sergeant to be arrested. Come, you must
own that this affair of the Thabor Bridge is delightful! It is not exactly
stupidity, nor rascality...."

* Bridgehead.

* (2) That their fire gets into his eyes and he

forgets that
he ought to be firing at the enemy.
 "It may be treachery," said Prince Andrew, vividly imagining the
gray overcoats, wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of firing,
and the glory that awaited him.
"Not that either. That puts the court in too bad a light," replied
Bilibin. "It's not treachery nor rascality nor stupidity: it is just as at
Ulm... it is..."—he seemed to be trying to find the right expression.
"C'est... c'est du Mack. Nous sommes mackes (It is... it is a bit of Mack.
We are Macked)," he concluded, feeling that he had produced a good
epigram, a fresh one that would be repeated. His hitherto puckered
brow became smooth as a sign of pleasure, and with a slight smile he
began to examine his nails.
"Where are you off to?" he said suddenly to Prince Andrew who had
risen and was going toward his room.
"I am going away."
"Where to?"
"To the army."
"But you meant to stay another two days?"
"But now I am off at once."
And Prince Andrew after giving directions about his departure went
to his room.
"Do you know, mon cher," said Bilibin following him, "I have been
thinking about you. Why are you going?"
And in proof of the conclusiveness of his opinion all the wrinkles
vanished from his face.
Prince Andrew looked inquiringly at him and gave no reply.
"Why are you going? I know you think it your duty to gallop back to
the army now that it is in danger. I understand that. Mon cher, it is
heroism!"
"Not at all," said Prince Andrew.
"But as you are a philosopher, be a consistent one, look at the other
side of the question and you will see that your duty, on the contrary, is
to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are no longer fit for
anything else.... You have not been ordered to return and have not been
dismissed from here; therefore, you can stay and go with us wherever
our ill luck takes us. They say we are going to Olmutz, and Olmutz is a
very decent town. You and I will travel comfortably in my caleche."
"Do stop joking, Bilibin," cried Bolkonski.
 "I am speaking sincerely as a friend! Consider! Where and why are
you going, when you might remain here? You are faced by one of two
things," and the skin over his left temple puckered, "either you will not
reach your regiment before peace is concluded, or you will share defeat
and disgrace with Kutuzov's whole army."
And Bilibin unwrinkled his temple, feeling that the dilemma was
insoluble.
"I cannot argue about it," replied Prince Andrew coldly, but he
thought: "I am going to save the army."
"My dear fellow, you are a hero!" said Bilibin.

CHAPTER XIII
That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War,
Bolkonski set off to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would find
it and fearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems.
In Brunn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the
heavy baggage was already being dispatched to Olmutz. Near
Hetzelsdorf Prince Andrew struck the high road along which the
Russian army was moving with great haste and in the greatest disorder.
The road was so obstructed with carts that it was impossible to get by
in a carriage. Prince Andrew took a horse and a Cossack from a
Cossack commander, and hungry and weary, making his way past the
baggage wagons, rode in search of the commander in chief and of his
own luggage. Very sinister reports of the position of the army reached
him as he went along, and the appearance of the troops in their
disorderly flight confirmed these rumors.
"Cette armee russe que l'or de l'Angleterre a transportee des
extremites de l'univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le meme sort—(le
sort de l'armee d'Ulm)." * He remembered these words in Bonaparte's
address to his army at the beginning of the campaign, and they awoke
in him astonishment at the genius of his hero, a feeling of wounded
pride, and a hope of glory. "And should there be nothing left but to
die?" he thought. "Well, if need be, I shall do it no worse than others."

* "That Russian army which has been brought

from the ends of
the earth by English gold, we shall cause to
share the same
 fate—(the fate of the army at Ulm)."

He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments,

carts, guns, artillery, and again baggage wagons and vehicles of all
kinds overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road, three and
sometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as ear
could reach, there were the rattle of wheels, the creaking of carts and
gun carriages, the tramp of horses, the crack of whips, shouts, the
urging of horses, and the swearing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers.
All along the sides of the road fallen horses were to be seen, some
flayed, some not, and broken-down carts beside which solitary soldiers
sat waiting for something, and again soldiers straggling from their
companies, crowds of whom set off to the neighboring villages, or
returned from them dragging sheep, fowls, hay, and bulging sacks. At
each ascent or descent of the road the crowds were yet denser and the
din of shouting more incessant. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud
pushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hoofs slipped,
traces broke, and lungs were strained with shouting. The officers
directing the march rode backward and forward between the carts.
Their voices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by
their faces that they despaired of the possibility of checking this
disorder.
"Here is our dear Orthodox Russian army," thought Bolkonski,
recalling Bilibin's words.
Wishing to find out where the commander in chief was, he rode up to
a convoy. Directly opposite to him came a strange one-horse vehicle,
evidently rigged up by soldiers out of any available materials and
looking like something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a caleche. A
soldier was driving, and a woman enveloped in shawls sat behind the
apron under the leather hood of the vehicle. Prince Andrew rode up and
was just putting his question to a soldier when his attention was
diverted by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the vehicle. An
officer in charge of transport was beating the soldier who was driving
the woman's vehicle for trying to get ahead of others, and the strokes of
his whip fell on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed
piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew she leaned out from behind the apron
and, waving her thin arms from under the woolen shawl, cried:
"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp!... For heaven's sake...
Protect me! What will become of us? I am the wife of the doctor of the
Seventh Chasseurs.... They won't let us pass, we are left behind and
have lost our people..."
"I'll flatten you into a pancake!" shouted the angry officer to the
soldier. "Turn back with your slut!"
 "Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me!... What does it all mean?" screamed
the doctor's wife.
"Kindly let this cart pass. Don't you see it's a woman?" said Prince
Andrew riding up to the officer.
The officer glanced at him, and without replying turned again to the
soldier. "I'll teach you to push on!... Back!"
"Let them pass, I tell you!" repeated Prince Andrew, compressing his
lips.
"And who are you?" cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy rage,
"who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here,
not you! Go back or I'll flatten you into a pancake," repeated he. This
expression evidently pleased him.
"That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp," came a voice from
behind.
Prince Andrew saw that the officer was in that state of senseless,
tipsy rage when a man does not know what he is saying. He saw that
his championship of the doctor's wife in her queer trap might expose
him to what he dreaded more than anything in the world—to ridicule;
but his instinct urged him on. Before the officer finished his sentence
Prince Andrew, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised
his riding whip.
"Kind...ly let—them—pass!"
The officer flourished his arm and hastily rode away.
"It's all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there's this
disorder," he muttered. "Do as you like."
Prince Andrew without lifting his eyes rode hastily away from the
doctor's wife, who was calling him her deliverer, and recalling with a
sense of disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene he
galloped on to the village where he was told that the commander in
chief was.
On reaching the village he dismounted and went to the nearest house,
intending to rest if but for a moment, eat something, and try to sort out
the stinging and tormenting thoughts that confused his mind. "This is a
mob of scoundrels and not an army," he was thinking as he went up to
the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by
name.
He turned round. Nesvitski's handsome face looked out of the little
window. Nesvitski, moving his moist lips as he chewed something, and
flourishing his arm, called him to enter.
 "Bolkonski! Bolkonski!... Don't you hear? Eh? Come quick..." he
shouted.
Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvitski and another
adjutant having something to eat. They hastily turned round to him
asking if he had any news. On their familiar faces he read agitation and
alarm. This was particularly noticeable on Nesvitski's usually laughing
countenance.
"Where is the commander in chief?" asked Bolkonski.
"Here, in that house," answered the adjutant.
"Well, is it true that it's peace and capitulation?" asked Nesvitski.
"I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that it was all I could
do to get here."
"And we, my dear boy! It's terrible! I was wrong to laugh at Mack,
we're getting it still worse," said Nesvitski. "But sit down and have
something to eat."
"You won't be able to find either your baggage or anything else now,
Prince. And God only knows where your man Peter is," said the other
adjutant.
"Where are headquarters?"
"We are to spend the night in Znaim."
"Well, I have got all I need into packs for two horses," said
Nesvitski. "They've made up splendid packs for me—fit to cross the
Bohemian mountains with. It's a bad lookout, old fellow! But what's the
matter with you? You must be ill to shiver like that," he added, noticing
that Prince Andrew winced as at an electric shock.
"It's nothing," replied Prince Andrew.
He had just remembered his recent encounter with the doctor's wife
and the convoy officer.
"What is the commander in chief doing here?" he asked.
"I can't make out at all," said Nesvitski.
"Well, all I can make out is that everything is abominable,
abominable, quite abominable!" said Prince Andrew, and he went off to
the house where the commander in chief was.
Passing by Kutuzov's carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of his
suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince
Andrew entered the passage. Kutuzov himself, he was told, was in the
house with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was the
Austrian general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little
Kozlovski was squatting on his heels in front of a clerk. The clerk, with
cuffs turned up, was hastily writing at a tub turned bottom upwards.
Kozlovski's face looked worn—he too had evidently not slept all night.
He glanced at Prince Andrew and did not even nod to him.
"Second line... have you written it?" he continued dictating to the
clerk. "The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian..."
"One can't write so fast, your honor," said the clerk, glancing angrily
and disrespectfully at Kozlovski.
Through the door came the sounds of Kutuzov's voice, excited and
dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the
sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlovski looked at him, the
disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the clerk and
Kozlovski were squatting on the floor by a tub so near to the
commander in chief, and from the noisy laughter of the Cossacks
holding the horses near the window, Prince Andrew felt that something
important and disastrous was about to happen.
He turned to Kozlovski with urgent questions.
"Immediately, Prince," said Kozlovski. "Dispositions for Bagration."
"What about capitulation?"
"Nothing of the sort. Orders are issued for a battle."
Prince Andrew moved toward the door from whence voices were
heard. Just as he was going to open it the sounds ceased, the door
opened, and Kutuzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the
doorway. Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutuzov but the
expression of the commander in chief's one sound eye showed him to
be so preoccupied with thoughts and anxieties as to be oblivious of his
presence. He looked straight at his adjutant's face without recognizing
him.
"Well, have you finished?" said he to Kozlovski.
"One moment, your excellency."
Bagration, a gaunt middle-aged man of medium height with a firm,
impassive face of Oriental type, came out after the commander in chief.
"I have the honor to present myself," repeated Prince Andrew rather
loudly, handing Kutuzov an envelope.
"Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!"
 Kutuzov went out into the porch with Bagration.
"Well, good-by, Prince," said he to Bagration. "My blessing, and
may Christ be with you in your great endeavor!"
His face suddenly softened and tears came into his eyes. With his left
hand he drew Bagration toward him, and with his right, on which he
wore a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a gesture
evidently habitual, offering his puffy cheek, but Bagration kissed him
on the neck instead.
"Christ be with you!" Kutuzov repeated and went toward his
carriage. "Get in with me," said he to Bolkonski.
"Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to
remain with Prince Bagration's detachment."
"Get in," said Kutuzov, and noticing that Bolkonski still delayed, he
added: "I need good officers myself, need them myself!"
They got into the carriage and drove for a few minutes in silence.
"There is still much, much before us," he said, as if with an old man's
penetration he understood all that was passing in Bolkonski's mind. "If
a tenth part of his detachment returns I shall thank God," he added as if
speaking to himself.
Prince Andrew glanced at Kutuzov's face only a foot distant from
him and involuntarily noticed the carefully washed seams of the scar
near his temple, where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull, and the
empty eye socket. "Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of those
men's death," thought Bolkonski.
"That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment," he said.
Kutuzov did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had
been saying, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, gently
swaying on the soft springs of the carriage, he turned to Prince Andrew.
There was not a trace of agitation on his face. With delicate irony he
questioned Prince Andrew about the details of his interview with the
Emperor, about the remarks he had heard at court concerning the
Krems affair, and about some ladies they both knew.

CHAPTER XIV
 On November 1 Kutuzov had received, through a spy, news that the
army he commanded was in an almost hopeless position. The spy
reported that the French, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were
advancing in immense force upon Kutuzov's line of communication
with the troops that were arriving from Russia. If Kutuzov decided to
remain at Krems, Napoleon's army of one hundred and fifty thousand
men would cut him off completely and surround his exhausted army of
forty thousand, and he would find himself in the position of Mack at
Ulm. If Kutuzov decided to abandon the road connecting him with the
troops arriving from Russia, he would have to march with no road into
unknown parts of the Bohemian mountains, defending himself against
superior forces of the enemy and abandoning all hope of a junction
with Buxhowden. If Kutuzov decided to retreat along the road from
Krems to Olmutz, to unite with the troops arriving from Russia, he
risked being forestalled on that road by the French who had crossed the
Vienna bridge, and encumbered by his baggage and transport, having to
accept battle on the march against an enemy three times as strong, who
would hem him in from two sides.
Kutuzov chose this latter course.
The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge,
were advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six
miles off on the line of Kutuzov's retreat. If he reached Znaim before
the French, there would be great hope of saving the army; to let the
French forestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army to
a disgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to forestall
the French with his whole army was impossible. The road for the
French from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road for
the Russians from Krems to Znaim.
The night he received the news, Kutuzov sent Bagration's vanguard,
four thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems-
Znaim to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration was to make this march
without resting, and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if
he succeeded in forestalling the French he was to delay them as long as
possible. Kutuzov himself with all his transport took the road to Znaim.
Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his
hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers by
the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrunn a
few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrunn from
Vienna. Kutuzov with his transport had still to march for some days
before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagration with his four thousand
hungry, exhausted men would have to detain for days the whole enemy
army that came upon him at Hollabrunn, which was clearly impossible.
But a freak of fate made the impossible possible. The success of the
trick that had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French
without a fight led Murat to try to deceive Kutuzov in a similar way.
Meeting Bagration's weak detachment on the Znaim road he supposed
it to be Kutuzov's whole army. To be able to crush it absolutely he
awaited the arrival of the rest of the troops who were on their way from
Vienna, and with this object offered a three days' truce on condition
that both armies should remain in position without moving. Murat
declared that negotiations for peace were already proceeding, and that
he therefore offered this truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count
Nostitz, the Austrian general occupying the advanced posts, believed
Murat's emissary and retired, leaving Bagration's division exposed.
Another emissary rode to the Russian line to announce the peace
negotiations and to offer the Russian army the three days' truce.
Bagration replied that he was not authorized either to accept or refuse a
truce and sent his adjutant to Kutuzov to report the offer he had
received.
A truce was Kutuzov's sole chance of gaining time, giving
Bagration's exhausted troops some rest, and letting the transport and
heavy convoys (whose movements were concealed from the French)
advance if but one stage nearer Znaim. The offer of a truce gave the
only, and a quite unexpected, chance of saving the army. On receiving
the news he immediately dispatched Adjutant General Wintzingerode,
who was in attendance on him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode was
not merely to agree to the truce but also to offer terms of capitulation,
and meanwhile Kutuzov sent his adjutants back to hasten to the utmost
the movements of the baggage trains of the entire army along the
Krems-Znaim road. Bagration's exhausted and hungry detachment,
which alone covered this movement of the transport and of the whole
army, had to remain stationary in face of an enemy eight times as
strong as itself.
Kutuzov's expectations that the proposals of capitulation (which
were in no way binding) might give time for part of the transport to
pass, and also that Murat's mistake would very soon be discovered,
proved correct. As soon as Bonaparte (who was at Schonbrunn, sixteen
miles from Hollabrunn) received Murat's dispatch with the proposal of
a truce and a capitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the following
letter to Murat:
Schonbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805,
at eight o'clock in the morning
To PRINCE MURAT,
I cannot find words to express to you my displeasure. You command
only my advance guard, and have no right to arrange an armistice
without my order. You are causing me to lose the fruits of a campaign.
Break the armistice immediately and march on the enemy. Inform him
that the general who signed that capitulation had no right to do so, and
that no one but the Emperor of Russia has that right.
If, however, the Emperor of Russia ratifies that convention, I will
ratify it; but it is only a trick. March on, destroy the Russian army....
You are in a position to seize its baggage and artillery.
The Russian Emperor's aide-de-camp is an impostor. Officers are
nothing when they have no powers; this one had none.... The Austrians
let themselves be tricked at the crossing of the Vienna bridge, you are
letting yourself be tricked by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor.
NAPOLEON
Bonaparte's adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to
Murat. Bonaparte himself, not trusting to his generals, moved with all
the Guards to the field of battle, afraid of letting a ready victim escape,
and Bagration's four thousand men merrily lighted campfires, dried and
warmed themselves, cooked their porridge for the first time for three
days, and not one of them knew or imagined what was in store for him.

CHAPTER XV
Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon Prince Andrew, who
had persisted in his request to Kutuzov, arrived at Grunth and reported
himself to Bagration. Bonaparte's adjutant had not yet reached Murat's
detachment and the battle had not yet begun. In Bagration's detachment
no one knew anything of the general position of affairs. They talked of
peace but did not believe in its possibility; others talked of a battle but
also disbelieved in the nearness of an engagement. Bagration, knowing
Bolkonski to be a favorite and trusted adjutant, received him with
distinction and special marks of favor, explaining to him that there
would probably be an engagement that day or the next, and giving him
full liberty to remain with him during the battle or to join the rearguard
and have an eye on the order of retreat, "which is also very important."
"However, there will hardly be an engagement today," said
Bagration as if to reassure Prince Andrew.
"If he is one of the ordinary little staff dandies sent to earn a medal
he can get his reward just as well in the rearguard, but if he wishes to
stay with me, let him... he'll be of use here if he's a brave officer,"
thought Bagration. Prince Andrew, without replying, asked the prince's
permission to ride round the position to see the disposition of the
forces, so as to know his bearings should he be sent to execute an order.
The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly dressed man with a
diamond ring on his forefinger, who was fond of speaking French
though he spoke it badly, offered to conduct Prince Andrew.
On all sides they saw rain-soaked officers with dejected faces who
seemed to be seeking something, and soldiers dragging doors, benches,
and fencing from the village.
"There now, Prince! We can't stop those fellows," said the staff
officer pointing to the soldiers. "The officers don't keep them in hand.
And there," he pointed to a sutler's tent, "they crowd in and sit. This
morning I turned them all out and now look, it's full again. I must go
there, Prince, and scare them a bit. It won't take a moment."
"Yes, let's go in and I will get myself a roll and some cheese," said
Prince Andrew who had not yet had time to eat anything.
"Why didn't you mention it, Prince? I would have offered you
something."
They dismounted and entered the tent. Several officers, with flushed
and weary faces, were sitting at the table eating and drinking.
"Now what does this mean, gentlemen?" said the staff officer, in the
reproachful tone of a man who has repeated the same thing more than
once. "You know it won't do to leave your posts like this. The prince
gave orders that no one should leave his post. Now you, Captain," and
he turned to a thin, dirty little artillery officer who without his boots (he
had given them to the canteen keeper to dry), in only his stockings, rose
when they entered, smiling not altogether comfortably.
"Well, aren't you ashamed of yourself, Captain Tushin?" he
continued. "One would think that as an artillery officer you would set a
good example, yet here you are without your boots! The alarm will be
sounded and you'll be in a pretty position without your boots!" (The
staff officer smiled.) "Kindly return to your posts, gentlemen, all of
you, all!" he added in a tone of command.
Prince Andrew smiled involuntarily as he looked at the artillery
officer Tushin, who silent and smiling, shifting from one stockinged
foot to the other, glanced inquiringly with his large, intelligent, kindly
eyes from Prince Andrew to the staff officer.
"The soldiers say it feels easier without boots," said Captain Tushin
smiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently wishing to adopt
a jocular tone. But before he had finished he felt that his jest was
unacceptable and had not come off. He grew confused.
 "Kindly return to your posts," said the staff officer trying to preserve
his gravity.
Prince Andrew glanced again at the artillery officer's small figure.
There was something peculiar about it, quite unsoldierly, rather comic,
but extremely attractive.
The staff officer and Prince Andrew mounted their horses and rode
on.
Having ridden beyond the village, continually meeting and
overtaking soldiers and officers of various regiments, they saw on their
left some entrenchments being thrown up, the freshly dug clay of which
showed up red. Several battalions of soldiers, in their shirt sleeves
despite the cold wind, swarmed in these earthworks like a host of white
ants; spadefuls of red clay were continually being thrown up from
behind the bank by unseen hands. Prince Andrew and the officer rode
up, looked at the entrenchment, and went on again. Just behind it they
came upon some dozens of soldiers, continually replaced by others,
who ran from the entrenchment. They had to hold their noses and put
their horses to a trot to escape from the poisoned atmosphere of these
latrines.
"Voila l'agrement des camps, monsieur le Prince," * said the staff
officer.

* "This is a pleasure one gets in camp, Prince."

They rode up the opposite hill. From there the French could already
be seen. Prince Andrew stopped and began examining the position.
"That's our battery," said the staff officer indicating the highest point.
"It's in charge of the queer fellow we saw without his boots. You can
see everything from there; let's go there, Prince."
"Thank you very much, I will go on alone," said Prince Andrew,
wishing to rid himself of this staff officer's company, "please don't
trouble yourself further."
The staff officer remained behind and Prince Andrew rode on alone.
The farther forward and nearer the enemy he went, the more orderly
and cheerful were the troops. The greatest disorder and depression had
been in the baggage train he had passed that morning on the Znaim
road seven miles away from the French. At Grunth also some
apprehension and alarm could be felt, but the nearer Prince Andrew
came to the French lines the more confident was the appearance of our
troops. The soldiers in their greatcoats were ranged in lines, the
sergeants major and company officers were counting the men, poking
the last man in each section in the ribs and telling him to hold his hand
up. Soldiers scattered over the whole place were dragging logs and
brushwood and were building shelters with merry chatter and laughter;
around the fires sat others, dressed and undressed, drying their shirts
and leg bands or mending boots or overcoats and crowding round the
boilers and porridge cookers. In one company dinner was ready, and
the soldiers were gazing eagerly at the steaming boiler, waiting till the
sample, which a quartermaster sergeant was carrying in a wooden bowl
to an officer who sat on a log before his shelter, had been tasted.
Another company, a lucky one for not all the companies had vodka,
crowded round a pockmarked, broad-shouldered sergeant major who,
tilting a keg, filled one after another the canteen lids held out to him.
The soldiers lifted the canteen lids to their lips with reverential faces,
emptied them, rolling the vodka in their mouths, and walked away from
the sergeant major with brightened expressions, licking their lips and
wiping them on the sleeves of their greatcoats. All their faces were as
serene as if all this were happening at home awaiting peaceful
encampment, and not within sight of the enemy before an action in
which at least half of them would be left on the field. After passing a
chasseur regiment and in the lines of the Kiev grenadiers—fine fellows
busy with similar peaceful affairs—near the shelter of the regimental
commander, higher than and different from the others, Prince Andrew
came out in front of a platoon of grenadiers before whom lay a naked
man. Two soldiers held him while two others were flourishing their
switches and striking him regularly on his bare back. The man shrieked
unnaturally. A stout major was pacing up and down the line, and
regardless of the screams kept repeating:
"It's a shame for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest,
honorable, and brave, but if he robs his fellows there is no honor in
him, he's a scoundrel. Go on! Go on!"
So the swishing sound of the strokes, and the desperate but unnatural
screams, continued.
"Go on, go on!" said the major.
A young officer with a bewildered and pained expression on his face
stepped away from the man and looked round inquiringly at the
adjutant as he rode by.
Prince Andrew, having reached the front line, rode along it. Our
front line and that of the enemy were far apart on the right and left
flanks, but in the center where the men with a flag of truce had passed
that morning, the lines were so near together that the men could see one
another's faces and speak to one another. Besides the soldiers who
formed the picket line on either side, there were many curious
onlookers who, jesting and laughing, stared at their strange foreign
enemies.
Since early morning—despite an injunction not to approach the
picket line—the officers had been unable to keep sight-seers away. The
soldiers forming the picket line, like showmen exhibiting a curiosity,
no longer looked at the French but paid attention to the sight-seers and
grew weary waiting to be relieved. Prince Andrew halted to have a look
at the French.
"Look! Look there!" one soldier was saying to another, pointing to a
Russian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer
and was rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. "Hark to
him jabbering! Fine, isn't it? It's all the Frenchy can do to keep up with
him. There now, Sidorov!"
"Wait a bit and listen. It's fine!" answered Sidorov, who was
considered an adept at French.
The soldier to whom the laughers referred was Dolokhov. Prince
Andrew recognized him and stopped to listen to what he was saying.
Dolokhov had come from the left flank where their regiment was
stationed, with his captain.
"Now then, go on, go on!" incited the officer, bending forward and
trying not to lose a word of the speech which was incomprehensible to
him. "More, please: more! What's he saying?"
Dolokhov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot
dispute with the French grenadier. They were naturally talking about
the campaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the
Russians, was trying to prove that the Russians had surrendered and
had fled all the way from Ulm, while Dolokhov maintained that the
Russians had not surrendered but had beaten the French.
"We have orders to drive you off here, and we shall drive you off,"
said Dolokhov.
"Only take care you and your Cossacks are not all captured!" said the
French grenadier.
The French onlookers and listeners laughed.
"We'll make you dance as we did under Suvorov...," * said
Dolokhov.

* "On vous fera danser."

"Qu' est-ce qu'il chante?" * asked a Frenchman.

 * "What's he singing about?"

"It's ancient history," said another, guessing that it referred to a

former war. "The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the
others..."
"Bonaparte..." began Dolokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.
"Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacre nom...!" cried he angrily.
"The devil skin your Emperor."
And Dolokhov swore at him in coarse soldier's Russian and
shouldering his musket walked away.
"Let us go, Ivan Lukich," he said to the captain.
"Ah, that's the way to talk French," said the picket soldiers. "Now,
Sidorov, you have a try!"
Sidorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber
meaningless sounds very fast: "Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, Kaska," he
said, trying to give an expressive intonation to his voice.
"Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!" came peals of such healthy
and good-humored laughter from the soldiers that it infected the French
involuntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed to be to
unload the muskets, explode the ammunition, and all return home as
quickly as possible.
But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and
entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered
cannon confronted one another as before.

CHAPTER XVI
Having ridden round the whole line from right flank to left, Prince
Andrew made his way up to the battery from which the staff officer had
told him the whole field could be seen. Here he dismounted, and
stopped beside the farthest of the four unlimbered cannon. Before the
guns an artillery sentry was pacing up and down; he stood at attention
when the officer arrived, but at a sign resumed his measured,
monotonous pacing. Behind the guns were their limbers and still farther
back picket ropes and artillerymen's bonfires. To the left, not far from
the farthest cannon, was a small, newly constructed wattle shed from
which came the sound of officers' voices in eager conversation.
It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and
the greater part of the enemy's opened out from this battery. Just facing
it, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schon Grabern could
be seen, and in three places to left and right the French troops amid the
smoke of their campfires, the greater part of whom were evidently in
the village itself and behind the hill. To the left from that village, amid
the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it was impossible
to see it clearly with the naked eye. Our right flank was posted on a
rather steep incline which dominated the French position. Our infantry
were stationed there, and at the farthest point the dragoons. In the
center, where Tushin's battery stood and from which Prince Andrew
was surveying the position, was the easiest and most direct descent and
ascent to the brook separating us from Schon Grabern. On the left our
troops were close to a copse, in which smoked the bonfires of our
infantry who were felling wood. The French line was wider than ours,
and it was plain that they could easily outflank us on both sides. Behind
our position was a steep and deep dip, making it difficult for artillery
and cavalry to retire. Prince Andrew took out his notebook and, leaning
on the cannon, sketched a plan of the position. He made some notes on
two points, intending to mention them to Bagration. His idea was, first,
to concentrate all the artillery in the center, and secondly, to withdraw
the cavalry to the other side of the dip. Prince Andrew, being always
near the commander in chief, closely following the mass movements
and general orders, and constantly studying historical accounts of
battles, involuntarily pictured to himself the course of events in the
forthcoming action in broad outline. He imagined only important
possibilities: "If the enemy attacks the right flank," he said to himself,
"the Kiev grenadiers and the Podolsk chasseurs must hold their position
till reserves from the center come up. In that case the dragoons could
successfully make a flank counterattack. If they attack our center we,
having the center battery on this high ground, shall withdraw the left
flank under its cover, and retreat to the dip by echelons." So he
reasoned.... All the time he had been beside the gun, he had heard the
voices of the officers distinctly, but as often happens had not
understood a word of what they were saying. Suddenly, however, he
was struck by a voice coming from the shed, and its tone was so sincere
that he could not but listen.
"No, friend," said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, a
familiar voice, "what I say is that if it were possible to know what is
beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That's so, friend."
Another, a younger voice, interrupted him: "Afraid or not, you can't
escape it anyhow."
 "All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people," said a third
manly voice interrupting them both. "Of course you artillery men are
very wise, because you can take everything along with you—vodka and
snacks."
And the owner of the manly voice, evidently an infantry officer,
laughed.
"Yes, one is afraid," continued the first speaker, he of the familiar
voice. "One is afraid of the unknown, that's what it is. Whatever we
may say about the soul going to the sky... we know there is no sky but
only an atmosphere."
The manly voice again interrupted the artillery officer.
"Well, stand us some of your herb vodka, Tushin," it said.
"Why," thought Prince Andrew, "that's the captain who stood up in
the sutler's hut without his boots." He recognized the agreeable,
philosophizing voice with pleasure.
"Some herb vodka? Certainly!" said Tushin. "But still, to conceive a
future life..."
He did not finish. Just then there was a whistle in the air; nearer and
nearer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a cannon ball, as if it had
not finished saying what was necessary, thudded into the ground near
the shed with super human force, throwing up a mass of earth. The
ground seemed to groan at the terrible impact.
And immediately Tushin, with a short pipe in the corner of his
mouth and his kind, intelligent face rather pale, rushed out of the shed
followed by the owner of the manly voice, a dashing infantry officer
who hurried off to his company, buttoning up his coat as he ran.

CHAPTER XVII
Mounting his horse again Prince Andrew lingered with the battery,
looking at the puff from the gun that had sent the ball. His eyes ran
rapidly over the wide space, but he only saw that the hitherto
motionless masses of the French now swayed and that there really was
a battery to their left. The smoke above it had not yet dispersed. Two
mounted Frenchmen, probably adjutants, were galloping up the hill. A
small but distinctly visible enemy column was moving down the hill,
probably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot had
not yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a report.
The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and galloped
back to Grunth to find Prince Bagration. He heard the cannonade
behind him growing louder and more frequent. Evidently our guns had
begun to reply. From the bottom of the slope, where the parleys had
taken place, came the report of musketry.
Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte's stern letter,
and Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had at once
moved his forces to attack the center and outflank both the Russian
wings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of the Emperor to
crush the contemptible detachment that stood before him.
"It has begun. Here it is!" thought Prince Andrew, feeling the blood
rush to his heart. "But where and how will my Toulon present itself?"
Passing between the companies that had been eating porridge and
drinking vodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the
same rapid movement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their
muskets ready, and on all their faces he recognized the same eagerness
that filled his heart. "It has begun! Here it is, dreadful but enjoyable!"
was what the face of each soldier and each officer seemed to say.
Before he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up,
he saw, in the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men coming
toward him. The foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap
and riding a white horse, was Prince Bagration. Prince Andrew
stopped, waiting for him to come up; Prince Bagration reined in his
horse and recognizing Prince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked
ahead while Prince Andrew told him what he had seen.
The feeling, "It has begun! Here it is!" was seen even on Prince
Bagration's hard brown face with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes.
Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face and
wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking and
feeling at that moment. "Is there anything at all behind that impassive
face?" Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. Prince Bagration
bent his head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrew told him,
and said, "Very good!" in a tone that seemed to imply that everything
that took place and was reported to him was exactly what he had
foreseen. Prince Andrew, out of breath with his rapid ride, spoke
quickly. Prince Bagration, uttering his words with an Oriental accent,
spoke particularly slowly, as if to impress the fact that there was no
need to hurry. However, he put his horse to a trot in the direction of
Tushin's battery. Prince Andrew followed with the suite. Behind Prince
Bagration rode an officer of the suite, the prince's personal adjutant,
Zherkov, an orderly officer, the staff officer on duty, riding a fine
bobtailed horse, and a civilian—an accountant who had asked
permission to be present at the battle out of curiosity. The accountant, a
stout, full-faced man, looked around him with a naive smile of
satisfaction and presented a strange appearance among the hussars,
Cossacks, and adjutants, in his camlet coat, as he jolted on his horse
with a convoy officer's saddle.
"He wants to see a battle," said Zherkov to Bolkonski, pointing to the
accountant, "but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomach already."
"Oh, leave off!" said the accountant with a beaming but rather
cunning smile, as if flattered at being made the subject of Zherkov's
joke, and purposely trying to appear stupider than he really was.
"It is very strange, mon Monsieur Prince," said the staff officer. (He
remembered that in French there is some peculiar way of addressing a
prince, but could not get it quite right.)
By this time they were all approaching Tushin's battery, and a ball
struck the ground in front of them.
"What's that that has fallen?" asked the accountant with a naive
smile.
"A French pancake," answered Zherkov.
"So that's what they hit with?" asked the accountant. "How awful!"
He seemed to swell with satisfaction. He had hardly finished
speaking when they again heard an unexpectedly violent whistling
which suddenly ended with a thud into something soft... f-f-flop! and a
Cossack, riding a little to their right and behind the accountant, crashed
to earth with his horse. Zherkov and the staff officer bent over their
saddles and turned their horses away. The accountant stopped, facing
the Cossack, and examined him with attentive curiosity. The Cossack
was dead, but the horse still struggled.
Prince Bagration screwed up his eyes, looked round, and, seeing the
cause of the confusion, turned away with indifference, as if to say, "Is it
worth while noticing trifles?" He reined in his horse with the case of a
skillful rider and, slightly bending over, disengaged his saber which
had caught in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned saber of a kind no
longer in general use. Prince Andrew remembered the story of Suvorov
giving his saber to Bagration in Italy, and the recollection was
particularly pleasant at that moment. They had reached the battery at
which Prince Andrew had been when he examined the battlefield.
"Whose company?" asked Prince Bagration of an artilleryman
standing by the ammunition wagon.
 He asked, "Whose company?" but he really meant, "Are you
frightened here?" and the artilleryman understood him.
"Captain Tushin's, your excellency!" shouted the red-haired, freckled
gunner in a merry voice, standing to attention.
"Yes, yes," muttered Bagration as if considering something, and he
rode past the limbers to the farthest cannon.
As he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him and
his suite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun they could
see the gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quickly back to its
former position. A huge, broad-shouldered gunner, Number One,
holding a mop, his legs far apart, sprang to the wheel; while Number
Two with a trembling hand placed a charge in the cannon's mouth. The
short, round-shouldered Captain Tushin, stumbling over the tail of the
gun carriage, moved forward and, not noticing the general, looked out
shading his eyes with his small hand.
"Lift it two lines more and it will be just right," cried he in a feeble
voice to which he tried to impart a dashing note, ill suited to his weak
figure. "Number Two!" he squeaked. "Fire, Medvedev!"
Bagration called to him, and Tushin, raising three fingers to his cap
with a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a military salute but
like a priest's benediction, approached the general. Though Tushin's
guns had been intended to cannonade the valley, he was firing
incendiary balls at the village of Schon Grabern visible just opposite, in
front of which large masses of French were advancing.
No one had given Tushin orders where and at what to fire, but after
consulting his sergeant major, Zakharchenko, for whom he had great
respect, he had decided that it would be a good thing to set fire to the
village. "Very good!" said Bagration in reply to the officer's report, and
began deliberately to examine the whole battlefield extended before
him. The French had advanced nearest on our right. Below the height
on which the Kiev regiment was stationed, in the hollow where the
rivulet flowed, the soul-stirring rolling and crackling of musketry was
heard, and much farther to the right beyond the dragoons, the officer of
the suite pointed out to Bagration a French column that was outflanking
us. To the left the horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince
Bagration ordered two battalions from the center to be sent to reinforce
the right flank. The officer of the suite ventured to remark to the prince
that if these battalions went away, the guns would remain without
support. Prince Bagration turned to the officer and with his dull eyes
looked at him in silence. It seemed to Prince Andrew that the officer's
remark was just and that really no answer could be made to it. But at
that moment an adjutant galloped up with a message from the
commander of the regiment in the hollow and news that immense
masses of the French were coming down upon them and that his
regiment was in disorder and was retreating upon the Kiev grenadiers.
Prince Bagration bowed his head in sign of assent and approval. He
rode off at a walk to the right and sent an adjutant to the dragoons with
orders to attack the French. But this adjutant returned half an hour later
with the news that the commander of the dragoons had already
retreated beyond the dip in the ground, as a heavy fire had been opened
on him and he was losing men uselessly, and so had hastened to throw
some sharpshooters into the wood.
"Very good!" said Bagration.
As he was leaving the battery, firing was heard on the left also, and
as it was too far to the left flank for him to have time to go there
himself, Prince Bagration sent Zherkov to tell the general in command
(the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutuzov at Braunau) that
he must retreat as quickly as possible behind the hollow in the rear, as
the right flank would probably not be able to withstand the enemy's
attack very long. About Tushin and the battalion that had been in
support of his battery all was forgotten. Prince Andrew listened
attentively to Bagration's colloquies with the commanding officers and
the orders he gave them and, to his surprise, found that no orders were
really given, but that Prince Bagration tried to make it appear that
everything done by necessity, by accident, or by the will of subordinate
commanders was done, if not by his direct command, at least in accord
with his intentions. Prince Andrew noticed, however, that though what
happened was due to chance and was independent of the commander's
will, owing to the tact Bagration showed, his presence was very
valuable. Officers who approached him with disturbed countenances
became calm; soldiers and officers greeted him gaily, grew more
cheerful in his presence, and were evidently anxious to display their
courage before him.

CHAPTER XVIII
Prince Bagration, having reached the highest point of our right flank,
began riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard but
where on account of the smoke nothing could be seen. The nearer they
got to the hollow the less they could see but the more they felt the
nearness of the actual battlefield. They began to meet wounded men.
One with a bleeding head and no cap was being dragged along by two
soldiers who supported him under the arms. There was a gurgle in his
throat and he was spitting blood. A bullet had evidently hit him in the
throat or mouth. Another was walking sturdily by himself but without
his musket, groaning aloud and swinging his arm which had just been
hurt, while blood from it was streaming over his greatcoat as from a
bottle. He had that moment been wounded and his face showed fear
rather than suffering. Crossing a road they descended a steep incline
and saw several men lying on the ground; they also met a crowd of
soldiers some of whom were unwounded. The soldiers were ascending
the hill breathing heavily, and despite the general's presence were
talking loudly and gesticulating. In front of them rows of gray cloaks
were already visible through the smoke, and an officer catching sight of
Bagration rushed shouting after the crowd of retreating soldiers,
ordering them back. Bagration rode up to the ranks along which shots
crackled now here and now there, drowning the sound of voices and the
shouts of command. The whole air reeked with smoke. The excited
faces of the soldiers were blackened with it. Some were using their
ramrods, others putting powder on the touchpans or taking charges
from their pouches, while others were firing, though who they were
firing at could not be seen for the smoke which there was no wind to
carry away. A pleasant humming and whistling of bullets were often
heard. "What is this?" thought Prince Andrew approaching the crowd
of soldiers. "It can't be an attack, for they are not moving; it can't be a
square—for they are not drawn up for that."
The commander of the regiment, a thin, feeble-looking old man with
a pleasant smile—his eyelids drooping more than half over his old
eyes, giving him a mild expression, rode up to Bagration and welcomed
him as a host welcomes an honored guest. He reported that his regiment
had been attacked by French cavalry and that, though the attack had
been repulsed, he had lost more than half his men. He said the attack
had been repulsed, employing this military term to describe what had
occurred to his regiment, but in reality he did not himself know what
had happened during that half-hour to the troops entrusted to him, and
could not say with certainty whether the attack had been repulsed or his
regiment had been broken up. All he knew was that at the
commencement of the action balls and shells began flying all over his
regiment and hitting men and that afterwards someone had shouted
"Cavalry!" and our men had begun firing. They were still firing, not at
the cavalry which had disappeared, but at French infantry who had
come into the hollow and were firing at our men. Prince Bagration
bowed his head as a sign that this was exactly what he had desired and
expected. Turning to his adjutant he ordered him to bring down the two
battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs whom they had just passed. Prince
Andrew was struck by the changed expression on Prince Bagration's
face at this moment. It expressed the concentrated and happy resolution
you see on the face of a man who on a hot day takes a final run before
plunging into the water. The dull, sleepy expression was no longer
there, nor the affectation of profound thought. The round, steady,
hawk's eyes looked before him eagerly and rather disdainfully, not
resting on anything although his movements were still slow and
measured.
The commander of the regiment turned to Prince Bagration,
entreating him to go back as it was too dangerous to remain where they
were. "Please, your excellency, for God's sake!" he kept saying,
glancing for support at an officer of the suite who turned away from
him. "There, you see!" and he drew attention to the bullets whistling,
singing, and hissing continually around them. He spoke in the tone of
entreaty and reproach that a carpenter uses to a gentleman who has
picked up an ax: "We are used to it, but you, sir, will blister your
hands." He spoke as if those bullets could not kill him, and his half-
closed eyes gave still more persuasiveness to his words. The staff
officer joined in the colonel's appeals, but Bagration did not reply; he
only gave an order to cease firing and re-form, so as to give room for
the two approaching battalions. While he was speaking, the curtain of
smoke that had concealed the hollow, driven by a rising wind, began to
move from right to left as if drawn by an invisible hand, and the hill
opposite, with the French moving about on it, opened out before them.
All eyes fastened involuntarily on this French column advancing
against them and winding down over the uneven ground. One could
already see the soldiers' shaggy caps, distinguish the officers from the
men, and see the standard flapping against its staff.
"They march splendidly," remarked someone in Bagration's suite.
The head of the column had already descended into the hollow. The
clash would take place on this side of it...
The remains of our regiment which had been in action rapidly
formed up and moved to the right; from behind it, dispersing the
laggards, came two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs in fine order.
Before they had reached Bagration, the weighty tread of the mass of
men marching in step could be heard. On their left flank, nearest to
Bagration, marched a company commander, a fine round-faced man,
with a stupid and happy expression—the same man who had rushed out
of the wattle shed. At that moment he was clearly thinking of nothing
but how dashing a fellow he would appear as he passed the
commander.
With the self-satisfaction of a man on parade, he stepped lightly with
his muscular legs as if sailing along, stretching himself to his full
height without the smallest effort, his ease contrasting with the heavy
tread of the soldiers who were keeping step with him. He carried close
to his leg a narrow unsheathed sword (small, curved, and not like a real
weapon) and looked now at the superior officers and now back at the
men without losing step, his whole powerful body turning flexibly. It
was as if all the powers of his soul were concentrated on passing the
commander in the best possible manner, and feeling that he was doing
it well he was happy. "Left... left... left..." he seemed to repeat to
himself at each alternate step; and in time to this, with stern but varied
faces, the wall of soldiers burdened with knapsacks and muskets
marched in step, and each one of these hundreds of soldiers seemed to
be repeating to himself at each alternate step, "Left... left... left..." A fat
major skirted a bush, puffing and falling out of step; a soldier who had
fallen behind, his face showing alarm at his defection, ran at a trot,
panting to catch up with his company. A cannon ball, cleaving the air,
flew over the heads of Bagration and his suite, and fell into the column
to the measure of "Left... left!" "Close up!" came the company
commander's voice in jaunty tones. The soldiers passed in a semicircle
round something where the ball had fallen, and an old trooper on the
flank, a noncommissioned officer who had stopped beside the dead
men, ran to catch up his line and, falling into step with a hop, looked
back angrily, and through the ominous silence and the regular tramp of
feet beating the ground in unison, one seemed to hear left... left... left.
"Well done, lads!" said Prince Bagration.
"Glad to do our best, your ex'len-lency!" came a confused shout from
the ranks. A morose soldier marching on the left turned his eyes on
Bagration as he shouted, with an expression that seemed to say: "We
know that ourselves!" Another, without looking round, as though
fearing to relax, shouted with his mouth wide open and passed on.
The order was given to halt and down knapsacks.
Bagration rode round the ranks that had marched past him and
dismounted. He gave the reins to a Cossack, took off and handed over
his felt coat, stretched his legs, and set his cap straight. The head of the
French column, with its officers leading, appeared from below the hill.
"Forward, with God!" said Bagration, in a resolute, sonorous voice,
turning for a moment to the front line, and slightly swinging his arms,
he went forward uneasily over the rough field with the awkward gait of
a cavalryman. Prince Andrew felt that an invisible power was leading
him forward, and experienced great happiness.
The French were already near. Prince Andrew, walking beside
Bagration, could clearly distinguish their bandoliers, red epaulets, and
even their faces. (He distinctly saw an old French officer who, with
gaitered legs and turned-out toes, climbed the hill with difficulty.)
Prince Bagration gave no further orders and silently continued to walk
on in front of the ranks. Suddenly one shot after another rang out from
the French, smoke appeared all along their uneven ranks, and musket
shots sounded. Several of our men fell, among them the round-faced
officer who had marched so gaily and complacently. But at the moment
the first report was heard, Bagration looked round and shouted,
"Hurrah!"
"Hurrah—ah!—ah!" rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and
passing Bagration and racing one another they rushed in an irregular
but joyous and eager crowd down the hill at their disordered foe.

CHAPTER XIX
The attack of the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right
flank. In the center Tushin's forgotten battery, which had managed to
set fire to the Schon Grabern village, delayed the French advance. The
French were putting out the fire which the wind was spreading, and
thus gave us time to retreat. The retirement of the center to the other
side of the dip in the ground at the rear was hurried and noisy, but the
different companies did not get mixed. But our left—which consisted
of the Azov and Podolsk infantry and the Pavlograd hussars—was
simultaneously attacked and outflanked by superior French forces
under Lannes and was thrown into confusion. Bagration had sent
Zherkov to the general commanding that left flank with orders to retreat
immediately.
Zherkov, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse about
and galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagration than his courage
failed him. He was seized by panic and could not go where it was
dangerous.
Having reached the left flank, instead of going to the front where the
firing was, he began to look for the general and his staff where they
could not possibly be, and so did not deliver the order.
The command of the left flank belonged by seniority to the
commander of the regiment Kutuzov had reviewed at Braunau and in
which Dolokhov was serving as a private. But the command of the
extreme left flank had been assigned to the commander of the
Pavlograd regiment in which Rostov was serving, and a
misunderstanding arose. The two commanders were much exasperated
with one another and, long after the action had begun on the right flank
and the French were already advancing, were engaged in discussion
with the sole object of offending one another. But the regiments, both
cavalry and infantry, were by no means ready for the impending action.
From privates to general they were not expecting a battle and were
engaged in peaceful occupations, the cavalry feeding the horses and the
infantry collecting wood.
 "He higher iss dan I in rank," said the German colonel of the hussars,
flushing and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up, "so let him do
what he vill, but I cannot sacrifice my hussars... Bugler, sount ze
retreat!"
But haste was becoming imperative. Cannon and musketry, mingling
together, thundered on the right and in the center, while the capotes of
Lannes' sharpshooters were already seen crossing the milldam and
forming up within twice the range of a musket shot. The general in
command of the infantry went toward his horse with jerky steps, and
having mounted drew himself up very straight and tall and rode to the
Pavlograd commander. The commanders met with polite bows but with
secret malevolence in their hearts.
"Once again, Colonel," said the general, "I can't leave half my men
in the wood. I beg of you, I beg of you," he repeated, "to occupy the
position and prepare for an attack."
"I peg of you yourself not to mix in vot is not your business!"
suddenly replied the irate colonel. "If you vere in the cavalry..."
"I am not in the cavalry, Colonel, but I am a Russian general and if
you are not aware of the fact..."
"Quite avare, your excellency," suddenly shouted the colonel,
touching his horse and turning purple in the face. "Vill you be so goot
to come to ze front and see dat zis position iss no goot? I don't vish to
destroy my men for your pleasure!"
"You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not considering my own pleasure
and I won't allow it to be said!"
Taking the colonel's outburst as a challenge to his courage, the
general expanded his chest and rode, frowning, beside him to the front
line, as if their differences would be settled there amongst the bullets.
They reached the front, several bullets sped over them, and they halted
in silence. There was nothing fresh to be seen from the line, for from
where they had been before it had been evident that it was impossible
for cavalry to act among the bushes and broken ground, as well as that
the French were outflanking our left. The general and colonel looked
sternly and significantly at one another like two fighting cocks
preparing for battle, each vainly trying to detect signs of cowardice in
the other. Both passed the examination successfully. As there was
nothing to be said, and neither wished to give occasion for it to be
alleged that he had been the first to leave the range of fire, they would
have remained there for a long time testing each other's courage had it
not been that just then they heard the rattle of musketry and a muffled
shout almost behind them in the wood. The French had attacked the
men collecting wood in the copse. It was no longer possible for the
hussars to retreat with the infantry. They were cut off from the line of
retreat on the left by the French. However inconvenient the position, it
was now necessary to attack in order to cut away through for
themselves.
The squadron in which Rostov was serving had scarcely time to
mount before it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as at the Enns
bridge, there was nothing between the squadron and the enemy, and
again that terrible dividing line of uncertainty and fear—resembling the
line separating the living from the dead—lay between them. All were
conscious of this unseen line, and the question whether they would
cross it or not, and how they would cross it, agitated them all.
The colonel rode to the front, angrily gave some reply to questions
put to him by the officers, and, like a man desperately insisting on
having his own way, gave an order. No one said anything definite, but
the rumor of an attack spread through the squadron. The command to
form up rang out and the sabers whizzed as they were drawn from their
scabbards. Still no one moved. The troops of the left flank, infantry and
hussars alike, felt that the commander did not himself know what to do,
and this irresolution communicated itself to the men.
"If only they would be quick!" thought Rostov, feeling that at last the
time had come to experience the joy of an attack of which he had so
often heard from his fellow hussars.
"Fo'ward, with God, lads!" rang out Denisov's voice. "At a twot
fo'ward!"
The horses' croups began to sway in the front line. Rook pulled at the
reins and started of his own accord.
Before him, on the right, Rostov saw the front lines of his hussars
and still farther ahead a dark line which he could not see distinctly but
took to be the enemy. Shots could be heard, but some way off.
"Faster!" came the word of command, and Rostov felt Rook's flanks
drooping as he broke into a gallop.
Rostov anticipated his horse's movements and became more and
more elated. He had noticed a solitary tree ahead of him. This tree had
been in the middle of the line that had seemed so terrible—and now he
had crossed that line and not only was there nothing terrible, but
everything was becoming more and more happy and animated. "Oh,
how I will slash at him!" thought Rostov, gripping the hilt of his saber.
"Hur-a-a-a-ah!" came a roar of voices. "Let anyone come my way
now," thought Rostov driving his spurs into Rook and letting him go at
a full gallop so that he outstripped the others. Ahead, the enemy was
already visible. Suddenly something like a birch broom seemed to
sweep over the squadron. Rostov raised his saber, ready to strike, but at
that instant the trooper Nikitenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away
from him, and Rostov felt as in a dream that he continued to be carried
forward with unnatural speed but yet stayed on the same spot. From
behind him Bondarchuk, an hussar he knew, jolted against him and
looked angrily at him. Bondarchuk's horse swerved and galloped past.
"How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!" Rostov
asked and answered at the same instant. He was alone in the middle of
a field. Instead of the moving horses and hussars' backs, he saw nothing
before him but the motionless earth and the stubble around him. There
was warm blood under his arm. "No, I am wounded and the horse is
killed." Rook tried to rise on his forelegs but fell back, pinning his
rider's leg. Blood was flowing from his head; he struggled but could not
rise. Rostov also tried to rise but fell back, his sabretache having
become entangled in the saddle. Where our men were, and where the
French, he did not know. There was no one near.
Having disentangled his leg, he rose. "Where, on which side, was
now the line that had so sharply divided the two armies?" he asked
himself and could not answer. "Can something bad have happened to
me?" he wondered as he got up: and at that moment he felt that
something superfluous was hanging on his benumbed left arm. The
wrist felt as if it were not his. He examined his hand carefully, vainly
trying to find blood on it. "Ah, here are people coming," he thought
joyfully, seeing some men running toward him. "They will help me!" In
front came a man wearing a strange shako and a blue cloak, swarthy,
sunburned, and with a hooked nose. Then came two more, and many
more running behind. One of them said something strange, not in
Russian. In among the hindmost of these men wearing similar shakos
was a Russian hussar. He was being held by the arms and his horse was
being led behind him.
"It must be one of ours, a prisoner. Yes. Can it be that they will take
me too? Who are these men?" thought Rostov, scarcely believing his
eyes. "Can they be French?" He looked at the approaching Frenchmen,
and though but a moment before he had been galloping to get at them
and hack them to pieces, their proximity now seemed so awful that he
could not believe his eyes. "Who are they? Why are they running? Can
they be coming at me? And why? To kill me? Me whom everyone is so
fond of?" He remembered his mother's love for him, and his family's,
and his friends', and the enemy's intention to kill him seemed
impossible. "But perhaps they may do it!" For more than ten seconds he
stood not moving from the spot or realizing the situation. The foremost
Frenchman, the one with the hooked nose, was already so close that the
expression of his face could be seen. And the excited, alien face of that
man, his bayonet hanging down, holding his breath, and running so
lightly, frightened Rostov. He seized his pistol and, instead of firing it,
flung it at the Frenchman and ran with all his might toward the bushes.
He did not now run with the feeling of doubt and conflict with which
he had trodden the Enns bridge, but with the feeling of a hare fleeing
from the hounds. One single sentiment, that of fear for his young and
happy life, possessed his whole being. Rapidly leaping the furrows, he
fled across the field with the impetuosity he used to show at catchplay,
now and then turning his good-natured, pale, young face to look back.
A shudder of terror went through him: "No, better not look," he
thought, but having reached the bushes he glanced round once more.
The French had fallen behind, and just as he looked round the first man
changed his run to a walk and, turning, shouted something loudly to a
comrade farther back. Rostov paused. "No, there's some mistake,"
thought he. "They can't have wanted to kill me." But at the same time,
his left arm felt as heavy as if a seventy-pound weight were tied to it.
He could run no more. The Frenchman also stopped and took aim.
Rostov closed his eyes and stooped down. One bullet and then another
whistled past him. He mustered his last remaining strength, took hold
of his left hand with his right, and reached the bushes. Behind these
were some Russian sharpshooters.

CHAPTER XX
The infantry regiments that had been caught unawares in the
outskirts of the wood ran out of it, the different companies getting
mixed, and retreated as a disorderly crowd. One soldier, in his fear,
uttered the senseless cry, "Cut off!" that is so terrible in battle, and that
word infected the whole crowd with a feeling of panic.
"Surrounded! Cut off? We're lost!" shouted the fugitives.
The moment he heard the firing and the cry from behind, the general
realized that something dreadful had happened to his regiment, and the
thought that he, an exemplary officer of many years' service who had
never been to blame, might be held responsible at headquarters for
negligence or inefficiency so staggered him that, forgetting the
recalcitrant cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general, and above all
quite forgetting the danger and all regard for self-preservation, he
clutched the crupper of his saddle and, spurring his horse, galloped to
the regiment under a hail of bullets which fell around, but fortunately
missed him. His one desire was to know what was happening and at
any cost correct, or remedy, the mistake if he had made one, so that he,
an exemplary officer of twenty-two years' service, who had never been
censured, should not be held to blame.
 Having galloped safely through the French, he reached a field behind
the copse across which our men, regardless of orders, were running and
descending the valley. That moment of moral hesitation which decides
the fate of battles had arrived. Would this disorderly crowd of soldiers
attend to the voice of their commander, or would they, disregarding
him, continue their flight? Despite his desperate shouts that used to
seem so terrible to the soldiers, despite his furious purple countenance
distorted out of all likeness to his former self, and the flourishing of his
saber, the soldiers all continued to run, talking, firing into the air, and
disobeying orders. The moral hesitation which decided the fate of
battles was evidently culminating in a panic.
The general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting and of the
powder smoke and stopped in despair. Everything seemed lost. But at
that moment the French who were attacking, suddenly and without any
apparent reason, ran back and disappeared from the outskirts, and
Russian sharpshooters showed themselves in the copse. It was
Timokhin's company, which alone had maintained its order in the wood
and, having lain in ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French
unexpectedly. Timokhin, armed only with a sword, had rushed at the
enemy with such a desperate cry and such mad, drunken determination
that, taken by surprise, the French had thrown down their muskets and
run. Dolokhov, running beside Timokhin, killed a Frenchman at close
quarters and was the first to seize the surrendering French officer by his
collar. Our fugitives returned, the battalions re-formed, and the French
who had nearly cut our left flank in half were for the moment repulsed.
Our reserve units were able to join up, and the fight was at an end. The
regimental commander and Major Ekonomov had stopped beside a
bridge, letting the retreating companies pass by them, when a soldier
came up and took hold of the commander's stirrup, almost leaning
against him. The man was wearing a bluish coat of broadcloth, he had
no knapsack or cap, his head was bandaged, and over his shoulder a
French munition pouch was slung. He had an officer's sword in his
hand. The soldier was pale, his blue eyes looked impudently into the
commander's face, and his lips were smiling. Though the commander
was occupied in giving instructions to Major Ekonomov, he could not
help taking notice of the soldier.
"Your excellency, here are two trophies," said Dolokhov, pointing to
the French sword and pouch. "I have taken an officer prisoner. I
stopped the company." Dolokhov breathed heavily from weariness and
spoke in abrupt sentences. "The whole company can bear witness. I beg
you will remember this, your excellency!"
"All right, all right," replied the commander, and turned to Major
Ekonomov.
 But Dolokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around
his head, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed on his hair.
"A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember, your
excellency!"
Tushin's battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of the
action did Prince Bagration, still hearing the cannonade in the center,
send his orderly staff officer, and later Prince Andrew also, to order the
battery to retire as quickly as possible. When the supports attached to
Tushin's battery had been moved away in the middle of the action by
someone's order, the battery had continued firing and was only not
captured by the French because the enemy could not surmise that
anyone could have the effrontery to continue firing from four quite
undefended guns. On the contrary, the energetic action of that battery
led the French to suppose that here—in the center—the main Russian
forces were concentrated. Twice they had attempted to attack this point,
but on each occasion had been driven back by grapeshot from the four
isolated guns on the hillock.
Soon after Prince Bagration had left him, Tushin had succeeded in
setting fire to Schon Grabern.
"Look at them scurrying! It's burning! Just see the smoke! Fine!
Grand! Look at the smoke, the smoke!" exclaimed the artillerymen,
brightening up.
All the guns, without waiting for orders, were being fired in the
direction of the conflagration. As if urging each other on, the soldiers
cried at each shot: "Fine! That's good! Look at it... Grand!" The fire,
fanned by the breeze, was rapidly spreading. The French columns that
had advanced beyond the village went back; but as though in revenge
for this failure, the enemy placed ten guns to the right of the village and
began firing them at Tushin's battery.
In their childlike glee, aroused by the fire and their luck in
successfully cannonading the French, our artillerymen only noticed this
battery when two balls, and then four more, fell among our guns, one
knocking over two horses and another tearing off a munition-wagon
driver's leg. Their spirits once roused were, however, not diminished,
but only changed character. The horses were replaced by others from a
reserve gun carriage, the wounded were carried away, and the four guns
were turned against the ten-gun battery. Tushin's companion officer had
been killed at the beginning of the engagement and within an hour
seventeen of the forty men of the guns' crews had been disabled, but the
artillerymen were still as merry and lively as ever. Twice they noticed
the French appearing below them, and then they fired grapeshot at
them.
 Little Tushin, moving feebly and awkwardly, kept telling his orderly
to "refill my pipe for that one!" and then, scattering sparks from it, ran
forward shading his eyes with his small hand to look at the French.
"Smack at 'em, lads!" he kept saying, seizing the guns by the wheels
and working the screws himself.
Amid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports which always
made him jump, Tushin not taking his pipe from his mouth ran from
gun to gun, now aiming, now counting the charges, now giving orders
about replacing dead or wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones, and
shouting in his feeble voice, so high pitched and irresolute. His face
grew more and more animated. Only when a man was killed or
wounded did he frown and turn away from the sight, shouting angrily at
the men who, as is always the case, hesitated about lifting the injured or
dead. The soldiers, for the most part handsome fellows and, as is
always the case in an artillery company, a head and shoulders taller and
twice as broad as their officer—all looked at their commander like
children in an embarrassing situation, and the expression on his face
was invariably reflected on theirs.
Owing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration and
activity, Tushin did not experience the slightest unpleasant sense of
fear, and the thought that he might be killed or badly wounded never
occurred to him. On the contrary, he became more and more elated. It
seemed to him that it was a very long time ago, almost a day, since he
had first seen the enemy and fired the first shot, and that the corner of
the field he stood on was well-known and familiar ground. Though he
thought of everything, considered everything, and did everything the
best of officers could do in his position, he was in a state akin to
feverish delirium or drunkenness.
From the deafening sounds of his own guns around him, the whistle
and thud of the enemy's cannon balls, from the flushed and perspiring
faces of the crew bustling round the guns, from the sight of the blood of
men and horses, from the little puffs of smoke on the enemy's side
(always followed by a ball flying past and striking the earth, a man, a
gun, a horse), from the sight of all these things a fantastic world of his
own had taken possession of his brain and at that moment afforded him
pleasure. The enemy's guns were in his fancy not guns but pipes from
which occasional puffs were blown by an invisible smoker.
"There... he's puffing again," muttered Tushin to himself, as a small
cloud rose from the hill and was borne in a streak to the left by the
wind.
"Now look out for the ball... we'll throw it back."
 "What do you want, your honor?" asked an artilleryman, standing
close by, who heard him muttering.
"Nothing... only a shell..." he answered.
"Come along, our Matvevna!" he said to himself. "Matvevna" * was
the name his fancy gave to the farthest gun of the battery, which was
large and of an old pattern. The French swarming round their guns
seemed to him like ants. In that world, the handsome drunkard Number
One of the second gun's crew was "uncle"; Tushin looked at him more
often than at anyone else and took delight in his every movement. The
sound of musketry at the foot of the hill, now diminishing, now
increasing, seemed like someone's breathing. He listened intently to the
ebb and flow of these sounds.

* Daughter of Matthew.

"Ah! Breathing again, breathing!" he muttered to himself.

He imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful man who was
throwing cannon balls at the French with both hands.
"Now then, Matvevna, dear old lady, don't let me down!" he was
saying as he moved from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar voice
called above his head: "Captain Tushin! Captain!"
Tushin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer who had
turned him out of the booth at Grunth. He was shouting in a gasping
voice:
"Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat, and you..."
"Why are they down on me?" thought Tushin, looking in alarm at his
superior.
"I... don't..." he muttered, holding up two fingers to his cap. "I..."
But the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say. A cannon
ball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and bend over his horse.
He paused, and just as he was about to say something more, another
ball stopped him. He turned his horse and galloped off.
"Retire! All to retire!" he shouted from a distance.
The soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived with the
same order.
It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding up to the
space where Tushin's guns were stationed was an unharnessed horse
with a broken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the harnessed
horses. Blood was gushing from its leg as from a spring. Among the
limbers lay several dead men. One ball after another passed over as he
approached and he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine. But the
mere thought of being afraid roused him again. "I cannot be afraid,"
thought he, and dismounted slowly among the guns. He delivered the
order and did not leave the battery. He decided to have the guns
removed from their positions and withdrawn in his presence. Together
with Tushin, stepping across the bodies and under a terrible fire from
the French, he attended to the removal of the guns.
"A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off," said an
artilleryman to Prince Andrew. "Not like your honor!"
Prince Andrew said nothing to Tushin. They were both so busy as to
seem not to notice one another. When having limbered up the only two
cannon that remained uninjured out of the four, they began moving
down the hill (one shattered gun and one unicorn were left behind),
Prince Andrew rode up to Tushin.
"Well, till we meet again..." he said, holding out his hand to Tushin.
"Good-by, my dear fellow," said Tushin. "Dear soul! Good-by, my
dear fellow!" and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his
eyes.

CHAPTER XXI
The wind had fallen and black clouds, merging with the powder
smoke, hung low over the field of battle on the horizon. It was growing
dark and the glow of two conflagrations was the more conspicuous.
The cannonade was dying down, but the rattle of musketry behind and
on the right sounded oftener and nearer. As soon as Tushin with his
guns, continually driving round or coming upon wounded men, was out
of range of fire and had descended into the dip, he was met by some of
the staff, among them the staff officer and Zherkov, who had been
twice sent to Tushin's battery but had never reached it. Interrupting one
another, they all gave, and transmitted, orders as to how to proceed,
reprimanding and reproaching him. Tushin gave no orders, and,
silently—fearing to speak because at every word he felt ready to weep
without knowing why—rode behind on his artillery nag. Though the
orders were to abandon the wounded, many of them dragged
themselves after troops and begged for seats on the gun carriages. The
jaunty infantry officer who just before the battle had rushed out of
Tushin's wattle shed was laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on
"Matvevna's" carriage. At the foot of the hill, a pale hussar cadet,
supporting one hand with the other, came up to Tushin and asked for a
seat.
"Captain, for God's sake! I've hurt my arm," he said timidly. "For
God's sake... I can't walk. For God's sake!"
It was plain that this cadet had already repeatedly asked for a lift and
been refused. He asked in a hesitating, piteous voice.
"Tell them to give me a seat, for God's sake!"
"Give him a seat," said Tushin. "Lay a cloak for him to sit on, lad,"
he said, addressing his favorite soldier. "And where is the wounded
officer?"
"He has been set down. He died," replied someone.
"Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out the cloak,
Antonov."
The cadet was Rostov. With one hand he supported the other; he was
pale and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on
"Matvevna," the gun from which they had removed the dead officer.
The cloak they spread under him was wet with blood which stained his
breeches and arm.
"What, are you wounded, my lad?" said Tushin, approaching the gun
on which Rostov sat.
"No, it's a sprain."
"Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?" inquired Tushin.
"It was the officer, your honor, stained it," answered the
artilleryman, wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as if
apologizing for the state of his gun.
It was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise aided by the
infantry, and having reached the village of Gruntersdorf they halted. It
had grown so dark that one could not distinguish the uniforms ten paces
off, and the firing had begun to subside. Suddenly, near by on the right,
shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of shot gleamed in the
darkness. This was the last French attack and was met by soldiers who
had sheltered in the village houses. They all rushed out of the village
again, but Tushin's guns could not move, and the artillerymen, Tushin,
and the cadet exchanged silent glances as they awaited their fate. The
firing died down and soldiers, talking eagerly, streamed out of a side
street.
"Not hurt, Petrov?" asked one.
 "We've given it 'em hot, mate! They won't make another push now,"
said another.
"You couldn't see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows!
Nothing could be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn't there something to
drink?"
The French had been repulsed for the last time. And again and again
in the complete darkness Tushin's guns moved forward, surrounded by
the humming infantry as by a frame.
In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was
flowing always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and
the sound of hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans
and voices of the wounded were more distinctly heard than any other
sound in the darkness of the night. The gloom that enveloped the army
was filled with their groans, which seemed to melt into one with the
darkness of the night. After a while the moving mass became agitated,
someone rode past on a white horse followed by his suite, and said
something in passing: "What did he say? Where to, now? Halt, is it?
Did he thank us?" came eager questions from all sides. The whole
moving mass began pressing closer together and a report spread that
they were ordered to halt: evidently those in front had halted. All
remained where they were in the middle of the muddy road.
Fires were lighted and the talk became more audible. Captain
Tushin, having given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a
dressing station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a bonfire the
soldiers had kindled on the road. Rostov, too, dragged himself to the
fire. From pain, cold, and damp, a feverish shivering shook his whole
body. Drowsiness was irresistibly mastering him, but he kept awake by
an excruciating pain in his arm, for which he could find no satisfactory
position. He kept closing his eyes and then again looking at the fire,
which seemed to him dazzlingly red, and at the feeble, round-
shouldered figure of Tushin who was sitting cross-legged like a Turk
beside him. Tushin's large, kind, intelligent eyes were fixed with
sympathy and commiseration on Rostov, who saw that Tushin with his
whole heart wished to help him but could not.
From all sides were heard the footsteps and talk of the infantry, who
were walking, driving past, and settling down all around. The sound of
voices, the tramping feet, the horses' hoofs moving in mud, the
crackling of wood fires near and afar, merged into one tremulous
rumble.
It was no longer, as before, a dark, unseen river flowing through the
gloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually subsiding after a storm.
Rostov looked at and listened listlessly to what passed before and
around him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on his heels,
held his hands to the blaze, and turned away his face.
"You don't mind your honor?" he asked Tushin. "I've lost my
company, your honor. I don't know where... such bad luck!"
With the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came up
to the bonfire, and addressing Tushin asked him to have the guns
moved a trifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone, two soldiers
rushed to the campfire. They were quarreling and fighting desperately,
each trying to snatch from the other a boot they were both holding on
to.
"You picked it up?... I dare say! You're very smart!" one of them
shouted hoarsely.
Then a thin, pale soldier, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained leg
band, came up and in angry tones asked the artillerymen for water.
"Must one die like a dog?" said he.
Tushin told them to give the man some water. Then a cheerful
soldier ran up, begging a little fire for the infantry.
"A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you, fellow
countrymen. Thanks for the fire—we'll return it with interest," said he,
carrying away into the darkness a glowing stick.
Next came four soldiers, carrying something heavy on a cloak, and
passed by the fire. One of them stumbled.
"Who the devil has put the logs on the road?" snarled he.
"He's dead—why carry him?" said another.
"Shut up!"
And they disappeared into the darkness with their load.
"Still aching?" Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.
"Yes."
"Your honor, you're wanted by the general. He is in the hut here,"
said a gunner, coming up to Tushin.
"Coming, friend."
Tushin rose and, buttoning his greatcoat and pulling it straight,
walked away from the fire.
Not far from the artillery campfire, in a hut that had been prepared
for him, Prince Bagration sat at dinner, talking with some commanding
officers who had gathered at his quarters. The little old man with the
half-closed eyes was there greedily gnawing a mutton bone, and the
general who had served blamelessly for twenty-two years, flushed by a
glass of vodka and the dinner; and the staff officer with the signet ring,
and Zherkov, uneasily glancing at them all, and Prince Andrew, pale,
with compressed lips and feverishly glittering eyes.
In a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French, and
the accountant with the naive face was feeling its texture, shaking his
head in perplexity—perhaps because the banner really interested him,
perhaps because it was hard for him, hungry as he was, to look on at a
dinner where there was no place for him. In the next hut there was a
French colonel who had been taken prisoner by our dragoons. Our
officers were flocking in to look at him. Prince Bagration was thanking
the individual commanders and inquiring into details of the action and
our losses. The general whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau
was informing the prince that as soon as the action began he had
withdrawn from the wood, mustered the men who were woodcutting,
and, allowing the French to pass him, had made a bayonet charge with
two battalions and had broken up the French troops.
"When I saw, your excellency, that their first battalion was
disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: 'I'll let them come on
and will meet them with the fire of the whole battalion'—and that's
what I did."
The general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not
managed to do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened.
Perhaps it might really have been so? Could one possibly make out
amid all that confusion what did or did not happen?
"By the way, your excellency, I should inform you," he continued—
remembering Dolokhov's conversation with Kutuzov and his last
interview with the gentleman-ranker—"that Private Dolokhov, who
was reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence
and particularly distinguished himself."
"I saw the Pavlograd hussars attack there, your excellency," chimed
in Zherkov, looking uneasily around. He had not seen the hussars all
that day, but had heard about them from an infantry officer. "They
broke up two squares, your excellency."
Several of those present smiled at Zherkov's words, expecting one of
his usual jokes, but noticing that what he was saying redounded to the
glory of our arms and of the day's work, they assumed a serious
expression, though many of them knew that what he was saying was a
lie devoid of any foundation. Prince Bagration turned to the old
colonel:
 "Gentlemen, I thank you all; all arms have behaved heroically:
infantry, cavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were
abandoned in the center?" he inquired, searching with his eyes for
someone. (Prince Bagration did not ask about the guns on the left flank;
he knew that all the guns there had been abandoned at the very
beginning of the action.) "I think I sent you?" he added, turning to the
staff officer on duty.
"One was damaged," answered the staff officer, "and the other I can't
understand. I was there all the time giving orders and had only just
left.... It is true that it was hot there," he added, modestly.
Someone mentioned that Captain Tushin was bivouacking close to
the village and had already been sent for.
"Oh, but you were there?" said Prince Bagration, addressing Prince
Andrew.
"Of course, we only just missed one another," said the staff officer,
with a smile to Bolkonski.
"I had not the pleasure of seeing you," said Prince Andrew, coldly
and abruptly.
All were silent. Tushin appeared at the threshold and made his way
timidly from behind the backs of the generals. As he stepped past the
generals in the crowded hut, feeling embarrassed as he always was by
the sight of his superiors, he did not notice the staff of the banner and
stumbled over it. Several of those present laughed.
"How was it a gun was abandoned?" asked Bagration, frowning, not
so much at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom
Zherkov laughed loudest.
Only now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his
guilt and the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive
present themselves to Tushin in all their horror. He had been so excited
that he had not thought about it until that moment. The officers'
laughter confused him still more. He stood before Bagration with his
lower jaw trembling and was hardly able to mutter: "I don't know...
your excellency... I had no men... your excellency."
"You might have taken some from the covering troops."
Tushin did not say that there were no covering troops, though that
was perfectly true. He was afraid of getting some other officer into
trouble, and silently fixed his eyes on Bagration as a schoolboy who
has blundered looks at an examiner.
 The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagration, apparently not
wishing to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture to
intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Tushin from under his brows and
his fingers twitched nervously.
"Your excellency!" Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt
voice, "you were pleased to send me to Captain Tushin's battery. I went
there and found two thirds of the men and horses knocked out, two
guns smashed, and no supports at all."
Prince Bagration and Tushin looked with equal intentness at
Bolkonski, who spoke with suppressed agitation.
"And, if your excellency will allow me to express my opinion," he
continued, "we owe today's success chiefly to the action of that battery
and the heroic endurance of Captain Tushin and his company," and
without awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.
Prince Bagration looked at Tushin, evidently reluctant to show
distrust in Bolkonski's emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to
credit it, bent his head, and told Tushin that he could go. Prince
Andrew went out with him.
"Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!" said Tushin.
Prince Andrew gave him a look, but said nothing and went away. He
felt sad and depressed. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had
hoped.
"Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? And when
will all this end?" thought Rostov, looking at the changing shadows
before him. The pain in his arm became more and more intense.
Irresistible drowsiness overpowered him, red rings danced before his
eyes, and the impression of those voices and faces and a sense of
loneliness merged with the physical pain. It was they, these soldiers—
wounded and unwounded—it was they who were crushing, weighing
down, and twisting the sinews and scorching the flesh of his sprained
arm and shoulder. To rid himself of them he closed his eyes.
For a moment he dozed, but in that short interval innumerable things
appeared to him in a dream: his mother and her large white hand,
Sonya's thin little shoulders, Natasha's eyes and laughter, Denisov with
his voice and mustache, and Telyanin and all that affair with Telyanin
and Bogdanich. That affair was the same thing as this soldier with the
harsh voice, and it was that affair and this soldier that were so
agonizingly, incessantly pulling and pressing his arm and always
dragging it in one direction. He tried to get away from them, but they
would not for an instant let his shoulder move a hair's breadth. It would
not ache—it would be well—if only they did not pull it, but it was
impossible to get rid of them.
He opened his eyes and looked up. The black canopy of night hung
less than a yard above the glow of the charcoal. Flakes of falling snow
were fluttering in that light. Tushin had not returned, the doctor had not
come. He was alone now, except for a soldier who was sitting naked at
the other side of the fire, warming his thin yellow body.
"Nobody wants me!" thought Rostov. "There is no one to help me or
pity me. Yet I was once at home, strong, happy, and loved." He sighed
and, doing so, groaned involuntarily.
"Eh, is anything hurting you?" asked the soldier, shaking his shirt out
over the fire, and not waiting for an answer he gave a grunt and added:
"What a lot of men have been crippled today—frightful!"
Rostov did not listen to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes
fluttering above the fire and remembered a Russian winter at his warm,
bright home, his fluffy fur coat, his quickly gliding sleigh, his healthy
body, and all the affection and care of his family. "And why did I come
here?" he wondered.
Next day the French army did not renew their attack, and the
remnant of Bagration's detachment was reunited to Kutuzov's army.

BOOK THREE: 1805

CHAPTER I
Prince Vasili was not a man who deliberately thought out his plans.
Still less did he think of injuring anyone for his own advantage. He was
merely a man of the world who had got on and to whom getting on had
become a habit. Schemes and devices for which he never rightly
accounted to himself, but which formed the whole interest of his life,
were constantly shaping themselves in his mind, arising from the
circumstances and persons he met. Of these plans he had not merely
one or two in his head but dozens, some only beginning to form
themselves, some approaching achievement, and some in course of
disintegration. He did not, for instance, say to himself: "This man now
has influence, I must gain his confidence and friendship and through
him obtain a special grant." Nor did he say to himself: "Pierre is a rich
man, I must entice him to marry my daughter and lend me the forty
thousand rubles I need." But when he came across a man of position his
instinct immediately told him that this man could be useful, and
without any premeditation Prince Vasili took the first opportunity to
gain his confidence, flatter him, become intimate with him, and finally
make his request.
He had Pierre at hand in Moscow and procured for him an
appointment as Gentleman of the Bedchamber, which at that time
conferred the status of Councilor of State, and insisted on the young
man accompanying him to Petersburg and staying at his house. With
apparent absent-mindedness, yet with unhesitating assurance that he
was doing the right thing, Prince Vasili did everything to get Pierre to
marry his daughter. Had he thought out his plans beforehand he could
not have been so natural and shown such unaffected familiarity in
intercourse with everybody both above and below him in social
standing. Something always drew him toward those richer and more
powerful than himself and he had rare skill in seizing the most
opportune moment for making use of people.
Pierre, on unexpectedly becoming Count Bezukhov and a rich man,
felt himself after his recent loneliness and freedom from cares so beset
and preoccupied that only in bed was he able to be by himself. He had
to sign papers, to present himself at government offices, the purpose of
which was not clear to him, to question his chief steward, to visit his
estate near Moscow, and to receive many people who formerly did not
even wish to know of his existence but would now have been offended
and grieved had he chosen not to see them. These different people—
businessmen, relations, and acquaintances alike—were all disposed to
treat the young heir in the most friendly and flattering manner: they
were all evidently firmly convinced of Pierre's noble qualities. He was
always hearing such words as: "With your remarkable kindness," or,
"With your excellent heart," "You are yourself so honorable Count," or,
"Were he as clever as you," and so on, till he began sincerely to believe
in his own exceptional kindness and extraordinary intelligence, the
more so as in the depth of his heart it had always seemed to him that he
really was very kind and intelligent. Even people who had formerly
been spiteful toward him and evidently unfriendly now became gentle
and affectionate. The angry eldest princess, with the long waist and hair
plastered down like a doll's, had come into Pierre's room after the
funeral. With drooping eyes and frequent blushes she told him she was
very sorry about their past misunderstandings and did not now feel she
had a right to ask him for anything, except only for permission, after
the blow she had received, to remain for a few weeks longer in the
house she so loved and where she had sacrificed so much. She could
not refrain from weeping at these words. Touched that this statuesque
princess could so change, Pierre took her hand and begged her
forgiveness, without knowing what for. From that day the eldest
princess quite changed toward Pierre and began knitting a striped scarf
for him.
"Do this for my sake, mon cher; after all, she had to put up with a
great deal from the deceased," said Prince Vasili to him, handing him a
deed to sign for the princess' benefit.
Prince Vasili had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to
throw this bone—a bill for thirty thousand rubles—to the poor princess
that it might not occur to her to speak of his share in the affair of the
inlaid portfolio. Pierre signed the deed and after that the princess grew
still kinder. The younger sisters also became affectionate to him,
especially the youngest, the pretty one with the mole, who often made
him feel confused by her smiles and her own confusion when meeting
him.
It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should like him, and it
would have seemed so unnatural had anyone disliked him, that he could
not but believe in the sincerity of those around him. Besides, he had no
time to ask himself whether these people were sincere or not. He was
always busy and always felt in a state of mild and cheerful intoxication.
He felt as though he were the center of some important and general
movement; that something was constantly expected of him, that if he
did not do it he would grieve and disappoint many people, but if he did
this and that, all would be well; and he did what was demanded of him,
but still that happy result always remained in the future.
More than anyone else, Prince Vasili took possession of Pierre's
affairs and of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of
Count Bezukhov he did not let go his hold of the lad. He had the air of
a man oppressed by business, weary and suffering, who yet would not,
for pity's sake, leave this helpless youth who, after all, was the son of
his old friend and the possessor of such enormous wealth, to the caprice
of fate and the designs of rogues. During the few days he spent in
Moscow after the death of Count Bezukhov, he would call Pierre, or go
to him himself, and tell him what ought to be done in a tone of
weariness and assurance, as if he were adding every time: "You know I
am overwhelmed with business and it is purely out of charity that I
trouble myself about you, and you also know quite well that what I
propose is the only thing possible."
"Well, my dear fellow, tomorrow we are off at last," said Prince
Vasili one day, closing his eyes and fingering Pierre's elbow, speaking
as if he were saying something which had long since been agreed upon
and could not now be altered. "We start tomorrow and I'm giving you a
place in my carriage. I am very glad. All our important business here is
now settled, and I ought to have been off long ago. Here is something I
have received from the chancellor. I asked him for you, and you have
been entered in the diplomatic corps and made a Gentleman of the
Bedchamber. The diplomatic career now lies open before you."
Notwithstanding the tone of wearied assurance with which these
words were pronounced, Pierre, who had so long been considering his
career, wished to make some suggestion. But Prince Vasili interrupted
him in the special deep cooing tone, precluding the possibility of
interrupting his speech, which he used in extreme cases when special
persuasion was needed.
"Mais, mon cher, I did this for my own sake, to satisfy my
conscience, and there is nothing to thank me for. No one has ever
complained yet of being too much loved; and besides, you are free, you
could throw it up tomorrow. But you will see everything for yourself
when you get to Petersburg. It is high time for you to get away from
these terrible recollections." Prince Vasili sighed. "Yes, yes, my boy.
And my valet can go in your carriage. Ah! I was nearly forgetting," he
added. "You know, mon cher, your father and I had some accounts to
settle, so I have received what was due from the Ryazan estate and will
keep it; you won't require it. We'll go into the accounts later."
By "what was due from the Ryazan estate" Prince Vasili meant
several thousand rubles quitrent received from Pierre's peasants, which
the prince had retained for himself.
In Petersburg, as in Moscow, Pierre found the same atmosphere of
gentleness and affection. He could not refuse the post, or rather the
rank (for he did nothing), that Prince Vasili had procured for him, and
acquaintances, invitations, and social occupations were so numerous
that, even more than in Moscow, he felt a sense of bewilderment,
bustle, and continual expectation of some good, always in front of him
but never attained.
Of his former bachelor acquaintances many were no longer in
Petersburg. The Guards had gone to the front; Dolokhov had been
reduced to the ranks; Anatole was in the army somewhere in the
provinces; Prince Andrew was abroad; so Pierre had not the
opportunity to spend his nights as he used to like to spend them, or to
open his mind by intimate talks with a friend older than himself and
whom he respected. His whole time was taken up with dinners and
balls and was spent chiefly at Prince Vasili's house in the company of
the stout princess, his wife, and his beautiful daughter Helene.
Like the others, Anna Pavlovna Scherer showed Pierre the change of
attitude toward him that had taken place in society.
 Formerly in Anna Pavlovna's presence, Pierre had always felt that
what he was saying was out of place, tactless and unsuitable, that
remarks which seemed to him clever while they formed in his mind
became foolish as soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary
Hippolyte's stupidest remarks came out clever and apt. Now everything
Pierre said was charmant. Even if Anna Pavlovna did not say so, he
could see that she wished to and only refrained out of regard for his
modesty.
In the beginning of the winter of 1805-6 Pierre received one of Anna
Pavlovna's usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added:
"You will find the beautiful Helene here, whom it is always delightful
to see."
When he read that sentence, Pierre felt for the first time that some
link which other people recognized had grown up between himself and
Helene, and that thought both alarmed him, as if some obligation were
being imposed on him which he could not fulfill, and pleased him as an
entertaining supposition.
Anna Pavlovna's "At Home" was like the former one, only the
novelty she offered her guests this time was not Mortemart, but a
diplomatist fresh from Berlin with the very latest details of the Emperor
Alexander's visit to Potsdam, and of how the two august friends had
pledged themselves in an indissoluble alliance to uphold the cause of
justice against the enemy of the human race. Anna Pavlovna received
Pierre with a shade of melancholy, evidently relating to the young
man's recent loss by the death of Count Bezukhov (everyone constantly
considered it a duty to assure Pierre that he was greatly afflicted by the
death of the father he had hardly known), and her melancholy was just
like the august melancholy she showed at the mention of her most
august Majesty the Empress Marya Fedorovna. Pierre felt flattered by
this. Anna Pavlovna arranged the different groups in her drawing room
with her habitual skill. The large group, in which were Prince Vasili
and the generals, had the benefit of the diplomat. Another group was at
the tea table. Pierre wished to join the former, but Anna Pavlovna—
who was in the excited condition of a commander on a battlefield to
whom thousands of new and brilliant ideas occur which there is hardly
time to put in action—seeing Pierre, touched his sleeve with her finger,
saying:
"Wait a bit, I have something in view for you this evening." (She
glanced at Helene and smiled at her.) "My dear Helene, be charitable to
my poor aunt who adores you. Go and keep her company for ten
minutes. And that it will not be too dull, here is the dear count who will
not refuse to accompany you."
 The beauty went to the aunt, but Anna Pavlovna detained Pierre,
looking as if she had to give some final necessary instructions.
"Isn't she exquisite?" she said to Pierre, pointing to the stately beauty
as she glided away. "And how she carries herself! For so young a girl,
such tact, such masterly perfection of manner! It comes from her heart.
Happy the man who wins her! With her the least worldly of men would
occupy a most brilliant position in society. Don't you think so? I only
wanted to know your opinion," and Anna Pavlovna let Pierre go.
Pierre, in reply, sincerely agreed with her as to Helene's perfection of
manner. If he ever thought of Helene, it was just of her beauty and her
remarkable skill in appearing silently dignified in society.
The old aunt received the two young people in her corner, but
seemed desirous of hiding her adoration for Helene and inclined rather
to show her fear of Anna Pavlovna. She looked at her niece, as if
inquiring what she was to do with these people. On leaving them, Anna
Pavlovna again touched Pierre's sleeve, saying: "I hope you won't say
that it is dull in my house again," and she glanced at Helene.
Helene smiled, with a look implying that she did not admit the
possibility of anyone seeing her without being enchanted. The aunt
coughed, swallowed, and said in French that she was very pleased to
see Helene, then she turned to Pierre with the same words of welcome
and the same look. In the middle of a dull and halting conversation,
Helene turned to Pierre with the beautiful bright smile that she gave to
everyone. Pierre was so used to that smile, and it had so little meaning
for him, that he paid no attention to it. The aunt was just speaking of a
collection of snuffboxes that had belonged to Pierre's father, Count
Bezukhov, and showed them her own box. Princess Helene asked to see
the portrait of the aunt's husband on the box lid.
"That is probably the work of Vinesse," said Pierre, mentioning a
celebrated miniaturist, and he leaned over the table to take the snuffbox
while trying to hear what was being said at the other table.
He half rose, meaning to go round, but the aunt handed him the
snuffbox, passing it across Helene's back. Helene stooped forward to
make room, and looked round with a smile. She was, as always at
evening parties, wearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut very
low at front and back. Her bust, which had always seemed like marble
to Pierre, was so close to him that his shortsighted eyes could not but
perceive the living charm of her neck and shoulders, so near to his lips
that he need only have bent his head a little to have touched them. He
was conscious of the warmth of her body, the scent of perfume, and the
creaking of her corset as she moved. He did not see her marble beauty
forming a complete whole with her dress, but all the charm of her body
only covered by her garments. And having once seen this he could not
help being aware of it, just as we cannot renew an illusion we have
once seen through.
"So you have never noticed before how beautiful I am?" Helene
seemed to say. "You had not noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am a
woman who may belong to anyone—to you too," said her glance. And
at that moment Pierre felt that Helene not only could, but must, be his
wife, and that it could not be otherwise.
He knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing at
the altar with her. How and when this would be he did not know, he did
not even know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he knew not
why, that it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would happen.
Pierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more to
see her as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had seen her
every day until then, but he could no longer do it. He could not, any
more than a man who has been looking at a tuft of steppe grass through
the mist and taking it for a tree can again take it for a tree after he has
once recognized it to be a tuft of grass. She was terribly close to him.
She already had power over him, and between them there was no
longer any barrier except the barrier of his own will.
"Well, I will leave you in your little corner," came Anna Pavlovna's
voice, "I see you are all right there."
And Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done
anything reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him
that everyone knew what had happened to him as he knew it himself.
A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pavlovna said
to him: "I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?"
This was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and
Pierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg
house done up.
"That's a good thing, but don't move from Prince Vasili's. It is good
to have a friend like the prince," she said, smiling at Prince Vasili. "I
know something about that. Don't I? And you are still so young. You
need advice. Don't be angry with me for exercising an old woman's
privilege."
She paused, as women always do, expecting something after they
have mentioned their age. "If you marry it will be a different thing," she
continued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at
Helene nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He
muttered something and colored.
 When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking of
what had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely
understood that the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her
beauty was mentioned he had said absent-mindedly: "Yes, she's good
looking," he had understood that this woman might belong to him.
"But she's stupid. I have myself said she is stupid," he thought.
"There is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites
in me. I have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her
and she with him, that there was quite a scandal and that that's why he
was sent away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasili is her father...
It's bad...." he reflected, but while he was thinking this (the reflection
was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was conscious that
another line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking of her
worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his wife, how
she would love him become quite different, and how all he had thought
and heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the
daughter of Prince Vasili, but visualized her whole body only veiled by
its gray dress. "But no! Why did this thought never occur to me
before?" and again he told himself that it was impossible, that there
would be something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in
this marriage. He recalled her former words and looks and the words
and looks of those who had seen them together. He recalled Anna
Pavlovna's words and looks when she spoke to him about his house,
recalled thousands of such hints from Prince Vasili and others, and was
seized by terror lest he had already, in some way, bound himself to do
something that was evidently wrong and that he ought not to do. But at
the very time he was expressing this conviction to himself, in another
part of his mind her image rose in all its womanly beauty.

CHAPTER II
In November, 1805, Prince Vasili had to go on a tour of inspection in
four different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to visit
his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son Anatole
where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nicholas
Bolkonski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that
rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking these new
affairs, Prince Vasili had to settle matters with Pierre, who, it is true,
had latterly spent whole days at home, that is, in Prince Vasili's house
where he was staying, and had been absurd, excited, and foolish in
Helene's presence (as a lover should be), but had not yet proposed to
her.
 "This is all very fine, but things must be settled," said Prince Vasili
to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that Pierre who
was under such obligations to him ("But never mind that") was not
behaving very well in this matter. "Youth, frivolity... well, God be with
him," thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart, "but it must be
brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be Lelya's name day. I
will invite two or three people, and if he does not understand what he
ought to do then it will be my affair—yes, my affair. I am her father."
Six weeks after Anna Pavlovna's "At Home" and after the sleepless
night when he had decided that to marry Helene would be a calamity
and that he ought to avoid her and go away, Pierre, despite that
decision, had not left Prince Vasili's and felt with terror that in people's
eyes he was every day more and more connected with her, that it was
impossible for him to return to his former conception of her, that he
could not break away from her, and that though it would be a terrible
thing he would have to unite his fate with hers. He might perhaps have
been able to free himself but that Prince Vasili (who had rarely before
given receptions) now hardly let a day go by without having an evening
party at which Pierre had to be present unless he wished to spoil the
general pleasure and disappoint everyone's expectation. Prince Vasili,
in the rare moments when he was at home, would take Pierre's hand in
passing and draw it downwards, or absent-mindedly hold out his
wrinkled, clean-shaven cheek for Pierre to kiss and would say: "Till
tomorrow," or, "Be in to dinner or I shall not see you," or, "I am staying
in for your sake," and so on. And though Prince Vasili, when he stayed
in (as he said) for Pierre's sake, hardly exchanged a couple of words
with him, Pierre felt unable to disappoint him. Every day he said to
himself one and the same thing: "It is time I understood her and made
up my mind what she really is. Was I mistaken before, or am I
mistaken now? No, she is not stupid, she is an excellent girl," he
sometimes said to himself "she never makes a mistake, never says
anything stupid. She says little, but what she does say is always clear
and simple, so she is not stupid. She never was abashed and is not
abashed now, so she cannot be a bad woman!" He had often begun to
make reflections or think aloud in her company, and she had always
answered him either by a brief but appropriate remark—showing that it
did not interest her—or by a silent look and smile which more palpably
than anything else showed Pierre her superiority. She was right in
regarding all arguments as nonsense in comparison with that smile.
She always addressed him with a radiantly confiding smile meant for
him alone, in which there was something more significant than in the
general smile that usually brightened her face. Pierre knew that
everyone was waiting for him to say a word and cross a certain line,
and he knew that sooner or later he would step across it, but an
incomprehensible terror seized him at the thought of that dreadful step.
A thousand times during that month and a half while he felt himself
drawn nearer and nearer to that dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself:
"What am I doing? I need resolution. Can it be that I have none?"
He wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that in this matter
he lacked that strength of will which he had known in himself and
really possessed. Pierre was one of those who are only strong when
they feel themselves quite innocent, and since that day when he was
overpowered by a feeling of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at
Anna Pavlovna's, an unacknowledged sense of the guilt of that desire
paralyzed his will.
On Helene's name day, a small party of just their own people—as his
wife said—met for supper at Prince Vasili's. All these friends and
relations had been given to understand that the fate of the young girl
would be decided that evening. The visitors were seated at supper.
Princess Kuragina, a portly imposing woman who had once been
handsome, was sitting at the head of the table. On either side of her sat
the more important guests—an old general and his wife, and Anna
Pavlovna Scherer. At the other end sat the younger and less important
guests, and there too sat the members of the family, and Pierre and
Helene, side by side. Prince Vasili was not having any supper: he went
round the table in a merry mood, sitting down now by one, now by
another, of the guests. To each of them he made some careless and
agreeable remark except to Pierre and Helene, whose presence he
seemed not to notice. He enlivened the whole party. The wax candles
burned brightly, the silver and crystal gleamed, so did the ladies' toilets
and the gold and silver of the men's epaulets; servants in scarlet liveries
moved round the table, the clatter of plates, knives, and glasses mingled
with the animated hum of several conversations. At one end of the
table, the old chamberlain was heard assuring an old baroness that he
loved her passionately, at which she laughed; at the other could be
heard the story of the misfortunes of some Mary Viktorovna or other.
At the center of the table, Prince Vasili attracted everybody's attention.
With a facetious smile on his face, he was telling the ladies about last
Wednesday's meeting of the Imperial Council, at which Sergey
Kuzmich Vyazmitinov, the new military governor general of
Petersburg, had received and read the then famous rescript of the
Emperor Alexander from the army to Sergey Kuzmich, in which the
Emperor said that he was receiving from all sides declarations of the
people's loyalty, that the declaration from Petersburg gave him
particular pleasure, and that he was proud to be at the head of such a
nation and would endeavor to be worthy of it. This rescript began with
the words: "Sergey Kuzmich, From all sides reports reach me," etc.
"Well, and so he never got farther than: 'Sergey Kuzmich'?" asked
one of the ladies.
 "Exactly, not a hair's breadth farther," answered Prince Vasili,
laughing, "'Sergey Kuzmich... From all sides... From all sides... Sergey
Kuzmich...' Poor Vyazmitinov could not get any farther! He began the
rescript again and again, but as soon as he uttered 'Sergey' he sobbed,
'Kuz-mi-ch,' tears, and 'From all sides' was smothered in sobs and he
could get no farther. And again his handkerchief, and again: 'Sergey
Kuzmich, From all sides,'... and tears, till at last somebody else was
asked to read it."
"Kuzmich... From all sides... and then tears," someone repeated
laughing.
"Don't be unkind," cried Anna Pavlovna from her end of the table
holding up a threatening finger. "He is such a worthy and excellent
man, our dear Vyazmitinov...."
Everybody laughed a great deal. At the head of the table, where the
honored guests sat, everyone seemed to be in high spirits and under the
influence of a variety of exciting sensations. Only Pierre and Helene sat
silently side by side almost at the bottom of the table, a suppressed
smile brightening both their faces, a smile that had nothing to do with
Sergey Kuzmich—a smile of bashfulness at their own feelings. But
much as all the rest laughed, talked, and joked, much as they enjoyed
their Rhine wine, saute, and ices, and however they avoided looking at
the young couple, and heedless and unobservant as they seemed of
them, one could feel by the occasional glances they gave that the story
about Sergey Kuzmich, the laughter, and the food were all a pretense,
and that the whole attention of that company was directed to—Pierre
and Helene. Prince Vasili mimicked the sobbing of Sergey Kuzmich
and at the same time his eyes glanced toward his daughter, and while
he laughed the expression on his face clearly said: "Yes... it's getting
on, it will all be settled today." Anna Pavlovna threatened him on
behalf of "our dear Vyazmitinov," and in her eyes, which, for an
instant, glanced at Pierre, Prince Vasili read a congratulation on his
future son-in-law and on his daughter's happiness. The old princess
sighed sadly as she offered some wine to the old lady next to her and
glanced angrily at her daughter, and her sigh seemed to say: "Yes,
there's nothing left for you and me but to sip sweet wine, my dear, now
that the time has come for these young ones to be thus boldly,
provocatively happy." "And what nonsense all this is that I am saying!"
thought a diplomatist, glancing at the happy faces of the lovers. "That's
happiness!"
Into the insignificant, trifling, and artificial interests uniting that
society had entered the simple feeling of the attraction of a healthy and
handsome young man and woman for one another. And this human
feeling dominated everything else and soared above all their affected
chatter. Jests fell flat, news was not interesting, and the animation was
evidently forced. Not only the guests but even the footmen waiting at
table seemed to feel this, and they forgot their duties as they looked at
the beautiful Helene with her radiant face and at the red, broad, and
happy though uneasy face of Pierre. It seemed as if the very light of the
candles was focused on those two happy faces alone.
Pierre felt that he was the center of it all, and this both pleased and
embarrassed him. He was like a man entirely absorbed in some
occupation. He did not see, hear, or understand anything clearly. Only
now and then detached ideas and impressions from the world of reality
shot unexpectedly through his mind.
"So it is all finished!" he thought. "And how has it all happened?
How quickly! Now I know that not because of her alone, nor of myself
alone, but because of everyone, it must inevitably come about. They are
all expecting it, they are so sure that it will happen that I cannot, I
cannot, disappoint them. But how will it be? I do not know, but it will
certainly happen!" thought Pierre, glancing at those dazzling shoulders
close to his eyes.
Or he would suddenly feel ashamed of he knew not what. He felt it
awkward to attract everyone's attention and to be considered a lucky
man and, with his plain face, to be looked on as a sort of Paris
possessed of a Helen. "But no doubt it always is and must be so!" he
consoled himself. "And besides, what have I done to bring it about?
How did it begin? I traveled from Moscow with Prince Vasili. Then
there was nothing. So why should I not stay at his house? Then I played
cards with her and picked up her reticule and drove out with her. How
did it begin, when did it all come about?" And here he was sitting by
her side as her betrothed, seeing, hearing, feeling her nearness, her
breathing, her movements, her beauty. Then it would suddenly seem to
him that it was not she but he was so unusually beautiful, and that that
was why they all looked so at him, and flattered by this general
admiration he would expand his chest, raise his head, and rejoice at his
good fortune. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice repeating something
to him a second time. But Pierre was so absorbed that he did not
understand what was said.
"I am asking you when you last heard from Bolkonski," repeated
Prince Vasili a third time. "How absent-minded you are, my dear
fellow."
Prince Vasili smiled, and Pierre noticed that everyone was smiling at
him and Helene. "Well, what of it, if you all know it?" thought Pierre.
"What of it? It's the truth!" and he himself smiled his gentle childlike
smile, and Helene smiled too.
"When did you get the letter? Was it from Olmutz?" repeated Prince
Vasili, who pretended to want to know this in order to settle a dispute.
 "How can one talk or think of such trifles?" thought Pierre.
"Yes, from Olmutz," he answered, with a sigh.
After supper Pierre with his partner followed the others into the
drawing room. The guests began to disperse, some without taking leave
of Helene. Some, as if unwilling to distract her from an important
occupation, came up to her for a moment and made haste to go away,
refusing to let her see them off. The diplomatist preserved a mournful
silence as he left the drawing room. He pictured the vanity of his
diplomatic career in comparison with Pierre's happiness. The old
general grumbled at his wife when she asked how his leg was. "Oh, the
old fool," he thought. "That Princess Helene will be beautiful still when
she's fifty."
"I think I may congratulate you," whispered Anna Pavlovna to the
old princess, kissing her soundly. "If I hadn't this headache I'd have
stayed longer."
The old princess did not reply, she was tormented by jealousy of her
daughter's happiness.
While the guests were taking their leave Pierre remained for a long
time alone with Helene in the little drawing room where they were
sitting. He had often before, during the last six weeks, remained alone
with her, but had never spoken to her of love. Now he felt that it was
inevitable, but he could not make up his mind to take the final step. He
felt ashamed; he felt that he was occupying someone else's place here
beside Helene. "This happiness is not for you," some inner voice
whispered to him. "This happiness is for those who have not in them
what there is in you."
But, as he had to say something, he began by asking her whether she
was satisfied with the party. She replied in her usual simple manner that
this name day of hers had been one of the pleasantest she had ever had.
Some of the nearest relatives had not yet left. They were sitting in
the large drawing room. Prince Vasili came up to Pierre with languid
footsteps. Pierre rose and said it was getting late. Prince Vasili gave
him a look of stern inquiry, as though what Pierre had just said was so
strange that one could not take it in. But then the expression of severity
changed, and he drew Pierre's hand downwards, made him sit down,
and smiled affectionately.
"Well, Lelya?" he asked, turning instantly to his daughter and
addressing her with the careless tone of habitual tenderness natural to
parents who have petted their children from babyhood, but which
Prince Vasili had only acquired by imitating other parents.
And he again turned to Pierre.
 "Sergey Kuzmich—From all sides-" he said, unbuttoning the top
button of his waistcoat.
Pierre smiled, but his smile showed that he knew it was not the story
about Sergey Kuzmich that interested Prince Vasili just then, and
Prince Vasili saw that Pierre knew this. He suddenly muttered
something and went away. It seemed to Pierre that even the prince was
disconcerted. The sight of the discomposure of that old man of the
world touched Pierre: he looked at Helene and she too seemed
disconcerted, and her look seemed to say: "Well, it is your own fault."
"The step must be taken but I cannot, I cannot!" thought Pierre, and
he again began speaking about indifferent matters, about Sergey
Kuzmich, asking what the point of the story was as he had not heard it
properly. Helene answered with a smile that she too had missed it.
When Prince Vasili returned to the drawing room, the princess, his
wife, was talking in low tones to the elderly lady about Pierre.
"Of course, it is a very brilliant match, but happiness, my dear..."
"Marriages are made in heaven," replied the elderly lady.
Prince Vasili passed by, seeming not to hear the ladies, and sat down
on a sofa in a far corner of the room. He closed his eyes and seemed to
be dozing. His head sank forward and then he roused himself.
"Aline," he said to his wife, "go and see what they are about."
The princess went up to the door, passed by it with a dignified and
indifferent air, and glanced into the little drawing room. Pierre and
Helene still sat talking just as before.
"Still the same," she said to her husband.
Prince Vasili frowned, twisting his mouth, his cheeks quivered and
his face assumed the coarse, unpleasant expression peculiar to him.
Shaking himself, he rose, threw back his head, and with resolute steps
went past the ladies into the little drawing room. With quick steps he
went joyfully up to Pierre. His face was so unusually triumphant that
Pierre rose in alarm on seeing it.
"Thank God!" said Prince Vasili. "My wife has told me everything!"
(He put one arm around Pierre and the other around his daughter.)—
"My dear boy... Lelya... I am very pleased." (His voice trembled.) "I
loved your father... and she will make you a good wife... God bless
you!..."
He embraced his daughter, and then again Pierre, and kissed him
with his malodorous mouth. Tears actually moistened his cheeks.
 "Princess, come here!" he shouted.
The old princess came in and also wept. The elderly lady was using
her handkerchief too. Pierre was kissed, and he kissed the beautiful
Helene's hand several times. After a while they were left alone again.
"All this had to be and could not be otherwise," thought Pierre, "so it
is useless to ask whether it is good or bad. It is good because it's
definite and one is rid of the old tormenting doubt." Pierre held the
hand of his betrothed in silence, looking at her beautiful bosom as it
rose and fell.
"Helene!" he said aloud and paused.
"Something special is always said in such cases," he thought, but
could not remember what it was that people say. He looked at her face.
She drew nearer to him. Her face flushed.
"Oh, take those off... those..." she said, pointing to his spectacles.
Pierre took them off, and his eyes, besides the strange look eyes have
from which spectacles have just been removed, had also a frightened
and inquiring look. He was about to stoop over her hand and kiss it, but
with a rapid, almost brutal movement of her head, she intercepted his
lips and met them with her own. Her face struck Pierre, by its altered,
unpleasantly excited expression.
"It is too late now, it's done; besides I love her," thought Pierre.
"Je vous aime!" * he said, remembering what has to be said at such
moments: but his words sounded so weak that he felt ashamed of
himself.

* "I love you."

Six weeks later he was married, and settled in Count Bezukhov's

large, newly furnished Petersburg house, the happy possessor, as
people said, of a wife who was a celebrated beauty and of millions of
money.

CHAPTER III
Old Prince Nicholas Bolkonski received a letter from Prince Vasili in
November, 1805, announcing that he and his son would be paying him
a visit. "I am starting on a journey of inspection, and of course I shall
think nothing of an extra seventy miles to come and see you at the same
time, my honored benefactor," wrote Prince Vasili. "My son Anatole is
accompanying me on his way to the army, so I hope you will allow him
personally to express the deep respect that, emulating his father, he
feels for you."
"It seems that there will be no need to bring Mary out, suitors are
coming to us of their own accord," incautiously remarked the little
princess on hearing the news.
Prince Nicholas frowned, but said nothing.
A fortnight after the letter Prince Vasili's servants came one evening
in advance of him, and he and his son arrived next day.
Old Bolkonski had always had a poor opinion of Prince Vasili's
character, but more so recently, since in the new reigns of Paul and
Alexander Prince Vasili had risen to high position and honors. And
now, from the hints contained in his letter and given by the little
princess, he saw which way the wind was blowing, and his low opinion
changed into a feeling of contemptuous ill will. He snorted whenever
he mentioned him. On the day of Prince Vasili's arrival, Prince
Bolkonski was particularly discontented and out of temper. Whether he
was in a bad temper because Prince Vasili was coming, or whether his
being in a bad temper made him specially annoyed at Prince Vasili's
visit, he was in a bad temper, and in the morning Tikhon had already
advised the architect not to go to the prince with his report.
"Do you hear how he's walking?" said Tikhon, drawing the
architect's attention to the sound of the prince's footsteps. "Stepping flat
on his heels—we know what that means...."
However, at nine o'clock the prince, in his velvet coat with a sable
collar and cap, went out for his usual walk. It had snowed the day
before and the path to the hothouse, along which the prince was in the
habit of walking, had been swept: the marks of the broom were still
visible in the snow and a shovel had been left sticking in one of the soft
snowbanks that bordered both sides of the path. The prince went
through the conservatories, the serfs' quarters, and the outbuildings,
frowning and silent.
"Can a sleigh pass?" he asked his overseer, a venerable man,
resembling his master in manners and looks, who was accompanying
him back to the house.
"The snow is deep. I am having the avenue swept, your honor."
The prince bowed his head and went up to the porch. "God be
thanked," thought the overseer, "the storm has blown over!"
 "It would have been hard to drive up, your honor," he added. "I
heard, your honor, that a minister is coming to visit your honor."
The prince turned round to the overseer and fixed his eyes on him,
frowning.
"What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?" he said in his
shrill, harsh voice. "The road is not swept for the princess my daughter,
but for a minister! For me, there are no ministers!"
"Your honor, I thought..."
"You thought!" shouted the prince, his words coming more and more
rapidly and indistinctly. "You thought!... Rascals! Blackguards!... I'll
teach you to think!" and lifting his stick he swung it and would have hit
Alpatych, the overseer, had not the latter instinctively avoided the
blow. "Thought... Blackguards..." shouted the prince rapidly.
But although Alpatych, frightened at his own temerity in avoiding
the stroke, came up to the prince, bowing his bald head resignedly
before him, or perhaps for that very reason, the prince, though he
continued to shout: "Blackguards!... Throw the snow back on the road!"
did not lift his stick again but hurried into the house.
Before dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bourienne, who
knew that the prince was in a bad humor, stood awaiting him;
Mademoiselle Bourienne with a radiant face that said: "I know nothing,
I am the same as usual," and Princess Mary pale, frightened, and with
downcast eyes. What she found hardest to bear was to know that on
such occasions she ought to behave like Mademoiselle Bourienne, but
could not. She thought: "If I seem not to notice he will think that I do
not sympathize with him; if I seem sad and out of spirits myself, he will
say (as he has done before) that I'm in the dumps."
The prince looked at his daughter's frightened face and snorted.
"Fool... or dummy!" he muttered.
"And the other one is not here. They've been telling tales," he
thought—referring to the little princess who was not in the dining
room.
"Where is the princess?" he asked. "Hiding?"
"She is not very well," answered Mademoiselle Bourienne with a
bright smile, "so she won't come down. It is natural in her state."
"Hm! Hm!" muttered the prince, sitting down.
His plate seemed to him not quite clean, and pointing to a spot he
flung it away. Tikhon caught it and handed it to a footman. The little
princess was not unwell, but had such an overpowering fear of the
prince that, hearing he was in a bad humor, she had decided not to
appear.
"I am afraid for the baby," she said to Mademoiselle Bourienne:
"Heaven knows what a fright might do."
In general at Bald Hills the little princess lived in constant fear, and
with a sense of antipathy to the old prince which she did not realize
because the fear was so much the stronger feeling. The prince
reciprocated this antipathy, but it was overpowered by his contempt for
her. When the little princess had grown accustomed to life at Bald
Hills, she took a special fancy to Mademoiselle Bourienne, spent whole
days with her, asked her to sleep in her room, and often talked with her
about the old prince and criticized him.
"So we are to have visitors, mon prince?" remarked Mademoiselle
Bourienne, unfolding her white napkin with her rosy fingers. "His
Excellency Prince Vasili Kuragin and his son, I understand?" she said
inquiringly.
"Hm!—his excellency is a puppy.... I got him his appointment in the
service," said the prince disdainfully. "Why his son is coming I don't
understand. Perhaps Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary know. I
don't want him." (He looked at his blushing daughter.) "Are you unwell
today? Eh? Afraid of the 'minister' as that idiot Alpatych called him this
morning?"
"No, mon pere."
Though Mademoiselle Bourienne had been so unsuccessful in her
choice of a subject, she did not stop talking, but chattered about the
conservatories and the beauty of a flower that had just opened, and after
the soup the prince became more genial.
After dinner, he went to see his daughter-in-law. The little princess
was sitting at a small table, chattering with Masha, her maid. She grew
pale on seeing her father-in-law.
She was much altered. She was now plain rather than pretty. Her
cheeks had sunk, her lip was drawn up, and her eyes drawn down.
"Yes, I feel a kind of oppression," she said in reply to the prince's
question as to how she felt.
"Do you want anything?"
"No, merci, mon pere."
"Well, all right, all right."
 He left the room and went to the waiting room where Alpatych stood
with bowed head.
"Has the snow been shoveled back?"
"Yes, your excellency. Forgive me for heaven's sake... It was only
my stupidity."
"All right, all right," interrupted the prince, and laughing his
unnatural way, he stretched out his hand for Alpatych to kiss, and then
proceeded to his study.
Prince Vasili arrived that evening. He was met in the avenue by
coachmen and footmen, who, with loud shouts, dragged his sleighs up
to one of the lodges over the road purposely laden with snow.
Prince Vasili and Anatole had separate rooms assigned to them.
Anatole, having taken off his overcoat, sat with arms akimbo before
a table on a corner of which he smilingly and absent-mindedly fixed his
large and handsome eyes. He regarded his whole life as a continual
round of amusement which someone for some reason had to provide for
him. And he looked on this visit to a churlish old man and a rich and
ugly heiress in the same way. All this might, he thought, turn out very
well and amusingly. "And why not marry her if she really has so much
money? That never does any harm," thought Anatole.
He shaved and scented himself with the care and elegance which had
become habitual to him and, his handsome head held high, entered his
father's room with the good-humored and victorious air natural to him.
Prince Vasili's two valets were busy dressing him, and he looked round
with much animation and cheerfully nodded to his son as the latter
entered, as if to say: "Yes, that's how I want you to look."
"I say, Father, joking apart, is she very hideous?" Anatole asked, as
if continuing a conversation the subject of which had often been
mentioned during the journey.
"Enough! What nonsense! Above all, try to be respectful and
cautious with the old prince."
"If he starts a row I'll go away," said Prince Anatole. "I can't bear
those old men! Eh?"
"Remember, for you everything depends on this."
In the meantime, not only was it known in the maidservants' rooms
that the minister and his son had arrived, but the appearance of both
had been minutely described. Princess Mary was sitting alone in her
room, vainly trying to master her agitation.
 "Why did they write, why did Lise tell me about it? It can never
happen!" she said, looking at herself in the glass. "How shall I enter the
drawing room? Even if I like him I can't now be myself with him." The
mere thought of her father's look filled her with terror. The little
princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne had already received from
Masha, the lady's maid, the necessary report of how handsome the
minister's son was, with his rosy cheeks and dark eyebrows, and with
what difficulty the father had dragged his legs upstairs while the son
had followed him like an eagle, three steps at a time. Having received
this information, the little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne,
whose chattering voices had reached her from the corridor, went into
Princess Mary's room.
"You know they've come, Marie?" said the little princess, waddling
in, and sinking heavily into an armchair.
She was no longer in the loose gown she generally wore in the
morning, but had on one of her best dresses. Her hair was carefully
done and her face was animated, which, however, did not conceal its
sunken and faded outlines. Dressed as she used to be in Petersburg
society, it was still more noticeable how much plainer she had become.
Some unobtrusive touch had been added to Mademoiselle Bourienne's
toilet which rendered her fresh and pretty face yet more attractive.
"What! Are you going to remain as you are, dear princess?" she
began. "They'll be announcing that the gentlemen are in the drawing
room and we shall have to go down, and you have not smartened
yourself up at all!"
The little princess got up, rang for the maid, and hurriedly and
merrily began to devise and carry out a plan of how Princess Mary
should be dressed. Princess Mary's self-esteem was wounded by the
fact that the arrival of a suitor agitated her, and still more so by both her
companions' not having the least conception that it could be otherwise.
To tell them that she felt ashamed for herself and for them would be to
betray her agitation, while to decline their offers to dress her would
prolong their banter and insistence. She flushed, her beautiful eyes
grew dim, red blotches came on her face, and it took on the unattractive
martyrlike expression it so often wore, as she submitted herself to
Mademoiselle Bourienne and Lise. Both these women quite sincerely
tried to make her look pretty. She was so plain that neither of them
could think of her as a rival, so they began dressing her with perfect
sincerity, and with the naive and firm conviction women have that
dress can make a face pretty.
"No really, my dear, this dress is not pretty," said Lise, looking
sideways at Princess Mary from a little distance. "You have a maroon
dress, have it fetched. Really! You know the fate of your whole life
may be at stake. But this one is too light, it's not becoming!"
It was not the dress, but the face and whole figure of Princess Mary
that was not pretty, but neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor the little
princess felt this; they still thought that if a blue ribbon were placed in
the hair, the hair combed up, and the blue scarf arranged lower on the
best maroon dress, and so on, all would be well. They forgot that the
frightened face and the figure could not be altered, and that however
they might change the setting and adornment of that face, it would still
remain piteous and plain. After two or three changes to which Princess
Mary meekly submitted, just as her hair had been arranged on the top
of her head (a style that quite altered and spoiled her looks) and she had
put on a maroon dress with a pale-blue scarf, the little princess walked
twice round her, now adjusting a fold of the dress with her little hand,
now arranging the scarf and looking at her with her head bent first on
one side and then on the other.
"No, it will not do," she said decidedly, clasping her hands. "No,
Mary, really this dress does not suit you. I prefer you in your little gray
everyday dress. Now please, do it for my sake. Katie," she said to the
maid, "bring the princess her gray dress, and you'll see, Mademoiselle
Bourienne, how I shall arrange it," she added, smiling with a foretaste
of artistic pleasure.
But when Katie brought the required dress, Princess Mary remained
sitting motionless before the glass, looking at her face, and saw in the
mirror her eyes full of tears and her mouth quivering, ready to burst
into sobs.
"Come, dear princess," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, "just one more
little effort."
The little princess, taking the dress from the maid, came up to
Princess Mary.
"Well, now we'll arrange something quite simple and becoming," she
said.
The three voices, hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne's, and Katie's, who
was laughing at something, mingled in a merry sound, like the chirping
of birds.
"No, leave me alone," said Princess Mary.
Her voice sounded so serious and so sad that the chirping of the birds
was silenced at once. They looked at the beautiful, large, thoughtful
eyes full of tears and of thoughts, gazing shiningly and imploringly at
them, and understood that it was useless and even cruel to insist.
 "At least, change your coiffure," said the little princess. "Didn't I tell
you," she went on, turning reproachfully to Mademoiselle Bourienne,
"Mary's is a face which such a coiffure does not suit in the least. Not in
the least! Please change it."
"Leave me alone, please leave me alone! It is all quite the same to
me," answered a voice struggling with tears.
Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to own to
themselves that Princess Mary in this guise looked very plain, worse
than usual, but it was too late. She was looking at them with an
expression they both knew, an expression thoughtful and sad. This
expression in Princess Mary did not frighten them (she never inspired
fear in anyone), but they knew that when it appeared on her face, she
became mute and was not to be shaken in her determination.
"You will change it, won't you?" said Lise. And as Princess Mary
gave no answer, she left the room.
Princess Mary was left alone. She did not comply with Lise's
request, she not only left her hair as it was, but did not even look in her
glass. Letting her arms fall helplessly, she sat with downcast eyes and
pondered. A husband, a man, a strong dominant and strangely attractive
being rose in her imagination, and carried her into a totally different
happy world of his own. She fancied a child, her own—such as she had
seen the day before in the arms of her nurse's daughter—at her own
breast, the husband standing by and gazing tenderly at her and the
child. "But no, it is impossible, I am too ugly," she thought.
"Please come to tea. The prince will be out in a moment," came the
maid's voice at the door.
She roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been thinking,
and before going down she went into the room where the icons hung
and, her eyes fixed on the dark face of a large icon of the Saviour lit by
a lamp, she stood before it with folded hands for a few moments. A
painful doubt filled her soul. Could the joy of love, of earthly love for a
man, be for her? In her thoughts of marriage Princess Mary dreamed of
happiness and of children, but her strongest, most deeply hidden
longing was for earthly love. The more she tried to hide this feeling
from others and even from herself, the stronger it grew. "O God," she
said, "how am I to stifle in my heart these temptations of the devil?
How am I to renounce forever these vile fancies, so as peacefully to
fulfill Thy will?" And scarcely had she put that question than God gave
her the answer in her own heart. "Desire nothing for thyself, seek
nothing, be not anxious or envious. Man's future and thy own fate must
remain hidden from thee, but live so that thou mayest be ready for
anything. If it be God's will to prove thee in the duties of marriage, be
ready to fulfill His will." With this consoling thought (but yet with a
hope for the fulfillment of her forbidden earthly longing) Princess Mary
sighed, and having crossed herself went down, thinking neither of her
gown and coiffure nor of how she would go in nor of what she would
say. What could all that matter in comparison with the will of God,
without Whose care not a hair of man's head can fall?

CHAPTER IV
When Princess Mary came down, Prince Vasili and his son were
already in the drawing room, talking to the little princess and
Mademoiselle Bourienne. When she entered with her heavy step,
treading on her heels, the gentlemen and Mademoiselle Bourienne rose
and the little princess, indicating her to the gentlemen, said: "Voila
Marie!" Princess Mary saw them all and saw them in detail. She saw
Prince Vasili's face, serious for an instant at the sight of her, but
immediately smiling again, and the little princess curiously noting the
impression "Marie" produced on the visitors. And she saw
Mademoiselle Bourienne, with her ribbon and pretty face, and her
unusually animated look which was fixed on him, but him she could
not see, she only saw something large, brilliant, and handsome moving
toward her as she entered the room. Prince Vasili approached first, and
she kissed the bold forehead that bent over her hand and answered his
question by saying that, on the contrary, she remembered him quite
well. Then Anatole came up to her. She still could not see him. She
only felt a soft hand taking hers firmly, and she touched with her lips a
white forehead, over which was beautiful light-brown hair smelling of
pomade. When she looked up at him she was struck by his beauty.
Anatole stood with his right thumb under a button of his uniform, his
chest expanded and his back drawn in, slightly swinging one foot, and,
with his head a little bent, looked with beaming face at the princess
without speaking and evidently not thinking about her at all. Anatole
was not quick-witted, nor ready or eloquent in conversation, but he had
the faculty, so invaluable in society, of composure and imperturbable
self-possession. If a man lacking in self-confidence remains dumb on a
first introduction and betrays a consciousness of the impropriety of
such silence and an anxiety to find something to say, the effect is bad.
But Anatole was dumb, swung his foot, and smilingly examined the
princess' hair. It was evident that he could be silent in this way for a
very long time. "If anyone finds this silence inconvenient, let him talk,
but I don't want to," he seemed to say. Besides this, in his behavior to
women Anatole had a manner which particularly inspires in them
curiosity, awe, and even love—a supercilious consciousness of his own
superiority. It was as if he said to them: "I know you, I know you, but
why should I bother about you? You'd be only too glad, of course."
Perhaps he did not really think this when he met women—even
probably he did not, for in general he thought very little—but his looks
and manner gave that impression. The princess felt this, and as if
wishing to show him that she did not even dare expect to interest him,
she turned to his father. The conversation was general and animated,
thanks to Princess Lise's voice and little downy lip that lifted over her
white teeth. She met Prince Vasili with that playful manner often
employed by lively chatty people, and consisting in the assumption that
between the person they so address and themselves there are some
semi-private, long-established jokes and amusing reminiscences,
though no such reminiscences really exist—just as none existed in this
case. Prince Vasili readily adopted her tone and the little princess also
drew Anatole, whom she hardly knew, into these amusing recollections
of things that had never occurred. Mademoiselle Bourienne also shared
them and even Princess Mary felt herself pleasantly made to share in
these merry reminiscences.
"Here at least we shall have the benefit of your company all to
ourselves, dear prince," said the little princess (of course, in French) to
Prince Vasili. "It's not as at Annette's * receptions where you always
ran away; you remember cette chere Annette!"

* Anna Pavlovna.

"Ah, but you won't talk politics to me like Annette!"

"And our little tea table?"
"Oh, yes!"
"Why is it you were never at Annette's?" the little princess asked
Anatole. "Ah, I know, I know," she said with a sly glance, "your
brother Hippolyte told me about your goings on. Oh!" and she shook
her finger at him, "I have even heard of your doings in Paris!"
"And didn't Hippolyte tell you?" asked Prince Vasili, turning to his
son and seizing the little princess' arm as if she would have run away
and he had just managed to catch her, "didn't he tell you how he
himself was pining for the dear princess, and how she showed him the
door? Oh, she is a pearl among women, Princess," he added, turning to
Princess Mary.
When Paris was mentioned, Mademoiselle Bourienne for her part
seized the opportunity of joining in the general current of recollections.
She took the liberty of inquiring whether it was long since Anatole
had left Paris and how he had liked that city. Anatole answered the
Frenchwoman very readily and, looking at her with a smile, talked to
her about her native land. When he saw the pretty little Bourienne,
Anatole came to the conclusion that he would not find Bald Hills dull
either. "Not at all bad!" he thought, examining her, "not at all bad, that
little companion! I hope she will bring her along with her when we're
married, la petite est gentille." *

* The little one is charming.

The old prince dressed leisurely in his study, frowning and

considering what he was to do. The coming of these visitors annoyed
him. "What are Prince Vasili and that son of his to me? Prince Vasili is
a shallow braggart and his son, no doubt, is a fine specimen," he
grumbled to himself. What angered him was that the coming of these
visitors revived in his mind an unsettled question he always tried to
stifle, one about which he always deceived himself. The question was
whether he could ever bring himself to part from his daughter and give
her to a husband. The prince never directly asked himself that question,
knowing beforehand that he would have to answer it justly, and justice
clashed not only with his feelings but with the very possibility of life.
Life without Princess Mary, little as he seemed to value her, was
unthinkable to him. "And why should she marry?" he thought. "To be
unhappy for certain. There's Lise, married to Andrew—a better
husband one would think could hardly be found nowadays—but is she
contented with her lot? And who would marry Marie for love? Plain
and awkward! They'll take her for her connections and wealth. Are
there no women living unmarried, and even the happier for it?" So
thought Prince Bolkonski while dressing, and yet the question he was
always putting off demanded an immediate answer. Prince Vasili had
brought his son with the evident intention of proposing, and today or
tomorrow he would probably ask for an answer. His birth and position
in society were not bad. "Well, I've nothing against it," the prince said
to himself, "but he must be worthy of her. And that is what we shall
see."
"That is what we shall see! That is what we shall see!" he added
aloud.
He entered the drawing room with his usual alert step, glancing
rapidly round the company. He noticed the change in the little princess'
dress, Mademoiselle Bourienne's ribbon, Princess Mary's unbecoming
coiffure, Mademoiselle Bourienne's and Anatole's smiles, and the
loneliness of his daughter amid the general conversation. "Got herself
up like a fool!" he thought, looking irritably at her. "She is shameless,
and he ignores her!"
He went straight up to Prince Vasili.
 "Well! How d'ye do? How d'ye do? Glad to see you!"
"Friendship laughs at distance," began Prince Vasili in his usual
rapid, self-confident, familiar tone. "Here is my second son; please love
and befriend him."
Prince Bolkonski surveyed Anatole.
"Fine young fellow! Fine young fellow!" he said. "Well, come and
kiss me," and he offered his cheek.
Anatole kissed the old man, and looked at him with curiosity and
perfect composure, waiting for a display of the eccentricities his father
had told him to expect.
Prince Bolkonski sat down in his usual place in the corner of the sofa
and, drawing up an armchair for Prince Vasili, pointed to it and began
questioning him about political affairs and news. He seemed to listen
attentively to what Prince Vasili said, but kept glancing at Princess
Mary.
"And so they are writing from Potsdam already?" he said, repeating
Prince Vasili's last words. Then rising, he suddenly went up to his
daughter.
"Is it for visitors you've got yourself up like that, eh?" said he. "Fine,
very fine! You have done up your hair in this new way for the visitors,
and before the visitors I tell you that in future you are never to dare to
change your way of dress without my consent."
"It was my fault, mon pere," interceded the little princess, with a
blush.
"You must do as you please," said Prince Bolkonski, bowing to his
daughter-in-law, "but she need not make a fool of herself, she's plain
enough as it is."
And he sat down again, paying no more attention to his daughter,
who was reduced to tears.
"On the contrary, that coiffure suits the princess very well," said
Prince Vasili.
"Now you, young prince, what's your name?" said Prince Bolkonski,
turning to Anatole, "come here, let us talk and get acquainted."
"Now the fun begins," thought Anatole, sitting down with a smile
beside the old prince.
"Well, my dear boy, I hear you've been educated abroad, not taught
to read and write by the deacon, like your father and me. Now tell me,
my dear boy, are you serving in the Horse Guards?" asked the old man,
scrutinizing Anatole closely and intently.
"No, I have been transferred to the line," said Anatole, hardly able to
restrain his laughter.
"Ah! That's a good thing. So, my dear boy, you wish to serve the
Tsar and the country? It is wartime. Such a fine fellow must serve.
Well, are you off to the front?"
"No, Prince, our regiment has gone to the front, but I am attached...
what is it I am attached to, Papa?" said Anatole, turning to his father
with a laugh.
"A splendid soldier, splendid! 'What am I attached to!' Ha, ha, ha!"
laughed Prince Bolkonski, and Anatole laughed still louder. Suddenly
Prince Bolkonski frowned.
"You may go," he said to Anatole.
Anatole returned smiling to the ladies.
"And so you've had him educated abroad, Prince Vasili, haven't
you?" said the old prince to Prince Vasili.
"I have done my best for him, and I can assure you the education
there is much better than ours."
"Yes, everything is different nowadays, everything is changed. The
lad's a fine fellow, a fine fellow! Well, come with me now." He took
Prince Vasili's arm and led him to his study. As soon as they were
alone together, Prince Vasili announced his hopes and wishes to the old
prince.
"Well, do you think I shall prevent her, that I can't part from her?"
said the old prince angrily. "What an idea! I'm ready for it tomorrow!
Only let me tell you, I want to know my son-in-law better. You know
my principles—everything aboveboard? I will ask her tomorrow in
your presence; if she is willing, then he can stay on. He can stay and I'll
see." The old prince snorted. "Let her marry, it's all the same to me!" he
screamed in the same piercing tone as when parting from his son.
"I will tell you frankly," said Prince Vasili in the tone of a crafty man
convinced of the futility of being cunning with so keen-sighted
companion. "You know, you see right through people. Anatole is no
genius, but he is an honest, goodhearted lad; an excellent son or
kinsman."
"All right, all right, we'll see!"
 As always happens when women lead lonely lives for any length of
time without male society, on Anatole's appearance all the three women
of Prince Bolkonski's household felt that their life had not been real till
then. Their powers of reasoning, feeling, and observing immediately
increased tenfold, and their life, which seemed to have been passed in
darkness, was suddenly lit up by a new brightness, full of significance.
Princess Mary grew quite unconscious of her face and coiffure. The
handsome open face of the man who might perhaps be her husband
absorbed all her attention. He seemed to her kind, brave, determined,
manly, and magnanimous. She felt convinced of that. Thousands of
dreams of a future family life continually rose in her imagination. She
drove them away and tried to conceal them.
"But am I not too cold with him?" thought the princess. "I try to be
reserved because in the depth of my soul I feel too near to him already,
but then he cannot know what I think of him and may imagine that I do
not like him."
And Princess Mary tried, but could not manage, to be cordial to her
new guest. "Poor girl, she's devilish ugly!" thought Anatole.
Mademoiselle Bourienne, also roused to great excitement by
Anatole's arrival, thought in another way. Of course, she, a handsome
young woman without any definite position, without relations or even a
country, did not intend to devote her life to serving Prince Bolkonski,
to reading aloud to him and being friends with Princess Mary.
Mademoiselle Bourienne had long been waiting for a Russian prince
who, able to appreciate at a glance her superiority to the plain, badly
dressed, ungainly Russian princesses, would fall in love with her and
carry her off; and here at last was a Russian prince. Mademoiselle
Bourienne knew a story, heard from her aunt but finished in her own
way, which she liked to repeat to herself. It was the story of a girl who
had been seduced, and to whom her poor mother (sa pauvre mere)
appeared, and reproached her for yielding to a man without being
married. Mademoiselle Bourienne was often touched to tears as in
imagination she told this story to him, her seducer. And now he, a real
Russian prince, had appeared. He would carry her away and then sa
pauvre mere would appear and he would marry her. So her future
shaped itself in Mademoiselle Bourienne's head at the very time she
was talking to Anatole about Paris. It was not calculation that guided
her (she did not even for a moment consider what she should do), but
all this had long been familiar to her, and now that Anatole had
appeared it just grouped itself around him and she wished and tried to
please him as much as possible.
The little princess, like an old war horse that hears the trumpet,
unconsciously and quite forgetting her condition, prepared for the
familiar gallop of coquetry, without any ulterior motive or any struggle,
but with naive and lighthearted gaiety.
Although in female society Anatole usually assumed the role of a
man tired of being run after by women, his vanity was flattered by the
spectacle of his power over these three women. Besides that, he was
beginning to feel for the pretty and provocative Mademoiselle
Bourienne that passionate animal feeling which was apt to master him
with great suddenness and prompt him to the coarsest and most reckless
actions.
After tea, the company went into the sitting room and Princess Mary
was asked to play on the clavichord. Anatole, laughing and in high
spirits, came and leaned on his elbows, facing her and beside
Mademoiselle Bourienne. Princess Mary felt his look with a painfully
joyous emotion. Her favorite sonata bore her into a most intimately
poetic world and the look she felt upon her made that world still more
poetic. But Anatole's expression, though his eyes were fixed on her,
referred not to her but to the movements of Mademoiselle Bourienne's
little foot, which he was then touching with his own under the
clavichord. Mademoiselle Bourienne was also looking at Princess
Mary, and in her lovely eyes there was a look of fearful joy and hope
that was also new to the princess.
"How she loves me!" thought Princess Mary. "How happy I am now,
and how happy I may be with such a friend and such a husband!
Husband? Can it be possible?" she thought, not daring to look at his
face, but still feeling his eyes gazing at her.
In the evening, after supper, when all were about to retire, Anatole
kissed Princess Mary's hand. She did not know how she found the
courage, but she looked straight into his handsome face as it came near
to her shortsighted eyes. Turning from Princess Mary he went up and
kissed Mademoiselle Bourienne's hand. (This was not etiquette, but
then he did everything so simply and with such assurance!)
Mademoiselle Bourienne flushed, and gave the princess a frightened
look.
"What delicacy!" thought the princess. "Is it possible that Amelie"
(Mademoiselle Bourienne) "thinks I could be jealous of her, and not
value her pure affection and devotion to me?" She went up to her and
kissed her warmly. Anatole went up to kiss the little princess' hand.
"No! No! No! When your father writes to tell me that you are
behaving well I will give you my hand to kiss. Not till then!" she said.
And smilingly raising a finger at him, she left the room.
 CHAPTER V
They all separated, but, except Anatole who fell asleep as soon as he
got into bed, all kept awake a long time that night.
"Is he really to be my husband, this stranger who is so kind—yes,
kind, that is the chief thing," thought Princess Mary; and fear, which
she had seldom experienced, came upon her. She feared to look round,
it seemed to her that someone was there standing behind the screen in
the dark corner. And this someone was he—the devil—and he was also
this man with the white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips.
She rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room.
Mademoiselle Bourienne walked up and down the conservatory for a
long time that evening, vainly expecting someone, now smiling at
someone, now working herself up to tears with the imaginary words of
her pauvre mere rebuking her for her fall.
The little princess grumbled to her maid that her bed was badly
made. She could not lie either on her face or on her side. Every position
was awkward and uncomfortable, and her burden oppressed her now
more than ever because Anatole's presence had vividly recalled to her
the time when she was not like that and when everything was light and
gay. She sat in an armchair in her dressing jacket and nightcap and
Katie, sleepy and disheveled, beat and turned the heavy feather bed for
the third time, muttering to herself.
"I told you it was all lumps and holes!" the little princess repeated. "I
should be glad enough to fall asleep, so it's not my fault!" and her voice
quivered like that of a child about to cry.
The old prince did not sleep either. Tikhon, half asleep, heard him
pacing angrily about and snorting. The old prince felt as though he had
been insulted through his daughter. The insult was the more pointed
because it concerned not himself but another, his daughter, whom he
loved more than himself. He kept telling himself that he would consider
the whole matter and decide what was right and how he should act, but
instead of that he only excited himself more and more.
"The first man that turns up—she forgets her father and everything
else, runs upstairs and does up her hair and wags her tail and is unlike
herself! Glad to throw her father over! And she knew I should notice it.
Fr... fr... fr! And don't I see that that idiot had eyes only for
Bourienne—I shall have to get rid of her. And how is it she has not
pride enough to see it? If she has no pride for herself she might at least
have some for my sake! She must be shown that the blockhead thinks
nothing of her and looks only at Bourienne. No, she has no pride... but
I'll let her see...."
The old prince knew that if he told his daughter she was making a
mistake and that Anatole meant to flirt with Mademoiselle Bourienne,
Princess Mary's self-esteem would be wounded and his point (not to be
parted from her) would be gained, so pacifying himself with this
thought, he called Tikhon and began to undress.
"What devil brought them here?" thought he, while Tikhon was
putting the nightshirt over his dried-up old body and gray-haired chest.
"I never invited them. They came to disturb my life—and there is not
much of it left."
"Devil take 'em!" he muttered, while his head was still covered by
the shirt.
Tikhon knew his master's habit of sometimes thinking aloud, and
therefore met with unaltered looks the angrily inquisitive expression of
the face that emerged from the shirt.
"Gone to bed?" asked the prince.
Tikhon, like all good valets, instinctively knew the direction of his
master's thoughts. He guessed that the question referred to Prince Vasili
and his son.
"They have gone to bed and put out their lights, your excellency."
"No good... no good..." said the prince rapidly, and thrusting his feet
into his slippers and his arms into the sleeves of his dressing gown, he
went to the couch on which he slept.
Though no words had passed between Anatole and Mademoiselle
Bourienne, they quite understood one another as to the first part of their
romance, up to the appearance of the pauvre mere; they understood that
they had much to say to one another in private and so they had been
seeking an opportunity since morning to meet one another alone. When
Princess Mary went to her father's room at the usual hour,
Mademoiselle Bourienne and Anatole met in the conservatory.
Princess Mary went to the door of the study with special trepidation.
It seemed to her that not only did everybody know that her fate would
be decided that day, but that they also knew what she thought about it.
She read this in Tikhon's face and in that of Prince Vasili's valet, who
made her a low bow when she met him in the corridor carrying hot
water.
 The old prince was very affectionate and careful in his treatment of
his daughter that morning. Princess Mary well knew this painstaking
expression of her father's. His face wore that expression when his dry
hands clenched with vexation at her not understanding a sum in
arithmetic, when rising from his chair he would walk away from her,
repeating in a low voice the same words several times over.
He came to the point at once, treating her ceremoniously.
"I have had a proposition made me concerning you," he said with an
unnatural smile. "I expect you have guessed that Prince Vasili has not
come and brought his pupil with him" (for some reason Prince
Bolkonski referred to Anatole as a "pupil") "for the sake of my
beautiful eyes. Last night a proposition was made me on your account
and, as you know my principles, I refer it to you."
"How am I to understand you, mon pere?" said the princess, growing
pale and then blushing.
"How understand me!" cried her father angrily. "Prince Vasili finds
you to his taste as a daughter-in-law and makes a proposal to you on his
pupil's behalf. That's how it's to be understood! 'How understand it'!...
And I ask you!"
"I do not know what you think, Father," whispered the princess.
"I? I? What of me? Leave me out of the question. I'm not going to
get married. What about you? That's what I want to know."
The princess saw that her father regarded the matter with
disapproval, but at that moment the thought occurred to her that her fate
would be decided now or never. She lowered her eyes so as not to see
the gaze under which she felt that she could not think, but would only
be able to submit from habit, and she said: "I wish only to do your will,
but if I had to express my own desire..." She had no time to finish. The
old prince interrupted her.
"That's admirable!" he shouted. "He will take you with your dowry
and take Mademoiselle Bourienne into the bargain. She'll be the wife,
while you..."
The prince stopped. He saw the effect these words had produced on
his daughter. She lowered her head and was ready to burst into tears.
"Now then, now then, I'm only joking!" he said. "Remember this,
Princess, I hold to the principle that a maiden has a full right to choose.
I give you freedom. Only remember that your life's happiness depends
on your decision. Never mind me!"
"But I do not know, Father!"
 "There's no need to talk! He receives his orders and will marry you
or anybody; but you are free to choose.... Go to your room, think it
over, and come back in an hour and tell me in his presence: yes or no. I
know you will pray over it. Well, pray if you like, but you had better
think it over. Go! Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no!" he still shouted
when the princess, as if lost in a fog, had already staggered out of the
study.
Her fate was decided and happily decided. But what her father had
said about Mademoiselle Bourienne was dreadful. It was untrue to be
sure, but still it was terrible, and she could not help thinking of it. She
was going straight on through the conservatory, neither seeing nor
hearing anything, when suddenly the well-known whispering of
Mademoiselle Bourienne aroused her. She raised her eyes, and two
steps away saw Anatole embracing the Frenchwoman and whispering
something to her. With a horrified expression on his handsome face,
Anatole looked at Princess Mary, but did not at once take his arm from
the waist of Mademoiselle Bourienne who had not yet seen her.
"Who's that? Why? Wait a moment!" Anatole's face seemed to say.
Princess Mary looked at them in silence. She could not understand it.
At last Mademoiselle Bourienne gave a scream and ran away. Anatole
bowed to Princess Mary with a gay smile, as if inviting her to join in a
laugh at this strange incident, and then shrugging his shoulders went to
the door that led to his own apartments.
An hour later, Tikhon came to call Princess Mary to the old prince;
he added that Prince Vasili was also there. When Tikhon came to her
Princess Mary was sitting on the sofa in her room, holding the weeping
Mademoiselle Bourienne in her arms and gently stroking her hair. The
princess' beautiful eyes with all their former calm radiance were
looking with tender affection and pity at Mademoiselle Bourienne's
pretty face.
"No, Princess, I have lost your affection forever!" said Mademoiselle
Bourienne.
"Why? I love you more than ever," said Princess Mary, "and I will
try to do all I can for your happiness."
"But you despise me. You who are so pure can never understand
being so carried away by passion. Oh, only my poor mother..."
"I quite understand," answered Princess Mary, with a sad smile.
"Calm yourself, my dear. I will go to my father," she said, and went
out.
Prince Vasili, with one leg thrown high over the other and a snuffbox
in his hand, was sitting there with a smile of deep emotion on his face,
as if stirred to his heart's core and himself regretting and laughing at his
own sensibility, when Princess Mary entered. He hurriedly took a pinch
of snuff.
"Ah, my dear, my dear!" he began, rising and taking her by both
hands. Then, sighing, he added: "My son's fate is in your hands.
Decide, my dear, good, gentle Marie, whom I have always loved as a
daughter!"
He drew back and a real tear appeared in his eye.
"Fr... fr..." snorted Prince Bolkonski. "The prince is making a
proposition to you in his pupil's—I mean, his son's—name. Do you
wish or not to be Prince Anatole Kuragin's wife? Reply: yes or no," he
shouted, "and then I shall reserve the right to state my opinion also.
Yes, my opinion, and only my opinion," added Prince Bolkonski,
turning to Prince Vasili and answering his imploring look. "Yes, or
no?"
"My desire is never to leave you, Father, never to separate my life
from yours. I don't wish to marry," she answered positively, glancing at
Prince Vasili and at her father with her beautiful eyes.
"Humbug! Nonsense! Humbug, humbug, humbug!" cried Prince
Bolkonski, frowning and taking his daughter's hand; he did not kiss her,
but only bending his forehead to hers just touched it, and pressed her
hand so that she winced and uttered a cry.
Prince Vasili rose.
"My dear, I must tell you that this is a moment I shall never, never
forget. But, my dear, will you not give us a little hope of touching this
heart, so kind and generous? Say 'perhaps'... The future is so long. Say
'perhaps.'"
"Prince, what I have said is all there is in my heart. I thank you for
the honor, but I shall never be your son's wife."
"Well, so that's finished, my dear fellow! I am very glad to have seen
you. Very glad! Go back to your rooms, Princess. Go!" said the old
prince. "Very, very glad to have seen you," repeated he, embracing
Prince Vasili.
"My vocation is a different one," thought Princess Mary. "My
vocation is to be happy with another kind of happiness, the happiness
of love and self-sacrifice. And cost what it may, I will arrange poor
Amelie's happiness, she loves him so passionately, and so passionately
repents. I will do all I can to arrange the match between them. If he is
not rich I will give her the means; I will ask my father and Andrew. I
shall be so happy when she is his wife. She is so unfortunate, a
stranger, alone, helpless! And, oh God, how passionately she must love
him if she could so far forget herself! Perhaps I might have done the
same!..." thought Princess Mary.

CHAPTER VI
It was long since the Rostovs had news of Nicholas. Not till
midwinter was the count at last handed a letter addressed in his son's
handwriting. On receiving it, he ran on tiptoe to his study in alarm and
haste, trying to escape notice, closed the door, and began to read the
letter.
Anna Mikhaylovna, who always knew everything that passed in the
house, on hearing of the arrival of the letter went softly into the room
and found the count with it in his hand, sobbing and laughing at the
same time.
Anna Mikhaylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was
still living with the Rostovs.
"My dear friend?" said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry, prepared to
sympathize in any way.
The count sobbed yet more.
"Nikolenka... a letter... wa... a... s... wounded... my darling boy... the
countess... promoted to be an officer... thank God... How tell the little
countess!"
Anna Mikhaylovna sat down beside him, with her own handkerchief
wiped the tears from his eyes and from the letter, then having dried her
own eyes she comforted the count, and decided that at dinner and till
teatime she would prepare the countess, and after tea, with God's help,
would inform her.
At dinner Anna Mikhaylovna talked the whole time about the war
news and about Nikolenka, twice asked when the last letter had been
received from him, though she knew that already, and remarked that
they might very likely be getting a letter from him that day. Each time
that these hints began to make the countess anxious and she glanced
uneasily at the count and at Anna Mikhaylovna, the latter very adroitly
turned the conversation to insignificant matters. Natasha, who, of the
whole family, was the most gifted with a capacity to feel any shades of
intonation, look, and expression, pricked up her ears from the
beginning of the meal and was certain that there was some secret
between her father and Anna Mikhaylovna, that it had something to do
with her brother, and that Anna Mikhaylovna was preparing them for it.
Bold as she was, Natasha, who knew how sensitive her mother was to
anything relating to Nikolenka, did not venture to ask any questions at
dinner, but she was too excited to eat anything and kept wriggling
about on her chair regardless of her governess' remarks. After dinner,
she rushed head long after Anna Mikhaylovna and, dashing at her,
flung herself on her neck as soon as she overtook her in the sitting
room.
"Auntie, darling, do tell me what it is!"
"Nothing, my dear."
"No, dearest, sweet one, honey, I won't give up—I know you know
something."
Anna Mikhaylovna shook her head.
"You are a little slyboots," she said.
"A letter from Nikolenka! I'm sure of it!" exclaimed Natasha, reading
confirmation in Anna Mikhaylovna's face.
"But for God's sake, be careful, you know how it may affect your
mamma."
"I will, I will, only tell me! You won't? Then I will go and tell at
once."
Anna Mikhaylovna, in a few words, told her the contents of the
letter, on condition that she should tell no one.
"No, on my true word of honor," said Natasha, crossing herself, "I
won't tell anyone!" and she ran off at once to Sonya.
"Nikolenka... wounded... a letter," she announced in gleeful triumph.
"Nicholas!" was all Sonya said, instantly turning white.
Natasha, seeing the impression the news of her brother's wound
produced on Sonya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the
news.
She rushed to Sonya, hugged her, and began to cry.
"A little wound, but he has been made an officer; he is well now, he
wrote himself," said she through her tears.
"There now! It's true that all you women are crybabies," remarked
Petya, pacing the room with large, resolute strides. "Now I'm very glad,
very glad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself so. You are
all blubberers and understand nothing."
Natasha smiled through her tears.
"You haven't read the letter?" asked Sonya.
"No, but she said that it was all over and that he's now an officer."
"Thank God!" said Sonya, crossing herself. "But perhaps she
deceived you. Let us go to Mamma."
Petya paced the room in silence for a time.
"If I'd been in Nikolenka's place I would have killed even more of
those Frenchmen," he said. "What nasty brutes they are! I'd have killed
so many that there'd have been a heap of them."
"Hold your tongue, Petya, what a goose you are!"
"I'm not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles," said Petya.
"Do you remember him?" Natasha suddenly asked, after a moment's
silence.
Sonya smiled.
"Do I remember Nicholas?"
"No, Sonya, but do you remember so that you remember him
perfectly, remember everything?" said Natasha, with an expressive
gesture, evidently wishing to give her words a very definite meaning. "I
remember Nikolenka too, I remember him well," she said. "But I don't
remember Boris. I don't remember him a bit."
"What! You don't remember Boris?" asked Sonya in surprise.
"It's not that I don't remember—I know what he is like, but not as I
remember Nikolenka. Him—I just shut my eyes and remember, but
Boris... No!" (She shut her eyes.) "No! there's nothing at all."
"Oh, Natasha!" said Sonya, looking ecstatically and earnestly at her
friend as if she did not consider her worthy to hear what she meant to
say and as if she were saying it to someone else, with whom joking was
out of the question, "I am in love with your brother once for all and,
whatever may happen to him or to me, shall never cease to love him as
long as I live."
Natasha looked at Sonya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and
said nothing. She felt that Sonya was speaking the truth, that there was
such love as Sonya was speaking of. But Natasha had not yet felt
anything like it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it.
 "Shall you write to him?" she asked.
Sonya became thoughtful. The question of how to write to Nicholas,
and whether she ought to write, tormented her. Now that he was
already an officer and a wounded hero, would it be right to remind him
of herself and, as it might seem, of the obligations to her he had taken
on himself?
"I don't know. I think if he writes, I will write too," she said,
blushing.
"And you won't feel ashamed to write to him?"
Sonya smiled.
"No."
"And I should be ashamed to write to Boris. I'm not going to."
"Why should you be ashamed?"
"Well, I don't know. It's awkward and would make me ashamed."
"And I know why she'd be ashamed," said Petya, offended by
Natasha's previous remark. "It's because she was in love with that fat
one in spectacles" (that was how Petya described his namesake, the
new Count Bezukhov) "and now she's in love with that singer" (he
meant Natasha's Italian singing master), "that's why she's ashamed!"
"Petya, you're a stupid!" said Natasha.
"Not more stupid than you, madam," said the nine-year-old Petya,
with the air of an old brigadier.
The countess had been prepared by Anna Mikhaylovna's hints at
dinner. On retiring to her own room, she sat in an armchair, her eyes
fixed on a miniature portrait of her son on the lid of a snuffbox, while
the tears kept coming into her eyes. Anna Mikhaylovna, with the letter,
came on tiptoe to the countess' door and paused.
"Don't come in," she said to the old count who was following her.
"Come later." And she went in, closing the door behind her.
The count put his ear to the keyhole and listened.
At first he heard the sound of indifferent voices, then Anna
Mikhaylovna's voice alone in a long speech, then a cry, then silence,
then both voices together with glad intonations, and then footsteps.
Anna Mikhaylovna opened the door. Her face wore the proud
expression of a surgeon who has just performed a difficult operation
and admits the public to appreciate his skill.
 "It is done!" she said to the count, pointing triumphantly to the
countess, who sat holding in one hand the snuffbox with its portrait and
in the other the letter, and pressing them alternately to her lips.
When she saw the count, she stretched out her arms to him,
embraced his bald head, over which she again looked at the letter and
the portrait, and in order to press them again to her lips, she slightly
pushed away the bald head. Vera, Natasha, Sonya, and Petya now
entered the room, and the reading of the letter began. After a brief
description of the campaign and the two battles in which he had taken
part, and his promotion, Nicholas said that he kissed his father's and
mother's hands asking for their blessing, and that he kissed Vera,
Natasha, and Petya. Besides that, he sent greetings to Monsieur
Schelling, Madame Schoss, and his old nurse, and asked them to kiss
for him "dear Sonya, whom he loved and thought of just the same as
ever." When she heard this Sonya blushed so that tears came into her
eyes and, unable to bear the looks turned upon her, ran away into the
dancing hall, whirled round it at full speed with her dress puffed out
like a balloon, and, flushed and smiling, plumped down on the floor.
The countess was crying.
"Why are you crying, Mamma?" asked Vera. "From all he says one
should be glad and not cry."
This was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natasha looked
at her reproachfully. "And who is it she takes after?" thought the
countess.
Nicholas' letter was read over hundreds of times, and those who were
considered worthy to hear it had to come to the countess, for she did
not let it out of her hands. The tutors came, and the nurses, and Dmitri,
and several acquaintances, and the countess reread the letter each time
with fresh pleasure and each time discovered in it fresh proofs of
Nikolenka's virtues. How strange, how extraordinary, how joyful it
seemed, that her son, the scarcely perceptible motion of whose tiny
limbs she had felt twenty years ago within her, that son about whom
she used to have quarrels with the too indulgent count, that son who
had first learned to say "pear" and then "granny," that this son should
now be away in a foreign land amid strange surroundings, a manly
warrior doing some kind of man's work of his own, without help or
guidance. The universal experience of ages, showing that children do
grow imperceptibly from the cradle to manhood, did not exist for the
countess. Her son's growth toward manhood, at each of its stages, had
seemed as extraordinary to her as if there had never existed the millions
of human beings who grew up in the same way. As twenty years
before, it seemed impossible that the little creature who lived
somewhere under her heart would ever cry, suck her breast, and begin
to speak, so now she could not believe that that little creature could be
this strong, brave man, this model son and officer that, judging by this
letter, he now was.
"What a style! How charmingly he describes!" said she, reading the
descriptive part of the letter. "And what a soul! Not a word about
himself.... Not a word! About some Denisov or other, though he
himself, I dare say, is braver than any of them. He says nothing about
his sufferings. What a heart! How like him it is! And how he has
remembered everybody! Not forgetting anyone. I always said when he
was only so high—I always said...."
For more than a week preparations were being made, rough drafts of
letters to Nicholas from all the household were written and copied out,
while under the supervision of the countess and the solicitude of the
count, money and all things necessary for the uniform and equipment
of the newly commissioned officer were collected. Anna Mikhaylovna,
practical woman that she was, had even managed by favor with army
authorities to secure advantageous means of communication for herself
and her son. She had opportunities of sending her letters to the Grand
Duke Constantine Pavlovich, who commanded the Guards. The
Rostovs supposed that The Russian Guards, Abroad, was quite a
definite address, and that if a letter reached the Grand Duke in
command of the Guards there was no reason why it should not reach
the Pavlograd regiment, which was presumably somewhere in the same
neighborhood. And so it was decided to send the letters and money by
the Grand Duke's courier to Boris and Boris was to forward them to
Nicholas. The letters were from the old count, the countess, Petya,
Vera, Natasha, and Sonya, and finally there were six thousand rubles
for his outfit and various other things the old count sent to his son.

CHAPTER VII
On the twelfth of November, Kutuzov's active army, in camp before
Olmutz, was preparing to be reviewed next day by the two Emperors—
the Russian and the Austrian. The Guards, just arrived from Russia,
spent the night ten miles from Olmutz and next morning were to come
straight to the review, reaching the field at Olmutz by ten o'clock.
That day Nicholas Rostov received a letter from Boris, telling him
that the Ismaylov regiment was quartered for the night ten miles from
Olmutz and that he wanted to see him as he had a letter and money for
him. Rostov was particularly in need of money now that the troops,
after their active service, were stationed near Olmutz and the camp
swarmed with well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering all
sorts of tempting wares. The Pavlograds held feast after feast,
celebrating awards they had received for the campaign, and made
expeditions to Olmutz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian, who
had recently opened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses. Rostov,
who had just celebrated his promotion to a cornetcy and bought
Denisov's horse, Bedouin, was in debt all round, to his comrades and
the sutlers. On receiving Boris' letter he rode with a fellow officer to
Olmutz, dined there, drank a bottle of wine, and then set off alone to
the Guards' camp to find his old playmate. Rostov had not yet had time
to get his uniform. He had on a shabby cadet jacket, decorated with a
soldier's cross, equally shabby cadet's riding breeches lined with worn
leather, and an officer's saber with a sword knot. The Don horse he was
riding was one he had bought from a Cossack during the campaign, and
he wore a crumpled hussar cap stuck jauntily back on one side of his
head. As he rode up to the camp he thought how he would impress
Boris and all his comrades of the Guards by his appearance—that of a
fighting hussar who had been under fire.
The Guards had made their whole march as if on a pleasure trip,
parading their cleanliness and discipline. They had come by easy
stages, their knapsacks conveyed on carts, and the Austrian authorities
had provided excellent dinners for the officers at every halting place.
The regiments had entered and left the town with their bands playing,
and by the Grand Duke's orders the men had marched all the way in
step (a practice on which the Guards prided themselves), the officers on
foot and at their proper posts. Boris had been quartered, and had
marched all the way, with Berg who was already in command of a
company. Berg, who had obtained his captaincy during the campaign,
had gained the confidence of his superiors by his promptitude and
accuracy and had arranged his money matters very satisfactorily. Boris,
during the campaign, had made the acquaintance of many persons who
might prove useful to him, and by a letter of recommendation he had
brought from Pierre had become acquainted with Prince Andrew
Bolkonski, through whom he hoped to obtain a post on the commander
in chief's staff. Berg and Boris, having rested after yesterday's march,
were sitting, clean and neatly dressed, at a round table in the clean
quarters allotted to them, playing chess. Berg held a smoking pipe
between his knees. Boris, in the accurate way characteristic of him, was
building a little pyramid of chessmen with his delicate white fingers
while awaiting Berg's move, and watched his opponent's face, evidently
thinking about the game as he always thought only of whatever he was
engaged on.
"Well, how are you going to get out of that?" he remarked.
"We'll try to," replied Berg, touching a pawn and then removing his
hand.
 At that moment the door opened.
"Here he is at last!" shouted Rostov. "And Berg too! Oh, you
petisenfans, allay cushay dormir!" he exclaimed, imitating his Russian
nurse's French, at which he and Boris used to laugh long ago.
"Dear me, how you have changed!"
Boris rose to meet Rostov, but in doing so did not omit to steady and
replace some chessmen that were falling. He was about to embrace his
friend, but Nicholas avoided him. With that peculiar feeling of youth,
that dread of beaten tracks, and wish to express itself in a manner
different from that of its elders which is often insincere, Nicholas
wished to do something special on meeting his friend. He wanted to
pinch him, push him, do anything but kiss him—a thing everybody did.
But notwithstanding this, Boris embraced him in a quiet, friendly way
and kissed him three times.
They had not met for nearly half a year and, being at the age when
young men take their first steps on life's road, each saw immense
changes in the other, quite a new reflection of the society in which they
had taken those first steps. Both had changed greatly since they last met
and both were in a hurry to show the changes that had taken place in
them.
"Oh, you damned dandies! Clean and fresh as if you'd been to a fete,
not like us sinners of the line," cried Rostov, with martial swagger and
with baritone notes in his voice, new to Boris, pointing to his own mud-
bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostov's loud
voice, popped her head in at the door.
"Eh, is she pretty?" he asked with a wink.
"Why do you shout so? You'll frighten them!" said Boris. "I did not
expect you today," he added. "I only sent you the note yesterday by
Bolkonski—an adjutant of Kutuzov's, who's a friend of mine. I did not
think he would get it to you so quickly.... Well, how are you? Been
under fire already?" asked Boris.
Without answering, Rostov shook the soldier's Cross of St. George
fastened to the cording of his uniform and, indicating a bandaged arm,
glanced at Berg with a smile.
"As you see," he said.
"Indeed? Yes, yes!" said Boris, with a smile. "And we too have had a
splendid march. You know, of course, that His Imperial Highness rode
with our regiment all the time, so that we had every comfort and every
advantage. What receptions we had in Poland! What dinners and balls!
I can't tell you. And the Tsarevich was very gracious to all our
officers."
And the two friends told each other of their doings, the one of his
hussar revels and life in the fighting line, the other of the pleasures and
advantages of service under members of the Imperial family.
"Oh, you Guards!" said Rostov. "I say, send for some wine."
Boris made a grimace.
"If you really want it," said he.
He went to his bed, drew a purse from under the clean pillow, and
sent for wine.
"Yes, and I have some money and a letter to give you," he added.
Rostov took the letter and, throwing the money on the sofa, put both
arms on the table and began to read. After reading a few lines, he
glanced angrily at Berg, then, meeting his eyes, hid his face behind the
letter.
"Well, they've sent you a tidy sum," said Berg, eying the heavy purse
that sank into the sofa. "As for us, Count, we get along on our pay. I
can tell you for myself..."
"I say, Berg, my dear fellow," said Rostov, "when you get a letter
from home and meet one of your own people whom you want to talk
everything over with, and I happen to be there, I'll go at once, to be out
of your way! Do go somewhere, anywhere... to the devil!" he
exclaimed, and immediately seizing him by the shoulder and looking
amiably into his face, evidently wishing to soften the rudeness of his
words, he added, "Don't be hurt, my dear fellow; you know I speak
from my heart as to an old acquaintance."
"Oh, don't mention it, Count! I quite understand," said Berg, getting
up and speaking in a muffled and guttural voice.
"Go across to our hosts: they invited you," added Boris.
Berg put on the cleanest of coats, without a spot or speck of dust,
stood before a looking glass and brushed the hair on his temples
upwards, in the way affected by the Emperor Alexander, and, having
assured himself from the way Rostov looked at it that his coat had been
noticed, left the room with a pleasant smile.
"Oh dear, what a beast I am!" muttered Rostov, as he read the letter.
"Why?"
 "Oh, what a pig I am, not to have written and to have given them
such a fright! Oh, what a pig I am!" he repeated, flushing suddenly.
"Well, have you sent Gabriel for some wine? All right let's have some!"
In the letter from his parents was enclosed a letter of
recommendation to Bagration which the old countess at Anna
Mikhaylovna's advice had obtained through an acquaintance and sent to
her son, asking him to take it to its destination and make use of it.
"What nonsense! Much I need it!" said Rostov, throwing the letter
under the table.
"Why have you thrown that away?" asked Boris.
"It is some letter of recommendation... what the devil do I want it
for!"
"Why 'What the devil'?" said Boris, picking it up and reading the
address. "This letter would be of great use to you."
"I want nothing, and I won't be anyone's adjutant."
"Why not?" inquired Boris.
"It's a lackey's job!"
"You are still the same dreamer, I see," remarked Boris, shaking his
head.
"And you're still the same diplomatist! But that's not the point...
Come, how are you?" asked Rostov.
"Well, as you see. So far everything's all right, but I confess I should
much like to be an adjutant and not remain at the front."
"Why?"
"Because when once a man starts on military service, he should try
to make as successful a career of it as possible."
"Oh, that's it!" said Rostov, evidently thinking of something else.
He looked intently and inquiringly into his friend's eyes, evidently
trying in vain to find the answer to some question.
Old Gabriel brought in the wine.
"Shouldn't we now send for Berg?" asked Boris. "He would drink
with you. I can't."
"Well, send for him... and how do you get on with that German?"
asked Rostov, with a contemptuous smile.
 "He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow," answered
Boris.
Again Rostov looked intently into Boris' eyes and sighed. Berg
returned, and over the bottle of wine conversation between the three
officers became animated. The Guardsmen told Rostov of their march
and how they had been made much of in Russia, Poland, and abroad.
They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the Grand
Duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility. Berg, as usual,
kept silent when the subject did not relate to himself, but in connection
with the stories of the Grand Duke's quick temper he related with gusto
how in Galicia he had managed to deal with the Grand Duke when the
latter made a tour of the regiments and was annoyed at the irregularity
of a movement. With a pleasant smile Berg related how the Grand
Duke had ridden up to him in a violent passion, shouting: "Arnauts!"
("Arnauts" was the Tsarevich's favorite expression when he was in a
rage) and called for the company commander.
"Would you believe it, Count, I was not at all alarmed, because I
knew I was right. Without boasting, you know, I may say that I know
the Army Orders by heart and know the Regulations as well as I do the
Lord's Prayer. So, Count, there never is any negligence in my company,
and so my conscience was at ease. I came forward...." (Berg stood up
and showed how he presented himself, with his hand to his cap, and
really it would have been difficult for a face to express greater respect
and self-complacency than his did.) "Well, he stormed at me, as the
saying is, stormed and stormed and stormed! It was not a matter of life
but rather of death, as the saying is. 'Albanians!' and 'devils!' and 'To
Siberia!'" said Berg with a sagacious smile. "I knew I was in the right
so I kept silent; was not that best, Count?... 'Hey, are you dumb?' he
shouted. Still I remained silent. And what do you think, Count? The
next day it was not even mentioned in the Orders of the Day. That's
what keeping one's head means. That's the way, Count," said Berg,
lighting his pipe and emitting rings of smoke.
"Yes, that was fine," said Rostov, smiling.
But Boris noticed that he was preparing to make fun of Berg, and
skillfully changed the subject. He asked him to tell them how and
where he got his wound. This pleased Rostov and he began talking
about it, and as he went on became more and more animated. He told
them of his Schon Grabern affair, just as those who have taken part in a
battle generally do describe it, that is, as they would like it to have
been, as they have heard it described by others, and as sounds well, but
not at all as it really was. Rostov was a truthful young man and would
on no account have told a deliberate lie. He began his story meaning to
tell everything just as it happened, but imperceptibly, involuntarily, and
inevitably he lapsed into falsehood. If he had told the truth to his
hearers—who like himself had often heard stories of attacks and had
formed a definite idea of what an attack was and were expecting to hear
just such a story—they would either not have believed him or, still
worse, would have thought that Rostov was himself to blame since
what generally happens to the narrators of cavalry attacks had not
happened to him. He could not tell them simply that everyone went at a
trot and that he fell off his horse and sprained his arm and then ran as
hard as he could from a Frenchman into the wood. Besides, to tell
everything as it really happened, it would have been necessary to make
an effort of will to tell only what happened. It is very difficult to tell the
truth, and young people are rarely capable of it. His hearers expected a
story of how beside himself and all aflame with excitement, he had
flown like a storm at the square, cut his way in, slashed right and left,
how his saber had tasted flesh and he had fallen exhausted, and so on.
And so he told them all that.
In the middle of his story, just as he was saying: "You cannot
imagine what a strange frenzy one experiences during an attack,"
Prince Andrew, whom Boris was expecting, entered the room. Prince
Andrew, who liked to help young men, was flattered by being asked for
his assistance and being well disposed toward Boris, who had managed
to please him the day before, he wished to do what the young man
wanted. Having been sent with papers from Kutuzov to the Tsarevich,
he looked in on Boris, hoping to find him alone. When he came in and
saw an hussar of the line recounting his military exploits (Prince
Andrew could not endure that sort of man), he gave Boris a pleasant
smile, frowned as with half-closed eyes he looked at Rostov, bowed
slightly and wearily, and sat down languidly on the sofa: he felt it
unpleasant to have dropped in on bad company. Rostov flushed up on
noticing this, but he did not care, this was a mere stranger. Glancing,
however, at Boris, he saw that he too seemed ashamed of the hussar of
the line.
In spite of Prince Andrew's disagreeable, ironical tone, in spite of the
contempt with which Rostov, from his fighting army point of view,
regarded all these little adjutants on the staff of whom the newcomer
was evidently one, Rostov felt confused, blushed, and became silent.
Boris inquired what news there might be on the staff, and what, without
indiscretion, one might ask about our plans.
"We shall probably advance," replied Bolkonski, evidently reluctant
to say more in the presence of a stranger.
Berg took the opportunity to ask, with great politeness, whether, as
was rumored, the allowance of forage money to captains of companies
would be doubled. To this Prince Andrew answered with a smile that
he could give no opinion on such an important government order, and
Berg laughed gaily.
 "As to your business," Prince Andrew continued, addressing Boris,
"we will talk of it later" (and he looked round at Rostov). "Come to me
after the review and we will do what is possible."
And, having glanced round the room, Prince Andrew turned to
Rostov, whose state of unconquerable childish embarrassment now
changing to anger he did not condescend to notice, and said: "I think
you were talking of the Schon Grabern affair? Were you there?"
"I was there," said Rostov angrily, as if intending to insult the aide-
de-camp.
Bolkonski noticed the hussar's state of mind, and it amused him.
With a slightly contemptuous smile, he said: "Yes, there are many
stories now told about that affair!"
"Yes, stories!" repeated Rostov loudly, looking with eyes suddenly
grown furious, now at Boris, now at Bolkonski. "Yes, many stories!
But our stories are the stories of men who have been under the enemy's
fire! Our stories have some weight, not like the stories of those fellows
on the staff who get rewards without doing anything!"
"Of whom you imagine me to be one?" said Prince Andrew, with a
quiet and particularly amiable smile.
A strange feeling of exasperation and yet of respect for this man's
self-possession mingled at that moment in Rostov's soul.
"I am not talking about you," he said, "I don't know you and, frankly,
I don't want to. I am speaking of the staff in general."
"And I will tell you this," Prince Andrew interrupted in a tone of
quiet authority, "you wish to insult me, and I am ready to agree with
you that it would be very easy to do so if you haven't sufficient self-
respect, but admit that the time and place are very badly chosen. In a
day or two we shall all have to take part in a greater and more serious
duel, and besides, Drubetskoy, who says he is an old friend of yours, is
not at all to blame that my face has the misfortune to displease you.
However," he added rising, "you know my name and where to find me,
but don't forget that I do not regard either myself or you as having been
at all insulted, and as a man older than you, my advice is to let the
matter drop. Well then, on Friday after the review I shall expect you,
Drubetskoy. Au revoir!" exclaimed Prince Andrew, and with a bow to
them both he went out.
Only when Prince Andrew was gone did Rostov think of what he
ought to have said. And he was still more angry at having omitted to
say it. He ordered his horse at once and, coldly taking leave of Boris,
rode home. Should he go to headquarters next day and challenge that
affected adjutant, or really let the matter drop, was the question that
worried him all the way. He thought angrily of the pleasure he would
have at seeing the fright of that small and frail but proud man when
covered by his pistol, and then he felt with surprise that of all the men
he knew there was none he would so much like to have for a friend as
that very adjutant whom he so hated.

CHAPTER VIII
The day after Rostov had been to see Boris, a review was held of the
Austrian and Russian troops, both those freshly arrived from Russia
and those who had been campaigning under Kutuzov. The two
Emperors, the Russian with his heir the Tsarevich, and the Austrian
with the Archduke, inspected the allied army of eighty thousand men.
From early morning the smart clean troops were on the move,
forming up on the field before the fortress. Now thousands of feet and
bayonets moved and halted at the officers' command, turned with
banners flying, formed up at intervals, and wheeled round other similar
masses of infantry in different uniforms; now was heard the rhythmic
beat of hoofs and the jingling of showy cavalry in blue, red, and green
braided uniforms, with smartly dressed bandsmen in front mounted on
black, roan, or gray horses; then again, spreading out with the brazen
clatter of the polished shining cannon that quivered on the gun
carriages and with the smell of linstocks, came the artillery which
crawled between the infantry and cavalry and took up its appointed
position. Not only the generals in full parade uniforms, with their thin
or thick waists drawn in to the utmost, their red necks squeezed into
their stiff collars, and wearing scarves and all their decorations, not
only the elegant, pomaded officers, but every soldier with his freshly
washed and shaven face and his weapons clean and polished to the
utmost, and every horse groomed till its coat shone like satin and every
hair of its wetted mane lay smooth—felt that no small matter was
happening, but an important and solemn affair. Every general and every
soldier was conscious of his own insignificance, aware of being but a
drop in that ocean of men, and yet at the same time was conscious of
his strength as a part of that enormous whole.
From early morning strenuous activities and efforts had begun and
by ten o'clock all had been brought into due order. The ranks were
drawn up on the vast field. The whole army was extended in three
lines: the cavalry in front, behind it the artillery, and behind that again
the infantry.
 A space like a street was left between each two lines of troops. The
three parts of that army were sharply distinguished: Kutuzov's fighting
army (with the Pavlograds on the right flank of the front); those
recently arrived from Russia, both Guards and regiments of the line;
and the Austrian troops. But they all stood in the same lines, under one
command, and in a like order.
Like wind over leaves ran an excited whisper: "They're coming!
They're coming!" Alarmed voices were heard, and a stir of final
preparation swept over all the troops.
From the direction of Olmutz in front of them, a group was seen
approaching. And at that moment, though the day was still, a light gust
of wind blowing over the army slightly stirred the streamers on the
lances and the unfolded standards fluttered against their staffs. It looked
as if by that slight motion the army itself was expressing its joy at the
approach of the Emperors. One voice was heard shouting: "Eyes front!"
Then, like the crowing of cocks at sunrise, this was repeated by others
from various sides and all became silent.
In the deathlike stillness only the tramp of horses was heard. This
was the Emperors' suites. The Emperors rode up to the flank, and the
trumpets of the first cavalry regiment played the general march. It
seemed as though not the trumpeters were playing, but as if the army
itself, rejoicing at the Emperors' approach, had naturally burst into
music. Amid these sounds, only the youthful kindly voice of the
Emperor Alexander was clearly heard. He gave the words of greeting,
and the first regiment roared "Hurrah!" so deafeningly, continuously,
and joyfully that the men themselves were awed by their multitude and
the immensity of the power they constituted.
Rostov, standing in the front lines of Kutuzov's army which the Tsar
approached first, experienced the same feeling as every other man in
that army: a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of
might, and a passionate attraction to him who was the cause of this
triumph.
He felt that at a single word from that man all this vast mass (and he
himself an insignificant atom in it) would go through fire and water,
commit crime, die, or perform deeds of highest heroism, and so he
could not but tremble and his heart stand still at the imminence of that
word.
"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" thundered from all sides, one regiment
after another greeting the Tsar with the strains of the march, and then
"Hurrah!"... Then the general march, and again "Hurrah! Hurrah!"
growing ever stronger and fuller and merging into a deafening roar.
 Till the Tsar reached it, each regiment in its silence and immobility
seemed like a lifeless body, but as soon as he came up it became alive,
its thunder joining the roar of the whole line along which he had
already passed. Through the terrible and deafening roar of those voices,
amid the square masses of troops standing motionless as if turned to
stone, hundreds of riders composing the suites moved carelessly but
symmetrically and above all freely, and in front of them two men—the
Emperors. Upon them the undivided, tensely passionate attention of
that whole mass of men was concentrated.
The handsome young Emperor Alexander, in the uniform of the
Horse Guards, wearing a cocked hat with its peaks front and back, with
his pleasant face and resonant though not loud voice, attracted
everyone's attention.
Rostov was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight had
recognized the Tsar and watched his approach. When he was within
twenty paces, and Nicholas could clearly distinguish every detail of his
handsome, happy young face, he experienced a feeling tenderness and
ecstasy such as he had never before known. Every trait and every
movement of the Tsar's seemed to him enchanting.
Stopping in front of the Pavlograds, the Tsar said something in
French to the Austrian Emperor and smiled.
Seeing that smile, Rostov involuntarily smiled himself and felt a still
stronger flow of love for his sovereign. He longed to show that love in
some way and knowing that this was impossible was ready to cry. The
Tsar called the colonel of the regiment and said a few words to him.
"Oh God, what would happen to me if the Emperor spoke to me?"
thought Rostov. "I should die of happiness!"
The Tsar addressed the officers also: "I thank you all, gentlemen, I
thank you with my whole heart." To Rostov every word sounded like a
voice from heaven. How gladly would he have died at once for his
Tsar!
"You have earned the St. George's standards and will be worthy of
them."
"Oh, to die, to die for him," thought Rostov.
The Tsar said something more which Rostov did not hear, and the
soldiers, straining their lungs, shouted "Hurrah!"
Rostov too, bending over his saddle, shouted "Hurrah!" with all his
might, feeling that he would like to injure himself by that shout, if only
to express his rapture fully.
 The Tsar stopped a few minutes in front of the hussars as if
undecided.
"How can the Emperor be undecided?" thought Rostov, but then
even this indecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like
everything else the Tsar did.
That hesitation lasted only an instant. The Tsar's foot, in the narrow
pointed boot then fashionable, touched the groin of the bobtailed bay
mare he rode, his hand in a white glove gathered up the reins, and he
moved off accompanied by an irregularly swaying sea of aides-de-
camp. Farther and farther he rode away, stopping at other regiments, till
at last only his white plumes were visible to Rostov from amid the
suites that surrounded the Emperors.
Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostov noticed Bolkonski, sitting
his horse indolently and carelessly. Rostov recalled their quarrel of
yesterday and the question presented itself whether he ought or ought
not to challenge Bolkonski. "Of course not!" he now thought. "Is it
worth thinking or speaking of it at such a moment? At a time of such
love, such rapture, and such self-sacrifice, what do any of our quarrels
and affronts matter? I love and forgive everybody now."
When the Emperor had passed nearly all the regiments, the troops
began a ceremonial march past him, and Rostov on Bedouin, recently
purchased from Denisov, rode past too, at the rear of his squadron—
that is, alone and in full view of the Emperor.
Before he reached him, Rostov, who was a splendid horseman,
spurred Bedouin twice and successfully put him to the showy trot in
which the animal went when excited. Bending his foaming muzzle to
his chest, his tail extended, Bedouin, as if also conscious of the
Emperor's eye upon him, passed splendidly, lifting his feet with a high
and graceful action, as if flying through the air without touching the
ground.
Rostov himself, his legs well back and his stomach drawn in and
feeling himself one with his horse, rode past the Emperor with a
frowning but blissful face "like a vewy devil," as Denisov expressed it.
"Fine fellows, the Pavlograds!" remarked the Emperor.
"My God, how happy I should be if he ordered me to leap into the
fire this instant!" thought Rostov.
When the review was over, the newly arrived officers, and also
Kutuzov's, collected in groups and began to talk about the awards,
about the Austrians and their uniforms, about their lines, about
Bonaparte, and how badly the latter would fare now, especially if the
Essen corps arrived and Prussia took our side.
 But the talk in every group was chiefly about the Emperor
Alexander. His every word and movement was described with ecstasy.
They all had but one wish: to advance as soon as possible against the
enemy under the Emperor's command. Commanded by the Emperor
himself they could not fail to vanquish anyone, be it whom it might: so
thought Rostov and most of the officers after the review.
All were then more confident of victory than the winning of two
battles would have made them.

CHAPTER IX
The day after the review, Boris, in his best uniform and with his
comrade Berg's best wishes for success, rode to Olmutz to see
Bolkonski, wishing to profit by his friendliness and obtain for himself
the best post he could—preferably that of adjutant to some important
personage, a position in the army which seemed to him most attractive.
"It is all very well for Rostov, whose father sends him ten thousand
rubles at a time, to talk about not wishing to cringe to anybody and not
be anyone's lackey, but I who have nothing but my brains have to make
a career and must not miss opportunities, but must avail myself of
them!" he reflected.
He did not find Prince Andrew in Olmutz that day, but the
appearance of the town where the headquarters and the diplomatic
corps were stationed and the two Emperors were living with their
suites, households, and courts only strengthened his desire to belong to
that higher world.
He knew no one, and despite his smart Guardsman's uniform, all
these exalted personages passing in the streets in their elegant carriages
with their plumes, ribbons, and medals, both courtiers and military
men, seemed so immeasurably above him, an insignificant officer of
the Guards, that they not only did not wish to, but simply could not, be
aware of his existence. At the quarters of the commander in chief,
Kutuzov, where he inquired for Bolkonski, all the adjutants and even
the orderlies looked at him as if they wished to impress on him that a
great many officers like him were always coming there and that
everybody was heartily sick of them. In spite of this, or rather because
of it, next day, November 15, after dinner he again went to Olmutz and,
entering the house occupied by Kutuzov, asked for Bolkonski. Prince
Andrew was in and Boris was shown into a large hall probably
formerly used for dancing, but in which five beds now stood, and
furniture of various kinds: a table, chairs, and a clavichord. One
adjutant, nearest the door, was sitting at the table in a Persian dressing
gown, writing. Another, the red, stout Nesvitski, lay on a bed with his
arms under his head, laughing with an officer who had sat down beside
him. A third was playing a Viennese waltz on the clavichord, while a
fourth, lying on the clavichord, sang the tune. Bolkonski was not there.
None of these gentlemen changed his position on seeing Boris. The one
who was writing and whom Boris addressed turned round crossly and
told him Bolkonski was on duty and that he should go through the door
on the left into the reception room if he wished to see him. Boris
thanked him and went to the reception room, where he found some ten
officers and generals.
When he entered, Prince Andrew, his eyes drooping contemptuously
(with that peculiar expression of polite weariness which plainly says,
"If it were not my duty I would not talk to you for a moment"), was
listening to an old Russian general with decorations, who stood very
erect, almost on tiptoe, with a soldier's obsequious expression on his
purple face, reporting something.
"Very well, then, be so good as to wait," said Prince Andrew to the
general, in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he affected
when he wished to speak contemptuously, and noticing Boris, Prince
Andrew, paying no more heed to the general who ran after him
imploring him to hear something more, nodded and turned to him with
a cheerful smile.
At that moment Boris clearly realized what he had before surmised,
that in the army, besides the subordination and discipline prescribed in
the military code, which he and the others knew in the regiment, there
was another, more important, subordination, which made this tight-
laced, purple-faced general wait respectfully while Captain Prince
Andrew, for his own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant
Drubetskoy. More than ever was Boris resolved to serve in future not
according to the written code, but under this unwritten law. He felt now
that merely by having been recommended to Prince Andrew he had
already risen above the general who at the front had the power to
annihilate him, a lieutenant of the Guards. Prince Andrew came up to
him and took his hand.
"I am very sorry you did not find me in yesterday. I was fussing
about with Germans all day. We went with Weyrother to survey the
dispositions. When Germans start being accurate, there's no end to it!"
Boris smiled, as if he understood what Prince Andrew was alluding
to as something generally known. But it was the first time he had heard
Weyrother's name, or even the term "dispositions."
 "Well, my dear fellow, so you still want to be an adjutant? I have
been thinking about you."
"Yes, I was thinking"—for some reason Boris could not help
blushing—"of asking the commander in chief. He has had a letter from
Prince Kuragin about me. I only wanted to ask because I fear the
Guards won't be in action," he added as if in apology.
"All right, all right. We'll talk it over," replied Prince Andrew. "Only
let me report this gentleman's business, and I shall be at your disposal."
While Prince Andrew went to report about the purple-faced general,
that gentleman—evidently not sharing Boris' conception of the
advantages of the unwritten code of subordination—looked so fixedly
at the presumptuous lieutenant who had prevented his finishing what he
had to say to the adjutant that Boris felt uncomfortable. He turned away
and waited impatiently for Prince Andrew's return from the commander
in chief's room.
"You see, my dear fellow, I have been thinking about you," said
Prince Andrew when they had gone into the large room where the
clavichord was. "It's no use your going to the commander in chief. He
would say a lot of pleasant things, ask you to dinner" ("That would not
be bad as regards the unwritten code," thought Boris), "but nothing
more would come of it. There will soon be a battalion of us aides-de-
camp and adjutants! But this is what we'll do: I have a good friend, an
adjutant general and an excellent fellow, Prince Dolgorukov; and
though you may not know it, the fact is that now Kutuzov with his staff
and all of us count for nothing. Everything is now centered round the
Emperor. So we will go to Dolgorukov; I have to go there anyhow and
I have already spoken to him about you. We shall see whether he
cannot attach you to himself or find a place for you somewhere nearer
the sun."
Prince Andrew always became specially keen when he had to guide a
young man and help him to worldly success. Under cover of obtaining
help of this kind for another, which from pride he would never accept
for himself, he kept in touch with the circle which confers success and
which attracted him. He very readily took up Boris' cause and went
with him to Dolgorukov.
It was late in the evening when they entered the palace at Olmutz
occupied by the Emperors and their retinues.
That same day a council of war had been held in which all the
members of the Hofkriegsrath and both Emperors took part. At that
council, contrary to the views of the old generals Kutuzov and Prince
Schwartzenberg, it had been decided to advance immediately and give
battle to Bonaparte. The council of war was just over when Prince
Andrew accompanied by Boris arrived at the palace to find
Dolgorukov. Everyone at headquarters was still under the spell of the
day's council, at which the party of the young had triumphed. The
voices of those who counseled delay and advised waiting for something
else before advancing had been so completely silenced and their
arguments confuted by such conclusive evidence of the advantages of
attacking that what had been discussed at the council—the coming
battle and the victory that would certainly result from it—no longer
seemed to be in the future but in the past. All the advantages were on
our side. Our enormous forces, undoubtedly superior to Napoleon's,
were concentrated in one place, the troops inspired by the Emperors'
presence were eager for action. The strategic position where the
operations would take place was familiar in all its details to the
Austrian General Weyrother: a lucky accident had ordained that the
Austrian army should maneuver the previous year on the very fields
where the French had now to be fought; the adjacent locality was
known and shown in every detail on the maps, and Bonaparte,
evidently weakened, was undertaking nothing.
Dolgorukov, one of the warmest advocates of an attack, had just
returned from the council, tired and exhausted but eager and proud of
the victory that had been gained. Prince Andrew introduced his protege,
but Prince Dolgorukov politely and firmly pressing his hand said
nothing to Boris and, evidently unable to suppress the thoughts which
were uppermost in his mind at that moment, addressed Prince Andrew
in French.
"Ah, my dear fellow, what a battle we have gained! God grant that
the one that will result from it will be as victorious! However, dear
fellow," he said abruptly and eagerly, "I must confess to having been
unjust to the Austrians and especially to Weyrother. What exactitude,
what minuteness, what knowledge of the locality, what foresight for
every eventuality, every possibility even to the smallest detail! No, my
dear fellow, no conditions better than our present ones could have been
devised. This combination of Austrian precision with Russian valor—
what more could be wished for?"
"So the attack is definitely resolved on?" asked Bolkonski.
"And do you know, my dear fellow, it seems to me that Bonaparte
has decidedly lost bearings, you know that a letter was received from
him today for the Emperor." Dolgorukov smiled significantly.
"Is that so? And what did he say?" inquired Bolkonski.
"What can he say? Tra-di-ri-di-ra and so on... merely to gain time. I
tell you he is in our hands, that's certain! But what was most amusing,"
he continued, with a sudden, good-natured laugh, "was that we could
not think how to address the reply! If not as 'Consul' and of course not
as 'Emperor,' it seemed to me it should be to 'General Bonaparte.'"
"But between not recognizing him as Emperor and calling him
General Bonaparte, there is a difference," remarked Bolkonski.
"That's just it," interrupted Dolgorukov quickly, laughing. "You
know Bilibin—he's a very clever fellow. He suggested addressing him
as 'Usurper and Enemy of Mankind.'"
Dolgorukov laughed merrily.
"Only that?" said Bolkonski.
"All the same, it was Bilibin who found a suitable form for the
address. He is a wise and clever fellow."
"What was it?"
"To the Head of the French Government... Au chef du gouvernement
francais," said Dolgorukov, with grave satisfaction. "Good, wasn't it?"
"Yes, but he will dislike it extremely," said Bolkonski.
"Oh yes, very much! My brother knows him, he's dined with him—
the present Emperor—more than once in Paris, and tells me he never
met a more cunning or subtle diplomatist—you know, a combination of
French adroitness and Italian play-acting! Do you know the tale about
him and Count Markov? Count Markov was the only man who knew
how to handle him. You know the story of the handkerchief? It is
delightful!"
And the talkative Dolgorukov, turning now to Boris, now to Prince
Andrew, told how Bonaparte wishing to test Markov, our ambassador,
purposely dropped a handkerchief in front of him and stood looking at
Markov, probably expecting Markov to pick it up for him, and how
Markov immediately dropped his own beside it and picked it up
without touching Bonaparte's.
"Delightful!" said Bolkonski. "But I have come to you, Prince, as a
petitioner on behalf of this young man. You see..." but before Prince
Andrew could finish, an aide-de-camp came in to summon Dolgorukov
to the Emperor.
"Oh, what a nuisance," said Dolgorukov, getting up hurriedly and
pressing the hands of Prince Andrew and Boris. "You know I should be
very glad to do all in my power both for you and for this dear young
man." Again he pressed the hand of the latter with an expression of
good-natured, sincere, and animated levity. "But you see... another
time!"
 Boris was excited by the thought of being so close to the higher
powers as he felt himself to be at that moment. He was conscious that
here he was in contact with the springs that set in motion the enormous
movements of the mass of which in his regiment he felt himself a tiny,
obedient, and insignificant atom. They followed Prince Dolgorukov out
into the corridor and met—coming out of the door of the Emperor's
room by which Dolgorukov had entered—a short man in civilian
clothes with a clever face and sharply projecting jaw which, without
spoiling his face, gave him a peculiar vivacity and shiftiness of
expression. This short man nodded to Dolgorukov as to an intimate
friend and stared at Prince Andrew with cool intensity, walking straight
toward him and evidently expecting him to bow or to step out of his
way. Prince Andrew did neither: a look of animosity appeared on his
face and the other turned away and went down the side of the corridor.
"Who was that?" asked Boris.
"He is one of the most remarkable, but to me most unpleasant of
men—the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Adam Czartoryski.... It is
such men as he who decide the fate of nations," added Bolkonski with a
sigh he could not suppress, as they passed out of the palace.
Next day, the army began its campaign, and up to the very battle of
Austerlitz, Boris was unable to see either Prince Andrew or
Dolgorukov again and remained for a while with the Ismaylov
regiment.

CHAPTER X
At dawn on the sixteenth of November, Denisov's squadron, in
which Nicholas Rostov served and which was in Prince Bagration's
detachment, moved from the place where it had spent the night,
advancing into action as arranged, and after going behind other
columns for about two thirds of a mile was stopped on the highroad.
Rostov saw the Cossacks and then the first and second squadrons of
hussars and infantry battalions and artillery pass by and go forward and
then Generals Bagration and Dolgorukov ride past with their adjutants.
All the fear before action which he had experienced as previously, all
the inner struggle to conquer that fear, all his dreams of distinguishing
himself as a true hussar in this battle, had been wasted. Their squadron
remained in reserve and Nicholas Rostov spent that day in a dull and
wretched mood. At nine in the morning, he heard firing in front and
shouts of hurrah, and saw wounded being brought back (there were not
many of them), and at last he saw how a whole detachment of French
cavalry was brought in, convoyed by a sotnya of Cossacks. Evidently
the affair was over and, though not big, had been a successful
engagement. The men and officers returning spoke of a brilliant
victory, of the occupation of the town of Wischau and the capture of a
whole French squadron. The day was bright and sunny after a sharp
night frost, and the cheerful glitter of that autumn day was in keeping
with the news of victory which was conveyed, not only by the tales of
those who had taken part in it, but also by the joyful expression on the
faces of soldiers, officers, generals, and adjutants, as they passed
Rostov going or coming. And Nicholas, who had vainly suffered all the
dread that precedes a battle and had spent that happy day in inactivity,
was all the more depressed.
"Come here, Wostov. Let's dwink to dwown our gwief!" shouted
Denisov, who had settled down by the roadside with a flask and some
food.
The officers gathered round Denisov's canteen, eating and talking.
"There! They are bringing another!" cried one of the officers,
indicating a captive French dragoon who was being brought in on foot
by two Cossacks.
One of them was leading by the bridle a fine large French horse he
had taken from the prisoner.
"Sell us that horse!" Denisov called out to the Cossacks.
"If you like, your honor!"
The officers got up and stood round the Cossacks and their prisoner.
The French dragoon was a young Alsatian who spoke French with a
German accent. He was breathless with agitation, his face was red, and
when he heard some French spoken he at once began speaking to the
officers, addressing first one, then another. He said he would not have
been taken, it was not his fault but the corporal's who had sent him to
seize some horsecloths, though he had told him the Russians were
there. And at every word he added: "But don't hurt my little horse!" and
stroked the animal. It was plain that he did not quite grasp where he
was. Now he excused himself for having been taken prisoner and now,
imagining himself before his own officers, insisted on his soldierly
discipline and zeal in the service. He brought with him into our
rearguard all the freshness of atmosphere of the French army, which
was so alien to us.
The Cossacks sold the horse for two gold pieces, and Rostov, being
the richest of the officers now that he had received his money, bought
it.
 "But don't hurt my little horse!" said the Alsatian good-naturedly to
Rostov when the animal was handed over to the hussar.
Rostov smilingly reassured the dragoon and gave him money.
"Alley! Alley!" said the Cossack, touching the prisoner's arm to
make him go on.
"The Emperor! The Emperor!" was suddenly heard among the
hussars.
All began to run and bustle, and Rostov saw coming up the road
behind him several riders with white plumes in their hats. In a moment
everyone was in his place, waiting.
Rostov did not know or remember how he ran to his place and
mounted. Instantly his regret at not having been in action and his
dejected mood amid people of whom he was weary had gone, instantly
every thought of himself had vanished. He was filled with happiness at
his nearness to the Emperor. He felt that this nearness by itself made up
to him for the day he had lost. He was happy as a lover when the
longed-for moment of meeting arrives. Not daring to look round and
without looking round, he was ecstatically conscious of his approach.
He felt it not only from the sound of the hoofs of the approaching
cavalcade, but because as he drew near everything grew brighter, more
joyful, more significant, and more festive around him. Nearer and
nearer to Rostov came that sun shedding beams of mild and majestic
light around, and already he felt himself enveloped in those beams, he
heard his voice, that kindly, calm, and majestic voice that was yet so
simple! And as if in accord with Rostov's feeling, there was a deathly
stillness amid which was heard the Emperor's voice.
"The Pavlograd hussars?" he inquired.
"The reserves, sire!" replied a voice, a very human one compared to
that which had said: "The Pavlograd hussars?"
The Emperor drew level with Rostov and halted. Alexander's face
was even more beautiful than it had been three days before at the
review. It shone with such gaiety and youth, such innocent youth, that it
suggested the liveliness of a fourteen-year-old boy, and yet it was the
face of the majestic Emperor. Casually, while surveying the squadron,
the Emperor's eyes met Rostov's and rested on them for not more than
two seconds. Whether or no the Emperor understood what was going
on in Rostov's soul (it seemed to Rostov that he understood
everything), at any rate his light-blue eyes gazed for about two seconds
into Rostov's face. A gentle, mild light poured from them. Then all at
once he raised his eyebrows, abruptly touched his horse with his left
foot, and galloped on.
 The younger Emperor could not restrain his wish to be present at the
battle and, in spite of the remonstrances of his courtiers, at twelve
o'clock left the third column with which he had been and galloped
toward the vanguard. Before he came up with the hussars, several
adjutants met him with news of the successful result of the action.
This battle, which consisted in the capture of a French squadron, was
represented as a brilliant victory over the French, and so the Emperor
and the whole army, especially while the smoke hung over the
battlefield, believed that the French had been defeated and were
retreating against their will. A few minutes after the Emperor had
passed, the Pavlograd division was ordered to advance. In Wischau
itself, a petty German town, Rostov saw the Emperor again. In the
market place, where there had been some rather heavy firing before the
Emperor's arrival, lay several killed and wounded soldiers whom there
had not been time to move. The Emperor, surrounded by his suite of
officers and courtiers, was riding a bobtailed chestnut mare, a different
one from that which he had ridden at the review, and bending to one
side he gracefully held a gold lorgnette to his eyes and looked at a
soldier who lay prone, with blood on his uncovered head. The wounded
soldier was so dirty, coarse, and revolting that his proximity to the
Emperor shocked Rostov. Rostov saw how the Emperor's rather round
shoulders shuddered as if a cold shiver had run down them, how his left
foot began convulsively tapping the horse's side with the spur, and how
the well-trained horse looked round unconcerned and did not stir. An
adjutant, dismounting, lifted the soldier under the arms to place him on
a stretcher that had been brought. The soldier groaned.
"Gently, gently! Can't you do it more gently?" said the Emperor
apparently suffering more than the dying soldier, and he rode away.
Rostov saw tears filling the Emperor's eyes and heard him, as he was
riding away, say to Czartoryski: "What a terrible thing war is: what a
terrible thing! Quelle terrible chose que la guerre!"
The troops of the vanguard were stationed before Wischau, within
sight of the enemy's lines, which all day long had yielded ground to us
at the least firing. The Emperor's gratitude was announced to the
vanguard, rewards were promised, and the men received a double
ration of vodka. The campfires crackled and the soldiers' songs
resounded even more merrily than on the previous night. Denisov
celebrated his promotion to the rank of major, and Rostov, who had
already drunk enough, at the end of the feast proposed the Emperor's
health. "Not 'our Sovereign, the Emperor,' as they say at official
dinners," said he, "but the health of our Sovereign, that good,
enchanting, and great man! Let us drink to his health and to the certain
defeat of the French!"
 "If we fought before," he said, "not letting the French pass, as at
Schon Grabern, what shall we not do now when he is at the front? We
will all die for him gladly! Is it not so, gentlemen? Perhaps I am not
saying it right, I have drunk a good deal—but that is how I feel, and so
do you too! To the health of Alexander the First! Hurrah!"
"Hurrah!" rang the enthusiastic voices of the officers.
And the old cavalry captain, Kirsten, shouted enthusiastically and no
less sincerely than the twenty-year-old Rostov.
When the officers had emptied and smashed their glasses, Kirsten
filled others and, in shirt sleeves and breeches, went glass in hand to the
soldiers' bonfires and with his long gray mustache, his white chest
showing under his open shirt, he stood in a majestic pose in the light of
the campfire, waving his uplifted arm.
"Lads! here's to our Sovereign, the Emperor, and victory over our
enemies! Hurrah!" he exclaimed in his dashing, old, hussar's baritone.
The hussars crowded round and responded heartily with loud shouts.
Late that night, when all had separated, Denisov with his short hand
patted his favorite, Rostov, on the shoulder.
"As there's no one to fall in love with on campaign, he's fallen in
love with the Tsar," he said.
"Denisov, don't make fun of it!" cried Rostov. "It is such a lofty,
beautiful feeling, such a..."
"I believe it, I believe it, fwiend, and I share and appwove..."
"No, you don't understand!"
And Rostov got up and went wandering among the campfires,
dreaming of what happiness it would be to die—not in saving the
Emperor's life (he did not even dare to dream of that), but simply to die
before his eyes. He really was in love with the Tsar and the glory of the
Russian arms and the hope of future triumph. And he was not the only
man to experience that feeling during those memorable days preceding
the battle of Austerlitz: nine tenths of the men in the Russian army were
then in love, though less ecstatically, with their Tsar and the glory of
the Russian arms.

CHAPTER XI
 The next day the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and Villier, his
physician, was repeatedly summoned to see him. At headquarters and
among the troops near by the news spread that the Emperor was unwell.
He ate nothing and had slept badly that night, those around him
reported. The cause of this indisposition was the strong impression
made on his sensitive mind by the sight of the killed and wounded.
At daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer who had come with
a flag of truce, demanding an audience with the Russian Emperor, was
brought into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary. The
Emperor had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had to wait. At
midday he was admitted to the Emperor, and an hour later he rode off
with Prince Dolgorukov to the advanced post of the French army.
It was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander a
meeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a
personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince
Dolgorukov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negotiate
with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these negotiations were
actuated by a real desire for peace.
Toward evening Dolgorukov came back, went straight to the Tsar,
and remained alone with him for a long time.
On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced
two days' march and the enemy's outposts after a brief interchange of
shots retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the
nineteenth, a great, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted till
the morning of the twentieth, when the memorable battle of Austerlitz
was fought.
Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity—the eager talk, running
to and fro, and dispatching of adjutants—was confined to the Emperor's
headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day, this activity reached
Kutuzov's headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns.
By evening, the adjutants had spread it to all ends and parts of the
army, and in the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole
eighty thousand allied troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of
voices, and the army swayed and started in one enormous mass six
miles long.
The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor's
headquarters in the morning and had started the whole movement that
followed was like the first movement of the main wheel of a large
tower clock. One wheel slowly moved, another was set in motion, and a
third, and wheels began to revolve faster and faster, levers and
cogwheels to work, chimes to play, figures to pop out, and the hands to
advance with regular motion as a result of all that activity.
 Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the
military machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and
just as indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is
transmitted to them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse
has not yet reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one
another and the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their
movement, but a neighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as
though it were prepared to remain so for a hundred years; but the
moment comes when the lever catches it and obeying the impulse that
wheel begins to creak and joins in the common motion the result and
aim of which are beyond its ken.
Just as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of
innumerable wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular
movement of the hands which show the time, so the result of all the
complicated human activities of 160,000 Russians and French—all
their passions, desires, remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of
pride, fear, and enthusiasm—was only the loss of the battle of
Austerlitz, the so-called battle of the three Emperors—that is to say, a
slow movement of the hand on the dial of human history.
Prince Andrew was on duty that day and in constant attendance on
the commander in chief.
At six in the evening, Kutuzov went to the Emperor's headquarters
and after staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the grand
marshal of the court, Count Tolstoy.
Bolkonski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the
coming action from Dolgorukov. He felt that Kutuzov was upset and
dissatisfied about something and that at headquarters they were
dissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor's headquarters
everyone adopted toward him the tone of men who know something
others do not know: he therefore wished to speak to Dolgorukov.
"Well, how d'you do, my dear fellow?" said Dolgorukov, who was
sitting at tea with Bilibin. "The fete is for tomorrow. How is your old
fellow? Out of sorts?"
"I won't say he is out of sorts, but I fancy he would like to be heard."
"But they heard him at the council of war and will hear him when he
talks sense, but to temporize and wait for something now when
Bonaparte fears nothing so much as a general battle is impossible."
"Yes, you have seen him?" said Prince Andrew. "Well, what is
Bonaparte like? How did he impress you?"
"Yes, I saw him, and am convinced that he fears nothing so much as
a general engagement," repeated Dolgorukov, evidently prizing this
general conclusion which he had arrived at from his interview with
Napoleon. "If he weren't afraid of a battle why did he ask for that
interview? Why negotiate, and above all why retreat, when to retreat is
so contrary to his method of conducting war? Believe me, he is afraid,
afraid of a general battle. His hour has come! Mark my words!"
"But tell me, what is he like, eh?" said Prince Andrew again.
"He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I should call him
'Your Majesty,' but who, to his chagrin, got no title from me! That's the
sort of man he is, and nothing more," replied Dolgorukov, looking
round at Bilibin with a smile.
"Despite my great respect for old Kutuzov," he continued, "we
should be a nice set of fellows if we were to wait about and so give him
a chance to escape, or to trick us, now that we certainly have him in our
hands! No, we mustn't forget Suvorov and his rule—not to put yourself
in a position to be attacked, but yourself to attack. Believe me in war
the energy of young men often shows the way better than all the
experience of old Cunctators."
"But in what position are we going to attack him? I have been at the
outposts today and it is impossible to say where his chief forces are
situated," said Prince Andrew.
He wished to explain to Dolgorukov a plan of attack he had himself
formed.
"Oh, that is all the same," Dolgorukov said quickly, and getting up
he spread a map on the table. "All eventualities have been foreseen. If
he is standing before Brunn..."
And Prince Dolgorukov rapidly but indistinctly explained
Weyrother's plan of a flanking movement.
Prince Andrew began to reply and to state his own plan, which might
have been as good as Weyrother's, but for the disadvantage that
Weyrother's had already been approved. As soon as Prince Andrew
began to demonstrate the defects of the latter and the merits of his own
plan, Prince Dolgorukov ceased to listen to him and gazed absent-
mindedly not at the map, but at Prince Andrew's face.
"There will be a council of war at Kutuzov's tonight, though; you can
say all this there," remarked Dolgorukov.
"I will do so," said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map.
"Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?" said Bilibin, who,
till then, had listened with an amused smile to their conversation and
now was evidently ready with a joke. "Whether tomorrow brings
victory or defeat, the glory of our Russian arms is secure. Except your
Kutuzov, there is not a single Russian in command of a column! The
commanders are: Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le
Prince de Lichtenstein, le Prince, de Hohenlohe, and finally Prishprish,
and so on like all those Polish names."
"Be quiet, backbiter!" said Dolgorukov. "It is not true; there are now
two Russians, Miloradovich, and Dokhturov, and there would be a
third, Count Arakcheev, if his nerves were not too weak."
"However, I think General Kutuzov has come out," said Prince
Andrew. "I wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!" he added and
went out after shaking hands with Dolgorukov and Bilibin.
On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking
Kutuzov, who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of
tomorrow's battle.
Kutuzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause, replied: "I
think the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstoy and asked him
to tell the Emperor. What do you think he replied? 'But, my dear
general, I am engaged with rice and cutlets, look after military matters
yourself!' Yes... That was the answer I got!"

CHAPTER XII
Shortly after nine o'clock that evening, Weyrother drove with his
plans to Kutuzov's quarters where the council of war was to be held.
All the commanders of columns were summoned to the commander in
chief's and with the exception of Prince Bagration, who declined to
come, were all there at the appointed time.
Weyrother, who was in full control of the proposed battle, by his
eagerness and briskness presented a marked contrast to the dissatisfied
and drowsy Kutuzov, who reluctantly played the part of chairman and
president of the council of war. Weyrother evidently felt himself to be
at the head of a movement that had already become unrestrainable. He
was like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether
he was pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed
along at headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement
might lead to. Weyrother had been twice that evening to the enemy's
picket line to reconnoiter personally, and twice to the Emperors,
Russian and Austrian, to report and explain, and to his headquarters
where he had dictated the dispositions in German, and now, much
exhausted, he arrived at Kutuzov's.
He was evidently so busy that he even forgot to be polite to the
commander in chief. He interrupted him, talked rapidly and
indistinctly, without looking at the man he was addressing, and did not
reply to questions put to him. He was bespattered with mud and had a
pitiful, weary, and distracted air, though at the same time he was
haughty and self-confident.
Kutuzov was occupying a nobleman's castle of modest dimensions
near Ostralitz. In the large drawing room which had become the
commander in chief's office were gathered Kutuzov himself,
Weyrother, and the members of the council of war. They were drinking
tea, and only awaited Prince Bagration to begin the council. At last
Bagration's orderly came with the news that the prince could not attend.
Prince Andrew came in to inform the commander in chief of this and,
availing himself of permission previously given him by Kutuzov to be
present at the council, he remained in the room.
"Since Prince Bagration is not coming, we may begin," said
Weyrother, hurriedly rising from his seat and going up to the table on
which an enormous map of the environs of Brunn was spread out.
Kutuzov, with his uniform unbuttoned so that his fat neck bulged
over his collar as if escaping, was sitting almost asleep in a low chair,
with his podgy old hands resting symmetrically on its arms. At the
sound of Weyrother's voice, he opened his one eye with an effort.
"Yes, yes, if you please! It is already late," said he, and nodding his
head he let it droop and again closed his eye.
If at first the members of the council thought that Kutuzov was
pretending to sleep, the sounds his nose emitted during the reading that
followed proved that the commander in chief at that moment was
absorbed by a far more serious matter than a desire to show his
contempt for the dispositions or anything else—he was engaged in
satisfying the irresistible human need for sleep. He really was asleep.
Weyrother, with the gesture of a man too busy to lose a moment,
glanced at Kutuzov and, having convinced himself that he was asleep,
took up a paper and in a loud, monotonous voice began to read out the
dispositions for the impending battle, under a heading which he also
read out:
"Dispositions for an attack on the enemy position behind Kobelnitz
and Sokolnitz, November 30, 1805."
The dispositions were very complicated and difficult. They began as
follows:
 "As the enemy's left wing rests on wooded hills and his right extends
along Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds that are there, while
we, on the other hand, with our left wing by far outflank his right, it is
advantageous to attack the enemy's latter wing especially if we occupy
the villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz, whereby we can both fall on
his flank and pursue him over the plain between Schlappanitz and the
Thuerassa forest, avoiding the defiles of Schlappanitz and Bellowitz
which cover the enemy's front. For this object it is necessary that... The
first column marches... The second column marches... The third column
marches..." and so on, read Weyrother.
The generals seemed to listen reluctantly to the difficult dispositions.
The tall, fair-haired General Buxhowden stood, leaning his back against
the wall, his eyes fixed on a burning candle, and seemed not to listen or
even to wish to be thought to listen. Exactly opposite Weyrother, with
his glistening wide-open eyes fixed upon him and his mustache twisted
upwards, sat the ruddy Miloradovich in a military pose, his elbows
turned outwards, his hands on his knees, and his shoulders raised. He
remained stubbornly silent, gazing at Weyrother's face, and only turned
away his eyes when the Austrian chief of staff finished reading. Then
Miloradovich looked round significantly at the other generals. But one
could not tell from that significant look whether he agreed or disagreed
and was satisfied or not with the arrangements. Next to Weyrother sat
Count Langeron who, with a subtle smile that never left his typically
southern French face during the whole time of the reading, gazed at his
delicate fingers which rapidly twirled by its corners a gold snuffbox on
which was a portrait. In the middle of one of the longest sentences, he
stopped the rotary motion of the snuffbox, raised his head, and with
inimical politeness lurking in the corners of his thin lips interrupted
Weyrother, wishing to say something. But the Austrian general,
continuing to read, frowned angrily and jerked his elbows, as if to say:
"You can tell me your views later, but now be so good as to look at the
map and listen." Langeron lifted his eyes with an expression of
perplexity, turned round to Miloradovich as if seeking an explanation,
but meeting the latter's impressive but meaningless gaze drooped his
eyes sadly and again took to twirling his snuffbox.
"A geography lesson!" he muttered as if to himself, but loud enough
to be heard.
Przebyszewski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his
hand to his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in
attention. Dohkturov, a little man, sat opposite Weyrother, with an
assiduous and modest mien, and stooping over the outspread map
conscientiously studied the dispositions and the unfamiliar locality. He
asked Weyrother several times to repeat words he had not clearly heard
and the difficult names of villages. Weyrother complied and Dohkturov
noted them down.
 When the reading which lasted more than an hour was over,
Langeron again brought his snuffbox to rest and, without looking at
Weyrother or at anyone in particular, began to say how difficult it was
to carry out such a plan in which the enemy's position was assumed to
be known, whereas it was perhaps not known, since the enemy was in
movement. Langeron's objections were valid but it was obvious that
their chief aim was to show General Weyrother—who had read his
dispositions with as much self-confidence as if he were addressing
school children—that he had to do, not with fools, but with men who
could teach him something in military matters.
When the monotonous sound of Weyrother's voice ceased, Kutuzov
opened his eye as a miller wakes up when the soporific drone of the
mill wheel is interrupted. He listened to what Langeron said, as if
remarking, "So you are still at that silly business!" quickly closed his
eye again, and let his head sink still lower.
Langeron, trying as virulently as possible to sting Weyrother's vanity
as author of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might easily attack
instead of being attacked, and so render the whole of this plan perfectly
worthless. Weyrother met all objections with a firm and contemptuous
smile, evidently prepared beforehand to meet all objections be they
what they might.
"If he could attack us, he would have done so today," said he.
"So you think he is powerless?" said Langeron.
"He has forty thousand men at most," replied Weyrother, with the
smile of a doctor to whom an old wife wishes to explain the treatment
of a case.
"In that case he is inviting his doom by awaiting our attack," said
Langeron, with a subtly ironical smile, again glancing round for
support to Miloradovich who was near him.
But Miloradovich was at that moment evidently thinking of anything
rather than of what the generals were disputing about.
"Ma foi!" said he, "tomorrow we shall see all that on the battlefield."
Weyrother again gave that smile which seemed to say that to him it
was strange and ridiculous to meet objections from Russian generals
and to have to prove to them what he had not merely convinced himself
of, but had also convinced the sovereign Emperors of.
"The enemy has quenched his fires and a continual noise is heard
from his camp," said he. "What does that mean? Either he is retreating,
which is the only thing we need fear, or he is changing his position."
(He smiled ironically.) "But even if he also took up a position in the
Thuerassa, he merely saves us a great deal of trouble and all our
arrangements to the minutest detail remain the same."
"How is that?..." began Prince Andrew, who had for long been
waiting an opportunity to express his doubts.
Kutuzov here woke up, coughed heavily, and looked round at the
generals.
"Gentlemen, the dispositions for tomorrow—or rather for today, for
it is past midnight—cannot now be altered," said he. "You have heard
them, and we shall all do our duty. But before a battle, there is nothing
more important..." he paused, "than to have a good sleep."
He moved as if to rise. The generals bowed and retired. It was past
midnight. Prince Andrew went out.
The council of war, at which Prince Andrew had not been able to
express his opinion as he had hoped to, left on him a vague and uneasy
impression. Whether Dolgorukov and Weyrother, or Kutuzov,
Langeron, and the others who did not approve of the plan of attack,
were right—he did not know. "But was it really not possible for
Kutuzov to state his views plainly to the Emperor? Is it possible that on
account of court and personal considerations tens of thousands of lives,
and my life, my life," he thought, "must be risked?"
"Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow," he thought.
And suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of most distant,
most intimate, memories rose in his imagination: he remembered his
last parting from his father and his wife; he remembered the days when
he first loved her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for her
and for himself, and in a nervously emotional and softened mood he
went out of the hut in which he was billeted with Nesvitski and began
to walk up and down before it.
The night was foggy and through the fog the moonlight gleamed
mysteriously. "Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!" he thought. "Tomorrow
everything may be over for me! All these memories will be no more,
none of them will have any meaning for me. Tomorrow perhaps, even
certainly, I have a presentiment that for the first time I shall have to
show all I can do." And his fancy pictured the battle, its loss, the
concentration of fighting at one point, and the hesitation of all the
commanders. And then that happy moment, that Toulon for which he
had so long waited, presents itself to him at last. He firmly and clearly
expresses his opinion to Kutuzov, to Weyrother, and to the Emperors.
All are struck by the justness of his views, but no one undertakes to
carry them out, so he takes a regiment, a division-stipulates that no one
is to interfere with his arrangements—leads his division to the decisive
point, and gains the victory alone. "But death and suffering?" suggested
another voice. Prince Andrew, however, did not answer that voice and
went on dreaming of his triumphs. The dispositions for the next battle
are planned by him alone. Nominally he is only an adjutant on
Kutuzov's staff, but he does everything alone. The next battle is won by
him alone. Kutuzov is removed and he is appointed... "Well and then?"
asked the other voice. "If before that you are not ten times wounded,
killed, or betrayed, well... what then?..." "Well then," Prince Andrew
answered himself, "I don't know what will happen and don't want to
know, and can't, but if I want this—want glory, want to be known to
men, want to be loved by them, it is not my fault that I want it and want
nothing but that and live only for that. Yes, for that alone! I shall never
tell anyone, but, oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and
men's esteem? Death, wounds, the loss of family—I fear nothing. And
precious and dear as many persons are to me—father, sister, wife—
those dearest to me—yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would
give them all at once for a moment of glory, of triumph over men, of
love from men I don't know and never shall know, for the love of these
men here," he thought, as he listened to voices in Kutuzov's courtyard.
The voices were those of the orderlies who were packing up; one voice,
probably a coachman's, was teasing Kutuzov's old cook whom Prince
Andrew knew, and who was called Tit. He was saying, "Tit, I say, Tit!"
"Well?" returned the old man.
"Go, Tit, thresh a bit!" said the wag.
"Oh, go to the devil!" called out a voice, drowned by the laughter of
the orderlies and servants.
"All the same, I love and value nothing but triumph over them all, I
value this mystic power and glory that is floating here above me in this
mist!"

CHAPTER XIII
That same night, Rostov was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in
front of Bagration's detachment. His hussars were placed along the line
in couples and he himself rode along the line trying to master the
sleepiness that kept coming over him. An enormous space, with our
army's campfires dimly glowing in the fog, could be seen behind him;
in front of him was misty darkness. Rostov could see nothing, peer as
he would into that foggy distance: now something gleamed gray, now
there was something black, now little lights seemed to glimmer where
the enemy ought to be, now he fancied it was only something in his
own eyes. His eyes kept closing, and in his fancy appeared—now the
Emperor, now Denisov, and now Moscow memories—and he again
hurriedly opened his eyes and saw close before him the head and ears
of the horse he was riding, and sometimes, when he came within six
paces of them, the black figures of hussars, but in the distance was still
the same misty darkness. "Why not?... It might easily happen," thought
Rostov, "that the Emperor will meet me and give me an order as he
would to any other officer; he'll say: 'Go and find out what's there.'
There are many stories of his getting to know an officer in just such a
chance way and attaching him to himself! What if he gave me a place
near him? Oh, how I would guard him, how I would tell him the truth,
how I would unmask his deceivers!" And in order to realize vividly his
love devotion to the sovereign, Rostov pictured to himself an enemy or
a deceitful German, whom he would not only kill with pleasure but
whom he would slap in the face before the Emperor. Suddenly a distant
shout aroused him. He started and opened his eyes.
"Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line... pass and
watchword—shaft, Olmutz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be
in reserve tomorrow," he thought. "I'll ask leave to go to the front, this
may be my only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won't be long now
before I am off duty. I'll take another turn and when I get back I'll go to
the general and ask him." He readjusted himself in the saddle and
touched up his horse to ride once more round his hussars. It seemed to
him that it was getting lighter. To the left he saw a sloping descent lit
up, and facing it a black knoll that seemed as steep as a wall. On this
knoll there was a white patch that Rostov could not at all make out: was
it a glade in the wood lit up by the moon, or some unmelted snow, or
some white houses? He even thought something moved on that white
spot. "I expect it's snow... that spot... a spot—une tache," he thought.
"There now... it's not a tache... Natasha... sister, black eyes... Na...
tasha... (Won't she be surprised when I tell her how I've seen the
Emperor?) Natasha... take my sabretache..."—"Keep to the right, your
honor, there are bushes here," came the voice of an hussar, past whom
Rostov was riding in the act of falling asleep. Rostov lifted his head
that had sunk almost to his horse's mane and pulled up beside the
hussar. He was succumbing to irresistible, youthful, childish
drowsiness. "But what was I thinking? I mustn't forget. How shall I
speak to the Emperor? No, that's not it—that's tomorrow. Oh yes!
Natasha... sabretache... saber them... Whom? The hussars... Ah, the
hussars with mustaches. Along the Tverskaya Street rode the hussar
with mustaches... I thought about him too, just opposite Guryev's
house... Old Guryev.... Oh, but Denisov's a fine fellow. But that's all
nonsense. The chief thing is that the Emperor is here. How he looked at
me and wished to say something, but dared not.... No, it was I who
dared not. But that's nonsense, the chief thing is not to forget the
important thing I was thinking of. Yes, Na-tasha, sabretache, oh, yes,
yes! That's right!" And his head once more sank to his horse's neck. All
at once it seemed to him that he was being fired at. "What? What?
What?... Cut them down! What?..." said Rostov, waking up. At the
moment he opened his eyes he heard in front of him, where the enemy
was, the long-drawn shouts of thousands of voices. His horse and the
horse of the hussar near him pricked their ears at these shouts. Over
there, where the shouting came from, a fire flared up and went out
again, then another, and all along the French line on the hill fires flared
up and the shouting grew louder and louder. Rostov could hear the
sound of French words but could not distinguish them. The din of many
voices was too great; all he could hear was: "ahahah!" and "rrrr!"
"What's that? What do you make of it?" said Rostov to the hussar
beside him. "That must be the enemy's camp!"
The hussar did not reply.
"Why, don't you hear it?" Rostov asked again, after waiting for a
reply.
"Who can tell, your honor?" replied the hussar reluctantly.
"From the direction, it must be the enemy," repeated Rostov.
"It may be he or it may be nothing," muttered the hussar. "It's dark...
Steady!" he cried to his fidgeting horse.
Rostov's horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground,
pricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights. The shouting
grew still louder and merged into a general roar that only an army of
several thousand men could produce. The lights spread farther and
farther, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostov no longer
wanted to sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the enemy army had a
stimulating effect on him. "Vive l'Empereur! L'Empereur!" he now
heard distinctly.
"They can't be far off, probably just beyond the stream," he said to
the hussar beside him.
The hussar only sighed without replying and coughed angrily. The
sound of horse's hoofs approaching at a trot along the line of hussars
was heard, and out of the foggy darkness the figure of a sergeant of
hussars suddenly appeared, looming huge as an elephant.
"Your honor, the generals!" said the sergeant, riding up to Rostov.
Rostov, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode with
the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the
line. One was on a white horse. Prince Bagration and Prince
Dolgorukov with their adjutants had come to witness the curious
phenomenon of the lights and shouts in the enemy's camp. Rostov rode
up to Bagration, reported to him, and then joined the adjutants listening
to what the generals were saying.
"Believe me," said Prince Dolgorukov, addressing Bagration, "it is
nothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to kindle
fires and make a noise to deceive us."
"Hardly," said Bagration. "I saw them this evening on that knoll; if
they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too....
Officer!" said Bagration to Rostov, "are the enemy's skirmishers still
there?"
"They were there this evening, but now I don't know, your
excellency. Shall I go with some of my hussars to see?" replied Rostov.
Bagration stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostov's face in
the mist.
"Well, go and see," he said, after a pause.
"Yes, sir."
Rostov spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fedchenko and two
other hussars, told them to follow him, and trotted downhill in the
direction from which the shouting came. He felt both frightened and
pleased to be riding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and
dangerous misty distance where no one had been before him. Bagration
called to him from the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostov
pretended not to hear him and did not stop but rode on and on,
continually mistaking bushes for trees and gullies for men and
continually discovering his mistakes. Having descended the hill at a
trot, he no longer saw either our own or the enemy's fires, but heard the
shouting of the French more loudly and distinctly. In the valley he saw
before him something like a river, but when he reached it he found it
was a road. Having come out onto the road he reined in his horse,
hesitating whether to ride along it or cross it and ride over the black
field up the hillside. To keep to the road which gleamed white in the
mist would have been safer because it would be easier to see people
coming along it. "Follow me!" said he, crossed the road, and began
riding up the hill at a gallop toward the point where the French pickets
had been standing that evening.
"Your honor, there he is!" cried one of the hussars behind him. And
before Rostov had time to make out what the black thing was that had
suddenly appeared in the fog, there was a flash, followed by a report,
and a bullet whizzing high up in the mist with a plaintive sound passed
out of hearing. Another musket missed fire but flashed in the pan.
Rostov turned his horse and galloped back. Four more reports followed
at intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the fog singing in
different tones. Rostov reined in his horse, whose spirits had risen, like
his own, at the firing, and went back at a footpace. "Well, some more!
Some more!" a merry voice was saying in his soul. But no more shots
came.
Only when approaching Bagration did Rostov let his horse gallop
again, and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.
Dolgorukov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had
only lit fires to deceive us.
"What does that prove?" he was saying as Rostov rode up. "They
might retreat and leave the pickets."
"It's plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince," said Bagration.
"Wait till tomorrow morning, we'll find out everything tomorrow."
"The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just where it was in
the evening," reported Rostov, stooping forward with his hand at the
salute and unable to repress the smile of delight induced by his ride and
especially by the sound of the bullets.
"Very good, very good," said Bagration. "Thank you, officer."
"Your excellency," said Rostov, "may I ask a favor?"
"What is it?"
"Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be attached
to the first squadron?"
"What's your name?"
"Count Rostov."
"Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me."
"Count Ilya Rostov's son?" asked Dolgorukov.
But Rostov did not reply.
"Then I may reckon on it, your excellency?"
"I will give the order."
"Tomorrow very likely I may be sent with some message to the
Emperor," thought Rostov.
"Thank God!"
The fires and shouting in the enemy's army were occasioned by the
fact that while Napoleon's proclamation was being read to the troops
the Emperor himself rode round his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing
him, lit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!"
Napoleon's proclamation was as follows:
Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the
Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at
Hollabrunn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position we
occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round me on
the right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will myself direct
your battalions. I will keep out of fire if you with your habitual valor
carry disorder and confusion into the enemy's ranks, but should victory
be in doubt, even for a moment, you will see your Emperor exposing
himself to the first blows of the enemy, for there must be no doubt of
victory, especially on this day when what is at stake is the honor of the
French infantry, so necessary to the honor of our nation.
Do not break your ranks on the plea of removing the wounded! Let
every man be fully imbued with the thought that we must defeat these
hirelings of England, inspired by such hatred of our nation! This
victory will conclude our campaign and we can return to winter
quarters, where fresh French troops who are being raised in France will
join us, and the peace I shall conclude will be worthy of my people, of
you, and of myself.
NAPOLEON

CHAPTER XIV
At five in the morning it was still quite dark. The troops of the
center, the reserves, and Bagration's right flank had not yet moved, but
on the left flank the columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, which
were to be the first to descend the heights to attack the French right
flank and drive it into the Bohemian mountains according to plan, were
already up and astir. The smoke of the campfires, into which they were
throwing everything superfluous, made the eyes smart. It was cold and
dark. The officers were hurriedly drinking tea and breakfasting, the
soldiers, munching biscuit and beating a tattoo with their feet to warm
themselves, gathering round the fires throwing into the flames the
remains of sheds, chairs, tables, wheels, tubs, and everything that they
did not want or could not carry away with them. Austrian column
guides were moving in and out among the Russian troops and served as
heralds of the advance. As soon as an Austrian officer showed himself
near a commanding officer's quarters, the regiment began to move: the
soldiers ran from the fires, thrust their pipes into their boots, their bags
into the carts, got their muskets ready, and formed rank. The officers
buttoned up their coats, buckled on their swords and pouches, and
moved along the ranks shouting. The train drivers and orderlies
harnessed and packed the wagons and tied on the loads. The adjutants
and battalion and regimental commanders mounted, crossed
themselves, gave final instructions, orders, and commissions to the
baggage men who remained behind, and the monotonous tramp of
thousands of feet resounded. The column moved forward without
knowing where and unable, from the masses around them, the smoke
and the increasing fog, to see either the place they were leaving or that
to which they were going.
A soldier on the march is hemmed in and borne along by his
regiment as much as a sailor is by his ship. However far he has walked,
whatever strange, unknown, and dangerous places he reaches, just as a
sailor is always surrounded by the same decks, masts, and rigging of
his ship, so the soldier always has around him the same comrades, the
same ranks, the same sergeant major Ivan Mitrich, the same company
dog Jack, and the same commanders. The sailor rarely cares to know
the latitude in which his ship is sailing, but on the day of battle—
heaven knows how and whence—a stern note of which all are
conscious sounds in the moral atmosphere of an army, announcing the
approach of something decisive and solemn, and awakening in the men
an unusual curiosity. On the day of battle the soldiers excitedly try to
get beyond the interests of their regiment, they listen intently, look
about, and eagerly ask concerning what is going on around them.
The fog had grown so dense that though it was growing light they
could not see ten paces ahead. Bushes looked like gigantic trees and
level ground like cliffs and slopes. Anywhere, on any side, one might
encounter an enemy invisible ten paces off. But the columns advanced
for a long time, always in the same fog, descending and ascending hills,
avoiding gardens and enclosures, going over new and unknown ground,
and nowhere encountering the enemy. On the contrary, the soldiers
became aware that in front, behind, and on all sides, other Russian
columns were moving in the same direction. Every soldier felt glad to
know that to the unknown place where he was going, many more of our
men were going too.
"There now, the Kurskies have also gone past," was being said in the
ranks.
"It's wonderful what a lot of our troops have gathered, lads! Last
night I looked at the campfires and there was no end of them. A regular
Moscow!"
Though none of the column commanders rode up to the ranks or
talked to the men (the commanders, as we saw at the council of war,
were out of humor and dissatisfied with the affair, and so did not exert
themselves to cheer the men but merely carried out the orders), yet the
troops marched gaily, as they always do when going into action,
especially to an attack. But when they had marched for about an hour in
the dense fog, the greater part of the men had to halt and an unpleasant
consciousness of some dislocation and blunder spread through the
ranks. How such a consciousness is communicated is very difficult to
define, but it certainly is communicated very surely, and flows rapidly,
imperceptibly, and irrepressibly, as water does in a creek. Had the
Russian army been alone without any allies, it might perhaps have been
a long time before this consciousness of mismanagement became a
general conviction, but as it was, the disorder was readily and naturally
attributed to the stupid Germans, and everyone was convinced that a
dangerous muddle had been occasioned by the sausage eaters.
"Why have we stopped? Is the way blocked? Or have we already
come up against the French?"
"No, one can't hear them. They'd be firing if we had."
"They were in a hurry enough to start us, and now here we stand in
the middle of a field without rhyme or reason. It's all those damned
Germans' muddling! What stupid devils!"
"Yes, I'd send them on in front, but no fear, they're crowding up
behind. And now here we stand hungry."
"I say, shall we soon be clear? They say the cavalry are blocking the
way," said an officer.
"Ah, those damned Germans! They don't know their own country!"
said another.
"What division are you?" shouted an adjutant, riding up.
"The Eighteenth."
"Then why are you here? You should have gone on long ago, now
you won't get there till evening."
"What stupid orders! They don't themselves know what they are
doing!" said the officer and rode off.
Then a general rode past shouting something angrily, not in Russian.
"Tafa-lafa! But what he's jabbering no one can make out," said a
soldier, mimicking the general who had ridden away. "I'd shoot them,
the scoundrels!"
"We were ordered to be at the place before nine, but we haven't got
halfway. Fine orders!" was being repeated on different sides.
 And the feeling of energy with which the troops had started began to
turn into vexation and anger at the stupid arrangements and at the
Germans.
The cause of the confusion was that while the Austrian cavalry was
moving toward our left flank, the higher command found that our
center was too far separated from our right flank and the cavalry were
all ordered to turn back to the right. Several thousand cavalry crossed in
front of the infantry, who had to wait.
At the front an altercation occurred between an Austrian guide and a
Russian general. The general shouted a demand that the cavalry should
be halted, the Austrian argued that not he, but the higher command, was
to blame. The troops meanwhile stood growing listless and dispirited.
After an hour's delay they at last moved on, descending the hill. The
fog that was dispersing on the hill lay still more densely below, where
they were descending. In front in the fog a shot was heard and then
another, at first irregularly at varying intervals—trata... tat—and then
more and more regularly and rapidly, and the action at the Goldbach
Stream began.
Not expecting to come on the enemy down by the stream, and having
stumbled on him in the fog, hearing no encouraging word from their
commanders, and with a consciousness of being too late spreading
through the ranks, and above all being unable to see anything in front
or around them in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the
enemy lazily and advanced and again halted, receiving no timely orders
from the officers or adjutants who wandered about in the fog in those
unknown surroundings unable to find their own regiments. In this way
the action began for the first, second, and third columns, which had
gone down into the valley. The fourth column, with which Kutuzov
was, stood on the Pratzen Heights.
Below, where the fight was beginning, there was still thick fog; on
the higher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of what
was going on in front. Whether all the enemy forces were, as we
supposed, six miles away, or whether they were near by in that sea of
mist, no one knew till after eight o'clock.
It was nine o'clock in the morning. The fog lay unbroken like a sea
down below, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz where
Napoleon stood with his marshals around him, it was quite light. Above
him was a clear blue sky, and the sun's vast orb quivered like a huge
hollow, crimson float on the surface of that milky sea of mist. The
whole French army, and even Napoleon himself with his staff, were not
on the far side of the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and
Schlappanitz beyond which we intended to take up our position and
begin the action, but were on this side, so close to our own forces that
Napoleon with the naked eye could distinguish a mounted man from
one on foot. Napoleon, in the blue cloak which he had worn on his
Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab horse a little in front of his
marshals. He gazed silently at the hills which seemed to rise out of the
sea of mist and on which the Russian troops were moving in the
distance, and he listened to the sounds of firing in the valley. Not a
single muscle of his face—which in those days was still thin—moved.
His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on one spot. His predictions
were being justified. Part of the Russian force had already descended
into the valley toward the ponds and lakes and part were leaving these
Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack and regarded as the key to
the position. He saw over the mist that in a hollow between two hills
near the village of Pratzen, the Russian columns, their bayonets
glittering, were moving continuously in one direction toward the valley
and disappearing one after another into the mist. From information he
had received the evening before, from the sound of wheels and
footsteps heard by the outposts during the night, by the disorderly
movement of the Russian columns, and from all indications, he saw
clearly that the allies believed him to be far away in front of them, and
that the columns moving near Pratzen constituted the center of the
Russian army, and that that center was already sufficiently weakened to
be successfully attacked. But still he did not begin the engagement.
Today was a great day for him—the anniversary of his coronation.
Before dawn he had slept for a few hours, and refreshed, vigorous, and
in good spirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field in that
happy mood in which everything seems possible and everything
succeeds. He sat motionless, looking at the heights visible above the
mist, and his cold face wore that special look of confident, self-
complacent happiness that one sees on the face of a boy happily in
love. The marshals stood behind him not venturing to distract his
attention. He looked now at the Pratzen Heights, now at the sun
floating up out of the mist.
When the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and mist
were aglow with dazzling light—as if he had only awaited this to begin
the action—he drew the glove from his shapely white hand, made a
sign with it to the marshals, and ordered the action to begin. The
marshals, accompanied by adjutants, galloped off in different
directions, and a few minutes later the chief forces of the French army
moved rapidly toward those Pratzen Heights which were being more
and more denuded by Russian troops moving down the valley to their
left.
 CHAPTER XV
At eight o'clock Kutuzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth
column, Miloradovich's, the one that was to take the place of
Przebyszewski's and Langeron's columns which had already gone down
into the valley. He greeted the men of the foremost regiment and gave
them the order to march, thereby indicating that he intended to lead that
column himself. When he had reached the village of Pratzen he halted.
Prince Andrew was behind, among the immense number forming the
commander in chief's suite. He was in a state of suppressed excitement
and irritation, though controlledly calm as a man is at the approach of a
long-awaited moment. He was firmly convinced that this was the day
of his Toulon, or his bridge of Arcola. How it would come about he did
not know, but he felt sure it would do so. The locality and the position
of our troops were known to him as far as they could be known to
anyone in our army. His own strategic plan, which obviously could not
now be carried out, was forgotten. Now, entering into Weyrother's plan,
Prince Andrew considered possible contingencies and formed new
projects such as might call for his rapidity of perception and decision.
To the left down below in the mist, the musketry fire of unseen
forces could be heard. It was there Prince Andrew thought the fight
would concentrate. "There we shall encounter difficulties, and there,"
thought he, "I shall be sent with a brigade or division, and there,
standard in hand, I shall go forward and break whatever is in front of
me."
He could not look calmly at the standards of the passing battalions.
Seeing them he kept thinking, "That may be the very standard with
which I shall lead the army."
In the morning all that was left of the night mist on the heights was a
hoar frost now turning to dew, but in the valleys it still lay like a milk-
white sea. Nothing was visible in the valley to the left into which our
troops had descended and from whence came the sounds of firing.
Above the heights was the dark clear sky, and to the right the vast orb
of the sun. In front, far off on the farther shore of that sea of mist, some
wooded hills were discernible, and it was there the enemy probably
was, for something could be descried. On the right the Guards were
entering the misty region with a sound of hoofs and wheels and now
and then a gleam of bayonets; to the left beyond the village similar
masses of cavalry came up and disappeared in the sea of mist. In front
and behind moved infantry. The commander in chief was standing at
the end of the village letting the troops pass by him. That morning
Kutuzov seemed worn and irritable. The infantry passing before him
came to a halt without any command being given, apparently
obstructed by something in front.
 "Do order them to form into battalion columns and go round the
village!" he said angrily to a general who had ridden up. "Don't you
understand, your excellency, my dear sir, that you must not defile
through narrow village streets when we are marching against the
enemy?"
"I intended to re-form them beyond the village, your excellency,"
answered the general.
Kutuzov laughed bitterly.
"You'll make a fine thing of it, deploying in sight of the enemy! Very
fine!"
"The enemy is still far away, your excellency. According to the
dispositions..."
"The dispositions!" exclaimed Kutuzov bitterly. "Who told you
that?... Kindly do as you are ordered."
"Yes, sir."
"My dear fellow," Nesvitski whispered to Prince Andrew, "the old
man is as surly as a dog."
An Austrian officer in a white uniform with green plumes in his hat
galloped up to Kutuzov and asked in the Emperor's name had the fourth
column advanced into action.
Kutuzov turned round without answering and his eye happened to
fall upon Prince Andrew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutuzov's
malevolent and caustic expression softened, as if admitting that what
was being done was not his adjutant's fault, and still not answering the
Austrian adjutant, he addressed Bolkonski.
"Go, my dear fellow, and see whether the third division has passed
the village. Tell it to stop and await my orders."
Hardly had Prince Andrew started than he stopped him.
"And ask whether sharpshooters have been posted," he added. "What
are they doing? What are they doing?" he murmured to himself, still
not replying to the Austrian.
Prince Andrew galloped off to execute the order.
Overtaking the battalions that continued to advance, he stopped the
third division and convinced himself that there really were no
sharpshooters in front of our columns. The colonel at the head of the
regiment was much surprised at the commander in chief's order to
throw out skirmishers. He had felt perfectly sure that there were other
troops in front of him and that the enemy must be at least six miles
away. There was really nothing to be seen in front except a barren
descent hidden by dense mist. Having given orders in the commander
in chief's name to rectify this omission, Prince Andrew galloped back.
Kutuzov still in the same place, his stout body resting heavily in the
saddle with the lassitude of age, sat yawning wearily with closed eyes.
The troops were no longer moving, but stood with the butts of their
muskets on the ground.
"All right, all right!" he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a
general who, watch in hand, was saying it was time they started as all
the left-flank columns had already descended.
"Plenty of time, your excellency," muttered Kutuzov in the midst of
a yawn. "Plenty of time," he repeated.
Just then at a distance behind Kutuzov was heard the sound of
regiments saluting, and this sound rapidly came nearer along the whole
extended line of the advancing Russian columns. Evidently the person
they were greeting was riding quickly. When the soldiers of the
regiment in front of which Kutuzov was standing began to shout, he
rode a little to one side and looked round with a frown. Along the road
from Pratzen galloped what looked like a squadron of horsemen in
various uniforms. Two of them rode side by side in front, at full gallop.
One in a black uniform with white plumes in his hat rode a bobtailed
chestnut horse, the other who was in a white uniform rode a black one.
These were the two Emperors followed by their suites. Kutuzov,
affecting the manners of an old soldier at the front, gave the command
"Attention!" and rode up to the Emperors with a salute. His whole
appearance and manner were suddenly transformed. He put on the air
of a subordinate who obeys without reasoning. With an affectation of
respect which evidently struck Alexander unpleasantly, he rode up and
saluted.
This unpleasant impression merely flitted over the young and happy
face of the Emperor like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and
vanished. After his illness he looked rather thinner that day than on the
field of Olmutz where Bolkonski had seen him for the first time abroad,
but there was still the same bewitching combination of majesty and
mildness in his fine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the same
capacity for varying expression and the same prevalent appearance of
goodhearted innocent youth.
At the Olmutz review he had seemed more majestic; here he seemed
brighter and more energetic. He was slightly flushed after galloping
two miles, and reining in his horse he sighed restfully and looked round
at the faces of his suite, young and animated as his own. Czartoryski,
Novosiltsev, Prince Volkonsky, Strogonov, and the others, all richly
dressed gay young men on splendid, well-groomed, fresh, only slightly
heated horses, exchanging remarks and smiling, had stopped behind the
Emperor. The Emperor Francis, a rosy, long faced young man, sat very
erect on his handsome black horse, looking about him in a leisurely and
preoccupied manner. He beckoned to one of his white adjutants and
asked some question—"Most likely he is asking at what o'clock they
started," thought Prince Andrew, watching his old acquaintance with a
smile he could not repress as he recalled his reception at Brunn. In the
Emperors' suite were the picked young orderly officers of the Guard
and line regiments, Russian and Austrian. Among them were grooms
leading the Tsar's beautiful relay horses covered with embroidered
cloths.
As when a window is opened a whiff of fresh air from the fields
enters a stuffy room, so a whiff of youthfulness, energy, and confidence
of success reached Kutuzov's cheerless staff with the galloping advent
of all these brilliant young men.
"Why aren't you beginning, Michael Ilarionovich?" said the Emperor
Alexander hurriedly to Kutuzov, glancing courteously at the same time
at the Emperor Francis.
"I am waiting, Your Majesty," answered Kutuzov, bending forward
respectfully.
The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his ear forward as if he had not
quite heard.
"Waiting, Your Majesty," repeated Kutuzov. (Prince Andrew noted
that Kutuzov's upper lip twitched unnaturally as he said the word
"waiting.") "Not all the columns have formed up yet, Your Majesty."
The Tsar heard but obviously did not like the reply; he shrugged his
rather round shoulders and glanced at Novosiltsev who was near him,
as if complaining of Kutuzov.
"You know, Michael Ilarionovich, we are not on the Empress' Field
where a parade does not begin till all the troops are assembled," said
the Tsar with another glance at the Emperor Francis, as if inviting him
if not to join in at least to listen to what he was saying. But the Emperor
Francis continued to look about him and did not listen.
"That is just why I do not begin, sire," said Kutuzov in a resounding
voice, apparently to preclude the possibility of not being heard, and
again something in his face twitched—"That is just why I do not begin,
sire, because we are not on parade and not on the Empress' Field," said
clearly and distinctly.
 In the Emperor's suite all exchanged rapid looks that expressed
dissatisfaction and reproach. "Old though he may be, he should not, he
certainly should not, speak like that," their glances seemed to say.
The Tsar looked intently and observantly into Kutuzov's eye waiting
to hear whether he would say anything more. But Kutuzov, with
respectfully bowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence lasted
for about a minute.
"However, if you command it, Your Majesty," said Kutuzov, lifting
his head and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning, but
submissive general.
He touched his horse and having called Miloradovich, the
commander of the column, gave him the order to advance.
The troops again began to move, and two battalions of the Novgorod
and one of the Apsheron regiment went forward past the Emperor.
As this Apsheron battalion marched by, the red-faced Miloradovich,
without his greatcoat, with his Orders on his breast and an enormous
tuft of plumes in his cocked hat worn on one side with its corners front
and back, galloped strenuously forward, and with a dashing salute
reined in his horse before the Emperor.
"God be with you, general!" said the Emperor.
"Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce qui sera dans notre possibilite, sire," *
he answered gaily, raising nevertheless ironic smiles among the
gentlemen of the Tsar's suite by his poor French.

* "Indeed, Sire, we shall do everything it is

possible to
do, Sire."

Miloradovich wheeled his horse sharply and stationed himself a little

behind the Emperor. The Apsheron men, excited by the Tsar's
presence, passed in step before the Emperors and their suites at a bold,
brisk pace.
"Lads!" shouted Miloradovich in a loud, self-confident, and cheery
voice, obviously so elated by the sound of firing, by the prospect of
battle, and by the sight of the gallant Apsherons, his comrades in
Suvorov's time, now passing so gallantly before the Emperors, that he
forgot the sovereigns' presence. "Lads, it's not the first village you've
had to take," cried he.
"Glad to do our best!" shouted the soldiers.
 The Emperor's horse started at the sudden cry. This horse that had
carried the sovereign at reviews in Russia bore him also here on the
field of Austerlitz, enduring the heedless blows of his left foot and
pricking its ears at the sound of shots just as it had done on the
Empress' Field, not understanding the significance of the firing, nor of
the nearness of the Emperor Francis' black cob, nor of all that was
being said, thought, and felt that day by its rider.
The Emperor turned with a smile to one of his followers and made a
remark to him, pointing to the gallant Apsherons.

CHAPTER XVI
Kutuzov accompanied by his adjutants rode at a walking pace behind
the carabineers.
When he had gone less than half a mile in the rear of the column he
stopped at a solitary, deserted house that had probably once been an
inn, where two roads parted. Both of them led downhill and troops
were marching along both.
The fog had begun to clear and enemy troops were already dimly
visible about a mile and a half off on the opposite heights. Down
below, on the left, the firing became more distinct. Kutuzov had
stopped and was speaking to an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, who
was a little behind looking at them, turned to an adjutant to ask him for
a field glass.
"Look, look!" said this adjutant, looking not at the troops in the
distance, but down the hill before him. "It's the French!"
The two generals and the adjutant took hold of the field glass, trying
to snatch it from one another. The expression on all their faces
suddenly changed to one of horror. The French were supposed to be a
mile and a half away, but had suddenly and unexpectedly appeared just
in front of us.
"It's the enemy?... No!... Yes, see it is!... for certain.... But how is
that?" said different voices.
With the naked eye Prince Andrew saw below them to the right, not
more than five hundred paces from where Kutuzov was standing, a
dense French column coming up to meet the Apsherons.
 "Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come,"
thought Prince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutuzov.
"The Apsherons must be stopped, your excellency," cried he. But at
that very instant a cloud of smoke spread all round, firing was heard
quite close at hand, and a voice of naive terror barely two steps from
Prince Andrew shouted, "Brothers! All's lost!" And at this as if at a
command, everyone began to run.
Confused and ever-increasing crowds were running back to where
five minutes before the troops had passed the Emperors. Not only
would it have been difficult to stop that crowd, it was even impossible
not to be carried back with it oneself. Bolkonski only tried not to lose
touch with it, and looked around bewildered and unable to grasp what
was happening in front of him. Nesvitski with an angry face, red and
unlike himself, was shouting to Kutuzov that if he did not ride away at
once he would certainly be taken prisoner. Kutuzov remained in the
same place and without answering drew out a handkerchief. Blood was
flowing from his cheek. Prince Andrew forced his way to him.
"You are wounded?" he asked, hardly able to master the trembling of
his lower jaw.
"The wound is not here, it is there!" said Kutuzov, pressing the
handkerchief to his wounded cheek and pointing to the fleeing soldiers.
"Stop them!" he shouted, and at the same moment, probably realizing
that it was impossible to stop them, spurred his horse and rode to the
right.
A fresh wave of the flying mob caught him and bore him back with
it.
The troops were running in such a dense mass that once surrounded
by them it was difficult to get out again. One was shouting, "Get on!
Why are you hindering us?" Another in the same place turned round
and fired in the air; a third was striking the horse Kutuzov himself rode.
Having by a great effort got away to the left from that flood of men,
Kutuzov, with his suite diminished by more than half, rode toward a
sound of artillery fire near by. Having forced his way out of the crowd
of fugitives, Prince Andrew, trying to keep near Kutuzov, saw on the
slope of the hill amid the smoke a Russian battery that was still firing
and Frenchmen running toward it. Higher up stood some Russian
infantry, neither moving forward to protect the battery nor backward
with the fleeing crowd. A mounted general separated himself from the
infantry and approached Kutuzov. Of Kutuzov's suite only four
remained. They were all pale and exchanged looks in silence.
"Stop those wretches!" gasped Kutuzov to the regimental
commander, pointing to the flying soldiers; but at that instant, as if to
punish him for those words, bullets flew hissing across the regiment
and across Kutuzov's suite like a flock of little birds.
The French had attacked the battery and, seeing Kutuzov, were firing
at him. After this volley the regimental commander clutched at his leg;
several soldiers fell, and a second lieutenant who was holding the flag
let it fall from his hands. It swayed and fell, but caught on the muskets
of the nearest soldiers. The soldiers started firing without orders.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" groaned Kutuzov despairingly and looked around....
"Bolkonski!" he whispered, his voice trembling from a consciousness
of the feebleness of age, "Bolkonski!" he whispered, pointing to the
disordered battalion and at the enemy, "what's that?"
But before he had finished speaking, Prince Andrew, feeling tears of
shame and anger choking him, had already leapt from his horse and run
to the standard.
"Forward, lads!" he shouted in a voice piercing as a child's.
"Here it is!" thought he, seizing the staff of the standard and hearing
with pleasure the whistle of bullets evidently aimed at him. Several
soldiers fell.
"Hurrah!" shouted Prince Andrew, and, scarcely able to hold up the
heavy standard, he ran forward with full confidence that the whole
battalion would follow him.
And really he only ran a few steps alone. One soldier moved and
then another and soon the whole battalion ran forward shouting
"Hurrah!" and overtook him. A sergeant of the battalion ran up and
took the flag that was swaying from its weight in Prince Andrew's
hands, but he was immediately killed. Prince Andrew again seized the
standard and, dragging it by the staff, ran on with the battalion. In front
he saw our artillerymen, some of whom were fighting, while others,
having abandoned their guns, were running toward him. He also saw
French infantry soldiers who were seizing the artillery horses and
turning the guns round. Prince Andrew and the battalion were already
within twenty paces of the cannon. He heard the whistle of bullets
above him unceasingly and to right and left of him soldiers continually
groaned and dropped. But he did not look at them: he looked only at
what was going on in front of him—at the battery. He now saw clearly
the figure of a red-haired gunner with his shako knocked awry, pulling
one end of a mop while a French soldier tugged at the other. He could
distinctly see the distraught yet angry expression on the faces of these
two men, who evidently did not realize what they were doing.
"What are they about?" thought Prince Andrew as he gazed at them.
"Why doesn't the red-haired gunner run away as he is unarmed? Why
doesn't the Frenchman stab him? He will not get away before the
Frenchman remembers his bayonet and stabs him...."
And really another French soldier, trailing his musket, ran up to the
struggling men, and the fate of the red-haired gunner, who had
triumphantly secured the mop and still did not realize what awaited
him, was about to be decided. But Prince Andrew did not see how it
ended. It seemed to him as though one of the soldiers near him hit him
on the head with the full swing of a bludgeon. It hurt a little, but the
worst of it was that the pain distracted him and prevented his seeing
what he had been looking at.
"What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way," thought he, and
fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of
the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner
had been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or
saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the
sky—the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray
clouds gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not
at all as I ran," thought Prince Andrew—"not as we ran, shouting and
fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and
angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds
glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty
sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is
vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing,
but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace.
Thank God!..."

CHAPTER XVII
On our right flank commanded by Bagration, at nine o'clock the
battle had not yet begun. Not wishing to agree to Dolgorukov's demand
to commence the action, and wishing to avert responsibility from
himself, Prince Bagration proposed to Dolgorukov to send to inquire of
the commander in chief. Bagration knew that as the distance between
the two flanks was more than six miles, even if the messenger were not
killed (which he very likely would be), and found the commander in
chief (which would be very difficult), he would not be able to get back
before evening.
Bagration cast his large, expressionless, sleepy eyes round his suite,
and the boyish face Rostov, breathless with excitement and hope, was
the first to catch his eye. He sent him.
 "And if I should meet His Majesty before I meet the commander in
chief, your excellency?" said Rostov, with his hand to his cap.
"You can give the message to His Majesty," said Dolgorukov,
hurriedly interrupting Bagration.
On being relieved from picket duty Rostov had managed to get a few
hours' sleep before morning and felt cheerful, bold, and resolute, with
elasticity of movement, faith in his good fortune, and generally in that
state of mind which makes everything seem possible, pleasant, and
easy.
All his wishes were being fulfilled that morning: there was to be a
general engagement in which he was taking part, more than that, he
was orderly to the bravest general, and still more, he was going with a
message to Kutuzov, perhaps even to the sovereign himself. The
morning was bright, he had a good horse under him, and his heart was
full of joy and happiness. On receiving the order he gave his horse the
rein and galloped along the line. At first he rode along the line of
Bagration's troops, which had not yet advanced into action but were
standing motionless; then he came to the region occupied by Uvarov's
cavalry and here he noticed a stir and signs of preparation for battle;
having passed Uvarov's cavalry he clearly heard the sound of cannon
and musketry ahead of him. The firing grew louder and louder.
In the fresh morning air were now heard, not two or three musket
shots at irregular intervals as before, followed by one or two cannon
shots, but a roll of volleys of musketry from the slopes of the hill
before Pratzen, interrupted by such frequent reports of cannon that
sometimes several of them were not separated from one another but
merged into a general roar.
He could see puffs of musketry smoke that seemed to chase one
another down the hillsides, and clouds of cannon smoke rolling,
spreading, and mingling with one another. He could also, by the gleam
of bayonets visible through the smoke, make out moving masses of
infantry and narrow lines of artillery with green caissons.
Rostov stopped his horse for a moment on a hillock to see what was
going on, but strain his attention as he would he could not understand
or make out anything of what was happening: there in the smoke men
of some sort were moving about, in front and behind moved lines of
troops; but why, whither, and who they were, it was impossible to
make out. These sights and sounds had no depressing or intimidating
effect on him; on the contrary, they stimulated his energy and
determination.
 "Go on! Go on! Give it them!" he mentally exclaimed at these
sounds, and again proceeded to gallop along the line, penetrating
farther and farther into the region where the army was already in action.
"How it will be there I don't know, but all will be well!" thought
Rostov.
After passing some Austrian troops he noticed that the next part of
the line (the Guards) was already in action.
"So much the better! I shall see it close," he thought.
He was riding almost along the front line. A handful of men came
galloping toward him. They were our Uhlans who with disordered
ranks were returning from the attack. Rostov got out of their way,
involuntarily noticed that one of them was bleeding, and galloped on.
"That is no business of mine," he thought. He had not ridden many
hundred yards after that before he saw to his left, across the whole
width of the field, an enormous mass of cavalry in brilliant white
uniforms, mounted on black horses, trotting straight toward him and
across his path. Rostov put his horse to full gallop to get out of the way
of these men, and he would have got clear had they continued at the
same speed, but they kept increasing their pace, so that some of the
horses were already galloping. Rostov heard the thud of their hoofs and
the jingle of their weapons and saw their horses, their figures, and even
their faces, more and more distinctly. They were our Horse Guards,
advancing to attack the French cavalry that was coming to meet them.
The Horse Guards were galloping, but still holding in their horses.
Rostov could already see their faces and heard the command:
"Charge!" shouted by an officer who was urging his thoroughbred to
full speed. Rostov, fearing to be crushed or swept into the attack on the
French, galloped along the front as hard as his horse could go, but still
was not in time to avoid them.
The last of the Horse Guards, a huge pockmarked fellow, frowned
angrily on seeing Rostov before him, with whom he would inevitably
collide. This Guardsman would certainly have bowled Rostov and his
Bedouin over (Rostov felt himself quite tiny and weak compared to
these gigantic men and horses) had it not occurred to Rostov to flourish
his whip before the eyes of the Guardsman's horse. The heavy black
horse, sixteen hands high, shied, throwing back its ears; but the
pockmarked Guardsman drove his huge spurs in violently, and the
horse, flourishing its tail and extending its neck, galloped on yet faster.
Hardly had the Horse Guards passed Rostov before he heard them
shout, "Hurrah!" and looking back saw that their foremost ranks were
mixed up with some foreign cavalry with red epaulets, probably
French. He could see nothing more, for immediately afterwards cannon
began firing from somewhere and smoke enveloped everything.
At that moment, as the Horse Guards, having passed him,
disappeared in the smoke, Rostov hesitated whether to gallop after
them or to go where he was sent. This was the brilliant charge of the
Horse Guards that amazed the French themselves. Rostov was horrified
to hear later that of all that mass of huge and handsome men, of all
those brilliant, rich youths, officers and cadets, who had galloped past
him on their thousand-ruble horses, only eighteen were left after the
charge.
"Why should I envy them? My chance is not lost, and maybe I shall
see the Emperor immediately!" thought Rostov and galloped on.
When he came level with the Foot Guards he noticed that about them
and around them cannon balls were flying, of which he was aware not
so much because he heard their sound as because he saw uneasiness on
the soldiers' faces and unnatural warlike solemnity on those of the
officers.
Passing behind one of the lines of a regiment of Foot Guards he
heard a voice calling him by name.
"Rostov!"
"What?" he answered, not recognizing Boris.
"I say, we've been in the front line! Our regiment attacked!" said
Boris with the happy smile seen on the faces of young men who have
been under fire for the first time.
Rostov stopped.
"Have you?" he said. "Well, how did it go?"
"We drove them back!" said Boris with animation, growing talkative.
"Can you imagine it?" and he began describing how the Guards, having
taken up their position and seeing troops before them, thought they
were Austrians, and all at once discovered from the cannon balls
discharged by those troops that they were themselves in the front line
and had unexpectedly to go into action. Rostov without hearing Boris
to the end spurred his horse.
"Where are you off to?" asked Boris.
"With a message to His Majesty."
"There he is!" said Boris, thinking Rostov had said "His Highness,"
and pointing to the Grand Duke who with his high shoulders and
frowning brows stood a hundred paces away from them in his helmet
and Horse Guards' jacket, shouting something to a pale, white
uniformed Austrian officer.
"But that's the Grand Duke, and I want the commander in chief or
the Emperor," said Rostov, and was about to spur his horse.
"Count! Count!" shouted Berg who ran up from the other side as
eager as Boris. "Count! I am wounded in my right hand" (and he
showed his bleeding hand with a handkerchief tied round it) "and I
remained at the front. I held my sword in my left hand, Count. All our
family—the von Bergs—have been knights!"
He said something more, but Rostov did not wait to hear it and rode
away.
Having passed the Guards and traversed an empty space, Rostov, to
avoid again getting in front of the first line as he had done when the
Horse Guards charged, followed the line of reserves, going far round
the place where the hottest musket fire and cannonade were heard.
Suddenly he heard musket fire quite close in front of him and behind
our troops, where he could never have expected the enemy to be.
"What can it be?" he thought. "The enemy in the rear of our army?
Impossible!" And suddenly he was seized by a panic of fear for himself
and for the issue of the whole battle. "But be that what it may," he
reflected, "there is no riding round it now. I must look for the
commander in chief here, and if all is lost it is for me to perish with the
rest."
The foreboding of evil that had suddenly come over Rostov was
more and more confirmed the farther he rode into the region behind the
village of Pratzen, which was full of troops of all kinds.
"What does it mean? What is it? Whom are they firing at? Who is
firing?" Rostov kept asking as he came up to Russian and Austrian
soldiers running in confused crowds across his path.
"The devil knows! They've killed everybody! It's all up now!" he
was told in Russian, German, and Czech by the crowd of fugitives who
understood what was happening as little as he did.
"Kill the Germans!" shouted one.
"May the devil take them—the traitors!"
"Zum Henker diese Russen!" * muttered a German.

* "Hang these Russians!"

 Several wounded men passed along the road, and words of abuse,
screams, and groans mingled in a general hubbub, then the firing died
down. Rostov learned later that Russian and Austrian soldiers had been
firing at one another.
"My God! What does it all mean?" thought he. "And here, where at
any moment the Emperor may see them.... But no, these must be only a
handful of scoundrels. It will soon be over, it can't be that, it can't be!
Only to get past them quicker, quicker!"
The idea of defeat and flight could not enter Rostov's head. Though
he saw French cannon and French troops on the Pratzen Heights just
where he had been ordered to look for the commander in chief, he
could not, did not wish to, believe that.

CHAPTER XVIII
Rostov had been ordered to look for Kutuzov and the Emperor near
the village of Pratzen. But neither they nor a single commanding officer
were there, only disorganized crowds of troops of various kinds. He
urged on his already weary horse to get quickly past these crowds, but
the farther he went the more disorganized they were. The highroad on
which he had come out was thronged with caleches, carriages of all
sorts, and Russian and Austrian soldiers of all arms, some wounded and
some not. This whole mass droned and jostled in confusion under the
dismal influence of cannon balls flying from the French batteries
stationed on the Pratzen Heights.
"Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutuzov?" Rostov kept asking
everyone he could stop, but got no answer from anyone.
At last seizing a soldier by his collar he forced him to answer.
"Eh, brother! They've all bolted long ago!" said the soldier, laughing
for some reason and shaking himself free.
Having left that soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostov stopped the
horse of a batman or groom of some important personage and began to
question him. The man announced that the Tsar had been driven in a
carriage at full speed about an hour before along that very road and that
he was dangerously wounded.
"It can't be!" said Rostov. "It must have been someone else."
 "I saw him myself," replied the man with a self-confident smile of
derision. "I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I've
seen him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you.... There he sat in
the carriage as pale as anything. How they made the four black horses
fly! Gracious me, they did rattle past! It's time I knew the Imperial
horses and Ilya Ivanych. I don't think Ilya drives anyone except the
Tsar!"
Rostov let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when a wounded
officer passing by addressed him:
"Who is it you want?" he asked. "The commander in chief? He was
killed by a cannon ball—struck in the breast before our regiment."
"Not killed—wounded!" another officer corrected him.
"Who? Kutuzov?" asked Rostov.
"Not Kutuzov, but what's his name—well, never mind... there are not
many left alive. Go that way, to that village, all the commanders are
there," said the officer, pointing to the village of Hosjeradek, and he
walked on.
Rostov rode on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was
now going. The Emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was
impossible to doubt it now. Rostov rode in the direction pointed out to
him, in which he saw turrets and a church. What need to hurry? What
was he now to say to the Tsar or to Kutuzov, even if they were alive
and unwounded?
"Take this road, your honor, that way you will be killed at once!" a
soldier shouted to him. "They'd kill you there!"
"Oh, what are you talking about?" said another. "Where is he to go?
That way is nearer."
Rostov considered, and then went in the direction where they said he
would be killed.
"It's all the same now. If the Emperor is wounded, am I to try to save
myself?" he thought. He rode on to the region where the greatest
number of men had perished in fleeing from Pratzen. The French had
not yet occupied that region, and the Russians—the uninjured and
slightly wounded—had left it long ago. All about the field, like heaps
of manure on well-kept plowland, lay from ten to fifteen dead and
wounded to each couple of acres. The wounded crept together in twos
and threes and one could hear their distressing screams and groans,
sometimes feigned—or so it seemed to Rostov. He put his horse to a
trot to avoid seeing all these suffering men, and he felt afraid—afraid
not for his life, but for the courage he needed and which he knew would
not stand the sight of these unfortunates.
The French, who had ceased firing at this field strewn with dead and
wounded where there was no one left to fire at, on seeing an adjutant
riding over it trained a gun on him and fired several shots. The
sensation of those terrible whistling sounds and of the corpses around
him merged in Rostov's mind into a single feeling of terror and pity for
himself. He remembered his mother's last letter. "What would she feel,"
thought he, "if she saw me here now on this field with the cannon
aimed at me?"
In the village of Hosjeradek there were Russian troops retiring from
the field of battle, who though still in some confusion were less
disordered. The French cannon did not reach there and the musketry
fire sounded far away. Here everyone clearly saw and said that the
battle was lost. No one whom Rostov asked could tell him where the
Emperor or Kutuzov was. Some said the report that the Emperor was
wounded was correct, others that it was not, and explained the false
rumor that had spread by the fact that the Emperor's carriage had really
galloped from the field of battle with the pale and terrified Ober-
Hofmarschal Count Tolstoy, who had ridden out to the battlefield with
others in the Emperor's suite. One officer told Rostov that he had seen
someone from headquarters behind the village to the left, and thither
Rostov rode, not hoping to find anyone but merely to ease his
conscience. When he had ridden about two miles and had passed the
last of the Russian troops, he saw, near a kitchen garden with a ditch
round it, two men on horseback facing the ditch. One with a white
plume in his hat seemed familiar to Rostov; the other on a beautiful
chestnut horse (which Rostov fancied he had seen before) rode up to
the ditch, struck his horse with his spurs, and giving it the rein leaped
lightly over. Only a little earth crumbled from the bank under the
horse's hind hoofs. Turning the horse sharply, he again jumped the
ditch, and deferentially addressed the horseman with the white plumes,
evidently suggesting that he should do the same. The rider, whose
figure seemed familiar to Rostov and involuntarily riveted his attention,
made a gesture of refusal with his head and hand and by that gesture
Rostov instantly recognized his lamented and adored monarch.
"But it can't be he, alone in the midst of this empty field!" thought
Rostov. At that moment Alexander turned his head and Rostov saw the
beloved features that were so deeply engraved on his memory. The
Emperor was pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but the
charm, the mildness of his features, was all the greater. Rostov was
happy in the assurance that the rumors about the Emperor being
wounded were false. He was happy to be seeing him. He knew that he
might and even ought to go straight to him and give the message
Dolgorukov had ordered him to deliver.
 But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter the
thoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks around for help or a
chance of delay and flight when the longed-for moment comes and he
is alone with her, so Rostov, now that he had attained what he had
longed for more than anything else in the world, did not know how to
approach the Emperor, and a thousand reasons occurred to him why it
would be inconvenient, unseemly, and impossible to do so.
"What! It is as if I were glad of a chance to take advantage of his
being alone and despondent! A strange face may seem unpleasant or
painful to him at this moment of sorrow; besides, what can I say to him
now, when my heart fails me and my mouth feels dry at the mere sight
of him?" Not one of the innumerable speeches addressed to the
Emperor that he had composed in his imagination could he now recall.
Those speeches were intended for quite other conditions, they were for
the most part to be spoken at a moment of victory and triumph,
generally when he was dying of wounds and the sovereign had thanked
him for heroic deeds, and while dying he expressed the love his actions
had proved.
"Besides how can I ask the Emperor for his instructions for the right
flank now that it is nearly four o'clock and the battle is lost? No,
certainly I must not approach him, I must not intrude on his reflections.
Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an unkind look or bad
opinion from him," Rostov decided; and sorrowfully and with a heart
full despair he rode away, continually looking back at the Tsar, who
still remained in the same attitude of indecision.
While Rostov was thus arguing with himself and riding sadly away,
Captain von Toll chanced to ride to the same spot, and seeing the
Emperor at once rode up to him, offered his services, and assisted him
to cross the ditch on foot. The Emperor, wishing to rest and feeling
unwell, sat down under an apple tree and von Toll remained beside
him. Rostov from a distance saw with envy and remorse how von Toll
spoke long and warmly to the Emperor and how the Emperor, evidently
weeping, covered his eyes with his hand and pressed von Toll's hand.
"And I might have been in his place!" thought Rostov, and hardly
restraining his tears of pity for the Emperor, he rode on in utter despair,
not knowing where to or why he was now riding.
His despair was all the greater from feeling that his own weakness
was the cause of his grief.
He might... not only might but should, have gone up to the
sovereign. It was a unique chance to show his devotion to the Emperor
and he had not made use of it.... "What have I done?" thought he. And
he turned round and galloped back to the place where he had seen the
Emperor, but there was no one beyond the ditch now. Only some carts
and carriages were passing by. From one of the drivers he learned that
Kutuzov's staff were not far off, in the village the vehicles were going
to. Rostov followed them. In front of him walked Kutuzov's groom
leading horses in horsecloths. Then came a cart, and behind that walked
an old, bandy-legged domestic serf in a peaked cap and sheepskin coat.
"Tit! I say, Tit!" said the groom.
"What?" answered the old man absent-mindedly.
"Go, Tit! Thresh a bit!"
"Oh, you fool!" said the old man, spitting angrily. Some time passed
in silence, and then the same joke was repeated.
Before five in the evening the battle had been lost at all points. More
than a hundred cannon were already in the hands of the French.
Przebyszewski and his corps had laid down their arms. Other
columns after losing half their men were retreating in disorderly
confused masses.
The remains of Langeron's and Dokhturov's mingled forces were
crowding around the dams and banks of the ponds near the village of
Augesd.
After five o'clock it was only at the Augesd Dam that a hot
cannonade (delivered by the French alone) was still to be heard from
numerous batteries ranged on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights,
directed at our retreating forces.
In the rearguard, Dokhturov and others rallying some battalions kept
up a musketry fire at the French cavalry that was pursuing our troops. It
was growing dusk. On the narrow Augesd Dam where for so many
years the old miller had been accustomed to sit in his tasseled cap
peacefully angling, while his grandson, with shirt sleeves rolled up,
handled the floundering silvery fish in the watering can, on that dam
over which for so many years Moravians in shaggy caps and blue
jackets had peacefully driven their two-horse carts loaded with wheat
and had returned dusty with flour whitening their carts—on that narrow
dam amid the wagons and the cannon, under the horses' hoofs and
between the wagon wheels, men disfigured by fear of death now
crowded together, crushing one another, dying, stepping over the dying
and killing one another, only to move on a few steps and be killed
themselves in the same way.
Every ten seconds a cannon ball flew compressing the air around, or
a shell burst in the midst of that dense throng, killing some and
splashing with blood those near them.
 Dolokhov—now an officer—wounded in the arm, and on foot, with
the regimental commander on horseback and some ten men of his
company, represented all that was left of that whole regiment. Impelled
by the crowd, they had got wedged in at the approach to the dam and,
jammed in on all sides, had stopped because a horse in front had fallen
under a cannon and the crowd were dragging it out. A cannon ball
killed someone behind them, another fell in front and splashed
Dolokhov with blood. The crowd, pushing forward desperately,
squeezed together, moved a few steps, and again stopped.
"Move on a hundred yards and we are certainly saved, remain here
another two minutes and it is certain death," thought each one.
Dolokhov who was in the midst of the crowd forced his way to the
edge of the dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran onto the
slippery ice that covered the millpool.
"Turn this way!" he shouted, jumping over the ice which creaked
under him; "turn this way!" he shouted to those with the gun. "It
bears!..."
The ice bore him but it swayed and creaked, and it was plain that it
would give way not only under a cannon or a crowd, but very soon
even under his weight alone. The men looked at him and pressed to the
bank, hesitating to step onto the ice. The general on horseback at the
entrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth to address
Dolokhov. Suddenly a cannon ball hissed so low above the crowd that
everyone ducked. It flopped into something moist, and the general fell
from his horse in a pool of blood. Nobody gave him a look or thought
of raising him.
"Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don't you hear? Go
on!" innumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had struck the
general, the men themselves not knowing what, or why, they were
shouting.
One of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam turned off
onto the ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto the
frozen pond. The ice gave way under one of the foremost soldiers, and
one leg slipped into the water. He tried to right himself but fell in up to
his waist. The nearest soldiers shrank back, the gun driver stopped his
horse, but from behind still came the shouts: "Onto the ice, why do you
stop? Go on! Go on!" And cries of horror were heard in the crowd. The
soldiers near the gun waved their arms and beat the horses to make
them turn and move on. The horses moved off the bank. The ice, that
had held under those on foot, collapsed in a great mass, and some forty
men who were on it dashed, some forward and some back, drowning
one another.
 Still the cannon balls continued regularly to whistle and flop onto the
ice and into the water and oftenest of all among the crowd that covered
the dam, the pond, and the bank.

CHAPTER XIX
On the Pratzen Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in his
hand, lay Prince Andrew Bolkonski bleeding profusely and
unconsciously uttering a gentle, piteous, and childlike moan.
Toward evening he ceased moaning and became quite still. He did
not know how long his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he again felt
that he was alive and suffering from a burning, lacerating pain in his
head.
"Where is it, that lofty sky that I did not know till now, but saw
today?" was his first thought. "And I did not know this suffering
either," he thought. "Yes, I did not know anything, anything at all till
now. But where am I?"
He listened and heard the sound of approaching horses, and voices
speaking French. He opened his eyes. Above him again was the same
lofty sky with clouds that had risen and were floating still higher, and
between them gleamed blue infinity. He did not turn his head and did
not see those who, judging by the sound of hoofs and voices, had
ridden up and stopped near him.
It was Napoleon accompanied by two aides-de-camp. Bonaparte
riding over the battlefield had given final orders to strengthen the
batteries firing at the Augesd Dam and was looking at the killed and
wounded left on the field.
"Fine men!" remarked Napoleon, looking at a dead Russian
grenadier, who, with his face buried in the ground and a blackened
nape, lay on his stomach with an already stiffened arm flung wide.
"The ammunition for the guns in position is exhausted, Your
Majesty," said an adjutant who had come from the batteries that were
firing at Augesd.
"Have some brought from the reserve," said Napoleon, and having
gone on a few steps he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his
back with the flagstaff that had been dropped beside him. (The flag had
already been taken by the French as a trophy.)
 "That's a fine death!" said Napoleon as he gazed at Bolkonski.
Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was
Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he
heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not only
did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at once
forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to death,
and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He knew
it was Napoleon—his hero—but at that moment Napoleon seemed to
him such a small, insignificant creature compared with what was
passing now between himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds
flying over it. At that moment it meant nothing to him who might be
standing over him, or what was said of him; he was only glad that
people were standing near him and only wished that they would help
him and bring him back to life, which seemed to him so beautiful now
that he had today learned to understand it so differently. He collected
all his strength, to stir and utter a sound. He feebly moved his leg and
uttered a weak, sickly groan which aroused his own pity.
"Ah! He is alive," said Napoleon. "Lift this young man up and carry
him to the dressing station."
Having said this, Napoleon rode on to meet Marshal Lannes, who,
hat in hand, rode up smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the
victory.
Prince Andrew remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness
from the terrible pain of being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting while
being moved, and the probing of his wound at the dressing station. He
did not regain consciousness till late in the day, when with other
wounded and captured Russian officers he was carried to the hospital.
During this transfer he felt a little stronger and was able to look about
him and even speak.
The first words he heard on coming to his senses were those of a
French convoy officer, who said rapidly: "We must halt here: the
Emperor will pass here immediately; it will please him to see these
gentlemen prisoners."
"There are so many prisoners today, nearly the whole Russian army,
that he is probably tired of them," said another officer.
"All the same! They say this one is the commander of all the
Emperor Alexander's Guards," said the first one, indicating a Russian
officer in the white uniform of the Horse Guards.
Bolkonski recognized Prince Repnin whom he had met in Petersburg
society. Beside him stood a lad of nineteen, also a wounded officer of
the Horse Guards.
 Bonaparte, having come up at a gallop, stopped his horse.
"Which is the senior?" he asked, on seeing the prisoners.
They named the colonel, Prince Repnin.
"You are the commander of the Emperor Alexander's regiment of
Horse Guards?" asked Napoleon.
"I commanded a squadron," replied Repnin.
"Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably," said Napoleon.
"The praise of a great commander is a soldier's highest reward," said
Repnin.
"I bestow it with pleasure," said Napoleon. "And who is that young
man beside you?"
Prince Repnin named Lieutenant Sukhtelen.
After looking at him Napoleon smiled.
"He's very young to come to meddle with us."
"Youth is no hindrance to courage," muttered Sukhtelen in a failing
voice.
"A splendid reply!" said Napoleon. "Young man, you will go far!"
Prince Andrew, who had also been brought forward before the
Emperor's eyes to complete the show of prisoners, could not fail to
attract his attention. Napoleon apparently remembered seeing him on
the battlefield and, addressing him, again used the epithet "young man"
that was connected in his memory with Prince Andrew.
"Well, and you, young man," said he. "How do you feel, mon
brave?"
Though five minutes before, Prince Andrew had been able to say a
few words to the soldiers who were carrying him, now with his eyes
fixed straight on Napoleon, he was silent.... So insignificant at that
moment seemed to him all the interests that engrossed Napoleon, so
mean did his hero himself with his paltry vanity and joy in victory
appear, compared to the lofty, equitable, and kindly sky which he had
seen and understood, that he could not answer him.
Everything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the
stern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood,
suffering, and the nearness of death aroused in him. Looking into
Napoleon's eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of
greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and
the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one
alive could understand or explain.
The Emperor without waiting for an answer turned away and said to
one of the officers as he went: "Have these gentlemen attended to and
taken to my bivouac; let my doctor, Larrey, examine their wounds. Au
revoir, Prince Repnin!" and he spurred his horse and galloped away.
His face shone with self-satisfaction and pleasure.
The soldiers who had carried Prince Andrew had noticed and taken
the little gold icon Princess Mary had hung round her brother's neck,
but seeing the favor the Emperor showed the prisoners, they now
hastened to return the holy image.
Prince Andrew did not see how and by whom it was replaced, but the
little icon with its thin gold chain suddenly appeared upon his chest
outside his uniform.
"It would be good," thought Prince Andrew, glancing at the icon his
sister had hung round his neck with such emotion and reverence, "it
would be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems to
Mary. How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this
life, and what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm
I should be if I could now say: 'Lord, have mercy on me!'... But to
whom should I say that? Either to a Power indefinable,
incomprehensible, which I not only cannot address but which I cannot
even express in words—the Great All or Nothing-" said he to himself,
"or to that God who has been sewn into this amulet by Mary! There is
nothing certain, nothing at all except the unimportance of everything I
understand, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but all-
important."
The stretchers moved on. At every jolt he again felt unendurable
pain; his feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions of his
father, wife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness he had felt the
night before the battle, the figure of the insignificant little Napoleon,
and above all this the lofty sky, formed the chief subjects of his
delirious fancies.
The quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills presented
itself to him. He was already enjoying that happiness when that little
Napoleon had suddenly appeared with his unsympathizing look of
shortsighted delight at the misery of others, and doubts and torments
had followed, and only the heavens promised peace. Toward morning
all these dreams melted and merged into the chaos and darkness of
unconciousness and oblivion which in the opinion of Napoleon's
doctor, Larrey, was much more likely to end in death than in
convalescence.
 "He is a nervous, bilious subject," said Larrey, "and will not
recover."
And Prince Andrew, with others fatally wounded, was left to the care
of the inhabitants of the district.

BOOK FOUR: 1806

CHAPTER I
Early in the year 1806 Nicholas Rostov returned home on leave.
Denisov was going home to Voronezh and Rostov persuaded him to
travel with him as far as Moscow and to stay with him there. Meeting a
comrade at the last post station but one before Moscow, Denisov had
drunk three bottles of wine with him and, despite the jolting ruts across
the snow-covered road, did not once wake up on the way to Moscow,
but lay at the bottom of the sleigh beside Rostov, who grew more and
more impatient the nearer they got to Moscow.
"How much longer? How much longer? Oh, these insufferable
streets, shops, bakers' signboards, street lamps, and sleighs!" thought
Rostov, when their leave permits had been passed at the town gate and
they had entered Moscow.
"Denisov! We're here! He's asleep," he added, leaning forward with
his whole body as if in that position he hoped to hasten the speed of the
sleigh.
Denisov gave no answer.
"There's the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhar, has
his stand, and there's Zakhar himself and still the same horse! And
here's the little shop where we used to buy gingerbread! Can't you hurry
up? Now then!"
"Which house is it?" asked the driver.
"Why, that one, right at the end, the big one. Don't you see? That's
our house," said Rostov. "Of course, it's our house! Denisov, Denisov!
We're almost there!"
 Denisov raised his head, coughed, and made no answer.
"Dmitri," said Rostov to his valet on the box, "those lights are in our
house, aren't they?"
"Yes, sir, and there's a light in your father's study."
"Then they've not gone to bed yet? What do you think? Mind now,
don't forget to put out my new coat," added Rostov, fingering his new
mustache. "Now then, get on," he shouted to the driver. "Do wake up,
Vaska!" he went on, turning to Denisov, whose head was again
nodding. "Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for vodka—get
on!" Rostov shouted, when the sleigh was only three houses from his
door. It seemed to him the horses were not moving at all. At last the
sleigh bore to the right, drew up at an entrance, and Rostov saw
overhead the old familiar cornice with a bit of plaster broken off, the
porch, and the post by the side of the pavement. He sprang out before
the sleigh stopped, and ran into the hall. The house stood cold and
silent, as if quite regardless of who had come to it. There was no one in
the hall. "Oh God! Is everyone all right?" he thought, stopping for a
moment with a sinking heart, and then immediately starting to run
along the hall and up the warped steps of the familiar staircase. The
well-known old door handle, which always angered the countess when
it was not properly cleaned, turned as loosely as ever. A solitary tallow
candle burned in the anteroom.
Old Michael was asleep on the chest. Prokofy, the footman, who was
so strong that he could lift the back of the carriage from behind, sat
plaiting slippers out of cloth selvedges. He looked up at the opening
door and his expression of sleepy indifference suddenly changed to one
of delighted amazement.
"Gracious heavens! The young count!" he cried, recognizing his
young master. "Can it be? My treasure!" and Prokofy, trembling with
excitement, rushed toward the drawing-room door, probably in order to
announce him, but, changing his mind, came back and stooped to kiss
the young man's shoulder.
"All well?" asked Rostov, drawing away his arm.
"Yes, God be thanked! Yes! They've just finished supper. Let me
have a look at you, your excellency."
"Is everything quite all right?"
"The Lord be thanked, yes!"
Rostov, who had completely forgotten Denisov, not wishing anyone
to forestall him, threw off his fur coat and ran on tiptoe through the
large dark ballroom. All was the same: there were the same old card
tables and the same chandelier with a cover over it; but someone had
already seen the young master, and, before he had reached the drawing
room, something flew out from a side door like a tornado and began
hugging and kissing him. Another and yet another creature of the same
kind sprang from a second door and a third; more hugging, more
kissing, more outcries, and tears of joy. He could not distinguish which
was Papa, which Natasha, and which Petya. Everyone shouted, talked,
and kissed him at the same time. Only his mother was not there, he
noticed that.
"And I did not know... Nicholas... My darling!..."
"Here he is... our own... Kolya, * dear fellow... How he has
changed!... Where are the candles?... Tea!..."

* Nicholas.

"And me, kiss me!"

"Dearest... and me!"
Sonya, Natasha, Petya, Anna Mikhaylovna, Vera, and the old count
were all hugging him, and the serfs, men and maids, flocked into the
room, exclaiming and oh-ing and ah-ing.
Petya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, "And me too!"
Natasha, after she had pulled him down toward her and covered his
face with kisses, holding him tight by the skirt of his coat, sprang away
and pranced up and down in one place like a goat and shrieked
piercingly.
All around were loving eyes glistening with tears of joy, and all
around were lips seeking a kiss.
Sonya too, all rosy red, clung to his arm and, radiant with bliss,
looked eagerly toward his eyes, waiting for the look for which she
longed. Sonya now was sixteen and she was very pretty, especially at
this moment of happy, rapturous excitement. She gazed at him, not
taking her eyes off him, and smiling and holding her breath. He gave
her a grateful look, but was still expectant and looking for someone.
The old countess had not yet come. But now steps were heard at the
door, steps so rapid that they could hardly be his mother's.
Yet it was she, dressed in a new gown which he did not know, made
since he had left. All the others let him go, and he ran to her. When
they met, she fell on his breast, sobbing. She could not lift her face, but
only pressed it to the cold braiding of his hussar's jacket. Denisov, who
had come into the room unnoticed by anyone, stood there and wiped his
eyes at the sight.
"Vasili Denisov, your son's friend," he said, introducing himself to
the count, who was looking inquiringly at him.
"You are most welcome! I know, I know," said the count, kissing
and embracing Denisov. "Nicholas wrote us... Natasha, Vera, look!
Here is Denisov!"
The same happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of
Denisov.
"Darling Denisov!" screamed Natasha, beside herself with rapture,
springing to him, putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This
escapade made everybody feel confused. Denisov blushed too, but
smiled and, taking Natasha's hand, kissed it.
Denisov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostovs
all gathered round Nicholas in the sitting room.
The old countess, not letting go of his hand and kissing it every
moment, sat beside him: the rest, crowding round him, watched every
movement, word, or look of his, never taking their blissfully adoring
eyes off him. His brother and sisters struggled for the places nearest to
him and disputed with one another who should bring him his tea,
handkerchief, and pipe.
Rostov was very happy in the love they showed him; but the first
moment of meeting had been so beatific that his present joy seemed
insufficient, and he kept expecting something more, more and yet more.
Next morning, after the fatigues of their journey, the travelers slept
till ten o'clock.
In the room next their bedroom there was a confusion of sabers,
satchels, sabretaches, open portmanteaus, and dirty boots. Two freshly
cleaned pairs with spurs had just been placed by the wall. The servants
were bringing in jugs and basins, hot water for shaving, and their well-
brushed clothes. There was a masculine odor and a smell of tobacco.
"Hallo, Gwiska—my pipe!" came Vasili Denisov's husky voice.
"Wostov, get up!"
Rostov, rubbing his eyes that seemed glued together, raised his
disheveled head from the hot pillow.
"Why, is it late?"
"Late! It's nearly ten o'clock," answered Natasha's voice. A rustle of
starched petticoats and the whispering and laughter of girls' voices
came from the adjoining room. The door was opened a crack and there
was a glimpse of something blue, of ribbons, black hair, and merry
faces. It was Natasha, Sonya, and Petya, who had come to see whether
they were getting up.
"Nicholas! Get up!" Natasha's voice was again heard at the door.
"Directly!"
Meanwhile, Petya, having found and seized the sabers in the outer
room, with the delight boys feel at the sight of a military elder brother,
and forgetting that it was unbecoming for the girls to see men
undressed, opened the bedroom door.
"Is this your saber?" he shouted.
The girls sprang aside. Denisov hid his hairy legs under the blanket,
looking with a scared face at his comrade for help. The door, having let
Petya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from behind it.
"Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!" said Natasha's voice.
"Is this your saber?" asked Petya. "Or is it yours?" he said,
addressing the black-mustached Denisov with servile deference.
Rostov hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing
gown, and went out. Natasha had put on one spurred boot and was just
getting her foot into the other. Sonya, when he came in, was twirling
round and was about to expand her dresses into a balloon and sit down.
They were dressed alike, in new pale-blue frocks, and were both fresh,
rosy, and bright. Sonya ran away, but Natasha, taking her brother's arm,
led him into the sitting room, where they began talking. They hardly
gave one another time to ask questions and give replies concerning a
thousand little matters which could not interest anyone but themselves.
Natasha laughed at every word he said or that she said herself, not
because what they were saying was amusing, but because she felt
happy and was unable to control her joy which expressed itself by
laughter.
"Oh, how nice, how splendid!" she said to everything.
Rostov felt that, under the influence of the warm rays of love, that
childlike smile which had not once appeared on his face since he left
home now for the first time after eighteen months again brightened his
soul and his face.
"No, but listen," she said, "now you are quite a man, aren't you? I'm
awfully glad you're my brother." She touched his mustache. "I want to
know what you men are like. Are you the same as we? No?"
"Why did Sonya run away?" asked Rostov.
 "Ah, yes! That's a whole long story! How are you going to speak to
her—thou or you?"
"As may happen," said Rostov.
"No, call her you, please! I'll tell you all about it some other time.
No, I'll tell you now. You know Sonya's my dearest friend. Such a
friend that I burned my arm for her sake. Look here!"
She pulled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her
long, slender, delicate arm, high above the elbow on that part that is
covered even by a ball dress.
"I burned this to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in the
fire and pressed it there!"
Sitting on the sofa with the little cushions on its arms, in what used
to be his old schoolroom, and looking into Natasha's wildly bright eyes,
Rostov re-entered that world of home and childhood which had no
meaning for anyone else, but gave him some of the best joys of his life;
and the burning of an arm with a ruler as a proof of love did not seem
to him senseless, he understood and was not surprised at it.
"Well, and is that all?" he asked.
"We are such friends, such friends! All that ruler business was just
nonsense, but we are friends forever. She, if she loves anyone, does it
for life, but I don't understand that, I forget quickly."
"Well, what then?"
"Well, she loves me and you like that."
Natasha suddenly flushed.
"Why, you remember before you went away?... Well, she says you
are to forget all that.... She says: 'I shall love him always, but let him be
free.' Isn't that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn't it?" asked
Natasha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that what she
was now saying she had talked of before, with tears.
Rostov became thoughtful.
"I never go back on my word," he said. "Besides, Sonya is so
charming that only a fool would renounce such happiness."
"No, no!" cried Natasha, "she and I have already talked it over. We
knew you'd say so. But it won't do, because you see, if you say that—if
you consider yourself bound by your promise—it will seem as if she
had not meant it seriously. It makes it as if you were marrying her
because you must, and that wouldn't do at all."
 Rostov saw that it had been well considered by them. Sonya had
already struck him by her beauty on the preceding day. Today, when he
had caught a glimpse of her, she seemed still more lovely. She was a
charming girl of sixteen, evidently passionately in love with him (he
did not doubt that for an instant). Why should he not love her now, and
even marry her, Rostov thought, but just now there were so many other
pleasures and interests before him! "Yes, they have taken a wise
decision," he thought, "I must remain free."
"Well then, that's excellent," said he. "We'll talk it over later on. Oh,
how glad I am to have you!"
"Well, and are you still true to Boris?" he continued.
"Oh, what nonsense!" cried Natasha, laughing. "I don't think about
him or anyone else, and I don't want anything of the kind."
"Dear me! Then what are you up to now?"
"Now?" repeated Natasha, and a happy smile lit up her face. "Have
you seen Duport?"
"No."
"Not seen Duport—the famous dancer? Well then, you won't
understand. That's what I'm up to."
Curving her arms, Natasha held out her skirts as dancers do, ran back
a few steps, turned, cut a caper, brought her little feet sharply together,
and made some steps on the very tips of her toes.
"See, I'm standing! See!" she said, but could not maintain herself on
her toes any longer. "So that's what I'm up to! I'll never marry anyone,
but will be a dancer. Only don't tell anyone."
Rostov laughed so loud and merrily that Denisov, in his bedroom,
felt envious and Natasha could not help joining in.
"No, but don't you think it's nice?" she kept repeating.
"Nice! And so you no longer wish to marry Boris?"
Natasha flared up. "I don't want to marry anyone. And I'll tell him so
when I see him!"
"Dear me!" said Rostov.
"But that's all rubbish," Natasha chattered on. "And is Denisov
nice?" she asked.
"Yes, indeed!"
 "Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he very terrible, Denisov?"
"Why terrible?" asked Nicholas. "No, Vaska is a splendid fellow."
"You call him Vaska? That's funny! And is he very nice?"
"Very."
"Well then, be quick. We'll all have breakfast together."
And Natasha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet
dancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When
Rostov met Sonya in the drawing room, he reddened. He did not know
how to behave with her. The evening before, in the first happy moment
of meeting, they had kissed each other, but today they felt it could not
be done; he felt that everybody, including his mother and sisters, was
looking inquiringly at him and watching to see how he would behave
with her. He kissed her hand and addressed her not as thou but as
you—Sonya. But their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender
kisses. Her looks asked him to forgive her for having dared, by
Natasha's intermediacy, to remind him of his promise, and then thanked
him for his love. His looks thanked her for offering him his freedom
and told her that one way or another he would never cease to love her,
for that would be impossible.
"How strange it is," said Vera, selecting a moment when all were
silent, "that Sonya and Nicholas now say you to one another and meet
like strangers."
Vera's remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like
most of her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not
only Sonya, Nicholas, and Natasha, but even the old countess, who—
dreading this love affair which might hinder Nicholas from making a
brilliant match—blushed like a girl.
Denisov, to Rostov's surprise, appeared in the drawing room with
pomaded hair, perfumed, and in a new uniform, looking just as smart as
he made himself when going into battle, and he was more amiable to
the ladies and gentlemen than Rostov had ever expected to see him.

CHAPTER II
On his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostov was
welcomed by his home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their
darling Nikolenka; by his relations as a charming, attractive, and polite
young man; by his acquaintances as a handsome lieutenant of hussars, a
good dancer, and one of the best matches in the city.
The Rostovs knew everybody in Moscow. The old count had money
enough that year, as all his estates had been remortgaged, and so
Nicholas, acquiring a trotter of his own, very stylish riding breeches of
the latest cut, such as no one else yet had in Moscow, and boots of the
latest fashion, with extremely pointed toes and small silver spurs,
passed his time very gaily. After a short period of adapting himself to
the old conditions of life, Nicholas found it very pleasant to be at home
again. He felt that he had grown up and matured very much. His
despair at failing in a Scripture examination, his borrowing money from
Gavril to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sonya on the sly—he now
recalled all this as childishness he had left immeasurably behind. Now
he was a lieutenant of hussars, in a jacket laced with silver, and wearing
the Cross of St. George, awarded to soldiers for bravery in action, and
in the company of well-known, elderly, and respected racing men was
training a trotter of his own for a race. He knew a lady on one of the
boulevards whom he visited of an evening. He led the mazurka at the
Arkharovs' ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal Kamenski,
visited the English Club, and was on intimate terms with a colonel of
forty to whom Denisov had introduced him.
His passion for the Emperor had cooled somewhat in Moscow. But
still, as he did not see him and had no opportunity of seeing him, he
often spoke about him and about his love for him, letting it be
understood that he had not told all and that there was something in his
feelings for the Emperor not everyone could understand, and with his
whole soul he shared the adoration then common in Moscow for the
Emperor, who was spoken of as the "angel incarnate."
During Rostov's short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army, he
did not draw closer to Sonya, but rather drifted away from her. She was
very pretty and sweet, and evidently deeply in love with him, but he
was at the period of youth when there seems so much to do that there is
no time for that sort of thing and a young man fears to bind himself and
prizes his freedom which he needs for so many other things. When he
thought of Sonya, during this stay in Moscow, he said to himself, "Ah,
there will be, and there are, many more such girls somewhere whom I
do not yet know. There will be time enough to think about love when I
want to, but now I have no time." Besides, it seemed to him that the
society of women was rather derogatory to his manhood. He went to
balls and into ladies' society with an affectation of doing so against his
will. The races, the English Club, sprees with Denisov, and visits to a
certain house—that was another matter and quite the thing for a
dashing young hussar!
 At the beginning of March, old Count Ilya Rostov was very busy
arranging a dinner in honor of Prince Bagration at the English Club.
The count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving
orders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktist, the Club's head
cook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and fish for
this dinner. The count had been a member and on the committee of the
Club from the day it was founded. To him the Club entrusted the
arrangement of the festival in honor of Bagration, for few men knew so
well how to arrange a feast on an open-handed, hospitable scale, and
still fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of
their own resources what might be needed for the success of the fete.
The club cook and the steward listened to the count's orders with
pleased faces, for they knew that under no other management could
they so easily extract a good profit for themselves from a dinner costing
several thousand rubles.
"Well then, mind and have cocks' comb in the turtle soup, you
know!"
"Shall we have three cold dishes then?" asked the cook.
The count considered.
"We can't have less—yes, three... the mayonnaise, that's one," said
he, bending down a finger.
"Then am I to order those large sterlets?" asked the steward.
"Yes, it can't be helped if they won't take less. Ah, dear me! I was
forgetting. We must have another entree. Ah, goodness gracious!" he
clutched at his head. "Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmitri! Eh,
Dmitri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate," he said to the factotum who
appeared at his call. "Hurry off and tell Maksim, the gardener, to set the
serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must be brought
here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred pots here on
Friday."
Having given several more orders, he was about to go to his "little
countess" to have a rest, but remembering something else of
importance, he returned again, called back the cook and the club
steward, and again began giving orders. A light footstep and the
clinking of spurs were heard at the door, and the young count,
handsome, rosy, with a dark little mustache, evidently rested and made
sleeker by his easy life in Moscow, entered the room.
"Ah, my boy, my head's in a whirl!" said the old man with a smile, as
if he felt a little confused before his son. "Now, if you would only help
a bit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own orchestra, but
shouldn't we get the gypsy singers as well? You military men like that
sort of thing."
"Really, Papa, I believe Prince Bagration worried himself less before
the battle of Schon Grabern than you do now," said his son with a
smile.
The old count pretended to be angry.
"Yes, you talk, but try it yourself!"
And the count turned to the cook, who, with a shrewd and respectful
expression, looked observantly and sympathetically at the father and
son.
"What have the young people come to nowadays, eh, Feoktist?" said
he. "Laughing at us old fellows!"
"That's so, your excellency, all they have to do is to eat a good
dinner, but providing it and serving it all up, that's not their business!"
"That's it, that's it!" exclaimed the count, and gaily seizing his son by
both hands, he cried, "Now I've got you, so take the sleigh and pair at
once, and go to Bezukhov's, and tell him 'Count Ilya has sent you to ask
for strawberries and fresh pineapples.' We can't get them from anyone
else. He's not there himself, so you'll have to go in and ask the
princesses; and from there go on to the Rasgulyay—the coachman
Ipatka knows—and look up the gypsy Ilyushka, the one who danced at
Count Orlov's, you remember, in a white Cossack coat, and bring him
along to me."
"And am I to bring the gypsy girls along with him?" asked Nicholas,
laughing. "Dear, dear!..."
At that moment, with noiseless footsteps and with the businesslike,
preoccupied, yet meekly Christian look which never left her face, Anna
Mikhaylovna entered the hall. Though she came upon the count in his
dressing gown every day, he invariably became confused and begged
her to excuse his costume.
"No matter at all, my dear count," she said, meekly closing her eyes.
"But I'll go to Bezukhov's myself. Pierre has arrived, and now we shall
get anything we want from his hothouses. I have to see him in any case.
He has forwarded me a letter from Boris. Thank God, Boris is now on
the staff."
The count was delighted at Anna Mikhaylovna's taking upon herself
one of his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her.
"Tell Bezukhov to come. I'll put his name down. Is his wife with
him?" he asked.
 Anna Mikhaylovna turned up her eyes, and profound sadness was
depicted on her face.
"Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate," she said. "If what we
hear is true, it is dreadful. How little we dreamed of such a thing when
we were rejoicing at his happiness! And such a lofty angelic soul as
young Bezukhov! Yes, I pity him from my heart, and shall try to give
him what consolation I can."
"Wh-what is the matter?" asked both the young and old Rostov.
Anna Mikhaylovna sighed deeply.
"Dolokhov, Mary Ivanovna's son," she said in a mysterious whisper,
"has compromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him up, invited
him to his house in Petersburg, and now... she has come here and that
daredevil after her!" said Anna Mikhaylovna, wishing to show her
sympathy for Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile
betraying her sympathy for the "daredevil," as she called Dolokhov.
"They say Pierre is quite broken by his misfortune."
"Dear, dear! But still tell him to come to the Club—it will all blow
over. It will be a tremendous banquet."
Next day, the third of March, soon after one o'clock, two hundred
and fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting
the guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince
Bagration, to dinner.
On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow
had been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to
victories that on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not
believe it, while others sought some extraordinary explanation of so
strange an event. In the English Club, where all who were
distinguished, important, and well informed foregathered when the
news began to arrive in December, nothing was said about the war and
the last battle, as though all were in a conspiracy of silence. The men
who set the tone in conversation—Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri
Dolgorukov, Valuev, Count Markov, and Prince Vyazemski—did not
show themselves at the Club, but met in private houses in intimate
circles, and the Moscovites who took their opinions from others—Ilya
Rostov among them—remained for a while without any definite
opinion on the subject of the war and without leaders. The Moscovites
felt that something was wrong and that to discuss the bad news was
difficult, and so it was best to be silent. But after a while, just as a jury
comes out of its room, the bigwigs who guided the Club's opinion
reappeared, and everybody began speaking clearly and definitely.
Reasons were found for the incredible, unheard-of, and impossible
event of a Russian defeat, everything became clear, and in all corners
of Moscow the same things began to be said. These reasons were the
treachery of the Austrians, a defective commissariat, the treachery of
the Pole Przebyszewski and of the Frenchman Langeron, Kutuzov's
incapacity, and (it was whispered) the youth and inexperience of the
sovereign, who had trusted worthless and insignificant people. But the
army, the Russian army, everyone declared, was extraordinary and had
achieved miracles of valor. The soldiers, officers, and generals were
heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagration, distinguished by
his Schon Grabern affair and by the retreat from Austerlitz, where he
alone had withdrawn his column unbroken and had all day beaten back
an enemy force twice as numerous as his own. What also conduced to
Bagration's being selected as Moscow's hero was the fact that he had no
connections in the city and was a stranger there. In his person, honor
was shown to a simple fighting Russian soldier without connections
and intrigues, and to one who was associated by memories of the Italian
campaign with the name of Suvorov. Moreover, paying such honor to
Bagration was the best way of expressing disapproval and dislike of
Kutuzov.
"Had there been no Bagration, it would have been necessary to
invent him," said the wit Shinshin, parodying the words of Voltaire.
Kutuzov no one spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers,
calling him a court weathercock and an old satyr.
All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorukov's saying: "If you go on
modeling and modeling you must get smeared with clay," suggesting
consolation for our defeat by the memory of former victories; and the
words of Rostopchin, that French soldiers have to be incited to battle by
highfalutin words, and Germans by logical arguments to show them
that it is more dangerous to run away than to advance, but that Russian
soldiers only need to be restrained and held back! On all sides, new and
fresh anecdotes were heard of individual examples of heroism shown
by our officers and men at Austerlitz. One had saved a standard,
another had killed five Frenchmen, a third had loaded five cannon
singlehanded. Berg was mentioned, by those who did not know him, as
having, when wounded in the right hand, taken his sword in the left,
and gone forward. Of Bolkonski, nothing was said, and only those who
knew him intimately regretted that he had died so young, leaving a
pregnant wife with his eccentric father.

CHAPTER III
 On that third of March, all the rooms in the English Club were filled
with a hum of conversation, like the hum of bees swarming in
springtime. The members and guests of the Club wandered hither and
thither, sat, stood, met, and separated, some in uniform and some in
evening dress, and a few here and there with powdered hair and in
Russian kaftans. Powdered footmen, in livery with buckled shoes and
smart stockings, stood at every door anxiously noting visitors' every
movement in order to offer their services. Most of those present were
elderly, respected men with broad, self-confident faces, fat fingers, and
resolute gestures and voices. This class of guests and members sat in
certain habitual places and met in certain habitual groups. A minority
of those present were casual guests—chiefly young men, among whom
were Denisov, Rostov, and Dolokhov—who was now again an officer
in the Semenov regiment. The faces of these young people, especially
those who were military men, bore that expression of condescending
respect for their elders which seems to say to the older generation, "We
are prepared to respect and honor you, but all the same remember that
the future belongs to us."
Nesvitski was there as an old member of the Club. Pierre, who at his
wife's command had let his hair grow and abandoned his spectacles,
went about the rooms fashionably dressed but looking sad and dull.
Here, as elsewhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of
subservience to his wealth, and being in the habit of lording it over
these people, he treated them with absent-minded contempt.
By his age he should have belonged to the younger men, but by his
wealth and connections he belonged to the groups old and honored
guests, and so he went from one group to another. Some of the most
important old men were the center of groups which even strangers
approached respectfully to hear the voices of well-known men. The
largest circles formed round Count Rostopchin, Valuev, and Naryshkin.
Rostopchin was describing how the Russians had been overwhelmed
by flying Austrians and had had to force their way through them with
bayonets.
Valuev was confidentially telling that Uvarov had been sent from
Petersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz.
In the third circle, Naryshkin was speaking of the meeting of the
Austrian Council of War at which Suvorov crowed like a cock in reply
to the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshin, standing
close by, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutuzov had evidently failed
to learn from Suvorov even so simple a thing as the art of crowing like
a cock, but the elder members glanced severely at the wit, making him
feel that in that place and on that day, it was improper to speak so of
Kutuzov.
 Count Ilya Rostov, hurried and preoccupied, went about in his soft
boots between the dining and drawing rooms, hastily greeting the
important and unimportant, all of whom he knew, as if they were all
equals, while his eyes occasionally sought out his fine well-set-up
young son, resting on him and winking joyfully at him. Young Rostov
stood at a window with Dolokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately
made and highly valued. The old count came up to them and pressed
Dolokhov's hand.
"Please come and visit us... you know my brave boy... been together
out there... both playing the hero... Ah, Vasili Ignatovich... How d'ye
do, old fellow?" he said, turning to an old man who was passing, but
before he had finished his greeting there was a general stir, and a
footman who had run in announced, with a frightened face: "He's
arrived!"
Bells rang, the stewards rushed forward, and—like rye shaken
together in a shovel—the guests who had been scattered about in
different rooms came together and crowded in the large drawing room
by the door of the ballroom.
Bagration appeared in the doorway of the anteroom without hat or
sword, which, in accord with the Club custom, he had given up to the
hall porter. He had no lambskin cap on his head, nor had he a loaded
whip over his shoulder, as when Rostov had seen him on the eve of the
battle of Austerlitz, but wore a tight new uniform with Russian and
foreign Orders, and the Star of St. George on his left breast. Evidently
just before coming to the dinner he had had his hair and whiskers
trimmed, which changed his appearance for the worse. There was
something naively festive in his air, which, in conjunction with his firm
and virile features, gave him a rather comical expression. Bekleshev
and Theodore Uvarov, who had arrived with him, paused at the
doorway to allow him, as the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagration
was embarrassed, not wishing to avail himself of their courtesy, and
this caused some delay at the doors, but after all he did at last enter
first. He walked shyly and awkwardly over the parquet floor of the
reception room, not knowing what to do with his hands; he was more
accustomed to walk over a plowed field under fire, as he had done at
the head of the Kursk regiment at Schon Grabern—and he would have
found that easier. The committeemen met him at the first door and,
expressing their delight at seeing such a highly honored guest, took
possession of him as it were, without waiting for his reply, surrounded
him, and led him to the drawing room. It was at first impossible to enter
the drawing-room door for the crowd of members and guests jostling
one another and trying to get a good look at Bagration over each other's
shoulders, as if he were some rare animal. Count Ilya Rostov, laughing
and repeating the words, "Make way, dear boy! Make way, make way!"
pushed through the crowd more energetically than anyone, led the
guests into the drawing room, and seated them on the center sofa. The
bigwigs, the most respected members of the Club, beset the new
arrivals. Count Ilya, again thrusting his way through the crowd, went
out of the drawing room and reappeared a minute later with another
committeeman, carrying a large silver salver which he presented to
Prince Bagration. On the salver lay some verses composed and printed
in the hero's honor. Bagration, on seeing the salver, glanced around in
dismay, as though seeking help. But all eyes demanded that he should
submit. Feeling himself in their power, he resolutely took the salver
with both hands and looked sternly and reproachfully at the count who
had presented it to him. Someone obligingly took the dish from
Bagration (or he would, it seemed, have held it till evening and have
gone in to dinner with it) and drew his attention to the verses.
"Well, I will read them, then!" Bagration seemed to say, and, fixing
his weary eyes on the paper, began to read them with a fixed and
serious expression. But the author himself took the verses and began
reading them aloud. Bagration bowed his head and listened:

Bring glory then to Alexander's reign

And on the throne our Titus shield.
A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man,
A Rhipheus at home, a Caesar in the field!
E'en fortunate Napoleon
Knows by experience, now, Bagration,
And dare not Herculean Russians trouble...

But before he had finished reading, a stentorian major-domo

announced that dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the
dining room came the resounding strains of the polonaise:

Conquest's joyful thunder waken,

Triumph, valiant Russians, now!...

and Count Rostov, glancing angrily at the author who went on

reading his verses, bowed to Bagration. Everyone rose, feeling that
dinner was more important than verses, and Bagration, again preceding
all the rest, went in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor
between two Alexanders—Bekleshev and Naryshkin—which was a
significant allusion to the name of the sovereign. Three hundred
persons took their seats in the dining room, according to their rank and
importance: the more important nearer to the honored guest, as
naturally as water flows deepest where the land lies lowest.
Just before dinner, Count Ilya Rostov presented his son to Bagration,
who recognized him and said a few words to him, disjointed and
awkward, as were all the words he spoke that day, and Count Ilya
looked joyfully and proudly around while Bagration spoke to his son.
 Nicholas Rostov, with Denisov and his new acquaintance, Dolokhov,
sat almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre, beside
Prince Nesvitski. Count Ilya Rostov with the other members of the
committee sat facing Bagration and, as the very personification of
Moscow hospitality, did the honors to the prince.
His efforts had not been in vain. The dinner, both the Lenten and the
other fare, was splendid, yet he could not feel quite at ease till the end
of the meal. He winked at the butler, whispered directions to the
footmen, and awaited each expected dish with some anxiety.
Everything was excellent. With the second course, a gigantic sterlet (at
sight of which Ilya Rostov blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the
footmen began popping corks and filling the champagne glasses. After
the fish, which made a certain sensation, the count exchanged glances
with the other committeemen. "There will be many toasts, it's time to
begin," he whispered, and taking up his glass, he rose. All were silent,
waiting for what he would say.
"To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!" he cried, and at the
same moment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of joy and
enthusiasm. The band immediately struck up "Conquest's joyful
thunder waken..." All rose and cried "Hurrah!" Bagration also rose and
shouted "Hurrah!" in exactly the same voice in which he had shouted it
on the field at Schon Grabern. Young Rostov's ecstatic voice could be
heard above the three hundred others. He nearly wept. "To the health of
our Sovereign, the Emperor!" he roared, "Hurrah!" and emptying his
glass at one gulp he dashed it to the floor. Many followed his example,
and the loud shouting continued for a long time. When the voices
subsided, the footmen cleared away the broken glass and everybody sat
down again, smiling at the noise they had made and exchanging
remarks. The old count rose once more, glanced at a note lying beside
his plate, and proposed a toast, "To the health of the hero of our last
campaign, Prince Peter Ivanovich Bagration!" and again his blue eyes
grew moist. "Hurrah!" cried the three hundred voices again, but instead
of the band a choir began singing a cantata composed by Paul
Ivanovich Kutuzov:

Russians! O'er all barriers on!

Courage conquest guarantees;
Have we not Bagration?
He brings foe men to their knees,... etc.

As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was
proposed and Count Ilya Rostov became more and more moved, more
glass was smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to
Bekleshev, Naryshkin, Uvarov, Dolgorukov, Apraksin, Valuev, to the
committee, to all the Club members and to all the Club guests, and
finally to Count Ilya Rostov separately, as the organizer of the banquet.
At that toast, the count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face,
wept outright.

CHAPTER IV
Pierre sat opposite Dolokhov and Nicholas Rostov. As usual, he ate
and drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately
noticed that some great change had come over him that day. He was
silent all through dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or,
with fixed eyes and a look of complete absent-mindedness, kept
rubbing the bridge of his nose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He
seemed to see and hear nothing of what was going on around him and
to be absorbed by some depressing and unsolved problem.
The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given
by the princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dolokhov's
intimacy with his wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that
morning, which in the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters
said that he saw badly through his spectacles, but that his wife's
connection with Dolokhov was a secret to no one but himself. Pierre
absolutely disbelieved both the princess' hints and the letter, but he
feared now to look at Dolokhov, who was sitting opposite him. Every
time he chanced to meet Dolokhov's handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt
something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul and turned quickly
away. Involuntarily recalling his wife's past and her relations with
Dolokhov, Pierre saw clearly that what was said in the letter might be
true, or might at least seem to be true had it not referred to his wife. He
involuntarily remembered how Dolokhov, who had fully recovered his
former position after the campaign, had returned to Petersburg and
come to him. Availing himself of his friendly relations with Pierre as a
boon companion, Dolokhov had come straight to his house, and Pierre
had put him up and lent him money. Pierre recalled how Helene had
smilingly expressed disapproval of Dolokhov's living at their house,
and how cynically Dolokhov had praised his wife's beauty to him and
from that time till they came to Moscow had not left them for a day.
"Yes, he is very handsome," thought Pierre, "and I know him. It
would be particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule
me, just because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him,
and helped him. I know and understand what a spice that would add to
the pleasure of deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true,
but I do not believe it. I have no right to, and can't, believe it." He
remembered the expression Dolokhov's face assumed in his moments
of cruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them
into the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any
reason, or shot a post-boy's horse with a pistol. That expression was
often on Dolokhov's face when looking at him. "Yes, he is a bully,"
thought Pierre, "to kill a man means nothing to him. It must seem to
him that everyone is afraid of him, and that must please him. He must
think that I, too, am afraid of him—and in fact I am afraid of him," he
thought, and again he felt something terrible and monstrous rising in
his soul. Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov were now sitting opposite
Pierre and seemed very gay. Rostov was talking merrily to his two
friends, one of whom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious
duelist and rake, and every now and then he glanced ironically at
Pierre, whose preoccupied, absent-minded, and massive figure was a
very noticeable one at the dinner. Rostov looked inimically at Pierre,
first because Pierre appeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the
husband of a beauty, and in a word—an old woman; and secondly
because Pierre in his preoccupation and absent-mindedness had not
recognized Rostov and had not responded to his greeting. When the
Emperor's health was drunk, Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift
his glass.
"What are you about?" shouted Rostov, looking at him in an ecstasy
of exasperation. "Don't you hear it's His Majesty the Emperor's health?"
Pierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting till
all were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostov.
"Why, I didn't recognize you!" he said. But Rostov was otherwise
engaged; he was shouting "Hurrah!"
"Why don't you renew the acquaintance?" said Dolokhov to Rostov.
"Confound him, he's a fool!" said Rostov.
"One should make up to the husbands of pretty women," said
Denisov.
Pierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were
talking about him. He reddened and turned away.
"Well, now to the health of handsome women!" said Dolokhov, and
with a serious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of his
mouth, he turned with his glass to Pierre.
"Here's to the health of lovely women, Peterkin—and their lovers!"
he added.
Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking at
Dolokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing
leaflets with Kutuzov's cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of the
principal guests. He was just going to take it when Dolokhov, leaning
across, snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre looked at
Dolokhov and his eyes dropped, the something terrible and monstrous
that had tormented him all dinnertime rose and took possession of him.
He leaned his whole massive body across the table.
"How dare you take it?" he shouted.
Hearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvitski and
the neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezukhov.
"Don't! Don't! What are you about?" whispered their frightened
voices.
Dolokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that
smile of his which seemed to say, "Ah! This is what I like!"
"You shan't have it!" he said distinctly.
Pale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy.
"You...! you... scoundrel! I challenge you!" he ejaculated, and,
pushing back his chair, he rose from the table.
At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt
that the question of his wife's guilt which had been tormenting him the
whole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative. He
hated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denisov's request
that he would take no part in the matter, Rostov agreed to be
Dolokhov's second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for
the duel with Nesvitski, Bezukhov's second. Pierre went home, but
Rostov with Dolokhov and Denisov stayed on at the Club till late,
listening to the gypsies and other singers.
"Well then, till tomorrow at Sokolniki," said Dolokhov, as he took
leave of Rostov in the Club porch.
"And do you feel quite calm?" Rostov asked.
Dolokhov paused.
"Well, you see, I'll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two words.
If you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write
affectionate letters to your parents, and if you think you may be killed,
you are a fool and are lost for certain. But go with the firm intention of
killing your man as quickly and surely as possible, and then all will be
right, as our bear huntsman at Kostroma used to tell me. 'Everyone
fears a bear,' he says, 'but when you see one your fear's all gone, and
your only thought is not to let him get away!' And that's how it is with
me. A demain, mon cher." *
 * Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.

Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvitski drove to the
Sokolniki forest and found Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov already
there. Pierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations
which had no connection with the matter in hand. His haggard face was
yellow. He had evidently not slept that night. He looked about
distractedly and screwed up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He was
entirely absorbed by two considerations: his wife's guilt, of which after
his sleepless night he had not the slightest doubt, and the guiltlessness
of Dolokhov, who had no reason to preserve the honor of a man who
was nothing to him.... "I should perhaps have done the same thing in
his place," thought Pierre. "It's even certain that I should have done the
same, then why this duel, this murder? Either I shall kill him, or he will
hit me in the head, or elbow, or knee. Can't I go away from here, run
away, bury myself somewhere?" passed through his mind. But just at
moments when such thoughts occurred to him, he would ask in a
particularly calm and absent-minded way, which inspired the respect of
the onlookers, "Will it be long? Are things ready?"
When all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the
barriers, and the pistols loaded, Nesvitski went up to Pierre.
"I should not be doing my duty, Count," he said in timid tones, "and
should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done me in
choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very grave, moment I
did not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no sufficient ground for
this affair, or for blood to be shed over it.... You were not right, not
quite in the right, you were impetuous..."
"Oh yes, it is horribly stupid," said Pierre.
"Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your opponent
will accept them," said Nesvitski (who like the others concerned in the
affair, and like everyone in similar cases, did not yet believe that the
affair had come to an actual duel). "You know, Count, it is much more
honorable to admit one's mistake than to let matters become
irreparable. There was no insult on either side. Allow me to convey...."
"No! What is there to talk about?" said Pierre. "It's all the same.... Is
everything ready?" he added. "Only tell me where to go and where to
shoot," he said with an unnaturally gentle smile.
He took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of
the trigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand—a fact that he
did not wish to confess.
"Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot," said he.
 "No apologies, none whatever," said Dolokhov to Denisov (who on
his side had been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to
the appointed place.
The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road,
where the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest
covered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during
the last few days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther
edge of the clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in
the deep wet snow between the place where they had been standing and
Nesvitski's and Dolokhov's sabers, which were stuck into the ground
ten paces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at forty
paces' distance nothing could be seen. For three minutes all had been
ready, but they still delayed and all were silent.

CHAPTER V
"Well begin!" said Dolokhov.
"All right," said Pierre, still smiling in the same way. A feeling of
dread was in the air. It was evident that the affair so lightly begun could
no longer be averted but was taking its course independently of men's
will.
Denisov first went to the barrier and announced: "As the adve'sawies
have wefused a weconciliation, please pwoceed. Take your pistols, and
at the word thwee begin to advance.
"O-ne! T-wo! Thwee!" he shouted angrily and stepped aside.
The combatants advanced along the trodden tracks, nearer and nearer
to one another, beginning to see one another through the mist. They had
the right to fire when they liked as they approached the barrier.
Dolokhov walked slowly without raising his pistol, looking intently
with his bright, sparkling blue eyes into his antagonist's face. His
mouth wore its usual semblance of a smile.
"So I can fire when I like!" said Pierre, and at the word "three," he
went quickly forward, missing the trodden path and stepping into the
deep snow. He held the pistol in his right hand at arm's length,
apparently afraid of shooting himself with it. His left hand he held
carefully back, because he wished to support his right hand with it and
knew he must not do so. Having advanced six paces and strayed off the
track into the snow, Pierre looked down at his feet, then quickly
glanced at Dolokhov and, bending his finger as he had been shown,
fired. Not at all expecting so loud a report, Pierre shuddered at the
sound and then, smiling at his own sensations, stood still. The smoke,
rendered denser by the mist, prevented him from seeing anything for an
instant, but there was no second report as he had expected. He only
heard Dolokhov's hurried steps, and his figure came in view through
the smoke. He was pressing one hand to his left side, while the other
clutched his drooping pistol. His face was pale. Rostov ran toward him
and said something.
"No-o-o!" muttered Dolokhov through his teeth, "no, it's not over."
And after stumbling a few staggering steps right up to the saber, he
sank on the snow beside it. His left hand was bloody; he wiped it on his
coat and supported himself with it. His frowning face was pallid and
quivered.
"Plea..." began Dolokhov, but could not at first pronounce the word.
"Please," he uttered with an effort.
Pierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began running toward Dolokhov
and was about to cross the space between the barriers, when Dolokhov
cried:
"To your barrier!" and Pierre, grasping what was meant, stopped by
his saber. Only ten paces divided them. Dolokhov lowered his head to
the snow, greedily bit at it, again raised his head, adjusted himself,
drew in his legs and sat up, seeking a firm center of gravity. He sucked
and swallowed the cold snow, his lips quivered but his eyes, still
smiling, glittered with effort and exasperation as he mustered his
remaining strength. He raised his pistol and aimed.
"Sideways! Cover yourself with your pistol!" ejaculated Nesvitski.
"Cover yourself!" even Denisov cried to his adversary.
Pierre, with a gentle smile of pity and remorse, his arms and legs
helplessly spread out, stood with his broad chest directly facing
Dolokhov looked sorrowfully at him. Denisov, Rostov, and Nesvitski
closed their eyes. At the same instant they heard a report and
Dolokhov's angry cry.
"Missed!" shouted Dolokhov, and he lay helplessly, face downwards
on the snow.
Pierre clutched his temples, and turning round went into the forest,
trampling through the deep snow, and muttering incoherent words:
"Folly... folly! Death... lies..." he repeated, puckering his face.
Nesvitski stopped him and took him home.
 Rostov and Denisov drove away with the wounded Dolokhov.
The latter lay silent in the sleigh with closed eyes and did not answer
a word to the questions addressed to him. But on entering Moscow he
suddenly came to and, lifting his head with an effort, took Rostov, who
was sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostov was struck by the totally
altered and unexpectedly rapturous and tender expression on
Dolokhov's face.
"Well? How do you feel?" he asked.
"Bad! But it's not that, my friend-" said Dolokhov with a gasping
voice. "Where are we? In Moscow, I know. I don't matter, but I have
killed her, killed... She won't get over it! She won't survive...."
"Who?" asked Rostov.
"My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother," and
Dolokhov pressed Rostov's hand and burst into tears.
When he had become a little quieter, he explained to Rostov that he
was living with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not
survive it. He implored Rostov to go on and prepare her.
Rostov went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise
learned that Dolokhov the brawler, Dolokhov the bully, lived in
Moscow with an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most
affectionate of sons and brothers.

CHAPTER VI
Pierre had of late rarely seen his wife alone. Both in Petersburg and
in Moscow their house was always full of visitors. The night after the
duel he did not go to his bedroom but, as he often did, remained in his
father's room, that huge room in which Count Bezukhov had died.
He lay down on the sofa meaning to fall asleep and forget all that
had happened to him, but could not do so. Such a storm of feelings,
thoughts, and memories suddenly arose within him that he could not
fall asleep, nor even remain in one place, but had to jump up and pace
the room with rapid steps. Now he seemed to see her in the early days
of their marriage, with bare shoulders and a languid, passionate look on
her face, and then immediately he saw beside her Dolokhov's
handsome, insolent, hard, and mocking face as he had seen it at the
banquet, and then that same face pale, quivering, and suffering, as it
had been when he reeled and sank on the snow.
"What has happened?" he asked himself. "I have killed her lover,
yes, killed my wife's lover. Yes, that was it! And why? How did I come
to do it?"—"Because you married her," answered an inner voice.
"But in what was I to blame?" he asked. "In marrying her without
loving her; in deceiving yourself and her." And he vividly recalled that
moment after supper at Prince Vasili's, when he spoke those words he
had found so difficult to utter: "I love you." "It all comes from that!
Even then I felt it," he thought. "I felt then that it was not so, that I had
no right to do it. And so it turns out."
He remembered his honeymoon and blushed at the recollection.
Particularly vivid, humiliating, and shameful was the recollection of
how one day soon after his marriage he came out of the bedroom into
his study a little before noon in his silk dressing gown and found his
head steward there, who, bowing respectfully, looked into his face and
at his dressing gown and smiled slightly, as if expressing respectful
understanding of his employer's happiness.
"But how often I have felt proud of her, proud of her majestic beauty
and social tact," thought he; "been proud of my house, in which she
received all Petersburg, proud of her unapproachability and beauty. So
this is what I was proud of! I then thought that I did not understand her.
How often when considering her character I have told myself that I was
to blame for not understanding her, for not understanding that constant
composure and complacency and lack of all interests or desires, and the
whole secret lies in the terrible truth that she is a depraved woman.
Now I have spoken that terrible word to myself all has become clear.
"Anatole used to come to borrow money from her and used to kiss
her naked shoulders. She did not give him the money, but let herself be
kissed. Her father in jest tried to rouse her jealousy, and she replied
with a calm smile that she was not so stupid as to be jealous: 'Let him
do what he pleases,' she used to say of me. One day I asked her if she
felt any symptoms of pregnancy. She laughed contemptuously and said
she was not a fool to want to have children, and that she was not going
to have any children by me."
Then he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her thoughts and
the vulgarity of the expressions that were natural to her, though she had
been brought up in the most aristocratic circles.
"I'm not such a fool.... Just you try it on.... Allez-vous promener," *
she used to say. Often seeing the success she had with young and old
men and women Pierre could not understand why he did not love her.
 * "You clear out of this."

"Yes, I never loved her," said he to himself; "I knew she was a
depraved woman," he repeated, "but dared not admit it to myself. And
now there's Dolokhov sitting in the snow with a forced smile and
perhaps dying, while meeting my remorse with some forced bravado!"
Pierre was one of those people who, in spite of an appearance of
what is called weak character, do not seek a confidant in their troubles.
He digested his sufferings alone.
"It is all, all her fault," he said to himself; "but what of that? Why did
I bind myself to her? Why did I say 'Je vous aime' * to her, which was a
lie, and worse than a lie? I am guilty and must endure... what? A slur on
my name? A misfortune for life? Oh, that's nonsense," he thought. "The
slur on my name and honor—that's all apart from myself."

* I love you.

"Louis XVI was executed because they said he was dishonorable and
a criminal," came into Pierre's head, "and from their point of view they
were right, as were those too who canonized him and died a martyr's
death for his sake. Then Robespierre was beheaded for being a despot.
Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are alive—live:
tomorrow you'll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth
tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life in comparison
with eternity?"
But at the moment when he imagined himself calmed by such
reflections, she suddenly came into his mind as she was at the moments
when he had most strongly expressed his insincere love for her, and he
felt the blood rush to his heart and had again to get up and move about
and break and tear whatever came to his hand. "Why did I tell her that
'Je vous aime'?" he kept repeating to himself. And when he had said it
for the tenth time, Molibre's words: "Mais que diable alloit-il faire dans
cette galere?" occurred to him, and he began to laugh at himself.
In the night he called his valet and told him to pack up to go to
Petersburg. He could not imagine how he could speak to her now. He
resolved to go away next day and leave a letter informing her of his
intention to part from her forever.
Next morning when the valet came into the room with his coffee,
Pierre was lying asleep on the ottoman with an open book in his hand.
He woke up and looked round for a while with a startled expression,
unable to realize where he was.
 "The countess told me to inquire whether your excellency was at
home," said the valet.
But before Pierre could decide what answer he would send, the
countess herself in a white satin dressing gown embroidered with silver
and with simply dressed hair (two immense plaits twice round her
lovely head like a coronet) entered the room, calm and majestic, except
that there was a wrathful wrinkle on her rather prominent marble brow.
With her imperturbable calm she did not begin to speak in front of the
valet. She knew of the duel and had come to speak about it. She waited
till the valet had set down the coffee things and left the room. Pierre
looked at her timidly over his spectacles, and like a hare surrounded by
hounds who lays back her ears and continues to crouch motionless
before her enemies, he tried to continue reading. But feeling this to be
senseless and impossible, he again glanced timidly at her. She did not
sit down but looked at him with a contemptuous smile, waiting for the
valet to go.
"Well, what's this now? What have you been up to now, I should like
to know?" she asked sternly.
"I? What have I...?" stammered Pierre.
"So it seems you're a hero, eh? Come now, what was this duel about?
What is it meant to prove? What? I ask you."
Pierre turned over heavily on the ottoman and opened his mouth, but
could not reply.
"If you won't answer, I'll tell you..." Helene went on. "You believe
everything you're told. You were told..." Helene laughed, "that
Dolokhov was my lover," she said in French with her coarse plainness
of speech, uttering the word amant as casually as any other word, "and
you believed it! Well, what have you proved? What does this duel
prove? That you're a fool, que vous etes un sot, but everybody knew
that. What will be the result? That I shall be the laughingstock of all
Moscow, that everyone will say that you, drunk and not knowing what
you were about, challenged a man you are jealous of without cause."
Helene raised her voice and became more and more excited, "A man
who's a better man than you in every way..."
"Hm... Hm...!" growled Pierre, frowning without looking at her, and
not moving a muscle.
"And how could you believe he was my lover? Why? Because I like
his company? If you were cleverer and more agreeable, I should prefer
yours."
"Don't speak to me... I beg you," muttered Pierre hoarsely.
 "Why shouldn't I speak? I can speak as I like, and I tell you plainly
that there are not many wives with husbands such as you who would
not have taken lovers (des amants), but I have not done so," said she.
Pierre wished to say something, looked at her with eyes whose
strange expression she did not understand, and lay down again. He was
suffering physically at that moment, there was a weight on his chest
and he could not breathe. He knew that he must do something to put an
end to this suffering, but what he wanted to do was too terrible.
"We had better separate," he muttered in a broken voice.
"Separate? Very well, but only if you give me a fortune," said
Helene. "Separate! That's a thing to frighten me with!"
Pierre leaped up from the sofa and rushed staggering toward her.
"I'll kill you!" he shouted, and seizing the marble top of a table with
a strength he had never before felt, he made a step toward her
brandishing the slab.
Helene's face became terrible, she shrieked and sprang aside. His
father's nature showed itself in Pierre. He felt the fascination and
delight of frenzy. He flung down the slab, broke it, and swooping down
on her with outstretched hands shouted, "Get out!" in such a terrible
voice that the whole house heard it with horror. God knows what he
would have done at that moment had Helene not fled from the room.
A week later Pierre gave his wife full power to control all his estates
in Great Russia, which formed the larger part of his property, and left
for Petersburg alone.

CHAPTER VII
Two months had elapsed since the news of the battle of Austerlitz
and the loss of Prince Andrew had reached Bald Hills, and in spite of
the letters sent through the embassy and all the searches made, his body
had not been found nor was he on the list of prisoners. What was worst
of all for his relations was the fact that there was still a possibility of his
having been picked up on the battlefield by the people of the place and
that he might now be lying, recovering or dying, alone among strangers
and unable to send news of himself. The gazettes from which the old
prince first heard of the defeat at Austerlitz stated, as usual very briefly
and vaguely, that after brilliant engagements the Russians had had to
retreat and had made their withdrawal in perfect order. The old prince
understood from this official report that our army had been defeated. A
week after the gazette report of the battle of Austerlitz came a letter
from Kutuzov informing the prince of the fate that had befallen his son.
"Your son," wrote Kutuzov, "fell before my eyes, a standard in his
hand and at the head of a regiment—he fell as a hero, worthy of his
father and his fatherland. To the great regret of myself and of the whole
army it is still uncertain whether he is alive or not. I comfort myself and
you with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise he would have
been mentioned among the officers found on the field of battle, a list of
whom has been sent me under flag of truce."
After receiving this news late in the evening, when he was alone in
his study, the old prince went for his walk as usual next morning, but
he was silent with his steward, the gardener, and the architect, and
though he looked very grim he said nothing to anyone.
When Princess Mary went to him at the usual hour he was working
at his lathe and, as usual, did not look round at her.
"Ah, Princess Mary!" he said suddenly in an unnatural voice,
throwing down his chisel. (The wheel continued to revolve by its own
impetus, and Princess Mary long remembered the dying creak of that
wheel, which merged in her memory with what followed.)
She approached him, saw his face, and something gave way within
her. Her eyes grew dim. By the expression of her father's face, not sad,
not crushed, but angry and working unnaturally, she saw that hanging
over her and about to crush her was some terrible misfortune, the worst
in life, one she had not yet experienced, irreparable and
incomprehensible—the death of one she loved.
"Father! Andrew!"—said the ungraceful, awkward princess with
such an indescribable charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her
father could not bear her look but turned away with a sob.
"Bad news! He's not among the prisoners nor among the killed!
Kutuzov writes..." and he screamed as piercingly as if he wished to
drive the princess away by that scream... "Killed!"
The princess did not fall down or faint. She was already pale, but on
hearing these words her face changed and something brightened in her
beautiful, radiant eyes. It was as if joy—a supreme joy apart from the
joys and sorrows of this world—overflowed the great grief within her.
She forgot all fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand, and
drawing him down put her arm round his thin, scraggy neck.
"Father," she said, "do not turn away from me, let us weep together."
 "Scoundrels! Blackguards!" shrieked the old man, turning his face
away from her. "Destroying the army, destroying the men! And why?
Go, go and tell Lise."
The princess sank helplessly into an armchair beside her father and
wept. She saw her brother now as he had been at the moment when he
took leave of her and of Lise, his look tender yet proud. She saw him
tender and amused as he was when he put on the little icon. "Did he
believe? Had he repented of his unbelief? Was he now there? There in
the realms of eternal peace and blessedness?" she thought.
"Father, tell me how it happened," she asked through her tears.
"Go! Go! Killed in battle, where the best of Russian men and
Russia's glory were led to destruction. Go, Princess Mary. Go and tell
Lise. I will follow."
When Princess Mary returned from her father, the little princess sat
working and looked up with that curious expression of inner, happy
calm peculiar to pregnant women. It was evident that her eyes did not
see Princess Mary but were looking within... into herself... at something
joyful and mysterious taking place within her.
"Mary," she said, moving away from the embroidery frame and lying
back, "give me your hand." She took her sister-in-law's hand and held it
below her waist.
Her eyes were smiling expectantly, her downy lip rose and remained
lifted in childlike happiness.
Princess Mary knelt down before her and hid her face in the folds of
her sister-in-law's dress.
"There, there! Do you feel it? I feel so strange. And do you know,
Mary, I am going to love him very much," said Lise, looking with
bright and happy eyes at her sister-in-law.
Princess Mary could not lift her head, she was weeping.
"What is the matter, Mary?"
"Nothing... only I feel sad... sad about Andrew," she said, wiping
away her tears on her sister-in-law's knee.
Several times in the course of the morning Princess Mary began
trying to prepare her sister-in-law, and every time began to cry.
Unobservant as was the little princess, these tears, the cause of which
she did not understand, agitated her. She said nothing but looked about
uneasily as if in search of something. Before dinner the old prince, of
whom she was always afraid, came into her room with a peculiarly
restless and malign expression and went out again without saying a
word. She looked at Princess Mary, then sat thinking for a while with
that expression of attention to something within her that is only seen in
pregnant women, and suddenly began to cry.
"Has anything come from Andrew?" she asked.
"No, you know it's too soon for news. But my father is anxious and I
feel afraid."
"So there's nothing?"
"Nothing," answered Princess Mary, looking firmly with her radiant
eyes at her sister-in-law.
She had determined not to tell her and persuaded her father to hide
the terrible news from her till after her confinement, which was
expected within a few days. Princess Mary and the old prince each bore
and hid their grief in their own way. The old prince would not cherish
any hope: he made up his mind that Prince Andrew had been killed,
and though he sent an official to Austria to seek for traces of his son, he
ordered a monument from Moscow which he intended to erect in his
own garden to his memory, and he told everybody that his son had been
killed. He tried not to change his former way of life, but his strength
failed him. He walked less, ate less, slept less, and became weaker
every day. Princess Mary hoped. She prayed for her brother as living
and was always awaiting news of his return.

CHAPTER VIII
"Dearest," said the little princess after breakfast on the morning of
the nineteenth March, and her downy little lip rose from old habit, but
as sorrow was manifest in every smile, the sound of every word, and
even every footstep in that house since the terrible news had come, so
now the smile of the little princess—influenced by the general mood
though without knowing its cause—was such as to remind one still
more of the general sorrow.
"Dearest, I'm afraid this morning's fruschtique *—as Foka the cook
calls it—has disagreed with me."

* Fruhstuck: breakfast.
 "What is the matter with you, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you
are very pale!" said Princess Mary in alarm, running with her soft,
ponderous steps up to her sister-in-law.
"Your excellency, should not Mary Bogdanovna be sent for?" said
one of the maids who was present. (Mary Bogdanovna was a midwife
from the neighboring town, who had been at Bald Hills for the last
fortnight.)
"Oh yes," assented Princess Mary, "perhaps that's it. I'll go. Courage,
my angel." She kissed Lise and was about to leave the room.
"Oh, no, no!" And besides the pallor and the physical suffering on
the little princess' face, an expression of childish fear of inevitable pain
showed itself.
"No, it's only indigestion?... Say it's only indigestion, say so, Mary!
Say..." And the little princess began to cry capriciously like a suffering
child and to wring her little hands even with some affectation. Princess
Mary ran out of the room to fetch Mary Bogdanovna.
"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Oh!" she heard as she left the room.
The midwife was already on her way to meet her, rubbing her small,
plump white hands with an air of calm importance.
"Mary Bogdanovna, I think it's beginning!" said Princess Mary
looking at the midwife with wide-open eyes of alarm.
"Well, the Lord be thanked, Princess," said Mary Bogdanovna, not
hastening her steps. "You young ladies should not know anything about
it."
"But how is it the doctor from Moscow is not here yet?" said the
princess. (In accordance with Lise's and Prince Andrew's wishes they
had sent in good time to Moscow for a doctor and were expecting him
at any moment.)
"No matter, Princess, don't be alarmed," said Mary Bogdanovna.
"We'll manage very well without a doctor."
Five minutes later Princess Mary from her room heard something
heavy being carried by. She looked out. The men servants were
carrying the large leather sofa from Prince Andrew's study into the
bedroom. On their faces was a quiet and solemn look.
Princess Mary sat alone in her room listening to the sounds in the
house, now and then opening her door when someone passed and
watching what was going on in the passage. Some women passing with
quiet steps in and out of the bedroom glanced at the princess and turned
away. She did not venture to ask any questions, and shut the door
again, now sitting down in her easy chair, now taking her prayer book,
now kneeling before the icon stand. To her surprise and distress she
found that her prayers did not calm her excitement. Suddenly her door
opened softly and her old nurse, Praskovya Savishna, who hardly ever
came to that room as the old prince had forbidden it, appeared on the
threshold with a shawl round her head.
"I've come to sit with you a bit, Masha," said the nurse, "and here
I've brought the prince's wedding candles to light before his saint, my
angel," she said with a sigh.
"Oh, nurse, I'm so glad!"
"God is merciful, birdie."
The nurse lit the gilt candles before the icons and sat down by the
door with her knitting. Princess Mary took a book and began reading.
Only when footsteps or voices were heard did they look at one another,
the princess anxious and inquiring, the nurse encouraging. Everyone in
the house was dominated by the same feeling that Princess Mary
experienced as she sat in her room. But owing to the superstition that
the fewer the people who know of it the less a woman in travail suffers,
everyone tried to pretend not to know; no one spoke of it, but apart
from the ordinary staid and respectful good manners habitual in the
prince's household, a common anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a
consciousness that something great and mysterious was being
accomplished at that moment made itself felt.
There was no laughter in the maids' large hall. In the men servants'
hall all sat waiting, silently and alert. In the outlying serfs' quarters
torches and candles were burning and no one slept. The old prince,
stepping on his heels, paced up and down his study and sent Tikhon to
ask Mary Bogdanovna what news.—"Say only that 'the prince told me
to ask,' and come and tell me her answer."
"Inform the prince that labor has begun," said Mary Bogdanovna,
giving the messenger a significant look.
Tikhon went and told the prince.
"Very good!" said the prince closing the door behind him, and
Tikhon did not hear the slightest sound from the study after that.
After a while he re-entered it as if to snuff the candles, and, seeing
the prince was lying on the sofa, looked at him, noticed his perturbed
face, shook his head, and going up to him silently kissed him on the
shoulder and left the room without snuffing the candles or saying why
he had entered. The most solemn mystery in the world continued its
course. Evening passed, night came, and the feeling of suspense and
softening of heart in the presence of the unfathomable did not lessen
but increased. No one slept.
It was one of those March nights when winter seems to wish to
resume its sway and scatters its last snows and storms with desperate
fury. A relay of horses had been sent up the highroad to meet the
German doctor from Moscow who was expected every moment, and
men on horseback with lanterns were sent to the crossroads to guide
him over the country road with its hollows and snow-covered pools of
water.
Princess Mary had long since put aside her book: she sat silent, her
luminous eyes fixed on her nurse's wrinkled face (every line of which
she knew so well), on the lock of gray hair that escaped from under the
kerchief, and the loose skin that hung under her chin.
Nurse Savishna, knitting in hand, was telling in low tones, scarcely
hearing or understanding her own words, what she had told hundreds of
times before: how the late princess had given birth to Princess Mary in
Kishenev with only a Moldavian peasant woman to help instead of a
midwife.
"God is merciful, doctors are never needed," she said.
Suddenly a gust of wind beat violently against the casement of the
window, from which the double frame had been removed (by order of
the prince, one window frame was removed in each room as soon as the
larks returned), and, forcing open a loosely closed latch, set the damask
curtain flapping and blew out the candle with its chill, snowy draft.
Princess Mary shuddered; her nurse, putting down the stocking she was
knitting, went to the window and leaning out tried to catch the open
casement. The cold wind flapped the ends of her kerchief and her loose
locks of gray hair.
"Princess, my dear, there's someone driving up the avenue!" she said,
holding the casement and not closing it. "With lanterns. Most likely the
doctor."
"Oh, my God! thank God!" said Princess Mary. "I must go and meet
him, he does not know Russian."
Princess Mary threw a shawl over her head and ran to meet the
newcomer. As she was crossing the anteroom she saw through the
window a carriage with lanterns, standing at the entrance. She went out
on the stairs. On a banister post stood a tallow candle which guttered in
the draft. On the landing below, Philip, the footman, stood looking
scared and holding another candle. Still lower, beyond the turn of the
staircase, one could hear the footstep of someone in thick felt boots,
and a voice that seemed familiar to Princess Mary was saying
something.
"Thank God!" said the voice. "And Father?"
"Gone to bed," replied the voice of Demyan the house steward, who
was downstairs.
Then the voice said something more, Demyan replied, and the steps
in the felt boots approached the unseen bend of the staircase more
rapidly.
"It's Andrew!" thought Princess Mary. "No it can't be, that would be
too extraordinary," and at the very moment she thought this, the face
and figure of Prince Andrew, in a fur cloak the deep collar of which
covered with snow, appeared on the landing where the footman stood
with the candle. Yes, it was he, pale, thin, with a changed and strangely
softened but agitated expression on his face. He came up the stairs and
embraced his sister.
"You did not get my letter?" he asked, and not waiting for a reply—
which he would not have received, for the princess was unable to
speak—he turned back, rapidly mounted the stairs again with the doctor
who had entered the hall after him (they had met at the last post
station), and again embraced his sister.
"What a strange fate, Masha darling!" And having taken off his cloak
and felt boots, he went to the little princess' apartment.

CHAPTER IX
The little princess lay supported by pillows, with a white cap on her
head (the pains had just left her). Strands of her black hair lay round her
inflamed and perspiring cheeks, her charming rosy mouth with its
downy lip was open and she was smiling joyfully. Prince Andrew
entered and paused facing her at the foot of the sofa on which she was
lying. Her glittering eyes, filled with childlike fear and excitement,
rested on him without changing their expression. "I love you all and
have done no harm to anyone; why must I suffer so? Help me!" her
look seemed to say. She saw her husband, but did not realize the
significance of his appearance before her now. Prince Andrew went
round the sofa and kissed her forehead.
"My darling!" he said—a word he had never used to her before.
"God is merciful...."
 She looked at him inquiringly and with childlike reproach.
"I expected help from you and I get none, none from you either!"
said her eyes. She was not surprised at his having come; she did not
realize that he had come. His coming had nothing to do with her
sufferings or with their relief. The pangs began again and Mary
Bogdanovna advised Prince Andrew to leave the room.
The doctor entered. Prince Andrew went out and, meeting Princess
Mary, again joined her. They began talking in whispers, but their talk
broke off at every moment. They waited and listened.
"Go, dear," said Princess Mary.
Prince Andrew went again to his wife and sat waiting in the room
next to hers. A woman came from the bedroom with a frightened face
and became confused when she saw Prince Andrew. He covered his
face with his hands and remained so for some minutes. Piteous,
helpless, animal moans came through the door. Prince Andrew got up,
went to the door, and tried to open it. Someone was holding it shut.
"You can't come in! You can't!" said a terrified voice from within.
He began pacing the room. The screaming ceased, and a few more
seconds went by. Then suddenly a terrible shriek—it could not be hers,
she could not scream like that—came from the bedroom. Prince
Andrew ran to the door; the scream ceased and he heard the wail of an
infant.
"What have they taken a baby in there for?" thought Prince Andrew
in the first second. "A baby? What baby...? Why is there a baby there?
Or is the baby born?"
Then suddenly he realized the joyful significance of that wail; tears
choked him, and leaning his elbows on the window sill be began to cry,
sobbing like a child. The door opened. The doctor with his shirt sleeves
tucked up, without a coat, pale and with a trembling jaw, came out of
the room. Prince Andrew turned to him, but the doctor gave him a
bewildered look and passed by without a word. A woman rushed out
and seeing Prince Andrew stopped, hesitating on the threshold. He
went into his wife's room. She was lying dead, in the same position he
had seen her in five minutes before and, despite the fixed eyes and the
pallor of the cheeks, the same expression was on her charming childlike
face with its upper lip covered with tiny black hair.
"I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you
done to me?"—said her charming, pathetic, dead face.
In a corner of the room something red and tiny gave a grunt and
squealed in Mary Bogdanovna's trembling white hands.
 Two hours later Prince Andrew, stepping softly, went into his
father's room. The old man already knew everything. He was standing
close to the door and as soon as it opened his rough old arms closed
like a vise round his son's neck, and without a word he began to sob
like a child.
Three days later the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrew
went up the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her the farewell
kiss. And there in the coffin was the same face, though with closed
eyes. "Ah, what have you done to me?" it still seemed to say, and
Prince Andrew felt that something gave way in his soul and that he was
guilty of a sin he could neither remedy nor forget. He could not weep.
The old man too came up and kissed the waxen little hands that lay
quietly crossed one on the other on her breast, and to him, too, her face
seemed to say: "Ah, what have you done to me, and why?" And at the
sight the old man turned angrily away.
Another five days passed, and then the young Prince Nicholas
Andreevich was baptized. The wet nurse supported the coverlet with
her chin, while the priest with a goose feather anointed the boy's little
red and wrinkled soles and palms.
His grandfather, who was his godfather, trembling and afraid of
dropping him, carried the infant round the battered tin font and handed
him over to the godmother, Princess Mary. Prince Andrew sat in
another room, faint with fear lest the baby should be drowned in the
font, and awaited the termination of the ceremony. He looked up
joyfully at the baby when the nurse brought it to him and nodded
approval when she told him that the wax with the baby's hair had not
sunk in the font but had floated.

CHAPTER X
Rostov's share in Dolokhov's duel with Bezukhov was hushed up by
the efforts of the old count, and instead of being degraded to the ranks
as he expected he was appointed an adjutant to the governor general of
Moscow. As a result he could not go to the country with the rest of the
family, but was kept all summer in Moscow by his new duties.
Dolokhov recovered, and Rostov became very friendly with him during
his convalescence. Dolokhov lay ill at his mother's who loved him
passionately and tenderly, and old Mary Ivanovna, who had grown
fond of Rostov for his friendship to her Fedya, often talked to him
about her son.
 "Yes, Count," she would say, "he is too noble and pure-souled for
our present, depraved world. No one now loves virtue; it seems like a
reproach to everyone. Now tell me, Count, was it right, was it
honorable, of Bezukhov? And Fedya, with his noble spirit, loved him
and even now never says a word against him. Those pranks in
Petersburg when they played some tricks on a policeman, didn't they do
it together? And there! Bezukhov got off scotfree, while Fedya had to
bear the whole burden on his shoulders. Fancy what he had to go
through! It's true he has been reinstated, but how could they fail to do
that? I think there were not many such gallant sons of the fatherland out
there as he. And now—this duel! Have these people no feeling, or
honor? Knowing him to be an only son, to challenge him and shoot so
straight! It's well God had mercy on us. And what was it for? Who
doesn't have intrigues nowadays? Why, if he was so jealous, as I see
things he should have shown it sooner, but he lets it go on for months.
And then to call him out, reckoning on Fedya not fighting because he
owed him money! What baseness! What meanness! I know you
understand Fedya, my dear count; that, believe me, is why I am so fond
of you. Few people do understand him. He is such a lofty, heavenly
soul!"
Dolokhov himself during his convalescence spoke to Rostov in a
way no one would have expected of him.
"I know people consider me a bad man!" he said. "Let them! I don't
care a straw about anyone but those I love; but those I love, I love so
that I would give my life for them, and the others I'd throttle if they
stood in my way. I have an adored, a priceless mother, and two or three
friends—you among them—and as for the rest I only care about them
in so far as they are harmful or useful. And most of them are harmful,
especially the women. Yes, dear boy," he continued, "I have met
loving, noble, high-minded men, but I have not yet met any women—
countesses or cooks—who were not venal. I have not yet met that
divine purity and devotion I look for in women. If I found such a one
I'd give my life for her! But those!..." and he made a gesture of
contempt. "And believe me, if I still value my life it is only because I
still hope to meet such a divine creature, who will regenerate, purify,
and elevate me. But you don't understand it."
"Oh, yes, I quite understand," answered Rostov, who was under his
new friend's influence.
In the autumn the Rostovs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter
Denisov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the
winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostov spent in Moscow, was one of
the happiest, merriest times for him and the whole family. Nicholas
brought many young men to his parents' house. Vera was a handsome
girl of twenty; Sonya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening
flower; Natasha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly
amusing, now girlishly enchanting.
At that time in the Rostovs' house there prevailed an amorous
atmosphere characteristic of homes where there are very young and
very charming girls. Every young man who came to the house—seeing
those impressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their
own happiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the
fitful bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle
of young girls ready for anything and full of hope—experienced the
same feeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostovs' household a
readiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness.
Among the young men introduced by Rostov one of the first was
Dolokhov, whom everyone in the house liked except Natasha. She
almost quarreled with her brother about him. She insisted that he was a
bad man, and that in the duel with Bezukhov, Pierre was right and
Dolokhov wrong, and further that he was disagreeable and unnatural.
"There's nothing for me to understand," she cried out with resolute
self-will, "he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like your Denisov
though he is a rake and all that, still I like him; so you see I do
understand. I don't know how to put it... with this one everything is
calculated, and I don't like that. But Denisov..."
"Oh, Denisov is quite different," replied Nicholas, implying that
even Denisov was nothing compared to Dolokhov—"you must
understand what a soul there is in Dolokhov, you should see him with
his mother. What a heart!"
"Well, I don't know about that, but I am uncomfortable with him.
And do you know he has fallen in love with Sonya?"
"What nonsense..."
"I'm certain of it; you'll see."
Natasha's prediction proved true. Dolokhov, who did not usually care
for the society of ladies, began to come often to the house, and the
question for whose sake he came (though no one spoke of it) was soon
settled. He came because of Sonya. And Sonya, though she would
never have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time
Dolokhov appeared.
Dolokhov often dined at the Rostovs', never missed a performance at
which they were present, and went to Iogel's balls for young people
which the Rostovs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to
Sonya and looked at her in such a way that not only could she not bear
his glances without coloring, but even the old countess and Natasha
blushed when they saw his looks.
 It was evident that this strange, strong man was under the irresistible
influence of the dark, graceful girl who loved another.
Rostov noticed something new in Dolokhov's relations with Sonya,
but he did not explain to himself what these new relations were.
"They're always in love with someone," he thought of Sonya and
Natasha. But he was not as much at ease with Sonya and Dolokhov as
before and was less frequently at home.
In the autumn of 1806 everybody had again begun talking of the war
with Napoleon with even greater warmth than the year before. Orders
were given to raise recruits, ten men in every thousand for the regular
army, and besides this, nine men in every thousand for the militia.
Everywhere Bonaparte was anathematized and in Moscow nothing but
the coming war was talked of. For the Rostov family the whole interest
of these preparations for war lay in the fact that Nicholas would not
hear of remaining in Moscow, and only awaited the termination of
Denisov's furlough after Christmas to return with him to their regiment.
His approaching departure did not prevent his amusing himself, but
rather gave zest to his pleasures. He spent the greater part of his time
away from home, at dinners, parties, and balls.

CHAPTER XI
On the third day after Christmas Nicholas dined at home, a thing he
had rarely done of late. It was a grand farewell dinner, as he and
Denisov were leaving to join their regiment after Epiphany. About
twenty people were present, including Dolokhov and Denisov.
Never had love been so much in the air, and never had the amorous
atmosphere made itself so strongly felt in the Rostovs' house as at this
holiday time. "Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That
is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are
interested in here," said the spirit of the place.
Nicholas, having as usual exhausted two pairs of horses, without
visiting all the places he meant to go to and where he had been invited,
returned home just before dinner. As soon as he entered he noticed and
felt the tension of the amorous air in the house, and also noticed a
curious embarrassment among some of those present. Sonya,
Dolokhov, and the old countess were especially disturbed, and to a
lesser degree Natasha. Nicholas understood that something must have
happened between Sonya and Dolokhov before dinner, and with the
kindly sensitiveness natural to him was very gentle and wary with them
both at dinner. On that same evening there was to be one of the balls
that Iogel (the dancing master) gave for his pupils during the holidays.
"Nicholas, will you come to Iogel's? Please do!" said Natasha. "He
asked you, and Vasili Dmitrich * is also going."

* Denisov.

"Where would I not go at the countess' command!" said Denisov,

who at the Rostovs' had jocularly assumed the role of Natasha's knight.
"I'm even weady to dance the pas de chale."
"If I have time," answered Nicholas. "But I promised the Arkharovs;
they have a party."
"And you?" he asked Dolokhov, but as soon as he had asked the
question he noticed that it should not have been put.
"Perhaps," coldly and angrily replied Dolokhov, glancing at Sonya,
and, scowling, he gave Nicholas just such a look as he had given Pierre
at the Club dinner.
"There is something up," thought Nicholas, and he was further
confirmed in this conclusion by the fact that Dolokhov left immediately
after dinner. He called Natasha and asked her what was the matter.
"And I was looking for you," said Natasha running out to him. "I told
you, but you would not believe it," she said triumphantly. "He has
proposed to Sonya!"
Little as Nicholas had occupied himself with Sonya of late,
something seemed to give way within him at this news. Dolokhov was
a suitable and in some respects a brilliant match for the dowerless,
orphan girl. From the point of view of the old countess and of society it
was out of the question for her to refuse him. And therefore Nicholas'
first feeling on hearing the news was one of anger with Sonya.... He
tried to say, "That's capital; of course she'll forget her childish promises
and accept the offer," but before he had time to say it Natasha began
again.
"And fancy! she refused him quite definitely!" adding, after a pause,
"she told him she loved another."
"Yes, my Sonya could not have done otherwise!" thought Nicholas.
"Much as Mamma pressed her, she refused, and I know she won't
change once she has said..."
"And Mamma pressed her!" said Nicholas reproachfully.
 "Yes," said Natasha. "Do you know, Nicholas—don't be angry—but
I know you will not marry her. I know, heaven knows how, but I know
for certain that you won't marry her."
"Now you don't know that at all!" said Nicholas. "But I must talk to
her. What a darling Sonya is!" he added with a smile.
"Ah, she is indeed a darling! I'll send her to you."
And Natasha kissed her brother and ran away.
A minute later Sonya came in with a frightened, guilty, and scared
look. Nicholas went up to her and kissed her hand. This was the first
time since his return that they had talked alone and about their love.
"Sophie," he began, timidly at first and then more and more boldly,
"if you wish to refuse one who is not only a brilliant and advantageous
match but a splendid, noble fellow... he is my friend..."
Sonya interrupted him.
"I have already refused," she said hurriedly.
"If you are refusing for my sake, I am afraid that I..."
Sonya again interrupted. She gave him an imploring, frightened look.
"Nicholas, don't tell me that!" she said.
"No, but I must. It may be arrogant of me, but still it is best to say it.
If you refuse him on my account, I must tell you the whole truth. I love
you, and I think I love you more than anyone else...."
"That is enough for me," said Sonya, blushing.
"No, but I have been in love a thousand times and shall fall in love
again, though for no one have I such a feeling of friendship,
confidence, and love as I have for you. Then I am young. Mamma does
not wish it. In a word, I make no promise. And I beg you to consider
Dolokhov's offer," he said, articulating his friend's name with
difficulty.
"Don't say that to me! I want nothing. I love you as a brother and
always shall, and I want nothing more."
"You are an angel: I am not worthy of you, but I am afraid of
misleading you."
And Nicholas again kissed her hand.
 CHAPTER XII
Iogel's were the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. So said the
mothers as they watched their young people executing their newly
learned steps, and so said the youths and maidens themselves as they
danced till they were ready to drop, and so said the grown-up young
men and women who came to these balls with an air of condescension
and found them most enjoyable. That year two marriages had come of
these balls. The two pretty young Princesses Gorchakov met suitors
there and were married and so further increased the fame of these
dances. What distinguished them from others was the absence of host
or hostess and the presence of the good-natured Iogel, flying about like
a feather and bowing according to the rules of his art, as he collected
the tickets from all his visitors. There was the fact that only those came
who wished to dance and amuse themselves as girls of thirteen and
fourteen do who are wearing long dresses for the first time. With
scarcely any exceptions they all were, or seemed to be, pretty—so
rapturous were their smiles and so sparkling their eyes. Sometimes the
best of the pupils, of whom Natasha, who was exceptionally graceful,
was first, even danced the pas de chale, but at this last ball only the
ecossaise, the anglaise, and the mazurka, which was just coming into
fashion, were danced. Iogel had taken a ballroom in Bezukhov's house,
and the ball, as everyone said, was a great success. There were many
pretty girls and the Rostov girls were among the prettiest. They were
both particularly happy and gay. That evening, proud of Dolokhov's
proposal, her refusal, and her explanation with Nicholas, Sonya twirled
about before she left home so that the maid could hardly get her hair
plaited, and she was transparently radiant with impulsive joy.
Natasha no less proud of her first long dress and of being at a real
ball was even happier. They were both dressed in white muslin with
pink ribbons.
Natasha fell in love the very moment she entered the ballroom. She
was not in love with anyone in particular, but with everyone. Whatever
person she happened to look at she was in love with for that moment.
"Oh, how delightful it is!" she kept saying, running up to Sonya.
Nicholas and Denisov were walking up and down, looking with
kindly patronage at the dancers.
"How sweet she is—she will be a weal beauty!" said Denisov.
 "Who?"
"Countess Natasha," answered Denisov.
"And how she dances! What gwace!" he said again after a pause.
"Who are you talking about?"
"About your sister," ejaculated Denisov testily.
Rostov smiled.
"My dear count, you were one of my best pupils—you must dance,"
said little Iogel coming up to Nicholas. "Look how many charming
young ladies-" He turned with the same request to Denisov who was
also a former pupil of his.
"No, my dear fellow, I'll be a wallflower," said Denisov. "Don't you
wecollect what bad use I made of your lessons?"

"Oh no!" said Iogel, hastening to reassure him. "You

were only
inattentive, but you had talent—oh yes, you had
talent!"

The band struck up the newly introduced mazurka.

Nicholas could not
refuse Iogel and asked Sonya to dance. Denisov sat
down by the old
ladies and, leaning on his saber and beating time
with his foot, told
them something funny and kept them amused, while he
watched the young
people dancing, Iogel with Natasha, his pride and
his best pupil, were
the first couple. Noiselessly, skillfully stepping
with his little feet
in low shoes, Iogel flew first across the hall with
Natasha, who, though
shy, went on carefully executing her steps. Denisov
did not take
his eyes off her and beat time with his saber in a
way that clearly
indicated that if he was not dancing it was because
he would not and not
because he could not. In the middle of a figure he
beckoned to Rostov
who was passing:

"This is not at all the thing," he said. "What sort of Polish mazuwka
is this? But she does dance splendidly."
 Knowing that Denisov had a reputation even in Poland for the
masterly way in which he danced the mazurka, Nicholas ran up to
Natasha:
"Go and choose Denisov. He is a real dancer, a wonder!" he said.
When it came to Natasha's turn to choose a partner, she rose and,
tripping rapidly across in her little shoes trimmed with bows, ran
timidly to the corner where Denisov sat. She saw that everybody was
looking at her and waiting. Nicholas saw that Denisov was refusing
though he smiled delightedly. He ran up to them.
"Please, Vasili Dmitrich," Natasha was saying, "do come!"
"Oh no, let me off, Countess," Denisov replied.
"Now then, Vaska," said Nicholas.
"They coax me as if I were Vaska the cat!" said Denisov jokingly.
"I'll sing for you a whole evening," said Natasha.
"Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with me!" said Denisov, and he
unhooked his saber. He came out from behind the chairs, clasped his
partner's hand firmly, threw back his head, and advanced his foot,
waiting for the beat. Only on horse back and in the mazurka was
Denisov's short stature not noticeable and he looked the fine fellow he
felt himself to be. At the right beat of the music he looked sideways at
his partner with a merry and triumphant air, suddenly stamped with one
foot, bounded from the floor like a ball, and flew round the room taking
his partner with him. He glided silently on one foot half across the
room, and seeming not to notice the chairs was dashing straight at
them, when suddenly, clinking his spurs and spreading out his legs, he
stopped short on his heels, stood so a second, stamped on the spot
clanking his spurs, whirled rapidly round, and, striking his left heel
against his right, flew round again in a circle. Natasha guessed what he
meant to do, and abandoning herself to him followed his lead hardly
knowing how. First he spun her round, holding her now with his left,
now with his right hand, then falling on one knee he twirled her round
him, and again jumping up, dashed so impetuously forward that it
seemed as if he would rush through the whole suite of rooms without
drawing breath, and then he suddenly stopped and performed some new
and unexpected steps. When at last, smartly whirling his partner round
in front of her chair, he drew up with a click of his spurs and bowed to
her, Natasha did not even make him a curtsy. She fixed her eyes on him
in amazement, smiling as if she did not recognize him.
"What does this mean?" she brought out.
 Although Iogel did not acknowledge this to be the real mazurka,
everyone was delighted with Denisov's skill, he was asked again and
again as a partner, and the old men began smilingly to talk about
Poland and the good old days. Denisov, flushed after the mazurka and
mopping himself with his handkerchief, sat down by Natasha and did
not leave her for the rest of the evening.

CHAPTER XIII
For two days after that Rostov did not see Dolokhov at his own or at
Dolokhov's home: on the third day he received a note from him:
As I do not intend to be at your house again for reasons you know of,
and am going to rejoin my regiment, I am giving a farewell supper
tonight to my friends—come to the English Hotel.
About ten o'clock Rostov went to the English Hotel straight from the
theater, where he had been with his family and Denisov. He was at
once shown to the best room, which Dolokhov had taken for that
evening. Some twenty men were gathered round a table at which
Dolokhov sat between two candles. On the table was a pile of gold and
paper money, and he was keeping the bank. Rostov had not seen him
since his proposal and Sonya's refusal and felt uncomfortable at the
thought of how they would meet.
Dolokhov's clear, cold glance met Rostov as soon as he entered the
door, as though he had long expected him.
"It's a long time since we met," he said. "Thanks for coming. I'll just
finish dealing, and then Ilyushka will come with his chorus."
"I called once or twice at your house," said Rostov, reddening.
Dolokhov made no reply.
"You may punt," he said.
Rostov recalled at that moment a strange conversation he had once
had with Dolokhov. "None but fools trust to luck in play," Dolokhov
had then said.
"Or are you afraid to play with me?" Dolokhov now asked as if
guessing Rostov's thought.
 Beneath his smile Rostov saw in him the mood he had shown at the
Club dinner and at other times, when as if tired of everyday life he had
felt a need to escape from it by some strange, and usually cruel, action.
Rostov felt ill at ease. He tried, but failed, to find some joke with
which to reply to Dolokhov's words. But before he had thought of
anything, Dolokhov, looking straight in his face, said slowly and
deliberately so that everyone could hear:
"Do you remember we had a talk about cards... 'He's a fool who
trusts to luck, one should make certain,' and I want to try."
"To try his luck or the certainty?" Rostov asked himself.
"Well, you'd better not play," Dolokhov added, and springing a new
pack of cards said: "Bank, gentlemen!"
Moving the money forward he prepared to deal. Rostov sat down by
his side and at first did not play. Dolokhov kept glancing at him.
"Why don't you play?" he asked.
And strange to say Nicholas felt that he could not help taking up a
card, putting a small stake on it, and beginning to play.
"I have no money with me," he said.
"I'll trust you."
Rostov staked five rubles on a card and lost, staked again, and again
lost. Dolokhov "killed," that is, beat, ten cards of Rostov's running.
"Gentlemen," said Dolokhov after he had dealt for some time.
"Please place your money on the cards or I may get muddled in the
reckoning."
One of the players said he hoped he might be trusted.
"Yes, you might, but I am afraid of getting the accounts mixed. So I
ask you to put the money on your cards," replied Dolokhov. "Don't stint
yourself, we'll settle afterwards," he added, turning to Rostov.
The game continued; a waiter kept handing round champagne.
All Rostov's cards were beaten and he had eight hundred rubles
scored up against him. He wrote "800 rubles" on a card, but while the
waiter filled his glass he changed his mind and altered it to his usual
stake of twenty rubles.
"Leave it," said Dolokhov, though he did not seem to be even
looking at Rostov, "you'll win it back all the sooner. I lose to the others
but win from you. Or are you afraid of me?" he asked again.
 Rostov submitted. He let the eight hundred remain and laid down a
seven of hearts with a torn corner, which he had picked up from the
floor. He well remembered that seven afterwards. He laid down the
seven of hearts, on which with a broken bit of chalk he had written
"800 rubles" in clear upright figures; he emptied the glass of warm
champagne that was handed him, smiled at Dolokhov's words, and with
a sinking heart, waiting for a seven to turn up, gazed at Dolokhov's
hands which held the pack. Much depended on Rostov's winning or
losing on that seven of hearts. On the previous Sunday the old count
had given his son two thousand rubles, and though he always disliked
speaking of money difficulties had told Nicholas that this was all he
could let him have till May, and asked him to be more economical this
time. Nicholas had replied that it would be more than enough for him
and that he gave his word of honor not to take anything more till the
spring. Now only twelve hundred rubles was left of that money, so that
this seven of hearts meant for him not only the loss of sixteen hundred
rubles, but the necessity of going back on his word. With a sinking
heart he watched Dolokhov's hands and thought, "Now then, make
haste and let me have this card and I'll take my cap and drive home to
supper with Denisov, Natasha, and Sonya, and will certainly never
touch a card again." At that moment his home life, jokes with Petya,
talks with Sonya, duets with Natasha, piquet with his father, and even
his comfortable bed in the house on the Povarskaya rose before him
with such vividness, clearness, and charm that it seemed as if it were all
a lost and unappreciated bliss, long past. He could not conceive that a
stupid chance, letting the seven be dealt to the right rather than to the
left, might deprive him of all this happiness, newly appreciated and
newly illumined, and plunge him into the depths of unknown and
undefined misery. That could not be, yet he awaited with a sinking
heart the movement of Dolokhov's hands. Those broad, reddish hands,
with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt cuffs, laid down the pack
and took up a glass and a pipe that were handed him.
"So you are not afraid to play with me?" repeated Dolokhov, and as
if about to tell a good story he put down the cards, leaned back in his
chair, and began deliberately with a smile:
"Yes, gentlemen, I've been told there's a rumor going about Moscow
that I'm a sharper, so I advise you to be careful."
"Come now, deal!" exclaimed Rostov.
"Oh, those Moscow gossips!" said Dolokhov, and he took up the
cards with a smile.
"Aah!" Rostov almost screamed lifting both hands to his head. The
seven he needed was lying uppermost, the first card in the pack. He had
lost more than he could pay.
 "Still, don't ruin yourself!" said Dolokhov with a side glance at
Rostov as he continued to deal.

CHAPTER XIV
An hour and a half later most of the players were but little interested
in their own play.
The whole interest was concentrated on Rostov. Instead of sixteen
hundred rubles he had a long column of figures scored against him,
which he had reckoned up to ten thousand, but that now, as he vaguely
supposed, must have risen to fifteen thousand. In reality it already
exceeded twenty thousand rubles. Dolokhov was no longer listening to
stories or telling them, but followed every movement of Rostov's hands
and occasionally ran his eyes over the score against him. He had
decided to play until that score reached forty-three thousand. He had
fixed on that number because forty-three was the sum of his and
Sonya's joint ages. Rostov, leaning his head on both hands, sat at the
table which was scrawled over with figures, wet with spilled wine, and
littered with cards. One tormenting impression did not leave him: that
those broad-boned reddish hands with hairy wrists visible from under
the shirt sleeves, those hands which he loved and hated, held him in
their power.
"Six hundred rubles, ace, a corner, a nine... winning it back's
impossible... Oh, how pleasant it was at home!... The knave, double or
quits... it can't be!... And why is he doing this to me?" Rostov
pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dolokhov refused to
accept it and fixed the stake himself. Nicholas submitted to him, and at
one moment prayed to God as he had done on the battlefield at the
bridge over the Enns, and then guessed that the card that came first to
hand from the crumpled heap under the table would save him, now
counted the cords on his coat and took a card with that number and
tried staking the total of his losses on it, then he looked round for aid
from the other players, or peered at the now cold face of Dolokhov and
tried to read what was passing in his mind.
"He knows of course what this loss means to me. He can't want my
ruin. Wasn't he my friend? Wasn't I fond of him? But it's not his fault.
What's he to do if he has such luck?... And it's not my fault either," he
thought to himself, "I have done nothing wrong. Have I killed anyone,
or insulted or wished harm to anyone? Why such a terrible misfortune?
And when did it begin? Such a little while ago I came to this table with
the thought of winning a hundred rubles to buy that casket for
Mamma's name day and then going home. I was so happy, so free, so
lighthearted! And I did not realize how happy I was! When did that end
and when did this new, terrible state of things begin? What marked the
change? I sat all the time in this same place at this table, chose and
placed cards, and watched those broad-boned agile hands in the same
way. When did it happen and what has happened? I am well and strong
and still the same and in the same place. No, it can't be! Surely it will
all end in nothing!"
He was flushed and bathed in perspiration, though the room was not
hot. His face was terrible and piteous to see, especially from its helpless
efforts to seem calm.
The score against him reached the fateful sum of forty-three
thousand. Rostov had just prepared a card, by bending the corner of
which he meant to double the three thousand just put down to his score,
when Dolokhov, slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside and
began rapidly adding up the total of Rostov's debt, breaking the chalk
as he marked the figures in his clear, bold hand.
"Supper, it's time for supper! And here are the gypsies!"
Some swarthy men and women were really entering from the cold
outside and saying something in their gypsy accents. Nicholas
understood that it was all over; but he said in an indifferent tone:
"Well, won't you go on? I had a splendid card all ready," as if it were
the fun of the game which interested him most.
"It's all up! I'm lost!" thought he. "Now a bullet through my brain—
that's all that's left me!" And at the same time he said in a cheerful
voice:
"Come now, just this one more little card!"
"All right!" said Dolokhov, having finished the addition. "All right!
Twenty-one rubles," he said, pointing to the figure twenty-one by
which the total exceeded the round sum of forty-three thousand; and
taking up a pack he prepared to deal. Rostov submissively unbent the
corner of his card and, instead of the six thousand he had intended,
carefully wrote twenty-one.
"It's all the same to me," he said. "I only want to see whether you
will let me win this ten, or beat it."
Dolokhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how Rostov detested at that
moment those hands with their short reddish fingers and hairy wrists,
which held him in their power.... The ten fell to him.
 "You owe forty-three thousand, Count," said Dolokhov, and
stretching himself he rose from the table. "One does get tired sitting so
long," he added.
"Yes, I'm tired too," said Rostov.
Dolokhov cut him short, as if to remind him that it was not for him to
jest.
"When am I to receive the money, Count?"
Rostov, flushing, drew Dolokhov into the next room.
"I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you take an I.O.U.?" he said.
"I say, Rostov," said Dolokhov clearly, smiling and looking Nicholas
straight in the eyes, "you know the saying, 'Lucky in love, unlucky at
cards.' Your cousin is in love with you, I know."
"Oh, it's terrible to feel oneself so in this man's power," thought
Rostov. He knew what a shock he would inflict on his father and
mother by the news of this loss, he knew what a relief it would be to
escape it all, and felt that Dolokhov knew that he could save him from
all this shame and sorrow, but wanted now to play with him as a cat
does with a mouse.
"Your cousin..." Dolokhov started to say, but Nicholas interrupted
him.
"My cousin has nothing to do with this and it's not necessary to
mention her!" he exclaimed fiercely.
"Then when am I to have it?"
"Tomorrow," replied Rostov and left the room.

CHAPTER XV
To say "tomorrow" and keep up a dignified tone was not difficult,
but to go home alone, see his sisters, brother, mother, and father,
confess and ask for money he had no right to after giving his word of
honor, was terrible.
At home, they had not yet gone to bed. The young people, after
returning from the theater, had had supper and were grouped round the
clavichord. As soon as Nicholas entered, he was enfolded in that poetic
atmosphere of love which pervaded the Rostov household that winter
and, now after Dolokhov's proposal and Iogel's ball, seemed to have
grown thicker round Sonya and Natasha as the air does before a
thunderstorm. Sonya and Natasha, in the light-blue dresses they had
worn at the theater, looking pretty and conscious of it, were standing by
the clavichord, happy and smiling. Vera was playing chess with
Shinshin in the drawing room. The old countess, waiting for the return
of her husband and son, sat playing patience with the old gentlewoman
who lived in their house. Denisov, with sparkling eyes and ruffled hair,
sat at the clavichord striking chords with his short fingers, his legs
thrown back and his eyes rolling as he sang, with his small, husky, but
true voice, some verses called "Enchantress," which he had composed,
and to which he was trying to fit music:

Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre

What magic power is this recalls me still?
What spark has set my inmost soul on fire,
What is this bliss that makes my fingers thrill?

He was singing in passionate tones, gazing with his sparkling black-

agate eyes at the frightened and happy Natasha.
"Splendid! Excellent!" exclaimed Natasha. "Another verse," she said,
without noticing Nicholas.
"Everything's still the same with them," thought Nicholas, glancing
into the drawing room, where he saw Vera and his mother with the old
lady.
"Ah, and here's Nicholas!" cried Natasha, running up to him.
"Is Papa at home?" he asked.
"I am so glad you've come!" said Natasha, without answering him.
"We are enjoying ourselves! Vasili Dmitrich is staying a day longer for
my sake! Did you know?"
"No, Papa is not back yet," said Sonya.
"Nicholas, have you come? Come here, dear!" called the old
countess from the drawing room.
Nicholas went to her, kissed her hand, and sitting down silently at
her table began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From the
dancing room, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying to
persuade Natasha to sing.
"All wight! All wight!" shouted Denisov. "It's no good making
excuses now! It's your turn to sing the ba'cawolla—I entweat you!"
 The countess glanced at her silent son.
"What is the matter?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing," said he, as if weary of being continually asked the
same question. "Will Papa be back soon?"
"I expect so."
"Everything's the same with them. They know nothing about it!
Where am I to go?" thought Nicholas, and went again into the dancing
room where the clavichord stood.
Sonya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to Denisov's
favorite barcarolle. Natasha was preparing to sing. Denisov was
looking at her with enraptured eyes.
Nicholas began pacing up and down the room.
"Why do they want to make her sing? How can she sing? There's
nothing to be happy about!" thought he.
Sonya struck the first chord of the prelude.
"My God, I'm a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through my
brain is the only thing left me—not singing!" his thoughts ran on. "Go
away? But where to? It's one—let them sing!"
He continued to pace the room, looking gloomily at Denisov and the
girls and avoiding their eyes.
"Nikolenka, what is the matter?" Sonya's eyes fixed on him seemed
to ask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him.
Nicholas turned away from her. Natasha too, with her quick instinct,
had instantly noticed her brother's condition. But, though she noticed it,
she was herself in such high spirits at that moment, so far from sorrow,
sadness, or self-reproach, that she purposely deceived herself as young
people often do. "No, I am too happy now to spoil my enjoyment by
sympathy with anyone's sorrow," she felt, and she said to herself: "No,
I must be mistaken, he must be feeling happy, just as I am."
"Now, Sonya!" she said, going to the very middle of the room, where
she considered the resonance was best.
Having lifted her head and let her arms droop lifelessly, as ballet
dancers do, Natasha, rising energetically from her heels to her toes,
stepped to the middle of the room and stood still.
"Yes, that's me!" she seemed to say, answering the rapt gaze with
which Denisov followed her.
 "And what is she so pleased about?" thought Nicholas, looking at his
sister. "Why isn't she dull and ashamed?"
Natasha took the first note, her throat swelled, her chest rose, her
eyes became serious. At that moment she was oblivious of her
surroundings, and from her smiling lips flowed sounds which anyone
may produce at the same intervals and hold for the same time, but
which leave you cold a thousand times and the thousand and first time
thrill you and make you weep.
Natasha, that winter, had for the first time begun to sing seriously,
mainly because Denisov so delighted in her singing. She no longer sang
as a child, there was no longer in her singing that comical, childish,
painstaking effect that had been in it before; but she did not yet sing
well, as all the connoisseurs who heard her said: "It is not trained, but it
is a beautiful voice that must be trained." Only they generally said this
some time after she had finished singing. While that untrained voice,
with its incorrect breathing and labored transitions, was sounding, even
the connoisseurs said nothing, but only delighted in it and wished to
hear it again. In her voice there was a virginal freshness, an
unconsciousness of her own powers, and an as yet untrained velvety
softness, which so mingled with her lack of art in singing that it seemed
as if nothing in that voice could be altered without spoiling it.
"What is this?" thought Nicholas, listening to her with widely opened
eyes. "What has happened to her? How she is singing today!" And
suddenly the whole world centered for him on anticipation of the next
note, the next phrase, and everything in the world was divided into
three beats: "Oh mio crudele affetto."... One, two, three... one, two,
three... One... "Oh mio crudele affetto."... One, two, three... One. "Oh,
this senseless life of ours!" thought Nicholas. "All this misery, and
money, and Dolokhov, and anger, and honor—it's all nonsense... but
this is real.... Now then, Natasha, now then, dearest! Now then, darling!
How will she take that si? She's taken it! Thank God!" And without
noticing that he was singing, to strengthen the si he sung a second, a
third below the high note. "Ah, God! How fine! Did I really take it?
How fortunate!" he thought.
Oh, how that chord vibrated, and how moved was something that
was finest in Rostov's soul! And this something was apart from
everything else in the world and above everything in the world. "What
were losses, and Dolokhov, and words of honor?... All nonsense! One
might kill and rob and yet be happy..."
 CHAPTER XVI
It was long since Rostov had felt such enjoyment from music as he
did that day. But no sooner had Natasha finished her barcarolle than
reality again presented itself. He got up without saying a word and went
downstairs to his own room. A quarter of an hour later the old count
came in from his Club, cheerful and contented. Nicholas, hearing him
drive up, went to meet him.
"Well—had a good time?" said the old count, smiling gaily and
proudly at his son.
Nicholas tried to say "Yes," but could not: and he nearly burst into
sobs. The count was lighting his pipe and did not notice his son's
condition.
"Ah, it can't be avoided!" thought Nicholas, for the first and last
time. And suddenly, in the most casual tone, which made him feel
ashamed of himself, he said, as if merely asking his father to let him
have the carriage to drive to town:
"Papa, I have come on a matter of business. I was nearly forgetting. I
need some money."
"Dear me!" said his father, who was in a specially good humor. "I
told you it would not be enough. How much?"
"Very much," said Nicholas flushing, and with a stupid careless
smile, for which he was long unable to forgive himself, "I have lost a
little, I mean a good deal, a great deal—forty three thousand."
"What! To whom?... Nonsense!" cried the count, suddenly reddening
with an apoplectic flush over neck and nape as old people do.
"I promised to pay tomorrow," said Nicholas.
"Well!..." said the old count, spreading out his arms and sinking
helplessly on the sofa.
"It can't be helped It happens to everyone!" said the son, with a bold,
free, and easy tone, while in his soul he regarded himself as a worthless
scoundrel whose whole life could not atone for his crime. He longed to
kiss his father's hands and kneel to beg his forgiveness, but said, in a
careless and even rude voice, that it happens to everyone!
The old count cast down his eyes on hearing his son's words and
began bustlingly searching for something.
"Yes, yes," he muttered, "it will be difficult, I fear, difficult to raise...
happens to everybody! Yes, who has not done it?"
 And with a furtive glance at his son's face, the count went out of the
room.... Nicholas had been prepared for resistance, but had not at all
expected this.
"Papa! Pa-pa!" he called after him, sobbing, "forgive me!" And
seizing his father's hand, he pressed it to his lips and burst into tears.
While father and son were having their explanation, the mother and
daughter were having one not less important. Natasha came running to
her mother, quite excited.
"Mamma!... Mamma!... He has made me..."
"Made what?"
"Made, made me an offer, Mamma! Mamma!" she exclaimed.
The countess did not believe her ears. Denisov had proposed. To
whom? To this chit of a girl, Natasha, who not so long ago was playing
with dolls and who was still having lessons.
"Don't, Natasha! What nonsense!" she said, hoping it was a joke.
"Nonsense, indeed! I am telling you the fact," said Natasha
indignantly. "I come to ask you what to do, and you call it 'nonsense!'"
The countess shrugged her shoulders.
"If it is true that Monsieur Denisov has made you a proposal, tell him
he is a fool, that's all!"
"No, he's not a fool!" replied Natasha indignantly and seriously.
"Well then, what do you want? You're all in love nowadays. Well, if
you are in love, marry him!" said the countess, with a laugh of
annoyance. "Good luck to you!"
"No, Mamma, I'm not in love with him, I suppose I'm not in love
with him."
"Well then, tell him so."
"Mamma, are you cross? Don't be cross, dear! Is it my fault?"
"No, but what is it, my dear? Do you want me to go and tell him?"
said the countess smiling.
"No, I will do it myself, only tell me what to say. It's all very well for
you," said Natasha, with a responsive smile. "You should have seen
how he said it! I know he did not mean to say it, but it came out
accidently."
"Well, all the same, you must refuse him."
 "No, I mustn't. I am so sorry for him! He's so nice."
"Well then, accept his offer. It's high time for you to be married,"
answered the countess sharply and sarcastically.
"No, Mamma, but I'm so sorry for him. I don't know how I'm to say
it."
"And there's nothing for you to say. I shall speak to him myself,"
said the countess, indignant that they should have dared to treat this
little Natasha as grown up.
"No, not on any account! I will tell him myself, and you'll listen at
the door," and Natasha ran across the drawing room to the dancing hall,
where Denisov was sitting on the same chair by the clavichord with his
face in his hands.
He jumped up at the sound of her light step.
"Nataly," he said, moving with rapid steps toward her, "decide my
fate. It is in your hands."
"Vasili Dmitrich, I'm so sorry for you!... No, but you are so nice...
but it won't do...not that... but as a friend, I shall always love you."
Denisov bent over her hand and she heard strange sounds she did not
understand. She kissed his rough curly black head. At this instant, they
heard the quick rustle of the countess' dress. She came up to them.
"Vasili Dmitrich, I thank you for the honor," she said, with an
embarrassed voice, though it sounded severe to Denisov—"but my
daughter is so young, and I thought that, as my son's friend, you would
have addressed yourself first to me. In that case you would not have
obliged me to give this refusal."
"Countess..." said Denisov, with downcast eyes and a guilty face. He
tried to say more, but faltered.
Natasha could not remain calm, seeing him in such a plight. She
began to sob aloud.
"Countess, I have done w'ong," Denisov went on in an unsteady
voice, "but believe me, I so adore your daughter and all your family
that I would give my life twice over..." He looked at the countess, and
seeing her severe face said: "Well, good-by, Countess," and kissing her
hand, he left the room with quick resolute strides, without looking at
Natasha.
Next day Rostov saw Denisov off. He did not wish to stay another
day in Moscow. All Denisov's Moscow friends gave him a farewell
entertainment at the gypsies', with the result that he had no recollection
of how he was put in the sleigh or of the first three stages of his
journey.
After Denisov's departure, Rostov spent another fortnight in
Moscow, without going out of the house, waiting for the money his
father could not at once raise, and he spent most of his time in the girls'
room.
Sonya was more tender and devoted to him than ever. It was as if she
wanted to show him that his losses were an achievement that made her
love him all the more, but Nicholas now considered himself unworthy
of her.
He filled the girls' albums with verses and music, and having at last
sent Dolokhov the whole forty-three thousand rubles and received his
receipt, he left at the end of November, without taking leave of any of
his acquaintances, to overtake his regiment which was already in
Poland.

BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07

CHAPTER I
After his interview with his wife Pierre left for Petersburg. At the
Torzhok post station, either there were no horses or the postmaster
would not supply them. Pierre was obliged to wait. Without undressing,
he lay down on the leather sofa in front of a round table, put his big feet
in their overboots on the table, and began to reflect.
"Will you have the portmanteaus brought in? And a bed got ready,
and tea?" asked his valet.
Pierre gave no answer, for he neither heard nor saw anything. He had
begun to think of the last station and was still pondering on the same
question—one so important that he took no notice of what went on
around him. Not only was he indifferent as to whether he got to
Petersburg earlier or later, or whether he secured accommodation at this
station, but compared to the thoughts that now occupied him it was a
matter of indifference whether he remained there for a few hours or for
the rest of his life.
The postmaster, his wife, the valet, and a peasant woman selling
Torzhok embroidery came into the room offering their services.
Without changing his careless attitude, Pierre looked at them over his
spectacles unable to understand what they wanted or how they could go
on living without having solved the problems that so absorbed him. He
had been engrossed by the same thoughts ever since the day he returned
from Sokolniki after the duel and had spent that first agonizing,
sleepless night. But now, in the solitude of the journey, they seized him
with special force. No matter what he thought about, he always
returned to these same questions which he could not solve and yet
could not cease to ask himself. It was as if the thread of the chief screw
which held his life together were stripped, so that the screw could not
get in or out, but went on turning uselessly in the same place.
The postmaster came in and began obsequiously to beg his
excellency to wait only two hours, when, come what might, he would
let his excellency have the courier horses. It was plain that he was lying
and only wanted to get more money from the traveler.
"Is this good or bad?" Pierre asked himself. "It is good for me, bad
for another traveler, and for himself it's unavoidable, because he needs
money for food; the man said an officer had once given him a thrashing
for letting a private traveler have the courier horses. But the officer
thrashed him because he had to get on as quickly as possible. And I,"
continued Pierre, "shot Dolokhov because I considered myself injured,
and Louis XVI was executed because they considered him a criminal,
and a year later they executed those who executed him—also for some
reason. What is bad? What is good? What should one love and what
hate? What does one live for? And what am I? What is life, and what is
death? What power governs all?"
There was no answer to any of these questions, except one, and that
not a logical answer and not at all a reply to them. The answer was:
"You'll die and all will end. You'll die and know all, or cease asking."
But dying was also dreadful.
The Torzhok peddler woman, in a whining voice, went on offering
her wares, especially a pair of goatskin slippers. "I have hundreds of
rubles I don't know what to do with, and she stands in her tattered cloak
looking timidly at me," he thought. "And what does she want the
money for? As if that money could add a hair's breadth to happiness or
peace of mind. Can anything in the world make her or me less a prey to
evil and death?—death which ends all and must come today or
tomorrow—at any rate, in an instant as compared with eternity." And
again he twisted the screw with the stripped thread, and again it turned
uselessly in the same place.
His servant handed him a half-cut novel, in the form of letters, by
Madame de Souza. He began reading about the sufferings and virtuous
struggles of a certain Emilie de Mansfeld. "And why did she resist her
seducer when she loved him?" he thought. "God could not have put into
her heart an impulse that was against His will. My wife—as she once
was—did not struggle, and perhaps she was right. Nothing has been
found out, nothing discovered," Pierre again said to himself. "All we
can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human
wisdom."
Everything within and around him seemed confused, senseless, and
repellent. Yet in this very repugnance to all his circumstances Pierre
found a kind of tantalizing satisfaction.
"I make bold to ask your excellency to move a little for this
gentleman," said the postmaster, entering the room followed by another
traveler, also detained for lack of horses.
The newcomer was a short, large-boned, yellow-faced, wrinkled old
man, with gray bushy eyebrows overhanging bright eyes of an
indefinite grayish color.
Pierre took his feet off the table, stood up, and lay down on a bed
that had been got ready for him, glancing now and then at the
newcomer, who, with a gloomy and tired face, was wearily taking off
his wraps with the aid of his servant, and not looking at Pierre. With a
pair of felt boots on his thin bony legs, and keeping on a worn,
nankeen-covered, sheepskin coat, the traveler sat down on the sofa,
leaned back his big head with its broad temples and close-cropped hair,
and looked at Bezukhov. The stern, shrewd, and penetrating expression
of that look struck Pierre. He felt a wish to speak to the stranger, but by
the time he had made up his mind to ask him a question about the
roads, the traveler had closed his eyes. His shriveled old hands were
folded and on the finger of one of them Pierre noticed a large cast iron
ring with a seal representing a death's head. The stranger sat without
stirring, either resting or, as it seemed to Pierre, sunk in profound and
calm meditation. His servant was also a yellow, wrinkled old man,
without beard or mustache, evidently not because he was shaven but
because they had never grown. This active old servant was unpacking
the traveler's canteen and preparing tea. He brought in a boiling
samovar. When everything was ready, the stranger opened his eyes,
moved to the table, filled a tumbler with tea for himself and one for the
beardless old man to whom he passed it. Pierre began to feel a sense of
uneasiness, and the need, even the inevitability, of entering into
conversation with this stranger.
 The servant brought back his tumbler turned upside down, * with an
unfinished bit of nibbled sugar, and asked if anything more would be
wanted.

* To indicate he did not want more tea.

"No. Give me the book," said the stranger.

The servant handed him a book which Pierre took to be a devotional
work, and the traveler became absorbed in it. Pierre looked at him. All
at once the stranger closed the book, putting in a marker, and again,
leaning with his arms on the back of the sofa, sat in his former position
with his eyes shut. Pierre looked at him and had not time to turn away
when the old man, opening his eyes, fixed his steady and severe gaze
straight on Pierre's face.
Pierre felt confused and wished to avoid that look, but the bright old
eyes attracted him irresistibly.

CHAPTER II
"I have the pleasure of addressing Count Bezukhov, if I am not
mistaken," said the stranger in a deliberate and loud voice.
Pierre looked silently and inquiringly at him over his spectacles.
"I have heard of you, my dear sir," continued the stranger, "and of
your misfortune." He seemed to emphasize the last word, as if to say—
"Yes, misfortune! Call it what you please, I know that what happened
to you in Moscow was a misfortune."—"I regret it very much, my dear
sir."
Pierre flushed and, hurriedly putting his legs down from the bed,
bent forward toward the old man with a forced and timid smile.
"I have not referred to this out of curiosity, my dear sir, but for
greater reasons."
He paused, his gaze still on Pierre, and moved aside on the sofa by
way of inviting the other to take a seat beside him. Pierre felt reluctant
to enter into conversation with this old man, but, submitting to him
involuntarily, came up and sat down beside him.
 "You are unhappy, my dear sir," the stranger continued. "You are
young and I am old. I should like to help you as far as lies in my
power."
"Oh, yes!" said Pierre, with a forced smile. "I am very grateful to
you. Where are you traveling from?"
The stranger's face was not genial, it was even cold and severe, but
in spite of this, both the face and words of his new acquaintance were
irresistibly attractive to Pierre.
"But if for reason you don't feel inclined to talk to me," said the old
man, "say so, my dear sir." And he suddenly smiled, in an unexpected
and tenderly paternal way.
"Oh no, not at all! On the contrary, I am very glad to make your
acquaintance," said Pierre. And again, glancing at the stranger's hands,
he looked more closely at the ring, with its skull—a Masonic sign.
"Allow me to ask," he said, "are you a Mason?"
"Yes, I belong to the Brotherhood of the Freemasons," said the
stranger, looking deeper and deeper into Pierre's eyes. "And in their
name and my own I hold out a brotherly hand to you."
"I am afraid," said Pierre, smiling, and wavering between the
confidence the personality of the Freemason inspired in him and his
own habit of ridiculing the Masonic beliefs—"I am afraid I am very far
from understanding—how am I to put it?—I am afraid my way of
looking at the world is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand
one another."
"I know your outlook," said the Mason, "and the view of life you
mention, and which you think is the result of your own mental efforts,
is the one held by the majority of people, and is the invariable fruit of
pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I had
not known it I should not have addressed you. Your view of life is a
regrettable delusion."
"Just as I may suppose you to be deluded," said Pierre, with a faint
smile.
"I should never dare to say that I know the truth," said the Mason,
whose words struck Pierre more and more by their precision and
firmness. "No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone
on stone with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from
our forefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to
be a worthy dwelling place of the Great God," he added, and closed his
eyes.
 "I ought to tell you that I do not believe... do not believe in God,"
said Pierre, regretfully and with an effort, feeling it essential to speak
the whole truth.
The Mason looked intently at Pierre and smiled as a rich man with
millions in hand might smile at a poor fellow who told him that he,
poor man, had not the five rubles that would make him happy.
"Yes, you do not know Him, my dear sir," said the Mason. "You
cannot know Him. You do not know Him and that is why you are
unhappy."
"Yes, yes, I am unhappy," assented Pierre. "But what am I to do?"
"You know Him not, my dear sir, and so you are very unhappy. You
do not know Him, but He is here, He is in me, He is in my words, He is
in thee, and even in those blasphemous words thou hast just uttered!"
pronounced the Mason in a stern and tremulous voice.
He paused and sighed, evidently trying to calm himself.
"If He were not," he said quietly, "you and I would not be speaking
of Him, my dear sir. Of what, of whom, are we speaking? Whom hast
thou denied?" he suddenly asked with exulting austerity and authority
in his voice. "Who invented Him, if He did not exist? Whence came thy
conception of the existence of such an incomprehensible Being? didst
thou, and why did the whole world, conceive the idea of the existence
of such an incomprehensible Being, a Being all-powerful, eternal, and
infinite in all His attributes?..."
He stopped and remained silent for a long time.
Pierre could not and did not wish to break this silence.
"He exists, but to understand Him is hard," the Mason began again,
looking not at Pierre but straight before him, and turning the leaves of
his book with his old hands which from excitement he could not keep
still. "If it were a man whose existence thou didst doubt I could bring
him to thee, could take him by the hand and show him to thee. But how
can I, an insignificant mortal, show His omnipotence, His infinity, and
all His mercy to one who is blind, or who shuts his eyes that he may
not see or understand Him and may not see or understand his own
vileness and sinfulness?" He paused again. "Who art thou? Thou
dreamest that thou art wise because thou couldst utter those
blasphemous words," he went on, with a somber and scornful smile.
"And thou art more foolish and unreasonable than a little child, who,
playing with the parts of a skillfully made watch, dares to say that, as
he does not understand its use, he does not believe in the master who
made it. To know Him is hard.... For ages, from our forefather Adam to
our own day, we labor to attain that knowledge and are still infinitely
far from our aim; but in our lack of understanding we see only our
weakness and His greatness...."
Pierre listened with swelling heart, gazing into the Mason's face with
shining eyes, not interrupting or questioning him, but believing with his
whole soul what the stranger said. Whether he accepted the wise
reasoning contained in the Mason's words, or believed as a child
believes, in the speaker's tone of conviction and earnestness, or the
tremor of the speaker's voice—which sometimes almost broke—or
those brilliant aged eyes grown old in this conviction, or the calm
firmness and certainty of his vocation, which radiated from his whole
being (and which struck Pierre especially by contrast with his own
dejection and hopelessness)—at any rate, Pierre longed with his whole
soul to believe and he did believe, and felt a joyful sense of comfort,
regeneration, and return to life.
"He is not to be apprehended by reason, but by life," said the Mason.
"I do not understand," said Pierre, feeling with dismay doubts
reawakening. He was afraid of any want of clearness, any weakness, in
the Mason's arguments; he dreaded not to be able to believe in him. "I
don't understand," he said, "how it is that the mind of man cannot attain
the knowledge of which you speak."
The Mason smiled with his gentle fatherly smile.
"The highest wisdom and truth are like the purest liquid we may
wish to imbibe," he said. "Can I receive that pure liquid into an impure
vessel and judge of its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself
can I retain in some degree of purity the liquid I receive."
"Yes, yes, that is so," said Pierre joyfully.
"The highest wisdom is not founded on reason alone, not on those
worldly sciences of physics, history, chemistry, and the like, into which
intellectual knowledge is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The
highest wisdom has but one science—the science of the whole—the
science explaining the whole creation and man's place in it. To receive
that science it is necessary to purify and renew one's inner self, and so
before one can know, it is necessary to believe and to perfect one's self.
And to attain this end, we have the light called conscience that God has
implanted in our souls."
"Yes, yes," assented Pierre.
"Look then at thy inner self with the eyes of the spirit, and ask
thyself whether thou art content with thyself. What hast thou attained
relying on reason only? What art thou? You are young, you are rich,
you are clever, you are well educated. And what have you done with all
these good gifts? Are you content with yourself and with your life?"
 "No, I hate my life," Pierre muttered, wincing.
"Thou hatest it. Then change it, purify thyself; and as thou art
purified, thou wilt gain wisdom. Look at your life, my dear sir. How
have you spent it? In riotous orgies and debauchery, receiving
everything from society and giving nothing in return. You have become
the possessor of wealth. How have you used it? What have you done
for your neighbor? Have you ever thought of your tens of thousands of
slaves? Have you helped them physically and morally? No! You have
profited by their toil to lead a profligate life. That is what you have
done. Have you chosen a post in which you might be of service to your
neighbor? No! You have spent your life in idleness. Then you married,
my dear sir—took on yourself responsibility for the guidance of a
young woman; and what have you done? You have not helped her to
find the way of truth, my dear sir, but have thrust her into an abyss of
deceit and misery. A man offended you and you shot him, and you say
you do not know God and hate your life. There is nothing strange in
that, my dear sir!"
After these words, the Mason, as if tired by his long discourse, again
leaned his arms on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. Pierre
looked at that aged, stern, motionless, almost lifeless face and moved
his lips without uttering a sound. He wished to say, "Yes, a vile, idle,
vicious life!" but dared not break the silence.
The Mason cleared his throat huskily, as old men do, and called his
servant.
"How about the horses?" he asked, without looking at Pierre.
"The exchange horses have just come," answered the servant. "Will
you not rest here?"
"No, tell them to harness."
"Can he really be going away leaving me alone without having told
me all, and without promising to help me?" thought Pierre, rising with
downcast head; and he began to pace the room, glancing occasionally
at the Mason. "Yes, I never thought of it, but I have led a contemptible
and profligate life, though I did not like it and did not want to," thought
Pierre. "But this man knows the truth and, if he wished to, could
disclose it to me."
Pierre wished to say this to the Mason, but did not dare to. The
traveler, having packed his things with his practiced hands, began
fastening his coat. When he had finished, he turned to Bezukhov, and
said in a tone of indifferent politeness:
"Where are you going to now, my dear sir?"
 "I?... I'm going to Petersburg," answered Pierre, in a childlike,
hesitating voice. "I thank you. I agree with all you have said. But do not
suppose me to be so bad. With my whole soul I wish to be what you
would have me be, but I have never had help from anyone.... But it is I,
above all, who am to blame for everything. Help me, teach me, and
perhaps I may..."
Pierre could not go on. He gulped and turned away.
The Mason remained silent for a long time, evidently considering.
"Help comes from God alone," he said, "but such measure of help as
our Order can bestow it will render you, my dear sir. You are going to
Petersburg. Hand this to Count Willarski" (he took out his notebook
and wrote a few words on a large sheet of paper folded in four). "Allow
me to give you a piece of advice. When you reach the capital, first of
all devote some time to solitude and self-examination and do not
resume your former way of life. And now I wish you a good journey,
my dear sir," he added, seeing that his servant had entered... "and
success."
The traveler was Joseph Alexeevich Bazdeev, as Pierre saw from the
postmaster's book. Bazdeev had been one of the best-known
Freemasons and Martinists, even in Novikov's time. For a long while
after he had gone, Pierre did not go to bed or order horses but paced up
and down the room, pondering over his vicious past, and with a
rapturous sense of beginning anew pictured to himself the blissful,
irreproachable, virtuous future that seemed to him so easy. It seemed to
him that he had been vicious only because he had somehow forgotten
how good it is to be virtuous. Not a trace of his former doubts remained
in his soul. He firmly believed in the possibility of the brotherhood of
men united in the aim of supporting one another in the path of virtue,
and that is how Freemasonry presented itself to him.

CHAPTER III
On reaching Petersburg Pierre did not let anyone know of his arrival,
he went nowhere and spent whole days in reading Thomas a Kempis,
whose book had been sent him by someone unknown. One thing he
continually realized as he read that book: the joy, hitherto unknown to
him, of believing in the possibility of attaining perfection, and in the
possibility of active brotherly love among men, which Joseph
Alexeevich had revealed to him. A week after his arrival, the young
Polish count, Willarski, whom Pierre had known slightly in Petersburg
society, came into his room one evening in the official and
ceremonious manner in which Dolokhov's second had called on him,
and, having closed the door behind him and satisfied himself that there
was nobody else in the room, addressed Pierre.
"I have come to you with a message and an offer, Count," he said
without sitting down. "A person of very high standing in our
Brotherhood has made application for you to be received into our Order
before the usual term and has proposed to me to be your sponsor. I
consider it a sacred duty to fulfill that person's wishes. Do you wish to
enter the Brotherhood of Freemasons under my sponsorship?"
The cold, austere tone of this man, whom he had almost always
before met at balls, amiably smiling in the society of the most brilliant
women, surprised Pierre.
"Yes, I do wish it," said he.
Willarski bowed his head.
"One more question, Count," he said, "which I beg you to answer in
all sincerity—not as a future Mason but as an honest man: have you
renounced your former convictions—do you believe in God?"
Pierre considered.
"Yes... yes, I believe in God," he said.
"In that case..." began Willarski, but Pierre interrupted him.
"Yes, I do believe in God," he repeated.
"In that case we can go," said Willarski. "My carriage is at your
service."
Willarski was silent throughout the drive. To Pierre's inquiries as to
what he must do and how he should answer, Willarski only replied that
brothers more worthy than he would test him and that Pierre had only
to tell the truth.
Having entered the courtyard of a large house where the Lodge had
its headquarters, and having ascended a dark staircase, they entered a
small well-lit anteroom where they took off their cloaks without the aid
of a servant. From there they passed into another room. A man in
strange attire appeared at the door. Willarski, stepping toward him, said
something to him in French in an undertone and then went up to a small
wardrobe in which Pierre noticed garments such as he had never seen
before. Having taken a kerchief from the cupboard, Willarski bound
Pierre's eyes with it and tied it in a knot behind, catching some hairs
painfully in the knot. Then he drew his face down, kissed him, and
taking him by the hand led him forward. The hairs tied in the knot hurt
Pierre and there were lines of pain on his face and a shamefaced smile.
His huge figure, with arms hanging down and with a puckered, though
smiling face, moved after Willarski with uncertain, timid steps.
Having led him about ten paces, Willarski stopped.
"Whatever happens to you," he said, "you must bear it all manfully if
you have firmly resolved to join our Brotherhood." (Pierre nodded
affirmatively.) "When you hear a knock at the door, you will uncover
your eyes," added Willarski. "I wish you courage and success," and,
pressing Pierre's hand, he went out.
Left alone, Pierre went on smiling in the same way. Once or twice he
shrugged his and raised his hand to the kerchief, as if wishing to take it
off, but let it drop again. The five minutes spent with his eyes bandaged
seemed to him an hour. His arms felt numb, his legs almost gave way,
it seemed to him that he was tired out. He experienced a variety of most
complex sensations. He felt afraid of what would happen to him and
still more afraid of showing his fear. He felt curious to know what was
going to happen and what would be revealed to him; but most of all, he
felt joyful that the moment had come when he would at last start on that
path of regeneration and on the actively virtuous life of which he had
been dreaming since he met Joseph Alexeevich. Loud knocks were
heard at the door. Pierre took the bandage off his eyes and glanced
around him. The room was in black darkness, only a small lamp was
burning inside something white. Pierre went nearer and saw that the
lamp stood on a black table on which lay an open book. The book was
the Gospel, and the white thing with the lamp inside was a human skull
with its cavities and teeth. After reading the first words of the Gospel:
"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God," Pierre
went round the table and saw a large open box filled with something. It
was a coffin with bones inside. He was not at all surprised by what he
saw. Hoping to enter on an entirely new life quite unlike the old one, he
expected everything to be unusual, even more unusual than what he
was seeing. A skull, a coffin, the Gospel—it seemed to him that he had
expected all this and even more. Trying to stimulate his emotions he
looked around. "God, death, love, the brotherhood of man," he kept
saying to himself, associating these words with vague yet joyful ideas.
The door opened and someone came in.
By the dim light, to which Pierre had already become accustomed, he
saw rather short man. Having evidently come from the light into the
darkness, the man paused, then moved with cautious steps toward the
table and placed on it his small leather-gloved hands.
This short man had on a white leather apron which covered his chest
and part of his legs; he had on a kind of necklace above which rose a
high white ruffle, outlining his rather long face which was lit up from
below.
"For what have you come hither?" asked the newcomer, turning in
Pierre's direction at a slight rustle made by the latter. "Why have you,
who do not believe in the truth of the light and who have not seen the
light, come here? What do you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue,
enlightenment?"
At the moment the door opened and the stranger came in, Pierre felt
a sense of awe and veneration such as he had experienced in his
boyhood at confession; he felt himself in the presence of one socially a
complete stranger, yet nearer to him through the brotherhood of man.
With bated breath and beating heart he moved toward the Rhetor (by
which name the brother who prepared a seeker for entrance into the
Brotherhood was known). Drawing nearer, he recognized in the Rhetor
a man he knew, Smolyaninov, and it mortified him to think that the
newcomer was an acquaintance—he wished him simply a brother and a
virtuous instructor. For a long time he could not utter a word, so that
the Rhetor had to repeat his question.
"Yes... I... I... desire regeneration," Pierre uttered with difficulty.
"Very well," said Smolyaninov, and went on at once: "Have you any
idea of the means by which our holy Order will help you to reach your
aim?" said he quietly and quickly.
"I... hope... for guidance... help... in regeneration," said Pierre, with a
trembling voice and some difficulty in utterance due to his excitement
and to being unaccustomed to speak of abstract matters in Russian.
"What is your conception of Freemasonry?"
"I imagine that Freemasonry is the fraternity and equality of men
who have virtuous aims," said Pierre, feeling ashamed of the
inadequacy of his words for the solemnity of the moment, as he spoke.
"I imagine..."
"Good!" said the Rhetor quickly, apparently satisfied with this
answer. "Have you sought for means of attaining your aim in religion?"
"No, I considered it erroneous and did not follow it," said Pierre, so
softly that the Rhetor did not hear him and asked him what he was
saying. "I have been an atheist," answered Pierre.
"You are seeking for truth in order to follow its laws in your life,
therefore you seek wisdom and virtue. Is that not so?" said the Rhetor,
after a moment's pause.
"Yes, yes," assented Pierre.
 The Rhetor cleared his throat, crossed his gloved hands on his breast,
and began to speak.
"Now I must disclose to you the chief aim of our Order," he said,
"and if this aim coincides with yours, you may enter our Brotherhood
with profit. The first and chief object of our Order, the foundation on
which it rests and which no human power can destroy, is the
preservation and handing on to posterity of a certain important
mystery... which has come down to us from the remotest ages, even
from the first man—a mystery on which perhaps the fate of mankind
depends. But since this mystery is of such a nature that nobody can
know or use it unless he be prepared by long and diligent self-
purification, not everyone can hope to attain it quickly. Hence we have
a secondary aim, that of preparing our members as much as possible to
reform their hearts, to purify and enlighten their minds, by means
handed on to us by tradition from those who have striven to attain this
mystery, and thereby to render them capable of receiving it.
"By purifying and regenerating our members we try, thirdly, to
improve the whole human race, offering it in our members an example
of piety and virtue, and thereby try with all our might to combat the evil
which sways the world. Think this over and I will come to you again."
"To combat the evil which sways the world..." Pierre repeated, and a
mental image of his future activity in this direction rose in his mind. He
imagined men such as he had himself been a fortnight ago, and he
addressed an edifying exhortation to them. He imagined to himself
vicious and unfortunate people whom he would assist by word and
deed, imagined oppressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the three
objects mentioned by the Rhetor, this last, that of improving mankind,
especially appealed to Pierre. The important mystery mentioned by the
Rhetor, though it aroused his curiosity, did not seem to him essential,
and the second aim, that of purifying and regenerating himself, did not
much interest him because at that moment he felt with delight that he
was already perfectly cured of his former faults and was ready for all
that was good.
Half an hour later, the Rhetor returned to inform the seeker of the
seven virtues, corresponding to the seven steps of Solomon's temple,
which every Freemason should cultivate in himself. These virtues were:
1. Discretion, the keeping of the secrets of the Order. 2. Obedience to
those of higher ranks in the Order. 3. Morality. 4. Love of mankind. 5.
Courage. 6. Generosity. 7. The love of death.
"In the seventh place, try, by the frequent thought of death," the
Rhetor said, "to bring yourself to regard it not as a dreaded foe, but as a
friend that frees the soul grown weary in the labors of virtue from this
distressful life, and leads it to its place of recompense and peace."
 "Yes, that must be so," thought Pierre, when after these words the
Rhetor went away, leaving him to solitary meditation. "It must be so,
but I am still so weak that I love my life, the meaning of which is only
now gradually opening before me." But five of the other virtues which
Pierre recalled, counting them on his fingers, he felt already in his soul:
courage, generosity, morality, love of mankind, and especially
obedience—which did not even seem to him a virtue, but a joy. (He
now felt so glad to be free from his own lawlessness and to submit his
will to those who knew the indubitable truth.) He forgot what the
seventh virtue was and could not recall it.
The third time the Rhetor came back more quickly and asked Pierre
whether he was still firm in his intention and determined to submit to
all that would be required of him.
"I am ready for everything," said Pierre.
"I must also inform you," said the Rhetor, "that our Order delivers its
teaching not in words only but also by other means, which may perhaps
have a stronger effect on the sincere seeker after wisdom and virtue
than mere words. This chamber with what you see therein should
already have suggested to your heart, if it is sincere, more than words
could do. You will perhaps also see in your further initiation a like
method of enlightenment. Our Order imitates the ancient societies that
explained their teaching by hieroglyphics. A hieroglyph," said the
Rhetor, "is an emblem of something not cognizable by the senses but
which possesses qualities resembling those of the symbol."
Pierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but dared not speak.
He listened to the Rhetor in silence, feeling from all he said that his
ordeal was about to begin.
"If you are resolved, I must begin your initiation," said the Rhetor
coming closer to Pierre. "In token of generosity I ask you to give me all
your valuables."
"But I have nothing here," replied Pierre, supposing that he was
asked to give up all he possessed.
"What you have with you: watch, money, rings...."
Pierre quickly took out his purse and watch, but could not manage
for some time to get the wedding ring off his fat finger. When that had
been done, the Rhetor said:
"In token of obedience, I ask you to undress."
Pierre took off his coat, waistcoat, and left boot according to the
Rhetor's instructions. The Mason drew the shirt back from Pierre's left
breast, and stooping down pulled up the left leg of his trousers to above
the knee. Pierre hurriedly began taking off his right boot also and was
going to tuck up the other trouser leg to save this stranger the trouble,
but the Mason told him that was not necessary and gave him a slipper
for his left foot. With a childlike smile of embarrassment, doubt, and
self-derision, which appeared on his face against his will, Pierre stood
with his arms hanging down and legs apart, before his brother Rhetor,
and awaited his further commands.
"And now, in token of candor, I ask you to reveal to me your chief
passion," said the latter.
"My passion! I have had so many," replied Pierre.
"That passion which more than all others caused you to waver on the
path of virtue," said the Mason.
Pierre paused, seeking a reply.
"Wine? Gluttony? Idleness? Laziness? Irritability? Anger? Women?"
He went over his vices in his mind, not knowing to which of them to
give the pre-eminence.
"Women," he said in a low, scarcely audible voice.
The Mason did not move and for a long time said nothing after this
answer. At last he moved up to Pierre and, taking the kerchief that lay
on the table, again bound his eyes.
"For the last time I say to you—turn all your attention upon yourself,
put a bridle on your senses, and seek blessedness, not in passion but in
your own heart. The source of blessedness is not without us but
within...."
Pierre had already long been feeling in himself that refreshing source
of blessedness which now flooded his heart with glad emotion.

CHAPTER IV
Soon after this there came into the dark chamber to fetch Pierre, not
the Rhetor but Pierre's sponsor, Willarski, whom he recognized by his
voice. To fresh questions as to the firmness of his resolution Pierre
replied: "Yes, yes, I agree," and with a beaming, childlike smile, his fat
chest uncovered, stepping unevenly and timidly in one slippered and
one booted foot, he advanced, while Willarski held a sword to his bare
chest. He was conducted from that room along passages that turned
backwards and forwards and was at last brought to the doors of the
Lodge. Willarski coughed, he was answered by the Masonic knock
with mallets, the doors opened before them. A bass voice (Pierre was
still blindfolded) questioned him as to who he was, when and where he
was born, and so on. Then he was again led somewhere still
blindfolded, and as they went along he was told allegories of the toils
of his pilgrimage, of holy friendship, of the Eternal Architect of the
universe, and of the courage with which he should endure toils and
dangers. During these wanderings, Pierre noticed that he was spoken of
now as the "Seeker," now as the "Sufferer," and now as the "Postulant,"
to the accompaniment of various knockings with mallets and swords.
As he was being led up to some object he noticed a hesitation and
uncertainty among his conductors. He heard those around him
disputing in whispers and one of them insisting that he should be led
along a certain carpet. After that they took his right hand, placed it on
something, and told him to hold a pair of compasses to his left breast
with the other hand and to repeat after someone who read aloud an oath
of fidelity to the laws of the Order. The candles were then extinguished
and some spirit lighted, as Pierre knew by the smell, and he was told
that he would now see the lesser light. The bandage was taken off his
eyes and, by the faint light of the burning spirit, Pierre, as in a dream,
saw several men standing before him, wearing aprons like the Rhetor's
and holding swords in their hands pointed at his breast. Among them
stood a man whose white shirt was stained with blood. On seeing this,
Pierre moved forward with his breast toward the swords, meaning them
to pierce it. But the swords were drawn back from him and he was at
once blindfolded again.
"Now thou hast seen the lesser light," uttered a voice. Then the
candles were relit and he was told that he would see the full light; the
bandage was again removed and more than ten voices said together:
"Sic transit gloria mundi."
Pierre gradually began to recover himself and looked about at the
room and at the people in it. Round a long table covered with black sat
some twelve men in garments like those he had already seen. Some of
them Pierre had met in Petersburg society. In the President's chair sat a
young man he did not know, with a peculiar cross hanging from his
neck. On his right sat the Italian abbe whom Pierre had met at Anna
Pavlovna's two years before. There were also present a very
distinguished dignitary and a Swiss who had formerly been tutor at the
Kuragins'. All maintained a solemn silence, listening to the words of
the President, who held a mallet in his hand. Let into the wall was a
star-shaped light. At one side of the table was a small carpet with
various figures worked upon it, at the other was something resembling
an altar on which lay a Testament and a skull. Round it stood seven
large candlesticks like those used in churches. Two of the brothers led
Pierre up to the altar, placed his feet at right angles, and bade him lie
down, saying that he must prostrate himself at the Gates of the Temple.
"He must first receive the trowel," whispered one of the brothers.
"Oh, hush, please!" said another.
Pierre, perplexed, looked round with his shortsighted eyes without
obeying, and suddenly doubts arose in his mind. "Where am I? What
am I doing? Aren't they laughing at me? Shan't I be ashamed to
remember this?" But these doubts only lasted a moment. Pierre glanced
at the serious faces of those around, remembered all he had already
gone through, and realized that he could not stop halfway. He was
aghast at his hesitation and, trying to arouse his former devotional
feeling, prostrated himself before the Gates of the Temple. And really,
the feeling of devotion returned to him even more strongly than before.
When he had lain there some time, he was told to get up, and a white
leather apron, such as the others wore, was put on him: he was given a
trowel and three pairs of gloves, and then the Grand Master addressed
him. He told him that he should try to do nothing to stain the whiteness
of that apron, which symbolized strength and purity; then of the
unexplained trowel, he told him to toil with it to cleanse his own heart
from vice, and indulgently to smooth with it the heart of his neighbor.
As to the first pair of gloves, a man's, he said that Pierre could not
know their meaning but must keep them. The second pair of man's
gloves he was to wear at the meetings, and finally of the third, a pair of
women's gloves, he said: "Dear brother, these woman's gloves are
intended for you too. Give them to the woman whom you shall honor
most of all. This gift will be a pledge of your purity of heart to her
whom you select to be your worthy helpmeet in Masonry." And after a
pause, he added: "But beware, dear brother, that these gloves do not
deck hands that are unclean." While the Grand Master said these last
words it seemed to Pierre that he grew embarrassed. Pierre himself
grew still more confused, blushed like a child till tears came to his eyes,
began looking about him uneasily, and an awkward pause followed.
This silence was broken by one of the brethren, who led Pierre up to
the rug and began reading to him from a manuscript book an
explanation of all the figures on it: the sun, the moon, a hammer, a
plumb line, a trowel, a rough stone and a squared stone, a pillar, three
windows, and so on. Then a place was assigned to Pierre, he was
shown the signs of the Lodge, told the password, and at last was
permitted to sit down. The Grand Master began reading the statutes.
They were very long, and Pierre, from joy, agitation, and
embarrassment, was not in a state to understand what was being read.
He managed to follow only the last words of the statutes and these
remained in his mind.
 "In our temples we recognize no other distinctions," read the Grand
Master, "but those between virtue and vice. Beware of making any
distinctions which may infringe equality. Fly to a brother's aid whoever
he may be, exhort him who goeth astray, raise him that falleth, never
bear malice or enmity toward thy brother. Be kindly and courteous.
Kindle in all hearts the flame of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy
neighbor, and may envy never dim the purity of that bliss. Forgive thy
enemy, do not avenge thyself except by doing him good. Thus fulfilling
the highest law thou shalt regain traces of the ancient dignity which
thou hast lost."
He finished and, getting up, embraced and kissed Pierre, who, with
tears of joy in his eyes, looked round him, not knowing how to answer
the congratulations and greetings from acquaintances that met him on
all sides. He acknowledged no acquaintances but saw in all these men
only brothers, and burned with impatience to set to work with them.
The Grand Master rapped with his mallet. All the Masons sat down
in their places, and one of them read an exhortation on the necessity of
humility.
The Grand Master proposed that the last duty should be performed,
and the distinguished dignitary who bore the title of "Collector of
Alms" went round to all the brothers. Pierre would have liked to
subscribe all he had, but fearing that it might look like pride subscribed
the same amount as the others.
The meeting was at an end, and on reaching home Pierre felt as if he
had returned from a long journey on which he had spent dozens of
years, had become completely changed, and had quite left behind his
former habits and way of life.

CHAPTER V
The day after he had been received into the Lodge, Pierre was sitting
at home reading a book and trying to fathom the significance of the
Square, one side of which symbolized God, another moral things, a
third physical things, and the fourth a combination of these. Now and
then his attention wandered from the book and the Square and he
formed in imagination a new plan of life. On the previous evening at
the Lodge, he had heard that a rumor of his duel had reached the
Emperor and that it would be wiser for him to leave Petersburg. Pierre
proposed going to his estates in the south and there attending to the
welfare of his serfs. He was joyfully planning this new life, when
Prince Vasili suddenly entered the room.
"My dear fellow, what have you been up to in Moscow? Why have
you quarreled with Helene, mon cher? You are under a delusion," said
Prince Vasili, as he entered. "I know all about it, and I can tell you
positively that Helene is as innocent before you as Christ was before
the Jews."
Pierre was about to reply, but Prince Vasili interrupted him.
"And why didn't you simply come straight to me as to a friend? I
know all about it and understand it all," he said. "You behaved as
becomes a man who values his honor, perhaps too hastily, but we won't
go into that. But consider the position in which you are placing her and
me in the eyes of society, and even of the court," he added, lowering
his voice. "She is living in Moscow and you are here. Remember, dear
boy," and he drew Pierre's arm downwards, "it is simply a
misunderstanding. I expect you feel it so yourself. Let us write her a
letter at once, and she'll come here and all will be explained, or else,
my dear boy, let me tell you it's quite likely you'll have to suffer for it."
Prince Vasili gave Pierre a significant look.
"I know from reliable sources that the Dowager Empress is taking a
keen interest in the whole affair. You know she is very gracious to
Helene."
Pierre tried several times to speak, but, on one hand, Prince Vasili
did not let him and, on the other, Pierre himself feared to begin to speak
in the tone of decided refusal and disagreement in which he had firmly
resolved to answer his father-in-law. Moreover, the words of the
Masonic statutes, "be kindly and courteous," recurred to him. He
blinked, went red, got up and sat down again, struggling with himself
to do what was for him the most difficult thing in life—to say an
unpleasant thing to a man's face, to say what the other, whoever he
might be, did not expect. He was so used to submitting to Prince
Vasili's tone of careless self-assurance that he felt he would be unable
to withstand it now, but he also felt that on what he said now his future
depended—whether he would follow the same old road, or that new
path so attractively shown him by the Masons, on which he firmly
believed he would be reborn to a new life.
"Now, dear boy," said Prince Vasili playfully, "say 'yes,' and I'll
write to her myself, and we will kill the fatted calf."
But before Prince Vasili had finished his playful speech, Pierre,
without looking at him, and with a kind of fury that made him like his
father, muttered in a whisper:
 "Prince, I did not ask you here. Go, please go!" And he jumped up
and opened the door for him.
"Go!" he repeated, amazed at himself and glad to see the look of
confusion and fear that showed itself on Prince Vasili's face.
"What's the matter with you? Are you ill?"
"Go!" the quivering voice repeated. And Prince Vasili had to go
without receiving any explanation.
A week later, Pierre, having taken leave of his new friends, the
Masons, and leaving large sums of money with them for alms, went
away to his estates. His new brethren gave him letters to the Kiev and
Odessa Masons and promised to write to him and guide him in his new
activity.

CHAPTER VI
The duel between Pierre and Dolokhov was hushed up and, in spite
of the Emperor's severity regarding duels at that time, neither the
principals nor their seconds suffered for it. But the story of the duel,
confirmed by Pierre's rupture with his wife, was the talk of society.
Pierre who had been regarded with patronizing condescension when he
was an illegitimate son, and petted and extolled when he was the best
match in Russia, had sunk greatly in the esteem of society after his
marriage—when the marriageable daughters and their mothers had
nothing to hope from him—especially as he did not know how, and did
not wish, to court society's favor. Now he alone was blamed for what
had happened, he was said to be insanely jealous and subject like his
father to fits of bloodthirsty rage. And when after Pierre's departure
Helene returned to Petersburg, she was received by all her
acquaintances not only cordially, but even with a shade of deference
due to her misfortune. When conversation turned on her husband
Helene assumed a dignified expression, which with characteristic tact
she had acquired though she did not understand its significance. This
expression suggested that she had resolved to endure her troubles
uncomplainingly and that her husband was a cross laid upon her by
God. Prince Vasili expressed his opinion more openly. He shrugged his
shoulders when Pierre was mentioned and, pointing to his forehead,
remarked:
"A bit touched—I always said so."
 "I said from the first," declared Anna Pavlovna referring to Pierre, "I
said at the time and before anyone else" (she insisted on her priority)
"that that senseless young man was spoiled by the depraved ideas of
these days. I said so even at the time when everybody was in raptures
about him, when he had just returned from abroad, and when, if you
remember, he posed as a sort of Marat at one of my soirees. And how
has it ended? I was against this marriage even then and foretold all that
has happened."
Anna Pavlovna continued to give on free evenings the same kind of
soirees as before—such as she alone had the gift of arranging—at
which was to be found "the cream of really good society, the bloom of
the intellectual essence of Petersburg," as she herself put it. Besides this
refined selection of society Anna Pavlovna's receptions were also
distinguished by the fact that she always presented some new and
interesting person to the visitors and that nowhere else was the state of
the political thermometer of legitimate Petersburg court society so
dearly and distinctly indicated.
Toward the end of 1806, when all the sad details of Napoleon's
destruction of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstadt and the
surrender of most of the Prussian fortresses had been received, when
our troops had already entered Prussia and our second war with
Napoleon was beginning, Anna Pavlovna gave one of her soirees. The
"cream of really good society" consisted of the fascinating Helene,
forsaken by her husband, Mortemart, the delightful Prince Hippolyte
who had just returned from Vienna, two diplomatists, the old aunt, a
young man referred to in that drawing room as "a man of great merit"
(un homme de beaucoup de merite), a newly appointed maid of honor
and her mother, and several other less noteworthy persons.
The novelty Anna Pavlovna was setting before her guests that
evening was Boris Drubetskoy, who had just arrived as a special
messenger from the Prussian army and was aide-de-camp to a very
important personage.
The temperature shown by the political thermometer to the company
that evening was this:
"Whatever the European sovereigns and commanders may do to
countenance Bonaparte, and to cause me, and us in general, annoyance
and mortification, our opinion of Bonaparte cannot alter. We shall not
cease to express our sincere views on that subject, and can only say to
the King of Prussia and others: 'So much the worse for you. Tu l'as
voulu, George Dandin,' that's all we have to say about it!"
When Boris, who was to be served up to the guests, entered the
drawing room, almost all the company had assembled, and the
conversation, guided by Anna Pavlovna, was about our diplomatic
relations with Austria and the hope of an alliance with her.
Boris, grown more manly and looking fresh, rosy and self-possessed,
entered the drawing room elegantly dressed in the uniform of an aide-
de-camp and was duly conducted to pay his respects to the aunt and
then brought back to the general circle.
Anna Pavlovna gave him her shriveled hand to kiss and introduced
him to several persons whom he did not know, giving him a whispered
description of each.
"Prince Hippolyte Kuragin, M. Krug, the charge d'affaires from
Copenhagen—a profound intellect," and simply, "Mr. Shitov—a man
of great merit"—this of the man usually so described.
Thanks to Anna Mikhaylovna's efforts, his own tastes, and the
peculiarities of his reserved nature, Boris had managed during his
service to place himself very advantageously. He was aide-de-camp to
a very important personage, had been sent on a very important mission
to Prussia, and had just returned from there as a special messenger. He
had become thoroughly conversant with that unwritten code with which
he had been so pleased at Olmutz and according to which an ensign
might rank incomparably higher than a general, and according to which
what was needed for success in the service was not effort or work, or
courage, or perseverance, but only the knowledge of how to get on with
those who can grant rewards, and he was himself often surprised at the
rapidity of his success and at the inability of others to understand these
things. In consequence of this discovery his whole manner of life, all
his relations with old friends, all his plans for his future, were
completely altered. He was not rich, but would spend his last groat to
be better dressed than others, and would rather deprive himself of many
pleasures than allow himself to be seen in a shabby equipage or appear
in the streets of Petersburg in an old uniform. He made friends with and
sought the acquaintance of only those above him in position and who
could therefore be of use to him. He liked Petersburg and despised
Moscow. The remembrance of the Rostovs' house and of his childish
love for Natasha was unpleasant to him and he had not once been to see
the Rostovs since the day of his departure for the army. To be in Anna
Pavlovna's drawing room he considered an important step up in the
service, and he at once understood his role, letting his hostess make use
of whatever interest he had to offer. He himself carefully scanned each
face, appraising the possibilities of establishing intimacy with each of
those present, and the advantages that might accrue. He took the seat
indicated to him beside the fair Helene and listened to the general
conversation.
 "Vienna considers the bases of the proposed treaty so unattainable
that not even a continuity of most brilliant successes would secure
them, and she doubts the means we have of gaining them. That is the
actual phrase used by the Vienna cabinet," said the Danish charge
d'affaires.
"The doubt is flattering," said "the man of profound intellect," with a
subtle smile.
"We must distinguish between the Vienna cabinet and the Emperor
of Austria," said Mortemart. "The Emperor of Austria can never have
thought of such a thing, it is only the cabinet that says it."
"Ah, my dear vicomte," put in Anna Pavlovna, "L'Urope" (for some
reason she called it Urope as if that were a specially refined French
pronunciation which she could allow herself when conversing with a
Frenchman), "L'Urope ne sera jamais notre alliee sincere." *

* "Europe will never be our sincere ally."

After that Anna Pavlovna led up to the courage and firmness of the
King of Prussia, in order to draw Boris into the conversation.
Boris listened attentively to each of the speakers, awaiting his turn,
but managed meanwhile to look round repeatedly at his neighbor, the
beautiful Helene, whose eyes several times met those of the handsome
young aide-de-camp with a smile.
Speaking of the position of Prussia, Anna Pavlovna very naturally
asked Boris to tell them about his journey to Glogau and in what state
he found the Prussian army. Boris, speaking with deliberation, told
them in pure, correct French many interesting details about the armies
and the court, carefully abstaining from expressing an opinion of his
own about the facts he was recounting. For some time he engrossed the
general attention, and Anna Pavlovna felt that the novelty she had
served up was received with pleasure by all her visitors. The greatest
attention of all to Boris' narrative was shown by Helene. She asked him
several questions about his journey and seemed greatly interested in the
state of the Prussian army. As soon as he had finished she turned to him
with her usual smile.
"You absolutely must come and see me," she said in a tone that
implied that, for certain considerations he could not know of, this was
absolutely necessary.
"On Tuesday between eight and nine. It will give me great pleasure."
 Boris promised to fulfill her wish and was about to begin a
conversation with her, when Anna Pavlovna called him away on the
pretext that her aunt wished to hear him.
"You know her husband, of course?" said Anna Pavlovna, closing
her eyes and indicating Helene with a sorrowful gesture. "Ah, she is
such an unfortunate and charming woman! Don't mention him before
her—please don't! It is too painful for her!"

CHAPTER VII
When Boris and Anna Pavlovna returned to the others Prince
Hippolyte had the ear of the company.
Bending forward in his armchair he said: "Le Roi de Prusse!" and
having said this laughed. Everyone turned toward him.
"Le Roi de Prusse?" Hippolyte said interrogatively, again laughing,
and then calmly and seriously sat back in his chair. Anna Pavlovna
waited for him to go on, but as he seemed quite decided to say no more
she began to tell of how at Potsdam the impious Bonaparte had stolen
the sword of Frederick the Great.
"It is the sword of Frederick the Great which I..." she began, but
Hippolyte interrupted her with the words: "Le Roi de Prusse..." and
again, as soon as all turned toward him, excused himself and said no
more.
Anna Pavlovna frowned. Mortemart, Hippolyte's friend, addressed
him firmly.
"Come now, what about your Roi de Prusse?"
Hippolyte laughed as if ashamed of laughing.
"Oh, it's nothing. I only wished to say..." (he wanted to repeat a joke
he had heard in Vienna and which he had been trying all that evening to
get in) "I only wished to say that we are wrong to fight pour le Roi de
Prusse!"
Boris smiled circumspectly, so that it might be taken as ironical or
appreciative according to the way the joke was received. Everybody
laughed.
"Your joke is too bad, it's witty but unjust," said Anna Pavlovna,
shaking her little shriveled finger at him.
 "We are not fighting pour le Roi de Prusse, but for right principles.
Oh, that wicked Prince Hippolyte!" she said.
The conversation did not flag all evening and turned chiefly on the
political news. It became particularly animated toward the end of the
evening when the rewards bestowed by the Emperor were mentioned.
"You know N— N— received a snuffbox with the portrait last
year?" said "the man of profound intellect." "Why shouldn't S— S—
get the same distinction?"
"Pardon me! A snuffbox with the Emperor's portrait is a reward but
not a distinction," said the diplomatist—"a gift, rather."
"There are precedents, I may mention Schwarzenberg."
"It's impossible," replied another.
"Will you bet? The ribbon of the order is a different matter...."
When everybody rose to go, Helene who had spoken very little all
the evening again turned to Boris, asking him in a tone of caressing
significant command to come to her on Tuesday.
"It is of great importance to me," she said, turning with a smile
toward Anna Pavlovna, and Anna Pavlovna, with the same sad smile
with which she spoke of her exalted patroness, supported Helene's
wish.
It seemed as if from some words Boris had spoken that evening
about the Prussian army, Helene had suddenly found it necessary to see
him. She seemed to promise to explain that necessity to him when he
came on Tuesday.
But on Tuesday evening, having come to Helene's splendid salon,
Boris received no clear explanation of why it had been necessary for
him to come. There were other guests and the countess talked little to
him, and only as he kissed her hand on taking leave said unexpectedly
and in a whisper, with a strangely unsmiling face: "Come to dinner
tomorrow... in the evening. You must come.... Come!"
During that stay in Petersburg, Boris became an intimate in the
countess' house.

CHAPTER VIII
 The war was flaming up and nearing the Russian frontier.
Everywhere one heard curses on Bonaparte, "the enemy of mankind."
Militiamen and recruits were being enrolled in the villages, and from
the seat of war came contradictory news, false as usual and therefore
variously interpreted. The life of old Prince Bolkonski, Prince Andrew,
and Princess Mary had greatly changed since 1805.
In 1806 the old prince was made one of the eight commanders in
chief then appointed to supervise the enrollment decreed throughout
Russia. Despite the weakness of age, which had become particularly
noticeable since the time when he thought his son had been killed, he
did not think it right to refuse a duty to which he had been appointed by
the Emperor himself, and this fresh opportunity for action gave him
new energy and strength. He was continually traveling through the
three provinces entrusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment of his
duties, severe to cruelty with his subordinates, and went into everything
down to the minutest details himself. Princess Mary had ceased taking
lessons in mathematics from her father, and when the old prince was at
home went to his study with the wet nurse and little Prince Nicholas (as
his grandfather called him). The baby Prince Nicholas lived with his
wet nurse and nurse Savishna in the late princess' rooms and Princess
Mary spent most of the day in the nursery, taking a mother's place to
her little nephew as best she could. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too,
seemed passionately fond of the boy, and Princess Mary often deprived
herself to give her friend the pleasure of dandling the little angel—as
she called her nephew—and playing with him.
Near the altar of the church at Bald Hills there was a chapel over the
tomb of the little princess, and in this chapel was a marble monument
brought from Italy, representing an angel with outspread wings ready to
fly upwards. The angel's upper lip was slightly raised as though about
to smile, and once on coming out of the chapel Prince Andrew and
Princess Mary admitted to one another that the angel's face reminded
them strangely of the little princess. But what was still stranger, though
of this Prince Andrew said nothing to his sister, was that in the
expression the sculptor had happened to give the angel's face, Prince
Andrew read the same mild reproach he had read on the face of his
dead wife: "Ah, why have you done this to me?"
Soon after Prince Andrew's return the old prince made over to him a
large estate, Bogucharovo, about twenty-five miles from Bald Hills.
Partly because of the depressing memories associated with Bald Hills,
partly because Prince Andrew did not always feel equal to bearing with
his father's peculiarities, and partly because he needed solitude, Prince
Andrew made use of Bogucharovo, began building and spent most of
his time there.
 After the Austerlitz campaign Prince Andrew had firmly resolved not
to continue his military service, and when the war recommenced and
everybody had to serve, he took a post under his father in the
recruitment so as to avoid active service. The old prince and his son
seemed to have changed roles since the campaign of 1805. The old
man, roused by activity, expected the best results from the new
campaign, while Prince Andrew on the contrary, taking no part in the
war and secretly regretting this, saw only the dark side.
On February 26, 1807, the old prince set off on one of his circuits.
Prince Andrew remained at Bald Hills as usual during his father's
absence. Little Nicholas had been unwell for four days. The coachman
who had driven the old prince to town returned bringing papers and
letters for Prince Andrew.
Not finding the young prince in his study the valet went with the
letters to Princess Mary's apartments, but did not find him there. He
was told that the prince had gone to the nursery.
"If you please, your excellency, Petrusha has brought some papers,"
said one of the nursemaids to Prince Andrew who was sitting on a
child's little chair while, frowning and with trembling hands, he poured
drops from a medicine bottle into a wineglass half full of water.
"What is it?" he said crossly, and, his hand shaking unintentionally,
he poured too many drops into the glass. He threw the mixture onto the
floor and asked for some more water. The maid brought it.
There were in the room a child's cot, two boxes, two armchairs, a
table, a child's table, and the little chair on which Prince Andrew was
sitting. The curtains were drawn, and a single candle was burning on
the table, screened by a bound music book so that the light did not fall
on the cot.
"My dear," said Princess Mary, addressing her brother from beside
the cot where she was standing, "better wait a bit... later..."
"Oh, leave off, you always talk nonsense and keep putting things
off—and this is what comes of it!" said Prince Andrew in an
exasperated whisper, evidently meaning to wound his sister.
"My dear, really... it's better not to wake him... he's asleep," said the
princess in a tone of entreaty.
Prince Andrew got up and went on tiptoe up to the little bed,
wineglass in hand.
"Perhaps we'd really better not wake him," he said hesitating.
 "As you please... really... I think so... but as you please," said
Princess Mary, evidently intimidated and confused that her opinion had
prevailed. She drew her brother's attention to the maid who was calling
him in a whisper.
It was the second night that neither of them had slept, watching the
boy who was in a high fever. These last days, mistrusting their
household doctor and expecting another for whom they had sent to
town, they had been trying first one remedy and then another. Worn out
by sleeplessness and anxiety they threw their burden of sorrow on one
another and reproached and disputed with each other.
"Petrusha has come with papers from your father," whispered the
maid.
Prince Andrew went out.
"Devil take them!" he muttered, and after listening to the verbal
instructions his father had sent and taking the correspondence and his
father's letter, he returned to the nursery.
"Well?" he asked.
"Still the same. Wait, for heaven's sake. Karl Ivanich always says
that sleep is more important than anything," whispered Princess Mary
with a sigh.
Prince Andrew went up to the child and felt him. He was burning
hot.
"Confound you and your Karl Ivanich!" He took the glass with the
drops and again went up to the cot.
"Andrew, don't!" said Princess Mary.
But he scowled at her angrily though also with suffering in his eyes,
and stooped glass in hand over the infant.
"But I wish it," he said. "I beg you—give it him!"
Princess Mary shrugged her shoulders but took the glass
submissively and calling the nurse began giving the medicine. The
child screamed hoarsely. Prince Andrew winced and, clutching his
head, went out and sat down on a sofa in the next room.
He still had all the letters in his hand. Opening them mechanically he
began reading. The old prince, now and then using abbreviations, wrote
in his large elongated hand on blue paper as follows:
Have just this moment received by special messenger very joyful
news—if it's not false. Bennigsen seems to have obtained a complete
victory over Buonaparte at Eylau. In Petersburg everyone is rejoicing,
and the rewards sent to the army are innumerable. Though he is a
German—I congratulate him! I can't make out what the commander at
Korchevo—a certain Khandrikov—is up to; till now the additional men
and provisions have not arrived. Gallop off to him at once and say I'll
have his head off if everything is not here in a week. Have received
another letter about the Preussisch-Eylau battle from Petenka—he took
part in it—and it's all true. When mischief-makers don't meddle even a
German beats Buonaparte. He is said to be fleeing in great disorder.
Mind you gallop off to Korchevo without delay and carry out
instructions!
Prince Andrew sighed and broke the seal of another envelope. It was
a closely written letter of two sheets from Bilibin. He folded it up
without reading it and reread his father's letter, ending with the words:
"Gallop off to Korchevo and carry out instructions!"
"No, pardon me, I won't go now till the child is better," thought he,
going to the door and looking into the nursery.
Princess Mary was still standing by the cot, gently rocking the baby.
"Ah yes, and what else did he say that's unpleasant?" thought Prince
Andrew, recalling his father's letter. "Yes, we have gained a victory
over Bonaparte, just when I'm not serving. Yes, yes, he's always poking
fun at me.... Ah, well! Let him!" And he began reading Bilibin's letter
which was written in French. He read without understanding half of it,
read only to forget, if but for a moment, what he had too long been
thinking of so painfully to the exclusion of all else.

CHAPTER IX
Bilibin was now at army headquarters in a diplomatic capacity, and
though he wrote in French and used French jests and French idioms, he
described the whole campaign with a fearless self-censure and self-
derision genuinely Russian. Bilibin wrote that the obligation of
diplomatic discretion tormented him, and he was happy to have in
Prince Andrew a reliable correspondent to whom he could pour out the
bile he had accumulated at the sight of all that was being done in the
army. The letter was old, having been written before the battle at
Preussisch-Eylau.
"Since the day of our brilliant success at Austerlitz," wrote Bilibin,
"as you know, my dear prince, I never leave headquarters. I have
certainly acquired a taste for war, and it is just as well for me; what I
have seen during these last three months is incredible.
"I begin ab ovo. 'The enemy of the human race,' as you know, attacks
the Prussians. The Prussians are our faithful allies who have only
betrayed us three times in three years. We take up their cause, but it
turns out that 'the enemy of the human race' pays no heed to our fine
speeches and in his rude and savage way throws himself on the
Prussians without giving them time to finish the parade they had begun,
and in two twists of the hand he breaks them to smithereens and installs
himself in the palace at Potsdam.
"'I most ardently desire,' writes the King of Prussia to Bonaparte,
'that Your Majesty should be received and treated in my palace in a
manner agreeable to yourself, and in so far as circumstances allowed, I
have hastened to take all steps to that end. May I have succeeded!' The
Prussian generals pride themselves on being polite to the French and
lay down their arms at the first demand.
"The head of the garrison at Glogau, with ten thousand men, asks the
King of Prussia what he is to do if he is summoned to surrender.... All
this is absolutely true.
"In short, hoping to settle matters by taking up a warlike attitude, it
turns out that we have landed ourselves in war, and what is more, in
war on our own frontiers, with and for the King of Prussia. We have
everything in perfect order, only one little thing is lacking, namely, a
commander in chief. As it was considered that the Austerlitz success
might have been more decisive had the commander in chief not been so
young, all our octogenarians were reviewed, and of Prozorovski and
Kamenski the latter was preferred. The general comes to us, Suvorov-
like, in a kibitka, and is received with acclamations of joy and triumph.
"On the 4th, the first courier arrives from Petersburg. The mails are
taken to the field marshal's room, for he likes to do everything himself.
I am called in to help sort the letters and take those meant for us. The
field marshal looks on and waits for letters addressed to him. We
search, but none are to be found. The field marshal grows impatient and
sets to work himself and finds letters from the Emperor to Count T.,
Prince V., and others. Then he bursts into one of his wild furies and
rages at everyone and everything, seizes the letters, opens them, and
reads those from the Emperor addressed to others. 'Ah! So that's the
way they treat me! No confidence in me! Ah, ordered to keep an eye on
me! Very well then! Get along with you!' So he writes the famous order
of the day to General Bennigsen:
'I am wounded and cannot ride and consequently cannot command
the army. You have brought your army corps to Pultusk, routed: here it
is exposed, and without fuel or forage, so something must be done, and,
as you yourself reported to Count Buxhowden yesterday, you must
think of retreating to our frontier—which do today.'
"'From all my riding,' he writes to the Emperor, 'I have got a saddle
sore which, coming after all my previous journeys, quite prevents my
riding and commanding so vast an army, so I have passed on the
command to the general next in seniority, Count Buxhowden, having
sent him my whole staff and all that belongs to it, advising him if there
is a lack of bread, to move farther into the interior of Prussia, for only
one day's ration of bread remains, and in some regiments none at all, as
reported by the division commanders, Ostermann and Sedmoretzki, and
all that the peasants had has been eaten up. I myself will remain in
hospital at Ostrolenka till I recover. In regard to which I humbly submit
my report, with the information that if the army remains in its present
bivouac another fortnight there will not be a healthy man left in it by
spring.
"'Grant leave to retire to his country seat to an old man who is
already in any case dishonored by being unable to fulfill the great and
glorious task for which he was chosen. I shall await your most gracious
permission here in hospital, that I may not have to play the part of a
secretary rather than commander in the army. My removal from the
army does not produce the slightest stir—a blind man has left it. There
are thousands such as I in Russia.'
"The field marshal is angry with the Emperor and he punishes us all,
isn't it logical?
"This is the first act. Those that follow are naturally increasingly
interesting and entertaining. After the field marshal's departure it
appears that we are within sight of the enemy and must give battle.
Buxhowden is commander in chief by seniority, but General Bennigsen
does not quite see it; more particularly as it is he and his corps who are
within sight of the enemy and he wishes to profit by the opportunity to
fight a battle 'on his own hand' as the Germans say. He does so. This is
the battle of Pultusk, which is considered a great victory but in my
opinion was nothing of the kind. We civilians, as you know, have a
very bad way of deciding whether a battle was won or lost. Those who
retreat after a battle have lost it is what we say; and according to that it
is we who lost the battle of Pultusk. In short, we retreat after the battle
but send a courier to Petersburg with news of a victory, and General
Bennigsen, hoping to receive from Petersburg the post of commander
in chief as a reward for his victory, does not give up the command of
the army to General Buxhowden. During this interregnum we begin a
very original and interesting series of maneuvers. Our aim is no longer,
as it should be, to avoid or attack the enemy, but solely to avoid
General Buxhowden who by right of seniority should be our chief. So
energetically do we pursue this aim that after crossing an unfordable
river we burn the bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy, who at
the moment is not Bonaparte but Buxhowden. General Buxhowden was
all but attacked and captured by a superior enemy force as a result of
one of these maneuvers that enabled us to escape him. Buxhowden
pursues us—we scuttle. He hardly crosses the river to our side before
we recross to the other. At last our enemy. Buxhowden, catches us and
attacks. Both generals are angry, and the result is a challenge on
Buxhowden's part and an epileptic fit on Bennigsen's. But at the critical
moment the courier who carried the news of our victory at Pultusk to
Petersburg returns bringing our appointment as commander in chief,
and our first foe, Buxhowden, is vanquished; we can now turn our
thoughts to the second, Bonaparte. But as it turns out, just at that
moment a third enemy rises before us—namely the Orthodox Russian
soldiers, loudly demanding bread, meat, biscuits, fodder, and whatnot!
The stores are empty, the roads impassable. The Orthodox begin
looting, and in a way of which our last campaign can give you no idea.
Half the regiments form bands and scour the countryside and put
everything to fire and sword. The inhabitants are totally ruined, the
hospitals overflow with sick, and famine is everywhere. Twice the
marauders even attack our headquarters, and the commander in chief
has to ask for a battalion to disperse them. During one of these attacks
they carried off my empty portmanteau and my dressing gown. The
Emperor proposes to give all commanders of divisions the right to
shoot marauders, but I much fear this will oblige one half the army to
shoot the other."
At first Prince Andrew read with his eyes only, but after a while, in
spite of himself (although he knew how far it was safe to trust Bilibin),
what he had read began to interest him more and more. When he had
read thus far, he crumpled the letter up and threw it away. It was not
what he had read that vexed him, but the fact that the life out there in
which he had now no part could perturb him. He shut his eyes, rubbed
his forehead as if to rid himself of all interest in what he had read, and
listened to what was passing in the nursery. Suddenly he thought he
heard a strange noise through the door. He was seized with alarm lest
something should have happened to the child while he was reading the
letter. He went on tiptoe to the nursery door and opened it.
Just as he went in he saw that the nurse was hiding something from
him with a scared look and that Princess Mary was no longer by the
cot.
"My dear," he heard what seemed to him her despairing whisper
behind him.
As often happens after long sleeplessness and long anxiety, he was
seized by an unreasoning panic—it occurred to him that the child was
dead. All that he saw and heard seemed to confirm this terror.
 "All is over," he thought, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
He went to the cot in confusion, sure that he would find it empty and
that the nurse had been hiding the dead baby. He drew the curtain aside
and for some time his frightened, restless eyes could not find the baby.
At last he saw him: the rosy boy had tossed about till he lay across the
bed with his head lower than the pillow, and was smacking his lips in
his sleep and breathing evenly.
Prince Andrew was as glad to find the boy like that, as if he had
already lost him. He bent over him and, as his sister had taught him,
tried with his lips whether the child was still feverish. The soft forehead
was moist. Prince Andrew touched the head with his hand; even the
hair was wet, so profusely had the child perspired. He was not dead, but
evidently the crisis was over and he was convalescent. Prince Andrew
longed to snatch up, to squeeze, to hold to his heart, this helpless little
creature, but dared not do so. He stood over him, gazing at his head and
at the little arms and legs which showed under the blanket. He heard a
rustle behind him and a shadow appeared under the curtain of the cot.
He did not look round, but still gazing at the infant's face listened to his
regular breathing. The dark shadow was Princess Mary, who had come
up to the cot with noiseless steps, lifted the curtain, and dropped it
again behind her. Prince Andrew recognized her without looking and
held out his hand to her. She pressed it.
"He has perspired," said Prince Andrew.
"I was coming to tell you so."
The child moved slightly in his sleep, smiled, and rubbed his
forehead against the pillow.
Prince Andrew looked at his sister. In the dim shadow of the curtain
her luminous eyes shone more brightly than usual from the tears of joy
that were in them. She leaned over to her brother and kissed him,
slightly catching the curtain of the cot. Each made the other a warning
gesture and stood still in the dim light beneath the curtain as if not
wishing to leave that seclusion where they three were shut off from all
the world. Prince Andrew was the first to move away, ruffling his hair
against the muslin of the curtain.
"Yes, this is the one thing left me now," he said with a sigh.

CHAPTER X
 Soon after his admission to the Masonic Brotherhood, Pierre went to
the Kiev province, where he had the greatest number of serfs, taking
with him full directions which he had written down for his own
guidance as to what he should do on his estates.
When he reached Kiev he sent for all his stewards to the head office
and explained to them his intentions and wishes. He told them that
steps would be taken immediately to free his serfs—and that till then
they were not to be overburdened with labor, women while nursing
their babies were not to be sent to work, assistance was to be given to
the serfs, punishments were to be admonitory and not corporal, and
hospitals, asylums, and schools were to be established on all the estates.
Some of the stewards (there were semiliterate foremen among them)
listened with alarm, supposing these words to mean that the young
count was displeased with their management and embezzlement of
money, some after their first fright were amused by Pierre's lisp and the
new words they had not heard before, others simply enjoyed hearing
how the master talked, while the cleverest among them, including the
chief steward, understood from this speech how they could best handle
the master for their own ends.
The chief steward expressed great sympathy with Pierre's intentions,
but remarked that besides these changes it would be necessary to go
into the general state of affairs which was far from satisfactory.
Despite Count Bezukhov's enormous wealth, since he had come into
an income which was said to amount to five hundred thousand rubles a
year, Pierre felt himself far poorer than when his father had made him
an allowance of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim perception of the
following budget:
About 80,000 went in payments on all the estates to the Land Bank,
about 30,000 went for the upkeep of the estate near Moscow, the town
house, and the allowance to the three princesses; about 15,000 was
given in pensions and the same amount for asylums; 150,000 alimony
was sent to the countess; about 70,000 went for interest on debts. The
building of a new church, previously begun, had cost about 10,000 in
each of the last two years, and he did not know how the rest, about
100,000 rubles, was spent, and almost every year he was obliged to
borrow. Besides this the chief steward wrote every year telling him of
fires and bad harvests, or of the necessity of rebuilding factories and
workshops. So the first task Pierre had to face was one for which he
had very little aptitude or inclination—practical business.
He discussed estate affairs every day with his chief steward. But he
felt that this did not forward matters at all. He felt that these
consultations were detached from real affairs and did not link up with
them or make them move. On the one hand, the chief steward put the
state of things to him in the very worst light, pointing out the necessity
of paying off the debts and undertaking new activities with serf labor,
to which Pierre did not agree. On the other hand, Pierre demanded that
steps should be taken to liberate the serfs, which the steward met by
showing the necessity of first paying off the loans from the Land Bank,
and the consequent impossibility of a speedy emancipation.
The steward did not say it was quite impossible, but suggested
selling the forests in the province of Kostroma, the land lower down the
river, and the Crimean estate, in order to make it possible: all of which
operations according to him were connected with such complicated
measures—the removal of injunctions, petitions, permits, and so on—
that Pierre became quite bewildered and only replied:
"Yes, yes, do so."
Pierre had none of the practical persistence that would have enabled
him to attend to the business himself and so he disliked it and only tried
to pretend to the steward that he was attending to it. The steward for his
part tried to pretend to the count that he considered these consultations
very valuable for the proprietor and troublesome to himself.
In Kiev Pierre found some people he knew, and strangers hastened to
make his acquaintance and joyfully welcomed the rich newcomer, the
largest landowner of the province. Temptations to Pierre's greatest
weakness—the one to which he had confessed when admitted to the
Lodge—were so strong that he could not resist them. Again whole
days, weeks, and months of his life passed in as great a rush and were
as much occupied with evening parties, dinners, lunches, and balls,
giving him no time for reflection, as in Petersburg. Instead of the new
life he had hoped to lead he still lived the old life, only in new
surroundings.
Of the three precepts of Freemasonry Pierre realized that he did not
fulfill the one which enjoined every Mason to set an example of moral
life, and that of the seven virtues he lacked two—morality and the love
of death. He consoled himself with the thought that he fulfilled another
of the precepts—that of reforming the human race—and had other
virtues—love of his neighbor, and especially generosity.
In the spring of 1807 he decided to return to Petersburg. On the way
he intended to visit all his estates and see for himself how far his orders
had been carried out and in what state were the serfs whom God had
entrusted to his care and whom he intended to benefit.
The chief steward, who considered the young count's attempts almost
insane—unprofitable to himself, to the count, and to the serfs—made
some concessions. Continuing to represent the liberation of the serfs as
impracticable, he arranged for the erection of large buildings—schools,
hospitals, and asylums—on all the estates before the master arrived.
Everywhere preparations were made not for ceremonious welcomes
(which he knew Pierre would not like), but for just such gratefully
religious ones, with offerings of icons and the bread and salt of
hospitality, as, according to his understanding of his master, would
touch and delude him.
The southern spring, the comfortable rapid traveling in a Vienna
carriage, and the solitude of the road, all had a gladdening effect on
Pierre. The estates he had not before visited were each more
picturesque than the other; the serfs everywhere seemed thriving and
touchingly grateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere
were receptions, which though they embarrassed Pierre awakened a
joyful feeling in the depth of his heart. In one place the peasants
presented him with bread and salt and an icon of Saint Peter and Saint
Paul, asking permission, as a mark of their gratitude for the benefits he
had conferred on them, to build a new chantry to the church at their
own expense in honor of Peter and Paul, his patron saints. In another
place the women with infants in arms met him to thank him for
releasing them from hard work. On a third estate the priest, bearing a
cross, came to meet him surrounded by children whom, by the count's
generosity, he was instructing in reading, writing, and religion. On all
his estates Pierre saw with his own eyes brick buildings erected or in
course of erection, all on one plan, for hospitals, schools, and
almshouses, which were soon to be opened. Everywhere he saw the
stewards' accounts, according to which the serfs' manorial labor had
been diminished, and heard the touching thanks of deputations of serfs
in their full-skirted blue coats.
What Pierre did not know was that the place where they presented
him with bread and salt and wished to build a chantry in honor of Peter
and Paul was a market village where a fair was held on St. Peter's day,
and that the richest peasants (who formed the deputation) had begun the
chantry long before, but that nine tenths of the peasants in that villages
were in a state of the greatest poverty. He did not know that since the
nursing mothers were no longer sent to work on his land, they did still
harder work on their own land. He did not know that the priest who met
him with the cross oppressed the peasants by his exactions, and that the
pupils' parents wept at having to let him take their children and secured
their release by heavy payments. He did not know that the brick
buildings, built to plan, were being built by serfs whose manorial labor
was thus increased, though lessened on paper. He did not know that
where the steward had shown him in the accounts that the serfs'
payments had been diminished by a third, their obligatory manorial
work had been increased by a half. And so Pierre was delighted with
his visit to his estates and quite recovered the philanthropic mood in
which he had left Petersburg, and wrote enthusiastic letters to his
"brother-instructor" as he called the Grand Master.
"How easy it is, how little effort it needs, to do so much good,"
thought Pierre, "and how little attention we pay to it!"
He was pleased at the gratitude he received, but felt abashed at
receiving it. This gratitude reminded him of how much more he might
do for these simple, kindly people.
The chief steward, a very stupid but cunning man who saw perfectly
through the naive and intelligent count and played with him as with a
toy, seeing the effect these prearranged receptions had on Pierre,
pressed him still harder with proofs of the impossibility and above all
the uselessness of freeing the serfs, who were quite happy as it was.
Pierre in his secret soul agreed with the steward that it would be
difficult to imagine happier people, and that God only knew what
would happen to them when they were free, but he insisted, though
reluctantly, on what he thought right. The steward promised to do all in
his power to carry out the count's wishes, seeing clearly that not only
would the count never be able to find out whether all measures had
been taken for the sale of the land and forests and to release them from
the Land Bank, but would probably never even inquire and would
never know that the newly erected buildings were standing empty and
that the serfs continued to give in money and work all that other
people's serfs gave—that is to say, all that could be got out of them.

CHAPTER XI
Returning from his journey through South Russia in the happiest
state of mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had of visiting
his friend Bolkonski, whom he had not seen for two years.
Bogucharovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country among
fields and forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut down. The
house lay behind a newly dug pond filled with water to the brink and
with banks still bare of grass. It was at the end of a village that
stretched along the highroad in the midst of a young copse in which
were a few fir trees.
The homestead consisted of a threshing floor, outhouses, stables, a
bathhouse, a lodge, and a large brick house with semicircular facade
still in course of construction. Round the house was a garden newly laid
out. The fences and gates were new and solid; two fire pumps and a
water cart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight, the
bridges were strong and had handrails. Everything bore an impress of
tidiness and good management. Some domestic serfs Pierre met, in
reply to inquiries as to where the prince lived, pointed out a small
newly built lodge close to the pond. Anton, a man who had looked after
Prince Andrew in his boyhood, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said
that the prince was at home, and showed him into a clean little
anteroom.
Pierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean house
after the brilliant surroundings in which he had last met his friend in
Petersburg.
He quickly entered the small reception room with its still-unplastered
wooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but Anton
ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.
"Well, what is it?" came a sharp, unpleasant voice.
"A visitor," answered Anton.
"Ask him to wait," and the sound was heard of a chair being pushed
back.
Pierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came face to
face with Prince Andrew, who came out frowning and looking old.
Pierre embraced him and lifting his spectacles kissed his friend on the
cheek and looked at him closely.
"Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad," said Prince Andrew.
Pierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with surprise. He
was struck by the change in him. His words were kindly and there was
a smile on his lips and face, but his eyes were dull and lifeless and in
spite of his evident wish to do so he could not give them a joyous and
glad sparkle. Prince Andrew had grown thinner, paler, and more manly-
looking, but what amazed and estranged Pierre till he got used to it
were his inertia and a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged
concentration on some one thought.
As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged
separation, it was long before their conversation could settle on
anything. They put questions and gave brief replies about things they
knew ought to be talked over at length. At last the conversation
gradually settled on some of the topics at first lightly touched on: their
past life, plans for the future, Pierre's journeys and occupations, the
war, and so on. The preoccupation and despondency which Pierre had
noticed in his friend's look was now still more clearly expressed in the
smile with which he listened to Pierre, especially when he spoke with
joyful animation of the past or the future. It was as if Prince Andrew
would have liked to sympathize with what Pierre was saying, but could
not. The latter began to feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his
enthusiasms, dreams, and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince
Andrew's presence. He was ashamed to express his new Masonic
views, which had been particularly revived and strengthened by his late
tour. He checked himself, fearing to seem naive, yet he felt an
irresistible desire to show his friend as soon as possible that he was
now a quite different, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg.
"I can't tell you how much I have lived through since then. I hardly
know myself again."
"Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then," said Prince
Andrew.
"Well, and you? What are your plans?"
"Plans!" repeated Prince Andrew ironically. "My plans?" he said, as
if astonished at the word. "Well, you see, I'm building. I mean to settle
here altogether next year...."
Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew's face,
which had grown much older.
"No, I meant to ask..." Pierre began, but Prince Andrew interrupted
him.
"But why talk of me?... Talk to me, yes, tell me about your travels
and all you have been doing on your estates."
Pierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying as far
as possible to conceal his own part in the improvements that had been
made. Prince Andrew several times prompted Pierre's story of what he
had been doing, as though it were all an old-time story, and he listened
not only without interest but even as if ashamed of what Pierre was
telling him.
Pierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend's company
and at last became silent.
"I'll tell you what, my dear fellow," said Prince Andrew, who
evidently also felt depressed and constrained with his visitor, "I am
only bivouacking here and have just come to look round. I am going
back to my sister today. I will introduce you to her. But of course you
know her already," he said, evidently trying to entertain a visitor with
whom he now found nothing in common. "We will go after dinner. And
would you now like to look round my place?"
 They went out and walked about till dinnertime, talking of the
political news and common acquaintances like people who do not know
each other intimately. Prince Andrew spoke with some animation and
interest only of the new homestead he was constructing and its
buildings, but even here, while on the scaffolding, in the midst of a talk
explaining the future arrangements of the house, he interrupted himself:
"However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have dinner, and then
we'll set off."
At dinner, conversation turned on Pierre's marriage.
"I was very much surprised when I heard of it," said Prince Andrew.
Pierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and said
hurriedly: "I will tell you some time how it all happened. But you know
it is all over, and forever."
"Forever?" said Prince Andrew. "Nothing's forever."
"But you know how it all ended, don't you? You heard of the duel?"
"And so you had to go through that too!"
"One thing I thank God for is that I did not kill that man," said
Pierre.
"Why so?" asked Prince Andrew. "To kill a vicious dog is a very
good thing really."
"No, to kill a man is bad—wrong."
"Why is it wrong?" urged Prince Andrew. "It is not given to man to
know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will
err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong."
"What does harm to another is wrong," said Pierre, feeling with
pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was
roused, had begun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him
to his present state.
"And who has told you what is bad for another man?" he asked.
"Bad! Bad!" exclaimed Pierre. "We all know what is bad for
ourselves."
"Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is
something I cannot inflict on others," said Prince Andrew, growing
more and more animated and evidently wishing to express his new
outlook to Pierre. He spoke in French. "I only know two very real evils
in life: remorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils.
To live for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy
now."
"And love of one's neighbor, and self-sacrifice?" began Pierre. "No, I
can't agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and not to have to
repent is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for myself and ruined my
life. And only now when I am living, or at least trying" (Pierre's
modesty made him correct himself) "to live for others, only now have I
understood all the happiness of life. No, I shall not agree with you, and
you do not really believe what you are saying." Prince Andrew looked
silently at Pierre with an ironic smile.
"When you see my sister, Princess Mary, you'll get on with her," he
said. "Perhaps you are right for yourself," he added after a short pause,
"but everyone lives in his own way. You lived for yourself and say you
nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you began
living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I lived for glory.—And
after all what is glory? The same love of others, a desire to do
something for them, a desire for their approval.—So I lived for others,
and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have become calmer
since I began to live only for myself."
"But what do you mean by living only for yourself?" asked Pierre,
growing excited. "What about your son, your sister, and your father?"
"But that's just the same as myself—they are not others," explained
Prince Andrew. "The others, one's neighbors, le prochain, as you and
Princess Mary call it, are the chief source of all error and evil. Le
prochain—your Kiev peasants to whom you want to do good."
And he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He
evidently wished to draw him on.
"You are joking," replied Pierre, growing more and more excited.
"What error or evil can there be in my wishing to do good, and even
doing a little—though I did very little and did it very badly? What evil
can there be in it if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like ourselves,
were growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth beyond
ceremonies and meaningless prayers and are now instructed in a
comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and
consolation? What evil and error are there in it, if people were dying of
disease without help while material assistance could so easily be
rendered, and I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum
for the aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a peasant,
or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night and I give them rest
and leisure?" said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. "And I have done that
though badly and to a small extent; but I have done something toward it
and you cannot persuade me that it was not a good action, and more
than that, you can't make me believe that you do not think so yourself.
And the main thing is," he continued, "that I know, and know for
certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only sure happiness
in life."
"Yes, if you put it like that it's quite a different matter," said Prince
Andrew. "I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build hospitals.
The one and the other may serve as a pastime. But what's right and
what's good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by us. Well,
you want an argument," he added, "come on then."
They rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch which
served as a veranda.
"Come, let's argue then," said Prince Andrew, "You talk of schools,"
he went on, crooking a finger, "education and so forth; that is, you want
to raise him" (pointing to a peasant who passed by them taking off his
cap) "from his animal condition and awaken in him spiritual needs,
while it seems to me that animal happiness is the only happiness
possible, and that is just what you want to deprive him of. I envy him,
but you want to make him what I am, without giving him my means.
Then you say, 'lighten his toil.' But as I see it, physical labor is as
essential to him, as much a condition of his existence, as mental
activity is to you or me. You can't help thinking. I go to bed after two in
the morning, thoughts come and I can't sleep but toss about till dawn,
because I think and can't help thinking, just as he can't help plowing
and mowing; if he didn't, he would go to the drink shop or fall ill. Just
as I could not stand his terrible physical labor but should die of it in a
week, so he could not stand my physical idleness, but would grow fat
and die. The third thing—what else was it you talked about?" and
Prince Andrew crooked a third finger. "Ah, yes, hospitals, medicine.
He has a fit, he is dying, and you come and bleed him and patch him
up. He will drag about as a cripple, a burden to everybody, for another
ten years. It would be far easier and simpler for him to die. Others are
being born and there are plenty of them as it is. It would be different if
you grudged losing a laborer—that's how I regard him—but you want
to cure him from love of him. And he does not want that. And besides,
what a notion that medicine ever cured anyone! Killed them, yes!" said
he, frowning angrily and turning away from Pierre.
Prince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it
was evident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he
spoke readily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time.
His glance became more animated as his conclusions became more
hopeless.
"Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!" said Pierre. "I don't understand how
one can live with such ideas. I had such moments myself not long ago,
in Moscow and when traveling, but at such times I collapsed so that I
don't live at all—everything seems hateful to me... myself most of all.
Then I don't eat, don't wash... and how is it with you?..."
"Why not wash? That is not cleanly," said Prince Andrew; "on the
contrary one must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm
alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I can
without hurting others."
"But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit
without moving, undertaking nothing...."
"Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do nothing,
but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the honor to
choose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get out of it.
They could not understand that I have not the necessary qualifications
for it—the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness necessary for the
position. Then there's this house, which must be built in order to have a
nook of one's own in which to be quiet. And now there's this
recruiting."
"Why aren't you serving in the army?"
"After Austerlitz!" said Prince Andrew gloomily. "No, thank you
very much! I have promised myself not to serve again in the active
Russian army. And I won't—not even if Bonaparte were here at
Smolensk threatening Bald Hills—even then I wouldn't serve in the
Russian army! Well, as I was saying," he continued, recovering his
composure, "now there's this recruiting. My father is chief in command
of the Third District, and my only way of avoiding active service is to
serve under him."
"Then you are serving?"
"I am."
He paused a little while.
"And why do you serve?"
"Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable men
of his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel he has
too energetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that
he is terrible, and now he has this authority of a commander in chief of
the recruiting, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late a
fortnight ago he would have had a paymaster's clerk at Yukhnovna
hanged," said Prince Andrew with a smile. "So I am serving because I
alone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save
him from actions which would torment him afterwards."
"Well, there you see!"
 "Yes, but it is not as you imagine," Prince Andrew continued. "I did
not, and do not, in the least care about that scoundrel of a clerk who had
stolen some boots from the recruits; I should even have been very glad
to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father—that again is for
myself."
Prince Andrew grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered
feverishly while he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions there was
no desire to do good to his neighbor.
"There now, you wish to liberate your serfs," he continued; "that is a
very good thing, but not for you—I don't suppose you ever had anyone
flogged or sent to Siberia—and still less for your serfs. If they are
beaten, flogged, or sent to Siberia, I don't suppose they are any the
worse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the stripes on
their bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is a good thing
for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon themselves,
stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being able to inflict
punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I pity, and for their
sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You may not have seen, but I
have seen, how good men brought up in those traditions of unlimited
power, in time when they grow more irritable, become cruel and harsh,
are conscious of it, but cannot restrain themselves and grow more and
more miserable."
Prince Andrew spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help thinking
that these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andrew by his father's
case.
He did not reply.
"So that's what I'm sorry for—human dignity, peace of mind, purity,
and not the serfs' backs and foreheads, which, beat and shave as you
may, always remain the same backs and foreheads."
"No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with you," said
Pierre.

CHAPTER XII
In the evening Andrew and Pierre got into the open carriage and
drove to Bald Hills. Prince Andrew, glancing at Pierre, broke the
silence now and then with remarks which showed that he was in a good
temper.
 Pointing to the fields, he spoke of the improvements he was making
in his husbandry.
Pierre remained gloomily silent, answering in monosyllables and
apparently immersed in his own thoughts.
He was thinking that Prince Andrew was unhappy, had gone astray,
did not see the true light, and that he, Pierre, ought to aid, enlighten,
and raise him. But as soon as he thought of what he should say, he felt
that Prince Andrew with one word, one argument, would upset all his
teaching, and he shrank from beginning, afraid of exposing to possible
ridicule what to him was precious and sacred.
"No, but why do you think so?" Pierre suddenly began, lowering his
head and looking like a bull about to charge, "why do you think so?
You should not think so."
"Think? What about?" asked Prince Andrew with surprise.
"About life, about man's destiny. It can't be so. I myself thought like
that, and do you know what saved me? Freemasonry! No, don't smile.
Freemasonry is not a religious ceremonial sect, as I thought it was:
Freemasonry is the best expression of the best, the eternal, aspects of
humanity."
And he began to explain Freemasonry as he understood it to Prince
Andrew. He said that Freemasonry is the teaching of Christianity freed
from the bonds of State and Church, a teaching of equality,
brotherhood, and love.
"Only our holy brotherhood has the real meaning of life, all the rest
is a dream," said Pierre. "Understand, my dear fellow, that outside this
union all is filled with deceit and falsehood and I agree with you that
nothing is left for an intelligent and good man but to live out his life,
like you, merely trying not to harm others. But make our fundamental
convictions your own, join our brotherhood, give yourself up to us, let
yourself be guided, and you will at once feel yourself, as I have felt
myself, a part of that vast invisible chain the beginning of which is
hidden in heaven," said Pierre.
Prince Andrew, looking straight in front of him, listened in silence to
Pierre's words. More than once, when the noise of the wheels prevented
his catching what Pierre said, he asked him to repeat it, and by the
peculiar glow that came into Prince Andrew's eyes and by his silence,
Pierre saw that his words were not in vain and that Prince Andrew
would not interrupt him or laugh at what he said.
They reached a river that had overflowed its banks and which they
had to cross by ferry. While the carriage and horses were being placed
on it, they also stepped on the raft.
 Prince Andrew, leaning his arms on the raft railing, gazed silently at
the flooding waters glittering in the setting sun.
"Well, what do you think about it?" Pierre asked. "Why are you
silent?"
"What do I think about it? I am listening to you. It's all very well....
You say: join our brotherhood and we will show you the aim of life, the
destiny of man, and the laws which govern the world. But who are we?
Men. How is it you know everything? Why do I alone not see what you
see? You see a reign of goodness and truth on earth, but I don't see it."
Pierre interrupted him.
"Do you believe in a future life?" he asked.
"A future life?" Prince Andrew repeated, but Pierre, giving him no
time to reply, took the repetition for a denial, the more readily as he
knew Prince Andrew's former atheistic convictions.
"You say you can't see a reign of goodness and truth on earth. Nor
could I, and it cannot be seen if one looks on our life here as the end of
everything. On earth, here on this earth" (Pierre pointed to the fields),
"there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the universe, in the whole
universe there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now the children
of earth are—eternally—children of the whole universe. Don't I feel in
my soul that I am part of this vast harmonious whole? Don't I feel that I
form one link, one step, between the lower and higher beings, in this
vast harmonious multitude of beings in whom the Deity—the Supreme
Power if you prefer the term—is manifest? If I see, clearly see, that
ladder leading from plant to man, why should I suppose it breaks off at
me and does not go farther and farther? I feel that I cannot vanish, since
nothing vanishes in this world, but that I shall always exist and always
have existed. I feel that beyond me and above me there are spirits, and
that in this world there is truth."
"Yes, that is Herder's theory," said Prince Andrew, "but it is not that
which can convince me, dear friend—life and death are what convince.
What convinces is when one sees a being dear to one, bound up with
one's own life, before whom one was to blame and had hoped to make
it right" (Prince Andrew's voice trembled and he turned away), "and
suddenly that being is seized with pain, suffers, and ceases to exist....
Why? It cannot be that there is no answer. And I believe there is....
That's what convinces, that is what has convinced me," said Prince
Andrew.
"Yes, yes, of course," said Pierre, "isn't that what I'm saying?"
"No. All I say is that it is not argument that convinces me of the
necessity of a future life, but this: when you go hand in hand with
someone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and
you yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked
in...."
"Well, that's it then! You know that there is a there and there is a
Someone? There is the future life. The Someone is—God."
Prince Andrew did not reply. The carriage and horses had long since
been taken off, onto the farther bank, and reharnessed. The sun had
sunk half below the horizon and an evening frost was starring the
puddles near the ferry, but Pierre and Andrew, to the astonishment of
the footmen, coachmen, and ferrymen, still stood on the raft and talked.
"If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man's
highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we
must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this
scrap of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in the
Whole," said Pierre, and he pointed to the sky.
Prince Andrew stood leaning on the railing of the raft listening to
Pierre, and he gazed with his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the sun
gleaming on the blue waters. There was perfect stillness. Pierre became
silent. The raft had long since stopped and only the waves of the
current beat softly against it below. Prince Andrew felt as if the sound
of the waves kept up a refrain to Pierre's words, whispering:
"It is true, believe it."
He sighed, and glanced with a radiant, childlike, tender look at
Pierre's face, flushed and rapturous, but yet shy before his superior
friend.
"Yes, if it only were so!" said Prince Andrew. "However, it is time to
get on," he added, and, stepping off the raft, he looked up at the sky to
which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw that
high, everlasting sky he had seen while lying on that battlefield; and
something that had long been slumbering, something that was best
within him, suddenly awoke, joyful and youthful, in his soul. It
vanished as soon as he returned to the customary conditions of his life,
but he knew that this feeling which he did not know how to develop
existed within him. His meeting with Pierre formed an epoch in Prince
Andrew's life. Though outwardly he continued to live in the same old
way, inwardly he began a new life.

CHAPTER XIII
 It was getting dusk when Prince Andrew and Pierre drove up to the
front entrance of the house at Bald Hills. As they approached the house,
Prince Andrew with a smile drew Pierre's attention to a commotion
going on at the back porch. A woman, bent with age, with a wallet on
her back, and a short, long-haired, young man in a black garment had
rushed back to the gate on seeing the carriage driving up. Two women
ran out after them, and all four, looking round at the carriage, ran in
dismay up the steps of the back porch.
"Those are Mary's 'God's folk,'" said Prince Andrew. "They have
mistaken us for my father. This is the one matter in which she disobeys
him. He orders these pilgrims to be driven away, but she receives
them."
"But what are 'God's folk'?" asked Pierre.
Prince Andrew had no time to answer. The servants came out to meet
them, and he asked where the old prince was and whether he was
expected back soon.
The old prince had gone to the town and was expected back any
minute.
Prince Andrew led Pierre to his own apartments, which were always
kept in perfect order and readiness for him in his father's house; he
himself went to the nursery.
"Let us go and see my sister," he said to Pierre when he returned. "I
have not found her yet, she is hiding now, sitting with her 'God's folk.'
It will serve her right, she will be confused, but you will see her 'God's
folk.' It's really very curious."
"What are 'God's folk'?" asked Pierre.
"Come, and you'll see for yourself."
Princess Mary really was disconcerted and red patches came on her
face when they went in. In her snug room, with lamps burning before
the icon stand, a young lad with a long nose and long hair, wearing a
monk's cassock, sat on the sofa beside her, behind a samovar. Near
them, in an armchair, sat a thin, shriveled, old woman, with a meek
expression on her childlike face.
"Andrew, why didn't you warn me?" said the princess, with mild
reproach, as she stood before her pilgrims like a hen before her
chickens.
"Charmee de vous voir. Je suis tres contente de vous voir," * she said
to Pierre as he kissed her hand. She had known him as a child, and now
his friendship with Andrew, his misfortune with his wife, and above all
his kindly, simple face disposed her favorably toward him. She looked
at him with her beautiful radiant eyes and seemed to say, "I like you
very much, but please don't laugh at my people." After exchanging the
first greetings, they sat down.

* "Delighted to see you. I am very glad to see

you."

"Ah, and Ivanushka is here too!" said Prince Andrew, glancing with
a smile at the young pilgrim.
"Andrew!" said Princess Mary, imploringly. "Il faut que vous
sachiez que c'est une femme," * said Prince Andrew to Pierre.
"Andrew, au nom de Dieu!" *(2) Princess Mary repeated.

* "You must know that this is a woman."

* (2) "For heaven's sake."

It was evident that Prince Andrew's ironical tone toward the pilgrims
and Princess Mary's helpless attempts to protect them were their
customary long-established relations on the matter.
"Mais, ma bonne amie," said Prince Andrew, "vous devriez au
contraire m'etre reconnaissante de ce que j'explique a Pierre votre
intimite avec ce jeune homme." *

* "But, my dear, you ought on the contrary to

be grateful to
me for explaining to Pierre your intimacy with
this young
man."

"Really?" said Pierre, gazing over his spectacles with curiosity and
seriousness (for which Princess Mary was specially grateful to him)
into Ivanushka's face, who, seeing that she was being spoken about,
looked round at them all with crafty eyes.
Princess Mary's embarrassment on her people's account was quite
unnecessary. They were not in the least abashed. The old woman,
lowering her eyes but casting side glances at the newcomers, had
turned her cup upside down and placed a nibbled bit of sugar beside it,
and sat quietly in her armchair, though hoping to be offered another cup
of tea. Ivanushka, sipping out of her saucer, looked with sly womanish
eyes from under her brows at the young men.
"Where have you been? To Kiev?" Prince Andrew asked the old
woman.
 "I have, good sir," she answered garrulously. "Just at Christmastime
I was deemed worthy to partake of the holy and heavenly sacrament at
the shrine of the saint. And now I'm from Kolyazin, master, where a
great and wonderful blessing has been revealed."
"And was Ivanushka with you?"
"I go by myself, benefactor," said Ivanushka, trying to speak in a
bass voice. "I only came across Pelageya in Yukhnovo..."
Pelageya interrupted her companion; she evidently wished to tell
what she had seen.
"In Kolyazin, master, a wonderful blessing has been revealed."
"What is it? Some new relics?" asked Prince Andrew.
"Andrew, do leave off," said Princess Mary. "Don't tell him,
Pelageya."
"No... why not, my dear, why shouldn't I? I like him. He is kind, he
is one of God's chosen, he's a benefactor, he once gave me ten rubles, I
remember. When I was in Kiev, Crazy Cyril says to me (he's one of
God's own and goes barefoot summer and winter), he says, 'Why are
you not going to the right place? Go to Kolyazin where a wonder-
working icon of the Holy Mother of God has been revealed.' On
hearing those words I said good-by to the holy folk and went."
All were silent, only the pilgrim woman went on in measured tones,
drawing in her breath.
"So I come, master, and the people say to me: 'A great blessing has
been revealed, holy oil trickles from the cheeks of our blessed Mother,
the Holy Virgin Mother of God'...."
"All right, all right, you can tell us afterwards," said Princess Mary,
flushing.
"Let me ask her," said Pierre. "Did you see it yourselves?" he
inquired.
"Oh, yes, master, I was found worthy. Such a brightness on the face
like the light of heaven, and from the blessed Mother's cheek it drops
and drops...."
"But, dear me, that must be a fraud!" said Pierre, naively, who had
listened attentively to the pilgrim.
"Oh, master, what are you saying?" exclaimed the horrified
Pelageya, turning to Princess Mary for support.
"They impose on the people," he repeated.
 "Lord Jesus Christ!" exclaimed the pilgrim woman, crossing herself.
"Oh, don't speak so, master! There was a general who did not believe,
and said, 'The monks cheat,' and as soon as he'd said it he went blind.
And he dreamed that the Holy Virgin Mother of the Kiev catacombs
came to him and said, 'Believe in me and I will make you whole.' So he
begged: 'Take me to her, take me to her.' It's the real truth I'm telling
you, I saw it myself. So he was brought, quite blind, straight to her, and
he goes up to her and falls down and says, 'Make me whole,' says he,
'and I'll give thee what the Tsar bestowed on me.' I saw it myself,
master, the star is fixed into the icon. Well, and what do you think? He
received his sight! It's a sin to speak so. God will punish you," she said
admonishingly, turning to Pierre.
"How did the star get into the icon?" Pierre asked.
"And was the Holy Mother promoted to the rank of general?" said
Prince Andrew, with a smile.
Pelageya suddenly grew quite pale and clasped her hands.
"Oh, master, master, what a sin! And you who have a son!" she
began, her pallor suddenly turning to a vivid red. "Master, what have
you said? God forgive you!" And she crossed herself. "Lord forgive
him! My dear, what does it mean?..." she asked, turning to Princess
Mary. She got up and, almost crying, began to arrange her wallet. She
evidently felt frightened and ashamed to have accepted charity in a
house where such things could be said, and was at the same time sorry
to have now to forgo the charity of this house.
"Now, why need you do it?" said Princess Mary. "Why did you come
to me?..."
"Come, Pelageya, I was joking," said Pierre. "Princesse, ma parole,
je n'ai pas voulu l'offenser. * I did not mean anything, I was only
joking," he said, smiling shyly and trying to efface his offense. "It was
all my fault, and Andrew was only joking."

* "Princess, on my word, I did not wish to

offend her."

Pelageya stopped doubtfully, but in Pierre's face there was such a

look of sincere penitence, and Prince Andrew glanced so meekly now
at her and now at Pierre, that she was gradually reassured.
 CHAPTER XIV
The pilgrim woman was appeased and, being encouraged to talk,
gave a long account of Father Amphilochus, who led so holy a life that
his hands smelled of incense, and how on her last visit to Kiev some
monks she knew let her have the keys of the catacombs, and how she,
taking some dried bread with her, had spent two days in the catacombs
with the saints. "I'd pray awhile to one, ponder awhile, then go on to
another. I'd sleep a bit and then again go and kiss the relics, and there
was such peace all around, such blessedness, that one don't want to
come out, even into the light of heaven again."
Pierre listened to her attentively and seriously. Prince Andrew went
out of the room, and then, leaving "God's folk" to finish their tea,
Princess Mary took Pierre into the drawing room.
"You are very kind," she said to him.
"Oh, I really did not mean to hurt her feelings. I understand them so
well and have the greatest respect for them."
Princess Mary looked at him silently and smiled affectionately.
"I have known you a long time, you see, and am as fond of you as of
a brother," she said. "How do you find Andrew?" she added hurriedly,
not giving him time to reply to her affectionate words. "I am very
anxious about him. His health was better in the winter, but last spring
his wound reopened and the doctor said he ought to go away for a cure.
And I am also very much afraid for him spiritually. He has not a
character like us women who, when we suffer, can weep away our
sorrows. He keeps it all within him. Today he is cheerful and in good
spirits, but that is the effect of your visit—he is not often like that. If
you could persuade him to go abroad. He needs activity, and this quiet
regular life is very bad for him. Others don't notice it, but I see it."
Toward ten o'clock the men servants rushed to the front door,
hearing the bells of the old prince's carriage approaching. Prince
Andrew and Pierre also went out into the porch.
"Who's that?" asked the old prince, noticing Pierre as he got out of
the carriage.
"Ah! Very glad! Kiss me," he said, having learned who the young
stranger was.
The old prince was in a good temper and very gracious to Pierre.
Before supper, Prince Andrew, coming back to his father's study,
found him disputing hotly with his visitor. Pierre was maintaining that
a time would come when there would be no more wars. The old prince
disputed it chaffingly, but without getting angry.
"Drain the blood from men's veins and put in water instead, then
there will be no more war! Old women's nonsense—old women's
nonsense!" he repeated, but still he patted Pierre affectionately on the
shoulder, and then went up to the table where Prince Andrew, evidently
not wishing to join in the conversation, was looking over the papers his
father had brought from town. The old prince went up to him and began
to talk business.
"The marshal, a Count Rostov, hasn't sent half his contingent. He
came to town and wanted to invite me to dinner—I gave him a pretty
dinner!... And there, look at this.... Well, my boy," the old prince went
on, addressing his son and patting Pierre on the shoulder. "A fine
fellow—your friend—I like him! He stirs me up. Another says clever
things and one doesn't care to listen, but this one talks rubbish yet stirs
an old fellow up. Well, go! Get along! Perhaps I'll come and sit with
you at supper. We'll have another dispute. Make friends with my little
fool, Princess Mary," he shouted after Pierre, through the door.
Only now, on his visit to Bald Hills, did Pierre fully realize the
strength and charm of his friendship with Prince Andrew. That charm
was not expressed so much in his relations with him as with all his
family and with the household. With the stern old prince and the gentle,
timid Princess Mary, though he had scarcely known them, Pierre at
once felt like an old friend. They were all fond of him already. Not only
Princess Mary, who had been won by his gentleness with the pilgrims,
gave him her most radiant looks, but even the one-year-old "Prince
Nicholas" (as his grandfather called him) smiled at Pierre and let
himself be taken in his arms, and Michael Ivanovich and Mademoiselle
Bourienne looked at him with pleasant smiles when he talked to the old
prince.
The old prince came in to supper; this was evidently on Pierre's
account. And during the two days of the young man's visit he was
extremely kind to him and told him to visit them again.
When Pierre had gone and the members of the household met
together, they began to express their opinions of him as people always
do after a new acquaintance has left, but as seldom happens, no one
said anything but what was good of him.

CHAPTER XV
 When returning from his leave, Rostov felt, for the first time, how
close was the bond that united him to Denisov and the whole regiment.
On approaching it, Rostov felt as he had done when approaching his
home in Moscow. When he saw the first hussar with the unbuttoned
uniform of his regiment, when he recognized red-haired Dementyev
and saw the picket ropes of the roan horses, when Lavrushka gleefully
shouted to his master, "The count has come!" and Denisov, who had
been asleep on his bed, ran all disheveled out of the mud hut to
embrace him, and the officers collected round to greet the new arrival,
Rostov experienced the same feeling as when his mother, his father,
and his sister had embraced him, and tears of joy choked him so that he
could not speak. The regiment was also a home, and as unalterably dear
and precious as his parents' house.
When he had reported himself to the commander of the regiment and
had been reassigned to his former squadron, had been on duty and had
gone out foraging, when he had again entered into all the little interests
of the regiment and felt himself deprived of liberty and bound in one
narrow, unchanging frame, he experienced the same sense of peace, of
moral support, and the same sense of being at home here in his own
place, as he had felt under the parental roof. But here was none of all
that turmoil of the world at large, where he did not know his right place
and took mistaken decisions; here was no Sonya with whom he ought,
or ought not, to have an explanation; here was no possibility of going
there or not going there; here there were not twenty-four hours in the
day which could be spent in such a variety of ways; there was not that
innumerable crowd of people of whom not one was nearer to him or
farther from him than another; there were none of those uncertain and
undefined money relations with his father, and nothing to recall that
terrible loss to Dolokhov. Here, in the regiment, all was clear and
simple. The whole world was divided into two unequal parts: one, our
Pavlograd regiment; the other, all the rest. And the rest was no concern
of his. In the regiment, everything was definite: who was lieutenant,
who captain, who was a good fellow, who a bad one, and most of all,
who was a comrade. The canteenkeeper gave one credit, one's pay
came every four months, there was nothing to think out or decide, you
had only to do nothing that was considered bad in the Pavlograd
regiment and, when given an order, to do what was clearly, distinctly,
and definitely ordered—and all would be well.
Having once more entered into the definite conditions of this
regimental life, Rostov felt the joy and relief a tired man feels on lying
down to rest. Life in the regiment, during this campaign, was all the
pleasanter for him, because, after his loss to Dolokhov (for which, in
spite of all his family's efforts to console him, he could not forgive
himself), he had made up his mind to atone for his fault by serving, not
as he had done before, but really well, and by being a perfectly first-
rate comrade and officer—in a word, a splendid man altogether, a thing
which seemed so difficult out in the world, but so possible in the
regiment.
After his losses, he had determined to pay back his debt to his
parents in five years. He received ten thousand rubles a year, but now
resolved to take only two thousand and leave the rest to repay the debt
to his parents.
Our army, after repeated retreats and advances and battles at Pultusk
and Preussisch-Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein. It was
awaiting the Emperor's arrival and the beginning of a new campaign.
The Pavlograd regiment, belonging to that part of the army which
had served in the 1805 campaign, had been recruiting up to strength in
Russia, and arrived too late to take part in the first actions of the
campaign. It had been neither at Pultusk nor at Preussisch-Eylau and,
when it joined the army in the field in the second half of the campaign,
was attached to Platov's division.
Platov's division was acting independently of the main army. Several
times parts of the Pavlograd regiment had exchanged shots with the
enemy, had taken prisoners, and once had even captured Marshal
Oudinot's carriages. In April the Pavlograds were stationed immovably
for some weeks near a totally ruined and deserted German village.
A thaw had set in, it was muddy and cold, the ice on the river broke,
and the roads became impassable. For days neither provisions for the
men nor fodder for the horses had been issued. As no transports could
arrive, the men dispersed about the abandoned and deserted villages,
searching for potatoes, but found few even of these.
Everything had been eaten up and the inhabitants had all fled—if any
remained, they were worse than beggars and nothing more could be
taken from them; even the soldiers, usually pitiless enough, instead of
taking anything from them, often gave them the last of their rations.
The Pavlograd regiment had had only two men wounded in action,
but had lost nearly half its men from hunger and sickness. In the
hospitals, death was so certain that soldiers suffering from fever, or the
swelling that came from bad food, preferred to remain on duty, and
hardly able to drag their legs went to the front rather than to the
hospitals. When spring came on, the soldiers found a plant just showing
out of the ground that looked like asparagus, which, for some reason,
they called "Mashka's sweet root." It was very bitter, but they wandered
about the fields seeking it and dug it out with their sabers and ate it,
though they were ordered not to do so, as it was a noxious plant. That
spring a new disease broke out among the soldiers, a swelling of the
arms, legs, and face, which the doctors attributed to eating this root.
But in spite of all this, the soldiers of Denisov's squadron fed chiefly on
"Mashka's sweet root," because it was the second week that the last of
the biscuits were being doled out at the rate of half a pound a man and
the last potatoes received had sprouted and frozen.
The horses also had been fed for a fortnight on straw from the
thatched roofs and had become terribly thin, though still covered with
tufts of felty winter hair.
Despite this destitution, the soldiers and officers went on living just
as usual. Despite their pale swollen faces and tattered uniforms, the
hussars formed line for roll call, kept things in order, groomed their
horses, polished their arms, brought in straw from the thatched roofs in
place of fodder, and sat down to dine round the caldrons from which
they rose up hungry, joking about their nasty food and their hunger. As
usual, in their spare time, they lit bonfires, steamed themselves before
them naked; smoked, picked out and baked sprouting rotten potatoes,
told and listened to stories of Potemkin's and Suvorov's campaigns, or
to legends of Alesha the Sly, or the priest's laborer Mikolka.
The officers, as usual, lived in twos and threes in the roofless, half-
ruined houses. The seniors tried to collect straw and potatoes and, in
general, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves as
before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though there
was no food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits and
skittles. The general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken of, partly
because nothing certain was known about it, partly because there was a
vague feeling that in the main it was going badly.
Rostov lived, as before, with Denisov, and since their furlough they
had become more friendly than ever. Denisov never spoke of Rostov's
family, but by the tender friendship his commander showed him,
Rostov felt that the elder hussar's luckless love for Natasha played a
part in strengthening their friendship. Denisov evidently tried to expose
Rostov to danger as seldom as possible, and after an action greeted his
safe return with evident joy. On one of his foraging expeditions, in a
deserted and ruined village to which he had come in search of
provisions, Rostov found a family consisting of an old Pole and his
daughter with an infant in arms. They were half clad, hungry, too weak
to get away on foot and had no means of obtaining a conveyance.
Rostov brought them to his quarters, placed them in his own lodging,
and kept them for some weeks while the old man was recovering. One
of his comrades, talking of women, began chaffing Rostov, saying that
he was more wily than any of them and that it would not be a bad thing
if he introduced to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved. Rostov
took the joke as an insult, flared up, and said such unpleasant things to
the officer that it was all Denisov could do to prevent a duel. When the
officer had gone away, Denisov, who did not himself know what
Rostov's relations with the Polish girl might be, began to upbraid him
for his quickness of temper, and Rostov replied:
"Say what you like.... She is like a sister to me, and I can't tell you
how it offended me... because... well, for that reason...."
Denisov patted him on the shoulder and began rapidly pacing the
room without looking at Rostov, as was his way at moments of deep
feeling.
"Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostovs are!" he muttered, and Rostov
noticed tears in his eyes.

CHAPTER XVI
In April the troops were enlivened by news of the Emperor's arrival,
but Rostov had no chance of being present at the review he held at
Bartenstein, as the Pavlograds were at the outposts far beyond that
place.
They were bivouacking. Denisov and Rostov were living in an earth
hut, dug out for them by the soldiers and roofed with branches and turf.
The hut was made in the following manner, which had then come into
vogue. A trench was dug three and a half feet wide, four feet eight
inches deep, and eight feet long. At one end of the trench, steps were
cut out and these formed the entrance and vestibule. The trench itself
was the room, in which the lucky ones, such as the squadron
commander, had a board, lying on piles at the end opposite the
entrance, to serve as a table. On each side of the trench, the earth was
cut out to a breadth of about two and a half feet, and this did duty for
bedsteads and couches. The roof was so constructed that one could
stand up in the middle of the trench and could even sit up on the beds if
one drew close to the table. Denisov, who was living luxuriously
because the soldiers of his squadron liked him, had also a board in the
roof at the farther end, with a piece of (broken but mended) glass in it
for a window. When it was very cold, embers from the soldiers'
campfire were placed on a bent sheet of iron on the steps in the
"reception room"—as Denisov called that part of the hut—and it was
then so warm that the officers, of whom there were always some with
Denisov and Rostov, sat in their shirt sleeves.
In April, Rostov was on orderly duty. One morning, between seven
and eight, returning after a sleepless night, he sent for embers, changed
his rain-soaked underclothes, said his prayers, drank tea, got warm,
then tidied up the things on the table and in his own corner, and, his
face glowing from exposure to the wind and with nothing on but his
shirt, lay down on his back, putting his arms under his head. He was
pleasantly considering the probability of being promoted in a few days
for his last reconnoitering expedition, and was awaiting Denisov, who
had gone out somewhere and with whom he wanted a talk.
Suddenly he heard Denisov shouting in a vibrating voice behind the
hut, evidently much excited. Rostov moved to the window to see whom
he was speaking to, and saw the quartermaster, Topcheenko.
"I ordered you not to let them eat that Mashka woot stuff!" Denisov
was shouting. "And I saw with my own eyes how Lazarchuk bwought
some fwom the fields."
"I have given the order again and again, your honor, but they don't
obey," answered the quartermaster.
Rostov lay down again on his bed and thought complacently: "Let
him fuss and bustle now, my job's done and I'm lying down—
capitally!" He could hear that Lavrushka—that sly, bold orderly of
Denisov's—was talking, as well as the quartermaster. Lavrushka was
saying something about loaded wagons, biscuits, and oxen he had seen
when he had gone out for provisions.
Then Denisov's voice was heard shouting farther and farther away.
"Saddle! Second platoon!"
"Where are they off to now?" thought Rostov.
Five minutes later, Denisov came into the hut, climbed with muddy
boots on the bed, lit his pipe, furiously scattered his things about, took
his leaded whip, buckled on his saber, and went out again. In answer to
Rostov's inquiry where he was going, he answered vaguely and crossly
that he had some business.
"Let God and our gweat monarch judge me afterwards!" said
Denisov going out, and Rostov heard the hoofs of several horses
splashing through the mud. He did not even trouble to find out where
Denisov had gone. Having got warm in his corner, he fell asleep and
did not leave the hut till toward evening. Denisov had not yet returned.
The weather had cleared up, and near the next hut two officers and a
cadet were playing svayka, laughing as they threw their missiles which
buried themselves in the soft mud. Rostov joined them. In the middle of
the game, the officers saw some wagons approaching with fifteen
hussars on their skinny horses behind them. The wagons escorted by
the hussars drew up to the picket ropes and a crowd of hussars
surrounded them.
 "There now, Denisov has been worrying," said Rostov, "and here are
the provisions."
"So they are!" said the officers. "Won't the soldiers be glad!"
A little behind the hussars came Denisov, accompanied by two
infantry officers with whom he was talking.
Rostov went to meet them.
"I warn you, Captain," one of the officers, a short thin man, evidently
very angry, was saying.
"Haven't I told you I won't give them up?" replied Denisov.
"You will answer for it, Captain. It is mutiny—seizing the transport
of one's own army. Our men have had nothing to eat for two days."
"And mine have had nothing for two weeks," said Denisov.
"It is robbery! You'll answer for it, sir!" said the infantry officer,
raising his voice.
"Now, what are you pestewing me for?" cried Denisov, suddenly
losing his temper. "I shall answer for it and not you, and you'd better
not buzz about here till you get hurt. Be off! Go!" he shouted at the
officers.
"Very well, then!" shouted the little officer, undaunted and not riding
away. "If you are determined to rob, I'll..."
"Go to the devil! quick ma'ch, while you're safe and sound!" and
Denisov turned his horse on the officer.
"Very well, very well!" muttered the officer, threateningly, and
turning his horse he trotted away, jolting in his saddle.
"A dog astwide a fence! A weal dog astwide a fence!" shouted
Denisov after him (the most insulting expression a cavalryman can
address to a mounted infantryman) and riding up to Rostov, he burst
out laughing.
"I've taken twansports from the infantwy by force!" he said. "After
all, can't let our men starve."
The wagons that had reached the hussars had been consigned to an
infantry regiment, but learning from Lavrushka that the transport was
unescorted, Denisov with his hussars had seized it by force. The
soldiers had biscuits dealt out to them freely, and they even shared
them with the other squadrons.
 The next day the regimental commander sent for Denisov, and
holding his fingers spread out before his eyes said:
"This is how I look at this affair: I know nothing about it and won't
begin proceedings, but I advise you to ride over to the staff and settle
the business there in the commissariat department and if possible sign a
receipt for such and such stores received. If not, as the demand was
booked against an infantry regiment, there will be a row and the affair
may end badly."
From the regimental commander's, Denisov rode straight to the staff
with a sincere desire to act on this advice. In the evening he came back
to his dugout in a state such as Rostov had never yet seen him in.
Denisov could not speak and gasped for breath. When Rostov asked
what was the matter, he only uttered some incoherent oaths and threats
in a hoarse, feeble voice.
Alarmed at Denisov's condition, Rostov suggested that he should
undress, drink some water, and send for the doctor.
"Twy me for wobbewy... oh! Some more water... Let them twy me,
but I'll always thwash scoundwels... and I'll tell the Empewo'... Ice..."
he muttered.
The regimental doctor, when he came, said it was absolutely
necessary to bleed Denisov. A deep saucer of black blood was taken
from his hairy arm and only then was he able to relate what had
happened to him.
"I get there," began Denisov. "'Now then, where's your chief's
quarters?' They were pointed out. 'Please to wait.' 'I've widden twenty
miles and have duties to attend to and no time to wait. Announce me.'
Vewy well, so out comes their head chief—also took it into his head to
lecture me: 'It's wobbewy!'—'Wobbewy,' I say, 'is not done by man
who seizes pwovisions to feed his soldiers, but by him who takes them
to fill his own pockets!' 'Will you please be silent?' 'Vewy good!' Then
he says: 'Go and give a weceipt to the commissioner, but your affair
will be passed on to headquarters.' I go to the commissioner. I enter,
and at the table... who do you think? No, but wait a bit!... Who is it
that's starving us?" shouted Denisov, hitting the table with the fist of his
newly bled arm so violently that the table nearly broke down and the
tumblers on it jumped about. "Telyanin! 'What? So it's you who's
starving us to death! Is it? Take this and this!' and I hit him so pat,
stwaight on his snout... 'Ah, what a... what a...!' and I sta'ted fwashing
him... Well, I've had a bit of fun I can tell you!" cried Denisov, gleeful
and yet angry, his white teeth showing under his black mustache. "I'd
have killed him if they hadn't taken him away!"
 "But what are you shouting for? Calm yourself," said Rostov.
"You've set your arm bleeding afresh. Wait, we must tie it up again."
Denisov was bandaged up again and put to bed. Next day he woke
calm and cheerful.
But at noon the adjutant of the regiment came into Rostov's and
Denisov's dugout with a grave and serious face and regretfully showed
them a paper addressed to Major Denisov from the regimental
commander in which inquiries were made about yesterday's
occurrence. The adjutant told them that the affair was likely to take a
very bad turn: that a court-martial had been appointed, and that in view
of the severity with which marauding and insubordination were now
regarded, degradation to the ranks would be the best that could be
hoped for.
The case, as represented by the offended parties, was that, after
seizing the transports, Major Denisov, being drunk, went to the chief
quartermaster and without any provocation called him a thief,
threatened to strike him, and on being led out had rushed into the office
and given two officials a thrashing, and dislocated the arm of one of
them.
In answer to Rostov's renewed questions, Denisov said, laughing,
that he thought he remembered that some other fellow had got mixed
up in it, but that it was all nonsense and rubbish, and he did not in the
least fear any kind of trial, and that if those scoundrels dared attack him
he would give them an answer that they would not easily forget.
Denisov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but Rostov
knew him too well not to detect that (while hiding it from others) at
heart he feared a court-martial and was worried over the affair, which
was evidently taking a bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry and
notices from the court arrived, and on the first of May, Denisov was
ordered to hand the squadron over to the next in seniority and appear
before the staff of his division to explain his violence at the
commissariat office. On the previous day Platov reconnoitered with
two Cossack regiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denisov, as was
his wont, rode out in front of the outposts, parading his courage. A
bullet fired by a French sharpshooter hit him in the fleshy part of his
leg. Perhaps at another time Denisov would not have left the regiment
for so slight a wound, but now he took advantage of it to excuse
himself from appearing at the staff and went into hospital.
 CHAPTER XVII
In June the battle of Friedland was fought, in which the Pavlograds
did not take part, and after that an armistice was proclaimed. Rostov,
who felt his friend's absence very much, having no news of him since
he left and feeling very anxious about his wound and the progress of his
affairs, took advantage of the armistice to get leave to visit Denisov in
hospital.
The hospital was in a small Prussian town that had been twice
devastated by Russian and French troops. Because it was summer,
when it is so beautiful out in the fields, the little town presented a
particularly dismal appearance with its broken roofs and fences, its foul
streets, tattered inhabitants, and the sick and drunken soldiers
wandering about.
The hospital was in a brick building with some of the window frames
and panes broken and a courtyard surrounded by the remains of a
wooden fence that had been pulled to pieces. Several bandaged
soldiers, with pale swollen faces, were sitting or walking about in the
sunshine in the yard.
Directly Rostov entered the door he was enveloped by a smell of
putrefaction and hospital air. On the stairs he met a Russian army
doctor smoking a cigar. The doctor was followed by a Russian
assistant.
"I can't tear myself to pieces," the doctor was saying. "Come to
Makar Alexeevich in the evening. I shall be there."
The assistant asked some further questions.
"Oh, do the best you can! Isn't it all the same?" The doctor noticed
Rostov coming upstairs.
"What do you want, sir?" said the doctor. "What do you want? The
bullets having spared you, do you want to try typhus? This is a
pesthouse, sir."
"How so?" asked Rostov.
"Typhus, sir. It's death to go in. Only we two, Makeev and I" (he
pointed to the assistant), "keep on here. Some five of us doctors have
died in this place.... When a new one comes he is done for in a week,"
said the doctor with evident satisfaction. "Prussian doctors have been
invited here, but our allies don't like it at all."
Rostov explained that he wanted to see Major Denisov of the
hussars, who was wounded.
 "I don't know. I can't tell you, sir. Only think! I am alone in charge of
three hospitals with more than four hundred patients! It's well that the
charitable Prussian ladies send us two pounds of coffee and some lint
each month or we should be lost!" he laughed. "Four hundred, sir, and
they're always sending me fresh ones. There are four hundred? Eh?" he
asked, turning to the assistant.
The assistant looked fagged out. He was evidently vexed and
impatient for the talkative doctor to go.
"Major Denisov," Rostov said again. "He was wounded at Molliten."
"Dead, I fancy. Eh, Makeev?" queried the doctor, in a tone of
indifference.
The assistant, however, did not confirm the doctor's words.
"Is he tall and with reddish hair?" asked the doctor.
Rostov described Denisov's appearance.
"There was one like that," said the doctor, as if pleased. "That one is
dead, I fancy. However, I'll look up our list. We had a list. Have you
got it, Makeev?"
"Makar Alexeevich has the list," answered the assistant. "But if
you'll step into the officers' wards you'll see for yourself," he added,
turning to Rostov.
"Ah, you'd better not go, sir," said the doctor, "or you may have to
stay here yourself."
But Rostov bowed himself away from the doctor and asked the
assistant to show him the way.
"Only don't blame me!" the doctor shouted up after him.
Rostov and the assistant went into the dark corridor. The smell was
so strong there that Rostov held his nose and had to pause and collect
his strength before he could go on. A door opened to the right, and an
emaciated sallow man on crutches, barefoot and in underclothing,
limped out and, leaning against the doorpost, looked with glittering
envious eyes at those who were passing. Glancing in at the door,
Rostov saw that the sick and wounded were lying on the floor on straw
and overcoats.
"May I go in and look?"
"What is there to see?" said the assistant.
But, just because the assistant evidently did not want him to go in,
Rostov entered the soldiers' ward. The foul air, to which he had already
begun to get used in the corridor, was still stronger here. It was a little
different, more pungent, and one felt that this was where it originated.
In the long room, brightly lit up by the sun through the large
windows, the sick and wounded lay in two rows with their heads to the
walls, and leaving a passage in the middle. Most of them were
unconscious and paid no attention to the newcomers. Those who were
conscious raised themselves or lifted their thin yellow faces, and all
looked intently at Rostov with the same expression of hope, of relief,
reproach, and envy of another's health. Rostov went to the middle of
the room and looking through the open doors into the two adjoining
rooms saw the same thing there. He stood still, looking silently around.
He had not at all expected such a sight. Just before him, almost across
the middle of the passage on the bare floor, lay a sick man, probably a
Cossack to judge by the cut of his hair. The man lay on his back, his
huge arms and legs outstretched. His face was purple, his eyes were
rolled back so that only the whites were seen, and on his bare legs and
arms which were still red, the veins stood out like cords. He was
knocking the back of his head against the floor, hoarsely uttering some
word which he kept repeating. Rostov listened and made out the word.
It was "drink, drink, a drink!" Rostov glanced round, looking for
someone who would put this man back in his place and bring him
water.
"Who looks after the sick here?" he asked the assistant.
Just then a commissariat soldier, a hospital orderly, came in from the
next room, marching stiffly, and drew up in front of Rostov.
"Good day, your honor!" he shouted, rolling his eyes at Rostov and
evidently mistaking him for one of the hospital authorities.
"Get him to his place and give him some water," said Rostov,
pointing to the Cossack.
"Yes, your honor," the soldier replied complacently, and rolling his
eyes more than ever he drew himself up still straighter, but did not
move.
"No, it's impossible to do anything here," thought Rostov, lowering
his eyes, and he was going out, but became aware of an intense look
fixed on him on his right, and he turned. Close to the corner, on an
overcoat, sat an old, unshaven, gray-bearded soldier as thin as a
skeleton, with a stern sallow face and eyes intently fixed on Rostov.
The man's neighbor on one side whispered something to him, pointing
at Rostov, who noticed that the old man wanted to speak to him. He
drew nearer and saw that the old man had only one leg bent under him,
the other had been amputated above the knee. His neighbor on the other
side, who lay motionless some distance from him with his head thrown
back, was a young soldier with a snub nose. His pale waxen face was
still freckled and his eyes were rolled back. Rostov looked at the young
soldier and a cold chill ran down his back.
"Why, this one seems..." he began, turning to the assistant.
"And how we've been begging, your honor," said the old soldier, his
jaw quivering. "He's been dead since morning. After all we're men, not
dogs."
"I'll send someone at once. He shall be taken away—taken away at
once," said the assistant hurriedly. "Let us go, your honor."
"Yes, yes, let us go," said Rostov hastily, and lowering his eyes and
shrinking, he tried to pass unnoticed between the rows of reproachful
envious eyes that were fixed upon him, and went out of the room.

CHAPTER XVIII
Going along the corridor, the assistant led Rostov to the officers'
wards, consisting of three rooms, the doors of which stood open. There
were beds in these rooms and the sick and wounded officers were lying
or sitting on them. Some were walking about the rooms in hospital
dressing gowns. The first person Rostov met in the officers' ward was a
thin little man with one arm, who was walking about the first room in a
nightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a pipe between his teeth.
Rostov looked at him, trying to remember where he had seen him
before.
"See where we've met again!" said the little man. "Tushin, Tushin,
don't you remember, who gave you a lift at Schon Grabern? And I've
had a bit cut off, you see..." he went on with a smile, pointing to the
empty sleeve of his dressing gown. "Looking for Vasili Dmitrich
Denisov? My neighbor," he added, when he heard who Rostov wanted.
"Here, here," and Tushin led him into the next room, from whence
came sounds of several laughing voices.
"How can they laugh, or even live at all here?" thought Rostov, still
aware of that smell of decomposing flesh that had been so strong in the
soldiers' ward, and still seeming to see fixed on him those envious
looks which had followed him out from both sides, and the face of that
young soldier with eyes rolled back.
Denisov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket,
though it was nearly noon.
 "Ah, Wostov? How are you, how are you?" he called out, still in the
same voice as in the regiment, but Rostov noticed sadly that under this
habitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling showed
itself in the expression of Denisov's face and the intonations of his
voice.
His wound, though a slight one, had not yet healed even now, six
weeks after he had been hit. His face had the same swollen pallor as the
faces of the other hospital patients, but it was not this that struck
Rostov. What struck him was that Denisov did not seem glad to see
him, and smiled at him unnaturally. He did not ask about the regiment,
nor about the general state of affairs, and when Rostov spoke of these
matters did not listen.
Rostov even noticed that Denisov did not like to be reminded of the
regiment, or in general of that other free life which was going on
outside the hospital. He seemed to try to forget that old life and was
only interested in the affair with the commissariat officers. On Rostov's
inquiry as to how the matter stood, he at once produced from under his
pillow a paper he had received from the commission and the rough
draft of his answer to it. He became animated when he began reading
his paper and specially drew Rostov's attention to the stinging
rejoinders he made to his enemies. His hospital companions, who had
gathered round Rostov—a fresh arrival from the world outside—
gradually began to disperse as soon as Denisov began reading his
answer. Rostov noticed by their faces that all those gentlemen had
already heard that story more than once and were tired of it. Only the
man who had the next bed, a stout Uhlan, continued to sit on his bed,
gloomily frowning and smoking a pipe, and little one-armed Tushin
still listened, shaking his head disapprovingly. In the middle of the
reading, the Uhlan interrupted Denisov.
"But what I say is," he said, turning to Rostov, "it would be best
simply to petition the Emperor for pardon. They say great rewards will
now be distributed, and surely a pardon would be granted...."
"Me petition the Empewo'!" exclaimed Denisov, in a voice to which
he tried hard to give the old energy and fire, but which sounded like an
expression of irritable impotence. "What for? If I were a wobber I
would ask mercy, but I'm being court-martialed for bwinging wobbers
to book. Let them twy me, I'm not afwaid of anyone. I've served the
Tsar and my countwy honowably and have not stolen! And am I to be
degwaded?... Listen, I'm w'iting to them stwaight. This is what I say: 'If
I had wobbed the Tweasuwy...'"
"It's certainly well written," said Tushin, "but that's not the point,
Vasili Dmitrich," and he also turned to Rostov. "One has to submit, and
Vasili Dmitrich doesn't want to. You know the auditor told you it was a
bad business."
"Well, let it be bad," said Denisov.
"The auditor wrote out a petition for you," continued Tushin, "and
you ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt he"
(indicating Rostov) "has connections on the staff. You won't find a
better opportunity."
"Haven't I said I'm not going to gwovel?" Denisov interrupted him,
went on reading his paper.
Rostov had not the courage to persuade Denisov, though he
instinctively felt that the way advised by Tushin and the other officers
was the safest, and though he would have been glad to be of service to
Denisov. He knew his stubborn will and straightforward hasty temper.
When the reading of Denisov's virulent reply, which took more than
an hour, was over, Rostov said nothing, and he spent the rest of the day
in a most dejected state of mind amid Denisov's hospital comrades,
who had gathered round him, telling them what he knew and listening
to their stories. Denisov was moodily silent all the evening.
Late in the evening, when Rostov was about to leave, he asked
Denisov whether he had no commission for him.
"Yes, wait a bit," said Denisov, glancing round at the officers, and
taking his papers from under his pillow he went to the window, where
he had an inkpot, and sat down to write.
"It seems it's no use knocking one's head against a wall!" he said,
coming from the window and giving Rostov a large envelope. In it was
the petition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in which Denisov,
without alluding to the offenses of the commissariat officials, simply
asked for pardon.
"Hand it in. It seems..."
He did not finish, but gave a painfully unnatural smile.

CHAPTER XIX
Having returned to the regiment and told the commander the state of
Denisov's affairs, Rostov rode to Tilsit with the letter to the Emperor.
 On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in
Tilsit. Boris Drubetskoy had asked the important personage on whom
he was in attendance, to include him in the suite appointed for the stay
at Tilsit.
"I should like to see the great man," he said, alluding to Napoleon,
whom hitherto he, like everyone else, had always called Buonaparte.
"You are speaking of Buonaparte?" asked the general, smiling.
Boris looked at his general inquiringly and immediately saw that he
was being tested.
"I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon," he replied. The
general patted him on the shoulder, with a smile.
"You will go far," he said, and took him to Tilsit with him.
Boris was among the few present at the Niemen on the day the two
Emperors met. He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw
Napoleon pass before the French Guards on the farther bank of the
river, saw the pensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in
silence in a tavern on the bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon's
arrival, saw both Emperors get into boats, and saw how Napoleon—
reaching the raft first—stepped quickly forward to meet Alexander and
held out his hand to him, and how they both retired into the pavilion.
Since he had begun to move in the highest circles Boris had made it his
habit to watch attentively all that went on around him and to note it
down. At the time of the meeting at Tilsit he asked the names of those
who had come with Napoleon and about the uniforms they wore, and
listened attentively to words spoken by important personages. At the
moment the Emperors went into the pavilion he looked at his watch,
and did not forget to look at it again when Alexander came out. The
interview had lasted an hour and fifty-three minutes. He noted this
down that same evening, among other facts he felt to be of historic
importance. As the Emperor's suite was a very small one, it was a
matter of great importance, for a man who valued his success in the
service, to be at Tilsit on the occasion of this interview between the two
Emperors, and having succeeded in this, Boris felt that henceforth his
position was fully assured. He had not only become known, but people
had grown accustomed to him and accepted him. Twice he had
executed commissions to the Emperor himself, so that the latter knew
his face, and all those at court, far from cold-shouldering him as at first
when they considered him a newcomer, would now have been surprised
had he been absent.
Boris lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilinski.
Zhilinski, a Pole brought up in Paris, was rich, and passionately fond of
the French, and almost every day of the stay at Tilsit, French officers of
the Guard and from French headquarters were dining and lunching with
him and Boris.
On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilinski
arranged a supper for his French friends. The guest of honor was an
aide-de-camp of Napoleon's, there were also several French officers of
the Guard, and a page of Napoleon's, a young lad of an old aristocratic
French family. That same day, Rostov, profiting by the darkness to
avoid being recognized in civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the
lodging occupied by Boris and Zhilinski.
Rostov, in common with the whole army from which he came, was
far from having experienced the change of feeling toward Napoleon
and the French—who from being foes had suddenly become friends—
that had taken place at headquarters and in Boris. In the army,
Bonaparte and the French were still regarded with mingled feelings of
anger, contempt, and fear. Only recently, talking with one of Platov's
Cossack officers, Rostov had argued that if Napoleon were taken
prisoner he would be treated not as a sovereign, but as a criminal. Quite
lately, happening to meet a wounded French colonel on the road,
Rostov had maintained with heat that peace was impossible between a
legitimate sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. Rostov was therefore
unpleasantly struck by the presence of French officers in Boris'
lodging, dressed in uniforms he had been accustomed to see from quite
a different point of view from the outposts of the flank. As soon as he
noticed a French officer, who thrust his head out of the door, that
warlike feeling of hostility which he always experienced at the sight of
the enemy suddenly seized him. He stopped at the threshold and asked
in Russian whether Drubetskoy lived there. Boris, hearing a strange
voice in the anteroom, came out to meet him. An expression of
annoyance showed itself for a moment on his face on first recognizing
Rostov.
"Ah, it's you? Very glad, very glad to see you," he said, however,
coming toward him with a smile. But Rostov had noticed his first
impulse.
"I've come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, but I have
business," he said coldly.
"No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from your
regiment. Dans un moment je suis a vous," * he said, answering
someone who called him.

* "In a minute I shall be at your disposal."

"I see I'm intruding," Rostov repeated.

 The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Boris' face:
having evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly took
both Rostov's hands and led him into the next room. His eyes, looking
serenely and steadily at Rostov, seemed to be veiled by something, as if
screened by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it seemed to Rostov.
"Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!" said Boris,
and he led him into the room where the supper table was laid and
introduced him to his guests, explaining that he was not a civilian, but
an hussar officer, and an old friend of his.
"Count Zhilinski—le Comte N. N.—le Capitaine S. S.," said he,
naming his guests. Rostov looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, bowed
reluctantly, and remained silent.
Zhilinski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very
willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostov. Boris did not
appear to notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the
same pleasant composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with
which he had met Rostov, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the
Frenchmen, with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen,
addressed the obstinately taciturn Rostov, saying that the latter had
probably come to Tilsit to see the Emperor.
"No, I came on business," replied Rostov, briefly.
Rostov had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look
of dissatisfaction on Boris' face, and as always happens to those in a
bad humor, it seemed to him that everyone regarded him with aversion
and that he was in everybody's way. He really was in their way, for he
alone took no part in the conversation which again became general. The
looks the visitors cast on him seemed to say: "And what is he sitting
here for?" He rose and went up to Boris.
"Anyhow, I'm in your way," he said in a low tone. "Come and talk
over my business and I'll go away."
"Oh, no, not at all," said Boris. "But if you are tired, come and lie
down in my room and have a rest."
"Yes, really..."
They went into the little room where Boris slept. Rostov, without
sitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Boris were to blame in some
way) telling him about Denisov's affair, asking him whether, through
his general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor on
Denisov's behalf and get Denisov's petition handed in. When he and
Boris were alone, Rostov felt for the first time that he could not look
Boris in the face without a sense of awkwardness. Boris, with one leg
crossed over the other and stroking his left hand with the slender
fingers of his right, listened to Rostov as a general listens to the report
of a subordinate, now looking aside and now gazing straight into
Rostov's eyes with the same veiled look. Each time this happened
Rostov felt uncomfortable and cast down his eyes.
"I have heard of such cases and know that His Majesty is very severe
in such affairs. I think it would be best not to bring it before the
Emperor, but to apply to the commander of the corps.... But in general,
I think..."
"So you don't want to do anything? Well then, say so!" Rostov
almost shouted, not looking Boris in the face.
Boris smiled.
"On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought..."
At that moment Zhilinski's voice was heard calling Boris.
"Well then, go, go, go..." said Rostov, and refusing supper and
remaining alone in the little room, he walked up and down for a long
time, hearing the lighthearted French conversation from the next room.

CHAPTER XX
Rostov had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a petition on
Denisov's behalf. He could not himself go to the general in attendance
as he was in mufti and had come to Tilsit without permission to do so,
and Boris, even had he wished to, could not have done so on the
following day. On that day, June 27, the preliminaries of peace were
signed. The Emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received the
Cross of the Legion of Honor and Napoleon the Order of St. Andrew of
the First Degree, and a dinner had been arranged for the evening, given
by a battalion of the French Guards to the Preobrazhensk battalion. The
Emperors were to be present at that banquet.
Rostov felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Boris that, when the
latter looked in after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and early next
morning went away, avoiding Boris. In his civilian clothes and a round
hat, he wandered about the town, staring at the French and their
uniforms and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French
Emperors were staying. In a square he saw tables being set up and
preparations made for the dinner; he saw the Russian and French colors
draped from side to side of the streets, with huge monograms A and N.
In the windows of the houses also flags and bunting were displayed.
 "Boris doesn't want to help me and I don't want to ask him. That's
settled," thought Nicholas. "All is over between us, but I won't leave
here without having done all I can for Denisov and certainly not
without getting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!... He is here!"
thought Rostov, who had unconsciously returned to the house where
Alexander lodged.
Saddled horses were standing before the house and the suite were
assembling, evidently preparing for the Emperor to come out.
"I may see him at any moment," thought Rostov. "If only I were to
hand the letter direct to him and tell him all... could they really arrest
me for my civilian clothes? Surely not! He would understand on whose
side justice lies. He understands everything, knows everything. Who
can be more just, more magnanimous than he? And even if they did
arrest me for being here, what would it matter?" thought he, looking at
an officer who was entering the house the Emperor occupied. "After
all, people do go in.... It's all nonsense! I'll go in and hand the letter to
the Emperor myself so much the worse for Drubetskoy who drives me
to it!" And suddenly with a determination he himself did not expect,
Rostov felt for the letter in his pocket and went straight to the house.
"No, I won't miss my opportunity now, as I did after Austerlitz," he
thought, expecting every moment to meet the monarch, and conscious
of the blood that rushed to his heart at the thought. "I will fall at his feet
and beseech him. He will lift me up, will listen, and will even thank
me. 'I am happy when I can do good, but to remedy injustice is the
greatest happiness,'" Rostov fancied the sovereign saying. And passing
people who looked after him with curiosity, he entered the porch of the
Emperor's house.
A broad staircase led straight up from the entry, and to the right he
saw a closed door. Below, under the staircase, was a door leading to the
lower floor.
"Whom do you want?" someone inquired.
"To hand in a letter, a petition, to His Majesty," said Nicholas, with a
tremor in his voice.
"A petition? This way, to the officer on duty" (he was shown the
door leading downstairs), "only it won't be accepted."
On hearing this indifferent voice, Rostov grew frightened at what he
was doing; the thought of meeting the Emperor at any moment was so
fascinating and consequently so alarming that he was ready to run
away, but the official who had questioned him opened the door, and
Rostov entered.
 A short stout man of about thirty, in white breeches and high boots
and a batiste shirt that he had evidently only just put on, standing in
that room, and his valet was buttoning on to the back of his breeches a
new pair of handsome silk-embroidered braces that, for some reason,
attracted Rostov's attention. This man was speaking to someone in the
adjoining room.
"A good figure and in her first bloom," he was saying, but on seeing
Rostov, he stopped short and frowned.
"What is it? A petition?"
"What is it?" asked the person in the other room.
"Another petitioner," answered the man with the braces.
"Tell him to come later. He'll be coming out directly, we must go."
"Later... later! Tomorrow. It's too late..."
Rostov turned and was about to go, but the man in the braces stopped
him.
"Whom have you come from? Who are you?"
"I come from Major Denisov," answered Rostov.
"Are you an officer?"
"Lieutenant Count Rostov."
"What audacity! Hand it in through your commander. And go along
with you... go," and he continued to put on the uniform the valet
handed him.
Rostov went back into the hall and noticed that in the porch there
were many officers and generals in full parade uniform, whom he had
to pass.
Cursing his temerity, his heart sinking at the thought of finding
himself at any moment face to face with the Emperor and being put to
shame and arrested in his presence, fully alive now to the impropriety
of his conduct and repenting of it, Rostov, with downcast eyes, was
making his way out of the house through the brilliant suite when a
familiar voice called him and a hand detained him.
"What are you doing here, sir, in civilian dress?" asked a deep voice.
It was a cavalry general who had obtained the Emperor's special
favor during this campaign, and who had formerly commanded the
division in which Rostov was serving.
 Rostov, in dismay, began justifying himself, but seeing the kindly,
jocular face of the general, he took him aside and in an excited voice
told him the whole affair, asking him to intercede for Denisov, whom
the general knew. Having heard Rostov to the end, the general shook
his head gravely.
"I'm sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter."
Hardly had Rostov handed him the letter and finished explaining
Denisov's case, when hasty steps and the jingling of spurs were heard
on the stairs, and the general, leaving him, went to the porch. The
gentlemen of the Emperor's suite ran down the stairs and went to their
horses. Hayne, the same groom who had been at Austerlitz, led up the
Emperor's horse, and the faint creak of a footstep Rostov knew at once
was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the danger of being recognized,
Rostov went close to the porch, together with some inquisitive
civilians, and again, after two years, saw those features he adored: that
same face and same look and step, and the same union of majesty and
mildness.... And the feeling of enthusiasm and love for his sovereign
rose again in Rostov's soul in all its old force. In the uniform of the
Preobrazhensk regiment—white chamois-leather breeches and high
boots—and wearing a star Rostov did not know (it was that of the
Legion d'honneur), the monarch came out into the porch, putting on his
gloves and carrying his hat under his arm. He stopped and looked about
him, brightening everything around by his glance. He spoke a few
words to some of the generals, and, recognizing the former commander
of Rostov's division, smiled and beckoned to him.
All the suite drew back and Rostov saw the general talking for some
time to the Emperor.
The Emperor said a few words to him and took a step toward his
horse. Again the crowd of members of the suite and street gazers
(among whom was Rostov) moved nearer to the Emperor. Stopping
beside his horse, with his hand on the saddle, the Emperor turned to the
cavalry general and said in a loud voice, evidently wishing to be heard
by all:
"I cannot do it, General. I cannot, because the law is stronger than I,"
and he raised his foot to the stirrup.
The general bowed his head respectfully, and the monarch mounted
and rode down the street at a gallop. Beside himself with enthusiasm,
Rostov ran after him with the crowd.
 CHAPTER XXI
The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a
battalion of the Preobrazhensk regiment stood on the right and a
battalion of the French Guards in their bearskin caps on the left.
As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which presented
arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and
at the head of them Rostov recognized Napoleon. It could be no one
else. He came at a gallop, wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open
over a white vest, and the St. Andrew ribbon over his shoulder. He was
riding a very fine thoroughbred gray Arab horse with a crimson gold-
embroidered saddlecloth. On approaching Alexander he raised his hat,
and as he did so, Rostov, with his cavalryman's eye, could not help
noticing that Napoleon did not sit well or firmly in the saddle. The
battalions shouted "Hurrah!" and "Vive l'Empereur!" Napoleon said
something to Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each
other's hands. Napoleon's face wore an unpleasant and artificial smile.
Alexander was saying something affable to him.
In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes' horses, which
were pushing back the crowd, Rostov kept his eyes on every movement
of Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise that Alexander
treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with
the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter
to him.
Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their suites,
approached the right flank of the Preobrazhensk battalion and came
straight up to the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly found
itself so close to the Emperors that Rostov, standing in the front row,
was afraid he might be recognized.
"Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the
bravest of your soldiers," said a sharp, precise voice, articulating every
letter.
This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight into
Alexander's eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what was said to
him and, bending his head, smiled pleasantly.
"To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war," added
Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and
assurance exasperating to Rostov, he ran his eyes over the Russian
ranks drawn up before him, who all presented arms with their eyes
fixed on their Emperor.
 "Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?" said
Alexander and took a few hasty steps toward Prince Kozlovski, the
commander of the battalion.
Bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white
hand, tore it in doing so, and threw it away. An aide-de-camp behind
him rushed forward and picked it up.
"To whom shall it be given?" the Emperor Alexander asked
Koslovski, in Russian in a low voice.
"To whomever Your Majesty commands."
The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, glancing back,
remarked:
"But we must give him an answer."
Kozlovski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostov in his
scrutiny.
"Can it be me?" thought Rostov.
"Lazarev!" the colonel called, with a frown, and Lazarev, the first
soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.
"Where are you off to? Stop here!" voices whispered to Lazarev who
did not know where to go. Lazarev stopped, casting a sidelong look at
his colonel in alarm. His face twitched, as often happens to soldiers
called before the ranks.
Napoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump little hand out
behind him as if to take something. The members of his suite, guessing
at once what he wanted, moved about and whispered as they passed
something from one to another, and a page—the same one Rostov had
seen the previous evening at Boris'—ran forward and, bowing
respectfully over the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting a
moment, laid in it an Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, without looking,
pressed two fingers together and the badge was between them. Then he
approached Lazarev (who rolled his eyes and persistently gazed at his
own monarch), looked round at the Emperor Alexander to imply that
what he was now doing was done for the sake of his ally, and the small
white hand holding the Order touched one of Lazarev's buttons. It was
as if Napoleon knew that it was only necessary for his hand to deign to
touch that soldier's breast for the soldier to be forever happy, rewarded,
and distinguished from everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely
laid the cross on Lazarev's breast and, dropping his hand, turned toward
Alexander as though sure that the cross would adhere there. And it
really did.
 Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the cross
and fastened it to the uniform. Lazarev glanced morosely at the little
man with white hands who was doing something to him and, still
standing motionless presenting arms, looked again straight into
Alexander's eyes, as if asking whether he should stand there, or go
away, or do something else. But receiving no orders, he remained for
some time in that rigid position.
The Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobrazhensk
battalion, breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down
at the tables prepared for them.
Lazarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French officers
embraced him, congratulated him, and pressed his hands. Crowds of
officers and civilians drew near merely to see him. A rumble of Russian
and French voices and laughter filled the air round the tables in the
square. Two officers with flushed faces, looking cheerful and happy,
passed by Rostov.
"What d'you think of the treat? All on silver plate," one of them was
saying. "Have you seen Lazarev?"
"I have."
"Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhenskis will give them a dinner."
"Yes, but what luck for Lazarev! Twelve hundred francs' pension for
life."
"Here's a cap, lads!" shouted a Preobrazhensk soldier, donning a
shaggy French cap.
"It's a fine thing! First-rate!"
"Have you heard the password?" asked one Guards' officer of
another. "The day before yesterday it was 'Napoleon, France, bravoure';
yesterday, 'Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.' One day our Emperor gives it
and next day Napoleon. Tomorrow our Emperor will send a St.
George's Cross to the bravest of the French Guards. It has to be done.
He must respond in kind."
Boris, too, with his friend Zhilinski, came to see the Preobrazhensk
banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostov standing by the corner of
a house.
"Rostov! How d'you do? We missed one another," he said, and could
not refrain from asking what was the matter, so strangely dismal and
troubled was Rostov's face.
"Nothing, nothing," replied Rostov.
 "You'll call round?"
"Yes, I will."
Rostov stood at that corner for a long time, watching the feast from a
distance. In his mind, a painful process was going on which he could
not bring to a conclusion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he
remembered Denisov with his changed expression, his submission, and
the whole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease.
So vividly did he recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he looked
round to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that self-
satisfied Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an
Emperor, liked and respected by Alexander. Then why those severed
arms and legs and those dead men?... Then again he thought of Lazarev
rewarded and Denisov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself
harboring such strange thoughts that he was frightened.
The smell of the food the Preobrazhenskis were eating and a sense of
hunger recalled him from these reflections; he had to get something to
eat before going away. He went to a hotel he had noticed that morning.
There he found so many people, among them officers who, like
himself, had come in civilian clothes, that he had difficulty in getting a
dinner. Two officers of his own division joined him. The conversation
naturally turned on the peace. The officers, his comrades, like most of
the army, were dissatisfied with the peace concluded after the battle of
Friedland. They said that had we held out a little longer Napoleon
would have been done for, as his troops had neither provisions nor
ammunition. Nicholas ate and drank (chiefly the latter) in silence. He
finished a couple of bottles of wine by himself. The process in his mind
went on tormenting him without reaching a conclusion. He feared to
give way to his thoughts, yet could not get rid of them. Suddenly, on
one of the officers' saying that it was humiliating to look at the French,
Rostov began shouting with uncalled-for wrath, and therefore much to
the surprise of the officers:
"How can you judge what's best?" he cried, the blood suddenly
rushing to his face. "How can you judge the Emperor's actions? What
right have we to argue? We cannot comprehend either the Emperor's
aims or his actions!"
"But I never said a word about the Emperor!" said the officer,
justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostov's outburst, except
on the supposition that he was drunk.
But Rostov did not listen to him.
"We are not diplomatic officials, we are soldiers and nothing more,"
he went on. "If we are ordered to die, we must die. If we're punished, it
means that we have deserved it, it's not for us to judge. If the Emperor
pleases to recognize Bonaparte as Emperor and to conclude an alliance
with him, it means that that is the right thing to do. If once we begin
judging and arguing about everything, nothing sacred will be left! That
way we shall be saying there is no God—nothing!" shouted Nicholas,
banging the table—very little to the point as it seemed to his listeners,
but quite relevantly to the course of his own thoughts.
"Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to think! That's
all...." said he.
"And to drink," said one of the officers, not wishing to quarrel.
"Yes, and to drink," assented Nicholas. "Hullo there! Another
bottle!" he shouted.
In 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for a fresh interview
with the Emperor Napoleon, and in the upper circles of Petersburg
there was much talk of the grandeur of this important meeting.

CHAPTER XXII
In 1809 the intimacy between "the world's two arbiters," as Napoleon
and Alexander were called, was such that when Napoleon declared war
on Austria a Russian corps crossed the frontier to co-operate with our
old enemy Bonaparte against our old ally the Emperor of Austria, and
in court circles the possibility of marriage between Napoleon and one
of Alexander's sisters was spoken of. But besides considerations of
foreign policy, the attention of Russian society was at that time keenly
directed on the internal changes that were being undertaken in all the
departments of government.
Life meanwhile—real life, with its essential interests of health and
sickness, toil and rest, and its intellectual interests in thought, science,
poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, and passions—went on as usual,
independently of and apart from political friendship or enmity with
Napoleon Bonaparte and from all the schemes of reconstruction.

BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10

 CHAPTER I
Prince Andrew had spent two years continuously in the country.
All the plans Pierre had attempted on his estates—and constantly
changing from one thing to another had never accomplished—were
carried out by Prince Andrew without display and without perceptible
difficulty.
He had in the highest degree a practical tenacity which Pierre lacked,
and without fuss or strain on his part this set things going.
On one of his estates the three hundred serfs were liberated and
became free agricultural laborers—this being one of the first examples
of the kind in Russia. On other estates the serfs' compulsory labor was
commuted for a quitrent. A trained midwife was engaged for
Bogucharovo at his expense, and a priest was paid to teach reading and
writing to the children of the peasants and household serfs.
Prince Andrew spent half his time at Bald Hills with his father and
his son, who was still in the care of nurses. The other half he spent in
"Bogucharovo Cloister," as his father called Prince Andrew's estate.
Despite the indifference to the affairs of the world he had expressed to
Pierre, he diligently followed all that went on, received many books,
and to his surprise noticed that when he or his father had visitors from
Petersburg, the very vortex of life, these people lagged behind
himself—who never left the country—in knowledge of what was
happening in home and foreign affairs.
Besides being occupied with his estates and reading a great variety of
books, Prince Andrew was at this time busy with a critical survey of
our last two unfortunate campaigns, and with drawing up a proposal for
a reform of the army rules and regulations.
In the spring of 1809 he went to visit the Ryazan estates which had
been inherited by his son, whose guardian he was.
Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the caleche looking at the
new grass, the first leaves on the birches, and the first puffs of white
spring clouds floating across the clear blue sky. He was not thinking of
anything, but looked absent-mindedly and cheerfully from side to side.
They crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre the year
before. They went through the muddy village, past threshing floors and
green fields of winter rye, downhill where snow still lodged near the
bridge, uphill where the clay had been liquefied by the rain, past strips
of stubble land and bushes touched with green here and there, and into
a birch forest growing on both sides of the road. In the forest it was
almost hot, no wind could be felt. The birches with their sticky green
leaves were motionless, and lilac-colored flowers and the first blades of
green grass were pushing up and lifting last year's leaves. The coarse
evergreen color of the small fir trees scattered here and there among the
birches was an unpleasant reminder of winter. On entering the forest
the horses began to snort and sweated visibly.
Peter the footman made some remark to the coachman; the latter
assented. But apparently the coachman's sympathy was not enough for
Peter, and he turned on the box toward his master.
"How pleasant it is, your excellency!" he said with a respectful
smile.
"What?"
"It's pleasant, your excellency!"

"What is he talking about?" thought Prince Andrew.

"Oh, the spring,
I suppose," he thought as he turned round. "Yes,
really everything is
green already.... How early! The birches and cherry
and alders too are
coming out.... But the oaks show no sign yet. Ah,
here is one oak!"

At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten

times the age of
the birches that formed the forest, it was ten times
as thick and twice
as tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth
twice as great as a
man could embrace, and evidently long ago some of
its branches had been
broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge
ungainly limbs sprawling
unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers,
it stood an aged,
stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch
trees. Only the
dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the
forest, and this oak,
refused to yield to the charm of spring or notice
either the spring or
the sunshine.
 "Spring, love, happiness!" this oak seemed to say. "Are you not
weary of that stupid, meaningless, constantly repeated fraud? Always
the same and always a fraud? There is no spring, no sun, no happiness!
Look at those cramped dead firs, ever the same, and at me too, sticking
out my broken and barked fingers just where they have grown, whether
from my back or my sides: as they have grown so I stand, and I do not
believe in your hopes and your lies."
As he passed through the forest Prince Andrew turned several times
to look at that oak, as if expecting something from it. Under the oak,
too, were flowers and grass, but it stood among them scowling, rigid,
misshapen, and grim as ever.
"Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right," thought Prince
Andrew. "Let others—the young—yield afresh to that fraud, but we
know life, our life is finished!"
A whole sequence of new thoughts, hopeless but mournfully
pleasant, rose in his soul in connection with that tree. During this
journey he, as it were, considered his life afresh and arrived at his old
conclusion, restful in its hopelessness: that it was not for him to begin
anything anew—but that he must live out his life, content to do no
harm, and not disturbing himself or desiring anything.

CHAPTER II
Prince Andrew had to see the Marshal of the Nobility for the district
in connection with the affairs of the Ryazan estate of which he was
trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilya Rostov, and in the middle of May
Prince Andrew went to visit him.
It was now hot spring weather. The whole forest was already clothed
in green. It was dusty and so hot that on passing near water one longed
to bathe.
Prince Andrew, depressed and preoccupied with the business about
which he had to speak to the Marshal, was driving up the avenue in the
grounds of the Rostovs' house at Otradnoe. He heard merry girlish cries
behind some trees on the right and saw a group of girls running to cross
the path of his caleche. Ahead of the rest and nearer to him ran a dark-
haired, remarkably slim, pretty girl in a yellow chintz dress, with a
white handkerchief on her head from under which loose locks of hair
escaped. The girl was shouting something but, seeing that he was a
stranger, ran back laughing without looking at him.
 Suddenly, he did not know why, he felt a pang. The day was so
beautiful, the sun so bright, everything around so gay, but that slim
pretty girl did not know, or wish to know, of his existence and was
contented and cheerful in her own separate—probably foolish—but
bright and happy life. "What is she so glad about? What is she thinking
of? Not of the military regulations or of the arrangement of the Ryazan
serfs' quitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so happy?" Prince
Andrew asked himself with instinctive curiosity.
In 1809 Count Ilya Rostov was living at Otradnoe just as he had
done in former years, that is, entertaining almost the whole province
with hunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. He was glad to see Prince
Andrew, as he was to see any new visitor, and insisted on his staying
the night.
During the dull day, in the course of which he was entertained by his
elderly hosts and by the more important of the visitors (the old count's
house was crowded on account of an approaching name day), Prince
Andrew repeatedly glanced at Natasha, gay and laughing among the
younger members of the company, and asked himself each time, "What
is she thinking about? Why is she so glad?"
That night, alone in new surroundings, he was long unable to sleep.
He read awhile and then put out his candle, but relit it. It was hot in the
room, the inside shutters of which were closed. He was cross with the
stupid old man (as he called Rostov), who had made him stay by
assuring him that some necessary documents had not yet arrived from
town, and he was vexed with himself for having stayed.
He got up and went to the window to open it. As soon as he opened
the shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this,
burst into the room. He opened the casement. The night was fresh,
bright, and very still. Just before the window was a row of pollard trees,
looking black on one side and with a silvery light on the other. Beneath
the trees grewsome kind of lush, wet, bushy vegetation with silver-lit
leaves and stems here and there. Farther back beyond the dark trees a
roof glittered with dew, to the right was a leafy tree with brilliantly
white trunk and branches, and above it shone the moon, nearly at its
full, in a pale, almost starless, spring sky. Prince Andrew leaned his
elbows on the window ledge and his eyes rested on that sky.
His room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above were also
awake. He heard female voices overhead.
"Just once more," said a girlish voice above him which Prince
Andrew recognized at once.
"But when are you coming to bed?" replied another voice.
 "I won't, I can't sleep, what's the use? Come now for the last time."

Two girlish voices sang a musical passage—the end

of some song.

"Oh, how lovely! Now go to sleep, and there's an end of it."

"You go to sleep, but I can't," said the first voice, coming nearer to
the window. She was evidently leaning right out, for the rustle of her
dress and even her breathing could be heard. Everything was stone-still,
like the moon and its light and the shadows. Prince Andrew, too, dared
not stir, for fear of betraying his unintentional presence.
"Sonya! Sonya!" he again heard the first speaker. "Oh, how can you
sleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake up,
Sonya!" she said almost with tears in her voice. "There never, never
was such a lovely night before!"
Sonya made some reluctant reply.
"Do just come and see what a moon!... Oh, how lovely! Come
here.... Darling, sweetheart, come here! There, you see? I feel like
sitting down on my heels, putting my arms round my knees like this,
straining tight, as tight as possible, and flying away! Like this...."
"Take care, you'll fall out."
He heard the sound of a scuffle and Sonya's disapproving voice: "It's
past one o'clock."
"Oh, you only spoil things for me. All right, go, go!"
Again all was silent, but Prince Andrew knew she was still sitting
there. From time to time he heard a soft rustle and at times a sigh.
"O God, O God! What does it mean?" she suddenly exclaimed. "To
bed then, if it must be!" and she slammed the casement.
"For her I might as well not exist!" thought Prince Andrew while he
listened to her voice, for some reason expecting yet fearing that she
might say something about him. "There she is again! As if it were on
purpose," thought he.
In his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected turmoil of
youthful thoughts and hopes, contrary to the whole tenor of his life, that
unable to explain his condition to himself he lay down and fell asleep at
once.
 CHAPTER III
Next morning, having taken leave of no one but the count, and not
waiting for the ladies to appear, Prince Andrew set off for home.
It was already the beginning of June when on his return journey he
drove into the birch forest where the gnarled old oak had made so
strange and memorable an impression on him. In the forest the harness
bells sounded yet more muffled than they had done six weeks before,
for now all was thick, shady, and dense, and the young firs dotted about
in the forest did not jar on the general beauty but, lending themselves to
the mood around, were delicately green with fluffy young shoots.
The whole day had been hot. Somewhere a storm was gathering, but
only a small cloud had scattered some raindrops lightly, sprinkling the
road and the sappy leaves. The left side of the forest was dark in the
shade, the right side glittered in the sunlight, wet and shiny and
scarcely swayed by the breeze. Everything was in blossom, the
nightingales trilled, and their voices reverberated now near, now far
away.
"Yes, here in this forest was that oak with which I agreed," thought
Prince Andrew. "But where is it?" he again wondered, gazing at the left
side of the road, and without recognizing it he looked with admiration
at the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured, spreading out
a canopy of sappy dark-green foliage, stood rapt and slightly trembling
in the rays of the evening sun. Neither gnarled fingers nor old scars nor
old doubts and sorrows were any of them in evidence now. Through the
hard century-old bark, even where there were no twigs, leaves had
sprouted such as one could hardly believe the old veteran could have
produced.
"Yes, it is the same oak," thought Prince Andrew, and all at once he
was seized by an unreasoning springtime feeling of joy and renewal.
All the best moments of his life suddenly rose to his memory.
Austerlitz with the lofty heavens, his wife's dead reproachful face,
Pierre at the ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that
night itself and the moon, and.... all this rushed suddenly to his mind.
"No, life is not over at thirty-one!" Prince Andrew suddenly decided
finally and decisively. "It is not enough for me to know what I have in
me—everyone must know it: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to
fly away into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life may not
be lived for myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that it
may be reflected in them all, and they and I may live in harmony!"
On reaching home Prince Andrew decided to go to Petersburg that
autumn and found all sorts of reasons for this decision. A whole series
of sensible and logical considerations showing it to be essential for him
to go to Petersburg, and even to re-enter the service, kept springing up
in his mind. He could not now understand how he could ever even have
doubted the necessity of taking an active share in life, just as a month
before he had not understood how the idea of leaving the quiet country
could ever enter his head. It now seemed clear to him that all his
experience of life must be senselessly wasted unless he applied it to
some kind of work and again played an active part in life. He did not
even remember how formerly, on the strength of similar wretched
logical arguments, it had seemed obvious that he would be degrading
himself if he now, after the lessons he had had in life, allowed himself
to believe in the possibility of being useful and in the possibility of
happiness or love. Now reason suggested quite the opposite. After that
journey to Ryazan he found the country dull; his former pursuits no
longer interested him, and often when sitting alone in his study he got
up, went to the mirror, and gazed a long time at his own face. Then he
would turn away to the portrait of his dead Lise, who with hair curled a
la grecque looked tenderly and gaily at him out of the gilt frame. She
did not now say those former terrible words to him, but looked simply,
merrily, and inquisitively at him. And Prince Andrew, crossing his
arms behind him, long paced the room, now frowning, now smiling, as
he reflected on those irrational, inexpressible thoughts, secret as a
crime, which altered his whole life and were connected with Pierre,
with fame, with the girl at the window, the oak, and woman's beauty
and love. And if anyone came into his room at such moments he was
particularly cold, stern, and above all unpleasantly logical.
"My dear," Princess Mary entering at such a moment would say,
"little Nicholas can't go out today, it's very cold."
"If it were hot," Prince Andrew would reply at such times very dryly
to his sister, "he could go out in his smock, but as it is cold he must
wear warm clothes, which were designed for that purpose. That is what
follows from the fact that it is cold; and not that a child who needs fresh
air should remain at home," he would add with extreme logic, as if
punishing someone for those secret illogical emotions that stirred
within him.
At such moments Princess Mary would think how intellectual work
dries men up.

CHAPTER IV
 Prince Andrew arrived in Petersburg in August, 1809. It was the time
when the youthful Speranski was at the zenith of his fame and his
reforms were being pushed forward with the greatest energy. That same
August the Emperor was thrown from his caleche, injured his leg, and
remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speranski every day and
no one else. At that time the two famous decrees were being prepared
that so agitated society—abolishing court ranks and introducing
examinations to qualify for the grades of Collegiate Assessor and State
Councilor—and not merely these but a whole state constitution,
intended to change the existing order of government in Russia: legal,
administrative, and financial, from the Council of State down to the
district tribunals. Now those vague liberal dreams with which the
Emperor Alexander had ascended the throne, and which he had tried to
put into effect with the aid of his associates, Czartoryski, Novosiltsev,
Kochubey, and Strogonov—whom he himself in jest had called his
Comite de salut public—were taking shape and being realized.
Now all these men were replaced by Speranski on the civil side, and
Arakcheev on the military. Soon after his arrival Prince Andrew, as a
gentleman of the chamber, presented himself at court and at a levee.
The Emperor, though he met him twice, did not favor him with a single
word. It had always seemed to Prince Andrew before that he was
antipathetic to the Emperor and that the latter disliked his face and
personality generally, and in the cold, repellent glance the Emperor
gave him, he now found further confirmation of this surmise. The
courtiers explained the Emperor's neglect of him by His Majesty's
displeasure at Bolkonski's not having served since 1805.
"I know myself that one cannot help one's sympathies and
antipathies," thought Prince Andrew, "so it will not do to present my
proposal for the reform of the army regulations to the Emperor
personally, but the project will speak for itself."
He mentioned what he had written to an old field marshal, a friend of
his father's. The field marshal made an appointment to see him,
received him graciously, and promised to inform the Emperor. A few
days later Prince Andrew received notice that he was to go to see the
Minister of War, Count Arakcheev.
On the appointed day Prince Andrew entered Count Arakcheev's
waiting room at nine in the morning.
He did not know Arakcheev personally, had never seen him, and all
he had heard of him inspired him with but little respect for the man.
"He is Minister of War, a man trusted by the Emperor, and I need not
concern myself about his personal qualities: he has been commissioned
to consider my project, so he alone can get it adopted," thought Prince
Andrew as he waited among a number of important and unimportant
people in Count Arakcheev's waiting room.
During his service, chiefly as an adjutant, Prince Andrew had seen
the anterooms of many important men, and the different types of such
rooms were well known to him. Count Arakcheev's anteroom had quite
a special character. The faces of the unimportant people awaiting their
turn for an audience showed embarrassment and servility; the faces of
those of higher rank expressed a common feeling of awkwardness,
covered by a mask of unconcern and ridicule of themselves, their
situation, and the person for whom they were waiting. Some walked
thoughtfully up and down, others whispered and laughed. Prince
Andrew heard the nickname "Sila Andreevich" and the words, "Uncle
will give it to us hot," in reference to Count Arakcheev. One general
(an important personage), evidently feeling offended at having to wait
so long, sat crossing and uncrossing his legs and smiling
contemptuously to himself.
But the moment the door opened one feeling alone appeared on all
faces—that of fear. Prince Andrew for the second time asked the
adjutant on duty to take in his name, but received an ironical look and
was told that his turn would come in due course. After some others had
been shown in and out of the minister's room by the adjutant on duty,
an officer who struck Prince Andrew by his humiliated and frightened
air was admitted at that terrible door. This officer's audience lasted a
long time. Then suddenly the grating sound of a harsh voice was heard
from the other side of the door, and the officer—with pale face and
trembling lips—came out and passed through the waiting room,
clutching his head.
After this Prince Andrew was conducted to the door and the officer
on duty said in a whisper, "To the right, at the window."
Prince Andrew entered a plain tidy room and saw at the table a man
of forty with a long waist, a long closely cropped head, deep wrinkles,
scowling brows above dull greenish-hazel eyes and an overhanging red
nose. Arakcheev turned his head toward him without looking at him.
"What is your petition?" asked Arakcheev.
"I am not petitioning, your excellency," returned Prince Andrew
quietly.
Arakcheev's eyes turned toward him.
"Sit down," said he. "Prince Bolkonski?"
"I am not petitioning about anything. His Majesty the Emperor has
deigned to send your excellency a project submitted by me..."
 "You see, my dear sir, I have read your project," interrupted
Arakcheev, uttering only the first words amiably and then—again
without looking at Prince Andrew—relapsing gradually into a tone of
grumbling contempt. "You are proposing new military laws? There are
many laws but no one to carry out the old ones. Nowadays everybody
designs laws, it is easier writing than doing."
"I came at His Majesty the Emperor's wish to learn from your
excellency how you propose to deal with the memorandum I have
presented," said Prince Andrew politely.
"I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum and sent it to the
committee. I do not approve of it," said Arakcheev, rising and taking a
paper from his writing table. "Here!" and he handed it to Prince
Andrew.
Across the paper was scrawled in pencil, without capital letters,
misspelled, and without punctuation: "Unsoundly constructed because
resembles an imitation of the French military code and from the
Articles of War needlessly deviating."
"To what committee has the memorandum been referred?" inquired
Prince Andrew.
"To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have recommended
that your honor should be appointed a member, but without a salary."
Prince Andrew smiled.
"I don't want one."
"A member without salary," repeated Arakcheev. "I have the honor...
Eh! Call the next one! Who else is there?" he shouted, bowing to Prince
Andrew.

CHAPTER V
While waiting for the announcement of his appointment to the
committee Prince Andrew looked up his former acquaintances,
particularly those he knew to be in power and whose aid he might need.
In Petersburg he now experienced the same feeling he had had on the
eve of a battle, when troubled by anxious curiosity and irresistibly
attracted to the ruling circles where the future, on which the fate of
millions depended, was being shaped. From the irritation of the older
men, the curiosity of the uninitiated, the reserve of the initiated, the
hurry and preoccupation of everyone, and the innumerable committees
and commissions of whose existence he learned every day, he felt that
now, in 1809, here in Petersburg a vast civil conflict was in preparation,
the commander in chief of which was a mysterious person he did not
know, but who was supposed to be a man of genius—Speranski. And
this movement of reconstruction of which Prince Andrew had a vague
idea, and Speranski its chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly
that the question of the army regulations quickly receded to a secondary
place in his consciousness.
Prince Andrew was most favorably placed to secure good reception
in the highest and most diverse Petersburg circles of the day. The
reforming party cordially welcomed and courted him, in the first place
because he was reputed to be clever and very well read, and secondly
because by liberating his serfs he had obtained the reputation of being a
liberal. The party of the old and dissatisfied, who censured the
innovations, turned to him expecting his sympathy in their disapproval
of the reforms, simply because he was the son of his father. The
feminine society world welcomed him gladly, because he was rich,
distinguished, a good match, and almost a newcomer, with a halo of
romance on account of his supposed death and the tragic loss of his
wife. Besides this the general opinion of all who had known him
previously was that he had greatly improved during these last five
years, having softened and grown more manly, lost his former
affectation, pride, and contemptuous irony, and acquired the serenity
that comes with years. People talked about him, were interested in him,
and wanted to meet him.
The day after his interview with Count Arakcheev, Prince Andrew
spent the evening at Count Kochubey's. He told the count of his
interview with Sila Andreevich (Kochubey spoke of Arakcheev by that
nickname with the same vague irony Prince Andrew had noticed in the
Minister of War's anteroom).
"Mon cher, even in this case you can't do without Michael
Mikhaylovich Speranski. He manages everything. I'll speak to him. He
has promised to come this evening."
"What has Speranski to do with the army regulations?" asked Prince
Andrew.
Kochubey shook his head smilingly, as if surprised at Bolkonski's
simplicity.
"We were talking to him about you a few days ago," Kochubey
continued, "and about your freed plowmen."
"Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?" said an old man of
Catherine's day, turning contemptuously toward Bolkonski.
 "It was a small estate that brought in no profit," replied Prince
Andrew, trying to extenuate his action so as not to irritate the old man
uselessly.
"Afraid of being late..." said the old man, looking at Kochubey.
"There's one thing I don't understand," he continued. "Who will plow
the land if they are set free? It is easy to write laws, but difficult to
rule.... Just the same as now—I ask you, Count—who will be heads of
the departments when everybody has to pass examinations?"
"Those who pass the examinations, I suppose," replied Kochubey,
crossing his legs and glancing round.
"Well, I have Pryanichnikov serving under me, a splendid man, a
priceless man, but he's sixty. Is he to go up for examination?"
"Yes, that's a difficulty, as education is not at all general, but..."
Count Kochubey did not finish. He rose, took Prince Andrew by the
arm, and went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of about forty with a large
open forehead and a long face of unusual and peculiar whiteness, who
was just entering. The newcomer wore a blue swallow-tail coat with a
cross suspended from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was
Speranski. Prince Andrew recognized him at once, and felt a throb
within him, as happens at critical moments of life. Whether it was from
respect, envy, or anticipation, he did not know. Speranski's whole
figure was of a peculiar type that made him easily recognizable. In the
society in which Prince Andrew lived he had never seen anyone who
together with awkward and clumsy gestures possessed such calmness
and self-assurance; he had never seen so resolute yet gentle an
expression as that in those half-closed, rather humid eyes, or so firm a
smile that expressed nothing; nor had he heard such a refined, smooth,
soft voice; above all he had never seen such delicate whiteness of face
or hands—hands which were broad, but very plump, soft, and white.
Such whiteness and softness Prince Andrew had only seen on the faces
of soldiers who had been long in hospital. This was Speranski,
Secretary of State, reporter to the Emperor and his companion at Erfurt,
where he had more than once met and talked with Napoleon.
Speranski did not shift his eyes from one face to another as people
involuntarily do on entering a large company and was in no hurry to
speak. He spoke slowly, with assurance that he would be listened to,
and he looked only at the person with whom he was conversing.
Prince Andrew followed Speranski's every word and movement with
particular attention. As happens to some people, especially to men who
judge those near to them severely, he always on meeting anyone new—
especially anyone whom, like Speranski, he knew by reputation—
expected to discover in him the perfection of human qualities.
Speranski told Kochubey he was sorry he had been unable to come
sooner as he had been detained at the palace. He did not say that the
Emperor had kept him, and Prince Andrew noticed this affectation of
modesty. When Kochubey introduced Prince Andrew, Speranski slowly
turned his eyes to Bolkonski with his customary smile and looked at
him in silence.
"I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I had heard of you, as
everyone has," he said after a pause.
Kochubey said a few words about the reception Arakcheev had given
Bolkonski. Speranski smiled more markedly.
"The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations is my good
friend Monsieur Magnitski," he said, fully articulating every word and
syllable, "and if you like I can put you in touch with him." He paused at
the full stop. "I hope you will find him sympathetic and ready to co-
operate in promoting all that is reasonable."
A circle soon formed round Speranski, and the old man who had
talked about his subordinate Pryanichnikov addressed a question to
him.
Prince Andrew without joining in the conversation watched every
movement of Speranski's: this man, not long since an insignificant
divinity student, who now, Bolkonski thought, held in his hands—those
plump white hands—the fate of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck by
the extraordinarily disdainful composure with which Speranski
answered the old man. He appeared to address condescending words to
him from an immeasurable height. When the old man began to speak
too loud, Speranski smiled and said he could not judge of the advantage
or disadvantage of what pleased the sovereign.
Having talked for a little while in the general circle, Speranski rose
and coming up to Prince Andrew took him along to the other end of the
room. It was clear that he thought it necessary to interest himself in
Bolkonski.
"I had no chance to talk with you, Prince, during the animated
conversation in which that venerable gentleman involved me," he said
with a mildly contemptuous smile, as if intimating by that smile that he
and Prince Andrew understood the insignificance of the people with
whom he had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrew. "I have
known of you for a long time: first from your action with regard to your
serfs, a first example, of which it is very desirable that there should be
more imitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen
of the chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the
new decree concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing
so much gossip and tittle-tattle."
"No," said Prince Andrew, "my father did not wish me to take
advantage of the privilege. I began the service from the lower grade."
"Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands above our
contemporaries who so condemn this measure which merely
reestablishes natural justice."
"I think, however, that these condemnations have some ground,"
returned Prince Andrew, trying to resist Speranski's influence, of which
he began to be conscious. He did not like to agree with him in
everything and felt a wish to contradict. Though he usually spoke easily
and well, he felt a difficulty in expressing himself now while talking
with Speranski. He was too much absorbed in observing the famous
man's personality.
"Grounds of personal ambition maybe," Speranski put in quietly.
"And of state interest to some extent," said Prince Andrew.
"What do you mean?" asked Speranski quietly, lowering his eyes.
"I am an admirer of Montesquieu," replied Prince Andrew, "and his
idea that le principe des monarchies est l'honneur me parait
incontestable. Certains droits et privileges de la noblesse me paraissent
etre des moyens de soutenir ce sentiment." *

* "The principle of monarchies is honor seems

to me
incontestable. Certain rights and privileges
for the
aristocracy appear to me a means of maintaining
that
sentiment."

The smile vanished from Speranski's white face, which was much
improved by the change. Probably Prince Andrew's thought interested
him.
"Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue," * he began,
pronouncing French with evident difficulty, and speaking even slower
than in Russian but quite calmly.

* "If you regard the question from that point of

view."
 Speranski went on to say that honor, l'honeur, cannot be upheld by
privileges harmful to the service; that honor, l'honneur, is either a
negative concept of not doing what is blameworthy or it is a source of
emulation in pursuit of commendation and rewards, which recognize it.
His arguments were concise, simple, and clear.
"An institution upholding honor, the source of emulation, is one
similar to the Legion d'honneur of the great Emperor Napoleon, not
harmful but helpful to the success of the service, but not a class or court
privilege."
"I do not dispute that, but it cannot be denied that court privileges
have attained the same end," returned Prince Andrew. "Every courtier
considers himself bound to maintain his position worthily."
"Yet you do not care to avail yourself of the privilege, Prince," said
Speranski, indicating by a smile that he wished to finish amiably an
argument which was embarrassing for his companion. "If you will do
me the honor of calling on me on Wednesday," he added, "I will, after
talking with Magnitski, let you know what may interest you, and shall
also have the pleasure of a more detailed chat with you."
Closing his eyes, he bowed a la francaise, without taking leave, and
trying to attract as little attention as possible, he left the room.

CHAPTER VI
During the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andrew felt
the whole trend of thought he had formed during his life of seclusion
quite overshadowed by the trifling cares that engrossed him in that city.
On returning home in the evening he would jot down in his notebook
four or five necessary calls or appointments for certain hours. The
mechanism of life, the arrangement of the day so as to be in time
everywhere, absorbed the greater part of his vital energy. He did
nothing, did not even think or find time to think, but only talked, and
talked successfully, of what he had thought while in the country.
He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he repeated the same
remark on the same day in different circles. But he was so busy for
whole days together that he had no time to notice that he was thinking
of nothing.
As he had done on their first meeting at Kochubey's, Speranski
produced a strong impression on Prince Andrew on the Wednesday,
when he received him tete-a-tate at his own house and talked to him
long and confidentially.
To Bolkonski so many people appeared contemptible and
insignificant creatures, and he so longed to find in someone the living
ideal of that perfection toward which he strove, that he readily believed
that in Speranski he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and
virtuous man. Had Speranski sprung from the same class as himself and
possessed the same breeding and traditions, Bolkonski would soon
have discovered his weak, human, unheroic sides; but as it was,
Speranski's strange and logical turn of mind inspired him with respect
all the more because he did not quite understand him. Moreover,
Speranski, either because he appreciated the other's capacity or because
he considered it necessary to win him to his side, showed off his
dispassionate calm reasonableness before Prince Andrew and flattered
him with that subtle flattery which goes hand in hand with self-
assurance and consists in a tacit assumption that one's companion is the
only man besides oneself capable of understanding the folly of the rest
of mankind and the reasonableness and profundity of one's own ideas.
During their long conversation on Wednesday evening, Speranski
more than once remarked: "We regard everything that is above the
common level of rooted custom..." or, with a smile: "But we want the
wolves to be fed and the sheep to be safe..." or: "They cannot
understand this..." and all in a way that seemed to say: "We, you and I,
understand what they are and who we are."
This first long conversation with Speranski only strengthened in
Prince Andrew the feeling he had experienced toward him at their first
meeting. He saw in him a remarkable, clear-thinking man of vast
intellect who by his energy and persistence had attained power, which
he was using solely for the welfare of Russia. In Prince Andrew's eyes
Speranski was the man he would himself have wished to be—one who
explained all the facts of life reasonably, considered important only
what was rational, and was capable of applying the standard of reason
to everything. Everything seemed so simple and clear in Speranski's
exposition that Prince Andrew involuntarily agreed with him about
everything. If he replied and argued, it was only because he wished to
maintain his independence and not submit to Speranski's opinions
entirely. Everything was right and everything was as it should be: only
one thing disconcerted Prince Andrew. This was Speranski's cold,
mirrorlike look, which did not allow one to penetrate to his soul, and
his delicate white hands, which Prince Andrew involuntarily watched
as one does watch the hands of those who possess power. This
mirrorlike gaze and those delicate hands irritated Prince Andrew, he
knew not why. He was unpleasantly struck, too, by the excessive
contempt for others that he observed in Speranski, and by the diversity
of lines of argument he used to support his opinions. He made use of
every kind of mental device, except analogy, and passed too boldly, it
seemed to Prince Andrew, from one to another. Now he would take up
the position of a practical man and condemn dreamers; now that of a
satirist, and laugh ironically at his opponents; now grow severely
logical, or suddenly rise to the realm of metaphysics. (This last resource
was one he very frequently employed.) He would transfer a question to
metaphysical heights, pass on to definitions of space, time, and thought,
and, having deduced the refutation he needed, would again descend to
the level of the original discussion.
In general the trait of Speranski's mentality which struck Prince
Andrew most was his absolute and unshakable belief in the power and
authority of reason. It was evident that the thought could never occur to
him which to Prince Andrew seemed so natural, namely, that it is after
all impossible to express all one thinks; and that he had never felt the
doubt, "Is not all I think and believe nonsense?" And it was just this
peculiarity of Speranski's mind that particularly attracted Prince
Andrew.
During the first period of their acquaintance Bolkonski felt a
passionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for
Bonaparte. The fact that Speranski was the son of a village priest, and
that stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his humble
origin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andrew to cherish his
sentiment for him the more, and unconsciously to strengthen it.
On that first evening Bolkonski spent with him, having mentioned
the Commission for the Revision of the Code of Laws, Speranski told
him sarcastically that the Commission had existed for a hundred and
fifty years, had cost millions, and had done nothing except that
Rosenkampf had stuck labels on the corresponding paragraphs of the
different codes.
"And that is all the state has for the millions it has spent," said he.
"We want to give the Senate new juridical powers, but we have no
laws. That is why it is a sin for men like you, Prince, not to serve in
these times!"
Prince Andrew said that for that work an education in jurisprudence
was needed which he did not possess.
"But nobody possesses it, so what would you have? It is a vicious
circle from which we must break a way out."
A week later Prince Andrew was a member of the Committee on
Army Regulations and—what he had not at all expected—was
chairman of a section of the committee for the revision of the laws. At
Speranski's request he took the first part of the Civil Code that was
being drawn up and, with the aid of the Code Napoleon and the
Institutes of Justinian, he worked at formulating the section on Personal
Rights.

CHAPTER VII
Nearly two years before this, in 1808, Pierre on returning to
Petersburg after visiting his estates had involuntarily found himself in a
leading position among the Petersburg Freemasons. He arranged dining
and funeral lodge meetings, enrolled new members, and busied himself
uniting various lodges and acquiring authentic charters. He gave money
for the erection of temples and supplemented as far as he could the
collection of alms, in regard to which the majority of members were
stingy and irregular. He supported almost singlehanded a poorhouse the
order had founded in Petersburg.
His life meanwhile continued as before, with the same infatuations
and dissipations. He liked to dine and drink well, and though he
considered it immoral and humiliating could not resist the temptations
of the bachelor circles in which he moved.
Amid the turmoil of his activities and distractions, however, Pierre at
the end of a year began to feel that the more firmly he tried to rest upon
it, the more Masonic ground on which he stood gave way under him. At
the same time he felt that the deeper the ground sank under him the
closer bound he involuntarily became to the order. When he had joined
the Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who confidently
steps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his foot down it
sank in. To make quite sure of the firmness of the ground, he put his
other foot down and sank deeper still, became stuck in it, and
involuntarily waded knee-deep in the bog.
Joseph Alexeevich was not in Petersburg—he had of late stood aside
from the affairs of the Petersburg lodges, and lived almost entirely in
Moscow. All the members of the lodges were men Pierre knew in
ordinary life, and it was difficult for him to regard them merely as
Brothers in Freemasonry and not as Prince B. or Ivan Vasilevich D.,
whom he knew in society mostly as weak and insignificant men. Under
the Masonic aprons and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at
which they aimed in ordinary life. Often after collecting alms, and
reckoning up twenty to thirty rubles received for the most part in
promises from a dozen members, of whom half were as well able to
pay as himself, Pierre remembered the Masonic vow in which each
Brother promised to devote all his belongings to his neighbor, and
doubts on which he tried not to dwell arose in his soul.
He divided the Brothers he knew into four categories. In the first he
put those who did not take an active part in the affairs of the lodges or
in human affairs, but were exclusively occupied with the mystical
science of the order: with questions of the threefold designation of God,
the three primordial elements—sulphur, mercury, and salt—or the
meaning of the square and all the various figures of the temple of
Solomon. Pierre respected this class of Brothers to which the elder ones
chiefly belonged, including, Pierre thought, Joseph Alexeevich himself,
but he did not share their interests. His heart was not in the mystical
aspect of Freemasonry.
In the second category Pierre reckoned himself and others like him,
seeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a
straight and comprehensible path, but hoped to do so.
In the third category he included those Brothers (the majority) who
saw nothing in Freemasonry but the external forms and ceremonies,
and prized the strict performance of these forms without troubling
about their purport or significance. Such were Willarski and even the
Grand Master of the principal lodge.
Finally, to the fourth category also a great many Brothers belonged,
particularly those who had lately joined. These according to Pierre's
observations were men who had no belief in anything, nor desire for
anything, but joined the Freemasons merely to associate with the
wealthy young Brothers who were influential through their connections
or rank, and of whom there were very many in the lodge.
Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with what he was doing.
Freemasonry, at any rate as he saw it here, sometimes seemed to him
based merely on externals. He did not think of doubting Freemasonry
itself, but suspected that Russian Masonry had taken a wrong path and
deviated from its original principles. And so toward the end of the year
he went abroad to be initiated into the higher secrets of the order.
In the summer of 1809 Pierre returned to Petersburg. Our
Freemasons knew from correspondence with those abroad that
Bezukhov had obtained the confidence of many highly placed persons,
had been initiated into many mysteries, had been raised to a higher
grade, and was bringing back with him much that might conduce to the
advantage of the Masonic cause in Russia. The Petersburg Freemasons
all came to see him, tried to ingratiate themselves with him, and it
seemed to them all that he was preparing something for them and
concealing it.
 A solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened,
at which Pierre promised to communicate to the Petersburg Brothers
what he had to deliver to them from the highest leaders of their order.
The meeting was a full one. After the usual ceremonies Pierre rose and
began his address.
"Dear Brothers," he began, blushing and stammering, with a written
speech in his hand, "it is not sufficient to observe our mysteries in the
seclusion of our lodge—we must act—act! We are drowsing, but we
must act." Pierre raised his notebook and began to read.
"For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph of
virtue," he read, "we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse
principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the
education of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the
wisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity, and
folly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by unity
of purpose and possessed of authority and power.
"To attain this end we must secure a preponderance of virtue over
vice and must endeavor to secure that the honest man may, even in this
world, receive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great
endeavors we are gravely hampered by the political institutions of
today. What is to be done in these circumstances? To favor revolutions,
overthrow everything, repel force by force?... No! We are very far from
that. Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy
evil while men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs
no violence.
"The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of
preparing men of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of
conviction—aiming at the punishment of vice and folly, and
patronizing talent and virtue: raising worthy men from the dust and
attaching them to our Brotherhood. Only then will our order have the
power unobtrusively to bind the hands of the protectors of disorder and
to control them without their being aware of it. In a word, we must
found a form of government holding universal sway, which should be
diffused over the whole world without destroying the bonds of
citizenship, and beside which all other governments can continue in
their customary course and do everything except what impedes the
great aim of our order, which is to obtain for virtue the victory over
vice. This aim was that of Christianity itself. It taught men to be wise
and good and for their own benefit to follow the example and
instruction of the best and wisest men.
"At that time, when everything was plunged in darkness, preaching
alone was of course sufficient. The novelty of Truth endowed her with
special strength, but now we need much more powerful methods. It is
now necessary that man, governed by his senses, should find in virtue a
charm palpable to those senses. It is impossible to eradicate the
passions; but we must strive to direct them to a noble aim, and it is
therefore necessary that everyone should be able to satisfy his passions
within the limits of virtue. Our order should provide means to that end.
"As soon as we have a certain number of worthy men in every state,
each of them again training two others and all being closely united,
everything will be possible for our order, which has already in secret
accomplished much for the welfare of mankind."
This speech not only made a strong impression, but created
excitement in the lodge. The majority of the Brothers, seeing in it
dangerous designs of Illuminism, * met it with a coldness that surprised
Pierre. The Grand Master began answering him, and Pierre began
developing his views with more and more warmth. It was long since
there had been so stormy a meeting. Parties were formed, some
accusing Pierre of Illuminism, others supporting him. At that meeting
he was struck for the first time by the endless variety of men's minds,
which prevents a truth from ever presenting itself identically to two
persons. Even those members who seemed to be on his side understood
him in their own way with limitations and alterations he could not
agree to, as what he always wanted most was to convey his thought to
others just as he himself understood it.

* The Illuminati sought to substitute

republican for
monarchical institutions.

At the end of the meeting the Grand Master with irony and ill-will
reproved Bezukhov for his vehemence and said it was not love of virtue
alone, but also a love of strife that had moved him in the dispute. Pierre
did not answer him and asked briefly whether his proposal would be
accepted. He was told that it would not, and without waiting for the
usual formalities he left the lodge and went home.

CHAPTER VIII
Again Pierre was overtaken by the depression he so dreaded. For
three days after the delivery of his speech at the lodge he lay on a sofa
at home receiving no one and going nowhere.
 It was just then that he received a letter from his wife, who implored
him to see her, telling him how grieved she was about him and how she
wished to devote her whole life to him.
At the end of the letter she informed him that in a few days she
would return to Petersburg from abroad.
Following this letter one of the Masonic Brothers whom Pierre
respected less than the others forced his way in to see him and, turning
the conversation upon Pierre's matrimonial affairs, by way of fraternal
advice expressed the opinion that his severity to his wife was wrong
and that he was neglecting one of the first rules of Freemasonry by not
forgiving the penitent.
At the same time his mother-in-law, Prince Vasili's wife, sent to him
imploring him to come if only for a few minutes to discuss a most
important matter. Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him
and that they wanted to reunite him with his wife, and in the mood he
then was, this was not even unpleasant to him. Nothing mattered to
him. Nothing in life seemed to him of much importance, and under the
influence of the depression that possessed him he valued neither his
liberty nor his resolution to punish his wife.
"No one is right and no one is to blame; so she too is not to blame,"
he thought.
If he did not at once give his consent to a reunion with his wife, it
was only because in his state of depression he did not feel able to take
any step. Had his wife come to him, he would not have turned her
away. Compared to what preoccupied him, was it not a matter of
indifference whether he lived with his wife or not?
Without replying either to his wife or his mother-in-law, Pierre late
one night prepared for a journey and started for Moscow to see Joseph
Alexeevich. This is what he noted in his diary:
Moscow, 17th November
I have just returned from my benefactor, and hasten to write down
what I have experienced. Joseph Alexeevich is living poorly and has
for three years been suffering from a painful disease of the bladder. No
one has ever heard him utter a groan or a word of complaint. From
morning till late at night, except when he eats his very plain food, he is
working at science. He received me graciously and made me sit down
on the bed on which he lay. I made the sign of the Knights of the East
and of Jerusalem, and he responded in the same manner, asking me
with a mild smile what I had learned and gained in the Prussian and
Scottish lodges. I told him everything as best I could, and told him
what I had proposed to our Petersburg lodge, of the bad reception I had
encountered, and of my rupture with the Brothers. Joseph Alexeevich,
having remained silent and thoughtful for a good while, told me his
view of the matter, which at once lit up for me my whole past and the
future path I should follow. He surprised me by asking whether I
remembered the threefold aim of the order: (1) The preservation and
study of the mystery. (2) The purification and reformation of oneself
for its reception, and (3) The improvement of the human race by
striving for such purification. Which is the principal aim of these three?
Certainly self-reformation and self-purification. Only to this aim can
we always strive independently of circumstances. But at the same time
just this aim demands the greatest efforts of us; and so, led astray by
pride, losing sight of this aim, we occupy ourselves either with the
mystery which in our impurity we are unworthy to receive, or seek the
reformation of the human race while ourselves setting an example of
baseness and profligacy. Illuminism is not a pure doctrine, just because
it is attracted by social activity and puffed up by pride. On this ground
Joseph Alexeevich condemned my speech and my whole activity, and
in the depth of my soul I agreed with him. Talking of my family affairs
he said to me, "the chief duty of a true Mason, as I have told you, lies in
perfecting himself. We often think that by removing all the difficulties
of our life we shall more quickly reach our aim, but on the contrary, my
dear sir, it is only in the midst of worldly cares that we can attain our
three chief aims: (1) Self-knowledge—for man can only know himself
by comparison, (2) Self-perfecting, which can only be attained by
conflict, and (3) The attainment of the chief virtue—love of death. Only
the vicissitudes of life can show us its vanity and develop our innate
love of death or of rebirth to a new life." These words are all the more
remarkable because, in spite of his great physical sufferings, Joseph
Alexeevich is never weary of life though he loves death, for which—in
spite of the purity and loftiness of his inner man—he does not yet feel
himself sufficiently prepared. My benefactor then explained to me fully
the meaning of the Great Square of creation and pointed out to me that
the numbers three and seven are the basis of everything. He advised me
not to avoid intercourse with the Petersburg Brothers, but to take up
only second-grade posts in the lodge, to try, while diverting the
Brothers from pride, to turn them toward the true path self-knowledge
and self-perfecting. Besides this he advised me for myself personally
above all to keep a watch over myself, and to that end he gave me a
notebook, the one I am now writing in and in which I will in future note
down all my actions.
Petersburg, 23rd November
I am again living with my wife. My mother-in-law came to me in
tears and said that Helene was here and that she implored me to hear
her; that she was innocent and unhappy at my desertion, and much
more. I knew that if I once let myself see her I should not have strength
to go on refusing what she wanted. In my perplexity I did not know
whose aid and advice to seek. Had my benefactor been here he would
have told me what to do. I went to my room and reread Joseph
Alexeevich's letters and recalled my conversations with him, and
deduced from it all that I ought not to refuse a suppliant, and ought to
reach a helping hand to everyone—especially to one so closely bound
to me—and that I must bear my cross. But if I forgive her for the sake
of doing right, then let union with her have only a spiritual aim. That is
what I decided, and what I wrote to Joseph Alexeevich. I told my wife
that I begged her to forget the past, to forgive me whatever wrong I
may have done her, and that I had nothing to forgive. It gave me joy to
tell her this. She need not know how hard it was for me to see her
again. I have settled on the upper floor of this big house and am
experiencing a happy feeling of regeneration.

CHAPTER IX
At that time, as always happens, the highest society that met at court
and at the grand balls was divided into several circles, each with its
own particular tone. The largest of these was the French circle of the
Napoleonic alliance, the circle of Count Rumyantsev and Caulaincourt.
In this group Helene, as soon as she had settled in Petersburg with her
husband, took a very prominent place. She was visited by the members
of the French embassy and by many belonging to that circle and noted
for their intellect and polished manners.
Helene had been at Erfurt during the famous meeting of the
Emperors and had brought from there these connections with the
Napoleonic notabilities. At Erfurt her success had been brilliant.
Napoleon himself had noticed her in the theater and said of her: "C'est
un superbe animal." * Her success as a beautiful and elegant woman
did not surprise Pierre, for she had become even handsomer than
before. What did surprise him was that during these last two years his
wife had succeeded in gaining the reputation "d' une femme charmante,
aussi spirituelle que belle." *(2) The distinguished Prince de Ligne
wrote her eight-page letters. Bilibin saved up his epigrams to produce
them in Countess Bezukhova's presence. To be received in the
Countess Bezukhova's salon was regarded as a diploma of intellect.
Young men read books before attending Helene's evenings, to have
something to say in her salon, and secretaries of the embassy, and even
ambassadors, confided diplomatic secrets to her, so that in a way
Helene was a power. Pierre, who knew she was very stupid, sometimes
attended, with a strange feeling of perplexity and fear, her evenings and
dinner parties, where politics, poetry, and philosophy were discussed.
At these parties his feelings were like those of a conjuror who always
expects his trick to be found out at any moment. But whether because
stupidity was just what was needed to run such a salon, or because
those who were deceived found pleasure in the deception, at any rate it
remained unexposed and Helene Bezukhova's reputation as a lovely
and clever woman became so firmly established that she could say the
emptiest and stupidest things and everybody would go into raptures
over every word of hers and look for a profound meaning in it of which
she herself had no conception.

* "That's a superb animal."

* (2) "Of a charming woman, as witty as she is

lovely."

Pierre was just the husband needed for a brilliant society woman. He
was that absent-minded crank, a grand seigneur husband who was in no
one's way, and far from spoiling the high tone and general impression
of the drawing room, he served, by the contrast he presented to her, as
an advantageous background to his elegant and tactful wife. Pierre
during the last two years, as a result of his continual absorption in
abstract interests and his sincere contempt for all else, had acquired in
his wife's circle, which did not interest him, that air of unconcern,
indifference, and benevolence toward all, which cannot be acquired
artificially and therefore inspires involuntary respect. He entered his
wife's drawing room as one enters a theater, was acquainted with
everybody, equally pleased to see everyone, and equally indifferent to
them all. Sometimes he joined in a conversation which interested him
and, regardless of whether any "gentlemen of the embassy" were
present or not, lispingly expressed his views, which were sometimes
not at all in accord with the accepted tone of the moment. But the
general opinion concerning the queer husband of "the most
distinguished woman in Petersburg" was so well established that no one
took his freaks seriously.
Among the many young men who frequented her house every day,
Boris Drubetskoy, who had already achieved great success in the
service, was the most intimate friend of the Bezukhov household since
Helene's return from Erfurt. Helene spoke of him as "mon page" and
treated him like a child. Her smile for him was the same as for
everybody, but sometimes that smile made Pierre uncomfortable.
Toward him Boris behaved with a particularly dignified and sad
deference. This shade of deference also disturbed Pierre. He had
suffered so painfully three years before from the mortification to which
his wife had subjected him that he now protected himself from the
danger of its repetition, first by not being a husband to his wife, and
secondly by not allowing himself to suspect.
"No, now that she has become a bluestocking she has finally
renounced her former infatuations," he told himself. "There has never
been an instance of a bluestocking being carried away by affairs of the
heart"—a statement which, though gathered from an unknown source,
he believed implicitly. Yet strange to say Boris' presence in his wife's
drawing room (and he was almost always there) had a physical effect
upon Pierre; it constricted his limbs and destroyed the unconsciousness
and freedom of his movements.
"What a strange antipathy," thought Pierre, "yet I used to like him
very much."
In the eyes of the world Pierre was a great gentleman, the rather
blind and absurd husband of a distinguished wife, a clever crank who
did nothing but harmed nobody and was a first-rate, good-natured
fellow. But a complex and difficult process of internal development
was taking place all this time in Pierre's soul, revealing much to him
and causing him many spiritual doubts and joys.

CHAPTER X
Pierre went on with his diary, and this is what he wrote in it during
that time:
24th November
Got up at eight, read the Scriptures, then went to my duties. (By
Joseph Alexeevich's advice Pierre had entered the service of the state
and served on one of the committees.) Returned home for dinner and
dined alone—the countess had many visitors I do not like. I ate and
drank moderately and after dinner copied out some passages for the
Brothers. In the evening I went down to the countess and told a funny
story about B., and only remembered that I ought not to have done so
when everybody laughed loudly at it.
I am going to bed with a happy and tranquil mind. Great God, help
me to walk in Thy paths, (1) to conquer anger by calmness and
deliberation, (2) to vanquish lust by self-restraint and repulsion, (3) to
withdraw from worldliness, but not avoid (a) the service of the state,
(b) family duties, (c) relations with my friends, and the management of
my affairs.
 27th November
I got up late. On waking I lay long in bed yielding to sloth. O God,
help and strengthen me that I may walk in Thy ways! Read the
Scriptures, but without proper feeling. Brother Urusov came and we
talked about worldly vanities. He told me of the Emperor's new
projects. I began to criticize them, but remembered my rules and my
benefactor's words—that a true Freemason should be a zealous worker
for the state when his aid is required and a quiet onlooker when not
called on to assist. My tongue is my enemy. Brothers G. V. and O.
visited me and we had a preliminary talk about the reception of a new
Brother. They laid on me the duty of Rhetor. I feel myself weak and
unworthy. Then our talk turned to the interpretation of the seven pillars
and steps of the Temple, the seven sciences, the seven virtues, the
seven vices, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Brother O. was very
eloquent. In the evening the admission took place. The new decoration
of the Premises contributed much to the magnificence of the spectacle.
It was Boris Drubetskoy who was admitted. I nominated him and was
the Rhetor. A strange feeling agitated me all the time I was alone with
him in the dark chamber. I caught myself harboring a feeling of hatred
toward him which I vainly tried to overcome. That is why I should
really like to save him from evil and lead him into the path of truth, but
evil thoughts of him did not leave me. It seemed to me that his object in
entering the Brotherhood was merely to be intimate and in favor with
members of our lodge. Apart from the fact that he had asked me several
times whether N. and S. were members of our lodge (a question to
which I could not reply) and that according to my observation he is
incapable of feeling respect for our holy order and is too preoccupied
and satisfied with the outer man to desire spiritual improvement, I had
no cause to doubt him, but he seemed to me insincere, and all the time I
stood alone with him in the dark temple it seemed to me that he was
smiling contemptuously at my words, and I wished really to stab his
bare breast with the sword I held to it. I could not be eloquent, nor
could I frankly mention my doubts to the Brothers and to the Grand
Master. Great Architect of Nature, help me to find the true path out of
the labyrinth of lies!

After this, three pages were left blank in the

diary, and then
the following was written:

I have had a long and instructive talk alone with Brother V., who
advised me to hold fast by brother A. Though I am unworthy, much
was revealed to me. Adonai is the name of the creator of the world.
Elohim is the name of the ruler of all. The third name is the name
unutterable which means the All. Talks with Brother V. strengthen,
refresh, and support me in the path of virtue. In his presence doubt has
no place. The distinction between the poor teachings of mundane
science and our sacred all-embracing teaching is clear to me. Human
sciences dissect everything to comprehend it, and kill everything to
examine it. In the holy science of our order all is one, all is known in its
entirety and life. The Trinity—the three elements of matter—are
sulphur, mercury, and salt. Sulphur is of an oily and fiery nature; in
combination with salt by its fiery nature it arouses a desire in the latter
by means of which it attracts mercury, seizes it, holds it, and in
combination produces other bodies. Mercury is a fluid, volatile,
spiritual essence. Christ, the Holy Spirit, Him!...
3rd December
Awoke late, read the Scriptures but was apathetic. Afterwards went
and paced up and down the large hall. I wished to meditate, but instead
my imagination pictured an occurrence of four years ago, when
Dolokhov, meeting me in Moscow after our duel, said he hoped I was
enjoying perfect peace of mind in spite of my wife's absence. At the
time I gave him no answer. Now I recalled every detail of that meeting
and in my mind gave him the most malevolent and bitter replies. I
recollected myself and drove away that thought only when I found
myself glowing with anger, but I did not sufficiently repent. Afterwards
Boris Drubetskoy came and began relating various adventures. His
coming vexed me from the first, and I said something disagreeable to
him. He replied. I flared up and said much that was unpleasant and
even rude to him. He became silent, and I recollected myself only when
it was too late. My God, I cannot get on with him at all. The cause of
this is my egotism. I set myself above him and so become much worse
than he, for he is lenient to my rudeness while I on the contrary nourish
contempt for him. O God, grant that in his presence I may rather see
my own vileness, and behave so that he too may benefit. After dinner I
fell asleep and as I was drowsing off I clearly heard a voice saying in
my left ear, "Thy day!"
I dreamed that I was walking in the dark and was suddenly
surrounded by dogs, but I went on undismayed. Suddenly a smallish
dog seized my left thigh with its teeth and would not let go. I began to
throttle it with my hands. Scarcely had I torn it off before another, a
bigger one, began biting me. I lifted it up, but the higher I lifted it the
bigger and heavier it grew. And suddenly Brother A. came and, taking
my arm, led me to a building to enter which we had to pass along a
narrow plank. I stepped on it, but it bent and gave way and I began to
clamber up a fence which I could scarcely reach with my hands. After
much effort I dragged myself up, so that my leg hung down on one side
and my body on the other. I looked round and saw Brother A. standing
on the fence and pointing me to a broad avenue and garden, and in the
garden was a large and beautiful building. I woke up. O Lord, great
Architect of Nature, help me to tear from myself these dogs—my
passions especially the last, which unites in itself the strength of all the
former ones, and aid me to enter that temple of virtue to a vision of
which I attained in my dream.
7th December
I dreamed that Joseph Alexeevich was sitting in my house, and that I
was very glad and wished to entertain him. It seemed as if I chattered
incessantly with other people and suddenly remembered that this could
not please him, and I wished to come close to him and embrace him.
But as soon as I drew near I saw that his face had changed and grown
young, and he was quietly telling me something about the teaching of
our order, but so softly that I could not hear it. Then it seemed that we
all left the room and something strange happened. We were sitting or
lying on the floor. He was telling me something, and I wished to show
him my sensibility, and not listening to what he was saying I began
picturing to myself the condition of my inner man and the grace of God
sanctifying me. And tears came into my eyes, and I was glad he noticed
this. But he looked at me with vexation and jumped up, breaking off his
remarks. I felt abashed and asked whether what he had been saying did
not concern me; but he did not reply, gave me a kind look, and then we
suddenly found ourselves in my bedroom where there is a double bed.
He lay down on the edge of it and I burned with longing to caress him
and lie down too. And he said, "Tell me frankly what is your chief
temptation? Do you know it? I think you know it already." Abashed by
this question, I replied that sloth was my chief temptation. He shook his
head incredulously; and even more abashed, I said that though I was
living with my wife as he advised, I was not living with her as her
husband. To this he replied that one should not deprive a wife of one's
embraces and gave me to understand that that was my duty. But I
replied that I should be ashamed to do it, and suddenly everything
vanished. And I awoke and found in my mind the text from the Gospel:
"The life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and
the darkness comprehended it not." Joseph Alexeevich's face had
looked young and bright. That day I received a letter from my
benefactor in which he wrote about "conjugal duties."
9th December
I had a dream from which I awoke with a throbbing heart. I saw that
I was in Moscow in my house, in the big sitting room, and Joseph
Alexeevich came in from the drawing room. I seemed to know at once
that the process of regeneration had already taken place in him, and I
rushed to meet him. I embraced him and kissed his hands, and he said,
"Hast thou noticed that my face is different?" I looked at him, still
holding him in my arms, and saw that his face was young, but that he
had no hair on his head and his features were quite changed. And I said,
"I should have known you had I met you by chance," and I thought to
myself, "Am I telling the truth?" And suddenly I saw him lying like a
dead body; then he gradually recovered and went with me into my
study carrying a large book of sheets of drawing paper; I said, "I drew
that," and he answered by bowing his head. I opened the book, and on
all the pages there were excellent drawings. And in my dream I knew
that these drawings represented the love adventures of the soul with its
beloved. And on its pages I saw a beautiful representation of a maiden
in transparent garments and with a transparent body, flying up to the
clouds. And I seemed to know that this maiden was nothing else than a
representation of the Song of Songs. And looking at those drawings I
dreamed I felt that I was doing wrong, but could not tear myself away
from them. Lord, help me! My God, if Thy forsaking me is Thy doing,
Thy will be done; but if I am myself the cause, teach me what I should
do! I shall perish of my debauchery if Thou utterly desertest me!

CHAPTER XI
The Rostovs' monetary affairs had not improved during the two years
they had spent in the country.
Though Nicholas Rostov had kept firmly to his resolution and was
still serving modestly in an obscure regiment, spending comparatively
little, the way of life at Otradnoe—Mitenka's management of affairs, in
particular—was such that the debts inevitably increased every year.
The only resource obviously presenting itself to the old count was to
apply for an official post, so he had come to Petersburg to look for one
and also, as he said, to let the lassies enjoy themselves for the last time.
Soon after their arrival in Petersburg Berg proposed to Vera and was
accepted.
Though in Moscow the Rostovs belonged to the best society without
themselves giving it a thought, yet in Petersburg their circle of
acquaintances was a mixed and indefinite one. In Petersburg they were
provincials, and the very people they had entertained in Moscow
without inquiring to what set they belonged, here looked down on
them.
The Rostovs lived in the same hospitable way in Petersburg as in
Moscow, and the most diverse people met at their suppers. Country
neighbors from Otradnoe, impoverished old squires and their
daughters, Peronskaya a maid of honor, Pierre Bezukhov, and the son
of their district postmaster who had obtained a post in Petersburg.
Among the men who very soon became frequent visitors at the Rostovs'
house in Petersburg were Boris, Pierre whom the count had met in the
street and dragged home with him, and Berg who spent whole days at
the Rostovs' and paid the eldest daughter, Countess Vera, the attentions
a young man pays when he intends to propose.
Not in vain had Berg shown everybody his right hand wounded at
Austerlitz and held a perfectly unnecessary sword in his left. He
narrated that episode so persistently and with so important an air that
everyone believed in the merit and usefulness of his deed, and he had
obtained two decorations for Austerlitz.
In the Finnish war he also managed to distinguish himself. He had
picked up the scrap of a grenade that had killed an aide-de-camp
standing near the commander in chief and had taken it to his
commander. Just as he had done after Austerlitz, he related this
occurrence at such length and so insistently that everyone again
believed it had been necessary to do this, and he received two
decorations for the Finnish war also. In 1809 he was a captain in the
Guards, wore medals, and held some special lucrative posts in
Petersburg.
Though some skeptics smiled when told of Berg's merits, it could not
be denied that he was a painstaking and brave officer, on excellent
terms with his superiors, and a moral young man with a brilliant career
before him and an assured position in society.
Four years before, meeting a German comrade in the stalls of a
Moscow theater, Berg had pointed out Vera Rostova to him and had
said in German, "das soll mein Weib werden," * and from that moment
had made up his mind to marry her. Now in Petersburg, having
considered the Rostovs' position and his own, he decided that the time
had come to propose.

* "That girl shall be my wife."

Berg's proposal was at first received with a perplexity that was not
flattering to him. At first it seemed strange that the son of an obscure
Livonian gentleman should propose marriage to a Countess Rostova;
but Berg's chief characteristic was such a naive and good natured
egotism that the Rostovs involuntarily came to think it would be a good
thing, since he himself was so firmly convinced that it was good,
indeed excellent. Moreover, the Rostovs' affairs were seriously
embarrassed, as the suitor could not but know; and above all, Vera was
twenty-four, had been taken out everywhere, and though she was
certainly good-looking and sensible, no one up to now had proposed to
her. So they gave their consent.
 "You see," said Berg to his comrade, whom he called "friend" only
because he knew that everyone has friends, "you see, I have considered
it all, and should not marry if I had not thought it all out or if it were in
any way unsuitable. But on the contrary, my papa and mamma are now
provided for—I have arranged that rent for them in the Baltic
Provinces—and I can live in Petersburg on my pay, and with her
fortune and my good management we can get along nicely. I am not
marrying for money—I consider that dishonorable—but a wife should
bring her share and a husband his. I have my position in the service, she
has connections and some means. In our times that is worth something,
isn't it? But above all, she is a handsome, estimable girl, and she loves
me..."
Berg blushed and smiled.
"And I love her, because her character is sensible and very good.
Now the other sister, though they are the same family, is quite
different—an unpleasant character and has not the same intelligence.
She is so... you know?... Unpleasant... But my fiancee!... Well, you will
be coming," he was going to say, "to dine," but changed his mind and
said "to take tea with us," and quickly doubling up his tongue he blew a
small round ring of tobacco smoke, perfectly embodying his dream of
happiness.
After the first feeling of perplexity aroused in the parents by Berg's
proposal, the holiday tone of joyousness usual at such times took
possession of the family, but the rejoicing was external and insincere.
In the family's feeling toward this wedding a certain awkwardness and
constraint was evident, as if they were ashamed of not having loved
Vera sufficiently and of being so ready to get her off their hands. The
old count felt this most. He would probably have been unable to state
the cause of his embarrassment, but it resulted from the state of his
affairs. He did not know at all how much he had, what his debts
amounted to, or what dowry he could give Vera. When his daughters
were born he had assigned to each of them, for her dowry, an estate
with three hundred serfs; but one of these estates had already been sold,
and the other was mortgaged and the interest so much in arrears that it
would have to be sold, so that it was impossible to give it to Vera. Nor
had he any money.
Berg had already been engaged a month, and only a week remained
before the wedding, but the count had not yet decided in his own mind
the question of the dowry, nor spoken to his wife about it. At one time
the count thought of giving her the Ryazan estate or of selling a forest,
at another time of borrowing money on a note of hand. A few days
before the wedding Berg entered the count's study early one morning
and, with a pleasant smile, respectfully asked his future father-in-law to
let him know what Vera's dowry would be. The count was so
disconcerted by this long-foreseen inquiry that without consideration he
gave the first reply that came into his head. "I like your being
businesslike about it.... I like it. You shall be satisfied...."
And patting Berg on the shoulder he got up, wishing to end the
conversation. But Berg, smiling pleasantly, explained that if he did not
know for certain how much Vera would have and did not receive at
least part of the dowry in advance, he would have to break matters off.
"Because, consider, Count—if I allowed myself to marry now
without having definite means to maintain my wife, I should be acting
badly...."
The conversation ended by the count, who wished to be generous
and to avoid further importunity, saying that he would give a note of
hand for eighty thousand rubles. Berg smiled meekly, kissed the count
on the shoulder, and said that he was very grateful, but that it was
impossible for him to arrange his new life without receiving thirty
thousand in ready money. "Or at least twenty thousand, Count," he
added, "and then a note of hand for only sixty thousand."
"Yes, yes, all right!" said the count hurriedly. "Only excuse me, my
dear fellow, I'll give you twenty thousand and a note of hand for eighty
thousand as well. Yes, yes! Kiss me."

CHAPTER XII
Natasha was sixteen and it was the year 1809, the very year to which
she had counted on her fingers with Boris after they had kissed four
years ago. Since then she had not seen him. Before Sonya and her
mother, if Boris happened to be mentioned, she spoke quite freely of
that episode as of some childish, long-forgotten matter that was not
worth mentioning. But in the secret depths of her soul the question
whether her engagement to Boris was a jest or an important, binding
promise tormented her.
Since Boris left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he had not seen the
Rostovs. He had been in Moscow several times, and had passed near
Otradnoe, but had never been to see them.
Sometimes it occurred to Natasha that he did not wish to see her, and
this conjecture was confirmed by the sad tone in which her elders spoke
of him.
 "Nowadays old friends are not remembered," the countess would say
when Boris was mentioned.
Anna Mikhaylovna also had of late visited them less frequently,
seemed to hold herself with particular dignity, and always spoke
rapturously and gratefully of the merits of her son and the brilliant
career on which he had entered. When the Rostovs came to Petersburg
Boris called on them.
He drove to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natasha
was his most poetic recollection. But he went with the firm intention of
letting her and her parents feel that the childish relations between
himself and Natasha could not be binding either on her or on him. He
had a brilliant position in society thanks to his intimacy with Countess
Bezukhova, a brilliant position in the service thanks to the patronage of
an important personage whose complete confidence he enjoyed, and he
was beginning to make plans for marrying one of the richest heiresses
in Petersburg, plans which might very easily be realized. When he
entered the Rostovs' drawing room Natasha was in her own room.
When she heard of his arrival she almost ran into the drawing room,
flushed and beaming with a more than cordial smile.
Boris remembered Natasha in a short dress, with dark eyes shining
from under her curls and boisterous, childish laughter, as he had known
her four years before; and so he was taken aback when quite a different
Natasha entered, and his face expressed rapturous astonishment. This
expression on his face pleased Natasha.
"Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?" asked the
countess.
Boris kissed Natasha's hand and said that he was astonished at the
change in her.
"How handsome you have grown!"
"I should think so!" replied Natasha's laughing eyes.
"And is Papa older?" she asked.
Natasha sat down and, without joining in Boris' conversation with
the countess, silently and minutely studied her childhood's suitor. He
felt the weight of that resolute and affectionate scrutiny and glanced at
her occasionally.
Boris' uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were all
comme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natasha noticed at once.
He sat rather sideways in the armchair next to the countess, arranging
with his right hand the cleanest of gloves that fitted his left hand like a
skin, and he spoke with a particularly refined compression of his lips
about the amusements of the highest Petersburg society, recalling with
mild irony old times in Moscow and Moscow acquaintances. It was not
accidentally, Natasha felt, that he alluded, when speaking of the highest
aristocracy, to an ambassador's ball he had attended, and to invitations
he had received from N.N. and S.S.
All this time Natasha sat silent, glancing up at him from under her
brows. This gaze disturbed and confused Boris more and more. He
looked round more frequently toward her, and broke off in what he was
saying. He did not stay more than ten minutes, then rose and took his
leave. The same inquisitive, challenging, and rather mocking eyes still
looked at him. After his first visit Boris said to himself that Natasha
attracted him just as much as ever, but that he must not yield to that
feeling, because to marry her, a girl almost without fortune, would
mean ruin to his career, while to renew their former relations without
intending to marry her would be dishonorable. Boris made up his mind
to avoid meeting Natasha, but despite that resolution he called again a
few days later and began calling often and spending whole days at the
Rostovs'. It seemed to him that he ought to have an explanation with
Natasha and tell her that the old times must be forgotten, that in spite of
everything... she could not be his wife, that he had no means, and they
would never let her marry him. But he failed to do so and felt awkward
about entering on such an explanation. From day to day he became
more and more entangled. It seemed to her mother and Sonya that
Natasha was in love with Boris as of old. She sang him his favorite
songs, showed him her album, making him write in it, did not allow
him to allude to the past, letting it be understood how delightful was the
present; and every day he went away in a fog, without having said what
he meant to, and not knowing what he was doing or why he came, or
how it would all end. He left off visiting Helene and received
reproachful notes from her every day, and yet he continued to spend
whole days with the Rostovs.

CHAPTER XIII
One night when the old countess, in nightcap and dressing jacket,
without her false curls, and with her poor little knob of hair showing
under her white cotton cap, knelt sighing and groaning on a rug and
bowing to the ground in prayer, her door creaked and Natasha, also in a
dressing jacket with slippers on her bare feet and her hair in curlpapers,
ran in. The countess—her prayerful mood dispelled—looked round and
frowned. She was finishing her last prayer: "Can it be that this couch
will be my grave?" Natasha, flushed and eager, seeing her mother in
prayer, suddenly checked her rush, half sat down, and unconsciously
put out her tongue as if chiding herself. Seeing that her mother was still
praying she ran on tiptoe to the bed and, rapidly slipping one little foot
against the other, pushed off her slippers and jumped onto the bed the
countess had feared might become her grave. This couch was high,
with a feather bed and five pillows each smaller than the one below.
Natasha jumped on it, sank into the feather bed, rolled over to the wall,
and began snuggling up the bedclothes as she settled down, raising her
knees to her chin, kicking out and laughing almost inaudibly, now
covering herself up head and all, and now peeping at her mother. The
countess finished her prayers and came to the bed with a stern face, but
seeing, that Natasha's head was covered, she smiled in her kind, weak
way.
"Now then, now then!" said she.
"Mamma, can we have a talk? Yes?" said Natasha. "Now, just one on
your throat and another... that'll do!" And seizing her mother round the
neck, she kissed her on the throat. In her behavior to her mother
Natasha seemed rough, but she was so sensitive and tactful that
however she clasped her mother she always managed to do it without
hurting her or making her feel uncomfortable or displeased.
"Well, what is it tonight?" said the mother, having arranged her
pillows and waited until Natasha, after turning over a couple of times,
had settled down beside her under the quilt, spread out her arms, and
assumed a serious expression.
These visits of Natasha's at night before the count returned from his
club were one of the greatest pleasures of both mother, and daughter.
"What is it tonight?—But I have to tell you..."
Natasha put her hand on her mother's mouth.
"About Boris... I know," she said seriously; "that's what I have come
about. Don't say it—I know. No, do tell me!" and she removed her
hand. "Tell me, Mamma! He's nice?"
"Natasha, you are sixteen. At your age I was married. You say Boris
is nice. He is very nice, and I love him like a son. But what then?...
What are you thinking about? You have quite turned his head, I can see
that...."
As she said this the countess looked round at her daughter. Natasha
was lying looking steadily straight before her at one of the mahogany
sphinxes carved on the corners of the bedstead, so that the countess
only saw her daughter's face in profile. That face struck her by its
peculiarly serious and concentrated expression.
 Natasha was listening and considering.
"Well, what then?" said she.
"You have quite turned his head, and why? What do you want of
him? You know you can't marry him."
"Why not?" said Natasha, without changing her position.
"Because he is young, because he is poor, because he is a relation...
and because you yourself don't love him."
"How do you know?"
"I know. It is not right, darling!"

"But if I want to..." said Natasha.

"Leave off talking nonsense," said the countess.

"But if I want to..."
"Natasha, I am in earnest..."
Natasha did not let her finish. She drew the countess' large hand to
her, kissed it on the back and then on the palm, then again turned it
over and began kissing first one knuckle, then the space between the
knuckles, then the next knuckle, whispering, "January, February,
March, April, May. Speak, Mamma, why don't you say anything?
Speak!" said she, turning to her mother, who was tenderly gazing at her
daughter and in that contemplation seemed to have forgotten all she had
wished to say.
"It won't do, my love! Not everyone will understand this friendship
dating from your childish days, and to see him so intimate with you
may injure you in the eyes of other young men who visit us, and above
all it torments him for nothing. He may already have found a suitable
and wealthy match, and now he's half crazy."
"Crazy?" repeated Natasha.
"I'll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin..."
"I know! Cyril Matveich... but he is old."
"He was not always old. But this is what I'll do, Natasha, I'll have a
talk with Boris. He need not come so often...."
"Why not, if he likes to?"
"Because I know it will end in nothing...."
 "How can you know? No, Mamma, don't speak to him! What
nonsense!" said Natasha in the tone of one being deprived of her
property. "Well, I won't marry, but let him come if he enjoys it and I
enjoy it." Natasha smiled and looked at her mother. "Not to marry, but
just so," she added.
"How so, my pet?"
"Just so. There's no need for me to marry him. But... just so."
"Just so, just so," repeated the countess, and shaking all over, she
went off into a good humored, unexpected, elderly laugh.
"Don't laugh, stop!" cried Natasha. "You're shaking the whole bed!
You're awfully like me, just such another giggler.... Wait..." and she
seized the countess' hands and kissed a knuckle of the little finger,
saying, "June," and continued, kissing, "July, August," on the other
hand. "But, Mamma, is he very much in love? What do you think? Was
anybody ever so much in love with you? And he's very nice, very, very
nice. Only not quite my taste—he is so narrow, like the dining-room
clock.... Don't you understand? Narrow, you know—gray, light gray..."
"What rubbish you're talking!" said the countess.
Natasha continued: "Don't you really understand? Nicholas would
understand.... Bezukhov, now, is blue, dark-blue and red, and he is
square."
"You flirt with him too," said the countess, laughing.
"No, he is a Freemason, I have found out. He is fine, dark-blue and
red.... How can I explain it to you?"
"Little countess!" the count's voice called from behind the door.
"You're not asleep?" Natasha jumped up, snatched up her slippers, and
ran barefoot to her own room.
It was a long time before she could sleep. She kept thinking that no
one could understand all that she understood and all there was in her.
"Sonya?" she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping little
kitten with her enormous plait of hair. "No, how could she? She's
virtuous. She fell in love with Nicholas and does not wish to know
anything more. Even Mamma does not understand. It is wonderful how
clever I am and how... charming she is," she went on, speaking of
herself in the third person, and imagining it was some very wise man—
the wisest and best of men—who was saying it of her. "There is
everything, everything in her," continued this man. "She is unusually
intelligent, charming... and then she is pretty, uncommonly pretty, and
agile—she swims and rides splendidly... and her voice! One can really
say it's a wonderful voice!"
She hummed a scrap from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw
herself on her bed, laughed at the pleasant thought that she would
immediately fall asleep, called Dunyasha the maid to put out the
candle, and before Dunyasha had left the room had already passed into
yet another happier world of dreams, where everything was as light and
beautiful as in reality, and even more so because it was different.
Next day the countess called Boris aside and had a talk with him,
after which he ceased coming to the Rostovs'.

CHAPTER XIV
On the thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, 1809 - 10 an old
grandee of Catherine's day was giving a ball and midnight supper. The
diplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were to be present.
The grandee's well-known mansion on the English Quay glittered
with innumerable lights. Police were stationed at the brightly lit
entrance which was carpeted with red baize, and not only gendarmes
but dozens of police officers and even the police master himself stood
at the porch. Carriages kept driving away and fresh ones arriving, with
red-liveried footmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages
emerged men wearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons, while ladies in satin
and ermine cautiously descended the carriage steps which were let
down for them with a clatter, and then walked hurriedly and noiselessly
over the baize at the entrance.
Almost every time a new carriage drove up a whisper ran through the
crowd and caps were doffed.
"The Emperor?... No, a minister.... prince... ambassador. Don't you
see the plumes?..." was whispered among the crowd.
One person, better dressed than the rest, seemed to know everyone
and mentioned by name the greatest dignitaries of the day.
A third of the visitors had already arrived, but the Rostovs, who were
to be present, were still hurrying to get dressed.
There had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in the
Rostov family, many fears that the invitation would not arrive, that the
dresses would not be ready, or that something would not be arranged as
it should be.
Marya Ignatevna Peronskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at
the court of the Dowager Empress, who was a friend and relation of the
countess and piloted the provincial Rostovs in Petersburg high society,
was to accompany them to the ball.
They were to call for her at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten
o'clock, but it was already five minutes to ten, and the girls were not yet
dressed.
Natasha was going to her first grand ball. She had got up at eight that
morning and had been in a fever of excitement and activity all day. All
her powers since morning had been concentrated on ensuring that they
all—she herself, Mamma, and Sonya—should be as well dressed as
possible. Sonya and her mother put themselves entirely in her hands.
The countess was to wear a claret-colored velvet dress, and the two
girls white gauze over pink silk slips, with roses on their bodices and
their hair dressed a la grecque.
Everything essential had already been done; feet, hands, necks, and
ears washed, perfumed, and powdered, as befits a ball; the openwork
silk stockings and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the
hairdressing was almost done. Sonya was finishing dressing and so was
the countess, but Natasha, who had bustled about helping them all, was
behindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing
jacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sonya stood ready dressed in
the middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her
dainty finger, was fixing on a last ribbon that squeaked as the pin went
through it.
"That's not the way, that's not the way, Sonya!" cried Natasha
turning her head and clutching with both hands at her hair which the
maid who was dressing it had not time to release. "That bow is not
right. Come here!"
Sonya sat down and Natasha pinned the ribbon on differently.
"Allow me, Miss! I can't do it like that," said the maid who was
holding Natasha's hair.
"Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That's right, Sonya."
"Aren't you ready? It is nearly ten," came the countess' voice.
"Directly! Directly! And you, Mamma?"
"I have only my cap to pin on."
"Don't do it without me!" called Natasha. "You won't do it right."
 "But it's already ten."
They had decided to be at the ball by half past ten, and Natasha had
still to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens.
When her hair was done, Natasha, in her short petticoat from under
which her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother's dressing jacket,
ran up to Sonya, scrutinized her, and then ran to her mother. Turning
her mother's head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and,
hurriedly kissing her gray hair, ran back to the maids who were turning
up the hem of her skirt.
The cause of the delay was Natasha's skirt, which was too long. Two
maids were turning up the hem and hurriedly biting off the ends of
thread. A third with pins in her mouth was running about between the
countess and Sonya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossamer
garment up high on one uplifted hand.
"Mavra, quicker, darling!"
"Give me my thimble, Miss, from there..."
"Whenever will you be ready?" asked the count coming to the door.
"Here is some scent. Peronskaya must be tired of waiting."
"It's ready, Miss," said the maid, holding up the shortened gauze
dress with two fingers, and blowing and shaking something off it, as if
by this to express a consciousness of the airiness and purity of what she
held.
Natasha began putting on the dress.
"In a minute! In a minute! Don't come in, Papa!" she cried to her
father as he opened the door—speaking from under the filmy skirt
which still covered her whole face.
Sonya slammed the door to. A minute later they let the count in. He
was wearing a blue swallow-tail coat, shoes and stockings, and was
perfumed and his hair pomaded.
"Oh, Papa! how nice you look! Charming!" cried Natasha, as she
stood in the middle of the room smoothing out the folds of the gauze.
"If you please, Miss! allow me," said the maid, who on her knees
was pulling the skirt straight and shifting the pins from one side of her
mouth to the other with her tongue.
"Say what you like," exclaimed Sonya, in a despairing voice as she
looked at Natasha, "say what you like, it's still too long."
 Natasha stepped back to look at herself in the pier glass. The dress
was too long.
"Really, madam, it is not at all too long," said Mavra, crawling on
her knees after her young lady.
"Well, if it's too long we'll take it up... we'll tack it up in one minute,"
said the resolute Dunyasha taking a needle that was stuck on the front
of her little shawl and, still kneeling on the floor, set to work once
more.
At that moment, with soft steps, the countess came in shyly, in her
cap and velvet gown.
"Oo-oo, my beauty!" exclaimed the count, "she looks better than any
of you!"
He would have embraced her but, blushing, she stepped aside fearing
to be rumpled.
"Mamma, your cap, more to this side," said Natasha. "I'll arrange it,"
and she rushed forward so that the maids who were tacking up her skirt
could not move fast enough and a piece of gauze was torn off.
"Oh goodness! What has happened? Really it was not my fault!"
"Never mind, I'll run it up, it won't show," said Dunyasha.
"What a beauty—a very queen!" said the nurse as she came to the
door. "And Sonya! They are lovely!"
At a quarter past ten they at last got into their carriages and started.
But they had still to call at the Taurida Gardens.
Peronskaya was quite ready. In spite of her age and plainness she had
gone through the same process as the Rostovs, but with less flurry—for
to her it was a matter of routine. Her ugly old body was washed,
perfumed, and powdered in just the same way. She had washed behind
her ears just as carefully, and when she entered her drawing room in
her yellow dress, wearing her badge as maid of honor, her old lady's
maid was as full of rapturous admiration as the Rostovs' servants had
been.
She praised the Rostovs' toilets. They praised her taste and toilet, and
at eleven o'clock, careful of their coiffures and dresses, they settled
themselves in their carriages and drove off.
 CHAPTER XV
Natasha had not had a moment free since early morning and had not
once had time to think of what lay before her.
In the damp chill air and crowded closeness of the swaying carriage,
she for the first time vividly imagined what was in store for her there at
the ball, in those brightly lighted rooms—with music, flowers, dances,
the Emperor, and all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The
prospect was so splendid that she hardly believed it would come true,
so out of keeping was it with the chill darkness and closeness of the
carriage. She understood all that awaited her only when, after stepping
over the red baize at the entrance, she entered the hall, took off her fur
cloak, and, beside Sonya and in front of her mother, mounted the
brightly illuminated stairs between the flowers. Only then did she
remember how she must behave at a ball, and tried to assume the
majestic air she considered indispensable for a girl on such an occasion.
But, fortunately for her, she felt her eyes growing misty, she saw
nothing clearly, her pulse beat a hundred to the minute, and the blood
throbbed at her heart. She could not assume that pose, which would
have made her ridiculous, and she moved on almost fainting from
excitement and trying with all her might to conceal it. And this was the
very attitude that became her best. Before and behind them other
visitors were entering, also talking in low tones and wearing ball
dresses. The mirrors on the landing reflected ladies in white, pale-blue,
and pink dresses, with diamonds and pearls on their bare necks and
arms.
Natasha looked in the mirrors and could not distinguish her
reflection from the others. All was blended into one brilliant
procession. On entering the ballroom the regular hum of voices,
footsteps, and greetings deafened Natasha, and the light and glitter
dazzled her still more. The host and hostess, who had already been
standing at the door for half an hour repeating the same words to the
various arrivals, "Charme de vous voir," * greeted the Rostovs and
Peronskaya in the same manner.

* "Delighted to see you."

The two girls in their white dresses, each with a rose in her black
hair, both curtsied in the same way, but the hostess' eye involuntarily
rested longer on the slim Natasha. She looked at her and gave her alone
a special smile in addition to her usual smile as hostess. Looking at her
she may have recalled the golden, irrecoverable days of her own
girlhood and her own first ball. The host also followed Natasha with his
eyes and asked the count which was his daughter.
 "Charming!" said he, kissing the tips of his fingers.
In the ballroom guests stood crowding at the entrance doors awaiting
the Emperor. The countess took up a position in one of the front rows
of that crowd. Natasha heard and felt that several people were asking
about her and looking at her. She realized that those noticing her liked
her, and this observation helped to calm her.
"There are some like ourselves and some worse," she thought.
Peronskaya was pointing out to the countess the most important
people at the ball.
"That is the Dutch ambassador, do you see? That gray-haired man,"
she said, indicating an old man with a profusion of silver-gray curly
hair, who was surrounded by ladies laughing at something he said.
"Ah, here she is, the Queen of Petersburg, Countess Bezukhova,"
said Peronskaya, indicating Helene who had just entered. "How lovely!
She is quite equal to Marya Antonovna. See how the men, young and
old, pay court to her. Beautiful and clever... they say Prince—is quite
mad about her. But see, those two, though not good-looking, are even
more run after."
She pointed to a lady who was crossing the room followed by a very
plain daughter.
"She is a splendid match, a millionairess," said Peronskaya. "And
look, here come her suitors."
"That is Bezukhova's brother, Anatole Kuragin," she said, indicating
a handsome officer of the Horse Guards who passed by them with head
erect, looking at something over the heads of the ladies. "He's
handsome, isn't he? I hear they will marry him to that rich girl. But
your cousin, Drubetskoy, is also very attentive to her. They say she has
millions. Oh yes, that's the French ambassador himself!" she replied to
the countess' inquiry about Caulaincourt. "Looks as if he were a king!
All the same, the French are charming, very charming. No one more
charming in society. Ah, here she is! Yes, she is still the most beautiful
of them all, our Marya Antonovna! And how simply she is dressed!
Lovely! And that stout one in spectacles is the universal Freemason,"
she went on, indicating Pierre. "Put him beside his wife and he looks a
regular buffoon!"
Pierre, swaying his stout body, advanced, making way through the
crowd and nodding to right and left as casually and good-naturedly as if
he were passing through a crowd at a fair. He pushed through,
evidently looking for someone.
 Natasha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, "the buffoon,"
as Peronskaya had called him, and knew he was looking for them, and
for her in particular. He had promised to be at the ball and introduce
partners to her.
But before he reached them Pierre stopped beside a very handsome,
dark man of middle height, and in a white uniform, who stood by a
window talking to a tall man wearing stars and a ribbon. Natasha at
once recognized the shorter and younger man in the white uniform: it
was Bolkonski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger,
happier, and better-looking.
"There's someone else we know—Bolkonski, do you see, Mamma?"
said Natasha, pointing out Prince Andrew. "You remember, he stayed a
night with us at Otradnoe."
"Oh, you know him?" said Peronskaya. "I can't bear him. Il fait a
present la pluie et le beau temps. * He's too proud for anything. Takes
after his father. And he's hand in glove with Speranski, writing some
project or other. Just look how he treats the ladies! There's one talking
to him and he has turned away," she said, pointing at him. "I'd give it to
him if he treated me as he does those ladies."

* "He is all the rage just now."

CHAPTER XVI
Suddenly everybody stirred, began talking, and pressed forward and
then back, and between the two rows, which separated, the Emperor
entered to the sounds of music that had immediately struck up. Behind
him walked his host and hostess. He walked in rapidly, bowing to right
and left as if anxious to get the first moments of the reception over. The
band played the polonaise in vogue at that time on account of the words
that had been set to it, beginning: "Alexander, Elisaveta, all our hearts
you ravish quite..." The Emperor passed on to the drawing room, the
crowd made a rush for the doors, and several persons with excited faces
hurried there and back again. Then the crowd hastily retired from the
drawing-room door, at which the Emperor reappeared talking to the
hostess. A young man, looking distraught, pounced down on the ladies,
asking them to move aside. Some ladies, with faces betraying complete
forgetfulness of all the rules of decorum, pushed forward to the
detriment of their toilets. The men began to choose partners and take
their places for the polonaise.
 Everyone moved back, and the Emperor came smiling out of the
drawing room leading his hostess by the hand but not keeping time to
the music. The host followed with Marya Antonovna Naryshkina; then
came ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Peronskaya
diligently named. More than half the ladies already had partners and
were taking up, or preparing to take up, their positions for the
polonaise. Natasha felt that she would be left with her mother and
Sonya among a minority of women who crowded near the wall, not
having been invited to dance. She stood with her slender arms hanging
down, her scarcely defined bosom rising and falling regularly, and with
bated breath and glittering, frightened eyes gazed straight before her,
evidently prepared for the height of joy or misery. She was not
concerned about the Emperor or any of those great people whom
Peronskaya was pointing out—she had but one thought: "Is it possible
no one will ask me, that I shall not be among the first to dance? Is it
possible that not one of all these men will notice me? They do not even
seem to see me, or if they do they look as if they were saying, 'Ah, she's
not the one I'm after, so it's not worth looking at her!' No, it's
impossible," she thought. "They must know how I long to dance, how
splendidly I dance, and how they would enjoy dancing with me."
The strains of the polonaise, which had continued for a considerable
time, had begun to sound like a sad reminiscence to Natasha's ears. She
wanted to cry. Peronskaya had left them. The count was at the other
end of the room. She and the countess and Sonya were standing by
themselves as in the depths of a forest amid that crowd of strangers,
with no one interested in them and not wanted by anyone. Prince
Andrew with a lady passed by, evidently not recognizing them. The
handsome Anatole was smilingly talking to a partner on his arm and
looked at Natasha as one looks at a wall. Boris passed them twice and
each time turned away. Berg and his wife, who were not dancing, came
up to them.
This family gathering seemed humiliating to Natasha—as if there
were nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She did not
listen to or look at Vera, who was telling her something about her own
green dress.
At last the Emperor stopped beside his last partner (he had danced
with three) and the music ceased. A worried aide-de-camp ran up to the
Rostovs requesting them to stand farther back, though as it was they
were already close to the wall, and from the gallery resounded the
distinct, precise, enticingly rhythmical strains of a waltz. The Emperor
looked smilingly down the room. A minute passed but no one had yet
begun dancing. An aide-de-camp, the Master of Ceremonies, went up
to Countess Bezukhova and asked her to dance. She smilingly raised
her hand and laid it on his shoulder without looking at him. The aide-
de-camp, an adept in his art, grasping his partner firmly round her
waist, with confident deliberation started smoothly, gliding first round
the edge of the circle, then at the corner of the room he caught Helene's
left hand and turned her, the only sound audible, apart from the ever-
quickening music, being the rhythmic click of the spurs on his rapid,
agile feet, while at every third beat his partner's velvet dress spread out
and seemed to flash as she whirled round. Natasha gazed at them and
was ready to cry because it was not she who was dancing that first turn
of the waltz.
Prince Andrew, in the white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearing
stockings and dancing shoes, stood looking animated and bright in the
front row of the circle not far from the Rostovs. Baron Firhoff was
talking to him about the first sitting of the Council of State to be held
next day. Prince Andrew, as one closely connected with Speranski and
participating in the work of the legislative commission, could give
reliable information about that sitting, concerning which various
rumors were current. But not listening to what Firhoff was saying, he
was gazing now at the sovereign and now at the men intending to dance
who had not yet gathered courage to enter the circle.
Prince Andrew was watching these men abashed by the Emperor's
presence, and the women who were breathlessly longing to be asked to
dance.
Pierre came up to him and caught him by the arm.
"You always dance. I have a protegee, the young Rostova, here. Ask
her," he said.
"Where is she?" asked Bolkonski. "Excuse me!" he added, turning to
the baron, "we will finish this conversation elsewhere—at a ball one
must dance." He stepped forward in the direction Pierre indicated. The
despairing, dejected expression of Natasha's face caught his eye. He
recognized her, guessed her feelings, saw that it was her debut,
remembered her conversation at the window, and with an expression of
pleasure on his face approached Countess Rostova.
"Allow me to introduce you to my daughter," said the countess, with
heightened color.
"I have the pleasure of being already acquainted, if the countess
remembers me," said Prince Andrew with a low and courteous bow
quite belying Peronskaya's remarks about his rudeness, and
approaching Natasha he held out his arm to grasp her waist before he
had completed his invitation. He asked her to waltz. That tremulous
expression on Natasha's face, prepared either for despair or rapture,
suddenly brightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile.
 "I have long been waiting for you," that frightened happy little girl
seemed to say by the smile that replaced the threatened tears, as she
raised her hand to Prince Andrew's shoulder. They were the second
couple to enter the circle. Prince Andrew was one of the best dancers of
his day and Natasha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their white
satin dancing shoes did their work swiftly, lightly, and independently of
herself, while her face beamed with ecstatic happiness. Her slender
bare arms and neck were not beautiful—compared to Helene's her
shoulders looked thin and her bosom undeveloped. But Helene seemed,
as it were, hardened by a varnish left by the thousands of looks that had
scanned her person, while Natasha was like a girl exposed for the first
time, who would have felt very much ashamed had she not been
assured that this was absolutely necessary.
Prince Andrew liked dancing, and wishing to escape as quickly as
possible from the political and clever talk which everyone addressed to
him, wishing also to break up the circle of restraint he disliked, caused
by the Emperor's presence, he danced, and had chosen Natasha because
Pierre pointed her out to him and because she was the first pretty girl
who caught his eye; but scarcely had he embraced that slender supple
figure and felt her stirring so close to him and smiling so near him than
the wine of her charm rose to his head, and he felt himself revived and
rejuvenated when after leaving her he stood breathing deeply and
watching the other dancers.

CHAPTER XVII
After Prince Andrew, Boris came up to ask Natasha for a dance, and
then the aide-de-camp who had opened the ball, and several other
young men, so that, flushed and happy, and passing on her superfluous
partners to Sonya, she did not cease dancing all the evening. She
noticed and saw nothing of what occupied everyone else. Not only did
she fail to notice that the Emperor talked a long time with the French
ambassador, and how particularly gracious he was to a certain lady, or
that Prince So-and-so and So-and-so did and said this and that, and that
Helene had great success and was honored by the special attention of
So-and-so, but she did not even see the Emperor, and only noticed that
he had gone because the ball became livelier after his departure. For
one of the merry cotillions before supper Prince Andrew was again her
partner. He reminded her of their first encounter in the Otradnoe
avenue, and how she had been unable to sleep that moonlight night, and
told her how he had involuntarily overheard her. Natasha blushed at
that recollection and tried to excuse herself, as if there had been
something to be ashamed of in what Prince Andrew had overheard.
Like all men who have grown up in society, Prince Andrew liked
meeting someone there not of the conventional society stamp. And such
was Natasha, with her surprise, her delight, her shyness, and even her
mistakes in speaking French. With her he behaved with special care
and tenderness, sitting beside her and talking of the simplest and most
unimportant matters; he admired her shy grace. In the middle of the
cotillion, having completed one of the figures, Natasha, still out of
breath, was returning to her seat when another dancer chose her. She
was tired and panting and evidently thought of declining, but
immediately put her hand gaily on the man's shoulder, smiling at Prince
Andrew.
"I'd be glad to sit beside you and rest: I'm tired; but you see how they
keep asking me, and I'm glad of it, I'm happy and I love everybody, and
you and I understand it all," and much, much more was said in her
smile. When her partner left her Natasha ran across the room to choose
two ladies for the figure.
"If she goes to her cousin first and then to another lady, she will be
my wife," said Prince Andrew to himself quite to his own surprise, as
he watched her. She did go first to her cousin.
"What rubbish sometimes enters one's head!" thought Prince
Andrew, "but what is certain is that that girl is so charming, so original,
that she won't be dancing here a month before she will be married....
Such as she are rare here," he thought, as Natasha, readjusting a rose
that was slipping on her bodice, settled herself beside him.
When the cotillion was over the old count in his blue coat came up to
the dancers. He invited Prince Andrew to come and see them, and
asked his daughter whether she was enjoying herself. Natasha did not
answer at once but only looked up with a smile that said reproachfully:
"How can you ask such a question?"
"I have never enjoyed myself so much before!" she said, and Prince
Andrew noticed how her thin arms rose quickly as if to embrace her
father and instantly dropped again. Natasha was happier than she had
ever been in her life. She was at that height of bliss when one becomes
completely kind and good and does not believe in the possibility of
evil, unhappiness, or sorrow.
At that ball Pierre for the first time felt humiliated by the position his
wife occupied in court circles. He was gloomy and absent-minded. A
deep furrow ran across his forehead, and standing by a window he
stared over his spectacles seeing no one.
 On her way to supper Natasha passed him.
Pierre's gloomy, unhappy look struck her. She stopped in front of
him. She wished to help him, to bestow on him the superabundance of
her own happiness.
"How delightful it is, Count!" said she. "Isn't it?"
Pierre smiled absent-mindedly, evidently not grasping what she said.
"Yes, I am very glad," he said.
"How can people be dissatisfied with anything?" thought Natasha.
"Especially such a capital fellow as Bezukhov!" In Natasha's eyes all
the people at the ball alike were good, kind, and splendid people, loving
one another; none of them capable of injuring another—and so they
ought all to be happy.

CHAPTER XVIII
Next day Prince Andrew thought of the ball, but his mind did not
dwell on it long. "Yes, it was a very brilliant ball," and then... "Yes,
that little Rostova is very charming. There's something fresh, original,
un-Petersburg-like about her that distinguishes her." That was all he
thought about yesterday's ball, and after his morning tea he set to work.
But either from fatigue or want of sleep he was ill-disposed for work
and could get nothing done. He kept criticizing his own work, as he
often did, and was glad when he heard someone coming.
The visitor was Bitski, who served on various committees,
frequented all the societies in Petersburg, and a passionate devotee of
the new ideas and of Speranski, and a diligent Petersburg
newsmonger—one of those men who choose their opinions like their
clothes according to the fashion, but who for that very reason appear to
be the warmest partisans. Hardly had he got rid of his hat before he ran
into Prince Andrew's room with a preoccupied air and at once began
talking. He had just heard particulars of that morning's sitting of the
Council of State opened by the Emperor, and he spoke of it
enthusiastically. The Emperor's speech had been extraordinary. It had
been a speech such as only constitutional monarchs deliver. "The
Sovereign plainly said that the Council and Senate are estates of the
realm, he said that the government must rest not on authority but on
secure bases. The Emperor said that the fiscal system must be
reorganized and the accounts published," recounted Bitski,
emphasizing certain words and opening his eyes significantly.
"Ah, yes! Today's events mark an epoch, the greatest epoch in our
history," he concluded.
Prince Andrew listened to the account of the opening of the Council
of State, which he had so impatiently awaited and to which he had
attached such importance, and was surprised that this event, now that it
had taken place, did not affect him, and even seemed quite
insignificant. He listened with quiet irony to Bitski's enthusiastic
account of it. A very simple thought occurred to him: "What does it
matter to me or to Bitski what the Emperor was pleased to say at the
Council? Can all that make me any happier or better?"
And this simple reflection suddenly destroyed all the interest Prince
Andrew had felt in the impending reforms. He was going to dine that
evening at Speranski's, "with only a few friends," as the host had said
when inviting him. The prospect of that dinner in the intimate home
circle of the man he so admired had greatly interested Prince Andrew,
especially as he had not yet seen Speranski in his domestic
surroundings, but now he felt disinclined to go to it.
At the appointed hour, however, he entered the modest house
Speranski owned in the Taurida Gardens. In the parqueted dining room
this small house, remarkable for its extreme cleanliness (suggesting that
of a monastery), Prince Andrew, who was rather late, found the
friendly gathering of Speranski's intimate acquaintances already
assembled at five o'clock. There were no ladies present except
Speranski's little daughter (long-faced like her father) and her
governess. The other guests were Gervais, Magnitski, and Stolypin.
While still in the anteroom Prince Andrew heard loud voices and a
ringing staccato laugh—a laugh such as one hears on the stage.
Someone—it sounded like Speranski—was distinctly ejaculating ha-ha-
ha. Prince Andrew had never before heard Speranski's famous laugh,
and this ringing, high pitched laughter from a statesman made a strange
impression on him.
He entered the dining room. The whole company were standing
between two windows at a small table laid with hors-d'oeuvres.
Speranski, wearing a gray swallow-tail coat with a star on the breast,
and evidently still the same waistcoat and high white stock he had worn
at the meeting of the Council of State, stood at the table with a beaming
countenance. His guests surrounded him. Magnitski, addressing himself
to Speranski, was relating an anecdote, and Speranski was laughing in
advance at what Magnitski was going to say. When Prince Andrew
entered the room Magnitski's words were again crowned by laughter.
Stolypin gave a deep bass guffaw as he munched a piece of bread and
cheese. Gervais laughed softly with a hissing chuckle, and Speranski in
a high-pitched staccato manner.
Still laughing, Speranski held out his soft white hand to Prince
Andrew.
"Very pleased to see you, Prince," he said. "One moment..." he went
on, turning to Magnitski and interrupting his story. "We have agreed
that this is a dinner for recreation, with not a word about business!" and
turning again to the narrator he began to laugh afresh.
Prince Andrew looked at the laughing Speranski with astonishment,
regret, and disillusionment. It seemed to him that this was not
Speranski but someone else. Everything that had formerly appeared
mysterious and fascinating in Speranski suddenly became plain and
unattractive.
At dinner the conversation did not cease for a moment and seemed to
consist of the contents of a book of funny anecdotes. Before Magnitski
had finished his story someone else was anxious to relate something
still funnier. Most of the anecdotes, if not relating to the state service,
related to people in the service. It seemed that in this company the
insignificance of those people was so definitely accepted that the only
possible attitude toward them was one of good humored ridicule.
Speranski related how at the Council that morning a deaf dignitary,
when asked his opinion, replied that he thought so too. Gervais gave a
long account of an official revision, remarkable for the stupidity of
everybody concerned. Stolypin, stuttering, broke into the conversation
and began excitedly talking of the abuses that existed under the former
order of things—threatening to give a serious turn to the conversation.
Magnitski starting quizzing Stolypin about his vehemence. Gervais
intervened with a joke, and the talk reverted to its former lively tone.
Evidently Speranski liked to rest after his labors and find amusement
in a circle of friends, and his guests, understanding his wish, tried to
enliven him and amuse themselves. But their gaiety seemed to Prince
Andrew mirthless and tiresome. Speranski's high-pitched voice struck
him unpleasantly, and the incessant laughter grated on him like a false
note. Prince Andrew did not laugh and feared that he would be a
damper on the spirits of the company, but no one took any notice of his
being out of harmony with the general mood. They all seemed very
gay.
He tried several times to join in the conversation, but his remarks
were tossed aside each time like a cork thrown out of the water, and he
could not jest with them.
There was nothing wrong or unseemly in what they said, it was witty
and might have been funny, but it lacked just that something which is
the salt of mirth, and they were not even aware that such a thing
existed.
After dinner Speranski's daughter and her governess rose. He patted
the little girl with his white hand and kissed her. And that gesture, too,
seemed unnatural to Prince Andrew.
The men remained at table over their port—English fashion. In the
midst of a conversation that was started about Napoleon's Spanish
affairs, which they all agreed in approving, Prince Andrew began to
express a contrary opinion. Speranski smiled and, with an evident wish
to prevent the conversation from taking an unpleasant course, told a
story that had no connection with the previous conversation. For a few
moments all were silent.
Having sat some time at table, Speranski corked a bottle of wine and,
remarking, "Nowadays good wine rides in a carriage and pair," passed
it to the servant and got up. All rose and continuing to talk loudly went
into the drawing room. Two letters brought by a courier were handed to
Speranski and he took them to his study. As soon as he had left the
room the general merriment stopped and the guests began to converse
sensibly and quietly with one another.
"Now for the recitation!" said Speranski on returning from his study.
"A wonderful talent!" he said to Prince Andrew, and Magnitski
immediately assumed a pose and began reciting some humorous verses
in French which he had composed about various well-known
Petersburg people. He was interrupted several times by applause. When
the verses were finished Prince Andrew went up to Speranski and took
his leave.
"Where are you off to so early?" asked Speranski.
"I promised to go to a reception."
They said no more. Prince Andrew looked closely into those
mirrorlike, impenetrable eyes, and felt that it had been ridiculous of
him to have expected anything from Speranski and from any of his own
activities connected with him, or ever to have attributed importance to
what Speranski was doing. That precise, mirthless laughter rang in
Prince Andrew's ears long after he had left the house.
When he reached home Prince Andrew began thinking of his life in
Petersburg during those last four months as if it were something new.
He recalled his exertions and solicitations, and the history of his project
of army reform, which had been accepted for consideration and which
they were trying to pass over in silence simply because another, a very
poor one, had already been prepared and submitted to the Emperor. He
thought of the meetings of a committee of which Berg was a member.
He remembered how carefully and at what length everything relating to
form and procedure was discussed at those meetings, and how
sedulously and promptly all that related to the gist of the business was
evaded. He recalled his labors on the Legal Code, and how
painstakingly he had translated the articles of the Roman and French
codes into Russian, and he felt ashamed of himself. Then he vividly
pictured to himself Bogucharovo, his occupations in the country, his
journey to Ryazan; he remembered the peasants and Dron the village
elder, and mentally applying to them the Personal Rights he had
divided into paragraphs, he felt astonished that he could have spent so
much time on such useless work.

CHAPTER XIX
Next day Prince Andrew called at a few houses he had not visited
before, and among them at the Rostovs' with whom he had renewed
acquaintance at the ball. Apart from considerations of politeness which
demanded the call, he wanted to see that original, eager girl who had
left such a pleasant impression on his mind, in her own home.
Natasha was one of the first to meet him. She was wearing a dark-
blue house dress in which Prince Andrew thought her even prettier than
in her ball dress. She and all the Rostov family welcomed him as an old
friend, simply and cordially. The whole family, whom he had formerly
judged severely, now seemed to him to consist of excellent, simple, and
kindly people. The old count's hospitality and good nature, which
struck one especially in Petersburg as a pleasant surprise, were such
that Prince Andrew could not refuse to stay to dinner. "Yes," he
thought, "they are capital people, who of course have not the slightest
idea what a treasure they possess in Natasha; but they are kindly folk
and form the best possible setting for this strikingly poetic, charming
girl, overflowing with life!"
In Natasha Prince Andrew was conscious of a strange world
completely alien to him and brimful of joys unknown to him, a
different world, that in the Otradnoe avenue and at the window that
moonlight night had already begun to disconcert him. Now this world
disconcerted him no longer and was no longer alien to him, but he
himself having entered it found in it a new enjoyment.
After dinner Natasha, at Prince Andrew's request, went to the
clavichord and began singing. Prince Andrew stood by a window
talking to the ladies and listened to her. In the midst of a phrase he
ceased speaking and suddenly felt tears choking him, a thing he had
thought impossible for him. He looked at Natasha as she sang, and
something new and joyful stirred in his soul. He felt happy and at the
same time sad. He had absolutely nothing to weep about yet he was
ready to weep. What about? His former love? The little princess? His
disillusionments?... His hopes for the future?... Yes and no. The chief
reason was a sudden, vivid sense of the terrible contrast between
something infinitely great and illimitable within him and that limited
and material something that he, and even she, was. This contrast
weighed on and yet cheered him while she sang.
As soon as Natasha had finished she went up to him and asked how
he liked her voice. She asked this and then became confused, feeling
that she ought not to have asked it. He smiled, looking at her, and said
he liked her singing as he liked everything she did.
Prince Andrew left the Rostovs' late in the evening. He went to bed
from habit, but soon realized that he could not sleep. Having lit his
candle he sat up in bed, then got up, then lay down again not at all
troubled by his sleeplessness: his soul was as fresh and joyful as if he
had stepped out of a stuffy room into God's own fresh air. It did not
enter his head that he was in love with Natasha; he was not thinking
about her, but only picturing her to himself, and in consequence all life
appeared in a new light. "Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow,
confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?" said
he to himself. And for the first time for a very long while he began
making happy plans for the future. He decided that he must attend to
his son's education by finding a tutor and putting the boy in his charge,
then he ought to retire from the service and go abroad, and see England,
Switzerland and Italy. "I must use my freedom while I feel so much
strength and youth in me," he said to himself. "Pierre was right when he
said one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be
happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead, but
while one has life one must live and be happy!" thought he.

CHAPTER XX
One morning Colonel Berg, whom Pierre knew as he knew
everybody in Moscow and Petersburg, came to see him. Berg arrived in
an immaculate brand-new uniform, with his hair pomaded and brushed
forward over his temples as the Emperor Alexander wore his hair.
 "I have just been to see the countess, your wife. Unfortunately she
could not grant my request, but I hope, Count, I shall be more fortunate
with you," he said with a smile.
"What is it you wish, Colonel? I am at your service."
"I have now quite settled in my new rooms, Count" (Berg said this
with perfect conviction that this information could not but be
agreeable), "and so I wish to arrange just a small party for my own and
my wife's friends." (He smiled still more pleasantly.) "I wished to ask
the countess and you to do me the honor of coming to tea and to
supper."
Only Countess Helene, considering the society of such people as the
Bergs beneath her, could be cruel enough to refuse such an invitation.
Berg explained so clearly why he wanted to collect at his house a small
but select company, and why this would give him pleasure, and why
though he grudged spending money on cards or anything harmful, he
was prepared to run into some expense for the sake of good society—
that Pierre could not refuse, and promised to come.
"But don't be late, Count, if I may venture to ask; about ten minutes
to eight, please. We shall make up a rubber. Our general is coming. He
is very good to me. We shall have supper, Count. So you will do me the
favor."
Contrary to his habit of being late, Pierre on that day arrived at the
Bergs' house, not at ten but at fifteen minutes to eight.
Having prepared everything necessary for the party, the Bergs were
ready for their guests' arrival.
In their new, clean, and light study with its small busts and pictures
and new furniture sat Berg and his wife. Berg, closely buttoned up in
his new uniform, sat beside his wife explaining to her that one always
could and should be acquainted with people above one, because only
then does one get satisfaction from acquaintances.
"You can get to know something, you can ask for something. See
how I managed from my first promotion." (Berg measured his life not
by years but by promotions.) "My comrades are still nobodies, while I
am only waiting for a vacancy to command a regiment, and have the
happiness to be your husband." (He rose and kissed Vera's hand, and on
the way to her straightened out a turned-up corner of the carpet.) "And
how have I obtained all this? Chiefly by knowing how to choose my
aquaintances. It goes without saying that one must be conscientious and
methodical."
Berg smiled with a sense of his superiority over a weak woman, and
paused, reflecting that this dear wife of his was after all but a weak
woman who could not understand all that constitutes a man's dignity,
what it was ein Mann zu sein. * Vera at the same time smiling with a
sense of superiority over her good, conscientious husband, who all the
same understood life wrongly, as according to Vera all men did. Berg,
judging by his wife, thought all women weak and foolish. Vera,
judging only by her husband and generalizing from that observation,
supposed that all men, though they understand nothing and are
conceited and selfish, ascribe common sense to themselves alone.

* To be a man.

Berg rose and embraced his wife carefully, so as not to crush her lace
fichu for which he had paid a good price, kissing her straight on the
lips.
"The only thing is, we mustn't have children too soon," he continued,
following an unconscious sequence of ideas.
"Yes," answered Vera, "I don't at all want that. We must live for
society."
"Princess Yusupova wore one exactly like this," said Berg, pointing
to the fichu with a happy and kindly smile.
Just then Count Bezukhov was announced. Husband and wife
glanced at one another, both smiling with self-satisfaction, and each
mentally claiming the honor of this visit.
"This is what comes of knowing how to make acquaintances,"
thought Berg. "This is what comes of knowing how to conduct
oneself."
"But please don't interrupt me when I am entertaining the guests,"
said Vera, "because I know what interests each of them and what to say
to different people."
Berg smiled again.
"It can't be helped: men must sometimes have masculine
conversation," said he.
They received Pierre in their small, new drawing-room, where it was
impossible to sit down anywhere without disturbing its symmetry,
neatness, and order; so it was quite comprehensible and not strange that
Berg, having generously offered to disturb the symmetry of an armchair
or of the sofa for his dear guest, but being apparently painfully
undecided on the matter himself, eventually left the visitor to settle the
question of selection. Pierre disturbed the symmetry by moving a chair
for himself, and Berg and Vera immediately began their evening party,
interrupting each other in their efforts to entertain their guest.
Vera, having decided in her own mind that Pierre ought to be
entertained with conversation about the French embassy, at once began
accordingly. Berg, having decided that masculine conversation was
required, interrupted his wife's remarks and touched on the question of
the war with Austria, and unconsciously jumped from the general
subject to personal considerations as to the proposals made him to take
part in the Austrian campaign and the reasons why he had declined
them. Though the conversation was very incoherent and Vera was
angry at the intrusion of the masculine element, both husband and wife
felt with satisfaction that, even if only one guest was present, their
evening had begun very well and was as like as two peas to every other
evening party with its talk, tea, and lighted candles.
Before long Boris, Berg's old comrade, arrived. There was a shade of
condescension and patronage in his treatment of Berg and Vera. After
Boris came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, then the
Rostovs, and the party became unquestionably exactly like all other
evening parties. Berg and Vera could not repress their smiles of
satisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room, at
the sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the
bowing and scraping. Everything was just as everybody always has it,
especially so the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on
the shoulder, and with parental authority superintended the setting out
of the table for boston. The general sat down by Count Ilya Rostov,
who was next to himself the most important guest. The old people sat
with the old, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table,
on which stood exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as
the Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere
else.

CHAPTER XXI
Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to boston with
Count Rostov, the general, and the colonel. At the card table he
happened to be directly facing Natasha, and was struck by a curious
change that had come over her since the ball. She was silent, and not
only less pretty than at the ball, but only redeemed from plainness by
her look of gentle indifference to everything around.
 "What's the matter with her?" thought Pierre, glancing at her. She
was sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without
looking at him, made some reply to Boris who sat down beside her.
After playing out a whole suit and to his partner's delight taking five
tricks, Pierre, hearing greetings and the steps of someone who had
entered the room while he was picking up his tricks, glanced again at
Natasha.
"What has happened to her?" he asked himself with still greater
surprise.
Prince Andrew was standing before her, saying something to her
with a look of tender solicitude. She, having raised her head, was
looking up at him, flushed and evidently trying to master her rapid
breathing. And the bright glow of some inner fire that had been
suppressed was again alight in her. She was completely transformed
and from a plain girl had again become what she had been at the ball.
Prince Andrew went up to Pierre, and the latter noticed a new and
youthful expression in his friend's face.
Pierre changed places several times during the game, sitting now
with his back to Natasha and now facing her, but during the whole of
the six rubbers he watched her and his friend.
"Something very important is happening between them," thought
Pierre, and a feeling that was both joyful and painful agitated him and
made him neglect the game.
After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no use playing
like that, and Pierre was released. Natasha on one side was talking with
Sonya and Boris, and Vera with a subtle smile was saying something to
Prince Andrew. Pierre went up to his friend and, asking whether they
were talking secrets, sat down beside them. Vera, having noticed Prince
Andrew's attentions to Natasha, decided that at a party, a real evening
party, subtle allusions to the tender passion were absolutely necessary
and, seizing a moment when Prince Andrew was alone, began a
conversation with him about feelings in general and about her sister.
With so intellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andrew to be, she
felt that she had to employ her diplomatic tact.
When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Vera was being carried
away by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andrew seemed
embarrassed, a thing that rarely happened with him.
"What do you think?" Vera was saying with an arch smile. "You are
so discerning, Prince, and understand people's characters so well at a
glance. What do you think of Natalie? Could she be constant in her
attachments? Could she, like other women" (Vera meant herself), "love
a man once for all and remain true to him forever? That is what I
consider true love. What do you think, Prince?"
"I know your sister too little," replied Prince Andrew, with a
sarcastic smile under which he wished to hide his embarrassment, "to
be able to solve so delicate a question, and then I have noticed that the
less attractive a woman is the more constant she is likely to be," he
added, and looked up at Pierre who was just approaching them.
"Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days," continued Vera—mentioning
"our days" as people of limited intelligence are fond of doing,
imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of
"our days" and that human characteristics change with the times—"in
our days a girl has so much freedom that the pleasure of being courted
often stifles real feeling in her. And it must be confessed that Natalie is
very susceptible." This return to the subject of Natalie caused Prince
Andrew to knit his brows with discomfort: he was about to rise, but
Vera continued with a still more subtle smile:
"I think no one has been more courted than she," she went on, "but
till quite lately she never cared seriously for anyone. Now you know,
Count," she said to Pierre, "even our dear cousin Boris, who, between
ourselves, was very far gone in the land of tenderness..." (alluding to a
map of love much in vogue at that time).
Prince Andrew frowned and remained silent.
"You are friendly with Boris, aren't you?" asked Vera.
"Yes, I know him..."
"I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natasha?"
"Oh, there was childish love?" suddenly asked Prince Andrew,
blushing unexpectedly.
"Yes, you know between cousins intimacy often leads to love. Le
cousinage est un dangereux voisinage. * Don't you think so?"

* "Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood."

"Oh, undoubtedly!" said Prince Andrew, and with sudden and

unnatural liveliness he began chaffing Pierre about the need to be very
careful with his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins, and in the midst of
these jesting remarks he rose, taking Pierre by the arm, and drew him
aside.
"Well?" asked Pierre, seeing his friend's strange animation with
surprise, and noticing the glance he turned on Natasha as he rose.
 "I must... I must have a talk with you," said Prince Andrew. "You
know that pair of women's gloves?" (He referred to the Masonic gloves
given to a newly initiated Brother to present to the woman he loved.)
"I... but no, I will talk to you later on," and with a strange light in his
eyes and restlessness in his movements, Prince Andrew approached
Natasha and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how Prince Andrew asked
her something and how she flushed as she replied.
But at that moment Berg came to Pierre and began insisting that he
should take part in an argument between the general and the colonel on
the affairs in Spain.
Berg was satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never left his
face. The party was very successful and quite like other parties he had
seen. Everything was similar: the ladies' subtle talk, the cards, the
general raising his voice at the card table, and the samovar and the tea
cakes; only one thing was lacking that he had always seen at the
evening parties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud
conversation among the men and a dispute about something important
and clever. Now the general had begun such a discussion and so Berg
drew Pierre to it.

CHAPTER XXII
Next day, having been invited by the count, Prince Andrew dined
with the Rostovs and spent the rest of the day there.
Everyone in the house realized for whose sake Prince Andrew came,
and without concealing it he tried to be with Natasha all day. Not only
in the soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natasha, but in
the whole house, there was a feeling of awe at something important that
was bound to happen. The countess looked with sad and sternly serious
eyes at Prince Andrew when he talked to Natasha and timidly started
some artificial conversation about trifles as soon as he looked her way.
Sonya was afraid to leave Natasha and afraid of being in the way when
she was with them. Natasha grew pale, in a panic of expectation, when
she remained alone with him for a moment. Prince Andrew surprised
her by his timidity. She felt that he wanted to say something to her but
could not bring himself to do so.
In the evening, when Prince Andrew had left, the countess went up
to Natasha and whispered: "Well, what?"
 "Mamma! For heaven's sake don't ask me anything now! One can't
talk about that," said Natasha.
But all the same that night Natasha, now agitated and now
frightened, lay a long time in her mother's bed gazing straight before
her. She told her how he had complimented her, how he told her he was
going abroad, asked her where they were going to spend the summer,
and then how he had asked her about Boris.
"But such a... such a... never happened to me before!" she said.
"Only I feel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid when I'm with
him. What does that mean? Does it mean that it's the real thing? Yes?
Mamma, are you asleep?"
"No, my love; I am frightened myself," answered her mother. "Now
go!"
"All the same I shan't sleep. What silliness, to sleep! Mummy!
Mummy! such a thing never happened to me before," she said,
surprised and alarmed at the feeling she was aware of in herself. "And
could we ever have thought!..."
It seemed to Natasha that even at the time she first saw Prince
Andrew at Otradnoe she had fallen in love with him. It was as if she
feared this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very
man she had then chosen (she was firmly convinced she had done so)
and of finding him, as it seemed, not indifferent to her.
"And it had to happen that he should come specially to Petersburg
while we are here. And it had to happen that we should meet at that
ball. It is fate. Clearly it is fate that everything led up to this! Already
then, directly I saw him I felt something peculiar."
"What else did he say to you? What are those verses? Read them..."
said her mother, thoughtfully, referring to some verses Prince Andrew
had written in Natasha's album.
"Mamma, one need not be ashamed of his being a widower?"
"Don't, Natasha! Pray to God. 'Marriages are made in heaven,'" said
her mother.
"Darling Mummy, how I love you! How happy I am!" cried Natasha,
shedding tears of joy and excitement and embracing her mother.
At that very time Prince Andrew was sitting with Pierre and telling
him of his love for Natasha and his firm resolve to make her his wife.
That day Countess Helene had a reception at her house. The French
ambassador was there, and a foreign prince of the blood who had of
late become a frequent visitor of hers, and many brilliant ladies and
gentlemen. Pierre, who had come downstairs, walked through the
rooms and struck everyone by his preoccupied, absent-minded, and
morose air.
Since the ball he had felt the approach of a fit of nervous depression
and had made desperate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of his
wife with the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been made a
gentleman of the bedchamber, and from that time he had begun to feel
oppressed and ashamed in court society, and dark thoughts of the
vanity of all things human came to him oftener than before. At the
same time the feeling he had noticed between his protegee Natasha and
Prince Andrew accentuated his gloom by the contrast between his own
position and his friend's. He tried equally to avoid thinking about his
wife, and about Natasha and Prince Andrew; and again everything
seemed to him insignificant in comparison with eternity; again the
question: for what? presented itself; and he forced himself to work day
and night at Masonic labors, hoping to drive away the evil spirit that
threatened him. Toward midnight, after he had left the countess'
apartments, he was sitting upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying
out the original transaction of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a
table in his low room cloudy with tobacco smoke, when someone came
in. It was Prince Andrew.
"Ah, it's you!" said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air. "And
I, you see, am hard at it." He pointed to his manuscript book with that
air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy people look at
their work.
Prince Andrew, with a beaming, ecstatic expression of renewed life
on his face, paused in front of Pierre and, not noticing his sad look,
smiled at him with the egotism of joy.
"Well, dear heart," said he, "I wanted to tell you about it yesterday
and I have come to do so today. I never experienced anything like it
before. I am in love, my friend!"
Suddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person
down on the sofa beside Prince Andrew.
"With Natasha Rostova, yes?" said he.
"Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should never have believed it,
but the feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I tormented myself and
suffered, but I would not exchange even that torment for anything in
the world, I have not lived till now. At last I live, but I can't live
without her! But can she love me?... I am too old for her.... Why don't
you speak?"
 "I? I? What did I tell you?" said Pierre suddenly, rising and
beginning to pace up and down the room. "I always thought it.... That
girl is such a treasure... she is a rare girl.... My dear friend, I entreat
you, don't philosophize, don't doubt, marry, marry, marry.... And I am
sure there will not be a happier man than you."
"But what of her?"
"She loves you."
"Don't talk rubbish..." said Prince Andrew, smiling and looking into
Pierre's eyes.
"She does, I know," Pierre cried fiercely.
"But do listen," returned Prince Andrew, holding him by the arm.
"Do you know the condition I am in? I must talk about it to someone."
"Well, go on, go on. I am very glad," said Pierre, and his face really
changed, his brow became smooth, and he listened gladly to Prince
Andrew. Prince Andrew seemed, and really was, quite a different, quite
a new man. Where was his spleen, his contempt for life, his
disillusionment? Pierre was the only person to whom he made up his
mind to speak openly; and to him he told all that was in his soul. Now
he boldly and lightly made plans for an extended future, said he could
not sacrifice his own happiness to his father's caprice, and spoke of
how he would either make his father consent to this marriage and love
her, or would do without his consent; then he marveled at the feeling
that had mastered him as at something strange, apart from and
independent of himself.
"I should not have believed anyone who told me that I was capable
of such love," said Prince Andrew. "It is not at all the same feeling that
I knew in the past. The whole world is now for me divided into two
halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the other half is
everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and darkness...."
"Darkness and gloom," reiterated Pierre: "yes, yes, I understand
that."
"I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault. And I am very
happy! You understand me? I know you are glad for my sake."
"Yes, yes," Pierre assented, looking at his friend with a touched and
sad expression in his eyes. The brighter Prince Andrew's lot appeared
to him, the gloomier seemed his own.
 CHAPTER XXIII
Prince Andrew needed his father's consent to his marriage, and to
obtain this he started for the country next day.
His father received his son's communication with external
composure, but inward wrath. He could not comprehend how anyone
could wish to alter his life or introduce anything new into it, when his
own life was already ending. "If only they would let me end my days as
I want to," thought the old man, "then they might do as they please."
With his son, however, he employed the diplomacy he reserved for
important occasions and, adopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole
matter.
In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards birth,
wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was no longer as young as he
had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress on
this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would
be a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. "Fourthly and finally," the father
said, looking ironically at his son, "I beg you to put it off for a year: go
abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for a German tutor for
Prince Nicholas. Then if your love or passion or obstinacy—as you
please—is still as great, marry! And that's my last word on it. Mind, the
last..." concluded the prince, in a tone which showed that nothing
would make him alter his decision.
Prince Andrew saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feelings,
or his fiancee's, would not stand a year's test, or that he (the old prince
himself) would die before then, and he decided to conform to his
father's wish—to propose, and postpone the wedding for a year.
Three weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostovs,
Prince Andrew returned to Petersburg.
Next day after her talk with her mother Natasha expected Bolkonski
all day, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was the
same. Pierre did not come either and Natasha, not knowing that Prince
Andrew had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence to
herself.
Three weeks passed in this way. Natasha had no desire to go out
anywhere and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and
listless; she wept secretly at night and did not go to her mother in the
evenings. She blushed continually and was irritable. It seemed to her
that everybody knew about her disappointment and was laughing at her
and pitying her. Strong as was her inward grief, this wound to her
vanity intensified her misery.
 Once she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly
began to cry. Her tears were those of an offended child who does not
know why it is being punished.
The countess began to soothe Natasha, who after first listening to her
mother's words, suddenly interrupted her:
"Leave off, Mamma! I don't think, and don't want to think about it!
He just came and then left off, left off..."
Her voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but recovered and
went on quietly:
"And I don't at all want to get married. And I am afraid of him; I
have now become quite calm, quite calm."
The day after this conversation Natasha put on the old dress which
she knew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness in the
mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she
had abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she
went to the ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud
resonance, and began singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her
first exercise she stood still in the middle of the room and sang a
musical phrase that particularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as
though she had not expected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating,
filling the whole empty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at
once she felt cheerful. "What's the good of making so much of it?
Things are nice as it is," she said to herself, and she began walking up
and down the room, not stepping simply on the resounding parquet but
treading with each step from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and
favorite pair of shoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and
creak of the toe as gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice.
Passing a mirror she glanced into it. "There, that's me!" the expression
of her face seemed to say as she caught sight of herself. "Well, and very
nice too! I need nobody."
A footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the room
but she would not let him, and having closed the door behind him
continued her walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite
mood—love of, and delight in, herself. "How charming that Natasha
is!" she said again, speaking as some third, collective, male person.
"Pretty, a good voice, young, and in nobody's way if only they leave
her in peace." But however much they left her in peace she could not
now be at peace, and immediately felt this.
In the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, "At home?"
and then footsteps were heard. Natasha was looking at the mirror, but
did not see herself. She listened to the sounds in the hall. When she saw
herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for certain, though
she hardly heard his voice through the closed doors.
Pale and agitated, Natasha ran into the drawing room.
"Mamma! Bolkonski has come!" she said. "Mamma, it is awful, it is
unbearable! I don't want... to be tormented? What am I to do?..."
Before the countess could answer, Prince Andrew entered the room
with an agitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natasha his face
brightened. He kissed the countess' hand and Natasha's, and sat down
beside the sofa.
"It is long since we had the pleasure..." began the countess, but
Prince Andrew interrupted her by answering her intended question,
obviously in haste to say what he had to.
"I have not been to see you all this time because I have been at my
father's. I had to talk over a very important matter with him. I only got
back last night," he said glancing at Natasha; "I want to have a talk with
you, Countess," he added after a moment's pause.
The countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply.
"I am at your disposal," she murmured.
Natasha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to do so:
something gripped her throat, and regardless of manners she stared
straight at Prince Andrew with wide-open eyes.
"At once? This instant!... No, it can't be!" she thought.
Again he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that she was
not mistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate would be decided.
"Go, Natasha! I will call you," said the countess in a whisper.
Natasha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andrew
and at her mother and went out.
"I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter's hand," said Prince
Andrew.
The countess' face flushed hotly, but she said nothing.
"Your offer..." she began at last sedately. He remained silent, looking
into her eyes. "Your offer..." (she grew confused) "is agreeable to us,
and I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband... I hope... but it
will depend on her...."
"I will speak to her when I have your consent.... Do you give it to
me?" said Prince Andrew.
 "Yes," replied the countess. She held out her hand to him, and with a
mixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness pressed her lips to his
forehead as he stooped to kiss her hand. She wished to love him as a
son, but felt that to her he was a stranger and a terrifying man. "I am
sure my husband will consent," said the countess, "but your father..."
"My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it an express
condition of his consent that the wedding is not to take place for a year.
And I wished to tell you of that," said Prince Andrew.
"It is true that Natasha is still young, but—so long as that?..."
"It is unavoidable," said Prince Andrew with a sigh.
"I will send her to you," said the countess, and left the room.
"Lord have mercy upon us!" she repeated while seeking her
daughter.
Sonya said that Natasha was in her bedroom. Natasha was sitting on
the bed, pale and dry eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whispering
something as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her mother she jumped
up and flew to her.
"Well, Mamma?... Well?..."
"Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand," said the countess, coldly
it seemed to Natasha. "Go... go," said the mother, sadly and
reproachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter ran away.
Natasha never remembered how she entered the drawing room.
When she came in and saw him she paused. "Is it possible that this
stranger has now become everything to me?" she asked herself, and
immediately answered, "Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me
than everything in the world." Prince Andrew came up to her with
downcast eyes.
"I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. May I
hope?"
He looked at her and was struck by the serious impassioned
expression of her face. Her face said: "Why ask? Why doubt what you
cannot but know? Why speak, when words cannot express what one
feels?"
She drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it.
"Do you love me?"
"Yes, yes!" Natasha murmured as if in vexation. Then she sighed
loudly and, catching her breath more and more quickly, began to sob.
 "What is it? What's the matter?"
"Oh, I am so happy!" she replied, smiled through her tears, bent over
closer to him, paused for an instant as if asking herself whether she
might, and then kissed him.
Prince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find
in his heart his former love for her. Something in him had suddenly
changed; there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of
desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear
at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of
the duty that now bound him to her forever. The present feeling, though
not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious.
"Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?" asked Prince
Andrew, still looking into her eyes.
"Is it possible that I—the 'chit of a girl,' as everybody called me,"
thought Natasha—"is it possible that I am now to be the wife and the
equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father looks up
to? Can it be true? Can it be true that there can be no more playing with
life, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies a responsibility for
my every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ask me?"
"No," she replied, but she had not understood his question.
"Forgive me!" he said. "But you are so young, and I have already
been through so much in life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know
yourself."
Natasha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing to
take in the meaning of his words.
"Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be," continued
Prince Andrew, "it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask you
to make me happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall
remain a secret, and should you find that you do not love me, or should
you come to love..." said Prince Andrew with an unnatural smile.
"Why do you say that?" Natasha interrupted him. "You know that
from the very day you first came to Otradnoe I have loved you," she
cried, quite convinced that she spoke the truth.
"In a year you will learn to know yourself...."
"A whole year!" Natasha repeated suddenly, only now realizing that
the marriage was to be postponed for a year. "But why a year? Why a
year?..."
Prince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this delay.
Natasha did not hear him.
 "And can't it be helped?" she asked. Prince Andrew did not reply, but
his face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision.
"It's awful! Oh, it's awful! awful!" Natasha suddenly cried, and again
burst into sobs. "I shall die, waiting a year: it's impossible, it's awful!"
She looked into her lover's face and saw in it a look of commiseration
and perplexity.
"No, no! I'll do anything!" she said, suddenly checking her tears. "I
am so happy."
The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed
couple their blessing.
From that day Prince Andrew began to frequent the Rostovs' as
Natasha's affianced lover.

CHAPTER XXIV
No betrothal ceremony took place and Natasha's engagement to
Bolkonski was not announced; Prince Andrew insisted on that. He said
that as he was responsible for the delay he ought to bear the whole
burden of it; that he had given his word and bound himself forever, but
that he did not wish to bind Natasha and gave her perfect freedom. If
after six months she felt that she did not love him she would have full
right to reject him. Naturally neither Natasha nor her parents wished to
hear of this, but Prince Andrew was firm. He came every day to the
Rostovs', but did not behave to Natasha as an affianced lover: he did
not use the familiar thou, but said you to her, and kissed only her hand.
After their engagement, quite different, intimate, and natural relations
sprang up between them. It was as if they had not known each other till
now. Both liked to recall how they had regarded each other when as yet
they were nothing to one another; they felt themselves now quite
different beings: then they were artificial, now natural and sincere. At
first the family felt some constraint in intercourse with Prince Andrew;
he seemed a man from another world, and for a long time Natasha
trained the family to get used to him, proudly assuring them all that he
only appeared to be different, but was really just like all of them, and
that she was not afraid of him and no one else ought to be. After a few
days they grew accustomed to him, and without restraint in his
presence pursued their usual way of life, in which he took his part. He
could talk about rural economy with the count, fashions with the
countess and Natasha, and about albums and fancywork with Sonya.
Sometimes the household both among themselves and in his presence
expressed their wonder at how it had all happened, and at the evident
omens there had been of it: Prince Andrew's coming to Otradnoe and
their coming to Petersburg, and the likeness between Natasha and
Prince Andrew which her nurse had noticed on his first visit, and
Andrew's encounter with Nicholas in 1805, and many other incidents
betokening that it had to be.
In the house that poetic dullness and quiet reigned which always
accompanies the presence of a betrothed couple. Often when all sitting
together everyone kept silent. Sometimes the others would get up and
go away and the couple, left alone, still remained silent. They rarely
spoke of their future life. Prince Andrew was afraid and ashamed to
speak of it. Natasha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she
constantly divined. Once she began questioning him about his son.
Prince Andrew blushed, as he often did now—Natasha particularly
liked it in him—and said that his son would not live with them.
"Why not?" asked Natasha in a frightened tone.
"I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and besides..."
"How I should have loved him!" said Natasha, immediately guessing
his thought; "but I know you wish to avoid any pretext for finding fault
with us."
Sometimes the old count would come up, kiss Prince Andrew, and
ask his advice about Petya's education or Nicholas' service. The old
countess sighed as she looked at them; Sonya was always getting
frightened lest she should be in the way and tried to find excuses for
leaving them alone, even when they did not wish it. When Prince
Andrew spoke (he could tell a story very well), Natasha listened to him
with pride; when she spoke she noticed with fear and joy that he gazed
attentively and scrutinizingly at her. She asked herself in perplexity:
"What does he look for in me? He is trying to discover something by
looking at me! What if what he seeks in me is not there?" Sometimes
she fell into one of the mad, merry moods characteristic of her, and
then she particularly loved to hear and see how Prince Andrew laughed.
He seldom laughed, but when he did he abandoned himself entirely to
his laughter, and after such a laugh she always felt nearer to him.
Natasha would have been completely happy if the thought of the
separation awaiting her and drawing near had not terrified her, just as
the mere thought of it made him turn pale and cold.
On the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince Andrew brought
with him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostovs' once since the ball.
Pierre seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the
countess, and Natasha sat down beside a little chess table with Sonya,
thereby inviting Prince Andrew to come too. He did so.
 "You have known Bezukhov a long time?" he asked. "Do you like
him?"
"Yes, he's a dear, but very absurd."
And as usual when speaking of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes of
his absent-mindedness, some of which had even been invented about
him.
"Do you know I have entrusted him with our secret? I have known
him from childhood. He has a heart of gold. I beg you, Natalie," Prince
Andrew said with sudden seriousness—"I am going away and heaven
knows what may happen. You may cease to... all right, I know I am not
to say that. Only this, then: whatever may happen to you when I am not
here..."
"What can happen?"
"Whatever trouble may come," Prince Andrew continued, "I beg
you, Mademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone
for advice and help! He is a most absent-minded and absurd fellow, but
he has a heart of gold."
Neither her father, nor her mother, nor Sonya, nor Prince Andrew
himself could have foreseen how the separation from her lover would
act on Natasha. Flushed and agitated she went about the house all that
day, dry-eyed, occupied with most trivial matters as if not
understanding what awaited her. She did not even cry when, on taking
leave, he kissed her hand for the last time. "Don't go!" she said in a tone
that made him wonder whether he really ought not to stay and which he
remembered long afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but
for several days she sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in
anything and only saying now and then, "Oh, why did he go away?"
But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around
her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and
became her old self again, but with a change in her moral
physiognomy, as a child gets up after a long illness with a changed
expression of face.

CHAPTER XXV
During that year after his son's departure, Prince Nicholas
Bolkonski's health and temper became much worse. He grew still more
irritable, and it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his
frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her
tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible.
Princess Mary had two passions and consequently two joys—her
nephew, little Nicholas, and religion—and these were the favorite
subjects of the prince's attacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he
would bring round to the superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting
and spoiling of children. "You want to make him"—little Nicholas—
"into an old maid like yourself! A pity! Prince Andrew wants a son and
not an old maid," he would say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle
Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess Mary's presence how she liked
our village priests and icons and would joke about them.
He continually hurt Princess Mary's feelings and tormented her, but
it cost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame toward her, or
could her father, whom she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust?
And what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word
"justice." All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and
simple law—the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who
lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had
she to do with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to
endure and love, and that she did.
During the winter Prince Andrew had come to Bald Hills and had
been gay, gentle, and more affectionate than Princess Mary had known
him for a long time past. She felt that something had happened to him,
but he said nothing to her about his love. Before he left he had a long
talk with his father about something, and Princess Mary noticed that
before his departure they were dissatisfied with one another.
Soon after Prince Andrew had gone, Princess Mary wrote to her
friend Julie Karagina in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as all girls
dream) of marrying to her brother, and who was at that time in
mourning for her own brother, killed in Turkey.
Sorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie.
Your loss is so terrible that I can only explain it to myself as a
special providence of God who, loving you, wishes to try you and your
excellent mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion alone, can—I
will not say comfort us—but save us from despair. Religion alone can
explain to us what without its help man cannot comprehend: why, for
what cause, kind and noble beings able to find happiness in life—not
merely harming no one but necessary to the happiness of others—are
called away to God, while cruel, useless, harmful persons, or such as
are a burden to themselves and to others, are left living. The first death
I saw, and one I shall never forget—that of my dear sister-in-law—left
that impression on me. Just as you ask destiny why your splendid
brother had to die, so I asked why that angel Lise, who not only never
wronged anyone, but in whose soul there were never any unkind
thoughts, had to die. And what do you think, dear friend? Five years
have passed since then, and already I, with my petty understanding,
begin to see clearly why she had to die, and in what way that death was
but an expression of the infinite goodness of the Creator, whose every
action, though generally incomprehensible to us, is but a manifestation
of His infinite love for His creatures. Perhaps, I often think, she was too
angelically innocent to have the strength to perform all a mother's
duties. As a young wife she was irreproachable; perhaps she could not
have been so as a mother. As it is, not only has she left us, and
particularly Prince Andrew, with the purest regrets and memories, but
probably she will there receive a place I dare not hope for myself. But
not to speak of her alone, that early and terrible death has had the most
beneficent influence on me and on my brother in spite of all our grief.
Then, at the moment of our loss, these thoughts could not occur to me;
I should then have dismissed them with horror, but now they are very
clear and certain. I write all this to you, dear friend, only to convince
you of the Gospel truth which has become for me a principle of life: not
a single hair of our heads will fall without His will. And His will is
governed only by infinite love for us, and so whatever befalls us is for
our good.
You ask whether we shall spend next winter in Moscow. In spite of
my wish to see you, I do not think so and do not want to do so. You
will be surprised to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte! The case
is this: my father's health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand
any contradiction and is becoming irritable. This irritability is, as you
know, chiefly directed to political questions. He cannot endure the
notion that Buonaparte is negotiating on equal terms with all the
sovereigns of Europe and particularly with our own, the grandson of
the Great Catherine! As you know, I am quite indifferent to politics, but
from my father's remarks and his talks with Michael Ivanovich I know
all that goes on in the world and especially about the honors conferred
on Buonaparte, who only at Bald Hills in the whole world, it seems, is
not accepted as a great man, still less as Emperor of France. And my
father cannot stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly because of his
political views that my father is reluctant to speak of going to Moscow;
for he foresees the encounters that would result from his way of
expressing his views regardless of anybody. All the benefit he might
derive from a course of treatment he would lose as a result of the
disputes about Buonaparte which would be inevitable. In any case it
will be decided very shortly.
Our family life goes on in the old way except for my brother
Andrew's absence. He, as I wrote you before, has changed very much
of late. After his sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits. He
has again become as I used to know him when a child: kind,
affectionate, with that heart of gold to which I know no equal. He has
realized, it seems to me, that life is not over for him. But together with
this mental change he has grown physically much weaker. He has
become thinner and more nervous. I am anxious about him and glad he
is taking this trip abroad which the doctors recommended long ago. I
hope it will cure him. You write that in Petersburg he is spoken of as
one of the most active, cultivated, and capable of the young men.
Forgive my vanity as a relation, but I never doubted it. The good he has
done to everybody here, from his peasants up to the gentry, is
incalculable. On his arrival in Petersburg he received only his due. I
always wonder at the way rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow,
especially such false ones as that you write about—I mean the report of
my brother's betrothal to the little Rostova. I do not think my brother
will ever marry again, and certainly not her; and this is why: first, I
know that though he rarely speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief
of that loss has gone too deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give
her a successor and our little angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as
far as I know, that girl is not the kind of girl who could please Prince
Andrew. I do not think he would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do
not wish it. But I am running on too long and am at the end of my
second sheet. Good-by, my dear friend. May God keep you in His holy
and mighty care. My dear friend, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you
kisses.
MARY

CHAPTER XXVI
In the middle of the summer Princess Mary received an unexpected
letter from Prince Andrew in Switzerland in which he gave her strange
and surprising news. He informed her of his engagement to Natasha
Rostova. The whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and
tender and confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never
loved as he did now and that only now did he understand and know
what life was. He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her
of his resolve when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had
spoken of it to his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Mary
should ask her father to give his consent, irritating him and having to
bear the brunt of his displeasure without attaining her object. "Besides,"
he wrote, "the matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now. My
father then insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months,
half of that period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever.
If the doctors did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in
Russia, but as it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You
know me and my relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have
been and always shall be independent; but to go against his will and
arouse his anger, now that he may perhaps remain with us such a short
time, would destroy half my happiness. I am now writing to him about
the same question, and beg you to choose a good moment to hand him
the letter and to let me know how he looks at the whole matter and
whether there is hope that he may consent to reduce the term by four
months."
After long hesitations, doubts, and prayers, Princess Mary gave the
letter to her father. The next day the old prince said to her quietly:
"Write and tell your brother to wait till I am dead.... It won't be
long—I shall soon set him free."
The princess was about to reply, but her father would not let her
speak and, raising his voice more and more, cried:
"Marry, marry, my boy!... A good family!... Clever people, eh? Rich,
eh? Yes, a nice stepmother little Nicholas will have! Write and tell him
that he may marry tomorrow if he likes. She will be little Nicholas'
stepmother and I'll marry Bourienne!... Ha, ha, ha! He mustn't be
without a stepmother either! Only one thing, no more women are
wanted in my house—let him marry and live by himself. Perhaps you
will go and live with him too?" he added, turning to Princess Mary.
"Go in heavens name! Go out into the frost... the frost... the frost!"
After this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the
matter. But repressed vexation at his son's poor-spirited behavior found
expression in his treatment of his daughter. To his former pretexts for
irony a fresh one was now added—allusions to stepmothers and
amiabilities to Mademoiselle Bourienne.
"Why shouldn't I marry her?" he asked his daughter. "She'll make a
splendid princess!"
And latterly, to her surprise and bewilderment, Princess Mary
noticed that her father was really associating more and more with the
Frenchwoman. She wrote to Prince Andrew about the reception of his
letter, but comforted him with hopes of reconciling their father to the
idea.
Little Nicholas and his education, her brother Andrew, and religion
were Princess Mary's joys and consolations; but besides that, since
everyone must have personal hopes, Princess Mary in the profoundest
depths of her heart had a hidden dream and hope that supplied the chief
consolation of her life. This comforting dream and hope were given her
by God's folk—the half-witted and other pilgrims who visited her
without the prince's knowledge. The longer she lived, the more
experience and observation she had of life, the greater was her wonder
at the short-sightedness of men who seek enjoyment and happiness here
on earth: toiling, suffering, struggling, and harming one another, to
obtain that impossible, visionary, sinful happiness. Prince Andrew had
loved his wife, she died, but that was not enough: he wanted to bind his
happiness to another woman. Her father objected to this because he
wanted a more distinguished and wealthier match for Andrew. And
they all struggled and suffered and tormented one another and injured
their souls, their eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which
endure but for an instant. Not only do we know this ourselves, but
Christ, the Son of God, came down to earth and told us that this life is
but for a moment and is a probation; yet we cling to it and think to find
happiness in it. "How is it that no one realizes this?" thought Princess
Mary. "No one except these despised God's folk who, wallet on back,
come to me by the back door, afraid of being seen by the prince, not for
fear of ill-usage by him but for fear of causing him to sin. To leave
family, home, and all the cares of worldly welfare, in order without
clinging to anything to wander in hempen rags from place to place
under an assumed name, doing no one any harm but praying for all—
for those who drive one away as well as for those who protect one:
higher than that life and truth there is no life or truth!"
There was one pilgrim, a quiet pockmarked little woman of fifty
called Theodosia, who for over thirty years had gone about barefoot
and worn heavy chains. Princess Mary was particularly fond of her.
Once, when in a room with a lamp dimly lit before the icon Theodosia
was talking of her life, the thought that Theodosia alone had found the
true path of life suddenly came to Princess Mary with such force that
she resolved to become a pilgrim herself. When Theodosia had gone to
sleep Princess Mary thought about this for a long time, and at last made
up her mind that, strange as it might seem, she must go on a
pilgrimage. She disclosed this thought to no one but to her confessor,
Father Akinfi, the monk, and he approved of her intention. Under guise
of a present for the pilgrims, Princess Mary prepared a pilgrim's
complete costume for herself: a coarse smock, bast shoes, a rough coat,
and a black kerchief. Often, approaching the chest of drawers
containing this secret treasure, Princess Mary paused, uncertain
whether the time had not already come to put her project into
execution.
Often, listening to the pilgrims' tales, she was so stimulated by their
simple speech, mechanical to them but to her so full of deep meaning,
that several times she was on the point of abandoning everything and
running away from home. In imagination she already pictured herself
by Theodosia's side, dressed in coarse rags, walking with a staff, a
wallet on her back, along the dusty road, directing her wanderings from
one saint's shrine to another, free from envy, earthly love, or desire, and
reaching at last the place where there is no more sorrow or sighing, but
eternal joy and bliss.
"I shall come to a place and pray there, and before having time to get
used to it or getting to love it, I shall go farther. I will go on till my legs
fail, and I'll lie down and die somewhere, and shall at last reach that
eternal, quiet haven, where there is neither sorrow nor sighing..."
thought Princess Mary.
But afterwards, when she saw her father and especially little Koko
(Nicholas), her resolve weakened. She wept quietly, and felt that she
was a sinner who loved her father and little nephew more than God.

BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11

CHAPTER I
The Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor—idleness—was a
condition of the first man's blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man has
retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not only
because we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but
because our moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at
ease. An inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man
could find a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling his
duty, he would have found one of the conditions of man's primitive
blessedness. And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness
is the lot of a whole class—the military. The chief attraction of military
service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and
irreproachable idleness.
Nicholas Rostov experienced this blissful condition to the full when,
after 1807, he continued to serve in the Pavlograd regiment, in which
he already commanded the squadron he had taken over from Denisov.
Rostov had become a bluff, good-natured fellow, whom his Moscow
acquaintances would have considered rather bad form, but who was
liked and respected by his comrades, subordinates, and superiors, and
was well contented with his life. Of late, in 1809, he found in letters
from home more frequent complaints from his mother that their affairs
were falling into greater and greater disorder, and that it was time for
him to come back to gladden and comfort his old parents.
Reading these letters, Nicholas felt a dread of their wanting to take
him away from surroundings in which, protected from all the
entanglements of life, he was living so calmly and quietly. He felt that
sooner or later he would have to re-enter that whirlpool of life, with its
embarrassments and affairs to be straightened out, its accounts with
stewards, quarrels, and intrigues, its ties, society, and with Sonya's love
and his promise to her. It was all dreadfully difficult and complicated;
and he replied to his mother in cold, formal letters in French,
beginning: "My dear Mamma," and ending: "Your obedient son,"
which said nothing of when he would return. In 1810 he received letters
from his parents, in which they told him of Natasha's engagement to
Bolkonski, and that the wedding would be in a year's time because the
old prince made difficulties. This letter grieved and mortified Nicholas.
In the first place he was sorry that Natasha, for whom he cared more
than for anyone else in the family, should be lost to the home; and
secondly, from his hussar point of view, he regretted not to have been
there to show that fellow Bolkonski that connection with him was no
such great honor after all, and that if he loved Natasha he might
dispense with permission from his dotard father. For a moment he
hesitated whether he should not apply for leave in order to see Natasha
before she was married, but then came the maneuvers, and
considerations about Sonya and about the confusion of their affairs, and
Nicholas again put it off. But in the spring of that year, he received a
letter from his mother, written without his father's knowledge, and that
letter persuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come and
take matters in hand, their whole property would be sold by auction and
they would all have to go begging. The count was so weak, and trusted
Mitenka so much, and was so good-natured, that everybody took
advantage of him and things were going from bad to worse. "For God's
sake, I implore you, come at once if you do not wish to make me and
the whole family wretched," wrote the countess.
This letter touched Nicholas. He had that common sense of a matter-
of-fact man which showed him what he ought to do.
The right thing now was, if not to retire from the service, at any rate
to go home on leave. Why he had to go he did not know; but after his
after-dinner nap he gave orders to saddle Mars, an extremely vicious
gray stallion that had not been ridden for a long time, and when he
returned with the horse all in a lather, he informed Lavrushka
(Denisov's servant who had remained with him) and his comrades who
turned up in the evening that he was applying for leave and was going
home. Difficult and strange as it was for him to reflect that he would go
away without having heard from the staff—and this interested him
extremely—whether he was promoted to a captaincy or would receive
the Order of St. Anne for the last maneuvers; strange as it was to think
that he would go away without having sold his three roans to the Polish
Count Golukhovski, who was bargaining for the horses Rostov had
betted he would sell for two thousand rubles; incomprehensible as it
seemed that the ball the hussars were giving in honor of the Polish
Mademoiselle Przazdziecka (out of rivalry to the Uhlans who had given
one in honor of their Polish Mademoiselle Borzozowska) would take
place without him—he knew he must go away from this good, bright
world to somewhere where everything was stupid and confused. A
week later he obtained his leave. His hussar comrades—not only those
of his own regiment, but the whole brigade—gave Rostov a dinner to
which the subscription was fifteen rubles a head, and at which there
were two bands and two choirs of singers. Rostov danced the Trepak
with Major Basov; the tipsy officers tossed, embraced, and dropped
Rostov; the soldiers of the third squadron tossed him too, and shouted
"hurrah!" and then they put him in his sleigh and escorted him as far as
the first post station.
During the first half of the journey—from Kremenchug to Kiev—all
Rostov's thoughts, as is usual in such cases, were behind him, with the
squadron; but when he had gone more than halfway he began to forget
his three roans and Dozhoyveyko, his quartermaster, and to wonder
anxiously how things would be at Otradnoe and what he would find
there. Thoughts of home grew stronger the nearer he approached it—far
stronger, as though this feeling of his was subject to the law by which
the force of attraction is in inverse proportion to the square of the
distance. At the last post station before Otradnoe he gave the driver a
three-ruble tip, and on arriving he ran breathlessly, like a boy, up the
steps of his home.
After the rapture of meeting, and after that odd feeling of unsatisfied
expectation—the feeling that "everything is just the same, so why did I
hurry?"—Nicholas began to settle down in his old home world. His
father and mother were much the same, only a little older. What was
new in them was a certain uneasiness and occasional discord, which
there used not to be, and which, as Nicholas soon found out, was due to
the bad state of their affairs. Sonya was nearly twenty; she had stopped
growing prettier and promised nothing more than she was already, but
that was enough. She exhaled happiness and love from the time
Nicholas returned, and the faithful, unalterable love of this girl had a
gladdening effect on him. Petya and Natasha surprised Nicholas most.
Petya was a big handsome boy of thirteen, merry, witty, and
mischievous, with a voice that was already breaking. As for Natasha,
for a long while Nicholas wondered and laughed whenever he looked at
her.
"You're not the same at all," he said.
 "How? Am I uglier?"
"On the contrary, but what dignity? A princess!" he whispered to her.
"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Natasha, joyfully.
She told him about her romance with Prince Andrew and of his visit
to Otradnoe and showed him his last letter.
"Well, are you glad?" Natasha asked. "I am so tranquil and happy
now."
"Very glad," answered Nicholas. "He is an excellent fellow.... And
are you very much in love?"
"How shall I put it?" replied Natasha. "I was in love with Boris, with
my teacher, and with Denisov, but this is quite different. I feel at peace
and settled. I know that no better man than he exists, and I am calm and
contented now. Not at all as before."
Nicholas expressed his disapproval of the postponement of the
marriage for a year; but Natasha attacked her brother with exasperation,
proving to him that it could not be otherwise, and that it would be a bad
thing to enter a family against the father's will, and that she herself
wished it so.
"You don't at all understand," she said.
Nicholas was silent and agreed with her.
Her brother often wondered as he looked at her. She did not seem at
all like a girl in love and parted from her affianced husband. She was
even-tempered and calm and quite as cheerful as of old. This amazed
Nicholas and even made him regard Bolkonski's courtship skeptically.
He could not believe that her fate was sealed, especially as he had not
seen her with Prince Andrew. It always seemed to him that there was
something not quite right about this intended marriage.
"Why this delay? Why no betrothal?" he thought. Once, when he had
touched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise and
somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too had
doubts about this marriage.
"You see he writes," said she, showing her son a letter of Prince
Andrew's, with that latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a
daughter's future married happiness, "he writes that he won't come
before December. What can be keeping him? Illness, probably! His
health is very delicate. Don't tell Natasha. And don't attach importance
to her being so bright: that's because she's living through the last days
of her girlhood, but I know what she is like every time we receive a
letter from him! However, God grant that everything turns out well!"
(She always ended with these words.) "He is an excellent man!"

CHAPTER II
After reaching home Nicholas was at first serious and even dull. He
was worried by the impending necessity of interfering in the stupid
business matters for which his mother had called him home. To throw
off this burden as quickly as possible, on the third day after his arrival
he went, angry and scowling and without answering questions as to
where he was going, to Mitenka's lodge and demanded an account of
everything. But what an account of everything might be Nicholas knew
even less than the frightened and bewildered Mitenka. The
conversation and the examination of the accounts with Mitenka did not
last long. The village elder, a peasant delegate, and the village clerk,
who were waiting in the passage, heard with fear and delight first the
young count's voice roaring and snapping and rising louder and louder,
and then words of abuse, dreadful words, ejaculated one after the other.
"Robber!... Ungrateful wretch!... I'll hack the dog to pieces! I'm not
my father!... Robbing us!..." and so on.
Then with no less fear and delight they saw how the young count,
red in the face and with bloodshot eyes, dragged Mitenka out by the
scruff of the neck and applied his foot and knee to his behind with great
agility at convenient moments between the words, shouting, "Be off!
Never let me see your face here again, you villain!"
Mitenka flew headlong down the six steps and ran away into the
shrubbery. (This shrubbery was a well-known haven of refuge for
culprits at Otradnoe. Mitenka himself, returning tipsy from the town,
used to hide there, and many of the residents at Otradnoe, hiding from
Mitenka, knew of its protective qualities.)
Mitenka's wife and sisters-in-law thrust their heads and frightened
faces out of the door of a room where a bright samovar was boiling and
where the steward's high bedstead stood with its patchwork quilt.
The young count paid no heed to them, but, breathing hard, passed
by with resolute strides and went into the house.
The countess, who heard at once from the maids what had happened
at the lodge, was calmed by the thought that now their affairs would
certainly improve, but on the other hand felt anxious as to the effect
this excitement might have on her son. She went several times to his
door on tiptoe and listened, as he lighted one pipe after another.
Next day the old count called his son aside and, with an embarrassed
smile, said to him:
"But you know, my dear boy, it's a pity you got excited! Mitenka has
told me all about it."
"I knew," thought Nicholas, "that I should never understand anything
in this crazy world."
"You were angry that he had not entered those 700 rubles. But they
were carried forward—and you did not look at the other page."
"Papa, he is a blackguard and a thief! I know he is! And what I have
done, I have done; but, if you like, I won't speak to him again."
"No, my dear boy" (the count, too, felt embarrassed. He knew he had
mismanaged his wife's property and was to blame toward his children,
but he did not know how to remedy it). "No, I beg you to attend to the
business. I am old. I..."
"No, Papa. Forgive me if I have caused you unpleasantness. I
understand it all less than you do."
"Devil take all these peasants, and money matters, and carryings
forward from page to page," he thought. "I used to understand what a
'corner' and the stakes at cards meant, but carrying forward to another
page I don't understand at all," said he to himself, and after that he did
not meddle in business affairs. But once the countess called her son and
informed him that she had a promissory note from Anna Mikhaylovna
for two thousand rubles, and asked him what he thought of doing with
it.
"This," answered Nicholas. "You say it rests with me. Well, I don't
like Anna Mikhaylovna and I don't like Boris, but they were our friends
and poor. Well then, this!" and he tore up the note, and by so doing
caused the old countess to weep tears of joy. After that, young Rostov
took no further part in any business affairs, but devoted himself with
passionate enthusiasm to what was to him a new pursuit—the chase—
for which his father kept a large establishment.

CHAPTER III
 The weather was already growing wintry and morning frosts
congealed an earth saturated by autumn rains. The verdure had
thickened and its bright green stood out sharply against the brownish
strips of winter rye trodden down by the cattle, and against the pale-
yellow stubble of the spring buckwheat. The wooded ravines and the
copses, which at the end of August had still been green islands amid
black fields and stubble, had become golden and bright-red islands
amid the green winter rye. The hares had already half changed their
summer coats, the fox cubs were beginning to scatter, and the young
wolves were bigger than dogs. It was the best time of the year for the
chase. The hounds of that ardent young sportsman Rostov had not
merely reached hard winter condition, but were so jaded that at a
meeting of the huntsmen it was decided to give them a three days' rest
and then, on the sixteenth of September, to go on a distant expedition,
starting from the oak grove where there was an undisturbed litter of
wolf cubs.
All that day the hounds remained at home. It was frosty and the air
was sharp, but toward evening the sky became overcast and it began to
thaw. On the fifteenth, when young Rostov, in his dressing gown,
looked out of the window, he saw it was an unsurpassable morning for
hunting: it was as if the sky were melting and sinking to the earth
without any wind. The only motion in the air was that of the dripping,
microscopic particles of drizzling mist. The bare twigs in the garden
were hung with transparent drops which fell on the freshly fallen
leaves. The earth in the kitchen garden looked wet and black and
glistened like poppy seed and at a short distance merged into the dull,
moist veil of mist. Nicholas went out into the wet and muddy porch.
There was a smell of decaying leaves and of dog. Milka, a black-
spotted, broad-haunched bitch with prominent black eyes, got up on
seeing her master, stretched her hind legs, lay down like a hare, and
then suddenly jumped up and licked him right on his nose and
mustache. Another borzoi, a dog, catching sight of his master from the
garden path, arched his back and, rushing headlong toward the porch
with lifted tail, began rubbing himself against his legs.
"O-hoy!" came at that moment, that inimitable huntsman's call which
unites the deepest bass with the shrillest tenor, and round the corner
came Daniel the head huntsman and head kennelman, a gray, wrinkled
old man with hair cut straight over his forehead, Ukrainian fashion, a
long bent whip in his hand, and that look of independence and scorn of
everything that is only seen in huntsmen. He doffed his Circassian cap
to his master and looked at him scornfully. This scorn was not
offensive to his master. Nicholas knew that this Daniel, disdainful of
everybody and who considered himself above them, was all the same
his serf and huntsman.
 "Daniel!" Nicholas said timidly, conscious at the sight of the
weather, the hounds, and the huntsman that he was being carried away
by that irresistible passion for sport which makes a man forget all his
previous resolutions, as a lover forgets in the presence of his mistress.
"What orders, your excellency?" said the huntsman in his deep bass,
deep as a proto-deacon's and hoarse with hallooing—and two flashing
black eyes gazed from under his brows at his master, who was silent.
"Can you resist it?" those eyes seemed to be asking.
"It's a good day, eh? For a hunt and a gallop, eh?" asked Nicholas,
scratching Milka behind the ears.
Daniel did not answer, but winked instead.
"I sent Uvarka at dawn to listen," his bass boomed out after a
minute's pause. "He says she's moved them into the Otradnoe
enclosure. They were howling there." (This meant that the she-wolf,
about whom they both knew, had moved with her cubs to the Otradnoe
copse, a small place a mile and a half from the house.)
"We ought to go, don't you think so?" said Nicholas. "Come to me
with Uvarka."
"As you please."
"Then put off feeding them."
"Yes, sir."
Five minutes later Daniel and Uvarka were standing in Nicholas' big
study. Though Daniel was not a big man, to see him in a room was like
seeing a horse or a bear on the floor among the furniture and
surroundings of human life. Daniel himself felt this, and as usual stood
just inside the door, trying to speak softly and not move, for fear of
breaking something in the master's apartment, and he hastened to say
all that was necessary so as to get from under that ceiling, out into the
open under the sky once more.
Having finished his inquiries and extorted from Daniel an opinion
that the hounds were fit (Daniel himself wished to go hunting),
Nicholas ordered the horses to be saddled. But just as Daniel was about
to go Natasha came in with rapid steps, not having done up her hair or
finished dressing and with her old nurse's big shawl wrapped round her.
Petya ran in at the same time.
"You are going?" asked Natasha. "I knew you would! Sonya said
you wouldn't go, but I knew that today is the sort of day when you
couldn't help going."
 "Yes, we are going," replied Nicholas reluctantly, for today, as he
intended to hunt seriously, he did not want to take Natasha and Petya.
"We are going, but only wolf hunting: it would be dull for you."
"You know it is my greatest pleasure," said Natasha. "It's not fair;
you are going by yourself, are having the horses saddled and said
nothing to us about it."
"'No barrier bars a Russian's path'—we'll go!" shouted Petya.
"But you can't. Mamma said you mustn't," said Nicholas to Natasha.
"Yes, I'll go. I shall certainly go," said Natasha decisively. "Daniel,
tell them to saddle for us, and Michael must come with my dogs," she
added to the huntsman.
It seemed to Daniel irksome and improper to be in a room at all, but
to have anything to do with a young lady seemed to him impossible. He
cast down his eyes and hurried out as if it were none of his business,
careful as he went not to inflict any accidental injury on the young lady.

CHAPTER IV
The old count, who had always kept up an enormous hunting
establishment but had now handed it all completely over to his son's
care, being in very good spirits on this fifteenth of September, prepared
to go out with the others.
In an hour's time the whole hunting party was at the porch. Nicholas,
with a stern and serious air which showed that now was no time for
attending to trifles, went past Natasha and Petya who were trying to tell
him something. He had a look at all the details of the hunt, sent a pack
of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to find the quarry, mounted his
chestnut Donets, and whistling to his own leash of borzois, set off
across the threshing ground to a field leading to the Otradnoe wood.
The old count's horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyanka, was led by the
groom in attendance on him, while the count himself was to drive in a
small trap straight to a spot reserved for him.
They were taking fifty-four hounds, with six hunt attendants and
whippers-in. Besides the family, there were eight borzoi kennelmen and
more than forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on the leash belonging
to members of the family, there were about a hundred and thirty dogs
and twenty horsemen.
 Each dog knew its master and its call. Each man in the hunt knew his
business, his place, what he had to do. As soon as they had passed the
fence they all spread out evenly and quietly, without noise or talk,
along the road and field leading to the Otradnoe covert.
The horses stepped over the field as over a thick carpet, now and
then splashing into puddles as they crossed a road. The misty sky still
seemed to descend evenly and imperceptibly toward the earth, the air
was still, warm, and silent. Occasionally the whistle of a huntsman, the
snort of a horse, the crack of a whip, or the whine of a straggling hound
could be heard.
When they had gone a little less than a mile, five more riders with
dogs appeared out of the mist, approaching the Rostovs. In front rode a
fresh-looking, handsome old man with a large gray mustache.
"Good morning, Uncle!" said Nicholas, when the old man drew near.
"That's it. Come on!... I was sure of it," began "Uncle." (He was a
distant relative of the Rostovs', a man of small means, and their
neighbor.) "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist it and it's a good thing
you're going. That's it! Come on!" (This was "Uncle's" favorite
expression.) "Take the covert at once, for my Girchik says the Ilagins
are at Korniki with their hounds. That's it. Come on!... They'll take the
cubs from under your very nose."
"That's where I'm going. Shall we join up our packs?" asked
Nicholas.
The hounds were joined into one pack, and "Uncle" and Nicholas
rode on side by side. Natasha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide
her eager face and shining eyes, galloped up to them. She was followed
by Petya who always kept close to her, by Michael, a huntsman, and by
a groom appointed to look after her. Petya, who was laughing, whipped
and pulled at his horse. Natasha sat easily and confidently on her black
Arabchik and reined him in without effort with a firm hand.
"Uncle" looked round disapprovingly at Petya and Natasha. He did
not like to combine frivolity with the serious business of hunting.
"Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!" shouted Petya.
"Good morning, good morning! But don't go overriding the hounds,"
said "Uncle" sternly.
"Nicholas, what a fine dog Trunila is! He knew me," said Natasha,
referring to her favorite hound.
"In the first place, Trunila is not a 'dog,' but a harrier," thought
Nicholas, and looked sternly at his sister, trying to make her feel the
distance that ought to separate them at that moment. Natasha
understood it.
"You mustn't think we'll be in anyone's way, Uncle," she said. "We'll
go to our places and won't budge."
"A good thing too, little countess," said "Uncle," "only mind you
don't fall off your horse," he added, "because—that's it, come on!—
you've nothing to hold on to."
The oasis of the Otradnoe covert came in sight a few hundred yards
off, the huntsmen were already nearing it. Rostov, having finally settled
with "Uncle" where they should set on the hounds, and having shown
Natasha where she was to stand—a spot where nothing could possibly
run out—went round above the ravine.
"Well, nephew, you're going for a big wolf," said "Uncle." "Mind
and don't let her slip!"
"That's as may happen," answered Rostov. "Karay, here!" he
shouted, answering "Uncle's" remark by this call to his borzoi. Karay
was a shaggy old dog with a hanging jowl, famous for having tackled a
big wolf unaided. They all took up their places.
The old count, knowing his son's ardor in the hunt, hurried so as not
to be late, and the huntsmen had not yet reached their places when
Count Ilya Rostov, cheerful, flushed, and with quivering cheeks, drove
up with his black horses over the winter rye to the place reserved for
him, where a wolf might come out. Having straightened his coat and
fastened on his hunting knives and horn, he mounted his good, sleek,
well-fed, and comfortable horse, Viflyanka, which was turning gray,
like himself. His horses and trap were sent home. Count Ilya Rostov,
though not at heart a keen sportsman, knew the rules of the hunt well,
and rode to the bushy edge of the road where he was to stand, arranged
his reins, settled himself in the saddle, and, feeling that he was ready,
looked about with a smile.
Beside him was Simon Chekmar, his personal attendant, an old
horseman now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmar held in leash
three formidable wolfhounds, who had, however, grown fat like their
master and his horse. Two wise old dogs lay down unleashed. Some
hundred paces farther along the edge of the wood stood Mitka, the
count's other groom, a daring horseman and keen rider to hounds.
Before the hunt, by old custom, the count had drunk a silver cupful of
mulled brandy, taken a snack, and washed it down with half a bottle of
his favorite Bordeaux.
He was somewhat flushed with the wine and the drive. His eyes were
rather moist and glittered more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle,
wrapped up in his fur coat, he looked like a child taken out for an
outing.
The thin, hollow-cheeked Chekmar, having got everything ready,
kept glancing at his master with whom he had lived on the best of terms
for thirty years, and understanding the mood he was in expected a
pleasant chat. A third person rode up circumspectly through the wood
(it was plain that he had had a lesson) and stopped behind the count.
This person was a gray-bearded old man in a woman's cloak, with a tall
peaked cap on his head. He was the buffoon, who went by a woman's
name, Nastasya Ivanovna.
"Well, Nastasya Ivanovna!" whispered the count, winking at him. "If
you scare away the beast, Daniel'll give it you!"
"I know a thing or two myself!" said Nastasya Ivanovna.
"Hush!" whispered the count and turned to Simon. "Have you seen
the young countess?" he asked. "Where is she?"
"With young Count Peter, by the Zharov rank grass," answered
Simon, smiling. "Though she's a lady, she's very fond of hunting."
"And you're surprised at the way she rides, Simon, eh?" said the
count. "She's as good as many a man!"
"Of course! It's marvelous. So bold, so easy!"
"And Nicholas? Where is he? By the Lyadov upland, isn't he?"
"Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so
well that Daniel and I are often quite astounded," said Simon, well
knowing what would please his master.
"Rides well, eh? And how well he looks on his horse, eh?"
"A perfect picture! How he chased a fox out of the rank grass by the
Zavarzinsk thicket the other day! Leaped a fearful place; what a sight
when they rushed from the covert... the horse worth a thousand rubles
and the rider beyond all price! Yes, one would have to search far to find
another as smart."
"To search far..." repeated the count, evidently sorry Simon had not
said more. "To search far," he said, turning back the skirt of his coat to
get at his snuffbox.
"The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform,
Michael Sidorych..." Simon did not finish, for on the still air he had
distinctly caught the music of the hunt with only two or three hounds
giving tongue. He bent down his head and listened, shaking a warning
finger at his master. "They are on the scent of the cubs..." he whispered,
"straight to the Lyadov uplands."
The count, forgetting to smooth out the smile on his face, looked into
the distance straight before him, down the narrow open space, holding
the snuffbox in his hand but not taking any. After the cry of the hounds
came the deep tones of the wolf call from Daniel's hunting horn; the
pack joined the first three hounds and they could be heard in full cry,
with that peculiar lift in the note that indicates that they are after a wolf.
The whippers-in no longer set on the hounds, but changed to the cry of
ulyulyu, and above the others rose Daniel's voice, now a deep bass,
now piercingly shrill. His voice seemed to fill the whole wood and
carried far beyond out into the open field.
After listening a few moments in silence, the count and his attendant
convinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the
sound of the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in
the distance, the other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and it
was with this that Daniel's voice was heard calling ulyulyu. The sounds
of both packs mingled and broke apart again, but both were becoming
more distant.
Simon sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi had
entangled; the count too sighed and, noticing the snuffbox in his hand,
opened it and took a pinch. "Back!" cried Simon to a borzoi that was
pushing forward out of the wood. The count started and dropped the
snuffbox. Nastasya Ivanovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and
Simon were looking at him.
Then, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt
suddenly approached, as if the hounds in full cry and Daniel ulyulyuing
were just in front of them.
The count turned and saw on his right Mitka staring at him with eyes
starting out of his head, raising his cap and pointing before him to the
other side.
"Look out!" he shouted, in a voice plainly showing that he had long
fretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped toward
the count.
The count and Simon galloped out of the wood and saw on their left
a wolf which, softly swaying from side to side, was coming at a quiet
lope farther to the left to the very place where they were standing. The
angry borzois whined and getting free of the leash rushed past the
horses' feet at the wolf.
The wolf paused, turned its heavy forehead toward the dogs
awkwardly, like a man suffering from the quinsy, and, still slightly
swaying from side to side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of
its tail disappeared into the skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with
a cry like a wail, first one hound, then another, and then another, sprang
helter-skelter from the wood opposite and the whole pack rushed across
the field toward the very spot where the wolf had disappeared. The
hazel bushes parted behind the hounds and Daniel's chestnut horse
appeared, dark with sweat. On its long back sat Daniel, hunched
forward, capless, his disheveled gray hair hanging over his flushed,
perspiring face.
"Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu!..." he cried. When he caught sight of the count
his eyes flashed lightning.
"Blast you!" he shouted, holding up his whip threateningly at the
count.
"You've let the wolf go!... What sportsmen!" and as if scorning to
say more to the frightened and shamefaced count, he lashed the heaving
flanks of his sweating chestnut gelding with all the anger the count had
aroused and flew off after the hounds. The count, like a punished
schoolboy, looked round, trying by a smile to win Simon's sympathy
for his plight. But Simon was no longer there. He was galloping round
by the bushes while the field was coming up on both sides, all trying to
head the wolf, but it vanished into the wood before they could do so.

CHAPTER V
Nicholas Rostov meanwhile remained at his post, waiting for the
wolf. By the way the hunt approached and receded, by the cries of the
dogs whose notes were familiar to him, by the way the voices of the
huntsmen approached, receded, and rose, he realized what was
happening at the copse. He knew that young and old wolves were there,
that the hounds had separated into two packs, that somewhere a wolf
was being chased, and that something had gone wrong. He expected the
wolf to come his way any moment. He made thousands of different
conjectures as to where and from what side the beast would come and
how he would set upon it. Hope alternated with despair. Several times
he addressed a prayer to God that the wolf should come his way. He
prayed with that passionate and shamefaced feeling with which men
pray at moments of great excitement arising from trivial causes. "What
would it be to Thee to do this for me?" he said to God. "I know Thou
art great, and that it is a sin to ask this of Thee, but for God's sake do let
the old wolf come my way and let Karay spring at it—in sight of
'Uncle' who is watching from over there—and seize it by the throat in a
death grip!" A thousand times during that half-hour Rostov cast eager
and restless glances over the edge of the wood, with the two scraggy
oaks rising above the aspen undergrowth and the gully with its water-
worn side and "Uncle's" cap just visible above the bush on his right.
"No, I shan't have such luck," thought Rostov, "yet what wouldn't it
be worth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in war, I am always
unlucky." Memories of Austerlitz and of Dolokhov flashed rapidly and
clearly through his mind. "Only once in my life to get an old wolf, I
want only that!" thought he, straining eyes and ears and looking to the
left and then to the right and listening to the slightest variation of note
in the cries of the dogs.
Again he looked to the right and saw something running toward him
across the deserted field. "No, it can't be!" thought Rostov, taking a
deep breath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped for.
The height of happiness was reached—and so simply, without warning,
or noise, or display, that Rostov could not believe his eyes and
remained in doubt for over a second. The wolf ran forward and jumped
heavily over a gully that lay in her path. She was an old animal with a
gray back and big reddish belly. She ran without hurry, evidently
feeling sure that no one saw her. Rostov, holding his breath, looked
round at the borzois. They stood or lay not seeing the wolf or
understanding the situation. Old Karay had turned his head and was
angrily searching for fleas, baring his yellow teeth and snapping at his
hind legs.
"Ulyulyulyu!" whispered Rostov, pouting his lips. The borzois
jumped up, jerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears.
Karay finished scratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got up
with quivering tail from which tufts of matted hair hung down.
"Shall I loose them or not?" Nicholas asked himself as the wolf
approached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf's whole
physiognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably
never seen before—human eyes fixed upon her—and turning her head
a little toward Rostov, she paused.
"Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward..." the wolf seemed to say
to herself, and she moved forward without again looking round and
with a quiet, long, easy yet resolute lope.
"Ulyulyu!" cried Nicholas, in a voice not his own, and of its own
accord his good horse darted headlong downhill, leaping over gullies to
head off the wolf, and the borzois passed it, running faster still.
Nicholas did not hear his own cry nor feel that he was galloping, nor
see the borzois, nor the ground over which he went: he saw only the
wolf, who, increasing her speed, bounded on in the same direction
along the hollow. The first to come into view was Milka, with her black
markings and powerful quarters, gaining upon the wolf. Nearer and
nearer... now she was ahead of it; but the wolf turned its head to face
her, and instead of putting on speed as she usually did Milka suddenly
raised her tail and stiffened her forelegs.
"Ulyulyulyulyu!" shouted Nicholas.
The reddish Lyubim rushed forward from behind Milka, sprang
impetuously at the wolf, and seized it by its hindquarters, but
immediately jumped aside in terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed her
teeth, and again rose and bounded forward, followed at the distance of
a couple of feet by all the borzois, who did not get any closer to her.
"She'll get away! No, it's impossible!" thought Nicholas, still
shouting with a hoarse voice.
"Karay, ulyulyu!..." he shouted, looking round for the old borzoi who
was now his only hope. Karay, with all the strength age had left him,
stretched himself to the utmost and, watching the wolf, galloped
heavily aside to intercept it. But the quickness of the wolf's lope and the
borzoi's slower pace made it plain that Karay had miscalculated.
Nicholas could already see not far in front of him the wood where the
wolf would certainly escape should she reach it. But, coming toward
him, he saw hounds and a huntsman galloping almost straight at the
wolf. There was still hope. A long, yellowish young borzoi, one
Nicholas did not know, from another leash, rushed impetuously at the
wolf from in front and almost knocked her over. But the wolf jumped
up more quickly than anyone could have expected and, gnashing her
teeth, flew at the yellowish borzoi, which, with a piercing yelp, fell
with its head on the ground, bleeding from a gash in its side.
"Karay? Old fellow!..." wailed Nicholas.
Thanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf's path, the old
dog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within five paces of
it. As if aware of her danger, the wolf turned her eyes on Karay, tucked
her tail yet further between her legs, and increased her speed. But here
Nicholas only saw that something happened to Karay—the borzoi was
suddenly on the wolf, and they rolled together down into a gully just in
front of them.
That instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully with
the dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and
outstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears
laid back (Karay was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest
moment of his life. With his hand on his saddlebow, he was ready to
dismount and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up from
among that mass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge of
the gully. She clicked her teeth (Karay no longer had her by the throat),
leaped with a movement of her hind legs out of the gully, and having
disengaged herself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again, went
forward. Karay, his hair bristling, and probably bruised or wounded,
climbed with difficulty out of the gully.
"Oh my God! Why?" Nicholas cried in despair.
"Uncle's" huntsman was galloping from the other side across the
wolf's path and his borzois once more stopped the animal's advance.
She was again hemmed in.
Nicholas and his attendant, with "Uncle" and his huntsman, were all
riding round the wolf, crying "ulyulyu!" shouting and preparing to
dismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting
forward again every time she shook herself and moved toward the
wood where she would be safe.
Already, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the
ulyulyuing, had rushed out from the wood. He saw Karay seize the
wolf, and checked his horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when
he saw that the horsemen did not dismount and that the wolf shook
herself and ran for safety, Daniel set his chestnut galloping, not at the
wolf but straight toward the wood, just as Karay had run to cut the
animal off. As a result of this, he galloped up to the wolf just when she
had been stopped a second time by "Uncle's" borzois.
Daniel galloped up silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand
and thrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip as
if it were a flail.
Nicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel until the chestnut, breathing
heavily, panted past him, and he heard the fall of a body and saw
Daniel lying on the wolf's back among the dogs, trying to seize her by
the ears. It was evident to the dogs, the hunters, and to the wolf herself
that all was now over. The terrified wolf pressed back her ears and tried
to rise, but the borzois stuck to her. Daniel rose a little, took a step, and
with his whole weight, as if lying down to rest, fell on the wolf, seizing
her by the ears. Nicholas was about to stab her, but Daniel whispered,
"Don't! We'll gag her!" and, changing his position, set his foot on the
wolf's neck. A stick was thrust between her jaws and she was fastened
with a leash, as if bridled, her legs were bound together, and Daniel
rolled her over once or twice from side to side.
With happy, exhausted faces, they laid the old wolf, alive, on a
shying and snorting horse and, accompanied by the dogs yelping at her,
took her to the place where they were all to meet. The hounds had
killed two of the cubs and the borzois three. The huntsmen assembled
with their booty and their stories, and all came to look at the wolf,
which, with her broad-browed head hanging down and the bitten stick
between her jaws, gazed with great glassy eyes at this crowd of dogs
and men surrounding her. When she was touched, she jerked her bound
legs and looked wildly yet simply at everybody. Old Count Rostov also
rode up and touched the wolf.
"Oh, what a formidable one!" said he. "A formidable one, eh?" he
asked Daniel, who was standing near.
"Yes, your excellency," answered Daniel, quickly doffing his cap.
The count remembered the wolf he had let slip and his encounter
with Daniel.
"Ah, but you are a crusty fellow, friend!" said the count.
For sole reply Daniel gave him a shy, childlike, meek, and amiable
smile.

CHAPTER VI
The old count went home, and Natasha and Petya promised to return
very soon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther. At midday they
put the hounds into a ravine thickly overgrown with young trees.
Nicholas standing in a fallow field could see all his whips.
Facing him lay a field of winter rye, there his own huntsman stood
alone in a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely been
loosed before Nicholas heard one he knew, Voltorn, giving tongue at
intervals; other hounds joined in, now pausing and now again giving
tongue. A moment later he heard a cry from the wooded ravine that a
fox had been found, and the whole pack, joining together, rushed along
the ravine toward the ryefield and away from Nicholas.
He saw the whips in their red caps galloping along the edge of the
ravine, he even saw the hounds, and was expecting a fox to show itself
at any moment on the ryefield opposite.
The huntsman standing in the hollow moved and loosed his borzois,
and Nicholas saw a queer, short-legged red fox with a fine brush going
hard across the field. The borzois bore down on it.... Now they drew
close to the fox which began to dodge between the field in sharper and
sharper curves, trailing its brush, when suddenly a strange white borzoi
dashed in followed by a black one, and everything was in confusion;
the borzois formed a star-shaped figure, scarcely swaying their bodies
and with tails turned away from the center of the group. Two huntsmen
galloped up to the dogs; one in a red cap, the other, a stranger, in a
green coat.
"What's this?" thought Nicholas. "Where's that huntsman from? He
is not 'Uncle's' man."
The huntsmen got the fox, but stayed there a long time without
strapping it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and with high saddles,
stood near them and there too the dogs were lying. The huntsmen
waved their arms and did something to the fox. Then from that spot
came the sound of a horn, with the signal agreed on in case of a fight.
"That's Ilagin's huntsman having a row with our Ivan," said Nicholas'
groom.
Nicholas sent the man to call Natasha and Petya to him, and rode at a
footpace to the place where the whips were getting the hounds together.
Several of the field galloped to the spot where the fight was going on.
Nicholas dismounted, and with Natasha and Petya, who had ridden
up, stopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would end.
Out of the bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting and rode
toward his young master, with the fox tied to his crupper. While still at
a distance he took off his cap and tried to speak respectfully, but he was
pale and breathless and his face was angry. One of his eyes was black,
but he probably was not even aware of it.
"What has happened?" asked Nicholas.
"A likely thing, killing a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my
gray bitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed!... He snatches at the fox! I
gave him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want a taste
of this?..." said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger and probably
imagining himself still speaking to his foe.
Nicholas, not stopping to talk to the man, asked his sister and Petya
to wait for him and rode to the spot where the enemy's, Ilagin's, hunting
party was.
The victorious huntsman rode off to join the field, and there,
surrounded by inquiring sympathizers, recounted his exploits.
The facts were that Ilagin, with whom the Rostovs had a quarrel and
were at law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the
Rostovs, and had now, as if purposely, sent his men to the very woods
the Rostovs were hunting and let his man snatch a fox their dogs had
chased.
 Nicholas, though he had never seen Ilagin, with his usual absence of
moderation in judgment, hated him cordially from reports of his
arbitrariness and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe. He
rode in angry agitation toward him, firmly grasping his whip and fully
prepared to take the most resolute and desperate steps to punish his
enemy.
Hardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout gentleman
in a beaver cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black
horse, accompanied by two hunt servants.
Instead of an enemy, Nicholas found in Ilagin a stately and courteous
gentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young count's
acquaintance. Having ridden up to Nicholas, Ilagin raised his beaver
cap and said he much regretted what had occurred and would have the
man punished who had allowed himself to seize a fox hunted by
someone else's borzois. He hoped to become better acquainted with the
count and invited him to draw his covert.
Natasha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had
followed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging
friendly greetings, she rode up to them. Ilagin lifted his beaver cap still
higher to Natasha and said, with a pleasant smile, that the young
countess resembled Diana in her passion for the chase as well as in her
beauty, of which he had heard much.
To expiate his huntsman's offense, Ilagin pressed the Rostovs to
come to an upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for
himself and which, he said, swarmed with hares. Nicholas agreed, and
the hunt, now doubled, moved on.
The way to Iligin's upland was across the fields. The hunt servants
fell into line. The masters rode together. "Uncle," Rostov, and Ilagin
kept stealthily glancing at one another's dogs, trying not to be observed
by their companions and searching uneasily for rivals to their own
borzois.
Rostov was particularly struck by the beauty of a small, pure-bred,
red-spotted bitch on Ilagin's leash, slender but with muscles like steel, a
delicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes. He had heard of the
swiftness of Ilagin's borzois, and in that beautiful bitch saw a rival to
his own Milka.
In the middle of a sober conversation begun by Ilagin about the
year's harvest, Nicholas pointed to the red-spotted bitch.
"A fine little bitch, that!" said he in a careless tone. "Is she swift?"
"That one? Yes, she's a good dog, gets what she's after," answered
Ilagin indifferently, of the red-spotted bitch Erza, for which, a year
before, he had given a neighbor three families of house serfs. "So in
your parts, too, the harvest is nothing to boast of, Count?" he went on,
continuing the conversation they had begun. And considering it polite
to return the young count's compliment, Ilagin looked at his borzois and
picked out Milka who attracted his attention by her breadth. "That
black-spotted one of yours is fine—well shaped!" said he.
"Yes, she's fast enough," replied Nicholas, and thought: "If only a
full-grown hare would cross the field now I'd show you what sort of
borzoi she is," and turning to his groom, he said he would give a ruble
to anyone who found a hare.
"I don't understand," continued Ilagin, "how some sportsmen can be
so jealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you, Count, I
enjoy riding in company such as this... what could be better?" (he again
raised his cap to Natasha) "but as for counting skins and what one
takes, I don't care about that."
"Of course not!"
"Or being upset because someone else's borzoi and not mine catches
something. All I care about is to enjoy seeing the chase, is it not so,
Count? For I consider that..."
"A-tu!" came the long-drawn cry of one of the borzoi whippers-in,
who had halted. He stood on a knoll in the stubble, holding his whip
aloft, and again repeated his long-drawn cry, "A-tu!" (This call and the
uplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.)
"Ah, he has found one, I think," said Ilagin carelessly. "Yes, we must
ride up.... Shall we both course it?" answered Nicholas, seeing in Erza
and "Uncle's" red Rugay two rivals he had never yet had a chance of
pitting against his own borzois. "And suppose they outdo my Milka at
once!" he thought as he rode with "Uncle" and Ilagin toward the hare.
"A full-grown one?" asked Ilagin as he approached the whip who
had sighted the hare—and not without agitation he looked round and
whistled to Erza.
"And you, Michael Nikanorovich?" he said, addressing "Uncle."
The latter was riding with a sullen expression on his face.
"How can I join in? Why, you've given a village for each of your
borzois! That's it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours
against one another, you two, and I'll look on!"
"Rugay, hey, hey!" he shouted. "Rugayushka!" he added,
involuntarily by this diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes
he placed on this red borzoi. Natasha saw and felt the agitation the two
elderly men and her brother were trying to conceal, and was herself
excited by it.
The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and
the gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off
on the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the
gentlefolk, also moved away. All were moving slowly and sedately.
"How is it pointing?" asked Nicholas, riding a hundred paces toward
the whip who had sighted the hare.
But before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting the frost coming
next morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash
rushed downhill in full cry after the hare, and from all sides the borzois
that were not on leash darted after the hounds and the hare. All the
hunt, who had been moving slowly, shouted, "Stop!" calling in the
hounds, while the borzoi whips, with a cry of "A-tu!" galloped across
the field setting the borzois on the hare. The tranquil Ilagin, Nicholas,
Natasha, and "Uncle" flew, reckless of where and how they went,
seeing only the borzois and the hare and fearing only to lose sight even
for an instant of the chase. The hare they had started was a strong and
swift one. When he jumped up he did not run at once, but pricked his
ears listening to the shouting and trampling that resounded from all
sides at once. He took a dozen bounds, not very quickly, letting the
borzois gain on him, and, finally having chosen his direction and
realized his danger, laid back his ears and rushed off headlong. He had
been lying in the stubble, but in front of him was the autumn sowing
where the ground was soft. The two borzois of the huntsman who had
sighted him, having been the nearest, were the first to see and pursue
him, but they had not gone far before Ilagin's red-spotted Erza passed
them, got within a length, flew at the hare with terrible swiftness
aiming at his scut, and, thinking she had seized him, rolled over like a
ball. The hare arched his back and bounded off yet more swiftly. From
behind Erza rushed the broad-haunched, black-spotted Milka and began
rapidly gaining on the hare.
"Milashka, dear!" rose Nicholas' triumphant cry. It looked as if
Milka would immediately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him
and flew past. The hare had squatted. Again the beautiful Erza reached
him, but when close to the hare's scut paused as if measuring the
distance, so as not to make a mistake this time but seize his hind leg.
"Erza, darling!" Ilagin wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erza did not
hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have seized
her prey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between the winter
rye and the stubble. Again Erza and Milka were abreast, running like a
pair of carriage horses, and began to overtake the hare, but it was easier
for the hare to run on the balk and the borzois did not overtake him so
quickly.
"Rugay, Rugayushka! That's it, come on!" came a third voice just
then, and "Uncle's" red borzoi, straining and curving its back, caught up
with the two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless of the
terrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off the balk
onto the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously, sinking to his
knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was how, muddying his
back, he rolled over with the hare. A ring of borzois surrounded him. A
moment later everyone had drawn up round the crowd of dogs. Only
the delighted "Uncle" dismounted, and cut off a pad, shaking the hare
for the blood to drip off, and anxiously glancing round with restless
eyes while his arms and legs twitched. He spoke without himself
knowing whom to or what about. "That's it, come on! That's a dog!...
There, it has beaten them all, the thousand-ruble as well as the one-
ruble borzois. That's it, come on!" said he, panting and looking
wrathfully around as if he were abusing someone, as if they were all his
enemies and had insulted him, and only now had he at last succeeded in
justifying himself. "There are your thousand-ruble ones.... That's it,
come on!..."
"Rugay, here's a pad for you!" he said, throwing down the hare's
muddy pad. "You've deserved it, that's it, come on!"
"She'd tired herself out, she'd run it down three times by herself,"
said Nicholas, also not listening to anyone and regardless of whether he
were heard or not.
"But what is there in running across it like that?" said Ilagin's groom.
"Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take
it," Ilagin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop and
his excitement. At the same moment Natasha, without drawing breath,
screamed joyously, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set everyone's
ear tingling. By that shriek she expressed what the others expressed by
all talking at once, and it was so strange that she must herself have been
ashamed of so wild a cry and everyone else would have been amazed at
it at any other time. "Uncle" himself twisted up the hare, threw it neatly
and smartly across his horse's back as if by that gesture he meant to
rebuke everybody, and, with an air of not wishing to speak to anyone,
mounted his bay and rode off. The others all followed, dispirited and
shamefaced, and only much later were they able to regain their former
affectation of indifference. For a long time they continued to look at red
Rugay who, his arched back spattered with mud and clanking the ring
of his leash, walked along just behind "Uncle's" horse with the serene
air of a conqueror.
 "Well, I am like any other dog as long as it's not a question of
coursing. But when it is, then look out!" his appearance seemed to
Nicholas to be saying.
When, much later, "Uncle" rode up to Nicholas and began talking to
him, he felt flattered that, after what had happened, "Uncle" deigned to
speak to him.

CHAPTER VII
Toward evening Ilagin took leave of Nicholas, who found that they
were so far from home that he accepted "Uncle's" offer that the hunting
party should spend the night in his little village of Mikhaylovna.
"And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That's it,
come on!" said "Uncle." "You see it's damp weather, and you could
rest, and the little countess could be driven home in a trap."
"Uncle's" offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otradnoe for a
trap, while Nicholas rode with Natasha and Petya to "Uncle's" house.
Some five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the front
porch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and young, as
well as children, popped out from the back entrance to have a look at
the hunters who were arriving. The presence of Natasha—a woman, a
lady, and on horseback—raised the curiosity of the serfs to such a
degree that many of them came up to her, stared her in the face, and
unabashed by her presence made remarks about her as though she were
some prodigy on show and not a human being able to hear or
understand what was said about her.
"Arinka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt
dangles.... See, she's got a little hunting horn!"
"Goodness gracious! See her knife?..."
"Isn't she a Tartar!"
"How is it you didn't go head over heels?" asked the boldest of all,
addressing Natasha directly.
"Uncle" dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house which
stood in the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his
retainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should take
themselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made to
receive the guests and the visitors.
The serfs all dispersed. "Uncle" lifted Natasha off her horse and
taking her hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch. The
house, with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean—it did
not seem that those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless—but neither
was it noticeably neglected. In the entry there was a smell of fresh
apples, and wolf and fox skins hung about.
"Uncle" led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall with a
folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round
birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room where
there was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvorov, of the
host's father and mother, and of himself in military uniform. The study
smelt strongly of tobacco and dogs. "Uncle" asked his visitors to sit
down and make themselves at home, and then went out of the room.
Rugay, his back still muddy, came into the room and lay down on the
sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. Leading from the
study was a passage in which a partition with ragged curtains could be
seen. From behind this came women's laughter and whispers. Natasha,
Nicholas, and Petya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa.
Petya, leaning on his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natasha and Nicholas
were silent. Their faces glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful.
They looked at one another (now that the hunt was over and they were
in the house, Nicholas no longer considered it necessary to show his
manly superiority over his sister), Natasha gave him a wink, and neither
refrained long from bursting into a peal of ringing laughter even before
they had a pretext ready to account for it.
After a while "Uncle" came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and
small top boots. And Natasha felt that this costume, the very one she
had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otradnoe, was just the
right thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat.
"Uncle" too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the
brother's and sister's laughter (it could never enter his head that they
might be laughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the
merriment.
"That's right, young countess, that's it, come on! I never saw anyone
like her!" said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem and, with a
practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that had been
cut short. "She's ridden all day like a man, and is as fresh as ever!"
Soon after "Uncle's" reappearance the door was opened, evidently
from the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking
woman of about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered
carrying a large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in
her glance and in every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with a
pleasant smile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional
stoutness, which caused her to protrude her chest and stomach and
throw back her head, this woman (who was "Uncle's" housekeeper)
trod very lightly. She went to the table, set down the tray, and with her
plump white hands deftly took from it the bottles and various hors
d'oeuvres and dishes and arranged them on the table. When she had
finished, she stepped aside and stopped at the door with a smile on her
face. "Here I am. I am she! Now do you understand 'Uncle'?" her
expression said to Rostov. How could one help understanding? Not
only Nicholas, but even Natasha understood the meaning of his
puckered brow and the happy complacent smile that slightly puckered
his lips when Anisya Fedorovna entered. On the tray was a bottle of
herb wine, different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms, rye cakes
made with buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and sparkling
mead, apples, nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey sweets.
Afterwards she brought a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves made
with honey, and preserves made with sugar.
All this was the fruit of Anisya Fedorovna's housekeeping, gathered
and prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack of Anisya
Fedorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness, whiteness, and
pleasant smiles.
"Take this, little Lady-Countess!" she kept saying, as she offered
Natasha first one thing and then another.
Natasha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten
such buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets,
or such a chicken anywhere. Anisya Fedorovna left the room.
After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostov and "Uncle" talked of
past and future hunts, of Rugay and Ilagin's dogs, while Natasha sat
upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried several
times to wake Petya that he might eat something, but he only muttered
incoherent words without waking up. Natasha felt so lighthearted and
happy in these novel surroundings that she only feared the trap would
come for her too soon. After a casual pause, such as often occurs when
receiving friends for the first time in one's own house, "Uncle,"
answering a thought that was in his visitors' mind, said:
"This, you see, is how I am finishing my days... Death will come.
That's it, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?"
"Uncle's" face was very significant and even handsome as he said
this. Involuntarily Rostov recalled all the good he had heard about him
from his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province
"Uncle" had the reputation of being the most honorable and
disinterested of cranks. They called him in to decide family disputes,
chose him as executor, confided secrets to him, elected him to be a
justice and to other posts; but he always persistently refused public
appointments, passing the autumn and spring in the fields on his bay
gelding, sitting at home in winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in
summer.
"Why don't you enter the service, Uncle?"
"I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That's it, come on! I
can't make head or tail of it. That's for you—I haven't brains enough.
Now, hunting is another matter—that's it, come on! Open the door,
there!" he shouted. "Why have you shut it?"
The door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen's room, as
they called the room for the hunt servants.
There was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the
door into the huntsmen's room, from which came the clear sounds of a
balalayka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art,
was playing. Natasha had been listening to those strains for some time
and now went out into the passage to hear better.
"That's Mitka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balalayka. I'm
fond of it," said "Uncle."
It was the custom for Mitka to play the balalayka in the huntsmen's
room when "Uncle" returned from the chase. "Uncle" was fond of such
music.
"How good! Really very good!" said Nicholas with some
unintentional superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds
pleased him very much.
"Very good?" said Natasha reproachfully, noticing her brother's tone.
"Not 'very good' it's simply delicious!"
Just as "Uncle's" pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had
seemed to her the best in the world, so also that song, at that moment,
seemed to her the acme of musical delight.
"More, please, more!" cried Natasha at the door as soon as the
balalayka ceased. Mitka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming
the balalayka to the air of My Lady, with trills and variations. "Uncle"
sat listening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side. The air was
repeated a hundred times. The balalayka was retuned several times and
the same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did not grow
weary of it and wished to hear it again and again. Anisya Fedorovna
came in and leaned her portly person against the doorpost.
 "You like listening?" she said to Natasha, with a smile extremely like
"Uncle's." "That's a good player of ours," she added.
"He doesn't play that part right!" said "Uncle" suddenly, with an
energetic gesture. "Here he ought to burst out—that's it, come on!—
ought to burst out."
"Do you play then?" asked Natasha.
"Uncle" did not answer, but smiled.
"Anisya, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I haven't
touched it for a long time. That's it—come on! I've given it up."
Anisya Fedorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her
errand and brought back the guitar.
Without looking at anyone, "Uncle" blew the dust off it and, tapping
the case with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar and settled himself in
his armchair. He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching
his left elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at
Anisya Fedorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then
quietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not
My Lady, but the well-known song: Came a maiden down the street.
The tune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the
hearts of Nicholas and Natasha, arousing in them the same kind of
sober mirth as radiated from Anisya Fedorovna's whole being. Anisya
Fedorovna flushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went
laughing out of the room. "Uncle" continued to play correctly,
carefully, with energetic firmness, looking with a changed and inspired
expression at the spot where Anisya Fedorovna had just stood.
Something seemed to be laughing a little on one side of his face under
his gray mustaches, especially as the song grew brisker and the time
quicker and when, here and there, as he ran his fingers over the strings,
something seemed to snap.
"Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!" shouted Natasha as soon as
he had finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. "Nicholas,
Nicholas!" she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: "What is it
moves me so?"
Nicholas too was greatly pleased by "Uncle's" playing, and "Uncle"
played the piece over again. Anisya Fedorovna's smiling face
reappeared in the doorway and behind hers other faces...

Fetching water clear and sweet,

Stop, dear maiden, I entreat—
 played "Uncle" once more, running his fingers skillfully over the
strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders.
"Go on, Uncle dear," Natasha wailed in an imploring tone as if her
life depended on it.
"Uncle" rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of
them smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow
struck a naive and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance.
"Now then, niece!" he exclaimed, waving to Natasha the hand that
had just struck a chord.
Natasha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face
"Uncle," and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her
shoulders and struck an attitude.
Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an
emigree French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed
that spirit and obtained that manner which the pas de chale * would,
one would have supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the
movements were those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that
"Uncle" had expected of her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and
smiled triumphantly, proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had
at first seized Nicholas and the others that she might not do the right
thing was at an end, and they were already admiring her.

* The French shawl dance.

She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision,
that Anisya Fedorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief
she needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as
she watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and
so different from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was in
Anisya and in Anisya's father and mother and aunt, and in every
Russian man and woman.
"Well, little countess; that's it—come on!" cried "Uncle," with a
joyous laugh, having finished the dance. "Well done, niece! Now a fine
young fellow must be found as husband for you. That's it—come on!"
"He's chosen already," said Nicholas smiling.
"Oh?" said "Uncle" in surprise, looking inquiringly at Natasha, who
nodded her head with a happy smile.
"And such a one!" she said. But as soon as she had said it a new train
of thoughts and feelings arose in her. "What did Nicholas' smile mean
when he said 'chosen already'? Is he glad of it or not? It is as if he
thought my Bolkonski would not approve of or understand our gaiety.
But he would understand it all. Where is he now?" she thought, and her
face suddenly became serious. But this lasted only a second. "Don't
dare to think about it," she said to herself, and sat down again smilingly
beside "Uncle," begging him to play something more.
"Uncle" played another song and a valse; then after a pause he
cleared his throat and sang his favorite hunting song:

As 'twas growing dark last night

Fell the snow so soft and light...

"Uncle" sang as peasants sing, with full and naive conviction that the
whole meaning of a song lies in the words and that the tune comes of
itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists only
to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered tune,
like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good. Natasha was in
ecstasies over "Uncle's" singing. She resolved to give up learning the
harp and to play only the guitar. She asked "Uncle" for his guitar and at
once found the chords of the song.
After nine o'clock two traps and three mounted men, who had been
sent to look for them, arrived to fetch Natasha and Petya. The count and
countess did not know where they were and were very anxious, said
one of the men.
Petya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two
traps. Natasha and Nicholas got into the other. "Uncle" wrapped
Natasha up warmly and took leave of her with quite a new tenderness.
He accompanied them on foot as far as the bridge that could not be
crossed, so that they had to go round by the ford, and he sent huntsmen
to ride in front with lanterns.
"Good-by, dear niece," his voice called out of the darkness—not the
voice Natasha had known previously, but the one that had sung As
'twas growing dark last night.
In the village through which they passed there were red lights and a
cheerful smell of smoke.
"What a darling Uncle is!" said Natasha, when they had come out
onto the highroad.
"Yes," returned Nicholas. "You're not cold?"
"No. I'm quite, quite all right. I feel so comfortable!" answered
Natasha, almost perplexed by her feelings. They remained silent a long
while. The night was dark and damp. They could not see the horses, but
only heard them splashing through the unseen mud.
 What was passing in that receptive childlike soul that so eagerly
caught and assimilated all the diverse impressions of life? How did they
all find place in her? But she was very happy. As they were nearing
home she suddenly struck up the air of As 'twas growing dark last
night—the tune of which she had all the way been trying to get and had
at last caught.
"Got it?" said Nicholas.
"What were you thinking about just now, Nicholas?" inquired
Natasha.
They were fond of asking one another that question.
"I?" said Nicholas, trying to remember. "Well, you see, first I
thought that Rugay, the red hound, was like Uncle, and that if he were a
man he would always keep Uncle near him, if not for his riding, then
for his manner. What a good fellow Uncle is! Don't you think so?...
Well, and you?"
"I? Wait a bit, wait.... Yes, first I thought that we are driving along
and imagining that we are going home, but that heaven knows where
we are really going in the darkness, and that we shall arrive and
suddenly find that we are not in Otradnoe, but in Fairyland. And then I
thought... No, nothing else."
"I know, I expect you thought of him," said Nicholas, smiling as
Natasha knew by the sound of his voice.
"No," said Natasha, though she had in reality been thinking about
Prince Andrew at the same time as of the rest, and of how he would
have liked "Uncle." "And then I was saying to myself all the way, 'How
well Anisya carried herself, how well!'" And Nicholas heard her
spontaneous, happy, ringing laughter. "And do you know," she
suddenly said, "I know that I shall never again be as happy and tranquil
as I am now."
"Rubbish, nonsense, humbug!" exclaimed Nicholas, and he thought:
"How charming this Natasha of mine is! I have no other friend like her
and never shall have. Why should she marry? We might always drive
about together!"
"What a darling this Nicholas of mine is!" thought Natasha.
"Ah, there are still lights in the drawingroom!" she said, pointing to
the windows of the house that gleamed invitingly in the moist velvety
darkness of the night.
 CHAPTER VIII
Count Ilya Rostov had resigned the position of Marshal of the
Nobility because it involved him in too much expense, but still his
affairs did not improve. Natasha and Nicholas often noticed their
parents conferring together anxiously and privately and heard
suggestions of selling the fine ancestral Rostov house and estate near
Moscow. It was not necessary to entertain so freely as when the count
had been Marshal, and life at Otradnoe was quieter than in former
years, but still the enormous house and its lodges were full of people
and more than twenty sat down to table every day. These were all their
own people who had settled down in the house almost as members of
the family, or persons who were, it seemed, obliged to live in the
count's house. Such were Dimmler the musician and his wife, Vogel
the dancing master and his family, Belova, an old maiden lady, an
inmate of the house, and many others such as Petya's tutors, the girls'
former governess, and other people who simply found it preferable and
more advantageous to live in the count's house than at home. They had
not as many visitors as before, but the old habits of life without which
the count and countess could not conceive of existence remained
unchanged. There was still the hunting establishment which Nicholas
had even enlarged, the same fifty horses and fifteen grooms in the
stables, the same expensive presents and dinner parties to the whole
district on name days; there were still the count's games of whist and
boston, at which—spreading out his cards so that everybody could see
them—he let himself be plundered of hundreds of rubles every day by
his neighbors, who looked upon an opportunity to play a rubber with
Count Rostov as a most profitable source of income.
The count moved in his affairs as in a huge net, trying not to believe
that he was entangled but becoming more and more so at every step,
and feeling too feeble to break the meshes or to set to work carefully
and patiently to disentangle them. The countess, with her loving heart,
felt that her children were being ruined, that it was not the count's fault
for he could not help being what he was—that (though he tried to hide
it) he himself suffered from the consciousness of his own and his
children's ruin, and she tried to find means of remedying the position.
From her feminine point of view she could see only one solution,
namely, for Nicholas to marry a rich heiress. She felt this to be their
last hope and that if Nicholas refused the match she had found for him,
she would have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters right. This
match was with Julie Karagina, the daughter of excellent and virtuous
parents, a girl the Rostovs had known from childhood, and who had
now become a wealthy heiress through the death of the last of her
brothers.
The countess had written direct to Julie's mother in Moscow
suggesting a marriage between their children and had received a
favorable answer from her. Karagina had replied that for her part she
was agreeable, and everything depend on her daughter's inclination.
She invited Nicholas to come to Moscow.
Several times the countess, with tears in her eyes, told her son that
now both her daughters were settled, her only wish was to see him
married. She said she could lie down in her grave peacefully if that
were accomplished. Then she told him that she knew of a splendid girl
and tried to discover what he thought about marriage.
At other times she praised Julie to him and advised him to go to
Moscow during the holidays to amuse himself. Nicholas guessed what
his mother's remarks were leading to and during one of these
conversations induced her to speak quite frankly. She told him that her
only hope of getting their affairs disentangled now lay in his marrying
Julie Karagina.
"But, Mamma, suppose I loved a girl who has no fortune, would you
expect me to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for the sake of
money?" he asked his mother, not realizing the cruelty of his question
and only wishing to show his noble-mindedness.
"No, you have not understood me," said his mother, not knowing
how to justify herself. "You have not understood me, Nikolenka. It is
your happiness I wish for," she added, feeling that she was telling an
untruth and was becoming entangled. She began to cry.
"Mamma, don't cry! Only tell me that you wish it, and you know I
will give my life, anything, to put you at ease," said Nicholas. "I would
sacrifice anything for you—even my feelings."
But the countess did not want the question put like that: she did not
want a sacrifice from her son, she herself wished to make a sacrifice for
him.
"No, you have not understood me, don't let us talk about it," she
replied, wiping away her tears.
"Maybe I do love a poor girl," said Nicholas to himself. "Am I to
sacrifice my feelings and my honor for money? I wonder how Mamma
could speak so to me. Because Sonya is poor I must not love her," he
thought, "must not respond to her faithful, devoted love? Yet I should
certainly be happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can
always sacrifice my feelings for my family's welfare," he said to
himself, "but I can't coerce my feelings. If I love Sonya, that feeling is
for me stronger and higher than all else."
Nicholas did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not renew the
conversation with him about marriage. She saw with sorrow, and
sometimes with exasperation, symptoms of a growing attachment
between her son and the portionless Sonya. Though she blamed herself
for it, she could not refrain from grumbling at and worrying Sonya,
often pulling her up without reason, addressing her stiffly as "my dear,"
and using the formal "you" instead of the intimate "thou" in speaking to
her. The kindhearted countess was the more vexed with Sonya because
that poor, dark-eyed niece of hers was so meek, so kind, so devotedly
grateful to her benefactors, and so faithfully, unchangingly, and
unselfishly in love with Nicholas, that there were no grounds for
finding fault with her.
Nicholas was spending the last of his leave at home. A fourth letter
had come from Prince Andrew, from Rome, in which he wrote that he
would have been on his way back to Russia long ago had not his wound
unexpectedly reopened in the warm climate, which obliged him to defer
his return till the beginning of the new year. Natasha was still as much
in love with her betrothed, found the same comfort in that love, and
was still as ready to throw herself into all the pleasures of life as before;
but at the end of the fourth month of their separation she began to have
fits of depression which she could not master. She felt sorry for herself:
sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to anyone—
while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved.
Things were not cheerful in the Rostovs' home.

CHAPTER IX
Christmas came and except for the ceremonial Mass, the solemn and
wearisome Christmas congratulations from neighbors and servants, and
the new dresses everyone put on, there were no special festivities,
though the calm frost of twenty degrees Reaumur, the dazzling
sunshine by day, and the starlight of the winter nights seemed to call
for some special celebration of the season.
On the third day of Christmas week, after the midday dinner, all the
inmates of the house dispersed to various rooms. It was the dullest time
of the day. Nicholas, who had been visiting some neighbors that
morning, was asleep on the sitting-room sofa. The old count was
resting in his study. Sonya sat in the drawing room at the round table,
copying a design for embroidery. The countess was playing patience.
Nastasya Ivanovna the buffoon sat with a sad face at the window with
two old ladies. Natasha came into the room, went up to Sonya, glanced
at what she was doing, and then went up to her mother and stood
without speaking.
"Why are you wandering about like an outcast?" asked her mother.
"What do you want?"
"Him... I want him... now, this minute! I want him!" said Natasha,
with glittering eyes and no sign of a smile.
The countess lifted her head and looked attentively at her daughter.
"Don't look at me, Mamma! Don't look; I shall cry directly."
"Sit down with me a little," said the countess.
"Mamma, I want him. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?"
Her voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she turned quickly
to hide them and left the room.
She passed into the sitting room, stood there thinking awhile, and
then went into the maids' room. There an old maidservant was
grumbling at a young girl who stood panting, having just run in through
the cold from the serfs' quarters.
"Stop playing—there's a time for everything," said the old woman.
"Let her alone, Kondratevna," said Natasha. "Go, Mavrushka, go."
Having released Mavrushka, Natasha crossed the dancing hall and
went to the vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were
playing cards. They broke off and rose as she entered.
"What can I do with them?" thought Natasha.
"Oh, Nikita, please go... where can I send him?... Yes, go to the yard
and fetch a fowl, please, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some oats."
"Just a few oats?" said Misha, cheerfully and readily.
"Go, go quickly," the old man urged him.
"And you, Theodore, get me a piece of chalk."
On her way past the butler's pantry she told them to set a samovar,
though it was not at all the time for tea.
Foka, the butler, was the most ill-tempered person in the house.
Natasha liked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and
asked whether the samovar was really wanted.
 "Oh dear, what a young lady!" said Foka, pretending to frown at
Natasha.
No one in the house sent people about or gave them as much trouble
as Natasha did. She could not see people unconcernedly, but had to
send them on some errand. She seemed to be trying whether any of
them would get angry or sulky with her; but the serfs fulfilled no one's
orders so readily as they did hers. "What can I do, where can I go?"
thought she, as she went slowly along the passage.
"Nastasya Ivanovna, what sort of children shall I have?" she asked
the buffoon, who was coming toward her in a woman's jacket.
"Why, fleas, crickets, grasshoppers," answered the buffoon.
"O Lord, O Lord, it's always the same! Oh, where am I to go? What
am I to do with myself?" And tapping with her heels, she ran quickly
upstairs to see Vogel and his wife who lived on the upper story.
Two governesses were sitting with the Vogels at a table, on which
were plates of raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were
discussing whether it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa.
Natasha sat down, listened to their talk with a serious and thoughtful
air, and then got up again.
"The island of Madagascar," she said, "Ma-da-gas-car," she repeated,
articulating each syllable distinctly, and, not replying to Madame
Schoss who asked her what she was saying, she went out of the room.
Her brother Petya was upstairs too; with the man in attendance on
him he was preparing fireworks to let off that night.
"Petya! Petya!" she called to him. "Carry me downstairs."
Petya ran up and offered her his back. She jumped on it, putting her
arms round his neck, and he pranced along with her.
"No, don't... the island of Madagascar!" she said, and jumping off his
back she went downstairs.
Having as it were reviewed her kingdom, tested her power, and made
sure that everyone was submissive, but that all the same it was dull,
Natasha betook herself to the ballroom, picked up her guitar, sat down
in a dark corner behind a bookcase, and began to run her fingers over
the strings in the bass, picking out a passage she recalled from an opera
she had heard in Petersburg with Prince Andrew. What she drew from
the guitar would have had no meaning for other listeners, but in her
imagination a whole series of reminiscences arose from those sounds.
She sat behind the bookcase with her eyes fixed on a streak of light
escaping from the pantry door and listened to herself and pondered. She
was in a mood for brooding on the past.
Sonya passed to the pantry with a glass in her hand. Natasha glanced
at her and at the crack in the pantry door, and it seemed to her that she
remembered the light falling through that crack once before and Sonya
passing with a glass in her hand. "Yes it was exactly the same," thought
Natasha.
"Sonya, what is this?" she cried, twanging a thick string.
"Oh, you are there!" said Sonya with a start, and came near and
listened. "I don't know. A storm?" she ventured timidly, afraid of being
wrong.
"There! That's just how she started and just how she came up smiling
timidly when all this happened before," thought Natasha, "and in just
the same way I thought there was something lacking in her."
"No, it's the chorus from The Water-Carrier, listen!" and Natasha
sang the air of the chorus so that Sonya should catch it. "Where were
you going?" she asked.
"To change the water in this glass. I am just finishing the design."
"You always find something to do, but I can't," said Natasha. "And
where's Nicholas?"
"Asleep, I think."
"Sonya, go and wake him," said Natasha. "Tell him I want him to
come and sing."
She sat awhile, wondering what the meaning of it all having
happened before could be, and without solving this problem, or at all
regretting not having done so, she again passed in fancy to the time
when she was with him and he was looking at her with a lover's eyes.
"Oh, if only he would come quicker! I am so afraid it will never be!
And, worst of all, I am growing old—that's the thing! There won't then
be in me what there is now. But perhaps he'll come today, will come
immediately. Perhaps he has come and is sitting in the drawing room.
Perhaps he came yesterday and I have forgotten it." She rose, put down
the guitar, and went to the drawing room.
All the domestic circle, tutors, governesses, and guests, were already
at the tea table. The servants stood round the table—but Prince Andrew
was not there and life was going on as before.
 "Ah, here she is!" said the old count, when he saw Natasha enter.
"Well, sit down by me." But Natasha stayed by her mother and glanced
round as if looking for something.
"Mamma!" she muttered, "give him to me, give him, Mamma,
quickly, quickly!" and she again had difficulty in repressing her sobs.
She sat down at the table and listened to the conversation between
the elders and Nicholas, who had also come to the table. "My God, my
God! The same faces, the same talk, Papa holding his cup and blowing
in the same way!" thought Natasha, feeling with horror a sense of
repulsion rising up in her for the whole household, because they were
always the same.
After tea, Nicholas, Sonya, and Natasha went to the sitting room, to
their favorite corner where their most intimate talks always began.

CHAPTER X
"Does it ever happen to you," said Natasha to her brother, when they
settled down in the sitting room, "does it ever happen to you to feel as
if there were nothing more to come—nothing; that everything good is
past? And to feel not exactly dull, but sad?"
"I should think so!" he replied. "I have felt like that when everything
was all right and everyone was cheerful. The thought has come into my
mind that I was already tired of it all, and that we must all die. Once in
the regiment I had not gone to some merrymaking where there was
music... and suddenly I felt so depressed..."
"Oh yes, I know, I know, I know!" Natasha interrupted him. "When I
was quite little that used to be so with me. Do you remember when I
was punished once about some plums? You were all dancing, and I sat
sobbing in the schoolroom? I shall never forget it: I felt sad and sorry
for everyone, for myself, and for everyone. And I was innocent—that
was the chief thing," said Natasha. "Do you remember?"
"I remember," answered Nicholas. "I remember that I came to you
afterwards and wanted to comfort you, but do you know, I felt ashamed
to. We were terribly absurd. I had a funny doll then and wanted to give
it to you. Do you remember?"
"And do you remember," Natasha asked with a pensive smile, "how
once, long, long ago, when we were quite little, Uncle called us into the
study—that was in the old house—and it was dark—we went in and
suddenly there stood..."
"A Negro," chimed in Nicholas with a smile of delight. "Of course I
remember. Even now I don't know whether there really was a Negro, or
if we only dreamed it or were told about him."
"He was gray, you remember, and had white teeth, and stood and
looked at us..."
"Sonya, do you remember?" asked Nicholas.
"Yes, yes, I do remember something too," Sonya answered timidly.
"You know I have asked Papa and Mamma about that Negro," said
Natasha, "and they say there was no Negro at all. But you see, you
remember!"
"Of course I do, I remember his teeth as if I had just seen them."
"How strange it is! It's as if it were a dream! I like that."
"And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the
ballroom, and suddenly two old women began spinning round on the
carpet? Was that real or not? Do you remember what fun it was?"
"Yes, and you remember how Papa in his blue overcoat fired a gun
in the porch?"
So they went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the
sad memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones—those impressions
of one's most distant past in which dreams and realities blend—and
they laughed with quiet enjoyment.
Sonya, as always, did not quite keep pace with them, though they
shared the same reminiscences.
Much that they remembered had slipped from her mind, and what
she recalled did not arouse the same poetic feeling as they experienced.
She simply enjoyed their pleasure and tried to fit in with it.
She only really took part when they recalled Sonya's first arrival. She
told them how afraid she had been of Nicholas because he had on a
corded jacket and her nurse had told her that she, too, would be sewn
up with cords.
"And I remember their telling me that you had been born under a
cabbage," said Natasha, "and I remember that I dared not disbelieve it
then, but knew that it was not true, and I felt so uncomfortable."
While they were talking a maid thrust her head in at the other door of
the sitting room.
 "They have brought the cock, Miss," she said in a whisper.
"It isn't wanted, Petya. Tell them to take it away," replied Natasha.
In the middle of their talk in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and
went up to the harp that stood there in a corner. He took off its cloth
covering, and the harp gave out a jarring sound.
"Mr. Dimmler, please play my favorite nocturne by Field," came the
old countess' voice from the drawing room.
Dimmler struck a chord and, turning to Natasha, Nicholas, and
Sonya, remarked: "How quiet you young people are!"
"Yes, we're philosophizing," said Natasha, glancing round for a
moment and then continuing the conversation. They were now
discussing dreams.
Dimmler began to play; Natasha went on tiptoe noiselessly to the
table, took up a candle, carried it out, and returned, seating herself
quietly in her former place. It was dark in the room especially where
they were sitting on the sofa, but through the big windows the silvery
light of the full moon fell on the floor. Dimmler had finished the piece
but still sat softly running his fingers over the strings, evidently
uncertain whether to stop or to play something else.
"Do you know," said Natasha in a whisper, moving closer to
Nicholas and Sonya, "that when one goes on and on recalling
memories, one at last begins to remember what happened before one
was in the world..."
"That is metempsychosis," said Sonya, who had always learned well,
and remembered everything. "The Egyptians believed that our souls
have lived in animals, and will go back into animals again."
"No, I don't believe we ever were in animals," said Natasha, still in a
whisper though the music had ceased. "But I am certain that we were
angels somewhere there, and have been here, and that is why we
remember...."
"May I join you?" said Dimmler who had come up quietly, and he
sat down by them.
"If we have been angels, why have we fallen lower?" said Nicholas.
"No, that can't be!"
"Not lower, who said we were lower?... How do I know what I was
before?" Natasha rejoined with conviction. "The soul is immortal—
well then, if I shall always live I must have lived before, lived for a
whole eternity."
 "Yes, but it is hard for us to imagine eternity," remarked Dimmler,
who had joined the young folk with a mildly condescending smile but
now spoke as quietly and seriously as they.
"Why is it hard to imagine eternity?" said Natasha. "It is now today,
and it will be tomorrow, and always; and there was yesterday, and the
day before..."
"Natasha! Now it's your turn. Sing me something," they heard the
countess say. "Why are you sitting there like conspirators?"
"Mamma, I don't at all want to," replied Natasha, but all the same she
rose.
None of them, not even the middle-aged Dimmler, wanted to break
off their conversation and quit that corner in the sitting room, but
Natasha got up and Nicholas sat down at the clavichord. Standing as
usual in the middle of the hall and choosing the place where the
resonance was best, Natasha began to sing her mother's favorite song.
She had said she did not want to sing, but it was long since she had
sung, and long before she again sang, as she did that evening. The
count, from his study where he was talking to Mitenka, heard her and,
like a schoolboy in a hurry to run out to play, blundered in his talk
while giving orders to the steward, and at last stopped, while Mitenka
stood in front of him also listening and smiling. Nicholas did not take
his eyes off his sister and drew breath in time with her. Sonya, as she
listened, thought of the immense difference there was between herself
and her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be anything like as
bewitching as her cousin. The old countess sat with a blissful yet sad
smile and with tears in her eyes, occasionally shaking her head. She
thought of Natasha and of her own youth, and of how there was
something unnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage of
Natasha and Prince Andrew.
Dimmler, who had seated himself beside the countess, listened with
closed eyes.
"Ah, Countess," he said at last, "that's a European talent, she has
nothing to learn—what softness, tenderness, and strength...."
"Ah, how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!" said the countess,
not realizing to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her
that Natasha had too much of something, and that because of this she
would not be happy. Before Natasha had finished singing, fourteen-
year-old Petya rushed in delightedly, to say that some mummers had
arrived.
Natasha stopped abruptly.
 "Idiot!" she screamed at her brother and, running to a chair, threw
herself on it, sobbing so violently that she could not stop for a long
time.
"It's nothing, Mamma, really it's nothing; only Petya startled me,"
she said, trying to smile, but her tears still flowed and sobs still choked
her.
The mummers (some of the house serfs) dressed up as bears, Turks,
innkeepers, and ladies—frightening and funny—bringing in with them
the cold from outside and a feeling of gaiety, crowded, at first timidly,
into the anteroom, then hiding behind one another they pushed into the
ballroom where, shyly at first and then more and more merrily and
heartily, they started singing, dancing, and playing Christmas games.
The countess, when she had identified them and laughed at their
costumes, went into the drawing room. The count sat in the ballroom,
smiling radiantly and applauding the players. The young people had
disappeared.
Half an hour later there appeared among the other mummers in the
ballroom an old lady in a hooped skirt—this was Nicholas. A Turkish
girl was Petya. A clown was Dimmler. An hussar was Natasha, and a
Circassian was Sonya with burnt-cork mustache and eyebrows.
After the condescending surprise, nonrecognition, and praise, from
those who were not themselves dressed up, the young people decided
that their costumes were so good that they ought to be shown
elsewhere.
Nicholas, who, as the roads were in splendid condition, wanted to
take them all for a drive in his troyka, proposed to take with them about
a dozen of the serf mummers and drive to "Uncle's."
"No, why disturb the old fellow?" said the countess. "Besides, you
wouldn't have room to turn round there. If you must go, go to the
Melyukovs'."
Melyukova was a widow, who, with her family and their tutors and
governesses, lived three miles from the Rostovs.
"That's right, my dear," chimed in the old count, thoroughly aroused.
"I'll dress up at once and go with them. I'll make Pashette open her
eyes."
But the countess would not agree to his going; he had had a bad leg
all these last days. It was decided that the count must not go, but that if
Louisa Ivanovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young
ladies might go to the Melyukovs', Sonya, generally so timid and shy,
more urgently than anyone begging Louisa Ivanovna not to refuse.
 Sonya's costume was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows
were extraordinarily becoming. Everyone told her she looked very
handsome, and she was in a spirited and energetic mood unusual with
her. Some inner voice told her that now or never her fate would be
decided, and in her male attire she seemed quite a different person.
Louisa Ivanovna consented to go, and in half an hour four troyka
sleighs with large and small bells, their runners squeaking and
whistling over the frozen snow, drove up to the porch.
Natasha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone, which, passing
from one to another, grew stronger and reached its climax when they all
came out into the frost and got into the sleighs, talking, calling to one
another, laughing, and shouting.
Two of the troykas were the usual household sleighs, the third was
the old count's with a trotter from the Orlov stud as shaft horse, the
fourth was Nicholas' own with a short shaggy black shaft horse.
Nicholas, in his old lady's dress over which he had belted his hussar
overcoat, stood in the middle of the sleigh, reins in hand.
It was so light that he could see the moonlight reflected from the
metal harness disks and from the eyes of the horses, who looked round
in alarm at the noisy party under the shadow of the porch roof.
Natasha, Sonya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nicholas'
sleigh; Dimmler, his wife, and Petya, into the old count's, and the rest
of the mummers seated themselves in the other two sleighs.
"You go ahead, Zakhar!" shouted Nicholas to his father's coachman,
wishing for a chance to race past him.
The old count's troyka, with Dimmler and his party, started forward,
squeaking on its runners as though freezing to the snow, its deep-toned
bell clanging. The side horses, pressing against the shafts of the middle
horse, sank in the snow, which was dry and glittered like sugar, and
threw it up.
Nicholas set off, following the first sleigh; behind him the others
moved noisily, their runners squeaking. At first they drove at a steady
trot along the narrow road. While they drove past the garden the
shadows of the bare trees often fell across the road and hid the brilliant
moonlight, but as soon as they were past the fence, the snowy plain
bathed in moonlight and motionless spread out before them glittering
like diamonds and dappled with bluish shadows. Bang, bang! went the
first sleigh over a cradle hole in the snow of the road, and each of the
other sleighs jolted in the same way, and rudely breaking the frost-
bound stillness, the troykas began to speed along the road, one after the
other.
 "A hare's track, a lot of tracks!" rang out Natasha's voice through the
frost-bound air.
"How light it is, Nicholas!" came Sonya's voice.
Nicholas glanced round at Sonya, and bent down to see her face
closer. Quite a new, sweet face with black eyebrows and mustaches
peeped up at him from her sable furs—so close and yet so distant—in
the moonlight.
"That used to be Sonya," thought he, and looked at her closer and
smiled.
"What is it, Nicholas?"
"Nothing," said he and turned again to the horses.
When they came out onto the beaten highroad—polished by sleigh
runners and cut up by rough-shod hoofs, the marks of which were
visible in the moonlight—the horses began to tug at the reins of their
own accord and increased their pace. The near side horse, arching his
head and breaking into a short canter, tugged at his traces. The shaft
horse swayed from side to side, moving his ears as if asking: "Isn't it
time to begin now?" In front, already far ahead the deep bell of the
sleigh ringing farther and farther off, the black horses driven by Zakhar
could be clearly seen against the white snow. From that sleigh one
could hear the shouts, laughter, and voices of the mummers.
"Gee up, my darlings!" shouted Nicholas, pulling the reins to one
side and flourishing the whip.
It was only by the keener wind that met them and the jerks given by
the side horses who pulled harder—ever increasing their gallop—that
one noticed how fast the troyka was flying. Nicholas looked back. With
screams squeals, and waving of whips that caused even the shaft horses
to gallop—the other sleighs followed. The shaft horse swung steadily
beneath the bow over its head, with no thought of slackening pace and
ready to put on speed when required.
Nicholas overtook the first sleigh. They were driving downhill and
coming out upon a broad trodden track across a meadow, near a river.
"Where are we?" thought he. "It's the Kosoy meadow, I suppose. But
no—this is something new I've never seen before. This isn't the Kosoy
meadow nor the Demkin hill, and heaven only knows what it is! It is
something new and enchanted. Well, whatever it may be..." And
shouting to his horses, he began to pass the first sleigh.
Zakhar held back his horses and turned his face, which was already
covered with hoarfrost to his eyebrows.
 Nicholas gave the horses the rein, and Zakhar, stretching out his
arms, clucked his tongue and let his horses go.
"Now, look out, master!" he cried.
Faster still the two troykas flew side by side, and faster moved the
feet of the galloping side horses. Nicholas began to draw ahead.
Zakhar, while still keeping his arms extended, raised one hand with the
reins.
"No you won't, master!" he shouted.
Nicholas put all his horses to a gallop and passed Zakhar. The horses
showered the fine dry snow on the faces of those in the sleigh—beside
them sounded quick ringing bells and they caught confused glimpses of
swiftly moving legs and the shadows of the troyka they were passing.
The whistling sound of the runners on the snow and the voices of girls
shrieking were heard from different sides.
Again checking his horses, Nicholas looked around him. They were
still surrounded by the magic plain bathed in moonlight and spangled
with stars.
"Zakhar is shouting that I should turn to the left, but why to the left?"
thought Nicholas. "Are we getting to the Melyukovs'? Is this
Melyukovka? Heaven only knows where we are going, and heaven
knows what is happening to us—but it is very strange and pleasant
whatever it is." And he looked round in the sleigh.
"Look, his mustache and eyelashes are all white!" said one of the
strange, pretty, unfamiliar people—the one with fine eyebrows and
mustache.
"I think this used to be Natasha," thought Nicholas, "and that was
Madame Schoss, but perhaps it's not, and this Circassian with the
mustache I don't know, but I love her."
"Aren't you cold?" he asked.
They did not answer but began to laugh. Dimmler from the sleigh
behind shouted something—probably something funny—but they could
not make out what he said.
"Yes, yes!" some voices answered, laughing.
"But here was a fairy forest with black moving shadows, and a glitter
of diamonds and a flight of marble steps and the silver roofs of fairy
buildings and the shrill yells of some animals. And if this is really
Melyukovka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and
have come to Melyukovka," thought Nicholas.
 It really was Melyukovka, and maids and footmen with merry faces
came running, out to the porch carrying candles.
"Who is it?" asked someone in the porch.
"The mummers from the count's. I know by the horses," replied some
voices.

CHAPTER XI
Pelageya Danilovna Melyukova, a broadly built, energetic woman
wearing spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress,
surrounded by her daughters whom she was trying to keep from feeling
dull. They were quietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking at
the shadows the wax figures would throw on the wall, when they heard
the steps and voices of new arrivals in the vestibule.
Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing their
throats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule, came
into the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. The clown—
Dimmler—and the lady—Nicholas—started a dance. Surrounded by
the screaming children the mummers, covering their faces and
disguising their voices, bowed to their hostess and arranged themselves
about the room.
"Dear me! there's no recognizing them! And Natasha! See whom she
looks like! She really reminds me of somebody. But Herr Dimmler—
isn't he good! I didn't know him! And how he dances. Dear me, there's
a Circassian. Really, how becoming it is to dear Sonya. And who is
that? Well, you have cheered us up! Nikita and Vanya—clear away the
tables! And we were sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!... The hussar, the
hussar! Just like a boy! And the legs!... I can't look at him..." different
voices were saying.
Natasha, the young Melyukovs' favorite, disappeared with them into
the back rooms where a cork and various dressing gowns and male
garments were called for and received from the footman by bare girlish
arms from behind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukovs
joined the mummers.
Pelageya Danilovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for the
visitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs,
went about among the mummers without removing her spectacles,
peering into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize
any of them. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostovs she failed to
recognize, she did not even recognize her own daughters, or her late
husband's, dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on.
"And who is this?" she asked her governess, peering into the face of
her own daughter dressed up as a Kazan-Tartar. "I suppose it is one of
the Rostovs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you serve in?"
she asked Natasha. "Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!" she
ordered the butler who was handing things round. "That's not forbidden
by his law."
Sometimes, as she looked at the strange but amusing capers cut by
the dancers, who—having decided once for all that being disguised, no
one would recognize them—were not at all shy, Pelageya Danilovna
hid her face in her handkerchief, and her whole stout body shook with
irrepressible, kindly, elderly laughter.
"My little Sasha! Look at Sasha!" she said.
After Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelageya
Danilovna made the serfs and gentry join in one large circle: a ring, a
string, and a silver ruble were fetched and they all played games
together.
In an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. The
corked eyebrows and mustaches were smeared over the perspiring,
flushed, and merry faces. Pelageya Danilovna began to recognize the
mummers, admired their cleverly contrived costumes, and particularly
how they suited the young ladies, and she thanked them all for having
entertained her so well. The visitors were invited to supper in the
drawing room, and the serfs had something served to them in the
ballroom.
"Now to tell one's fortune in the empty bathhouse is frightening!"
said an old maid who lived with the Melyukovs, during supper.
"Why?" said the eldest Melyukov girl.
"You wouldn't go, it takes courage..."
"I'll go," said Sonya.
"Tell what happened to the young lady!" said the second Melyukov
girl.
"Well," began the old maid, "a young lady once went out, took a
cock, laid the table for two, all properly, and sat down. After sitting a
while, she suddenly hears someone coming... a sleigh drives up with
harness bells; she hears him coming! He comes in, just in the shape of a
man, like an officer—comes in and sits down to table with her."
 "Ah! ah!" screamed Natasha, rolling her eyes with horror.
"Yes? And how... did he speak?"
"Yes, like a man. Everything quite all right, and he began persuading
her; and she should have kept him talking till cockcrow, but she got
frightened, just got frightened and hid her face in her hands. Then he
caught her up. It was lucky the maids ran in just then..."
"Now, why frighten them?" said Pelageya Danilovna.
"Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself..." said her daughter.
"And how does one do it in a barn?" inquired Sonya.
"Well, say you went to the barn now, and listened. It depends on
what you hear; hammering and knocking—that's bad; but a sound of
shifting grain is good and one sometimes hears that, too."
"Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn."
Pelageya Danilovna smiled.
"Oh, I've forgotten..." she replied. "But none of you would go?"
"Yes, I will; Pelageya Danilovna, let me! I'll go," said Sonya.
"Well, why not, if you're not afraid?"
"Louisa Ivanovna, may I?" asked Sonya.
Whether they were playing the ring and string game or the ruble
game or talking as now, Nicholas did not leave Sonya's side, and gazed
at her with quite new eyes. It seemed to him that it was only today,
thanks to that burnt-cork mustache, that he had fully learned to know
her. And really, that evening, Sonya was brighter, more animated, and
prettier than Nicholas had ever seen her before.
"So that's what she is like; what a fool I have been!" he thought
gazing at her sparkling eyes, and under the mustache a happy rapturous
smile dimpled her cheeks, a smile he had never seen before.
"I'm not afraid of anything," said Sonya. "May I go at once?" She got
up.
They told her where the barn was and how she should stand and
listen, and they handed her a fur cloak. She threw this over her head
and shoulders and glanced at Nicholas.
"What a darling that girl is!" thought he. "And what have I been
thinking of till now?"
 Sonya went out into the passage to go to the barn. Nicholas went
hastily to the front porch, saying he felt too hot. The crowd of people
really had made the house stuffy.
Outside, there was the same cold stillness and the same moon, but
even brighter than before. The light was so strong and the snow
sparkled with so many stars that one did not wish to look up at the sky
and the real stars were unnoticed. The sky was black and dreary, while
the earth was gay.
"I am a fool, a fool! what have I been waiting for?" thought
Nicholas, and running out from the porch he went round the corner of
the house and along the path that led to the back porch. He knew Sonya
would pass that way. Halfway lay some snow-covered piles of
firewood and across and along them a network of shadows from the
bare old lime trees fell on the snow and on the path. This path led to the
barn. The log walls of the barn and its snow-covered roof, that looked
as if hewn out of some precious stone, sparkled in the moonlight. A tree
in the garden snapped with the frost, and then all was again perfectly
silent. His bosom seemed to inhale not air but the strength of eternal
youth and gladness.
From the back porch came the sound of feet descending the steps, the
bottom step upon which snow had fallen gave a ringing creak and he
heard the voice of an old maidservant saying, "Straight, straight, along
the path, Miss. Only, don't look back."
"I am not afraid," answered Sonya's voice, and along the path toward
Nicholas came the crunching, whistling sound of Sonya's feet in her
thin shoes.
Sonya came along, wrapped in her cloak. She was only a couple of
paces away when she saw him, and to her too he was not the Nicholas
she had known and always slightly feared. He was in a woman's dress,
with tousled hair and a happy smile new to Sonya. She ran rapidly
toward him.
"Quite different and yet the same," thought Nicholas, looking at her
face all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the cloak
that covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, and kissed her
on the lips that wore a mustache and had a smell of burnt cork. Sonya
kissed him full on the lips, and disengaging her little hands pressed
them to his cheeks.
"Sonya!... Nicholas!"... was all they said. They ran to the barn and
then back again, re-entering, he by the front and she by the back porch.
 CHAPTER XII
When they all drove back from Pelageya Danilovna's, Natasha, who
always saw and noticed everything, arranged that she and Madame
Schoss should go back in the sleigh with Dimmler, and Sonya with
Nicholas and the maids.
On the way back Nicholas drove at a steady pace instead of racing
and kept peering by that fantastic all-transforming light into Sonya's
face and searching beneath the eyebrows and mustache for his former
and his present Sonya from whom he had resolved never to be parted
again. He looked and recognizing in her both the old and the new
Sonya, and being reminded by the smell of burnt cork of the sensation
of her kiss, inhaled the frosty air with a full breast and, looking at the
ground flying beneath him and at the sparkling sky, felt himself again
in fairyland.
"Sonya, is it well with thee?" he asked from time to time.
"Yes!" she replied. "And with thee?"
When halfway home Nicholas handed the reins to the coachman and
ran for a moment to Natasha's sleigh and stood on its wing.
"Natasha!" he whispered in French, "do you know I have made up
my mind about Sonya?"
"Have you told her?" asked Natasha, suddenly beaming all over with
joy.
"Oh, how strange you are with that mustache and those eyebrows!...
Natasha—are you glad?"
"I am so glad, so glad! I was beginning to be vexed with you. I did
not tell you, but you have been treating her badly. What a heart she has,
Nicholas! I am horrid sometimes, but I was ashamed to be happy while
Sonya was not," continued Natasha. "Now I am so glad! Well, run back
to her."
"No, wait a bit.... Oh, how funny you look!" cried Nicholas, peering
into her face and finding in his sister too something new, unusual, and
bewitchingly tender that he had not seen in her before. "Natasha, it's
magical, isn't it?"
"Yes," she replied. "You have done splendidly."
 "Had I seen her before as she is now," thought Nicholas, "I should
long ago have asked her what to do and have done whatever she told
me, and all would have been well."
"So you are glad and I have done right?"
"Oh, quite right! I had a quarrel with Mamma some time ago about
it. Mamma said she was angling for you. How could she say such a
thing! I nearly stormed at Mamma. I will never let anyone say anything
bad of Sonya, for there is nothing but good in her."
"Then it's all right?" said Nicholas, again scrutinizing the expression
of his sister's face to see if she was in earnest. Then he jumped down
and, his boots scrunching the snow, ran back to his sleigh. The same
happy, smiling Circassian, with mustache and beaming eyes looking up
from under a sable hood, was still sitting there, and that Circassian was
Sonya, and that Sonya was certainly his future happy and loving wife.
When they reached home and had told their mother how they had
spent the evening at the Melyukovs', the girls went to their bedroom.
When they had undressed, but without washing off the cork mustaches,
they sat a long time talking of their happiness. They talked of how they
would live when they were married, how their husbands would be
friends, and how happy they would be. On Natasha's table stood two
looking glasses which Dunyasha had prepared beforehand.
"Only when will all that be? I am afraid never.... It would be too
good!" said Natasha, rising and going to the looking glasses.
"Sit down, Natasha; perhaps you'll see him," said Sonya.
Natasha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the looking
glasses, and sat down.
"I see someone with a mustache," said Natasha, seeing her own face.
"You mustn't laugh, Miss," said Dunyasha.
With Sonya's help and the maid's, Natasha got the glass she held into
the right position opposite the other; her face assumed a serious
expression and she sat silent. She sat a long time looking at the
receding line of candles reflected in the glasses and expecting (from
tales she had heard) to see a coffin, or him, Prince Andrew, in that last
dim, indistinctly outlined square. But ready as she was to take the
smallest speck for the image of a man or of a coffin, she saw nothing.
She began blinking rapidly and moved away from the looking glasses.
"Why is it others see things and I don't?" she said. "You sit down
now, Sonya. You absolutely must, tonight! Do it for me.... Today I feel
so frightened!"
 Sonya sat down before the glasses, got the right position, and began
looking.
"Now, Miss Sonya is sure to see something," whispered Dunyasha;
"while you do nothing but laugh."
Sonya heard this and Natasha's whisper:
"I know she will. She saw something last year."
For about three minutes all were silent.
"Of course she will!" whispered Natasha, but did not finish...
suddenly Sonya pushed away the glass she was holding and covered
her eyes with her hand.
"Oh, Natasha!" she cried.
"Did you see? Did you? What was it?" exclaimed Natasha, holding
up the looking glass.
Sonya had not seen anything, she was just wanting to blink and to
get up when she heard Natasha say, "Of course she will!" She did not
wish to disappoint either Dunyasha or Natasha, but it was hard to sit
still. She did not herself know how or why the exclamation escaped her
when she covered her eyes.
"You saw him?" urged Natasha, seizing her hand.
"Yes. Wait a bit... I... saw him," Sonya could not help saying, not yet
knowing whom Natasha meant by him, Nicholas or Prince Andrew.
"But why shouldn't I say I saw something? Others do see! Besides
who can tell whether I saw anything or not?" flashed through Sonya's
mind.
"Yes, I saw him," she said.
"How? Standing or lying?"
"No, I saw... At first there was nothing, then I saw him lying down."
"Andrew lying? Is he ill?" asked Natasha, her frightened eyes fixed
on her friend.
"No, on the contrary, on the contrary! His face was cheerful, and he
turned to me." And when saying this she herself fancied she had really
seen what she described.
"Well, and then, Sonya?..."
"After that, I could not make out what there was; something blue and
red..."
 "Sonya! When will he come back? When shall I see him! O, God,
how afraid I am for him and for myself and about everything!..."
Natasha began, and without replying to Sonya's words of comfort she
got into bed, and long after her candle was out lay open-eyed and
motionless, gazing at the moonlight through the frosty windowpanes.

CHAPTER XIII
Soon after the Christmas holidays Nicholas told his mother of his
love for Sonya and of his firm resolve to marry her. The countess, who
had long noticed what was going on between them and was expecting
this declaration, listened to him in silence and then told her son that he
might marry whom he pleased, but that neither she nor his father would
give their blessing to such a marriage. Nicholas, for the first time, felt
that his mother was displeased with him and that, despite her love for
him, she would not give way. Coldly, without looking at her son, she
sent for her husband and, when he came, tried briefly and coldly to
inform him of the facts, in her son's presence, but unable to restrain
herself she burst into tears of vexation and left the room. The old count
began irresolutely to admonish Nicholas and beg him to abandon his
purpose. Nicholas replied that he could not go back on his word, and
his father, sighing and evidently disconcerted, very soon became silent
and went in to the countess. In all his encounters with his son, the count
was always conscious of his own guilt toward him for having wasted
the family fortune, and so he could not be angry with him for refusing
to marry an heiress and choosing the dowerless Sonya. On this
occasion, he was only more vividly conscious of the fact that if his
affairs had not been in disorder, no better wife for Nicholas than Sonya
could have been wished for, and that no one but himself with his
Mitenka and his uncomfortable habits was to blame for the condition of
the family finances.
The father and mother did not speak of the matter to their son again,
but a few days later the countess sent for Sonya and, with a cruelty
neither of them expected, reproached her niece for trying to catch
Nicholas and for ingratitude. Sonya listened silently with downcast
eyes to the countess' cruel words, without understanding what was
required of her. She was ready to sacrifice everything for her
benefactors. Self-sacrifice was her most cherished idea but in this case
she could not see what she ought to sacrifice, or for whom. She could
not help loving the countess and the whole Rostov family, but neither
could she help loving Nicholas and knowing that his happiness
depended on that love. She was silent and sad and did not reply.
Nicholas felt the situation to be intolerable and went to have an
explanation with his mother. He first implored her to forgive him and
Sonya and consent to their marriage, then he threatened that if she
molested Sonya he would at once marry her secretly.
The countess, with a coldness her son had never seen in her before,
replied that he was of age, that Prince Andrew was marrying without
his father's consent, and he could do the same, but that she would never
receive that intriguer as her daughter.
Exploding at the word intriguer, Nicholas, raising his voice, told his
mother he had never expected her to try to force him to sell his feelings,
but if that were so, he would say for the last time.... But he had no time
to utter the decisive word which the expression of his face caused his
mother to await with terror, and which would perhaps have forever
remained a cruel memory to them both. He had not time to say it, for
Natasha, with a pale and set face, entered the room from the door at
which she had been listening.
"Nicholas, you are talking nonsense! Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, I
tell you!..." she almost screamed, so as to drown his voice.
"Mamma darling, it's not at all so... my poor, sweet darling," she said
to her mother, who conscious that they had been on the brink of a
rupture gazed at her son with terror, but in the obstinacy and excitement
of the conflict could not and would not give way.
"Nicholas, I'll explain to you. Go away! Listen, Mamma darling,"
said Natasha.
Her words were incoherent, but they attained the purpose at which
she was aiming.
The countess, sobbing heavily, hid her face on her daughter's breast,
while Nicholas rose, clutching his head, and left the room.
Natasha set to work to effect a reconciliation, and so far succeeded
that Nicholas received a promise from his mother that Sonya should not
be troubled, while he on his side promised not to undertake anything
without his parents' knowledge.
Firmly resolved, after putting his affairs in order in the regiment, to
retire from the army and return and marry Sonya, Nicholas, serious,
sorrowful, and at variance with his parents, but, as it seemed to him,
passionately in love, left at the beginning of January to rejoin his
regiment.
After Nicholas had gone things in the Rostov household were more
depressing than ever, and the countess fell ill from mental agitation.
 Sonya was unhappy at the separation from Nicholas and still more so
on account of the hostile tone the countess could not help adopting
toward her. The count was more perturbed than ever by the condition of
his affairs, which called for some decisive action. Their town house and
estate near Moscow had inevitably to be sold, and for this they had to
go to Moscow. But the countess' health obliged them to delay their
departure from day to day.
Natasha, who had borne the first period of separation from her
betrothed lightly and even cheerfully, now grew more agitated and
impatient every day. The thought that her best days, which she would
have employed in loving him, were being vainly wasted, with no
advantage to anyone, tormented her incessantly. His letters for the most
part irritated her. It hurt her to think that while she lived only in the
thought of him, he was living a real life, seeing new places and new
people that interested him. The more interesting his letters were the
more vexed she felt. Her letters to him, far from giving her any
comfort, seemed to her a wearisome and artificial obligation. She could
not write, because she could not conceive the possibility of expressing
sincerely in a letter even a thousandth part of what she expressed by
voice, smile, and glance. She wrote to him formal, monotonous, and
dry letters, to which she attached no importance herself, and in the
rough copies of which the countess corrected her mistakes in spelling.
There was still no improvement in the countess' health, but it was
impossible to defer the journey to Moscow any longer. Natasha's
trousseau had to be ordered and the house sold. Moreover, Prince
Andrew was expected in Moscow, where old Prince Bolkonski was
spending the winter, and Natasha felt sure he had already arrived.
So the countess remained in the country, and the count, taking Sonya
and Natasha with him, went to Moscow at the end of January.

BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12

CHAPTER I
After Prince Andrews engagement to Natasha, Pierre without any
apparent cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before.
Firmly convinced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his
benefactor, and happy as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to
which he had devoted himself with such ardor—all the zest of such a
life vanished after the engagement of Andrew and Natasha and the
death of Joseph Alexeevich, the news of which reached him almost at
the same time. Only the skeleton of life remained: his house, a brilliant
wife who now enjoyed the favors of a very important personage,
acquaintance with all Petersburg, and his court service with its dull
formalities. And this life suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly
loathsome. He ceased keeping a diary, avoided the company of the
Brothers, began going to the Club again, drank a great deal, and came
once more in touch with the bachelor sets, leading such a life that the
Countess Helene thought it necessary to speak severely to him about it.
Pierre felt that she was right, and to avoid compromising her went away
to Moscow.
In Moscow as soon as he entered his huge house in which the faded
and fading princesses still lived, with its enormous retinue; as soon as,
driving through the town, he saw the Iberian shrine with innumerable
tapers burning before the golden covers of the icons, the Kremlin
Square with its snow undisturbed by vehicles, the sleigh drivers and
hovels of the Sivtsev Vrazhok, those old Moscovites who desired
nothing, hurried nowhere, and were ending their days leisurely; when
he saw those old Moscow ladies, the Moscow balls, and the English
Club, he felt himself at home in a quiet haven. In Moscow he felt at
peace, at home, warm and dirty as in an old dressing gown.
Moscow society, from the old women down to the children, received
Pierre like a long-expected guest whose place was always ready
awaiting him. For Moscow society Pierre was the nicest, kindest, most
intellectual, merriest, and most magnanimous of cranks, a heedless,
genial nobleman of the old Russian type. His purse was always empty
because it was open to everyone.
Benefit performances, poor pictures, statues, benevolent societies,
gypsy choirs, schools, subscription dinners, sprees, Freemasons,
churches, and books—no one and nothing met with a refusal from him,
and had it not been for two friends who had borrowed large sums from
him and taken him under their protection, he would have given
everything away. There was never a dinner or soiree at the Club
without him. As soon as he sank into his place on the sofa after two
bottles of Margaux he was surrounded, and talking, disputing, and
joking began. When there were quarrels, his kindly smile and well-
timed jests reconciled the antagonists. The Masonic dinners were dull
and dreary when he was not there.
When after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and kindly
smile, yielding to the entreaties of the festive company to drive off
somewhere with them, shouts of delight and triumph arose among the
young men. At balls he danced if a partner was needed. Young ladies,
married and unmarried, liked him because without making love to any
of them, he was equally amiable to all, especially after supper. "Il est
charmant; il n'a pas de sexe," * they said of him.

* "He is charming; he has no sex."

Pierre was one of those retired gentlemen-in-waiting of whom there

were hundreds good-humoredly ending their days in Moscow.
How horrified he would have been seven years before, when he first
arrived from abroad, had he been told that there was no need for him to
seek or plan anything, that his rut had long been shaped, eternally
predetermined, and that wriggle as he might, he would be what all in
his position were. He could not have believed it! Had he not at one time
longed with all his heart to establish a republic in Russia; then himself
to be a Napoleon; then to be a philosopher; and then a strategist and the
conqueror of Napoleon? Had he not seen the possibility of, and
passionately desired, the regeneration of the sinful human race, and his
own progress to the highest degree of perfection? Had he not
established schools and hospitals and liberated his serfs?
But instead of all that—here he was, the wealthy husband of an
unfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, fond of eating and
drinking and, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat, of abusing the
government a bit, a member of the Moscow English Club, and a
universal favorite in Moscow society. For a long time he could not
reconcile himself to the idea that he was one of those same retired
Moscow gentlemen-in-waiting he had so despised seven years before.
Sometimes he consoled himself with the thought that he was only
living this life temporarily; but then he was shocked by the thought of
how many, like himself, had entered that life and that Club temporarily,
with all their teeth and hair, and had only left it when not a single tooth
or hair remained.
In moments of pride, when he thought of his position it seemed to
him that he was quite different and distinct from those other retired
gentlemen-in-waiting he had formerly despised: they were empty,
stupid, contented fellows, satisfied with their position, "while I am still
discontented and want to do something for mankind. But perhaps all
these comrades of mine struggled just like me and sought something
new, a path in life of their own, and like me were brought by force of
circumstances, society, and race—by that elemental force against
which man is powerless—to the condition I am in," said he to himself
in moments of humility; and after living some time in Moscow he no
longer despised, but began to grow fond of, to respect, and to pity his
comrades in destiny, as he pitied himself.
Pierre no longer suffered moments of despair, hypochondria, and
disgust with life, but the malady that had formerly found expression in
such acute attacks was driven inwards and never left him for a moment.
"What for? Why? What is going on in the world?" he would ask
himself in perplexity several times a day, involuntarily beginning to
reflect anew on the meaning of the phenomena of life; but knowing by
experience that there were no answers to these questions he made haste
to turn away from them, and took up a book, or hurried of to the Club
or to Apollon Nikolaevich's, to exchange the gossip of the town.
"Helene, who has never cared for anything but her own body and is
one of the stupidest women in the world," thought Pierre, "is regarded
by people as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they pay
homage to her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he
was great, but now that he has become a wretched comedian the
Emperor Francis wants to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage.
The Spaniards, through the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their
victory over the French on the fourteenth of June, and the French, also
through the Catholic clergy, offer praise because on that same
fourteenth of June they defeated the Spaniards. My brother Masons
swear by the blood that they are ready to sacrifice everything for their
neighbor, but they do not give a ruble each to the collections for the
poor, and they intrigue, the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers,
and fuss about an authentic Scotch carpet and a charter that nobody
needs, and the meaning of which the very man who wrote it does not
understand. We all profess the Christian law of forgiveness of injuries
and love of our neighbors, the law in honor of which we have built in
Moscow forty times forty churches—but yesterday a deserter was
knouted to death and a minister of that same law of love and
forgiveness, a priest, gave the soldier a cross to kiss before his
execution." So thought Pierre, and the whole of this general deception
which everyone accepts, accustomed as he was to it, astonished him
each time as if it were something new. "I understand the deception and
confusion," he thought, "but how am I to tell them all that I see? I have
tried, and have always found that they too in the depths of their souls
understand it as I do, and only try not to see it. So it appears that it must
be so! But I—what is to become of me?" thought he. He had the
unfortunate capacity many men, especially Russians, have of seeing
and believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the
evil and falsehood of life too clearly to be able to take a serious part in
it. Every sphere of work was connected, in his eyes, with evil and
deception. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he engaged in, the evil
and falsehood of it repulsed him and blocked every path of activity. Yet
he had to live and to find occupation. It was too dreadful to be under
the burden of these insoluble problems, so he abandoned himself to any
distraction in order to forget them. He frequented every kind of society,
drank much, bought pictures, engaged in building, and above all—read.
He read, and read everything that came to hand. On coming home,
while his valets were still taking off his things, he picked up a book and
began to read. From reading he passed to sleeping, from sleeping to
gossip in drawing rooms of the Club, from gossip to carousals and
women; from carousals back to gossip, reading, and wine. Drinking
became more and more a physical and also a moral necessity. Though
the doctors warned him that with his corpulence wine was dangerous
for him, he drank a great deal. He was only quite at ease when having
poured several glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth he
felt a pleasant warmth in his body, an amiability toward all his fellows,
and a readiness to respond superficially to every idea without probing it
deeply. Only after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the
terribly tangled skein of life which previously had terrified him was not
as dreadful as he had thought. He was always conscious of some aspect
of that skein, as with a buzzing in his head after dinner or supper he
chatted or listened to conversation or read. But under the influence of
wine he said to himself: "It doesn't matter. I'll get it unraveled. I have a
solution ready, but have no time now—I'll think it all out later on!" But
the later on never came.
In the morning, on an empty stomach, all the old questions appeared
as insoluble and terrible as ever, and Pierre hastily picked up a book,
and if anyone came to see him he was glad.
Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war
when entrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing to do, try
hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To
Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life:
some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in
women, some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport,
some in wine, and some in governmental affairs. "Nothing is trivial,
and nothing is important, it's all the same—only to save oneself from it
as best one can," thought Pierre. "Only not to see it, that dreadful it!"

CHAPTER II
At the beginning of winter Prince Nicholas Bolkonski and his
daughter moved to Moscow. At that time enthusiasm for the Emperor
Alexander's regime had weakened and a patriotic and anti-French
tendency prevailed there, and this, together with his past and his
intellect and his originality, at once made Prince Nicholas Bolkonski an
object of particular respect to the Moscovites and the center of the
Moscow opposition to the government.
The prince had aged very much that year. He showed marked signs
of senility by a tendency to fall asleep, forgetfulness of quite recent
events, remembrance of remote ones, and the childish vanity with
which he accepted the role of head of the Moscow opposition. In spite
of this the old man inspired in all his visitors alike a feeling of
respectful veneration—especially of an evening when he came in to tea
in his old-fashioned coat and powdered wig and, aroused by anyone,
told his abrupt stories of the past, or uttered yet more abrupt and
scathing criticisms of the present. For them all, that old-fashioned
house with its gigantic mirrors, pre-Revolution furniture, powdered
footmen, and the stern shrewd old man (himself a relic of the past
century) with his gentle daughter and the pretty Frenchwoman who
were reverently devoted to him presented a majestic and agreeable
spectacle. But the visitors did not reflect that besides the couple of
hours during which they saw their host, there were also twenty-two
hours in the day during which the private and intimate life of the house
continued.
Latterly that private life had become very trying for Princess Mary.
There in Moscow she was deprived of her greatest pleasures—talks
with the pilgrims and the solitude which refreshed her at Bald Hills—
and she had none of the advantages and pleasures of city life. She did
not go out into society; everyone knew that her father would not let her
go anywhere without him, and his failing health prevented his going
out himself, so that she was not invited to dinners and evening parties.
She had quite abandoned the hope of getting married. She saw the
coldness and malevolence with which the old prince received and
dismissed the young men, possible suitors, who sometimes appeared at
their house. She had no friends: during this visit to Moscow she had
been disappointed in the two who had been nearest to her.
Mademoiselle Bourienne, with whom she had never been able to be
quite frank, had now become unpleasant to her, and for various reasons
Princess Mary avoided her. Julie, with whom she had corresponded for
the last five years, was in Moscow, but proved to be quite alien to her
when they met. Just then Julie, who by the death of her brothers had
become one of the richest heiresses in Moscow, was in the full whirl of
society pleasures. She was surrounded by young men who, she fancied,
had suddenly learned to appreciate her worth. Julie was at that stage in
the life of a society woman when she feels that her last chance of
marrying has come and that her fate must be decided now or never. On
Thursdays Princess Mary remembered with a mournful smile that she
now had no one to write to, since Julie—whose presence gave her no
pleasure was here and they met every week. Like the old emigre who
declined to marry the lady with whom he had spent his evenings for
years, she regretted Julie's presence and having no one to write to. In
Moscow Princess Mary had no one to talk to, no one to whom to
confide her sorrow, and much sorrow fell to her lot just then. The time
for Prince Andrew's return and marriage was approaching, but his
request to her to prepare his father for it had not been carried out; in
fact, it seemed as if matters were quite hopeless, for at every mention of
the young Countess Rostova the old prince (who apart from that was
usually in a bad temper) lost control of himself. Another lately added
sorrow arose from the lessons she gave her six year-old nephew. To her
consternation she detected in herself in relation to little Nicholas some
symptoms of her father's irritability. However often she told herself that
she must not get irritable when teaching her nephew, almost every time
that, pointer in hand, she sat down to show him the French alphabet,
she so longed to pour her own knowledge quickly and easily into the
child—who was already afraid that Auntie might at any moment get
angry—that at his slightest inattention she trembled, became flustered
and heated, raised her voice, and sometimes pulled him by the arm and
put him in the corner. Having put him in the corner she would herself
begin to cry over her cruel, evil nature, and little Nicholas, following
her example, would sob, and without permission would leave his
corner, come to her, pull her wet hands from her face, and comfort her.
But what distressed the princess most of all was her father's irritability,
which was always directed against her and had of late amounted to
cruelty. Had he forced her to prostrate herself to the ground all night,
had he beaten her or made her fetch wood or water, it would never have
entered her mind to think her position hard; but this loving despot—the
more cruel because he loved her and for that reason tormented himself
and her—knew how not merely to hurt and humiliate her deliberately,
but to show her that she was always to blame for everything. Of late he
had exhibited a new trait that tormented Princess Mary more than
anything else; this was his ever-increasing intimacy with Mademoiselle
Bourienne. The idea that at the first moment of receiving the news of
his son's intentions had occurred to him in jest—that if Andrew got
married he himself would marry Bourienne—had evidently pleased
him, and latterly he had persistently, and as it seemed to Princess Mary
merely to offend her, shown special endearments to the companion and
expressed his dissatisfaction with his daughter by demonstrations of
love of Bourienne.
One day in Moscow in Princess Mary's presence (she thought her
father did it purposely when she was there) the old prince kissed
Mademoiselle Bourienne's hand and, drawing her to him, embraced her
affectionately. Princess Mary flushed and ran out of the room. A few
minutes later Mademoiselle Bourienne came into Princess Mary's room
smiling and making cheerful remarks in her agreeable voice. Princess
Mary hastily wiped away her tears, went resolutely up to Mademoiselle
Bourienne, and evidently unconscious of what she was doing began
shouting in angry haste at the Frenchwoman, her voice breaking: "It's
horrible, vile, inhuman, to take advantage of the weakness..." She did
not finish. "Leave my room," she exclaimed, and burst into sobs.
Next day the prince did not say a word to his daughter, but she
noticed that at dinner he gave orders that Mademoiselle Bourienne
should be served first. After dinner, when the footman handed coffee
and from habit began with the princess, the prince suddenly grew
furious, threw his stick at Philip, and instantly gave instructions to have
him conscripted for the army.
"He doesn't obey... I said it twice... and he doesn't obey! She is the
first person in this house; she's my best friend," cried the prince. "And
if you allow yourself," he screamed in a fury, addressing Princess Mary
for the first time, "to forget yourself again before her as you dared to do
yesterday, I will show you who is master in this house. Go! Don't let
me set eyes on you; beg her pardon!"
Princess Mary asked Mademoiselle Bourienne's pardon, and also her
father's pardon for herself and for Philip the footman, who had begged
for her intervention.
At such moments something like a pride of sacrifice gathered in her
soul. And suddenly that father whom she had judged would look for his
spectacles in her presence, fumbling near them and not seeing them, or
would forget something that had just occurred, or take a false step with
his failing legs and turn to see if anyone had noticed his feebleness, or,
worst of all, at dinner when there were no visitors to excite him would
suddenly fall asleep, letting his napkin drop and his shaking head sink
over his plate. "He is old and feeble, and I dare to condemn him!" she
thought at such moments, with a feeling of revulsion against herself.

CHAPTER III
In 1811 there was living in Moscow a French doctor—Metivier—
who had rapidly become the fashion. He was enormously tall,
handsome, amiable as Frenchmen are, and was, as all Moscow said, an
extraordinarily clever doctor. He was received in the best houses not
merely as a doctor, but as an equal.
Prince Nicholas had always ridiculed medicine, but latterly on
Mademoiselle Bourienne's advice had allowed this doctor to visit him
and had grown accustomed to him. Metivier came to see the prince
about twice a week.
On December 6—St. Nicholas' Day and the prince's name day—all
Moscow came to the prince's front door but he gave orders to admit no
one and to invite to dinner only a small number, a list of whom he gave
to Princess Mary.
Metivier, who came in the morning with his felicitations, considered
it proper in his quality of doctor de forcer la consigne, * as he told
Princess Mary, and went in to see the prince. It happened that on that
morning of his name day the prince was in one of his worst moods. He
had been going about the house all the morning finding fault with
everyone and pretending not to understand what was said to him and
not to be understood himself. Princess Mary well knew this mood of
quiet absorbed querulousness, which generally culminated in a burst of
rage, and she went about all that morning as though facing a cocked
and loaded gun and awaited the inevitable explosion. Until the doctor's
arrival the morning had passed off safely. After admitting the doctor,
Princess Mary sat down with a book in the drawing room near the door
through which she could hear all that passed in the study.

* To force the guard.

At first she heard only Metivier's voice, then her father's, then both
voices began speaking at the same time, the door was flung open, and
on the threshold appeared the handsome figure of the terrified Metivier
with his shock of black hair, and the prince in his dressing gown and
fez, his face distorted with fury and the pupils of his eyes rolled
downwards.
"You don't understand?" shouted the prince, "but I do! French spy,
slave of Buonaparte, spy, get out of my house! Be off, I tell you..."
Metivier, shrugging his shoulders, went up to Mademoiselle
Bourienne who at the sound of shouting had run in from an adjoining
room.
"The prince is not very well: bile and rush of blood to the head. Keep
calm, I will call again tomorrow," said Metivier; and putting his fingers
to his lips he hastened away.
Through the study door came the sound of slippered feet and the cry:
"Spies, traitors, traitors everywhere! Not a moment's peace in my own
house!"
After Metivier's departure the old prince called his daughter in, and
the whole weight of his wrath fell on her. She was to blame that a spy
had been admitted. Had he not told her, yes, told her to make a list, and
not to admit anyone who was not on that list? Then why was that
scoundrel admitted? She was the cause of it all. With her, he said, he
could not have a moment's peace and could not die quietly.
"No, ma'am! We must part, we must part! Understand that,
understand it! I cannot endure any more," he said, and left the room.
Then, as if afraid she might find some means of consolation, he
returned and trying to appear calm added: "And don't imagine I have
said this in a moment of anger. I am calm. I have thought it over, and it
will be carried out—we must part; so find some place for yourself...."
But he could not restrain himself and with the virulence of which only
one who loves is capable, evidently suffering himself, he shook his fists
at her and screamed:
"If only some fool would marry her!" Then he slammed the door,
sent for Mademoiselle Bourienne, and subsided into his study.
At two o'clock the six chosen guests assembled for dinner.
These guests—the famous Count Rostopchin, Prince Lopukhin with
his nephew, General Chatrov an old war comrade of the prince's, and of
the younger generation Pierre and Boris Drubetskoy—awaited the
prince in the drawing room.
Boris, who had come to Moscow on leave a few days before, had
been anxious to be presented to Prince Nicholas Bolkonski, and had
contrived to ingratiate himself so well that the old prince in his case
made an exception to the rule of not receiving bachelors in his house.
The prince's house did not belong to what is known as fashionable
society, but his little circle—though not much talked about in town—
was one it was more flattering to be received in than any other. Boris
had realized this the week before when the commander in chief in his
presence invited Rostopchin to dinner on St. Nicholas' Day, and
Rostopchin had replied that he could not come:
"On that day I always go to pay my devotions to the relics of Prince
Nicholas Bolkonski."
"Oh, yes, yes!" replied the commander in chief. "How is he?..."
The small group that assembled before dinner in the lofty old-
fashioned drawing room with its old furniture resembled the solemn
gathering of a court of justice. All were silent or talked in low tones.
Prince Nicholas came in serious and taciturn. Princess Mary seemed
even quieter and more diffident than usual. The guests were reluctant to
address her, feeling that she was in no mood for their conversation.
Count Rostopchin alone kept the conversation going, now relating the
latest town news, and now the latest political gossip.
 Lopukhin and the old general occasionally took part in the
conversation. Prince Bolkonski listened as a presiding judge receives a
report, only now and then, silently or by a brief word, showing that he
took heed of what was being reported to him. The tone of the
conversation was such as indicated that no one approved of what was
being done in the political world. Incidents were related evidently
confirming the opinion that everything was going from bad to worse,
but whether telling a story or giving an opinion the speaker always
stopped, or was stopped, at the point beyond which his criticism might
touch the sovereign himself.
At dinner the talk turned on the latest political news: Napoleon's
seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg's territory, and the Russian Note,
hostile to Napoleon, which had been sent to all the European courts.
"Bonaparte treats Europe as a pirate does a captured vessel," said
Count Rostopchin, repeating a phrase he had uttered several times
before. "One only wonders at the long-suffering or blindness of the
crowned heads. Now the Pope's turn has come and Bonaparte doesn't
scruple to depose the head of the Catholic Church—yet all keep silent!
Our sovereign alone has protested against the seizure of the Duke of
Oldenburg's territory, and even..." Count Rostopchin paused, feeling
that he had reached the limit beyond which censure was impossible.
"Other territories have been offered in exchange for the Duchy of
Oldenburg," said Prince Bolkonski. "He shifts the Dukes about as I
might move my serfs from Bald Hills to Bogucharovo or my Ryazan
estates."
"The Duke of Oldenburg bears his misfortunes with admirable
strength of character and resignation," remarked Boris, joining in
respectfully.
He said this because on his journey from Petersburg he had had the
honor of being presented to the Duke. Prince Bolkonski glanced at the
young man as if about to say something in reply, but changed his mind,
evidently considering him too young.
"I have read our protests about the Oldenburg affair and was
surprised how badly the Note was worded," remarked Count
Rostopchin in the casual tone of a man dealing with a subject quite
familiar to him.
Pierre looked at Rostopchin with naive astonishment, not
understanding why he should be disturbed by the bad composition of
the Note.
"Does it matter, Count, how the Note is worded," he asked, "so long
as its substance is forcible?"
 "My dear fellow, with our five hundred thousand troops it should be
easy to have a good style," returned Count Rostopchin.
Pierre now understood the count's dissatisfaction with the wording of
the Note.
"One would have thought quill drivers enough had sprung up,"
remarked the old prince. "There in Petersburg they are always
writing—not notes only but even new laws. My Andrew there has
written a whole volume of laws for Russia. Nowadays they are always
writing!" and he laughed unnaturally.
There was a momentary pause in the conversation; the old general
cleared his throat to draw attention.
"Did you hear of the last event at the review in Petersburg? The
figure cut by the new French ambassador."
"Eh? Yes, I heard something: he said something awkward in His
Majesty's presence."
"His Majesty drew attention to the Grenadier division and to the
march past," continued the general, "and it seems the ambassador took
no notice and allowed himself to reply that: 'We in France pay no
attention to such trifles!' The Emperor did not condescend to reply. At
the next review, they say, the Emperor did not once deign to address
him."
All were silent. On this fact relating to the Emperor personally, it
was impossible to pass any judgment.
"Impudent fellows!" said the prince. "You know Metivier? I turned
him out of my house this morning. He was here; they admitted him in
spite of my request that they should let no one in," he went on, glancing
angrily at his daughter.
And he narrated his whole conversation with the French doctor and
the reasons that convinced him that Metivier was a spy. Though these
reasons were very insufficient and obscure, no one made any rejoinder.
After the roast, champagne was served. The guests rose to
congratulate the old prince. Princess Mary, too, went round to him.
He gave her a cold, angry look and offered her his wrinkled, clean-
shaven cheek to kiss. The whole expression of his face told her that he
had not forgotten the morning's talk, that his decision remained in
force, and only the presence of visitors hindered his speaking of it to
her now.
When they went into the drawing room where coffee was served, the
old men sat together.
 Prince Nicholas grew more animated and expressed his views on the
impending war.
He said that our wars with Bonaparte would be disastrous so long as
we sought alliances with the Germans and thrust ourselves into
European affairs, into which we had been drawn by the Peace of Tilsit.
"We ought not to fight either for or against Austria. Our political
interests are all in the East, and in regard to Bonaparte the only thing is
to have an armed frontier and a firm policy, and he will never dare to
cross the Russian frontier, as was the case in 1807!"
"How can we fight the French, Prince?" said Count Rostopchin.
"Can we arm ourselves against our teachers and divinities? Look at our
youths, look at our ladies! The French are our Gods: Paris is our
Kingdom of Heaven."
He began speaking louder, evidently to be heard by everyone.
"French dresses, French ideas, French feelings! There now, you
turned Metivier out by the scruff of his neck because he is a Frenchman
and a scoundrel, but our ladies crawl after him on their knees. I went to
a party last night, and there out of five ladies three were Roman
Catholics and had the Pope's indulgence for doing woolwork on
Sundays. And they themselves sit there nearly naked, like the
signboards at our Public Baths if I may say so. Ah, when one looks at
our young people, Prince, one would like to take Peter the Great's old
cudgel out of the museum and belabor them in the Russian way till all
the nonsense jumps out of them."
All were silent. The old prince looked at Rostopchin with a smile and
wagged his head approvingly.
"Well, good-by, your excellency, keep well!" said Rostopchin,
getting up with characteristic briskness and holding out his hand to the
prince.
"Good-by, my dear fellow.... His words are music, I never tire of
hearing him!" said the old prince, keeping hold of the hand and offering
his cheek to be kissed.
Following Rostopchin's example the others also rose.

CHAPTER IV
 Princess Mary as she sat listening to the old men's talk and
faultfinding, understood nothing of what she heard; she only wondered
whether the guests had all observed her father's hostile attitude toward
her. She did not even notice the special attentions and amiabilities
shown her during dinner by Boris Drubetskoy, who was visiting them
for the third time already.
Princess Mary turned with absent-minded questioning look to Pierre,
who hat in hand and with a smile on his face was the last of the guests
to approach her after the old prince had gone out and they were left
alone in the drawing room.
"May I stay a little longer?" he said, letting his stout body sink into
an armchair beside her.
"Oh yes," she answered. "You noticed nothing?" her look asked.
Pierre was in an agreeable after-dinner mood. He looked straight
before him and smiled quietly.
"Have you known that young man long, Princess?" he asked.
"Who?"
"Drubetskoy."
"No, not long..."
"Do you like him?"
"Yes, he is an agreeable young man.... Why do you ask me that?"
said Princess Mary, still thinking of that morning's conversation with
her father.
"Because I have noticed that when a young man comes on leave
from Petersburg to Moscow it is usually with the object of marrying an
heiress."
"You have observed that?" said Princess Mary.
"Yes," returned Pierre with a smile, "and this young man now
manages matters so that where there is a wealthy heiress there he is too.
I can read him like a book. At present he is hesitating whom to lay
siege to—you or Mademoiselle Julie Karagina. He is very attentive to
her."
"He visits them?"
"Yes, very often. And do you know the new way of courting?" said
Pierre with an amused smile, evidently in that cheerful mood of good
humored raillery for which he so often reproached himself in his diary.
 "No," replied Princess Mary.
"To please Moscow girls nowadays one has to be melancholy. He is
very melancholy with Mademoiselle Karagina," said Pierre.
"Really?" asked Princess Mary, looking into Pierre's kindly face and
still thinking of her own sorrow. "It would be a relief," thought she, "if
I ventured to confide what I am feeling to someone. I should like to tell
everything to Pierre. He is kind and generous. It would be a relief. He
would give me advice."
"Would you marry him?"
"Oh, my God, Count, there are moments when I would marry
anybody!" she cried suddenly to her own surprise and with tears in her
voice. "Ah, how bitter it is to love someone near to you and to feel
that..." she went on in a trembling voice, "that you can do nothing for
him but grieve him, and to know that you cannot alter this. Then there
is only one thing left—to go away, but where could I go?"
"What is wrong? What is it, Princess?"
But without finishing what she was saying, Princess Mary burst into
tears.
"I don't know what is the matter with me today. Don't take any
notice—forget what I have said!"
Pierre's gaiety vanished completely. He anxiously questioned the
princess, asked her to speak out fully and confide her grief to him; but
she only repeated that she begged him to forget what she had said, that
she did not remember what she had said, and that she had no trouble
except the one he knew of—that Prince Andrew's marriage threatened
to cause a rupture between father and son.
"Have you any news of the Rostovs?" she asked, to change the
subject. "I was told they are coming soon. I am also expecting Andrew
any day. I should like them to meet here."
"And how does he now regard the matter?" asked Pierre, referring to
the old prince.
Princess Mary shook her head.
"What is to be done? In a few months the year will be up. The thing
is impossible. I only wish I could spare my brother the first moments. I
wish they would come sooner. I hope to be friends with her. You have
known them a long time," said Princess Mary. "Tell me honestly the
whole truth: what sort of girl is she, and what do you think of her?—
The real truth, because you know Andrew is risking so much doing this
against his father's will that I should like to know..."
 An undefined instinct told Pierre that these explanations, and
repeated requests to be told the whole truth, expressed ill-will on the
princess' part toward her future sister-in-law and a wish that he should
disapprove of Andrew's choice; but in reply he said what he felt rather
than what he thought.
"I don't know how to answer your question," he said, blushing
without knowing why. "I really don't know what sort of girl she is; I
can't analyze her at all. She is enchanting, but what makes her so I don't
know. That is all one can say about her."
Princess Mary sighed, and the expression on her face said: "Yes,
that's what I expected and feared."
"Is she clever?" she asked.
Pierre considered.
"I think not," he said, "and yet—yes. She does not deign to be
clever.... Oh no, she is simply enchanting, and that is all."
Princess Mary again shook her head disapprovingly.
"Ah, I so long to like her! Tell her so if you see her before I do."
"I hear they are expected very soon," said Pierre.
Princess Mary told Pierre of her plan to become intimate with her
future sister-in-law as soon as the Rostovs arrived and to try to
accustom the old prince to her.

CHAPTER V
Boris had not succeeded in making a wealthy match in Petersburg, so
with the same object in view he came to Moscow. There he wavered
between the two richest heiresses, Julie and Princess Mary. Though
Princess Mary despite her plainness seemed to him more attractive than
Julie, he, without knowing why, felt awkward about paying court to
her. When they had last met on the old prince's name day, she had
answered at random all his attempts to talk sentimentally, evidently not
listening to what he was saying.
Julie on the contrary accepted his attentions readily, though in a
manner peculiar to herself.
 She was twenty-seven. After the death of her brothers she had
become very wealthy. She was by now decidedly plain, but thought
herself not merely as good-looking as before but even far more
attractive. She was confirmed in this delusion by the fact that she had
become a very wealthy heiress and also by the fact that the older she
grew the less dangerous she became to men, and the more freely they
could associate with her and avail themselves of her suppers, soirees,
and the animated company that assembled at her house, without
incurring any obligation. A man who would have been afraid ten years
before of going every day to the house when there was a girl of
seventeen there, for fear of compromising her and committing himself,
would now go boldly every day and treat her not as a marriageable girl
but as a sexless acquaintance.
That winter the Karagins' house was the most agreeable and
hospitable in Moscow. In addition to the formal evening and dinner
parties, a large company, chiefly of men, gathered there every day,
supping at midnight and staying till three in the morning. Julie never
missed a ball, a promenade, or a play. Her dresses were always of the
latest fashion. But in spite of that she seemed to be disillusioned about
everything and told everyone that she did not believe either in
friendship or in love, or any of the joys of life, and expected peace only
"yonder." She adopted the tone of one who has suffered a great
disappointment, like a girl who has either lost the man she loved or
been cruelly deceived by him. Though nothing of the kind had
happened to her she was regarded in that light, and had even herself
come to believe that she had suffered much in life. This melancholy,
which did not prevent her amusing herself, did not hinder the young
people who came to her house from passing the time pleasantly. Every
visitor who came to the house paid his tribute to the melancholy mood
of the hostess, and then amused himself with society gossip, dancing,
intellectual games, and bouts rimes, which were in vogue at the
Karagins'. Only a few of these young men, among them Boris, entered
more deeply into Julie's melancholy, and with these she had prolonged
conversations in private on the vanity of all worldly things, and to them
she showed her albums filled with mournful sketches, maxims, and
verses.
To Boris, Julie was particularly gracious: she regretted his early
disillusionment with life, offered him such consolation of friendship as
she who had herself suffered so much could render, and showed him
her album. Boris sketched two trees in the album and wrote: "Rustic
trees, your dark branches shed gloom and melancholy upon me."
On another page he drew a tomb, and wrote:
 La mort est secourable et la mort est
tranquille.
Ah! contre les douleurs il n'y a pas d'autre
asile. *

* Death gives relief and death is peaceful.

Ah! from suffering there is no other refuge.

Julie said this was charming
"There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy," she
said to Boris, repeating word for word a passage she had copied from a
book. "It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and
despair, showing the possibility of consolation."
In reply Boris wrote these lines:

Aliment de poison d'une ame trop sensible,

Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible,
Tendre melancholie, ah, viens me consoler,
Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre
retraite,
Et mele une douceur secrete
A ces pleurs que je sens couler. *

*Poisonous nourishment of a too sensitive

soul,
Thou, without whom happiness would for me be
impossible,
Tender melancholy, ah, come to console me,
Come to calm the torments of my gloomy retreat,
And mingle a secret sweetness
With these tears that I feel to be flowing.

For Boris, Julie played most doleful nocturnes on her harp. Boris
read Poor Liza aloud to her, and more than once interrupted the reading
because of the emotions that choked him. Meeting at large gatherings
Julie and Boris looked on one another as the only souls who understood
one another in a world of indifferent people.
Anna Mikhaylovna, who often visited the Karagins, while playing
cards with the mother made careful inquiries as to Julie's dowry (she
was to have two estates in Penza and the Nizhegorod forests). Anna
Mikhaylovna regarded the refined sadness that united her son to the
wealthy Julie with emotion, and resignation to the Divine will.
"You are always charming and melancholy, my dear Julie," she said
to the daughter. "Boris says his soul finds repose at your house. He has
suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive," said she to the
mother. "Ah, my dear, I can't tell you how fond I have grown of Julie
latterly," she said to her son. "But who could help loving her? She is an
angelic being! Ah, Boris, Boris!"—she paused. "And how I pity her
mother," she went on; "today she showed me her accounts and letters
from Penza (they have enormous estates there), and she, poor thing, has
no one to help her, and they do cheat her so!"
Boris smiled almost imperceptibly while listening to his mother. He
laughed blandly at her naive diplomacy but listened to what she had to
say, and sometimes questioned her carefully about the Penza and
Nizhegorod estates.
Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholy adorer
and was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of repulsion for her,
for her passionate desire to get married, for her artificiality, and a
feeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of real love still
restrained Boris. His leave was expiring. He spent every day and whole
days at the Karagins', and every day on thinking the matter over told
himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in Julie's presence,
looking at her red face and chin (nearly always powdered), her moist
eyes, and her expression of continual readiness to pass at once from
melancholy to an unnatural rapture of married bliss, Boris could not
utter the decisive words, though in imagination he had long regarded
himself as the possessor of those Penza and Nizhegorod estates and had
apportioned the use of the income from them. Julie saw Boris'
indecision, and sometimes the thought occurred to her that she was
repulsive to him, but her feminine self-deception immediately supplied
her with consolation, and she told herself that he was only shy from
love. Her melancholy, however, began to turn to irritability, and not
long before Boris' departure she formed a definite plan of action. Just
as Boris' leave of absence was expiring, Anatole Kuragin made his
appearance in Moscow, and of course in the Karagins' drawing room,
and Julie, suddenly abandoning her melancholy, became cheerful and
very attentive to Kuragin.
"My dear," said Anna Mikhaylovna to her son, "I know from a
reliable source that Prince Vasili has sent his son to Moscow to get him
married to Julie. I am so fond of Julie that I should be sorry for her.
What do you think of it, my dear?"
The idea of being made a fool of and of having thrown away that
whole month of arduous melancholy service to Julie, and of seeing all
the revenue from the Penza estates which he had already mentally
apportioned and put to proper use fall into the hands of another, and
especially into the hands of that idiot Anatole, pained Boris. He drove
to the Karagins' with the firm intention of proposing. Julie met him in a
gay, careless manner, spoke casually of how she had enjoyed
yesterday's ball, and asked when he was leaving. Though Boris had
come intentionally to speak of his love and therefore meant to be
tender, he began speaking irritably of feminine inconstancy, of how
easily women can turn from sadness to joy, and how their moods
depend solely on who happens to be paying court to them. Julie was
offended and replied that it was true that a woman needs variety, and
the same thing over and over again would weary anyone.
"Then I should advise you..." Boris began, wishing to sting her; but
at that instant the galling thought occurred to him that he might have to
leave Moscow without having accomplished his aim, and have vainly
wasted his efforts—which was a thing he never allowed to happen.
He checked himself in the middle of the sentence, lowered his eyes
to avoid seeing her unpleasantly irritated and irresolute face, and said:
"I did not come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary..."
He glanced at her to make sure that he might go on. Her irritability
had suddenly quite vanished, and her anxious, imploring eyes were
fixed on him with greedy expectation. "I can always arrange so as not
to see her often," thought Boris. "The affair has been begun and must
be finished!" He blushed hotly, raised his eyes to hers, and said:
"You know my feelings for you!"
There was no need to say more: Julie's face shone with triumph and
self-satisfaction; but she forced Boris to say all that is said on such
occasions—that he loved her and had never loved any other woman
more than her. She knew that for the Penza estates and Nizhegorod
forests she could demand this, and she received what she demanded.
The affianced couple, no longer alluding to trees that shed gloom and
melancholy upon them, planned the arrangements of a splendid house
in Petersburg, paid calls, and prepared everything for a brilliant
wedding.

CHAPTER VI
At the end of January old Count Rostov went to Moscow with
Natasha and Sonya. The countess was still unwell and unable to travel
but it was impossible to wait for her recovery. Prince Andrew was
expected in Moscow any day, the trousseau had to be ordered and the
estate near Moscow had to be sold, besides which the opportunity of
presenting his future daughter-in-law to old Prince Bolkonski while he
was in Moscow could not be missed. The Rostovs' Moscow house had
not been heated that winter and, as they had come only for a short time
and the countess was not with them, the count decided to stay with
Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, who had long been pressing her
hospitality on them.
Late one evening the Rostovs' four sleighs drove into Marya
Dmitrievna's courtyard in the old Konyusheny street. Marya
Dmitrievna lived alone. She had already married off her daughter, and
her sons were all in the service.
She held herself as erect, told everyone her opinion as candidly,
loudly, and bluntly as ever, and her whole bearing seemed a reproach to
others for any weakness, passion, or temptation—the possibility of
which she did not admit. From early in the morning, wearing a dressing
jacket, she attended to her household affairs, and then she drove out: on
holy days to church and after the service to jails and prisons on affairs
of which she never spoke to anyone. On ordinary days, after dressing,
she received petitioners of various classes, of whom there were always
some. Then she had dinner, a substantial and appetizing meal at which
there were always three or four guests; after dinner she played a game
of boston, and at night she had the newspapers or a new book read to
her while she knitted. She rarely made an exception and went out to
pay visits, and then only to the most important persons in the town.
She had not yet gone to bed when the Rostovs arrived and the pulley
of the hall door squeaked from the cold as it let in the Rostovs and their
servants. Marya Dmitrievna, with her spectacles hanging down on her
nose and her head flung back, stood in the hall doorway looking with a
stern, grim face at the new arrivals. One might have thought she was
angry with the travelers and would immediately turn them out, had she
not at the same time been giving careful instructions to the servants for
the accommodation of the visitors and their belongings.
"The count's things? Bring them here," she said, pointing to the
portmanteaus and not greeting anyone. "The young ladies'? There to the
left. Now what are you dawdling for?" she cried to the maids. "Get the
samovar ready!... You've grown plumper and prettier," she remarked,
drawing Natasha (whose cheeks were glowing from the cold) to her by
the hood. "Foo! You are cold! Now take off your things, quick!" she
shouted to the count who was going to kiss her hand. "You're half
frozen, I'm sure! Bring some rum for tea!... Bonjour, Sonya dear!" she
added, turning to Sonya and indicating by this French greeting her
slightly contemptuous though affectionate attitude toward her.
When they came in to tea, having taken off their outdoor things and
tidied themselves up after their journey, Marya Dmitrievna kissed them
all in due order.
 "I'm heartily glad you have come and are staying with me. It was
high time," she said, giving Natasha a significant look. "The old man is
here and his son's expected any day. You'll have to make his
acquaintance. But we'll speak of that later on," she added, glancing at
Sonya with a look that showed she did not want to speak of it in her
presence. "Now listen," she said to the count. "What do you want
tomorrow? Whom will you send for? Shinshin?" she crooked one of
her fingers. "The sniveling Anna Mikhaylovna? That's two. She's here
with her son. The son is getting married! Then Bezukhov, eh? He is
here too, with his wife. He ran away from her and she came galloping
after him. He dined with me on Wednesday. As for them"—and she
pointed to the girls—"tomorrow I'll take them first to the Iberian shrine
of the Mother of God, and then we'll drive to the Super-Rogue's. I
suppose you'll have everything new. Don't judge by me: sleeves
nowadays are this size! The other day young Princess Irina Vasilevna
came to see me; she was an awful sight—looked as if she had put two
barrels on her arms. You know not a day passes now without some new
fashion.... And what have you to do yourself?" she asked the count
sternly.
"One thing has come on top of another: her rags to buy, and now a
purchaser has turned up for the Moscow estate and for the house. If you
will be so kind, I'll fix a time and go down to the estate just for a day,
and leave my lassies with you."
"All right. All right. They'll be safe with me, as safe as in Chancery!
I'll take them where they must go, scold them a bit, and pet them a bit,"
said Marya Dmitrievna, touching her goddaughter and favorite,
Natasha, on the cheek with her large hand.
Next morning Marya Dmitrievna took the young ladies to the Iberian
shrine of the Mother of God and to Madame Suppert-Roguet, who was
so afraid of Marya Dmitrievna that she always let her have costumes at
a loss merely to get rid of her. Marya Dmitrievna ordered almost the
whole trousseau. When they got home she turned everybody out of the
room except Natasha, and then called her pet to her armchair.
"Well, now we'll talk. I congratulate you on your betrothed. You've
hooked a fine fellow! I am glad for your sake and I've known him since
he was so high." She held her hand a couple of feet from the ground.
Natasha blushed happily. "I like him and all his family. Now listen!
You know that old Prince Nicholas much dislikes his son's marrying.
The old fellow's crotchety! Of course Prince Andrew is not a child and
can shift without him, but it's not nice to enter a family against a
father's will. One wants to do it peacefully and lovingly. You're a clever
girl and you'll know how to manage. Be kind, and use your wits. Then
all will be well."
 Natasha remained silent, from shyness Marya Dmitrievna supposed,
but really because she disliked anyone interfering in what touched her
love of Prince Andrew, which seemed to her so apart from all human
affairs that no one could understand it. She loved and knew Prince
Andrew, he loved her only, and was to come one of these days and take
her. She wanted nothing more.
"You see I have known him a long time and am also fond of Mary,
your future sister-in-law. 'Husbands' sisters bring up blisters,' but this
one wouldn't hurt a fly. She has asked me to bring you two together.
Tomorrow you'll go with your father to see her. Be very nice and
affectionate to her: you're younger than she. When he comes, he'll find
you already know his sister and father and are liked by them. Am I
right or not? Won't that be best?"
"Yes, it will," Natasha answered reluctantly.

CHAPTER VII
Next day, by Marya Dmitrievna's advice, Count Rostov took Natasha
to call on Prince Nicholas Bolkonski. The count did not set out
cheerfully on this visit, at heart he felt afraid. He well remembered the
last interview he had had with the old prince at the time of the
enrollment, when in reply to an invitation to dinner he had had to listen
to an angry reprimand for not having provided his full quota of men.
Natasha, on the other hand, having put on her best gown, was in the
highest spirits. "They can't help liking me," she thought. "Everybody
always has liked me, and I am so willing to do anything they wish, so
ready to be fond of him—for being his father—and of her—for being
his sister—that there is no reason for them not to like me..."
They drove up to the gloomy old house on the Vozdvizhenka and
entered the vestibule.
"Well, the Lord have mercy on us!" said the count, half in jest, half
in earnest; but Natasha noticed that her father was flurried on entering
the anteroom and inquired timidly and softly whether the prince and
princess were at home.
When they had been announced a perturbation was noticeable among
the servants. The footman who had gone to announce them was stopped
by another in the large hall and they whispered to one another. Then a
maidservant ran into the hall and hurriedly said something, mentioning
the princess. At last an old, cross looking footman came and announced
to the Rostovs that the prince was not receiving, but that the princess
begged them to walk up. The first person who came to meet the visitors
was Mademoiselle Bourienne. She greeted the father and daughter with
special politeness and showed them to the princess' room. The princess,
looking excited and nervous, her face flushed in patches, ran in to meet
the visitors, treading heavily, and vainly trying to appear cordial and at
ease. From the first glance Princess Mary did not like Natasha. She
thought her too fashionably dressed, frivolously gay and vain. She did
not at all realize that before having seen her future sister-in-law she was
prejudiced against her by involuntary envy of her beauty, youth, and
happiness, as well as by jealousy of her brother's love for her. Apart
from this insuperable antipathy to her, Princess Mary was agitated just
then because on the Rostovs' being announced, the old prince had
shouted that he did not wish to see them, that Princess Mary might do
so if she chose, but they were not to be admitted to him. She had
decided to receive them, but feared lest the prince might at any moment
indulge in some freak, as he seemed much upset by the Rostovs' visit.
"There, my dear princess, I've brought you my songstress," said the
count, bowing and looking round uneasily as if afraid the old prince
might appear. "I am so glad you should get to know one another... very
sorry the prince is still ailing," and after a few more commonplace
remarks he rose. "If you'll allow me to leave my Natasha in your hands
for a quarter of an hour, Princess, I'll drive round to see Anna
Semenovna, it's quite near in the Dogs' Square, and then I'll come back
for her."
The count had devised this diplomatic ruse (as he afterwards told his
daughter) to give the future sisters-in-law an opportunity to talk to one
another freely, but another motive was to avoid the danger of
encountering the old prince, of whom he was afraid. He did not
mention this to his daughter, but Natasha noticed her father's
nervousness and anxiety and felt mortified by it. She blushed for him,
grew still angrier at having blushed, and looked at the princess with a
bold and defiant expression which said that she was not afraid of
anybody. The princess told the count that she would be delighted, and
only begged him to stay longer at Anna Semenovna's, and he departed.
Despite the uneasy glances thrown at her by Princess Mary—who
wished to have a tete-a-tete with Natasha—Mademoiselle Bourienne
remained in the room and persistently talked about Moscow
amusements and theaters. Natasha felt offended by the hesitation she
had noticed in the anteroom, by her father's nervousness, and by the
unnatural manner of the princess who—she thought—was making a
favor of receiving her, and so everything displeased her. She did not
like Princess Mary, whom she thought very plain, affected, and dry.
Natasha suddenly shrank into herself and involuntarily assumed an
offhand air which alienated Princess Mary still more. After five
minutes of irksome, constrained conversation, they heard the sound of
slippered feet rapidly approaching. Princess Mary looked frightened.
The door opened and the old prince, in a dressing gown and a white
nightcap, came in.
"Ah, madam!" he began. "Madam, Countess... Countess Rostova, if I
am not mistaken... I beg you to excuse me, to excuse me... I did not
know, madam. God is my witness, I did not know you had honored us
with a visit, and I came in such a costume only to see my daughter. I
beg you to excuse me... God is my witness, I didn't know-" he repeated,
stressing the word "God" so unnaturally and so unpleasantly that
Princess Mary stood with downcast eyes not daring to look either at her
father or at Natasha.
Nor did the latter, having risen and curtsied, know what to do.
Mademoiselle Bourienne alone smiled agreeably.
"I beg you to excuse me, excuse me! God is my witness, I did not
know," muttered the old man, and after looking Natasha over from
head to foot he went out.
Mademoiselle Bourienne was the first to recover herself after this
apparition and began speaking about the prince's indisposition. Natasha
and Princess Mary looked at one another in silence, and the longer they
did so without saying what they wanted to say, the greater grew their
antipathy to one another.
When the count returned, Natasha was impolitely pleased and
hastened to get away: at that moment she hated the stiff, elderly
princess, who could place her in such an embarrassing position and had
spent half an hour with her without once mentioning Prince Andrew. "I
couldn't begin talking about him in the presence of that Frenchwoman,"
thought Natasha. The same thought was meanwhile tormenting
Princess Mary. She knew what she ought to have said to Natasha, but
she had been unable to say it because Mademoiselle Bourienne was in
the way, and because, without knowing why, she felt it very difficult to
speak of the marriage. When the count was already leaving the room,
Princess Mary went up hurriedly to Natasha, took her by the hand, and
said with a deep sigh:
"Wait, I must..."
Natasha glanced at her ironically without knowing why.
"Dear Natalie," said Princess Mary, "I want you to know that I am
glad my brother has found happiness...."
She paused, feeling that she was not telling the truth. Natasha noticed
this and guessed its reason.
 "I think, Princess, it is not convenient to speak of that now," she said
with external dignity and coldness, though she felt the tears choking
her.
"What have I said and what have I done?" thought she, as soon as
she was out of the room.
They waited a long time for Natasha to come to dinner that day. She
sat in her room crying like a child, blowing her nose and sobbing.
Sonya stood beside her, kissing her hair.
"Natasha, what is it about?" she asked. "What do they matter to you?
It will all pass, Natasha."
"But if you only knew how offensive it was... as if I..."
"Don't talk about it, Natasha. It wasn't your fault so why should you
mind? Kiss me," said Sonya.
Natasha raised her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed
her wet face against her.
"I can't tell you, I don't know. No one's to blame," said Natasha—
"It's my fault. But it all hurts terribly. Oh, why doesn't he come?..."
She came in to dinner with red eyes. Marya Dmitrievna, who knew
how the prince had received the Rostovs, pretended not to notice how
upset Natasha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the
count and the other guests.

CHAPTER VIII
That evening the Rostovs went to the Opera, for which Marya
Dmitrievna had taken a box.
Natasha did not want to go, but could not refuse Marya Dmitrievna's
kind offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready
dressed into the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large
mirror there saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more
sad, but it was a sweet, tender sadness.
"O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did then, but
differently. I would not be silly and afraid of things, I would simply
embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those
searching inquiring eyes with which he has so often looked at me, and
then I would make him laugh as he used to laugh. And his eyes—how I
see those eyes!" thought Natasha. "And what do his father and sister
matter to me? I love him alone, him, him, with that face and those eyes,
with his smile, manly and yet childlike.... No, I had better not think of
him; not think of him but forget him, quite forget him for the present. I
can't bear this waiting and I shall cry in a minute!" and she turned away
from the glass, making an effort not to cry. "And how can Sonya love
Nicholas so calmly and quietly and wait so long and so patiently?"
thought she, looking at Sonya, who also came in quite ready, with a fan
in her hand. "No, she's altogether different. I can't!"
Natasha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it was not
enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at
once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words
of love such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her
father, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on
the frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot
where she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of
carriages, the Rostovs' carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels
squeaking over the snow. Natasha and Sonya, holding up their dresses,
jumped out quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and,
passing among men and women who were entering and the program
sellers, they all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes.
Through the closed doors the music was already audible.
"Natasha, your hair!..." whispered Sonya.
An attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the ladies and
opened the door of their box. The music sounded louder and through
the door rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies sat with bare arms
and shoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with uniforms, glittered before
their eyes. A lady entering the next box shot a glance of feminine envy
at Natasha. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was being
played. Natasha, smoothing her gown, went in with Sonya and sat
down, scanning the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she
had not experienced for a long time—that of hundreds of eyes looking
at her bare arms and neck—suddenly affected her both agreeably and
disagreeably and called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and
emotions associated with that feeling.
The two remarkably pretty girls, Natasha and Sonya, with Count
Rostov who had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted
general attention. Moreover, everybody knew vaguely of Natasha's
engagement to Prince Andrew, and knew that the Rostovs had lived in
the country ever since, and all looked with curiosity at a fiancee who
was making one of the best matches in Russia.
Natasha's looks, as everyone told her, had improved in the country,
and that evening thanks to her agitation she was particularly pretty. She
struck those who saw her by her fullness of life and beauty, combined
with her indifference to everything about her. Her black eyes looked at
the crowd without seeking anyone, and her delicate arm, bare to above
the elbow, lay on the velvet edge of the box, while, evidently
unconsciously, she opened and closed her hand in time to the music,
crumpling her program. "Look, there's Alenina," said Sonya, "with her
mother, isn't it?"
"Dear me, Michael Kirilovich has grown still stouter!" remarked the
count.
"Look at our Anna Mikhaylovna—what a headdress she has on!"
"The Karagins, Julie—and Boris with them. One can see at once that
they're engaged...."
"Drubetskoy has proposed?"
"Oh yes, I heard it today," said Shinshin, coming into the Rostovs'
box.
Natasha looked in the direction in which her father's eyes were
turned and saw Julie sitting beside her mother with a happy look on her
face and a string of pearls round her thick red neck—which Natasha
knew was covered with powder. Behind them, wearing a smile and
leaning over with an ear to Julie's mouth, was Boris' handsome
smoothly brushed head. He looked at the Rostovs from under his brows
and said something, smiling, to his betrothed.
"They are talking about us, about me and him!" thought Natasha.
"And he no doubt is calming her jealousy of me. They needn't trouble
themselves! If only they knew how little I am concerned about any of
them."
Behind them sat Anna Mikhaylovna wearing a green headdress and
with a happy look of resignation to the will of God on her face. Their
box was pervaded by that atmosphere of an affianced couple which
Natasha knew so well and liked so much. She turned away and
suddenly remembered all that had been so humiliating in her morning's
visit.
"What right has he not to wish to receive me into his family? Oh,
better not think of it—not till he comes back!" she told herself, and
began looking at the faces, some strange and some familiar, in the
stalls. In the front, in the very center, leaning back against the orchestra
rail, stood Dolokhov in a Persian dress, his curly hair brushed up into a
huge shock. He stood in full view of the audience, well aware that he
was attracting everyone's attention, yet as much at ease as though he
were in his own room. Around him thronged Moscow's most brilliant
young men, whom he evidently dominated.
 The count, laughing, nudged the blushing Sonya and pointed to her
former adorer.
"Do you recognize him?" said he. "And where has he sprung from?"
he asked, turning to Shinshin. "Didn't he vanish somewhere?"
"He did," replied Shinshin. "He was in the Caucasus and ran away
from there. They say he has been acting as minister to some ruling
prince in Persia, where he killed the Shah's brother. Now all the
Moscow ladies are mad about him! It's 'Dolokhov the Persian' that does
it! We never hear a word but Dolokhov is mentioned. They swear by
him, they offer him to you as they would a dish of choice sterlet.
Dolokhov and Anatole Kuragin have turned all our ladies' heads."
A tall, beautiful woman with a mass of plaited hair and much
exposed plump white shoulders and neck, round which she wore a
double string of large pearls, entered the adjoining box rustling her
heavy silk dress and took a long time settling into her place.
Natasha involuntarily gazed at that neck, those shoulders, and pearls
and coiffure, and admired the beauty of the shoulders and the pearls.
While Natasha was fixing her gaze on her for the second time the lady
looked round and, meeting the count's eyes, nodded to him and smiled.
She was the Countess Bezukhova, Pierre's wife, and the count, who
knew everyone in society, leaned over and spoke to her.
"Have you been here long, Countess?" he inquired. "I'll call, I'll call
to kiss your hand. I'm here on business and have brought my girls with
me. They say Semenova acts marvelously. Count Pierre never used to
forget us. Is he here?"
"Yes, he meant to look in," answered Helene, and glanced attentively
at Natasha.
Count Rostov resumed his seat.
"Handsome, isn't she?" he whispered to Natasha.
"Wonderful!" answered Natasha. "She's a woman one could easily
fall in love with."
Just then the last chords of the overture were heard and the conductor
tapped with his stick. Some latecomers took their seats in the stalls, and
the curtain rose.
As soon as it rose everyone in the boxes and stalls became silent, and
all the men, old and young, in uniform and evening dress, and all the
women with gems on their bare flesh, turned their whole attention with
eager curiosity to the stage. Natasha too began to look at it.
 CHAPTER IX
The floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was
some painted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth
stretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red
bodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat apart
on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard was
glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song the
girl in white went up to the prompter's box and a man with tight silk
trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger, went up
to her and began singing, waving his arms about.
First the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then
they both paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the
hand of the girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing
with her. They sang together and everyone in the theater began
clapping and shouting, while the man and woman on the stage—who
represented lovers—began smiling, spreading out their arms, and
bowing.
After her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this
seemed grotesque and amazing to Natasha. She could not follow the
opera nor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard
and the queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang
so strangely in that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to
represent, but it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first
felt ashamed for the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the
faces of the audience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and
perplexity she herself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to
what was happening on the stage, and expressed delight which to
Natasha seemed feigned. "I suppose it has to be like this!" she thought.
She kept looking round in turn at the rows of pomaded heads in the
stalls and then at the seminude women in the boxes, especially at
Helene in the next box, who—apparently quite unclothed—sat with a
quiet tranquil smile, not taking her eyes off the stage. And feeling the
bright light that flooded the whole place and the warm air heated by the
crowd, Natasha little by little began to pass into a state of intoxication
she had not experienced for a long while. She did not realize who and
where she was, nor what was going on before her. As she looked and
thought, the strangest fancies unexpectedly and disconnectedly passed
through her mind: the idea occurred to her of jumping onto the edge of
the box and singing the air the actress was singing, then she wished to
touch with her fan an old gentleman sitting not far from her, then to
lean over to Helene and tickle her.
At a moment when all was quiet before the commencement of a
song, a door leading to the stalls on the side nearest the Rostovs' box
creaked, and the steps of a belated arrival were heard. "There's
Kuragin!" whispered Shinshin. Countess Bezukhova turned smiling to
the newcomer, and Natasha, following the direction of that look, saw
an exceptionally handsome adjutant approaching their box with a self-
assured yet courteous bearing. This was Anatole Kuragin whom she
had seen and noticed long ago at the ball in Petersburg. He was now in
an adjutant's uniform with one epaulet and a shoulder knot. He moved
with a restrained swagger which would have been ridiculous had he not
been so good-looking and had his handsome face not worn such an
expression of good-humored complacency and gaiety. Though the
performance was proceeding, he walked deliberately down the carpeted
gangway, his sword and spurs slightly jingling and his handsome
perfumed head held high. Having looked at Natasha he approached his
sister, laid his well gloved hand on the edge of her box, nodded to her,
and leaning forward asked a question, with a motion toward Natasha.
"Mais charmante!" said he, evidently referring to Natasha, who did
not exactly hear his words but understood them from the movement of
his lips. Then he took his place in the first row of the stalls and sat
down beside Dolokhov, nudging with his elbow in a friendly and
offhand way that Dolokhov whom others treated so fawningly. He
winked at him gaily, smiled, and rested his foot against the orchestra
screen.
"How like the brother is to the sister," remarked the count. "And how
handsome they both are!"
Shinshin, lowering his voice, began to tell the count of some intrigue
of Kuragin's in Moscow, and Natasha tried to overhear it just because
he had said she was "charmante."
The first act was over. In the stalls everyone began moving about,
going out and coming in.
Boris came to the Rostovs' box, received their congratulations very
simply, and raising his eyebrows with an absent-minded smile
conveyed to Natasha and Sonya his fiancee's invitation to her wedding,
and went away. Natasha with a gay, coquettish smile talked to him, and
congratulated on his approaching wedding that same Boris with whom
she had formerly been in love. In the state of intoxication she was in,
everything seemed simple and natural.
The scantily clad Helene smiled at everyone in the same way, and
Natasha gave Boris a similar smile.
 Helene's box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most
distinguished and intellectual men, who seemed to vie with one another
in their wish to let everyone see that they knew her.
During the whole of that entr'acte Kuragin stood with Dolokhov in
front of the orchestra partition, looking at the Rostovs' box. Natasha
knew he was talking about her and this afforded her pleasure. She even
turned so that he should see her profile in what she thought was its
most becoming aspect. Before the beginning of the second act Pierre
appeared in the stalls. The Rostovs had not seen him since their arrival.
His face looked sad, and he had grown still stouter since Natasha last
saw him. He passed up to the front rows, not noticing anyone. Anatole
went up to him and began speaking to him, looking at and indicating
the Rostovs' box. On seeing Natasha Pierre grew animated and, hastily
passing between the rows, came toward their box. When he got there he
leaned on his elbows and, smiling, talked to her for a long time. While
conversing with Pierre, Natasha heard a man's voice in Countess
Bezukhova's box and something told her it was Kuragin. She turned
and their eyes met. Almost smiling, he gazed straight into her eyes with
such an enraptured caressing look that it seemed strange to be so near
him, to look at him like that, to be so sure he admired her, and not to be
acquainted with him.
In the second act there was scenery representing tombstones, there
was a round hole in the canvas to represent the moon, shades were
raised over the footlights, and from horns and contrabass came deep
notes while many people appeared from right and left wearing black
cloaks and holding things like daggers in their hands. They began
waving their arms. Then some other people ran in and began dragging
away the maiden who had been in white and was now in light blue.
They did not drag her away at once, but sang with her for a long time
and then at last dragged her off, and behind the scenes something
metallic was struck three times and everyone knelt down and sang a
prayer. All these things were repeatedly interrupted by the enthusiastic
shouts of the audience.
During this act every time Natasha looked toward the stalls she saw
Anatole Kuragin with an arm thrown across the back of his chair,
staring at her. She was pleased to see that he was captivated by her and
it did not occur to her that there was anything wrong in it.
When the second act was over Countess Bezukhova rose, turned to
the Rostovs' box—her whole bosom completely exposed—beckoned
the old count with a gloved finger, and paying no attention to those
who had entered her box began talking to him with an amiable smile.
"Do make me acquainted with your charming daughters," said she.
"The whole town is singing their praises and I don't even know then!"
 Natasha rose and curtsied to the splendid countess. She was so
pleased by praise from this brilliant beauty that she blushed with
pleasure.
"I want to become a Moscovite too, now," said Helene. "How is it
you're not ashamed to bury such pearls in the country?"
Countess Bezukhova quite deserved her reputation of being a
fascinating woman. She could say what she did not think—especially
what was flattering—quite simply and naturally.
"Dear count, you must let me look after your daughters! Though I
am not staying here long this time—nor are you—I will try to amuse
them. I have already heard much of you in Petersburg and wanted to
get to know you," said she to Natasha with her stereotyped and lovely
smile. "I had heard about you from my page, Drubetskoy. Have you
heard he is getting married? And also from my husband's friend
Bolkonski, Prince Andrew Bolkonski," she went on with special
emphasis, implying that she knew of his relation to Natasha. To get
better acquainted she asked that one of the young ladies should come
into her box for the rest of the performance, and Natasha moved over to
it.
The scene of the third act represented a palace in which many
candles were burning and pictures of knights with short beards hung on
the walls. In the middle stood what were probably a king and a queen.
The king waved his right arm and, evidently nervous, sang something
badly and sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had been
first in white and then in light blue, now wore only a smock, and stood
beside the throne with her hair down. She sang something mournfully,
addressing the queen, but the king waved his arm severely, and men
and women with bare legs came in from both sides and began dancing
all together. Then the violins played very shrilly and merrily and one of
the women with thick bare legs and thin arms, separating from the
others, went behind the wings, adjusted her bodice, returned to the
middle of the stage, and began jumping and striking one foot rapidly
against the other. In the stalls everyone clapped and shouted "bravo!"
Then one of the men went into a corner of the stage. The cymbals and
horns in the orchestra struck up more loudly, and this man with bare
legs jumped very high and waved his feet about very rapidly. (He was
Duport, who received sixty thousand rubles a year for this art.)
Everybody in the stalls, boxes, and galleries began clapping and
shouting with all their might, and the man stopped and began smiling
and bowing to all sides. Then other men and women danced with bare
legs. Then the king again shouted to the sound of music, and they all
began singing. But suddenly a storm came on, chromatic scales and
diminished sevenths were heard in the orchestra, everyone ran off,
again dragging one of their number away, and the curtain dropped.
Once more there was a terrible noise and clatter among the audience,
and with rapturous faces everyone began shouting: "Duport! Duport!
Duport!" Natasha no longer thought this strange. She looked about with
pleasure, smiling joyfully.
"Isn't Duport delightful?" Helene asked her.
"Oh, yes," replied Natasha.

CHAPTER X
During the entr'acte a whiff of cold air came into Helene's box, the
door opened, and Anatole entered, stooping and trying not to brush
against anyone.
"Let me introduce my brother to you," said Helene, her eyes shifting
uneasily from Natasha to Anatole.
Natasha turned her pretty little head toward the elegant young officer
and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was as
handsome at close quarters as at a distance, sat down beside her and
told her he had long wished to have this happiness—ever since the
Naryshkins' ball in fact, at which he had had the well-remembered
pleasure of seeing her. Kuragin was much more sensible and simple
with women than among men. He talked boldly and naturally, and
Natasha was strangely and agreeably struck by the fact that there was
nothing formidable in this man about whom there was so much talk,
but that on the contrary his smile was most naive, cheerful, and good-
natured.
Kuragin asked her opinion of the performance and told her how at a
previous performance Semenova had fallen down on the stage.
"And do you know, Countess," he said, suddenly addressing her as
an old, familiar acquaintance, "we are getting up a costume tournament;
you ought to take part in it! It will be great fun. We shall all meet at the
Karagins'! Please come! No! Really, eh?" said he.
While saying this he never removed his smiling eyes from her face,
her neck, and her bare arms. Natasha knew for certain that he was
enraptured by her. This pleased her, yet his presence made her feel
constrained and oppressed. When she was not looking at him she felt
that he was looking at her shoulders, and she involuntarily caught his
eye so that he should look into hers rather than this. But looking into
his eyes she was frightened, realizing that there was not that barrier of
modesty she had always felt between herself and other men. She did
not know how it was that within five minutes she had come to feel
herself terribly near to this man. When she turned away she feared he
might seize her from behind by her bare arm and kiss her on the neck.
They spoke of most ordinary things, yet she felt that they were closer to
one another than she had ever been to any man. Natasha kept turning to
Helene and to her father, as if asking what it all meant, but Helene was
engaged in conversation with a general and did not answer her look,
and her father's eyes said nothing but what they always said: "Having a
good time? Well, I'm glad of it!"
During one of these moments of awkward silence when Anatole's
prominent eyes were gazing calmly and fixedly at her, Natasha, to
break the silence, asked him how he liked Moscow. She asked the
question and blushed. She felt all the time that by talking to him she
was doing something improper. Anatole smiled as though to encourage
her.
"At first I did not like it much, because what makes a town pleasant
ce sont les jolies femmes, * isn't that so? But now I like it very much
indeed," he said, looking at her significantly. "You'll come to the
costume tournament, Countess? Do come!" and putting out his hand to
her bouquet and dropping his voice, he added, "You will be the prettiest
there. Do come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a pledge!"

* Are the pretty women.

Natasha did not understand what he was saying any more than he did
himself, but she felt that his incomprehensible words had an improper
intention. She did not know what to say and turned away as if she had
not heard his remark. But as soon as she had turned away she felt that
he was there, behind, so close behind her.
"How is he now? Confused? Angry? Ought I to put it right?" she
asked herself, and she could not refrain from turning round. She looked
straight into his eyes, and his nearness, self-assurance, and the good-
natured tenderness of his smile vanquished her. She smiled just as he
was doing, gazing straight into his eyes. And again she felt with horror
that no barrier lay between him and her.
The curtain rose again. Anatole left the box, serene and gay. Natasha
went back to her father in the other box, now quite submissive to the
world she found herself in. All that was going on before her now
seemed quite natural, but on the other hand all her previous thoughts of
her betrothed, of Princess Mary, or of life in the country did not once
recur to her mind and were as if belonging to a remote past.
 In the fourth act there was some sort of devil who sang waving his
arm about, till the boards were withdrawn from under him and he
disappeared down below. That was the only part of the fourth act that
Natasha saw. She felt agitated and tormented, and the cause of this was
Kuragin whom she could not help watching. As they were leaving the
theater Anatole came up to them, called their carriage, and helped them
in. As he was putting Natasha in he pressed her arm above the elbow.
Agitated and flushed she turned round. He was looking at her with
glittering eyes, smiling tenderly.
Only after she had reached home was Natasha able clearly to think
over what had happened to her, and suddenly remembering Prince
Andrew she was horrified, and at tea to which all had sat down after the
opera, she gave a loud exclamation, flushed, and ran out of the room.
"O God! I am lost!" she said to herself. "How could I let him?" She
sat for a long time hiding her flushed face in her hands trying to realize
what had happened to her, but was unable either to understand what
had happened or what she felt. Everything seemed dark, obscure, and
terrible. There in that enormous, illuminated theater where the bare-
legged Duport, in a tinsel-decorated jacket, jumped about to the music
on wet boards, and young girls and old men, and the nearly naked
Helene with her proud, calm smile, rapturously cried "bravo!"—there
in the presence of that Helene it had all seemed clear and simple; but
now, alone by herself, it was incomprehensible. "What is it? What was
that terror I felt of him? What is this gnawing of conscience I am
feeling now?" she thought.
Only to the old countess at night in bed could Natasha have told all
she was feeling. She knew that Sonya with her severe and simple views
would either not understand it at all or would be horrified at such a
confession. So Natasha tried to solve what was torturing her by herself.
"Am I spoiled for Andrew's love or not?" she asked herself, and with
soothing irony replied: "What a fool I am to ask that! What did happen
to me? Nothing! I have done nothing, I didn't lead him on at all.
Nobody will know and I shall never see him again," she told herself.
"So it is plain that nothing has happened and there is nothing to repent
of, and Andrew can love me still. But why 'still?' O God, why isn't he
here?" Natasha quieted herself for a moment, but again some instinct
told her that though all this was true, and though nothing had happened,
yet the former purity of her love for Prince Andrew had perished. And
again in imagination she went over her whole conversation with
Kuragin, and again saw the face, gestures, and tender smile of that bold
handsome man when he pressed her arm.
 CHAPTER XI
Anatole Kuragin was staying in Moscow because his father had sent
him away from Petersburg, where he had been spending twenty
thousand rubles a year in cash, besides running up debts for as much
more, which his creditors demanded from his father.
His father announced to him that he would now pay half his debts for
the last time, but only on condition that he went to Moscow as adjutant
to the commander in chief—a post his father had procured for him—
and would at last try to make a good match there. He indicated to him
Princess Mary and Julie Karagina.
Anatole consented and went to Moscow, where he put up at Pierre's
house. Pierre received him unwillingly at first, but got used to him after
a while, sometimes even accompanied him on his carousals, and gave
him money under the guise of loans.
As Shinshin had remarked, from the time of his arrival Anatole had
turned the heads of the Moscow ladies, especially by the fact that he
slighted them and plainly preferred the gypsy girls and French
actresses—with the chief of whom, Mademoiselle George, he was said
to be on intimate relations. He had never missed a carousal at Danilov's
or other Moscow revelers', drank whole nights through, outvying
everyone else, and was at all the balls and parties of the best society.
There was talk of his intrigues with some of the ladies, and he flirted
with a few of them at the balls. But he did not run after the unmarried
girls, especially the rich heiresses who were most of them plain. There
was a special reason for this, as he had got married two years before—a
fact known only to his most intimate friends. At that time while with
his regiment in Poland, a Polish landowner of small means had forced
him to marry his daughter. Anatole had very soon abandoned his wife
and, for a payment which he agreed to send to his father-in-law, had
arranged to be free to pass himself off as a bachelor.
Anatole was always content with his position, with himself, and with
others. He was instinctively and thoroughly convinced that it was
impossible for him to live otherwise than as he did and that he had
never in his life done anything base. He was incapable of considering
how his actions might affect others or what the consequences of this or
that action of his might be. He was convinced that, as a duck is so made
that it must live in water, so God had made him such that he must
spend thirty thousand rubles a year and always occupy a prominent
position in society. He believed this so firmly that others, looking at
him, were persuaded of it too and did not refuse him either a leading
place in society or money, which he borrowed from anyone and
everyone and evidently would not repay.
He was not a gambler, at any rate he did not care about winning. He
was not vain. He did not mind what people thought of him. Still less
could he be accused of ambition. More than once he had vexed his
father by spoiling his own career, and he laughed at distinctions of all
kinds. He was not mean, and did not refuse anyone who asked of him.
All he cared about was gaiety and women, and as according to his ideas
there was nothing dishonorable in these tastes, and he was incapable of
considering what the gratification of his tastes entailed for others, he
honestly considered himself irreproachable, sincerely despised rogues
and bad people, and with a tranquil conscience carried his head high.
Rakes, those male Magdalenes, have a secret feeling of innocence
similar to that which female Magdalenes have, based on the same hope
of forgiveness. "All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; and all
will be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much."
Dolokhov, who had reappeared that year in Moscow after his exile
and his Persian adventures, and was leading a life of luxury, gambling,
and dissipation, associated with his old Petersburg comrade Kuragin
and made use of him for his own ends.
Anatole was sincerely fond of Dolokhov for his cleverness and
audacity. Dolokhov, who needed Anatole Kuragin's name, position, and
connections as a bait to draw rich young men into his gambling set,
made use of him and amused himself at his expense without letting the
other feel it. Apart from the advantage he derived from Anatole, the
very process of dominating another's will was in itself a pleasure, a
habit, and a necessity to Dolokhov.
Natasha had made a strong impression on Kuragin. At supper after
the opera he described to Dolokhov with the air of a connoisseur the
attractions of her arms, shoulders, feet, and hair and expressed his
intention of making love to her. Anatole had no notion and was
incapable of considering what might come of such love-making, as he
never had any notion of the outcome of any of his actions.
"She's first-rate, my dear fellow, but not for us," replied Dolokhov.
"I will tell my sister to ask her to dinner," said Anatole. "Eh?"
"You'd better wait till she's married...."
"You know, I adore little girls, they lose their heads at once,"
pursued Anatole.
 "You have been caught once already by a 'little girl,'" said Dolokhov
who knew of Kuragin's marriage. "Take care!"
"Well, that can't happen twice! Eh?" said Anatole, with a good-
humored laugh.

CHAPTER XII
The day after the opera the Rostovs went nowhere and nobody came
to see them. Marya Dmitrievna talked to the count about something
which they concealed from Natasha. Natasha guessed they were talking
about the old prince and planning something, and this disquieted and
offended her. She was expecting Prince Andrew any moment and twice
that day sent a manservant to the Vozdvizhenka to ascertain whether he
had come. He had not arrived. She suffered more now than during her
first days in Moscow. To her impatience and pining for him were now
added the unpleasant recollection of her interview with Princess Mary
and the old prince, and a fear and anxiety of which she did not
understand the cause. She continually fancied that either he would
never come or that something would happen to her before he came. She
could no longer think of him by herself calmly and continuously as she
had done before. As soon as she began to think of him, the recollection
of the old prince, of Princess Mary, of the theater, and of Kuragin
mingled with her thoughts. The question again presented itself whether
she was not guilty, whether she had not already broken faith with
Prince Andrew, and again she found herself recalling to the minutest
detail every word, every gesture, and every shade in the play of
expression on the face of the man who had been able to arouse in her
such an incomprehensible and terrifying feeling. To the family Natasha
seemed livelier than usual, but she was far less tranquil and happy than
before.
On Sunday morning Marya Dmitrievna invited her visitors to Mass
at her parish church—the Church of the Assumption built over the
graves of victims of the plague.
"I don't like those fashionable churches," she said, evidently priding
herself on her independence of thought. "God is the same every where.
We have an excellent priest, he conducts the service decently and with
dignity, and the deacon is the same. What holiness is there in giving
concerts in the choir? I don't like it, it's just self-indulgence!"
Marya Dmitrievna liked Sundays and knew how to keep them. Her
whole house was scrubbed and cleaned on Saturdays; neither she nor
the servants worked, and they all wore holiday dress and went to
church. At her table there were extra dishes at dinner, and the servants
had vodka and roast goose or suckling pig. But in nothing in the house
was the holiday so noticeable as in Marya Dmitrievna's broad, stern
face, which on that day wore an invariable look of solemn festivity.
After Mass, when they had finished their coffee in the dining room
where the loose covers had been removed from the furniture, a servant
announced that the carriage was ready, and Marya Dmitrievna rose
with a stern air. She wore her holiday shawl, in which she paid calls,
and announced that she was going to see Prince Nicholas Bolkonski to
have an explanation with him about Natasha.
After she had gone, a dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet
waited on the Rostovs, and Natasha, very glad of this diversion, having
shut herself into a room adjoining the drawing room, occupied herself
trying on the new dresses. Just as she had put on a bodice without
sleeves and only tacked together, and was turning her head to see in the
glass how the back fitted, she heard in the drawing room the animated
sounds of her father's voice and another's—a woman's—that made her
flush. It was Helene. Natasha had not time to take off the bodice before
the door opened and Countess Bezukhova, dressed in a purple velvet
gown with a high collar, came into the room beaming with good-
humored amiable smiles.
"Oh, my enchantress!" she cried to the blushing Natasha.
"Charming! No, this is really beyond anything, my dear count," said
she to Count Rostov who had followed her in. "How can you live in
Moscow and go nowhere? No, I won't let you off! Mademoiselle
George will recite at my house tonight and there'll be some people, and
if you don't bring your lovely girls—who are prettier than
Mademoiselle George—I won't know you! My husband is away in
Tver or I would send him to fetch you. You must come. You positively
must! Between eight and nine."
She nodded to the dressmaker, whom she knew and who had curtsied
respectfully to her, and seated herself in an armchair beside the looking
glass, draping the folds of her velvet dress picturesquely. She did not
cease chattering good-naturedly and gaily, continually praising
Natasha's beauty. She looked at Natasha's dresses and praised them, as
well as a new dress of her own made of "metallic gauze," which she
had received from Paris, and advised Natasha to have one like it.
"But anything suits you, my charmer!" she remarked.
A smile of pleasure never left Natasha's face. She felt happy and as if
she were blossoming under the praise of this dear Countess Bezukhova
who had formerly seemed to her so unapproachable and important and
was now so kind to her. Natasha brightened up and felt almost in love
with this woman, who was so beautiful and so kind. Helene for her part
was sincerely delighted with Natasha and wished to give her a good
time. Anatole had asked her to bring him and Natasha together, and she
was calling on the Rostovs for that purpose. The idea of throwing her
brother and Natasha together amused her.
Though at one time, in Petersburg, she had been annoyed with
Natasha for drawing Boris away, she did not think of that now, and in
her own way heartily wished Natasha well. As she was leaving the
Rostovs she called her protegee aside.
"My brother dined with me yesterday—we nearly died of laughter—
he ate nothing and kept sighing for you, my charmer! He is madly,
quite madly, in love with you, my dear."
Natasha blushed scarlet when she heard this.
"How she blushes, how she blushes, my pretty!" said Helene. "You
must certainly come. If you love somebody, my charmer, that is not a
reason to shut yourself up. Even if you are engaged, I am sure your
fiance would wish you to go into society rather than be bored to death."
"So she knows I am engaged, and she and her husband Pierre—that
good Pierre—have talked and laughed about this. So it's all right." And
again, under Helene's influence, what had seemed terrible now seemed
simple and natural. "And she is such a grande dame, so kind, and
evidently likes me so much. And why not enjoy myself?" thought
Natasha, gazing at Helene with wide-open, wondering eyes.
Marya Dmitrievna came back to dinner taciturn and serious, having
evidently suffered a defeat at the old prince's. She was still too agitated
by the encounter to be able to talk of the affair calmly. In answer to the
count's inquiries she replied that things were all right and that she
would tell about it next day. On hearing of Countess Bezukhova's visit
and the invitation for that evening, Marya Dmitrievna remarked:
"I don't care to have anything to do with Bezukhova and don't advise
you to; however, if you've promised—go. It will divert your thoughts,"
she added, addressing Natasha.

CHAPTER XIII
Count Rostov took the girls to Countess Bezukhova's. There were a
good many people there, but nearly all strangers to Natasha. Count
Rostov was displeased to see that the company consisted almost
entirely of men and women known for the freedom of their conduct.
Mademoiselle George was standing in a corner of the drawing room
surrounded by young men. There were several Frenchmen present,
among them Metivier who from the time Helene reached Moscow had
been an intimate in her house. The count decided not to sit down to
cards or let his girls out of his sight and to get away as soon as
Mademoiselle George's performance was over.
Anatole was at the door, evidently on the lookout for the Rostovs.
Immediately after greeting the count he went up to Natasha and
followed her. As soon as she saw him she was seized by the same
feeling she had had at the opera—gratified vanity at his admiration of
her and fear at the absence of a moral barrier between them.
Helene welcomed Natasha delightedly and was loud in admiration of
her beauty and her dress. Soon after their arrival Mademoiselle George
went out of the room to change her costume. In the drawing room
people began arranging the chairs and taking their seats. Anatole
moved a chair for Natasha and was about to sit down beside her, but the
count, who never lost sight of her, took the seat himself. Anatole sat
down behind her.
Mademoiselle George, with her bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red
shawl draped over one shoulder, came into the space left vacant for her,
and assumed an unnatural pose. Enthusiastic whispering was audible.
Mademoiselle George looked sternly and gloomily at the audience
and began reciting some French verses describing her guilty love for
her son. In some places she raised her voice, in others she whispered,
lifting her head triumphantly; sometimes she paused and uttered hoarse
sounds, rolling her eyes.
"Adorable! divine! delicious!" was heard from every side.
Natasha looked at the fat actress, but neither saw nor heard nor
understood anything of what went on before her. She only felt herself
again completely borne away into this strange senseless world—so
remote from her old world—a world in which it was impossible to
know what was good or bad, reasonable or senseless. Behind her sat
Anatole, and conscious of his proximity she experienced a frightened
sense of expectancy.
After the first monologue the whole company rose and surrounded
Mademoiselle George, expressing their enthusiasm.
"How beautiful she is!" Natasha remarked to her father who had also
risen and was moving through the crowd toward the actress.
"I don't think so when I look at you!" said Anatole, following
Natasha. He said this at a moment when she alone could hear him.
"You are enchanting... from the moment I saw you I have never
ceased..."
"Come, come, Natasha!" said the count, as he turned back for his
daughter. "How beautiful she is!" Natasha without saying anything
stepped up to her father and looked at him with surprised inquiring
eyes.
After giving several recitations, Mademoiselle George left, and
Countess Bezukhova asked her visitors into the ballroom.
The count wished to go home, but Helene entreated him not to spoil
her improvised ball, and the Rostovs stayed on. Anatole asked Natasha
for a valse and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand and told
her she was bewitching and that he loved her. During the ecossaise,
which she also danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they
happened to be by themselves, but merely gazed at her. Natasha lifted
her frightened eyes to him, but there was such confident tenderness in
his affectionate look and smile that she could not, whilst looking at
him, say what she had to say. She lowered her eyes.
"Don't say such things to me. I am betrothed and love another," she
said rapidly.... She glanced at him.
Anatole was not upset or pained by what she had said.
"Don't speak to me of that! What can I do?" said he. "I tell you I am
madly, madly, in love with you! Is it my fault that you are
enchanting?... It's our turn to begin."
Natasha, animated and excited, looked about her with wide-open
frightened eyes and seemed merrier than usual. She understood hardly
anything that went on that evening. They danced the ecossaise and the
Grossvater. Her father asked her to come home, but she begged to
remain. Wherever she went and whomever she was speaking to, she felt
his eyes upon her. Later on she recalled how she had asked her father to
let her go to the dressing room to rearrange her dress, that Helene had
followed her and spoken laughingly of her brother's love, and that she
again met Anatole in the little sitting room. Helene had disappeared
leaving them alone, and Anatole had taken her hand and said in a
tender voice:
"I cannot come to visit you but is it possible that I shall never see
you? I love you madly. Can I never...?" and, blocking her path, he
brought his face close to hers.
His large, glittering, masculine eyes were so close to hers that she
saw nothing but them.
 "Natalie?" he whispered inquiringly while she felt her hands being
painfully pressed. "Natalie?"
"I don't understand. I have nothing to say," her eyes replied.
Burning lips were pressed to hers, and at the same instant she felt
herself released, and Helene's footsteps and the rustle of her dress were
heard in the room. Natasha looked round at her, and then, red and
trembling, threw a frightened look of inquiry at Anatole and moved
toward the door.
"One word, just one, for God's sake!" cried Anatole.
She paused. She so wanted a word from him that would explain to
her what had happened and to which she could find no answer.
"Natalie, just a word, only one!" he kept repeating, evidently not
knowing what to say and he repeated it till Helene came up to them.
Helene returned with Natasha to the drawing room. The Rostovs
went away without staying for supper.
After reaching home Natasha did not sleep all night. She was
tormented by the insoluble question whether she loved Anatole or
Prince Andrew. She loved Prince Andrew—she remembered distinctly
how deeply she loved him. But she also loved Anatole, of that there
was no doubt. "Else how could all this have happened?" thought she.
"If, after that, I could return his smile when saying good-by, if I was
able to let it come to that, it means that I loved him from the first. It
means that he is kind, noble, and splendid, and I could not help loving
him. What am I to do if I love him and the other one too?" she asked
herself, unable to find an answer to these terrible questions.

CHAPTER XIV
Morning came with its cares and bustle. Everyone got up and began
to move about and talk, dressmakers came again. Marya Dmitrievna
appeared, and they were called to breakfast. Natasha kept looking
uneasily at everybody with wide-open eyes, as if wishing to intercept
every glance directed toward her, and tried to appear the same as usual.
After breakfast, which was her best time, Marya Dmitrievna sat
down in her armchair and called Natasha and the count to her.
 "Well, friends, I have now thought the whole matter over and this is
my advice," she began. "Yesterday, as you know, I went to see Prince
Bolkonski. Well, I had a talk with him.... He took it into his head to
begin shouting, but I am not one to be shouted down. I said what I had
to say!"
"Well, and he?" asked the count.
"He? He's crazy... he did not want to listen. But what's the use of
talking? As it is we have worn the poor girl out," said Marya
Dmitrievna. "My advice to you is finish your business and go back
home to Otradnoe... and wait there."
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Natasha.
"Yes, go back," said Marya Dmitrievna, "and wait there. If your
betrothed comes here now—there will be no avoiding a quarrel; but
alone with the old man he will talk things over and then come on to
you."
Count Rostov approved of this suggestion, appreciating its
reasonableness. If the old man came round it would be all the better to
visit him in Moscow or at Bald Hills later on; and if not, the wedding,
against his wishes, could only be arranged at Otradnoe.
"That is perfectly true. And I am sorry I went to see him and took
her," said the old count.
"No, why be sorry? Being here, you had to pay your respects. But if
he won't—that's his affair," said Marya Dmitrievna, looking for
something in her reticule. "Besides, the trousseau is ready, so there is
nothing to wait for; and what is not ready I'll send after you. Though I
don't like letting you go, it is the best way. So go, with God's blessing!"
Having found what she was looking for in the reticule she handed it
to Natasha. It was a letter from Princess Mary.
"She has written to you. How she torments herself, poor thing! She's
afraid you might think that she does not like you."
"But she doesn't like me," said Natasha.
"Don't talk nonsense!" cried Marya Dmitrievna.
"I shan't believe anyone, I know she doesn't like me," replied
Natasha boldly as she took the letter, and her face expressed a cold and
angry resolution that caused Marya Dmitrievna to look at her more
intently and to frown.
 "Don't answer like that, my good girl!" she said. "What I say is true!
Write an answer!" Natasha did not reply and went to her own room to
read Princess Mary's letter.
Princess Mary wrote that she was in despair at the misunderstanding
that had occurred between them. Whatever her father's feelings might
be, she begged Natasha to believe that she could not help loving her as
the one chosen by her brother, for whose happiness she was ready to
sacrifice everything.
"Do not think, however," she wrote, "that my father is ill-disposed
toward you. He is an invalid and an old man who must be forgiven; but
he is good and magnanimous and will love her who makes his son
happy." Princess Mary went on to ask Natasha to fix a time when she
could see her again.
After reading the letter Natasha sat down at the writing table to
answer it. "Dear Princess," she wrote in French quickly and
mechanically, and then paused. What more could she write after all that
had happened the evening before? "Yes, yes! All that has happened,
and now all is changed," she thought as she sat with the letter she had
begun before her. "Must I break off with him? Must I really? That's
awful..." and to escape from these dreadful thoughts she went to Sonya
and began sorting patterns with her.
After dinner Natasha went to her room and again took up Princess
Mary's letter. "Can it be that it is all over?" she thought. "Can it be that
all this has happened so quickly and has destroyed all that went
before?" She recalled her love for Prince Andrew in all its former
strength, and at the same time felt that she loved Kuragin. She vividly
pictured herself as Prince Andrew's wife, and the scenes of happiness
with him she had so often repeated in her imagination, and at the same
time, aglow with excitement, recalled every detail of yesterday's
interview with Anatole.
"Why could that not be as well?" she sometimes asked herself in
complete bewilderment. "Only so could I be completely happy; but
now I have to choose, and I can't be happy without either of them.
Only," she thought, "to tell Prince Andrew what has happened or to
hide it from him are both equally impossible. But with that one nothing
is spoiled. But am I really to abandon forever the joy of Prince
Andrew's love, in which I have lived so long?"
"Please, Miss!" whispered a maid entering the room with a
mysterious air. "A man told me to give you this-" and she handed
Natasha a letter.
"Only, for Christ's sake..." the girl went on, as Natasha, without
thinking, mechanically broke the seal and read a love letter from
Anatole, of which, without taking in a word, she understood only that it
was a letter from him—from the man she loved. Yes, she loved him, or
else how could that have happened which had happened? And how
could she have a love letter from him in her hand?
With trembling hands Natasha held that passionate love letter which
Dolokhov had composed for Anatole, and as she read it she found in it
an echo of all that she herself imagined she was feeling.
"Since yesterday evening my fate has been sealed; to be loved by
you or to die. There is no other way for me," the letter began. Then he
went on to say that he knew her parents would not give her to him—for
this there were secret reasons he could reveal only to her—but that if
she loved him she need only say the word yes, and no human power
could hinder their bliss. Love would conquer all. He would steal her
away and carry her off to the ends of the earth.
"Yes, yes! I love him!" thought Natasha, reading the letter for the
twentieth time and finding some peculiarly deep meaning in each word
of it.
That evening Marya Dmitrievna was going to the Akharovs' and
proposed to take the girls with her. Natasha, pleading a headache,
remained at home.

CHAPTER XV
On returning late in the evening Sonya went to Natasha's room, and
to her surprise found her still dressed and asleep on the sofa. Open on
the table, beside her lay Anatole's letter. Sonya picked it up and read it.
As she read she glanced at the sleeping Natasha, trying to find in her
face an explanation of what she was reading, but did not find it. Her
face was calm, gentle, and happy. Clutching her breast to keep herself
from choking, Sonya, pale and trembling with fear and agitation, sat
down in an armchair and burst into tears.
"How was it I noticed nothing? How could it go so far? Can she have
left off loving Prince Andrew? And how could she let Kuragin go to
such lengths? He is a deceiver and a villain, that's plain! What will
Nicholas, dear noble Nicholas, do when he hears of it? So this is the
meaning of her excited, resolute, unnatural look the day before
yesterday, yesterday, and today," thought Sonya. "But it can't be that
she loves him! She probably opened the letter without knowing who it
was from. Probably she is offended by it. She could not do such a
thing!"
Sonya wiped away her tears and went up to Natasha, again scanning
her face.
"Natasha!" she said, just audibly.
Natasha awoke and saw Sonya.
"Ah, you're back?"
And with the decision and tenderness that often come at the moment
of awakening, she embraced her friend, but noticing Sonya's look of
embarrassment, her own face expressed confusion and suspicion.
"Sonya, you've read that letter?" she demanded.
"Yes," answered Sonya softly.
Natasha smiled rapturously.
"No, Sonya, I can't any longer!" she said. "I can't hide it from you
any longer. You know, we love one another! Sonya, darling, he
writes... Sonya..."
Sonya stared open-eyed at Natasha, unable to believe her ears.
"And Bolkonski?" she asked.
"Ah, Sonya, if you only knew how happy I am!" cried Natasha. "You
don't know what love is...."
"But, Natasha, can that be all over?"
Natasha looked at Sonya with wide-open eyes as if she could not
grasp the question.
"Well, then, are you refusing Prince Andrew?" said Sonya.
"Oh, you don't understand anything! Don't talk nonsense, just listen!"
said Natasha, with momentary vexation.
"But I can't believe it," insisted Sonya. "I don't understand. How is it
you have loved a man for a whole year and suddenly... Why, you have
only seen him three times! Natasha, I don't believe you, you're joking!
In three days to forget everything and so..."
"Three days?" said Natasha. "It seems to me I've loved him a
hundred years. It seems to me that I have never loved anyone before.
You can't understand it.... Sonya, wait a bit, sit here," and Natasha
embraced and kissed her.
 "I had heard that it happens like this, and you must have heard it too,
but it's only now that I feel such love. It's not the same as before. As
soon as I saw him I felt he was my master and I his slave, and that I
could not help loving him. Yes, his slave! Whatever he orders I shall
do. You don't understand that. What can I do? What can I do, Sonya?"
cried Natasha with a happy yet frightened expression.
"But think what you are doing," cried Sonya. "I can't leave it like
this. This secret correspondence... How could you let him go so far?"
she went on, with a horror and disgust she could hardly conceal.
"I told you that I have no will," Natasha replied. "Why can't you
understand? I love him!"
"Then I won't let it come to that... I shall tell!" cried Sonya, bursting
into tears.
"What do you mean? For God's sake... If you tell, you are my
enemy!" declared Natasha. "You want me to be miserable, you want us
to be separated...."
When she saw Natasha's fright, Sonya shed tears of shame and pity
for her friend.
"But what has happened between you?" she asked. "What has he said
to you? Why doesn't he come to the house?"
Natasha did not answer her questions.
"For God's sake, Sonya, don't tell anyone, don't torture me," Natasha
entreated. "Remember no one ought to interfere in such matters! I have
confided in you...."
"But why this secrecy? Why doesn't he come to the house?" asked
Sonya. "Why doesn't he openly ask for your hand? You know Prince
Andrew gave you complete freedom—if it is really so; but I don't
believe it! Natasha, have you considered what these secret reasons can
be?"
Natasha looked at Sonya with astonishment. Evidently this question
presented itself to her mind for the first time and she did not know how
to answer it.
"I don't know what the reasons are. But there must be reasons!"
Sonya sighed and shook her head incredulously.
"If there were reasons..." she began.
But Natasha, guessing her doubts, interrupted her in alarm.
 "Sonya, one can't doubt him! One can't, one can't! Don't you
understand?" she cried.
"Does he love you?"
"Does he love me?" Natasha repeated with a smile of pity at her
friend's lack of comprehension. "Why, you have read his letter and you
have seen him."
"But if he is dishonorable?"
"He! dishonorable? If you only knew!" exclaimed Natasha.
"If he is an honorable man he should either declare his intentions or
cease seeing you; and if you won't do this, I will. I will write to him,
and I will tell Papa!" said Sonya resolutely.
"But I can't live without him!" cried Natasha.
"Natasha, I don't understand you. And what are you saying! Think of
your father and of Nicholas."
"I don't want anyone, I don't love anyone but him. How dare you say
he is dishonorable? Don't you know that I love him?" screamed
Natasha. "Go away, Sonya! I don't want to quarrel with you, but go, for
God's sake go! You see how I am suffering!" Natasha cried angrily, in
a voice of despair and repressed irritation. Sonya burst into sobs and
ran from the room.
Natasha went to the table and without a moment's reflection wrote
that answer to Princess Mary which she had been unable to write all the
morning. In this letter she said briefly that all their misunderstandings
were at an end; that availing herself of the magnanimity of Prince
Andrew who when he went abroad had given her her freedom, she
begged Princess Mary to forget everything and forgive her if she had
been to blame toward her, but that she could not be his wife. At that
moment this all seemed quite easy, simple, and clear to Natasha.
On Friday the Rostovs were to return to the country, but on
Wednesday the count went with the prospective purchaser to his estate
near Moscow.
On the day the count left, Sonya and Natasha were invited to a big
dinner party at the Karagins', and Marya Dmitrievna took them there.
At that party Natasha again met Anatole, and Sonya noticed that she
spoke to him, trying not to be overheard, and that all through dinner she
was more agitated than ever. When they got home Natasha was the first
to begin the explanation Sonya expected.
 "There, Sonya, you were talking all sorts of nonsense about him,"
Natasha began in a mild voice such as children use when they wish to
be praised. "We have had an explanation today."
"Well, what happened? What did he say? Natasha, how glad I am
you're not angry with me! Tell me everything—the whole truth. What
did he say?"
Natasha became thoughtful.
"Oh, Sonya, if you knew him as I do! He said... He asked me what I
had promised Bolkonski. He was glad I was free to refuse him."
Sonya sighed sorrowfully.
"But you haven't refused Bolkonski?" said she.
"Perhaps I have. Perhaps all is over between me and Bolkonski. Why
do you think so badly of me?"
"I don't think anything, only I don't understand this..."
"Wait a bit, Sonya, you'll understand everything. You'll see what a
man he is! Now don't think badly of me or of him. I don't think badly of
anyone: I love and pity everybody. But what am I to do?"
Sonya did not succumb to the tender tone Natasha used toward her.
The more emotional and ingratiating the expression of Natasha's face
became, the more serious and stern grew Sonya's.
"Natasha," said she, "you asked me not to speak to you, and I haven't
spoken, but now you yourself have begun. I don't trust him, Natasha.
Why this secrecy?"
"Again, again!" interrupted Natasha.
"Natasha, I am afraid for you!"
"Afraid of what?"
"I am afraid you're going to your ruin," said Sonya resolutely, and
was herself horrified at what she had said.
Anger again showed in Natasha's face.
"And I'll go to my ruin, I will, as soon as possible! It's not your
business! It won't be you, but I, who'll suffer. Leave me alone, leave me
alone! I hate you!"
"Natasha!" moaned Sonya, aghast.
"I hate you, I hate you! You're my enemy forever!" And Natasha ran
out of the room.
 Natasha did not speak to Sonya again and avoided her. With the
same expression of agitated surprise and guilt she went about the
house, taking up now one occupation, now another, and at once
abandoning them.
Hard as it was for Sonya, she watched her friend and did not let her
out of her sight.
The day before the count was to return, Sonya noticed that Natasha
sat by the drawingroom window all the morning as if expecting
something and that she made a sign to an officer who drove past, whom
Sonya took to be Anatole.
Sonya began watching her friend still more attentively and noticed
that at dinner and all that evening Natasha was in a strange and
unnatural state. She answered questions at random, began sentences she
did not finish, and laughed at everything.
After tea Sonya noticed a housemaid at Natasha's door timidly
waiting to let her pass. She let the girl go in, and then listening at the
door learned that another letter had been delivered.
Then suddenly it became clear to Sonya that Natasha had some
dreadful plan for that evening. Sonya knocked at her door. Natasha did
not let her in.
"She will run away with him!" thought Sonya. "She is capable of
anything. There was something particularly pathetic and resolute in her
face today. She cried as she said good-by to Uncle," Sonya
remembered. "Yes, that's it, she means to elope with him, but what am I
to do?" thought she, recalling all the signs that clearly indicated that
Natasha had some terrible intention. "The count is away. What am I to
do? Write to Kuragin demanding an explanation? But what is there to
oblige him to reply? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andrew asked me to in
case of some misfortune?... But perhaps she really has already refused
Bolkonski—she sent a letter to Princess Mary yesterday. And Uncle is
away...." To tell Marya Dmitrievna who had such faith in Natasha
seemed to Sonya terrible. "Well, anyway," thought Sonya as she stood
in the dark passage, "now or never I must prove that I remember the
family's goodness to me and that I love Nicholas. Yes! If I don't sleep
for three nights I'll not leave this passage and will hold her back by
force and will and not let the family be disgraced," thought she.

CHAPTER XVI
 Anatole had lately moved to Dolokhov's. The plan for Natalie
Rostova's abduction had been arranged and the preparations made by
Dolokhov a few days before, and on the day that Sonya, after listening
at Natasha's door, resolved to safeguard her, it was to have been put
into execution. Natasha had promised to come out to Kuragin at the
back porch at ten that evening. Kuragin was to put her into a troyka he
would have ready and to drive her forty miles to the village of
Kamenka, where an unfrocked priest was in readiness to perform a
marriage ceremony over them. At Kamenka a relay of horses was to
wait which would take them to the Warsaw highroad, and from there
they would hasten abroad with post horses.
Anatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles
he had taken from his sister and another ten thousand borrowed with
Dolokhov's help.
Two witnesses for the mock marriage—Khvostikov, a retired petty
official whom Dolokhov made use of in his gambling transactions, and
Makarin, a retired hussar, a kindly, weak fellow who had an unbounded
affection for Kuragin—were sitting at tea in Dolokhov's front room.
In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with
Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dolokhov in a traveling cloak
and high boots, at an open desk on which lay abacus and some bundles
of paper money. Anatole, with uniform unbuttoned, walked to and fro
from the room where the witnesses were sitting, through the study to
the room behind, where his French valet and others were packing the
last of his things. Dolokhov was counting the money and noting
something down.
"Well," he said, "Khvostikov must have two thousand."
"Give it to him, then," said Anatole.
"Makarka" (their name for Makarin) "will go through fire and water
for you for nothing. So here are our accounts all settled," said
Dolokhov, showing him the memorandum. "Is that right?"
"Yes, of course," returned Anatole, evidently not listening to
Dolokhov and looking straight before him with a smile that did not
leave his face.
Dolokhov banged down the lid of his desk and turned to Anatole
with an ironic smile:
"Do you know? You'd really better drop it all. There's still time!"
"Fool," retorted Anatole. "Don't talk nonsense! If you only knew...
it's the devil knows what!"
 "No, really, give it up!" said Dolokhov. "I am speaking seriously. It's
no joke, this plot you've hatched."
"What, teasing again? Go to the devil! Eh?" said Anatole, making a
grimace. "Really it's no time for your stupid jokes," and he left the
room.
Dolokhov smiled contemptuously and condescendingly when
Anatole had gone out.
"You wait a bit," he called after him. "I'm not joking, I'm talking
sense. Come here, come here!"
Anatole returned and looked at Dolokhov, trying to give him his
attention and evidently submitting to him involuntarily.
"Now listen to me. I'm telling you this for the last time. Why should
I joke about it? Did I hinder you? Who arranged everything for you?
Who found the priest and got the passport? Who raised the money? I
did it all."
"Well, thank you for it. Do you think I am not grateful?" And
Anatole sighed and embraced Dolokhov.
"I helped you, but all the same I must tell you the truth; it is a
dangerous business, and if you think about it—a stupid business. Well,
you'll carry her off—all right! Will they let it stop at that? It will come
out that you're already married. Why, they'll have you in the criminal
court...."
"Oh, nonsense, nonsense!" Anatole ejaculated and again made a
grimace. "Didn't I explain to you? What?" And Anatole, with the
partiality dull-witted people have for any conclusion they have reached
by their own reasoning, repeated the argument he had already put to
Dolokhov a hundred times. "Didn't I explain to you that I have come to
this conclusion: if this marriage is invalid," he went on, crooking one
finger, "then I have nothing to answer for; but if it is valid, no matter!
Abroad no one will know anything about it. Isn't that so? And don't talk
to me, don't, don't."
"Seriously, you'd better drop it! You'll only get yourself into a
mess!"
"Go to the devil!" cried Anatole and, clutching his hair, left the
room, but returned at once and dropped into an armchair in front of
Dolokhov with his feet turned under him. "It's the very devil! What?
Feel how it beats!" He took Dolokhov's hand and put it on his heart.
"What a foot, my dear fellow! What a glance! A goddess!" he added in
French. "What?"
 Dolokhov with a cold smile and a gleam in his handsome insolent
eyes looked at him—evidently wishing to get some more amusement
out of him.
"Well and when the money's gone, what then?"
"What then? Eh?" repeated Anatole, sincerely perplexed by a
thought of the future. "What then?... Then, I don't know.... But why talk
nonsense!" He glanced at his watch. "It's time!"
Anatole went into the back room.
"Now then! Nearly ready? You're dawdling!" he shouted to the
servants.
Dolokhov put away the money, called a footman whom he ordered to
bring something for them to eat and drink before the journey, and went
into the room where Khvostikov and Makarin were sitting.
Anatole lay on the sofa in the study leaning on his elbow and smiling
pensively, while his handsome lips muttered tenderly to himself.
"Come and eat something. Have a drink!" Dolokhov shouted to him
from the other room.
"I don't want to," answered Anatole continuing to smile.
"Come! Balaga is here."
Anatole rose and went into the dining room. Balaga was a famous
troyka driver who had known Dolokhov and Anatole some six years
and had given them good service with his troykas. More than once
when Anatole's regiment was stationed at Tver he had taken him from
Tver in the evening, brought him to Moscow by daybreak, and driven
him back again the next night. More than once he had enabled
Dolokhov to escape when pursued. More than once he had driven them
through the town with gypsies and "ladykins" as he called the cocottes.
More than once in their service he had run over pedestrians and upset
vehicles in the streets of Moscow and had always been protected from
the consequences by "my gentlemen" as he called them. He had ruined
more than one horse in their service. More than once they had beaten
him, and more than once they had made him drunk on champagne and
Madeira, which he loved; and he knew more than one thing about each
of them which would long ago have sent an ordinary man to Siberia.
They often called Balaga into their orgies and made him drink and
dance at the gypsies', and more than one thousand rubles of their
money had passed through his hands. In their service he risked his skin
and his life twenty times a year, and in their service had lost more
horses than the money he had from them would buy. But he liked them;
liked that mad driving at twelve miles an hour, liked upsetting a driver
or running down a pedestrian, and flying at full gallop through the
Moscow streets. He liked to hear those wild, tipsy shouts behind him:
"Get on! Get on!" when it was impossible to go any faster. He liked
giving a painful lash on the neck to some peasant who, more dead than
alive, was already hurrying out of his way. "Real gentlemen!" he
considered them.
Anatole and Dolokhov liked Balaga too for his masterly driving and
because he liked the things they liked. With others Balaga bargained,
charging twenty-five rubles for a two hours' drive, and rarely drove
himself, generally letting his young men do so. But with "his
gentlemen" he always drove himself and never demanded anything for
his work. Only a couple of times a year—when he knew from their
valets that they had money in hand—he would turn up of a morning
quite sober and with a deep bow would ask them to help him. The
gentlemen always made him sit down.
"Do help me out, Theodore Ivanych, sir," or "your excellency," he
would say. "I am quite out of horses. Let me have what you can to go to
the fair."
And Anatole and Dolokhov, when they had money, would give him
a thousand or a couple of thousand rubles.
Balaga was a fair-haired, short, and snub-nosed peasant of about
twenty-seven; red-faced, with a particularly red thick neck, glittering
little eyes, and a small beard. He wore a fine, dark-blue, silk-lined cloth
coat over a sheepskin.
On entering the room now he crossed himself, turning toward the
front corner of the room, and went up to Dolokhov, holding out a small,
black hand.
"Theodore Ivanych!" he said, bowing.
"How d'you do, friend? Well, here he is!"
"Good day, your excellency!" he said, again holding out his hand to
Anatole who had just come in.
"I say, Balaga," said Anatole, putting his hands on the man's
shoulders, "do you care for me or not? Eh? Now, do me a service....
What horses have you come with? Eh?"
"As your messenger ordered, your special beasts," replied Balaga.
"Well, listen, Balaga! Drive all three to death but get me there in
three hours. Eh?"
"When they are dead, what shall I drive?" said Balaga with a wink.
 "Mind, I'll smash your face in! Don't make jokes!" cried Anatole,
suddenly rolling his eyes.
"Why joke?" said the driver, laughing. "As if I'd grudge my
gentlemen anything! As fast as ever the horses can gallop, so fast we'll
go!"
"Ah!" said Anatole. "Well, sit down."
"Yes, sit down!" said Dolokhov.
"I'll stand, Theodore Ivanych."
"Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!" said Anatole, and filled a large
glass of Madeira for him.
The driver's eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After refusing it
for manners' sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk
handkerchief he took out of his cap.
"And when are we to start, your excellency?"
"Well..." Anatole looked at his watch. "We'll start at once. Mind,
Balaga! You'll get there in time? Eh?"
"That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn't we be there
in time?" replied Balaga. "Didn't we get you to Tver in seven hours? I
think you remember that, your excellency?"
"Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver," said Anatole,
smilingly at the recollection and turning to Makarin who gazed
rapturously at him with wide-open eyes. "Will you believe it, Makarka,
it took one's breath away, the rate we flew. We came across a train of
loaded sleighs and drove right over two of them. Eh?"
"Those were horses!" Balaga continued the tale. "That time I'd
harnessed two young side horses with the bay in the shafts," he went
on, turning to Dolokhov. "Will you believe it, Theodore Ivanych, those
animals flew forty miles? I couldn't hold them in, my hands grew numb
in the sharp frost so that I threw down the reins—'Catch hold yourself,
your excellency!' says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom of the sleigh
and sprawled there. It wasn't a case of urging them on, there was no
holding them in till we reached the place. The devils took us there in
three hours! Only the near one died of it."

CHAPTER XVII
 Anatole went out of the room and returned a few minutes later
wearing a fur coat girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap jauntily set on
one side and very becoming to his handsome face. Having looked in a
mirror, and standing before Dolokhov in the same pose he had assumed
before it, he lifted a glass of wine.
"Well, good-by, Theodore. Thank you for everything and farewell!"
said Anatole. "Well, comrades and friends..." he considered for a
moment "...of my youth, farewell!" he said, turning to Makarin and the
others.
Though they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wished to
make something touching and solemn out of this address to his
comrades. He spoke slowly in a loud voice and throwing out his chest
slightly swayed one leg.
"All take glasses; you too, Balaga. Well, comrades and friends of my
youth, we've had our fling and lived and reveled. Eh? And now, when
shall we meet again? I am going abroad. We have had a good time—
now farewell, lads! To our health! Hurrah!..." he cried, and emptying
his glass flung it on the floor.
"To your health!" said Balaga who also emptied his glass, and wiped
his mouth with his handkerchief.
Makarin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes.
"Ah, Prince, how sorry I am to part from you!
"Let's go. Let's go!" cried Anatole.
Balaga was about to leave the room.
"No, stop!" said Anatole. "Shut the door; we have first to sit down.
That's the way."
They shut the door and all sat down.
"Now, quick march, lads!" said Anatole, rising.
Joseph, his valet, handed him his sabretache and saber, and they all
went out into the vestibule.
"And where's the fur cloak?" asked Dolokhov. "Hey, Ignatka! Go to
Matrena Matrevna and ask her for the sable cloak. I have heard what
elopements are like," continued Dolokhov with a wink. "Why, she'll
rush out more dead than alive just in the things she is wearing; if you
delay at all there'll be tears and 'Papa' and 'Mamma,' and she's frozen in
a minute and must go back—but you wrap the fur cloak round her first
thing and carry her to the sleigh."
 The valet brought a woman's fox-lined cloak.
"Fool, I told you the sable one! Hey, Matrena, the sable!" he shouted
so that his voice rang far through the rooms.
A handsome, slim, and pale-faced gypsy girl with glittering black
eyes and curly blue-black hair, wearing a red shawl, ran out with a
sable mantle on her arm.
"Here, I don't grudge it—take it!" she said, evidently afraid of her
master and yet regretful of her cloak.
Dolokhov, without answering, took the cloak, threw it over Matrena,
and wrapped her up in it.
"That's the way," said Dolokhov, "and then so!" and he turned the
collar up round her head, leaving only a little of the face uncovered.
"And then so, do you see?" and he pushed Anatole's head forward to
meet the gap left by the collar, through which Matrena's brilliant smile
was seen.
"Well, good-by, Matrena," said Anatole, kissing her. "Ah, my revels
here are over. Remember me to Steshka. There, good-by! Good-by,
Matrena, wish me luck!"
"Well, Prince, may God give you great luck!" said Matrena in her
gypsy accent.
Two troykas were standing before the porch and two young drivers
were holding the horses. Balaga took his seat in the front one and
holding his elbows high arranged the reins deliberately. Anatole and
Dolokhov got in with him. Makarin, Khvostikov, and a valet seated
themselves in the other sleigh.
"Well, are you ready?" asked Balaga.
"Go!" he cried, twisting the reins round his hands, and the troyka
tore down the Nikitski Boulevard.
"Tproo! Get out of the way! Hi!... Tproo!..." The shouting of Balaga
and of the sturdy young fellow seated on the box was all that could be
heard. On the Arbat Square the troyka caught against a carriage;
something cracked, shouts were heard, and the troyka flew along the
Arbat Street.
After taking a turn along the Podnovinski Boulevard, Balaga began
to rein in, and turning back drew up at the crossing of the old
Konyusheny Street.
The young fellow on the box jumped down to hold the horses and
Anatole and Dolokhov went along the pavement. When they reached
the gate Dolokhov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a
maidservant ran out.
"Come into the courtyard or you'll be seen; she'll come out directly,"
said she.
Dolokhov stayed by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the
courtyard, turned the corner, and ran up into the porch.
He was met by Gabriel, Marya Dmitrievna's gigantic footman.
"Come to the mistress, please," said the footman in his deep bass,
intercepting any retreat.
"To what Mistress? Who are you?" asked Anatole in a breathless
whisper.
"Kindly step in, my orders are to bring you in."
"Kuragin! Come back!" shouted Dolokhov. "Betrayed! Back!"
Dolokhov, after Anatole entered, had remained at the wicket gate
and was struggling with the yard porter who was trying to lock it. With
a last desperate effort Dolokhov pushed the porter aside, and when
Anatole ran back seized him by the arm, pulled him through the wicket,
and ran back with him to the troyka.

CHAPTER XVIII
Marya Dmitrievna, having found Sonya weeping in the corridor,
made her confess everything, and intercepting the note to Natasha she
read it and went into Natasha's room with it in her hand.
"You shameless good-for-nothing!" said she. "I won't hear a word."
Pushing back Natasha who looked at her with astonished but tearless
eyes, she locked her in; and having given orders to the yard porter to
admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to let
them out again, and having told the footman to bring them up to her,
she seated herself in the drawing room to await the abductors.
When Gabriel came to inform her that the men who had come had
run away again, she rose frowning, and clasping her hands behind her
paced through the rooms a long time considering what she should do.
Toward midnight she went to Natasha's room fingering the key in her
pocket. Sonya was sitting sobbing in the corridor. "Marya Dmitrievna,
for God's sake let me in to her!" she pleaded, but Marya Dmitrievna
unlocked the door and went in without giving her an answer....
"Disgusting, abominable... In my house... horrid girl, hussy! I'm only
sorry for her father!" thought she, trying to restrain her wrath. "Hard as
it may be, I'll tell them all to hold their tongues and will hide it from the
count." She entered the room with resolute steps. Natasha lying on the
sofa, her head hidden in her hands, and she did not stir. She was in just
the same position in which Marya Dmitrievna had left her.
"A nice girl! Very nice!" said Marya Dmitrievna. "Arranging
meetings with lovers in my house! It's no use pretending: you listen
when I speak to you!" And Marya Dmitrievna touched her arm. "Listen
when I speak! You've disgraced yourself like the lowest of hussies. I'd
treat you differently, but I'm sorry for your father, so I will conceal it."
Natasha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved with
noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Marya Dmitrievna
glanced round at Sonya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natasha.
"It's lucky for him that he escaped me; but I'll find him!" she said in
her rough voice. "Do you hear what I am saying or not?" she added.
She put her large hand under Natasha's face and turned it toward her.
Both Marya Dmitrievna and Sonya were amazed when they saw how
Natasha looked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed,
her cheeks sunken.
"Let me be!... What is it to me?... I shall die!" she muttered,
wrenching herself from Marya Dmitrievna's hands with a vicious effort
and sinking down again into her former position.
"Natalie!" said Marya Dmitrievna. "I wish for your good. Lie still,
stay like that then, I won't touch you. But listen. I won't tell you how
guilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your father comes
back tomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?"
Again Natasha's body shook with sobs.
"Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?"
"I have no betrothed: I have refused him!" cried Natasha.
"That's all the same," continued Marya Dmitrievna. "If they hear of
this, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him... if he challenges
him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?"
"Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who
asked you to?" shouted Natasha, raising herself on the sofa and looking
malignantly at Marya Dmitrievna.
 "But what did you want?" cried Marya Dmitrievna, growing angry
again. "Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming
to the house? Why carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing
girl?... Well, if he had carried you off... do you think they wouldn't
have found him? Your father, or brother, or your betrothed? And he's a
scoundrel, a wretch—that's a fact!"
"He is better than any of you!" exclaimed Natasha getting up. "If you
hadn't interfered... Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it? Sonya,
why?... Go away!"
And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which
people bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned.
Marya Dmitrievna was to speak again but Natasha cried out:
"Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!" and she threw
herself back on the sofa.
Marya Dmitrievna went on admonishing her for some time,
enjoining on her that it must all be kept from her father and assuring
her that nobody would know anything about it if only Natasha herself
would undertake to forget it all and not let anyone see that something
had happened. Natasha did not reply, nor did she sob any longer, but
she grew cold and had a shivering fit. Marya Dmitrievna put a pillow
under her head, covered her with two quilts, and herself brought her
some lime-flower water, but Natasha did not respond to her.
"Well, let her sleep," said Marya Dmitrievna as she went out of the
room supposing Natasha to be asleep.
But Natasha was not asleep; with pale face and fixed wide-open eyes
she looked straight before her. All that night she did not sleep or weep
and did not speak to Sonya who got up and went to her several times.
Next day Count Rostov returned from his estate near Moscow in
time for lunch as he had promised. He was in very good spirits; the
affair with the purchaser was going on satisfactorily, and there was
nothing to keep him any longer in Moscow, away from the countess
whom he missed. Marya Dmitrievna met him and told him that Natasha
had been very unwell the day before and that they had sent for the
doctor, but that she was better now. Natasha had not left her room that
morning. With compressed and parched lips and dry fixed eyes, she sat
at the window, uneasily watching the people who drove past and
hurriedly glancing round at anyone who entered the room. She was
evidently expecting news of him and that he would come or would
write to her.
When the count came to see her she turned anxiously round at the
sound of a man's footstep, and then her face resumed its cold and
malevolent expression. She did not even get up to greet him. "What is
the matter with you, my angel? Are you ill?" asked the count.
After a moment's silence Natasha answered: "Yes, ill."
In reply to the count's anxious inquiries as to why she was so
dejected and whether anything had happened to her betrothed, she
assured him that nothing had happened and asked him not to worry.
Marya Dmitrievna confirmed Natasha's assurances that nothing had
happened. From the pretense of illness, from his daughter's distress,
and by the embarrassed faces of Sonya and Marya Dmitrievna, the
count saw clearly that something had gone wrong during his absence,
but it was so terrible for him to think that anything disgraceful had
happened to his beloved daughter, and he so prized his own cheerful
tranquillity, that he avoided inquiries and tried to assure himself that
nothing particularly had happened; and he was only dissatisfied that her
indisposition delayed their return to the country.

CHAPTER XIX
From the day his wife arrived in Moscow Pierre had been intending
to go away somewhere, so as not to be near her. Soon after the Rostovs
came to Moscow the effect Natasha had on him made him hasten to
carry out his intention. He went to Tver to see Joseph Alexeevich's
widow, who had long since promised to hand over to him some papers
of her deceased husband's.
When he returned to Moscow Pierre was handed a letter from Marya
Dmitrievna asking him to come and see her on a matter of great
importance relating to Andrew Bolkonski and his betrothed. Pierre had
been avoiding Natasha because it seemed to him that his feeling for her
was stronger than a married man's should be for his friend's fiancee.
Yet some fate constantly threw them together.
"What can have happened? And what can they want with me?"
thought he as he dressed to go to Marya Dmitrievna's. "If only Prince
Andrew would hurry up and come and marry her!" thought he on his
way to the house.
On the Tverskoy Boulevard a familiar voice called to him.
"Pierre! Been back long?" someone shouted. Pierre raised his head.
In a sleigh drawn by two gray trotting-horses that were bespattering the
dashboard with snow, Anatole and his constant companion Makarin
dashed past. Anatole was sitting upright in the classic pose of military
dandies, the lower part of his face hidden by his beaver collar and his
head slightly bent. His face was fresh and rosy, his white-plumed hat,
tilted to one side, disclosed his curled and pomaded hair besprinkled
with powdery snow.
"Yes, indeed, that's a true sage," thought Pierre. "He sees nothing
beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing troubles him and so he is
always cheerful, satisfied, and serene. What wouldn't I give to be like
him!" he thought enviously.
In Marya Dmitrievna's anteroom the footman who helped him off
with his fur coat said that the mistress asked him to come to her
bedroom.
When he opened the ballroom door Pierre saw Natasha sitting at the
window, with a thin, pale, and spiteful face. She glanced round at him,
frowned, and left the room with an expression of cold dignity.
"What has happened?" asked Pierre, entering Marya Dmitrievna's
room.
"Fine doings!" answered Dmitrievna. "For fifty-eight years have I
lived in this world and never known anything so disgraceful!"
And having put him on his honor not to repeat anything she told him,
Marya Dmitrievna informed him that Natasha had refused Prince
Andrew without her parents' knowledge and that the cause of this was
Anatole Kuragin into whose society Pierre's wife had thrown her and
with whom Natasha had tried to elope during her father's absence, in
order to be married secretly.
Pierre raised his shoulders and listened open-mouthed to what was
told him, scarcely able to believe his own ears. That Prince Andrew's
deeply loved affianced wife—the same Natasha Rostova who used to
be so charming—should give up Bolkonski for that fool Anatole who
was already secretly married (as Pierre knew), and should be so in love
with him as to agree to run away with him, was something Pierre could
not conceive and could not imagine.
He could not reconcile the charming impression he had of Natasha,
whom he had known from a child, with this new conception of her
baseness, folly, and cruelty. He thought of his wife. "They are all
alike!" he said to himself, reflecting that he was not the only man
unfortunate enough to be tied to a bad woman. But still he pitied Prince
Andrew to the point of tears and sympathized with his wounded pride,
and the more he pitied his friend the more did he think with contempt
and even with disgust of that Natasha who had just passed him in the
ballroom with such a look of cold dignity. He did not know that
Natasha's soul was overflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation,
and that it was not her fault that her face happened to assume an
expression of calm dignity and severity.
"But how get married?" said Pierre, in answer to Marya Dmitrievna.
"He could not marry—he is married!"
"Things get worse from hour to hour!" ejaculated Marya Dmitrievna.
"A nice youth! What a scoundrel! And she's expecting him—expecting
him since yesterday. She must be told! Then at least she won't go on
expecting him."
After hearing the details of Anatole's marriage from Pierre, and
giving vent to her anger against Anatole in words of abuse, Marya
Dmitrievna told Pierre why she had sent for him. She was afraid that
the count or Bolkonski, who might arrive at any moment, if they knew
of this affair (which she hoped to hide from them) might challenge
Anatole to a duel, and she therefore asked Pierre to tell his brother-in-
law in her name to leave Moscow and not dare to let her set eyes on
him again. Pierre—only now realizing the danger to the old count,
Nicholas, and Prince Andrew—promised to do as she wished. Having
briefly and exactly explained her wishes to him, she let him go to the
drawing room.
"Mind, the count knows nothing. Behave as if you know nothing
either," she said. "And I will go and tell her it is no use expecting him!
And stay to dinner if you care to!" she called after Pierre.
Pierre met the old count, who seemed nervous and upset. That
morning Natasha had told him that she had rejected Bolkonski.
"Troubles, troubles, my dear fellow!" he said to Pierre. "What
troubles one has with these girls without their mother! I do so regret
having come here.... I will be frank with you. Have you heard she has
broken off her engagement without consulting anybody? It's true this
engagement never was much to my liking. Of course he is an excellent
man, but still, with his father's disapproval they wouldn't have been
happy, and Natasha won't lack suitors. Still, it has been going on so
long, and to take such a step without father's or mother's consent! And
now she's ill, and God knows what! It's hard, Count, hard to manage
daughters in their mother's absence...."
Pierre saw that the count was much upset and tried to change the
subject, but the count returned to his troubles.
Sonya entered the room with an agitated face.
"Natasha is not quite well; she's in her room and would like to see
you. Marya Dmitrievna is with her and she too asks you to come."
 "Yes, you are a great friend of Bolkonski's, no doubt she wants to
send him a message," said the count. "Oh dear! Oh dear! How happy it
all was!"
And clutching the spare gray locks on his temples the count left the
room.
When Marya Dmitrievna told Natasha that Anatole was married,
Natasha did not wish to believe it and insisted on having it confirmed
by Pierre himself. Sonya told Pierre this as she led him along the
corridor to Natasha's room.
Natasha, pale and stern, was sitting beside Marya Dmitrievna, and
her eyes, glittering feverishly, met Pierre with a questioning look the
moment he entered. She did not smile or nod, but only gazed fixedly at
him, and her look asked only one thing: was he a friend, or like the
others an enemy in regard to Anatole? As for Pierre, he evidently did
not exist for her.
"He knows all about it," said Marya Dmitrievna pointing to Pierre
and addressing Natasha. "Let him tell you whether I have told the
truth."
Natasha looked from one to the other as a hunted and wounded
animal looks at the approaching dogs and sportsmen.
"Natalya Ilynichna," Pierre began, dropping his eyes with a feeling
of pity for her and loathing for the thing he had to do, "whether it is
true or not should make no difference to you, because..."
"Then it is not true that he's married!"
"Yes, it is true."
"Has he been married long?" she asked. "On your honor?..."
Pierre gave his word of honor.
"Is he still here?" she asked, quickly.
"Yes, I have just seen him."
She was evidently unable to speak and made a sign with her hands
that they should leave her alone.

CHAPTER XX
 Pierre did not stay for dinner, but left the room and went away at
once. He drove through the town seeking Anatole Kuragin, at the
thought of whom now the blood rushed to his heart and he felt a
difficulty in breathing. He was not at the ice hills, nor at the gypsies',
nor at Komoneno's. Pierre drove to the Club. In the Club all was going
on as usual. The members who were assembling for dinner were sitting
about in groups; they greeted Pierre and spoke of the town news. The
footman having greeted him, knowing his habits and his acquaintances,
told him there was a place left for him in the small dining room and that
Prince Michael Zakharych was in the library, but Paul Timofeevich had
not yet arrived. One of Pierre's acquaintances, while they were talking
about the weather, asked if he had heard of Kuragin's abduction of
Rostova which was talked of in the town, and was it true? Pierre
laughed and said it was nonsense for he had just come from the
Rostovs'. He asked everyone about Anatole. One man told him he had
not come yet, and another that he was coming to dinner. Pierre felt it
strange to see this calm, indifferent crowd of people unaware of what
was going on in his soul. He paced through the ballroom, waited till
everyone had come, and as Anatole had not turned up did not stay for
dinner but drove home.
Anatole, for whom Pierre was looking, dined that day with
Dolokhov, consulting him as to how to remedy this unfortunate affair.
It seemed to him essential to see Natasha. In the evening he drove to his
sister's to discuss with her how to arrange a meeting. When Pierre
returned home after vainly hunting all over Moscow, his valet informed
him that Prince Anatole was with the countess. The countess' drawing
room was full of guests.
Pierre without greeting his wife whom he had not seen since his
return—at that moment she was more repulsive to him than ever—
entered the drawing room and seeing Anatole went up to him.
"Ah, Pierre," said the countess going up to her husband. "You don't
know what a plight our Anatole..."
She stopped, seeing in the forward thrust of her husband's head, in
his glowing eyes and his resolute gait, the terrible indications of that
rage and strength which she knew and had herself experienced after his
duel with Dolokhov.
"Where you are, there is vice and evil!" said Pierre to his wife.
"Anatole, come with me! I must speak to you," he added in French.
Anatole glanced round at his sister and rose submissively, ready to
follow Pierre. Pierre, taking him by the arm, pulled him toward himself
and was leading him from the room.
 "If you allow yourself in my drawing room..." whispered Helene, but
Pierre did not reply and went out of the room.
Anatole followed him with his usual jaunty step but his face betrayed
anxiety.
Having entered his study Pierre closed the door and addressed
Anatole without looking at him.
"You promised Countess Rostova to marry her and were about to
elope with her, is that so?"
"Mon cher," answered Anatole (their whole conversation was in
French), "I don't consider myself bound to answer questions put to me
in that tone."
Pierre's face, already pale, became distorted by fury. He seized
Anatole by the collar of his uniform with his big hand and shook him
from side to side till Anatole's face showed a sufficient degree of terror.
"When I tell you that I must talk to you!..." repeated Pierre.
"Come now, this is stupid. What?" said Anatole, fingering a button
of his collar that had been wrenched loose with a bit of the cloth.
"You're a scoundrel and a blackguard, and I don't know what
deprives me from the pleasure of smashing your head with this!" said
Pierre, expressing himself so artificially because he was talking French.
He took a heavy paperweight and lifted it threateningly, but at once
put it back in its place.
"Did you promise to marry her?"
"I... I didn't think of it. I never promised, because..."
Pierre interrupted him.
"Have you any letters of hers? Any letters?" he said, moving toward
Anatole.
Anatole glanced at him and immediately thrust his hand into his
pocket and drew out his pocketbook.
Pierre took the letter Anatole handed him and, pushing aside a table
that stood in his way, threw himself on the sofa.
"I shan't be violent, don't be afraid!" said Pierre in answer to a
frightened gesture of Anatole's. "First, the letters," said he, as if
repeating a lesson to himself. "Secondly," he continued after a short
pause, again rising and again pacing the room, "tomorrow you must get
out of Moscow."
 "But how can I?..."
"Thirdly," Pierre continued without listening to him, "you must
never breathe a word of what has passed between you and Countess
Rostova. I know I can't prevent your doing so, but if you have a spark
of conscience..." Pierre paced the room several times in silence.
Anatole sat at a table frowning and biting his lips.
"After all, you must understand that besides your pleasure there is
such a thing as other people's happiness and peace, and that you are
ruining a whole life for the sake of amusing yourself! Amuse yourself
with women like my wife—with them you are within your rights, for
they know what you want of them. They are armed against you by the
same experience of debauchery; but to promise a maid to marry her... to
deceive, to kidnap.... Don't you understand that it is as mean as beating
an old man or a child?..."
Pierre paused and looked at Anatole no longer with an angry but
with a questioning look.
"I don't know about that, eh?" said Anatole, growing more confident
as Pierre mastered his wrath. "I don't know that and don't want to," he
said, not looking at Pierre and with a slight tremor of his lower jaw,
"but you have used such words to me—'mean' and so on—which as a
man of honor I can't allow anyone to use."
Pierre glanced at him with amazement, unable to understand what he
wanted.
"Though it was tete-a-tete," Anatole continued, "still I can't..."
"Is it satisfaction you want?" said Pierre ironically.
"You could at least take back your words. What? If you want me to
do as you wish, eh?"
"I take them back, I take them back!" said Pierre, "and I ask you to
forgive me." Pierre involuntarily glanced at the loose button. "And if
you require money for your journey..."
Anatole smiled. The expression of that base and cringing smile,
which Pierre knew so well in his wife, revolted him.
"Oh, vile and heartless brood!" he exclaimed, and left the room.
Next day Anatole left for Petersburg.
 CHAPTER XXI
Pierre drove to Marya Dmitrievna's to tell her of the fulfillment of
her wish that Kuragin should be banished from Moscow. The whole
house was in a state of alarm and commotion. Natasha was very ill,
having, as Marya Dmitrievna told him in secret, poisoned herself the
night after she had been told that Anatole was married, with some
arsenic she had stealthily procured. After swallowing a little she had
been so frightened that she woke Sonya and told her what she had
done. The necessary antidotes had been administered in time and she
was now out of danger, though still so weak that it was out of the
question to move her to the country, and so the countess had been sent
for. Pierre saw the distracted count, and Sonya, who had a tear-stained
face, but he could not see Natasha.
Pierre dined at the club that day and heard on all sides gossip about
the attempted abduction of Rostova. He resolutely denied these rumors,
assuring everyone that nothing had happened except that his brother-in-
law had proposed to her and been refused. It seemed to Pierre that it
was his duty to conceal the whole affair and re-establish Natasha's
reputation.
He was awaiting Prince Andrew's return with dread and went every
day to the old prince's for news of him.
Old Prince Bolkonski heard all the rumors current in the town from
Mademoiselle Bourienne and had read the note to Princess Mary in
which Natasha had broken off her engagement. He seemed in better
spirits than usual and awaited his son with great impatience.
Some days after Anatole's departure Pierre received a note from
Prince Andrew, informing him of his arrival and asking him to come to
see him.
As soon as he reached Moscow, Prince Andrew had received from
his father Natasha's note to Princess Mary breaking off her engagement
(Mademoiselle Bourienne had purloined it from Princess Mary and
given it to the old prince), and he heard from him the story of Natasha's
elopement, with additions.
Prince Andrew had arrived in the evening and Pierre came to see him
next morning. Pierre expected to find Prince Andrew in almost the
same state as Natasha and was therefore surprised on entering the
drawing room to hear him in the study talking in a loud animated voice
about some intrigue going on in Petersburg. The old prince's voice and
another now and then interrupted him. Princess Mary came out to meet
Pierre. She sighed, looking toward the door of the room where Prince
Andrew was, evidently intending to express her sympathy with his
sorrow, but Pierre saw by her face that she was glad both at what had
happened and at the way her brother had taken the news of Natasha's
faithlessness.
"He says he expected it," she remarked. "I know his pride will not let
him express his feelings, but still he has taken it better, far better, than I
expected. Evidently it had to be...."
"But is it possible that all is really ended?" asked Pierre.
Princess Mary looked at him with astonishment. She did not
understand how he could ask such a question. Pierre went into the
study. Prince Andrew, greatly changed and plainly in better health, but
with a fresh horizontal wrinkle between his brows, stood in civilian
dress facing his father and Prince Meshcherski, warmly disputing and
vigorously gesticulating. The conversation was about Speranski—the
news of whose sudden exile and alleged treachery had just reached
Moscow.
"Now he is censured and accused by all who were enthusiastic about
him a month ago," Prince Andrew was saying, "and by those who were
unable to understand his aims. To judge a man who is in disfavor and
to throw on him all the blame of other men's mistakes is very easy, but
I maintain that if anything good has been accomplished in this reign it
was done by him, by him alone."
He paused at the sight of Pierre. His face quivered and immediately
assumed a vindictive expression.
"Posterity will do him justice," he concluded, and at once turned to
Pierre.
"Well, how are you? Still getting stouter?" he said with animation,
but the new wrinkle on his forehead deepened. "Yes, I am well," he
said in answer to Pierre's question, and smiled.
To Pierre that smile said plainly: "I am well, but my health is now of
no use to anyone."
After a few words to Pierre about the awful roads from the Polish
frontier, about people he had met in Switzerland who knew Pierre, and
about M. Dessalles, whom he had brought from abroad to be his son's
tutor, Prince Andrew again joined warmly in the conversation about
Speranski which was still going on between the two old men.
"If there were treason, or proofs of secret relations with Napoleon,
they would have been made public," he said with warmth and haste. "I
do not, and never did, like Speranski personally, but I like justice!"
 Pierre now recognized in his friend a need with which he was only
too familiar, to get excited and to have arguments about extraneous
matters in order to stifle thoughts that were too oppressive and too
intimate. When Prince Meshcherski had left, Prince Andrew took
Pierre's arm and asked him into the room that had been assigned him. A
bed had been made up there, and some open portmanteaus and trunks
stood about. Prince Andrew went to one and took out a small casket,
from which he drew a packet wrapped in paper. He did it all silently
and very quickly. He stood up and coughed. His face was gloomy and
his lips compressed.
"Forgive me for troubling you..."
Pierre saw that Prince Andrew was going to speak of Natasha, and
his broad face expressed pity and sympathy. This expression irritated
Prince Andrew, and in a determined, ringing, and unpleasant tone he
continued:
"I have received a refusal from Countess Rostova and have heard
reports of your brother-in-law having sought her hand, or something of
that kind. Is that true?"
"Both true and untrue," Pierre began; but Prince Andrew interrupted
him.
"Here are her letters and her portrait," said he.
He took the packet from the table and handed it to Pierre.
"Give this to the countess... if you see her."
"She is very ill," said Pierre.
"Then she is here still?" said Prince Andrew. "And Prince Kuragin?"
he added quickly.
"He left long ago. She has been at death's door."
"I much regret her illness," said Prince Andrew; and he smiled like
his father, coldly, maliciously, and unpleasantly.
"So Monsieur Kuragin has not honored Countess Rostova with his
hand?" said Prince Andrew, and he snorted several times.
"He could not marry, for he was married already," said Pierre.
Prince Andrew laughed disagreeably, again reminding one of his
father.
"And where is your brother-in-law now, if I may ask?" he said.
"He has gone to Peters... But I don't know," said Pierre.
 "Well, it doesn't matter," said Prince Andrew. "Tell Countess
Rostova that she was and is perfectly free and that I wish her all that is
good."
Pierre took the packet. Prince Andrew, as if trying to remember
whether he had something more to say, or waiting to see if Pierre
would say anything, looked fixedly at him.
"I say, do you remember our discussion in Petersburg?" asked Pierre,
"about..."
"Yes," returned Prince Andrew hastily. "I said that a fallen woman
should be forgiven, but I didn't say I could forgive her. I can't."
"But can this be compared...?" said Pierre.
Prince Andrew interrupted him and cried sharply: "Yes, ask her hand
again, be magnanimous, and so on?... Yes, that would be very noble,
but I am unable to follow in that gentleman's footsteps. If you wish to
be my friend never speak to me of that... of all that! Well, good-by. So
you'll give her the packet?"
Pierre left the room and went to the old prince and Princess Mary.
The old man seemed livelier than usual. Princess Mary was the same
as always, but beneath her sympathy for her brother, Pierre noticed her
satisfaction that the engagement had been broken off. Looking at them
Pierre realized what contempt and animosity they all felt for the
Rostovs, and that it was impossible in their presence even to mention
the name of her who could give up Prince Andrew for anyone else.
At dinner the talk turned on the war, the approach of which was
becoming evident. Prince Andrew talked incessantly, arguing now with
his father, now with the Swiss tutor Dessalles, and showing an
unnatural animation, the cause of which Pierre so well understood.

CHAPTER XXII
That same evening Pierre went to the Rostovs' to fulfill the
commission entrusted to him. Natasha was in bed, the count at the
Club, and Pierre, after giving the letters to Sonya, went to Marya
Dmitrievna who was interested to know how Prince Andrew had taken
the news. Ten minutes later Sonya came to Marya Dmitrievna.
"Natasha insists on seeing Count Peter Kirilovich," said she.
 "But how? Are we to take him up to her? The room there has not
been tidied up."
"No, she has dressed and gone into the drawing room," said Sonya.
Marya Dmitrievna only shrugged her shoulders.
"When will her mother come? She has worried me to death! Now
mind, don't tell her everything!" said she to Pierre. "One hasn't the heart
to scold her, she is so much to be pitied, so much to be pitied."
Natasha was standing in the middle of the drawing room, emaciated,
with a pale set face, but not at all shamefaced as Pierre expected to find
her. When he appeared at the door she grew flurried, evidently
undecided whether to go to meet him or to wait till he came up.
Pierre hastened to her. He thought she would give him her hand as
usual; but she, stepping up to him, stopped, breathing heavily, her arms
hanging lifelessly just in the pose she used to stand in when she went to
the middle of the ballroom to sing, but with quite a different expression
of face.
"Peter Kirilovich," she began rapidly, "Prince Bolkonski was your
friend—is your friend," she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that
everything that had once been must now be different.) "He told me
once to apply to you..."
Pierre sniffed as he looked at her, but did not speak. Till then he had
reproached her in his heart and tried to despise her, but he now felt so
sorry for her that there was no room in his soul for reproach.
"He is here now: tell him... to for... forgive me!" She stopped and
breathed still more quickly, but did not shed tears.
"Yes... I will tell him," answered Pierre; "but..."
He did not know what to say.
Natasha was evidently dismayed at the thought of what he might
think she had meant.
"No, I know all is over," she said hurriedly. "No, that can never be.
I'm only tormented by the wrong I have done him. Tell him only that I
beg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything...."
She trembled all over and sat down on a chair.
A sense of pity he had never before known overflowed Pierre's heart.
"I will tell him, I will tell him everything once more," said Pierre.
"But... I should like to know one thing...."
 "Know what?" Natasha's eyes asked.
"I should like to know, did you love..." Pierre did not know how to
refer to Anatole and flushed at the thought of him—"did you love that
bad man?"
"Don't call him bad!" said Natasha. "But I don't know, don't know at
all...."
She began to cry and a still greater sense of pity, tenderness, and love
welled up in Pierre. He felt the tears trickle under his spectacles and
hoped they would not be noticed.
"We won't speak of it any more, my dear," said Pierre, and his
gentle, cordial tone suddenly seemed very strange to Natasha.
"We won't speak of it, my dear—I'll tell him everything; but one
thing I beg of you, consider me your friend and if you want help,
advice, or simply to open your heart to someone—not now, but when
your mind is clearer think of me!" He took her hand and kissed it. "I
shall be happy if it's in my power..."
Pierre grew confused.
"Don't speak to me like that. I am not worth it!" exclaimed Natasha
and turned to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand.
He knew he had something more to say to her. But when he said it he
was amazed at his own words.
"Stop, stop! You have your whole life before you," said he to her.

"Before me? No! All is over for me," she replied

with shame and
self-abasement.

"All over?" he repeated. "If I were not myself, but

the handsomest,
cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free,
I would this moment
ask on my knees for your hand and your love!"

For the first time for many days Natasha wept tears of gratitude and
tenderness, and glancing at Pierre she went out of the room.
Pierre too when she had gone almost ran into the anteroom,
restraining tears of tenderness and joy that choked him, and without
finding the sleeves of his fur cloak threw it on and got into his sleigh.
"Where to now, your excellency?" asked the coachman.
 "Where to?" Pierre asked himself. "Where can I go now? Surely not
to the Club or to pay calls?" All men seemed so pitiful, so poor, in
comparison with this feeling of tenderness and love he experienced: in
comparison with that softened, grateful, last look she had given him
through her tears.
"Home!" said Pierre, and despite twenty-two degrees of frost
Fahrenheit he threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and
inhaled the air with joy.
It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the black
roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only looking up at the sky did
Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane
things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised.
At the entrance to the Arbat Square an immense expanse of dark starry
sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the
Prechistenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars
but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white
light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant comet
of 1812—the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and
the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long
luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed
joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having
traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable
space, seemed suddenly—like an arrow piercing the earth—to remain
fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and
displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It
seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in
his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.

BOOK NINE: 1812

CHAPTER I
From the close of the year 1811 intensified arming and concentrating
of the forces of Western Europe began, and in 1812 these forces—
millions of men, reckoning those transporting and feeding the army—
moved from the west eastwards to the Russian frontier, toward which
since 1811 Russian forces had been similarly drawn. On the twelfth of
June, 1812, the forces of Western Europe crossed the Russian frontier
and war began, that is, an event took place opposed to human reason
and to human nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another
such innumerable crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of
false money, burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole
centuries are not recorded in the annals of all the law courts of the
world, but which those who committed them did not at the time regard
as being crimes.
What produced this extraordinary occurrence? What were its causes?
The historians tell us with naive assurance that its causes were the
wrongs inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, the nonobservance of the
Continental System, the ambition of Napoleon, the firmness of
Alexander, the mistakes of the diplomatists, and so on.
Consequently, it would only have been necessary for Metternich,
Rumyantsev, or Talleyrand, between a levee and an evening party, to
have taken proper pains and written a more adroit note, or for Napoleon
to have written to Alexander: "My respected Brother, I consent to
restore the duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg"—and there would have
been no war.
We can understand that the matter seemed like that to
contemporaries. It naturally seemed to Napoleon that the war was
caused by England's intrigues (as in fact he said on the island of St.
Helena). It naturally seemed to members of the English Parliament that
the cause of the war was Napoleon's ambition; to the Duke of
Oldenburg, that the cause of the war was the violence done to him; to
businessmen that the cause of the war was the Continental System
which was ruining Europe; to the generals and old soldiers that the
chief reason for the war was the necessity of giving them employment;
to the legitimists of that day that it was the need of re-establishing les
bons principes, and to the diplomatists of that time that it all resulted
from the fact that the alliance between Russia and Austria in 1809 had
not been sufficiently well concealed from Napoleon, and from the
awkward wording of Memorandum No. 178. It is natural that these and
a countless and infinite quantity of other reasons, the number
depending on the endless diversity of points of view, presented
themselves to the men of that day; but to us, to posterity who view the
thing that happened in all its magnitude and perceive its plain and
terrible meaning, these causes seem insufficient. To us it is
incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured
each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was
firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg
wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have
with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke
was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed
and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by
them.
To us, their descendants, who are not historians and are not carried
away by the process of research and can therefore regard the event with
unclouded common sense, an incalculable number of causes present
themselves. The deeper we delve in search of these causes the more of
them we find; and each separate cause or whole series of causes
appears to us equally valid in itself and equally false by its
insignificance compared to the magnitude of the events, and by its
impotence—apart from the cooperation of all the other coincident
causes—to occasion the event. To us, the wish or objection of this or
that French corporal to serve a second term appears as much a cause as
Napoleon's refusal to withdraw his troops beyond the Vistula and to
restore the duchy of Oldenburg; for had he not wished to serve, and had
a second, a third, and a thousandth corporal and private also refused,
there would have been so many less men in Napoleon's army and the
war could not have occurred.
Had Napoleon not taken offense at the demand that he should
withdraw beyond the Vistula, and not ordered his troops to advance,
there would have been no war; but had all his sergeants objected to
serving a second term then also there could have been no war. Nor
could there have been a war had there been no English intrigues and no
Duke of Oldenburg, and had Alexander not felt insulted, and had there
not been an autocratic government in Russia, or a Revolution in France
and a subsequent dictatorship and Empire, or all the things that
produced the French Revolution, and so on. Without each of these
causes nothing could have happened. So all these causes—myriads of
causes—coincided to bring it about. And so there was no one cause for
that occurrence, but it had to occur because it had to. Millions of men,
renouncing their human feelings and reason, had to go from west to
east to slay their fellows, just as some centuries previously hordes of
men had come from the east to the west, slaying their fellows.
The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event
seemed to hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier
who was drawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription. This could
not be otherwise, for in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander
(on whom the event seemed to depend) should be carried out, the
concurrence of innumerable circumstances was needed without any one
of which the event could not have taken place. It was necessary that
millions of men in whose hands lay the real power—the soldiers who
fired, or transported provisions and guns—should consent to carry out
the will of these weak individuals, and should have been induced to do
so by an infinite number of diverse and complex causes.
 We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational
events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not
understand). The more we try to explain such events in history
reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they
become to us.
Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal
aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from
doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action
performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and
belongs to history, in which it has not a free but a predestined
significance.
There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life,
which is the more free the more abstract its interests, and his elemental
hive life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him.
Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument
in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity. A deed
done is irrevocable, and its result coinciding in time with the actions of
millions of other men assumes an historic significance. The higher a
man stands on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with
and the more power he has over others, the more evident is the
predestination and inevitability of his every action.
"The king's heart is in the hands of the Lord."
A king is history's slave.
History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses
every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes.
Though Napoleon at that time, in 1812, was more convinced than
ever that it depended on him, verser (ou ne pas verser) le sang de ses
peuples *—as Alexander expressed it in the last letter he wrote him—
he had never been so much in the grip of inevitable laws, which
compelled him, while thinking that he was acting on his own volition,
to perform for the hive life—that is to say, for history—whatever had to
be performed.

* "To shed (or not to shed) the blood of his

peoples."

The people of the west moved eastwards to slay their fellow men,
and by the law of coincidence thousands of minute causes fitted in and
co-ordinated to produce that movement and war: reproaches for the
nonobservance of the Continental System, the Duke of Oldenburg's
wrongs, the movement of troops into Prussia—undertaken (as it
seemed to Napoleon) only for the purpose of securing an armed peace,
the French Emperor's love and habit of war coinciding with his people's
inclinations, allurement by the grandeur of the preparations, and the
expenditure on those preparations and the need of obtaining advantages
to compensate for that expenditure, the intoxicating honors he received
in Dresden, the diplomatic negotiations which, in the opinion of
contemporaries, were carried on with a sincere desire to attain peace,
but which only wounded the self-love of both sides, and millions of
other causes that adapted themselves to the event that was happening or
coincided with it.
When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its
attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried by
the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or
because the boy standing below wants to eat it?
Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in
which all vital organic and elemental events occur. And the botanist
who finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so
forth is equally right with the child who stands under the tree and says
the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it. Equally
right or wrong is he who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because
he wanted to, and perished because Alexander desired his destruction,
and he who says that an undermined hill weighing a million tons fell
because the last navvy struck it for the last time with his mattock. In
historic events the so-called great men are labels giving names to
events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the
event itself.
Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is
in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of
history and predestined from eternity.

CHAPTER II
On the twenty-ninth of May Napoleon left Dresden, where he had
spent three weeks surrounded by a court that included princes, dukes,
kings, and even an emperor. Before leaving, Napoleon showed favor to
the emperor, kings, and princes who had deserved it, reprimanded the
kings and princes with whom he was dissatisfied, presented pearls and
diamonds of his own—that is, which he had taken from other kings—to
the Empress of Austria, and having, as his historian tells us, tenderly
embraced the Empress Marie Louise—who regarded him as her
husband, though he had left another wife in Paris—left her grieved by
the parting which she seemed hardly able to bear. Though the
diplomatists still firmly believed in the possibility of peace and worked
zealously to that end, and though the Emperor Napoleon himself wrote
a letter to Alexander, calling him Monsieur mon frere, and sincerely
assured him that he did not want war and would always love and honor
him—yet he set off to join his army, and at every station gave fresh
orders to accelerate the movement of his troops from west to east. He
went in a traveling coach with six horses, surrounded by pages, aides-
de-camp, and an escort, along the road to Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and
Konigsberg. At each of these towns thousands of people met him with
excitement and enthusiasm.
The army was moving from west to east, and relays of six horses
carried him in the same direction. On the tenth of June, * coming up
with the army, he spent the night in apartments prepared for him on the
estate of a Polish count in the Vilkavisski forest.

* Old style.

Next day, overtaking the army, he went in a carriage to the Niemen,

and, changing into a Polish uniform, he drove to the riverbank in order
to select a place for the crossing.
Seeing, on the other side, some Cossacks (les Cosaques) and the
wide-spreading steppes in the midst of which lay the holy city of
Moscow (Moscou, la ville sainte), the capital of a realm such as the
Scythia into which Alexander the Great had marched—Napoleon
unexpectedly, and contrary alike to strategic and diplomatic
considerations, ordered an advance, and the next day his army began to
cross the Niemen.
Early in the morning of the twelfth of June he came out of his tent,
which was pitched that day on the steep left bank of the Niemen, and
looked through a spyglass at the streams of his troops pouring out of
the Vilkavisski forest and flowing over the three bridges thrown across
the river. The troops, knowing of the Emperor's presence, were on the
lookout for him, and when they caught sight of a figure in an overcoat
and a cocked hat standing apart from his suite in front of his tent on the
hill, they threw up their caps and shouted: "Vive l'Empereur!" and one
after another poured in a ceaseless stream out of the vast forest that had
concealed them and, separating, flowed on and on by the three bridges
to the other side.
"Now we'll go into action. Oh, when he takes it in hand himself,
things get hot... by heaven!... There he is!... Vive l'Empereur! So these
are the steppes of Asia! It's a nasty country all the same. Au revoir,
Beauche; I'll keep the best palace in Moscow for you! Au revoir. Good
luck!... Did you see the Emperor? Vive l'Empereur!... preur!—If they
make me Governor of India, Gerard, I'll make you Minister of
Kashmir—that's settled. Vive l'Empereur! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! The
Cossacks—those rascals—see how they run! Vive l'Empereur! There
he is, do you see him? I've seen him twice, as I see you now. The little
corporal... I saw him give the cross to one of the veterans.... Vive
l'Empereur!" came the voices of men, old and young, of most diverse
characters and social positions. On the faces of all was one common
expression of joy at the commencement of the long-expected campaign
and of rapture and devotion to the man in the gray coat who was
standing on the hill.
On the thirteenth of June a rather small, thoroughbred Arab horse
was brought to Napoleon. He mounted it and rode at a gallop to one of
the bridges over the Niemen, deafened continually by incessant and
rapturous acclamations which he evidently endured only because it was
impossible to forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by such
shouting, but the shouting which accompanied him everywhere
disturbed him and distracted him from the military cares that had
occupied him from the time he joined the army. He rode across one of
the swaying pontoon bridges to the farther side, turned sharply to the
left, and galloped in the direction of Kovno, preceded by enraptured,
mounted chasseurs of the Guard who, breathless with delight, galloped
ahead to clear a path for him through the troops. On reaching the broad
river Viliya, he stopped near a regiment of Polish Uhlans stationed by
the river.
"Vivat!" shouted the Poles, ecstatically, breaking their ranks and
pressing against one another to see him.
Napoleon looked up and down the river, dismounted, and sat down
on a log that lay on the bank. At a mute sign from him, a telescope was
handed him which he rested on the back of a happy page who had run
up to him, and he gazed at the opposite bank. Then he became absorbed
in a map laid out on the logs. Without lifting his head he said
something, and two of his aides-de-camp galloped off to the Polish
Uhlans.
"What? What did he say?" was heard in the ranks of the Polish
Uhlans when one of the aides-de-camp rode up to them.
The order was to find a ford and to cross the river. The colonel of the
Polish Uhlans, a handsome old man, flushed and, fumbling in his
speech from excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he would be
permitted to swim the river with his Uhlans instead of seeking a ford.
In evident fear of refusal, like a boy asking for permission to get on a
horse, he begged to be allowed to swim across the river before the
Emperor's eyes. The aide-de-camp replied that probably the Emperor
would not be displeased at this excess of zeal.
 As soon as the aide-de-camp had said this, the old mustached officer,
with happy face and sparkling eyes, raised his saber, shouted "Vivat!"
and, commanding the Uhlans to follow him, spurred his horse and
galloped into the river. He gave an angry thrust to his horse, which had
grown restive under him, and plunged into the water, heading for the
deepest part where the current was swift. Hundreds of Uhlans galloped
in after him. It was cold and uncanny in the rapid current in the middle
of the stream, and the Uhlans caught hold of one another as they fell off
their horses. Some of the horses were drowned and some of the men;
the others tried to swim on, some in the saddle and some clinging to
their horses' manes. They tried to make their way forward to the
opposite bank and, though there was a ford one third of a mile away,
were proud that they were swimming and drowning in this river under
the eyes of the man who sat on the log and was not even looking at
what they were doing. When the aide-de-camp, having returned and
choosing an opportune moment, ventured to draw the Emperor's
attention to the devotion of the Poles to his person, the little man in the
gray overcoat got up and, having summoned Berthier, began pacing up
and down the bank with him, giving him instructions and occasionally
glancing disapprovingly at the drowning Uhlans who distracted his
attention.
For him it was no new conviction that his presence in any part of the
world, from Africa to the steppes of Muscovy alike, was enough to
dumfound people and impel them to insane self-oblivion. He called for
his horse and rode to his quarters.
Some forty Uhlans were drowned in the river, though boats were
sent to their assistance. The majority struggled back to the bank from
which they had started. The colonel and some of his men got across and
with difficulty clambered out on the further bank. And as soon as they
had got out, in their soaked and streaming clothes, they shouted
"Vivat!" and looked ecstatically at the spot where Napoleon had been
but where he no longer was and at that moment considered themselves
happy.
That evening, between issuing one order that the forged Russian
paper money prepared for use in Russia should be delivered as quickly
as possible and another that a Saxon should be shot, on whom a letter
containing information about the orders to the French army had been
found, Napoleon also gave instructions that the Polish colonel who had
needlessly plunged into the river should be enrolled in the Legion
d'honneur of which Napoleon was himself the head.
Quos vult perdere dementat. *
 * Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives
mad.

CHAPTER III
The Emperor of Russia had, meanwhile, been in Vilna for more than
a month, reviewing troops and holding maneuvers. Nothing was ready
for the war that everyone expected and to prepare for which the
Emperor had come from Petersburg. There was no general plan of
action. The vacillation between the various plans that were proposed
had even increased after the Emperor had been at headquarters for a
month. Each of the three armies had its own commander in chief, but
there was no supreme commander of all the forces, and the Emperor
did not assume that responsibility himself.
The longer the Emperor remained in Vilna the less did everybody—
tired of waiting—prepare for the war. All the efforts of those who
surrounded the sovereign seemed directed merely to making him spend
his time pleasantly and forget that war was impending.
In June, after many balls and fetes given by the Polish magnates, by
the courtiers, and by the Emperor himself, it occurred to one of the
Polish aides-de-camp in attendance that a dinner and ball should be
given for the Emperor by his aides-de-camp. This idea was eagerly
received. The Emperor gave his consent. The aides-de-camp collected
money by subscription. The lady who was thought to be most pleasing
to the Emperor was invited to act as hostess. Count Bennigsen, being a
landowner in the Vilna province, offered his country house for the fete,
and the thirteenth of June was fixed for a ball, dinner, regatta, and
fireworks at Zakret, Count Bennigsen's country seat.
The very day that Napoleon issued the order to cross the Niemen,
and his vanguard, driving off the Cossacks, crossed the Russian
frontier, Alexander spent the evening at the entertainment given by his
aides-de-camp at Bennigsen's country house.
It was a gay and brilliant fete. Connoisseurs of such matters declared
that rarely had so many beautiful women been assembled in one place.
Countess Bezukhova was present among other Russian ladies who had
followed the sovereign from Petersburg to Vilna and eclipsed the
refined Polish ladies by her massive, so called Russian type of beauty.
The Emperor noticed her and honored her with a dance.
Boris Drubetskoy, having left his wife in Moscow and being for the
present en garcon (as he phrased it), was also there and, though not an
aide-de-camp, had subscribed a large sum toward the expenses. Boris
was now a rich man who had risen to high honors and no longer sought
patronage but stood on an equal footing with the highest of those of his
own age. He was meeting Helene in Vilna after not having seen her for
a long time and did not recall the past, but as Helene was enjoying the
favors of a very important personage and Boris had only recently
married, they met as good friends of long standing.
At midnight dancing was still going on. Helene, not having a suitable
partner, herself offered to dance the mazurka with Boris. They were the
third couple. Boris, coolly looking at Helene's dazzling bare shoulders
which emerged from a dark, gold-embroidered, gauze gown, talked to
her of old acquaintances and at the same time, unaware of it himself
and unnoticed by others, never for an instant ceased to observe the
Emperor who was in the same room. The Emperor was not dancing, he
stood in the doorway, stopping now one pair and now another with
gracious words which he alone knew how to utter.
As the mazurka began, Boris saw that Adjutant General Balashev,
one of those in closest attendance on the Emperor, went up to him and
contrary to court etiquette stood near him while he was talking to a
Polish lady. Having finished speaking to her, the Emperor looked
inquiringly at Balashev and, evidently understanding that he only acted
thus because there were important reasons for so doing, nodded slightly
to the lady and turned to him. Hardly had Balashev begun to speak
before a look of amazement appeared on the Emperor's face. He took
Balashev by the arm and crossed the room with him, unconsciously
clearing a path seven yards wide as the people on both sides made way
for him. Boris noticed Arakcheev's excited face when the sovereign
went out with Balashev. Arakcheev looked at the Emperor from under
his brow and, sniffing with his red nose, stepped forward from the
crowd as if expecting the Emperor to address him. (Boris understood
that Arakcheev envied Balashev and was displeased that evidently
important news had reached the Emperor otherwise than through
himself.)
But the Emperor and Balashev passed out into the illuminated garden
without noticing Arakcheev who, holding his sword and glancing
wrathfully around, followed some twenty paces behind them.
All the time Boris was going through the figures of the mazurka, he
was worried by the question of what news Balashev had brought and
how he could find it out before others. In the figure in which he had to
choose two ladies, he whispered to Helene that he meant to choose
Countess Potocka who, he thought, had gone out onto the veranda, and
glided over the parquet to the door opening into the garden, where,
seeing Balashev and the Emperor returning to the veranda, he stood
still. They were moving toward the door. Boris, fluttering as if he had
not had time to withdraw, respectfully pressed close to the doorpost
with bowed head.
The Emperor, with the agitation of one who has been personally
affronted, was finishing with these words:
"To enter Russia without declaring war! I will not make peace as
long as a single armed enemy remains in my country!" It seemed to
Boris that it gave the Emperor pleasure to utter these words. He was
satisfied with the form in which he had expressed his thoughts, but
displeased that Boris had overheard it.
"Let no one know of it!" the Emperor added with a frown.
Boris understood that this was meant for him and, closing his eyes,
slightly bowed his head. The Emperor re-entered the ballroom and
remained there about another half-hour.
Boris was thus the first to learn the news that the French army had
crossed the Niemen and, thanks to this, was able to show certain
important personages that much that was concealed from others was
usually known to him, and by this means he rose higher in their
estimation.
The unexpected news of the French having crossed the Niemen was
particularly startling after a month of unfulfilled expectations, and at a
ball. On first receiving the news, under the influence of indignation and
resentment the Emperor had found a phrase that pleased him, fully
expressed his feelings, and has since become famous. On returning
home at two o'clock that night he sent for his secretary, Shishkov, and
told him to write an order to the troops and a rescript to Field Marshal
Prince Saltykov, in which he insisted on the words being inserted that
he would not make peace so long as a single armed Frenchman
remained on Russian soil.
Next day the following letter was sent to Napoleon:
Monsieur mon frere,
Yesterday I learned that, despite the loyalty with which I have kept
my engagements with Your Majesty, your troops have crossed the
Russian frontier, and I have this moment received from Petersburg a
note, in which Count Lauriston informs me, as a reason for this
aggression, that Your Majesty has considered yourself to be in a state
of war with me from the time Prince Kuragin asked for his passports.
The reasons on which the Duc de Bassano based his refusal to deliver
them to him would never have led me to suppose that that could serve
as a pretext for aggression. In fact, the ambassador, as he himself has
declared, was never authorized to make that demand, and as soon as I
was informed of it I let him know how much I disapproved of it and
ordered him to remain at his post. If Your Majesty does not intend to
shed the blood of our peoples for such a misunderstanding, and
consents to withdraw your troops from Russian territory, I will regard
what has passed as not having occurred and an understanding between
us will be possible. In the contrary case, Your Majesty, I shall see
myself forced to repel an attack that nothing on my part has provoked.
It still depends on Your Majesty to preserve humanity from the
calamity of another war. I am, etc.,
(signed) Alexander.

CHAPTER IV
At two in the morning of the fourteenth of June, the Emperor, having
sent for Balashev and read him his letter to Napoleon, ordered him to
take it and hand it personally to the French Emperor. When dispatching
Balashev, the Emperor repeated to him the words that he would not
make peace so long as a single armed enemy remained on Russian soil
and told him to transmit those words to Napoleon. Alexander did not
insert them in his letter to Napoleon, because with his characteristic tact
he felt it would be injudicious to use them at a moment when a last
attempt at reconciliation was being made, but he definitely instructed
Balashev to repeat them personally to Napoleon.
Having set off in the small hours of the fourteenth, accompanied by a
bugler and two Cossacks, Balashev reached the French outposts at the
village of Rykonty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, by dawn. There
he was stopped by French cavalry sentinels.
A French noncommissioned officer of hussars, in crimson uniform
and a shaggy cap, shouted to the approaching Balashev to halt.
Balashev did not do so at once, but continued to advance along the road
at a walking pace.
The noncommissioned officer frowned and, muttering words of
abuse, advanced his horse's chest against Balashev, put his hand to his
saber, and shouted rudely at the Russian general, asking: was he deaf
that he did not do as he was told? Balashev mentioned who he was. The
noncommissioned officer began talking with his comrades about
regimental matters without looking at the Russian general.
After living at the seat of the highest authority and power, after
conversing with the Emperor less than three hours before, and in
general being accustomed to the respect due to his rank in the service,
Balashev found it very strange here on Russian soil to encounter this
hostile, and still more this disrespectful, application of brute force to
himself.
The sun was only just appearing from behind the clouds, the air was
fresh and dewy. A herd of cattle was being driven along the road from
the village, and over the fields the larks rose trilling, one after another,
like bubbles rising in water.
Balashev looked around him, awaiting the arrival of an officer from
the village. The Russian Cossacks and bugler and the French hussars
looked silently at one another from time to time.
A French colonel of hussars, who had evidently just left his bed,
came riding from the village on a handsome sleek gray horse,
accompanied by two hussars. The officer, the soldiers, and their horses
all looked smart and well kept.
It was that first period of a campaign when troops are still in full
trim, almost like that of peacetime maneuvers, but with a shade of
martial swagger in their clothes, and a touch of the gaiety and spirit of
enterprise which always accompany the opening of a campaign.
The French colonel with difficulty repressed a yawn, but was polite
and evidently understood Balashev's importance. He led him past his
soldiers and behind the outposts and told him that his wish to be
presented to the Emperor would most likely be satisfied immediately,
as the Emperor's quarters were, he believed, not far off.
They rode through the village of Rykonty, past tethered French
hussar horses, past sentinels and men who saluted their colonel and
stared with curiosity at a Russian uniform, and came out at the other
end of the village. The colonel said that the commander of the division
was a mile and a quarter away and would receive Balashev and conduct
him to his destination.
The sun had by now risen and shone gaily on the bright verdure.
They had hardly ridden up a hill, past a tavern, before they saw a
group of horsemen coming toward them. In front of the group, on a
black horse with trappings that glittered in the sun, rode a tall man with
plumes in his hat and black hair curling down to his shoulders. He wore
a red mantle, and stretched his long legs forward in French fashion.
This man rode toward Balashev at a gallop, his plumes flowing and his
gems and gold lace glittering in the bright June sunshine.
Balashev was only two horses' length from the equestrian with the
bracelets, plumes, necklaces, and gold embroidery, who was galloping
toward him with a theatrically solemn countenance, when Julner, the
French colonel, whispered respectfully: "The King of Naples!" It was,
in fact, Murat, now called "King of Naples." Though it was quite
incomprehensible why he should be King of Naples, he was called so,
and was himself convinced that he was so, and therefore assumed a
more solemn and important air than formerly. He was so sure that he
really was the King of Naples that when, on the eve of his departure
from that city, while walking through the streets with his wife, some
Italians called out to him: "Viva il re!" * he turned to his wife with a
pensive smile and said: "Poor fellows, they don't know that I am
leaving them tomorrow!"

* "Long live the king."

But though he firmly believed himself to be King of Naples and

pitied the grief felt by the subjects he was abandoning, latterly, after he
had been ordered to return to military service—and especially since his
last interview with Napoleon in Danzig, when his august brother-in-law
had told him: "I made you King that you should reign in my way, but
not in yours!"—he had cheerfully taken up his familiar business, and—
like a well-fed but not overfat horse that feels himself in harness and
grows skittish between the shafts—he dressed up in clothes as
variegated and expensive as possible, and gaily and contentedly
galloped along the roads of Poland, without himself knowing why or
whither.
On seeing the Russian general he threw back his head, with its long
hair curling to his shoulders, in a majestically royal manner, and looked
inquiringly at the French colonel. The colonel respectfully informed
His Majesty of Balashev's mission, whose name he could not
pronounce.
"De Bal-macheve!" said the King (overcoming by his assurance the
difficulty that had presented itself to the colonel). "Charmed to make
your acquaintance, General!" he added, with a gesture of kingly
condescension.
As soon as the King began to speak loud and fast his royal dignity
instantly forsook him, and without noticing it he passed into his natural
tone of good-natured familiarity. He laid his hand on the withers of
Balashev's horse and said:
"Well, General, it all looks like war," as if regretting a circumstance
of which he was unable to judge.
"Your Majesty," replied Balashev, "my master, the Emperor, does
not desire war and as Your Majesty sees..." said Balashev, using the
words Your Majesty at every opportunity, with the affectation
unavoidable in frequently addressing one to whom the title was still a
novelty.
 Murat's face beamed with stupid satisfaction as he listened to
"Monsieur de Bal-macheve." But royaute oblige! * and he felt it
incumbent on him, as a king and an ally, to confer on state affairs with
Alexander's envoy. He dismounted, took Balashev's arm, and moving a
few steps away from his suite, which waited respectfully, began to pace
up and down with him, trying to speak significantly. He referred to the
fact that the Emperor Napoleon had resented the demand that he should
withdraw his troops from Prussia, especially when that demand became
generally known and the dignity of France was thereby offended.

* "Royalty has its obligations."

Balashev replied that there was "nothing offensive in the demand,

because..." but Murat interrupted him.
"Then you don't consider the Emperor Alexander the aggressor?" he
asked unexpectedly, with a kindly and foolish smile.
Balashev told him why he considered Napoleon to be the originator
of the war.
"Oh, my dear general!" Murat again interrupted him, "with all my
heart I wish the Emperors may arrange the affair between them, and
that the war begun by no wish of mine may finish as quickly as
possible!" said he, in the tone of a servant who wants to remain good
friends with another despite a quarrel between their masters.
And he went on to inquiries about the Grand Duke and the state of
his health, and to reminiscences of the gay and amusing times he had
spent with him in Naples. Then suddenly, as if remembering his royal
dignity, Murat solemnly drew himself up, assumed the pose in which
he had stood at his coronation, and, waving his right arm, said:
"I won't detain you longer, General. I wish success to your mission,"
and with his embroidered red mantle, his flowing feathers, and his
glittering ornaments, he rejoined his suite who were respectfully
awaiting him.
Balashev rode on, supposing from Murat's words that he would very
soon be brought before Napoleon himself. But instead of that, at the
next village the sentinels of Davout's infantry corps detained him as the
pickets of the vanguard had done, and an adjutant of the corps
commander, who was fetched, conducted him into the village to
Marshal Davout.
 CHAPTER V
Davout was to Napoleon what Arakcheev was to Alexander—though
not a coward like Arakcheev, he was as precise, as cruel, and as unable
to express his devotion to his monarch except by cruelty.
In the organism of states such men are necessary, as wolves are
necessary in the organism of nature, and they always exist, always
appear and hold their own, however incongruous their presence and
their proximity to the head of the government may be. This inevitability
alone can explain how the cruel Arakcheev, who tore out a grenadier's
mustache with his own hands, whose weak nerves rendered him unable
to face danger, and who was neither an educated man nor a courtier,
was able to maintain his powerful position with Alexander, whose own
character was chivalrous, noble, and gentle.
Balashev found Davout seated on a barrel in the shed of a peasant's
hut, writing—he was auditing accounts. Better quarters could have
been found him, but Marshal Davout was one of those men who
purposely put themselves in most depressing conditions to have a
justification for being gloomy. For the same reason they are always
hard at work and in a hurry. "How can I think of the bright side of life
when, as you see, I am sitting on a barrel and working in a dirty shed?"
the expression of his face seemed to say. The chief pleasure and
necessity of such men, when they encounter anyone who shows
animation, is to flaunt their own dreary, persistent activity. Davout
allowed himself that pleasure when Balashev was brought in. He
became still more absorbed in his task when the Russian general
entered, and after glancing over his spectacles at Balashev's face, which
was animated by the beauty of the morning and by his talk with Murat,
he did not rise or even stir, but scowled still more and sneered
malevolently.
When he noticed in Balashev's face the disagreeable impression this
reception produced, Davout raised his head and coldly asked what he
wanted.
Thinking he could have been received in such a manner only because
Davout did not know that he was adjutant general to the Emperor
Alexander and even his envoy to Napoleon, Balashev hastened to
inform him of his rank and mission. Contrary to his expectation,
Davout, after hearing him, became still surlier and ruder.
"Where is your dispatch?" he inquired. "Give it to me. I will send it
to the Emperor."
Balashev replied that he had been ordered to hand it personally to the
Emperor.
 "Your Emperor's orders are obeyed in your army, but here," said
Davout, "you must do as you're told."
And, as if to make the Russian general still more conscious of his
dependence on brute force, Davout sent an adjutant to call the officer
on duty.
Balashev took out the packet containing the Emperor's letter and laid
it on the table (made of a door with its hinges still hanging on it, laid
across two barrels). Davout took the packet and read the inscription.
"You are perfectly at liberty to treat me with respect or not,"
protested Balashev, "but permit me to observe that I have the honor to
be adjutant general to His Majesty...."
Davout glanced at him silently and plainly derived pleasure from the
signs of agitation and confusion which appeared on Balashev's face.
"You will be treated as is fitting," said he and, putting the packet in
his pocket, left the shed.
A minute later the marshal's adjutant, de Castres, came in and
conducted Balashev to the quarters assigned him.
That day he dined with the marshal, at the same board on the barrels.
Next day Davout rode out early and, after asking Balashev to come
to him, peremptorily requested him to remain there, to move on with
the baggage train should orders come for it to move, and to talk to no
one except Monsieur de Castres.
After four days of solitude, ennui, and consciousness of his
impotence and insignificance—particularly acute by contrast with the
sphere of power in which he had so lately moved—and after several
marches with the marshal's baggage and the French army, which
occupied the whole district, Balashev was brought to Vilna—now
occupied by the French—through the very gate by which he had left it
four days previously.
Next day the imperial gentleman-in-waiting, the Comte de Turenne,
came to Balashev and informed him of the Emperor Napoleon's wish to
honor him with an audience.
Four days before, sentinels of the Preobrazhensk regiment had stood
in front of the house to which Balashev was conducted, and now two
French grenadiers stood there in blue uniforms unfastened in front and
with shaggy caps on their heads, and an escort of hussars and Uhlans
and a brilliant suite of aides-de-camp, pages, and generals, who were
waiting for Napoleon to come out, were standing at the porch, round
his saddle horse and his Mameluke, Rustan. Napoleon received
Balashev in the very house in Vilna from which Alexander had
dispatched him on his mission.

CHAPTER VI
Though Balashev was used to imperial pomp, he was amazed at the
luxury and magnificence of Napoleon's court.
The Comte de Turenne showed him into a big reception room where
many generals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish magnates—several of
whom Balashev had seen at the court of the Emperor of Russia—were
waiting. Duroc said that Napoleon would receive the Russian general
before going for his ride.
After some minutes, the gentleman-in-waiting who was on duty
came into the great reception room and, bowing politely, asked
Balashev to follow him.
Balashev went into a small reception room, one door of which led
into a study, the very one from which the Russian Emperor had
dispatched him on his mission. He stood a minute or two, waiting. He
heard hurried footsteps beyond the door, both halves of it were opened
rapidly; all was silent and then from the study the sound was heard of
other steps, firm and resolute—they were those of Napoleon. He had
just finished dressing for his ride, and wore a blue uniform, opening in
front over a white waistcoat so long that it covered his rotund stomach,
white leather breeches tightly fitting the fat thighs of his short legs, and
Hessian boots. His short hair had evidently just been brushed, but one
lock hung down in the middle of his broad forehead. His plump white
neck stood out sharply above the black collar of his uniform, and he
smelled of Eau de Cologne. His full face, rather young-looking, with its
prominent chin, wore a gracious and majestic expression of imperial
welcome.
He entered briskly, with a jerk at every step and his head slightly
thrown back. His whole short corpulent figure with broad thick
shoulders, and chest and stomach involuntarily protruding, had that
imposing and stately appearance one sees in men of forty who live in
comfort. It was evident, too, that he was in the best of spirits that day.
He nodded in answer to Balashav's low and respectful bow, and
coming up to him at once began speaking like a man who values every
moment of his time and does not condescend to prepare what he has to
say but is sure he will always say the right thing and say it well.
 "Good day, General!" said he. "I have received the letter you brought
from the Emperor Alexander and am very glad to see you." He glanced
with his large eyes into Balashav's face and immediately looked past
him.
It was plain that Balashev's personality did not interest him at all.
Evidently only what took place within his own mind interested him.
Nothing outside himself had any significance for him, because
everything in the world, it seemed to him, depended entirely on his
will.
"I do not, and did not, desire war," he continued, "but it has been
forced on me. Even now" (he emphasized the word) "I am ready to
receive any explanations you can give me."
And he began clearly and concisely to explain his reasons for
dissatisfaction with the Russian government. Judging by the calmly
moderate and amicable tone in which the French Emperor spoke,
Balashev was firmly persuaded that he wished for peace and intended
to enter into negotiations.
When Napoleon, having finished speaking, looked inquiringly at the
Russian envoy, Balashev began a speech he had prepared long before:
"Sire! The Emperor, my master..." but the sight of the Emperor's eyes
bent on him confused him. "You are flurried—compose yourself!"
Napoleon seemed to say, as with a scarcely perceptible smile he looked
at Balashev's uniform and sword.
Balashev recovered himself and began to speak. He said that the
Emperor Alexander did not consider Kurakin's demand for his
passports a sufficient cause for war; that Kurakin had acted on his own
initiative and without his sovereign's assent, that the Emperor
Alexander did not desire war, and had no relations with England.
"Not yet!" interposed Napoleon, and, as if fearing to give vent to his
feelings, he frowned and nodded slightly as a sign that Balashev might
proceed.
After saying all he had been instructed to say, Balashev added that
the Emperor Alexander wished for peace, but would not enter into
negotiations except on condition that... Here Balashev hesitated: he
remembered the words the Emperor Alexander had not written in his
letter, but had specially inserted in the rescript to Saltykov and had told
Balashev to repeat to Napoleon. Balashev remembered these words,
"So long as a single armed foe remains on Russian soil," but some
complex feeling restrained him. He could not utter them, though he
wished to do so. He grew confused and said: "On condition that the
French army retires beyond the Niemen."
 Napoleon noticed Balashev's embarrassment when uttering these last
words; his face twitched and the calf of his left leg began to quiver
rhythmically. Without moving from where he stood he began speaking
in a louder tone and more hurriedly than before. During the speech that
followed, Balashev, who more than once lowered his eyes,
involuntarily noticed the quivering of Napoleon's left leg which
increased the more Napoleon raised his voice.
"I desire peace, no less than the Emperor Alexander," he began.
"Have I not for eighteen months been doing everything to obtain it? I
have waited eighteen months for explanations. But in order to begin
negotiations, what is demanded of me?" he said, frowning and making
an energetic gesture of inquiry with his small white plump hand.
"The withdrawal of your army beyond the Niemen, sire," replied
Balashev.
"The Niemen?" repeated Napoleon. "So now you want me to retire
beyond the Niemen—only the Niemen?" repeated Napoleon, looking
straight at Balashev.
The latter bowed his head respectfully.
Instead of the demand of four months earlier to withdraw from
Pomerania, only a withdrawal beyond the Niemen was now demanded.
Napoleon turned quickly and began to pace the room.
"You say the demand now is that I am to withdraw beyond the
Niemen before commencing negotiations, but in just the same way two
months ago the demand was that I should withdraw beyond the Vistula
and the Oder, and yet you are willing to negotiate."
He went in silence from one corner of the room to the other and
again stopped in front of Balashev. Balashev noticed that his left leg
was quivering faster than before and his face seemed petrified in its
stern expression. This quivering of his left leg was a thing Napoleon
was conscious of. "The vibration of my left calf is a great sign with
me," he remarked at a later date.
"Such demands as to retreat beyond the Vistula and Oder may be
made to a Prince of Baden, but not to me!" Napoleon almost screamed,
quite to his own surprise. "If you gave me Petersburg and Moscow I
could not accept such conditions. You say I have begun this war! But
who first joined his army? The Emperor Alexander, not I! And you
offer me negotiations when I have expended millions, when you are in
alliance with England, and when your position is a bad one. You offer
me negotiations! But what is the aim of your alliance with England?
What has she given you?" he continued hurriedly, evidently no longer
trying to show the advantages of peace and discuss its possibility, but
only to prove his own rectitude and power and Alexander's errors and
duplicity.
The commencement of his speech had obviously been made with the
intention of demonstrating the advantages of his position and showing
that he was nevertheless willing to negotiate. But he had begun talking,
and the more he talked the less could he control his words.
The whole purport of his remarks now was evidently to exalt himself
and insult Alexander—just what he had least desired at the
commencement of the interview.
"I hear you have made peace with Turkey?"
Balashev bowed his head affirmatively.
"Peace has been concluded..." he began.
But Napoleon did not let him speak. He evidently wanted to do all
the talking himself, and continued to talk with the sort of eloquence and
unrestrained irritability to which spoiled people are so prone.
"Yes, I know you have made peace with the Turks without obtaining
Moldavia and Wallachia; I would have given your sovereign those
provinces as I gave him Finland. Yes," he went on, "I promised and
would have given the Emperor Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, and
now he won't have those splendid provinces. Yet he might have united
them to his empire and in a single reign would have extended Russia
from the Gulf of Bothnia to the mouths of the Danube. Catherine the
Great could not have done more," said Napoleon, growing more and
more excited as he paced up and down the room, repeating to Balashev
almost the very words he had used to Alexander himself at Tilsit. "All
that, he would have owed to my friendship. Oh, what a splendid reign!"
he repeated several times, then paused, drew from his pocket a gold
snuffbox, lifted it to his nose, and greedily sniffed at it.
"What a splendid reign the Emperor Alexander's might have been!"
He looked compassionately at Balashev, and as soon as the latter
tried to make some rejoinder hastily interrupted him.
"What could he wish or look for that he would not have obtained
through my friendship?" demanded Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders
in perplexity. "But no, he has preferred to surround himself with my
enemies, and with whom? With Steins, Armfeldts, Bennigsens, and
Wintzingerodes! Stein, a traitor expelled from his own country;
Armfeldt, a rake and an intriguer; Wintzingerode, a fugitive French
subject; Bennigsen, rather more of a soldier than the others, but all the
same an incompetent who was unable to do anything in 1807 and who
should awaken terrible memories in the Emperor Alexander's mind....
Granted that were they competent they might be made use of,"
continued Napoleon—hardly able to keep pace in words with the rush
of thoughts that incessantly sprang up, proving how right and strong he
was (in his perception the two were one and the same)—"but they are
not even that! They are neither fit for war nor peace! Barclay is said to
be the most capable of them all, but I cannot say so, judging by his first
movements. And what are they doing, all these courtiers? Pfuel
proposes, Armfeldt disputes, Bennigsen considers, and Barclay, called
on to act, does not know what to decide on, and time passes bringing no
result. Bagration alone is a military man. He's stupid, but he has
experience, a quick eye, and resolution.... And what role is your young
monarch playing in that monstrous crowd? They compromise him and
throw on him the responsibility for all that happens. A sovereign should
not be with the army unless he is a general!" said Napoleon, evidently
uttering these words as a direct challenge to the Emperor. He knew how
Alexander desired to be a military commander.
"The campaign began only a week ago, and you haven't even been
able to defend Vilna. You are cut in two and have been driven out of
the Polish provinces. Your army is grumbling."
"On the contrary, Your Majesty," said Balashev, hardly able to
remember what had been said to him and following these verbal
fireworks with difficulty, "the troops are burning with eagerness..."
"I know everything!" Napoleon interrupted him. "I know everything.
I know the number of your battalions as exactly as I know my own.
You have not two hundred thousand men, and I have three times that
number. I give you my word of honor," said Napoleon, forgetting that
his word of honor could carry no weight—"I give you my word of
honor that I have five hundred and thirty thousand men this side of the
Vistula. The Turks will be of no use to you; they are worth nothing and
have shown it by making peace with you. As for the Swedes—it is their
fate to be governed by mad kings. Their king was insane and they
changed him for another—Bernadotte, who promptly went mad—for
no Swede would ally himself with Russia unless he were mad."
Napoleon grinned maliciously and again raised his snuffbox to his
nose.
Balashev knew how to reply to each of Napoleon's remarks, and
would have done so; he continually made the gesture of a man wishing
to say something, but Napoleon always interrupted him. To the alleged
insanity of the Swedes, Balashev wished to reply that when Russia is
on her side Sweden is practically an island: but Napoleon gave an
angry exclamation to drown his voice. Napoleon was in that state of
irritability in which a man has to talk, talk, and talk, merely to convince
himself that he is in the right. Balashev began to feel uncomfortable: as
envoy he feared to demean his dignity and felt the necessity of
replying; but, as a man, he shrank before the transport of groundless
wrath that had evidently seized Napoleon. He knew that none of the
words now uttered by Napoleon had any significance, and that
Napoleon himself would be ashamed of them when he came to his
senses. Balashev stood with downcast eyes, looking at the movements
of Napoleon's stout legs and trying to avoid meeting his eyes.
"But what do I care about your allies?" said Napoleon. "I have
allies—the Poles. There are eighty thousand of them and they fight like
lions. And there will be two hundred thousand of them."
And probably still more perturbed by the fact that he had uttered this
obvious falsehood, and that Balashev still stood silently before him in
the same attitude of submission to fate, Napoleon abruptly turned
round, drew close to Balashev's face, and, gesticulating rapidly and
energetically with his white hands, almost shouted:
"Know that if you stir up Prussia against me, I'll wipe it off the map
of Europe!" he declared, his face pale and distorted by anger, and he
struck one of his small hands energetically with the other. "Yes, I will
throw you back beyond the Dvina and beyond the Dnieper, and will re-
erect against you that barrier which it was criminal and blind of Europe
to allow to be destroyed. Yes, that is what will happen to you. That is
what you have gained by alienating me!" And he walked silently
several times up and down the room, his fat shoulders twitching.
He put his snuffbox into his waistcoat pocket, took it out again, lifted
it several times to his nose, and stopped in front of Balashev. He
paused, looked ironically straight into Balashev's eyes, and said in a
quiet voice:
"And yet what a splendid reign your master might have had!"
Balashev, feeling it incumbent on him to reply, said that from the
Russian side things did not appear in so gloomy a light. Napoleon was
silent, still looking derisively at him and evidently not listening to him.
Balashev said that in Russia the best results were expected from the
war. Napoleon nodded condescendingly, as if to say, "I know it's your
duty to say that, but you don't believe it yourself. I have convinced
you."
When Balashev had ended, Napoleon again took out his snuffbox,
sniffed at it, and stamped his foot twice on the floor as a signal. The
door opened, a gentleman-in-waiting, bending respectfully, handed the
Emperor his hat and gloves; another brought him a pocket
handkerchief. Napoleon, without giving them a glance, turned to
Balashev:
 "Assure the Emperor Alexander from me," said he, taking his hat,
"that I am as devoted to him as before: I know him thoroughly and very
highly esteem his lofty qualities. I will detain you no longer, General;
you shall receive my letter to the Emperor."
And Napoleon went quickly to the door. Everyone in the reception
room rushed forward and descended the staircase.

CHAPTER VII
After all that Napoleon had said to him—those bursts of anger and
the last dryly spoken words: "I will detain you no longer, General; you
shall receive my letter," Balashev felt convinced that Napoleon would
not wish to see him, and would even avoid another meeting with him—
an insulted envoy—especially as he had witnessed his unseemly anger.
But, to his surprise, Balashev received, through Duroc, an invitation to
dine with the Emperor that day.
Bessieres, Caulaincourt, and Berthier were present at that dinner.
Napoleon met Balashev cheerfully and amiably. He not only showed
no sign of constraint or self-reproach on account of his outburst that
morning, but, on the contrary, tried to reassure Balashev. It was evident
that he had long been convinced that it was impossible for him to make
a mistake, and that in his perception whatever he did was right, not
because it harmonized with any idea of right and wrong, but because he
did it.
The Emperor was in very good spirits after his ride through Vilna,
where crowds of people had rapturously greeted and followed him.
From all the windows of the streets through which he rode, rugs, flags,
and his monogram were displayed, and the Polish ladies, welcoming
him, waved their handkerchiefs to him.
At dinner, having placed Balashev beside him, Napoleon not only
treated him amiably but behaved as if Balashev were one of his own
courtiers, one of those who sympathized with his plans and ought to
rejoice at his success. In the course of conversation he mentioned
Moscow and questioned Balashev about the Russian capital, not merely
as an interested traveler asks about a new city he intends to visit, but as
if convinced that Balashev, as a Russian, must be flattered by his
curiosity.
 "How many inhabitants are there in Moscow? How many houses? Is
it true that Moscow is called 'Holy Moscow'? How many churches are
there in Moscow?" he asked.
And receiving the reply that there were more than two hundred
churches, he remarked:
"Why such a quantity of churches?"
"The Russians are very devout," replied Balashev.
"But a large number of monasteries and churches is always a sign of
the backwardness of a people," said Napoleon, turning to Caulaincourt
for appreciation of this remark.
Balashev respectfully ventured to disagree with the French Emperor.
"Every country has its own character," said he.
"But nowhere in Europe is there anything like that," said Napoleon.
"I beg your Majesty's pardon," returned Balashev, "besides Russia
there is Spain, where there are also many churches and monasteries."
This reply of Balashev's, which hinted at the recent defeats of the
French in Spain, was much appreciated when he related it at
Alexander's court, but it was not much appreciated at Napoleon's
dinner, where it passed unnoticed.
The uninterested and perplexed faces of the marshals showed that
they were puzzled as to what Balashev's tone suggested. "If there is a
point we don't see it, or it is not at all witty," their expressions seemed
to say. So little was his rejoinder appreciated that Napoleon did not
notice it at all and naively asked Balashev through what towns the
direct road from there to Moscow passed. Balashev, who was on the
alert all through the dinner, replied that just as "all roads lead to Rome,"
so all roads lead to Moscow: there were many roads, and "among them
the road through Poltava, which Charles XII chose." Balashev
involuntarily flushed with pleasure at the aptitude of this reply, but
hardly had he uttered the word Poltava before Caulaincourt began
speaking of the badness of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and of
his Petersburg reminiscences.
After dinner they went to drink coffee in Napoleon's study, which
four days previously had been that of the Emperor Alexander.
Napoleon sat down, toying with his Sevres coffee cup, and motioned
Balashev to a chair beside him.
Napoleon was in that well-known after-dinner mood which, more
than any reasoned cause, makes a man contented with himself and
disposed to consider everyone his friend. It seemed to him that he was
surrounded by men who adored him: and he felt convinced that, after
his dinner, Balashev too was his friend and worshiper. Napoleon turned
to him with a pleasant, though slightly ironic, smile.
"They tell me this is the room the Emperor Alexander occupied?
Strange, isn't it, General?" he said, evidently not doubting that this
remark would be agreeable to his hearer since it went to prove his,
Napoleon's, superiority to Alexander.
Balashev made no reply and bowed his head in silence.
"Yes. Four days ago in this room, Wintzingerode and Stein were
deliberating," continued Napoleon with the same derisive and self-
confident smile. "What I can't understand," he went on, "is that the
Emperor Alexander has surrounded himself with my personal enemies.
That I do not... understand. Has he not thought that I may do the
same?" and he turned inquiringly to Balashev, and evidently this
thought turned him back on to the track of his morning's anger, which
was still fresh in him.
"And let him know that I will do so!" said Napoleon, rising and
pushing his cup away with his hand. "I'll drive all his Wurttemberg,
Baden, and Weimar relations out of Germany.... Yes. I'll drive them
out. Let him prepare an asylum for them in Russia!"
Balashev bowed his head with an air indicating that he would like to
make his bow and leave, and only listened because he could not help
hearing what was said to him. Napoleon did not notice this expression;
he treated Balashev not as an envoy from his enemy, but as a man now
fully devoted to him and who must rejoice at his former master's
humiliation.
"And why has the Emperor Alexander taken command of the
armies? What is the good of that? War is my profession, but his
business is to reign and not to command armies! Why has he taken on
himself such a responsibility?"
Again Napoleon brought out his snuffbox, paced several times up
and down the room in silence, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly,
went up to Balashev and with a slight smile, as confidently, quickly,
and simply as if he were doing something not merely important but
pleasing to Balashev, he raised his hand to the forty-year-old Russian
general's face and, taking him by the ear, pulled it gently, smiling with
his lips only.
To have one's ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the greatest
honor and mark of favor at the French court.
"Well, adorer and courtier of the Emperor Alexander, why don't you
say anything?" said he, as if it was ridiculous, in his presence, to be the
adorer and courtier of anyone but himself, Napoleon. "Are the horses
ready for the general?" he added, with a slight inclination of his head in
reply to Balashev's bow. "Let him have mine, he has a long way to go!"
The letter taken by Balashev was the last Napoleon sent to
Alexander. Every detail of the interview was communicated to the
Russian monarch, and the war began...

CHAPTER VIII
After his interview with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Andrew went to
Petersburg, on business as he told his family, but really to meet Anatole
Kuragin whom he felt it necessary to encounter. On reaching
Petersburg he inquired for Kuragin but the latter had already left the
city. Pierre had warned his brother-in-law that Prince Andrew was on
his track. Anatole Kuragin promptly obtained an appointment from the
Minister of War and went to join the army in Moldavia. While in
Petersburg Prince Andrew met Kutuzov, his former commander who
was always well disposed toward him, and Kutuzov suggested that he
should accompany him to the army in Moldavia, to which the old
general had been appointed commander in chief. So Prince Andrew,
having received an appointment on the headquarters staff, left for
Turkey.
Prince Andrew did not think it proper to write and challenge
Kuragin. He thought that if he challenged him without some fresh
cause it might compromise the young Countess Rostova and so he
wanted to meet Kuragin personally in order to find a fresh pretext for a
duel. But he again failed to meet Kuragin in Turkey, for soon after
Prince Andrew arrived, the latter returned to Russia. In a new country,
amid new conditions, Prince Andrew found life easier to bear. After his
betrothed had broken faith with him—which he felt the more acutely
the more he tried to conceal its effects—the surroundings in which he
had been happy became trying to him, and the freedom and
independence he had once prized so highly were still more so. Not only
could he no longer think the thoughts that had first come to him as he
lay gazing at the sky on the field of Austerlitz and had later enlarged
upon with Pierre, and which had filled his solitude at Bogucharovo and
then in Switzerland and Rome, but he even dreaded to recall them and
the bright and boundless horizons they had revealed. He was now
concerned only with the nearest practical matters unrelated to his past
interests, and he seized on these the more eagerly the more those past
interests were closed to him. It was as if that lofty, infinite canopy of
heaven that had once towered above him had suddenly turned into a
low, solid vault that weighed him down, in which all was clear, but
nothing eternal or mysterious.
Of the activities that presented themselves to him, army service was
the simplest and most familiar. As a general on duty on Kutuzov's staff,
he applied himself to business with zeal and perseverance and surprised
Kutuzov by his willingness and accuracy in work. Not having found
Kuragin in Turkey, Prince Andrew did not think it necessary to rush
back to Russia after him, but all the same he knew that however long it
might be before he met Kuragin, despite his contempt for him and
despite all the proofs he deduced to convince himself that it was not
worth stooping to a conflict with him—he knew that when he did meet
him he would not be able to resist calling him out, any more than a
ravenous man can help snatching at food. And the consciousness that
the insult was not yet avenged, that his rancor was still unspent,
weighed on his heart and poisoned the artificial tranquillity which he
managed to obtain in Turkey by means of restless, plodding, and rather
vainglorious and ambitious activity.
In the year 1812, when news of the war with Napoleon reached
Bucharest—where Kutuzov had been living for two months, passing
his days and nights with a Wallachian woman—Prince Andrew asked
Kutuzov to transfer him to the Western Army. Kutuzov, who was
already weary of Bolkonski's activity which seemed to reproach his
own idleness, very readily let him go and gave him a mission to
Barclay de Tolly.
Before joining the Western Army which was then, in May,
encamped at Drissa, Prince Andrew visited Bald Hills which was
directly on his way, being only two miles off the Smolensk highroad.
During the last three years there had been so many changes in his life,
he had thought, felt, and seen so much (having traveled both in the east
and the west), that on reaching Bald Hills it struck him as strange and
unexpected to find the way of life there unchanged and still the same in
every detail. He entered through the gates with their stone pillars and
drove up the avenue leading to the house as if he were entering an
enchanted, sleeping castle. The same old stateliness, the same
cleanliness, the same stillness reigned there, and inside there was the
same furniture, the same walls, sounds, and smell, and the same timid
faces, only somewhat older. Princess Mary was still the same timid,
plain maiden getting on in years, uselessly and joylessly passing the
best years of her life in fear and constant suffering. Mademoiselle
Bourienne was the same coquettish, self-satisfied girl, enjoying every
moment of her existence and full of joyous hopes for the future. She
had merely become more self-confident, Prince Andrew thought.
Dessalles, the tutor he had brought from Switzerland, was wearing a
coat of Russian cut and talking broken Russian to the servants, but was
still the same narrowly intelligent, conscientious, and pedantic
preceptor. The old prince had changed in appearance only by the loss of
a tooth, which left a noticeable gap on one side of his mouth; in
character he was the same as ever, only showing still more irritability
and skepticism as to what was happening in the world. Little Nicholas
alone had changed. He had grown, become rosier, had curly dark hair,
and, when merry and laughing, quite unconsciously lifted the upper lip
of his pretty little mouth just as the little princess used to do. He alone
did not obey the law of immutability in the enchanted, sleeping castle.
But though externally all remained as of old, the inner relations of all
these people had changed since Prince Andrew had seen them last. The
household was divided into two alien and hostile camps, who changed
their habits for his sake and only met because he was there. To the one
camp belonged the old prince, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and the
architect; to the other Princess Mary, Dessalles, little Nicholas, and all
the old nurses and maids.
During his stay at Bald Hills all the family dined together, but they
were ill at ease and Prince Andrew felt that he was a visitor for whose
sake an exception was being made and that his presence made them all
feel awkward. Involuntarily feeling this at dinner on the first day, he
was taciturn, and the old prince noticing this also became morosely
dumb and retired to his apartments directly after dinner. In the evening,
when Prince Andrew went to him and, trying to rouse him, began to tell
him of the young Count Kamensky's campaign, the old prince began
unexpectedly to talk about Princess Mary, blaming her for her
superstitions and her dislike of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who, he said,
was the only person really attached to him.
The old prince said that if he was ill it was only because of Princess
Mary: that she purposely worried and irritated him, and that by
indulgence and silly talk she was spoiling little Prince Nicholas. The
old prince knew very well that he tormented his daughter and that her
life was very hard, but he also knew that he could not help tormenting
her and that she deserved it. "Why does Prince Andrew, who sees this,
say nothing to me about his sister? Does he think me a scoundrel, or an
old fool who, without any reason, keeps his own daughter at a distance
and attaches this Frenchwoman to himself? He doesn't understand, so I
must explain it, and he must hear me out," thought the old prince. And
he began explaining why he could not put up with his daughter's
unreasonable character.
"If you ask me," said Prince Andrew, without looking up (he was
censuring his father for the first time in his life), "I did not wish to
speak about it, but as you ask me I will give you my frank opinion. If
there is any misunderstanding and discord between you and Mary, I
can't blame her for it at all. I know how she loves and respects you.
Since you ask me," continued Prince Andrew, becoming irritable—as
he was always liable to do of late—"I can only say that if there are any
misunderstandings they are caused by that worthless woman, who is
not fit to be my sister's companion."
The old man at first stared fixedly at his son, and an unnatural smile
disclosed the fresh gap between his teeth to which Prince Andrew could
not get accustomed.
"What companion, my dear boy? Eh? You've already been talking it
over! Eh?"
"Father, I did not want to judge," said Prince Andrew, in a hard and
bitter tone, "but you challenged me, and I have said, and always shall
say, that Mary is not to blame, but those to blame—the one to blame—
is that Frenchwoman."
"Ah, he has passed judgment... passed judgement!" said the old man
in a low voice and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, with some
embarrassment, but then he suddenly jumped up and cried: "Be off, be
off! Let not a trace of you remain here!..."
Prince Andrew wished to leave at once, but Princess Mary persuaded
him to stay another day. That day he did not see his father, who did not
leave his room and admitted no one but Mademoiselle Bourienne and
Tikhon, but asked several times whether his son had gone. Next day,
before leaving, Prince Andrew went to his son's rooms. The boy, curly-
headed like his mother and glowing with health, sat on his knee, and
Prince Andrew began telling him the story of Bluebeard, but fell into a
reverie without finishing the story. He thought not of this pretty child,
his son whom he held on his knee, but of himself. He sought in himself
either remorse for having angered his father or regret at leaving home
for the first time in his life on bad terms with him, and was horrified to
find neither. What meant still more to him was that he sought and did
not find in himself the former tenderness for his son which he had
hoped to reawaken by caressing the boy and taking him on his knee.
"Well, go on!" said his son.
Prince Andrew, without replying, put him down from his knee and
went out of the room.
As soon as Prince Andrew had given up his daily occupations, and
especially on returning to the old conditions of life amid which he had
been happy, weariness of life overcame him with its former intensity,
and he hastened to escape from these memories and to find some work
as soon as possible.
"So you've decided to go, Andrew?" asked his sister.
 "Thank God that I can," replied Prince Andrew. "I am very sorry you
can't."
"Why do you say that?" replied Princess Mary. "Why do you say
that, when you are going to this terrible war, and he is so old?
Mademoiselle Bourienne says he has been asking about you...."
As soon as she began to speak of that, her lips trembled and her tears
began to fall. Prince Andrew turned away and began pacing the room.
"Ah, my God! my God! When one thinks who and what—what
trash—can cause people misery!" he said with a malignity that alarmed
Princess Mary.
She understood that when speaking of "trash" he referred not only to
Mademoiselle Bourienne, the cause of her misery, but also to the man
who had ruined his own happiness.
"Andrew! One thing I beg, I entreat of you!" she said, touching his
elbow and looking at him with eyes that shone through her tears. "I
understand you" (she looked down). "Don't imagine that sorrow is the
work of men. Men are His tools." She looked a little above Prince
Andrew's head with the confident, accustomed look with which one
looks at the place where a familiar portrait hangs. "Sorrow is sent by
Him, not by men. Men are His instruments, they are not to blame. If
you think someone has wronged you, forget it and forgive! We have no
right to punish. And then you will know the happiness of forgiving."
"If I were a woman I would do so, Mary. That is a woman's virtue.
But a man should not and cannot forgive and forget," he replied, and
though till that moment he had not been thinking of Kuragin, all his
unexpended anger suddenly swelled up in his heart.
"If Mary is already persuading me forgive, it means that I ought long
ago to have punished him," he thought. And giving her no further reply,
he began thinking of the glad vindictive moment when he would meet
Kuragin who he knew was now in the army.
Princess Mary begged him to stay one day more, saying that she
knew how unhappy her father would be if Andrew left without being
reconciled to him, but Prince Andrew replied that he would probably
soon be back again from the army and would certainly write to his
father, but that the longer he stayed now the more embittered their
differences would become.
"Good-by, Andrew! Remember that misfortunes come from God,
and men are never to blame," were the last words he heard from his
sister when he took leave of her.
 "Then it must be so!" thought Prince Andrew as he drove out of the
avenue from the house at Bald Hills. "She, poor innocent creature, is
left to be victimized by an old man who has outlived his wits. The old
man feels he is guilty, but cannot change himself. My boy is growing
up and rejoices in life, in which like everybody else he will deceive or
be deceived. And I am off to the army. Why? I myself don't know. I
want to meet that man whom I despise, so as to give him a chance to
kill and laugh at me!"
These conditions of life had been the same before, but then they were
all connected, while now they had all tumbled to pieces. Only senseless
things, lacking coherence, presented themselves one after another to
Prince Andrew's mind.

CHAPTER IX
Prince Andrew reached the general headquarters of the army at the
end of June. The first army, with which was the Emperor, occupied the
fortified camp at Drissa; the second army was retreating, trying to
effect a junction with the first one from which it was said to be cut off
by large French forces. Everyone was dissatisfied with the general
course of affairs in the Russian army, but no one anticipated any danger
of invasion of the Russian provinces, and no one thought the war would
extend farther than the western, the Polish, provinces.
Prince Andrew found Barclay de Tolly, to whom he had been
assigned, on the bank of the Drissa. As there was not a single town or
large village in the vicinity of the camp, the immense number of
generals and courtiers accompanying the army were living in the best
houses of the villages on both sides of the river, over a radius of six
miles. Barclay de Tolly was quartered nearly three miles from the
Emperor. He received Bolkonski stiffly and coldly and told him in his
foreign accent that he would mention him to the Emperor for a decision
as to his employment, but asked him meanwhile to remain on his staff.
Anatole Kuragin, whom Prince Andrew had hoped to find with the
army, was not there. He had gone to Petersburg, but Prince Andrew
was glad to hear this. His mind was occupied by the interests of the
center that was conducting a gigantic war, and he was glad to be free
for a while from the distraction caused by the thought of Kuragin.
During the first four days, while no duties were required of him, Prince
Andrew rode round the whole fortified camp and, by the aid of his own
knowledge and by talks with experts, tried to form a definite opinion
about it. But the question whether the camp was advantageous or
disadvantageous remained for him undecided. Already from his
military experience and what he had seen in the Austrian campaign, he
had come to the conclusion that in war the most deeply considered
plans have no significance and that all depends on the way unexpected
movements of the enemy—that cannot be foreseen—are met, and on
how and by whom the whole matter is handled. To clear up this last
point for himself, Prince Andrew, utilizing his position and
acquaintances, tried to fathom the character of the control of the army
and of the men and parties engaged in it, and he deduced for himself
the following of the state of affairs.
While the Emperor had still been at Vilna, the forces had been
divided into three armies. First, the army under Barclay de Tolly,
secondly, the army under Bagration, and thirdly, the one commanded
by Tormasov. The Emperor was with the first army, but not as
commander in chief. In the orders issued it was stated, not that the
Emperor would take command, but only that he would be with the
army. The Emperor, moreover, had with him not a commander in
chief's staff but the imperial headquarters staff. In attendance on him
was the head of the imperial staff, Quartermaster General Prince
Volkonski, as well as generals, imperial aides-de-camp, diplomatic
officials, and a large number of foreigners, but not the army staff.
Besides these, there were in attendance on the Emperor without any
definite appointments: Arakcheev, the ex-Minister of War; Count
Bennigsen, the senior general in rank; the Grand Duke Tsarevich
Constantine Pavlovich; Count Rumyantsev, the Chancellor; Stein, a
former Prussian minister; Armfeldt, a Swedish general; Pfuel, the chief
author of the plan of campaign; Paulucci, an adjutant general and
Sardinian emigre; Wolzogen—and many others. Though these men had
no military appointment in the army, their position gave them
influence, and often a corps commander, or even the commander in
chief, did not know in what capacity he was questioned by Bennigsen,
the Grand Duke, Arakcheev, or Prince Volkonski, or was given this or
that advice and did not know whether a certain order received in the
form of advice emanated from the man who gave it or from the
Emperor and whether it had to be executed or not. But this was only the
external condition; the essential significance of the presence of the
Emperor and of all these people, from a courtier's point of view (and in
an Emperor's vicinity all became courtiers), was clear to everyone. It
was this: the Emperor did not assume the title of commander in chief,
but disposed of all the armies; the men around him were his assistants.
Arakcheev was a faithful custodian to enforce order and acted as the
sovereign's bodyguard. Bennigsen was a landlord in the Vilna province
who appeared to be doing the honors of the district, but was in reality a
good general, useful as an adviser and ready at hand to replace Barclay.
The Grand Duke was there because it suited him to be. The ex-Minister
Stein was there because his advice was useful and the Emperor
Alexander held him in high esteem personally. Armfeldt virulently
hated Napoleon and was a general full of self-confidence, a quality that
always influenced Alexander. Paulucci was there because he was bold
and decided in speech. The adjutants general were there because they
always accompanied the Emperor, and lastly and chiefly Pfuel was
there because he had drawn up the plan of campaign against Napoleon
and, having induced Alexander to believe in the efficacy of that plan,
was directing the whole business of the war. With Pfuel was Wolzogen,
who expressed Pfuel's thoughts in a more comprehensible way than
Pfuel himself (who was a harsh, bookish theorist, self-confident to the
point of despising everyone else) was able to do.
Besides these Russians and foreigners who propounded new and
unexpected ideas every day—especially the foreigners, who did so with
a boldness characteristic of people employed in a country not their
own—there were many secondary personages accompanying the army
because their principals were there.
Among the opinions and voices in this immense, restless, brilliant,
and proud sphere, Prince Andrew noticed the following sharply defined
subdivisions of tendencies and parties:
The first party consisted of Pfuel and his adherents—military
theorists who believed in a science of war with immutable laws—laws
of oblique movements, outflankings, and so forth. Pfuel and his
adherents demanded a retirement into the depths of the country in
accordance with precise laws defined by a pseudo-theory of war, and
they saw only barbarism, ignorance, or evil intention in every deviation
from that theory. To this party belonged the foreign nobles, Wolzogen,
Wintzingerode, and others, chiefly Germans.
The second party was directly opposed to the first; one extreme, as
always happens, was met by representatives of the other. The members
of this party were those who had demanded an advance from Vilna into
Poland and freedom from all prearranged plans. Besides being
advocates of bold action, this section also represented nationalism,
which made them still more one-sided in the dispute. They were
Russians: Bagration, Ermolov (who was beginning to come to the
front), and others. At that time a famous joke of Ermolov's was being
circulated, that as a great favor he had petitioned the Emperor to make
him a German. The men of that party, remembering Suvorov, said that
what one had to do was not to reason, or stick pins into maps, but to
fight, beat the enemy, keep him out of Russia, and not let the army get
discouraged.
To the third party—in which the Emperor had most confidence—
belonged the courtiers who tried to arrange compromises between the
other two. The members of this party, chiefly civilians and to whom
Arakcheev belonged, thought and said what men who have no
convictions but wish to seem to have some generally say. They said
that undoubtedly war, particularly against such a genius as Bonaparte
(they called him Bonaparte now), needs most deeply devised plans and
profound scientific knowledge and in that respect Pfuel was a genius,
but at the same time it had to be acknowledged that the theorists are
often one sided, and therefore one should not trust them absolutely, but
should also listen to what Pfuel's opponents and practical men of
experience in warfare had to say, and then choose a middle course.
They insisted on the retention of the camp at Drissa, according to
Pfuel's plan, but on changing the movements of the other armies.
Though, by this course, neither one aim nor the other could be attained,
yet it seemed best to the adherents of this third party.
Of a fourth opinion the most conspicuous representative was the
Tsarevich, who could not forget his disillusionment at Austerlitz, where
he had ridden out at the head of the Guards, in his casque and cavalry
uniform as to a review, expecting to crush the French gallantly; but
unexpectedly finding himself in the front line had narrowly escaped
amid the general confusion. The men of this party had both the quality
and the defect of frankness in their opinions. They feared Napoleon,
recognized his strength and their own weakness, and frankly said so.
They said: "Nothing but sorrow, shame, and ruin will come of all this!
We have abandoned Vilna and Vitebsk and shall abandon Drissa. The
only reasonable thing left to do is to conclude peace as soon as
possible, before we are turned out of Petersburg."
This view was very general in the upper army circles and found
support also in Petersburg and from the chancellor, Rumyantsev, who,
for other reasons of state, was in favor of peace.
The fifth party consisted of those who were adherents of Barclay de
Tolly, not so much as a man but as minister of war and commander in
chief. "Be he what he may" (they always began like that), "he is an
honest, practical man and we have nobody better. Give him real power,
for war cannot be conducted successfully without unity of command,
and he will show what he can do, as he did in Finland. If our army is
well organized and strong and has withdrawn to Drissa without
suffering any defeats, we owe this entirely to Barclay. If Barclay is now
to be superseded by Bennigsen all will be lost, for Bennigsen showed
his incapacity already in 1807."
The sixth party, the Bennigsenites, said, on the contrary, that at any
rate there was no one more active and experienced than Bennigsen:
"and twist about as you may, you will have to come to Bennigsen
eventually. Let the others make mistakes now!" said they, arguing that
our retirement to Drissa was a most shameful reverse and an unbroken
series of blunders. "The more mistakes that are made the better. It will
at any rate be understood all the sooner that things cannot go on like
this. What is wanted is not some Barclay or other, but a man like
Bennigsen, who made his mark in 1807, and to whom Napoleon
himself did justice—a man whose authority would be willingly
recognized, and Bennigsen is the only such man."
The seventh party consisted of the sort of people who are always to
be found, especially around young sovereigns, and of whom there were
particularly many round Alexander—generals and imperial aides-de-
camp passionately devoted to the Emperor, not merely as a monarch
but as a man, adoring him sincerely and disinterestedly, as Rostov had
done in 1805, and who saw in him not only all the virtues but all human
capabilities as well. These men, though enchanted with the sovereign
for refusing the command of the army, yet blamed him for such
excessive modesty, and only desired and insisted that their adored
sovereign should abandon his diffidence and openly announce that he
would place himself at the head of the army, gather round him a
commander in chief's staff, and, consulting experienced theoreticians
and practical men where necessary, would himself lead the troops,
whose spirits would thereby be raised to the highest pitch.
The eighth and largest group, which in its enormous numbers was to
the others as ninety-nine to one, consisted of men who desired neither
peace nor war, neither an advance nor a defensive camp at the Drissa or
anywhere else, neither Barclay nor the Emperor, neither Pfuel nor
Bennigsen, but only the one most essential thing—as much advantage
and pleasure for themselves as possible. In the troubled waters of
conflicting and intersecting intrigues that eddied about the Emperor's
headquarters, it was possible to succeed in many ways unthinkable at
other times. A man who simply wished to retain his lucrative post
would today agree with Pfuel, tomorrow with his opponent, and the day
after, merely to avoid responsibility or to please the Emperor, would
declare that he had no opinion at all on the matter. Another who wished
to gain some advantage would attract the Emperor's attention by loudly
advocating the very thing the Emperor had hinted at the day before, and
would dispute and shout at the council, beating his breast and
challenging those who did not agree with him to duels, thereby proving
that he was prepared to sacrifice himself for the common good. A third,
in the absence of opponents, between two councils would simply solicit
a special gratuity for his faithful services, well knowing that at that
moment people would be too busy to refuse him. A fourth while
seemingly overwhelmed with work would often come accidentally
under the Emperor's eye. A fifth, to achieve his long-cherished aim of
dining with the Emperor, would stubbornly insist on the correctness or
falsity of some newly emerging opinion and for this object would
produce arguments more or less forcible and correct.
 All the men of this party were fishing for rubles, decorations, and
promotions, and in this pursuit watched only the weathercock of
imperial favor, and directly they noticed it turning in any direction, this
whole drone population of the army began blowing hard that way, so
that it was all the harder for the Emperor to turn it elsewhere. Amid the
uncertainties of the position, with the menace of serious danger giving
a peculiarly threatening character to everything, amid this vortex of
intrigue, egotism, conflict of views and feelings, and the diversity of
race among these people—this eighth and largest party of those
preoccupied with personal interests imparted great confusion and
obscurity to the common task. Whatever question arose, a swarm of
these drones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous
theme, flew over to the new one and by their hum drowned and
obscured the voices of those who were disputing honestly.
From among all these parties, just at the time Prince Andrew reached
the army, another, a ninth party, was being formed and was beginning
to raise its voice. This was the party of the elders, reasonable men
experienced and capable in state affairs, who, without sharing any of
those conflicting opinions, were able to take a detached view of what
was going on at the staff at headquarters and to consider means of
escape from this muddle, indecision, intricacy, and weakness.
The men of this party said and thought that what was wrong resulted
chiefly from the Emperor's presence in the army with his military court
and from the consequent presence there of an indefinite, conditional,
and unsteady fluctuation of relations, which is in place at court but
harmful in an army; that a sovereign should reign but not command the
army, and that the only way out of the position would be for the
Emperor and his court to leave the army; that the mere presence of the
Emperor paralyzed the action of fifty thousand men required to secure
his personal safety, and that the worst commander in chief if
independent would be better than the very best one trammeled by the
presence and authority of the monarch.
Just at the time Prince Andrew was living unoccupied at Drissa,
Shishkov, the Secretary of State and one of the chief representatives of
this party, wrote a letter to the Emperor which Arakcheev and Balashev
agreed to sign. In this letter, availing himself of permission given him
by the Emperor to discuss the general course of affairs, he respectfully
suggested—on the plea that it was necessary for the sovereign to arouse
a warlike spirit in the people of the capital—that the Emperor should
leave the army.
That arousing of the people by their sovereign and his call to them to
defend their country—the very incitement which was the chief cause of
Russia's triumph in so far as it was produced by the Tsar's personal
presence in Moscow—was suggested to the Emperor, and accepted by
him, as a pretext for quitting the army.

CHAPTER X
This letter had not yet been presented to the Emperor when Barclay,
one day at dinner, informed Bolkonski that the sovereign wished to see
him personally, to question him about Turkey, and that Prince Andrew
was to present himself at Bennigsen's quarters at six that evening.
News was received at the Emperor's quarters that very day of a fresh
movement by Napoleon which might endanger the army—news
subsequently found to be false. And that morning Colonel Michaud had
ridden round the Drissa fortifications with the Emperor and had pointed
out to him that this fortified camp constructed by Pfuel, and till then
considered a chef-d'oeuvre of tactical science which would ensure
Napoleon's destruction, was an absurdity, threatening the destruction of
the Russian army.
Prince Andrew arrived at Bennigsen's quarters—a country
gentleman's house of moderate size, situated on the very banks of the
river. Neither Bennigsen nor the Emperor was there, but Chernyshev,
the Emperor's aide-de-camp, received Bolkonski and informed him that
the Emperor, accompanied by General Bennigsen and Marquis
Paulucci, had gone a second time that day to inspect the fortifications
of the Drissa camp, of the suitability of which serious doubts were
beginning to be felt.
Chernyshev was sitting at a window in the first room with a French
novel in his hand. This room had probably been a music room; there
was still an organ in it on which some rugs were piled, and in one
corner stood the folding bedstead of Bennigsen's adjutant. This adjutant
was also there and sat dozing on the rolled-up bedding, evidently
exhausted by work or by feasting. Two doors led from the room, one
straight on into what had been the drawing room, and another, on the
right, to the study. Through the first door came the sound of voices
conversing in German and occasionally in French. In that drawing
room were gathered, by the Emperor's wish, not a military council (the
Emperor preferred indefiniteness), but certain persons whose opinions
he wished to know in view of the impending difficulties. It was not a
council of war, but, as it were, a council to elucidate certain questions
for the Emperor personally. To this semicouncil had been invited the
Swedish General Armfeldt, Adjutant General Wolzogen,
Wintzingerode (whom Napoleon had referred to as a renegade French
subject), Michaud, Toll, Count Stein who was not a military man at all,
and Pfuel himself, who, as Prince Andrew had heard, was the
mainspring of the whole affair. Prince Andrew had an opportunity of
getting a good look at him, for Pfuel arrived soon after himself and, in
passing through to the drawing room, stopped a minute to speak to
Chernyshev.
At first sight, Pfuel, in his ill-made uniform of a Russian general,
which fitted him badly like a fancy costume, seemed familiar to Prince
Andrew, though he saw him now for the first time. There was about
him something of Weyrother, Mack, and Schmidt, and many other
German theorist-generals whom Prince Andrew had seen in 1805, but
he was more typical than any of them. Prince Andrew had never yet
seen a German theorist in whom all the characteristics of those others
were united to such an extent.
Pfuel was short and very thin but broad-boned, of coarse, robust
build, broad in the hips, and with prominent shoulder blades. His face
was much wrinkled and his eyes deep set. His hair had evidently been
hastily brushed smooth in front of the temples, but stuck up behind in
quaint little tufts. He entered the room, looking restlessly and angrily
around, as if afraid of everything in that large apartment. Awkwardly
holding up his sword, he addressed Chernyshev and asked in German
where the Emperor was. One could see that he wished to pass through
the rooms as quickly as possible, finish with the bows and greetings,
and sit down to business in front of a map, where he would feel at
home. He nodded hurriedly in reply to Chernyshev, and smiled
ironically on hearing that the sovereign was inspecting the fortifications
that he, Pfuel, had planned in accord with his theory. He muttered
something to himself abruptly and in a bass voice, as self-assured
Germans do—it might have been "stupid fellow"... or "the whole affair
will be ruined," or "something absurd will come of it."... Prince
Andrew did not catch what he said and would have passed on, but
Chernyshev introduced him to Pfuel, remarking that Prince Andrew
was just back from Turkey where the war had terminated so
fortunately. Pfuel barely glanced—not so much at Prince Andrew as
past him—and said, with a laugh: "That must have been a fine tactical
war"; and, laughing contemptuously, went on into the room from which
the sound of voices was heard.
Pfuel, always inclined to be irritably sarcastic, was particularly
disturbed that day, evidently by the fact that they had dared to inspect
and criticize his camp in his absence. From this short interview with
Pfuel, Prince Andrew, thanks to his Austerlitz experiences, was able to
form a clear conception of the man. Pfuel was one of those hopelessly
and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of
martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-
confident on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the
supposed knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured
because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as
irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-
assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and
therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and
knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An
Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself
and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows
nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe
that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of
all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines
that he knows the truth—science—which he himself has invented but
which is for him the absolute truth.
Pfuel was evidently of that sort. He had a science—the theory of
oblique movements deduced by him from the history of Frederick the
Great's wars, and all he came across in the history of more recent
warfare seemed to him absurd and barbarous—monstrous collisions in
which so many blunders were committed by both sides that these wars
could not be called wars, they did not accord with the theory, and
therefore could not serve as material for science.
In 1806 Pfuel had been one of those responsible, for the plan of
campaign that ended in Jena and Auerstadt, but he did not see the least
proof of the fallibility of his theory in the disasters of that war. On the
contrary, the deviations made from his theory were, in his opinion, the
sole cause of the whole disaster, and with characteristically gleeful
sarcasm he would remark, "There, I said the whole affair would go to
the devil!" Pfuel was one of those theoreticians who so love their
theory that they lose sight of the theory's object—its practical
application. His love of theory made him hate everything practical, and
he would not listen to it. He was even pleased by failures, for failures
resulting from deviations in practice from the theory only proved to
him the accuracy of his theory.
He said a few words to Prince Andrew and Chernyshev about the
present war, with the air of a man who knows beforehand that all will
go wrong, and who is not displeased that it should be so. The
unbrushed tufts of hair sticking up behind and the hastily brushed hair
on his temples expressed this most eloquently.
He passed into the next room, and the deep, querulous sounds of his
voice were at once heard from there.
 CHAPTER XI
Prince Andrew's eyes were still following Pfuel out of the room
when Count Bennigsen entered hurriedly, and nodding to Bolkonski,
but not pausing, went into the study, giving instructions to his adjutant
as he went. The Emperor was following him, and Bennigsen had
hastened on to make some preparations and to be ready to receive the
sovereign. Chernyshev and Prince Andrew went out into the porch,
where the Emperor, who looked fatigued, was dismounting. Marquis
Paulucci was talking to him with particular warmth and the Emperor,
with his head bent to the left, was listening with a dissatisfied air. The
Emperor moved forward evidently wishing to end the conversation, but
the flushed and excited Italian, oblivious of decorum, followed him and
continued to speak.
"And as for the man who advised forming this camp—the Drissa
camp," said Paulucci, as the Emperor mounted the steps and noticing
Prince Andrew scanned his unfamiliar face, "as to that person, sire..."
continued Paulucci, desperately, apparently unable to restrain himself,
"the man who advised the Drissa camp—I see no alternative but the
lunatic asylum or the gallows!"
Without heeding the end of the Italian's remarks, and as though not
hearing them, the Emperor, recognizing Bolkonski, addressed him
graciously.
"I am very glad to see you! Go in there where they are meeting, and
wait for me."
The Emperor went into the study. He was followed by Prince Peter
Mikhaylovich Volkonski and Baron Stein, and the door closed behind
them. Prince Andrew, taking advantage of the Emperor's permission,
accompanied Paulucci, whom he had known in Turkey, into the
drawing room where the council was assembled.
Prince Peter Mikhaylovich Volkonski occupied the position, as it
were, of chief of the Emperor's staff. He came out of the study into the
drawing room with some maps which he spread on a table, and put
questions on which he wished to hear the opinion of the gentlemen
present. What had happened was that news (which afterwards proved to
be false) had been received during the night of a movement by the
French to outflank the Drissa camp.
The first to speak was General Armfeldt who, to meet the difficulty
that presented itself, unexpectedly proposed a perfectly new position
away from the Petersburg and Moscow roads. The reason for this was
inexplicable (unless he wished to show that he, too, could have an
opinion), but he urged that at this point the army should unite and there
await the enemy. It was plain that Armfeldt had thought out that plan
long ago and now expounded it not so much to answer the questions
put—which, in fact, his plan did not answer—as to avail himself of the
opportunity to air it. It was one of the millions of proposals, one as
good as another, that could be made as long as it was quite unknown
what character the war would take. Some disputed his arguments,
others defended them. Young Count Toll objected to the Swedish
general's views more warmly than anyone else, and in the course of the
dispute drew from his side pocket a well-filled notebook, which he
asked permission to read to them. In these voluminous notes Toll
suggested another scheme, totally different from Armfeldt's or Pfuel's
plan of campaign. In answer to Toll, Paulucci suggested an advance
and an attack, which, he urged, could alone extricate us from the
present uncertainty and from the trap (as he called the Drissa camp) in
which we were situated.
During all these discussions Pfuel and his interpreter, Wolzogen (his
"bridge" in court relations), were silent. Pfuel only snorted
contemptuously and turned away, to show that he would never demean
himself by replying to such nonsense as he was now hearing. So when
Prince Volkonski, who was in the chair, called on him to give his
opinion, he merely said:
"Why ask me? General Armfeldt has proposed a splendid position
with an exposed rear, or why not this Italian gentleman's attack—very
fine, or a retreat, also good! Why ask me?" said he. "Why, you
yourselves know everything better than I do."
But when Volkonski said, with a frown, that it was in the Emperor's
name that he asked his opinion, Pfuel rose and, suddenly growing
animated, began to speak:
"Everything has been spoiled, everything muddled, everybody
thought they knew better than I did, and now you come to me! How
mend matters? There is nothing to mend! The principles laid down by
me must be strictly adhered to," said he, drumming on the table with
his bony fingers. "What is the difficulty? Nonsense, childishness!"
He went up to the map and speaking rapidly began proving that no
eventuality could alter the efficiency of the Drissa camp, that
everything had been foreseen, and that if the enemy were really going
to outflank it, the enemy would inevitably be destroyed.
Paulucci, who did not know German, began questioning him in
French. Wolzogen came to the assistance of his chief, who spoke
French badly, and began translating for him, hardly able to keep pace
with Pfuel, who was rapidly demonstrating that not only all that had
happened, but all that could happen, had been foreseen in his scheme,
and that if there were now any difficulties the whole fault lay in the fact
that his plan had not been precisely executed. He kept laughing
sarcastically, he demonstrated, and at last contemptuously ceased to
demonstrate, like a mathematician who ceases to prove in various ways
the accuracy of a problem that has already been proved. Wolzogen took
his place and continued to explain his views in French, every now and
then turning to Pfuel and saying, "Is it not so, your excellency?" But
Pfuel, like a man heated in a fight who strikes those on his own side,
shouted angrily at his own supporter, Wolzogen:
"Well, of course, what more is there to explain?"
Paulucci and Michaud both attacked Wolzogen simultaneously in
French. Armfeldt addressed Pfuel in German. Toll explained to
Volkonski in Russian. Prince Andrew listened and observed in silence.
Of all these men Prince Andrew sympathized most with Pfuel, angry,
determined, and absurdly self-confident as he was. Of all those present,
evidently he alone was not seeking anything for himself, nursed no
hatred against anyone, and only desired that the plan, formed on a
theory arrived at by years of toil, should be carried out. He was
ridiculous, and unpleasantly sarcastic, but yet he inspired involuntary
respect by his boundless devotion to an idea. Besides this, the remarks
of all except Pfuel had one common trait that had not been noticeable at
the council of war in 1805: there was now a panic fear of Napoleon's
genius, which, though concealed, was noticeable in every rejoinder.
Everything was assumed to be possible for Napoleon, they expected
him from every side, and invoked his terrible name to shatter each
other's proposals. Pfuel alone seemed to consider Napoleon a barbarian
like everyone else who opposed his theory. But besides this feeling of
respect, Pfuel evoked pity in Prince Andrew. From the tone in which
the courtiers addressed him and the way Paulucci had allowed himself
to speak of him to the Emperor, but above all from a certain
desperation in Pfuel's own expressions, it was clear that the others
knew, and Pfuel himself felt, that his fall was at hand. And despite his
self-confidence and grumpy German sarcasm he was pitiable, with his
hair smoothly brushed on the temples and sticking up in tufts behind.
Though he concealed the fact under a show of irritation and contempt,
he was evidently in despair that the sole remaining chance of verifying
his theory by a huge experiment and proving its soundness to the whole
world was slipping away from him.
The discussions continued a long time, and the longer they lasted the
more heated became the disputes, culminating in shouts and
personalities, and the less was it possible to arrive at any general
conclusion from all that had been said. Prince Andrew, listening to this
polyglot talk and to these surmises, plans, refutations, and shouts, felt
nothing but amazement at what they were saying. A thought that had
long since and often occurred to him during his military activities—the
idea that there is not and cannot be any science of war, and that
therefore there can be no such thing as a military genius—now
appeared to him an obvious truth. "What theory and science is possible
about a matter the conditions and circumstances of which are unknown
and cannot be defined, especially when the strength of the acting forces
cannot be ascertained? No one was or is able to foresee in what
condition our or the enemy's armies will be in a day's time, and no one
can gauge the force of this or that detachment. Sometimes—when there
is not a coward at the front to shout, 'We are cut off!' and start running,
but a brave and jolly lad who shouts, 'Hurrah!'—a detachment of five
thousand is worth thirty thousand, as at Schon Grabern, while at times
fifty thousand run from eight thousand, as at Austerlitz. What science
can there be in a matter in which, as in all practical matters, nothing can
be defined and everything depends on innumerable conditions, the
significance of which is determined at a particular moment which
arrives no one knows when? Armfeldt says our army is cut in half, and
Paulucci says we have got the French army between two fires; Michaud
says that the worthlessness of the Drissa camp lies in having the river
behind it, and Pfuel says that is what constitutes its strength; Toll
proposes one plan, Armfeldt another, and they are all good and all bad,
and the advantages of any suggestions can be seen only at the moment
of trial. And why do they all speak of a 'military genius'? Is a man a
genius who can order bread to be brought up at the right time and say
who is to go to the right and who to the left? It is only because military
men are invested with pomp and power and crowds of sychophants
flatter power, attributing to it qualities of genius it does not possess.
The best generals I have known were, on the contrary, stupid or absent-
minded men. Bagration was the best, Napoleon himself admitted that.
And of Bonaparte himself! I remember his limited, self-satisfied face
on the field of Austerlitz. Not only does a good army commander not
need any special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the
highest and best human attributes—love, poetry, tenderness, and
philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced
that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have
sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid
that he should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just
and unjust. It is understandable that a theory of their 'genius' was
invented for them long ago because they have power! The success of a
military action depends not on them, but on the man in the ranks who
shouts, 'We are lost!' or who shouts, 'Hurrah!' And only in the ranks can
one serve with assurance of being useful."
So thought Prince Andrew as he listened to the talking, and he
roused himself only when Paulucci called him and everyone was
leaving.
 At the review next day the Emperor asked Prince Andrew where he
would like to serve, and Prince Andrew lost his standing in court circles
forever by not asking to remain attached to the sovereign's person, but
for permission to serve in the army.

CHAPTER XII
Before the beginning of the campaign, Rostov had received a letter
from his parents in which they told him briefly of Natasha's illness and
the breaking off of her engagement to Prince Andrew (which they
explained by Natasha's having rejected him) and again asked Nicholas
to retire from the army and return home. On receiving this letter,
Nicholas did not even make any attempt to get leave of absence or to
retire from the army, but wrote to his parents that he was sorry Natasha
was ill and her engagement broken off, and that he would do all he
could to meet their wishes. To Sonya he wrote separately.
"Adored friend of my soul!" he wrote. "Nothing but honor could
keep me from returning to the country. But now, at the commencement
of the campaign, I should feel dishonored, not only in my comrades'
eyes but in my own, if I preferred my own happiness to my love and
duty to the Fatherland. But this shall be our last separation. Believe me,
directly the war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I will
throw up everything and fly to you, to press you forever to my ardent
breast."
It was, in fact, only the commencement of the campaign that
prevented Rostov from returning home as he had promised and
marrying Sonya. The autumn in Otradnoe with the hunting, and the
winter with the Christmas holidays and Sonya's love, had opened out to
him a vista of tranquil rural joys and peace such as he had never known
before, and which now allured him. "A splendid wife, children, a good
pack of hounds, a dozen leashes of smart borzois, agriculture,
neighbors, service by election..." thought he. But now the campaign
was beginning, and he had to remain with his regiment. And since it
had to be so, Nicholas Rostov, as was natural to him, felt contented
with the life he led in the regiment and was able to find pleasure in that
life.
On his return from his furlough Nicholas, having been joyfully
welcomed by his comrades, was sent to obtain remounts and brought
back from the Ukraine excellent horses which pleased him and earned
him commendation from his commanders. During his absence he had
been promoted captain, and when the regiment was put on war footing
with an increase in numbers, he was again allotted his old squadron.
The campaign began, the regiment was moved into Poland on double
pay, new officers arrived, new men and horses, and above all
everybody was infected with the merrily excited mood that goes with
the commencement of a war, and Rostov, conscious of his
advantageous position in the regiment, devoted himself entirely to the
pleasures and interests of military service, though he knew that sooner
or later he would have to relinquish them.
The troops retired from Vilna for various complicated reasons of
state, political and strategic. Each step of the retreat was accompanied
by a complicated interplay of interests, arguments, and passions at
headquarters. For the Pavlograd hussars, however, the whole of this
retreat during the finest period of summer and with sufficient supplies
was a very simple and agreeable business.
It was only at headquarters that there was depression, uneasiness,
and intriguing; in the body of the army they did not ask themselves
where they were going or why. If they regretted having to retreat, it was
only because they had to leave billets they had grown accustomed to, or
some pretty young Polish lady. If the thought that things looked bad
chanced to enter anyone's head, he tried to be as cheerful as befits a
good soldier and not to think of the general trend of affairs, but only of
the task nearest to hand. First they camped gaily before Vilna, making
acquaintance with the Polish landowners, preparing for reviews and
being reviewed by the Emperor and other high commanders. Then
came an order to retreat to Sventsyani and destroy any provisions they
could not carry away with them. Sventsyani was remembered by the
hussars only as the drunken camp, a name the whole army gave to their
encampment there, and because many complaints were made against
the troops, who, taking advantage of the order to collect provisions,
took also horses, carriages, and carpets from the Polish proprietors.
Rostov remembered Sventsyani, because on the first day of their arrival
at that small town he changed his sergeant major and was unable to
manage all the drunken men of his squadron who, unknown to him, had
appropriated five barrels of old beer. From Sventsyani they retired
farther and farther to Drissa, and thence again beyond Drissa, drawing
near to the frontier of Russia proper.
On the thirteenth of July the Pavlograds took part in a serious action
for the first time.
On the twelfth of July, on the eve of that action, there was a heavy
storm of rain and hail. In general, the summer of 1812 was remarkable
for its storms.
 The two Pavlograd squadrons were bivouacking on a field of rye,
which was already in ear but had been completely trodden down by
cattle and horses. The rain was descending in torrents, and Rostov, with
a young officer named Ilyin, his protege, was sitting in a hastily
constructed shelter. An officer of their regiment, with long mustaches
extending onto his cheeks, who after riding to the staff had been
overtaken by the rain, entered Rostov's shelter.
"I have come from the staff, Count. Have you heard of Raevski's
exploit?"
And the officer gave them details of the Saltanov battle, which he
had heard at the staff.
Rostov, smoking his pipe and turning his head about as the water
trickled down his neck, listened inattentively, with an occasional glance
at Ilyin, who was pressing close to him. This officer, a lad of sixteen
who had recently joined the regiment, was now in the same relation to
Nicholas that Nicholas had been to Denisov seven years before. Ilyin
tried to imitate Rostov in everything and adored him as a girl might
have done.
Zdrzhinski, the officer with the long mustache, spoke
grandiloquently of the Saltanov dam being "a Russian Thermopylae,"
and of how a deed worthy of antiquity had been performed by General
Raevski. He recounted how Raevski had led his two sons onto the dam
under terrific fire and had charged with them beside him. Rostov heard
the story and not only said nothing to encourage Zdrzhinski's
enthusiasm but, on the contrary, looked like a man ashamed of what he
was hearing, though with no intention of contradicting it. Since the
campaigns of Austerlitz and of 1807 Rostov knew by experience that
men always lie when describing military exploits, as he himself had
done when recounting them; besides that, he had experience enough to
know that nothing happens in war at all as we can imagine or relate it.
And so he did not like Zdrzhinski's tale, nor did he like Zdrzhinski
himself who, with his mustaches extending over his cheeks, bent low
over the face of his hearer, as was his habit, and crowded Rostov in the
narrow shanty. Rostov looked at him in silence. "In the first place, there
must have been such a confusion and crowding on the dam that was
being attacked that if Raevski did lead his sons there, it could have had
no effect except perhaps on some dozen men nearest to him," thought
he, "the rest could not have seen how or with whom Raevski came onto
the dam. And even those who did see it would not have been much
stimulated by it, for what had they to do with Raevski's tender paternal
feelings when their own skins were in danger? And besides, the fate of
the Fatherland did not depend on whether they took the Saltanov dam
or not, as we are told was the case at Thermopylae. So why should he
have made such a sacrifice? And why expose his own children in the
battle? I would not have taken my brother Petya there, or even Ilyin,
who's a stranger to me but a nice lad, but would have tried to put them
somewhere under cover," Nicholas continued to think, as he listened to
Zdrzhinski. But he did not express his thoughts, for in such matters,
too, he had gained experience. He knew that this tale redounded to the
glory of our arms and so one had to pretend not to doubt it. And he
acted accordingly.
"I can't stand this any more," said Ilyin, noticing that Rostov did not
relish Zdrzhinski's conversation. "My stockings and shirt... and the
water is running on my seat! I'll go and look for shelter. The rain seems
less heavy."
Ilyin went out and Zdrzhinski rode away.
Five minutes later Ilyin, splashing through the mud, came running
back to the shanty.
"Hurrah! Rostov, come quick! I've found it! About two hundred
yards away there's a tavern where ours have already gathered. We can
at least get dry there, and Mary Hendrikhovna's there."
Mary Hendrikhovna was the wife of the regimental doctor, a pretty
young German woman he had married in Poland. The doctor, whether
from lack of means or because he did not like to part from his young
wife in the early days of their marriage, took her about with him
wherever the hussar regiment went and his jealousy had become a
standing joke among the hussar officers.
Rostov threw his cloak over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrushka to
follow with the things, and—now slipping in the mud, now splashing
right through it—set off with Ilyin in the lessening rain and the
darkness that was occasionally rent by distant lightning.
"Rostov, where are you?"
"Here. What lightning!" they called to one another.

CHAPTER XIII
In the tavern, before which stood the doctor's covered cart, there
were already some five officers. Mary Hendrikhovna, a plump little
blonde German, in a dressing jacket and nightcap, was sitting on a
broad bench in the front corner. Her husband, the doctor, lay asleep
behind her. Rostov and Ilyin, on entering the room, were welcomed
with merry shouts and laughter.
"Dear me, how jolly we are!" said Rostov laughing.
"And why do you stand there gaping?"
"What swells they are! Why, the water streams from them! Don't
make our drawing room so wet."
"Don't mess Mary Hendrikhovna's dress!" cried other voices.
Rostov and Ilyin hastened to find a corner where they could change
into dry clothes without offending Mary Hendrikhovna's modesty.
They were going into a tiny recess behind a partition to change, but
found it completely filled by three officers who sat playing cards by the
light of a solitary candle on an empty box, and these officers would on
no account yield their position. Mary Hendrikhovna obliged them with
the loan of a petticoat to be used as a curtain, and behind that screen
Rostov and Ilyin, helped by Lavrushka who had brought their kits,
changed their wet things for dry ones.
A fire was made up in the dilapidated brick stove. A board was
found, fixed on two saddles and covered with a horsecloth, a small
samovar was produced and a cellaret and half a bottle of rum, and
having asked Mary Hendrikhovna to preside, they all crowded round
her. One offered her a clean handkerchief to wipe her charming hands,
another spread a jacket under her little feet to keep them from the
damp, another hung his coat over the window to keep out the draft, and
yet another waved the flies off her husband's face, lest he should wake
up.
"Leave him alone," said Mary Hendrikhovna, smiling timidly and
happily. "He is sleeping well as it is, after a sleepless night."
"Oh, no, Mary Hendrikhovna," replied the officer, "one must look
after the doctor. Perhaps he'll take pity on me someday, when it comes
to cutting off a leg or an arm for me."
There were only three tumblers, the water was so muddy that one
could not make out whether the tea was strong or weak, and the
samovar held only six tumblers of water, but this made it all the
pleasanter to take turns in order of seniority to receive one's tumbler
from Mary Hendrikhovna's plump little hands with their short and not
overclean nails. All the officers appeared to be, and really were, in love
with her that evening. Even those playing cards behind the partition
soon left their game and came over to the samovar, yielding to the
general mood of courting Mary Hendrikhovna. She, seeing herself
surrounded by such brilliant and polite young men, beamed with
satisfaction, try as she might to hide it, and perturbed as she evidently
was each time her husband moved in his sleep behind her.
There was only one spoon, sugar was more plentiful than anything
else, but it took too long to dissolve, so it was decided that Mary
Hendrikhovna should stir the sugar for everyone in turn. Rostov
received his tumbler, and adding some rum to it asked Mary
Hendrikhovna to stir it.
"But you take it without sugar?" she said, smiling all the time, as if
everything she said and everything the others said was very amusing
and had a double meaning.
"It is not the sugar I want, but only that your little hand should stir
my tea."
Mary Hendrikhovna assented and began looking for the spoon which
someone meanwhile had pounced on.
"Use your finger, Mary Hendrikhovna, it will be still nicer," said
Rostov.
"Too hot!" she replied, blushing with pleasure.
Ilyin put a few drops of rum into the bucket of water and brought it
to Mary Hendrikhovna, asking her to stir it with her finger.
"This is my cup," said he. "Only dip your finger in it and I'll drink it
all up."
When they had emptied the samovar, Rostov took a pack of cards
and proposed that they should play "Kings" with Mary Hendrikhovna.
They drew lots to settle who should make up her set. At Rostov's
suggestion it was agreed that whoever became "King" should have the
right to kiss Mary Hendrikhovna's hand, and that the "Booby" should
go to refill and reheat the samovar for the doctor when the latter awoke.
"Well, but supposing Mary Hendrikhovna is 'King'?" asked Ilyin.
"As it is, she is Queen, and her word is law!"
They had hardly begun to play before the doctor's disheveled head
suddenly appeared from behind Mary Hendrikhovna. He had been
awake for some time, listening to what was being said, and evidently
found nothing entertaining or amusing in what was going on. His face
was sad and depressed. Without greeting the officers, he scratched
himself and asked to be allowed to pass as they were blocking the way.
As soon as he had left the room all the officers burst into loud laughter
and Mary Hendrikhovna blushed till her eyes filled with tears and
thereby became still more attractive to them. Returning from the yard,
the doctor told his wife (who had ceased to smile so happily, and
looked at him in alarm, awaiting her sentence) that the rain had ceased
and they must go to sleep in their covered cart, or everything in it
would be stolen.
"But I'll send an orderly.... Two of them!" said Rostov. "What an
idea, doctor!"
"I'll stand guard on it myself!" said Ilyin.
"No, gentlemen, you have had your sleep, but I have not slept for
two nights," replied the doctor, and he sat down morosely beside his
wife, waiting for the game to end.
Seeing his gloomy face as he frowned at his wife, the officers grew
still merrier, and some of them could not refrain from laughter, for
which they hurriedly sought plausible pretexts. When he had gone,
taking his wife with him, and had settled down with her in their
covered cart, the officers lay down in the tavern, covering themselves
with their wet cloaks, but they did not sleep for a long time; now they
exchanged remarks, recalling the doctor's uneasiness and his wife's
delight, now they ran out into the porch and reported what was taking
place in the covered trap. Several times Rostov, covering his head, tried
to go to sleep, but some remark would arouse him and conversation
would be resumed, to the accompaniment of unreasoning, merry,
childlike laughter.

CHAPTER XIV
It was nearly three o'clock but no one was yet asleep, when the
quartermaster appeared with an order to move on to the little town of
Ostrovna. Still laughing and talking, the officers began hurriedly
getting ready and again boiled some muddy water in the samovar. But
Rostov went off to his squadron without waiting for tea. Day was
breaking, the rain had ceased, and the clouds were dispersing. It felt
damp and cold, especially in clothes that were still moist. As they left
the tavern in the twilight of the dawn, Rostov and Ilyin both glanced
under the wet and glistening leather hood of the doctor's cart, from
under the apron of which his feet were sticking out, and in the middle
of which his wife's nightcap was visible and her sleepy breathing
audible.
"She really is a dear little thing," said Rostov to Ilyin, who was
following him.
 "A charming woman!" said Ilyin, with all the gravity of a boy of
sixteen.
Half an hour later the squadron was lined up on the road. The
command was heard to "mount" and the soldiers crossed themselves
and mounted. Rostov riding in front gave the order "Forward!" and the
hussars, with clanking sabers and subdued talk, their horses' hoofs
splashing in the mud, defiled in fours and moved along the broad road
planted with birch trees on each side, following the infantry and a
battery that had gone on in front.
Tattered, blue-purple clouds, reddening in the east, were scudding
before the wind. It was growing lighter and lighter. That curly grass
which always grows by country roadsides became clearly visible, still
wet with the night's rain; the drooping branches of the birches, also wet,
swayed in the wind and flung down bright drops of water to one side.
The soldiers' faces were more and more clearly visible. Rostov, always
closely followed by Ilyin, rode along the side of the road between two
rows of birch trees.
When campaigning, Rostov allowed himself the indulgence of riding
not a regimental but a Cossack horse. A judge of horses and a
sportsman, he had lately procured himself a large, fine, mettlesome,
Donets horse, dun-colored, with light mane and tail, and when he rode
it no one could outgallop him. To ride this horse was a pleasure to him,
and he thought of the horse, of the morning, of the doctor's wife, but
not once of the impending danger.
Formerly, when going into action, Rostov had felt afraid; now he had
not the least feeling of fear. He was fearless, not because he had grown
used to being under fire (one cannot grow used to danger), but because
he had learned how to manage his thoughts when in danger. He had
grown accustomed when going into action to think about anything but
what would seem most likely to interest him—the impending danger.
During the first period of his service, hard as he tried and much as he
reproached himself with cowardice, he had not been able to do this, but
with time it had come of itself. Now he rode beside Ilyin under the
birch trees, occasionally plucking leaves from a branch that met his
hand, sometimes touching his horse's side with his foot, or, without
turning round, handing a pipe he had finished to an hussar riding
behind him, with as calm and careless an air as though he were merely
out for a ride. He glanced with pity at the excited face of Ilyin, who
talked much and in great agitation. He knew from experience the
tormenting expectation of terror and death the cornet was suffering and
knew that only time could help him.
As soon as the sun appeared in a clear strip of sky beneath the
clouds, the wind fell, as if it dared not spoil the beauty of the summer
morning after the storm; drops still continued to fall, but vertically now,
and all was still. The whole sun appeared on the horizon and
disappeared behind a long narrow cloud that hung above it. A few
minutes later it reappeared brighter still from behind the top of the
cloud, tearing its edge. Everything grew bright and glittered. And with
that light, and as if in reply to it, came the sound of guns ahead of them.
Before Rostov had had time to consider and determine the distance
of that firing, Count Ostermann-Tolstoy's adjutant came galloping from
Vitebsk with orders to advance at a trot along the road.
The squadron overtook and passed the infantry and the battery—
which had also quickened their pace—rode down a hill, and passing
through an empty and deserted village again ascended. The horses
began to lather and the men to flush.
"Halt! Dress your ranks!" the order of the regimental commander
was heard ahead. "Forward by the left. Walk, march!" came the order
from in front.
And the hussars, passing along the line of troops on the left flank of
our position, halted behind our Uhlans who were in the front line. To
the right stood our infantry in a dense column: they were the reserve.
Higher up the hill, on the very horizon, our guns were visible through
the wonderfully clear air, brightly illuminated by slanting morning
sunbeams. In front, beyond a hollow dale, could be seen the enemy's
columns and guns. Our advanced line, already in action, could be heard
briskly exchanging shots with the enemy in the dale.
At these sounds, long unheard, Rostov's spirits rose, as at the strains
of the merriest music. Trap-ta-ta-tap! cracked the shots, now together,
now several quickly one after another. Again all was silent and then
again it sounded as if someone were walking on detonators and
exploding them.
The hussars remained in the same place for about an hour. A
cannonade began. Count Ostermann with his suite rode up behind the
squadron, halted, spoke to the commander of the regiment, and rode up
the hill to the guns.
After Ostermann had gone, a command rang out to the Uhlans.
"Form column! Prepare to charge!"
The infantry in front of them parted into platoons to allow the
cavalry to pass. The Uhlans started, the streamers on their spears
fluttering, and trotted downhill toward the French cavalry which was
seen below to the left.
 As soon as the Uhlans descended the hill, the hussars were ordered
up the hill to support the battery. As they took the places vacated by the
Uhlans, bullets came from the front, whining and whistling, but fell
spent without taking effect.
The sounds, which he had not heard for so long, had an even more
pleasurable and exhilarating effect on Rostov than the previous sounds
of firing. Drawing himself up, he viewed the field of battle opening out
before him from the hill, and with his whole soul followed the
movement of the Uhlans. They swooped down close to the French
dragoons, something confused happened there amid the smoke, and
five minutes later our Uhlans were galloping back, not to the place they
had occupied but more to the left, and among the orange-colored
Uhlans on chestnut horses and behind them, in a large group, blue
French dragoons on gray horses could be seen.

CHAPTER XV
Rostov, with his keen sportsman's eye, was one of the first to catch
sight of these blue French dragoons pursuing our Uhlans. Nearer and
nearer in disorderly crowds came the Uhlans and the French dragoons
pursuing them. He could already see how these men, who looked so
small at the foot of the hill, jostled and overtook one another, waving
their arms and their sabers in the air.
Rostov gazed at what was happening before him as at a hunt. He felt
instinctively that if the hussars struck at the French dragoons now, the
latter could not withstand them, but if a charge was to be made it must
be done now, at that very moment, or it would be too late. He looked
around. A captain, standing beside him, was gazing like himself with
eyes fixed on the cavalry below them.
"Andrew Sevastyanych!" said Rostov. "You know, we could crush
them...."
"A fine thing too!" replied the captain, "and really..."
Rostov, without waiting to hear him out, touched his horse, galloped
to the front of his squadron, and before he had time to finish giving the
word of command, the whole squadron, sharing his feeling, was
following him. Rostov himself did not know how or why he did it. He
acted as he did when hunting, without reflecting or considering. He saw
the dragoons near and that they were galloping in disorder; he knew
they could not withstand an attack—knew there was only that moment
and that if he let it slip it would not return. The bullets were whining
and whistling so stimulatingly around him and his horse was so eager
to go that he could not restrain himself. He touched his horse, gave the
word of command, and immediately, hearing behind him the tramp of
the horses of his deployed squadron, rode at full trot downhill toward
the dragoons. Hardly had they reached the bottom of the hill before
their pace instinctively changed to a gallop, which grew faster and
faster as they drew nearer to our Uhlans and the French dragoons who
galloped after them. The dragoons were now close at hand. On seeing
the hussars, the foremost began to turn, while those behind began to
halt. With the same feeling with which he had galloped across the path
of a wolf, Rostov gave rein to his Donets horse and galloped to
intersect the path of the dragoons' disordered lines. One Uhlan stopped,
another who was on foot flung himself to the ground to avoid being
knocked over, and a riderless horse fell in among the hussars. Nearly
all the French dragoons were galloping back. Rostov, picking out one
on a gray horse, dashed after him. On the way he came upon a bush, his
gallant horse cleared it, and almost before he had righted himself in his
saddle he saw that he would immediately overtake the enemy he had
selected. That Frenchman, by his uniform an officer, was going at a
gallop, crouching on his gray horse and urging it on with his saber. In
another moment Rostov's horse dashed its breast against the
hindquarters of the officer's horse, almost knocking it over, and at the
same instant Rostov, without knowing why, raised his saber and struck
the Frenchman with it.
The instant he had done this, all Rostov's animation vanished. The
officer fell, not so much from the blow—which had but slightly cut his
arm above the elbow—as from the shock to his horse and from fright.
Rostov reined in his horse, and his eyes sought his foe to see whom he
had vanquished. The French dragoon officer was hopping with one foot
on the ground, the other being caught in the stirrup. His eyes, screwed
up with fear as if he every moment expected another blow, gazed up at
Rostov with shrinking terror. His pale and mud-stained face—fair and
young, with a dimple in the chin and light-blue eyes—was not an
enemy's face at all suited to a battlefield, but a most ordinary, homelike
face. Before Rostov had decided what to do with him, the officer cried,
"I surrender!" He hurriedly but vainly tried to get his foot out of the
stirrup and did not remove his frightened blue eyes from Rostov's face.
Some hussars who galloped up disengaged his foot and helped him into
the saddle. On all sides, the hussars were busy with the dragoons; one
was wounded, but though his face was bleeding, he would not give up
his horse; another was perched up behind an hussar with his arms round
him; a third was being helped by an hussar to mount his horse. In front,
the French infantry were firing as they ran. The hussars galloped hastily
back with their prisoners. Rostov galloped back with the rest, aware of
an unpleasant feeling of depression in his heart. Something vague and
confused, which he could not at all account for, had come over him
with the capture of that officer and the blow he had dealt him.
Count Ostermann-Tolstoy met the returning hussars, sent for Rostov,
thanked him, and said he would report his gallant deed to the Emperor
and would recommend him for a St. George's Cross. When sent for by
Count Ostermann, Rostov, remembering that he had charged without
orders, felt sure his commander was sending for him to punish him for
breach of discipline. Ostermann's flattering words and promise of a
reward should therefore have struck him all the more pleasantly, but he
still felt that same vaguely disagreeable feeling of moral nausea. "But
what on earth is worrying me?" he asked himself as he rode back from
the general. "Ilyin? No, he's safe. Have I disgraced myself in any way?
No, that's not it." Something else, resembling remorse, tormented him.
"Yes, oh yes, that French officer with the dimple. And I remember how
my arm paused when I raised it."
Rostov saw the prisoners being led away and galloped after them to
have a look at his Frenchman with the dimple on his chin. He was
sitting in his foreign uniform on an hussar packhorse and looked
anxiously about him; The sword cut on his arm could scarcely be called
a wound. He glanced at Rostov with a feigned smile and waved his
hand in greeting. Rostov still had the same indefinite feeling, as of
shame.
All that day and the next his friends and comrades noticed that
Rostov, without being dull or angry, was silent, thoughtful, and
preoccupied. He drank reluctantly, tried to remain alone, and kept
turning something over in his mind.
Rostov was always thinking about that brilliant exploit of his, which
to his amazement had gained him the St. George's Cross and even
given him a reputation for bravery, and there was something he could
not at all understand. "So others are even more afraid than I am!" he
thought. "So that's all there is in what is called heroism! And did I do it
for my country's sake? And how was he to blame, with his dimple and
blue eyes? And how frightened he was! He thought that I should kill
him. Why should I kill him? My hand trembled. And they have given
me a St. George's Cross.... I can't make it out at all."
But while Nicholas was considering these questions and still could
reach no clear solution of what puzzled him so, the wheel of fortune in
the service, as often happens, turned in his favor. After the affair at
Ostrovna he was brought into notice, received command of an hussar
battalion, and when a brave officer was needed he was chosen.
 CHAPTER XVI
On receiving news of Natasha's illness, the countess, though not
quite well yet and still weak, went to Moscow with Petya and the rest
of the household, and the whole family moved from Marya
Dmitrievna's house to their own and settled down in town.
Natasha's illness was so serious that, fortunately for her and for her
parents, the consideration of all that had caused the illness, her conduct
and the breaking off of her engagement, receded into the background.
She was so ill that it was impossible for them to consider in how far she
was to blame for what had happened. She could not eat or sleep, grew
visibly thinner, coughed, and, as the doctors made them feel, was in
danger. They could not think of anything but how to help her. Doctors
came to see her singly and in consultation, talked much in French,
German, and Latin, blamed one another, and prescribed a great variety
of medicines for all the diseases known to them, but the simple idea
never occurred to any of them that they could not know the disease
Natasha was suffering from, as no disease suffered by a live man can
be known, for every living person has his own peculiarities and always
has his own peculiar, personal, novel, complicated disease, unknown to
medicine—not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves, and so
on mentioned in medical books, but a disease consisting of one of the
innumerable combinations of the maladies of those organs. This simple
thought could not occur to the doctors (as it cannot occur to a wizard
that he is unable to work his charms) because the business of their lives
was to cure, and they received money for it and had spent the best years
of their lives on that business. But, above all, that thought was kept out
of their minds by the fact that they saw they were really useful, as in
fact they were to the whole Rostov family. Their usefulness did not
depend on making the patient swallow substances for the most part
harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible, as they were given in small
doses), but they were useful, necessary, and indispensable because they
satisfied a mental need of the invalid and of those who loved her—and
that is why there are, and always will be, pseudo-healers, wise women,
homeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied that eternal human need for
hope of relief, for sympathy, and that something should be done, which
is felt by those who are suffering. They satisfied the need seen in its
most elementary form in a child, when it wants to have a place rubbed
that has been hurt. A child knocks itself and runs at once to the arms of
its mother or nurse to have the aching spot rubbed or kissed, and it feels
better when this is done. The child cannot believe that the strongest and
wisest of its people have no remedy for its pain, and the hope of relief
and the expression of its mother's sympathy while she rubs the bump
comforts it. The doctors were of use to Natasha because they kissed and
rubbed her bump, assuring her that it would soon pass if only the
coachman went to the chemist's in the Arbat and got a powder and
some pills in a pretty box for a ruble and seventy kopeks, and if she
took those powders in boiled water at intervals of precisely two hours,
neither more nor less.
What would Sonya and the count and countess have done, how
would they have looked, if nothing had been done, if there had not been
those pills to give by the clock, the warm drinks, the chicken cutlets,
and all the other details of life ordered by the doctors, the carrying out
of which supplied an occupation and consolation to the family circle?
How would the count have borne his dearly loved daughter's illness had
he not known that it was costing him a thousand rubles, and that he
would not grudge thousands more to benefit her, or had he not known
that if her illness continued he would not grudge yet other thousands
and would take her abroad for consultations there, and had he not been
able to explain the details of how Metivier and Feller had not
understood the symptoms, but Frise had, and Mudrov had diagnosed
them even better? What would the countess have done had she not been
able sometimes to scold the invalid for not strictly obeying the doctor's
orders?
"You'll never get well like that," she would say, forgetting her grief
in her vexation, "if you won't obey the doctor and take your medicine at
the right time! You mustn't trifle with it, you know, or it may turn to
pneumonia," she would go on, deriving much comfort from the
utterance of that foreign word, incomprehensible to others as well as to
herself.
What would Sonya have done without the glad consciousness that
she had not undressed during the first three nights, in order to be ready
to carry out all the doctor's injunctions with precision, and that she still
kept awake at night so as not to miss the proper time when the slightly
harmful pills in the little gilt box had to be administered? Even to
Natasha herself it was pleasant to see that so many sacrifices were
being made for her sake, and to know that she had to take medicine at
certain hours, though she declared that no medicine would cure her and
that it was all nonsense. And it was even pleasant to be able to show, by
disregarding the orders, that she did not believe in medical treatment
and did not value her life.
The doctor came every day, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and
regardless of her grief-stricken face joked with her. But when he had
gone into another room, to which the countess hurriedly followed him,
he assumed a grave air and thoughtfully shaking his head said that
though there was danger, he had hopes of the effect of this last
medicine and one must wait and see, that the malady was chiefly
mental, but... And the countess, trying to conceal the action from
herself and from him, slipped a gold coin into his hand and always
returned to the patient with a more tranquil mind.
The symptoms of Natasha's illness were that she ate little, slept little,
coughed, and was always low-spirited. The doctors said that she could
not get on without medical treatment, so they kept her in the stifling
atmosphere of the town, and the Rostovs did not move to the country
that summer of 1812.
In spite of the many pills she swallowed and the drops and powders
out of the little bottles and boxes of which Madame Schoss who was
fond of such things made a large collection, and in spite of being
deprived of the country life to which she was accustomed, youth
prevailed. Natasha's grief began to be overlaid by the impressions of
daily life, it ceased to press so painfully on her heart, it gradually faded
into the past, and she began to recover physically.

CHAPTER XVII
Natasha was calmer but no happier. She not merely avoided all
external forms of pleasure—balls, promenades, concerts, and
theaters—but she never laughed without a sound of tears in her
laughter. She could not sing. As soon as she began to laugh, or tried to
sing by herself, tears choked her: tears of remorse, tears at the
recollection of those pure times which could never return, tears of
vexation that she should so uselessly have ruined her young life which
might have been so happy. Laughter and singing in particular seemed
to her like a blasphemy, in face of her sorrow. Without any need of
self-restraint, no wish to coquet ever entered her head. She said and felt
at that time that no man was more to her than Nastasya Ivanovna, the
buffoon. Something stood sentinel within her and forbade her every
joy. Besides, she had lost all the old interests of her carefree girlish life
that had been so full of hope. The previous autumn, the hunting,
"Uncle," and the Christmas holidays spent with Nicholas at Otradnoe
were what she recalled oftenest and most painfully. What would she
not have given to bring back even a single day of that time! But it was
gone forever. Her presentiment at the time had not deceived her—that
that state of freedom and readiness for any enjoyment would not return
again. Yet it was necessary to live on.
It comforted her to reflect that she was not better as she had formerly
imagined, but worse, much worse, than anybody else in the world. But
this was not enough. She knew that, and asked herself, "What next?"
But there was nothing to come. There was no joy in life, yet life was
passing. Natasha apparently tried not to be a burden or a hindrance to
anyone, but wanted nothing for herself. She kept away from everyone
in the house and felt at ease only with her brother Petya. She liked to be
with him better than with the others, and when alone with him she
sometimes laughed. She hardly ever left the house and of those who
came to see them was glad to see only one person, Pierre. It would have
been impossible to treat her with more delicacy, greater care, and at the
same time more seriously than did Count Bezukhov. Natasha
unconsciously felt this delicacy and so found great pleasure in his
society. But she was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on
Pierre's part seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him
to be kind to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness.
Sometimes Natasha noticed embarrassment and awkwardness on his
part in her presence, especially when he wanted to do something to
please her, or feared that something they spoke of would awaken
memories distressing to her. She noticed this and attributed it to his
general kindness and shyness, which she imagined must be the same
toward everyone as it was to her. After those involuntary words—that
if he were free he would have asked on his knees for her hand and her
love—uttered at a moment when she was so strongly agitated, Pierre
never spoke to Natasha of his feelings; and it seemed plain to her that
those words, which had then so comforted her, were spoken as all sorts
of meaningless words are spoken to comfort a crying child. It was not
because Pierre was a married man, but because Natasha felt very
strongly with him that moral barrier the absence of which she had
experienced with Kuragin that it never entered her head that the
relations between him and herself could lead to love on her part, still
less on his, or even to the kind of tender, self-conscious, romantic
friendship between a man and a woman of which she had known
several instances.
Before the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agrafena Ivanovna Belova, a
country neighbor of the Rostovs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions
at the shrines of the Moscow saints. She suggested that Natasha should
fast and prepare for Holy Communion, and Natasha gladly welcomed
the idea. Despite the doctor's orders that she should not go out early in
the morning, Natasha insisted on fasting and preparing for the
sacrament, not as they generally prepared for it in the Rostov family by
attending three services in their own house, but as Agrafena Ivanovna
did, by going to church every day for a week and not once missing
Vespers, Matins, or Mass.
The countess was pleased with Natasha's zeal; after the poor results
of the medical treatment, in the depths of her heart she hoped that
prayer might help her daughter more than medicines and, though not
without fear and concealing it from the doctor, she agreed to Natasha's
wish and entrusted her to Belova. Agrafena Ivanovna used to come to
wake Natasha at three in the morning, but generally found her already
awake. She was afraid of being late for Matins. Hastily washing, and
meekly putting on her shabbiest dress and an old mantilla, Natasha,
shivering in the fresh air, went out into the deserted streets lit by the
clear light of dawn. By Agrafena Ivanovna's advice Natasha prepared
herself not in their own parish, but at a church where, according to the
devout Agrafena Ivanovna, the priest was a man of very severe and
lofty life. There were never many people in the church; Natasha always
stood beside Belova in the customary place before an icon of the
Blessed Virgin, let into the screen before the choir on the left side, and
a feeling, new to her, of humility before something great and
incomprehensible, seized her when at that unusual morning hour,
gazing at the dark face of the Virgin illuminated by the candles burning
before it and by the morning light falling from the window, she listened
to the words of the service which she tried to follow with
understanding. When she understood them her personal feeling became
interwoven in the prayers with shades of its own. When she did not
understand, it was sweeter still to think that the wish to understand
everything is pride, that it is impossible to understand all, that it is only
necessary to believe and to commit oneself to God, whom she felt
guiding her soul at those moments. She crossed herself, bowed low,
and when she did not understand, in horror at her own vileness, simply
asked God to forgive her everything, everything, to have mercy upon
her. The prayers to which she surrendered herself most of all were
those of repentance. On her way home at an early hour when she met
no one but bricklayers going to work or men sweeping the street, and
everybody within the houses was still asleep, Natasha experienced a
feeling new to her, a sense of the possibility of correcting her faults, the
possibility of a new, clean life, and of happiness.
During the whole week she spent in this way, that feeling grew every
day. And the happiness of taking communion, or "communing" as
Agrafena Ivanovna, joyously playing with the word, called it, seemed
to Natasha so great that she felt she should never live till that blessed
Sunday.
But the happy day came, and on that memorable Sunday, when,
dressed in white muslin, she returned home after communion, for the
first time for many months she felt calm and not oppressed by the
thought of the life that lay before her.
The doctor who came to see her that day ordered her to continue the
powders he had prescribed a fortnight previously.
"She must certainly go on taking them morning and evening," said
he, evidently sincerely satisfied with his success. "Only, please be
particular about it.
 "Be quite easy," he continued playfully, as he adroitly took the gold
coin in his palm. "She will soon be singing and frolicking about. The
last medicine has done her a very great deal of good. She has freshened
up very much."
The countess, with a cheerful expression on her face, looked down at
her nails and spat a little for luck as she returned to the drawing room.

CHAPTER XVIII
At the beginning of July more and more disquieting reports about the
war began to spread in Moscow; people spoke of an appeal by the
Emperor to the people, and of his coming himself from the army to
Moscow. And as up to the eleventh of July no manifesto or appeal had
been received, exaggerated reports became current about them and
about the position of Russia. It was said that the Emperor was leaving
the army because it was in danger, it was said that Smolensk had
surrendered, that Napoleon had an army of a million and only a miracle
could save Russia.
On the eleventh of July, which was Saturday, the manifesto was
received but was not yet in print, and Pierre, who was at the Rostovs',
promised to come to dinner next day, Sunday, and bring a copy of the
manifesto and appeal, which he would obtain from Count Rostopchin.
That Sunday, the Rostovs went to Mass at the Razumovskis' private
chapel as usual. It was a hot July day. Even at ten o'clock, when the
Rostovs got out of their carriage at the chapel, the sultry air, the shouts
of hawkers, the light and gay summer clothes of the crowd, the dusty
leaves of the trees on the boulevard, the sounds of the band and the
white trousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattling of wheels
on the cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine were all full of that
summer languor, that content and discontent with the present, which is
most strongly felt on a bright, hot day in town. All the Moscow
notabilities, all the Rostovs' acquaintances, were at the Razumovskis'
chapel, for, as if expecting something to happen, many wealthy families
who usually left town for their country estates had not gone away that
summer. As Natasha, at her mother's side, passed through the crowd
behind a liveried footman who cleared the way for them, she heard a
young man speaking about her in too loud a whisper.
"That's Rostova, the one who..."
"She's much thinner, but all the same she's pretty!"
 She heard, or thought she heard, the names of Kuragin and
Bolkonski. But she was always imagining that. It always seemed to her
that everyone who looked at her was thinking only of what had
happened to her. With a sinking heart, wretched as she always was now
when she found herself in a crowd, Natasha in her lilac silk dress
trimmed with black lace walked—as women can walk—with the more
repose and stateliness the greater the pain and shame in her soul. She
knew for certain that she was pretty, but this no longer gave her
satisfaction as it used to. On the contrary it tormented her more than
anything else of late, and particularly so on this bright, hot summer day
in town. "It's Sunday again—another week past," she thought, recalling
that she had been here the Sunday before, "and always the same life
that is no life, and the same surroundings in which it used to be so easy
to live. I'm pretty, I'm young, and I know that now I am good. I used to
be bad, but now I know I am good," she thought, "but yet my best years
are slipping by and are no good to anyone." She stood by her mother's
side and exchanged nods with acquaintances near her. From habit she
scrutinized the ladies' dresses, condemned the bearing of a lady
standing close by who was not crossing herself properly but in a
cramped manner, and again she thought with vexation that she was
herself being judged and was judging others, and suddenly, at the sound
of the service, she felt horrified at her own vileness, horrified that the
former purity of her soul was again lost to her.
A comely, fresh-looking old man was conducting the service with
that mild solemnity which has so elevating and soothing an effect on
the souls of the worshipers. The gates of the sanctuary screen were
closed, the curtain was slowly drawn, and from behind it a soft
mysterious voice pronounced some words. Tears, the cause of which
she herself did not understand, made Natasha's breast heave, and a
joyous but oppressive feeling agitated her.
"Teach me what I should do, how to live my life, how I may grow
good forever, forever!" she pleaded.
The deacon came out onto the raised space before the altar screen
and, holding his thumb extended, drew his long hair from under his
dalmatic and, making the sign of the cross on his breast, began in a
loud and solemn voice to recite the words of the prayer...
"In peace let us pray unto the Lord."
"As one community, without distinction of class, without enmity,
united by brotherly love—let us pray!" thought Natasha.
"For the peace that is from above, and for the salvation of our souls."
"For the world of angels and all the spirits who dwell above us,"
prayed Natasha.
 When they prayed for the warriors, she thought of her brother and
Denisov. When they prayed for all traveling by land and sea, she
remembered Prince Andrew, prayed for him, and asked God to forgive
her all the wrongs she had done him. When they prayed for those who
love us, she prayed for the members of her own family, her father and
mother and Sonya, realizing for the first time how wrongly she had
acted toward them, and feeling all the strength of her love for them.
When they prayed for those who hate us, she tried to think of her
enemies and people who hated her, in order to pray for them. She
included among her enemies the creditors and all who had business
dealings with her father, and always at the thought of enemies and
those who hated her she remembered Anatole who had done her so
much harm—and though he did not hate her she gladly prayed for him
as for an enemy. Only at prayer did she feel able to think clearly and
calmly of Prince Andrew and Anatole, as men for whom her feelings
were as nothing compared with her awe and devotion to God. When
they prayed for the Imperial family and the Synod, she bowed very low
and made the sign of the cross, saying to herself that even if she did not
understand, still she could not doubt, and at any rate loved the
governing Synod and prayed for it.
When he had finished the Litany the deacon crossed the stole over
his breast and said, "Let us commit ourselves and our whole lives to
Christ the Lord!"
"Commit ourselves to God," Natasha inwardly repeated. "Lord God,
I submit myself to Thy will!" she thought. "I want nothing, wish for
nothing; teach me what to do and how to use my will! Take me, take
me!" prayed Natasha, with impatient emotion in her heart, not crossing
herself but letting her slender arms hang down as if expecting some
invisible power at any moment to take her and deliver her from herself,
from her regrets, desires, remorse, hopes, and sins.
The countess looked round several times at her daughter's softened
face and shining eyes and prayed God to help her.
Unexpectedly, in the middle of the service, and not in the usual order
Natasha knew so well, the deacon brought out a small stool, the one he
knelt on when praying on Trinity Sunday, and placed it before the
doors of the sanctuary screen. The priest came out with his purple
velvet biretta on his head, adjusted his hair, and knelt down with an
effort. Everybody followed his example and they looked at one another
in surprise. Then came the prayer just received from the Synod—a
prayer for the deliverance of Russia from hostile invasion.
"Lord God of might, God of our salvation!" began the priest in that
voice, clear, not grandiloquent but mild, in which only the Slav clergy
read and which acts so irresistibly on a Russian heart.
 "Lord God of might, God of our salvation! Look this day in mercy
and blessing on Thy humble people, and graciously hear us, spare us,
and have mercy upon us! This foe confounding Thy land, desiring to
lay waste the whole world, rises against us; these lawless men are
gathered together to overthrow Thy kingdom, to destroy Thy dear
Jerusalem, Thy beloved Russia; to defile Thy temples, to overthrow
Thine altars, and to desecrate our holy shrines. How long, O Lord, how
long shall the wicked triumph? How long shall they wield unlawful
power?
"Lord God! Hear us when we pray to Thee; strengthen with Thy
might our most gracious sovereign lord, the Emperor Alexander
Pavlovich; be mindful of his uprightness and meekness, reward him
according to his righteousness, and let it preserve us, Thy chosen Israel!
Bless his counsels, his undertakings, and his work; strengthen his
kingdom by Thine almighty hand, and give him victory over his
enemy, even as Thou gavest Moses the victory over Amalek, Gideon
over Midian, and David over Goliath. Preserve his army, put a bow of
brass in the hands of those who have armed themselves in Thy Name,
and gird their loins with strength for the fight. Take up the spear and
shield and arise to help us; confound and put to shame those who have
devised evil against us, may they be before the faces of Thy faithful
warriors as dust before the wind, and may Thy mighty Angel confound
them and put them to flight; may they be ensnared when they know it
not, and may the plots they have laid in secret be turned against them;
let them fall before Thy servants' feet and be laid low by our hosts!
Lord, Thou art able to save both great and small; Thou art God, and
man cannot prevail against Thee!
"God of our fathers! Remember Thy bounteous mercy and loving-
kindness which are from of old; turn not Thy face from us, but be
gracious to our unworthiness, and in Thy great goodness and Thy many
mercies regard not our transgressions and iniquities! Create in us a
clean heart and renew a right spirit within us, strengthen us all in Thy
faith, fortify our hope, inspire us with true love one for another, arm us
with unity of spirit in the righteous defense of the heritage Thou gavest
to us and to our fathers, and let not the scepter of the wicked be exalted
against the destiny of those Thou hast sanctified.
"O Lord our God, in whom we believe and in whom we put our trust,
let us not be confounded in our hope of Thy mercy, and give us a token
of Thy blessing, that those who hate us and our Orthodox faith may see
it and be put to shame and perish, and may all the nations know that
Thou art the Lord and we are Thy people. Show Thy mercy upon us
this day, O Lord, and grant us Thy salvation; make the hearts of Thy
servants to rejoice in Thy mercy; smite down our enemies and destroy
them swiftly beneath the feet of Thy faithful servants! For Thou art the
defense, the succor, and the victory of them that put their trust in Thee,
and to Thee be all glory, to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and
forever, world without end. Amen."
In Natasha's receptive condition of soul this prayer affected her
strongly. She listened to every word about the victory of Moses over
Amalek, of Gideon over Midian, and of David over Goliath, and about
the destruction of "Thy Jerusalem," and she prayed to God with the
tenderness and emotion with which her heart was overflowing, but
without fully understanding what she was asking of God in that prayer.
She shared with all her heart in the prayer for the spirit of
righteousness, for the strengthening of the heart by faith and hope, and
its animation by love. But she could not pray that her enemies might be
trampled under foot when but a few minutes before she had been
wishing she had more of them that she might pray for them. But neither
could she doubt the righteousness of the prayer that was being read on
bended knees. She felt in her heart a devout and tremulous awe at the
thought of the punishment that overtakes men for their sins, and
especially of her own sins, and she prayed to God to forgive them all,
and her too, and to give them all, and her too, peace and happiness.
And it seemed to her that God heard her prayer.

CHAPTER XIX
From the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostovs' with Natasha's
grateful look fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed to
be fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his
own horizon—from that day the problem of the vanity and uselessness
of all earthly things, that had incessantly tormented him, no longer
presented itself. That terrible question "Why?" "Wherefore?" which
had come to him amid every occupation, was now replaced, not by
another question or by a reply to the former question, but by her image.
When he listened to, or himself took part in, trivial conversations, when
he read or heard of human baseness or folly, he was not horrified as
formerly, and did not ask himself why men struggled so about these
things when all is so transient and incomprehensible—but he
remembered her as he had last seen her, and all his doubts vanished—
not because she had answered the questions that had haunted him, but
because his conception of her transferred him instantly to another, a
brighter, realm of spiritual activity in which no one could be justified or
guilty—a realm of beauty and love which it was worth living for.
Whatever worldly baseness presented itself to him, he said to himself:
 "Well, supposing N. N. swindled the country and the Tsar, and the
country and the Tsar confer honors upon him, what does that matter?
She smiled at me yesterday and asked me to come again, and I love her,
and no one will ever know it." And his soul felt calm and peaceful.
Pierre still went into society, drank as much and led the same idle
and dissipated life, because besides the hours he spent at the Rostovs'
there were other hours he had to spend somehow, and the habits and
acquaintances he had made in Moscow formed a current that bore him
along irresistibly. But latterly, when more and more disquieting reports
came from the seat of war and Natasha's health began to improve and
she no longer aroused in him the former feeling of careful pity, an ever-
increasing restlessness, which he could not explain, took possession of
him. He felt that the condition he was in could not continue long, that a
catastrophe was coming which would change his whole life, and he
impatiently sought everywhere for signs of that approaching
catastrophe. One of his brother Masons had revealed to Pierre the
following prophecy concerning Napoleon, drawn from the Revelation
of St. John.
In chapter 13, verse 18, of the Apocalypse, it is said:
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number
of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six
hundred threescore and six.
And in the fifth verse of the same chapter:
And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and
blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two
months.
The French alphabet, written out with the same numerical values as
the Hebrew, in which the first nine letters denote units and the others
tens, will have the following significance:

a b c d e f g h i k
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
l m n o p q r s
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
t u v w x y
100 110 120 130 140 150
z
160

Writing the words L'Empereur Napoleon in numbers, it appears that

the sum of them is 666, and that Napoleon was therefore the beast
foretold in the Apocalypse. Moreover, by applying the same system to
the words quarante-deux, * which was the term allowed to the beast
that "spoke great things and blasphemies," the same number 666 was
obtained; from which it followed that the limit fixed for Napoleon's
power had come in the year 1812 when the French emperor was forty-
two. This prophecy pleased Pierre very much and he often asked
himself what would put an end to the power of the beast, that is, of
Napoleon, and tried by the same system of using letters as numbers and
adding them up, to find an answer to the question that engrossed him.
He wrote the words L'Empereur Alexandre, La nation russe and added
up their numbers, but the sums were either more or less than 666. Once
when making such calculations he wrote down his own name in
French, Comte Pierre Besouhoff, but the sum of the numbers did not
come right. Then he changed the spelling, substituting a z for the s and
adding de and the article le, still without obtaining the desired result.
Then it occurred to him: if the answer to the question were contained in
his name, his nationality would also be given in the answer. So he
wrote Le russe Besuhof and adding up the numbers got 671. This was
only five too much, and five was represented by e, the very letter elided
from the article le before the word Empereur. By omitting the e, though
incorrectly, Pierre got the answer he sought. L'russe Besuhof made 666.
This discovery excited him. How, or by what means, he was connected
with the great event foretold in the Apocalypse he did not know, but he
did not doubt that connection for a moment. His love for Natasha,
Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the comet, 666, L'Empereur
Napoleon, and L'russe Besuhof—all this had to mature and culminate,
to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere of Moscow habits in
which he felt himself held captive and lead him to a great achievement
and great happiness.

* Forty-two.

On the eve of the Sunday when the special prayer was read, Pierre
had promised the Rostovs to bring them, from Count Rostopchin whom
he knew well, both the appeal to the people and the news from the
army. In the morning, when he went to call at Rostopchin's he met
there a courier fresh from the army, an acquaintance of his own, who
often danced at Moscow balls.
"Do, please, for heaven's sake, relieve me of something!" said the
courier. "I have a sackful of letters to parents."
Among these letters was one from Nicholas Rostov to his father.
Pierre took that letter, and Rostopchin also gave him the Emperor's
appeal to Moscow, which had just been printed, the last army orders,
and his own most recent bulletin. Glancing through the army orders,
Pierre found in one of them, in the lists of killed, wounded, and
rewarded, the name of Nicholas Rostov, awarded a St. George's Cross
of the Fourth Class for courage shown in the Ostrovna affair, and in the
same order the name of Prince Andrew Bolkonski, appointed to the
command of a regiment of Chasseurs. Though he did not want to
remind the Rostovs of Bolkonski, Pierre could not refrain from making
them happy by the news of their son's having received a decoration, so
he sent that printed army order and Nicholas' letter to the Rostovs,
keeping the appeal, the bulletin, and the other orders to take with him
when he went to dinner.
His conversation with Count Rostopchin and the latter's tone of
anxious hurry, the meeting with the courier who talked casually of how
badly things were going in the army, the rumors of the discovery of
spies in Moscow and of a leaflet in circulation stating that Napoleon
promised to be in both the Russian capitals by the autumn, and the talk
of the Emperor's being expected to arrive next day—all aroused with
fresh force that feeling of agitation and expectation in Pierre which he
had been conscious of ever since the appearance of the comet, and
especially since the beginning of the war.
He had long been thinking of entering the army and would have done
so had he not been hindered, first, by his membership of the Society of
Freemasons to which he was bound by oath and which preached
perpetual peace and the abolition of war, and secondly, by the fact that
when he saw the great mass of Muscovites who had donned uniform
and were talking patriotism, he somehow felt ashamed to take the step.
But the chief reason for not carrying out his intention to enter the army
lay in the vague idea that he was L'russe Besuhof who had the number
of the beast, 666; that his part in the great affair of setting a limit to the
power of the beast that spoke great and blasphemous things had been
predestined from eternity, and that therefore he ought not to undertake
anything, but wait for what was bound to come to pass.

CHAPTER XX
A few intimate friends were dining with the Rostovs that day, as
usual on Sundays.
Pierre came early so as to find them alone.
He had grown so stout this year that he would have been abnormal
had he not been so tall, so broad of limb, and so strong that he carried
his bulk with evident ease.
He went up the stairs, puffing and muttering something. His
coachman did not even ask whether he was to wait. He knew that when
his master was at the Rostovs' he stayed till midnight. The Rostovs'
footman rushed eagerly forward to help him off with his cloak and take
his hat and stick. Pierre, from club habit, always left both hat and stick
in the anteroom.
The first person he saw in the house was Natasha. Even before he
saw her, while taking off his cloak, he heard her. She was practicing
solfa exercises in the music room. He knew that she had not sung since
her illness, and so the sound of her voice surprised and delighted him.
He opened the door softly and saw her, in the lilac dress she had worn
at church, walking about the room singing. She had her back to him
when he opened the door, but when, turning quickly, she saw his broad,
surprised face, she blushed and came rapidly up to him.
"I want to try to sing again," she said, adding as if by way of excuse,
"it is, at least, something to do."
"That's capital!"
"How glad I am you've come! I am so happy today," she said, with
the old animation Pierre had not seen in her for along time. "You know
Nicholas has received a St. George's Cross? I am so proud of him."
"Oh yes, I sent that announcement. But I don't want to interrupt you,"
he added, and was about to go to the drawing room.
Natasha stopped him.
"Count, is it wrong of me to sing?" she said blushing, and fixing her
eyes inquiringly on him.
"No... Why should it be? On the contrary... But why do you ask me?"
"I don't know myself," Natasha answered quickly, "but I should not
like to do anything you disapproved of. I believe in you completely.
You don't know how important you are to me, how much you've done
for me...." She spoke rapidly and did not notice how Pierre flushed at
her words. "I saw in that same army order that he, Bolkonski" (she
whispered the name hastily), "is in Russia, and in the army again. What
do you think?"—she was speaking hurriedly, evidently afraid her
strength might fail her—"Will he ever forgive me? Will he not always
have a bitter feeling toward me? What do you think? What do you
think?"
"I think..." Pierre replied, "that he has nothing to forgive.... If I were
in his place..."
By association of ideas, Pierre was at once carried back to the day
when, trying to comfort her, he had said that if he were not himself but
the best man in the world and free, he would ask on his knees for her
hand; and the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love took possession
of him and the same words rose to his lips. But she did not give him
time to say them.
"Yes, you... you..." she said, uttering the word you rapturously—
"that's a different thing. I know no one kinder, more generous, or better
than you; nobody could be! Had you not been there then, and now too,
I don't know what would have become of me, because..."
Tears suddenly rose in her eyes, she turned away, lifted her music
before her eyes, began singing again, and again began walking up and
down the room.
Just then Petya came running in from the drawing room.
Petya was now a handsome rosy lad of fifteen with full red lips and
resembled Natasha. He was preparing to enter the university, but he and
his friend Obolenski had lately, in secret, agreed to join the hussars.
Petya had come rushing out to talk to his namesake about this affair.
He had asked Pierre to find out whether he would be accepted in the
hussars.
Pierre walked up and down the drawing room, not listening to what
Petya was saying.
Petya pulled him by the arm to attract his attention.
"Well, what about my plan? Peter Kirilych, for heaven's sake! You
are my only hope," said Petya.
"Oh yes, your plan. To join the hussars? I'll mention it, I'll bring it all
up today."
"Well, mon cher, have you got the manifesto?" asked the old count.
"The countess has been to Mass at the Razumovskis' and heard the new
prayer. She says it's very fine."
"Yes, I've got it," said Pierre. "The Emperor is to be here tomorrow...
there's to be an Extraordinary Meeting of the nobility, and they are
talking of a levy of ten men per thousand. Oh yes, let me congratulate
you!"
"Yes, yes, thank God! Well, and what news from the army?"
"We are again retreating. They say we're already near Smolensk,"
replied Pierre.
"O Lord, O Lord!" exclaimed the count. "Where is the manifesto?"
"The Emperor's appeal? Oh yes!"
 Pierre began feeling in his pockets for the papers, but could not find
them. Still slapping his pockets, he kissed the hand of the countess who
entered the room and glanced uneasily around, evidently expecting
Natasha, who had left off singing but had not yet come into the drawing
room.
"On my word, I don't know what I've done with it," he said.
"There he is, always losing everything!" remarked the countess.
Natasha entered with a softened and agitated expression of face and
sat down looking silently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre's
features, which had been gloomy, suddenly lighted up, and while still
searching for the papers he glanced at her several times.
"No, really! I'll drive home, I must have left them there. I'll
certainly..."
"But you'll be late for dinner."
"Oh! And my coachman has gone."
But Sonya, who had gone to look for the papers in the anteroom, had
found them in Pierre's hat, where he had carefully tucked them under
the lining. Pierre was about to begin reading.
"No, after dinner," said the old count, evidently expecting much
enjoyment from that reading.
At dinner, at which champagne was drunk to the health of the new
chevalier of St. George, Shinshin told them the town news, of the
illness of the old Georgian princess, of Metivier's disappearance from
Moscow, and of how some German fellow had been brought to
Rostopchin and accused of being a French "spyer" (so Count
Rostopchin had told the story), and how Rostopchin let him go and
assured the people that he was "not a spire at all, but only an old
German ruin."
"People are being arrested..." said the count. "I've told the countess
she should not speak French so much. It's not the time for it now."
"And have you heard?" Shinshin asked. "Prince Golitsyn has
engaged a master to teach him Russian. It is becoming dangerous to
speak French in the streets."
"And how about you, Count Peter Kirilych? If they call up the
militia, you too will have to mount a horse," remarked the old count,
addressing Pierre.
Pierre had been silent and preoccupied all through dinner, seeming
not to grasp what was said. He looked at the count.
 "Oh yes, the war," he said. "No! What sort of warrior should I make?
And yet everything is so strange, so strange! I can't make it out. I don't
know, I am very far from having military tastes, but in these times no
one can answer for himself."
After dinner the count settled himself comfortably in an easy chair
and with a serious face asked Sonya, who was considered an excellent
reader, to read the appeal.
"To Moscow, our ancient Capital!
"The enemy has entered the borders of Russia with immense forces.
He comes to despoil our beloved country."
Sonya read painstakingly in her high-pitched voice. The count
listened with closed eyes, heaving abrupt sighs at certain passages.
Natasha sat erect, gazing with a searching look now at her father and
now at Pierre.
Pierre felt her eyes on him and tried not to look round. The countess
shook her head disapprovingly and angrily at every solemn expression
in the manifesto. In all these words she saw only that the danger
threatening her son would not soon be over. Shinshin, with a sarcastic
smile on his lips, was evidently preparing to make fun of anything that
gave him the opportunity: Sonya's reading, any remark of the count's,
or even the manifesto itself should no better pretext present itself.
After reading about the dangers that threatened Russia, the hopes the
Emperor placed on Moscow and especially on its illustrious nobility,
Sonya, with a quiver in her voice due chiefly to the attention that was
being paid to her, read the last words:
"We ourselves will not delay to appear among our people in that
Capital and in other parts of our realm for consultation, and for the
direction of all our levies, both those now barring the enemy's path and
those freshly formed to defeat him wherever he may appear. May the
ruin he hopes to bring upon us recoil on his own head, and may Europe
delivered from bondage glorify the name of Russia!"
"Yes, that's it!" cried the count, opening his moist eyes and sniffing
repeatedly, as if a strong vinaigrette had been held to his nose; and he
added, "Let the Emperor but say the word and we'll sacrifice everything
and begrudge nothing."
Before Shinshin had time to utter the joke he was ready to make on
the count's patriotism, Natasha jumped up from her place and ran to her
father.
 "What a darling our Papa is!" she cried, kissing him, and she again
looked at Pierre with the unconscious coquetry that had returned to her
with her better spirits.
"There! Here's a patriot for you!" said Shinshin.
"Not a patriot at all, but simply..." Natasha replied in an injured tone.
"Everything seems funny to you, but this isn't at all a joke...."
"A joke indeed!" put in the count. "Let him but say the word and
we'll all go.... We're not Germans!"
"But did you notice, it says, 'for consultation'?" said Pierre.
"Never mind what it's for...."
At this moment, Petya, to whom nobody was paying any attention,
came up to his father with a very flushed face and said in his breaking
voice that was now deep and now shrill:
"Well, Papa, I tell you definitely, and Mamma too, it's as you please,
but I say definitely that you must let me enter the army, because I
can't... that's all...."
The countess, in dismay, looked up to heaven, clasped her hands, and
turned angrily to her husband.
"That comes of your talking!" said she.
But the count had already recovered from his excitement.
"Come, come!" said he. "Here's a fine warrior! No! Nonsense! You
must study."
"It's not nonsense, Papa. Fedya Obolenski is younger than I, and he's
going too. Besides, all the same I can't study now when..." Petya
stopped short, flushed till he perspired, but still got out the words,
"when our Fatherland is in danger."
"That'll do, that'll do—nonsense...."
"But you said yourself that we would sacrifice everything."
"Petya! Be quiet, I tell you!" cried the count, with a glance at his
wife, who had turned pale and was staring fixedly at her son.
"And I tell you—Peter Kirilych here will also tell you..."
"Nonsense, I tell you. Your mother's milk has hardly dried on your
lips and you want to go into the army! There, there, I tell you," and the
count moved to go out of the room, taking the papers, probably to
reread them in his study before having a nap.
 "Well, Peter Kirilych, let's go and have a smoke," he said.
Pierre was agitated and undecided. Natasha's unwontedly brilliant
eyes, continually glancing at him with a more than cordial look, had
reduced him to this condition.
"No, I think I'll go home."
"Home? Why, you meant to spend the evening with us.... You don't
often come nowadays as it is, and this girl of mine," said the count
good-naturedly, pointing to Natasha, "only brightens up when you're
here."
"Yes, I had forgotten... I really must go home... business..." said
Pierre hurriedly.
"Well, then, au revoir!" said the count, and went out of the room.
"Why are you going? Why are you upset?" asked Natasha, and she
looked challengingly into Pierre's eyes.
"Because I love you!" was what he wanted to say, but he did not say
it, and only blushed till the tears came, and lowered his eyes.
"Because it is better for me to come less often... because... No,
simply I have business...."
"Why? No, tell me!" Natasha began resolutely and suddenly stopped.
They looked at each other with dismayed and embarrassed faces. He
tried to smile but could not: his smile expressed suffering, and he
silently kissed her hand and went out.
Pierre made up his mind not to go to the Rostovs' any more.

CHAPTER XXI
After the definite refusal he had received, Petya went to his room and
there locked himself in and wept bitterly. When he came in to tea,
silent, morose, and with tear-stained face, everybody pretended not to
notice anything.
Next day the Emperor arrived in Moscow, and several of the
Rostovs' domestic serfs begged permission to go to have a look at him.
That morning Petya was a long time dressing and arranging his hair and
collar to look like a grown-up man. He frowned before his looking
glass, gesticulated, shrugged his shoulders, and finally, without saying
a word to anyone, took his cap and left the house by the back door,
trying to avoid notice. Petya decided to go straight to where the
Emperor was and to explain frankly to some gentleman-in-waiting (he
imagined the Emperor to be always surrounded by gentlemen-in-
waiting) that he, Count Rostov, in spite of his youth wished to serve his
country; that youth could be no hindrance to loyalty, and that he was
ready to... While dressing, Petya had prepared many fine things he
meant to say to the gentleman-in-waiting.
It was on the very fact of being so young that Petya counted for
success in reaching the Emperor—he even thought how surprised
everyone would be at his youthfulness—and yet in the arrangement of
his collar and hair and by his sedate deliberate walk he wished to
appear a grown-up man. But the farther he went and the more his
attention was diverted by the ever-increasing crowds moving toward
the Kremlin, the less he remembered to walk with the sedateness and
deliberation of a man. As he approached the Kremlin he even began to
avoid being crushed and resolutely stuck out his elbows in a menacing
way. But within the Trinity Gateway he was so pressed to the wall by
people who probably were unaware of the patriotic intentions with
which he had come that in spite of all his determination he had to give
in, and stop while carriages passed in, rumbling beneath the archway.
Beside Petya stood a peasant woman, a footman, two tradesmen, and a
discharged soldier. After standing some time in the gateway, Petya
tried to move forward in front of the others without waiting for all the
carriages to pass, and he began resolutely working his way with his
elbows, but the woman just in front of him, who was the first against
whom he directed his efforts, angrily shouted at him:
"What are you shoving for, young lordling? Don't you see we're all
standing still? Then why push?"
"Anybody can shove," said the footman, and also began working his
elbows to such effect that he pushed Petya into a very filthy corner of
the gateway.
Petya wiped his perspiring face with his hands and pulled up the
damp collar which he had arranged so well at home to seem like a
man's.
He felt that he no longer looked presentable, and feared that if he
were now to approach the gentlemen-in-waiting in that plight he would
not be admitted to the Emperor. But it was impossible to smarten
oneself up or move to another place, because of the crowd. One of the
generals who drove past was an acquaintance of the Rostovs', and Petya
thought of asking his help, but came to the conclusion that that would
not be a manly thing to do. When the carriages had all passed in, the
crowd, carrying Petya with it, streamed forward into the Kremlin
Square which was already full of people. There were people not only in
the square, but everywhere—on the slopes and on the roofs. As soon as
Petya found himself in the square he clearly heard the sound of bells
and the joyous voices of the crowd that filled the whole Kremlin.
For a while the crowd was less dense, but suddenly all heads were
bared, and everyone rushed forward in one direction. Petya was being
pressed so that he could scarcely breathe, and everybody shouted,
"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" Petya stood on tiptoe and pushed and
pinched, but could see nothing except the people about him.
All the faces bore the same expression of excitement and enthusiasm.
A tradesman's wife standing beside Petya sobbed, and the tears ran
down her cheeks.
"Father! Angel! Dear one!" she kept repeating, wiping away her tears
with her fingers.
"Hurrah!" was heard on all sides.
For a moment the crowd stood still, but then it made another rush
forward.
Quite beside himself, Petya, clinching his teeth and rolling his eyes
ferociously, pushed forward, elbowing his way and shouting "hurrah!"
as if he were prepared that instant to kill himself and everyone else, but
on both sides of him other people with similarly ferocious faces pushed
forward and everybody shouted "hurrah!"
"So this is what the Emperor is!" thought Petya. "No, I can't petition
him myself—that would be too bold." But in spite of this he continued
to struggle desperately forward, and from between the backs of those in
front he caught glimpses of an open space with a strip of red cloth
spread out on it; but just then the crowd swayed back—the police in
front were pushing back those who had pressed too close to the
procession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral
of the Assumption—and Petya unexpectedly received such a blow on
his side and ribs and was squeezed so hard that suddenly everything
grew dim before his eyes and he lost consciousness. When he came to
himself, a man of clerical appearance with a tuft of gray hair at the back
of his head and wearing a shabby blue cassock—probably a church
clerk and chanter—was holding him under the arm with one hand while
warding off the pressure of the crowd with the other.
"You've crushed the young gentleman!" said the clerk. "What are
you up to? Gently!... They've crushed him, crushed him!"
The Emperor entered the Cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd
spread out again more evenly, and the clerk led Petya—pale and
breathless—to the Tsar-cannon. Several people were sorry for Petya,
and suddenly a crowd turned toward him and pressed round him. Those
who stood nearest him attended to him, unbuttoned his coat, seated him
on the raised platform of the cannon, and reproached those others
(whoever they might be) who had crushed him.
"One might easily get killed that way! What do they mean by it?
Killing people! Poor dear, he's as white as a sheet!"—various voices
were heard saying.
Petya soon came to himself, the color returned to his face, the pain
had passed, and at the cost of that temporary unpleasantness he had
obtained a place by the cannon from where he hoped to see the
Emperor who would be returning that way. Petya no longer thought of
presenting his petition. If he could only see the Emperor he would be
happy!
While the service was proceeding in the Cathedral of the
Assumption—it was a combined service of prayer on the occasion of
the Emperor's arrival and of thanksgiving for the conclusion of peace
with the Turks—the crowd outside spread out and hawkers appeared,
selling kvas, gingerbread, and poppyseed sweets (of which Petya was
particularly fond), and ordinary conversation could again be heard. A
tradesman's wife was showing a rent in her shawl and telling how much
the shawl had cost; another was saying that all silk goods had now got
dear. The clerk who had rescued Petya was talking to a functionary
about the priests who were officiating that day with the bishop. The
clerk several times used the word "plenary" (of the service), a word
Petya did not understand. Two young citizens were joking with some
serf girls who were cracking nuts. All these conversations, especially
the joking with the girls, were such as might have had a particular
charm for Petya at his age, but they did not interest him now. He sat on
his elevation—the pedestal of the cannon—still agitated as before by
the thought of the Emperor and by his love for him. The feeling of pain
and fear he had experienced when he was being crushed, together with
that of rapture, still further intensified his sense of the importance of the
occasion.
Suddenly the sound of a firing of cannon was heard from the
embankment, to celebrate the signing of peace with the Turks, and the
crowd rushed impetuously toward the embankment to watch the firing.
Petya too would have run there, but the clerk who had taken the young
gentleman under his protection stopped him. The firing was still
proceeding when officers, generals, and gentlemen-in-waiting came
running out of the cathedral, and after them others in a more leisurely
manner: caps were again raised, and those who had run to look at the
cannon ran back again. At last four men in uniforms and sashes
emerged from the cathedral doors. "Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the crowd
again.
"Which is he? Which?" asked Petya in a tearful voice, of those
around him, but no one answered him, everybody was too excited; and
Petya, fixing on one of those four men, whom he could not clearly see
for the tears of joy that filled his eyes, concentrated all his enthusiasm
on him—though it happened not to be the Emperor—frantically
shouted "Hurrah!" and resolved that tomorrow, come what might, he
would join the army.
The crowd ran after the Emperor, followed him to the palace, and
began to disperse. It was already late, and Petya had not eaten anything
and was drenched with perspiration, yet he did not go home but stood
with that diminishing, but still considerable, crowd before the palace
while the Emperor dined—looking in at the palace windows, expecting
he knew not what, and envying alike the notables he saw arriving at the
entrance to dine with the Emperor and the court footmen who served at
table, glimpses of whom could be seen through the windows.
While the Emperor was dining, Valuev, looking out of the window,
said:
"The people are still hoping to see Your Majesty again."
The dinner was nearly over, and the Emperor, munching a biscuit,
rose and went out onto the balcony. The people, with Petya among
them, rushed toward the balcony.
"Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!..." cried the crowd, and Petya
with it, and again the women and men of weaker mold, Petya among
them, wept with joy.
A largish piece of the biscuit the Emperor was holding in his hand
broke off, fell on the balcony parapet, and then to the ground. A
coachman in a jerkin, who stood nearest, sprang forward and snatched
it up. Several people in the crowd rushed at the coachman. Seeing this
the Emperor had a plateful of biscuits brought him and began throwing
them down from the balcony. Petya's eyes grew bloodshot, and still
more excited by the danger of being crushed, he rushed at the biscuits.
He did not know why, but he had to have a biscuit from the Tsar's hand
and he felt that he must not give way. He sprang forward and upset an
old woman who was catching at a biscuit; the old woman did not
consider herself defeated though she was lying on the ground—she
grabbed at some biscuits but her hand did not reach them. Petya pushed
her hand away with his knee, seized a biscuit, and as if fearing to be too
late, again shouted "Hurrah!" with a voice already hoarse.
 The Emperor went in, and after that the greater part of the crowd
began to disperse.
"There! I said if only we waited—and so it was!" was being joyfully
said by various people.
Happy as Petya was, he felt sad at having to go home knowing that
all the enjoyment of that day was over. He did not go straight home
from the Kremlin, but called on his friend Obolenski, who was fifteen
and was also entering the regiment. On returning home Petya
announced resolutely and firmly that if he was not allowed to enter the
service he would run away. And next day, Count Ilya Rostov—though
he had not yet quite yielded—went to inquire how he could arrange for
Petya to serve where there would be least danger.

CHAPTER XXII
Two days later, on the fifteenth of July, an immense number of
carriages were standing outside the Sloboda Palace.
The great halls were full. In the first were the nobility and gentry in
their uniforms, in the second bearded merchants in full-skirted coats of
blue cloth and wearing medals. In the noblemen's hall there was an
incessant movement and buzz of voices. The chief magnates sat on
high-backed chairs at a large table under the portrait of the Emperor,
but most of the gentry were strolling about the room.
All these nobles, whom Pierre met every day at the Club or in their
own houses, were in uniform—some in that of Catherine's day, others
in that of Emperor Paul, others again in the new uniforms of
Alexander's time or the ordinary uniform of the nobility, and the
general characteristic of being in uniform imparted something strange
and fantastic to these diverse and familiar personalities, both old and
young. The old men, dim-eyed, toothless, bald, sallow, and bloated, or
gaunt and wrinkled, were especially striking. For the most part they sat
quietly in their places and were silent, or, if they walked about and
talked, attached themselves to someone younger. On all these faces, as
on the faces of the crowd Petya had seen in the Square, there was a
striking contradiction: the general expectation of a solemn event, and at
the same time the everyday interests in a boston card party, Peter the
cook, Zinaida Dmitrievna's health, and so on.
Pierre was there too, buttoned up since early morning in a
nobleman's uniform that had become too tight for him. He was agitated;
this extraordinary gathering not only of nobles but also of the
merchant-class—les etats generaux (States-General)—evoked in him a
whole series of ideas he had long laid aside but which were deeply
graven in his soul: thoughts of the Contrat social and the French
Revolution. The words that had struck him in the Emperor's appeal—
that the sovereign was coming to the capital for consultation with his
people—strengthened this idea. And imagining that in this direction
something important which he had long awaited was drawing near, he
strolled about watching and listening to conversations, but nowhere
finding any confirmation of the ideas that occupied him.
The Emperor's manifesto was read, evoking enthusiasm, and then all
moved about discussing it. Besides the ordinary topics of conversation,
Pierre heard questions of where the marshals of the nobility were to
stand when the Emperor entered, when a ball should be given in the
Emperor's honor, whether they should group themselves by districts or
by whole provinces... and so on; but as soon as the war was touched on,
or what the nobility had been convened for, the talk became undecided
and indefinite. Then all preferred listening to speaking.
A middle-aged man, handsome and virile, in the uniform of a retired
naval officer, was speaking in one of the rooms, and a small crowd was
pressing round him. Pierre went up to the circle that had formed round
the speaker and listened. Count Ilya Rostov, in a military uniform of
Catherine's time, was sauntering with a pleasant smile among the
crowd, with all of whom he was acquainted. He too approached that
group and listened with a kindly smile and nods of approval, as he
always did, to what the speaker was saying. The retired naval man was
speaking very boldly, as was evident from the expression on the faces
of the listeners and from the fact that some people Pierre knew as the
meekest and quietest of men walked away disapprovingly or expressed
disagreement with him. Pierre pushed his way into the middle of the
group, listened, and convinced himself that the man was indeed a
liberal, but of views quite different from his own. The naval officer
spoke in a particularly sonorous, musical, and aristocratic baritone
voice, pleasantly swallowing his r's and generally slurring his
consonants: the voice of a man calling out to his servant, "Heah! Bwing
me my pipe!" It was indicative of dissipation and the exercise of
authority.
"What if the Smolensk people have offahd to waise militia for the
Empewah? Ah we to take Smolensk as our patte'n? If the noble
awistocwacy of the pwovince of Moscow thinks fit, it can show its
loyalty to our sov'weign the Empewah in other ways. Have we fo'gotten
the waising of the militia in the yeah 'seven? All that did was to enwich
the pwiests' sons and thieves and wobbahs...."
Count Ilya Rostov smiled blandly and nodded approval.
 "And was our militia of any use to the Empia? Not at all! It only
wuined our farming! Bettah have another conscwiption... o' ou' men
will wetu'n neithah soldiers no' peasants, and we'll get only depwavity
fwom them. The nobility don't gwudge theah lives—evewy one of us
will go and bwing in more wecwuits, and the sov'weign" (that was the
way he referred to the Emperor) "need only say the word and we'll all
die fo' him!" added the orator with animation.
Count Rostov's mouth watered with pleasure and he nudged Pierre,
but Pierre wanted to speak himself. He pushed forward, feeling stirred,
but not yet sure what stirred him or what he would say. Scarcely had he
opened his mouth when one of the senators, a man without a tooth in
his head, with a shrewd though angry expression, standing near the first
speaker, interrupted him. Evidently accustomed to managing debates
and to maintaining an argument, he began in low but distinct tones:
"I imagine, sir," said he, mumbling with his toothless mouth, "that
we have been summoned here not to discuss whether it's best for the
empire at the present moment to adopt conscription or to call out the
militia. We have been summoned to reply to the appeal with which our
sovereign the Emperor has honored us. But to judge what is best—
conscription or the militia—we can leave to the supreme authority...."
Pierre suddenly saw an outlet for his excitement. He hardened his
heart against the senator who was introducing this set and narrow
attitude into the deliberations of the nobility. Pierre stepped forward
and interrupted him. He himself did not yet know what he would say,
but he began to speak eagerly, occasionally lapsing into French or
expressing himself in bookish Russian.
"Excuse me, your excellency," he began. (He was well acquainted
with the senator, but thought it necessary on this occasion to address
him formally.) "Though I don't agree with the gentleman..." (he
hesitated: he wished to say, "Mon tres honorable preopinant"—"My
very honorable opponent") "with the gentleman... whom I have not the
honor of knowing, I suppose that the nobility have been summoned not
merely to express their sympathy and enthusiasm but also to consider
the means by which we can assist our Fatherland! I imagine," he went
on, warming to his subject, "that the Emperor himself would not be
satisfied to find in us merely owners of serfs whom we are willing to
devote to his service, and chair a canon * we are ready to make of
ourselves—and not to obtain from us any co-co-counsel."

* "Food for cannon."

Many persons withdrew from the circle, noticing the senator's

sarcastic smile and the freedom of Pierre's remarks. Only Count Rostov
was pleased with them as he had been pleased with those of the naval
officer, the senator, and in general with whatever speech he had last
heard.
"I think that before discussing these questions," Pierre continued,
"we should ask the Emperor—most respectfully ask His Majesty—to
let us know the number of our troops and the position in which our
army and our forces now are, and then..."
But scarcely had Pierre uttered these words before he was attacked
from three sides. The most vigorous attack came from an old
acquaintance, a boston player who had always been well disposed
toward him, Stepan Stepanovich Adraksin. Adraksin was in uniform,
and whether as a result of the uniform or from some other cause Pierre
saw before him quite a different man. With a sudden expression of
malevolence on his aged face, Adraksin shouted at Pierre:
"In the first place, I tell you we have no right to question the
Emperor about that, and secondly, if the Russian nobility had that right,
the Emperor could not answer such a question. The troops are moved
according to the enemy's movements and the number of men increases
and decreases..."
Another voice, that of a nobleman of medium height and about forty
years of age, whom Pierre had formerly met at the gypsies' and knew as
a bad cardplayer, and who, also transformed by his uniform, came up to
Pierre, interrupted Adraksin.
"Yes, and this is not a time for discussing," he continued, "but for
acting: there is war in Russia! The enemy is advancing to destroy
Russia, to desecrate the tombs of our fathers, to carry off our wives and
children." The nobleman smote his breast. "We will all arise, every one
of us will go, for our father the Tsar!" he shouted, rolling his bloodshot
eyes. Several approving voices were heard in the crowd. "We are
Russians and will not grudge our blood in defense of our faith, the
throne, and the Fatherland! We must cease raving if we are sons of our
Fatherland! We will show Europe how Russia rises to the defense of
Russia!"
Pierre wished to reply, but could not get in a word. He felt that his
words, apart from what meaning they conveyed, were less audible than
the sound of his opponent's voice.
Count Rostov at the back of the crowd was expressing approval;
several persons, briskly turning a shoulder to the orator at the end of a
phrase, said:
"That's right, quite right! Just so!"
Pierre wished to say that he was ready to sacrifice his money, his
serfs, or himself, only one ought to know the state of affairs in order to
be able to improve it, but he was unable to speak. Many voices shouted
and talked at the same time, so that Count Rostov had not time to
signify his approval of them all, and the group increased, dispersed, re-
formed, and then moved with a hum of talk into the largest hall and to
the big table. Not only was Pierre's attempt to speak unsuccessful, but
he was rudely interrupted, pushed aside, and people turned away from
him as from a common enemy. This happened not because they were
displeased by the substance of his speech, which had even been
forgotten after the many subsequent speeches, but to animate it the
crowd needed a tangible object to love and a tangible object to hate.
Pierre became the latter. Many other orators spoke after the excited
nobleman, and all in the same tone. Many spoke eloquently and with
originality.
Glinka, the editor of the Russian Messenger, who was recognized
(cries of "author! author!" were heard in the crowd), said that "hell
must be repulsed by hell," and that he had seen a child smiling at
lightning flashes and thunderclaps, but "we will not be that child."
"Yes, yes, at thunderclaps!" was repeated approvingly in the back
rows of the crowd.
The crowd drew up to the large table, at which sat gray-haired or
bald seventy-year-old magnates, uniformed and besashed almost all of
whom Pierre had seen in their own homes with their buffoons, or
playing boston at the clubs. With an incessant hum of voices the crowd
advanced to the table. Pressed by the throng against the high backs of
the chairs, the orators spoke one after another and sometimes two
together. Those standing behind noticed what a speaker omitted to say
and hastened to supply it. Others in that heat and crush racked their
brains to find some thought and hastened to utter it. The old magnates,
whom Pierre knew, sat and turned to look first at one and then at
another, and their faces for the most part only expressed the fact that
they found it very hot. Pierre, however, felt excited, and the general
desire to show that they were ready to go to all lengths—which found
expression in the tones and looks more than in the substance of the
speeches—infected him too. He did not renounce his opinions, but felt
himself in some way to blame and wished to justify himself.
"I only said that it would be more to the purpose to make sacrifices
when we know what is needed!" said he, trying to be heard above the
other voices.
One of the old men nearest to him looked round, but his attention
was immediately diverted by an exclamation at the other side of the
table.
"Yes, Moscow will be surrendered! She will be our expiation!"
shouted one man.
 "He is the enemy of mankind!" cried another. "Allow me to speak...."
"Gentlemen, you are crushing me!..."

CHAPTER XXIII
At that moment Count Rostopchin with his protruding chin and alert
eyes, wearing the uniform of a general with sash over his shoulder,
entered the room, stepping briskly to the front of the crowd of gentry.
"Our sovereign the Emperor will be here in a moment," said
Rostopchin. "I am straight from the palace. Seeing the position we are
in, I think there is little need for discussion. The Emperor has deigned
to summon us and the merchants. Millions will pour forth from
there"—he pointed to the merchants' hall—"but our business is to
supply men and not spare ourselves... That is the least we can do!"
A conference took place confined to the magnates sitting at the table.
The whole consultation passed more than quietly. After all the
preceding noise the sound of their old voices saying one after another,
"I agree," or for variety, "I too am of that opinion," and so on had even
a mournful effect.
The secretary was told to write down the resolution of the Moscow
nobility and gentry, that they would furnish ten men, fully equipped,
out of every thousand serfs, as the Smolensk gentry had done. Their
chairs made a scraping noise as the gentlemen who had conferred rose
with apparent relief, and began walking up and down, arm in arm, to
stretch their legs and converse in couples.
"The Emperor! The Emperor!" a sudden cry resounded through the
halls and the whole throng hurried to the entrance.
The Emperor entered the hall through a broad path between two lines
of nobles. Every face expressed respectful, awe-struck curiosity. Pierre
stood rather far off and could not hear all that the Emperor said. From
what he did hear he understood that the Emperor spoke of the danger
threatening the empire and of the hopes he placed on the Moscow
nobility. He was answered by a voice which informed him of the
resolution just arrived at.
"Gentlemen!" said the Emperor with a quivering voice.
There was a rustling among the crowd and it again subsided, so that
Pierre distinctly heard the pleasantly human voice of the Emperor
saying with emotion:
 "I never doubted the devotion of the Russian nobles, but today it has
surpassed my expectations. I thank you in the name of the Fatherland!
Gentlemen, let us act! Time is most precious..."
The Emperor ceased speaking, the crowd began pressing round him,
and rapturous exclamations were heard from all sides.
"Yes, most precious... a royal word," said Count Rostov, with a sob.
He stood at the back, and, though he had heard hardly anything,
understood everything in his own way.
From the hall of the nobility the Emperor went to that of the
merchants. There he remained about ten minutes. Pierre was among
those who saw him come out from the merchants' hall with tears of
emotion in his eyes. As became known later, he had scarcely begun to
address the merchants before tears gushed from his eyes and he
concluded in a trembling voice. When Pierre saw the Emperor he was
coming out accompanied by two merchants, one of whom Pierre knew,
a fat otkupshchik. The other was the mayor, a man with a thin sallow
face and narrow beard. Both were weeping. Tears filled the thin man's
eyes, and the fat otkupshchik sobbed outright like a child and kept
repeating:
"Our lives and property—take them, Your Majesty!"
Pierre's one feeling at the moment was a desire to show that he was
ready to go all lengths and was prepared to sacrifice everything. He
now felt ashamed of his speech with its constitutional tendency and
sought an opportunity of effacing it. Having heard that Count
Mamonov was furnishing a regiment, Bezukhov at once informed
Rostopchin that he would give a thousand men and their maintenance.
Old Rostov could not tell his wife of what had passed without tears,
and at once consented to Petya's request and went himself to enter his
name.
Next day the Emperor left Moscow. The assembled nobles all took
off their uniforms and settled down again in their homes and clubs, and
not without some groans gave orders to their stewards about the
enrollment, feeling amazed themselves at what they had done.

BOOK TEN: 1812

 CHAPTER I
Napoleon began the war with Russia because he could not resist
going to Dresden, could not help having his head turned by the homage
he received, could not help donning a Polish uniform and yielding to
the stimulating influence of a June morning, and could not refrain from
bursts of anger in the presence of Kurakin and then of Balashev.
Alexander refused negotiations because he felt himself to be
personally insulted. Barclay de Tolly tried to command the army in the
best way, because he wished to fulfill his duty and earn fame as a great
commander. Rostov charged the French because he could not restrain
his wish for a gallop across a level field; and in the same way the
innumerable people who took part in the war acted in accord with their
personal characteristics, habits, circumstances, and aims. They were
moved by fear or vanity, rejoiced or were indignant, reasoned,
imagining that they knew what they were doing and did it of their own
free will, but they all were involuntary tools of history, carrying on a
work concealed from them but comprehensible to us. Such is the
inevitable fate of men of action, and the higher they stand in the social
hierarchy the less are they free.
The actors of 1812 have long since left the stage, their personal
interests have vanished leaving no trace, and nothing remains of that
time but its historic results.
Providence compelled all these men, striving to attain personal aims,
to further the accomplishment of a stupendous result no one of them at
all expected—neither Napoleon, nor Alexander, nor still less any of
those who did the actual fighting.
The cause of the destruction of the French army in 1812 is clear to us
now. No one will deny that that cause was, on the one hand, its advance
into the heart of Russia late in the season without any preparation for a
winter campaign and, on the other, the character given to the war by the
burning of Russian towns and the hatred of the foe this aroused among
the Russian people. But no one at the time foresaw (what now seems so
evident) that this was the only way an army of eight hundred thousand
men—the best in the world and led by the best general—could be
destroyed in conflict with a raw army of half its numerical strength, and
led by inexperienced commanders as the Russian army was. Not only
did no one see this, but on the Russian side every effort was made to
hinder the only thing that could save Russia, while on the French side,
despite Napoleon's experience and so-called military genius, every
effort was directed to pushing on to Moscow at the end of the summer,
that is, to doing the very thing that was bound to lead to destruction.
In historical works on the year 1812 French writers are very fond of
saying that Napoleon felt the danger of extending his line, that he
sought a battle and that his marshals advised him to stop at Smolensk,
and of making similar statements to show that the danger of the
campaign was even then understood. Russian authors are still fonder of
telling us that from the commencement of the campaign a Scythian war
plan was adopted to lure Napoleon into the depths of Russia, and this
plan some of them attribute to Pfuel, others to a certain Frenchman,
others to Toll, and others again to Alexander himself—pointing to
notes, projects, and letters which contain hints of such a line of action.
But all these hints at what happened, both from the French side and the
Russian, are advanced only because they fit in with the event. Had that
event not occurred these hints would have been forgotten, as we have
forgotten the thousands and millions of hints and expectations to the
contrary which were current then but have now been forgotten because
the event falsified them. There are always so many conjectures as to the
issue of any event that however it may end there will always be people
to say: "I said then that it would be so," quite forgetting that amid their
innumerable conjectures many were to quite the contrary effect.
Conjectures as to Napoleon's awareness of the danger of extending
his line, and (on the Russian side) as to luring the enemy into the
depths of Russia, are evidently of that kind, and only by much straining
can historians attribute such conceptions to Napoleon and his marshals,
or such plans to the Russian commanders. All the facts are in flat
contradiction to such conjectures. During the whole period of the war
not only was there no wish on the Russian side to draw the French into
the heart of the country, but from their first entry into Russia everything
was done to stop them. And not only was Napoleon not afraid to extend
his line, but he welcomed every step forward as a triumph and did not
seek battle as eagerly as in former campaigns, but very lazily.
At the very beginning of the war our armies were divided, and our
sole aim was to unite them, though uniting the armies was no advantage
if we meant to retire and lure the enemy into the depths of the country.
Our Emperor joined the army to encourage it to defend every inch of
Russian soil and not to retreat. The enormous Drissa camp was formed
on Pfuel's plan, and there was no intention of retiring farther. The
Emperor reproached the commanders in chief for every step they
retired. He could not bear the idea of letting the enemy even reach
Smolensk, still less could he contemplate the burning of Moscow, and
when our armies did unite he was displeased that Smolensk was
abandoned and burned without a general engagement having been
fought under its walls.
 So thought the Emperor, and the Russian commanders and people
were still more provoked at the thought that our forces were retreating
into the depths of the country.
Napoleon having cut our armies apart advanced far into the country
and missed several chances of forcing an engagement. In August he
was at Smolensk and thought only of how to advance farther, though as
we now see that advance was evidently ruinous to him.
The facts clearly show that Napoleon did not foresee the danger of
the advance on Moscow, nor did Alexander and the Russian
commanders then think of luring Napoleon on, but quite the contrary.
The luring of Napoleon into the depths of the country was not the result
of any plan, for no one believed it to be possible; it resulted from a
most complex interplay of intrigues, aims, and wishes among those
who took part in the war and had no perception whatever of the
inevitable, or of the one way of saving Russia. Everything came about
fortuitously. The armies were divided at the commencement of the
campaign. We tried to unite them, with the evident intention of giving
battle and checking the enemy's advance, and by this effort to unite
them while avoiding battle with a much stronger enemy, and
necessarily withdrawing the armies at an acute angle—we led the
French on to Smolensk. But we withdrew at an acute angle not only
because the French advanced between our two armies; the angle
became still more acute and we withdrew still farther, because Barclay
de Tolly was an unpopular foreigner disliked by Bagration (who would
come under his command), and Bagration—being in command of the
second army—tried to postpone joining up and coming under Barclay's
command as long as he could. Bagration was slow in effecting the
junction—though that was the chief aim of all at headquarters—
because, as he alleged, he exposed his army to danger on this march,
and it was best for him to retire more to the left and more to the south,
worrying the enemy from flank and rear and securing from the Ukraine
recruits for his army; and it looks as if he planned this in order not to
come under the command of the detested foreigner Barclay, whose rank
was inferior to his own.
The Emperor was with the army to encourage it, but his presence and
ignorance of what steps to take, and the enormous number of advisers
and plans, destroyed the first army's energy and it retired.
The intention was to make a stand at the Drissa camp, but Paulucci,
aiming at becoming commander in chief, unexpectedly employed his
energy to influence Alexander, and Pfuel's whole plan was abandoned
and the command entrusted to Barclay. But as Barclay did not inspire
confidence his power was limited. The armies were divided, there was
no unity of command, and Barclay was unpopular; but from this
confusion, division, and the unpopularity of the foreign commander in
chief, there resulted on the one hand indecision and the avoidance of a
battle (which we could not have refrained from had the armies been
united and had someone else, instead of Barclay, been in command)
and on the other an ever-increasing indignation against the foreigners
and an increase in patriotic zeal.
At last the Emperor left the army, and as the most convenient and
indeed the only pretext for his departure it was decided that it was
necessary for him to inspire the people in the capitals and arouse the
nation in general to a patriotic war. And by this visit of the Emperor to
Moscow the strength of the Russian army was trebled.
He left in order not to obstruct the commander in chief's undivided
control of the army, and hoping that more decisive action would then
be taken, but the command of the armies became still more confused
and enfeebled. Bennigsen, the Tsarevich, and a swarm of adjutants
general remained with the army to keep the commander in chief under
observation and arouse his energy, and Barclay, feeling less free than
ever under the observation of all these "eyes of the Emperor," became
still more cautious of undertaking any decisive action and avoided
giving battle.
Barclay stood for caution. The Tsarevich hinted at treachery and
demanded a general engagement. Lubomirski, Bronnitski, Wlocki, and
the others of that group stirred up so much trouble that Barclay, under
pretext of sending papers to the Emperor, dispatched these Polish
adjutants general to Petersburg and plunged into an open struggle with
Bennigsen and the Tsarevich.
At Smolensk the armies at last reunited, much as Bagration disliked
it.
Bagration drove up in a carriage to the house occupied by Barclay.
Barclay donned his sash and came out to meet and report to his senior
officer Bagration.
Despite his seniority in rank Bagration, in this contest of
magnanimity, took his orders from Barclay, but, having submitted,
agreed with him less than ever. By the Emperor's orders Bagration
reported direct to him. He wrote to Arakcheev, the Emperor's
confidant: "It must be as my sovereign pleases, but I cannot work with
the Minister (meaning Barclay). For God's sake send me somewhere
else if only in command of a regiment. I cannot stand it here.
Headquarters are so full of Germans that a Russian cannot exist and
there is no sense in anything. I thought I was really serving my
sovereign and the Fatherland, but it turns out that I am serving Barclay.
I confess I do not want to."
 The swarm of Bronnitskis and Wintzingerodes and their like still
further embittered the relations between the commanders in chief, and
even less unity resulted. Preparations were made to fight the French
before Smolensk. A general was sent to survey the position. This
general, hating Barclay, rode to visit a friend of his own, a corps
commander, and, having spent the day with him, returned to Barclay
and condemned, as unsuitable from every point of view, the
battleground he had not seen.
While disputes and intrigues were going on about the future field of
battle, and while we were looking for the French—having lost touch
with them—the French stumbled upon Neverovski's division and
reached the walls of Smolensk.
It was necessary to fight an unexpected battle at Smolensk to save
our lines of communication. The battle was fought and thousands were
killed on both sides.
Smolensk was abandoned contrary to the wishes of the Emperor and
of the whole people. But Smolensk was burned by its own inhabitants-
who had been misled by their governor. And these ruined inhabitants,
setting an example to other Russians, went to Moscow thinking only of
their own losses but kindling hatred of the foe. Napoleon advanced
farther and we retired, thus arriving at the very result which caused his
destruction.

CHAPTER II
The day after his son had left, Prince Nicholas sent for Princess Mary
to come to his study.
"Well? Are you satisfied now?" said he. "You've made me quarrel
with my son! Satisfied, are you? That's all you wanted! Satisfied?... It
hurts me, it hurts. I'm old and weak and this is what you wanted. Well
then, gloat over it! Gloat over it!"
After that Princess Mary did not see her father for a whole week. He
was ill and did not leave his study.
Princess Mary noticed to her surprise that during this illness the old
prince not only excluded her from his room, but did not admit
Mademoiselle Bourienne either. Tikhon alone attended him.
At the end of the week the prince reappeared and resumed his former
way of life, devoting himself with special activity to building
operations and the arrangement of the gardens and completely breaking
off his relations with Mademoiselle Bourienne. His looks and cold tone
to his daughter seemed to say: "There, you see? You plotted against
me, you lied to Prince Andrew about my relations with that
Frenchwoman and made me quarrel with him, but you see I need
neither her nor you!"
Princess Mary spent half of every day with little Nicholas, watching
his lessons, teaching him Russian and music herself, and talking to
Dessalles; the rest of the day she spent over her books, with her old
nurse, or with "God's folk" who sometimes came by the back door to
see her.
Of the war Princess Mary thought as women do think about wars.
She feared for her brother who was in it, was horrified by and amazed
at the strange cruelty that impels men to kill one another, but she did
not understand the significance of this war, which seemed to her like all
previous wars. She did not realize the significance of this war, though
Dessalles with whom she constantly conversed was passionately
interested in its progress and tried to explain his own conception of it to
her, and though the "God's folk" who came to see her reported, in their
own way, the rumors current among the people of an invasion by
Antichrist, and though Julie (now Princess Drubetskaya), who had
resumed correspondence with her, wrote patriotic letters from Moscow.
"I write you in Russian, my good friend," wrote Julie in her
Frenchified Russian, "because I have a detestation for all the French,
and the same for their language which I cannot support to hear
spoken.... We in Moscow are elated by enthusiasm for our adored
Emperor.
"My poor husband is enduring pains and hunger in Jewish taverns,
but the news which I have inspires me yet more.
"You heard probably of the heroic exploit of Raevski, embracing his
two sons and saying: 'I will perish with them but we will not be
shaken!' And truly though the enemy was twice stronger than we, we
were unshakable. We pass the time as we can, but in war as in war! The
princesses Aline and Sophie sit whole days with me, and we, unhappy
widows of live men, make beautiful conversations over our charpie,
only you, my friend, are missing..." and so on.
The chief reason Princess Mary did not realize the full significance
of this war was that the old prince never spoke of it, did not recognize
it, and laughed at Dessalles when he mentioned it at dinner. The
prince's tone was so calm and confident that Princess Mary
unhesitatingly believed him.
 All that July the old prince was exceedingly active and even
animated. He planned another garden and began a new building for the
domestic serfs. The only thing that made Princess Mary anxious about
him was that he slept very little and, instead of sleeping in his study as
usual, changed his sleeping place every day. One day he would order
his camp bed to be set up in the glass gallery, another day he remained
on the couch or on the lounge chair in the drawing room and dozed
there without undressing, while—instead of Mademoiselle
Bourienne—a serf boy read to him. Then again he would spend a night
in the dining room.
On August 1, a second letter was received from Prince Andrew. In
his first letter which came soon after he had left home, Prince Andrew
had dutifully asked his father's forgiveness for what he had allowed
himself to say and begged to be restored to his favor. To this letter the
old prince had replied affectionately, and from that time had kept the
Frenchwoman at a distance. Prince Andrew's second letter, written near
Vitebsk after the French had occupied that town, gave a brief account
of the whole campaign, enclosed for them a plan he had drawn and
forecasts as to the further progress of the war. In this letter Prince
Andrew pointed out to his father the danger of staying at Bald Hills, so
near the theater of war and on the army's direct line of march, and
advised him to move to Moscow.
At dinner that day, on Dessalles' mentioning that the French were
said to have already entered Vitebsk, the old prince remembered his
son's letter.
"There was a letter from Prince Andrew today," he said to Princess
Mary—"Haven't you read it?"
"No, Father," she replied in a frightened voice.
She could not have read the letter as she did not even know it had
arrived.
"He writes about this war," said the prince, with the ironic smile that
had become habitual to him in speaking of the present war.
"That must be very interesting," said Dessalles. "Prince Andrew is in
a position to know..."
"Oh, very interesting!" said Mademoiselle Bourienne.
"Go and get it for me," said the old prince to Mademoiselle
Bourienne. "You know—under the paperweight on the little table."
Mademoiselle Bourienne jumped up eagerly.
 "No, don't!" he exclaimed with a frown. "You go, Michael
Ivanovich."
Michael Ivanovich rose and went to the study. But as soon as he had
left the room the old prince, looking uneasily round, threw down his
napkin and went himself.
"They can't do anything... always make some muddle," he muttered.
While he was away Princess Mary, Dessalles, Mademoiselle
Bourienne, and even little Nicholas exchanged looks in silence. The old
prince returned with quick steps, accompanied by Michael Ivanovich,
bringing the letter and a plan. These he put down beside him—not
letting anyone read them at dinner.
On moving to the drawing room he handed the letter to Princess
Mary and, spreading out before him the plan of the new building and
fixing his eyes upon it, told her to read the letter aloud. When she had
done so Princess Mary looked inquiringly at her father. He was
examining the plan, evidently engrossed in his own ideas.
"What do you think of it, Prince?" Dessalles ventured to ask.
"I? I?..." said the prince as if unpleasantly awakened, and not taking
his eyes from the plan of the building.
"Very possibly the theater of war will move so near to us that..."
"Ha ha ha! The theater of war!" said the prince. "I have said and still
say that the theater of war is Poland and the enemy will never get
beyond the Niemen."
Dessalles looked in amazement at the prince, who was talking of the
Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper, but Princess
Mary, forgetting the geographical position of the Niemen, thought that
what her father was saying was correct.
"When the snow melts they'll sink in the Polish swamps. Only they
could fail to see it," the prince continued, evidently thinking of the
campaign of 1807 which seemed to him so recent. "Bennigsen should
have advanced into Prussia sooner, then things would have taken a
different turn..."
"But, Prince," Dessalles began timidly, "the letter mentions
Vitebsk...."
"Ah, the letter? Yes..." replied the prince peevishly. "Yes... yes..."
His face suddenly took on a morose expression. He paused. "Yes, he
writes that the French were beaten at... at... what river is it?"
Dessalles dropped his eyes.
 "The prince says nothing about that," he remarked gently.
"Doesn't he? But I didn't invent it myself."
No one spoke for a long time.
"Yes... yes... Well, Michael Ivanovich," he suddenly went on, raising
his head and pointing to the plan of the building, "tell me how you
mean to alter it...."
Michael Ivanovich went up to the plan, and the prince after speaking
to him about the building looked angrily at Princess Mary and
Dessalles and went to his own room.
Princess Mary saw Dessalles' embarrassed and astonished look fixed
on her father, noticed his silence, and was struck by the fact that her
father had forgotten his son's letter on the drawing-room table; but she
was not only afraid to speak of it and ask Dessalles the reason of his
confusion and silence, but was afraid even to think about it.
In the evening Michael Ivanovich, sent by the prince, came to
Princess Mary for Prince Andrew's letter which had been forgotten in
the drawing room. She gave it to him and, unpleasant as it was to her to
do so, ventured to ask him what her father was doing.
"Always busy," replied Michael Ivanovich with a respectfully ironic
smile which caused Princess Mary to turn pale. "He's worrying very
much about the new building. He has been reading a little, but now"—
Michael Ivanovich went on, lowering his voice—"now he's at his desk,
busy with his will, I expect." (One of the prince's favorite occupations
of late had been the preparation of some papers he meant to leave at his
death and which he called his "will.")
"And Alpatych is being sent to Smolensk?" asked Princess Mary.
"Oh, yes, he has been waiting to start for some time."

CHAPTER III
When Michael Ivanovich returned to the study with the letter, the old
prince, with spectacles on and a shade over his eyes, was sitting at his
open bureau with screened candles, holding a paper in his outstretched
hand, and in a somewhat dramatic attitude was reading his
manuscript—his "Remarks" as he termed it—which was to be
transmitted to the Emperor after his death.
 When Michael Ivanovich went in there were tears in the prince's
eyes evoked by the memory of the time when the paper he was now
reading had been written. He took the letter from Michael Ivanovich's
hand, put it in his pocket, folded up his papers, and called in Alpatych
who had long been waiting.
The prince had a list of things to be bought in Smolensk and,
walking up and down the room past Alpatych who stood by the door,
he gave his instructions.
"First, notepaper—do you hear? Eight quires, like this sample, gilt-
edged... it must be exactly like the sample. Varnish, sealing wax, as in
Michael Ivanovich's list."
He paced up and down for a while and glanced at his notes.
"Then hand to the governor in person a letter about the deed."
Next, bolts for the doors of the new building were wanted and had to
be of a special shape the prince had himself designed, and a leather
case had to be ordered to keep the "will" in.
The instructions to Alpatych took over two hours and still the prince
did not let him go. He sat down, sank into thought, closed his eyes, and
dozed off. Alpatych made a slight movement.
"Well, go, go! If anything more is wanted I'll send after you."
Alpatych went out. The prince again went to his bureau, glanced into
it, fingered his papers, closed the bureau again, and sat down at the
table to write to the governor.
It was already late when he rose after sealing the letter. He wished to
sleep, but he knew he would not be able to and that most depressing
thoughts came to him in bed. So he called Tikhon and went through the
rooms with him to show him where to set up the bed for that night.
He went about looking at every corner. Every place seemed
unsatisfactory, but worst of all was his customary couch in the study.
That couch was dreadful to him, probably because of the oppressive
thoughts he had had when lying there. It was unsatisfactory
everywhere, but the corner behind the piano in the sitting room was
better than other places: he had never slept there yet.
With the help of a footman Tikhon brought in the bedstead and
began putting it up.
"That's not right! That's not right!" cried the prince, and himself
pushed it a few inches from the corner and then closer in again.
 "Well, at last I've finished, now I'll rest," thought the prince, and let
Tikhon undress him.
Frowning with vexation at the effort necessary to divest himself of
his coat and trousers, the prince undressed, sat down heavily on the
bed, and appeared to be meditating as he looked contemptuously at his
withered yellow legs. He was not meditating, but only deferring the
moment of making the effort to lift those legs up and turn over on the
bed. "Ugh, how hard it is! Oh, that this toil might end and you would
release me!" thought he. Pressing his lips together he made that effort
for the twenty-thousandth time and lay down. But hardly had he done
so before he felt the bed rocking backwards and forwards beneath him
as if it were breathing heavily and jolting. This happened to him almost
every night. He opened his eyes as they were closing.
"No peace, damn them!" he muttered, angry he knew not with
whom. "Ah yes, there was something else important, very important,
that I was keeping till I should be in bed. The bolts? No, I told him
about them. No, it was something, something in the drawing room.
Princess Mary talked some nonsense. Dessalles, that fool, said
something. Something in my pocket—can't remember..."
"Tikhon, what did we talk about at dinner?"
"About Prince Michael..."
"Be quiet, quiet!" The prince slapped his hand on the table. "Yes, I
know, Prince Andrew's letter! Princess Mary read it. Dessalles said
something about Vitebsk. Now I'll read it."
He had the letter taken from his pocket and the table—on which
stood a glass of lemonade and a spiral wax candle—moved close to the
bed, and putting on his spectacles he began reading. Only now in the
stillness of the night, reading it by the faint light under the green shade,
did he grasp its meaning for a moment.
"The French at Vitebsk, in four days' march they may be at
Smolensk; perhaps are already there! Tikhon!" Tikhon jumped up. "No,
no, I don't want anything!" he shouted.
He put the letter under the candlestick and closed his eyes. And there
rose before him the Danube at bright noonday: reeds, the Russian
camp, and himself a young general without a wrinkle on his ruddy face,
vigorous and alert, entering Potemkin's gaily colored tent, and a
burning sense of jealousy of "the favorite" agitated him now as strongly
as it had done then. He recalled all the words spoken at that first
meeting with Potemkin. And he saw before him a plump, rather sallow-
faced, short, stout woman, the Empress Mother, with her smile and her
words at her first gracious reception of him, and then that same face on
the catafalque, and the encounter he had with Zubov over her coffin
about his right to kiss her hand.
"Oh, quicker, quicker! To get back to that time and have done with
all the present! Quicker, quicker—and that they should leave me in
peace!"

CHAPTER IV
Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Bolkonski's estate, lay forty miles east
from Smolensk and two miles from the main road to Moscow.
The same evening that the prince gave his instructions to Alpatych,
Dessalles, having asked to see Princess Mary, told her that, as the
prince was not very well and was taking no steps to secure his safety,
though from Prince Andrew's letter it was evident that to remain at
Bald Hills might be dangerous, he respectfully advised her to send a
letter by Alpatych to the Provincial Governor at Smolensk, asking him
to let her know the state of affairs and the extent of the danger to which
Bald Hills was exposed. Dessalles wrote this letter to the Governor for
Princess Mary, she signed it, and it was given to Alpatych with
instructions to hand it to the Governor and to come back as quickly as
possible if there was danger.
Having received all his orders Alpatych, wearing a white beaver
hat—a present from the prince—and carrying a stick as the prince did,
went out accompanied by his family. Three well-fed roans stood ready
harnessed to a small conveyance with a leather hood.
The larger bell was muffled and the little bells on the harness stuffed
with paper. The prince allowed no one at Bald Hills to drive with
ringing bells; but on a long journey Alpatych liked to have them. His
satellites—the senior clerk, a countinghouse clerk, a scullery maid, a
cook, two old women, a little pageboy, the coachman, and various
domestic serfs—were seeing him off.
His daughter placed chintz-covered down cushions for him to sit on
and behind his back. His old sister-in-law popped in a small bundle,
and one of the coachmen helped him into the vehicle.
"There! There! Women's fuss! Women, women!" said Alpatych,
puffing and speaking rapidly just as the prince did, and he climbed into
the trap.
 After giving the clerk orders about the work to be done, Alpatych,
not trying to imitate the prince now, lifted the hat from his bald head
and crossed himself three times.
"If there is anything... come back, Yakov Alpatych! For Christ's sake
think of us!" cried his wife, referring to the rumors of war and the
enemy.
"Women, women! Women's fuss!" muttered Alpatych to himself and
started on his journey, looking round at the fields of yellow rye and the
still-green, thickly growing oats, and at other quite black fields just
being plowed a second time.
As he went along he looked with pleasure at the year's splendid crop
of corn, scrutinized the strips of ryefield which here and there were
already being reaped, made his calculations as to the sowing and the
harvest, and asked himself whether he had not forgotten any of the
prince's orders.
Having baited the horses twice on the way, he arrived at the town
toward evening on the fourth of August.
Alpatych kept meeting and overtaking baggage trains and troops on
the road. As he approached Smolensk he heard the sounds of distant
firing, but these did not impress him. What struck him most was the
sight of a splendid field of oats in which a camp had been pitched and
which was being mown down by the soldiers, evidently for fodder.
This fact impressed Alpatych, but in thinking about his own business
he soon forgot it.
All the interests of his life for more than thirty years had been
bounded by the will of the prince, and he never went beyond that limit.
Everything not connected with the execution of the prince's orders did
not interest and did not even exist for Alpatych.
On reaching Smolensk on the evening of the fourth of August he put
up in the Gachina suburb across the Dnieper, at the inn kept by
Ferapontov, where he had been in the habit of putting up for the last
thirty years. Some thirty years ago Ferapontov, by Alpatych's advice,
had bought a wood from the prince, had begun to trade, and now had a
house, an inn, and a corn dealer's shop in that province. He was a stout,
dark, red-faced peasant in the forties, with thick lips, a broad knob of a
nose, similar knobs over his black frowning brows, and a round belly.
Wearing a waistcoat over his cotton shirt, Ferapontov was standing
before his shop which opened onto the street. On seeing Alpatych he
went up to him.
"You're welcome, Yakov Alpatych. Folks are leaving the town, but
you have come to it," said he.
 "Why are they leaving the town?" asked Alpatych.
"That's what I say. Folks are foolish! Always afraid of the French."
"Women's fuss, women's fuss!" said Alpatych.
"Just what I think, Yakov Alpatych. What I say is: orders have been
given not to let them in, so that must be right. And the peasants are
asking three rubles for carting—it isn't Christian!"
Yakov Alpatych heard without heeding. He asked for a samovar and
for hay for his horses, and when he had had his tea he went to bed.
All night long troops were moving past the inn. Next morning
Alpatych donned a jacket he wore only in town and went out on
business. It was a sunny morning and by eight o'clock it was already
hot. "A good day for harvesting," thought Alpatych.
From beyond the town firing had been heard since early morning. At
eight o'clock the booming of cannon was added to the sound of
musketry. Many people were hurrying through the streets and there
were many soldiers, but cabs were still driving about, tradesmen stood
at their shops, and service was being held in the churches as usual.
Alpatych went to the shops, to government offices, to the post office,
and to the Governor's. In the offices and shops and at the post office
everyone was talking about the army and about the enemy who was
already attacking the town, everybody was asking what should be done,
and all were trying to calm one another.
In front of the Governor's house Alpatych found a large number of
people, Cossacks, and a traveling carriage of the Governor's. At the
porch he met two of the landed gentry, one of whom he knew. This
man, an ex-captain of police, was saying angrily:
"It's no joke, you know! It's all very well if you're single. 'One man
though undone is but one,' as the proverb says, but with thirteen in your
family and all the property... They've brought us to utter ruin! What
sort of governors are they to do that? They ought to be hanged—the
brigands!..."
"Oh come, that's enough!" said the other.
"What do I care? Let him hear! We're not dogs," said the ex-captain
of police, and looking round he noticed Alpatych.
"Oh, Yakov Alpatych! What have you come for?"
"To see the Governor by his excellency's order," answered Alpatych,
lifting his head and proudly thrusting his hand into the bosom of his
coat as he always did when he mentioned the prince.... "He has ordered
me to inquire into the position of affairs," he added.
 "Yes, go and find out!" shouted the angry gentleman. "They've
brought things to such a pass that there are no carts or anything!...
There it is again, do you hear?" said he, pointing in the direction
whence came the sounds of firing.
"They've brought us all to ruin... the brigands!" he repeated, and
descended the porch steps.
Alpatych swayed his head and went upstairs. In the waiting room
were tradesmen, women, and officials, looking silently at one another.
The door of the Governor's room opened and they all rose and moved
forward. An official ran out, said some words to a merchant, called a
stout official with a cross hanging on his neck to follow him, and
vanished again, evidently wishing to avoid the inquiring looks and
questions addressed to him. Alpatych moved forward and next time the
official came out addressed him, one hand placed in the breast of his
buttoned coat, and handed him two letters.
"To his Honor Baron Asch, from General-in-Chief Prince
Bolkonski," he announced with such solemnity and significance that
the official turned to him and took the letters.
A few minutes later the Governor received Alpatych and hurriedly
said to him:
"Inform the prince and princess that I knew nothing: I acted on the
highest instructions—here..." and he handed a paper to Alpatych. "Still,
as the prince is unwell my advice is that they should go to Moscow. I
am just starting myself. Inform them..."
But the Governor did not finish: a dusty perspiring officer ran into
the room and began to say something in French. The Governor's face
expressed terror.
"Go," he said, nodding his head to Alpatych, and began questioning
the officer.
Eager, frightened, helpless glances were turned on Alpatych when he
came out of the Governor's room. Involuntarily listening now to the
firing, which had drawn nearer and was increasing in strength,
Alpatych hurried to his inn. The paper handed to him by the Governor
said this:
"I assure you that the town of Smolensk is not in the slightest danger
as yet and it is unlikely that it will be threatened with any. I from the
one side and Prince Bagration from the other are marching to unite our
forces before Smolensk, which junction will be effected on the 22nd
instant, and both armies with their united forces will defend our
compatriots of the province entrusted to your care till our efforts shall
have beaten back the enemies of our Fatherland, or till the last warrior
in our valiant ranks has perished. From this you will see that you have a
perfect right to reassure the inhabitants of Smolensk, for those defended
by two such brave armies may feel assured of victory." (Instructions
from Barclay de Tolly to Baron Asch, the civil governor of Smolensk,
1812.)
People were anxiously roaming about the streets.
Carts piled high with household utensils, chairs, and cupboards kept
emerging from the gates of the yards and moving along the streets.
Loaded carts stood at the house next to Ferapontov's and women were
wailing and lamenting as they said good-by. A small watchdog ran
round barking in front of the harnessed horses.
Alpatych entered the innyard at a quicker pace than usual and went
straight to the shed where his horses and trap were. The coachman was
asleep. He woke him up, told him to harness, and went into the passage.
From the host's room came the sounds of a child crying, the despairing
sobs of a woman, and the hoarse angry shouting of Ferapontov. The
cook began running hither and thither in the passage like a frightened
hen, just as Alpatych entered.
"He's done her to death. Killed the mistress!... Beat her... dragged her
about so!..."
"What for?" asked Alpatych.
"She kept begging to go away. She's a woman! 'Take me away,' says
she, 'don't let me perish with my little children! Folks,' she says, 'are all
gone, so why,' she says, 'don't we go?' And he began beating and
pulling her about so!"
At these words Alpatych nodded as if in approval, and not wishing to
hear more went to the door of the room opposite the innkeeper's, where
he had left his purchases.
"You brute, you murderer!" screamed a thin, pale woman who, with
a baby in her arms and her kerchief torn from her head, burst through
the door at that moment and down the steps into the yard.
Ferapontov came out after her, but on seeing Alpatych adjusted his
waistcoat, smoothed his hair, yawned, and followed Alpatych into the
opposite room.
"Going already?" said he.
Alpatych, without answering or looking at his host, sorted his
packages and asked how much he owed.
"We'll reckon up! Well, have you been to the Governor's?" asked
Ferapontov. "What has been decided?"
 Alpatych replied that the Governor had not told him anything
definite.
"With our business, how can we get away?" said Ferapontov. "We'd
have to pay seven rubles a cartload to Dorogobuzh and I tell them
they're not Christians to ask it! Selivanov, now, did a good stroke last
Thursday—sold flour to the army at nine rubles a sack. Will you have
some tea?" he added.
While the horses were being harnessed Alpatych and Ferapontov
over their tea talked of the price of corn, the crops, and the good
weather for harvesting.
"Well, it seems to be getting quieter," remarked Ferapontov,
finishing his third cup of tea and getting up. "Ours must have got the
best of it. The orders were not to let them in. So we're in force, it
seems.... They say the other day Matthew Ivanych Platov drove them
into the river Marina and drowned some eighteen thousand in one day."
Alpatych collected his parcels, handed them to the coachman who
had come in, and settled up with the innkeeper. The noise of wheels,
hoofs, and bells was heard from the gateway as a little trap passed out.
It was by now late in the afternoon. Half the street was in shadow,
the other half brightly lit by the sun. Alpatych looked out of the
window and went to the door. Suddenly the strange sound of a far-off
whistling and thud was heard, followed by a boom of cannon blending
into a dull roar that set the windows rattling.
He went out into the street: two men were running past toward the
bridge. From different sides came whistling sounds and the thud of
cannon balls and bursting shells falling on the town. But these sounds
were hardly heard in comparison with the noise of the firing outside the
town and attracted little attention from the inhabitants. The town was
being bombarded by a hundred and thirty guns which Napoleon had
ordered up after four o'clock. The people did not at once realize the
meaning of this bombardment.
At first the noise of the falling bombs and shells only aroused
curiosity. Ferapontov's wife, who till then had not ceased wailing under
the shed, became quiet and with the baby in her arms went to the gate,
listening to the sounds and looking in silence at the people.
The cook and a shop assistant came to the gate. With lively curiosity
everyone tried to get a glimpse of the projectiles as they flew over their
heads. Several people came round the corner talking eagerly.
"What force!" remarked one. "Knocked the roof and ceiling all to
splinters!"
 "Routed up the earth like a pig," said another.
"That's grand, it bucks one up!" laughed the first. "Lucky you
jumped aside, or it would have wiped you out!"
Others joined those men and stopped and told how cannon balls had
fallen on a house close to them. Meanwhile still more projectiles, now
with the swift sinister whistle of a cannon ball, now with the agreeable
intermittent whistle of a shell, flew over people's heads incessantly, but
not one fell close by, they all flew over. Alpatych was getting into his
trap. The innkeeper stood at the gate.
"What are you staring at?" he shouted to the cook, who in her red
skirt, with sleeves rolled up, swinging her bare elbows, had stepped to
the corner to listen to what was being said.
"What marvels!" she exclaimed, but hearing her master's voice she
turned back, pulling down her tucked-up skirt.
Once more something whistled, but this time quite close, swooping
downwards like a little bird; a flame flashed in the middle of the street,
something exploded, and the street was shrouded in smoke.
"Scoundrel, what are you doing?" shouted the innkeeper, rushing to
the cook.
At that moment the pitiful wailing of women was heard from
different sides, the frightened baby began to cry, and people crowded
silently with pale faces round the cook. The loudest sound in that crowd
was her wailing.
"Oh-h-h! Dear souls, dear kind souls! Don't let me die! My good
souls!..."
Five minutes later no one remained in the street. The cook, with her
thigh broken by a shell splinter, had been carried into the kitchen.
Alpatych, his coachman, Ferapontov's wife and children and the house
porter were all sitting in the cellar, listening. The roar of guns, the
whistling of projectiles, and the piteous moaning of the cook, which
rose above the other sounds, did not cease for a moment. The mistress
rocked and hushed her baby and when anyone came into the cellar
asked in a pathetic whisper what had become of her husband who had
remained in the street. A shopman who entered told her that her
husband had gone with others to the cathedral, whence they were
fetching the wonder-working icon of Smolensk.
Toward dusk the cannonade began to subside. Alpatych left the
cellar and stopped in the doorway. The evening sky that had been so
clear was clouded with smoke, through which, high up, the sickle of the
new moon shone strangely. Now that the terrible din of the guns had
ceased a hush seemed to reign over the town, broken only by the rustle
of footsteps, the moaning, the distant cries, and the crackle of fires
which seemed widespread everywhere. The cook's moans had now
subsided. On two sides black curling clouds of smoke rose and spread
from the fires. Through the streets soldiers in various uniforms walked
or ran confusedly in different directions like ants from a ruined ant-hill.
Several of them ran into Ferapontov's yard before Alpatych's eyes.
Alpatych went out to the gate. A retreating regiment, thronging and
hurrying, blocked the street.
Noticing him, an officer said: "The town is being abandoned. Get
away, get away!" and then, turning to the soldiers, shouted:
"I'll teach you to run into the yards!"
Alpatych went back to the house, called the coachman, and told him
to set off. Ferapontov's whole household came out too, following
Alpatych and the coachman. The women, who had been silent till then,
suddenly began to wail as they looked at the fires—the smoke and even
the flames of which could be seen in the failing twilight—and as if in
reply the same kind of lamentation was heard from other parts of the
street. Inside the shed Alpatych and the coachman arranged the tangled
reins and traces of their horses with trembling hands.
As Alpatych was driving out of the gate he saw some ten soldiers in
Ferapontov's open shop, talking loudly and filling their bags and
knapsacks with flour and sunflower seeds. Just then Ferapontov
returned and entered his shop. On seeing the soldiers he was about to
shout at them, but suddenly stopped and, clutching at his hair, burst
into sobs and laughter:
"Loot everything, lads! Don't let those devils get it!" he cried, taking
some bags of flour himself and throwing them into the street.
Some of the soldiers were frightened and ran away, others went on
filling their bags. On seeing Alpatych, Ferapontov turned to him:
"Russia is done for!" he cried. "Alpatych, I'll set the place on fire
myself. We're done for!..." and Ferapontov ran into the yard.
Soldiers were passing in a constant stream along the street blocking
it completely, so that Alpatych could not pass out and had to wait.
Ferapontov's wife and children were also sitting in a cart waiting till it
was possible to drive out.
Night had come. There were stars in the sky and the new moon
shone out amid the smoke that screened it. On the sloping descent to
the Dnieper Alpatych's cart and that of the innkeeper's wife, which
were slowly moving amid the rows of soldiers and of other vehicles,
had to stop. In a side street near the crossroads where the vehicles had
stopped, a house and some shops were on fire. This fire was already
burning itself out. The flames now died down and were lost in the black
smoke, now suddenly flared up again brightly, lighting up with strange
distinctness the faces of the people crowding at the crossroads. Black
figures flitted about before the fire, and through the incessant crackling
of the flames talking and shouting could be heard. Seeing that his trap
would not be able to move on for some time, Alpatych got down and
turned into the side street to look at the fire. Soldiers were continually
rushing backwards and forwards near it, and he saw two of them and a
man in a frieze coat dragging burning beams into another yard across
the street, while others carried bundles of hay.
Alpatych went up to a large crowd standing before a high barn which
was blazing briskly. The walls were all on fire and the back wall had
fallen in, the wooden roof was collapsing, and the rafters were alight.
The crowd was evidently watching for the roof to fall in, and Alpatych
watched for it too.
"Alpatych!" a familiar voice suddenly hailed the old man.
"Mercy on us! Your excellency!" answered Alpatych, immediately
recognizing the voice of his young prince.
Prince Andrew in his riding cloak, mounted on a black horse, was
looking at Alpatych from the back of the crowd.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"Your... your excellency," stammered Alpatych and broke into sobs.
"Are we really lost? Master!..."
"Why are you here?" Prince Andrew repeated.
At that moment the flames flared up and showed his young master's
pale worn face. Alpatych told how he had been sent there and how
difficult it was to get away.
"Are we really quite lost, your excellency?" he asked again.
Prince Andrew without replying took out a notebook and raising his
knee began writing in pencil on a page he tore out. He wrote to his
sister:
"Smolensk is being abandoned. Bald Hills will be occupied by the
enemy within a week. Set off immediately for Moscow. Let me know
at once when you will start. Send by special messenger to Usvyazh."
Having written this and given the paper to Alpatych, he told him how
to arrange for departure of the prince, the princess, his son, and the
boy's tutor, and how and where to let him know immediately. Before he
had had time to finish giving these instructions, a chief of staff
followed by a suite galloped up to him.
"You are a colonel?" shouted the chief of staff with a German accent,
in a voice familiar to Prince Andrew. "Houses are set on fire in your
presence and you stand by! What does this mean? You will answer for
it!" shouted Berg, who was now assistant to the chief of staff of the
commander of the left flank of the infantry of the first army, a place, as
Berg said, "very agreeable and well en evidence."
Prince Andrew looked at him and without replying went on speaking
to Alpatych.
"So tell them that I shall await a reply till the tenth, and if by the
tenth I don't receive news that they have all got away I shall have to
throw up everything and come myself to Bald Hills."
"Prince," said Berg, recognizing Prince Andrew, "I only spoke
because I have to obey orders, because I always do obey exactly.... You
must please excuse me," he went on apologetically.
Something cracked in the flames. The fire died down for a moment
and wreaths of black smoke rolled from under the roof. There was
another terrible crash and something huge collapsed.
"Ou-rou-rou!" yelled the crowd, echoing the crash of the collapsing
roof of the barn, the burning grain in which diffused a cakelike aroma
all around. The flames flared up again, lighting the animated, delighted,
exhausted faces of the spectators.
The man in the frieze coat raised his arms and shouted:
"It's fine, lads! Now it's raging... It's fine!"
"That's the owner himself," cried several voices.
"Well then," continued Prince Andrew to Alpatych, "report to them
as I have told you"; and not replying a word to Berg who was now
mute beside him, he touched his horse and rode down the side street.

CHAPTER V
From Smolensk the troops continued to retreat, followed by the
enemy. On the tenth of August the regiment Prince Andrew
commanded was marching along the highroad past the avenue leading
to Bald Hills. Heat and drought had continued for more than three
weeks. Each day fleecy clouds floated across the sky and occasionally
veiled the sun, but toward evening the sky cleared again and the sun set
in reddish-brown mist. Heavy night dews alone refreshed the earth. The
unreaped corn was scorched and shed its grain. The marshes dried up.
The cattle lowed from hunger, finding no food on the sun-parched
meadows. Only at night and in the forests while the dew lasted was
there any freshness. But on the road, the highroad along which the
troops marched, there was no such freshness even at night or when the
road passed through the forest; the dew was imperceptible on the sandy
dust churned up more than six inches deep. As soon as day dawned the
march began. The artillery and baggage wagons moved noiselessly
through the deep dust that rose to the very hubs of the wheels, and the
infantry sank ankle-deep in that soft, choking, hot dust that never
cooled even at night. Some of this dust was kneaded by the feet and
wheels, while the rest rose and hung like a cloud over the troops,
settling in eyes, ears, hair, and nostrils, and worst of all in the lungs of
the men and beasts as they moved along that road. The higher the sun
rose the higher rose that cloud of dust, and through the screen of its hot
fine particles one could look with naked eye at the sun, which showed
like a huge crimson ball in the unclouded sky. There was no wind, and
the men choked in that motionless atmosphere. They marched with
handkerchiefs tied over their noses and mouths. When they passed
through a village they all rushed to the wells and fought for the water
and drank it down to the mud.
Prince Andrew was in command of a regiment, and the management
of that regiment, the welfare of the men and the necessity of receiving
and giving orders, engrossed him. The burning of Smolensk and its
abandonment made an epoch in his life. A novel feeling of anger
against the foe made him forget his own sorrow. He was entirely
devoted to the affairs of his regiment and was considerate and kind to
his men and officers. In the regiment they called him "our prince," were
proud of him and loved him. But he was kind and gentle only to those
of his regiment, to Timokhin and the like—people quite new to him,
belonging to a different world and who could not know and understand
his past. As soon as he came across a former acquaintance or anyone
from the staff, he bristled up immediately and grew spiteful, ironical,
and contemptuous. Everything that reminded him of his past was
repugnant to him, and so in his relations with that former circle he
confined himself to trying to do his duty and not to be unfair.
In truth everything presented itself in a dark and gloomy light to
Prince Andrew, especially after the abandonment of Smolensk on the
sixth of August (he considered that it could and should have been
defended) and after his sick father had had to flee to Moscow,
abandoning to pillage his dearly beloved Bald Hills which he had built
and peopled. But despite this, thanks to his regiment, Prince Andrew
had something to think about entirely apart from general questions.
Two days previously he had received news that his father, son, and
sister had left for Moscow; and though there was nothing for him to do
at Bald Hills, Prince Andrew with a characteristic desire to foment his
own grief decided that he must ride there.
He ordered his horse to be saddled and, leaving his regiment on the
march, rode to his father's estate where he had been born and spent his
childhood. Riding past the pond where there used always to be dozens
of women chattering as they rinsed their linen or beat it with wooden
beetles, Prince Andrew noticed that there was not a soul about and that
the little washing wharf, torn from its place and half submerged, was
floating on its side in the middle of the pond. He rode to the keeper's
lodge. No one at the stone entrance gates of the drive and the door
stood open. Grass had already begun to grow on the garden paths, and
horses and calves were straying in the English park. Prince Andrew
rode up to the hothouse; some of the glass panes were broken, and of
the trees in tubs some were overturned and others dried up. He called
for Taras the gardener, but no one replied. Having gone round the
corner of the hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw that the carved
garden fence was broken and branches of the plum trees had been torn
off with the fruit. An old peasant whom Prince Andrew in his
childhood had often seen at the gate was sitting on a green garden seat,
plaiting a bast shoe.
He was deaf and did not hear Prince Andrew ride up. He was sitting
on the seat the old prince used to like to sit on, and beside him strips of
bast were hanging on the broken and withered branch of a magnolia.
Prince Andrew rode up to the house. Several limes in the old garden
had been cut down and a piebald mare and her foal were wandering in
front of the house among the rosebushes. The shutters were all closed,
except at one window which was open. A little serf boy, seeing Prince
Andrew, ran into the house. Alpatych, having sent his family away, was
alone at Bald Hills and was sitting indoors reading the Lives of the
Saints. On hearing that Prince Andrew had come, he went out with his
spectacles on his nose, buttoning his coat, and, hastily stepping up,
without a word began weeping and kissing Prince Andrew's knee.
Then, vexed at his own weakness, he turned away and began to
report on the position of affairs. Everything precious and valuable had
been removed to Bogucharovo. Seventy quarters of grain had also been
carted away. The hay and the spring corn, of which Alpatych said there
had been a remarkable crop that year, had been commandeered by the
troops and mown down while still green. The peasants were ruined;
some of them too had gone to Bogucharovo, only a few remained.
Without waiting to hear him out, Prince Andrew asked:
 "When did my father and sister leave?" meaning when did they leave
for Moscow.
Alpatych, understanding the question to refer to their departure for
Bogucharovo, replied that they had left on the seventh and again went
into details concerning the estate management, asking for instructions.
"Am I to let the troops have the oats, and to take a receipt for them?
We have still six hundred quarters left," he inquired.
"What am I to say to him?" thought Prince Andrew, looking down on
the old man's bald head shining in the sun and seeing by the expression
on his face that the old man himself understood how untimely such
questions were and only asked them to allay his grief.
"Yes, let them have it," replied Prince Andrew.
"If you noticed some disorder in the garden," said Alpatych, "it was
impossible to prevent it. Three regiments have been here and spent the
night, dragoons mostly. I took down the name and rank of their
commanding officer, to hand in a complaint about it."
"Well, and what are you going to do? Will you stay here if the
enemy occupies the place?" asked Prince Andrew.
Alpatych turned his face to Prince Andrew, looked at him, and
suddenly with a solemn gesture raised his arm.
"He is my refuge! His will be done!" he exclaimed.
A group of bareheaded peasants was approaching across the meadow
toward the prince.
"Well, good-by!" said Prince Andrew, bending over to Alpatych.
"You must go away too, take away what you can and tell the serfs to go
to the Ryazan estate or to the one near Moscow."
Alpatych clung to Prince Andrew's leg and burst into sobs. Gently
disengaging himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode down the
avenue at a gallop.
The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly
impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping the last on
which he was making the bast shoe, and two little girls, running out
from the hot house carrying in their skirts plums they had plucked from
the trees there, came upon Prince Andrew. On seeing the young master,
the elder one with frightened look clutched her younger companion by
the hand and hid with her behind a birch tree, not stopping to pick up
some green plums they had dropped.
 Prince Andrew turned away with startled haste, unwilling to let them
see that they had been observed. He was sorry for the pretty frightened
little girl, was afraid of looking at her, and yet felt an irresistible desire
to do so. A new sensation of comfort and relief came over him when,
seeing these girls, he realized the existence of other human interests
entirely aloof from his own and just as legitimate as those that occupied
him. Evidently these girls passionately desired one thing—to carry
away and eat those green plums without being caught—and Prince
Andrew shared their wish for the success of their enterprise. He could
not resist looking at them once more. Believing their danger past, they
sprang from their ambush and, chirruping something in their shrill little
voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburned feet
scampered merrily and quickly across the meadow grass.
Prince Andrew was somewhat refreshed by having ridden off the
dusty highroad along which the troops were moving. But not far from
Bald Hills he again came out on the road and overtook his regiment at
its halting place by the dam of a small pond. It was past one o'clock.
The sun, a red ball through the dust, burned and scorched his back
intolerably through his black coat. The dust always hung motionless
above the buzz of talk that came from the resting troops. There was no
wind. As he crossed the dam Prince Andrew smelled the ooze and
freshness of the pond. He longed to get into that water, however dirty it
might be, and he glanced round at the pool from whence came sounds
of shrieks and laughter. The small, muddy, green pond had risen visibly
more than a foot, flooding the dam, because it was full of the naked
white bodies of soldiers with brick-red hands, necks, and faces, who
were splashing about in it. All this naked white human flesh, laughing
and shrieking, floundered about in that dirty pool like carp stuffed into
a watering can, and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering
mass rendered it specially pathetic.
One fair-haired young soldier of the third company, whom Prince
Andrew knew and who had a strap round the calf of one leg, crossed
himself, stepped back to get a good run, and plunged into the water;
another, a dark noncommissioned officer who was always shaggy,
stood up to his waist in the water joyfully wriggling his muscular figure
and snorted with satisfaction as he poured the water over his head with
hands blackened to the wrists. There were sounds of men slapping one
another, yelling, and puffing.
Everywhere on the bank, on the dam, and in the pond, there was
healthy, white, muscular flesh. The officer, Timokhin, with his red little
nose, standing on the dam wiping himself with a towel, felt confused at
seeing the prince, but made up his mind to address him nevertheless.
"It's very nice, your excellency! Wouldn't you like to?" said he.
 "It's dirty," replied Prince Andrew, making a grimace.
"We'll clear it out for you in a minute," said Timokhin, and, still
undressed, ran off to clear the men out of the pond.
"The prince wants to bathe."
"What prince? Ours?" said many voices, and the men were in such
haste to clear out that the prince could hardly stop them. He decided
that he would rather wash himself with water in the barn.
"Flesh, bodies, cannon fodder!" he thought, and he looked at his own
naked body and shuddered, not from cold but from a sense of disgust
and horror he did not himself understand, aroused by the sight of that
immense number of bodies splashing about in the dirty pond.
On the seventh of August Prince Bagration wrote as follows from his
quarters at Mikhaylovna on the Smolensk road:
Dear Count Alexis Andreevich—(He was writing to Arakcheev but
knew that his letter would be read by the Emperor, and therefore
weighed every word in it to the best of his ability.)
I expect the Minister (Barclay de Tolly) has already reported the
abandonment of Smolensk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad, and the
whole army is in despair that this most important place has been
wantonly abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally most
urgently and finally wrote him, but nothing would induce him to
consent. I swear to you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a fix as
never before and might have lost half his army but could not have taken
Smolensk. Our troops fought, and are fighting, as never before. With
fifteen thousand men I held the enemy at bay for thirty-five hours and
beat him; but he would not hold out even for fourteen hours. It is
disgraceful, a stain on our army, and as for him, he ought, it seems to
me, not to live. If he reports that our losses were great, it is not true;
perhaps about four thousand, not more, and not even that; but even
were they ten thousand, that's war! But the enemy has lost masses...
What would it have cost him to hold out for another two days? They
would have had to retire of their own accord, for they had no water for
men or horses. He gave me his word he would not retreat, but suddenly
sent instructions that he was retiring that night. We cannot fight in this
way, or we may soon bring the enemy to Moscow...
There is a rumor that you are thinking of peace. God forbid that you
should make peace after all our sacrifices and such insane retreats! You
would set all Russia against you and every one of us would feel
ashamed to wear the uniform. If it has come to this—we must fight as
long as Russia can and as long as there are men able to stand...
 One man ought to be in command, and not two. Your Minister may
perhaps be good as a Minister, but as a general he is not merely bad but
execrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country.... I am
really frantic with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear that
the man who advocates the conclusion of a peace, and that the Minister
should command the army, does not love our sovereign and desires the
ruin of us all. So I write you frankly: call out the militia. For the
Minister is leading these visitors after him to Moscow in a most
masterly way. The whole army feels great suspicion of the Imperial
aide-de-camp Wolzogen. He is said to be more Napoleon's man than
ours, and he is always advising the Minister. I am not merely civil to
him but obey him like a corporal, though I am his senior. This is
painful, but, loving my benefactor and sovereign, I submit. Only I am
sorry for the Emperor that he entrusts our fine army to such as he.
Consider that on our retreat we have lost by fatigue and left in the
hospital more than fifteen thousand men, and had we attacked this
would not have happened. Tell me, for God's sake, what will Russia,
our mother Russia, say to our being so frightened, and why are we
abandoning our good and gallant Fatherland to such rabble and
implanting feelings of hatred and shame in all our subjects? What are
we scared at and of whom are we afraid? I am not to blame that the
Minister is vacillating, a coward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad
qualities. The whole army bewails it and calls down curses upon him...

CHAPTER VI
Among the innumerable categories applicable to the phenomena of
human life one may discriminate between those in which substance
prevails and those in which form prevails. To the latter—as
distinguished from village, country, provincial, or even Moscow life—
we may allot Petersburg life, and especially the life of its salons. That
life of the salons is unchanging. Since the year 1805 we had made
peace and had again quarreled with Bonaparte and had made
constitutions and unmade them again, but the salons of Anna Pavlovna
and Helene remained just as they had been—the one seven and the
other five years before. At Anna Pavlovna's they talked with perplexity
of Bonaparte's successes just as before and saw in them and in the
subservience shown to him by the European sovereigns a malicious
conspiracy, the sole object of which was to cause unpleasantness and
anxiety to the court circle of which Anna Pavlovna was the
representative. And in Helene's salon, which Rumyantsev himself
honored with his visits, regarding Helene as a remarkably intelligent
woman, they talked with the same ecstasy in 1812 as in 1808 of the
"great nation" and the "great man," and regretted our rupture with
France, a rupture which, according to them, ought to be promptly
terminated by peace.
Of late, since the Emperor's return from the army, there had been
some excitement in these conflicting salon circles and some
demonstrations of hostility to one another, but each camp retained its
own tendency. In Anna Pavlovna's circle only those Frenchmen were
admitted who were deep-rooted legitimists, and patriotic views were
expressed to the effect that one ought not to go to the French theater
and that to maintain the French troupe was costing the government as
much as a whole army corps. The progress of the war was eagerly
followed, and only the reports most flattering to our army were
circulated. In the French circle of Helene and Rumyantsev the reports
of the cruelty of the enemy and of the war were contradicted and all
Napoleon's attempts at conciliation were discussed. In that circle they
discountenanced those who advised hurried preparations for a removal
to Kazan of the court and the girls' educational establishments under
the patronage of the Dowager Empress. In Helene's circle the war in
general was regarded as a series of formal demonstrations which would
very soon end in peace, and the view prevailed expressed by Bilibin—
who now in Petersburg was quite at home in Helene's house, which
every clever man was obliged to visit—that not by gunpowder but by
those who invented it would matters be settled. In that circle the
Moscow enthusiasm—news of which had reached Petersburg
simultaneously with the Emperor's return—was ridiculed sarcastically
and very cleverly, though with much caution.
Anna Pavlovna's circle on the contrary was enraptured by this
enthusiasm and spoke of it as Plutarch speaks of the deeds of the
ancients. Prince Vasili, who still occupied his former important posts,
formed a connecting link between these two circles. He visited his
"good friend Anna Pavlovna" as well as his daughter's "diplomatic
salon," and often in his constant comings and goings between the two
camps became confused and said at Helene's what he should have said
at Anna Pavlovna's and vice versa.
Soon after the Emperor's return Prince Vasili in a conversation about
the war at Anna Pavlovna's severely condemned Barclay de Tolly, but
was undecided as to who ought to be appointed commander in chief.
One of the visitors, usually spoken of as "a man of great merit," having
described how he had that day seen Kutuzov, the newly chosen chief of
the Petersburg militia, presiding over the enrollment of recruits at the
Treasury, cautiously ventured to suggest that Kutuzov would be the
man to satisfy all requirements.
 Anna Pavlovna remarked with a melancholy smile that Kutuzov had
done nothing but cause the Emperor annoyance.
"I have talked and talked at the Assembly of the Nobility," Prince
Vasili interrupted, "but they did not listen to me. I told them his
election as chief of the militia would not please the Emperor. They did
not listen to me.
"It's all this mania for opposition," he went on. "And who for? It is
all because we want to ape the foolish enthusiasm of those
Muscovites," Prince Vasili continued, forgetting for a moment that
though at Helene's one had to ridicule the Moscow enthusiasm, at Anna
Pavlovna's one had to be ecstatic about it. But he retrieved his mistake
at once. "Now, is it suitable that Count Kutuzov, the oldest general in
Russia, should preside at that tribunal? He will get nothing for his
pains! How could they make a man commander in chief who cannot
mount a horse, who drops asleep at a council, and has the very worst
morals! A good reputation he made for himself at Bucharest! I don't
speak of his capacity as a general, but at a time like this how they
appoint a decrepit, blind old man, positively blind? A fine idea to have
a blind general! He can't see anything. To play blindman's bluff? He
can't see at all!"
No one replied to his remarks.
This was quite correct on the twenty-fourth of July. But on the
twenty-ninth of July Kutuzov received the title of Prince. This might
indicate a wish to get rid of him, and therefore Prince Vasili's opinion
continued to be correct though he was not now in any hurry to express
it. But on the eighth of August a committee, consisting of Field
Marshal Saltykov, Arakcheev, Vyazmitinov, Lopukhin, and Kochubey
met to consider the progress of the war. This committee came to the
conclusion that our failures were due to a want of unity in the command
and though the members of the committee were aware of the Emperor's
dislike of Kutuzov, after a short deliberation they agreed to advise his
appointment as commander in chief. That same day Kutuzov was
appointed commander in chief with full powers over the armies and
over the whole region occupied by them.
On the ninth of August Prince Vasili at Anna Pavlovna's again met
the "man of great merit." The latter was very attentive to Anna
Pavlovna because he wanted to be appointed director of one of the
educational establishments for young ladies. Prince Vasili entered the
room with the air of a happy conqueror who has attained the object of
his desires.
"Well, have you heard the great news? Prince Kutuzov is field
marshal! All dissensions are at an end! I am so glad, so delighted! At
last we have a man!" said he, glancing sternly and significantly round
at everyone in the drawing room.
The "man of great merit," despite his desire to obtain the post of
director, could not refrain from reminding Prince Vasili of his former
opinion. Though this was impolite to Prince Vasili in Anna Pavlovna's
drawing room, and also to Anna Pavlovna herself who had received the
news with delight, he could not resist the temptation.
"But, Prince, they say he is blind!" said he, reminding Prince Vasili
of his own words.
"Eh? Nonsense! He sees well enough," said Prince Vasili rapidly, in
a deep voice and with a slight cough—the voice and cough with which
he was wont to dispose of all difficulties.
"He sees well enough," he added. "And what I am so pleased about,"
he went on, "is that our sovereign has given him full powers over all
the armies and the whole region—powers no commander in chief ever
had before. He is a second autocrat," he concluded with a victorious
smile.
"God grant it! God grant it!" said Anna Pavlovna.
The "man of great merit," who was still a novice in court circles,
wishing to flatter Anna Pavlovna by defending her former position on
this question, observed:
"It is said that the Emperor was reluctant to give Kutuzov those
powers. They say he blushed like a girl to whom Joconde is read, when
he said to Kutuzov: 'Your Emperor and the Fatherland award you this
honor.'"
"Perhaps the heart took no part in that speech," said Anna Pavlovna.
"Oh, no, no!" warmly rejoined Prince Vasili, who would not now
yield Kutuzov to anyone; in his opinion Kutuzov was not only
admirable himself, but was adored by everybody. "No, that's
impossible," said he, "for our sovereign appreciated him so highly
before."
"God grant only that Prince Kutuzov assumes real power and does
not allow anyone to put a spoke in his wheel," observed Anna
Pavlovna.
Understanding at once to whom she alluded, Prince Vasili said in a
whisper:
"I know for a fact that Kutuzov made it an absolute condition that the
Tsarevich should not be with the army. Do you know what he said to
the Emperor?"
 And Prince Vasili repeated the words supposed to have been spoken
by Kutuzov to the Emperor. "I can neither punish him if he does wrong
nor reward him if he does right."
"Oh, a very wise man is Prince Kutuzov! I have known him a long
time!"
"They even say," remarked the "man of great merit" who did not yet
possess courtly tact, "that his excellency made it an express condition
that the sovereign himself should not be with the army."
As soon as he said this both Prince Vasili and Anna Pavlovna turned
away from him and glanced sadly at one another with a sigh at his
naivete.

CHAPTER VII
While this was taking place in Petersburg the French had already
passed Smolensk and were drawing nearer and nearer to Moscow.
Napoleon's historian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify
his hero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his
will. He is as right as other historians who look for the explanation of
historic events in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian
historians who maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the
skill of the Russian commanders. Here besides the law of retrospection,
which regards all the past as a preparation for events that subsequently
occur, the law of reciprocity comes in, confusing the whole matter. A
good chessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss
resulted from a mistake he made and looks for that mistake in the
opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar
mistakes and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the
mistake to which he pays attention, because his opponent took
advantage of it. How much more complex than this is the game of war,
which occurs under certain limits of time, and where it is not one will
that manipulates lifeless objects, but everything results from
innumerable conflicts of various wills!
After Smolensk Napoleon sought a battle beyond Dorogobuzh at
Vyazma, and then at Tsarevo-Zaymishche, but it happened that owing
to a conjunction of innumerable circumstances the Russians could not
give battle till they reached Borodino, seventy miles from Moscow.
From Vyazma Napoleon ordered a direct advance on Moscow.
 Moscou, la capitale asiatique de ce grand empire, la ville sacree des
peuples d'Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables eglises en forme
de pagodes chinoises, * this Moscow gave Napoleon's imagination no
rest. On the march from Vyazma to Tsarevo-Zaymishche he rode his
light bay bobtailed ambler accompanied by his Guards, his bodyguard,
his pages, and aides-de-camp. Berthier, his chief of staff, dropped
behind to question a Russian prisoner captured by the cavalry.
Followed by Lelorgne d'Ideville, an interpreter, he overtook Napoleon
at a gallop and reined in his horse with an amused expression.

* "Moscow, the Asiatic capital of this great

empire, the
sacred city of Alexander's people, Moscow with
its
innumerable churches shaped like Chinese
pagodas."

"Well?" asked Napoleon.

"One of Platov's Cossacks says that Platov's corps is joining up with
the main army and that Kutuzov has been appointed commander in
chief. He is a very shrewd and garrulous fellow."
Napoleon smiled and told them to give the Cossack a horse and bring
the man to him. He wished to talk to him himself. Several adjutants
galloped off, and an hour later, Lavrushka, the serf Denisov had handed
over to Rostov, rode up to Napoleon in an orderly's jacket and on a
French cavalry saddle, with a merry, and tipsy face. Napoleon told him
to ride by his side and began questioning him.
"You are a Cossack?"
"Yes, a Cossack, your Honor."
"The Cossack, not knowing in what company he was, for Napoleon's
plain appearance had nothing about it that would reveal to an Oriental
mind the presence of a monarch, talked with extreme familiarity of the
incidents of the war," says Thiers, narrating this episode. In reality
Lavrushka, having got drunk the day before and left his master
dinnerless, had been whipped and sent to the village in quest of
chickens, where he engaged in looting till the French took him prisoner.
Lavrushka was one of those coarse, bare-faced lackeys who have seen
all sorts of things, consider it necessary to do everything in a mean and
cunning way, are ready to render any sort of service to their master, and
are keen at guessing their master's baser impulses, especially those
prompted by vanity and pettiness.
 Finding himself in the company of Napoleon, whose identity he had
easily and surely recognized, Lavrushka was not in the least abashed
but merely did his utmost to gain his new master's favor.
He knew very well that this was Napoleon, but Napoleon's presence
could no more intimidate him than Rostov's, or a sergeant major's with
the rods, would have done, for he had nothing that either the sergeant
major or Napoleon could deprive him of.
So he rattled on, telling all the gossip he had heard among the
orderlies. Much of it true. But when Napoleon asked him whether the
Russians thought they would beat Bonaparte or not, Lavrushka screwed
up his eyes and considered.
In this question he saw subtle cunning, as men of his type see
cunning in everything, so he frowned and did not answer immediately.
"It's like this," he said thoughtfully, "if there's a battle soon, yours
will win. That's right. But if three days pass, then after that, well, then
that same battle will not soon be over."
Lelorgne d'Ideville smilingly interpreted this speech to Napoleon
thus: "If a battle takes place within the next three days the French will
win, but if later, God knows what will happen." Napoleon did not
smile, though he was evidently in high good humor, and he ordered
these words to be repeated.
Lavrushka noticed this and to entertain him further, pretending not to
know who Napoleon was, added:
"We know that you have Bonaparte and that he has beaten
everybody in the world, but we are a different matter..."—without
knowing why or how this bit of boastful patriotism slipped out at the
end.
The interpreter translated these words without the last phrase, and
Bonaparte smiled. "The young Cossack made his mighty interlocutor
smile," says Thiers. After riding a few paces in silence, Napoleon
turned to Berthier and said he wished to see how the news that he was
talking to the Emperor himself, to that very Emperor who had written
his immortally victorious name on the Pyramids, would affect this
enfant du Don. *

* "Child of the Don."

The fact was accordingly conveyed to Lavrushka.

Lavrushka, understanding that this was done to perplex him and that
Napoleon expected him to be frightened, to gratify his new masters
promptly pretended to be astonished and awe-struck, opened his eyes
wide, and assumed the expression he usually put on when taken to be
whipped. "As soon as Napoleon's interpreter had spoken," says Thiers,
"the Cossack, seized by amazement, did not utter another word, but
rode on, his eyes fixed on the conqueror whose fame had reached him
across the steppes of the East. All his loquacity was suddenly arrested
and replaced by a naive and silent feeling of admiration. Napoleon,
after making the Cossack a present, had him set free like a bird restored
to its native fields."
Napoleon rode on, dreaming of the Moscow that so appealed to his
imagination, and "the bird restored to its native fields" galloped to our
outposts, inventing on the way all that had not taken place but that he
meant to relate to his comrades. What had really taken place he did not
wish to relate because it seemed to him not worth telling. He found the
Cossacks, inquired for the regiment operating with Platov's detachment
and by evening found his master, Nicholas Rostov, quartered at
Yankovo. Rostov was just mounting to go for a ride round the
neighboring villages with Ilyin; he let Lavrushka have another horse
and took him along with him.

CHAPTER VIII
Princess Mary was not in Moscow and out of danger as Prince
Andrew supposed.
After the return of Alpatych from Smolensk the old prince suddenly
seemed to awake as from a dream. He ordered the militiamen to be
called up from the villages and armed, and wrote a letter to the
commander in chief informing him that he had resolved to remain at
Bald Hills to the last extremity and to defend it, leaving to the
commander in chief's discretion to take measures or not for the defense
of Bald Hills, where one of Russia's oldest generals would be captured
or killed, and he announced to his household that he would remain at
Bald Hills.
But while himself remaining, he gave instructions for the departure
of the princess and Dessalles with the little prince to Bogucharovo and
thence to Moscow. Princess Mary, alarmed by her father's feverish and
sleepless activity after his previous apathy, could not bring herself to
leave him alone and for the first time in her life ventured to disobey
him. She refused to go away and her father's fury broke over her in a
terrible storm. He repeated every injustice he had ever inflicted on her.
Trying to convict her, he told her she had worn him out, had caused his
quarrel with his son, had harbored nasty suspicions of him, making it
the object of her life to poison his existence, and he drove her from his
study telling her that if she did not go away it was all the same to him.
He declared that he did not wish to remember her existence and warned
her not to dare to let him see her. The fact that he did not, as she had
feared, order her to be carried away by force but only told her not to let
him see her cheered Princess Mary. She knew it was a proof that in the
depth of his soul he was glad she was remaining at home and had not
gone away.
The morning after little Nicholas had left, the old prince donned his
full uniform and prepared to visit the commander in chief. His caleche
was already at the door. Princess Mary saw him walk out of the house
in his uniform wearing all his orders and go down the garden to review
his armed peasants and domestic serfs. She sat by the window listening
to his voice which reached her from the garden. Suddenly several men
came running up the avenue with frightened faces.
Princess Mary ran out to the porch, down the flower-bordered path,
and into the avenue. A large crowd of militiamen and domestics were
moving toward her, and in their midst several men were supporting by
the armpits and dragging along a little old man in a uniform and
decorations. She ran up to him and, in the play of the sunlight that fell
in small round spots through the shade of the lime-tree avenue, could
not be sure what change there was in his face. All she could see was
that his former stern and determined expression had altered to one of
timidity and submission. On seeing his daughter he moved his helpless
lips and made a hoarse sound. It was impossible to make out what he
wanted. He was lifted up, carried to his study, and laid on the very
couch he had so feared of late.
The doctor, who was fetched that same night, bled him and said that
the prince had had a seizure paralyzing his right side.
It was becoming more and more dangerous to remain at Bald Hills,
and next day they moved the prince to Bogucharovo, the doctor
accompanying him.
By the time they reached Bogucharovo, Dessalles and the little
prince had already left for Moscow.
For three weeks the old prince lay stricken by paralysis in the new
house Prince Andrew had built at Bogucharovo, ever in the same state,
getting neither better nor worse. He was unconscious and lay like a
distorted corpse. He muttered unceasingly, his eyebrows and lips
twitching, and it was impossible to tell whether he understood what
was going on around him or not. One thing was certain—that he was
suffering and wished to say something. But what it was, no one could
tell: it might be some caprice of a sick and half-crazy man, or it might
relate to public affairs, or possibly to family concerns.
The doctor said this restlessness did not mean anything and was due
to physical causes; but Princess Mary thought he wished to tell her
something, and the fact that her presence always increased his
restlessness confirmed her opinion.
He was evidently suffering both physically and mentally. There was
no hope of recovery. It was impossible for him to travel, it would not
do to let him die on the road. "Would it not be better if the end did
come, the very end?" Princess Mary sometimes thought. Night and day,
hardly sleeping at all, she watched him and, terrible to say, often
watched him not with hope of finding signs of improvement but
wishing to find symptoms of the approach of the end.
Strange as it was to her to acknowledge this feeling in herself, yet
there it was. And what seemed still more terrible to her was that since
her father's illness began (perhaps even sooner, when she stayed with
him expecting something to happen), all the personal desires and hopes
that had been forgotten or sleeping within her had awakened. Thoughts
that had not entered her mind for years—thoughts of a life free from the
fear of her father, and even the possibility of love and of family
happiness—floated continually in her imagination like temptations of
the devil. Thrust them aside as she would, questions continually
recurred to her as to how she would order her life now, after that. These
were temptations of the devil and Princess Mary knew it. She knew that
the sole weapon against him was prayer, and she tried to pray. She
assumed an attitude of prayer, looked at the icons, repeated the words
of a prayer, but she could not pray. She felt that a different world had
now taken possession of her—the life of a world of strenuous and free
activity, quite opposed to the spiritual world in which till now she had
been confined and in which her greatest comfort had been prayer. She
could not pray, could not weep, and worldly cares took possession of
her.
It was becoming dangerous to remain in Bogucharovo. News of the
approach of the French came from all sides, and in one village, ten
miles from Bogucharovo, a homestead had been looted by French
marauders.
The doctor insisted on the necessity of moving the prince; the
provincial Marshal of the Nobility sent an official to Princess Mary to
persuade her to get away as quickly as possible, and the head of the
rural police having come to Bogucharovo urged the same thing, saying
that the French were only some twenty-five miles away, that French
proclamations were circulating in the villages, and that if the princess
did not take her father away before the fifteenth, he could not answer
for the consequences.
The princess decided to leave on the fifteenth. The cares of
preparation and giving orders, for which everyone came to her,
occupied her all day. She spent the night of the fourteenth as usual,
without undressing, in the room next to the one where the prince lay.
Several times, waking up, she heard his groans and muttering, the creak
of his bed, and the steps of Tikhon and the doctor when they turned him
over. Several times she listened at the door, and it seemed to her that
his mutterings were louder than usual and that they turned him over
oftener. She could not sleep and several times went to the door and
listened, wishing to enter but not deciding to do so. Though he did not
speak, Princess Mary saw and knew how unpleasant every sign of
anxiety on his account was to him. She had noticed with what
dissatisfaction he turned from the look she sometimes involuntarily
fixed on him. She knew that her going in during the night at an unusual
hour would irritate him.
But never had she felt so grieved for him or so much afraid of losing
him. She recalled all her life with him and in every word and act of his
found an expression of his love of her. Occasionally amid these
memories temptations of the devil would surge into her imagination:
thoughts of how things would be after his death, and how her new,
liberated life would be ordered. But she drove these thoughts away with
disgust. Toward morning he became quiet and she fell asleep.
She woke late. That sincerity which often comes with waking
showed her clearly what chiefly concerned her about her father's
illness. On waking she listened to what was going on behind the door
and, hearing him groan, said to herself with a sigh that things were still
the same.
"But what could have happened? What did I want? I want his death!"
she cried with a feeling of loathing for herself.
She washed, dressed, said her prayers, and went out to the porch. In
front of it stood carriages without horses and things were being packed
into the vehicles.
It was a warm, gray morning. Princess Mary stopped at the porch,
still horrified by her spiritual baseness and trying to arrange her
thoughts before going to her father. The doctor came downstairs and
went out to her.
"He is a little better today," said he. "I was looking for you. One can
make out something of what he is saying. His head is clearer. Come in,
he is asking for you..."
 Princess Mary's heart beat so violently at this news that she grew
pale and leaned against the wall to keep from falling. To see him, talk
to him, feel his eyes on her now that her whole soul was overflowing
with those dreadful, wicked temptations, was a torment of joy and
terror.
"Come," said the doctor.
Princess Mary entered her father's room and went up to his bed. He
was lying on his back propped up high, and his small bony hands with
their knotted purple veins were lying on the quilt; his left eye gazed
straight before him, his right eye was awry, and his brows and lips
motionless. He seemed altogether so thin, small, and pathetic. His face
seemed to have shriveled or melted; his features had grown smaller.
Princess Mary went up and kissed his hand. His left hand pressed hers
so that she understood that he had long been waiting for her to come.
He twitched her hand, and his brows and lips quivered angrily.
She looked at him in dismay trying to guess what he wanted of her.
When she changed her position so that his left eye could see her face he
calmed down, not taking his eyes off her for some seconds. Then his
lips and tongue moved, sounds came, and he began to speak, gazing
timidly and imploringly at her, evidently afraid that she might not
understand.
Straining all her faculties Princess Mary looked at him. The comic
efforts with which he moved his tongue made her drop her eyes and
with difficulty repress the sobs that rose to her throat. He said
something, repeating the same words several times. She could not
understand them, but tried to guess what he was saying and inquiringly
repeated the words he uttered.
"Mmm...ar...ate...ate..." he repeated several times.
It was quite impossible to understand these sounds. The doctor
thought he had guessed them, and inquiringly repeated: "Mary, are you
afraid?" The prince shook his head, again repeated the same sounds.
"My mind, my mind aches?" questioned Princess Mary.
He made a mumbling sound in confirmation of this, took her hand,
and began pressing it to different parts of his breast as if trying to find
the right place for it.
"Always thoughts... about you... thoughts..." he then uttered much
more clearly than he had done before, now that he was sure of being
understood.
Princess Mary pressed her head against his hand, trying to hide her
sobs and tears.
 He moved his hand over her hair.
"I have been calling you all night..." he brought out.
"If only I had known..." she said through her tears. "I was afraid to
come in."
He pressed her hand.
"Weren't you asleep?"
"No, I did not sleep," said Princess Mary, shaking her head.
Unconsciously imitating her father, she now tried to express herself
as he did, as much as possible by signs, and her tongue too seemed to
move with difficulty.
"Dear one... Dearest..." Princess Mary could not quite make out what
he had said, but from his look it was clear that he had uttered a tender
caressing word such as he had never used to her before. "Why didn't
you come in?"
"And I was wishing for his death!" thought Princess Mary.
He was silent awhile.
"Thank you... daughter dear!... for all, for all... forgive!... thank
you!... forgive!... thank you!..." and tears began to flow from his eyes.
"Call Andrew!" he said suddenly, and a childish, timid expression of
doubt showed itself on his face as he spoke.
He himself seemed aware that his demand was meaningless. So at
least it seemed to Princess Mary.
"I have a letter from him," she replied.
He glanced at her with timid surprise.
"Where is he?"
"He's with the army, Father, at Smolensk."
He closed his eyes and remained silent a long time. Then as if in
answer to his doubts and to confirm the fact that now he understood
and remembered everything, he nodded his head and reopened his eyes.
"Yes," he said, softly and distinctly. "Russia has perished. They've
destroyed her."
And he began to sob, and again tears flowed from his eyes. Princess
Mary could no longer restrain herself and wept while she gazed at his
face.
 Again he closed his eyes. His sobs ceased, he pointed to his eyes,
and Tikhon, understanding him, wiped away the tears.
Then he again opened his eyes and said something none of them
could understand for a long time, till at last Tikhon understood and
repeated it. Princess Mary had sought the meaning of his words in the
mood in which he had just been speaking. She thought he was speaking
of Russia, or Prince Andrew, of herself, of his grandson, or of his own
death, and so she could not guess his words.
"Put on your white dress. I like it," was what he said.
Having understood this Princess Mary sobbed still louder, and the
doctor taking her arm led her out to the veranda, soothing her and
trying to persuade her to prepare for her journey. When she had left the
room the prince again began speaking about his son, about the war, and
about the Emperor, angrily twitching his brows and raising his hoarse
voice, and then he had a second and final stroke.
Princess Mary stayed on the veranda. The day had cleared, it was hot
and sunny. She could understand nothing, think of nothing and feel
nothing, except passionate love for her father, love such as she thought
she had never felt till that moment. She ran out sobbing into the garden
and as far as the pond, along the avenues of young lime trees Prince
Andrew had planted.
"Yes... I... I... I wished for his death! Yes, I wanted it to end
quicker.... I wished to be at peace.... And what will become of me?
What use will peace be when he is no longer here?" Princess Mary
murmured, pacing the garden with hurried steps and pressing her hands
to her bosom which heaved with convulsive sobs.
When she had completed the tour of the garden, which brought her
again to the house, she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne—who had
remained at Bogucharovo and did not wish to leave it—coming toward
her with a stranger. This was the Marshal of the Nobility of the district,
who had come personally to point out to the princess the necessity for
her prompt departure. Princess Mary listened without understanding
him; she led him to the house, offered him lunch, and sat down with
him. Then, excusing herself, she went to the door of the old prince's
room. The doctor came out with an agitated face and said she could not
enter.
"Go away, Princess! Go away... go away!"
She returned to the garden and sat down on the grass at the foot of
the slope by the pond, where no one could see her. She did not know
how long she had been there when she was aroused by the sound of a
woman's footsteps running along the path. She rose and saw Dunyasha
her maid, who was evidently looking for her, and who stopped
suddenly as if in alarm on seeing her mistress.
"Please come, Princess... The Prince," said Dunyasha in a breaking
voice.
"Immediately, I'm coming, I'm coming!" replied the princess
hurriedly, not giving Dunyasha time to finish what she was saying, and
trying to avoid seeing the girl she ran toward the house.
"Princess, it's God's will! You must be prepared for everything," said
the Marshal, meeting her at the house door.
"Let me alone; it's not true!" she cried angrily to him.
The doctor tried to stop her. She pushed him aside and ran to her
father's door. "Why are these people with frightened faces stopping
me? I don't want any of them! And what are they doing here?" she
thought. She opened the door and the bright daylight in that previously
darkened room startled her. In the room were her nurse and other
women. They all drew back from the bed, making way for her. He was
still lying on the bed as before, but the stern expression of his quiet face
made Princess Mary stop short on the threshold.
"No, he's not dead—it's impossible!" she told herself and approached
him, and repressing the terror that seized her, she pressed her lips to his
cheek. But she stepped back immediately. All the force of the
tenderness she had been feeling for him vanished instantly and was
replaced by a feeling of horror at what lay there before her. "No, he is
no more! He is not, but here where he was is something unfamiliar and
hostile, some dreadful, terrifying, and repellent mystery!" And hiding
her face in her hands, Princess Mary sank into the arms of the doctor,
who held her up.
In the presence of Tikhon and the doctor the women washed what
had been the prince, tied his head up with a handkerchief that the
mouth should not stiffen while open, and with another handkerchief
tied together the legs that were already spreading apart. Then they
dressed him in uniform with his decorations and placed his shriveled
little body on a table. Heaven only knows who arranged all this and
when, but it all got done as if of its own accord. Toward night candles
were burning round his coffin, a pall was spread over it, the floor was
strewn with sprays of juniper, a printed band was tucked in under his
shriveled head, and in a corner of the room sat a chanter reading the
psalms.
Just as horses shy and snort and gather about a dead horse, so the
inmates of the house and strangers crowded into the drawing room
round the coffin—the Marshal, the village Elder, peasant women—and
all with fixed and frightened eyes, crossing themselves, bowed and
kissed the old prince's cold and stiffened hand.

CHAPTER IX
Until Prince Andrew settled in Bogucharovo its owners had always
been absentees, and its peasants were of quite a different character from
those of Bald Hills. They differed from them in speech, dress, and
disposition. They were called steppe peasants. The old prince used to
approve of them for their endurance at work when they came to Bald
Hills to help with the harvest or to dig ponds, and ditches, but he
disliked them for their boorishness.
Prince Andrew's last stay at Bogucharovo, when he introduced
hospitals and schools and reduced the quitrent the peasants had to pay,
had not softened their disposition but had on the contrary strengthened
in them the traits of character the old prince called boorishness. Various
obscure rumors were always current among them: at one time a rumor
that they would all be enrolled as Cossacks; at another of a new religion
to which they were all to be converted; then of some proclamation of
the Tsar's and of an oath to the Tsar Paul in 1797 (in connection with
which it was rumored that freedom had been granted them but the
landowners had stopped it), then of Peter Fedorovich's return to the
throne in seven years' time, when everything would be made free and
so "simple" that there would be no restrictions. Rumors of the war with
Bonaparte and his invasion were connected in their minds with the
same sort of vague notions of Antichrist, the end of the world, and
"pure freedom."
In the vicinity of Bogucharovo were large villages belonging to the
crown or to owners whose serfs paid quitrent and could work where
they pleased. There were very few resident landlords in the
neighborhood and also very few domestic or literate serfs, and in the
lives of the peasantry of those parts the mysterious undercurrents in the
life of the Russian people, the causes and meaning of which are so
baffling to contemporaries, were more clearly and strongly noticeable
than among others. One instance, which had occurred some twenty
years before, was a movement among the peasants to emigrate to some
unknown "warm rivers." Hundreds of peasants, among them the
Bogucharovo folk, suddenly began selling their cattle and moving in
whole families toward the southeast. As birds migrate to somewhere
beyond the sea, so these men with their wives and children streamed to
the southeast, to parts where none of them had ever been. They set off
in caravans, bought their freedom one by one or ran away, and drove or
walked toward the "warm rivers." Many of them were punished, some
sent to Siberia, many died of cold and hunger on the road, many
returned of their own accord, and the movement died down of itself just
as it had sprung up, without apparent reason. But such undercurrents
still existed among the people and gathered new forces ready to
manifest themselves just as strangely, unexpectedly, and at the same
time simply, naturally, and forcibly. Now in 1812, to anyone living in
close touch with these people it was apparent that these undercurrents
were acting strongly and nearing an eruption.
Alpatych, who had reached Bogucharovo shortly before the old
prince's death, noticed an agitation among the peasants, and that
contrary to what was happening in the Bald Hills district, where over a
radius of forty miles all the peasants were moving away and leaving
their villages to be devastated by the Cossacks, the peasants in the
steppe region round Bogucharovo were, it was rumored, in touch with
the French, received leaflets from them that passed from hand to hand,
and did not migrate. He learned from domestic serfs loyal to him that
the peasant Karp, who possessed great influence in the village
commune and had recently been away driving a government transport,
had returned with news that the Cossacks were destroying deserted
villages, but that the French did not harm them. Alpatych also knew
that on the previous day another peasant had even brought from the
village of Visloukhovo, which was occupied by the French, a
proclamation by a French general that no harm would be done to the
inhabitants, and if they remained they would be paid for anything taken
from them. As proof of this the peasant had brought from Visloukhovo
a hundred rubles in notes (he did not know that they were false) paid to
him in advance for hay.
More important still, Alpatych learned that on the morning of the
very day he gave the village Elder orders to collect carts to move the
princess' luggage from Bogucharovo, there had been a village meeting
at which it had been decided not to move but to wait. Yet there was no
time to waste. On the fifteenth, the day of the old prince's death, the
Marshal had insisted on Princess Mary's leaving at once, as it was
becoming dangerous. He had told her that after the sixteenth he could
not be responsible for what might happen. On the evening of the day
the old prince died the Marshal went away, promising to return next
day for the funeral. But this he was unable to do, for he received tidings
that the French had unexpectedly advanced, and had barely time to
remove his own family and valuables from his estate.
For some thirty years Bogucharovo had been managed by the village
Elder, Dron, whom the old prince called by the diminutive
"Dronushka."
 Dron was one of those physically and mentally vigorous peasants
who grow big beards as soon as they are of age and go on unchanged
till they are sixty or seventy, without a gray hair or the loss of a tooth,
as straight and strong at sixty as at thirty.
Soon after the migration to the "warm rivers," in which he had taken
part like the rest, Dron was made village Elder and overseer of
Bogucharovo, and had since filled that post irreproachably for twenty-
three years. The peasants feared him more than they did their master.
The masters, both the old prince and the young, and the steward
respected him and jestingly called him "the Minister." During the
whole time of his service Dron had never been drunk or ill, never after
sleepless nights or the hardest tasks had he shown the least fatigue, and
though he could not read he had never forgotten a single money
account or the number of quarters of flour in any of the endless
cartloads he sold for the prince, nor a single shock of the whole corn
crop on any single acre of the Bogucharovo fields.
Alpatych, arriving from the devastated Bald Hills estate, sent for his
Dron on the day of the prince's funeral and told him to have twelve
horses got ready for the princess' carriages and eighteen carts for the
things to be removed from Bogucharovo. Though the peasants paid
quitrent, Alpatych thought no difficulty would be made about
complying with this order, for there were two hundred and thirty
households at work in Bogucharovo and the peasants were well to do.
But on hearing the order Dron lowered his eyes and remained silent.
Alpatych named certain peasants he knew, from whom he told him to
take the carts.
Dron replied that the horses of these peasants were away carting.
Alpatych named others, but they too, according to Dron, had no horses
available: some horses were carting for the government, others were
too weak, and others had died for want of fodder. It seemed that no
horses could be had even for the carriages, much less for the carting.
Alpatych looked intently at Dron and frowned. Just as Dron was a
model village Elder, so Alpatych had not managed the prince's estates
for twenty years in vain. He was a model steward, possessing in the
highest degree the faculty of divining the needs and instincts of those
he dealt with. Having glanced at Dron he at once understood that his
answers did not express his personal views but the general mood of the
Bogucharovo commune, by which the Elder had already been carried
away. But he also knew that Dron, who had acquired property and was
hated by the commune, must be hesitating between the two camps: the
masters' and the serfs'. He noticed this hesitation in Dron's look and
therefore frowned and moved closer up to him.
 "Now just listen, Dronushka," said he. "Don't talk nonsense to me.
His excellency Prince Andrew himself gave me orders to move all the
people away and not leave them with the enemy, and there is an order
from the Tsar about it too. Anyone who stays is a traitor to the Tsar. Do
you hear?"
"I hear," Dron answered without lifting his eyes.
Alpatych was not satisfied with this reply.
"Eh, Dron, it will turn out badly!" he said, shaking his head.
"The power is in your hands," Dron rejoined sadly.
"Eh, Dron, drop it!" Alpatych repeated, withdrawing his hand from
his bosom and solemnly pointing to the floor at Dron's feet. "I can see
through you and three yards into the ground under you," he continued,
gazing at the floor in front of Dron.
Dron was disconcerted, glanced furtively at Alpatych and again
lowered his eyes.
"You drop this nonsense and tell the people to get ready to leave
their homes and go to Moscow and to get carts ready for tomorrow
morning for the princess' things. And don't go to any meeting yourself,
do you hear?"
Dron suddenly fell on his knees.
"Yakov Alpatych, discharge me! Take the keys from me and
discharge me, for Christ's sake!"
"Stop that!" cried Alpatych sternly. "I see through you and three
yards under you," he repeated, knowing that his skill in beekeeping, his
knowledge of the right time to sow the oats, and the fact that he had
been able to retain the old prince's favor for twenty years had long
since gained him the reputation of being a wizard, and that the power of
seeing three yards under a man is considered an attribute of wizards.
Dron got up and was about to say something, but Alpatych
interrupted him.
"What is it you have got into your heads, eh?... What are you
thinking of, eh?"
"What am I to do with the people?" said Dron. "They're quite beside
themselves; I have already told them..."
"'Told them,' I dare say!" said Alpatych. "Are they drinking?" he
asked abruptly.
 "Quite beside themselves, Yakov Alpatych; they've fetched another
barrel."
"Well, then, listen! I'll go to the police officer, and you tell them so,
and that they must stop this and the carts must be got ready."
"I understand."
Alpatych did not insist further. He had managed people for a long
time and knew that the chief way to make them obey is to show no
suspicion that they can possibly disobey. Having wrung a submissive "I
understand" from Dron, Alpatych contented himself with that, though
he not only doubted but felt almost certain that without the help of
troops the carts would not be forthcoming.
And so it was, for when evening came no carts had been provided. In
the village, outside the drink shop, another meeting was being held,
which decided that the horses should be driven out into the woods and
the carts should not be provided. Without saying anything of this to the
princess, Alpatych had his own belongings taken out of the carts which
had arrived from Bald Hills and had those horses got ready for the
princess' carriages. Meanwhile he went himself to the police
authorities.

CHAPTER X
After her father's funeral Princess Mary shut herself up in her room
and did not admit anyone. A maid came to the door to say that
Alpatych was asking for orders about their departure. (This was before
his talk with Dron.) Princess Mary raised herself on the sofa on which
she had been lying and replied through the closed door that she did not
mean to go away and begged to be left in peace.
The windows of the room in which she was lying looked westward.
She lay on the sofa with her face to the wall, fingering the buttons of
the leather cushion and seeing nothing but that cushion, and her
confused thoughts were centered on one subject—the irrevocability of
death and her own spiritual baseness, which she had not suspected, but
which had shown itself during her father's illness. She wished to pray
but did not dare to, dared not in her present state of mind address
herself to God. She lay for a long time in that position.
The sun had reached the other side of the house, and its slanting rays
shone into the open window, lighting up the room and part of the
morocco cushion at which Princess Mary was looking. The flow of her
thoughts suddenly stopped. Unconsciously she sat up, smoothed her
hair, got up, and went to the window, involuntarily inhaling the
freshness of the clear but windy evening.
"Yes, you can well enjoy the evening now! He is gone and no one
will hinder you," she said to herself, and sinking into a chair she let her
head fall on the window sill.
Someone spoke her name in a soft and tender voice from the garden
and kissed her head. She looked up. It was Mademoiselle Bourienne in
a black dress and weepers. She softly approached Princess Mary,
sighed, kissed her, and immediately began to cry. The princess looked
up at her. All their former disharmony and her own jealousy recurred to
her mind. But she remembered too how he had changed of late toward
Mademoiselle Bourienne and could not bear to see her, thereby
showing how unjust were the reproaches Princess Mary had mentally
addressed to her. "Besides, is it for me, for me who desired his death, to
condemn anyone?" she thought.
Princess Mary vividly pictured to herself the position of
Mademoiselle Bourienne, whom she had of late kept at a distance, but
who yet was dependent on her and living in her house. She felt sorry
for her and held out her hand with a glance of gentle inquiry.
Mademoiselle Bourienne at once began crying again and kissed that
hand, speaking of the princess' sorrow and making herself a partner in
it. She said her only consolation was the fact that the princess allowed
her to share her sorrow, that all the old misunderstandings should sink
into nothing but this great grief; that she felt herself blameless in regard
to everyone, and that he, from above, saw her affection and gratitude.
The princess heard her, not heeding her words but occasionally looking
up at her and listening to the sound of her voice.
"Your position is doubly terrible, dear princess," said Mademoiselle
Bourienne after a pause. "I understand that you could not, and cannot,
think of yourself, but with my love for you I must do so.... Has
Alpatych been to you? Has he spoken to you of going away?" she
asked.
Princess Mary did not answer. She did not understand who was to go
or where to. "Is it possible to plan or think of anything now? Is it not all
the same?" she thought, and did not reply.
"You know, chere Marie," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, "that we
are in danger—are surrounded by the French. It would be dangerous to
move now. If we go we are almost sure to be taken prisoners, and God
knows..."
 Princess Mary looked at her companion without understanding what
she was talking about.
"Oh, if anyone knew how little anything matters to me now," she
said. "Of course I would on no account wish to go away from him....
Alpatych did say something about going.... Speak to him; I can do
nothing, nothing, and don't want to...."
"I've spoken to him. He hopes we should be in time to get away
tomorrow, but I think it would now be better to stay here," said
Mademoiselle Bourienne. "Because, you will agree, chere Marie, to fall
into the hands of the soldiers or of riotous peasants would be terrible."
Mademoiselle Bourienne took from her reticule a proclamation (not
printed on ordinary Russian paper) of General Rameau's, telling people
not to leave their homes and that the French authorities would afford
them proper protection. She handed this to the princess.
"I think it would be best to appeal to that general," she continued,
"and I am sure that all due respect would be shown you."
Princess Mary read the paper, and her face began to quiver with
stifled sobs.
"From whom did you get this?" she asked.
"They probably recognized that I am French, by my name," replied
Mademoiselle Bourienne blushing.
Princess Mary, with the paper in her hand, rose from the window and
with a pale face went out of the room and into what had been Prince
Andrew's study.
"Dunyasha, send Alpatych, or Dronushka, or somebody to me!" she
said, "and tell Mademoiselle Bourienne not to come to me," she added,
hearing Mademoiselle Bourienne's voice. "We must go at once, at
once!" she said, appalled at the thought of being left in the hands of the
French.
"If Prince Andrew heard that I was in the power of the French! That
I, the daughter of Prince Nicholas Bolkonski, asked General Rameau
for protection and accepted his favor!" This idea horrified her, made
her shudder, blush, and feel such a rush of anger and pride as she had
never experienced before. All that was distressing, and especially all
that was humiliating, in her position rose vividly to her mind. "They,
the French, would settle in this house: M. le General Rameau would
occupy Prince Andrew's study and amuse himself by looking through
and reading his letters and papers. Mademoiselle Bourienne would do
the honors of Bogucharovo for him. I should be given a small room as a
favor, the soldiers would violate my father's newly dug grave to steal
his crosses and stars, they would tell me of their victories over the
Russians, and would pretend to sympathize with my sorrow..." thought
Princess Mary, not thinking her own thoughts but feeling bound to
think like her father and her brother. For herself she did not care where
she remained or what happened to her, but she felt herself the
representative of her dead father and of Prince Andrew. Involuntarily
she thought their thoughts and felt their feelings. What they would have
said and what they would have done she felt bound to say and do. She
went into Prince Andrew's study, trying to enter completely into his
ideas, and considered her position.
The demands of life, which had seemed to her annihilated by her
father's death, all at once rose before her with a new, previously
unknown force and took possession of her.
Agitated and flushed she paced the room, sending now for Michael
Ivanovich and now for Tikhon or Dron. Dunyasha, the nurse, and the
other maids could not say in how far Mademoiselle Bourienne's
statement was correct. Alpatych was not at home, he had gone to the
police. Neither could the architect Michael Ivanovich, who on being
sent for came in with sleepy eyes, tell Princess Mary anything. With
just the same smile of agreement with which for fifteen years he had
been accustomed to answer the old prince without expressing views of
his own, he now replied to Princess Mary, so that nothing definite
could be got from his answers. The old valet Tikhon, with sunken,
emaciated face that bore the stamp of inconsolable grief, replied: "Yes,
Princess" to all Princess Mary's questions and hardly refrained from
sobbing as he looked at her.
At length Dron, the village Elder, entered the room and with a deep
bow to Princess Mary came to a halt by the doorpost.
Princess Mary walked up and down the room and stopped in front of
him.
"Dronushka," she said, regarding as a sure friend this Dronushka
who always used to bring a special kind of gingerbread from his visit to
the fair at Vyazma every year and smilingly offer it to her, "Dronushka,
now since our misfortune..." she began, but could not go on.
"We are all in God's hands," said he, with a sigh.
They were silent for a while.
"Dronushka, Alpatych has gone off somewhere and I have no one to
turn to. Is it true, as they tell me, that I can't even go away?"
"Why shouldn't you go away, your excellency? You can go," said
Dron.
 "I was told it would be dangerous because of the enemy. Dear friend,
I can do nothing. I understand nothing. I have nobody! I want to go
away tonight or early tomorrow morning."
Dron paused. He looked askance at Princess Mary and said: "There
are no horses; I told Yakov Alpatych so."
"Why are there none?" asked the princess.
"It's all God's scourge," said Dron. "What horses we had have been
taken for the army or have died—this is such a year! It's not a case of
feeding horses—we may die of hunger ourselves! As it is, some go
three days without eating. We've nothing, we've been ruined."
Princess Mary listened attentively to what he told her.
"The peasants are ruined? They have no bread?" she asked.
"They're dying of hunger," said Dron. "It's not a case of carting."
"But why didn't you tell me, Dronushka? Isn't it possible to help
them? I'll do all I can...."
To Princess Mary it was strange that now, at a moment when such
sorrow was filling her soul, there could be rich people and poor, and the
rich could refrain from helping the poor. She had heard vaguely that
there was such a thing as "landlord's corn" which was sometimes given
to the peasants. She also knew that neither her father nor her brother
would refuse to help the peasants in need, she only feared to make
some mistake in speaking about the distribution of the grain she wished
to give. She was glad such cares presented themselves, enabling her
without scruple to forget her own grief. She began asking Dron about
the peasants' needs and what there was in Bogucharovo that belonged
to the landlord.
"But we have grain belonging to my brother?" she said.
"The landlord's grain is all safe," replied Dron proudly. "Our prince
did not order it to be sold."
"Give it to the peasants, let them have all they need; I give you leave
in my brother's name," said she.
Dron made no answer but sighed deeply.
"Give them that corn if there is enough of it. Distribute it all. I give
this order in my brother's name; and tell them that what is ours is theirs.
We do not grudge them anything. Tell them so."
Dron looked intently at the princess while she was speaking.
 "Discharge me, little mother, for God's sake! Order the keys to be
taken from me," said he. "I have served twenty-three years and have
done no wrong. Discharge me, for God's sake!"
Princess Mary did not understand what he wanted of her or why he
was asking to be discharged. She replied that she had never doubted his
devotion and that she was ready to do anything for him and for the
peasants.

CHAPTER XI
An hour later Dunyasha came to tell the princess that Dron had
come, and all the peasants had assembled at the barn by the princess'
order and wished to have word with their mistress.
"But I never told them to come," said Princess Mary. "I only told
Dron to let them have the grain."
"Only, for God's sake, Princess dear, have them sent away and don't
go out to them. It's all a trick," said Dunyasha, "and when Yakov
Alpatych returns let us get away... and please don't..."
"What is a trick?" asked Princess Mary in surprise.
"I know it is, only listen to me for God's sake! Ask nurse too. They
say they don't agree to leave Bogucharovo as you ordered."
"You're making some mistake. I never ordered them to go away,"
said Princess Mary. "Call Dronushka."
Dron came and confirmed Dunyasha's words; the peasants had come
by the princess' order.
"But I never sent for them," declared the princess. "You must have
given my message wrong. I only said that you were to give them the
grain."
Dron only sighed in reply.
"If you order it they will go away," said he.
"No, no. I'll go out to them," said Princess Mary, and in spite of the
nurse's and Dunyasha's protests she went out into the porch; Dron,
Dunyasha, the nurse, and Michael Ivanovich following her.
 "They probably think I am offering them the grain to bribe them to
remain here, while I myself go away leaving them to the mercy of the
French," thought Princess Mary. "I will offer them monthly rations and
housing at our Moscow estate. I am sure Andrew would do even more
in my place," she thought as she went out in the twilight toward the
crowd standing on the pasture by the barn.
The men crowded closer together, stirred, and rapidly took off their
hats. Princess Mary lowered her eyes and, tripping over her skirt, came
close up to them. So many different eyes, old and young, were fixed on
her, and there were so many different faces, that she could not
distinguish any of them and, feeling that she must speak to them all at
once, did not know how to do it. But again the sense that she
represented her father and her brother gave her courage, and she boldly
began her speech.
"I am very glad you have come," she said without raising her eyes,
and feeling her heart beating quickly and violently. "Dronushka tells
me that the war has ruined you. That is our common misfortune, and I
shall grudge nothing to help you. I am myself going away because it is
dangerous here... the enemy is near... because... I am giving you
everything, my friends, and I beg you to take everything, all our grain,
so that you may not suffer want! And if you have been told that I am
giving you the grain to keep you here—that is not true. On the contrary,
I ask you to go with all your belongings to our estate near Moscow, and
I promise you I will see to it that there you shall want for nothing. You
shall be given food and lodging."
The princess stopped. Sighs were the only sound heard in the crowd.
"I am not doing this on my own account," she continued, "I do it in
the name of my dead father, who was a good master to you, and of my
brother and his son."
Again she paused. No one broke the silence.
"Ours is a common misfortune and we will share it together. All that
is mine is yours," she concluded, scanning the faces before her.
All eyes were gazing at her with one and the same expression. She
could not fathom whether it was curiosity, devotion, gratitude, or
apprehension and distrust—but the expression on all the faces was
identical.
"We are all very thankful for your bounty, but it won't do for us to
take the landlord's grain," said a voice at the back of the crowd.
"But why not?" asked the princess.
 No one replied and Princess Mary, looking round at the crowd, found
that every eye she met now was immediately dropped.
"But why don't you want to take it?" she asked again.
No one answered.
The silence began to oppress the princess and she tried to catch
someone's eye.
"Why don't you speak?" she inquired of a very old man who stood
just in front of her leaning on his stick. "If you think something more is
wanted, tell me! I will do anything," said she, catching his eye.
But as if this angered him, he bent his head quite low and muttered:
"Why should we agree? We don't want the grain."
"Why should we give up everything? We don't agree. Don't agree....
We are sorry for you, but we're not willing. Go away yourself, alone..."
came from various sides of the crowd.
And again all the faces in that crowd bore an identical expression,
though now it was certainly not an expression of curiosity or gratitude,
but of angry resolve.
"But you can't have understood me," said Princess Mary with a sad
smile. "Why don't you want to go? I promise to house and feed you,
while here the enemy would ruin you..."
But her voice was drowned by the voices of the crowd.
"We're not willing. Let them ruin us! We won't take your grain. We
don't agree."
Again Princess Mary tried to catch someone's eye, but not a single
eye in the crowd was turned to her; evidently they were all trying to
avoid her look. She felt strange and awkward.
"Oh yes, an artful tale! Follow her into slavery! Pull down your
houses and go into bondage! I dare say! 'I'll give you grain, indeed!' she
says," voices in the crowd were heard saying.
With drooping head Princess Mary left the crowd and went back to
the house. Having repeated her order to Dron to have horses ready for
her departure next morning, she went to her room and remained alone
with her own thoughts.
 CHAPTER XII
For a long time that night Princess Mary sat by the open window of
her room hearing the sound of the peasants' voices that reached her
from the village, but it was not of them she was thinking. She felt that
she could not understand them however much she might think about
them. She thought only of one thing, her sorrow, which, after the break
caused by cares for the present, seemed already to belong to the past.
Now she could remember it and weep or pray.
After sunset the wind had dropped. The night was calm and fresh.
Toward midnight the voices began to subside, a cock crowed, the full
moon began to show from behind the lime trees, a fresh white dewy
mist began to rise, and stillness reigned over the village and the house.
Pictures of the near past—her father's illness and last moments—rose
one after another to her memory. With mournful pleasure she now
lingered over these images, repelling with horror only the last one, the
picture of his death, which she felt she could not contemplate even in
imagination at this still and mystic hour of night. And these pictures
presented themselves to her so clearly and in such detail that they
seemed now present, now past, and now future.
She vividly recalled the moment when he had his first stroke and was
being dragged along by his armpits through the garden at Bald Hills,
muttering something with his helpless tongue, twitching his gray
eyebrows and looking uneasily and timidly at her.
"Even then he wanted to tell me what he told me the day he died,"
she thought. "He had always thought what he said then." And she
recalled in all its detail the night at Bald Hills before he had the last
stroke, when with a foreboding of disaster she had remained at home
against his will. She had not slept and had stolen downstairs on tiptoe,
and going to the door of the conservatory where he slept that night had
listened at the door. In a suffering and weary voice he was saying
something to Tikhon, speaking of the Crimea and its warm nights and
of the Empress. Evidently he had wanted to talk. "And why didn't he
call me? Why didn't he let me be there instead of Tikhon?" Princess
Mary had thought and thought again now. "Now he will never tell
anyone what he had in his soul. Never will that moment return for him
or for me when he might have said all he longed to say, and not Tikhon
but I might have heard and understood him. Why didn't I enter the
room?" she thought. "Perhaps he would then have said to me what he
said the day he died. While talking to Tikhon he asked about me twice.
He wanted to see me, and I was standing close by, outside the door. It
was sad and painful for him to talk to Tikhon who did not understand
him. I remember how he began speaking to him about Lise as if she
were alive—he had forgotten she was dead—and Tikhon reminded him
that she was no more, and he shouted, 'Fool!' He was greatly depressed.
From behind the door I heard how he lay down on his bed groaning and
loudly exclaimed, 'My God!' Why didn't I go in then? What could he
have done to me? What could I have lost? And perhaps he would then
have been comforted and would have said that word to me." And
Princess Mary uttered aloud the caressing word he had said to her on
the day of his death. "Dear-est!" she repeated, and began sobbing, with
tears that relieved her soul. She now saw his face before her. And not
the face she had known ever since she could remember and had always
seen at a distance, but the timid, feeble face she had seen for the first
time quite closely, with all its wrinkles and details, when she stooped
near to his mouth to catch what he said.
"Dear-est!" she repeated again.
"What was he thinking when he uttered that word? What is he
thinking now?" This question suddenly presented itself to her, and in
answer she saw him before her with the expression that was on his face
as he lay in his coffin with his chin bound up with a white
handkerchief. And the horror that had seized her when she touched him
and convinced herself that that was not he, but something mysterious
and horrible, seized her again. She tried to think of something else and
to pray, but could do neither. With wide-open eyes she gazed at the
moonlight and the shadows, expecting every moment to see his dead
face, and she felt that the silence brooding over the house and within it
held her fast.
"Dunyasha," she whispered. "Dunyasha!" she screamed wildly, and
tearing herself out of this silence she ran to the servants' quarters to
meet her old nurse and the maidservants who came running toward her.

CHAPTER XIII
On the seventeenth of August Rostov and Ilyin, accompanied by
Lavrushka who had just returned from captivity and by an hussar
orderly, left their quarters at Yankovo, ten miles from Bogucharovo,
and went for a ride—to try a new horse Ilyin had bought and to find out
whether there was any hay to be had in the villages.
For the last three days Bogucharovo had lain between the two hostile
armies, so that it was as easy for the Russian rearguard to get to it as for
the French vanguard; Rostov, as a careful squadron commander,
wished to take such provisions as remained at Bogucharovo before the
French could get them.
Rostov and Ilyin were in the merriest of moods. On the way to
Bogucharovo, a princely estate with a dwelling house and farm where
they hoped to find many domestic serfs and pretty girls, they
questioned Lavrushka about Napoleon and laughed at his stories, and
raced one another to try Ilyin's horse.
Rostov had no idea that the village he was entering was the property
of that very Bolkonski who had been engaged to his sister.
Rostov and Ilyin gave rein to their horses for a last race along the
incline before reaching Bogucharovo, and Rostov, outstripping Ilyin,
was the first to gallop into the village street.
"You're first!" cried Ilyin, flushed.
"Yes, always first both on the grassland and here," answered Rostov,
stroking his heated Donets horse.
"And I'd have won on my Frenchy, your excellency," said Lavrushka
from behind, alluding to his shabby cart horse, "only I didn't wish to
mortify you."
They rode at a footpace to the barn, where a large crowd of peasants
was standing.
Some of the men bared their heads, others stared at the new arrivals
without doffing their caps. Two tall old peasants with wrinkled faces
and scanty beards emerged from the tavern, smiling, staggering, and
singing some incoherent song, and approached the officers.
"Fine fellows!" said Rostov laughing. "Is there any hay here?"
"And how like one another," said Ilyin.
"A mo-o-st me-r-r-y co-o-m-pa...!" sang one of the peasants with a
blissful smile.
One of the men came out of the crowd and went up to Rostov.
"Who do you belong to?" he asked.
"The French," replied Ilyin jestingly, "and here is Napoleon
himself"—and he pointed to Lavrushka.
"Then you are Russians?" the peasant asked again.
"And is there a large force of you here?" said another, a short man,
coming up.
 "Very large," answered Rostov. "But why have you collected here?"
he added. "Is it a holiday?"
"The old men have met to talk over the business of the commune,"
replied the peasant, moving away.
At that moment, on the road leading from the big house, two women
and a man in a white hat were seen coming toward the officers.
"The one in pink is mine, so keep off!" said Ilyin on seeing
Dunyasha running resolutely toward him.
"She'll be ours!" said Lavrushka to Ilyin, winking.
"What do you want, my pretty?" said Ilyin with a smile.
"The princess ordered me to ask your regiment and your name."
"This is Count Rostov, squadron commander, and I am your humble
servant."
"Co-o-om-pa-ny!" roared the tipsy peasant with a beatific smile as he
looked at Ilyin talking to the girl. Following Dunyasha, Alpatych
advanced to Rostov, having bared his head while still at a distance.
"May I make bold to trouble your honor?" said he respectfully, but
with a shade of contempt for the youthfulness of this officer and with a
hand thrust into his bosom. "My mistress, daughter of General in Chief
Prince Nicholas Bolkonski who died on the fifteenth of this month,
finding herself in difficulties owing to the boorishness of these
people"—he pointed to the peasants—"asks you to come up to the
house.... Won't you, please, ride on a little farther," said Alpatych with
a melancholy smile, "as it is not convenient in the presence of...?" He
pointed to the two peasants who kept as close to him as horseflies to a
horse.
"Ah!... Alpatych... Ah, Yakov Alpatych... Grand! Forgive us for
Christ's sake, eh?" said the peasants, smiling joyfully at him.
Rostov looked at the tipsy peasants and smiled.
"Or perhaps they amuse your honor?" remarked Alpatych with a
staid air, as he pointed at the old men with his free hand.
"No, there's not much to be amused at here," said Rostov, and rode
on a little way. "What's the matter?" he asked.
"I make bold to inform your honor that the rude peasants here don't
wish to let the mistress leave the estate, and threaten to unharness her
horses, so that though everything has been packed up since morning,
her excellency cannot get away."
 "Impossible!" exclaimed Rostov.
"I have the honor to report to you the actual truth," said Alpatych.
Rostov dismounted, gave his horse to the orderly, and followed
Alpatych to the house, questioning him as to the state of affairs. It
appeared that the princess' offer of corn to the peasants the previous
day, and her talk with Dron and at the meeting, had actually had so bad
an effect that Dron had finally given up the keys and joined the
peasants and had not appeared when Alpatych sent for him; and that in
the morning when the princess gave orders to harness for her journey,
the peasants had come in a large crowd to the barn and sent word that
they would not let her leave the village: that there was an order not to
move, and that they would unharness the horses. Alpatych had gone out
to admonish them, but was told (it was chiefly Karp who did the
talking, Dron not showing himself in the crowd) that they could not let
the princess go, that there was an order to the contrary, but that if she
stayed they would serve her as before and obey her in everything.
At the moment when Rostov and Ilyin were galloping along the road,
Princess Mary, despite the dissuasions of Alpatych, her nurse, and the
maids, had given orders to harness and intended to start, but when the
cavalrymen were espied they were taken for Frenchmen, the coachman
ran away, and the women in the house began to wail.
"Father! Benefactor! God has sent you!" exclaimed deeply moved
voices as Rostov passed through the anteroom.
Princess Mary was sitting helpless and bewildered in the large sitting
room, when Rostov was shown in. She could not grasp who he was and
why he had come, or what was happening to her. When she saw his
Russian face, and by his walk and the first words he uttered recognized
him as a man of her own class, she glanced at him with her deep radiant
look and began speaking in a voice that faltered and trembled with
emotion. This meeting immediately struck Rostov as a romantic event.
"A helpless girl overwhelmed with grief, left to the mercy of coarse,
rioting peasants! And what a strange fate sent me here! What
gentleness and nobility there are in her features and expression!"
thought he as he looked at her and listened to her timid story.
When she began to tell him that all this had happened the day after
her father's funeral, her voiced trembled. She turned away, and then, as
if fearing he might take her words as meant to move him to pity, looked
at him with an apprehensive glance of inquiry. There were tears in
Rostov's eyes. Princess Mary noticed this and glanced gratefully at him
with that radiant look which caused the plainness of her face to be
forgotten.
 "I cannot express, Princess, how glad I am that I happened to ride
here and am able to show my readiness to serve you," said Rostov,
rising. "Go when you please, and I give you my word of honor that no
one shall dare to cause you annoyance if only you will allow me to act
as your escort." And bowing respectfully, as if to a lady of royal blood,
he moved toward the door.
Rostov's deferential tone seemed to indicate that though he would
consider himself happy to be acquainted with her, he did not wish to
take advantage of her misfortunes to intrude upon her.
Princess Mary understood this and appreciated his delicacy.
"I am very, very grateful to you," she said in French, "but I hope it
was all a misunderstanding and that no one is to blame for it." She
suddenly began to cry.
"Excuse me!" she said.
Rostov, knitting his brows, left the room with another low bow.

CHAPTER XIV
"Well, is she pretty? Ah, friend—my pink one is delicious; her name
is Dunyasha...."
But on glancing at Rostov's face Ilyin stopped short. He saw that his
hero and commander was following quite a different train of thought.
Rostov glanced angrily at Ilyin and without replying strode off with
rapid steps to the village.
"I'll show them; I'll give it to them, the brigands!" said he to himself.
Alpatych at a gliding trot, only just managing not to run, kept up
with him with difficulty.
"What decision have you been pleased to come to?" said he.
Rostov stopped and, clenching his fists, suddenly and sternly turned
on Alpatych.
"Decision? What decision? Old dotard!..." cried he. "What have you
been about? Eh? The peasants are rioting, and you can't manage them?
You're a traitor yourself! I know you. I'll flay you all alive!..." And as if
afraid of wasting his store of anger, he left Alpatych and went rapidly
forward. Alpatych, mastering his offended feelings, kept pace with
Rostov at a gliding gait and continued to impart his views. He said the
peasants were obdurate and that at the present moment it would be
imprudent to "overresist" them without an armed force, and would it
not be better first to send for the military?
"I'll give them armed force... I'll 'overresist' them!" uttered Rostov
meaninglessly, breathless with irrational animal fury and the need to
vent it.
Without considering what he would do he moved unconciously with
quick, resolute steps toward the crowd. And the nearer he drew to it the
more Alpatych felt that this unreasonable action might produce good
results. The peasants in the crowd were similarly impressed when they
saw Rostov's rapid, firm steps and resolute, frowning face.
After the hussars had come to the village and Rostov had gone to see
the princess, a certain confusion and dissension had arisen among the
crowd. Some of the peasants said that these new arrivals were Russians
and might take it amiss that the mistress was being detained. Dron was
of this opinion, but as soon as he expressed it Karp and others attacked
their ex-Elder.
"How many years have you been fattening on the commune?" Karp
shouted at him. "It's all one to you! You'll dig up your pot of money
and take it away with you.... What does it matter to you whether our
homes are ruined or not?"
"We've been told to keep order, and that no one is to leave their
homes or take away a single grain, and that's all about it!" cried
another.
"It was your son's turn to be conscripted, but no fear! You begrudged
your lump of a son," a little old man suddenly began attacking Dron—
"and so they took my Vanka to be shaved for a soldier! But we all have
to die."
"To be sure, we all have to die. I'm not against the commune," said
Dron.
"That's it—not against it! You've filled your belly...."
The two tall peasants had their say. As soon as Rostov, followed by
Ilyin, Lavrushka, and Alpatych, came up to the crowd, Karp, thrusting
his fingers into his belt and smiling a little, walked to the front. Dron on
the contrary retired to the rear and the crowd drew closer together.
"Who is your Elder here? Hey?" shouted Rostov, coming up to the
crowd with quick steps.
 "The Elder? What do you want with him?..." asked Karp.
But before the words were well out of his mouth, his cap flew off
and a fierce blow jerked his head to one side.
"Caps off, traitors!" shouted Rostov in a wrathful voice. "Where's the
Elder?" he cried furiously.
"The Elder.... He wants the Elder!... Dron Zakharych, you!" meek
and flustered voices here and there were heard calling and caps began
to come off their heads.
"We don't riot, we're following the orders," declared Karp, and at
that moment several voices began speaking together.
"It's as the old men have decided—there's too many of you giving
orders."
"Arguing? Mutiny!... Brigands! Traitors!" cried Rostov unmeaningly
in a voice not his own, gripping Karp by the collar. "Bind him, bind
him!" he shouted, though there was no one to bind him but Lavrushka
and Alpatych.
Lavrushka, however, ran up to Karp and seized him by the arms
from behind.
"Shall I call up our men from beyond the hill?" he called out.
Alpatych turned to the peasants and ordered two of them by name to
come and bind Karp. The men obediently came out of the crowd and
began taking off their belts.
"Where's the Elder?" demanded Rostov in a loud voice.
With a pale and frowning face Dron stepped out of the crowd.
"Are you the Elder? Bind him, Lavrushka!" shouted Rostov, as if
that order, too, could not possibly meet with any opposition.
And in fact two more peasants began binding Dron, who took off his
own belt and handed it to them, as if to aid them.
"And you all listen to me!" said Rostov to the peasants. "Be off to
your houses at once, and don't let one of your voices be heard!"
"Why, we've not done any harm! We did it just out of foolishness.
It's all nonsense... I said then that it was not in order," voices were
heard bickering with one another.

"There! What did I say?" said Alpatych, coming into

his own again. "It's
 wrong, lads!"

"All our stupidity, Yakov Alpatych," came the

answers, and the
crowd began at once to disperse through the village.

The two bound men were led off to the master's house. The two
drunken peasants followed them.
"Aye, when I look at you!..." said one of them to Karp.
"How can one talk to the masters like that? What were you thinking
of, you fool?" added the other—"A real fool!"
Two hours later the carts were standing in the courtyard of the
Bogucharovo house. The peasants were briskly carrying out the
proprietor's goods and packing them on the carts, and Dron, liberated at
Princess Mary's wish from the cupboard where he had been confined,
was standing in the yard directing the men.
"Don't put it in so carelessly," said one of the peasants, a man with a
round smiling face, taking a casket from a housemaid. "You know it
has cost money! How can you chuck it in like that or shove it under the
cord where it'll get rubbed? I don't like that way of doing things. Let it
all be done properly, according to rule. Look here, put it under the bast
matting and cover it with hay—that's the way!"
"Eh, books, books!" said another peasant, bringing out Prince
Andrew's library cupboards. "Don't catch up against it! It's heavy,
lads—solid books."
"Yes, they worked all day and didn't play!" remarked the tall, round-
faced peasant gravely, pointing with a significant wink at the
dictionaries that were on the top.
Unwilling to obtrude himself on the princess, Rostov did not go back
to the house but remained in the village awaiting her departure. When
her carriage drove out of the house, he mounted and accompanied her
eight miles from Bogucharovo to where the road was occupied by our
troops. At the inn at Yankovo he respectfully took leave of her, for the
first time permitting himself to kiss her hand.
"How can you speak so!" he blushingly replied to Princess Mary's
expressions of gratitude for her deliverance, as she termed what had
occurred. "Any police officer would have done as much! If we had had
only peasants to fight, we should not have let the enemy come so far,"
said he with a sense of shame and wishing to change the subject. "I am
only happy to have had the opportunity of making your acquaintance.
Good-by, Princess. I wish you happiness and consolation and hope to
meet you again in happier circumstances. If you don't want to make me
blush, please don't thank me!"
But the princess, if she did not again thank him in words, thanked
him with the whole expression of her face, radiant with gratitude and
tenderness. She could not believe that there was nothing to thank him
for. On the contrary, it seemed to her certain that had he not been there
she would have perished at the hands of the mutineers and of the
French, and that he had exposed himself to terrible and obvious danger
to save her, and even more certain was it that he was a man of lofty and
noble soul, able to understand her position and her sorrow. His kind,
honest eyes, with the tears rising in them when she herself had begun to
cry as she spoke of her loss, did not leave her memory.
When she had taken leave of him and remained alone she suddenly
felt her eyes filling with tears, and then not for the first time the strange
question presented itself to her: did she love him?
On the rest of the way to Moscow, though the princess' position was
not a cheerful one, Dunyasha, who went with her in the carriage, more
than once noticed that her mistress leaned out of the window and
smiled at something with an expression of mingled joy and sorrow.
"Well, supposing I do love him?" thought Princess Mary.
Ashamed as she was of acknowledging to herself that she had fallen
in love with a man who would perhaps never love her, she comforted
herself with the thought that no one would ever know it and that she
would not be to blame if, without ever speaking of it to anyone, she
continued to the end of her life to love the man with whom she had
fallen in love for the first and last time in her life.
Sometimes when she recalled his looks, his sympathy, and his
words, happiness did not appear impossible to her. It was at those
moments that Dunyasha noticed her smiling as she looked out of the
carriage window.
"Was it not fate that brought him to Bogucharovo, and at that very
moment?" thought Princess Mary. "And that caused his sister to refuse
my brother?" And in all this Princess Mary saw the hand of Providence.
The impression the princess made on Rostov was a very agreeable
one. To remember her gave him pleasure, and when his comrades,
hearing of his adventure at Bogucharovo, rallied him on having gone to
look for hay and having picked up one of the wealthiest heiresses in
Russia, he grew angry. It made him angry just because the idea of
marrying the gentle Princess Mary, who was attractive to him and had
an enormous fortune, had against his will more than once entered his
head. For himself personally Nicholas could not wish for a better wife:
by marrying her he would make the countess his mother happy, would
be able to put his father's affairs in order, and would even—he felt it—
ensure Princess Mary's happiness.
But Sonya? And his plighted word? That was why Rostov grew
angry when he was rallied about Princess Bolkonskaya.

CHAPTER XV
On receiving command of the armies Kutuzov remembered Prince
Andrew and sent an order for him to report at headquarters.
Prince Andrew arrived at Tsarevo-Zaymishche on the very day and
at the very hour that Kutuzov was reviewing the troops for the first
time. He stopped in the village at the priest's house in front of which
stood the commander in chief's carriage, and he sat down on the bench
at the gate awaiting his Serene Highness, as everyone now called
Kutuzov. From the field beyond the village came now sounds of
regimental music and now the roar of many voices shouting "Hurrah!"
to the new commander in chief. Two orderlies, a courier and a major-
domo, stood near by, some ten paces from Prince Andrew, availing
themselves of Kutuzov's absence and of the fine weather. A short,
swarthy lieutenant colonel of hussars with thick mustaches and
whiskers rode up to the gate and, glancing at Prince Andrew, inquired
whether his Serene Highness was putting up there and whether he
would soon be back.
Prince Andrew replied that he was not on his Serene Highness' staff
but was himself a new arrival. The lieutenant colonel turned to a smart
orderly, who, with the peculiar contempt with which a commander in
chief's orderly speaks to officers, replied:
"What? His Serene Highness? I expect he'll be here soon. What do
you want?"
The lieutenant colonel of hussars smiled beneath his mustache at the
orderly's tone, dismounted, gave his horse to a dispatch runner, and
approached Bolkonski with a slight bow. Bolkonski made room for him
on the bench and the lieutenant colonel sat down beside him.
"You're also waiting for the commander in chief?" said he. "They say
he weceives evewyone, thank God!... It's awful with those sausage
eaters! Ermolov had weason to ask to be pwomoted to be a German!
Now p'waps Wussians will get a look in. As it was, devil only knows
what was happening. We kept wetweating and wetweating. Did you
take part in the campaign?" he asked.
"I had the pleasure," replied Prince Andrew, "not only of taking part
in the retreat but of losing in that retreat all I held dear—not to mention
the estate and home of my birth—my father, who died of grief. I belong
to the province of Smolensk."
"Ah? You're Pwince Bolkonski? Vewy glad to make your
acquaintance! I'm Lieutenant Colonel Denisov, better known as
'Vaska,'" said Denisov, pressing Prince Andrew's hand and looking into
his face with a particularly kindly attention. "Yes, I heard," said he
sympathetically, and after a short pause added: "Yes, it's Scythian
warfare. It's all vewy well—only not for those who get it in the neck.
So you are Pwince Andwew Bolkonski?" He swayed his head. "Vewy
pleased, Pwince, to make your acquaintance!" he repeated again,
smiling sadly, and he again pressed Prince Andrew's hand.
Prince Andrew knew Denisov from what Natasha had told him of her
first suitor. This memory carried him sadly and sweetly back to those
painful feelings of which he had not thought lately, but which still
found place in his soul. Of late he had received so many new and very
serious impressions—such as the retreat from Smolensk, his visit to
Bald Hills, and the recent news of his father's death—and had
experienced so many emotions, that for a long time past those
memories had not entered his mind, and now that they did, they did not
act on him with nearly their former strength. For Denisov, too, the
memories awakened by the name of Bolkonski belonged to a distant,
romantic past, when after supper and after Natasha's singing he had
proposed to a little girl of fifteen without realizing what he was doing.
He smiled at the recollection of that time and of his love for Natasha,
and passed at once to what now interested him passionately and
exclusively. This was a plan of campaign he had devised while serving
at the outposts during the retreat. He had proposed that plan to Barclay
de Tolly and now wished to propose it to Kutuzov. The plan was based
on the fact that the French line of operation was too extended, and it
proposed that instead of, or concurrently with, action on the front to bar
the advance of the French, we should attack their line of
communication. He began explaining his plan to Prince Andrew.
"They can't hold all that line. It's impossible. I will undertake to
bweak thwough. Give me five hundwed men and I will bweak the line,
that's certain! There's only one way—guewilla warfare!"
Denisov rose and began gesticulating as he explained his plan to
Bolkonski. In the midst of his explanation shouts were heard from the
army, growing more incoherent and more diffused, mingling with
music and songs and coming from the field where the review was held.
Sounds of hoofs and shouts were nearing the village.
"He's coming! He's coming!" shouted a Cossack standing at the gate.
Bolkonski and Denisov moved to the gate, at which a knot of
soldiers (a guard of honor) was standing, and they saw Kutuzov coming
down the street mounted on a rather small sorrel horse. A huge suite of
generals rode behind him. Barclay was riding almost beside him, and a
crowd of officers ran after and around them shouting, "Hurrah!"
His adjutants galloped into the yard before him. Kutuzov was
impatiently urging on his horse, which ambled smoothly under his
weight, and he raised his hand to his white Horse Guard's cap with a
red band and no peak, nodding his head continually. When he came up
to the guard of honor, a fine set of Grenadiers mostly wearing
decorations, who were giving him the salute, he looked at them silently
and attentively for nearly a minute with the steady gaze of a
commander and then turned to the crowd of generals and officers
surrounding him. Suddenly his face assumed a subtle expression, he
shrugged his shoulders with an air of perplexity.
"And with such fine fellows to retreat and retreat! Well, good-by,
General," he added, and rode into the yard past Prince Andrew and
Denisov.
"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" shouted those behind him.
Since Prince Andrew had last seen him Kutuzov had grown still
more corpulent, flaccid, and fat. But the bleached eyeball, the scar, and
the familiar weariness of his expression were still the same. He was
wearing the white Horse Guard's cap and a military overcoat with a
whip hanging over his shoulder by a thin strap. He sat heavily and
swayed limply on his brisk little horse.
"Whew... whew... whew!" he whistled just audibly as he rode into
the yard. His face expressed the relief of relaxed strain felt by a man
who means to rest after a ceremony. He drew his left foot out of the
stirrup and, lurching with his whole body and puckering his face with
the effort, raised it with difficulty onto the saddle, leaned on his knee,
groaned, and slipped down into the arms of the Cossacks and adjutants
who stood ready to assist him.
He pulled himself together, looked round, screwing up his eyes,
glanced at Prince Andrew, and, evidently not recognizing him, moved
with his waddling gait to the porch. "Whew... whew... whew!" he
whistled, and again glanced at Prince Andrew. As often occurs with old
men, it was only after some seconds that the impression produced by
Prince Andrew's face linked itself up with Kutuzov's remembrance of
his personality.
"Ah, how do you do, my dear prince? How do you do, my dear boy?
Come along..." said he, glancing wearily round, and he stepped onto the
porch which creaked under his weight.
He unbuttoned his coat and sat down on a bench in the porch.
"And how's your father?"
"I received news of his death, yesterday," replied Prince Andrew
abruptly.
Kutuzov looked at him with eyes wide open with dismay and then
took off his cap and crossed himself:
"May the kingdom of Heaven be his! God's will be done to us all!"
He sighed deeply, his whole chest heaving, and was silent for a while.
"I loved him and respected him, and sympathize with you with all my
heart."
He embraced Prince Andrew, pressing him to his fat breast, and for
some time did not let him go. When he released him Prince Andrew
saw that Kutuzov's flabby lips were trembling and that tears were in his
eyes. He sighed and pressed on the bench with both hands to raise
himself.
"Come! Come with me, we'll have a talk," said he.
But at that moment Denisov, no more intimidated by his superiors
than by the enemy, came with jingling spurs up the steps of the porch,
despite the angry whispers of the adjutants who tried to stop him.
Kutuzov, his hands still pressed on the seat, glanced at him glumly.
Denisov, having given his name, announced that he had to
communicate to his Serene Highness a matter of great importance for
their country's welfare. Kutuzov looked wearily at him and, lifting his
hands with a gesture of annoyance, folded them across his stomach,
repeating the words: "For our country's welfare? Well, what is it?
Speak!" Denisov blushed like a girl (it was strange to see the color rise
in that shaggy, bibulous, time-worn face) and boldly began to expound
his plan of cutting the enemy's lines of communication between
Smolensk and Vyazma. Denisov came from those parts and knew the
country well. His plan seemed decidedly a good one, especially from
the strength of conviction with which he spoke. Kutuzov looked down
at his own legs, occasionally glancing at the door of the adjoining hut
as if expecting something unpleasant to emerge from it. And from that
hut, while Denisov was speaking, a general with a portfolio under his
arm really did appear.
 "What?" said Kutuzov, in the midst of Denisov's explanations, "are
you ready so soon?"
"Ready, your Serene Highness," replied the general.
Kutuzov swayed his head, as much as to say: "How is one man to
deal with it all?" and again listened to Denisov.
"I give my word of honor as a Wussian officer," said Denisov, "that I
can bweak Napoleon's line of communication!"
"What relation are you to Intendant General Kiril Andreevich
Denisov?" asked Kutuzov, interrupting him.
"He is my uncle, your Sewene Highness."
"Ah, we were friends," said Kutuzov cheerfully. "All right, all right,
friend, stay here at the staff and tomorrow we'll have a talk."
With a nod to Denisov he turned away and put out his hand for the
papers Konovnitsyn had brought him.
"Would not your Serene Highness like to come inside?" said the
general on duty in a discontented voice, "the plans must be examined
and several papers have to be signed."
An adjutant came out and announced that everything was in
readiness within. But Kutuzov evidently did not wish to enter that room
till he was disengaged. He made a grimace...
"No, tell them to bring a small table out here, my dear boy. I'll look
at them here," said he. "Don't go away," he added, turning to Prince
Andrew, who remained in the porch and listened to the general's report.
While this was being given, Prince Andrew heard the whisper of a
woman's voice and the rustle of a silk dress behind the door. Several
times on glancing that way he noticed behind that door a plump, rosy,
handsome woman in a pink dress with a lilac silk kerchief on her head,
holding a dish and evidently awaiting the entrance of the commander in
chief. Kutuzov's adjutant whispered to Prince Andrew that this was the
wife of the priest whose home it was, and that she intended to offer his
Serene Highness bread and salt. "Her husband has welcomed his
Serene Highness with the cross at the church, and she intends to
welcome him in the house.... She's very pretty," added the adjutant with
a smile. At those words Kutuzov looked round. He was listening to the
general's report—which consisted chiefly of a criticism of the position
at Tsarevo-Zaymishche—as he had listened to Denisov, and seven
years previously had listened to the discussion at the Austerlitz council
of war. He evidently listened only because he had ears which, though
there was a piece of tow in one of them, could not help hearing; but it
was evident that nothing the general could say would surprise or even
interest him, that he knew all that would be said beforehand, and heard
it all only because he had to, as one has to listen to the chanting of a
service of prayer. All that Denisov had said was clever and to the point.
What the general was saying was even more clever and to the point, but
it was evident that Kutuzov despised knowledge and cleverness, and
knew of something else that would decide the matter—something
independent of cleverness and knowledge. Prince Andrew watched the
commander in chief's face attentively, and the only expression he could
see there was one of boredom, curiosity as to the meaning of the
feminine whispering behind the door, and a desire to observe propriety.
It was evident that Kutuzov despised cleverness and learning and even
the patriotic feeling shown by Denisov, but despised them not because
of his own intellect, feelings, or knowledge—he did not try to display
any of these—but because of something else. He despised them
because of his old age and experience of life. The only instruction
Kutuzov gave of his own accord during that report referred to looting
by the Russian troops. At the end of the report the general put before
him for signature a paper relating to the recovery of payment from
army commanders for green oats mown down by the soldiers, when
landowners lodged petitions for compensation.
After hearing the matter, Kutuzov smacked his lips together and
shook his head.
"Into the stove... into the fire with it! I tell you once for all, my dear
fellow," said he, "into the fire with all such things! Let them cut the
crops and burn wood to their hearts' content. I don't order it or allow it,
but I don't exact compensation either. One can't get on without it.
'When wood is chopped the chips will fly.'" He looked at the paper
again. "Oh, this German precision!" he muttered, shaking his head.

CHAPTER XVI
"Well, that's all!" said Kutuzov as he signed the last of the
documents, and rising heavily and smoothing out the folds in his fat
white neck he moved toward the door with a more cheerful expression.
The priest's wife, flushing rosy red, caught up the dish she had after
all not managed to present at the right moment, though she had so long
been preparing for it, and with a low bow offered it to Kutuzov.
He screwed up his eyes, smiled, lifted her chin with his hand, and
said:
 "Ah, what a beauty! Thank you, sweetheart!"
He took some gold pieces from his trouser pocket and put them on
the dish for her. "Well, my dear, and how are we getting on?" he asked,
moving to the door of the room assigned to him. The priest's wife
smiled, and with dimples in her rosy cheeks followed him into the
room. The adjutant came out to the porch and asked Prince Andrew to
lunch with him. Half an hour later Prince Andrew was again called to
Kutuzov. He found him reclining in an armchair, still in the same
unbuttoned overcoat. He had in his hand a French book which he
closed as Prince Andrew entered, marking the place with a knife.
Prince Andrew saw by the cover that it was Les Chevaliers du Cygne
by Madame de Genlis.
"Well, sit down, sit down here. Let's have a talk," said Kutuzov. "It's
sad, very sad. But remember, my dear fellow, that I am a father to you,
a second father...."
Prince Andrew told Kutuzov all he knew of his father's death, and
what he had seen at Bald Hills when he passed through it.
"What... what they have brought us to!" Kutuzov suddenly cried in
an agitated voice, evidently picturing vividly to himself from Prince
Andrew's story the condition Russia was in. "But give me time, give
me time!" he said with a grim look, evidently not wishing to continue
this agitating conversation, and added: "I sent for you to keep you with
me."
"I thank your Serene Highness, but I fear I am no longer fit for the
staff," replied Prince Andrew with a smile which Kutuzov noticed.
Kutuzov glanced inquiringly at him.
"But above all," added Prince Andrew, "I have grown used to my
regiment, am fond of the officers, and I fancy the men also like me. I
should be sorry to leave the regiment. If I decline the honor of being
with you, believe me..."
A shrewd, kindly, yet subtly derisive expression lit up Kutuzov's
podgy face. He cut Bolkonski short.
"I am sorry, for I need you. But you're right, you're right! It's not
here that men are needed. Advisers are always plentiful, but men are
not. The regiments would not be what they are if the would-be advisers
served there as you do. I remember you at Austerlitz.... I remember,
yes, I remember you with the standard!" said Kutuzov, and a flush of
pleasure suffused Prince Andrew's face at this recollection.
Taking his hand and drawing him downwards, Kutuzov offered his
cheek to be kissed, and again Prince Andrew noticed tears in the old
man's eyes. Though Prince Andrew knew that Kutuzov's tears came
easily, and that he was particularly tender to and considerate of him
from a wish to show sympathy with his loss, yet this reminder of
Austerlitz was both pleasant and flattering to him.
"Go your way and God be with you. I know your path is the path of
honor!" He paused. "I missed you at Bucharest, but I needed someone
to send." And changing the subject, Kutuzov began to speak of the
Turkish war and the peace that had been concluded. "Yes, I have been
much blamed," he said, "both for that war and the peace... but
everything came at the right time. Tout vient a point a celui qui sait
attendre. * And there were as many advisers there as here..." he went
on, returning to the subject of "advisers" which evidently occupied him.
"Ah, those advisers!" said he. "If we had listened to them all we should
not have made peace with Turkey and should not have been through
with that war. Everything in haste, but more haste, less speed.
Kamenski would have been lost if he had not died. He stormed
fortresses with thirty thousand men. It is not difficult to capture a
fortress but it is difficult to win a campaign. For that, not storming and
attacking but patience and time are wanted. Kamenski sent soldiers to
Rustchuk, but I only employed these two things and took more
fortresses than Kamenski and made them Turks eat horseflesh!" He
swayed his head. "And the French shall too, believe me," he went on,
growing warmer and beating his chest, "I'll make them eat horseflesh!"
And tears again dimmed his eyes.

* "Everything comes in time to him who knows how

to wait."

"But shan't we have to accept battle?" remarked Prince Andrew.

"We shall if everybody wants it; it can't be helped.... But believe me,
my dear boy, there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and
time, they will do it all. But the advisers n'entendent pas de cette
oreille, voila le mal. * Some want a thing—others don't. What's one to
do?" he asked, evidently expecting an answer. "Well, what do you want
us to do?" he repeated and his eye shone with a deep, shrewd look. "I'll
tell you what to do," he continued, as Prince Andrew still did not reply:
"I will tell you what to do, and what I do. Dans le doute, mon cher," he
paused, "abstiens-toi" *(2)—he articulated the French proverb
deliberately.

* "Don't see it that way, that's the trouble."

* (2) "When in doubt, my dear fellow, do

nothing."
 "Well, good-by, my dear fellow; remember that with all my heart I
share your sorrow, and that for you I am not a Serene Highness, nor a
prince, nor a commander in chief, but a father! If you want anything
come straight to me. Good-by, my dear boy."
Again he embraced and kissed Prince Andrew, but before the latter
had left the room Kutuzov gave a sigh of relief and went on with his
unfinished novel, Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis.
Prince Andrew could not have explained how or why it was, but after
that interview with Kutuzov he went back to his regiment reassured as
to the general course of affairs and as to the man to whom it had been
entrusted. The more he realized the absence of all personal motive in
that old man—in whom there seemed to remain only the habit of
passions, and in place of an intellect (grouping events and drawing
conclusions) only the capacity calmly to contemplate the course of
events—the more reassured he was that everything would be as it
should. "He will not bring in any plan of his own. He will not devise or
undertake anything," thought Prince Andrew, "but he will hear
everything, remember everything, and put everything in its place. He
will not hinder anything useful nor allow anything harmful. He
understands that there is something stronger and more important than
his own will—the inevitable course of events, and he can see them and
grasp their significance, and seeing that significance can refrain from
meddling and renounce his personal wish directed to something else.
And above all," thought Prince Andrew, "one believes in him because
he's Russian, despite the novel by Genlis and the French proverbs, and
because his voice shook when he said: 'What they have brought us to!'
and had a sob in it when he said he would 'make them eat horseflesh!'"
On such feelings, more or less dimly shared by all, the unanimity and
general approval were founded with which, despite court influences,
the popular choice of Kutuzov as commander in chief was received.

CHAPTER XVII
After the Emperor had left Moscow, life flowed on there in its usual
course, and its course was so very usual that it was difficult to
remember the recent days of patriotic elation and ardor, hard to believe
that Russia was really in danger and that the members of the English
Club were also sons of the Fatherland ready to sacrifice everything for
it. The one thing that recalled the patriotic fervor everyone had
displayed during the Emperor's stay was the call for contributions of
men and money, a necessity that as soon as the promises had been
made assumed a legal, official form and became unavoidable.
With the enemy's approach to Moscow, the Moscovites' view of their
situation did not grow more serious but on the contrary became even
more frivolous, as always happens with people who see a great danger
approaching. At the approach of danger there are always two voices
that speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably
tells a man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of
escaping it; the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too
depressing and painful to think of the danger, since it is not in man's
power to foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and
it is therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to
think about what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally listens to the
first voice, but in society to the second. So it was now with the
inhabitants of Moscow. It was long since people had been as gay in
Moscow as that year.
Rostopchin's broadsheets, headed by woodcuts of a drink shop, a
potman, and a Moscow burgher called Karpushka Chigirin, "who—
having been a militiaman and having had rather too much at the pub—
heard that Napoleon wished to come to Moscow, grew angry, abused
the French in very bad language, came out of the drink shop, and, under
the sign of the eagle, began to address the assembled people," were
read and discussed, together with the latest of Vasili Lvovich Pushkin's
bouts rimes.
In the corner room at the Club, members gathered to read these
broadsheets, and some liked the way Karpushka jeered at the French,
saying: "They will swell up with Russian cabbage, burst with our
buckwheat porridge, and choke themselves with cabbage soup. They
are all dwarfs and one peasant woman will toss three of them with a
hayfork." Others did not like that tone and said it was stupid and
vulgar. It was said that Rostopchin had expelled all Frenchmen and
even all foreigners from Moscow, and that there had been some spies
and agents of Napoleon among them; but this was told chiefly to
introduce Rostopchin's witty remark on that occasion. The foreigners
were deported to Nizhni by boat, and Rostopchin had said to them in
French: "Rentrez en vousmemes; entrez dans la barque, et n'en faites
pas une barque de Charon." * There was talk of all the government
offices having been already removed from Moscow, and to this
Shinshin's witticism was added—that for that alone Moscow ought to
be grateful to Napoleon. It was said that Mamonov's regiment would
cost him eight hundred thousand rubles, and that Bezukhov had spent
even more on his, but that the best thing about Bezukhov's action was
that he himself was going to don a uniform and ride at the head of his
regiment without charging anything for the show.
 * "Think it over; get into the barque, and take
care not to
make it a barque of Charon."

"You don't spare anyone," said Julie Drubetskaya as she collected

and pressed together a bunch of raveled lint with her thin, beringed
fingers.
Julie was preparing to leave Moscow next day and was giving a
farewell soiree.
"Bezukhov est ridicule, but he is so kind and good-natured. What
pleasure is there to be so caustique?"
"A forfeit!" cried a young man in militia uniform whom Julie called
"mon chevalier," and who was going with her to Nizhni.
In Julie's set, as in many other circles in Moscow, it had been agreed
that they would speak nothing but Russian and that those who made a
slip and spoke French should pay fines to the Committee of Voluntary
Contributions.
"Another forfeit for a Gallicism," said a Russian writer who was
present. "'What pleasure is there to be' is not Russian!"
"You spare no one," continued Julie to the young man without
heeding the author's remark.
"For caustique—I am guilty and will pay, and I am prepared to pay
again for the pleasure of telling you the truth. For Gallicisms I won't be
responsible," she remarked, turning to the author: "I have neither the
money nor the time, like Prince Galitsyn, to engage a master to teach
me Russian!"
"Ah, here he is!" she added. "Quand on... No, no," she said to the
militia officer, "you won't catch me. Speak of the sun and you see its
rays!" and she smiled amiably at Pierre. "We were just talking of you,"
she said with the facility in lying natural to a society woman. "We were
saying that your regiment would be sure to be better than Mamonov's."
"Oh, don't talk to me of my regiment," replied Pierre, kissing his
hostess' hand and taking a seat beside her. "I am so sick of it."
"You will, of course, command it yourself?" said Julie, directing a
sly, sarcastic glance toward the militia officer.
The latter in Pierre's presence had ceased to be caustic, and his face
expressed perplexity as to what Julie's smile might mean. In spite of his
absent-mindedness and good nature, Pierre's personality immediately
checked any attempt to ridicule him to his face.
 "No," said Pierre, with a laughing glance at his big, stout body. "I
should make too good a target for the French, besides I am afraid I
should hardly be able to climb onto a horse."
Among those whom Julie's guests happened to choose to gossip
about were the Rostovs.
"I hear that their affairs are in a very bad way," said Julie. "And he is
so unreasonable, the count himself I mean. The Razumovskis wanted to
buy his house and his estate near Moscow, but it drags on and on. He
asks too much."
"No, I think the sale will come off in a few days," said someone.
"Though it is madness to buy anything in Moscow now."
"Why?" asked Julie. "You don't think Moscow is in danger?"
"Then why are you leaving?"
"I? What a question! I am going because... well, because everyone is
going: and besides—I am not Joan of Arc or an Amazon."
"Well, of course, of course! Let me have some more strips of linen."
"If he manages the business properly he will be able to pay off all his
debts," said the militia officer, speaking of Rostov.
"A kindly old man but not up to much. And why do they stay on so
long in Moscow? They meant to leave for the country long ago. Natalie
is quite well again now, isn't she?" Julie asked Pierre with a knowing
smile.
"They are waiting for their younger son," Pierre replied. "He joined
Obolenski's Cossacks and went to Belaya Tserkov where the regiment
is being formed. But now they have had him transferred to my regiment
and are expecting him every day. The count wanted to leave long ago,
but the countess won't on any account leave Moscow till her son
returns."
"I met them the day before yesterday at the Arkharovs'. Natalie has
recovered her looks and is brighter. She sang a song. How easily some
people get over everything!"
"Get over what?" inquired Pierre, looking displeased.
Julie smiled.
"You know, Count, such knights as you are only found in Madame
de Souza's novels."
"What knights? What do you mean?" demanded Pierre, blushing.
 "Oh, come, my dear count! C'est la fable de tout Moscou. Je vous
admire, ma parole d'honneur!" *

* "It is the talk of all Moscow. My word, I

admire you!"

"Forfeit, forfeit!" cried the militia officer.

"All right, one can't talk—how tiresome!"
"What is 'the talk of all Moscow'?" Pierre asked angrily, rising to his
feet.
"Come now, Count, you know!"
"I don't know anything about it," said Pierre.
"I know you were friendly with Natalie, and so... but I was always
more friendly with Vera—that dear Vera."
"No, madame!" Pierre continued in a tone of displeasure, "I have not
taken on myself the role of Natalie Rostova's knight at all, and have not
been to their house for nearly a month. But I cannot understand the
cruelty..."
"Qui s'excuse s'accuse," * said Julie, smiling and waving the lint
triumphantly, and to have the last word she promptly changed the
subject. "Do you know what I heard today? Poor Mary Bolkonskaya
arrived in Moscow yesterday. Do you know that she has lost her
father?"

* "Who excuses himself, accuses himself."

"Really? Where is she? I should like very much to see her," said
Pierre.
"I spent the evening with her yesterday. She is going to their estate
near Moscow either today or tomorrow morning, with her nephew."
"Well, and how is she?" asked Pierre.
"She is well, but sad. But do you know who rescued her? It is quite a
romance. Nicholas Rostov! She was surrounded, and they wanted to
kill her and had wounded some of her people. He rushed in and saved
her...."
"Another romance," said the militia officer. "Really, this general
flight has been arranged to get all the old maids married off. Catiche is
one and Princess Bolkonskaya another."
 "Do you know, I really believe she is un petit peu amoureuse du
jeune homme." *

* "A little bit in love with the young man."

"Forfeit, forfeit, forfeit!"

"But how could one say that in Russian?"

CHAPTER XVIII
When Pierre returned home he was handed two of Rostopchin's
broadsheets that had been brought that day.
The first declared that the report that Count Rostopchin had
forbidden people to leave Moscow was false; on the contrary he was
glad that ladies and tradesmen's wives were leaving the city. "There
will be less panic and less gossip," ran the broadsheet "but I will stake
my life on it that scoundrel will not enter Moscow." These words
showed Pierre clearly for the first time that the French would enter
Moscow. The second broadsheet stated that our headquarters were at
Vyazma, that Count Wittgenstein had defeated the French, but that as
many of the inhabitants of Moscow wished to be armed, weapons were
ready for them at the arsenal: sabers, pistols, and muskets which could
be had at a low price. The tone of the proclamation was not as jocose as
in the former Chigirin talks. Pierre pondered over these broadsheets.
Evidently the terrible stormcloud he had desired with the whole
strength of his soul but which yet aroused involuntary horror in him
was drawing near.
"Shall I join the army and enter the service, or wait?" he asked
himself for the hundredth time. He took a pack of cards that lay on the
table and began to lay them out for a game of patience.
"If this patience comes out," he said to himself after shuffling the
cards, holding them in his hand, and lifting his head, "if it comes out, it
means... what does it mean?"
He had not decided what it should mean when he heard the voice of
the eldest princess at the door asking whether she might come in.
"Then it will mean that I must go to the army," said Pierre to himself.
"Come in, come in!" he added to the princess.
 Only the eldest princess, the one with the stony face and long waist,
was still living in Pierre's house. The two younger ones had both
married.
"Excuse my coming to you, cousin," she said in a reproachful and
agitated voice. "You know some decision must be come to. What is
going to happen? Everyone has left Moscow and the people are rioting.
How is it that we are staying on?"
"On the contrary, things seem satisfactory, ma cousine," said Pierre
in the bantering tone he habitually adopted toward her, always feeling
uncomfortable in the role of her benefactor.
"Satisfactory, indeed! Very satisfactory! Barbara Ivanovna told me
today how our troops are distinguishing themselves. It certainly does
them credit! And the people too are quite mutinous—they no longer
obey, even my maid has taken to being rude. At this rate they will soon
begin beating us. One can't walk in the streets. But, above all, the
French will be here any day now, so what are we waiting for? I ask just
one thing of you, cousin," she went on, "arrange for me to be taken to
Petersburg. Whatever I may be, I can't live under Bonaparte's rule."
"Oh, come, ma cousine! Where do you get your information from?
On the contrary..."
"I won't submit to your Napoleon! Others may if they please.... If
you don't want to do this..."
"But I will, I'll give the order at once."
The princess was apparently vexed at not having anyone to be angry
with. Muttering to herself, she sat down on a chair.
"But you have been misinformed," said Pierre. "Everything is quiet
in the city and there is not the slightest danger. See! I've just been
reading..." He showed her the broadsheet. "Count Rostopchin writes
that he will stake his life on it that the enemy will not enter Moscow."
"Oh, that count of yours!" said the princess malevolently. "He is a
hypocrite, a rascal who has himself roused the people to riot. Didn't he
write in those idiotic broadsheets that anyone, 'whoever it might be,
should be dragged to the lockup by his hair'? (How silly!) 'And honor
and glory to whoever captures him,' he says. This is what his cajolery
has brought us to! Barbara Ivanovna told me the mob near killed her
because she said something in French."
"Oh, but it's so... You take everything so to heart," said Pierre, and
began laying out his cards for patience.
 Although that patience did come out, Pierre did not join the army,
but remained in deserted Moscow ever in the same state of agitation,
irresolution, and alarm, yet at the same time joyfully expecting
something terrible.
Next day toward evening the princess set off, and Pierre's head
steward came to inform him that the money needed for the equipment
of his regiment could not be found without selling one of the estates. In
general the head steward made out to Pierre that his project of raising a
regiment would ruin him. Pierre listened to him, scarcely able to
repress a smile.
"Well then, sell it," said he. "What's to be done? I can't draw back
now!"
The worse everything became, especially his own affairs, the better
was Pierre pleased and the more evident was it that the catastrophe he
expected was approaching. Hardly anyone he knew was left in town.
Julie had gone, and so had Princess Mary. Of his intimate friends only
the Rostovs remained, but he did not go to see them.
To distract his thoughts he drove that day to the village of
Vorontsovo to see the great balloon Leppich was constructing to
destroy the foe, and a trial balloon that was to go up next day. The
balloon was not yet ready, but Pierre learned that it was being
constructed by the Emperor's desire. The Emperor had written to Count
Rostopchin as follows:
As soon as Leppich is ready, get together a crew of reliable and
intelligent men for his car and send a courier to General Kutuzov to let
him know. I have informed him of the matter.
Please impress upon Leppich to be very careful where he descends
for the first time, that he may not make a mistake and fall into the
enemy's hands. It is essential for him to combine his movements with
those of the commander in chief.
On his way home from Vorontsovo, as he was passing the Bolotnoe
Place Pierre, seeing a large crowd round the Lobnoe Place, stopped and
got out of his trap. A French cook accused of being a spy was being
flogged. The flogging was only just over, and the executioner was
releasing from the flogging bench a stout man with red whiskers, in
blue stockings and a green jacket, who was moaning piteously. Another
criminal, thin and pale, stood near. Judging by their faces they were
both Frenchmen. With a frightened and suffering look resembling that
on the thin Frenchman's face, Pierre pushed his way in through the
crowd.
"What is it? Who is it? What is it for?" he kept asking.
 But the attention of the crowd—officials, burghers, shopkeepers,
peasants, and women in cloaks and in pelisses—was so eagerly
centered on what was passing in Lobnoe Place that no one answered
him. The stout man rose, frowned, shrugged his shoulders, and
evidently trying to appear firm began to pull on his jacket without
looking about him, but suddenly his lips trembled and he began to cry,
in the way full-blooded grown-up men cry, though angry with himself
for doing so. In the crowd people began talking loudly, to stifle their
feelings of pity as it seemed to Pierre.
"He's cook to some prince."
"Eh, mounseer, Russian sauce seems to be sour to a Frenchman...
sets his teeth on edge!" said a wrinkled clerk who was standing behind
Pierre, when the Frenchman began to cry.
The clerk glanced round, evidently hoping that his joke would be
appreciated. Some people began to laugh, others continued to watch in
dismay the executioner who was undressing the other man.
Pierre choked, his face puckered, and he turned hastily away, went
back to his trap muttering something to himself as he went, and took
his seat. As they drove along he shuddered and exclaimed several times
so audibly that the coachman asked him:
"What is your pleasure?"
"Where are you going?" shouted Pierre to the man, who was driving
to Lubyanka Street.
"To the Governor's, as you ordered," answered the coachman.
"Fool! Idiot!" shouted Pierre, abusing his coachman—a thing he
rarely did. "Home, I told you! And drive faster, blockhead!" "I must get
away this very day," he murmured to himself.
At the sight of the tortured Frenchman and the crowd surrounding
the Lobnoe Place, Pierre had so definitely made up his mind that he
could no longer remain in Moscow and would leave for the army that
very day that it seemed to him that either he had told the coachman this
or that the man ought to have known it for himself.
On reaching home Pierre gave orders to Evstafey—his head
coachman who knew everything, could do anything, and was known to
all Moscow—that he would leave that night for the army at Mozhaysk,
and that his saddle horses should be sent there. This could not all be
arranged that day, so on Evstafey's representation Pierre had to put off
his departure till next day to allow time for the relay horses to be sent
on in advance.
 On the twenty-fourth the weather cleared up after a spell of rain, and
after dinner Pierre left Moscow. When changing horses that night in
Perkhushkovo, he learned that there had been a great battle that
evening. (This was the battle of Shevardino.) He was told that there in
Perkhushkovo the earth trembled from the firing, but nobody could
answer his questions as to who had won. At dawn next day Pierre was
approaching Mozhaysk.
Every house in Mozhaysk had soldiers quartered in it, and at the
hostel where Pierre was met by his groom and coachman there was no
room to be had. It was full of officers.
Everywhere in Mozhaysk and beyond it, troops were stationed or on
the march. Cossacks, foot and horse soldiers, wagons, caissons, and
cannon were everywhere. Pierre pushed forward as fast as he could,
and the farther he left Moscow behind and the deeper he plunged into
that sea of troops the more was he overcome by restless agitation and a
new and joyful feeling he had not experienced before. It was a feeling
akin to what he had felt at the Sloboda Palace during the Emperor's
visit—a sense of the necessity of undertaking something and sacrificing
something. He now experienced a glad consciousness that everything
that constitutes men's happiness—the comforts of life, wealth, even life
itself—is rubbish it is pleasant to throw away, compared with
something... With what? Pierre could not say, and he did not try to
determine for whom and for what he felt such particular delight in
sacrificing everything. He was not occupied with the question of what
to sacrifice for; the fact of sacrificing in itself afforded him a new and
joyous sensation.

CHAPTER XIX
On the twenty-fourth of August the battle of the Shevardino Redoubt
was fought, on the twenty-fifth not a shot was fired by either side, and
on the twenty-sixth the battle of Borodino itself took place.
Why and how were the battles of Shevardino and Borodino given
and accepted? Why was the battle of Borodino fought? There was not
the least sense in it for either the French or the Russians. Its immediate
result for the Russians was, and was bound to be, that we were brought
nearer to the destruction of Moscow—which we feared more than
anything in the world; and for the French its immediate result was that
they were brought nearer to the destruction of their whole army—
which they feared more than anything in the world. What the result
must be was quite obvious, and yet Napoleon offered and Kutuzov
accepted that battle.
If the commanders had been guided by reason, it would seem that it
must have been obvious to Napoleon that by advancing thirteen
hundred miles and giving battle with a probability of losing a quarter of
his army, he was advancing to certain destruction, and it must have
been equally clear to Kutuzov that by accepting battle and risking the
loss of a quarter of his army he would certainly lose Moscow. For
Kutuzov this was mathematically clear, as it is that if when playing
draughts I have one man less and go on exchanging, I shall certainly
lose, and therefore should not exchange. When my opponent has
sixteen men and I have fourteen, I am only one eighth weaker than he,
but when I have exchanged thirteen more men he will be three times as
strong as I am.
Before the battle of Borodino our strength in proportion to the
French was about as five to six, but after that battle it was little more
than one to two: previously we had a hundred thousand against a
hundred and twenty thousand; afterwards little more than fifty thousand
against a hundred thousand. Yet the shrewd and experienced Kutuzov
accepted the battle, while Napoleon, who was said to be a commander
of genius, gave it, losing a quarter of his army and lengthening his lines
of communication still more. If it is said that he expected to end the
campaign by occupying Moscow as he had ended a previous campaign
by occupying Vienna, there is much evidence to the contrary.
Napoleon's historians themselves tell us that from Smolensk onwards
he wished to stop, knew the danger of his extended position, and knew
that the occupation of Moscow would not be the end of the campaign,
for he had seen at Smolensk the state in which Russian towns were left
to him, and had not received a single reply to his repeated
announcements of his wish to negotiate.
In giving and accepting battle at Borodino, Kutuzov acted
involuntarily and irrationally. But later on, to fit what had occurred, the
historians provided cunningly devised evidence of the foresight and
genius of the generals who, of all the blind tools of history were the
most enslaved and involuntary.
The ancients have left us model heroic poems in which the heroes
furnish the whole interest of the story, and we are still unable to
accustom ourselves to the fact that for our epoch histories of that kind
are meaningless.
On the other question, how the battle of Borodino and the preceding
battle of Shevardino were fought, there also exists a definite and well-
known, but quite false, conception. All the historians describe the affair
as follows:
 The Russian army, they say, in its retreat from Smolensk sought out
for itself the best position for a general engagement and found such a
position at Borodino.
The Russians, they say, fortified this position in advance on the left
of the highroad (from Moscow to Smolensk) and almost at a right angle
to it, from Borodino to Utitsa, at the very place where the battle was
fought.
In front of this position, they say, a fortified outpost was set up on
the Shevardino mound to observe the enemy. On the twenty-fourth, we
are told, Napoleon attacked this advanced post and took it, and, on the
twenty-sixth, attacked the whole Russian army, which was in position
on the field of Borodino.
So the histories say, and it is all quite wrong, as anyone who cares to
look into the matter can easily convince himself.
The Russians did not seek out the best position but, on the contrary,
during the retreat passed many positions better than Borodino. They did
not stop at any one of these positions because Kutuzov did not wish to
occupy a position he had not himself chosen, because the popular
demand for a battle had not yet expressed itself strongly enough, and
because Miloradovich had not yet arrived with the militia, and for
many other reasons. The fact is that other positions they had passed
were stronger, and that the position at Borodino (the one where the
battle was fought), far from being strong, was no more a position than
any other spot one might find in the Russian Empire by sticking a pin
into the map at hazard.
Not only did the Russians not fortify the position on the field of
Borodino to the left of, and at a right angle to, the highroad (that is, the
position on which the battle took place), but never till the twenty-fifth
of August, 1812, did they think that a battle might be fought there. This
was shown first by the fact that there were no entrenchments there by
the twenty fifth and that those begun on the twenty-fifth and twenty-
sixth were not completed, and secondly, by the position of the
Shevardino Redoubt. That redoubt was quite senseless in front of the
position where the battle was accepted. Why was it more strongly
fortified than any other post? And why were all efforts exhausted and
six thousand men sacrificed to defend it till late at night on the twenty-
fourth? A Cossack patrol would have sufficed to observe the enemy.
Thirdly, as proof that the position on which the battle was fought had
not been foreseen and that the Shevardino Redoubt was not an
advanced post of that position, we have the fact that up to the twenty-
fifth, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration were convinced that the
Shevardino Redoubt was the left flank of the position, and that Kutuzov
himself in his report, written in hot haste after the battle, speaks of the
Shevardino Redoubt as the left flank of the position. It was much later,
when reports on the battle of Borodino were written at leisure, that the
incorrect and extraordinary statement was invented (probably to justify
the mistakes of a commander in chief who had to be represented as
infallible) that the Shevardino Redoubt was an advanced post—
whereas in reality it was simply a fortified point on the left flank—and
that the battle of Borodino was fought by us on an entrenched position
previously selected, where as it was fought on a quite unexpected spot
which was almost unentrenched.
The case was evidently this: a position was selected along the river
Kolocha—which crosses the highroad not at a right angle but at an
acute angle—so that the left flank was at Shevardino, the right flank
near the village of Novoe, and the center at Borodino at the confluence
of the rivers Kolocha and Voyna.
To anyone who looks at the field of Borodino without thinking of
how the battle was actually fought, this position, protected by the river
Kolocha, presents itself as obvious for an army whose object was to
prevent an enemy from advancing along the Smolensk road to Moscow.
Napoleon, riding to Valuevo on the twenty-fourth, did not see (as the
history books say he did) the position of the Russians from Utitsa to
Borodino (he could not have seen that position because it did not exist),
nor did he see an advanced post of the Russian army, but while
pursuing the Russian rearguard he came upon the left flank of the
Russian position—at the Shevardino Redoubt—and unexpectedly for
the Russians moved his army across the Kolocha. And the Russians,
not having time to begin a general engagement, withdrew their left
wing from the position they had intended to occupy and took up a new
position which had not been foreseen and was not fortified. By crossing
to the other side of the Kolocha to the left of the highroad, Napoleon
shifted the whole forthcoming battle from right to left (looking from the
Russian side) and transferred it to the plain between Utitsa, Semenovsk,
and Borodino—a plain no more advantageous as a position than any
other plain in Russia—and there the whole battle of the twenty-sixth of
August took place.
Had Napoleon not ridden out on the evening of the twenty-fourth to
the Kolocha, and had he not then ordered an immediate attack on the
redoubt but had begun the attack next morning, no one would have
doubted that the Shevardino Redoubt was the left flank of our position,
and the battle would have taken place where we expected it. In that
case we should probably have defended the Shevardino Redoubt—our
left flank—still more obstinately. We should have attacked Napoleon in
the center or on the right, and the engagement would have taken place
on the twenty-fifth, in the position we intended and had fortified. But as
the attack on our left flank took place in the evening after the retreat of
our rear guard (that is, immediately after the fight at Gridneva), and as
the Russian commanders did not wish, or were not in time, to begin a
general engagement then on the evening of the twenty-fourth, the first
and chief action of the battle of Borodino was already lost on the
twenty-fourth, and obviously led to the loss of the one fought on the
twenty-sixth.
After the loss of the Shevardino Redoubt, we found ourselves on the
morning of the twenty-fifth without a position for our left flank, and
were forced to bend it back and hastily entrench it where it chanced to
be.
Not only was the Russian army on the twenty-sixth defended by
weak, unfinished entrenchments, but the disadvantage of that position
was increased by the fact that the Russian commanders—not having
fully realized what had happened, namely the loss of our position on
the left flank and the shifting of the whole field of the forthcoming
battle from right to left—maintained their extended position from the
village of Novoe to Utitsa, and consequently had to move their forces
from right to left during the battle. So it happened that throughout the
whole battle the Russians opposed the entire French army launched
against our left flank with but half as many men. (Poniatowski's action
against Utitsa, and Uvarov's on the right flank against the French, were
actions distinct from the main course of the battle.) So the battle of
Borodino did not take place at all as (in an effort to conceal our
commanders' mistakes even at the cost of diminishing the glory due to
the Russian army and people) it has been described. The battle of
Borodino was not fought on a chosen and entrenched position with
forces only slightly weaker than those of the enemy, but, as a result of
the loss of the Shevardino Redoubt, the Russians fought the battle of
Borodino on an open and almost unentrenched position, with forces
only half as numerous as the French; that is to say, under conditions in
which it was not merely unthinkable to fight for ten hours and secure an
indecisive result, but unthinkable to keep an army even from complete
disintegration and flight.

CHAPTER XX
On the morning of the twenty-fifth Pierre was leaving Mozhaysk. At
the descent of the high steep hill, down which a winding road led out of
the town past the cathedral on the right, where a service was being held
and the bells were ringing, Pierre got out of his vehicle and proceeded
on foot. Behind him a cavalry regiment was coming down the hill
preceded by its singers. Coming up toward him was a train of carts
carrying men who had been wounded in the engagement the day
before. The peasant drivers, shouting and lashing their horses, kept
crossing from side to side. The carts, in each of which three or four
wounded soldiers were lying or sitting, jolted over the stones that had
been thrown on the steep incline to make it something like a road. The
wounded, bandaged with rags, with pale cheeks, compressed lips, and
knitted brows, held on to the sides of the carts as they were jolted
against one another. Almost all of them stared with naive, childlike
curiosity at Pierre's white hat and green swallow-tail coat.
Pierre's coachman shouted angrily at the convoy of wounded to keep
to one side of the road. The cavalry regiment, as it descended the hill
with its singers, surrounded Pierre's carriage and blocked the road.
Pierre stopped, being pressed against the side of the cutting in which
the road ran. The sunshine from behind the hill did not penetrate into
the cutting and there it was cold and damp, but above Pierre's head was
the bright August sunshine and the bells sounded merrily. One of the
carts with wounded stopped by the side of the road close to Pierre. The
driver in his bast shoes ran panting up to it, placed a stone under one of
its tireless hind wheels, and began arranging the breech-band on his
little horse.
One of the wounded, an old soldier with a bandaged arm who was
following the cart on foot, caught hold of it with his sound hand and
turned to look at Pierre.
"I say, fellow countryman! Will they set us down here or take us on
to Moscow?" he asked.
Pierre was so deep in thought that he did not hear the question. He
was looking now at the cavalry regiment that had met the convoy of
wounded, now at the cart by which he was standing, in which two
wounded men were sitting and one was lying. One of those sitting up in
the cart had probably been wounded in the cheek. His whole head was
wrapped in rags and one cheek was swollen to the size of a baby's head.
His nose and mouth were twisted to one side. This soldier was looking
at the cathedral and crossing himself. Another, a young lad, a fair-
haired recruit as white as though there was no blood in his thin face,
looked at Pierre kindly, with a fixed smile. The third lay prone so that
his face was not visible. The cavalry singers were passing close by:

Ah lost, quite lost... is my head so keen,

Living in a foreign land.

they sang their soldiers' dance song.

 As if responding to them but with a different sort of merriment, the
metallic sound of the bells reverberated high above and the hot rays of
the sun bathed the top of the opposite slope with yet another sort of
merriment. But beneath the slope, by the cart with the wounded near
the panting little nag where Pierre stood, it was damp, somber, and sad.
The soldier with the swollen cheek looked angrily at the cavalry
singers.
"Oh, the coxcombs!" he muttered reproachfully.
"It's not the soldiers only, but I've seen peasants today, too.... The
peasants—even they have to go," said the soldier behind the cart,
addressing Pierre with a sad smile. "No distinctions made nowadays....
They want the whole nation to fall on them—in a word, it's Moscow!
They want to make an end of it."
In spite of the obscurity of the soldier's words Pierre understood
what he wanted to say and nodded approval.
The road was clear again; Pierre descended the hill and drove on.
He kept looking to either side of the road for familiar faces, but only
saw everywhere the unfamiliar faces of various military men of
different branches of the service, who all looked with astonishment at
his white hat and green tail coat.
Having gone nearly three miles he at last met an acquaintance and
eagerly addressed him. This was one of the head army doctors. He was
driving toward Pierre in a covered gig, sitting beside a young surgeon,
and on recognizing Pierre he told the Cossack who occupied the
driver's seat to pull up.
"Count! Your excellency, how come you to be here?" asked the
doctor.
"Well, you know, I wanted to see..."
"Yes, yes, there will be something to see...."
Pierre got out and talked to the doctor, explaining his intention of
taking part in a battle.
The doctor advised him to apply direct to Kutuzov.
"Why should you be God knows where out of sight, during the
battle?" he said, exchanging glances with his young companion.
"Anyhow his Serene Highness knows you and will receive you
graciously. That's what you must do."
The doctor seemed tired and in a hurry.
 "You think so?... Ah, I also wanted to ask you where our position is
exactly?" said Pierre.
"The position?" repeated the doctor. "Well, that's not my line. Drive
past Tatarinova, a lot of digging is going on there. Go up the hillock
and you'll see."
"Can one see from there?... If you would..."
But the doctor interrupted him and moved toward his gig.
"I would go with you but on my honor I'm up to here"—and he
pointed to his throat. "I'm galloping to the commander of the corps.
How do matters stand?... You know, Count, there'll be a battle
tomorrow. Out of an army of a hundred thousand we must expect at
least twenty thousand wounded, and we haven't stretchers, or bunks, or
dressers, or doctors enough for six thousand. We have ten thousand
carts, but we need other things as well—we must manage as best we
can!"
The strange thought that of the thousands of men, young and old,
who had stared with merry surprise at his hat (perhaps the very men he
had noticed), twenty thousand were inevitably doomed to wounds and
death amazed Pierre.
"They may die tomorrow; why are they thinking of anything but
death?" And by some latent sequence of thought the descent of the
Mozhaysk hill, the carts with the wounded, the ringing bells, the
slanting rays of the sun, and the songs of the cavalrymen vividly
recurred to his mind.
"The cavalry ride to battle and meet the wounded and do not for a
moment think of what awaits them, but pass by, winking at the
wounded. Yet from among these men twenty thousand are doomed to
die, and they wonder at my hat! Strange!" thought Pierre, continuing
his way to Tatarinova.
In front of a landowner's house to the left of the road stood carriages,
wagons, and crowds of orderlies and sentinels. The commander in chief
was putting up there, but just when Pierre arrived he was not in and
hardly any of the staff were there—they had gone to the church service.
Pierre drove on toward Gorki.
When he had ascended the hill and reached the little village street, he
saw for the first time peasant militiamen in their white shirts and with
crosses on their caps, who, talking and laughing loudly, animated and
perspiring, were at work on a huge knoll overgrown with grass to the
right of the road.
 Some of them were digging, others were wheeling barrowloads of
earth along planks, while others stood about doing nothing.
Two officers were standing on the knoll, directing the men. On
seeing these peasants, who were evidently still amused by the novelty
of their position as soldiers, Pierre once more thought of the wounded
men at Mozhaysk and understood what the soldier had meant when he
said: "They want the whole nation to fall on them." The sight of these
bearded peasants at work on the battlefield, with their queer, clumsy
boots and perspiring necks, and their shirts opening from the left
toward the middle, unfastened, exposing their sunburned collarbones,
impressed Pierre more strongly with the solemnity and importance of
the moment than anything he had yet seen or heard.

CHAPTER XXI
Pierre stepped out of his carriage and, passing the toiling militiamen,
ascended the knoll from which, according to the doctor, the battlefield
could be seen.
It was about eleven o'clock. The sun shone somewhat to the left and
behind him and brightly lit up the enormous panorama which, rising
like an amphitheater, extended before him in the clear rarefied
atmosphere.
From above on the left, bisecting that amphitheater, wound the
Smolensk highroad, passing through a village with a white church
some five hundred paces in front of the knoll and below it. This was
Borodino. Below the village the road crossed the river by a bridge and,
winding down and up, rose higher and higher to the village of Valuevo
visible about four miles away, where Napoleon was then stationed.
Beyond Valuevo the road disappeared into a yellowing forest on the
horizon. Far in the distance in that birch and fir forest to the right of the
road, the cross and belfry of the Kolocha Monastery gleamed in the
sun. Here and there over the whole of that blue expanse, to right and
left of the forest and the road, smoking campfires could be seen and
indefinite masses of troops—ours and the enemy's. The ground to the
right—along the course of the Kolocha and Moskva rivers—was
broken and hilly. Between the hollows the villages of Bezubova and
Zakharino showed in the distance. On the left the ground was more
level; there were fields of grain, and the smoking ruins of Semenovsk,
which had been burned down, could be seen.
 All that Pierre saw was so indefinite that neither the left nor the right
side of the field fully satisfied his expectations. Nowhere could he see
the battlefield he had expected to find, but only fields, meadows,
troops, woods, the smoke of campfires, villages, mounds, and streams;
and try as he would he could descry no military "position" in this place
which teemed with life, nor could he even distinguish our troops from
the enemy's.
"I must ask someone who knows," he thought, and addressed an
officer who was looking with curiosity at his huge unmilitary figure.
"May I ask you," said Pierre, "what village that is in front?"
"Burdino, isn't it?" said the officer, turning to his companion.
"Borodino," the other corrected him.
The officer, evidently glad of an opportunity for a talk, moved up to
Pierre.
"Are those our men there?" Pierre inquired.
"Yes, and there, further on, are the French," said the officer. "There
they are, there... you can see them."
"Where? Where?" asked Pierre.
"One can see them with the naked eye... Why, there!"
The officer pointed with his hand to the smoke visible on the left
beyond the river, and the same stern and serious expression that Pierre
had noticed on many of the faces he had met came into his face.
"Ah, those are the French! And over there?..." Pierre pointed to a
knoll on the left, near which some troops could be seen.
"Those are ours."
"Ah, ours! And there?..." Pierre pointed to another knoll in the
distance with a big tree on it, near a village that lay in a hollow where
also some campfires were smoking and something black was visible.
"That's his again," said the officer. (It was the Shevardino Redoubt.)
"It was ours yesterday, but now it is his."
"Then how about our position?"
"Our position?" replied the officer with a smile of satisfaction. "I can
tell you quite clearly, because I constructed nearly all our
entrenchments. There, you see? There's our center, at Borodino, just
there," and he pointed to the village in front of them with the white
church. "That's where one crosses the Kolocha. You see down there
where the rows of hay are lying in the hollow, there's the bridge. That's
our center. Our right flank is over there"—he pointed sharply to the
right, far away in the broken ground—"That's where the Moskva River
is, and we have thrown up three redoubts there, very strong ones. The
left flank..." here the officer paused. "Well, you see, that's difficult to
explain.... Yesterday our left flank was there at Shevardino, you see,
where the oak is, but now we have withdrawn our left wing—now it is
over there, do you see that village and the smoke? That's Semenovsk,
yes, there," he pointed to Raevski's knoll. "But the battle will hardly be
there. His having moved his troops there is only a ruse; he will
probably pass round to the right of the Moskva. But wherever it may
be, many a man will be missing tomorrow!" he remarked.
An elderly sergeant who had approached the officer while he was
giving these explanations had waited in silence for him to finish
speaking, but at this point, evidently not liking the officer's remark,
interrupted him.
"Gabions must be sent for," said he sternly.
The officer appeared abashed, as though he understood that one
might think of how many men would be missing tomorrow but ought
not to speak of it.
"Well, send number three company again," the officer replied
hurriedly.
"And you, are you one of the doctors?"
"No, I've come on my own," answered Pierre, and he went down the
hill again, passing the militiamen.
"Oh, those damned fellows!" muttered the officer who followed him,
holding his nose as he ran past the men at work.
"There they are... bringing her, coming... There they are... They'll be
here in a minute..." voices were suddenly heard saying; and officers,
soldiers, and militiamen began running forward along the road.
A church procession was coming up the hill from Borodino. First
along the dusty road came the infantry in ranks, bareheaded and with
arms reversed. From behind them came the sound of church singing.
Soldiers and militiamen ran bareheaded past Pierre toward the
procession.
"They are bringing her, our Protectress!... The Iberian Mother of
God!" someone cried.
"The Smolensk Mother of God," another corrected him.
 The militiamen, both those who had been in the village and those
who had been at work on the battery, threw down their spades and ran
to meet the church procession. Following the battalion that marched
along the dusty road came priests in their vestments—one little old man
in a hood with attendants and singers. Behind them soldiers and
officers bore a large, dark-faced icon with an embossed metal cover.
This was the icon that had been brought from Smolensk and had since
accompanied the army. Behind, before, and on both sides, crowds of
militiamen with bared heads walked, ran, and bowed to the ground.
At the summit of the hill they stopped with the icon; the men who
had been holding it up by the linen bands attached to it were relieved
by others, the chanters relit their censers, and service began. The hot
rays of the sun beat down vertically and a fresh soft wind played with
the hair of the bared heads and with the ribbons decorating the icon.
The singing did not sound loud under the open sky. An immense crowd
of bareheaded officers, soldiers, and militiamen surrounded the icon.
Behind the priest and a chanter stood the notabilities on a spot reserved
for them. A bald general with a St. George's Cross on his neck stood
just behind the priest's back, and without crossing himself (he was
evidently a German) patiently awaited the end of the service, which he
considered it necessary to hear to the end, probably to arouse the
patriotism of the Russian people. Another general stood in a martial
pose, crossing himself by shaking his hand in front of his chest while
looking about him. Standing among the crowd of peasants, Pierre
recognized several acquaintances among these notables, but did not
look at them—his whole attention was absorbed in watching the serious
expression on the faces of the crowd of soldiers and militiamen who
were all gazing eagerly at the icon. As soon as the tired chanters, who
were singing the service for the twentieth time that day, began lazily
and mechanically to sing: "Save from calamity Thy servants, O Mother
of God," and the priest and deacon chimed in: "For to Thee under God
we all flee as to an inviolable bulwark and protection," there again
kindled in all those faces the same expression of consciousness of the
solemnity of the impending moment that Pierre had seen on the faces at
the foot of the hill at Mozhaysk and momentarily on many and many
faces he had met that morning; and heads were bowed more frequently
and hair tossed back, and sighs and the sound men made as they
crossed themselves were heard.
The crowd round the icon suddenly parted and pressed against
Pierre. Someone, a very important personage judging by the haste with
which way was made for him, was approaching the icon.
It was Kutuzov, who had been riding round the position and on his
way back to Tatarinova had stopped where the service was being held.
Pierre recognized him at once by his peculiar figure, which
distinguished him from everybody else.
 With a long overcoat on his exceedingly stout, round-shouldered
body, with uncovered white head and puffy face showing the white ball
of the eye he had lost, Kutuzov walked with plunging, swaying gait
into the crowd and stopped behind the priest. He crossed himself with
an accustomed movement, bent till he touched the ground with his
hand, and bowed his white head with a deep sigh. Behind Kutuzov was
Bennigsen and the suite. Despite the presence of the commander in
chief, who attracted the attention of all the superior officers, the
militiamen and soldiers continued their prayers without looking at him.
When the service was over, Kutuzov stepped up to the icon, sank
heavily to his knees, bowed to the ground, and for a long time tried
vainly to rise, but could not do so on account of his weakness and
weight. His white head twitched with the effort. At last he rose, kissed
the icon as a child does with naively pouting lips, and again bowed till
he touched the ground with his hand. The other generals followed his
example, then the officers, and after them with excited faces, pressing
on one another, crowding, panting, and pushing, scrambled the soldiers
and militiamen.

CHAPTER XXII
Staggering amid the crush, Pierre looked about him.
"Count Peter Kirilovich! How did you get here?" said a voice.
Pierre looked round. Boris Drubetskoy, brushing his knees with his
hand (he had probably soiled them when he, too, had knelt before the
icon), came up to him smiling. Boris was elegantly dressed, with a
slightly martial touch appropriate to a campaign. He wore a long coat
and like Kutuzov had a whip slung across his shoulder.
Meanwhile Kutuzov had reached the village and seated himself in
the shade of the nearest house, on a bench which one Cossack had run
to fetch and another had hastily covered with a rug. An immense and
brilliant suite surrounded him.
The icon was carried further, accompanied by the throng. Pierre
stopped some thirty paces from Kutuzov, talking to Boris.
He explained his wish to be present at the battle and to see the
position.
"This is what you must do," said Boris. "I will do the honors of the
camp to you. You will see everything best from where Count
Bennigsen will be. I am in attendance on him, you know; I'll mention it
to him. But if you want to ride round the position, come along with us.
We are just going to the left flank. Then when we get back, do spend
the night with me and we'll arrange a game of cards. Of course you
know Dmitri Sergeevich? Those are his quarters," and he pointed to the
third house in the village of Gorki.
"But I should like to see the right flank. They say it's very strong,"
said Pierre. "I should like to start from the Moskva River and ride
round the whole position."
"Well, you can do that later, but the chief thing is the left flank."
"Yes, yes. But where is Prince Bolkonski's regiment? Can you point
it out to me?"
"Prince Andrew's? We shall pass it and I'll take you to him."
"What about the left flank?" asked Pierre
"To tell you the truth, between ourselves, God only knows what state
our left flank is in," said Boris confidentially lowering his voice. "It is
not at all what Count Bennigsen intended. He meant to fortify that knoll
quite differently, but..." Boris shrugged his shoulders, "his Serene
Highness would not have it, or someone persuaded him. You see..." but
Boris did not finish, for at that moment Kaysarov, Kutuzov's adjutant,
came up to Pierre. "Ah, Kaysarov!" said Boris, addressing him with an
unembarrassed smile, "I was just trying to explain our position to the
count. It is amazing how his Serene Highness could so foresee the
intentions of the French!"
"You mean the left flank?" asked Kaysarov.
"Yes, exactly; the left flank is now extremely strong."
Though Kutuzov had dismissed all unnecessary men from the staff,
Boris had contrived to remain at headquarters after the changes. He had
established himself with Count Bennigsen, who, like all on whom Boris
had been in attendance, considered young Prince Drubetskoy an
invaluable man.
In the higher command there were two sharply defined parties:
Kutuzov's party and that of Bennigsen, the chief of staff. Boris
belonged to the latter and no one else, while showing servile respect to
Kutuzov, could so create an impression that the old fellow was not
much good and that Bennigsen managed everything. Now the decisive
moment of battle had come when Kutuzov would be destroyed and the
power pass to Bennigsen, or even if Kutuzov won the battle it would be
felt that everything was done by Bennigsen. In any case many great
rewards would have to be given for tomorrow's action, and new men
would come to the front. So Boris was full of nervous vivacity all day.
After Kaysarov, others whom Pierre knew came up to him, and he
had not time to reply to all the questions about Moscow that were
showered upon him, or to listen to all that was told him. The faces all
expressed animation and apprehension, but it seemed to Pierre that the
cause of the excitement shown in some of these faces lay chiefly in
questions of personal success; his mind, however, was occupied by the
different expression he saw on other faces—an expression that spoke
not of personal matters but of the universal questions of life and death.
Kutuzov noticed Pierre's figure and the group gathered round him.
"Call him to me," said Kutuzov.
An adjutant told Pierre of his Serene Highness' wish, and Pierre went
toward Kutuzov's bench. But a militiaman got there before him. It was
Dolokhov.
"How did that fellow get here?" asked Pierre.
"He's a creature that wriggles in anywhere!" was the answer. "He has
been degraded, you know. Now he wants to bob up again. He's been
proposing some scheme or other and has crawled into the enemy's
picket line at night.... He's a brave fellow."
Pierre took off his hat and bowed respectfully to Kutuzov.
"I concluded that if I reported to your Serene Highness you might
send me away or say that you knew what I was reporting, but then I
shouldn't lose anything..." Dolokhov was saying.
"Yes, yes."
"But if I were right, I should be rendering a service to my Fatherland
for which I am ready to die."
"Yes, yes."
"And should your Serene Highness require a man who will not spare
his skin, please think of me.... Perhaps I may prove useful to your
Serene Highness."
"Yes... Yes..." Kutuzov repeated, his laughing eye narrowing more
and more as he looked at Pierre.
Just then Boris, with his courtierlike adroitness, stepped up to
Pierre's side near Kutuzov and in a most natural manner, without
raising his voice, said to Pierre, as though continuing an interrupted
conversation:
 "The militia have put on clean white shirts to be ready to die. What
heroism, Count!"
Boris evidently said this to Pierre in order to be overheard by his
Serene Highness. He knew Kutuzov's attention would be caught by
those words, and so it was.
"What are you saying about the militia?" he asked Boris.
"Preparing for tomorrow, your Serene Highness—for death—they
have put on clean shirts."
"Ah... a wonderful, a matchless people!" said Kutuzov; and he closed
his eyes and swayed his head. "A matchless people!" he repeated with a
sigh.
"So you want to smell gunpowder?" he said to Pierre. "Yes, it's a
pleasant smell. I have the honor to be one of your wife's adorers. Is she
well? My quarters are at your service."
And as often happens with old people, Kutuzov began looking about
absent-mindedly as if forgetting all he wanted to say or do.
Then, evidently remembering what he wanted, he beckoned to
Andrew Kaysarov, his adjutant's brother.
"Those verses... those verses of Marin's... how do they go, eh? Those
he wrote about Gerakov: 'Lectures for the corps inditing'... Recite them,
recite them!" said he, evidently preparing to laugh.
Kaysarov recited.... Kutuzov smilingly nodded his head to the
rhythm of the verses.
When Pierre had left Kutuzov, Dolokhov came up to him and took
his hand.
"I am very glad to meet you here, Count," he said aloud, regardless
of the presence of strangers and in a particularly resolute and solemn
tone. "On the eve of a day when God alone knows who of us is fated to
survive, I am glad of this opportunity to tell you that I regret the
misunderstandings that occurred between us and should wish you not to
have any ill feeling for me. I beg you to forgive me."
Pierre looked at Dolokhov with a smile, not knowing what to say to
him. With tears in his eyes Dolokhov embraced Pierre and kissed him.
Boris said a few words to his general, and Count Bennigsen turned to
Pierre and proposed that he should ride with him along the line.
"It will interest you," said he.
"Yes, very much," replied Pierre.
 Half an hour later Kutuzov left for Tatarinova, and Bennigsen and
his suite, with Pierre among them, set out on their ride along the line.

CHAPTER XXIII
From Gorki, Bennigsen descended the highroad to the bridge which,
when they had looked at it from the hill, the officer had pointed out as
being the center of our position and where rows of fragrant new-mown
hay lay by the riverside. They rode across that bridge into the village of
Borodino and thence turned to the left, passing an enormous number of
troops and guns, and came to a high knoll where militiamen were
digging. This was the redoubt, as yet unnamed, which afterwards
became known as the Raevski Redoubt, or the Knoll Battery, but Pierre
paid no special attention to it. He did not know that it would become
more memorable to him than any other spot on the plain of Borodino.
They then crossed the hollow to Semenovsk, where the soldiers were
dragging away the last logs from the huts and barns. Then they rode
downhill and uphill, across a ryefield trodden and beaten down as if by
hail, following a track freshly made by the artillery over the furrows of
the plowed land, and reached some fleches * which were still being
dug.

* A kind of entrenchment.

At the fleches Bennigsen stopped and began looking at the

Shevardino Redoubt opposite, which had been ours the day before and
where several horsemen could be descried. The officers said that either
Napoleon or Murat was there, and they all gazed eagerly at this little
group of horsemen. Pierre also looked at them, trying to guess which of
the scarcely discernible figures was Napoleon. At last those mounted
men rode away from the mound and disappeared.
Bennigsen spoke to a general who approached him, and began
explaining the whole position of our troops. Pierre listened to him,
straining each faculty to understand the essential points of the
impending battle, but was mortified to feel that his mental capacity was
inadequate for the task. He could make nothing of it. Bennigsen
stopped speaking and, noticing that Pierre was listening, suddenly said
to him:
"I don't think this interests you?"
 "On the contrary it's very interesting!" replied Pierre not quite
truthfully.
From the fleches they rode still farther to the left, along a road
winding through a thick, low-growing birch wood. In the middle of the
wood a brown hare with white feet sprang out and, scared by the tramp
of the many horses, grew so confused that it leaped along the road in
front of them for some time, arousing general attention and laughter,
and only when several voices shouted at it did it dart to one side and
disappear in the thicket. After going through the wood for about a mile
and a half they came out on a glade where troops of Tuchkov's corps
were stationed to defend the left flank.
Here, at the extreme left flank, Bennigsen talked a great deal and
with much heat, and, as it seemed to Pierre, gave orders of great
military importance. In front of Tuchkov's troops was some high
ground not occupied by troops. Bennigsen loudly criticized this
mistake, saying that it was madness to leave a height which
commanded the country around unoccupied and to place troops below
it. Some of the generals expressed the same opinion. One in particular
declared with martial heat that they were put there to be slaughtered.
Bennigsen on his own authority ordered the troops to occupy the high
ground. This disposition on the left flank increased Pierre's doubt of his
own capacity to understand military matters. Listening to Bennigsen
and the generals criticizing the position of the troops behind the hill, he
quite understood them and shared their opinion, but for that very reason
he could not understand how the man who put them there behind the
hill could have made so gross and palpable a blunder.
Pierre did not know that these troops were not, as Bennigsen
supposed, put there to defend the position, but were in a concealed
position as an ambush, that they should not be seen and might be able
to strike an approaching enemy unexpectedly. Bennigsen did not know
this and moved the troops forward according to his own ideas without
mentioning the matter to the commander in chief.

CHAPTER XXIV
On that bright evening of August 25, Prince Andrew lay leaning on
his elbow in a broken-down shed in the village of Knyazkovo at the
further end of his regiment's encampment. Through a gap in the broken
wall he could see, beside the wooden fence, a row of thirty year-old
birches with their lower branches lopped off, a field on which shocks of
oats were standing, and some bushes near which rose the smoke of
campfires—the soldiers' kitchens.
Narrow and burdensome and useless to anyone as his life now
seemed to him, Prince Andrew on the eve of battle felt agitated and
irritable as he had done seven years before at Austerlitz.
He had received and given the orders for next day's battle and had
nothing more to do. But his thoughts—the simplest, clearest, and
therefore most terrible thoughts—would give him no peace. He knew
that tomorrow's battle would be the most terrible of all he had taken
part in, and for the first time in his life the possibility of death presented
itself to him—not in relation to any worldly matter or with reference to
its effect on others, but simply in relation to himself, to his own soul—
vividly, plainly, terribly, and almost as a certainty. And from the height
of this perception all that had previously tormented and preoccupied
him suddenly became illumined by a cold white light without shadows,
without perspective, without distinction of outline. All life appeared to
him like magic-lantern pictures at which he had long been gazing by
artificial light through a glass. Now he suddenly saw those badly
daubed pictures in clear daylight and without a glass. "Yes, yes! There
they are, those false images that agitated, enraptured, and tormented
me," said he to himself, passing in review the principal pictures of the
magic lantern of life and regarding them now in the cold white daylight
of his clear perception of death. "There they are, those rudely painted
figures that once seemed splendid and mysterious. Glory, the good of
society, love of a woman, the Fatherland itself—how important these
pictures appeared to me, with what profound meaning they seemed to
be filled! And it is all so simple, pale, and crude in the cold white light
of this morning which I feel is dawning for me." The three great
sorrows of his life held his attention in particular: his love for a woman,
his father's death, and the French invasion which had overrun half
Russia. "Love... that little girl who seemed to me brimming over with
mystic forces! Yes, indeed, I loved her. I made romantic plans of love
and happiness with her! Oh, what a boy I was!" he said aloud bitterly.
"Ah me! I believed in some ideal love which was to keep her faithful to
me for the whole year of my absence! Like the gentle dove in the fable
she was to pine apart from me.... But it was much simpler really.... It
was all very simple and horrible."
"When my father built Bald Hills he thought the place was his: his
land, his air, his peasants. But Napoleon came and swept him aside,
unconscious of his existence, as he might brush a chip from his path,
and his Bald Hills and his whole life fell to pieces. Princess Mary says
it is a trial sent from above. What is the trial for, when he is not here
and will never return? He is not here! For whom then is the trial
intended? The Fatherland, the destruction of Moscow! And tomorrow I
shall be killed, perhaps not even by a Frenchman but by one of our own
men, by a soldier discharging a musket close to my ear as one of them
did yesterday, and the French will come and take me by head and heels
and fling me into a hole that I may not stink under their noses, and new
conditions of life will arise, which will seem quite ordinary to others
and about which I shall know nothing. I shall not exist..."
He looked at the row of birches shining in the sunshine, with their
motionless green and yellow foliage and white bark. "To die... to be
killed tomorrow... That I should not exist... That all this should still be,
but no me...."
And the birches with their light and shade, the curly clouds, the
smoke of the campfires, and all that was around him changed and
seemed terrible and menacing. A cold shiver ran down his spine. He
rose quickly, went out of the shed, and began to walk about.
After he had returned, voices were heard outside the shed. "Who's
that?" he cried.
The red-nosed Captain Timokhin, formerly Dolokhov's squadron
commander, but now from lack of officers a battalion commander,
shyly entered the shed followed by an adjutant and the regimental
paymaster.
Prince Andrew rose hastily, listened to the business they had come
about, gave them some further instructions, and was about to dismiss
them when he heard a familiar, lisping, voice behind the shed.
"Devil take it!" said the voice of a man stumbling over something.
Prince Andrew looked out of the shed and saw Pierre, who had
tripped over a pole on the ground and had nearly fallen, coming his
way. It was unpleasant to Prince Andrew to meet people of his own set
in general, and Pierre especially, for he reminded him of all the painful
moments of his last visit to Moscow.
"You? What a surprise!" said he. "What brings you here? This is
unexpected!"
As he said this his eyes and face expressed more than coldness—they
expressed hostility, which Pierre noticed at once. He had approached
the shed full of animation, but on seeing Prince Andrew's face he felt
constrained and ill at ease.
"I have come... simply... you know... come... it interests me," said
Pierre, who had so often that day senselessly repeated that word
"interesting." "I wish to see the battle."
"Oh yes, and what do the Masonic brothers say about war? How
would they stop it?" said Prince Andrew sarcastically. "Well, and how's
Moscow? And my people? Have they reached Moscow at last?" he
asked seriously.
"Yes, they have. Julie Drubetskaya told me so. I went to see them,
but missed them. They have gone to your estate near Moscow."

CHAPTER XXV
The officers were about to take leave, but Prince Andrew, apparently
reluctant to be left alone with his friend, asked them to stay and have
tea. Seats were brought in and so was the tea. The officers gazed with
surprise at Pierre's huge stout figure and listened to his talk of Moscow
and the position of our army, round which he had ridden. Prince
Andrew remained silent, and his expression was so forbidding that
Pierre addressed his remarks chiefly to the good-natured battalion
commander.
"So you understand the whole position of our troops?" Prince
Andrew interrupted him.
"Yes—that is, how do you mean?" said Pierre. "Not being a military
man I can't say I have understood it fully, but I understand the general
position."
"Well, then, you know more than anyone else, be it who it may," said
Prince Andrew.
"Oh!" said Pierre, looking over his spectacles in perplexity at Prince
Andrew. "Well, and what do you think of Kutuzov's appointment?" he
asked.
"I was very glad of his appointment, that's all I know," replied Prince
Andrew.
"And tell me your opinion of Barclay de Tolly. In Moscow they are
saying heaven knows what about him.... What do you think of him?"
"Ask them," replied Prince Andrew, indicating the officers.
Pierre looked at Timokhin with the condescendingly interrogative
smile with which everybody involuntarily addressed that officer.
"We see light again, since his Serenity has been appointed, your
excellency," said Timokhin timidly, and continually turning to glance
at his colonel.
 "Why so?" asked Pierre.
"Well, to mention only firewood and fodder, let me inform you.
Why, when we were retreating from Sventsyani we dare not touch a
stick or a wisp of hay or anything. You see, we were going away, so he
would get it all; wasn't it so, your excellency?" and again Timokhin
turned to the prince. "But we daren't. In our regiment two officers were
court-martialed for that kind of thing. But when his Serenity took
command everything became straight forward. Now we see light..."
"Then why was it forbidden?"
Timokhin looked about in confusion, not knowing what or how to
answer such a question. Pierre put the same question to Prince Andrew.
"Why, so as not to lay waste the country we were abandoning to the
enemy," said Prince Andrew with venomous irony. "It is very sound:
one can't permit the land to be pillaged and accustom the troops to
marauding. At Smolensk too he judged correctly that the French might
outflank us, as they had larger forces. But he could not understand
this," cried Prince Andrew in a shrill voice that seemed to escape him
involuntarily: "he could not understand that there, for the first time, we
were fighting for Russian soil, and that there was a spirit in the men
such as I had never seen before, that we had held the French for two
days, and that that success had increased our strength tenfold. He
ordered us to retreat, and all our efforts and losses went for nothing. He
had no thought of betraying us, he tried to do the best he could, he
thought out everything, and that is why he is unsuitable. He is
unsuitable now, just because he plans out everything very thoroughly
and accurately as every German has to. How can I explain?... Well, say
your father has a German valet, and he is a splendid valet and satisfies
your father's requirements better than you could, then it's all right to let
him serve. But if your father is mortally sick you'll send the valet away
and attend to your father with your own unpracticed, awkward hands,
and will soothe him better than a skilled man who is a stranger could.
So it has been with Barclay. While Russia was well, a foreigner could
serve her and be a splendid minister; but as soon as she is in danger she
needs one of her own kin. But in your Club they have been making him
out a traitor! They slander him as a traitor, and the only result will be
that afterwards, ashamed of their false accusations, they will make him
out a hero or a genius instead of a traitor, and that will be still more
unjust. He is an honest and very punctilious German."
"And they say he's a skillful commander," rejoined Pierre.
"I don't understand what is meant by 'a skillful commander,'" replied
Prince Andrew ironically.
 "A skillful commander?" replied Pierre. "Why, one who foresees all
contingencies... and foresees the adversary's intentions."
"But that's impossible," said Prince Andrew as if it were a matter
settled long ago.
Pierre looked at him in surprise.
"And yet they say that war is like a game of chess?" he remarked.
"Yes," replied Prince Andrew, "but with this little difference, that in
chess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not
limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always
stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one,
while in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and
sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of
troops can never be known to anyone. Believe me," he went on, "if
things depended on arrangements made by the staff, I should be there
making arrangements, but instead of that I have the honor to serve here
in the regiment with these gentlemen, and I consider that on us
tomorrow's battle will depend and not on those others.... Success never
depends, and never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even on
numbers, and least of all on position."
"But on what then?"
"On the feeling that is in me and in him," he pointed to Timokhin,
"and in each soldier."
Prince Andrew glanced at Timokhin, who looked at his commander
in alarm and bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnity
Prince Andrew now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain
from expressing the thoughts that had suddenly occurred to him.
"A battle is won by those who firmly resolve to win it! Why did we
lose the battle at Austerlitz? The French losses were almost equal to
ours, but very early we said to ourselves that we were losing the battle,
and we did lose it. And we said so because we had nothing to fight for
there, we wanted to get away from the battlefield as soon as we could.
'We've lost, so let us run,' and we ran. If we had not said that till the
evening, heaven knows what might not have happened. But tomorrow
we shan't say it! You talk about our position, the left flank weak and
the right flank too extended," he went on. "That's all nonsense, there's
nothing of the kind. But what awaits us tomorrow? A hundred million
most diverse chances which will be decided on the instant by the fact
that our men or theirs run or do not run, and that this man or that man is
killed, but all that is being done at present is only play. The fact is that
those men with whom you have ridden round the position not only do
not help matters, but hinder. They are only concerned with their own
petty interests."
"At such a moment?" said Pierre reproachfully.
"At such a moment!" Prince Andrew repeated. "To them it is only a
moment affording opportunities to undermine a rival and obtain an
extra cross or ribbon. For me tomorrow means this: a Russian army of a
hundred thousand and a French army of a hundred thousand have met
to fight, and the thing is that these two hundred thousand men will fight
and the side that fights more fiercely and spares itself least will win.
And if you like I will tell you that whatever happens and whatever
muddles those at the top may make, we shall win tomorrow's battle.
Tomorrow, happen what may, we shall win!"
"There now, your excellency! That's the truth, the real truth," said
Timokhin. "Who would spare himself now? The soldiers in my
battalion, believe me, wouldn't drink their vodka! 'It's not the day for
that!' they say."
All were silent. The officers rose. Prince Andrew went out of the
shed with them, giving final orders to the adjutant. After they had gone
Pierre approached Prince Andrew and was about to start a conversation
when they heard the clatter of three horses' hoofs on the road not far
from the shed, and looking in that direction Prince Andrew recognized
Wolzogen and Clausewitz accompanied by a Cossack. They rode close
by continuing to converse, and Prince Andrew involuntarily heard these
words:
"Der Krieg muss in Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich
nicht genug Preis geben," * said one of them.

* "The war must be extended widely. I cannot

sufficiently
commend that view."

"Oh, ja," said the other, "der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwachen,
so kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privat-Personen in Achtung
nehmen." *

* "Oh, yes, the only aim is to weaken the

enemy, so of
course one cannot take into account the loss of
private
individuals."

"Oh, no," agreed the other.

 "Extend widely!" said Prince Andrew with an angry snort, when they
had ridden past. "In that 'extend' were my father, son, and sister, at Bald
Hills. That's all the same to him! That's what I was saying to you—
those German gentlemen won't win the battle tomorrow but will only
make all the mess they can, because they have nothing in their German
heads but theories not worth an empty eggshell and haven't in their
hearts the one thing needed tomorrow—that which Timokhin has. They
have yielded up all Europe to him, and have now come to teach us.
Fine teachers!" and again his voice grew shrill.
"So you think we shall win tomorrow's battle?" asked Pierre.
"Yes, yes," answered Prince Andrew absently. "One thing I would
do if I had the power," he began again, "I would not take prisoners.
Why take prisoners? It's chivalry! The French have destroyed my home
and are on their way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and are
outraging me every moment. They are my enemies. In my opinion they
are all criminals. And so thinks Timokhin and the whole army. They
should be executed! Since they are my foes they cannot be my friends,
whatever may have been said at Tilsit."
"Yes, yes," muttered Pierre, looking with shining eyes at Prince
Andrew. "I quite agree with you!"
The question that had perturbed Pierre on the Mozhaysk hill and all
that day now seemed to him quite clear and completely solved. He now
understood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of the
impending battle. All he had seen that day, all the significant and stern
expressions on the faces he had seen in passing, were lit up for him by
a new light. He understood that latent heat (as they say in physics) of
patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen, and this
explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly, and as it were
lightheartedly.
"Not take prisoners," Prince Andrew continued: "That by itself
would quite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we
have played at war—that's what's vile! We play at magnanimity and all
that stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity
and sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed:
she is so kindhearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eating the
calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of
chivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It's all
rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged us
and we humbugged them. They plunder other people's houses, issue
false paper money, and worst of all they kill my children and my father,
and then talk of rules of war and magnanimity to foes! Take no
prisoners, but kill and be killed! He who has come to this as I have
through the same sufferings..."
 Prince Andrew, who had thought it was all the same to him whether
or not Moscow was taken as Smolensk had been, was suddenly
checked in his speech by an unexpected cramp in his throat. He paced
up and down a few times in silence, but his eyes glittered feverishly
and his lips quivered as he began speaking.
"If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to war
only when it was worth while going to certain death, as now. Then
there would not be war because Paul Ivanovich had offended Michael
Ivanovich. And when there was a war, like this one, it would be war!
And then the determination of the troops would be quite different. Then
all these Westphalians and Hessians whom Napoleon is leading would
not follow him into Russia, and we should not go to fight in Austria
and Prussia without knowing why. War is not courtesy but the most
horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that and not play at
war. We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It
all lies in that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game.
As it is now, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous. The
military calling is the most highly honored.
"But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are
the habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of
war are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a
country's inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army,
and fraud and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the
military class are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness,
ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all
this it is the highest class, respected by everyone. All the kings, except
the Chinese, wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people
receives the highest rewards.
"They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they
kill and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services
for having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number),
and they announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have
killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them
and hear them?" exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice.
"Ah, my friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I
have begun to understand too much. And it doesn't do for man to taste
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!"
he added.
"However, you're sleepy, and it's time for me to sleep. Go back to
Gorki!" said Prince Andrew suddenly.
"Oh no!" Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with frightened,
compassionate eyes.
 "Go, go! Before a battle one must have one's sleep out," repeated
Prince Andrew.
He came quickly up to Pierre and embraced and kissed him. "Good-
by, be off!" he shouted. "Whether we meet again or not..." and turning
away hurriedly he entered the shed.
It was already dark, and Pierre could not make out whether the
expression of Prince Andrew's face was angry or tender.
For some time he stood in silence considering whether he should
follow him or go away. "No, he does not want it!" Pierre concluded.
"And I know that this is our last meeting!" He sighed deeply and rode
back to Gorki.
On re-entering the shed Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but he
could not sleep.
He closed his eyes. One picture succeeded another in his
imagination. On one of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly
recalled an evening in Petersburg. Natasha with animated and excited
face was telling him how she had gone to look for mushrooms the
previous summer and had lost her way in the big forest. She
incoherently described the depths of the forest, her feelings, and a talk
with a beekeeper she met, and constantly interrupted her story to say:
"No, I can't! I'm not telling it right; no, you don't understand," though
he encouraged her by saying that he did understand, and he really had
understood all she wanted to say. But Natasha was not satisfied with
her own words: she felt that they did not convey the passionately poetic
feeling she had experienced that day and wished to convey. "He was
such a delightful old man, and it was so dark in the forest... and he had
such kind... No, I can't describe it," she had said, flushed and excited.
Prince Andrew smiled now the same happy smile as then when he had
looked into her eyes. "I understood her," he thought. "I not only
understood her, but it was just that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity,
that frankness of soul—that very soul of hers which seemed to be
fettered by her body—it was that soul I loved in her... loved so strongly
and happily..." and suddenly he remembered how his love had ended.
"He did not need anything of that kind. He neither saw nor understood
anything of the sort. He only saw in her a pretty and fresh young girl,
with whom he did not deign to unite his fate. And I?... and he is still
alive and gay!"
Prince Andrew jumped up as if someone had burned him, and again
began pacing up and down in front of the shed.
 CHAPTER XXVI
On August 25, the eve of the battle of Borodino, M. de Beausset,
prefect of the French Emperor's palace, arrived at Napoleon's quarters
at Valuevo with Colonel Fabvier, the former from Paris and the latter
from Madrid.
Donning his court uniform, M. de Beausset ordered a box he had
brought for the Emperor to be carried before him and entered the first
compartment of Napoleon's tent, where he began opening the box while
conversing with Napoleon's aides-de-camp who surrounded him.
Fabvier, not entering the tent, remained at the entrance talking to
some generals of his acquaintance.
The Emperor Napoleon had not yet left his bedroom and was
finishing his toilet. Slightly snorting and grunting, he presented now his
back and now his plump hairy chest to the brush with which his valet
was rubbing him down. Another valet, with his finger over the mouth
of a bottle, was sprinkling Eau de Cologne on the Emperor's pampered
body with an expression which seemed to say that he alone knew where
and how much Eau de Cologne should be sprinkled. Napoleon's short
hair was wet and matted on the forehead, but his face, though puffy and
yellow, expressed physical satisfaction. "Go on, harder, go on!" he
muttered to the valet who was rubbing him, slightly twitching and
grunting. An aide-de-camp, who had entered the bedroom to report to
the Emperor the number of prisoners taken in yesterday's action, was
standing by the door after delivering his message, awaiting permission
to withdraw. Napoleon, frowning, looked at him from under his brows.
"No prisoners!" said he, repeating the aide-de-camp's words. "They
are forcing us to exterminate them. So much the worse for the Russian
army.... Go on... harder, harder!" he muttered, hunching his back and
presenting his fat shoulders.
"All right. Let Monsieur de Beausset enter, and Fabvier too," he said,
nodding to the aide-de-camp.
"Yes, sire," and the aide-de-camp disappeared through the door of
the tent.
Two valets rapidly dressed His Majesty, and wearing the blue
uniform of the Guards he went with firm quick steps to the reception
room.
De Beausset's hands meanwhile were busily engaged arranging the
present he had brought from the Empress, on two chairs directly in
front of the entrance. But Napoleon had dressed and come out with
such unexpected rapidity that he had not time to finish arranging the
surprise.
Napoleon noticed at once what they were about and guessed that
they were not ready. He did not wish to deprive them of the pleasure of
giving him a surprise, so he pretended not to see de Beausset and called
Fabvier to him, listening silently and with a stern frown to what
Fabvier told him of the heroism and devotion of his troops fighting at
Salamanca, at the other end of Europe, with but one thought—to be
worthy of their Emperor—and but one fear—to fail to please him. The
result of that battle had been deplorable. Napoleon made ironic remarks
during Fabvier's account, as if he had not expected that matters could
go otherwise in his absence.
"I must make up for that in Moscow," said Napoleon. "I'll see you
later," he added, and summoned de Beausset, who by that time had
prepared the surprise, having placed something on the chairs and
covered it with a cloth.
De Beausset bowed low, with that courtly French bow which only
the old retainers of the Bourbons knew how to make, and approached
him, presenting an envelope.
Napoleon turned to him gaily and pulled his ear.
"You have hurried here. I am very glad. Well, what is Paris saying?"
he asked, suddenly changing his former stern expression for a most
cordial tone.
"Sire, all Paris regrets your absence," replied de Beausset as was
proper.
But though Napoleon knew that de Beausset had to say something of
this kind, and though in his lucid moments he knew it was untrue, he
was pleased to hear it from him. Again he honored him by touching his
ear.
"I am very sorry to have made you travel so far," said he.
"Sire, I expected nothing less than to find you at the gates of
Moscow," replied de Beausset.
Napoleon smiled and, lifting his head absent-mindedly, glanced to
the right. An aide-de-camp approached with gliding steps and offered
him a gold snuffbox, which he took.
"Yes, it has happened luckily for you," he said, raising the open
snuffbox to his nose. "You are fond of travel, and in three days you will
see Moscow. You surely did not expect to see that Asiatic capital. You
will have a pleasant journey."
 De Beausset bowed gratefully at this regard for his taste for travel (of
which he had not till then been aware).
"Ha, what's this?" asked Napoleon, noticing that all the courtiers
were looking at something concealed under a cloth.
With courtly adroitness de Beausset half turned and without turning
his back to the Emperor retired two steps, twitching off the cloth at the
same time, and said:
"A present to Your Majesty from the Empress."
It was a portrait, painted in bright colors by Gerard, of the son borne
to Napoleon by the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, the boy whom
for some reason everyone called "The King of Rome."
A very pretty curly-headed boy with a look of the Christ in the
Sistine Madonna was depicted playing at stick and ball. The ball
represented the terrestrial globe and the stick in his other hand a
scepter.
Though it was not clear what the artist meant to express by depicting
the so-called King of Rome spiking the earth with a stick, the allegory
apparently seemed to Napoleon, as it had done to all who had seen it in
Paris, quite clear and very pleasing.
"The King of Rome!" he said, pointing to the portrait with a graceful
gesture. "Admirable!"
With the natural capacity of an Italian for changing the expression of
his face at will, he drew nearer to the portrait and assumed a look of
pensive tenderness. He felt that what he now said and did would be
historical, and it seemed to him that it would now be best for him—
whose grandeur enabled his son to play stick and ball with the
terrestrial globe—to show, in contrast to that grandeur, the simplest
paternal tenderness. His eyes grew dim, he moved forward, glanced
round at a chair (which seemed to place itself under him), and sat down
on it before the portrait. At a single gesture from him everyone went
out on tiptoe, leaving the great man to himself and his emotion.
Having sat still for a while he touched—himself not knowing why—
the thick spot of paint representing the highest light in the portrait, rose,
and recalled de Beausset and the officer on duty. He ordered the
portrait to be carried outside his tent, that the Old Guard, stationed
round it, might not be deprived of the pleasure of seeing the King of
Rome, the son and heir of their adored monarch.
And while he was doing M. de Beausset the honor of breakfasting
with him, they heard, as Napoleon had anticipated, the rapturous cries
of the officers and men of the Old Guard who had run up to see the
portrait.
"Vive l'Empereur! Vive le roi de Rome! Vive l'Empereur!" came
those ecstatic cries.
After breakfast Napoleon in de Beausset's presence dictated his order
of the day to the army.
"Short and energetic!" he remarked when he had read over the
proclamation which he had dictated straight off without corrections. It
ran:
Soldiers! This is the battle you have so longed for. Victory depends
on you. It is essential for us; it will give us all we need: comfortable
quarters and a speedy return to our country. Behave as you did at
Austerlitz, Friedland, Vitebsk, and Smolensk. Let our remotest
posterity recall your achievements this day with pride. Let it be said of
each of you: "He was in the great battle before Moscow!"
"Before Moscow!" repeated Napoleon, and inviting M. de Beausset,
who was so fond of travel, to accompany him on his ride, he went out
of the tent to where the horses stood saddled.
"Your Majesty is too kind!" replied de Beausset to the invitation to
accompany the Emperor; he wanted to sleep, did not know how to ride
and was afraid of doing so.
But Napoleon nodded to the traveler, and de Beausset had to mount.
When Napoleon came out of the tent the shouting of the Guards before
his son's portrait grew still louder. Napoleon frowned.
"Take him away!" he said, pointing with a gracefully majestic
gesture to the portrait. "It is too soon for him to see a field of battle."
De Beausset closed his eyes, bowed his head, and sighed deeply, to
indicate how profoundly he valued and comprehended the Emperor's
words.

CHAPTER XXVII
On the twenty-fifth of August, so his historians tell us, Napoleon
spent the whole day on horseback inspecting the locality, considering
plans submitted to him by his marshals, and personally giving
commands to his generals.
 The original line of the Russian forces along the river Kolocha had
been dislocated by the capture of the Shevardino Redoubt on the
twenty-fourth, and part of the line—the left flank—had been drawn
back. That part of the line was not entrenched and in front of it the
ground was more open and level than elsewhere. It was evident to
anyone, military or not, that it was here the French should attack. It
would seem that not much consideration was needed to reach this
conclusion, nor any particular care or trouble on the part of the
Emperor and his marshals, nor was there any need of that special and
supreme quality called genius that people are so apt to ascribe to
Napoleon; yet the historians who described the event later and the men
who then surrounded Napoleon, and he himself, thought otherwise.
Napoleon rode over the plain and surveyed the locality with a
profound air and in silence, nodded with approval or shook his head
dubiously, and without communicating to the generals around him the
profound course of ideas which guided his decisions merely gave them
his final conclusions in the form of commands. Having listened to a
suggestion from Davout, who was now called Prince d'Eckmuhl, to turn
the Russian left wing, Napoleon said it should not be done, without
explaining why not. To a proposal made by General Campan (who was
to attack the fleches) to lead his division through the woods, Napoleon
agreed, though the so-called Duke of Elchingen (Ney) ventured to
remark that a movement through the woods was dangerous and might
disorder the division.
Having inspected the country opposite the Shevardino Redoubt,
Napoleon pondered a little in silence and then indicated the spots where
two batteries should be set up by the morrow to act against the Russian
entrenchments, and the places where, in line with them, the field
artillery should be placed.
After giving these and other commands he returned to his tent, and
the dispositions for the battle were written down from his dictation.
These dispositions, of which the French historians write with
enthusiasm and other historians with profound respect, were as follows:
At dawn the two new batteries established during the night on the
plain occupied by the Prince d'Eckmuhl will open fire on the opposing
batteries of the enemy.
At the same time the commander of the artillery of the 1st Corps,
General Pernetti, with thirty cannon of Campan's division and all the
howitzers of Dessaix's and Friant's divisions, will move forward, open
fire, and overwhelm with shellfire the enemy's battery, against which
will operate:
 24 guns of the artillery of the Guards
30 guns of Campan's division

and 8 guns of Friant's and Dessaix's divisions

—

in all 62 guns.

The commander of the artillery of the 3rd Corps, General Fouche,

will place the howitzers of the 3rd and 8th Corps, sixteen in all, on the
flanks of the battery that is to bombard the entrenchment on the left,
which will have forty guns in all directed against it.
General Sorbier must be ready at the first order to advance with all
the howitzers of the Guard's artillery against either one or other of the
entrenchments.
During the cannonade Prince Poniatowski is to advance through the
wood on the village and turn the enemy's position.
General Campan will move through the wood to seize the first
fortification.
After the advance has begun in this manner, orders will be given in
accordance with the enemy's movements.
The cannonade on the left flank will begin as soon as the guns of the
right wing are heard. The sharpshooters of Morand's division and of the
vice-King's division will open a heavy fire on seeing the attack
commence on the right wing.
The vice-King will occupy the village and cross by its three bridges,
advancing to the same heights as Morand's and Gibrard's divisions,
which under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt and
come into line with the rest of the forces.
All this must be done in good order (le tout se fera avec ordre et
methode) as far as possible retaining troops in reserve.
The Imperial Camp near Mozhaysk,
September, 6, 1812.
These dispositions, which are very obscure and confused if one
allows oneself to regard the arrangements without religious awe of his
genius, related to Napoleon's orders to deal with four points—four
different orders. Not one of these was, or could be, carried out.
In the disposition it is said first that the batteries placed on the spot
chosen by Napoleon, with the guns of Pernetti and Fouche; which were
to come in line with them, 102 guns in all, were to open fire and shower
shells on the Russian fleches and redoubts. This could not be done, as
from the spots selected by Napoleon the projectiles did not carry to the
Russian works, and those 102 guns shot into the air until the nearest
commander, contrary to Napoleon's instructions, moved them forward.
The second order was that Poniatowski, moving to the village
through the wood, should turn the Russian left flank. This could not be
done and was not done, because Poniatowski, advancing on the village
through the wood, met Tuchkov there barring his way, and could not
and did not turn the Russian position.
The third order was: General Campan will move through the wood to
seize the first fortification. General Campan's division did not seize the
first fortification but was driven back, for on emerging from the wood it
had to reform under grapeshot, of which Napoleon was unaware.
The fourth order was: The vice-King will occupy the village
(Borodino) and cross by its three bridges, advancing to the same
heights as Morand's and Gdrard's divisions (for whose movements no
directions are given), which under his leadership will be directed
against the redoubt and come into line with the rest of the forces.
As far as one can make out, not so much from this unintelligible
sentence as from the attempts the vice-King made to execute the orders
given him, he was to advance from the left through Borodino to the
redoubt while the divisions of Morand and Gerard were to advance
simultaneously from the front.
All this, like the other parts of the disposition, was not and could not
be executed. After passing through Borodino the vice-King was driven
back to the Kolocha and could get no farther; while the divisions of
Morand and Gerard did not take the redoubt but were driven back, and
the redoubt was only taken at the end of the battle by the cavalry (a
thing probably unforeseen and not heard of by Napoleon). So not one
of the orders in the disposition was, or could be, executed. But in the
disposition it is said that, after the fight has commenced in this manner,
orders will be given in accordance with the enemy's movements, and so
it might be supposed that all necessary arrangements would be made by
Napoleon during the battle. But this was not and could not be done, for
during the whole battle Napoleon was so far away that, as appeared
later, he could not know the course of the battle and not one of his
orders during the fight could be executed.

CHAPTER XXVIII
 Many historians say that the French did not win the battle of
Borodino because Napoleon had a cold, and that if he had not had a
cold the orders he gave before and during the battle would have been
still more full of genius and Russia would have been lost and the face
of the world have been changed. To historians who believe that Russia
was shaped by the will of one man—Peter the Great—and that France
from a republic became an empire and French armies went to Russia at
the will of one man—Napoleon—to say that Russia remained a power
because Napoleon had a bad cold on the twenty-fourth of August may
seem logical and convincing.
If it had depended on Napoleon's will to fight or not to fight the
battle of Borodino, and if this or that other arrangement depended on
his will, then evidently a cold affecting the manifestation of his will
might have saved Russia, and consequently the valet who omitted to
bring Napoleon his waterproof boots on the twenty-fourth would have
been the savior of Russia. Along that line of thought such a deduction
is indubitable, as indubitable as the deduction Voltaire made in jest
(without knowing what he was jesting at) when he saw that the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew was due to Charles IX's stomach being
deranged. But to men who do not admit that Russia was formed by the
will of one man, Peter I, or that the French Empire was formed and the
war with Russia begun by the will of one man, Napoleon, that
argument seems not merely untrue and irrational, but contrary to all
human reality. To the question of what causes historic events another
answer presents itself, namely, that the course of human events is
predetermined from on high—depends on the coincidence of the wills
of all who take part in the events, and that a Napoleon's influence on
the course of these events is purely external and fictitious.
Strange as at first glance it may seem to suppose that the Massacre of
St. Bartholomew was not due to Charles IX's will, though he gave the
order for it and thought it was done as a result of that order; and strange
as it may seem to suppose that the slaughter of eighty thousand men at
Borodino was not due to Napoleon's will, though he ordered the
commencement and conduct of the battle and thought it was done
because he ordered it; strange as these suppositions appear, yet human
dignity—which tells me that each of us is, if not more at least not less a
man than the great Napoleon—demands the acceptance of that solution
of the question, and historic investigation abundantly confirms it.
At the battle of Borodino Napoleon shot at no one and killed no one.
That was all done by the soldiers. Therefore it was not he who killed
people.
The French soldiers went to kill and be killed at the battle of
Borodino not because of Napoleon's orders but by their own volition.
The whole army—French, Italian, German, Polish, and Dutch—
hungry, ragged, and weary of the campaign, felt at the sight of an army
blocking their road to Moscow that the wine was drawn and must be
drunk. Had Napoleon then forbidden them to fight the Russians, they
would have killed him and have proceeded to fight the Russians
because it was inevitable.
When they heard Napoleon's proclamation offering them, as
compensation for mutilation and death, the words of posterity about
their having been in the battle before Moscow, they cried "Vive
l'Empereur!" just as they had cried "Vive l'Empereur!" at the sight of
the portrait of the boy piercing the terrestrial globe with a toy stick, and
just as they would have cried "Vive l'Empereur!" at any nonsense that
might be told them. There was nothing left for them to do but cry "Vive
l'Empereur!" and go to fight, in order to get food and rest as conquerors
in Moscow. So it was not because of Napoleon's commands that they
killed their fellow men.
And it was not Napoleon who directed the course of the battle, for
none of his orders were executed and during the battle he did not know
what was going on before him. So the way in which these people killed
one another was not decided by Napoleon's will but occurred
independently of him, in accord with the will of hundreds of thousands
of people who took part in the common action. It only seemed to
Napoleon that it all took place by his will. And so the question whether
he had or had not a cold has no more historic interest than the cold of
the least of the transport soldiers.
Moreover, the assertion made by various writers that his cold was the
cause of his dispositions not being as well planned as on former
occasions, and of his orders during the battle not being as good as
previously, is quite baseless, which again shows that Napoleon's cold
on the twenty-sixth of August was unimportant.
The dispositions cited above are not at all worse, but are even better,
than previous dispositions by which he had won victories. His pseudo-
orders during the battle were also no worse than formerly, but much the
same as usual. These dispositions and orders only seem worse than
previous ones because the battle of Borodino was the first Napoleon did
not win. The profoundest and most excellent dispositions and orders
seem very bad, and every learned militarist criticizes them with looks
of importance, when they relate to a battle that has been lost, and the
very worst dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious people
fill whole volumes to demonstrate their merits, when they relate to a
battle that has been won.
The dispositions drawn up by Weyrother for the battle of Austerlitz
were a model of perfection for that kind of composition, but still they
were criticized—criticized for their very perfection, for their excessive
minuteness.
Napoleon at the battle of Borodino fulfilled his office as
representative of authority as well as, and even better than, at other
battles. He did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle; he inclined
to the most reasonable opinions, he made no confusion, did not
contradict himself, did not get frightened or run away from the field of
battle, but with his great tact and military experience carried out his
role of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity.

CHAPTER XXIX
On returning from a second inspection of the lines, Napoleon
remarked:
"The chessmen are set up, the game will begin tomorrow!"
Having ordered punch and summoned de Beausset, he began to talk
to him about Paris and about some changes he meant to make in the
Empress' household, surprising the prefect by his memory of minute
details relating to the court.
He showed an interest in trifles, joked about de Beausset's love of
travel, and chatted carelessly, as a famous, self-confident surgeon who
knows his job does when turning up his sleeves and putting on his
apron while a patient is being strapped to the operating table. "The
matter is in my hands and is clear and definite in my head. When the
time comes to set to work I shall do it as no one else could, but now I
can jest, and the more I jest and the calmer I am the more tranquil and
confident you ought to be, and the more amazed at my genius."
Having finished his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to rest
before the serious business which, he considered, awaited him next day.
He was so much interested in that task that he was unable to sleep, and
in spite of his cold which had grown worse from the dampness of the
evening, he went into the large division of the tent at three o'clock in
the morning, loudly blowing his nose. He asked whether the Russians
had not withdrawn, and was told that the enemy's fires were still in the
same places. He nodded approval.
The adjutant in attendance came into the tent.
"Well, Rapp, do you think we shall do good business today?"
Napoleon asked him.
 "Without doubt, sire," replied Rapp.
Napoleon looked at him.
"Do you remember, sire, what you did me the honor to say at
Smolensk?" continued Rapp. "The wine is drawn and must be drunk."
Napoleon frowned and sat silent for a long time leaning his head on
his hand.
"This poor army!" he suddenly remarked. "It has diminished greatly
since Smolensk. Fortune is frankly a courtesan, Rapp. I have always
said so and I am beginning to experience it. But the Guards, Rapp, the
Guards are intact?" he remarked interrogatively.
"Yes, sire," replied Rapp.
Napoleon took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and glanced at his
watch. He was not sleepy and it was still not nearly morning. It was
impossible to give further orders for the sake of killing time, for the
orders had all been given and were now being executed.
"Have the biscuits and rice been served out to the regiments of the
Guards?" asked Napoleon sternly.
"Yes, sire."
"The rice too?"
Rapp replied that he had given the Emperor's order about the rice,
but Napoleon shook his head in dissatisfaction as if not believing that
his order had been executed. An attendant came in with punch.
Napoleon ordered another glass to be brought for Rapp, and silently
sipped his own.
"I have neither taste nor smell," he remarked, sniffing at his glass.
"This cold is tiresome. They talk about medicine—what is the good of
medicine when it can't cure a cold! Corvisart gave me these lozenges
but they don't help at all. What can doctors cure? One can't cure
anything. Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is
its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will
do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies. Our
body is like a perfect watch that should go for a certain time; the
watchmaker cannot open it, he can only adjust it by fumbling, and that
blindfold.... Yes, our body is just a machine for living, that is all."
And having entered on the path of definition, of which he was fond,
Napoleon suddenly and unexpectedly gave a new one.
"Do you know, Rapp, what military art is?" asked he. "It is the art of
being stronger than the enemy at a given moment. That's all."
 Rapp made no reply.
"Tomorrow we shall have to deal with Kutuzov!" said Napoleon.
"We shall see! Do you remember at Braunau he commanded an army
for three weeks and did not once mount a horse to inspect his
entrenchments.... We shall see!"
He looked at his watch. It was still only four o'clock. He did not feel
sleepy. The punch was finished and there was still nothing to do. He
rose, walked to and fro, put on a warm overcoat and a hat, and went out
of the tent. The night was dark and damp, a scarcely perceptible
moisture was descending from above. Near by, the campfires were
dimly burning among the French Guards, and in the distance those of
the Russian line shone through the smoke. The weather was calm, and
the rustle and tramp of the French troops already beginning to move to
take up their positions were clearly audible.
Napoleon walked about in front of his tent, looked at the fires and
listened to these sounds, and as he was passing a tall guardsman in a
shaggy cap, who was standing sentinel before his tent and had drawn
himself up like a black pillar at sight of the Emperor, Napoleon stopped
in front of him.
"What year did you enter the service?" he asked with that affectation
of military bluntness and geniality with which he always addressed the
soldiers.
The man answered the question.
"Ah! One of the old ones! Has your regiment had its rice?"
"It has, Your Majesty."
Napoleon nodded and walked away.
At half-past five Napoleon rode to the village of Shevardino.
It was growing light, the sky was clearing, only a single cloud lay in
the east. The abandoned campfires were burning themselves out in the
faint morning light.
On the right a single deep report of a cannon resounded and died
away in the prevailing silence. Some minutes passed. A second and a
third report shook the air, then a fourth and a fifth boomed solemnly
near by on the right.
The first shots had not yet ceased to reverberate before others rang
out and yet more were heard mingling with and overtaking one another.
Napoleon with his suite rode up to the Shevardino Redoubt where he
dismounted. The game had begun.
 CHAPTER XXX
On returning to Gorki after having seen Prince Andrew, Pierre
ordered his groom to get the horses ready and to call him early in the
morning, and then immediately fell asleep behind a partition in a corner
Boris had given up to him.
Before he was thoroughly awake next morning everybody had
already left the hut. The panes were rattling in the little windows and
his groom was shaking him.
"Your excellency! Your excellency! Your excellency!" he kept
repeating pertinaciously while he shook Pierre by the shoulder without
looking at him, having apparently lost hope of getting him to wake up.
"What? Has it begun? Is it time?" Pierre asked, waking up.
"Hear the firing," said the groom, a discharged soldier. "All the
gentlemen have gone out, and his Serene Highness himself rode past
long ago."
Pierre dressed hastily and ran out to the porch. Outside all was
bright, fresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just bursting forth from
behind a cloud that had concealed it, was shining, with rays still half
broken by the clouds, over the roofs of the street opposite, on the dew-
besprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, on the
windows, the fence, and on Pierre's horses standing before the hut. The
roar of guns sounded more distinct outside. An adjutant accompanied
by a Cossack passed by at a sharp trot.
"It's time, Count; it's time!" cried the adjutant.
Telling the groom to follow him with the horses, Pierre went down
the street to the knoll from which he had looked at the field of battle the
day before. A crowd of military men was assembled there, members of
the staff could be heard conversing in French, and Kutuzov's gray head
in a white cap with a red band was visible, his gray nape sunk between
his shoulders. He was looking through a field glass down the highroad
before him.
Mounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene before
him, spellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama he had admired
from that spot the day before, but now the whole place was full of
troops and covered by smoke clouds from the guns, and the slanting
rays of the bright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre, cast upon
it through the clear morning air penetrating streaks of rosy, golden
tinted light and long dark shadows. The forest at the farthest extremity
of the panorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-
green color; its undulating outline was silhouetted against the horizon
and was pierced beyond Valuevo by the Smolensk highroad crowded
with troops. Nearer at hand glittered golden cornfields interspersed
with copses. There were troops to be seen everywhere, in front and to
the right and left. All this was vivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what
impressed Pierre most of all was the view of the battlefield itself, of
Borodino and the hollows on both sides of the Kolocha.
Above the Kolocha, in Borodino and on both sides of it, especially to
the left where the Voyna flowing between its marshy banks falls into
the Kolocha, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve, and
to become translucent when the brilliant sun appeared and magically
colored and outlined everything. The smoke of the guns mingled with
this mist, and over the whole expanse and through that mist the rays of
the morning sun were reflected, flashing back like lightning from the
water, from the dew, and from the bayonets of the troops crowded
together by the riverbanks and in Borodino. A white church could be
seen through the mist, and here and there the roofs of huts in Borodino
as well as dense masses of soldiers, or green ammunition chests and
ordnance. And all this moved, or seemed to move, as the smoke and
mist spread out over the whole space. Just as in the mist-enveloped
hollow near Borodino, so along the entire line outside and above it and
especially in the woods and fields to the left, in the valleys and on the
summits of the high ground, clouds of powder smoke seemed
continually to spring up out of nothing, now singly, now several at a
time, some translucent, others dense, which, swelling, growing, rolling,
and blending, extended over the whole expanse.
These puffs of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of the firing
produced the chief beauty of the spectacle.
"Puff!"—suddenly a round compact cloud of smoke was seen
merging from violet into gray and milky white, and "boom!" came the
report a second later.
"Puff! puff!"—and two clouds arose pushing one another and
blending together; and "boom, boom!" came the sounds confirming
what the eye had seen.
Pierre glanced round at the first cloud, which he had seen as a round
compact ball, and in its place already were balloons of smoke floating
to one side, and—"puff" (with a pause)—"puff, puff!" three and then
four more appeared and then from each, with the same interval—
"boom—boom, boom!" came the fine, firm, precise sounds in reply. It
seemed as if those smoke clouds sometimes ran and sometimes stood
still while woods, fields, and glittering bayonets ran past them. From
the left, over fields and bushes, those large balls of smoke were
continually appearing followed by their solemn reports, while nearer
still, in the hollows and woods, there burst from the muskets small
cloudlets that had no time to become balls, but had their little echoes in
just the same way. "Trakh-ta-ta-takh!" came the frequent crackle of
musketry, but it was irregular and feeble in comparison with the reports
of the cannon.
Pierre wished to be there with that smoke, those shining bayonets,
that movement, and those sounds. He turned to look at Kutuzov and his
suite, to compare his impressions with those of others. They were all
looking at the field of battle as he was, and, as it seemed to him, with
the same feelings. All their faces were now shining with that latent
warmth of feeling Pierre had noticed the day before and had fully
understood after his talk with Prince Andrew.
"Go, my dear fellow, go... and Christ be with you!" Kutuzov was
saying to a general who stood beside him, not taking his eye from the
battlefield.
Having received this order the general passed by Pierre on his way
down the knoll.
"To the crossing!" said the general coldly and sternly in reply to one
of the staff who asked where he was going.
"I'll go there too, I too!" thought Pierre, and followed the general.
The general mounted a horse a Cossack had brought him. Pierre
went to his groom who was holding his horses and, asking which was
the quietest, clambered onto it, seized it by the mane, and turning out
his toes pressed his heels against its sides and, feeling that his
spectacles were slipping off but unable to let go of the mane and reins,
he galloped after the general, causing the staff officers to smile as they
watched him from the knoll.

CHAPTER XXXI
Having descended the hill the general after whom Pierre was
galloping turned sharply to the left, and Pierre, losing sight of him,
galloped in among some ranks of infantry marching ahead of him. He
tried to pass either in front of them or to the right or left, but there were
soldiers everywhere, all with the same preoccupied expression and
busy with some unseen but evidently important task. They all gazed
with the same dissatisfied and inquiring expression at this stout man in
a white hat, who for some unknown reason threatened to trample them
under his horse's hoofs.
"Why ride into the middle of the battalion?" one of them shouted at
him.
Another prodded his horse with the butt end of a musket, and Pierre,
bending over his saddlebow and hardly able to control his shying horse,
galloped ahead of the soldiers where there was a free space.
There was a bridge ahead of him, where other soldiers stood firing.
Pierre rode up to them. Without being aware of it he had come to the
bridge across the Kolocha between Gorki and Borodino, which the
French (having occupied Borodino) were attacking in the first phase of
the battle. Pierre saw that there was a bridge in front of him and that
soldiers were doing something on both sides of it and in the meadow,
among the rows of new-mown hay which he had taken no notice of
amid the smoke of the campfires the day before; but despite the
incessant firing going on there he had no idea that this was the field of
battle. He did not notice the sound of the bullets whistling from every
side, or the projectiles that flew over him, did not see the enemy on the
other side of the river, and for a long time did not notice the killed and
wounded, though many fell near him. He looked about him with a
smile which did not leave his face.
"Why's that fellow in front of the line?" shouted somebody at him
again.
"To the left!... Keep to the right!" the men shouted to him.
Pierre went to the right, and unexpectedly encountered one of
Raevski's adjutants whom he knew. The adjutant looked angrily at him,
evidently also intending to shout at him, but on recognizing him he
nodded.
"How have you got here?" he said, and galloped on.
Pierre, feeling out of place there, having nothing to do, and afraid of
getting in someone's way again, galloped after the adjutant.
"What's happening here? May I come with you?" he asked.
"One moment, one moment!" replied the adjutant, and riding up to a
stout colonel who was standing in the meadow, he gave him some
message and then addressed Pierre.
"Why have you come here, Count?" he asked with a smile. "Still
inquisitive?"
 "Yes, yes," assented Pierre.
But the adjutant turned his horse about and rode on.
"Here it's tolerable," said he, "but with Bagration on the left flank
they're getting it frightfully hot."
"Really?" said Pierre. "Where is that?"
"Come along with me to our knoll. We can get a view from there and
in our battery it is still bearable," said the adjutant. "Will you come?"
"Yes, I'll come with you," replied Pierre, looking round for his
groom.
It was only now that he noticed wounded men staggering along or
being carried on stretchers. On that very meadow he had ridden over
the day before, a soldier was lying athwart the rows of scented hay,
with his head thrown awkwardly back and his shako off.
"Why haven't they carried him away?" Pierre was about to ask, but
seeing the stern expression of the adjutant who was also looking that
way, he checked himself.
Pierre did not find his groom and rode along the hollow with the
adjutant to Raevski's Redoubt. His horse lagged behind the adjutant's
and jolted him at every step.
"You don't seem to be used to riding, Count?" remarked the adjutant.
"No it's not that, but her action seems so jerky," said Pierre in a
puzzled tone.
"Why... she's wounded!" said the adjutant. "In the off foreleg above
the knee. A bullet, no doubt. I congratulate you, Count, on your
baptism of fire!"
Having ridden in the smoke past the Sixth Corps, behind the artillery
which had been moved forward and was in action, deafening them with
the noise of firing, they came to a small wood. There it was cool and
quiet, with a scent of autumn. Pierre and the adjutant dismounted and
walked up the hill on foot.
"Is the general here?" asked the adjutant on reaching the knoll.
"He was here a minute ago but has just gone that way," someone told
him, pointing to the right.
The adjutant looked at Pierre as if puzzled what to do with him now.
"Don't trouble about me," said Pierre. "I'll go up onto the knoll if I
may?"
 "Yes, do. You'll see everything from there and it's less dangerous,
and I'll come for you."
Pierre went to the battery and the adjutant rode on. They did not
meet again, and only much later did Pierre learn that he lost an arm that
day.
The knoll to which Pierre ascended was that famous one afterwards
known to the Russians as the Knoll Battery or Raevski's Redoubt, and
to the French as la grande redoute, la fatale redoute, la redoute du
centre, around which tens of thousands fell, and which the French
regarded as the key to the whole position.
This redoubt consisted of a knoll, on three sides of which trenches
had been dug. Within the entrenchment stood ten guns that were being
fired through openings in the earthwork.
In line with the knoll on both sides stood other guns which also fired
incessantly. A little behind the guns stood infantry. When ascending
that knoll Pierre had no notion that this spot, on which small trenches
had been dug and from which a few guns were firing, was the most
important point of the battle.
On the contrary, just because he happened to be there he thought it
one of the least significant parts of the field.
Having reached the knoll, Pierre sat down at one end of a trench
surrounding the battery and gazed at what was going on around him
with an unconsciously happy smile. Occasionally he rose and walked
about the battery still with that same smile, trying not to obstruct the
soldiers who were loading, hauling the guns, and continually running
past him with bags and charges. The guns of that battery were being
fired continually one after another with a deafening roar, enveloping
the whole neighborhood in powder smoke.
In contrast with the dread felt by the infantrymen placed in support,
here in the battery where a small number of men busy at their work
were separated from the rest by a trench, everyone experienced a
common and as it were family feeling of animation.
The intrusion of Pierre's nonmilitary figure in a white hat made an
unpleasant impression at first. The soldiers looked askance at him with
surprise and even alarm as they went past him. The senior artillery
officer, a tall, long-legged, pockmarked man, moved over to Pierre as if
to see the action of the farthest gun and looked at him with curiosity.
A young round-faced officer, quite a boy still and evidently only just
out of the Cadet College, who was zealously commanding the two guns
entrusted to him, addressed Pierre sternly.
 "Sir," he said, "permit me to ask you to stand aside. You must not be
here."
The soldiers shook their heads disapprovingly as they looked at
Pierre. But when they had convinced themselves that this man in the
white hat was doing no harm, but either sat quietly on the slope of the
trench with a shy smile or, politely making way for the soldiers, paced
up and down the battery under fire as calmly as if he were on a
boulevard, their feeling of hostile distrust gradually began to change
into a kindly and bantering sympathy, such as soldiers feel for their
dogs, cocks, goats, and in general for the animals that live with the
regiment. The men soon accepted Pierre into their family, adopted him,
gave him a nickname ("our gentleman"), and made kindly fun of him
among themselves.
A shell tore up the earth two paces from Pierre and he looked around
with a smile as he brushed from his clothes some earth it had thrown
up.
"And how's it you're not afraid, sir, really now?" a red-faced, broad-
shouldered soldier asked Pierre, with a grin that disclosed a set of
sound, white teeth.
"Are you afraid, then?" said Pierre.
"What else do you expect?" answered the soldier. "She has no mercy,
you know! When she comes spluttering down, out go your innards.
One can't help being afraid," he said laughing.
Several of the men, with bright kindly faces, stopped beside Pierre.
They seemed not to have expected him to talk like anybody else, and
the discovery that he did so delighted them.
"It's the business of us soldiers. But in a gentleman it's wonderful!
There's a gentleman for you!"
"To your places!" cried the young officer to the men gathered round
Pierre.
The young officer was evidently exercising his duties for the first or
second time and therefore treated both his superiors and the men with
great precision and formality.
The booming cannonade and the fusillade of musketry were growing
more intense over the whole field, especially to the left where
Bagration's fleches were, but where Pierre was the smoke of the firing
made it almost impossible to distinguish anything. Moreover, his whole
attention was engrossed by watching the family circle—separated from
all else—formed by the men in the battery. His first unconscious
feeling of joyful animation produced by the sights and sounds of the
battlefield was now replaced by another, especially since he had seen
that soldier lying alone in the hayfield. Now, seated on the slope of the
trench, he observed the faces of those around him.
By ten o'clock some twenty men had already been carried away from
the battery; two guns were smashed and cannon balls fell more and
more frequently on the battery and spent bullets buzzed and whistled
around. But the men in the battery seemed not to notice this, and merry
voices and jokes were heard on all sides.
"A live one!" shouted a man as a whistling shell approached.
"Not this way! To the infantry!" added another with loud laughter,
seeing the shell fly past and fall into the ranks of the supports.
"Are you bowing to a friend, eh?" remarked another, chaffing a
peasant who ducked low as a cannon ball flew over.
Several soldiers gathered by the wall of the trench, looking out to see
what was happening in front.
"They've withdrawn the front line, it has retired," said they, pointing
over the earthwork.
"Mind your own business," an old sergeant shouted at them. "If
they've retired it's because there's work for them to do farther back."
And the sergeant, taking one of the men by the shoulders, gave him a
shove with his knee. This was followed by a burst of laughter.
"To the fifth gun, wheel it up!" came shouts from one side.
"Now then, all together, like bargees!" rose the merry voices of those
who were moving the gun.
"Oh, she nearly knocked our gentleman's hat off!" cried the red-faced
humorist, showing his teeth chaffing Pierre. "Awkward baggage!" he
added reproachfully to a cannon ball that struck a cannon wheel and a
man's leg.
"Now then, you foxes!" said another, laughing at some militiamen
who, stooping low, entered the battery to carry away the wounded man.
"So this gruel isn't to your taste? Oh, you crows! You're scared!"
they shouted at the militiamen who stood hesitating before the man
whose leg had been torn off.
"There, lads... oh, oh!" they mimicked the peasants, "they don't like
it at all!"
Pierre noticed that after every ball that hit the redoubt, and after
every loss, the liveliness increased more and more.
 As the flames of the fire hidden within come more and more vividly
and rapidly from an approaching thundercloud, so, as if in opposition to
what was taking place, the lightning of hidden fire growing more and
more intense glowed in the faces of these men.
Pierre did not look out at the battlefield and was not concerned to
know what was happening there; he was entirely absorbed in watching
this fire which burned ever more brightly and which he felt was
flaming up in the same way in his own soul.
At ten o'clock the infantry that had been among the bushes in front of
the battery and along the Kamenka streamlet retreated. From the battery
they could be seen running back past it carrying their wounded on their
muskets. A general with his suite came to the battery, and after
speaking to the colonel gave Pierre an angry look and went away again
having ordered the infantry supports behind the battery to lie down, so
as to be less exposed to fire. After this from amid the ranks of infantry
to the right of the battery came the sound of a drum and shouts of
command, and from the battery one saw how those ranks of infantry
moved forward.
Pierre looked over the wall of the trench and was particularly struck
by a pale young officer who, letting his sword hang down, was walking
backwards and kept glancing uneasily around.
The ranks of the infantry disappeared amid the smoke but their long-
drawn shout and rapid musketry firing could still be heard. A few
minutes later crowds of wounded men and stretcher-bearers came back
from that direction. Projectiles began to fall still more frequently in the
battery. Several men were lying about who had not been removed.
Around the cannon the men moved still more briskly and busily. No
one any longer took notice of Pierre. Once or twice he was shouted at
for being in the way. The senior officer moved with big, rapid strides
from one gun to another with a frowning face. The young officer, with
his face still more flushed, commanded the men more scrupulously than
ever. The soldiers handed up the charges, turned, loaded, and did their
business with strained smartness. They gave little jumps as they
walked, as though they were on springs.
The stormcloud had come upon them, and in every face the fire
which Pierre had watched kindle burned up brightly. Pierre standing
beside the commanding officer. The young officer, his hand to his
shako, ran up to his superior.
"I have the honor to report, sir, that only eight rounds are left. Are
we to continue firing?" he asked.
"Grapeshot!" the senior shouted, without answering the question,
looking over the wall of the trench.
 Suddenly something happened: the young officer gave a gasp and
bending double sat down on the ground like a bird shot on the wing.
Everything became strange, confused, and misty in Pierre's eyes.
One cannon ball after another whistled by and struck the earthwork,
a soldier, or a gun. Pierre, who had not noticed these sounds before,
now heard nothing else. On the right of the battery soldiers shouting
"Hurrah!" were running not forwards but backwards, it seemed to
Pierre.
A cannon ball struck the very end of the earth work by which he was
standing, crumbling down the earth; a black ball flashed before his eyes
and at the same instant plumped into something. Some militiamen who
were entering the battery ran back.
"All with grapeshot!" shouted the officer.
The sergeant ran up to the officer and in a frightened whisper
informed him (as a butler at dinner informs his master that there is no
more of some wine asked for) that there were no more charges.
"The scoundrels! What are they doing?" shouted the officer, turning
to Pierre.
The officer's face was red and perspiring and his eyes glittered under
his frowning brow.
"Run to the reserves and bring up the ammunition boxes!" he yelled,
angrily avoiding Pierre with his eyes and speaking to his men.
"I'll go," said Pierre.
The officer, without answering him, strode across to the opposite
side.
"Don't fire.... Wait!" he shouted.
The man who had been ordered to go for ammunition stumbled
against Pierre.
"Eh, sir, this is no place for you," said he, and ran down the slope.
Pierre ran after him, avoiding the spot where the young officer was
sitting.
One cannon ball, another, and a third flew over him, falling in front,
beside, and behind him. Pierre ran down the slope. "Where am I
going?" he suddenly asked himself when he was already near the green
ammunition wagons. He halted irresolutely, not knowing whether to
return or go on. Suddenly a terrible concussion threw him backwards to
the ground. At the same instant he was dazzled by a great flash of
flame, and immediately a deafening roar, crackling, and whistling made
his ears tingle.
When he came to himself he was sitting on the ground leaning on his
hands; the ammunition wagons he had been approaching no longer
existed, only charred green boards and rags littered the scorched grass,
and a horse, dangling fragments of its shaft behind it, galloped past,
while another horse lay, like Pierre, on the ground, uttering prolonged
and piercing cries.

CHAPTER XXXII
Beside himself with terror Pierre jumped up and ran back to the
battery, as to the only refuge from the horrors that surrounded him.
On entering the earthwork he noticed that there were men doing
something there but that no shots were being fired from the battery. He
had no time to realize who these men were. He saw the senior officer
lying on the earth wall with his back turned as if he were examining
something down below and that one of the soldiers he had noticed
before was struggling forward shouting "Brothers!" and trying to free
himself from some men who were holding him by the arm. He also saw
something else that was strange.
But he had not time to realize that the colonel had been killed, that
the soldier shouting "Brothers!" was a prisoner, and that another man
had been bayoneted in the back before his eyes, for hardly had he run
into the redoubt before a thin, sallow-faced, perspiring man in a blue
uniform rushed on him sword in hand, shouting something.
Instinctively guarding against the shock—for they had been running
together at full speed before they saw one another—Pierre put out his
hands and seized the man (a French officer) by the shoulder with one
hand and by the throat with the other. The officer, dropping his sword,
seized Pierre by his collar.
For some seconds they gazed with frightened eyes at one another's
unfamiliar faces and both were perplexed at what they had done and
what they were to do next. "Am I taken prisoner or have I taken him
prisoner?" each was thinking. But the French officer was evidently
more inclined to think he had been taken prisoner because Pierre's
strong hand, impelled by instinctive fear, squeezed his throat ever
tighter and tighter. The Frenchman was about to say something, when
just above their heads, terrible and low, a cannon ball whistled, and it
seemed to Pierre that the French officer's head had been torn off, so
swiftly had he ducked it.
Pierre too bent his head and let his hands fall. Without further
thought as to who had taken whom prisoner, the Frenchman ran back to
the battery and Pierre ran down the slope stumbling over the dead and
wounded who, it seemed to him, caught at his feet. But before he
reached the foot of the knoll he was met by a dense crowd of Russian
soldiers who, stumbling, tripping up, and shouting, ran merrily and
wildly toward the battery. (This was the attack for which Ermolov
claimed the credit, declaring that only his courage and good luck made
such a feat possible: it was the attack in which he was said to have
thrown some St. George's Crosses he had in his pocket into the battery
for the first soldiers to take who got there.)
The French who had occupied the battery fled, and our troops
shouting "Hurrah!" pursued them so far beyond the battery that it was
difficult to call them back.
The prisoners were brought down from the battery and among them
was a wounded French general, whom the officers surrounded. Crowds
of wounded—some known to Pierre and some unknown—Russians and
French, with faces distorted by suffering, walked, crawled, and were
carried on stretchers from the battery. Pierre again went up onto the
knoll where he had spent over an hour, and of that family circle which
had received him as a member he did not find a single one. There were
many dead whom he did not know, but some he recognized. The young
officer still sat in the same way, bent double, in a pool of blood at the
edge of the earth wall. The red-faced man was still twitching, but they
did not carry him away.
Pierre ran down the slope once more.
"Now they will stop it, now they will be horrified at what they have
done!" he thought, aimlessly going toward a crowd of stretcher bearers
moving from the battlefield.
But behind the veil of smoke the sun was still high, and in front and
especially to the left, near Semenovsk, something seemed to be
seething in the smoke, and the roar of cannon and musketry did not
diminish, but even increased to desperation like a man who, straining
himself, shrieks with all his remaining strength.

CHAPTER XXXIII
 The chief action of the battle of Borodino was fought within the
seven thousand feet between Borodino and Bagration's fleches. Beyond
that space there was, on the one side, a demonstration made by the
Russians with Uvarov's cavalry at midday, and on the other side,
beyond Utitsa, Poniatowski's collision with Tuchkov; but these two
were detached and feeble actions in comparison with what took place in
the center of the battlefield. On the field between Borodino and the
fleches, beside the wood, the chief action of the day took place on an
open space visible from both sides and was fought in the simplest and
most artless way.
The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several
hundred guns.
Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions,
Campan's and Dessaix's, advanced from the French right, while Murat's
troops advanced on Borodino from their left.
From the Shevardino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the
fleches were two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile as
the crow flies to Borodino, so that Napoleon could not see what was
happening there, especially as the smoke mingling with the mist hid the
whole locality. The soldiers of Dessaix's division advancing against the
fleches could only be seen till they had entered the hollow that lay
between them and the fleches. As soon as they had descended into that
hollow, the smoke of the guns and musketry on the fleches grew so
dense that it covered the whole approach on that side of it. Through the
smoke glimpses could be caught of something black—probably men—
and at times the glint of bayonets. But whether they were moving or
stationary, whether they were French or Russian, could not be
discovered from the Shevardino Redoubt.
The sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straight into
Napoleon's face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked at the
fleches. The smoke spread out before them, and at times it looked as if
the smoke were moving, at times as if the troops moved. Sometimes
shouts were heard through the firing, but it was impossible to tell what
was being done there.
Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, and in
its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own and
sometimes Russians, but when he looked again with the naked eye, he
could not tell where what he had seen was.
He descended the knoll and began walking up and down before it.
Occasionally he stopped, listened to the firing, and gazed intently at
the battlefield.
 But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from
where he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which
some of his generals had taken their stand, but even from the fleches
themselves—in which by this time there were now Russian and now
French soldiers, alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive,
frightened, or maddened—even at those fleches themselves it was
impossible to make out what was taking place. There for several hours
amid incessant cannon and musketry fire, now Russians were seen
alone, now Frenchmen alone, now infantry, and now cavalry: they
appeared, fired, fell, collided, not knowing what to do with one another,
screamed, and ran back again.
From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies from his
marshals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports of the progress of
the action, but all these reports were false, both because it was
impossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening at any given
moment and because many of the adjutants did not go to the actual
place of conflict but reported what they had heard from others; and also
because while an adjutant was riding more than a mile to Napoleon
circumstances changed and the news he brought was already becoming
false. Thus an adjutant galloped up from Murat with tidings that
Borodino had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolocha was in
the hands of the French. The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wished
the troops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form
up on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given—
almost as soon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodino—the bridge had
been retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which
Pierre had been present at the beginning of the battle.
An adjutant galloped up from the fleches with a pale and frightened
face and reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed,
Campan wounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very time the adjutant
had been told that the French had been repulsed, the fleches had in fact
been recaptured by other French troops, and Davout was alive and only
slightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarily untrustworthy reports
Napoleon gave his orders, which had either been executed before he
gave them or could not be and were not executed.
The marshals and generals, who were nearer to the field of battle but,
like Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting and only
occasionally went within musket range, made their own arrangements
without asking Napoleon and issued orders where and in what direction
to fire and where cavalry should gallop and infantry should run. But
even their orders, like Napoleon's, were seldom carried out, and then
but partially. For the most part things happened contrary to their orders.
Soldiers ordered to advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers
ordered to remain where they were, suddenly, seeing Russians
unexpectedly before them, sometimes rushed back and sometimes
forward, and the cavalry dashed without orders in pursuit of the flying
Russians. In this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the
Semenovsk hollow and as soon as they reached the top of the incline
turned round and galloped full speed back again. The infantry moved in
the same way, sometimes running to quite other places than those they
were ordered to go to. All orders as to where and when to move the
guns, when to send infantry to shoot or horsemen to ride down the
Russian infantry—all such orders were given by the officers on the spot
nearest to the units concerned, without asking either Ney, Davout, or
Murat, much less Napoleon. They did not fear getting into trouble for
not fulfilling orders or for acting on their own initiative, for in battle
what is at stake is what is dearest to man—his own life—and it
sometimes seems that safety lies in running back, sometimes in running
forward; and these men who were right in the heat of the battle acted
according to the mood of the moment. In reality, however, all these
movements forward and backward did not improve or alter the position
of the troops. All their rushing and galloping at one another did little
harm, the harm of disablement and death was caused by the balls and
bullets that flew over the fields on which these men were floundering
about. As soon as they left the place where the balls and bullets were
flying about, their superiors, located in the background, re-formed them
and brought them under discipline and under the influence of that
discipline led them back to the zone of fire, where under the influence
of fear of death they lost their discipline and rushed about according to
the chance promptings of the throng.

CHAPTER XXXIV
Napoleon's generals—Davout, Ney, and Murat, who were near that
region of fire and sometimes even entered it—repeatedly led into it
huge masses of well-ordered troops. But contrary to what had always
happened in their former battles, instead of the news they expected of
the enemy's flight, these orderly masses returned thence as disorganized
and terrified mobs. The generals re-formed them, but their numbers
constantly decreased. In the middle of the day Murat sent his adjutant
to Napoleon to demand reinforcements.
Napoleon sat at the foot of the knoll, drinking punch, when Murat's
adjutant galloped up with an assurance that the Russians would be
routed if His Majesty would let him have another division.
 "Reinforcements?" said Napoleon in a tone of stern surprise, looking
at the adjutant—a handsome lad with long black curls arranged like
Murat's own—as though he did not understand his words.
"Reinforcements!" thought Napoleon to himself. "How can they
need reinforcements when they already have half the army directed
against a weak, unentrenched Russian wing?"
"Tell the King of Naples," said he sternly, "that it is not noon yet,
and I don't yet see my chessboard clearly. Go!..."
The handsome boy adjutant with the long hair sighed deeply without
removing his hand from his hat and galloped back to where men were
being slaughtered.
Napoleon rose and having summoned Caulaincourt and Berthier
began talking to them about matters unconnected with the battle.
In the midst of this conversation, which was beginning to interest
Napoleon, Berthier's eyes turned to look at a general with a suite, who
was galloping toward the knoll on a lathering horse. It was Belliard.
Having dismounted he went up to the Emperor with rapid strides and in
a loud voice began boldly demonstrating the necessity of sending
reinforcements. He swore on his honor that the Russians were lost if the
Emperor would give another division.
Napoleon shrugged his shoulders and continued to pace up and down
without replying. Belliard began talking loudly and eagerly to the
generals of the suite around him.
"You are very fiery, Belliard," said Napoleon, when he again came
up to the general. "In the heat of a battle it is easy to make a mistake.
Go and have another look and then come back to me."
Before Belliard was out of sight, a messenger from another part of
the battlefield galloped up.
"Now then, what do you want?" asked Napoleon in the tone of a man
irritated at being continually disturbed.
"Sire, the prince..." began the adjutant.
"Asks for reinforcements?" said Napoleon with an angry gesture.
The adjutant bent his head affirmatively and began to report, but the
Emperor turned from him, took a couple of steps, stopped, came back,
and called Berthier.
"We must give reserves," he said, moving his arms slightly apart.
"Who do you think should be sent there?" he asked of Berthier (whom
he subsequently termed "that gosling I have made an eagle").
 "Send Claparede's division, sire," replied Berthier, who knew all the
divisions regiments, and battalions by heart.
Napoleon nodded assent.
The adjutant galloped to Claparede's division and a few minutes later
the Young Guards stationed behind the knoll moved forward. Napoleon
gazed silently in that direction.
"No!" he suddenly said to Berthier. "I can't send Claparede. Send
Friant's division."
Though there was no advantage in sending Friant's division instead
of Claparede's, and even in obvious inconvenience and delay in
stopping Claparede and sending Friant now, the order was carried out
exactly. Napoleon did not notice that in regard to his army he was
playing the part of a doctor who hinders by his medicines—a role he so
justly understood and condemned.
Friant's division disappeared as the others had done into the smoke
of the battlefield. From all sides adjutants continued to arrive at a
gallop and as if by agreement all said the same thing. They all asked for
reinforcements and all said that the Russians were holding their
positions and maintaining a hellish fire under which the French army
was melting away.
Napoleon sat on a campstool, wrapped in thought.
M. de Beausset, the man so fond of travel, having fasted since
morning, came up to the Emperor and ventured respectfully to suggest
lunch to His Majesty.
"I hope I may now congratulate Your Majesty on a victory?" said he.
Napoleon silently shook his head in negation. Assuming the negation
to refer only to the victory and not to the lunch, M. de Beausset
ventured with respectful jocularity to remark that there is no reason for
not having lunch when one can get it.
"Go away..." exclaimed Napoleon suddenly and morosely, and
turned aside.
A beatific smile of regret, repentance, and ecstasy beamed on M. de
Beausset's face and he glided away to the other generals.
Napoleon was experiencing a feeling of depression like that of an
ever-lucky gambler who, after recklessly flinging money about and
always winning, suddenly just when he has calculated all the chances
of the game, finds that the more he considers his play the more surely
he loses.
 His troops were the same, his generals the same, the same
preparations had been made, the same dispositions, and the same
proclamation courte et energique, he himself was still the same: he
knew that and knew that he was now even more experienced and
skillful than before. Even the enemy was the same as at Austerlitz and
Friedland—yet the terrible stroke of his arm had supernaturally become
impotent.
All the old methods that had been unfailingly crowned with success:
the concentration of batteries on one point, an attack by reserves to
break the enemy's line, and a cavalry attack by "the men of iron," all
these methods had already been employed, yet not only was there no
victory, but from all sides came the same news of generals killed and
wounded, of reinforcements needed, of the impossibility of driving
back the Russians, and of disorganization among his own troops.
Formerly, after he had given two or three orders and uttered a few
phrases, marshals and adjutants had come galloping up with
congratulations and happy faces, announcing the trophies taken, the
corps of prisoners, bundles of enemy eagles and standards, cannon and
stores, and Murat had only begged leave to loose the cavalry to gather
in the baggage wagons. So it had been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcola, Jena,
Austerlitz, Wagram, and so on. But now something strange was
happening to his troops.
Despite news of the capture of the fleches, Napoleon saw that this
was not the same, not at all the same, as what had happened in his
former battles. He saw that what he was feeling was felt by all the men
about him experienced in the art of war. All their faces looked dejected,
and they all shunned one another's eyes—only a de Beausset could fail
to grasp the meaning of what was happening.
But Napoleon with his long experience of war well knew the
meaning of a battle not gained by the attacking side in eight hours, after
all efforts had been expended. He knew that it was a lost battle and that
the least accident might now—with the fight balanced on such a
strained center—destroy him and his army.
When he ran his mind over the whole of this strange Russian
campaign in which not one battle had been won, and in which not a
flag, or cannon, or army corps had been captured in two months, when
he looked at the concealed depression on the faces around him and
heard reports of the Russians still holding their ground—a terrible
feeling like a nightmare took possession of him, and all the unlucky
accidents that might destroy him occurred to his mind. The Russians
might fall on his left wing, might break through his center, he himself
might be killed by a stray cannon ball. All this was possible. In former
battles he had only considered the possibilities of success, but now
innumerable unlucky chances presented themselves, and he expected
them all. Yes, it was like a dream in which a man fancies that a ruffian
is coming to attack him, and raises his arm to strike that ruffian a
terrible blow which he knows should annihilate him, but then feels that
his arm drops powerless and limp like a rag, and the horror of
unavoidable destruction seizes him in his helplessness.
The news that the Russians were attacking the left flank of the
French army aroused that horror in Napoleon. He sat silently on a
campstool below the knoll, with head bowed and elbows on his knees.
Berthier approached and suggested that they should ride along the line
to ascertain the position of affairs.
"What? What do you say?" asked Napoleon. "Yes, tell them to bring
me my horse."
He mounted and rode toward Semenovsk.
Amid the powder smoke, slowly dispersing over the whole space
through which Napoleon rode, horses and men were lying in pools of
blood, singly or in heaps. Neither Napoleon nor any of his generals had
ever before seen such horrors or so many slain in such a small area. The
roar of guns, that had not ceased for ten hours, wearied the ear and gave
a peculiar significance to the spectacle, as music does to tableaux
vivants. Napoleon rode up the high ground at Semenovsk, and through
the smoke saw ranks of men in uniforms of a color unfamiliar to him.
They were Russians.
The Russians stood in serried ranks behind Semenovsk village and
its knoll, and their guns boomed incessantly along their line and sent
forth clouds of smoke. It was no longer a battle: it was a continuous
slaughter which could be of no avail either to the French or the
Russians. Napoleon stopped his horse and again fell into the reverie
from which Berthier had aroused him. He could not stop what was
going on before him and around him and was supposed to be directed
by him and to depend on him, and from its lack of success this affair,
for the first time, seemed to him unnecessary and horrible.
One of the generals rode up to Napoleon and ventured to offer to
lead the Old Guard into action. Ney and Berthier, standing near
Napoleon, exchanged looks and smiled contemptuously at this general's
senseless offer.
Napoleon bowed his head and remained silent a long time.
"At eight hundred leagues from France, I will not have my Guard
destroyed!" he said, and turning his horse rode back to Shevardino.
 CHAPTER XXXV
On the rug-covered bench where Pierre had seen him in the morning
sat Kutuzov, his gray head hanging, his heavy body relaxed. He gave
no orders, but only assented to or dissented from what others
suggested.
"Yes, yes, do that," he replied to various proposals. "Yes, yes: go,
dear boy, and have a look," he would say to one or another of those
about him; or, "No, don't, we'd better wait!" He listened to the reports
that were brought him and gave directions when his subordinates
demanded that of him; but when listening to the reports it seemed as if
he were not interested in the import of the words spoken, but rather in
something else—in the expression of face and tone of voice of those
who were reporting. By long years of military experience he knew, and
with the wisdom of age understood, that it is impossible for one man to
direct hundreds of thousands of others struggling with death, and he
knew that the result of a battle is decided not by the orders of a
commander in chief, nor the place where the troops are stationed, nor
by the number of cannon or of slaughtered men, but by that intangible
force called the spirit of the army, and he watched this force and guided
it in as far as that was in his power.
Kutuzov's general expression was one of concentrated quiet
attention, and his face wore a strained look as if he found it difficult to
master the fatigue of his old and feeble body.
At eleven o'clock they brought him news that the fleches captured by
the French had been retaken, but that Prince Bagration was wounded.
Kutuzov groaned and swayed his head.
"Ride over to Prince Peter Ivanovich and find out about it exactly,"
he said to one of his adjutants, and then turned to the Duke of
Wurttemberg who was standing behind him.
"Will Your Highness please take command of the first army?"
Soon after the duke's departure—before he could possibly have
reached Semenovsk—his adjutant came back from him and told
Kutuzov that the duke asked for more troops.
Kutuzov made a grimace and sent an order to Dokhturov to take over
the command of the first army, and a request to the duke—whom he
said he could not spare at such an important moment—to return to him.
When they brought him news that Murat had been taken prisoner, and
the staff officers congratulated him, Kutuzov smiled.
"Wait a little, gentlemen," said he. "The battle is won, and there is
nothing extraordinary in the capture of Murat. Still, it is better to wait
before we rejoice."
But he sent an adjutant to take the news round the army.
When Scherbinin came galloping from the left flank with news that
the French had captured the fleches and the village of Semenovsk,
Kutuzov, guessing by the sounds of the battle and by Scherbinin's looks
that the news was bad, rose as if to stretch his legs and, taking
Scherbinin's arm, led him aside.
"Go, my dear fellow," he said to Ermolov, "and see whether
something can't be done."
Kutuzov was in Gorki, near the center of the Russian position. The
attack directed by Napoleon against our left flank had been several
times repulsed. In the center the French had not got beyond Borodino,
and on their left flank Uvarov's cavalry had put the French to flight.
Toward three o'clock the French attacks ceased. On the faces of all
who came from the field of battle, and of those who stood around him,
Kutuzov noticed an expression of extreme tension. He was satisfied
with the day's success—a success exceeding his expectations, but the
old man's strength was failing him. Several times his head dropped low
as if it were falling and he dozed off. Dinner was brought him.
Adjutant General Wolzogen, the man who when riding past Prince
Andrew had said, "the war should be extended widely," and whom
Bagration so detested, rode up while Kutuzov was at dinner. Wolzogen
had come from Barclay de Tolly to report on the progress of affairs on
the left flank. The sagacious Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of
wounded men running back and the disordered rear of the army,
weighed all the circumstances, concluded that the battle was lost, and
sent his favorite officer to the commander in chief with that news.
Kutuzov was chewing a piece of roast chicken with difficulty and
glanced at Wolzogen with eyes that brightened under their puckering
lids.
Wolzogen, nonchalantly stretching his legs, approached Kutuzov
with a half-contemptuous smile on his lips, scarcely touching the peak
of his cap.
He treated his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected
nonchalance intended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he
left it to Russians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he
knew whom he was dealing with. "Der alte Herr" (as in their own set
the Germans called Kutuzov) "is making himself very comfortable,"
thought Wolzogen, and looking severely at the dishes in front of
Kutuzov he began to report to "the old gentleman" the position of
affairs on the left flank as Barclay had ordered him to and as he himself
had seen and understood it.
"All the points of our position are in the enemy's hands and we
cannot dislodge them for lack of troops, the men are running away and
it is impossible to stop them," he reported.
Kutuzov ceased chewing and fixed an astonished gaze on Wolzogen,
as if not understanding what was said to him. Wolzogen, noticing "the
old gentleman's" agitation, said with a smile:
"I have not considered it right to conceal from your Serene Highness
what I have seen. The troops are in complete disorder..."
"You have seen? You have seen?..." Kutuzov shouted frowning, and
rising quickly he went up to Wolzogen.
"How... how dare you!..." he shouted, choking and making a
threatening gesture with his trembling arms: "How dare you, sir, say
that to me? You know nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me
that his information is incorrect and that the real course of the battle is
better known to me, the commander in chief, than to him."
Wolzogen was about to make a rejoinder, but Kutuzov interrupted
him.
"The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right
flank. If you have seen amiss, sir, do not allow yourself to say what you
don't know! Be so good as to ride to General Barclay and inform him of
my firm intention to attack the enemy tomorrow," said Kutuzov sternly.
All were silent, and the only sound audible was the heavy breathing
of the panting old general.
"They are repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave
army! The enemy is beaten, and tomorrow we shall drive him from the
sacred soil of Russia," said Kutuzov crossing himself, and he suddenly
sobbed as his eyes filled with tears.
Wolzogen, shrugging his shoulders and curling his lips, stepped
silently aside, marveling at "the old gentleman's" conceited stupidity.
"Ah, here he is, my hero!" said Kutuzov to a portly, handsome, dark-
haired general who was just ascending the knoll.
This was Raevski, who had spent the whole day at the most
important part of the field of Borodino.
 Raevski reported that the troops were firmly holding their ground
and that the French no longer ventured to attack.
After hearing him, Kutuzov said in French:
"Then you do not think, like some others, that we must retreat?"
"On the contrary, your Highness, in indecisive actions it is always
the most stubborn who remain victors," replied Raevski, "and in my
opinion..."
"Kaysarov!" Kutuzov called to his adjutant. "Sit down and write out
the order of the day for tomorrow. And you," he continued, addressing
another, "ride along the line and announce that tomorrow we attack."
While Kutuzov was talking to Raevski and dictating the order of the
day, Wolzogen returned from Barclay and said that General Barclay
wished to have written confirmation of the order the field marshal had
given.
Kutuzov, without looking at Wolzogen, gave directions for the order
to be written out which the former commander in chief, to avoid
personal responsibility, very judiciously wished to receive.
And by means of that mysterious indefinable bond which maintains
throughout an army one and the same temper, known as "the spirit of
the army," and which constitutes the sinew of war, Kutuzov's words,
his order for a battle next day, immediately became known from one
end of the army to the other.
It was far from being the same words or the same order that reached
the farthest links of that chain. The tales passing from mouth to mouth
at different ends of the army did not even resemble what Kutuzov had
said, but the sense of his words spread everywhere because what he
said was not the outcome of cunning calculations, but of a feeling that
lay in the commander in chief's soul as in that of every Russian.
And on learning that tomorrow they were to attack the enemy, and
hearing from the highest quarters a confirmation of what they wanted to
believe, the exhausted, wavering men felt comforted and inspirited.

CHAPTER XXXVI
Prince Andrew's regiment was among the reserves which till after
one o'clock were stationed inactive behind Semenovsk, under heavy
artillery fire. Toward two o'clock the regiment, having already lost
more than two hundred men, was moved forward into a trampled
oatfield in the gap between Semenovsk and the Knoll Battery, where
thousands of men perished that day and on which an intense,
concentrated fire from several hundred enemy guns was directed
between one and two o'clock.
Without moving from that spot or firing a single shot the regiment
here lost another third of its men. From in front and especially from the
right, in the unlifting smoke the guns boomed, and out of the
mysterious domain of smoke that overlay the whole space in front,
quick hissing cannon balls and slow whistling shells flew unceasingly.
At times, as if to allow them a respite, a quarter of an hour passed
during which the cannon balls and shells all flew overhead, but
sometimes several men were torn from the regiment in a minute and the
slain were continually being dragged away and the wounded carried
off.
With each fresh blow less and less chance of life remained for those
not yet killed. The regiment stood in columns of battalion, three
hundred paces apart, but nevertheless the men were always in one and
the same mood. All alike were taciturn and morose. Talk was rarely
heard in the ranks, and it ceased altogether every time the thud of a
successful shot and the cry of "stretchers!" was heard. Most of the time,
by their officers' order, the men sat on the ground. One, having taken
off his shako, carefully loosened the gathers of its lining and drew them
tight again; another, rubbing some dry clay between his palms, polished
his bayonet; another fingered the strap and pulled the buckle of his
bandolier, while another smoothed and refolded his leg bands and put
his boots on again. Some built little houses of the tufts in the plowed
ground, or plaited baskets from the straw in the cornfield. All seemed
fully absorbed in these pursuits. When men were killed or wounded,
when rows of stretchers went past, when some troops retreated, and
when great masses of the enemy came into view through the smoke, no
one paid any attention to these things. But when our artillery or cavalry
advanced or some of our infantry were seen to move forward, words of
approval were heard on all sides. But the liveliest attention was
attracted by occurrences quite apart from, and unconnected with, the
battle. It was as if the minds of these morally exhausted men found
relief in everyday, commonplace occurrences. A battery of artillery was
passing in front of the regiment. The horse of an ammunition cart put
its leg over a trace. "Hey, look at the trace horse!... Get her leg out!
She'll fall.... Ah, they don't see it!" came identical shouts from the ranks
all along the regiment. Another time, general attention was attracted by
a small brown dog, coming heaven knows whence, which trotted in a
preoccupied manner in front of the ranks with tail stiffly erect till
suddenly a shell fell close by, when it yelped, tucked its tail between its
legs, and darted aside. Yells and shrieks of laughter rose from the
whole regiment. But such distractions lasted only a moment, and for
eight hours the men had been inactive, without food, in constant fear of
death, and their pale and gloomy faces grew ever paler and gloomier.
Prince Andrew, pale and gloomy like everyone in the regiment,
paced up and down from the border of one patch to another, at the edge
of the meadow beside an oatfield, with head bowed and arms behind
his back. There was nothing for him to do and no orders to be given.
Everything went on of itself. The killed were dragged from the front,
the wounded carried away, and the ranks closed up. If any soldiers ran
to the rear they returned immediately and hastily. At first Prince
Andrew, considering it his duty to rouse the courage of the men and to
set them an example, walked about among the ranks, but he soon
became convinced that this was unnecessary and that there was nothing
he could teach them. All the powers of his soul, as of every soldier
there, were unconsciously bent on avoiding the contemplation of the
horrors of their situation. He walked along the meadow, dragging his
feet, rustling the grass, and gazing at the dust that covered his boots;
now he took big strides trying to keep to the footprints left on the
meadow by the mowers, then he counted his steps, calculating how
often he must walk from one strip to another to walk a mile, then he
stripped the flowers from the wormwood that grew along a boundary
rut, rubbed them in his palms, and smelled their pungent, sweetly bitter
scent. Nothing remained of the previous day's thoughts. He thought of
nothing. He listened with weary ears to the ever-recurring sounds,
distinguishing the whistle of flying projectiles from the booming of the
reports, glanced at the tiresomely familiar faces of the men of the first
battalion, and waited. "Here it comes... this one is coming our way
again!" he thought, listening to an approaching whistle in the hidden
region of smoke. "One, another! Again! It has hit...." He stopped and
looked at the ranks. "No, it has gone over. But this one has hit!" And
again he started trying to reach the boundary strip in sixteen paces. A
whizz and a thud! Five paces from him, a cannon ball tore up the dry
earth and disappeared. A chill ran down his back. Again he glanced at
the ranks. Probably many had been hit—a large crowd had gathered
near the second battalion.
"Adjutant!" he shouted. "Order them not to crowd together."
The adjutant, having obeyed this instruction, approached Prince
Andrew. From the other side a battalion commander rode up.
"Look out!" came a frightened cry from a soldier and, like a bird
whirring in rapid flight and alighting on the ground, a shell dropped
with little noise within two steps of Prince Andrew and close to the
battalion commander's horse. The horse first, regardless of whether it
was right or wrong to show fear, snorted, reared almost throwing the
major, and galloped aside. The horse's terror infected the men.
"Lie down!" cried the adjutant, throwing himself flat on the ground.
Prince Andrew hesitated. The smoking shell spun like a top between
him and the prostrate adjutant, near a wormwood plant between the
field and the meadow.
"Can this be death?" thought Prince Andrew, looking with a quite
new, envious glance at the grass, the wormwood, and the streamlet of
smoke that curled up from the rotating black ball. "I cannot, I do not
wish to die. I love life—I love this grass, this earth, this air...." He
thought this, and at the same time remembered that people were
looking at him.
"It's shameful, sir!" he said to the adjutant. "What..."
He did not finish speaking. At one and the same moment came the
sound of an explosion, a whistle of splinters as from a breaking
window frame, a suffocating smell of powder, and Prince Andrew
started to one side, raising his arm, and fell on his chest. Several
officers ran up to him. From the right side of his abdomen, blood was
welling out making a large stain on the grass.
The militiamen with stretchers who were called up stood behind the
officers. Prince Andrew lay on his chest with his face in the grass,
breathing heavily and noisily.
"What are you waiting for? Come along!"
The peasants went up and took him by his shoulders and legs, but he
moaned piteously and, exchanging looks, they set him down again.
"Pick him up, lift him, it's all the same!" cried someone.
They again took him by the shoulders and laid him on the stretcher.
"Ah, God! My God! What is it? The stomach? That means death!
My God!"—voices among the officers were heard saying.
"It flew a hair's breadth past my ear," said the adjutant.
The peasants, adjusting the stretcher to their shoulders, started
hurriedly along the path they had trodden down, to the dressing station.
"Keep in step! Ah... those peasants!" shouted an officer, seizing by
their shoulders and checking the peasants, who were walking unevenly
and jolting the stretcher.
"Get into step, Fedor... I say, Fedor!" said the foremost peasant.
 "Now that's right!" said the one behind joyfully, when he had got
into step.
"Your excellency! Eh, Prince!" said the trembling voice of
Timokhin, who had run up and was looking down on the stretcher.
Prince Andrew opened his eyes and looked up at the speaker from
the stretcher into which his head had sunk deep and again his eyelids
drooped.
The militiamen carried Prince Andrew to the dressing station by the
wood, where wagons were stationed. The dressing station consisted of
three tents with flaps turned back, pitched at the edge of a birch wood.
In the wood, wagons and horses were standing. The horses were eating
oats from their movable troughs and sparrows flew down and pecked
the grains that fell. Some crows, scenting blood, flew among the birch
trees cawing impatiently. Around the tents, over more than five acres,
bloodstained men in various garbs stood, sat, or lay. Around the
wounded stood crowds of soldier stretcher-bearers with dismal and
attentive faces, whom the officers keeping order tried in vain to drive
from the spot. Disregarding the officers' orders, the soldiers stood
leaning against their stretchers and gazing intently, as if trying to
comprehend the difficult problem of what was taking place before
them. From the tents came now loud angry cries and now plaintive
groans. Occasionally dressers ran out to fetch water, or to point out
those who were to be brought in next. The wounded men awaiting their
turn outside the tents groaned, sighed, wept, screamed, swore, or asked
for vodka. Some were delirious. Prince Andrew's bearers, stepping over
the wounded who had not yet been bandaged, took him, as a regimental
commander, close up to one of the tents and there stopped, awaiting
instructions. Prince Andrew opened his eyes and for a long time could
not make out what was going on around him. He remembered the
meadow, the wormwood, the field, the whirling black ball, and his
sudden rush of passionate love of life. Two steps from him, leaning
against a branch and talking loudly and attracting general attention,
stood a tall, handsome, black-haired noncommissioned officer with a
bandaged head. He had been wounded in the head and leg by bullets.
Around him, eagerly listening to his talk, a crowd of wounded and
stretcher-bearers was gathered.
"We kicked him out from there so that he chucked everything, we
grabbed the King himself!" cried he, looking around him with eyes that
glittered with fever. "If only reserves had come up just then, lads, there
wouldn't have been nothing left of him! I tell you surely..."
Like all the others near the speaker, Prince Andrew looked at him
with shining eyes and experienced a sense of comfort. "But isn't it all
the same now?" thought he. "And what will be there, and what has
there been here? Why was I so reluctant to part with life? There was
something in this life I did not and do not understand."

CHAPTER XXXVII
One of the doctors came out of the tent in a bloodstained apron,
holding a cigar between the thumb and little finger of one of his small
bloodstained hands, so as not to smear it. He raised his head and looked
about him, but above the level of the wounded men. He evidently
wanted a little respite. After turning his head from right to left for some
time, he sighed and looked down.
"All right, immediately," he replied to a dresser who pointed Prince
Andrew out to him, and he told them to carry him into the tent.
Murmurs arose among the wounded who were waiting.
"It seems that even in the next world only the gentry are to have a
chance!" remarked one.
Prince Andrew was carried in and laid on a table that had only just
been cleared and which a dresser was washing down. Prince Andrew
could not make out distinctly what was in that tent. The pitiful groans
from all sides and the torturing pain in his thigh, stomach, and back
distracted him. All he saw about him merged into a general impression
of naked, bleeding human bodies that seemed to fill the whole of the
low tent, as a few weeks previously, on that hot August day, such
bodies had filled the dirty pond beside the Smolensk road. Yes, it was
the same flesh, the same chair a canon, the sight of which had even
then filled him with horror, as by a presentiment.
There were three operating tables in the tent. Two were occupied,
and on the third they placed Prince Andrew. For a little while he was
left alone and involuntarily witnessed what was taking place on the
other two tables. On the nearest one sat a Tartar, probably a Cossack,
judging by the uniform thrown down beside him. Four soldiers were
holding him, and a spectacled doctor was cutting into his muscular
brown back.
"Ooh, ooh, ooh!" grunted the Tartar, and suddenly lifting up his
swarthy snub-nosed face with its high cheekbones, and baring his white
teeth, he began to wriggle and twitch his body and utter piercing,
ringing, and prolonged yells. On the other table, round which many
people were crowding, a tall well-fed man lay on his back with his head
thrown back. His curly hair, its color, and the shape of his head seemed
strangely familiar to Prince Andrew. Several dressers were pressing on
his chest to hold him down. One large, white, plump leg twitched
rapidly all the time with a feverish tremor. The man was sobbing and
choking convulsively. Two doctors—one of whom was pale and
trembling—were silently doing something to this man's other, gory leg.
When he had finished with the Tartar, whom they covered with an
overcoat, the spectacled doctor came up to Prince Andrew, wiping his
hands.
He glanced at Prince Andrew's face and quickly turned away.
"Undress him! What are you waiting for?" he cried angrily to the
dressers.
His very first, remotest recollections of childhood came back to
Prince Andrew's mind when the dresser with sleeves rolled up began
hastily to undo the buttons of his clothes and undressed him. The
doctor bent down over the wound, felt it, and sighed deeply. Then he
made a sign to someone, and the torturing pain in his abdomen caused
Prince Andrew to lose consciousness. When he came to himself the
splintered portions of his thighbone had been extracted, the torn flesh
cut away, and the wound bandaged. Water was being sprinkled on his
face. As soon as Prince Andrew opened his eyes, the doctor bent over,
kissed him silently on the lips, and hurried away.
After the sufferings he had been enduring, Prince Andrew enjoyed a
blissful feeling such as he had not experienced for a long time. All the
best and happiest moments of his life—especially his earliest
childhood, when he used to be undressed and put to bed, and when
leaning over him his nurse sang him to sleep and he, burying his head
in the pillow, felt happy in the mere consciousness of life—returned to
his memory, not merely as something past but as something present.
The doctors were busily engaged with the wounded man the shape of
whose head seemed familiar to Prince Andrew: they were lifting him
up and trying to quiet him.
"Show it to me.... Oh, ooh... Oh! Oh, ooh!" his frightened moans
could be heard, subdued by suffering and broken by sobs.
Hearing those moans Prince Andrew wanted to weep. Whether
because he was dying without glory, or because he was sorry to part
with life, or because of those memories of a childhood that could not
return, or because he was suffering and others were suffering and that
man near him was groaning so piteously—he felt like weeping
childlike, kindly, and almost happy tears.
 The wounded man was shown his amputated leg stained with clotted
blood and with the boot still on.
"Oh! Oh, ooh!" he sobbed, like a woman.
The doctor who had been standing beside him, preventing Prince
Andrew from seeing his face, moved away.
"My God! What is this? Why is he here?" said Prince Andrew to
himself.
In the miserable, sobbing, enfeebled man whose leg had just been
amputated, he recognized Anatole Kuragin. Men were supporting him
in their arms and offering him a glass of water, but his trembling,
swollen lips could not grasp its rim. Anatole was sobbing painfully.
"Yes, it is he! Yes, that man is somehow closely and painfully
connected with me," thought Prince Andrew, not yet clearly grasping
what he saw before him. "What is the connection of that man with my
childhood and life?" he asked himself without finding an answer. And
suddenly a new unexpected memory from that realm of pure and loving
childhood presented itself to him. He remembered Natasha as he had
seen her for the first time at the ball in 1810, with her slender neck and
arms and with a frightened happy face ready for rapture, and love and
tenderness for her, stronger and more vivid than ever, awoke in his
soul. He now remembered the connection that existed between himself
and this man who was dimly gazing at him through tears that filled his
swollen eyes. He remembered everything, and ecstatic pity and love for
that man overflowed his happy heart.
Prince Andrew could no longer restrain himself and wept tender
loving tears for his fellow men, for himself, and for his own and their
errors.
"Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for
those who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God
preached on earth and which Princess Mary taught me and I did not
understand—that is what made me sorry to part with life, that is what
remained for me had I lived. But now it is too late. I know it!"

CHAPTER XXXVIII
The terrible spectacle of the battlefield covered with dead and
wounded, together with the heaviness of his head and the news that
some twenty generals he knew personally had been killed or wounded,
and the consciousness of the impotence of his once mighty arm,
produced an unexpected impression on Napoleon who usually liked to
look at the killed and wounded, thereby, he considered, testing his
strength of mind. This day the horrible appearance of the battlefield
overcame that strength of mind which he thought constituted his merit
and his greatness. He rode hurriedly from the battlefield and returned to
the Shevardino knoll, where he sat on his campstool, his sallow face
swollen and heavy, his eyes dim, his nose red, and his voice hoarse,
involuntarily listening, with downcast eyes, to the sounds of firing.
With painful dejection he awaited the end of this action, in which he
regarded himself as a participant and which he was unable to arrest. A
personal, human feeling for a brief moment got the better of the
artificial phantasm of life he had served so long. He felt in his own
person the sufferings and death he had witnessed on the battlefield. The
heaviness of his head and chest reminded him of the possibility of
suffering and death for himself. At that moment he did not desire
Moscow, or victory, or glory (what need had he for any more glory?).
The one thing he wished for was rest, tranquillity, and freedom. But
when he had been on the Semenovsk heights the artillery commander
had proposed to him to bring several batteries of artillery up to those
heights to strengthen the fire on the Russian troops crowded in front of
Knyazkovo. Napoleon had assented and had given orders that news
should be brought to him of the effect those batteries produced.
An adjutant came now to inform him that the fire of two hundred
guns had been concentrated on the Russians, as he had ordered, but that
they still held their ground.
"Our fire is mowing them down by rows, but still they hold on," said
the adjutant.
"They want more!..." said Napoleon in a hoarse voice.
"Sire?" asked the adjutant who had not heard the remark.
"They want more!" croaked Napoleon frowning. "Let them have it!"
Even before he gave that order the thing he did not desire, and for
which he gave the order only because he thought it was expected of
him, was being done. And he fell back into that artificial realm of
imaginary greatness, and again—as a horse walking a treadmill thinks
it is doing something for itself—he submissively fulfilled the cruel, sad,
gloomy, and inhuman role predestined for him.
And not for that day and hour alone were the mind and conscience
darkened of this man on whom the responsibility for what was
happening lay more than on all the others who took part in it. Never to
the end of his life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the
significance of his actions which were too contrary to goodness and
truth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to
grasp their meaning. He could not disavow his actions, belauded as
they were by half the world, and so he had to repudiate truth, goodness,
and all humanity.
Not only on that day, as he rode over the battlefield strewn with men
killed and maimed (by his will as he believed), did he reckon as he
looked at them how many Russians there were for each Frenchman
and, deceiving himself, find reason for rejoicing in the calculation that
there were five Russians for every Frenchman. Not on that day alone
did he write in a letter to Paris that "the battle field was superb,"
because fifty thousand corpses lay there, but even on the island of St.
Helena in the peaceful solitude where he said he intended to devote his
leisure to an account of the great deeds he had done, he wrote:
The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern
times: it was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquillity
and security of all; it was purely pacific and conservative.
It was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties and the
beginning of security. A new horizon and new labors were opening out,
full of well-being and prosperity for all. The European system was
already founded; all that remained was to organize it.
Satisfied on these great points and with tranquility everywhere, I too
should have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. Those ideas were
stolen from me. In that reunion of great sovereigns we should have
discussed our interests like one family, and have rendered account to
the peoples as clerk to master.
Europe would in this way soon have been, in fact, but one people,
and anyone who traveled anywhere would have found himself always
in the common fatherland. I should have demanded the freedom of all
navigable rivers for everybody, that the seas should be common to all,
and that the great standing armies should be reduced henceforth to mere
guards for the sovereigns.
On returning to France, to the bosom of the great, strong,
magnificent, peaceful, and glorious fatherland, I should have
proclaimed her frontiers immutable; all future wars purely defensive,
all aggrandizement antinational. I should have associated my son in the
Empire; my dictatorship would have been finished, and his
constitutional reign would have begun.
Paris would have been the capital of the world, and the French the
envy of the nations!
My leisure then, and my old age, would have been devoted, in
company with the Empress and during the royal apprenticeship of my
son, to leisurely visiting, with our own horses and like a true country
couple, every corner of the Empire, receiving complaints, redressing
wrongs, and scattering public buildings and benefactions on all sides
and everywhere.
Napoleon, predestined by Providence for the gloomy role of
executioner of the peoples, assured himself that the aim of his actions
had been the peoples' welfare and that he could control the fate of
millions and by the employment of power confer benefactions.
"Of four hundred thousand who crossed the Vistula," he wrote
further of the Russian war, "half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons,
Poles, Bavarians, Wurttembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians,
and Neapolitans. The Imperial army, strictly speaking, was one third
composed of Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine,
Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the
Thirty-second Military Division, of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on: it
included scarcely a hundred and forty thousand who spoke French. The
Russian expedition actually cost France less than fifty thousand men;
the Russian army in its retreat from Vilna to Moscow lost in the various
battles four times more men than the French army; the burning of
Moscow cost the lives of a hundred thousand Russians who died of
cold and want in the woods; finally, in its march from Moscow to the
Oder the Russian army also suffered from the severity of the season; so
that by the time it reached Vilna it numbered only fifty thousand, and at
Kalisch less than eighteen thousand."
He imagined that the war with Russia came about by his will, and the
horrors that occurred did not stagger his soul. He boldly took the whole
responsibility for what happened, and his darkened mind found
justification in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands who
perished there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians.

CHAPTER XXXIX
Several tens of thousands of the slain lay in diverse postures and
various uniforms on the fields and meadows belonging to the Davydov
family and to the crown serfs—those fields and meadows where for
hundreds of years the peasants of Borodino, Gorki, Shevardino, and
Semenovsk had reaped their harvests and pastured their cattle. At the
dressing stations the grass and earth were soaked with blood for a space
of some three acres around. Crowds of men of various arms, wounded
and unwounded, with frightened faces, dragged themselves back to
Mozhaysk from the one army and back to Valuevo from the other.
Other crowds, exhausted and hungry, went forward led by their
officers. Others held their ground and continued to fire.
Over the whole field, previously so gaily beautiful with the glitter of
bayonets and cloudlets of smoke in the morning sun, there now spread
a mist of damp and smoke and a strange acid smell of saltpeter and
blood. Clouds gathered and drops of rain began to fall on the dead and
wounded, on the frightened, exhausted, and hesitating men, as if to say:
"Enough, men! Enough! Cease... bethink yourselves! What are you
doing?"
To the men of both sides alike, worn out by want of food and rest, it
began equally to appear doubtful whether they should continue to
slaughter one another; all the faces expressed hesitation, and the
question arose in every soul: "For what, for whom, must I kill and be
killed?... You may go and kill whom you please, but I don't want to do
so anymore!" By evening this thought had ripened in every soul. At any
moment these men might have been seized with horror at what they
were doing and might have thrown up everything and run away
anywhere.
But though toward the end of the battle the men felt all the horror of
what they were doing, though they would have been glad to leave off,
some incomprehensible, mysterious power continued to control them,
and they still brought up the charges, loaded, aimed, and applied the
match, though only one artilleryman survived out of every three, and
though they stumbled and panted with fatigue, perspiring and stained
with blood and powder. The cannon balls flew just as swiftly and
cruelly from both sides, crushing human bodies, and that terrible work
which was not done by the will of a man but at the will of Him who
governs men and worlds continued.
Anyone looking at the disorganized rear of the Russian army would
have said that, if only the French made one more slight effort, it would
disappear; and anyone looking at the rear of the French army would
have said that the Russians need only make one more slight effort and
the French would be destroyed. But neither the French nor the Russians
made that effort, and the flame of battle burned slowly out.
The Russians did not make that effort because they were not
attacking the French. At the beginning of the battle they stood blocking
the way to Moscow and they still did so at the end of the battle as at the
beginning. But even had the aim of the Russians been to drive the
French from their positions, they could not have made this last effort,
for all the Russian troops had been broken up, there was no part of the
Russian army that had not suffered in the battle, and though still
holding their positions they had lost ONE HALF of their army.
 The French, with the memory of all their former victories during
fifteen years, with the assurance of Napoleon's invincibility, with the
consciousness that they had captured part of the battlefield and had lost
only a quarter of their men and still had their Guards intact, twenty
thousand strong, might easily have made that effort. The French who
had attacked the Russian army in order to drive it from its position
ought to have made that effort, for as long as the Russians continued to
block the road to Moscow as before, the aim of the French had not been
attained and all their efforts and losses were in vain. But the French did
not make that effort. Some historians say that Napoleon need only have
used his Old Guards, who were intact, and the battle would have been
won. To speak of what would have happened had Napoleon sent his
Guards is like talking of what would happen if autumn became spring.
It could not be. Napoleon did not give his Guards, not because he did
not want to, but because it could not be done. All the generals, officers,
and soldiers of the French army knew it could not be done, because the
flagging spirit of the troops would not permit it.
It was not Napoleon alone who had experienced that nightmare
feeling of the mighty arm being stricken powerless, but all the generals
and soldiers of his army whether they had taken part in the battle or not,
after all their experience of previous battles—when after one tenth of
such efforts the enemy had fled—experienced a similar feeling of terror
before an enemy who, after losing HALF his men, stood as
threateningly at the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral
force of the attacking French army was exhausted. Not that sort of
victory which is defined by the capture of pieces of material fastened to
sticks, called standards, and of the ground on which the troops had
stood and were standing, but a moral victory that convinces the enemy
of the moral superiority of his opponent and of his own impotence was
gained by the Russians at Borodino. The French invaders, like an
infuriated animal that has in its onslaught received a mortal wound, felt
that they were perishing, but could not stop, any more than the Russian
army, weaker by one half, could help swerving. By impetus gained, the
French army was still able to roll forward to Moscow, but there,
without further effort on the part of the Russians, it had to perish,
bleeding from the mortal wound it had received at Borodino. The direct
consequence of the battle of Borodino was Napoleon's senseless flight
from Moscow, his retreat along the old Smolensk road, the destruction
of the invading army of five hundred thousand men, and the downfall
of Napoleonic France, on which at Borodino for the first time the hand
of an opponent of stronger spirit had been laid.
 BOOK ELEVEN: 1812

CHAPTER I
Absolute continuity of motion is not comprehensible to the human
mind. Laws of motion of any kind become comprehensible to man only
when he examines arbitrarily selected elements of that motion; but at
the same time, a large proportion of human error comes from the
arbitrary division of continuous motion into discontinuous elements.
There is a well known, so-called sophism of the ancients consisting in
this, that Achilles could never catch up with a tortoise he was
following, in spite of the fact that he traveled ten times as fast as the
tortoise. By the time Achilles has covered the distance that separated
him from the tortoise, the tortoise has covered one tenth of that distance
ahead of him: when Achilles has covered that tenth, the tortoise has
covered another one hundredth, and so on forever. This problem
seemed to the ancients insoluble. The absurd answer (that Achilles
could never overtake the tortoise) resulted from this: that motion was
arbitrarily divided into discontinuous elements, whereas the motion
both of Achilles and of the tortoise was continuous.
By adopting smaller and smaller elements of motion we only
approach a solution of the problem, but never reach it. Only when we
have admitted the conception of the infinitely small, and the resulting
geometrical progression with a common ratio of one tenth, and have
found the sum of this progression to infinity, do we reach a solution of
the problem.
A modern branch of mathematics having achieved the art of dealing
with the infinitely small can now yield solutions in other more complex
problems of motion which used to appear insoluble.
This modern branch of mathematics, unknown to the ancients, when
dealing with problems of motion admits the conception of the infinitely
small, and so conforms to the chief condition of motion (absolute
continuity) and thereby corrects the inevitable error which the human
mind cannot avoid when it deals with separate elements of motion
instead of examining continuous motion.
In seeking the laws of historical movement just the same thing
happens. The movement of humanity, arising as it does from
innumerable arbitrary human wills, is continuous.
 To understand the laws of this continuous movement is the aim of
history. But to arrive at these laws, resulting from the sum of all those
human wills, man's mind postulates arbitrary and disconnected units.
The first method of history is to take an arbitrarily selected series of
continuous events and examine it apart from others, though there is and
can be no beginning to any event, for one event always flows
uninterruptedly from another.
The second method is to consider the actions of some one man—a
king or a commander—as equivalent to the sum of many individual
wills; whereas the sum of individual wills is never expressed by the
activity of a single historic personage.
Historical science in its endeavor to draw nearer to truth continually
takes smaller and smaller units for examination. But however small the
units it takes, we feel that to take any unit disconnected from others, or
to assume a beginning of any phenomenon, or to say that the will of
many men is expressed by the actions of any one historic personage, is
in itself false.
It needs no critical exertion to reduce utterly to dust any deductions
drawn from history. It is merely necessary to select some larger or
smaller unit as the subject of observation—as criticism has every right
to do, seeing that whatever unit history observes must always be
arbitrarily selected.
Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the
differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and
attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of these
infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.
The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe present an
extraordinary movement of millions of people. Men leave their
customary pursuits, hasten from one side of Europe to the other,
plunder and slaughter one another, triumph and are plunged in despair,
and for some years the whole course of life is altered and presents an
intensive movement which first increases and then slackens. What was
the cause of this movement, by what laws was it governed? asks the
mind of man.
The historians, replying to this question, lay before us the sayings
and doings of a few dozen men in a building in the city of Paris, calling
these sayings and doings "the Revolution"; then they give a detailed
biography of Napoleon and of certain people favorable or hostile to
him; tell of the influence some of these people had on others, and say:
that is why this movement took place and those are its laws.
But the mind of man not only refuses to believe this explanation, but
plainly says that this method of explanation is fallacious, because in it a
weaker phenomenon is taken as the cause of a stronger. The sum of
human wills produced the Revolution and Napoleon, and only the sum
of those wills first tolerated and then destroyed them.
"But every time there have been conquests there have been
conquerors; every time there has been a revolution in any state there
have been great men," says history. And, indeed, human reason replies:
every time conquerors appear there have been wars, but this does not
prove that the conquerors caused the wars and that it is possible to find
the laws of a war in the personal activity of a single man. Whenever I
look at my watch and its hands point to ten, I hear the bells of the
neighboring church; but because the bells begin to ring when the hands
of the clock reach ten, I have no right to assume that the movement of
the bells is caused by the position of the hands of the watch.
Whenever I see the movement of a locomotive I hear the whistle and
see the valves opening and wheels turning; but I have no right to
conclude that the whistling and the turning of wheels are the cause of
the movement of the engine.
The peasants say that a cold wind blows in late spring because the
oaks are budding, and really every spring cold winds do blow when the
oak is budding. But though I do not know what causes the cold winds
to blow when the oak buds unfold, I cannot agree with the peasants that
the unfolding of the oak buds is the cause of the cold wind, for the
force of the wind is beyond the influence of the buds. I see only a
coincidence of occurrences such as happens with all the phenomena of
life, and I see that however much and however carefully I observe the
hands of the watch, and the valves and wheels of the engine, and the
oak, I shall not discover the cause of the bells ringing, the engine
moving, or of the winds of spring. To that I must entirely change my
point of view and study the laws of the movement of steam, of the
bells, and of the wind. History must do the same. And attempts in this
direction have already been made.
To study the laws of history we must completely change the subject
of our observation, must leave aside kings, ministers, and generals, and
study the common, infinitesimally small elements by which the masses
are moved. No one can say in how far it is possible for man to advance
in this way toward an understanding of the laws of history; but it is
evident that only along that path does the possibility of discovering the
laws of history lie, and that as yet not a millionth part as much mental
effort has been applied in this direction by historians as has been
devoted to describing the actions of various kings, commanders, and
ministers and propounding the historians' own reflections concerning
these actions.
 CHAPTER II
The forces of a dozen European nations burst into Russia. The
Russian army and people avoided a collision till Smolensk was
reached, and again from Smolensk to Borodino. The French army
pushed on to Moscow, its goal, its impetus ever increasing as it neared
its aim, just as the velocity of a falling body increases as it approaches
the earth. Behind it were seven hundred miles of hunger-stricken,
hostile country; ahead were a few dozen miles separating it from its
goal. Every soldier in Napoleon's army felt this and the invasion moved
on by its own momentum.
The more the Russian army retreated the more fiercely a spirit of
hatred of the enemy flared up, and while it retreated the army increased
and consolidated. At Borodino a collision took place. Neither army was
broken up, but the Russian army retreated immediately after the
collision as inevitably as a ball recoils after colliding with another
having a greater momentum, and with equal inevitability the ball of
invasion that had advanced with such momentum rolled on for some
distance, though the collision had deprived it of all its force.
The Russians retreated eighty miles—to beyond Moscow—and the
French reached Moscow and there came to a standstill. For five weeks
after that there was not a single battle. The French did not move. As a
bleeding, mortally wounded animal licks its wounds, they remained
inert in Moscow for five weeks, and then suddenly, with no fresh
reason, fled back: they made a dash for the Kaluga road, and (after a
victory—for at Malo-Yaroslavets the field of conflict again remained
theirs) without undertaking a single serious battle, they fled still more
rapidly back to Smolensk, beyond Smolensk, beyond the Berezina,
beyond Vilna, and farther still.
On the evening of the twenty-sixth of August, Kutuzov and the
whole Russian army were convinced that the battle of Borodino was a
victory. Kutuzov reported so to the Emperor. He gave orders to prepare
for a fresh conflict to finish the enemy and did this not to deceive
anyone, but because he knew that the enemy was beaten, as everyone
who had taken part in the battle knew it.
But all that evening and next day reports came in one after another of
unheard-of losses, of the loss of half the army, and a fresh battle proved
physically impossible.
 It was impossible to give battle before information had been
collected, the wounded gathered in, the supplies of ammunition
replenished, the slain reckoned up, new officers appointed to replace
those who had been killed, and before the men had had food and sleep.
And meanwhile, the very next morning after the battle, the French army
advanced of itself upon the Russians, carried forward by the force of its
own momentum now seemingly increased in inverse proportion to the
square of the distance from its aim. Kutuzov's wish was to attack next
day, and the whole army desired to do so. But to make an attack the
wish to do so is not sufficient, there must also be a possibility of doing
it, and that possibility did not exist. It was impossible not to retreat a
day's march, and then in the same way it was impossible not to retreat
another and a third day's march, and at last, on the first of September
when the army drew near Moscow—despite the strength of the feeling
that had arisen in all ranks—the force of circumstances compelled it to
retire beyond Moscow. And the troops retired one more, last, day's
march, and abandoned Moscow to the enemy.
For people accustomed to think that plans of campaign and battles
are made by generals—as any one of us sitting over a map in his study
may imagine how he would have arranged things in this or that battle—
the questions present themselves: Why did Kutuzov during the retreat
not do this or that? Why did he not take up a position before reaching
Fili? Why did he not retire at once by the Kaluga road, abandoning
Moscow? and so on. People accustomed to think in that way forget, or
do not know, the inevitable conditions which always limit the activities
of any commander in chief. The activity of a commander in chief does
not at all resemble the activity we imagine to ourselves when we sit at
ease in our studies examining some campaign on the map, with a
certain number of troops on this and that side in a certain known
locality, and begin our plans from some given moment. A commander
in chief is never dealing with the beginning of any event—the position
from which we always contemplate it. The commander in chief is
always in the midst of a series of shifting events and so he never can at
any moment consider the whole import of an event that is occurring.
Moment by moment the event is imperceptibly shaping itself, and at
every moment of this continuous, uninterrupted shaping of events the
commander in chief is in the midst of a most complex play of intrigues,
worries, contingencies, authorities, projects, counsels, threats, and
deceptions and is continually obliged to reply to innumerable questions
addressed to him, which constantly conflict with one another.
Learned military authorities quite seriously tell us that Kutuzov
should have moved his army to the Kaluga road long before reaching
Fili, and that somebody actually submitted such a proposal to him. But
a commander in chief, especially at a difficult moment, has always
before him not one proposal but dozens simultaneously. And all these
proposals, based on strategics and tactics, contradict each other.
A commander in chief's business, it would seem, is simply to choose
one of these projects. But even that he cannot do. Events and time do
not wait. For instance, on the twenty-eighth it is suggested to him to
cross to the Kaluga road, but just then an adjutant gallops up from
Miloradovich asking whether he is to engage the French or retire. An
order must be given him at once, that instant. And the order to retreat
carries us past the turn to the Kaluga road. And after the adjutant comes
the commissary general asking where the stores are to be taken, and the
chief of the hospitals asks where the wounded are to go, and a courier
from Petersburg brings a letter from the sovereign which does not
admit of the possibility of abandoning Moscow, and the commander in
chief's rival, the man who is undermining him (and there are always not
merely one but several such), presents a new project diametrically
opposed to that of turning to the Kaluga road, and the commander in
chief himself needs sleep and refreshment to maintain his energy and a
respectable general who has been overlooked in the distribution of
rewards comes to complain, and the inhabitants of the district pray to
be defended, and an officer sent to inspect the locality comes in and
gives a report quite contrary to what was said by the officer previously
sent; and a spy, a prisoner, and a general who has been on
reconnaissance, all describe the position of the enemy's army
differently. People accustomed to misunderstand or to forget these
inevitable conditions of a commander in chief's actions describe to us,
for instance, the position of the army at Fili and assume that the
commander in chief could, on the first of September, quite freely
decide whether to abandon Moscow or defend it; whereas, with the
Russian army less than four miles from Moscow, no such question
existed. When had that question been settled? At Drissa and at
Smolensk and most palpably of all on the twenty-fourth of August at
Shevardino and on the twenty-sixth at Borodino, and each day and hour
and minute of the retreat from Borodino to Fili.

CHAPTER III
When Ermolov, having been sent by Kutuzov to inspect the position,
told the field marshal that it was impossible to fight there before
Moscow and that they must retreat, Kutuzov looked at him in silence.
 "Give me your hand," said he and, turning it over so as to feel the
pulse, added: "You are not well, my dear fellow. Think what you are
saying!"
Kutuzov could not yet admit the possibility of retreating beyond
Moscow without a battle.
On the Poklonny Hill, four miles from the Dorogomilov gate of
Moscow, Kutuzov got out of his carriage and sat down on a bench by
the roadside. A great crowd of generals gathered round him, and Count
Rostopchin, who had come out from Moscow, joined them. This
brilliant company separated into several groups who all discussed the
advantages and disadvantages of the position, the state of the army, the
plans suggested, the situation of Moscow, and military questions
generally. Though they had not been summoned for the purpose, and
though it was not so called, they all felt that this was really a council of
war. The conversations all dealt with public questions. If anyone gave
or asked for personal news, it was done in a whisper and they
immediately reverted to general matters. No jokes, or laughter, or
smiles even, were seen among all these men. They evidently all made
an effort to hold themselves at the height the situation demanded. And
all these groups, while talking among themselves, tried to keep near the
commander in chief (whose bench formed the center of the gathering)
and to speak so that he might overhear them. The commander in chief
listened to what was being said and sometimes asked them to repeat
their remarks, but did not himself take part in the conversations or
express any opinion. After hearing what was being said by one or other
of these groups he generally turned away with an air of disappointment,
as though they were not speaking of anything he wished to hear. Some
discussed the position that had been chosen, criticizing not the position
itself so much as the mental capacity of those who had chosen it.
Others argued that a mistake had been made earlier and that a battle
should have been fought two days before. Others again spoke of the
battle of Salamanca, which was described by Crosart, a newly arrived
Frenchman in a Spanish uniform. (This Frenchman and one of the
German princes serving with the Russian army were discussing the
siege of Saragossa and considering the possibility of defending
Moscow in a similar manner.) Count Rostopchin was telling a fourth
group that he was prepared to die with the city train bands under the
walls of the capital, but that he still could not help regretting having
been left in ignorance of what was happening, and that had he known it
sooner things would have been different.... A fifth group, displaying the
profundity of their strategic perceptions, discussed the direction the
troops would now have to take. A sixth group was talking absolute
nonsense. Kutuzov's expression grew more and more preoccupied and
gloomy. From all this talk he saw only one thing: that to defend
Moscow was a physical impossibility in the full meaning of those
words, that is to say, so utterly impossible that if any senseless
commander were to give orders to fight, confusion would result but the
battle would still not take place. It would not take place because the
commanders not merely all recognized the position to be impossible,
but in their conversations were only discussing what would happen
after its inevitable abandonment. How could the commanders lead their
troops to a field of battle they considered impossible to hold? The
lower-grade officers and even the soldiers (who too reason) also
considered the position impossible and therefore could not go to fight,
fully convinced as they were of defeat. If Bennigsen insisted on the
position being defended and others still discussed it, the question was
no longer important in itself but only as a pretext for disputes and
intrigue. This Kutuzov knew well.
Bennigsen, who had chosen the position, warmly displayed his
Russian patriotism (Kutuzov could not listen to this without wincing)
by insisting that Moscow must be defended. His aim was as clear as
daylight to Kutuzov: if the defense failed, to throw the blame on
Kutuzov who had brought the army as far as the Sparrow Hills without
giving battle; if it succeeded, to claim the success as his own; or if
battle were not given, to clear himself of the crime of abandoning
Moscow. But this intrigue did not now occupy the old man's mind. One
terrible question absorbed him and to that question he heard no reply
from anyone. The question for him now was: "Have I really allowed
Napoleon to reach Moscow, and when did I do so? When was it
decided? Can it have been yesterday when I ordered Platov to retreat,
or was it the evening before, when I had a nap and told Bennigsen to
issue orders? Or was it earlier still?... When, when was this terrible
affair decided? Moscow must be abandoned. The army must retreat and
the order to do so must be given." To give that terrible order seemed to
him equivalent to resigning the command of the army. And not only
did he love power to which he was accustomed (the honours awarded
to Prince Prozorovski, under whom he had served in Turkey, galled
him), but he was convinced that he was destined to save Russia and that
that was why, against the Emperor's wish and by the will of the people,
he had been chosen commander in chief. He was convinced that he
alone could maintain command of the army in these difficult
circumstances, and that in all the world he alone could encounter the
invincible Napoleon without fear, and he was horrified at the thought of
the order he had to issue. But something had to be decided, and these
conversations around him which were assuming too free a character
must be stopped.
He called the most important generals to him.
"My head, be it good or bad, must depend on itself," said he, rising
from the bench, and he rode to Fili where his carriages were waiting.
 CHAPTER IV
The Council of War began to assemble at two in the afternoon in the
better and roomier part of Andrew Savostyanov's hut. The men,
women, and children of the large peasant family crowded into the back
room across the passage. Only Malasha, Andrew's six-year-old
granddaughter whom his Serene Highness had petted and to whom he
had given a lump of sugar while drinking his tea, remained on the top
of the brick oven in the larger room. Malasha looked down from the
oven with shy delight at the faces, uniforms, and decorations of the
generals, who one after another came into the room and sat down on
the broad benches in the corner under the icons. "Granddad" himself, as
Malasha in her own mind called Kutuzov, sat apart in a dark corner
behind the oven. He sat, sunk deep in a folding armchair, and
continually cleared his throat and pulled at the collar of his coat which,
though it was unbuttoned, still seemed to pinch his neck. Those who
entered went up one by one to the field marshal; he pressed the hands
of some and nodded to others. His adjutant Kaysarov was about to draw
back the curtain of the window facing Kutuzov, but the latter moved his
hand angrily and Kaysarov understood that his Serene Highness did not
wish his face to be seen.
Round the peasant's deal table, on which lay maps, plans, pencils,
and papers, so many people gathered that the orderlies brought in
another bench and put it beside the table. Ermolov, Kaysarov, and Toll,
who had just arrived, sat down on this bench. In the foremost place,
immediately under the icons, sat Barclay de Tolly, his high forehead
merging into his bald crown. He had a St. George's Cross round his
neck and looked pale and ill. He had been feverish for two days and
was now shivering and in pain. Beside him sat Uvarov, who with rapid
gesticulations was giving him some information, speaking in low tones
as they all did. Chubby little Dokhturov was listening attentively with
eyebrows raised and arms folded on his stomach. On the other side sat
Count Ostermann-Tolstoy, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts.
His broad head with its bold features and glittering eyes was resting on
his hand. Raevski, twitching forward the black hair on his temples as
was his habit, glanced now at Kutuzov and now at the door with a look
of impatience. Konovnitsyn's firm, handsome, and kindly face was lit
up by a tender, sly smile. His glance met Malasha's, and the expression
of his eyes caused the little girl to smile.
They were all waiting for Bennigsen, who on the pretext of
inspecting the position was finishing his savory dinner. They waited for
him from four till six o'clock and did not begin their deliberations all
that time but talked in low tones of other matters.
Only when Bennigsen had entered the hut did Kutuzov leave his
corner and draw toward the table, but not near enough for the candles
that had been placed there to light up his face.
Bennigsen opened the council with the question: "Are we to abandon
Russia's ancient and sacred capital without a struggle, or are we to
defend it?" A prolonged and general silence followed. There was a
frown on every face and only Kutuzov's angry grunts and occasional
cough broke the silence. All eyes were gazing at him. Malasha too
looked at "Granddad." She was nearest to him and saw how his face
puckered; he seemed about to cry, but this did not last long.
"Russia's ancient and sacred capital!" he suddenly said, repeating
Bennigsen's words in an angry voice and thereby drawing attention to
the false note in them. "Allow me to tell you, your excellency, that that
question has no meaning for a Russian." (He lurched his heavy body
forward.) "Such a question cannot be put; it is senseless! The question I
have asked these gentlemen to meet to discuss is a military one. The
question is that of saving Russia. Is it better to give up Moscow without
a battle, or by accepting battle to risk losing the army as well as
Moscow? That is the question on which I want your opinion," and he
sank back in his chair.
The discussion began. Bennigsen did not yet consider his game lost.
Admitting the view of Barclay and others that a defensive battle at Fili
was impossible, but imbued with Russian patriotism and the love of
Moscow, he proposed to move troops from the right to the left flank
during the night and attack the French right flank the following day.
Opinions were divided, and arguments were advanced for and against
that project. Ermolov, Dokhturov, and Raevski agreed with Bennigsen.
Whether feeling it necessary to make a sacrifice before abandoning the
capital or guided by other, personal considerations, these generals
seemed not to understand that this council could not alter the inevitable
course of events and that Moscow was in effect already abandoned.
The other generals, however, understood it and, leaving aside the
question of Moscow, spoke of the direction the army should take in its
retreat. Malasha, who kept her eyes fixed on what was going on before
her, understood the meaning of the council differently. It seemed to her
that it was only a personal struggle between "Granddad" and "Long-
coat" as she termed Bennigsen. She saw that they grew spiteful when
they spoke to one another, and in her heart she sided with "Granddad."
In the midst of the conversation she noticed "Granddad" give
Bennigsen a quick, subtle glance, and then to her joys he saw that
"Granddad" said something to "Long-coat" which settled him.
Bennigsen suddenly reddened and paced angrily up and down the
room. What so affected him was Kutuzov's calm and quiet comment on
the advantage or disadvantage of Bennigsen's proposal to move troops
by night from the right to the left flank to attack the French right wing.
"Gentlemen," said Kutuzov, "I cannot approve of the count's plan.
Moving troops in close proximity to an enemy is always dangerous,
and military history supports that view. For instance..." Kutuzov
seemed to reflect, searching for an example, then with a clear, naive
look at Bennigsen he added: "Oh yes; take the battle of Friedland,
which I think the count well remembers, and which was... not fully
successful, only because our troops were rearranged too near the
enemy..."
There followed a momentary pause, which seemed very long to them
all.
The discussion recommenced, but pauses frequently occurred and
they all felt that there was no more to be said.
During one of these pauses Kutuzov heaved a deep sigh as if
preparing to speak. They all looked at him.
"Well, gentlemen, I see that it is I who will have to pay for the
broken crockery," said he, and rising slowly he moved to the table.
"Gentlemen, I have heard your views. Some of you will not agree with
me. But I," he paused, "by the authority entrusted to me by my
Sovereign and country, order a retreat."
After that the generals began to disperse with the solemnity and
circumspect silence of people who are leaving, after a funeral.
Some of the generals, in low tones and in a strain very different from
the way they had spoken during the council, communicated something
to their commander in chief.
Malasha, who had long been expected for supper, climbed carefully
backwards down from the oven, her bare little feet catching at its
projections, and slipping between the legs of the generals she darted out
of the room.
When he had dismissed the generals Kutuzov sat a long time with his
elbows on the table, thinking always of the same terrible question:
"When, when did the abandonment of Moscow become inevitable?
When was that done which settled the matter? And who was to blame
for it?"
"I did not expect this," said he to his adjutant Schneider when the
latter came in late that night. "I did not expect this! I did not think this
would happen."
 "You should take some rest, your Serene Highness," replied
Schneider.
"But no! They shall eat horseflesh yet, like the Turks!" exclaimed
Kutuzov without replying, striking the table with his podgy fist. "They
shall too, if only..."

CHAPTER V
At that very time, in circumstances even more important than
retreating without a battle, namely the evacuation and burning of
Moscow, Rostopchin, who is usually represented as being the instigator
of that event, acted in an altogether different manner from Kutuzov.
After the battle of Borodino the abandonment and burning of
Moscow was as inevitable as the retreat of the army beyond Moscow
without fighting.
Every Russian might have predicted it, not by reasoning but by the
feeling implanted in each of us and in our fathers.
The same thing that took place in Moscow had happened in all the
towns and villages on Russian soil beginning with Smolensk, without
the participation of Count Rostopchin and his broadsheets. The people
awaited the enemy unconcernedly, did not riot or become excited or
tear anyone to pieces, but faced its fate, feeling within it the strength to
find what it should do at that most difficult moment. And as soon as the
enemy drew near the wealthy classes went away abandoning their
property, while the poorer remained and burned and destroyed what
was left.
The consciousness that this would be so and would always be so was
and is present in the heart of every Russian. And a consciousness of
this, and a foreboding that Moscow would be taken, was present in
Russian Moscow society in 1812. Those who had quitted Moscow
already in July and at the beginning of August showed that they
expected this. Those who went away, taking what they could and
abandoning their houses and half their belongings, did so from the
latent patriotism which expresses itself not by phrases or by giving
one's children to save the fatherland and similar unnatural exploits, but
unobtrusively, simply, organically, and therefore in the way that always
produces the most powerful results.
 "It is disgraceful to run away from danger; only cowards are running
away from Moscow," they were told. In his broadsheets Rostopchin
impressed on them that to leave Moscow was shameful. They were
ashamed to be called cowards, ashamed to leave, but still they left,
knowing it had to be done. Why did they go? It is impossible to
suppose that Rostopchin had scared them by his accounts of horrors
Napoleon had committed in conquered countries. The first people to go
away were the rich educated people who knew quite well that Vienna
and Berlin had remained intact and that during Napoleon's occupation
the inhabitants had spent their time pleasantly in the company of the
charming Frenchmen whom the Russians, and especially the Russian
ladies, then liked so much.
They went away because for Russians there could be no question as
to whether things would go well or ill under French rule in Moscow. It
was out of the question to be under French rule, it would be the worst
thing that could happen. They went away even before the battle of
Borodino and still more rapidly after it, despite Rostopchin's calls to
defend Moscow or the announcement of his intention to take the
wonder-working icon of the Iberian Mother of God and go to fight, or
of the balloons that were to destroy the French, and despite all the
nonsense Rostopchin wrote in his broadsheets. They knew that it was
for the army to fight, and that if it could not succeed it would not do to
take young ladies and house serfs to the Three Hills quarter of Moscow
to fight Napoleon, and that they must go away, sorry as they were to
abandon their property to destruction. They went away without
thinking of the tremendous significance of that immense and wealthy
city being given over to destruction, for a great city with wooden
buildings was certain when abandoned by its inhabitants to be burned.
They went away each on his own account, and yet it was only in
consequence of their going away that the momentous event was
accomplished that will always remain the greatest glory of the Russian
people. The lady who, afraid of being stopped by Count Rostopchin's
orders, had already in June moved with her Negroes and her women
jesters from Moscow to her Saratov estate, with a vague consciousness
that she was not Bonaparte's servant, was really, simply, and truly
carrying out the great work which saved Russia. But Count Rostopchin,
who now taunted those who left Moscow and now had the government
offices removed; now distributed quite useless weapons to the drunken
rabble; now had processions displaying the icons, and now forbade
Father Augustin to remove icons or the relics of saints; now seized all
the private carts in Moscow and on one hundred and thirty-six of them
removed the balloon that was being constructed by Leppich; now
hinted that he would burn Moscow and related how he had set fire to
his own house; now wrote a proclamation to the French solemnly
upbraiding them for having destroyed his Orphanage; now claimed the
glory of having hinted that he would burn Moscow and now repudiated
the deed; now ordered the people to catch all spies and bring them to
him, and now reproached them for doing so; now expelled all the
French residents from Moscow, and now allowed Madame Aubert-
Chalme (the center of the whole French colony in Moscow) to remain,
but ordered the venerable old postmaster Klyucharev to be arrested and
exiled for no particular offense; now assembled the people at the Three
Hills to fight the French and now, to get rid of them, handed over to
them a man to be killed and himself drove away by a back gate; now
declared that he would not survive the fall of Moscow, and now wrote
French verses in albums concerning his share in the affair—this man
did not understand the meaning of what was happening but merely
wanted to do something himself that would astonish people, to perform
some patriotically heroic feat; and like a child he made sport of the
momentous, and unavoidable event—the abandonment and burning of
Moscow—and tried with his puny hand now to speed and now to stay
the enormous, popular tide that bore him along with it.

CHAPTER VI
Helene, having returned with the court from Vilna to Petersburg,
found herself in a difficult position.
In Petersburg she had enjoyed the special protection of a grandee
who occupied one of the highest posts in the Empire. In Vilna she had
formed an intimacy with a young foreign prince. When she returned to
Petersburg both the magnate and the prince were there, and both
claimed their rights. Helene was faced by a new problem—how to
preserve her intimacy with both without offending either.
What would have seemed difficult or even impossible to another
woman did not cause the least embarrassment to Countess Bezukhova,
who evidently deserved her reputation of being a very clever woman.
Had she attempted concealment, or tried to extricate herself from her
awkward position by cunning, she would have spoiled her case by
acknowledging herself guilty. But Helene, like a really great man who
can do whatever he pleases, at once assumed her own position to be
correct, as she sincerely believed it to be, and that everyone else was to
blame.
The first time the young foreigner allowed himself to reproach her,
she lifted her beautiful head and, half turning to him, said firmly:
"That's just like a man—selfish and cruel! I expected nothing else. A
woman sacrifices herself for you, she suffers, and this is her reward!
What right have you, monseigneur, to demand an account of my
attachments and friendships? He is a man who has been more than a
father to me!" The prince was about to say something, but Helene
interrupted him.
"Well, yes," said she, "it may be that he has other sentiments for me
than those of a father, but that is not a reason for me to shut my door on
him. I am not a man, that I should repay kindness with ingratitude!
Know, monseigneur, that in all that relates to my intimate feelings I
render account only to God and to my conscience," she concluded,
laying her hand on her beautiful, fully expanded bosom and looking up
to heaven.
"But for heaven's sake listen to me!"
"Marry me, and I will be your slave!"
"But that's impossible."
"You won't deign to demean yourself by marrying me, you..." said
Helene, beginning to cry.
The prince tried to comfort her, but Helene, as if quite distraught,
said through her tears that there was nothing to prevent her marrying,
that there were precedents (there were up to that time very few, but she
mentioned Napoleon and some other exalted personages), that she had
never been her husband's wife, and that she had been sacrificed.
"But the law, religion..." said the prince, already yielding.
"The law, religion... What have they been invented for if they can't
arrange that?" said Helene.
The prince was surprised that so simple an idea had not occurred to
him, and he applied for advice to the holy brethren of the Society of
Jesus, with whom he was on intimate terms.
A few days later at one of those enchanting fetes which Helene gave
at her country house on the Stone Island, the charming Monsieur de
Jobert, a man no longer young, with snow white hair and brilliant black
eyes, a Jesuit a robe courte * was presented to her, and in the garden by
the light of the illuminations and to the sound of music talked to her for
a long time of the love of God, of Christ, of the Sacred Heart, and of
the consolations the one true Catholic religion affords in this world and
the next. Helene was touched, and more than once tears rose to her eyes
and to those of Monsieur de Jobert and their voices trembled. A dance,
for which her partner came to seek her, put an end to her discourse with
her future directeur de conscience, but the next evening Monsieur de
Jobert came to see Helene when she was alone, and after that often
came again.
 * Lay member of the Society of Jesus.

One day he took the countess to a Roman Catholic church, where she
knelt down before the altar to which she was led. The enchanting,
middle-aged Frenchman laid his hands on her head and, as she herself
afterward described it, she felt something like a fresh breeze wafted
into her soul. It was explained to her that this was la grace.
After that a long-frocked abbe was brought to her. She confessed to
him, and he absolved her from her sins. Next day she received a box
containing the Sacred Host, which was left at her house for her to
partake of. A few days later Helene learned with pleasure that she had
now been admitted to the true Catholic Church and that in a few days
the Pope himself would hear of her and would send her a certain
document.
All that was done around her and to her at this time, all the attention
devoted to her by so many clever men and expressed in such pleasant,
refined ways, and the state of dove-like purity she was now in (she
wore only white dresses and white ribbons all that time) gave her
pleasure, but her pleasure did not cause her for a moment to forget her
aim. And as it always happens in contests of cunning that a stupid
person gets the better of cleverer ones, Helene—having realized that
the main object of all these words and all this trouble was, after
converting her to Catholicism, to obtain money from her for Jesuit
institutions (as to which she received indications)-before parting with
her money insisted that the various operations necessary to free her
from her husband should be performed. In her view the aim of every
religion was merely to preserve certain proprieties while affording
satisfaction to human desires. And with this aim, in one of her talks
with her Father Confessor, she insisted on an answer to the question, in
how far was she bound by her marriage?
They were sitting in the twilight by a window in the drawing room.
The scent of flowers came in at the window. Helene was wearing a
white dress, transparent over her shoulders and bosom. The abbe, a
well-fed man with a plump, clean-shaven chin, a pleasant firm mouth,
and white hands meekly folded on his knees, sat close to Helene and,
with a subtle smile on his lips and a peaceful look of delight at her
beauty, occasionally glanced at her face as he explained his opinion on
the subject. Helene with an uneasy smile looked at his curly hair and
his plump, clean-shaven, blackish cheeks and every moment expected
the conversation to take a fresh turn. But the abbe, though he evidently
enjoyed the beauty of his companion, was absorbed in his mastery of
the matter.
 The course of the Father Confessor's arguments ran as follows:
"Ignorant of the import of what you were undertaking, you made a vow
of conjugal fidelity to a man who on his part, by entering the married
state without faith in the religious significance of marriage, committed
an act of sacrilege. That marriage lacked the dual significance it should
have had. Yet in spite of this your vow was binding. You swerved from
it. What did you commit by so acting? A venial, or a mortal, sin? A
venial sin, for you acted without evil intention. If now you married
again with the object of bearing children, your sin might be forgiven.
But the question is again a twofold one: firstly..."
But suddenly Helene, who was getting bored, said with one of her
bewitching smiles: "But I think that having espoused the true religion I
cannot be bound by what a false religion laid upon me."
The director of her conscience was astounded at having the case
presented to him thus with the simplicity of Columbus' egg. He was
delighted at the unexpected rapidity of his pupil's progress, but could
not abandon the edifice of argument he had laboriously constructed.
"Let us understand one another, Countess," said he with a smile, and
began refuting his spiritual daughter's arguments.

CHAPTER VII
Helene understood that the question was very simple and easy from
the ecclesiastical point of view, and that her directors were making
difficulties only because they were apprehensive as to how the matter
would be regarded by the secular authorities.
So she decided that it was necessary to prepare the opinion of
society. She provoked the jealousy of the elderly magnate and told him
what she had told her other suitor; that is, she put the matter so that the
only way for him to obtain a right over her was to marry her. The
elderly magnate was at first as much taken aback by this suggestion of
marriage with a woman whose husband was alive, as the younger man
had been, but Helene's imperturbable conviction that it was as simple
and natural as marrying a maiden had its effect on him too. Had Helene
herself shown the least sign of hesitation, shame, or secrecy, her cause
would certainly have been lost; but not only did she show no signs of
secrecy or shame, on the contrary, with good-natured naivete she told
her intimate friends (and these were all Petersburg) that both the prince
and the magnate had proposed to her and that she loved both and was
afraid of grieving either.
 A rumor immediately spread in Petersburg, not that Helene wanted
to be divorced from her husband (had such a report spread many would
have opposed so illegal an intention) but simply that the unfortunate
and interesting Helene was in doubt which of the two men she should
marry. The question was no longer whether this was possible, but only
which was the better match and how the matter would be regarded at
court. There were, it is true, some rigid individuals unable to rise to the
height of such a question, who saw in the project a desecration of the
sacrament of marriage, but there were not many such and they
remained silent, while the majority were interested in Helene's good
fortune and in the question which match would be the more
advantageous. Whether it was right or wrong to remarry while one had
a husband living they did not discuss, for that question had evidently
been settled by people "wiser than you or me," as they said, and to
doubt the correctness of that decision would be to risk exposing one's
stupidity and incapacity to live in society.
Only Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, who had come to Petersburg
that summer to see one of her sons, allowed herself plainly to express
an opinion contrary to the general one. Meeting Helene at a ball she
stopped her in the middle of the room and, amid general silence, said in
her gruff voice: "So wives of living men have started marrying again!
Perhaps you think you have invented a novelty? You have been
forestalled, my dear! It was thought of long ago. It is done in all the
brothels," and with these words Marya Dmitrievna, turning up her wide
sleeves with her usual threatening gesture and glancing sternly round,
moved across the room.
Though people were afraid of Marya Dmitrievna she was regarded in
Petersburg as a buffoon, and so of what she had said they only noticed,
and repeated in a whisper, the one coarse word she had used, supposing
the whole sting of her remark to lie in that word.
Prince Vasili, who of late very often forgot what he had said and
repeated one and the same thing a hundred times, remarked to his
daughter whenever he chanced to see her:
"Helene, I have a word to say to you," and he would lead her aside,
drawing her hand downward. "I have heard of certain projects
concerning... you know. Well my dear child, you know how your
father's heart rejoices to know that you... You have suffered so much....
But, my dear child, consult only your own heart. That is all I have to
say," and concealing his unvarying emotion he would press his cheek
against his daughter's and move away.
Bilibin, who had not lost his reputation of an exceedingly clever
man, and who was one of the disinterested friends so brilliant a woman
as Helene always has—men friends who can never change into
lovers—once gave her his view of the matter at a small and intimate
gathering.
"Listen, Bilibin," said Helene (she always called friends of that sort
by their surnames), and she touched his coat sleeve with her white,
beringed fingers. "Tell me, as you would a sister, what I ought to do.
Which of the two?"
Bilibin wrinkled up the skin over his eyebrows and pondered, with a
smile on his lips.
"You are not taking me unawares, you know," said he. "As a true
friend, I have thought and thought again about your affair. You see, if
you marry the prince"—he meant the younger man—and he crooked
one finger, "you forever lose the chance of marrying the other, and you
will displease the court besides. (You know there is some kind of
connection.) But if you marry the old count you will make his last days
happy, and as widow of the Grand... the prince would no longer be
making a mesalliance by marrying you," and Bilibin smoothed out his
forehead.
"That's a true friend!" said Helene beaming, and again touching
Bilibin's sleeve. "But I love them, you know, and don't want to distress
either of them. I would give my life for the happiness of them both."
Bilibin shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that not even he
could help in that difficulty.
"Une maitresse-femme! * That's what is called putting things
squarely. She would like to be married to all three at the same time,"
thought he.

* A masterly woman.

"But tell me, how will your husband look at the matter?" Bilibin
asked, his reputation being so well established that he did not fear to
ask so naive a question. "Will he agree?"
"Oh, he loves me so!" said Helene, who for some reason imagined
that Pierre too loved her. "He will do anything for me."
Bilibin puckered his skin in preparation for something witty.
"Even divorce you?" said he.
Helene laughed.
Among those who ventured to doubt the justifiability of the proposed
marriage was Helene's mother, Princess Kuragina. She was continually
tormented by jealousy of her daughter, and now that jealousy
concerned a subject near to her own heart, she could not reconcile
herself to the idea. She consulted a Russian priest as to the possibility
of divorce and remarriage during a husband's lifetime, and the priest
told her that it was impossible, and to her delight showed her a text in
the Gospel which (as it seemed to him) plainly forbids remarriage while
the husband is alive.
Armed with these arguments, which appeared to her unanswerable,
she drove to her daughter's early one morning so as to find her alone.
Having listened to her mother's objections, Helene smiled blandly
and ironically.
"But it says plainly: 'Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced...'"
said the old princess.
"Ah, Maman, ne dites pas de betises. Vous ne comprenez rein. Dans
ma position j'ai des devoirs," * said Helene changing from Russian, in
which language she always felt that her case did not sound quite clear,
into French which suited it better.

* "Oh, Mamma, don't talk nonsense! You don't

understand
anything. In my position I have obligations."

"But, my dear...."
"Oh, Mamma, how is it you don't understand that the Holy Father,
who has the right to grant dispensations..."
Just then the lady companion who lived with Helene came in to
announce that His Highness was in the ballroom and wished to see her.
"Non, dites-lui que je ne veux pas le voir, que je suis furieuse contre
lui, parce qu'il m'a manque parole." *

* "No, tell him I don't wish to see him, I am

furious with
him for not keeping his word to me."

"Comtesse, a tout peche misericorde," * said a fair-haired young man

with a long face and nose, as he entered the room.

* "Countess, there is mercy for every sin."

The old princess rose respectfully and curtsied. The young man who
had entered took no notice of her. The princess nodded to her daughter
and sidled out of the room.
 "Yes, she is right," thought the old princess, all her convictions
dissipated by the appearance of His Highness. "She is right, but how is
it that we in our irrecoverable youth did not know it? Yet it is so
simple," she thought as she got into her carriage.
By the beginning of August Helene's affairs were clearly defined and
she wrote a letter to her husband—who, as she imagined, loved her
very much—informing him of her intention to marry N.N. and of her
having embraced the one true faith, and asking him to carry out all the
formalities necessary for a divorce, which would be explained to him
by the bearer of the letter.
And so I pray God to have you, my friend, in His holy and powerful
keeping—Your friend Helene.
This letter was brought to Pierre's house when he was on the field of
Borodino.

CHAPTER VIII
Toward the end of the battle of Borodino, Pierre, having run down
from Raevski's battery a second time, made his way through a gully to
Knyazkovo with a crowd of soldiers, reached the dressing station, and
seeing blood and hearing cries and groans hurried on, still entangled in
the crowds of soldiers.
The one thing he now desired with his whole soul was to get away
quickly from the terrible sensations amid which he had lived that day
and return to ordinary conditions of life and sleep quietly in a room in
his own bed. He felt that only in the ordinary conditions of life would
he be able to understand himself and all he had seen and felt. But such
ordinary conditions of life were nowhere to be found.
Though shells and bullets did not whistle over the road along which
he was going, still on all sides there was what there had been on the
field of battle. There were still the same suffering, exhausted, and
sometimes strangely indifferent faces, the same blood, the same
soldiers' overcoats, the same sounds of firing which, though distant
now, still aroused terror, and besides this there were the foul air and the
dust.
Having gone a couple of miles along the Mozhaysk road, Pierre sat
down by the roadside.
 Dusk had fallen, and the roar of guns died away. Pierre lay leaning
on his elbow for a long time, gazing at the shadows that moved past
him in the darkness. He was continually imagining that a cannon ball
was flying toward him with a terrific whizz, and then he shuddered and
sat up. He had no idea how long he had been there. In the middle of the
night three soldiers, having brought some firewood, settled down near
him and began lighting a fire.
The soldiers, who threw sidelong glances at Pierre, got the fire to
burn and placed an iron pot on it into which they broke some dried
bread and put a little dripping. The pleasant odor of greasy viands
mingled with the smell of smoke. Pierre sat up and sighed. The three
soldiers were eating and talking among themselves, taking no notice of
him.
"And who may you be?" one of them suddenly asked Pierre,
evidently meaning what Pierre himself had in mind, namely: "If you
want to eat we'll give you some food, only let us know whether you are
an honest man."
"I, I..." said Pierre, feeling it necessary to minimize his social
position as much as possible so as to be nearer to the soldiers and better
understood by them. "By rights I am a militia officer, but my men are
not here. I came to the battle and have lost them."
"There now!" said one of the soldiers.
Another shook his head.
"Would you like a little mash?" the first soldier asked, and handed
Pierre a wooden spoon after licking it clean.
Pierre sat down by the fire and began eating the mash, as they called
the food in the cauldron, and he thought it more delicious than any food
he had ever tasted. As he sat bending greedily over it, helping himself
to large spoonfuls and chewing one after another, his face was lit up by
the fire and the soldiers looked at him in silence.
"Where have you to go to? Tell us!" said one of them.
"To Mozhaysk."
"You're a gentleman, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"And what's your name?"
"Peter Kirilych."
"Well then, Peter Kirilych, come along with us, we'll take you there."
 In the total darkness the soldiers walked with Pierre to Mozhaysk.
By the time they got near Mozhaysk and began ascending the steep
hill into the town, the cocks were already crowing. Pierre went on with
the soldiers, quite forgetting that his inn was at the bottom of the hill
and that he had already passed it. He would not soon have remembered
this, such was his state of forgetfulness, had he not halfway up the hill
stumbled upon his groom, who had been to look for him in the town
and was returning to the inn. The groom recognized Pierre in the
darkness by his white hat.
"Your excellency!" he said. "Why, we were beginning to despair!
How is it you are on foot? And where are you going, please?"
"Oh, yes!" said Pierre.
The soldiers stopped.
"So you've found your folk?" said one of them. "Well, good-by,
Peter Kirilych—isn't it?"
"Good-by, Peter Kirilych!" Pierre heard the other voices repeat.
"Good-by!" he said and turned with his groom toward the inn.
"I ought to give them something!" he thought, and felt in his pocket.
"No, better not!" said another, inner voice.
There was not a room to be had at the inn, they were all occupied.
Pierre went out into the yard and, covering himself up head and all, lay
down in his carriage.

CHAPTER IX
Scarcely had Pierre laid his head on the pillow before he felt himself
falling asleep, but suddenly, almost with the distinctness of reality, he
heard the boom, boom, boom of firing, the thud of projectiles, groans
and cries, and smelled blood and powder, and a feeling of horror and
dread of death seized him. Filled with fright he opened his eyes and
lifted his head from under his cloak. All was tranquil in the yard. Only
someone's orderly passed through the gateway, splashing through the
mud, and talked to the innkeeper. Above Pierre's head some pigeons,
disturbed by the movement he had made in sitting up, fluttered under
the dark roof of the penthouse. The whole courtyard was permeated by
a strong peaceful smell of stable yards, delightful to Pierre at that
moment. He could see the clear starry sky between the dark roofs of
two penthouses.
"Thank God, there is no more of that!" he thought, covering up his
head again. "Oh, what a terrible thing is fear, and how shamefully I
yielded to it! But they... they were steady and calm all the time, to the
end..." thought he.
They, in Pierre's mind, were the soldiers, those who had been at the
battery, those who had given him food, and those who had prayed
before the icon. They, those strange men he had not previously known,
stood out clearly and sharply from everyone else.
"To be a soldier, just a soldier!" thought Pierre as he fell asleep, "to
enter communal life completely, to be imbued by what makes them
what they are. But how cast off all the superfluous, devilish burden of
my outer man? There was a time when I could have done it. I could
have run away from my father, as I wanted to. Or I might have been
sent to serve as a soldier after the duel with Dolokhov." And the
memory of the dinner at the English Club when he had challenged
Dolokhov flashed through Pierre's mind, and then he remembered his
benefactor at Torzhok. And now a picture of a solemn meeting of the
lodge presented itself to his mind. It was taking place at the English
Club and someone near and dear to him sat at the end of the table.
"Yes, that is he! It is my benefactor. But he died!" thought Pierre. "Yes,
he died, and I did not know he was alive. How sorry I am that he died,
and how glad I am that he is alive again!" On one side of the table sat
Anatole, Dolokhov, Nesvitski, Denisov, and others like them (in his
dream the category to which these men belonged was as clearly defined
in his mind as the category of those he termed they), and he heard those
people, Anatole and Dolokhov, shouting and singing loudly; yet
through their shouting the voice of his benefactor was heard speaking
all the time and the sound of his words was as weighty and
uninterrupted as the booming on the battlefield, but pleasant and
comforting. Pierre did not understand what his benefactor was saying,
but he knew (the categories of thoughts were also quite distinct in his
dream) that he was talking of goodness and the possibility of being
what they were. And they with their simple, kind, firm faces
surrounded his benefactor on all sides. But though they were kindly
they did not look at Pierre and did not know him. Wishing to speak and
to attract their attention, he got up, but at that moment his legs grew
cold and bare.
He felt ashamed, and with one arm covered his legs from which his
cloak had in fact slipped. For a moment as he was rearranging his cloak
Pierre opened his eyes and saw the same penthouse roofs, posts, and
yard, but now they were all bluish, lit up, and glittering with frost or
dew.
 "It is dawn," thought Pierre. "But that's not what I want. I want to
hear and understand my benefactor's words." Again he covered himself
up with his cloak, but now neither the lodge nor his benefactor was
there. There were only thoughts clearly expressed in words, thoughts
that someone was uttering or that he himself was formulating.
Afterwards when he recalled those thoughts Pierre was convinced
that someone outside himself had spoken them, though the impressions
of that day had evoked them. He had never, it seemed to him, been able
to think and express his thoughts like that when awake.
"To endure war is the most difficult subordination of man's freedom
to the law of God," the voice had said. "Simplicity is submission to the
will of God; you cannot escape from Him. And they are simple. They
do not talk, but act. The spoken word is silver but the unspoken is
golden. Man can be master of nothing while he fears death, but he who
does not fear it possesses all. If there were no suffering, man would not
know his limitations, would not know himself. The hardest thing
(Pierre went on thinking, or hearing, in his dream) is to be able in your
soul to unite the meaning of all. To unite all?" he asked himself. "No,
not to unite. Thoughts cannot be united, but to harness all these
thoughts together is what we need! Yes, one must harness them, must
harness them!" he repeated to himself with inward rapture, feeling that
these words and they alone expressed what he wanted to say and solved
the question that tormented him.
"Yes, one must harness, it is time to harness."
"Time to harness, time to harness, your excellency! Your
excellency!" some voice was repeating. "We must harness, it is time to
harness...."
It was the voice of the groom, trying to wake him. The sun shone
straight into Pierre's face. He glanced at the dirty innyard in the middle
of which soldiers were watering their lean horses at the pump while
carts were passing out of the gate. Pierre turned away with repugnance,
and closing his eyes quickly fell back on the carriage seat. "No, I don't
want that, I don't want to see and understand that. I want to understand
what was revealing itself to me in my dream. One second more and I
should have understood it all! But what am I to do? Harness, but how
can I harness everything?" and Pierre felt with horror that the meaning
of all he had seen and thought in the dream had been destroyed.
The groom, the coachman, and the innkeeper told Pierre that an
officer had come with news that the French were already near
Mozhaysk and that our men were leaving it.
Pierre got up and, having told them to harness and overtake him,
went on foot through the town.
 The troops were moving on, leaving about ten thousand wounded
behind them. There were wounded in the yards, at the windows of the
houses, and the streets were crowded with them. In the streets, around
carts that were to take some of the wounded away, shouts, curses, and
blows could be heard. Pierre offered the use of his carriage, which had
overtaken him, to a wounded general he knew, and drove with him to
Moscow. On the way Pierre was told of the death of his brother-in-law
Anatole and of that of Prince Andrew.

CHAPTER X
On the thirteenth of August Pierre reached Moscow. Close to the
gates of the city he was met by Count Rostopchin's adjutant.
"We have been looking for you everywhere," said the adjutant. "The
count wants to see you particularly. He asks you to come to him at once
on a very important matter."
Without going home, Pierre took a cab and drove to see the Moscow
commander in chief.
Count Rostopchin had only that morning returned to town from his
summer villa at Sokolniki. The anteroom and reception room of his
house were full of officials who had been summoned or had come for
orders. Vasilchikov and Platov had already seen the count and
explained to him that it was impossible to defend Moscow and that it
would have to be surrendered. Though this news was being concealed
from the inhabitants, the officials—the heads of the various
government departments—knew that Moscow would soon be in the
enemy's hands, just as Count Rostopchin himself knew it, and to escape
personal responsibility they had all come to the governor to ask how
they were to deal with their various departments.
As Pierre was entering the reception room a courier from the army
came out of Rostopchin's private room.
In answer to questions with which he was greeted, the courier made a
despairing gesture with his hand and passed through the room.
While waiting in the reception room Pierre with weary eyes watched
the various officials, old and young, military and civilian, who were
there. They all seemed dissatisfied and uneasy. Pierre went up to a
group of men, one of whom he knew. After greeting Pierre they
continued their conversation.
 "If they're sent out and brought back again later on it will do no
harm, but as things are now one can't answer for anything."
"But you see what he writes..." said another, pointing to a printed
sheet he held in his hand.
"That's another matter. That's necessary for the people," said the
first.
"What is it?" asked Pierre.
"Oh, it's a fresh broadsheet."
Pierre took it and began reading.
His Serene Highness has passed through Mozhaysk in order to join
up with the troops moving toward him and has taken up a strong
position where the enemy will not soon attack him. Forty eight guns
with ammunition have been sent him from here, and his Serene
Highness says he will defend Moscow to the last drop of blood and is
even ready to fight in the streets. Do not be upset, brothers, that the law
courts are closed; things have to be put in order, and we will deal with
villains in our own way! When the time comes I shall want both town
and peasant lads and will raise the cry a day or two beforehand, but
they are not wanted yet so I hold my peace. An ax will be useful, a
hunting spear not bad, but a three-pronged fork will be best of all: a
Frenchman is no heavier than a sheaf of rye. Tomorrow after dinner I
shall take the Iberian icon of the Mother of God to the wounded in the
Catherine Hospital where we will have some water blessed. That will
help them to get well quicker. I, too, am well now: one of my eyes was
sore but now I am on the lookout with both.
"But military men have told me that it is impossible to fight in the
town," said Pierre, "and that the position..."
"Well, of course! That's what we were saying," replied the first
speaker.
"And what does he mean by 'One of my eyes was sore but now I am
on the lookout with both'?" asked Pierre.
"The count had a sty," replied the adjutant smiling, "and was very
much upset when I told him people had come to ask what was the
matter with him. By the by, Count," he added suddenly, addressing
Pierre with a smile, "we heard that you have family troubles and that
the countess, your wife..."
"I have heard nothing," Pierre replied unconcernedly. "But what have
you heard?"
 "Oh, well, you know people often invent things. I only say what I
heard."
"But what did you hear?"
"Well, they say," continued the adjutant with the same smile, "that
the countess, your wife, is preparing to go abroad. I expect it's
nonsense...."
"Possibly," remarked Pierre, looking about him absent-mindedly.
"And who is that?" he asked, indicating a short old man in a clean blue
peasant overcoat, with a big snow-white beard and eyebrows and a
ruddy face.
"He? That's a tradesman, that is to say, he's the restaurant keeper,
Vereshchagin. Perhaps you have heard of that affair with the
proclamation."
"Oh, so that is Vereshchagin!" said Pierre, looking at the firm, calm
face of the old man and seeking any indication of his being a traitor.
"That's not he himself, that's the father of the fellow who wrote the
proclamation," said the adjutant. "The young man is in prison and I
expect it will go hard with him."
An old gentleman wearing a star and another official, a German
wearing a cross round his neck, approached the speaker.

"It's a complicated story, you know," said the

adjutant. "That
proclamation appeared about two months ago. The
count was informed of
it. He gave orders to investigate the matter.
Gabriel Ivanovich
here made the inquiries. The proclamation had passed
through exactly
sixty-three hands. He asked one, 'From whom did you
get it?' 'From
so-and-so.' He went to the next one. 'From whom did
you get it?' and so
on till he reached Vereshchagin, a half educated
tradesman, you know, 'a
pet of a trader,'" said the adjutant smiling. "They
asked him, 'Who gave
it you?' And the point is that we knew whom he had
it from. He could
only have had it from the Postmaster. But evidently
they had come to
some understanding. He replied: 'From no one; I made
it up myself.'
 They threatened and questioned him, but he stuck to
that: 'I made it
up myself.' And so it was reported to the count, who
sent for the man.
'From whom did you get the proclamation?' 'I wrote
it myself.' Well, you
know the count," said the adjutant cheerfully, with
a smile of pride,
"he flared up dreadfully—and just think of the
fellow's audacity,
lying, and obstinacy!"

"And the count wanted him to say it was from

Klyucharev? I
understand!" said Pierre.

"Not at all," rejoined the adjutant in dismay. "Klyucharev had his

own sins to answer for without that and that is why he has been
banished. But the point is that the count was much annoyed. 'How
could you have written it yourself?' said he, and he took up the
Hamburg Gazette that was lying on the table. 'Here it is! You did not
write it yourself but translated it, and translated it abominably, because
you don't even know French, you fool.' And what do you think? 'No,'
said he, 'I have not read any papers, I made it up myself.' 'If that's so,
you're a traitor and I'll have you tried, and you'll be hanged! Say from
whom you had it.' 'I have seen no papers, I made it up myself.' And that
was the end of it. The count had the father fetched, but the fellow stuck
to it. He was sent for trial and condemned to hard labor, I believe. Now
the father has come to intercede for him. But he's a good-for-nothing
lad! You know that sort of tradesman's son, a dandy and lady-killer. He
attended some lectures somewhere and imagines that the devil is no
match for him. That's the sort of fellow he is. His father keeps a
cookshop here by the Stone Bridge, and you know there was a large
icon of God Almighty painted with a scepter in one hand and an orb in
the other. Well, he took that icon home with him for a few days and
what did he do? He found some scoundrel of a painter..."

CHAPTER XI
In the middle of this fresh tale Pierre was summoned to the
commander in chief.
When he entered the private room Count Rostopchin, puckering his
face, was rubbing his forehead and eyes with his hand. A short man
was saying something, but when Pierre entered he stopped speaking
and went out.
"Ah, how do you do, great warrior?" said Rostopchin as soon as the
short man had left the room. "We have heard of your prowess. But
that's not the point. Between ourselves, mon cher, do you belong to the
Masons?" he went on severely, as though there were something wrong
about it which he nevertheless intended to pardon. Pierre remained
silent. "I am well informed, my friend, but I am aware that there are
Masons and I hope that you are not one of those who on pretense of
saving mankind wish to ruin Russia."
"Yes, I am a Mason," Pierre replied.
"There, you see, mon cher! I expect you know that Messrs. Speranski
and Magnitski have been deported to their proper place. Mr.
Klyucharev has been treated in the same way, and so have others who
on the plea of building up the temple of Solomon have tried to destroy
the temple of their fatherland. You can understand that there are
reasons for this and that I could not have exiled the Postmaster had he
not been a harmful person. It has now come to my knowledge that you
lent him your carriage for his removal from town, and that you have
even accepted papers from him for safe custody. I like you and don't
wish you any harm and—as you are only half my age—I advise you, as
a father would, to cease all communication with men of that stamp and
to leave here as soon as possible."
"But what did Klyucharev do wrong, Count?" asked Pierre.
"That is for me to know, but not for you to ask," shouted Rostopchin.
"If he is accused of circulating Napoleon's proclamation it is not
proved that he did so," said Pierre without looking at Rostopchin, "and
Vereshchagin..."
"There we are!" Rostopchin shouted at Pierre louder than before,
frowning suddenly. "Vereshchagin is a renegade and a traitor who will
be punished as he deserves," said he with the vindictive heat with
which people speak when recalling an insult. "But I did not summon
you to discuss my actions, but to give you advice—or an order if you
prefer it. I beg you to leave the town and break off all communication
with such men as Klyucharev. And I will knock the nonsense out of
anybody"—but probably realizing that he was shouting at Bezukhov
who so far was not guilty of anything, he added, taking Pierre's hand in
a friendly manner, "We are on the eve of a public disaster and I haven't
time to be polite to everybody who has business with me. My head is
sometimes in a whirl. Well, mon cher, what are you doing personally?"
 "Why, nothing," answered Pierre without raising his eyes or
changing the thoughtful expression of his face.
The count frowned.
"A word of friendly advice, mon cher. Be off as soon as you can,
that's all I have to tell you. Happy he who has ears to hear. Good-by,
my dear fellow. Oh, by the by!" he shouted through the doorway after
Pierre, "is it true that the countess has fallen into the clutches of the
holy fathers of the Society of Jesus?"
Pierre did not answer and left Rostopchin's room more sullen and
angry than he had ever before shown himself.
When he reached home it was already getting dark. Some eight
people had come to see him that evening: the secretary of a committee,
the colonel of his battalion, his steward, his major-domo, and various
petitioners. They all had business with Pierre and wanted decisions
from him. Pierre did not understand and was not interested in any of
these questions and only answered them in order to get rid of these
people. When left alone at last he opened and read his wife's letter.
"They, the soldiers at the battery, Prince Andrew killed... that old
man... Simplicity is submission to God. Suffering is necessary... the
meaning of all... one must harness... my wife is getting married... One
must forget and understand..." And going to his bed he threw himself
on it without undressing and immediately fell asleep.
When he awoke next morning the major-domo came to inform him
that a special messenger, a police officer, had come from Count
Rostopchin to know whether Count Bezukhov had left or was leaving
the town.
A dozen persons who had business with Pierre were awaiting him in
the drawing room. Pierre dressed hurriedly and, instead of going to see
them, went to the back porch and out through the gate.
From that time till the end of the destruction of Moscow no one of
Bezukhov's household, despite all the search they made, saw Pierre
again or knew where he was.

CHAPTER XII
The Rostovs remained in Moscow till the first of September, that is,
till the eve of the enemy's entry into the city.
 After Petya had joined Obolenski's regiment of Cossacks and left for
Belaya Tserkov where that regiment was forming, the countess was
seized with terror. The thought that both her sons were at the war, had
both gone from under her wing, that today or tomorrow either or both
of them might be killed like the three sons of one of her acquaintances,
struck her that summer for the first time with cruel clearness. She tried
to get Nicholas back and wished to go herself to join Petya, or to get
him an appointment somewhere in Petersburg, but neither of these
proved possible. Petya could not return unless his regiment did so or
unless he was transferred to another regiment on active service.
Nicholas was somewhere with the army and had not sent a word since
his last letter, in which he had given a detailed account of his meeting
with Princess Mary. The countess did not sleep at night, or when she
did fall asleep dreamed that she saw her sons lying dead. After many
consultations and conversations, the count at last devised means to
tranquillize her. He got Petya transferred from Obolenski's regiment to
Bezukhov's, which was in training near Moscow. Though Petya would
remain in the service, this transfer would give the countess the
consolation of seeing at least one of her sons under her wing, and she
hoped to arrange matters for her Petya so as not to let him go again, but
always get him appointed to places where he could not possibly take
part in a battle. As long as Nicholas alone was in danger the countess
imagined that she loved her first-born more than all her other children
and even reproached herself for it; but when her youngest: the
scapegrace who had been bad at lessons, was always breaking things in
the house and making himself a nuisance to everybody, that snub-nosed
Petya with his merry black eyes and fresh rosy cheeks where soft down
was just beginning to show—when he was thrown amid those big,
dreadful, cruel men who were fighting somewhere about something and
apparently finding pleasure in it—then his mother thought she loved
him more, much more, than all her other children. The nearer the time
came for Petya to return, the more uneasy grew the countess. She began
to think she would never live to see such happiness. The presence of
Sonya, of her beloved Natasha, or even of her husband irritated her.
"What do I want with them? I want no one but Petya," she thought.
At the end of August the Rostovs received another letter from
Nicholas. He wrote from the province of Voronezh where he had been
sent to procure remounts, but that letter did not set the countess at ease.
Knowing that one son was out of danger she became the more anxious
about Petya.
Though by the twentieth of August nearly all the Rostovs'
acquaintances had left Moscow, and though everybody tried to
persuade the countess to get away as quickly as possible, she would not
hear of leaving before her treasure, her adored Petya, returned. On the
twenty-eighth of August he arrived. The passionate tenderness with
which his mother received him did not please the sixteen-year-old
officer. Though she concealed from him her intention of keeping him
under her wing, Petya guessed her designs, and instinctively fearing
that he might give way to emotion when with her—might "become
womanish" as he termed it to himself—he treated her coldly, avoided
her, and during his stay in Moscow attached himself exclusively to
Natasha for whom he had always had a particularly brotherly
tenderness, almost lover-like.
Owing to the count's customary carelessness nothing was ready for
their departure by the twenty-eighth of August and the carts that were
to come from their Ryazan and Moscow estates to remove their
household belongings did not arrive till the thirtieth.
From the twenty-eighth till the thirty-first all Moscow was in a bustle
and commotion. Every day thousands of men wounded at Borodino
were brought in by the Dorogomilov gate and taken to various parts of
Moscow, and thousands of carts conveyed the inhabitants and their
possessions out by the other gates. In spite of Rostopchin's broadsheets,
or because of them or independently of them, the strangest and most
contradictory rumors were current in the town. Some said that no one
was to be allowed to leave the city, others on the contrary said that all
the icons had been taken out of the churches and everybody was to be
ordered to leave. Some said there had been another battle after
Borodino at which the French had been routed, while others on the
contrary reported that the Russian army had been destroyed. Some
talked about the Moscow militia which, preceded by the clergy, would
go to the Three Hills; others whispered that Augustin had been
forbidden to leave, that traitors had been seized, that the peasants were
rioting and robbing people on their way from Moscow, and so on. But
all this was only talk; in reality (though the Council of Fili, at which it
was decided to abandon Moscow, had not yet been held) both those
who went away and those who remained behind felt, though they did
not show it, that Moscow would certainly be abandoned, and that they
ought to get away as quickly as possible and save their belongings. It
was felt that everything would suddenly break up and change, but up to
the first of September nothing had done so. As a criminal who is being
led to execution knows that he must die immediately, but yet looks
about him and straightens the cap that is awry on his head, so Moscow
involuntarily continued its wonted life, though it knew that the time of
its destruction was near when the conditions of life to which its people
were accustomed to submit would be completely upset.
During the three days preceding the occupation of Moscow the
whole Rostov family was absorbed in various activities. The head of
the family, Count Ilya Rostov, continually drove about the city
collecting the current rumors from all sides and gave superficial and
hasty orders at home about the preparations for their departure.
 The countess watched the things being packed, was dissatisfied with
everything, was constantly in pursuit of Petya who was always running
away from her, and was jealous of Natasha with whom he spent all his
time. Sonya alone directed the practical side of matters by getting
things packed. But of late Sonya had been particularly sad and silent.
Nicholas' letter in which he mentioned Princess Mary had elicited, in
her presence, joyous comments from the countess, who saw an
intervention of Providence in this meeting of the princess and Nicholas.
"I was never pleased at Bolkonski's engagement to Natasha," said the
countess, "but I always wanted Nicholas to marry the princess, and had
a presentiment that it would happen. What a good thing it would be!"
Sonya felt that this was true: that the only possibility of retrieving the
Rostovs' affairs was by Nicholas marrying a rich woman, and that the
princess was a good match. It was very bitter for her. But despite her
grief, or perhaps just because of it, she took on herself all the difficult
work of directing the storing and packing of their things and was busy
for whole days. The count and countess turned to her when they had
any orders to give. Petya and Natasha on the contrary, far from helping
their parents, were generally a nuisance and a hindrance to everyone.
Almost all day long the house resounded with their running feet, their
cries, and their spontaneous laughter. They laughed and were gay not
because there was any reason to laugh, but because gaiety and mirth
were in their hearts and so everything that happened was a cause for
gaiety and laughter to them. Petya was in high spirits because having
left home a boy he had returned (as everybody told him) a fine young
man, because he was at home, because he had left Belaya Tserkov
where there was no hope of soon taking part in a battle and had come to
Moscow where there was to be fighting in a few days, and chiefly
because Natasha, whose lead he always followed, was in high spirits.
Natasha was gay because she had been sad too long and now nothing
reminded her of the cause of her sadness, and because she was feeling
well. She was also happy because she had someone to adore her: the
adoration of others was a lubricant the wheels of her machine needed to
make them run freely—and Petya adored her. Above all, they were gay
because there was a war near Moscow, there would be fighting at the
town gates, arms were being given out, everybody was escaping—
going away somewhere, and in general something extraordinary was
happening, and that is always exciting, especially to the young.

CHAPTER XIII
 On Saturday, the thirty-first of August, everything in the Rostovs'
house seemed topsy-turvy. All the doors were open, all the furniture
was being carried out or moved about, and the mirrors and pictures had
been taken down. There were trunks in the rooms, and hay, wrapping
paper, and ropes were scattered about. The peasants and house serfs
carrying out the things were treading heavily on the parquet floors. The
yard was crowded with peasant carts, some loaded high and already
corded up, others still empty.
The voices and footsteps of the many servants and of the peasants
who had come with the carts resounded as they shouted to one another
in the yard and in the house. The count had been out since morning.
The countess had a headache brought on by all the noise and turmoil
and was lying down in the new sitting room with a vinegar compress
on her head. Petya was not at home, he had gone to visit a friend with
whom he meant to obtain a transfer from the militia to the active army.
Sonya was in the ballroom looking after the packing of the glass and
china. Natasha was sitting on the floor of her dismantled room with
dresses, ribbons, and scarves strewn all about her, gazing fixedly at the
floor and holding in her hands the old ball dress (already out of fashion)
which she had worn at her first Petersburg ball.
Natasha was ashamed of doing nothing when everyone else was so
busy, and several times that morning had tried to set to work, but her
heart was not in it, and she could not and did not know how to do
anything except with all her heart and all her might. For a while she had
stood beside Sonya while the china was being packed and tried to help,
but soon gave it up and went to her room to pack her own things. At
first she found it amusing to give away dresses and ribbons to the
maids, but when that was done and what was left had still to be packed,
she found it dull.
"Dunyasha, you pack! You will, won't you, dear?" And when
Dunyasha willingly promised to do it all for her, Natasha sat down on
the floor, took her old ball dress, and fell into a reverie quite unrelated
to what ought to have occupied her thoughts now. She was roused from
her reverie by the talk of the maids in the next room (which was theirs)
and by the sound of their hurried footsteps going to the back porch.
Natasha got up and looked out of the window. An enormously long row
of carts full of wounded men had stopped in the street.
The housekeeper, the old nurse, the cooks, coachmen, maids,
footmen, postilions, and scullions stood at the gate, staring at the
wounded.
Natasha, throwing a clean pocket handkerchief over her hair and
holding an end of it in each hand, went out into the street.
 The former housekeeper, old Mavra Kuzminichna, had stepped out
of the crowd by the gate, gone up to a cart with a hood constructed of
bast mats, and was speaking to a pale young officer who lay inside.
Natasha moved a few steps forward and stopped shyly, still holding her
handkerchief, and listened to what the housekeeper was saying.
"Then you have nobody in Moscow?" she was saying. "You would
be more comfortable somewhere in a house... in ours, for instance... the
family are leaving."
"I don't know if it would be allowed," replied the officer in a weak
voice. "Here is our commanding officer... ask him," and he pointed to a
stout major who was walking back along the street past the row of
carts.
Natasha glanced with frightened eyes at the face of the wounded
officer and at once went to meet the major.
"May the wounded men stay in our house?" she asked.
The major raised his hand to his cap with a smile.
"Which one do you want, Ma'am'selle?" said he, screwing up his
eyes and smiling.
Natasha quietly repeated her question, and her face and whole
manner were so serious, though she was still holding the ends of her
handkerchief, that the major ceased smiling and after some reflection—
as if considering in how far the thing was possible—replied in the
affirmative.
"Oh yes, why not? They may," he said.
With a slight inclination of her head, Natasha stepped back quickly
to Mavra Kuzminichna, who stood talking compassionately to the
officer.
"They may. He says they may!" whispered Natasha.
The cart in which the officer lay was turned into the Rostovs' yard,
and dozens of carts with wounded men began at the invitation of the
townsfolk to turn into the yards and to draw up at the entrances of the
houses in Povarskaya Street. Natasha was evidently pleased to be
dealing with new people outside the ordinary routine of her life. She
and Mavra Kuzminichna tried to get as many of the wounded as
possible into their yard.
"Your Papa must be told, though," said Mavra Kuzminichna.
"Never mind, never mind, what does it matter? For one day we can
move into the drawing room. They can have all our half of the house."
 "There now, young lady, you do take things into your head! Even if
we put them into the wing, the men's room, or the nurse's room, we
must ask permission."
"Well, I'll ask."
Natasha ran into the house and went on tiptoe through the half-open
door into the sitting room, where there was a smell of vinegar and
Hoffman's drops.
"Are you asleep, Mamma?"
"Oh, what sleep-?" said the countess, waking up just as she was
dropping into a doze.
"Mamma darling!" said Natasha, kneeling by her mother and
bringing her face close to her mother's, "I am sorry, forgive me, I'll
never do it again; I woke you up! Mavra Kuzminichna has sent me:
they have brought some wounded here—officers. Will you let them
come? They have nowhere to go. I knew you'd let them come!" she
said quickly all in one breath.
"What officers? Whom have they brought? I don't understand
anything about it," said the countess.
Natasha laughed, and the countess too smiled slightly.
"I knew you'd give permission... so I'll tell them," and, having kissed
her mother, Natasha got up and went to the door.
In the hall she met her father, who had returned with bad news.
"We've stayed too long!" said the count with involuntary vexation.
"The Club is closed and the police are leaving."
"Papa, is it all right—I've invited some of the wounded into the
house?" said Natasha.
"Of course it is," he answered absently. "That's not the point. I beg
you not to indulge in trifles now, but to help to pack, and tomorrow we
must go, go, go!...."
And the count gave a similar order to the major-domo and the
servants.
At dinner Petya having returned home told them the news he had
heard. He said the people had been getting arms in the Kremlin, and
that though Rostopchin's broadsheet had said that he would sound a call
two or three days in advance, the order had certainly already been given
for everyone to go armed to the Three Hills tomorrow, and that there
would be a big battle there.
 The countess looked with timid horror at her son's eager, excited face
as he said this. She realized that if she said a word about his not going
to the battle (she knew he enjoyed the thought of the impending
engagement) he would say something about men, honor, and the
fatherland—something senseless, masculine, and obstinate which there
would be no contradicting, and her plans would be spoiled; and so,
hoping to arrange to leave before then and take Petya with her as their
protector and defender, she did not answer him, but after dinner called
the count aside and implored him with tears to take her away quickly,
that very night if possible. With a woman's involuntary loving cunning
she, who till then had not shown any alarm, said that she would die of
fright if they did not leave that very night. Without any pretense she
was now afraid of everything.

CHAPTER XIV
Madame Schoss, who had been out to visit her daughter, increased
the countess' fears still more by telling what she had seen at a spirit
dealer's in Myasnitski Street. When returning by that street she had
been unable to pass because of a drunken crowd rioting in front of the
shop. She had taken a cab and driven home by a side street and the
cabman had told her that the people were breaking open the barrels at
the drink store, having received orders to do so.
After dinner the whole Rostov household set to work with
enthusiastic haste packing their belongings and preparing for their
departure. The old count, suddenly setting to work, kept passing from
the yard to the house and back again, shouting confused instructions to
the hurrying people, and flurrying them still more. Petya directed things
in the yard. Sonya, owing to the count's contradictory orders, lost her
head and did not know what to do. The servants ran noisily about the
house and yard, shouting and disputing. Natasha, with the ardor
characteristic of all she did suddenly set to work too. At first her
intervention in the business of packing was received skeptically.
Everybody expected some prank from her and did not wish to obey her;
but she resolutely and passionately demanded obedience, grew angry
and nearly cried because they did not heed her, and at last succeeded in
making them believe her. Her first exploit, which cost her immense
effort and established her authority, was the packing of the carpets. The
count had valuable Gobelin tapestries and Persian carpets in the house.
When Natasha set to work two cases were standing open in the
ballroom, one almost full up with crockery, the other with carpets.
There was also much china standing on the tables, and still more was
being brought in from the storeroom. A third case was needed and
servants had gone to fetch it.
"Sonya, wait a bit—we'll pack everything into these," said Natasha.
"You can't, Miss, we have tried to," said the butler's assistant.
"No, wait a minute, please."
And Natasha began rapidly taking out of the case dishes and plates
wrapped in paper.
"The dishes must go in here among the carpets," said she.
"Why, it's a mercy if we can get the carpets alone into three cases,"
said the butler's assistant.
"Oh, wait, please!" And Natasha began rapidly and deftly sorting out
the things. "These aren't needed," said she, putting aside some plates of
Kiev ware. "These—yes, these must go among the carpets," she said,
referring to the Saxony china dishes.
"Don't, Natasha! Leave it alone! We'll get it all packed," urged
Sonya reproachfully.
"What a young lady she is!" remarked the major-domo.
But Natasha would not give in. She turned everything out and began
quickly repacking, deciding that the inferior Russian carpets and
unnecessary crockery should not be taken at all. When everything had
been taken out of the cases, they recommenced packing, and it turned
out that when the cheaper things not worth taking had nearly all been
rejected, the valuable ones really did all go into the two cases. Only the
lid of the case containing the carpets would not shut down. A few more
things might have been taken out, but Natasha insisted on having her
own way. She packed, repacked, pressed, made the butler's assistant
and Petya—whom she had drawn into the business of packing—press
on the lid, and made desperate efforts herself.
"That's enough, Natasha," said Sonya. "I see you were right, but just
take out the top one."
"I won't!" cried Natasha, with one hand holding back the hair that
hung over her perspiring face, while with the other she pressed down
the carpets. "Now press, Petya! Press, Vasilich, press hard!" she cried.
The carpets yielded and the lid closed; Natasha, clapping her hands,
screamed with delight and tears fell from her eyes. But this only lasted
a moment. She at once set to work afresh and they now trusted her
completely. The count was not angry even when they told him that
Natasha had countermanded an order of his, and the servants now came
to her to ask whether a cart was sufficiently loaded, and whether it
might be corded up. Thanks to Natasha's directions the work now went
on expeditiously, unnecessary things were left, and the most valuable
packed as compactly as possible.
But hard as they all worked till quite late that night, they could not
get everything packed. The countess had fallen asleep and the count,
having put off their departure till next morning, went to bed.
Sonya and Natasha slept in the sitting room without undressing.
That night another wounded man was driven down the Povarskaya,
and Mavra Kuzminichna, who was standing at the gate, had him
brought into the Rostovs' yard. Mavra Kuzminichna concluded that he
was a very important man. He was being conveyed in a caleche with a
raised hood, and was quite covered by an apron. On the box beside the
driver sat a venerable old attendant. A doctor and two soldiers followed
the carriage in a cart.
"Please come in here. The masters are going away and the whole
house will be empty," said the old woman to the old attendant.
"Well, perhaps," said he with a sigh. "We don't expect to get him
home alive! We have a house of our own in Moscow, but it's a long
way from here, and there's nobody living in it."
"Do us the honor to come in, there's plenty of everything in the
master's house. Come in," said Mavra Kuzminichna. "Is he very ill?"
she asked.
The attendant made a hopeless gesture.
"We don't expect to get him home! We must ask the doctor."
And the old servant got down from the box and went up to the cart.
"All right!" said the doctor.
The old servant returned to the caleche, looked into it, shook his
head disconsolately, told the driver to turn into the yard, and stopped
beside Mavra Kuzminichna.
"O, Lord Jesus Christ!" she murmured.
She invited them to take the wounded man into the house.
"The masters won't object..." she said.
But they had to avoid carrying the man upstairs, and so they took
him into the wing and put him in the room that had been Madame
Schoss'.
 This wounded man was Prince Andrew Bolkonski.

CHAPTER XV
Moscow's last day had come. It was a clear bright autumn day, a
Sunday. The church bells everywhere were ringing for service, just as
usual on Sundays. Nobody seemed yet to realize what awaited the city.
Only two things indicated the social condition of Moscow—the
rabble, that is the poor people, and the price of commodities. An
enormous crowd of factory hands, house serfs, and peasants, with
whom some officials, seminarists, and gentry were mingled, had gone
early that morning to the Three Hills. Having waited there for
Rostopchin who did not turn up, they became convinced that Moscow
would be surrendered, and then dispersed all about the town to the
public houses and cookshops. Prices too that day indicated the state of
affairs. The price of weapons, of gold, of carts and horses, kept rising,
but the value of paper money and city articles kept falling, so that by
midday there were instances of carters removing valuable goods, such
as cloth, and receiving in payment a half of what they carted, while
peasant horses were fetching five hundred rubles each, and furniture,
mirrors, and bronzes were being given away for nothing.
In the Rostovs' staid old-fashioned house the dissolution of former
conditions of life was but little noticeable. As to the serfs the only
indication was that three out of their huge retinue disappeared during
the night, but nothing was stolen; and as to the value of their
possessions, the thirty peasant carts that had come in from their estates
and which many people envied proved to be extremely valuable and
they were offered enormous sums of money for them. Not only were
huge sums offered for the horses and carts, but on the previous evening
and early in the morning of the first of September, orderlies and
servants sent by wounded officers came to the Rostovs' and wounded
men dragged themselves there from the Rostovs' and from neighboring
houses where they were accommodated, entreating the servants to try to
get them a lift out of Moscow. The major-domo to whom these
entreaties were addressed, though he was sorry for the wounded,
resolutely refused, saying that he dare not even mention the matter to
the count. Pity these wounded men as one might, it was evident that if
they were given one cart there would be no reason to refuse another, or
all the carts and one's own carriages as well. Thirty carts could not save
all the wounded and in the general catastrophe one could not disregard
oneself and one's own family. So thought the major-domo on his
master's behalf.
On waking up that morning Count Ilya Rostov left his bedroom
softly, so as not to wake the countess who had fallen asleep only
toward morning, and came out to the porch in his lilac silk dressing
gown. In the yard stood the carts ready corded. The carriages were at
the front porch. The major-domo stood at the porch talking to an
elderly orderly and to a pale young officer with a bandaged arm. On
seeing the count the major-domo made a significant and stern gesture to
them both to go away.
"Well, Vasilich, is everything ready?" asked the count, and stroking
his bald head he looked good-naturedly at the officer and the orderly
and nodded to them. (He liked to see new faces.)
"We can harness at once, your excellency."
"Well, that's right. As soon as the countess wakes we'll be off, God
willing! What is it, gentlemen?" he added, turning to the officer. "Are
you staying in my house?"
The officer came nearer and suddenly his face flushed crimson.
"Count, be so good as to allow me... for God's sake, to get into some
corner of one of your carts! I have nothing here with me.... I shall be all
right on a loaded cart..."
Before the officer had finished speaking the orderly made the same
request on behalf of his master.
"Oh, yes, yes, yes!" said the count hastily. "I shall be very pleased,
very pleased. Vasilich, you'll see to it. Just unload one or two carts.
Well, what of it... do what's necessary..." said the count, muttering
some indefinite order.
But at the same moment an expression of warm gratitude on the
officer's face had already sealed the order. The count looked around
him. In the yard, at the gates, at the window of the wings, wounded
officers and their orderlies were to be seen. They were all looking at the
count and moving toward the porch.
"Please step into the gallery, your excellency," said the major-domo.
"What are your orders about the pictures?"
The count went into the house with him, repeating his order not to
refuse the wounded who asked for a lift.
"Well, never mind, some of the things can be unloaded," he added in
a soft, confidential voice, as though afraid of being overheard.
 At nine o'clock the countess woke up, and Matrena Timofeevna, who
had been her lady's maid before her marriage and now performed a sort
of chief gendarme's duty for her, came to say that Madame Schoss was
much offended and the young ladies' summer dresses could not be left
behind. On inquiry, the countess learned that Madame Schoss was
offended because her trunk had been taken down from its cart, and all
the loads were being uncorded and the luggage taken out of the carts to
make room for wounded men whom the count in the simplicity of his
heart had ordered that they should take with them. The countess sent
for her husband.
"What is this, my dear? I hear that the luggage is being unloaded."
"You know, love, I wanted to tell you... Countess dear... an officer
came to me to ask for a few carts for the wounded. After all, ours are
things that can be bought but think what being left behind means to
them!... Really now, in our own yard—we asked them in ourselves and
there are officers among them.... You know, I think, my dear... let them
be taken... where's the hurry?"
The count spoke timidly, as he always did when talking of money
matters. The countess was accustomed to this tone as a precursor of
news of something detrimental to the children's interests, such as the
building of a new gallery or conservatory, the inauguration of a private
theater or an orchestra. She was accustomed always to oppose anything
announced in that timid tone and considered it her duty to do so.
She assumed her dolefully submissive manner and said to her
husband: "Listen to me, Count, you have managed matters so that we
are getting nothing for the house, and now you wish to throw away all
our—all the children's property! You said yourself that we have a
hundred thousand rubles' worth of things in the house. I don't consent,
my dear, I don't! Do as you please! It's the government's business to
look after the wounded; they know that. Look at the Lopukhins
opposite, they cleared out everything two days ago. That's what other
people do. It's only we who are such fools. If you have no pity on me,
have some for the children."
Flourishing his arms in despair the count left the room without
replying.
"Papa, what are you doing that for?" asked Natasha, who had
followed him into her mother's room.
"Nothing! What business is it of yours?" muttered the count angrily.
"But I heard," said Natasha. "Why does Mamma object?"
"What business is it of yours?" cried the count.
 Natasha stepped up to the window and pondered.
"Papa! Here's Berg coming to see us," said she, looking out of the
window.

CHAPTER XVI
Berg, the Rostovs' son-in-law, was already a colonel wearing the
orders of Vladimir and Anna, and he still filled the quiet and agreeable
post of assistant to the head of the staff of the assistant commander of
the first division of the Second Army.
On the first of September he had come to Moscow from the army.
He had nothing to do in Moscow, but he had noticed that everyone in
the army was asking for leave to visit Moscow and had something to do
there. So he considered it necessary to ask for leave of absence for
family and domestic reasons.
Berg drove up to his father-in-law's house in his spruce little trap
with a pair of sleek roans, exactly like those of a certain prince. He
looked attentively at the carts in the yard and while going up to the
porch took out a clean pocket handkerchief and tied a knot in it.
From the anteroom Berg ran with smooth though impatient steps into
the drawing room, where he embraced the count, kissed the hands of
Natasha and Sonya, and hastened to inquire after "Mamma's" health.
"Health, at a time like this?" said the count. "Come, tell us the news!
Is the army retreating or will there be another battle?"
"God Almighty alone can decide the fate of our fatherland, Papa,"
said Berg. "The army is burning with a spirit of heroism and the
leaders, so to say, have now assembled in council. No one knows what
is coming. But in general I can tell you, Papa, that such a heroic spirit,
the truly antique valor of the Russian army, which they—which it" (he
corrected himself) "has shown or displayed in the battle of the twenty-
sixth—there are no words worthy to do it justice! I tell you, Papa" (he
smote himself on the breast as a general he had heard speaking had
done, but Berg did it a trifle late for he should have struck his breast at
the words "Russian army"), "I tell you frankly that we, the
commanders, far from having to urge the men on or anything of that
kind, could hardly restrain those... those... yes, those exploits of antique
valor," he went on rapidly. "General Barclay de Tolly risked his life
everywhere at the head of the troops, I can assure you. Our corps was
stationed on a hillside. You can imagine!"
And Berg related all that he remembered of the various tales he had
heard those days. Natasha watched him with an intent gaze that
confused him, as if she were trying to find in his face the answer to
some question.
"Altogether such heroism as was displayed by the Russian warriors
cannot be imagined or adequately praised!" said Berg, glancing round
at Natasha, and as if anxious to conciliate her, replying to her intent
look with a smile. "'Russia is not in Moscow, she lives in the hearts of
her sons!' Isn't it so, Papa?" said he.
Just then the countess came in from the sitting room with a weary
and dissatisfied expression. Berg hurriedly jumped up, kissed her hand,
asked about her health, and, swaying his head from side to side to
express sympathy, remained standing beside her.
"Yes, Mamma, I tell you sincerely that these are hard and sad times
for every Russian. But why are you so anxious? You have still time to
get away...."
"I can't think what the servants are about," said the countess, turning
to her husband. "I have just been told that nothing is ready yet.
Somebody after all must see to things. One misses Mitenka at such
times. There won't be any end to it."
The count was about to say something, but evidently restrained
himself. He got up from his chair and went to the door.
At that moment Berg drew out his handkerchief as if to blow his
nose and, seeing the knot in it, pondered, shaking his head sadly and
significantly.
"And I have a great favor to ask of you, Papa," said he.
"Hm..." said the count, and stopped.
"I was driving past Yusupov's house just now," said Berg with a
laugh, "when the steward, a man I know, ran out and asked me whether
I wouldn't buy something. I went in out of curiosity, you know, and
there is a small chiffonier and a dressing table. You know how dear
Vera wanted a chiffonier like that and how we had a dispute about it."
(At the mention of the chiffonier and dressing table Berg involuntarily
changed his tone to one of pleasure at his admirable domestic
arrangements.) "And it's such a beauty! It pulls out and has a secret
English drawer, you know! And dear Vera has long wanted one. I wish
to give her a surprise, you see. I saw so many of those peasant carts in
your yard. Please let me have one, I will pay the man well, and..."
 The count frowned and coughed.
"Ask the countess, I don't give orders."
"If it's inconvenient, please don't," said Berg. "Only I so wanted it,
for dear Vera's sake."
"Oh, go to the devil, all of you! To the devil, the devil, the devil..."
cried the old count. "My head's in a whirl!"
And he left the room. The countess began to cry.
"Yes, Mamma! Yes, these are very hard times!" said Berg.
Natasha left the room with her father and, as if finding it difficult to
reach some decision, first followed him and then ran downstairs.
Petya was in the porch, engaged in giving out weapons to the
servants who were to leave Moscow. The loaded carts were still
standing in the yard. Two of them had been uncorded and a wounded
officer was climbing into one of them helped by an orderly.
"Do you know what it's about?" Petya asked Natasha.
She understood that he meant what were their parents quarreling
about. She did not answer.
"It's because Papa wanted to give up all the carts to the wounded,"
said Petya. "Vasilich told me. I consider..."
"I consider," Natasha suddenly almost shouted, turning her angry
face to Petya, "I consider it so horrid, so abominable, so... I don't know
what. Are we despicable Germans?"
Her throat quivered with convulsive sobs and, afraid of weakening
and letting the force of her anger run to waste, she turned and rushed
headlong up the stairs.
Berg was sitting beside the countess consoling her with the
respectful attention of a relative. The count, pipe in hand, was pacing
up and down the room, when Natasha, her face distorted by anger, burst
in like a tempest and approached her mother with rapid steps.
"It's horrid! It's abominable!" she screamed. "You can't possibly have
ordered it!"
Berg and the countess looked at her, perplexed and frightened. The
count stood still at the window and listened.
"Mamma, it's impossible: see what is going on in the yard!" she
cried. "They will be left!..."
 "What's the matter with you? Who are 'they'? What do you want?"
"Why, the wounded! It's impossible, Mamma. It's monstrous!... No,
Mamma darling, it's not the thing. Please forgive me, darling....
Mamma, what does it matter what we take away? Only look what is
going on in the yard... Mamma!... It's impossible!"
The count stood by the window and listened without turning round.
Suddenly he sniffed and put his face closer to the window.
The countess glanced at her daughter, saw her face full of shame for
her mother, saw her agitation, and understood why her husband did not
turn to look at her now, and she glanced round quite disconcerted.
"Oh, do as you like! Am I hindering anyone?" she said, not
surrendering at once.
"Mamma, darling, forgive me!"
But the countess pushed her daughter away and went up to her
husband.
"My dear, you order what is right.... You know I don't understand
about it," said she, dropping her eyes shamefacedly.
"The eggs... the eggs are teaching the hen," muttered the count
through tears of joy, and he embraced his wife who was glad to hide
her look of shame on his breast.
"Papa! Mamma! May I see to it? May I?..." asked Natasha. "We will
still take all the most necessary things."
The count nodded affirmatively, and Natasha, at the rapid pace at
which she used to run when playing at tag, ran through the ballroom to
the anteroom and downstairs into the yard.
The servants gathered round Natasha, but could not believe the
strange order she brought them until the count himself, in his wife's
name, confirmed the order to give up all the carts to the wounded and
take the trunks to the storerooms. When they understood that order the
servants set to work at this new task with pleasure and zeal. It no longer
seemed strange to them but on the contrary it seemed the only thing
that could be done, just as a quarter of an hour before it had not seemed
strange to anyone that the wounded should be left behind and the goods
carted away but that had seemed the only thing to do.
The whole household, as if to atone for not having done it sooner, set
eagerly to work at the new task of placing the wounded in the carts.
The wounded dragged themselves out of their rooms and stood with
pale but happy faces round the carts. The news that carts were to be had
spread to the neighboring houses, from which wounded men began to
come into the Rostovs' yard. Many of the wounded asked them not to
unload the carts but only to let them sit on the top of the things. But the
work of unloading, once started, could not be arrested. It seemed not to
matter whether all or only half the things were left behind. Cases full of
china, bronzes, pictures, and mirrors that had been so carefully packed
the night before now lay about the yard, and still they went on
searching for and finding possibilities of unloading this or that and
letting the wounded have another and yet another cart.
"We can take four more men," said the steward. "They can have my
trap, or else what is to become of them?"
"Let them have my wardrobe cart," said the countess. "Dunyasha can
go with me in the carriage."
They unloaded the wardrobe cart and sent it to take wounded men
from a house two doors off. The whole household, servants included,
was bright and animated. Natasha was in a state of rapturous
excitement such as she had not known for a long time.
"What could we fasten this onto?" asked the servants, trying to fix a
trunk on the narrow footboard behind a carriage. "We must keep at
least one cart."
"What's in it?" asked Natasha.
"The count's books."
"Leave it, Vasilich will put it away. It's not wanted."
The phaeton was full of people and there was a doubt as to where
Count Peter could sit.
"On the box. You'll sit on the box, won't you, Petya?" cried Natasha.
Sonya too was busy all this time, but the aim of her efforts was quite
different from Natasha's. She was putting away the things that had to be
left behind and making a list of them as the countess wished, and she
tried to get as much taken away with them as possible.

CHAPTER XVII
Before two o'clock in the afternoon the Rostovs' four carriages,
packed full and with the horses harnessed, stood at the front door. One
by one the carts with the wounded had moved out of the yard.
 The caleche in which Prince Andrew was being taken attracted
Sonya's attention as it passed the front porch. With the help of a maid
she was arranging a seat for the countess in the huge high coach that
stood at the entrance.
"Whose caleche is that?" she inquired, leaning out of the carriage
window.
"Why, didn't you know, Miss?" replied the maid. "The wounded
prince: he spent the night in our house and is going with us."
"But who is it? What's his name?"
"It's our intended that was—Prince Bolkonski himself! They say he
is dying," replied the maid with a sigh.
Sonya jumped out of the coach and ran to the countess. The
countess, tired out and already dressed in shawl and bonnet for her
journey, was pacing up and down the drawing room, waiting for the
household to assemble for the usual silent prayer with closed doors
before starting. Natasha was not in the room.
"Mamma," said Sonya, "Prince Andrew is here, mortally wounded.
He is going with us."
The countess opened her eyes in dismay and, seizing Sonya's arm,
glanced around.
"Natasha?" she murmured.
At that moment this news had only one significance for both of them.
They knew their Natasha, and alarm as to what would happen if she
heard this news stifled all sympathy for the man they both liked.
"Natasha does not know yet, but he is going with us," said Sonya.
"You say he is dying?"
Sonya nodded.
The countess put her arms around Sonya and began to cry.
"The ways of God are past finding out!" she thought, feeling that the
Almighty Hand, hitherto unseen, was becoming manifest in all that was
now taking place.
"Well, Mamma? Everything is ready. What's the matter?" asked
Natasha, as with animated face she ran into the room.
"Nothing," answered the countess. "If everything is ready let us
start."
 And the countess bent over her reticule to hide her agitated face.
Sonya embraced Natasha and kissed her.
Natasha looked at her inquiringly.
"What is it? What has happened?"
"Nothing... No..."
"Is it something very bad for me? What is it?" persisted Natasha with
her quick intuition.
Sonya sighed and made no reply. The count, Petya, Madame Schoss,
Mavra Kuzminichna, and Vasilich came into the drawing room and,
having closed the doors, they all sat down and remained for some
moments silently seated without looking at one another.
The count was the first to rise, and with a loud sigh crossed himself
before the icon. All the others did the same. Then the count embraced
Mavra Kuzminichna and Vasilich, who were to remain in Moscow, and
while they caught at his hand and kissed his shoulder he patted their
backs lightly with some vaguely affectionate and comforting words.
The countess went into the oratory and there Sonya found her on her
knees before the icons that had been left here and there hanging on the
wall. (The most precious ones, with which some family tradition was
connected, were being taken with them.)
In the porch and in the yard the men whom Petya had armed with
swords and daggers, with trousers tucked inside their high boots and
with belts and girdles tightened, were taking leave of those remaining
behind.
As is always the case at a departure, much had been forgotten or put
in the wrong place, and for a long time two menservants stood one on
each side of the open door and the carriage steps waiting to help the
countess in, while maids rushed with cushions and bundles from the
house to the carriages, the caleche, the phaeton, and back again.
"They always will forget everything!" said the countess. "Don't you
know I can't sit like that?"
And Dunyasha, with clenched teeth, without replying but with an
aggrieved look on her face, hastily got into the coach to rearrange the
seat.
"Oh, those servants!" said the count, swaying his head.
Efim, the old coachman, who was the only one the countess trusted
to drive her, sat perched up high on the box and did not so much as
glance round at what was going on behind him. From thirty years'
experience he knew it would be some time yet before the order, "Be
off, in God's name!" would be given him: and he knew that even when
it was said he would be stopped once or twice more while they sent
back to fetch something that had been forgotten, and even after that he
would again be stopped and the countess herself would lean out of the
window and beg him for the love of heaven to drive carefully down the
hill. He knew all this and therefore waited calmly for what would
happen, with more patience than the horses, especially the near one, the
chestnut Falcon, who was pawing the ground and champing his bit. At
last all were seated, the carriage steps were folded and pulled up, the
door was shut, somebody was sent for a traveling case, and the
countess leaned out and said what she had to say. Then Efim
deliberately doffed his hat and began crossing himself. The postilion
and all the other servants did the same. "Off, in God's name!" said
Efim, putting on his hat. "Start!" The postilion started the horses, the
off pole horse tugged at his collar, the high springs creaked, and the
body of the coach swayed. The footman sprang onto the box of the
moving coach which jolted as it passed out of the yard onto the uneven
roadway; the other vehicles jolted in their turn, and the procession of
carriages moved up the street. In the carriages, the caleche, and the
phaeton, all crossed themselves as they passed the church opposite the
house. Those who were to remain in Moscow walked on either side of
the vehicles seeing the travelers off.
Rarely had Natasha experienced so joyful a feeling as now, sitting in
the carriage beside the countess and gazing at the slowly receding walls
of forsaken, agitated Moscow. Occasionally she leaned out of the
carriage window and looked back and then forward at the long train of
wounded in front of them. Almost at the head of the line she could see
the raised hood of Prince Andrew's caleche. She did not know who was
in it, but each time she looked at the procession her eyes sought that
caleche. She knew it was right in front.
In Kudrino, from the Nikitski, Presnya, and Podnovinsk Streets came
several other trains of vehicles similar to the Rostovs', and as they
passed along the Sadovaya Street the carriages and carts formed two
rows abreast.
As they were going round the Sukharev water tower Natasha, who
was inquisitively and alertly scrutinizing the people driving or walking
past, suddenly cried out in joyful surprise:
"Dear me! Mamma, Sonya, look, it's he!"
"Who? Who?"
"Look! Yes, on my word, it's Bezukhov!" said Natasha, putting her
head out of the carriage and staring at a tall, stout man in a coachman's
long coat, who from his manner of walking and moving was evidently a
gentleman in disguise, and who was passing under the arch of the
Sukharev tower accompanied by a small, sallow-faced, beardless old
man in a frieze coat.
"Yes, it really is Bezukhov in a coachman's coat, with a queer-
looking old boy. Really," said Natasha, "look, look!"
"No, it's not he. How can you talk such nonsense?"
"Mamma," screamed Natasha, "I'll stake my head it's he! I assure
you! Stop, stop!" she cried to the coachman.
But the coachman could not stop, for from the Meshchanski Street
came more carts and carriages, and the Rostovs were being shouted at
to move on and not block the way.
In fact, however, though now much farther off than before, the
Rostovs all saw Pierre—or someone extraordinarily like him—in a
coachman's coat, going down the street with head bent and a serious
face beside a small, beardless old man who looked like a footman. That
old man noticed a face thrust out of the carriage window gazing at
them, and respectfully touching Pierre's elbow said something to him
and pointed to the carriage. Pierre, evidently engrossed in thought,
could not at first understand him. At length when he had understood
and looked in the direction the old man indicated, he recognized
Natasha, and following his first impulse stepped instantly and rapidly
toward the coach. But having taken a dozen steps he seemed to
remember something and stopped.
Natasha's face, leaning out of the window, beamed with quizzical
kindliness.
"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you! This is
wonderful!" she cried, holding out her hand to him. "What are you
doing? Why are you like this?"
Pierre took her outstretched hand and kissed it awkwardly as he
walked along beside her while the coach still moved on.
"What is the matter, Count?" asked the countess in a surprised and
commiserating tone.
"What? What? Why? Don't ask me," said Pierre, and looked round at
Natasha whose radiant, happy expression—of which he was conscious
without looking at her—filled him with enchantment.
"Are you remaining in Moscow, then?"
Pierre hesitated.
"In Moscow?" he said in a questioning tone. "Yes, in Moscow.
Good-by!"
 "Ah, if only I were a man? I'd certainly stay with you. How
splendid!" said Natasha. "Mamma, if you'll let me, I'll stay!"
Pierre glanced absently at Natasha and was about to say something,
but the countess interrupted him.
"You were at the battle, we heard."
"Yes, I was," Pierre answered. "There will be another battle
tomorrow..." he began, but Natasha interrupted him.
"But what is the matter with you, Count? You are not like
yourself...."
"Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me! I don't know myself. Tomorrow...
But no! Good-by, good-by!" he muttered. "It's an awful time!" and
dropping behind the carriage he stepped onto the pavement.
Natasha continued to lean out of the window for a long time,
beaming at him with her kindly, slightly quizzical, happy smile.

CHAPTER XVIII
For the last two days, ever since leaving home, Pierre had been
living in the empty house of his deceased benefactor, Bazdeev. This is
how it happened.
When he woke up on the morning after his return to Moscow and his
interview with Count Rostopchin, he could not for some time make out
where he was and what was expected of him. When he was informed
that among others awaiting him in his reception room there was a
Frenchman who had brought a letter from his wife, the Countess
Helene, he felt suddenly overcome by that sense of confusion and
hopelessness to which he was apt to succumb. He felt that everything
was now at an end, all was in confusion and crumbling to pieces, that
nobody was right or wrong, the future held nothing, and there was no
escape from this position. Smiling unnaturally and muttering to
himself, he first sat down on the sofa in an attitude of despair, then
rose, went to the door of the reception room and peeped through the
crack, returned flourishing his arms, and took up a book. His major-
domo came in a second time to say that the Frenchman who had
brought the letter from the countess was very anxious to see him if only
for a minute, and that someone from Bazdeev's widow had called to ask
Pierre to take charge of her husband's books, as she herself was leaving
for the country.
 "Oh, yes, in a minute; wait... or no! No, of course... go and say I will
come directly," Pierre replied to the major-domo.
But as soon as the man had left the room Pierre took up his hat
which was lying on the table and went out of his study by the other
door. There was no one in the passage. He went along the whole length
of this passage to the stairs and, frowning and rubbing his forehead
with both hands, went down as far as the first landing. The hall porter
was standing at the front door. From the landing where Pierre stood
there was a second staircase leading to the back entrance. He went
down that staircase and out into the yard. No one had seen him. But
there were some carriages waiting, and as soon as Pierre stepped out of
the gate the coachmen and the yard porter noticed him and raised their
caps to him. When he felt he was being looked at he behaved like an
ostrich which hides its head in a bush in order not to be seen: he hung
his head and quickening his pace went down the street.
Of all the affairs awaiting Pierre that day the sorting of Joseph
Bazdeev's books and papers appeared to him the most necessary.
He hired the first cab he met and told the driver to go to the
Patriarch's Ponds, where the widow Bazdeev's house was.
Continually turning round to look at the rows of loaded carts that
were making their way from all sides out of Moscow, and balancing his
bulky body so as not to slip out of the ramshackle old vehicle, Pierre,
experiencing the joyful feeling of a boy escaping from school, began to
talk to his driver.
The man told him that arms were being distributed today at the
Kremlin and that tomorrow everyone would be sent out beyond the
Three Hills gates and a great battle would be fought there.
Having reached the Patriarch's Ponds Pierre found the Bazdeevs'
house, where he had not been for a long time past. He went up to the
gate. Gerasim, that sallow beardless old man Pierre had seen at
Torzhok five years before with Joseph Bazdeev, came out in answer to
his knock.
"At home?" asked Pierre.
"Owing to the present state of things Sophia Danilovna has gone to
the Torzhok estate with the children, your excellency."
"I will come in all the same, I have to look through the books," said
Pierre.
"Be so good as to step in. Makar Alexeevich, the brother of my late
master—may the kingdom of heaven be his—has remained here, but he
is in a weak state as you know," said the old servant.
 Pierre knew that Makar Alexeevich was Joseph Bazdeev's half-
insane brother and a hard drinker.
"Yes, yes, I know. Let us go in..." said Pierre and entered the house.
A tall, bald-headed old man with a red nose, wearing a dressing
gown and with galoshes on his bare feet, stood in the anteroom. On
seeing Pierre he muttered something angrily and went away along the
passage.
"He was a very clever man but has now grown quite feeble, as your
honor sees," said Gerasim. "Will you step into the study?" Pierre
nodded. "As it was sealed up so it has remained, but Sophia Danilovna
gave orders that if anyone should come from you they were to have the
books."
Pierre went into that gloomy study which he had entered with such
trepidation in his benefactor's lifetime. The room, dusty and untouched
since the death of Joseph Bazdeev was now even gloomier.
Gerasim opened one of the shutters and left the room on tiptoe.
Pierre went round the study, approached the cupboard in which the
manuscripts were kept, and took out what had once been one of the
most important, the holy of holies of the order. This was the authentic
Scotch Acts with Bazdeev's notes and explanations. He sat down at the
dusty writing table, and, having laid the manuscripts before him,
opened them out, closed them, finally pushed them away, and resting
his head on his hand sank into meditation.
Gerasim looked cautiously into the study several times and saw
Pierre always sitting in the same attitude.
More than two hours passed and Gerasim took the liberty of making
a slight noise at the door to attract his attention, but Pierre did not hear
him.
"Is the cabman to be discharged, your honor?"
"Oh yes!" said Pierre, rousing himself and rising hurriedly. "Look
here," he added, taking Gerasim by a button of his coat and looking
down at the old man with moist, shining, and ecstatic eyes, "I say, do
you know that there is going to be a battle tomorrow?"
"We heard so," replied the man.
"I beg you not to tell anyone who I am, and to do what I ask you."
"Yes, your excellency," replied Gerasim. "Will you have something
to eat?"
 "No, but I want something else. I want peasant clothes and a pistol,"
said Pierre, unexpectedly blushing.
"Yes, your excellency," said Gerasim after thinking for a moment.
All the rest of that day Pierre spent alone in his benefactor's study,
and Gerasim heard him pacing restlessly from one corner to another
and talking to himself. And he spent the night on a bed made up for
him there.
Gerasim, being a servant who in his time had seen many strange
things, accepted Pierre's taking up his residence in the house without
surprise, and seemed pleased to have someone to wait on. That same
evening—without even asking himself what they were wanted for—he
procured a coachman's coat and cap for Pierre, and promised to get him
the pistol next day. Makar Alexeevich came twice that evening
shuffling along in his galoshes as far as the door and stopped and
looked ingratiatingly at Pierre. But as soon as Pierre turned toward him
he wrapped his dressing gown around him with a shamefaced and
angry look and hurried away. It was when Pierre (wearing the
coachman's coat which Gerasim had procured for him and had
disinfected by steam) was on his way with the old man to buy the pistol
at the Sukharev market that he met the Rostovs.

CHAPTER XIX
Kutuzov's order to retreat through Moscow to the Ryazan road was
issued at night on the first of September.
The first troops started at once, and during the night they marched
slowly and steadily without hurry. At daybreak, however, those nearing
the town at the Dorogomilov bridge saw ahead of them masses of
soldiers crowding and hurrying across the bridge, ascending on the
opposite side and blocking the streets and alleys, while endless masses
of troops were bearing down on them from behind, and an unreasoning
hurry and alarm overcame them. They all rushed forward to the bridge,
onto it, and to the fords and the boats. Kutuzov himself had driven
round by side streets to the other side of Moscow.
By ten o'clock in the morning of the second of September, only the
rear guard remained in the Dorogomilov suburb, where they had ample
room. The main army was on the other side of Moscow or beyond it.
 At that very time, at ten in the morning of the second of September,
Napoleon was standing among his troops on the Poklonny Hill looking
at the panorama spread out before him. From the twenty-sixth of
August to the second of September, that is from the battle of Borodino
to the entry of the French into Moscow, during the whole of that
agitating, memorable week, there had been the extraordinary autumn
weather that always comes as a surprise, when the sun hangs low and
gives more heat than in spring, when everything shines so brightly in
the rare clear atmosphere that the eyes smart, when the lungs are
strengthened and refreshed by inhaling the aromatic autumn air, when
even the nights are warm, and when in those dark warm nights, golden
stars startle and delight us continually by falling from the sky.
At ten in the morning of the second of September this weather still
held.
The brightness of the morning was magical. Moscow seen from the
Poklonny Hill lay spaciously spread out with her river, her gardens, and
her churches, and she seemed to be living her usual life, her cupolas
glittering like stars in the sunlight.
The view of the strange city with its peculiar architecture, such as he
had never seen before, filled Napoleon with the rather envious and
uneasy curiosity men feel when they see an alien form of life that has
no knowledge of them. This city was evidently living with the full force
of its own life. By the indefinite signs which, even at a distance,
distinguish a living body from a dead one, Napoleon from the Poklonny
Hill perceived the throb of life in the town and felt, as it were, the
breathing of that great and beautiful body.
Every Russian looking at Moscow feels her to be a mother; every
foreigner who sees her, even if ignorant of her significance as the
mother city, must feel her feminine character, and Napoleon felt it.
"Cette ville asiatique aux innombrables eglises, Moscou la sainte. La
voila done enfin, cette fameuse ville! Il etait temps," * said he, and
dismounting he ordered a plan of Moscow to be spread out before him,
and summoned Lelorgne d'Ideville, the interpreter.

* "That Asiatic city of the innumerable

churches, holy
Moscow! Here it is then at last, that famous
city. It was
high time."

"A town captured by the enemy is like a maid who has lost her
honor," thought he (he had said so to Tuchkov at Smolensk). From that
point of view he gazed at the Oriental beauty he had not seen before. It
seemed strange to him that his long-felt wish, which had seemed
unattainable, had at last been realized. In the clear morning light he
gazed now at the city and now at the plan, considering its details, and
the assurance of possessing it agitated and awed him.
"But could it be otherwise?" he thought. "Here is this capital at my
feet. Where is Alexander now, and of what is he thinking? A strange,
beautiful, and majestic city; and a strange and majestic moment! In
what light must I appear to them!" thought he, thinking of his troops.
"Here she is, the reward for all those fainthearted men," he reflected,
glancing at those near him and at the troops who were approaching and
forming up. "One word from me, one movement of my hand, and that
ancient capital of the Tsars would perish. But my clemency is always
ready to descend upon the vanquished. I must be magnanimous and
truly great. But no, it can't be true that I am in Moscow," he suddenly
thought. "Yet here she is lying at my feet, with her golden domes and
crosses scintillating and twinkling in the sunshine. But I shall spare her.
On the ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism I will inscribe
great words of justice and mercy.... It is just this which Alexander will
feel most painfully, I know him." (It seemed to Napoleon that the chief
import of what was taking place lay in the personal struggle between
himself and Alexander.) "From the height of the Kremlin—yes, there is
the Kremlin, yes—I will give them just laws; I will teach them the
meaning of true civilization, I will make generations of boyars
remember their conqueror with love. I will tell the deputation that I did
not, and do not, desire war, that I have waged war only against the false
policy of their court; that I love and respect Alexander and that in
Moscow I will accept terms of peace worthy of myself and of my
people. I do not wish to utilize the fortunes of war to humiliate an
honored monarch. 'Boyars,' I will say to them, 'I do not desire war, I
desire the peace and welfare of all my subjects.' However, I know their
presence will inspire me, and I shall speak to them as I always do:
clearly, impressively, and majestically. But can it be true that I am in
Moscow? Yes, there she lies."
"Qu'on m'amene les boyars," * said he to his suite.

* "Bring the boyars to me."

A general with a brilliant suite galloped off at once to fetch the

boyars.
Two hours passed. Napoleon had lunched and was again standing in
the same place on the Poklonny Hill awaiting the deputation. His
speech to the boyars had already taken definite shape in his
imagination. That speech was full of dignity and greatness as Napoleon
understood it.
 He was himself carried away by the tone of magnanimity he intended
to adopt toward Moscow. In his imagination he appointed days for
assemblies at the palace of the Tsars, at which Russian notables and his
own would mingle. He mentally appointed a governor, one who would
win the hearts of the people. Having learned that there were many
charitable institutions in Moscow he mentally decided that he would
shower favors on them all. He thought that, as in Africa he had to put
on a burnoose and sit in a mosque, so in Moscow he must be beneficent
like the Tsars. And in order finally to touch the hearts of the
Russians—and being like all Frenchmen unable to imagine anything
sentimental without a reference to ma chere, ma tendre, ma pauvre
mere * —he decided that he would place an inscription on all these
establishments in large letters: "This establishment is dedicated to my
dear mother." Or no, it should be simply: Maison de ma Mere, *(2) he
concluded. "But am I really in Moscow? Yes, here it lies before me, but
why is the deputation from the city so long in appearing?" he
wondered.

* "My dear, my tender, my poor mother."

* (2) "House of my Mother."

Meanwhile an agitated consultation was being carried on in whispers

among his generals and marshals at the rear of his suite. Those sent to
fetch the deputation had returned with the news that Moscow was
empty, that everyone had left it. The faces of those who were not
conferring together were pale and perturbed. They were not alarmed by
the fact that Moscow had been abandoned by its inhabitants (grave as
that fact seemed), but by the question how to tell the Emperor—without
putting him in the terrible position of appearing ridiculous—that he had
been awaiting the boyars so long in vain: that there were drunken mobs
left in Moscow but no one else. Some said that a deputation of some
sort must be scraped together, others disputed that opinion and
maintained that the Emperor should first be carefully and skillfully
prepared, and then told the truth.
"He will have to be told, all the same," said some gentlemen of the
suite. "But, gentlemen..."
The position was the more awkward because the Emperor,
meditating upon his magnanimous plans, was pacing patiently up and
down before the outspread map, occasionally glancing along the road to
Moscow from under his lifted hand with a bright and proud smile.
"But it's impossible..." declared the gentlemen of the suite, shrugging
their shoulders but not venturing to utter the implied word—le
ridicule...
 At last the Emperor, tired of futile expectation, his actor's instinct
suggesting to him that the sublime moment having been too long drawn
out was beginning to lose its sublimity, gave a sign with his hand. A
single report of a signaling gun followed, and the troops, who were
already spread out on different sides of Moscow, moved into the city
through Tver, Kaluga, and Dorogomilov gates. Faster and faster, vying
with one another, they moved at the double or at a trot, vanishing amid
the clouds of dust they raised and making the air ring with a deafening
roar of mingling shouts.
Drawn on by the movement of his troops Napoleon rode with them
as far as the Dorogomilov gate, but there again stopped and,
dismounting from his horse, paced for a long time by the Kammer-
Kollezski rampart, awaiting the deputation.

CHAPTER XX
Meanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people in it,
perhaps a fiftieth part of its former inhabitants had remained, but it was
empty. It was empty in the sense that a dying queenless hive is empty.
In a queenless hive no life is left though to a superficial glance it
seems as much alive as other hives.
The bees circle round a queenless hive in the hot beams of the
midday sun as gaily as around the living hives; from a distance it
smells of honey like the others, and bees fly in and out in the same way.
But one has only to observe that hive to realize that there is no longer
any life in it. The bees do not fly in the same way, the smell and the
sound that meet the beekeeper are not the same. To the beekeeper's tap
on the wall of the sick hive, instead of the former instant unanimous
humming of tens of thousands of bees with their abdomens
threateningly compressed, and producing by the rapid vibration of their
wings an aerial living sound, the only reply is a disconnected buzzing
from different parts of the deserted hive. From the alighting board,
instead of the former spirituous fragrant smell of honey and venom, and
the warm whiffs of crowded life, comes an odor of emptiness and
decay mingling with the smell of honey. There are no longer sentinels
sounding the alarm with their abdomens raised, and ready to die in
defense of the hive. There is no longer the measured quiet sound of
throbbing activity, like the sound of boiling water, but diverse
discordant sounds of disorder. In and out of the hive long black robber
bees smeared with honey fly timidly and shiftily. They do not sting, but
crawl away from danger. Formerly only bees laden with honey flew
into the hive, and they flew out empty; now they fly out laden. The
beekeeper opens the lower part of the hive and peers in. Instead of
black, glossy bees—tamed by toil, clinging to one another's legs and
drawing out the wax, with a ceaseless hum of labor—that used to hang
in long clusters down to the floor of the hive, drowsy shriveled bees
crawl about separately in various directions on the floor and walls of
the hive. Instead of a neatly glued floor, swept by the bees with the
fanning of their wings, there is a floor littered with bits of wax,
excrement, dying bees scarcely moving their legs, and dead ones that
have not been cleared away.
The beekeeper opens the upper part of the hive and examines the
super. Instead of serried rows of bees sealing up every gap in the combs
and keeping the brood warm, he sees the skillful complex structures of
the combs, but no longer in their former state of purity. All is neglected
and foul. Black robber bees are swiftly and stealthily prowling about
the combs, and the short home bees, shriveled and listless as if they
were old, creep slowly about without trying to hinder the robbers,
having lost all motive and all sense of life. Drones, bumblebees, wasps,
and butterflies knock awkwardly against the walls of the hive in their
flight. Here and there among the cells containing dead brood and honey
an angry buzzing can sometimes be heard. Here and there a couple of
bees, by force of habit and custom cleaning out the brood cells, with
efforts beyond their strength laboriously drag away a dead bee or
bumblebee without knowing why they do it. In another corner two old
bees are languidly fighting, or cleaning themselves, or feeding one
another, without themselves knowing whether they do it with friendly
or hostile intent. In a third place a crowd of bees, crushing one another,
attack some victim and fight and smother it, and the victim, enfeebled
or killed, drops from above slowly and lightly as a feather, among the
heap of corpses. The keeper opens the two center partitions to examine
the brood cells. In place of the former close dark circles formed by
thousands of bees sitting back to back and guarding the high mystery of
generation, he sees hundreds of dull, listless, and sleepy shells of bees.
They have almost all died unawares, sitting in the sanctuary they had
guarded and which is now no more. They reek of decay and death.
Only a few of them still move, rise, and feebly fly to settle on the
enemy's hand, lacking the spirit to die stinging him; the rest are dead
and fall as lightly as fish scales. The beekeeper closes the hive, chalks a
mark on it, and when he has time tears out its contents and burns it
clean.
So in the same way Moscow was empty when Napoleon, weary,
uneasy, and morose, paced up and down in front of the Kammer-
Kollezski rampart, awaiting what to his mind was a necessary, if but
formal, observance of the proprieties—a deputation.
 In various corners of Moscow there still remained a few people
aimlessly moving about, following their old habits and hardly aware of
what they were doing.
When with due circumspection Napoleon was informed that Moscow
was empty, he looked angrily at his informant, turned away, and
silently continued to walk to and fro.
"My carriage!" he said.
He took his seat beside the aide-de-camp on duty and drove into the
suburb. "Moscow deserted!" he said to himself. "What an incredible
event!"
He did not drive into the town, but put up at an inn in the
Dorogomilov suburb.
The coup de theatre had not come off.

CHAPTER XXI
The Russian troops were passing through Moscow from two o'clock
at night till two in the afternoon and bore away with them the wounded
and the last of the inhabitants who were leaving.
The greatest crush during the movement of the troops took place at
the Stone, Moskva, and Yauza bridges.
While the troops, dividing into two parts when passing around the
Kremlin, were thronging the Moskva and the Stone bridges, a great
many soldiers, taking advantage of the stoppage and congestion, turned
back from the bridges and slipped stealthily and silently past the church
of Vasili the Beatified and under the Borovitski gate, back up the hill to
the Red Square where some instinct told them they could easily take
things not belonging to them. Crowds of the kind seen at cheap sales
filled all the passages and alleys of the Bazaar. But there were no
dealers with voices of ingratiating affability inviting customers to enter;
there were no hawkers, nor the usual motley crowd of female
purchasers—but only soldiers, in uniforms and overcoats though
without muskets, entering the Bazaar empty-handed and silently
making their way out through its passages with bundles. Tradesmen
and their assistants (of whom there were but few) moved about among
the soldiers quite bewildered. They unlocked their shops and locked
them up again, and themselves carried goods away with the help of
their assistants. On the square in front of the Bazaar were drummers
beating the muster call. But the roll of the drums did not make the
looting soldiers run in the direction of the drum as formerly, but made
them, on the contrary, run farther away. Among the soldiers in the
shops and passages some men were to be seen in gray coats, with
closely shaven heads. Two officers, one with a scarf over his uniform
and mounted on a lean, dark-gray horse, the other in an overcoat and on
foot, stood at the corner of Ilyinka Street, talking. A third officer
galloped up to them.
"The general orders them all to be driven out at once, without fail.
This is outrageous! Half the men have dispersed."
"Where are you off to?... Where?..." he shouted to three infantrymen
without muskets who, holding up the skirts of their overcoats, were
slipping past him into the Bazaar passage. "Stop, you rascals!"
"But how are you going to stop them?" replied another officer.
"There is no getting them together. The army should push on before the
rest bolt, that's all!"
"How can one push on? They are stuck there, wedged on the bridge,
and don't move. Shouldn't we put a cordon round to prevent the rest
from running away?"
"Come, go in there and drive them out!" shouted the senior officer.
The officer in the scarf dismounted, called up a drummer, and went
with him into the arcade. Some soldiers started running away in a
group. A shopkeeper with red pimples on his cheeks near the nose, and
a calm, persistent, calculating expression on his plump face, hurriedly
and ostentatiously approached the officer, swinging his arms.
"Your honor!" said he. "Be so good as to protect us! We won't
grudge trifles, you are welcome to anything—we shall be delighted!
Pray!... I'll fetch a piece of cloth at once for such an honorable
gentleman, or even two pieces with pleasure. For we feel how it is; but
what's all this—sheer robbery! If you please, could not guards be
placed if only to let us close the shop...."
Several shopkeepers crowded round the officer.
"Eh, what twaddle!" said one of them, a thin, stern-looking man.
"When one's head is gone one doesn't weep for one's hair! Take what
any of you like!" And flourishing his arm energetically he turned
sideways to the officer.
"It's all very well for you, Ivan Sidorych, to talk," said the first
tradesman angrily. "Please step inside, your honor!"
 "Talk indeed!" cried the thin one. "In my three shops here I have a
hundred thousand rubles' worth of goods. Can they be saved when the
army has gone? Eh, what people! 'Against God's might our hands can't
fight.'"
"Come inside, your honor!" repeated the tradesman, bowing.
The officer stood perplexed and his face showed indecision.
"It's not my business!" he exclaimed, and strode on quickly down
one of the passages.
From one open shop came the sound of blows and vituperation, and
just as the officer came up to it a man in a gray coat with a shaven head
was flung out violently.
This man, bent double, rushed past the tradesman and the officer.
The officer pounced on the soldiers who were in the shops, but at that
moment fearful screams reached them from the huge crowd on the
Moskva bridge and the officer ran out into the square.
"What is it? What is it?" he asked, but his comrade was already
galloping off past Vasili the Beatified in the direction from which the
screams came.
The officer mounted his horse and rode after him. When he reached
the bridge he saw two unlimbered guns, the infantry crossing the
bridge, several overturned carts, and frightened and laughing faces
among the troops. Beside the cannon a cart was standing to which two
horses were harnessed. Four borzois with collars were pressing close to
the wheels. The cart was loaded high, and at the very top, beside a
child's chair with its legs in the air, sat a peasant woman uttering
piercing and desperate shrieks. He was told by his fellow officers that
the screams of the crowd and the shrieks of the woman were due to the
fact that General Ermolov, coming up to the crowd and learning that
soldiers were dispersing among the shops while crowds of civilians
blocked the bridge, had ordered two guns to be unlimbered and made a
show of firing at the bridge. The crowd, crushing one another, upsetting
carts, and shouting and squeezing desperately, had cleared off the
bridge and the troops were now moving forward.

CHAPTER XXII
Meanwhile, the city itself was deserted. There was hardly anyone in
the streets. The gates and shops were all closed, only here and there
round the taverns solitary shouts or drunken songs could be heard.
Nobody drove through the streets and footsteps were rarely heard. The
Povarskaya was quite still and deserted. The huge courtyard of the
Rostovs' house was littered with wisps of hay and with dung from the
horses, and not a soul was to be seen there. In the great drawing room
of the house, which had been left with all it contained, were two
people. They were the yard porter Ignat, and the page boy Mishka,
Vasilich's grandson who had stayed in Moscow with his grandfather.
Mishka had opened the clavichord and was strumming on it with one
finger. The yard porter, his arms akimbo, stood smiling with
satisfaction before the large mirror.
"Isn't it fine, eh, Uncle Ignat?" said the boy, suddenly beginning to
strike the keyboard with both hands.
"Only fancy!" answered Ignat, surprised at the broadening grin on
his face in the mirror.
"Impudence! Impudence!" they heard behind them the voice of
Mavra Kuzminichna who had entered silently. "How he's grinning, the
fat mug! Is that what you're here for? Nothing's cleared away down
there and Vasilich is worn out. Just you wait a bit!"
Ignat left off smiling, adjusted his belt, and went out of the room
with meekly downcast eyes.
"Aunt, I did it gently," said the boy.
"I'll give you something gently, you monkey you!" cried Mavra
Kuzminichna, raising her arm threateningly. "Go and get the samovar
to boil for your grandfather."
Mavra Kuzminichna flicked the dust off the clavichord and closed it,
and with a deep sigh left the drawing room and locked its main door.
Going out into the yard she paused to consider where she should go
next—to drink tea in the servants' wing with Vasilich, or into the
storeroom to put away what still lay about.
She heard the sound of quick footsteps in the quiet street. Someone
stopped at the gate, and the latch rattled as someone tried to open it.
Mavra Kuzminichna went to the gate.
"Who do you want?"
"The count—Count Ilya Andreevich Rostov."
"And who are you?"
"An officer, I have to see him," came the reply in a pleasant, well-
bred Russian voice.
 Mavra Kuzminichna opened the gate and an officer of eighteen, with
the round face of a Rostov, entered the yard.
"They have gone away, sir. Went away yesterday at vespertime,"
said Mavra Kuzminichna cordially.
The young officer standing in the gateway, as if hesitating whether to
enter or not, clicked his tongue.
"Ah, how annoying!" he muttered. "I should have come yesterday....
Ah, what a pity."
Meanwhile, Mavra Kuzminichna was attentively and sympathetically
examining the familiar Rostov features of the young man's face, his
tattered coat and trodden-down boots.
"What did you want to see the count for?" she asked.
"Oh well... it can't be helped!" said he in a tone of vexation and
placed his hand on the gate as if to leave.
He again paused in indecision.
"You see," he suddenly said, "I am a kinsman of the count's and he
has been very kind to me. As you see" (he glanced with an amused air
and good-natured smile at his coat and boots) "my things are worn out
and I have no money, so I was going to ask the count..."
Mavra Kuzminichna did not let him finish.
"Just wait a minute, sir. One little moment," said she.
And as soon as the officer let go of the gate handle she turned and,
hurrying away on her old legs, went through the back yard to the
servants' quarters.
While Mavra Kuzminichna was running to her room the officer
walked about the yard gazing at his worn-out boots with lowered head
and a faint smile on his lips. "What a pity I've missed Uncle! What a
nice old woman! Where has she run off to? And how am I to find the
nearest way to overtake my regiment, which must by now be getting
near the Rogozhski gate?" thought he. Just then Mavra Kuzminichna
appeared from behind the corner of the house with a frightened yet
resolute look, carrying a rolled-up check kerchief in her hand. While
still a few steps from the officer she unfolded the kerchief and took out
of it a white twenty-five-ruble assignat and hastily handed it to him.
"If his excellency had been at home, as a kinsman he would of
course... but as it is..."
 Mavra Kuzminichna grew abashed and confused. The officer did not
decline, but took the note quietly and thanked her.
"If the count had been at home..." Mavra Kuzminichna went on
apologetically. "Christ be with you, sir! May God preserve you!" said
she, bowing as she saw him out.
Swaying his head and smiling as if amused at himself, the officer ran
almost at a trot through the deserted streets toward the Yauza bridge to
overtake his regiment.
But Mavra Kuzminichna stood at the closed gate for some time with
moist eyes, pensively swaying her head and feeling an unexpected flow
of motherly tenderness and pity for the unknown young officer.

CHAPTER XXIII
From an unfinished house on the Varvarka, the ground floor of
which was a dramshop, came drunken shouts and songs. On benches
round the tables in a dirty little room sat some ten factory hands. Tipsy
and perspiring, with dim eyes and wide-open mouths, they were all
laboriously singing some song or other. They were singing
discordantly, arduously, and with great effort, evidently not because
they wished to sing, but because they wanted to show they were drunk
and on a spree. One, a tall, fair-haired lad in a clean blue coat, was
standing over the others. His face with its fine straight nose would have
been handsome had it not been for his thin, compressed, twitching lips
and dull, gloomy, fixed eyes. Evidently possessed by some idea, he
stood over those who were singing, and solemnly and jerkily flourished
above their heads his white arm with the sleeve turned up to the elbow,
trying unnaturally to spread out his dirty fingers. The sleeve of his coat
kept slipping down and he always carefully rolled it up again with his
left hand, as if it were most important that the sinewy white arm he was
flourishing should be bare. In the midst of the song cries were heard,
and fighting and blows in the passage and porch. The tall lad waved his
arm.
"Stop it!" he exclaimed peremptorily. "There's a fight, lads!" And,
still rolling up his sleeve, he went out to the porch.
The factory hands followed him. These men, who under the
leadership of the tall lad were drinking in the dramshop that morning,
had brought the publican some skins from the factory and for this had
had drink served them. The blacksmiths from a neighboring smithy,
hearing the sounds of revelry in the tavern and supposing it to have
been broken into, wished to force their way in too and a fight in the
porch had resulted.
The publican was fighting one of the smiths at the door, and when
the workmen came out the smith, wrenching himself free from the
tavern keeper, fell face downward on the pavement.
Another smith tried to enter the doorway, pressing against the
publican with his chest.
The lad with the turned-up sleeve gave the smith a blow in the face
and cried wildly: "They're fighting us, lads!"
At that moment the first smith got up and, scratching his bruised face
to make it bleed, shouted in a tearful voice: "Police! Murder!... They've
killed a man, lads!"
"Oh, gracious me, a man beaten to death—killed!..." screamed a
woman coming out of a gate close by.
A crowd gathered round the bloodstained smith.
"Haven't you robbed people enough—taking their last shirts?" said a
voice addressing the publican. "What have you killed a man for, you
thief?"
The tall lad, standing in the porch, turned his bleared eyes from the
publican to the smith and back again as if considering whom he ought
to fight now.
"Murderer!" he shouted suddenly to the publican. "Bind him, lads!"
"I daresay you would like to bind me!" shouted the publican, pushing
away the men advancing on him, and snatching his cap from his head
he flung it on the ground.
As if this action had some mysterious and menacing significance, the
workmen surrounding the publican paused in indecision.
"I know the law very well, mates! I'll take the matter to the captain of
police. You think I won't get to him? Robbery is not permitted to
anybody now a days!" shouted the publican, picking up his cap.
"Come along then! Come along then!" the publican and the tall
young fellow repeated one after the other, and they moved up the street
together.
The bloodstained smith went beside them. The factory hands and
others followed behind, talking and shouting.
 At the corner of the Moroseyka, opposite a large house with closed
shutters and bearing a bootmaker's signboard, stood a score of thin,
worn-out, gloomy-faced bootmakers, wearing overalls and long tattered
coats.
"He should pay folks off properly," a thin workingman, with
frowning brows and a straggly beard, was saying.
"But he's sucked our blood and now he thinks he's quit of us. He's
been misleading us all the week and now that he's brought us to this
pass he's made off."
On seeing the crowd and the bloodstained man the workman ceased
speaking, and with eager curiosity all the bootmakers joined the
moving crowd.
"Where are all the folks going?"
"Why, to the police, of course!"
"I say, is it true that we have been beaten?" "And what did you
think? Look what folks are saying."
Questions and answers were heard. The publican, taking advantage
of the increased crowd, dropped behind and returned to his tavern.
The tall youth, not noticing the disappearance of his foe, waved his
bare arm and went on talking incessantly, attracting general attention to
himself. It was around him that the people chiefly crowded, expecting
answers from him to the questions that occupied all their minds.
"He must keep order, keep the law, that's what the government is
there for. Am I not right, good Christians?" said the tall youth, with a
scarcely perceptible smile. "He thinks there's no government! How can
one do without government? Or else there would be plenty who'd rob
us."
"Why talk nonsense?" rejoined voices in the crowd. "Will they give
up Moscow like this? They told you that for fun, and you believed it!
Aren't there plenty of troops on the march? Let him in, indeed! That's
what the government is for. You'd better listen to what people are
saying," said some of the mob pointing to the tall youth.
By the wall of China-Town a smaller group of people were gathered
round a man in a frieze coat who held a paper in his hand.
"An ukase, they are reading an ukase! Reading an ukase!" cried
voices in the crowd, and the people rushed toward the reader.
The man in the frieze coat was reading the broadsheet of August 31
When the crowd collected round him he seemed confused, but at the
demand of the tall lad who had pushed his way up to him, he began in a
rather tremulous voice to read the sheet from the beginning.
"Early tomorrow I shall go to his Serene Highness," he read ("Sirin
Highness," said the tall fellow with a triumphant smile on his lips and a
frown on his brow), "to consult with him to act, and to aid the army to
exterminate these scoundrels. We too will take part..." the reader went
on, and then paused ("Do you see," shouted the youth victoriously,
"he's going to clear up the whole affair for you...."), "in destroying
them, and will send these visitors to the devil. I will come back to
dinner, and we'll set to work. We will do, completely do, and undo
these scoundrels."
The last words were read out in the midst of complete silence. The
tall lad hung his head gloomily. It was evident that no one had
understood the last part. In particular, the words "I will come back to
dinner," evidently displeased both reader and audience. The people's
minds were tuned to a high pitch and this was too simple and
needlessly comprehensible—it was what any one of them might have
said and therefore was what an ukase emanating from the highest
authority should not say.
They all stood despondent and silent. The tall youth moved his lips
and swayed from side to side.
"We should ask him... that's he himself?"... "Yes, ask him indeed!...
Why not? He'll explain"... voices in the rear of the crowd were
suddenly heard saying, and the general attention turned to the police
superintendent's trap which drove into the square attended by two
mounted dragoons.
The superintendent of police, who had gone that morning by Count
Rostopchin's orders to burn the barges and had in connection with that
matter acquired a large sum of money which was at that moment in his
pocket, on seeing a crowd bearing down upon him told his coachman to
stop.
"What people are these?" he shouted to the men, who were moving
singly and timidly in the direction of his trap.
"What people are these?" he shouted again, receiving no answer.
"Your honor..." replied the shopman in the frieze coat, "your honor,
in accord with the proclamation of his highest excellency the count,
they desire to serve, not sparing their lives, and it is not any kind of
riot, but as his highest excellence said..."
"The count has not left, he is here, and an order will be issued
concerning you," said the superintendent of police. "Go on!" he ordered
his coachman.
 The crowd halted, pressing around those who had heard what the
superintendent had said, and looking at the departing trap.
The superintendent of police turned round at that moment with a
scared look, said something to his coachman, and his horses increased
their speed.
"It's a fraud, lads! Lead the way to him, himself!" shouted the tall
youth. "Don't let him go, lads! Let him answer us! Keep him!" shouted
different people and the people dashed in pursuit of the trap.
Following the superintendent of police and talking loudly the crowd
went in the direction of the Lubyanka Street.
"There now, the gentry and merchants have gone away and left us to
perish. Do they think we're dogs?" voices in the crowd were heard
saying more and more frequently.

CHAPTER XXIV
On the evening of the first of September, after his interview with
Kutuzov, Count Rostopchin had returned to Moscow mortified and
offended because he had not been invited to attend the council of war,
and because Kutuzov had paid no attention to his offer to take part in
the defense of the city; amazed also at the novel outlook revealed to
him at the camp, which treated the tranquillity of the capital and its
patriotic fervor as not merely secondary but quite irrelevant and
unimportant matters. Distressed, offended, and surprised by all this,
Rostopchin had returned to Moscow. After supper he lay down on a
sofa without undressing, and was awakened soon after midnight by a
courier bringing him a letter from Kutuzov. This letter requested the
count to send police officers to guide the troops through the town, as
the army was retreating to the Ryazan road beyond Moscow. This was
not news to Rostopchin. He had known that Moscow would be
abandoned not merely since his interview the previous day with
Kutuzov on the Poklonny Hill but ever since the battle of Borodino, for
all the generals who came to Moscow after that battle had said
unanimously that it was impossible to fight another battle, and since
then the government property had been removed every night, and half
the inhabitants had left the city with Rostopchin's own permission. Yet
all the same this information astonished and irritated the count, coming
as it did in the form of a simple note with an order from Kutuzov, and
received at night, breaking in on his beauty sleep.
 When later on in his memoirs Count Rostopchin explained his
actions at this time, he repeatedly says that he was then actuated by two
important considerations: to maintain tranquillity in Moscow and
expedite the departure of the inhabitants. If one accepts this twofold
aim all Rostopchin's actions appear irreproachable. "Why were the holy
relics, the arms, ammunition, gunpowder, and stores of corn not
removed? Why were thousands of inhabitants deceived into believing
that Moscow would not be given up—and thereby ruined?" "To
preserve the tranquillity of the city," explains Count Rostopchin. "Why
were bundles of useless papers from the government offices, and
Leppich's balloon and other articles removed?" "To leave the town
empty," explains Count Rostopchin. One need only admit that public
tranquillity is in danger and any action finds a justification.
All the horrors of the reign of terror were based only on solicitude
for public tranquillity.
On what, then, was Count Rostopchin's fear for the tranquillity of
Moscow based in 1812? What reason was there for assuming any
probability of an uprising in the city? The inhabitants were leaving it
and the retreating troops were filling it. Why should that cause the
masses to riot?
Neither in Moscow nor anywhere in Russia did anything resembling
an insurrection ever occur when the enemy entered a town. More than
ten thousand people were still in Moscow on the first and second of
September, and except for a mob in the governor's courtyard,
assembled there at his bidding, nothing happened. It is obvious that
there would have been even less reason to expect a disturbance among
the people if after the battle of Borodino, when the surrender of
Moscow became certain or at least probable, Rostopchin instead of
exciting the people by distributing arms and broadsheets had taken
steps to remove all the holy relics, the gunpowder, munitions, and
money, and had told the population plainly that the town would be
abandoned.
Rostopchin, though he had patriotic sentiments, was a sanguine and
impulsive man who had always moved in the highest administrative
circles and had no understanding at all of the people he supposed
himself to be guiding. Ever since the enemy's entry into Smolensk he
had in imagination been playing the role of director of the popular
feeling of "the heart of Russia." Not only did it seem to him (as to all
administrators) that he controlled the external actions of Moscow's
inhabitants, but he also thought he controlled their mental attitude by
means of his broadsheets and posters, written in a coarse tone which the
people despise in their own class and do not understand from those in
authority. Rostopchin was so pleased with the fine role of leader of
popular feeling, and had grown so used to it, that the necessity of
relinquishing that role and abandoning Moscow without any heroic
display took him unawares and he suddenly felt the ground slip away
from under his feet, so that he positively did not know what to do.
Though he knew it was coming, he did not till the last moment
wholeheartedly believe that Moscow would be abandoned, and did not
prepare for it. The inhabitants left against his wishes. If the government
offices were removed, this was only done on the demand of officials to
whom the count yielded reluctantly. He was absorbed in the role he had
created for himself. As is often the case with those gifted with an ardent
imagination, though he had long known that Moscow would be
abandoned he knew it only with his intellect, he did not believe it in his
heart and did not adapt himself mentally to this new position of affairs.
All his painstaking and energetic activity (in how far it was useful
and had any effect on the people is another question) had been simply
directed toward arousing in the masses his own feeling of patriotic
hatred of the French.
But when events assumed their true historical character, when
expressing hatred for the French in words proved insufficient, when it
was not even possible to express that hatred by fighting a battle, when
self-confidence was of no avail in relation to the one question before
Moscow, when the whole population streamed out of Moscow as one
man, abandoning their belongings and proving by that negative action
all the depth of their national feeling, then the role chosen by
Rostopchin suddenly appeared senseless. He unexpectedly felt himself
ridiculous, weak, and alone, with no ground to stand on.
When, awakened from his sleep, he received that cold, peremptory
note from Kutuzov, he felt the more irritated the more he felt himself to
blame. All that he had been specially put in charge of, the state property
which he should have removed, was still in Moscow and it was no
longer possible to take the whole of it away.
"Who is to blame for it? Who has let things come to such a pass?" he
ruminated. "Not I, of course. I had everything ready. I had Moscow
firmly in hand. And this is what they have let it come to! Villains!
Traitors!" he thought, without clearly defining who the villains and
traitors were, but feeling it necessary to hate those traitors whoever
they might be who were to blame for the false and ridiculous position
in which he found himself.
All that night Count Rostopchin issued orders, for which people
came to him from all parts of Moscow. Those about him had never seen
the count so morose and irritable.
"Your excellency, the Director of the Registrar's Department has sent
for instructions... From the Consistory, from the Senate, from the
University, from the Foundling Hospital, the Suffragan has sent...
asking for information.... What are your orders about the Fire Brigade?
From the governor of the prison... from the superintendent of the
lunatic asylum..." All night long such announcements were continually
being received by the count.
To all these inquiries he gave brief and angry replies indicating that
orders from him were not now needed, that the whole affair, carefully
prepared by him, had now been ruined by somebody, and that that
somebody would have to bear the whole responsibility for all that
might happen.
"Oh, tell that blockhead," he said in reply to the question from the
Registrar's Department, "that he should remain to guard his documents.
Now why are you asking silly questions about the Fire Brigade? They
have horses, let them be off to Vladimir, and not leave them to the
French."
"Your excellency, the superintendent of the lunatic asylum has come:
what are your commands?"
"My commands? Let them go away, that's all.... And let the lunatics
out into the town. When lunatics command our armies God evidently
means these other madmen to be free."
In reply to an inquiry about the convicts in the prison, Count
Rostopchin shouted angrily at the governor:
"Do you expect me to give you two battalions—which we have not
got—for a convoy? Release them, that's all about it!"
"Your excellency, there are some political prisoners, Meshkov,
Vereshchagin..."
"Vereshchagin! Hasn't he been hanged yet?" shouted Rostopchin.
"Bring him to me!"

CHAPTER XXV
Toward nine o'clock in the morning, when the troops were already
moving through Moscow, nobody came to the count any more for
instructions. Those who were able to get away were going of their own
accord, those who remained behind decided for themselves what they
must do.
 The count ordered his carriage that he might drive to Sokolniki, and
sat in his study with folded hands, morose, sallow, and taciturn.
In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it
is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept
going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every
administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the
sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark,
holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself
moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding
on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the
ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves
independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer
reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of
appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant,
useless, feeble man.
Rostopchin felt this, and it was this which exasperated him.
The superintendent of police, whom the crowd had stopped, went in
to see him at the same time as an adjutant who informed the count that
the horses were harnessed. They were both pale, and the superintendent
of police, after reporting that he had executed the instructions he had
received, informed the count that an immense crowd had collected in
the courtyard and wished to see him.
Without saying a word Rostopchin rose and walked hastily to his
light, luxurious drawing room, went to the balcony door, took hold of
the handle, let it go again, and went to the window from which he had a
better view of the whole crowd. The tall lad was standing in front,
flourishing his arm and saying something with a stern look. The blood
stained smith stood beside him with a gloomy face. A drone of voices
was audible through the closed window.
"Is my carriage ready?" asked Rostopchin, stepping back from the
window.
"It is, your excellency," replied the adjutant.
Rostopchin went again to the balcony door.
"But what do they want?" he asked the superintendent of police.
"Your excellency, they say they have got ready, according to your
orders, to go against the French, and they shouted something about
treachery. But it is a turbulent crowd, your excellency—I hardly
managed to get away from it. Your excellency, I venture to suggest..."
"You may go. I don't need you to tell me what to do!" exclaimed
Rostopchin angrily.
 He stood by the balcony door looking at the crowd.
"This is what they have done with Russia! This is what they have
done with me!" thought he, full of an irrepressible fury that welled up
within him against the someone to whom what was happening might be
attributed. As often happens with passionate people, he was mastered
by anger but was still seeking an object on which to vent it. "Here is
that mob, the dregs of the people," he thought as he gazed at the crowd:
"this rabble they have roused by their folly! They want a victim," he
thought as he looked at the tall lad flourishing his arm. And this
thought occurred to him just because he himself desired a victim,
something on which to vent his rage.
"Is the carriage ready?" he asked again.
"Yes, your excellency. What are your orders about Vereshchagin?
He is waiting at the porch," said the adjutant.
"Ah!" exclaimed Rostopchin, as if struck by an unexpected
recollection.
And rapidly opening the door he went resolutely out onto the
balcony. The talking instantly ceased, hats and caps were doffed, and
all eyes were raised to the count.
"Good morning, lads!" said the count briskly and loudly. "Thank you
for coming. I'll come out to you in a moment, but we must first settle
with the villain. We must punish the villain who has caused the ruin of
Moscow. Wait for me!"
And the count stepped as briskly back into the room and slammed
the door behind him.
A murmur of approbation and satisfaction ran through the crowd.
"He'll settle with all the villains, you'll see! And you said the French...
He'll show you what law is!" the mob were saying as if reproving one
another for their lack of confidence.
A few minutes later an officer came hurriedly out of the front door,
gave an order, and the dragoons formed up in line. The crowd moved
eagerly from the balcony toward the porch. Rostopchin, coming out
there with quick angry steps, looked hastily around as if seeking
someone.
"Where is he?" he inquired. And as he spoke he saw a young man
coming round the corner of the house between two dragoons. He had a
long thin neck, and his head, that had been half shaved, was again
covered by short hair. This young man was dressed in a threadbare blue
cloth coat lined with fox fur, that had once been smart, and dirty
hempen convict trousers, over which were pulled his thin, dirty,
trodden-down boots. On his thin, weak legs were heavy chains which
hampered his irresolute movements.
"Ah!" said Rostopchin, hurriedly turning away his eyes from the
young man in the fur-lined coat and pointing to the bottom step of the
porch. "Put him there."
The young man in his clattering chains stepped clumsily to the spot
indicated, holding away with one finger the coat collar which chafed
his neck, turned his long neck twice this way and that, sighed, and
submissively folded before him his thin hands, unused to work.
For several seconds while the young man was taking his place on the
step the silence continued. Only among the back rows of the people,
who were all pressing toward the one spot, could sighs, groans, and the
shuffling of feet be heard.
While waiting for the young man to take his place on the step
Rostopchin stood frowning and rubbing his face with his hand.
"Lads!" said he, with a metallic ring in his voice. "This man,
Vereshchagin, is the scoundrel by whose doing Moscow is perishing."
The young man in the fur-lined coat, stooping a little, stood in a
submissive attitude, his fingers clasped before him. His emaciated
young face, disfigured by the half-shaven head, hung down hopelessly.
At the count's first words he raised it slowly and looked up at him as if
wishing to say something or at least to meet his eye. But Rostopchin
did not look at him. A vein in the young man's long thin neck swelled
like a cord and went blue behind the ear, and suddenly his face flushed.
All eyes were fixed on him. He looked at the crowd, and rendered
more hopeful by the expression he read on the faces there, he smiled
sadly and timidly, and lowering his head shifted his feet on the step.
"He has betrayed his Tsar and his country, he has gone over to
Bonaparte. He alone of all the Russians has disgraced the Russian
name, he has caused Moscow to perish," said Rostopchin in a sharp,
even voice, but suddenly he glanced down at Vereshchagin who
continued to stand in the same submissive attitude. As if inflamed by
the sight, he raised his arm and addressed the people, almost shouting:
"Deal with him as you think fit! I hand him over to you."
The crowd remained silent and only pressed closer and closer to one
another. To keep one another back, to breathe in that stifling
atmosphere, to be unable to stir, and to await something unknown,
uncomprehended, and terrible, was becoming unbearable. Those
standing in front, who had seen and heard what had taken place before
them, all stood with wide open eyes and mouths, straining with all their
strength, and held back the crowd that was pushing behind them.
"Beat him!... Let the traitor perish and not disgrace the Russian
name!" shouted Rostopchin. "Cut him down. I command it."
Hearing not so much the words as the angry tone of Rostopchin's
voice, the crowd moaned and heaved forward, but again paused.
"Count!" exclaimed the timid yet theatrical voice of Vereshchagin in
the midst of the momentary silence that ensued, "Count! One God is
above us both...." He lifted his head and again the thick vein in his thin
neck filled with blood and the color rapidly came and went in his face.
He did not finish what he wished to say.
"Cut him down! I command it..." shouted Rostopchin, suddenly
growing pale like Vereshchagin.
"Draw sabers!" cried the dragoon officer, drawing his own.
Another still stronger wave flowed through the crowd and reaching
the front ranks carried it swaying to the very steps of the porch. The tall
youth, with a stony look on his face, and rigid and uplifted arm, stood
beside Vereshchagin.
"Saber him!" the dragoon officer almost whispered.
And one of the soldiers, his face all at once distorted with fury,
struck Vereshchagin on the head with the blunt side of his saber.
"Ah!" cried Vereshchagin in meek surprise, looking round with a
frightened glance as if not understanding why this was done to him. A
similar moan of surprise and horror ran through the crowd. "O Lord!"
exclaimed a sorrowful voice.
But after the exclamation of surprise that had escaped from
Vereshchagin he uttered a plaintive cry of pain, and that cry was fatal.
The barrier of human feeling, strained to the utmost, that had held the
crowd in check suddenly broke. The crime had begun and must now be
completed. The plaintive moan of reproach was drowned by the
threatening and angry roar of the crowd. Like the seventh and last wave
that shatters a ship, that last irresistible wave burst from the rear and
reached the front ranks, carrying them off their feet and engulfing them
all. The dragoon was about to repeat his blow. Vereshchagin with a cry
of horror, covering his head with his hands, rushed toward the crowd.
The tall youth, against whom he stumbled, seized his thin neck with his
hands and, yelling wildly, fell with him under the feet of the pressing,
struggling crowd.
 Some beat and tore at Vereshchagin, others at the tall youth. And the
screams of those that were being trampled on and of those who tried to
rescue the tall lad only increased the fury of the crowd. It was a long
time before the dragoons could extricate the bleeding youth, beaten
almost to death. And for a long time, despite the feverish haste with
which the mob tried to end the work that had been begun, those who
were hitting, throttling, and tearing at Vereshchagin were unable to kill
him, for the crowd pressed from all sides, swaying as one mass with
them in the center and rendering it impossible for them either to kill
him or let him go.
"Hit him with an ax, eh!... Crushed?... Traitor, he sold Christ.... Still
alive... tenacious... serves him right! Torture serves a thief right. Use
the hatchet!... What—still alive?"
Only when the victim ceased to struggle and his cries changed to a
long-drawn, measured death rattle did the crowd around his prostrate,
bleeding corpse begin rapidly to change places. Each one came up,
glanced at what had been done, and with horror, reproach, and
astonishment pushed back again.
"O Lord! The people are like wild beasts! How could he be alive?"
voices in the crowd could be heard saying. "Quite a young fellow too...
must have been a merchant's son. What men!... and they say he's not
the right one.... How not the right one?... O Lord! And there's another
has been beaten too—they say he's nearly done for.... Oh, the people...
Aren't they afraid of sinning?..." said the same mob now, looking with
pained distress at the dead body with its long, thin, half-severed neck
and its livid face stained with blood and dust.
A painstaking police officer, considering the presence of a corpse in
his excellency's courtyard unseemly, told the dragoons to take it away.
Two dragoons took it by its distorted legs and dragged it along the
ground. The gory, dust-stained, half-shaven head with its long neck
trailed twisting along the ground. The crowd shrank back from it.
At the moment when Vereshchagin fell and the crowd closed in with
savage yells and swayed about him, Rostopchin suddenly turned pale
and, instead of going to the back entrance where his carriage awaited
him, went with hurried steps and bent head, not knowing where and
why, along the passage leading to the rooms on the ground floor. The
count's face was white and he could not control the feverish twitching
of his lower jaw.
"This way, your excellency... Where are you going?... This way,
please..." said a trembling, frightened voice behind him.
Count Rostopchin was unable to reply and, turning obediently, went
in the direction indicated. At the back entrance stood his caleche. The
distant roar of the yelling crowd was audible even there. He hastily
took his seat and told the coachman to drive him to his country house in
Sokolniki.
When they reached the Myasnitski Street and could no longer hear
the shouts of the mob, the count began to repent. He remembered with
dissatisfaction the agitation and fear he had betrayed before his
subordinates. "The mob is terrible—disgusting," he said to himself in
French. "They are like wolves whom nothing but flesh can appease."
"Count! One God is above us both!"—Vereshchagin's words suddenly
recurred to him, and a disagreeable shiver ran down his back. But this
was only a momentary feeling and Count Rostopchin smiled
disdainfully at himself. "I had other duties," thought he. "The people
had to be appeased. Many other victims have perished and are
perishing for the public good"—and he began thinking of his social
duties to his family and to the city entrusted to him, and of himself—
not himself as Theodore Vasilyevich Rostopchin (he fancied that
Theodore Vasilyevich Rostopchin was sacrificing himself for the
public good) but himself as governor, the representative of authority
and of the Tsar. "Had I been simply Theodore Vasilyevich my course
of action would have been quite different, but it was my duty to
safeguard my life and dignity as commander in chief."
Lightly swaying on the flexible springs of his carriage and no longer
hearing the terrible sounds of the crowd, Rostopchin grew physically
calm and, as always happens, as soon as he became physically tranquil
his mind devised reasons why he should be mentally tranquil too. The
thought which tranquillized Rostopchin was not a new one. Since the
world began and men have killed one another no one has ever
committed such a crime against his fellow man without comforting
himself with this same idea. This idea is le bien public, the hypothetical
welfare of other people.
To a man not swayed by passion that welfare is never certain, but he
who commits such a crime always knows just where that welfare lies.
And Rostopchin now knew it.
Not only did his reason not reproach him for what he had done, but
he even found cause for self-satisfaction in having so successfully
contrived to avail himself of a convenient opportunity to punish a
criminal and at the same time pacify the mob.
"Vereshchagin was tried and condemned to death," thought
Rostopchin (though the Senate had only condemned Vereshchagin to
hard labor), "he was a traitor and a spy. I could not let him go
unpunished and so I have killed two birds with one stone: to appease
the mob I gave them a victim and at the same time punished a
miscreant."
 Having reached his country house and begun to give orders about
domestic arrangements, the count grew quite tranquil.
Half an hour later he was driving with his fast horses across the
Sokolniki field, no longer thinking of what had occurred but
considering what was to come. He was driving to the Yauza bridge
where he had heard that Kutuzov was. Count Rostopchin was mentally
preparing the angry and stinging reproaches he meant to address to
Kutuzov for his deception. He would make that foxy old courtier feel
that the responsibility for all the calamities that would follow the
abandonment of the city and the ruin of Russia (as Rostopchin regarded
it) would fall upon his doting old head. Planning beforehand what he
would say to Kutuzov, Rostopchin turned angrily in his caleche and
gazed sternly from side to side.
The Sokolniki field was deserted. Only at the end of it, in front of the
almshouse and the lunatic asylum, could be seen some people in white
and others like them walking singly across the field shouting and
gesticulating.
One of these was running to cross the path of Count Rostopchin's
carriage, and the count himself, his coachman, and his dragoons looked
with vague horror and curiosity at these released lunatics and especially
at the one running toward them.
Swaying from side to side on his long, thin legs in his fluttering
dressing gown, this lunatic was running impetuously, his gaze fixed on
Rostopchin, shouting something in a hoarse voice and making signs to
him to stop. The lunatic's solemn, gloomy face was thin and yellow,
with its beard growing in uneven tufts. His black, agate pupils with
saffron-yellow whites moved restlessly near the lower eyelids.
"Stop! Pull up, I tell you!" he cried in a piercing voice, and again
shouted something breathlessly with emphatic intonations and gestures.
Coming abreast of the caleche he ran beside it.
"Thrice have they slain me, thrice have I risen from the dead. They
stoned me, crucified me... I shall rise... shall rise... shall rise. They have
torn my body. The kingdom of God will be overthrown... Thrice will I
overthrow it and thrice re-establish it!" he cried, raising his voice
higher and higher.
Count Rostopchin suddenly grew pale as he had done when the
crowd closed in on Vereshchagin. He turned away. "Go fas... faster!"
he cried in a trembling voice to his coachman. The caleche flew over
the ground as fast as the horses could draw it, but for a long time Count
Rostopchin still heard the insane despairing screams growing fainter in
the distance, while his eyes saw nothing but the astonished, frightened,
bloodstained face of "the traitor" in the fur-lined coat.
Recent as that mental picture was, Rostopchin already felt that it had
cut deep into his heart and drawn blood. Even now he felt clearly that
the gory trace of that recollection would not pass with time, but that the
terrible memory would, on the contrary, dwell in his heart ever more
cruelly and painfully to the end of his life. He seemed still to hear the
sound of his own words: "Cut him down! I command it...."
"Why did I utter those words? It was by some accident I said them....
I need not have said them," he thought. "And then nothing would have
happened." He saw the frightened and then infuriated face of the
dragoon who dealt the blow, the look of silent, timid reproach that boy
in the fur-lined coat had turned upon him. "But I did not do it for my
own sake. I was bound to act that way.... The mob, the traitor... the
public welfare," thought he.
Troops were still crowding at the Yauza bridge. It was hot. Kutuzov,
dejected and frowning, sat on a bench by the bridge toying with his
whip in the sand when a caleche dashed up noisily. A man in a
general's uniform with plumes in his hat went up to Kutuzov and said
something in French. It was Count Rostopchin. He told Kutuzov that he
had come because Moscow, the capital, was no more and only the army
remained.
"Things would have been different if your Serene Highness had not
told me that you would not abandon Moscow without another battle; all
this would not have happened," he said.
Kutuzov looked at Rostopchin as if, not grasping what was said to
him, he was trying to read something peculiar written at that moment
on the face of the man addressing him. Rostopchin grew confused and
became silent. Kutuzov slightly shook his head and not taking his
penetrating gaze from Rostopchin's face muttered softly:
"No! I shall not give up Moscow without a battle!"
Whether Kutuzov was thinking of something entirely different when
he spoke those words, or uttered them purposely, knowing them to be
meaningless, at any rate Rostopchin made no reply and hastily left him.
And strange to say, the Governor of Moscow, the proud Count
Rostopchin, took up a Cossack whip and went to the bridge where he
began with shouts to drive on the carts that blocked the way.
 CHAPTER XXVI
Toward four o'clock in the afternoon Murat's troops were entering
Moscow. In front rode a detachment of Wurttemberg hussars and
behind them rode the King of Naples himself accompanied by a
numerous suite.
About the middle of the Arbat Street, near the Church of the
Miraculous Icon of St. Nicholas, Murat halted to await news from the
advanced detachment as to the condition in which they had found the
citadel, le Kremlin.
Around Murat gathered a group of those who had remained in
Moscow. They all stared in timid bewilderment at the strange, long-
haired commander dressed up in feathers and gold.
"Is that their Tsar himself? He's not bad!" low voices could be heard
saying.
An interpreter rode up to the group.
"Take off your cap... your caps!" These words went from one to
another in the crowd. The interpreter addressed an old porter and asked
if it was far to the Kremlin. The porter, listening in perplexity to the
unfamiliar Polish accent and not realizing that the interpreter was
speaking Russian, did not understand what was being said to him and
slipped behind the others.
Murat approached the interpreter and told him to ask where the
Russian army was. One of the Russians understood what was asked and
several voices at once began answering the interpreter. A French
officer, returning from the advanced detachment, rode up to Murat and
reported that the gates of the citadel had been barricaded and that there
was probably an ambuscade there.
"Good!" said Murat and, turning to one of the gentlemen in his suite,
ordered four light guns to be moved forward to fire at the gates.
The guns emerged at a trot from the column following Murat and
advanced up the Arbat. When they reached the end of the
Vozdvizhenka Street they halted and drew in the Square. Several
French officers superintended the placing of the guns and looked at the
Kremlin through field glasses.
The bells in the Kremlin were ringing for vespers, and this sound
troubled the French. They imagined it to be a call to arms. A few
infantrymen ran to the Kutafyev Gate. Beams and wooden screens had
been put there, and two musket shots rang out from under the gate as
soon as an officer and men began to run toward it. A general who was
standing by the guns shouted some words of command to the officer,
and the latter ran back again with his men.
The sound of three more shots came from the gate.
One shot struck a French soldier's foot, and from behind the screens
came the strange sound of a few voices shouting. Instantly as at a word
of command the expression of cheerful serenity on the faces of the
French general, officers, and men changed to one of determined
concentrated readiness for strife and suffering. To all of them from the
marshal to the least soldier, that place was not the Vozdvizhenka,
Mokhavaya, or Kutafyev Street, nor the Troitsa Gate (places familiar in
Moscow), but a new battlefield which would probably prove
sanguinary. And all made ready for that battle. The cries from the gates
ceased. The guns were advanced, the artillerymen blew the ash off their
linstocks, and an officer gave the word "Fire!" This was followed by
two whistling sounds of canister shot, one after another. The shot
rattled against the stone of the gate and upon the wooden beams and
screens, and two wavering clouds of smoke rose over the Square.
A few instants after the echo of the reports resounding over the
stone-built Kremlin had died away the French heard a strange sound
above their head. Thousands of crows rose above the walls and circled
in the air, cawing and noisily flapping their wings. Together with that
sound came a solitary human cry from the gateway and amid the smoke
appeared the figure of a bareheaded man in a peasant's coat. He grasped
a musket and took aim at the French. "Fire!" repeated the officer once
more, and the reports of a musket and of two cannon shots were heard
simultaneously. The gate was again hidden by smoke.
Nothing more stirred behind the screens and the French infantry
soldiers and officers advanced to the gate. In the gateway lay three
wounded and four dead. Two men in peasant coats ran away at the foot
of the wall, toward the Znamenka.
"Clear that away!" said the officer, pointing to the beams and the
corpses, and the French soldiers, after dispatching the wounded, threw
the corpses over the parapet.
Who these men were nobody knew. "Clear that away!" was all that
was said of them, and they were thrown over the parapet and removed
later on that they might not stink. Thiers alone dedicates a few eloquent
lines to their memory: "These wretches had occupied the sacred citadel,
having supplied themselves with guns from the arsenal, and fired" (the
wretches) "at the French. Some of them were sabered and the Kremlin
was purged of their presence."
Murat was informed that the way had been cleared. The French
entered the gates and began pitching their camp in the Senate Square.
Out of the windows of the Senate House the soldiers threw chairs into
the Square for fuel and kindled fires there.
Other detachments passed through the Kremlin and encamped along
the Moroseyka, the Lubyanka, and Pokrovka Streets. Others quartered
themselves along the Vozdvizhenka, the Nikolski, and the Tverskoy
Streets. No masters of the houses being found anywhere, the French
were not billeted on the inhabitants as is usual in towns but lived in it
as in a camp.
Though tattered, hungry, worn out, and reduced to a third of their
original number, the French entered Moscow in good marching order.
It was a weary and famished, but still a fighting and menacing army.
But it remained an army only until its soldiers had dispersed into their
different lodgings. As soon as the men of the various regiments began
to disperse among the wealthy and deserted houses, the army was lost
forever and there came into being something nondescript, neither
citizens nor soldiers but what are known as marauders. When five
weeks later these same men left Moscow, they no longer formed an
army. They were a mob of marauders, each carrying a quantity of
articles which seemed to him valuable or useful. The aim of each man
when he left Moscow was no longer, as it had been, to conquer, but
merely to keep what he had acquired. Like a monkey which puts its
paw into the narrow neck of a jug, and having seized a handful of nuts
will not open its fist for fear of losing what it holds, and therefore
perishes, the French when they left Moscow had inevitably to perish
because they carried their loot with them, yet to abandon what they had
stolen was as impossible for them as it is for the monkey to open its
paw and let go of its nuts. Ten minutes after each regiment had entered
a Moscow district, not a soldier or officer was left. Men in military
uniforms and Hessian boots could be seen through the windows,
laughing and walking through the rooms. In cellars and storerooms
similar men were busy among the provisions, and in the yards
unlocking or breaking open coach house and stable doors, lighting fires
in kitchens and kneading and baking bread with rolled-up sleeves, and
cooking; or frightening, amusing, or caressing women and children.
There were many such men both in the shops and houses—but there
was no army.
Order after order was issued by the French commanders that day
forbidding the men to disperse about the town, sternly forbidding any
violence to the inhabitants or any looting, and announcing a roll call for
that very evening. But despite all these measures the men, who had till
then constituted an army, flowed all over the wealthy, deserted city
with its comforts and plentiful supplies. As a hungry herd of cattle
keeps well together when crossing a barren field, but gets out of hand
and at once disperses uncontrollably as soon as it reaches rich pastures,
so did the army disperse all over the wealthy city.
 No residents were left in Moscow, and the soldiers—like water
percolating through sand—spread irresistibly through the city in all
directions from the Kremlin into which they had first marched. The
cavalry, on entering a merchant's house that had been abandoned and
finding there stabling more than sufficient for their horses, went on, all
the same, to the next house which seemed to them better. Many of them
appropriated several houses, chalked their names on them, and
quarreled and even fought with other companies for them. Before they
had had time to secure quarters the soldiers ran out into the streets to
see the city and, hearing that everything had been abandoned, rushed to
places where valuables were to be had for the taking. The officers
followed to check the soldiers and were involuntarily drawn into doing
the same. In Carriage Row carriages had been left in the shops, and
generals flocked there to select caleches and coaches for themselves.
The few inhabitants who had remained invited commanding officers to
their houses, hoping thereby to secure themselves from being
plundered. There were masses of wealth and there seemed no end to it.
All around the quarters occupied by the French were other regions still
unexplored and unoccupied where, they thought, yet greater riches
might be found. And Moscow engulfed the army ever deeper and
deeper. When water is spilled on dry ground both the dry ground and
the water disappear and mud results; and in the same way the entry of
the famished army into the rich and deserted city resulted in fires and
looting and the destruction of both the army and the wealthy city.
The French attributed the Fire of Moscow au patriotisme feroce de
Rostopchine, * the Russians to the barbarity of the French. In reality,
however, it was not, and could not be, possible to explain the burning
of Moscow by making any individual, or any group of people,
responsible for it. Moscow was burned because it found itself in a
position in which any town built of wood was bound to burn, quite
apart from whether it had, or had not, a hundred and thirty inferior fire
engines. Deserted Moscow had to burn as inevitably as a heap of
shavings has to burn on which sparks continually fall for several days.
A town built of wood, where scarcely a day passes without
conflagrations when the house owners are in residence and a police
force is present, cannot help burning when its inhabitants have left it
and it is occupied by soldiers who smoke pipes, make campfires of the
Senate chairs in the Senate Square, and cook themselves meals twice a
day. In peacetime it is only necessary to billet troops in the villages of
any district and the number of fires in that district immediately
increases. How much then must the probability of fire be increased in
an abandoned, wooden town where foreign troops are quartered. "Le
patriotisme feroce de Rostopchine" and the barbarity of the French
were not to blame in the matter. Moscow was set on fire by the soldiers'
pipes, kitchens, and campfires, and by the carelessness of enemy
soldiers occupying houses they did not own. Even if there was any
arson (which is very doubtful, for no one had any reason to burn the
houses—in any case a troublesome and dangerous thing to do), arson
cannot be regarded as the cause, for the same thing would have
happened without any incendiarism.

* To Rostopchin's ferocious patriotism.

However tempting it might be for the French to blame Rostopchin's

ferocity and for Russians to blame the scoundrel Bonaparte, or later on
to place an heroic torch in the hands of their own people, it is
impossible not to see that there could be no such direct cause of the
fire, for Moscow had to burn as every village, factory, or house must
burn which is left by its owners and in which strangers are allowed to
live and cook their porridge. Moscow was burned by its inhabitants, it
is true, but by those who had abandoned it and not by those who
remained in it. Moscow when occupied by the enemy did not remain
intact like Berlin, Vienna, and other towns, simply because its
inhabitants abandoned it and did not welcome the French with bread
and salt, nor bring them the keys of the city.

CHAPTER XXVII
The absorption of the French by Moscow, radiating starwise as it did,
only reached the quarter where Pierre was staying by the evening of the
second of September.
After the last two days spent in solitude and unusual circumstances,
Pierre was in a state bordering on insanity. He was completely obsessed
by one persistent thought. He did not know how or when this thought
had taken such possession of him, but he remembered nothing of the
past, understood nothing of the present, and all he saw and heard
appeared to him like a dream.
He had left home only to escape the intricate tangle of life's demands
that enmeshed him, and which in his present condition he was unable to
unravel. He had gone to Joseph Alexeevich's house, on the plea of
sorting the deceased's books and papers, only in search of rest from
life's turmoil, for in his mind the memory of Joseph Alexeevich was
connected with a world of eternal, solemn, and calm thoughts, quite
contrary to the restless confusion into which he felt himself being
drawn. He sought a quiet refuge, and in Joseph Alexeevich's study he
really found it. When he sat with his elbows on the dusty writing table
in the deathlike stillness of the study, calm and significant memories of
the last few days rose one after another in his imagination, particularly
of the battle of Borodino and of that vague sense of his own
insignificance and insincerity compared with the truth, simplicity, and
strength of the class of men he mentally classed as they. When Gerasim
roused him from his reverie the idea occurred to him of taking part in
the popular defense of Moscow which he knew was projected. And
with that object he had asked Gerasim to get him a peasant's coat and a
pistol, confiding to him his intentions of remaining in Joseph
Alexeevich's house and keeping his name secret. Then during the first
day spent in inaction and solitude (he tried several times to fix his
attention on the Masonic manuscripts, but was unable to do so) the idea
that had previously occurred to him of the cabalistic significance of his
name in connection with Bonaparte's more than once vaguely presented
itself. But the idea that he, L'russe Besuhof, was destined to set a limit
to the power of the Beast was as yet only one of the fancies that often
passed through his mind and left no trace behind.
When, having bought the coat merely with the object of taking part
among the people in the defense of Moscow, Pierre had met the
Rostovs and Natasha had said to him: "Are you remaining in
Moscow?... How splendid!" the thought flashed into his mind that it
really would be a good thing, even if Moscow were taken, for him to
remain there and do what he was predestined to do.
Next day, with the sole idea of not sparing himself and not lagging in
any way behind them, Pierre went to the Three Hills gate. But when he
returned to the house convinced that Moscow would not be defended,
he suddenly felt that what before had seemed to him merely a
possibility had now become absolutely necessary and inevitable. He
must remain in Moscow, concealing his name, and must meet
Napoleon and kill him, and either perish or put an end to the misery of
all Europe—which it seemed to him was solely due to Napoleon.
Pierre knew all the details of the attempt on Bonaparte's life in 1809
by a German student in Vienna, and knew that the student had been
shot. And the risk to which he would expose his life by carrying out his
design excited him still more.
Two equally strong feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to this purpose.
The first was a feeling of the necessity of sacrifice and suffering in
view of the common calamity, the same feeling that had caused him to
go to Mozhaysk on the twenty-fifth and to make his way to the very
thick of the battle and had now caused him to run away from his home
and, in place of the luxury and comfort to which he was accustomed, to
sleep on a hard sofa without undressing and eat the same food as
Gerasim. The other was that vague and quite Russian feeling of
contempt for everything conventional, artificial, and human—for
everything the majority of men regard as the greatest good in the world.
Pierre had first experienced this strange and fascinating feeling at the
Sloboda Palace, when he had suddenly felt that wealth, power, and
life—all that men so painstakingly acquire and guard—if it has any
worth has so only by reason of the joy with which it can all be
renounced.
It was the feeling that induces a volunteer recruit to spend his last
penny on drink, and a drunken man to smash mirrors or glasses for no
apparent reason and knowing that it will cost him all the money he
possesses: the feeling which causes a man to perform actions which
from an ordinary point of view are insane, to test, as it were, his
personal power and strength, affirming the existence of a higher,
nonhuman criterion of life.
From the very day Pierre had experienced this feeling for the first
time at the Sloboda Palace he had been continuously under its
influence, but only now found full satisfaction for it. Moreover, at this
moment Pierre was supported in his design and prevented from
renouncing it by what he had already done in that direction. If he were
now to leave Moscow like everyone else, his flight from home, the
peasant coat, the pistol, and his announcement to the Rostovs that he
would remain in Moscow would all become not merely meaningless
but contemptible and ridiculous, and to this Pierre was very sensitive.
Pierre's physical condition, as is always the case, corresponded to his
mental state. The unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he drank during
those days, the absence of wine and cigars, his dirty unchanged linen,
two almost sleepless nights passed on a short sofa without bedding—all
this kept him in a state of excitement bordering on insanity.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The French had already entered
Moscow. Pierre knew this, but instead of acting he only thought about
his undertaking, going over its minutest details in his mind. In his fancy
he did not clearly picture to himself either the striking of the blow or
the death of Napoleon, but with extraordinary vividness and
melancholy enjoyment imagined his own destruction and heroic
endurance.
"Yes, alone, for the sake of all, I must do it or perish!" he thought.
"Yes, I will approach... and then suddenly... with pistol or dagger? But
that is all the same! 'It is not I but the hand of Providence that punishes
thee,' I shall say," thought he, imagining what he would say when
killing Napoleon. "Well then, take me and execute me!" he went on,
speaking to himself and bowing his head with a sad but firm
expression.
While Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was talking to
himself in this way, the study door opened and on the threshold
appeared the figure of Makar Alexeevich, always so timid before but
now quite transformed.
His dressing gown was unfastened, his face red and distorted. He
was obviously drunk. On seeing Pierre he grew confused at first, but
noticing embarrassment on Pierre's face immediately grew bold and,
staggering on his thin legs, advanced into the middle of the room.
"They're frightened," he said confidentially in a hoarse voice. "I say I
won't surrender, I say... Am I not right, sir?"
He paused and then suddenly seeing the pistol on the table seized it
with unexpected rapidity and ran out into the corridor.
Gerasim and the porter, who had followed Makar Alexeevich,
stopped him in the vestibule and tried to take the pistol from him.
Pierre, coming out into the corridor, looked with pity and repulsion at
the half-crazy old man. Makar Alexeevich, frowning with exertion,
held on to the pistol and screamed hoarsely, evidently with some heroic
fancy in his head.
"To arms! Board them! No, you shan't get it," he yelled.
"That will do, please, that will do. Have the goodness—please, sir, to
let go! Please, sir..." pleaded Gerasim, trying carefully to steer Makar
Alexeevich by the elbows back to the door.
"Who are you? Bonaparte!..." shouted Makar Alexeevich.
"That's not right, sir. Come to your room, please, and rest. Allow me
to have the pistol."
"Be off, thou base slave! Touch me not! See this?" shouted Makar
Alexeevich, brandishing the pistol. "Board them!"
"Catch hold!" whispered Gerasim to the porter.
They seized Makar Alexeevich by the arms and dragged him to the
door.
The vestibule was filled with the discordant sounds of a struggle and
of a tipsy, hoarse voice.
Suddenly a fresh sound, a piercing feminine scream, reverberated
from the porch and the cook came running into the vestibule.
"It's them! Gracious heavens! O Lord, four of them, horsemen!" she
cried.
Gerasim and the porter let Makar Alexeevich go, and in the now
silent corridor the sound of several hands knocking at the front door
could be heard.
 CHAPTER XXVIII
Pierre, having decided that until he had carried out his design he
would disclose neither his identity nor his knowledge of French, stood
at the half-open door of the corridor, intending to conceal himself as
soon as the French entered. But the French entered and still Pierre did
not retire—an irresistible curiosity kept him there.
There were two of them. One was an officer—a tall, soldierly,
handsome man—the other evidently a private or an orderly, sunburned,
short, and thin, with sunken cheeks and a dull expression. The officer
walked in front, leaning on a stick and slightly limping. When he had
advanced a few steps he stopped, having apparently decided that these
were good quarters, turned round to the soldiers standing at the
entrance, and in a loud voice of command ordered them to put up the
horses. Having done that, the officer, lifting his elbow with a smart
gesture, stroked his mustache and lightly touched his hat.
"Bonjour, la compagnie!" * said he gaily, smiling and looking about
him.

* "Good day, everybody!"

No one gave any reply.

"Vous etes le bourgeois?" * the officer asked Gerasim.

* "Are you the master here?"

Gerasim gazed at the officer with an alarmed and inquiring look.

"Quartier, quartier, logement!" said the officer, looking down at the
little man with a condescending and good-natured smile. "Les francais
sont de bons enfants. Que diable! Voyons! Ne nous fachons pas, mon
vieux!" * added he, clapping the scared and silent Gerasim on the
shoulder. "Well, does no one speak French in this establishment?" he
asked again in French, looking around and meeting Pierre's eyes. Pierre
moved away from the door.

* "Quarters, quarters, lodgings! The French are

good
fellows. What the devil! There, don't let us be
cross, old
 fellow!"

Again the officer turned to Gerasim and asked him to show him the
rooms in the house.
"Master, not here—don't understand... me, you..." said Gerasim,
trying to render his words more comprehensible by contorting them.
Still smiling, the French officer spread out his hands before
Gerasim's nose, intimating that he did not understand him either, and
moved, limping, to the door at which Pierre was standing. Pierre
wished to go away and conceal himself, but at that moment he saw
Makar Alexeevich appearing at the open kitchen door with the pistol in
his hand. With a madman's cunning, Makar Alexeevich eyed the
Frenchman, raised his pistol, and took aim.
"Board them!" yelled the tipsy man, trying to press the trigger.
Hearing the yell the officer turned round, and at the same moment
Pierre threw himself on the drunkard. Just when Pierre snatched at and
struck up the pistol Makar Alexeevich at last got his fingers on the
trigger, there was a deafening report, and all were enveloped in a cloud
of smoke. The Frenchman turned pale and rushed to the door.
Forgetting his intention of concealing his knowledge of French,
Pierre, snatching away the pistol and throwing it down, ran up to the
officer and addressed him in French.
"You are not wounded?" he asked.
"I think not," answered the Frenchman, feeling himself over. "But I
have had a lucky escape this time," he added, pointing to the damaged
plaster of the wall. "Who is that man?" said he, looking sternly at
Pierre.
"Oh, I am really in despair at what has occurred," said Pierre rapidly,
quite forgetting the part he had intended to play. "He is an unfortunate
madman who did not know what he was doing."
The officer went up to Makar Alexeevich and took him by the collar.
Makar Alexeevich was standing with parted lips, swaying, as if
about to fall asleep, as he leaned against the wall.
"Brigand! You shall pay for this," said the Frenchman, letting go of
him. "We French are merciful after victory, but we do not pardon
traitors," he added, with a look of gloomy dignity and a fine energetic
gesture.
Pierre continued, in French, to persuade the officer not to hold that
drunken imbecile to account. The Frenchman listened in silence with
the same gloomy expression, but suddenly turned to Pierre with a
smile. For a few seconds he looked at him in silence. His handsome
face assumed a melodramatically gentle expression and he held out his
hand.
"You have saved my life. You are French," said he.
For a Frenchman that deduction was indubitable. Only a Frenchman
could perform a great deed, and to save his life—the life of M.
Ramballe, captain of the 13th Light Regiment—was undoubtedly a
very great deed.
But however indubitable that conclusion and the officer's conviction
based upon it, Pierre felt it necessary to disillusion him.
"I am Russian," he said quickly.
"Tut, tut, tut! Tell that to others," said the officer, waving his finger
before his nose and smiling. "You shall tell me all about that presently.
I am delighted to meet a compatriot. Well, and what are we to do with
this man?" he added, addressing himself to Pierre as to a brother.
Even if Pierre were not a Frenchman, having once received that
loftiest of human appellations he could not renounce it, said the
officer's look and tone. In reply to his last question Pierre again
explained who Makar Alexeevich was and how just before their arrival
that drunken imbecile had seized the loaded pistol which they had not
had time to recover from him, and begged the officer to let the deed go
unpunished.
The Frenchman expanded his chest and made a majestic gesture with
his arm.
"You have saved my life! You are French. You ask his pardon? I
grant it you. Lead that man away!" said he quickly and energetically,
and taking the arm of Pierre whom he had promoted to be a Frenchman
for saving his life, he went with him into the room.
The soldiers in the yard, hearing the shot, came into the passage
asking what had happened, and expressed their readiness to punish the
culprits, but the officer sternly checked them.
"You will be called in when you are wanted," he said.
The soldiers went out again, and the orderly, who had meanwhile
had time to visit the kitchen, came up to his officer.
"Captain, there is soup and a leg of mutton in the kitchen," said he.
"Shall I serve them up?"
"Yes, and some wine," answered the captain.
 CHAPTER XXIX
When the French officer went into the room with Pierre the latter
again thought it his duty to assure him that he was not French and
wished to go away, but the officer would not hear of it. He was so very
polite, amiable, good-natured, and genuinely grateful to Pierre for
saving his life that Pierre had not the heart to refuse, and sat down with
him in the parlor—the first room they entered. To Pierre's assurances
that he was not a Frenchman, the captain, evidently not understanding
how anyone could decline so flattering an appellation, shrugged his
shoulders and said that if Pierre absolutely insisted on passing for a
Russian let it be so, but for all that he would be forever bound to Pierre
by gratitude for saving his life.
Had this man been endowed with the slightest capacity for
perceiving the feelings of others, and had he at all understood what
Pierre's feelings were, the latter would probably have left him, but the
man's animated obtuseness to everything other than himself disarmed
Pierre.
"A Frenchman or a Russian prince incognito," said the officer,
looking at Pierre's fine though dirty linen and at the ring on his finger.
"I owe my life to you and offer you my friendship. A Frenchman never
forgets either an insult or a service. I offer you my friendship. That is
all I can say."
There was so much good nature and nobility (in the French sense of
the word) in the officer's voice, in the expression of his face and in his
gestures, that Pierre, unconsciously smiling in response to the
Frenchman's smile, pressed the hand held out to him.
"Captain Ramballe, of the 13th Light Regiment, Chevalier of the
Legion of Honor for the affair on the seventh of September," he
introduced himself, a self-satisfied irrepressible smile puckering his lips
under his mustache. "Will you now be so good as to tell me with whom
I have the honor of conversing so pleasantly, instead of being in the
ambulance with that maniac's bullet in my body?"
Pierre replied that he could not tell him his name and, blushing,
began to try to invent a name and to say something about his reason for
concealing it, but the Frenchman hastily interrupted him.
"Oh, please!" said he. "I understand your reasons. You are an
officer... a superior officer perhaps. You have borne arms against us.
That's not my business. I owe you my life. That is enough for me. I am
quite at your service. You belong to the gentry?" he concluded with a
shade of inquiry in his tone. Pierre bent his head. "Your baptismal
name, if you please. That is all I ask. Monsieur Pierre, you say.... That's
all I want to know."
When the mutton and an omelet had been served and a samovar and
vodka brought, with some wine which the French had taken from a
Russian cellar and brought with them, Ramballe invited Pierre to share
his dinner, and himself began to eat greedily and quickly like a healthy
and hungry man, munching his food rapidly with his strong teeth,
continually smacking his lips, and repeating—"Excellent! Delicious!"
His face grew red and was covered with perspiration. Pierre was
hungry and shared the dinner with pleasure. Morel, the orderly, brought
some hot water in a saucepan and placed a bottle of claret in it. He also
brought a bottle of kvass, taken from the kitchen for them to try. That
beverage was already known to the French and had been given a
special name. They called it limonade de cochon (pig's lemonade), and
Morel spoke well of the limonade de cochon he had found in the
kitchen. But as the captain had the wine they had taken while passing
through Moscow, he left the kvass to Morel and applied himself to the
bottle of Bordeaux. He wrapped the bottle up to its neck in a table
napkin and poured out wine for himself and for Pierre. The satisfaction
of his hunger and the wine rendered the captain still more lively and he
chatted incessantly all through dinner.
"Yes, my dear Monsieur Pierre, I owe you a fine votive candle for
saving me from that maniac.... You see, I have bullets enough in my
body already. Here is one I got at Wagram" (he touched his side) "and a
second at Smolensk"—he showed a scar on his cheek—"and this leg
which as you see does not want to march, I got that on the seventh at
the great battle of la Moskowa. Sacre Dieu! It was splendid! That
deluge of fire was worth seeing. It was a tough job you set us there, my
word! You may be proud of it! And on my honor, in spite of the cough
I caught there, I should be ready to begin again. I pity those who did
not see it."
"I was there," said Pierre.
"Bah, really? So much the better! You are certainly brave foes. The
great redoubt held out well, by my pipe!" continued the Frenchman.
"And you made us pay dear for it. I was at it three times—sure as I sit
here. Three times we reached the guns and three times we were thrown
back like cardboard figures. Oh, it was beautiful, Monsieur Pierre!
Your grenadiers were splendid, by heaven! I saw them close up their
ranks six times in succession and march as if on parade. Fine fellows!
Our King of Naples, who knows what's what, cried 'Bravo!' Ha, ha! So
you are one of us soldiers!" he added, smiling, after a momentary
pause. "So much the better, so much the better, Monsieur Pierre!
Terrible in battle... gallant... with the fair" (he winked and smiled),
"that's what the French are, Monsieur Pierre, aren't they?"
The captain was so naively and good-humoredly gay, so real, and so
pleased with himself that Pierre almost winked back as he looked
merrily at him. Probably the word "gallant" turned the captain's
thoughts to the state of Moscow.
"Apropos, tell me please, is it true that the women have all left
Moscow? What a queer idea! What had they to be afraid of?"
"Would not the French ladies leave Paris if the Russians entered it?"
asked Pierre.
"Ha, ha, ha!" The Frenchman emitted a merry, sanguine chuckle,
patting Pierre on the shoulder. "What a thing to say!" he exclaimed.
"Paris?... But Paris, Paris..."
"Paris—the capital of the world," Pierre finished his remark for him.
The captain looked at Pierre. He had a habit of stopping short in the
middle of his talk and gazing intently with his laughing, kindly eyes.
"Well, if you hadn't told me you were Russian, I should have
wagered that you were Parisian! You have that... I don't know what,
that..." and having uttered this compliment, he again gazed at him in
silence.
"I have been in Paris. I spent years there," said Pierre.
"Oh yes, one sees that plainly. Paris!... A man who doesn't know
Paris is a savage. You can tell a Parisian two leagues off. Paris is
Talma, la Duchenois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards," and
noticing that his conclusion was weaker than what had gone before, he
added quickly: "There is only one Paris in the world. You have been to
Paris and have remained Russian. Well, I don't esteem you the less for
it."
Under the influence of the wine he had drunk, and after the days he
had spent alone with his depressing thoughts, Pierre involuntarily
enjoyed talking with this cheerful and good-natured man.
"To return to your ladies—I hear they are lovely. What a wretched
idea to go and bury themselves in the steppes when the French army is
in Moscow. What a chance those girls have missed! Your peasants,
now—that's another thing; but you civilized people, you ought to know
us better than that. We took Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome,
Warsaw, all the world's capitals.... We are feared, but we are loved. We
are nice to know. And then the Emperor..." he began, but Pierre
interrupted him.
"The Emperor," Pierre repeated, and his face suddenly became sad
and embarrassed, "is the Emperor...?"
"The Emperor? He is generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius—
that's what the Emperor is! It is I, Ramballe, who tell you so.... I assure
you I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an emigrant
count.... But that man has vanquished me. He has taken hold of me. I
could not resist the sight of the grandeur and glory with which he has
covered France. When I understood what he wanted—when I saw that
he was preparing a bed of laurels for us, you know, I said to myself:
'That is a monarch,' and I devoted myself to him! So there! Oh yes,
mon cher, he is the greatest man of the ages past or future."
"Is he in Moscow?" Pierre stammered with a guilty look.
The Frenchman looked at his guilty face and smiled.
"No, he will make his entry tomorrow," he replied, and continued his
talk.
Their conversation was interrupted by the cries of several voices at
the gate and by Morel, who came to say that some Wurttemberg
hussars had come and wanted to put up their horses in the yard where
the captain's horses were. This difficulty had arisen chiefly because the
hussars did not understand what was said to them in French.
The captain had their senior sergeant called in, and in a stern voice
asked him to what regiment he belonged, who was his commanding
officer, and by what right he allowed himself to claim quarters that
were already occupied. The German who knew little French, answered
the two first questions by giving the names of his regiment and of his
commanding officer, but in reply to the third question which he did not
understand said, introducing broken French into his own German, that
he was the quartermaster of the regiment and his commander had
ordered him to occupy all the houses one after another. Pierre, who
knew German, translated what the German said to the captain and gave
the captain's reply to the Wurttemberg hussar in German. When he had
understood what was said to him, the German submitted and took his
men elsewhere. The captain went out into the porch and gave some
orders in a loud voice.
When he returned to the room Pierre was sitting in the same place as
before, with his head in his hands. His face expressed suffering. He
really was suffering at that moment. When the captain went out and he
was left alone, suddenly he came to himself and realized the position he
was in. It was not that Moscow had been taken or that the happy
conquerors were masters in it and were patronizing him. Painful as that
was it was not that which tormented Pierre at the moment. He was
tormented by the consciousness of his own weakness. The few glasses
of wine he had drunk and the conversation with this good-natured man
had destroyed the mood of concentrated gloom in which he had spent
the last few days and which was essential for the execution of his
design. The pistol, dagger, and peasant coat were ready. Napoleon was
to enter the town next day. Pierre still considered that it would be a
useful and worthy action to slay the evildoer, but now he felt that he
would not do it. He did not know why, but he felt a foreboding that he
would not carry out his intention. He struggled against the confession
of his weakness but dimly felt that he could not overcome it and that
his former gloomy frame of mind, concerning vengeance, killing, and
self-sacrifice, had been dispersed like dust by contact with the first man
he met.
The captain returned to the room, limping slightly and whistling a
tune.
The Frenchman's chatter which had previously amused Pierre now
repelled him. The tune he was whistling, his gait, and the gesture with
which he twirled his mustache, all now seemed offensive. "I will go
away immediately. I won't say another word to him," thought Pierre.
He thought this, but still sat in the same place. A strange feeling of
weakness tied him to the spot; he wished to get up and go away, but
could not do so.
The captain, on the other hand, seemed very cheerful. He paced up
and down the room twice. His eyes shone and his mustache twitched as
if he were smiling to himself at some amusing thought.
"The colonel of those Wurttembergers is delightful," he suddenly
said. "He's a German, but a nice fellow all the same.... But he's a
German." He sat down facing Pierre. "By the way, you know German,
then?"
Pierre looked at him in silence.
"What is the German for 'shelter'?"
"Shelter?" Pierre repeated. "The German for shelter is Unterkunft."
"How do you say it?" the captain asked quickly and doubtfully.
"Unterkunft," Pierre repeated.
"Onterkoff," said the captain and looked at Pierre for some seconds
with laughing eyes. "These Germans are first-rate fools, don't you think
so, Monsieur Pierre?" he concluded.
 "Well, let's have another bottle of this Moscow Bordeaux, shall we?
Morel will warm us up another little bottle. Morel!" he called out gaily.
Morel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at
Pierre by the candlelight and was evidently struck by the troubled
expression on his companion's face. Ramballe, with genuine distress
and sympathy in his face, went up to Pierre and bent over him.
"There now, we're sad," said he, touching Pierre's hand. "Have I
upset you? No, really, have you anything against me?" he asked Pierre.
"Perhaps it's the state of affairs?"
Pierre did not answer, but looked cordially into the Frenchman's eyes
whose expression of sympathy was pleasing to him.
"Honestly, without speaking of what I owe you, I feel friendship for
you. Can I do anything for you? Dispose of me. It is for life and death. I
say it with my hand on my heart!" said he, striking his chest.
"Thank you," said Pierre.
The captain gazed intently at him as he had done when he learned
that "shelter" was Unterkunft in German, and his face suddenly
brightened.
"Well, in that case, I drink to our friendship!" he cried gaily, filling
two glasses with wine.
Pierre took one of the glasses and emptied it. Ramballe emptied his
too, again pressed Pierre's hand, and leaned his elbows on the table in a
pensive attitude.
"Yes, my dear friend," he began, "such is fortune's caprice. Who
would have said that I should be a soldier and a captain of dragoons in
the service of Bonaparte, as we used to call him? Yet here I am in
Moscow with him. I must tell you, mon cher," he continued in the sad
and measured tones of a man who intends to tell a long story, "that our
name is one of the most ancient in France."
And with a Frenchman's easy and naive frankness the captain told
Pierre the story of his ancestors, his childhood, youth, and manhood,
and all about his relations and his financial and family affairs, "ma
pauvre mere" playing of course an important part in the story.
"But all that is only life's setting, the real thing is love—love! Am I
not right, Monsieur Pierre?" said he, growing animated. "Another
glass?"
Pierre again emptied his glass and poured himself out a third.
 "Oh, women, women!" and the captain, looking with glistening eyes
at Pierre, began talking of love and of his love affairs.
There were very many of these, as one could easily believe, looking
at the officer's handsome, self-satisfied face, and noting the eager
enthusiasm with which he spoke of women. Though all Ramballe's love
stories had the sensual character which Frenchmen regard as the special
charm and poetry of love, yet he told his story with such sincere
conviction that he alone had experienced and known all the charm of
love and he described women so alluringly that Pierre listened to him
with curiosity.
It was plain that l'amour which the Frenchman was so fond of was
not that low and simple kind that Pierre had once felt for his wife, nor
was it the romantic love stimulated by himself that he experienced for
Natasha. (Ramballe despised both these kinds of love equally: the one
he considered the "love of clodhoppers" and the other the "love of
simpletons.") L'amour which the Frenchman worshiped consisted
principally in the unnaturalness of his relation to the woman and in a
combination of incongruities giving the chief charm to the feeling.
Thus the captain touchingly recounted the story of his love for a
fascinating marquise of thirty-five and at the same time for a charming,
innocent child of seventeen, daughter of the bewitching marquise. The
conflict of magnanimity between the mother and the daughter, ending
in the mother's sacrificing herself and offering her daughter in marriage
to her lover, even now agitated the captain, though it was the memory
of a distant past. Then he recounted an episode in which the husband
played the part of the lover, and he—the lover—assumed the role of the
husband, as well as several droll incidents from his recollections of
Germany, where "shelter" is called Unterkunft and where the husbands
eat sauerkraut and the young girls are "too blonde."
Finally, the latest episode in Poland still fresh in the captain's
memory, and which he narrated with rapid gestures and glowing face,
was of how he had saved the life of a Pole (in general, the saving of life
continually occurred in the captain's stories) and the Pole had entrusted
to him his enchanting wife (parisienne de coeur) while himself entering
the French service. The captain was happy, the enchanting Polish lady
wished to elope with him, but, prompted by magnanimity, the captain
restored the wife to the husband, saying as he did so: "I have saved
your life, and I save your honor!" Having repeated these words the
captain wiped his eyes and gave himself a shake, as if driving away the
weakness which assailed him at this touching recollection.
Listening to the captain's tales, Pierre—as often happens late in the
evening and under the influence of wine—followed all that was told
him, understood it all, and at the same time followed a train of personal
memories which, he knew not why, suddenly arose in his mind. While
listening to these love stories his own love for Natasha unexpectedly
rose to his mind, and going over the pictures of that love in his
imagination he mentally compared them with Ramballe's tales.
Listening to the story of the struggle between love and duty, Pierre saw
before his eyes every minutest detail of his last meeting with the object
of his love at the Sukharev water tower. At the time of that meeting it
had not produced an effect upon him—he had not even once recalled it.
But now it seemed to him that that meeting had had in it something
very important and poetic.
"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you," he now
seemed to hear the words she had uttered and to see before him her
eyes, her smile, her traveling hood, and a stray lock of her hair... and
there seemed to him something pathetic and touching in all this.
Having finished his tale about the enchanting Polish lady, the captain
asked Pierre if he had ever experienced a similar impulse to sacrifice
himself for love and a feeling of envy of the legitimate husband.
Challenged by this question Pierre raised his head and felt a need to
express the thoughts that filled his mind. He began to explain that he
understood love for a women somewhat differently. He said that in all
his life he had loved and still loved only one woman, and that she could
never be his.
"Tiens!" said the captain.
Pierre then explained that he had loved this woman from his earliest
years, but that he had not dared to think of her because she was too
young, and because he had been an illegitimate son without a name.
Afterwards when he had received a name and wealth he dared not think
of her because he loved her too well, placing her far above everything
in the world, and especially therefore above himself.
When he had reached this point, Pierre asked the captain whether he
understood that.
The captain made a gesture signifying that even if he did not
understand it he begged Pierre to continue.
"Platonic love, clouds..." he muttered.
Whether it was the wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or
the thought that this man did not, and never would, know any of those
who played a part in his story, or whether it was all these things
together, something loosened Pierre's tongue. Speaking thickly and
with a faraway look in his shining eyes, he told the whole story of his
life: his marriage, Natasha's love for his best friend, her betrayal of
him, and all his own simple relations with her. Urged on by Ramballe's
questions he also told what he had at first concealed—his own position
and even his name.
More than anything else in Pierre's story the captain was impressed
by the fact that Pierre was very rich, had two mansions in Moscow, and
that he had abandoned everything and not left the city, but remained
there concealing his name and station.
When it was late at night they went out together into the street. The
night was warm and light. To the left of the house on the Pokrovka a
fire glowed—the first of those that were beginning in Moscow. To the
right and high up in the sky was the sickle of the waning moon and
opposite to it hung that bright comet which was connected in Pierre's
heart with his love. At the gate stood Gerasim, the cook, and two
Frenchmen. Their laughter and their mutually incomprehensible
remarks in two languages could be heard. They were looking at the
glow seen in the town.
There was nothing terrible in the one small, distant fire in the
immense city.
Gazing at the high starry sky, at the moon, at the comet, and at the
glow from the fire, Pierre experienced a joyful emotion. "There now,
how good it is, what more does one need?" thought he. And suddenly
remembering his intention he grew dizzy and felt so faint that he leaned
against the fence to save himself from falling.
Without taking leave of his new friend, Pierre left the gate with
unsteady steps and returning to his room lay down on the sofa and
immediately fell asleep.

CHAPTER XXX
The glow of the first fire that began on the second of September was
watched from the various roads by the fugitive Muscovites and by the
retreating troops, with many different feelings.
The Rostov party spent the night at Mytishchi, fourteen miles from
Moscow. They had started so late on the first of September, the road
had been so blocked by vehicles and troops, so many things had been
forgotten for which servants were sent back, that they had decided to
spend that night at a place three miles out of Moscow. The next
morning they woke late and were again delayed so often that they only
got as far as Great Mytishchi. At ten o'clock that evening the Rostov
family and the wounded traveling with them were all distributed in the
yards and huts of that large village. The Rostovs' servants and
coachmen and the orderlies of the wounded officers, after attending to
their masters, had supper, fed the horses, and came out into the porches.
In a neighboring hut lay Raevski's adjutant with a fractured wrist.
The awful pain he suffered made him moan incessantly and piteously,
and his moaning sounded terrible in the darkness of the autumn night.
He had spent the first night in the same yard as the Rostovs. The
countess said she had been unable to close her eyes on account of his
moaning, and at Mytishchi she moved into a worse hut simply to be
farther away from the wounded man.
In the darkness of the night one of the servants noticed, above the
high body of a coach standing before the porch, the small glow of
another fire. One glow had long been visible and everybody knew that
it was Little Mytishchi burning—set on fire by Mamonov's Cossacks.
"But look here, brothers, there's another fire!" remarked an orderly.
All turned their attention to the glow.
"But they told us Little Mytishchi had been set on fire by Mamonov's
Cossacks."
"But that's not Mytishchi, it's farther away."
"Look, it must be in Moscow!"
Two of the gazers went round to the other side of the coach and sat
down on its steps.
"It's more to the left, why, Little Mytishchi is over there, and this is
right on the other side."
Several men joined the first two.
"See how it's flaring," said one. "That's a fire in Moscow: either in
the Sushchevski or the Rogozhski quarter."
No one replied to this remark and for some time they all gazed
silently at the spreading flames of the second fire in the distance.
Old Daniel Terentich, the count's valet (as he was called), came up to
the group and shouted at Mishka.
"What are you staring at, you good-for-nothing?... The count will be
calling and there's nobody there; go and gather the clothes together."
"I only ran out to get some water," said Mishka.
 "But what do you think, Daniel Terentich? Doesn't it look as if that
glow were in Moscow?" remarked one of the footmen.
Daniel Terentich made no reply, and again for a long time they were
all silent. The glow spread, rising and falling, farther and farther still.
"God have mercy.... It's windy and dry..." said another voice.
"Just look! See what it's doing now. O Lord! You can even see the
crows flying. Lord have mercy on us sinners!"
"They'll put it out, no fear!"
"Who's to put it out?" Daniel Terentich, who had hitherto been silent,
was heard to say. His voice was calm and deliberate. "Moscow it is,
brothers," said he. "Mother Moscow, the white..." his voice faltered,
and he gave way to an old man's sob.
And it was as if they had all only waited for this to realize the
significance for them of the glow they were watching. Sighs were
heard, words of prayer, and the sobbing of the count's old valet.

CHAPTER XXXI
The valet, returning to the cottage, informed the count that Moscow
was burning. The count donned his dressing gown and went out to
look. Sonya and Madame Schoss, who had not yet undressed, went out
with him. Only Natasha and the countess remained in the room. Petya
was no longer with the family, he had gone on with his regiment which
was making for Troitsa.
The countess, on hearing that Moscow was on fire, began to cry.
Natasha, pale, with a fixed look, was sitting on the bench under the
icons just where she had sat down on arriving and paid no attention to
her father's words. She was listening to the ceaseless moaning of the
adjutant, three houses off.
"Oh, how terrible," said Sonya returning from the yard chilled and
frightened. "I believe the whole of Moscow will burn, there's an awful
glow! Natasha, do look! You can see it from the window," she said to
her cousin, evidently wishing to distract her mind.
But Natasha looked at her as if not understanding what was said to
her and again fixed her eyes on the corner of the stove. She had been in
this condition of stupor since the morning, when Sonya, to the surprise
and annoyance of the countess, had for some unaccountable reason
found it necessary to tell Natasha of Prince Andrew's wound and of his
being with their party. The countess had seldom been so angry with
anyone as she was with Sonya. Sonya had cried and begged to be
forgiven and now, as if trying to atone for her fault, paid unceasing
attention to her cousin.
"Look, Natasha, how dreadfully it is burning!" said she.
"What's burning?" asked Natasha. "Oh, yes, Moscow."
And as if in order not to offend Sonya and to get rid of her, she
turned her face to the window, looked out in such a way that it was
evident that she could not see anything, and again settled down in her
former attitude.
"But you didn't see it!"
"Yes, really I did," Natasha replied in a voice that pleaded to be left
in peace.
Both the countess and Sonya understood that, naturally, neither
Moscow nor the burning of Moscow nor anything else could seem of
importance to Natasha.
The count returned and lay down behind the partition. The countess
went up to her daughter and touched her head with the back of her hand
as she was wont to do when Natasha was ill, then touched her forehead
with her lips as if to feel whether she was feverish, and finally kissed
her.
"You are cold. You are trembling all over. You'd better lie down,"
said the countess.
"Lie down? All right, I will. I'll lie down at once," said Natasha.
When Natasha had been told that morning that Prince Andrew was
seriously wounded and was traveling with their party, she had at first
asked many questions: Where was he going? How was he wounded?
Was it serious? And could she see him? But after she had been told that
she could not see him, that he was seriously wounded but that his life
was not in danger, she ceased to ask questions or to speak at all,
evidently disbelieving what they told her, and convinced that say what
she might she would still be told the same. All the way she had sat
motionless in a corner of the coach with wide open eyes, and the
expression in them which the countess knew so well and feared so
much, and now she sat in the same way on the bench where she had
seated herself on arriving. She was planning something and either
deciding or had already decided something in her mind. The countess
knew this, but what it might be she did not know, and this alarmed and
tormented her.
"Natasha, undress, darling; lie down on my bed."
A bed had been made on a bedstead for the countess only. Madame
Schoss and the two girls were to sleep on some hay on the floor.
"No, Mamma, I will lie down here on the floor," Natasha replied
irritably and she went to the window and opened it. Through the open
window the moans of the adjutant could be heard more distinctly. She
put her head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw her slim
neck shaking with sobs and throbbing against the window frame.
Natasha knew it was not Prince Andrew who was moaning. She knew
Prince Andrew was in the same yard as themselves and in a part of the
hut across the passage; but this dreadful incessant moaning made her
sob. The countess exchanged a look with Sonya.
"Lie down, darling; lie down, my pet," said the countess, softly
touching Natasha's shoulders. "Come, lie down."
"Oh, yes... I'll lie down at once," said Natasha, and began hurriedly
undressing, tugging at the tapes of her petticoat.
When she had thrown off her dress and put on a dressing jacket, she
sat down with her foot under her on the bed that had been made up on
the floor, jerked her thin and rather short plait of hair to the front, and
began replaiting it. Her long, thin, practiced fingers rapidly unplaited,
replaited, and tied up her plait. Her head moved from side to side from
habit, but her eyes, feverishly wide, looked fixedly before her. When
her toilet for the night was finished she sank gently onto the sheet
spread over the hay on the side nearest the door.
"Natasha, you'd better lie in the middle," said Sonya.
"I'll stay here," muttered Natasha. "Do lie down," she added crossly,
and buried her face in the pillow.
The countess, Madame Schoss, and Sonya undressed hastily and lay
down. The small lamp in front of the icons was the only light left in the
room. But in the yard there was a light from the fire at Little Mytishchi
a mile and a half away, and through the night came the noise of people
shouting at a tavern Mamonov's Cossacks had set up across the street,
and the adjutant's unceasing moans could still be heard.
For a long time Natasha listened attentively to the sounds that
reached her from inside and outside the room and did not move. First
she heard her mother praying and sighing and the creaking of her bed
under her, then Madame Schoss' familiar whistling snore and Sonya's
gentle breathing. Then the countess called to Natasha. Natasha did not
answer.
"I think she's asleep, Mamma," said Sonya softly.
After a short silence the countess spoke again but this time no one
replied.
Soon after that Natasha heard her mother's even breathing. Natasha
did not move, though her little bare foot, thrust out from under the
quilt, was growing cold on the bare floor.
As if to celebrate a victory over everybody, a cricket chirped in a
crack in the wall. A cock crowed far off and another replied near by.
The shouting in the tavern had died down; only the moaning of the
adjutant was heard. Natasha sat up.
"Sonya, are you asleep? Mamma?" she whispered.
No one replied. Natasha rose slowly and carefully, crossed herself,
and stepped cautiously on the cold and dirty floor with her slim, supple,
bare feet. The boards of the floor creaked. Stepping cautiously from
one foot to the other she ran like a kitten the few steps to the door and
grasped the cold door handle.
It seemed to her that something heavy was beating rhythmically
against all the walls of the room: it was her own heart, sinking with
alarm and terror and overflowing with love.
She opened the door and stepped across the threshold and onto the
cold, damp earthen floor of the passage. The cold she felt refreshed her.
With her bare feet she touched a sleeping man, stepped over him, and
opened the door into the part of the hut where Prince Andrew lay. It
was dark in there. In the farthest corner, on a bench beside a bed on
which something was lying, stood a tallow candle with a long, thick,
and smoldering wick.
From the moment she had been told that morning of Prince Andrew's
wound and his presence there, Natasha had resolved to see him. She did
not know why she had to, she knew the meeting would be painful, but
felt the more convinced that it was necessary.
All day she had lived only in hope of seeing him that night. But now
that the moment had come she was filled with dread of what she might
see. How was he maimed? What was left of him? Was he like that
incessant moaning of the adjutant's? Yes, he was altogether like that. In
her imagination he was that terrible moaning personified. When she
saw an indistinct shape in the corner, and mistook his knees raised
under the quilt for his shoulders, she imagined a horrible body there,
and stood still in terror. But an irresistible impulse drew her forward.
She cautiously took one step and then another, and found herself in the
middle of a small room containing baggage. Another man—
Timokhin—was lying in a corner on the benches beneath the icons, and
two others—the doctor and a valet—lay on the floor.
The valet sat up and whispered something. Timokhin, kept awake by
the pain in his wounded leg, gazed with wide-open eyes at this strange
apparition of a girl in a white chemise, dressing jacket, and nightcap.
The valet's sleepy, frightened exclamation, "What do you want? What's
the matter?" made Natasha approach more swiftly to what was lying in
the corner. Horribly unlike a man as that body looked, she must see
him. She passed the valet, the snuff fell from the candle wick, and she
saw Prince Andrew clearly with his arms outside the quilt, and such as
she had always seen him.
He was the same as ever, but the feverish color of his face, his
glittering eyes rapturously turned toward her, and especially his neck,
delicate as a child's, revealed by the turn-down collar of his shirt, gave
him a peculiarly innocent, childlike look, such as she had never seen on
him before. She went up to him and with a swift, flexible, youthful
movement dropped on her knees.
He smiled and held out his hand to her.

CHAPTER XXXII
Seven days had passed since Prince Andrew found himself in the
ambulance station on the field of Borodino. His feverish state and the
inflammation of his bowels, which were injured, were in the doctor's
opinion sure to carry him off. But on the seventh day he ate with
pleasure a piece of bread with some tea, and the doctor noticed that his
temperature was lower. He had regained consciousness that morning.
The first night after they left Moscow had been fairly warm and he had
remained in the caleche, but at Mytishchi the wounded man himself
asked to be taken out and given some tea. The pain caused by his
removal into the hut had made him groan aloud and again lose
consciousness. When he had been placed on his camp bed he lay for a
long time motionless with closed eyes. Then he opened them and
whispered softly: "And the tea?" His remembering such a small detail
of everyday life astonished the doctor. He felt Prince Andrew's pulse,
and to his surprise and dissatisfaction found it had improved. He was
dissatisfied because he knew by experience that if his patient did not
die now, he would do so a little later with greater suffering. Timokhin,
the red-nosed major of Prince Andrew's regiment, had joined him in
Moscow and was being taken along with him, having been wounded in
the leg at the battle of Borodino. They were accompanied by a doctor,
Prince Andrew's valet, his coachman, and two orderlies.
They gave Prince Andrew some tea. He drank it eagerly, looking
with feverish eyes at the door in front of him as if trying to understand
and remember something.
"I don't want any more. Is Timokhin here?" he asked.
Timokhin crept along the bench to him.
"I am here, your excellency."
"How's your wound?"
"Mine, sir? All right. But how about you?"
Prince Andrew again pondered as if trying to remember something.
"Couldn't one get a book?" he asked.
"What book?"
"The Gospels. I haven't one."
The doctor promised to procure it for him and began to ask how he
was feeling. Prince Andrew answered all his questions reluctantly but
reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under him as he
was uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the
cloak with which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome
smell of mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining
that dreadful place. The doctor was very much displeased about
something and made a change in the dressings, turning the wounded
man over so that he groaned again and grew unconscious and delirious
from the agony. He kept asking them to get him the book and put it
under him.
"What trouble would it be to you?" he said. "I have not got one.
Please get it for me and put it under for a moment," he pleaded in a
piteous voice.
The doctor went into the passage to wash his hands.
"You fellows have no conscience," said he to the valet who was
pouring water over his hands. "For just one moment I didn't look after
you... It's such pain, you know, that I wonder how he can bear it."
"By the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought we had put something under
him!" said the valet.
 The first time Prince Andrew understood where he was and what was
the matter with him and remembered being wounded and how was
when he asked to be carried into the hut after his caleche had stopped at
Mytishchi. After growing confused from pain while being carried into
the hut he again regained consciousness, and while drinking tea once
more recalled all that had happened to him, and above all vividly
remembered the moment at the ambulance station when, at the sight of
the sufferings of a man he disliked, those new thoughts had come to
him which promised him happiness. And those thoughts, though now
vague and indefinite, again possessed his soul. He remembered that he
had now a new source of happiness and that this happiness had
something to do with the Gospels. That was why he asked for a copy of
them. The uncomfortable position in which they had put him and
turned him over again confused his thoughts, and when he came to
himself a third time it was in the complete stillness of the night.
Everybody near him was sleeping. A cricket chirped from across the
passage; someone was shouting and singing in the street; cockroaches
rustled on the table, on the icons, and on the walls, and a big fly
flopped at the head of the bed and around the candle beside him, the
wick of which was charred and had shaped itself like a mushroom.
His mind was not in a normal state. A healthy man usually thinks of,
feels, and remembers innumerable things simultaneously, but has the
power and will to select one sequence of thoughts or events on which to
fix his whole attention. A healthy man can tear himself away from the
deepest reflections to say a civil word to someone who comes in and
can then return again to his own thoughts. But Prince Andrew's mind
was not in a normal state in that respect. All the powers of his mind
were more active and clearer than ever, but they acted apart from his
will. Most diverse thoughts and images occupied him simultaneously.
At times his brain suddenly began to work with a vigor, clearness, and
depth it had never reached when he was in health, but suddenly in the
midst of its work it would turn to some unexpected idea and he had not
the strength to turn it back again.
"Yes, a new happiness was revealed to me of which man cannot be
deprived," he thought as he lay in the semidarkness of the quiet hut,
gazing fixedly before him with feverish wide open eyes. "A happiness
lying beyond material forces, outside the material influences that act on
man—a happiness of the soul alone, the happiness of loving. Every
man can understand it, but to conceive it and enjoin it was possible
only for God. But how did God enjoin that law? And why was the
Son...?"
And suddenly the sequence of these thoughts broke off, and Prince
Andrew heard (without knowing whether it was a delusion or reality) a
soft whispering voice incessantly and rhythmically repeating "piti-piti-
piti," and then "titi," and then again "piti-piti-piti," and "ti-ti" once
more. At the same time he felt that above his face, above the very
middle of it, some strange airy structure was being erected out of
slender needles or splinters, to the sound of this whispered music. He
felt that he had to balance carefully (though it was difficult) so that this
airy structure should not collapse; but nevertheless it kept collapsing
and again slowly rising to the sound of whispered rhythmic music—"it
stretches, stretches, spreading out and stretching," said Prince Andrew
to himself. While listening to this whispering and feeling the sensation
of this drawing out and the construction of this edifice of needles, he
also saw by glimpses a red halo round the candle, and heard the rustle
of the cockroaches and the buzzing of the fly that flopped against his
pillow and his face. Each time the fly touched his face it gave him a
burning sensation and yet to his surprise it did not destroy the structure,
though it knocked against the very region of his face where it was
rising. But besides this there was something else of importance. It was
something white by the door—the statue of a sphinx, which also
oppressed him.
"But perhaps that's my shirt on the table," he thought, "and that's my
legs, and that is the door, but why is it always stretching and drawing
itself out, and 'piti-piti-piti' and 'ti-ti' and 'piti-piti-piti'...? That's enough,
please leave off!" Prince Andrew painfully entreated someone. And
suddenly thoughts and feelings again swam to the surface of his mind
with peculiar clearness and force.
"Yes—love," he thought again quite clearly. "But not love which
loves for something, for some quality, for some purpose, or for some
reason, but the love which I—while dying—first experienced when I
saw my enemy and yet loved him. I experienced that feeling of love
which is the very essence of the soul and does not require an object.
Now again I feel that bliss. To love one's neighbors, to love one's
enemies, to love everything, to love God in all His manifestations. It is
possible to love someone dear to you with human love, but an enemy
can only be loved by divine love. That is why I experienced such joy
when I felt that I loved that man. What has become of him? Is he
alive?...
"When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred,
but divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can
destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul. Yet how many people have
I hated in my life? And of them all, I loved and hated none as I did
her." And he vividly pictured to himself Natasha, not as he had done in
the past with nothing but her charms which gave him delight, but for
the first time picturing to himself her soul. And he understood her
feelings, her sufferings, shame, and remorse. He now understood for
the first time all the cruelty of his rejection of her, the cruelty of his
rupture with her. "If only it were possible for me to see her once more!
Just once, looking into those eyes to say..."
 "Piti-piti-piti and ti-ti and piti-piti-piti boom!" flopped the fly... And
his attention was suddenly carried into another world, a world of reality
and delirium in which something particular was happening. In that
world some structure was still being erected and did not fall, something
was still stretching out, and the candle with its red halo was still
burning, and the same shirtlike sphinx lay near the door; but besides all
this something creaked, there was a whiff of fresh air, and a new white
sphinx appeared, standing at the door. And that sphinx had the pale
face and shining eyes of the very Natasha of whom he had just been
thinking.
"Oh, how oppressive this continual delirium is," thought Prince
Andrew, trying to drive that face from his imagination. But the face
remained before him with the force of reality and drew nearer. Prince
Andrew wished to return to that former world of pure thought, but he
could not, and delirium drew him back into its domain. The soft
whispering voice continued its rhythmic murmur, something oppressed
him and stretched out, and the strange face was before him. Prince
Andrew collected all his strength in an effort to recover his senses, he
moved a little, and suddenly there was a ringing in his ears, a dimness
in his eyes, and like a man plunged into water he lost consciousness.
When he came to himself, Natasha, that same living Natasha whom of
all people he most longed to love with this new pure divine love that
had been revealed to him, was kneeling before him. He realized that it
was the real living Natasha, and he was not surprised but quietly happy.
Natasha, motionless on her knees (she was unable to stir), with
frightened eyes riveted on him, was restraining her sobs. Her face was
pale and rigid. Only in the lower part of it something quivered.
Prince Andrew sighed with relief, smiled, and held out his hand.
"You?" he said. "How fortunate!"
With a rapid but careful movement Natasha drew nearer to him on
her knees and, taking his hand carefully, bent her face over it and began
kissing it, just touching it lightly with her lips.
"Forgive me!" she whispered, raising her head and glancing at him.
"Forgive me!"
"I love you," said Prince Andrew.
"Forgive...!"
"Forgive what?" he asked.
"Forgive me for what I ha-ve do-ne!" faltered Natasha in a scarcely
audible, broken whisper, and began kissing his hand more rapidly, just
touching it with her lips.
 "I love you more, better than before," said Prince Andrew, lifting her
face with his hand so as to look into her eyes.
Those eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at him timidly,
compassionately, and with joyous love. Natasha's thin pale face, with
its swollen lips, was more than plain—it was dreadful. But Prince
Andrew did not see that, he saw her shining eyes which were beautiful.
They heard the sound of voices behind them.
Peter the valet, who was now wide awake, had roused the doctor.
Timokhin, who had not slept at all because of the pain in his leg, had
long been watching all that was going on, carefully covering his bare
body with the sheet as he huddled up on his bench.
"What's this?" said the doctor, rising from his bed. "Please go away,
madam!"
At that moment a maid sent by the countess, who had noticed her
daughter's absence, knocked at the door.
Like a somnambulist aroused from her sleep Natasha went out of the
room and, returning to her hut, fell sobbing on her bed.
From that time, during all the rest of the Rostovs' journey, at every
halting place and wherever they spent a night, Natasha never left the
wounded Bolkonski, and the doctor had to admit that he had not
expected from a young girl either such firmness or such skill in nursing
a wounded man.
Dreadful as the countess imagined it would be should Prince Andrew
die in her daughter's arms during the journey—as, judging by what the
doctor said, it seemed might easily happen—she could not oppose
Natasha. Though with the intimacy now established between the
wounded man and Natasha the thought occurred that should he recover
their former engagement would be renewed, no one—least of all
Natasha and Prince Andrew—spoke of this: the unsettled question of
life and death, which hung not only over Bolkonski but over all Russia,
shut out all other considerations.

CHAPTER XXXIII
On the third of September Pierre awoke late. His head was aching,
the clothes in which he had slept without undressing felt uncomfortable
on his body, and his mind had a dim consciousness of something
shameful he had done the day before. That something shameful was his
yesterday's conversation with Captain Ramballe.
It was eleven by the clock, but it seemed peculiarly dark out of
doors. Pierre rose, rubbed his eyes, and seeing the pistol with an
engraved stock which Gerasim had replaced on the writing table, he
remembered where he was and what lay before him that very day.
"Am I not too late?" he thought. "No, probably he won't make his
entry into Moscow before noon."
Pierre did not allow himself to reflect on what lay before him, but
hastened to act.
After arranging his clothes, he took the pistol and was about to go
out. But it then occurred to him for the first time that he certainly could
not carry the weapon in his hand through the streets. It was difficult to
hide such a big pistol even under his wide coat. He could not carry it
unnoticed in his belt or under his arm. Besides, it had been discharged,
and he had not had time to reload it. "No matter, dagger will do," he
said to himself, though when planning his design he had more than
once come to the conclusion that the chief mistake made by the student
in 1809 had been to try to kill Napoleon with a dagger. But as his chief
aim consisted not in carrying out his design, but in proving to himself
that he would not abandon his intention and was doing all he could to
achieve it, Pierre hastily took the blunt jagged dagger in a green sheath
which he had bought at the Sukharev market with the pistol, and hid it
under his waistcoat.
Having tied a girdle over his coat and pulled his cap low on his head,
Pierre went down the corridor, trying to avoid making a noise or
meeting the captain, and passed out into the street.
The conflagration, at which he had looked with so much indifference
the evening before, had greatly increased during the night. Moscow
was on fire in several places. The buildings in Carriage Row, across the
river, in the Bazaar and the Povarskoy, as well as the barges on the
Moskva River and the timber yards by the Dorogomilov Bridge, were
all ablaze.
Pierre's way led through side streets to the Povarskoy and from there
to the church of St. Nicholas on the Arbat, where he had long before
decided that the deed should be done. The gates of most of the houses
were locked and the shutters up. The streets and lanes were deserted.
The air was full of smoke and the smell of burning. Now and then he
met Russians with anxious and timid faces, and Frenchmen with an air
not of the city but of the camp, walking in the middle of the streets.
Both the Russians and the French looked at Pierre with surprise.
Besides his height and stoutness, and the strange morose look of
suffering in his face and whole figure, the Russians stared at Pierre
because they could not make out to what class he could belong. The
French followed him with astonishment in their eyes chiefly because
Pierre, unlike all the other Russians who gazed at the French with fear
and curiosity, paid no attention to them. At the gate of one house three
Frenchmen, who were explaining something to some Russians who did
not understand them, stopped Pierre asking if he did not know French.
Pierre shook his head and went on. In another side street a sentinel
standing beside a green caisson shouted at him, but only when the
shout was threateningly repeated and he heard the click of the man's
musket as he raised it did Pierre understand that he had to pass on the
other side of the street. He heard nothing and saw nothing of what went
on around him. He carried his resolution within himself in terror and
haste, like something dreadful and alien to him, for, after the previous
night's experience, he was afraid of losing it. But he was not destined to
bring his mood safely to his destination. And even had he not been
hindered by anything on the way, his intention could not now have
been carried out, for Napoleon had passed the Arbat more than four
hours previously on his way from the Dorogomilov suburb to the
Kremlin, and was now sitting in a very gloomy frame of mind in a
royal study in the Kremlin, giving detailed and exact orders as to
measures to be taken immediately to extinguish the fire, to prevent
looting, and to reassure the inhabitants. But Pierre did not know this; he
was entirely absorbed in what lay before him, and was tortured—as
those are who obstinately undertake a task that is impossible for them
not because of its difficulty but because of its incompatibility with their
natures—by the fear of weakening at the decisive moment and so
losing his self-esteem.
Though he heard and saw nothing around him he found his way by
instinct and did not go wrong in the side streets that led to the
Povarskoy.
As Pierre approached that street the smoke became denser and
denser—he even felt the heat of the fire. Occasionally curly tongues of
flame rose from under the roofs of the houses. He met more people in
the streets and they were more excited. But Pierre, though he felt that
something unusual was happening around him, did not realize that he
was approaching the fire. As he was going along a foot path across a
wide-open space adjoining the Povarskoy on one side and the gardens
of Prince Gruzinski's house on the other, Pierre suddenly heard the
desperate weeping of a woman close to him. He stopped as if
awakening from a dream and lifted his head.
By the side of the path, on the dusty dry grass, all sorts of household
goods lay in a heap: featherbeds, a samovar, icons, and trunks. On the
ground, beside the trunks, sat a thin woman no longer young, with long,
prominent upper teeth, and wearing a black cloak and cap. This
woman, swaying to and fro and muttering something, was choking with
sobs. Two girls of about ten and twelve, dressed in dirty short frocks
and cloaks, were staring at their mother with a look of stupefaction on
their pale frightened faces. The youngest child, a boy of about seven,
who wore an overcoat and an immense cap evidently not his own, was
crying in his old nurse's arms. A dirty, barefooted maid was sitting on a
trunk, and, having undone her pale-colored plait, was pulling it straight
and sniffing at her singed hair. The woman's husband, a short, round-
shouldered man in the undress uniform of a civilian official, with
sausage-shaped whiskers and showing under his square-set cap the hair
smoothly brushed forward over his temples, with expressionless face
was moving the trunks, which were placed one on another, and was
dragging some garments from under them.
As soon as she saw Pierre, the woman almost threw herself at his
feet.
"Dear people, good Christians, save me, help me, dear friends... help
us, somebody," she muttered between her sobs. "My girl... My
daughter! My youngest daughter is left behind. She's burned! Ooh!
Was it for this I nursed you.... Ooh!"
"Don't, Mary Nikolievna!" said her husband to her in a low voice,
evidently only to justify himself before the stranger. "Sister must have
taken her, or else where can she be?" he added.
"Monster! Villain!" shouted the woman angrily, suddenly ceasing to
weep. "You have no heart, you don't feel for your own child! Another
man would have rescued her from the fire. But this is a monster and
neither a man nor a father! You, honored sir, are a noble man," she
went on, addressing Pierre rapidly between her sobs. "The fire broke
out alongside, and blew our way, the maid called out 'Fire!' and we
rushed to collect our things. We ran out just as we were.... This is what
we have brought away.... The icons, and my dowry bed, all the rest is
lost. We seized the children. But not Katie! Ooh! O Lord!..." and again
she began to sob. "My child, my dear one! Burned, burned!"
"But where was she left?" asked Pierre.
From the expression of his animated face the woman saw that this
man might help her.
"Oh, dear sir!" she cried, seizing him by the legs. "My benefactor, set
my heart at ease.... Aniska, go, you horrid girl, show him the way!" she
cried to the maid, angrily opening her mouth and still farther exposing
her long teeth.
"Show me the way, show me, I... I'll do it," gasped Pierre rapidly.
 The dirty maidservant stepped from behind the trunk, put up her
plait, sighed, and went on her short, bare feet along the path. Pierre felt
as if he had come back to life after a heavy swoon. He held his head
higher, his eyes shone with the light of life, and with swift steps he
followed the maid, overtook her, and came out on the Povarskoy. The
whole street was full of clouds of black smoke. Tongues of flame here
and there broke through that cloud. A great number of people crowded
in front of the conflagration. In the middle of the street stood a French
general saying something to those around him. Pierre, accompanied by
the maid, was advancing to the spot where the general stood, but the
French soldiers stopped him.
"On ne passe pas!" * cried a voice.

* "You can't pass!"

"This way, uncle," cried the girl. "We'll pass through the side street,
by the Nikulins'!"
Pierre turned back, giving a spring now and then to keep up with her.
She ran across the street, turned down a side street to the left, and,
passing three houses, turned into a yard on the right.
"It's here, close by," said she and, running across the yard, opened a
gate in a wooden fence and, stopping, pointed out to him a small
wooden wing of the house, which was burning brightly and fiercely.
One of its sides had fallen in, another was on fire, and bright flames
issued from the openings of the windows and from under the roof.
As Pierre passed through the fence gate, he was enveloped by hot air
and involuntarily stopped.
"Which is it? Which is your house?" he asked.
"Ooh!" wailed the girl, pointing to the wing. "That's it, that was our
lodging. You've burned to death, our treasure, Katie, my precious little
missy! Ooh!" lamented Aniska, who at the sight of the fire felt that she
too must give expression to her feelings.
Pierre rushed to the wing, but the heat was so great that he
involuntarily passed round in a curve and came upon the large house
that was as yet burning only at one end, just below the roof, and around
which swarmed a crowd of Frenchmen. At first Pierre did not realize
what these men, who were dragging something out, were about; but
seeing before him a Frenchman hitting a peasant with a blunt saber and
trying to take from him a fox-fur coat, he vaguely understood that
looting was going on there, but he had no time to dwell on that idea.
 The sounds of crackling and the din of falling walls and ceilings, the
whistle and hiss of the flames, the excited shouts of the people, and the
sight of the swaying smoke, now gathering into thick black clouds and
now soaring up with glittering sparks, with here and there dense
sheaves of flame (now red and now like golden fish scales creeping
along the walls), and the heat and smoke and rapidity of motion,
produced on Pierre the usual animating effects of a conflagration. It had
a peculiarly strong effect on him because at the sight of the fire he felt
himself suddenly freed from the ideas that had weighed him down. He
felt young, bright, adroit, and resolute. He ran round to the other side of
the lodge and was about to dash into that part of it which was still
standing, when just above his head he heard several voices shouting
and then a cracking sound and the ring of something heavy falling close
beside him.
Pierre looked up and saw at a window of the large house some
Frenchmen who had just thrown out the drawer of a chest, filled with
metal articles. Other French soldiers standing below went up to the
drawer.
"What does this fellow want?" shouted one of them referring to
Pierre.
"There's a child in that house. Haven't you seen a child?" cried
Pierre.
"What's he talking about? Get along!" said several voices, and one of
the soldiers, evidently afraid that Pierre might want to take from them
some of the plate and bronzes that were in the drawer, moved
threateningly toward him.
"A child?" shouted a Frenchman from above. "I did hear something
squealing in the garden. Perhaps it's his brat that the fellow is looking
for. After all, one must be human, you know...."
"Where is it? Where?" said Pierre.
"There! There!" shouted the Frenchman at the window, pointing to
the garden at the back of the house. "Wait a bit—I'm coming down."
And a minute or two later the Frenchman, a black-eyed fellow with a
spot on his cheek, in shirt sleeves, really did jump out of a window on
the ground floor, and clapping Pierre on the shoulder ran with him into
the garden.
"Hurry up, you others!" he called out to his comrades. "It's getting
hot."
 When they reached a gravel path behind the house the Frenchman
pulled Pierre by the arm and pointed to a round, graveled space where a
three-year-old girl in a pink dress was lying under a seat.
"There is your child! Oh, a girl, so much the better!" said the
Frenchman. "Good-by, Fatty. We must be human, we are all mortal you
know!" and the Frenchman with the spot on his cheek ran back to his
comrades.
Breathless with joy, Pierre ran to the little girl and was going to take
her in his arms. But seeing a stranger the sickly, scrofulous-looking
child, unattractively like her mother, began to yell and run away. Pierre,
however, seized her and lifted her in his arms. She screamed
desperately and angrily and tried with her little hands to pull Pierre's
hands away and to bite them with her slobbering mouth. Pierre was
seized by a sense of horror and repulsion such as he had experienced
when touching some nasty little animal. But he made an effort not to
throw the child down and ran with her to the large house. It was now,
however, impossible to get back the way he had come; the maid,
Aniska, was no longer there, and Pierre with a feeling of pity and
disgust pressed the wet, painfully sobbing child to himself as tenderly
as he could and ran with her through the garden seeking another way
out.

CHAPTER XXXIV
Having run through different yards and side streets, Pierre got back
with his little burden to the Gruzinski garden at the corner of the
Povarskoy. He did not at first recognize the place from which he had
set out to look for the child, so crowded was it now with people and
goods that had been dragged out of the houses. Besides Russian
families who had taken refuge here from the fire with their belongings,
there were several French soldiers in a variety of clothing. Pierre took
no notice of them. He hurried to find the family of that civil servant in
order to restore the daughter to her mother and go to save someone
else. Pierre felt that he had still much to do and to do quickly. Glowing
with the heat and from running, he felt at that moment more strongly
than ever the sense of youth, animation, and determination that had
come on him when he ran to save the child. She had now become quiet
and, clinging with her little hands to Pierre's coat, sat on his arm gazing
about her like some little wild animal. He glanced at her occasionally
with a slight smile. He fancied he saw something pathetically innocent
in that frightened, sickly little face.
 He did not find the civil servant or his wife where he had left them.
He walked among the crowd with rapid steps, scanning the various
faces he met. Involuntarily he noticed a Georgian or Armenian family
consisting of a very handsome old man of Oriental type, wearing a
new, cloth-covered, sheepskin coat and new boots, an old woman of
similar type, and a young woman. That very young woman seemed to
Pierre the perfection of Oriental beauty, with her sharply outlined,
arched, black eyebrows and the extraordinarily soft, bright color of her
long, beautiful, expressionless face. Amid the scattered property and
the crowd on the open space, she, in her rich satin cloak with a bright
lilac shawl on her head, suggested a delicate exotic plant thrown out
onto the snow. She was sitting on some bundles a little behind the old
woman, and looked from under her long lashes with motionless, large,
almond-shaped eyes at the ground before her. Evidently she was aware
of her beauty and fearful because of it. Her face struck Pierre and,
hurrying along by the fence, he turned several times to look at her.
When he had reached the fence, still without finding those he sought,
he stopped and looked about him.
With the child in his arms his figure was now more conspicuous than
before, and a group of Russians, both men and women, gathered about
him.
"Have you lost anyone, my dear fellow? You're of the gentry
yourself, aren't you? Whose child is it?" they asked him.
Pierre replied that the child belonged to a woman in a black coat who
had been sitting there with her other children, and he asked whether
anyone knew where she had gone.
"Why, that must be the Anferovs," said an old deacon, addressing a
pockmarked peasant woman. "Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy!" he
added in his customary bass.
"The Anferovs? No," said the woman. "They left in the morning.
That must be either Mary Nikolievna's or the Ivanovs'!"
"He says 'a woman,' and Mary Nikolievna is a lady," remarked a
house serf.
"Do you know her? She's thin, with long teeth," said Pierre.
"That's Mary Nikolievna! They went inside the garden when these
wolves swooped down," said the woman, pointing to the French
soldiers.
"O Lord, have mercy!" added the deacon.
"Go over that way, they're there. It's she! She kept on lamenting and
crying," continued the woman. "It's she. Here, this way!"
 But Pierre was not listening to the woman. He had for some seconds
been intently watching what was going on a few steps away. He was
looking at the Armenian family and at two French soldiers who had
gone up to them. One of these, a nimble little man, was wearing a blue
coat tied round the waist with a rope. He had a nightcap on his head
and his feet were bare. The other, whose appearance particularly struck
Pierre, was a long, lank, round-shouldered, fair-haired man, slow in his
movements and with an idiotic expression of face. He wore a woman's
loose gown of frieze, blue trousers, and large torn Hessian boots. The
little barefooted Frenchman in the blue coat went up to the Armenians
and, saying something, immediately seized the old man by his legs and
the old man at once began pulling off his boots. The other in the frieze
gown stopped in front of the beautiful Armenian girl and with his hands
in his pockets stood staring at her, motionless and silent.
"Here, take the child!" said Pierre peremptorily and hurriedly to the
woman, handing the little girl to her. "Give her back to them, give her
back!" he almost shouted, putting the child, who began screaming, on
the ground, and again looking at the Frenchman and the Armenian
family.
The old man was already sitting barefoot. The little Frenchman had
secured his second boot and was slapping one boot against the other.
The old man was saying something in a voice broken by sobs, but
Pierre caught but a glimpse of this, his whole attention was directed to
the Frenchman in the frieze gown who meanwhile, swaying slowly
from side to side, had drawn nearer to the young woman and taking his
hands from his pockets had seized her by the neck.
The beautiful Armenian still sat motionless and in the same attitude,
with her long lashes drooping as if she did not see or feel what the
soldier was doing to her.
While Pierre was running the few steps that separated him from the
Frenchman, the tall marauder in the frieze gown was already tearing
from her neck the necklace the young Armenian was wearing, and the
young woman, clutching at her neck, screamed piercingly.
"Let that woman alone!" exclaimed Pierre hoarsely in a furious
voice, seizing the soldier by his round shoulders and throwing him
aside.
The soldier fell, got up, and ran away. But his comrade, throwing
down the boots and drawing his sword, moved threateningly toward
Pierre.
"Voyons, Pas de betises!" * he cried.
 * "Look here, no nonsense!"

Pierre was in such a transport of rage that he remembered nothing

and his strength increased tenfold. He rushed at the barefooted
Frenchman and, before the latter had time to draw his sword, knocked
him off his feet and hammered him with his fists. Shouts of approval
were heard from the crowd around, and at the same moment a mounted
patrol of French Uhlans appeared from round the corner. The Uhlans
came up at a trot to Pierre and the Frenchman and surrounded them.
Pierre remembered nothing of what happened after that. He only
remembered beating someone and being beaten and finally feeling that
his hands were bound and that a crowd of French soldiers stood around
him and were searching him.
"Lieutenant, he has a dagger," were the first words Pierre
understood.
"Ah, a weapon?" said the officer and turned to the barefooted soldier
who had been arrested with Pierre. "All right, you can tell all about it at
the court-martial." Then he turned to Pierre. "Do you speak French?"
Pierre looked around him with bloodshot eyes and did not reply. His
face probably looked very terrible, for the officer said something in a
whisper and four more Uhlans left the ranks and placed themselves on
both sides of Pierre.
"Do you speak French?" the officer asked again, keeping at a
distance from Pierre. "Call the interpreter."
A little man in Russian civilian clothes rode out from the ranks, and
by his clothes and manner of speaking Pierre at once knew him to be a
French salesman from one of the Moscow shops.
"He does not look like a common man," said the interpreter, after a
searching look at Pierre.
"Ah, he looks very much like an incendiary," remarked the officer.
"And ask him who he is," he added.
"Who are you?" asked the interpreter in poor Russian. "You must
answer the chief."
"I will not tell you who I am. I am your prisoner—take me!" Pierre
suddenly replied in French.
"Ah, ah!" muttered the officer with a frown. "Well then, march!"
A crowd had collected round the Uhlans. Nearest to Pierre stood the
pockmarked peasant woman with the little girl, and when the patrol
started she moved forward.
 "Where are they taking you to, you poor dear?" said she. "And the
little girl, the little girl, what am I to do with her if she's not theirs?"
said the woman.
"What does that woman want?" asked the officer.
Pierre was as if intoxicated. His elation increased at the sight of the
little girl he had saved.
"What does she want?" he murmured. "She is bringing me my
daughter whom I have just saved from the flames," said he. "Good-by!"
And without knowing how this aimless lie had escaped him, he went
along with resolute and triumphant steps between the French soldiers.
The French patrol was one of those sent out through the various
streets of Moscow by Durosnel's order to put a stop to the pillage, and
especially to catch the incendiaries who, according to the general
opinion which had that day originated among the higher French
officers, were the cause of the conflagrations. After marching through a
number of streets the patrol arrested five more Russian suspects: a
small shopkeeper, two seminary students, a peasant, and a house serf,
besides several looters. But of all these various suspected characters,
Pierre was considered to be the most suspicious of all. When they had
all been brought for the night to a large house on the Zubov Rampart
that was being used as a guardhouse, Pierre was placed apart under
strict guard.

BOOK TWELVE: 1812

CHAPTER I
In Petersburg at that time a complicated struggle was being carried
on with greater heat than ever in the highest circles, between the parties
of Rumyantsev, the French, Marya Fedorovna, the Tsarevich, and
others, drowned as usual by the buzzing of the court drones. But the
calm, luxurious life of Petersburg, concerned only about phantoms and
reflections of real life, went on in its old way and made it hard, except
by a great effort, to realize the danger and the difficult position of the
Russian people. There were the same receptions and balls, the same
French theater, the same court interests and service interests and
intrigues as usual. Only in the very highest circles were attempts made
to keep in mind the difficulties of the actual position. Stories were
whispered of how differently the two Empresses behaved in these
difficult circumstances. The Empress Marya, concerned for the welfare
of the charitable and educational institutions under her patronage, had
given directions that they should all be removed to Kazan, and the
things belonging to these institutions had already been packed up. The
Empress Elisabeth, however, when asked what instructions she would
be pleased to give—with her characteristic Russian patriotism had
replied that she could give no directions about state institutions for that
was the affair of the sovereign, but as far as she personally was
concerned she would be the last to quit Petersburg.
At Anna Pavlovna's on the twenty-sixth of August, the very day of
the battle of Borodino, there was a soiree, the chief feature of which
was to be the reading of a letter from His Lordship the Bishop when
sending the Emperor an icon of the Venerable Sergius. It was regarded
as a model of ecclesiastical, patriotic eloquence. Prince Vasili himself,
famed for his elocution, was to read it. (He used to read at the
Empress'.) The art of his reading was supposed to lie in rolling out the
words, quite independently of their meaning, in a loud and singsong
voice alternating between a despairing wail and a tender murmur, so
that the wail fell quite at random on one word and the murmur on
another. This reading, as was always the case at Anna Pavlovna's
soirees, had a political significance. That evening she expected several
important personages who had to be made ashamed of their visits to the
French theater and aroused to a patriotic temper. A good many people
had already arrived, but Anna Pavlovna, not yet seeing all those whom
she wanted in her drawing room, did not let the reading begin but
wound up the springs of a general conversation.
The news of the day in Petersburg was the illness of Countess
Bezukhova. She had fallen ill unexpectedly a few days previously, had
missed several gatherings of which she was usually ornament, and was
said to be receiving no one, and instead of the celebrated Petersburg
doctors who usually attended her had entrusted herself to some Italian
doctor who was treating her in some new and unusual way.
They all knew very well that the enchanting countess' illness arose
from an inconvenience resulting from marrying two husbands at the
same time, and that the Italian's cure consisted in removing such
inconvenience; but in Anna Pavlovna's presence no one dared to think
of this or even appear to know it.
"They say the poor countess is very ill. The doctor says it is angina
pectoris."
 "Angina? Oh, that's a terrible illness!"
"They say that the rivals are reconciled, thanks to the angina..." and
the word angina was repeated with great satisfaction.
"The count is pathetic, they say. He cried like a child when the
doctor told him the case was dangerous."
"Oh, it would be a terrible loss, she is an enchanting woman."
"You are speaking of the poor countess?" said Anna Pavlovna,
coming up just then. "I sent to ask for news, and hear that she is a little
better. Oh, she is certainly the most charming woman in the world," she
went on, with a smile at her own enthusiasm. "We belong to different
camps, but that does not prevent my esteeming her as she deserves. She
is very unfortunate!" added Anna Pavlovna.
Supposing that by these words Anna Pavlovna was somewhat lifting
the veil from the secret of the countess' malady, an unwary young man
ventured to express surprise that well known doctors had not been
called in and that the countess was being attended by a charlatan who
might employ dangerous remedies.
"Your information maybe better than mine," Anna Pavlovna
suddenly and venomously retorted on the inexperienced young man,
"but I know on good authority that this doctor is a very learned and able
man. He is private physician to the Queen of Spain."
And having thus demolished the young man, Anna Pavlovna turned
to another group where Bilibin was talking about the Austrians: having
wrinkled up his face he was evidently preparing to smooth it out again
and utter one of his mots.
"I think it is delightful," he said, referring to a diplomatic note that
had been sent to Vienna with some Austrian banners captured from the
French by Wittgenstein, "the hero of Petropol" as he was then called in
Petersburg.
"What? What's that?" asked Anna Pavlovna, securing silence for the
mot, which she had heard before.
And Bilibin repeated the actual words of the diplomatic dispatch,
which he had himself composed.
"The Emperor returns these Austrian banners," said Bilibin, "friendly
banners gone astray and found on a wrong path," and his brow became
smooth again.
"Charming, charming!" observed Prince Vasili.
 "The path to Warsaw, perhaps," Prince Hippolyte remarked loudly
and unexpectedly. Everybody looked at him, understanding what he
meant. Prince Hippolyte himself glanced around with amused surprise.
He knew no more than the others what his words meant. During his
diplomatic career he had more than once noticed that such utterances
were received as very witty, and at every opportunity he uttered in that
way the first words that entered his head. "It may turn out very well,"
he thought, "but if not, they'll know how to arrange matters." And
really, during the awkward silence that ensued, that insufficiently
patriotic person entered whom Anna Pavlovna had been waiting for and
wished to convert, and she, smiling and shaking a finger at Hippolyte,
invited Prince Vasili to the table and bringing him two candles and the
manuscript begged him to begin. Everyone became silent.
"Most Gracious Sovereign and Emperor!" Prince Vasili sternly
declaimed, looking round at his audience as if to inquire whether
anyone had anything to say to the contrary. But no one said anything.
"Moscow, our ancient capital, the New Jerusalem, receives her
Christ"—he placed a sudden emphasis on the word her—"as a mother
receives her zealous sons into her arms, and through the gathering
mists, foreseeing the brilliant glory of thy rule, sings in exultation,
'Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh!'"
Prince Vasili pronounced these last words in a tearful voice.
Bilibin attentively examined his nails, and many of those present
appeared intimidated, as if asking in what they were to blame. Anna
Pavlovna whispered the next words in advance, like an old woman
muttering the prayer at Communion: "Let the bold and insolent
Goliath..." she whispered.
Prince Vasili continued.
"Let the bold and insolent Goliath from the borders of France
encompass the realms of Russia with death-bearing terrors; humble
Faith, the sling of the Russian David, shall suddenly smite his head in
his bloodthirsty pride. This icon of the Venerable Sergius, the servant
of God and zealous champion of old of our country's weal, is offered to
Your Imperial Majesty. I grieve that my waning strength prevents
rejoicing in the sight of your most gracious presence. I raise fervent
prayers to Heaven that the Almighty may exalt the race of the just, and
mercifully fulfill the desires of Your Majesty."
"What force! What a style!" was uttered in approval both of reader
and of author.
Animated by that address Anna Pavlovna's guests talked for a long
time of the state of the fatherland and offered various conjectures as to
the result of the battle to be fought in a few days.
 "You will see," said Anna Pavlovna, "that tomorrow, on the
Emperor's birthday, we shall receive news. I have a favorable
presentiment!"

CHAPTER II
Anna Pavlovna's presentiment was in fact fulfilled. Next day during
the service at the palace church in honor of the Emperor's birthday,
Prince Volkonski was called out of the church and received a dispatch
from Prince Kutuzov. It was Kutuzov's report, written from Tatarinova
on the day of the battle. Kutuzov wrote that the Russians had not
retreated a step, that the French losses were much heavier than ours,
and that he was writing in haste from the field of battle before
collecting full information. It followed that there must have been a
victory. And at once, without leaving the church, thanks were rendered
to the Creator for His help and for the victory.
Anna Pavlovna's presentiment was justified, and all that morning a
joyously festive mood reigned in the city. Everyone believed the
victory to have been complete, and some even spoke of Napoleon's
having been captured, of his deposition, and of the choice of a new
ruler for France.
It is very difficult for events to be reflected in their real strength and
completeness amid the conditions of court life and far from the scene of
action. General events involuntarily group themselves around some
particular incident. So now the courtiers' pleasure was based as much
on the fact that the news had arrived on the Emperor's birthday as on
the fact of the victory itself. It was like a successfully arranged surprise.
Mention was made in Kutuzov's report of the Russian losses, among
which figured the names of Tuchkov, Bagration, and Kutaysov. In the
Petersburg world this sad side of the affair again involuntarily centered
round a single incident: Kutaysov's death. Everybody knew him, the
Emperor liked him, and he was young and interesting. That day
everyone met with the words:
"What a wonderful coincidence! Just during the service. But what a
loss Kutaysov is! How sorry I am!"
"What did I tell about Kutuzov?" Prince Vasili now said with a
prophet's pride. "I always said he was the only man capable of
defeating Napoleon."
 But next day no news arrived from the army and the public mood
grew anxious. The courtiers suffered because of the suffering the
suspense occasioned the Emperor.
"Fancy the Emperor's position!" said they, and instead of extolling
Kutuzov as they had done the day before, they condemned him as the
cause of the Emperor's anxiety. That day Prince Vasili no longer
boasted of his protege Kutuzov, but remained silent when the
commander in chief was mentioned. Moreover, toward evening, as if
everything conspired to make Petersburg society anxious and uneasy, a
terrible piece of news was added. Countess Helene Bezukhova had
suddenly died of that terrible malady it had been so agreeable to
mention. Officially, at large gatherings, everyone said that Countess
Bezukhova had died of a terrible attack of angina pectoris, but in
intimate circles details were mentioned of how the private physician of
the Queen of Spain had prescribed small doses of a certain drug to
produce a certain effect; but Helene, tortured by the fact that the old
count suspected her and that her husband to whom she had written (that
wretched, profligate Pierre) had not replied, had suddenly taken a very
large dose of the drug, and had died in agony before assistance could be
rendered her. It was said that Prince Vasili and the old count had turned
upon the Italian, but the latter had produced such letters from the
unfortunate deceased that they had immediately let the matter drop.
Talk in general centered round three melancholy facts: the Emperor's
lack of news, the loss of Kutuzov, and the death of Helene.
On the third day after Kutuzov's report a country gentleman arrived
from Moscow, and news of the surrender of Moscow to the French
spread through the whole town. This was terrible! What a position for
the Emperor to be in! Kutuzov was a traitor, and Prince Vasili during
the visits of condolence paid to him on the occasion of his daughter's
death said of Kutuzov, whom he had formerly praised (it was excusable
for him in his grief to forget what he had said), that it was impossible to
expect anything else from a blind and depraved old man.
"I only wonder that the fate of Russia could have been entrusted to
such a man."
As long as this news remained unofficial it was possible to doubt it,
but the next day the following communication was received from
Count Rostopchin:
Prince Kutuzov's adjutant has brought me a letter in which he
demands police officers to guide the army to the Ryazan road. He
writes that he is regretfully abandoning Moscow. Sire! Kutuzov's action
decides the fate of the capital and of your empire! Russia will shudder
to learn of the abandonment of the city in which her greatness is
centered and in which lie the ashes of your ancestors! I shall follow the
army. I have had everything removed, and it only remains for me to
weep over the fate of my fatherland.
On receiving this dispatch the Emperor sent Prince Volkonski to
Kutuzov with the following rescript:
Prince Michael Ilarionovich! Since the twenty-ninth of August I have
received no communication from you, yet on the first of September I
received from the commander in chief of Moscow, via Yaroslavl, the
sad news that you, with the army, have decided to abandon Moscow.
You can yourself imagine the effect this news has had on me, and your
silence increases my astonishment. I am sending this by Adjutant-
General Prince Volkonski, to hear from you the situation of the army
and the reasons that have induced you to take this melancholy decision.

CHAPTER III
Nine days after the abandonment of Moscow, a messenger from
Kutuzov reached Petersburg with the official announcement of that
event. This messenger was Michaud, a Frenchman who did not know
Russian, but who was quoique etranger, russe de coeur et d'ame, * as he
said of himself.

* Though a foreigner, Russian in heart and soul.

The Emperor at once received this messenger in his study at the

palace on Stone Island. Michaud, who had never seen Moscow before
the campaign and who did not know Russian, yet felt deeply moved (as
he wrote) when he appeared before notre tres gracieux souverain * with
the news of the burning of Moscow, dont les flammes eclairaient sa
route. *(2)

* Our most gracious sovereign.

* (2) Whose flames illumined his route.

Though the source of M. Michaud's chagrin must have been different

from that which caused Russians to grieve, he had such a sad face when
shown into the Emperor's study that the latter at once asked:
"Have you brought me sad news, Colonel?"
"Very sad, sire," replied Michaud, lowering his eyes with a sigh.
"The abandonment of Moscow."
 "Have they surrendered my ancient capital without a battle?" asked
the Emperor quickly, his face suddenly flushing.
Michaud respectfully delivered the message Kutuzov had entrusted
to him, which was that it had been impossible to fight before Moscow,
and that as the only remaining choice was between losing the army as
well as Moscow, or losing Moscow alone, the field marshal had to
choose the latter.
The Emperor listened in silence, not looking at Michaud.
"Has the enemy entered the city?" he asked.
"Yes, sire, and Moscow is now in ashes. I left it all in flames,"
replied Michaud in a decided tone, but glancing at the Emperor he was
frightened by what he had done.
The Emperor began to breathe heavily and rapidly, his lower lip
trembled, and tears instantly appeared in his fine blue eyes.
But this lasted only a moment. He suddenly frowned, as if blaming
himself for his weakness, and raising his head addressed Michaud in a
firm voice:
"I see, Colonel, from all that is happening, that Providence requires
great sacrifices of us... I am ready to submit myself in all things to His
will; but tell me, Michaud, how did you leave the army when it saw my
ancient capital abandoned without a battle? Did you not notice
discouragement?..."
Seeing that his most gracious ruler was calm once more, Michaud
also grew calm, but was not immediately ready to reply to the
Emperor's direct and relevant question which required a direct answer.
"Sire, will you allow me to speak frankly as befits a loyal soldier?"
he asked to gain time.
"Colonel, I always require it," replied the Emperor. "Conceal nothing
from me, I wish to know absolutely how things are."
"Sire!" said Michaud with a subtle, scarcely perceptible smile on his
lips, having now prepared a well-phrased reply, "sire, I left the whole
army, from its chiefs to the lowest soldier, without exception in
desperate and agonized terror..."
"How is that?" the Emperor interrupted him, frowning sternly.
"Would misfortune make my Russians lose heart?... Never!"
Michaud had only waited for this to bring out the phrase he had
prepared.
 "Sire," he said, with respectful playfulness, "they are only afraid lest
Your Majesty, in the goodness of your heart, should allow yourself to
be persuaded to make peace. They are burning for the combat,"
declared this representative of the Russian nation, "and to prove to
Your Majesty by the sacrifice of their lives how devoted they are...."
"Ah!" said the Emperor reassured, and with a kindly gleam in his
eyes, he patted Michaud on the shoulder. "You set me at ease,
Colonel."
He bent his head and was silent for some time.
"Well, then, go back to the army," he said, drawing himself up to his
full height and addressing Michaud with a gracious and majestic
gesture, "and tell our brave men and all my good subjects wherever you
go that when I have not a soldier left I shall put myself at the head of
my beloved nobility and my good peasants and so use the last resources
of my empire. It still offers me more than my enemies suppose," said
the Emperor growing more and more animated; "but should it ever be
ordained by Divine Providence," he continued, raising to heaven his
fine eyes shining with emotion, "that my dynasty should cease to reign
on the throne of my ancestors, then after exhausting all the means at my
command, I shall let my beard grow to here" (he pointed halfway down
his chest) "and go and eat potatoes with the meanest of my peasants,
rather than sign the disgrace of my country and of my beloved people
whose sacrifices I know how to appreciate."
Having uttered these words in an agitated voice the Emperor
suddenly turned away as if to hide from Michaud the tears that rose to
his eyes, and went to the further end of his study. Having stood there a
few moments, he strode back to Michaud and pressed his arm below
the elbow with a vigorous movement. The Emperor's mild and
handsome face was flushed and his eyes gleamed with resolution and
anger.
"Colonel Michaud, do not forget what I say to you here, perhaps we
may recall it with pleasure someday... Napoleon or I," said the
Emperor, touching his breast. "We can no longer both reign together. I
have learned to know him, and he will not deceive me any more...."
And the Emperor paused, with a frown.
When he heard these words and saw the expression of firm
resolution in the Emperor's eyes, Michaud—quoique etranger, russe de
coeur et d'ame—at that solemn moment felt himself enraptured by all
that he had heard (as he used afterwards to say), and gave expression to
his own feelings and those of the Russian people whose representative
he considered himself to be, in the following words:
 "Sire!" said he, "Your Majesty is at this moment signing the glory of
the nation and the salvation of Europe!"
With an inclination of the head the Emperor dismissed him.

CHAPTER IV
It is natural for us who were not living in those days to imagine that
when half Russia had been conquered and the inhabitants were fleeing
to distant provinces, and one levy after another was being raised for the
defense of the fatherland, all Russians from the greatest to the least
were solely engaged in sacrificing themselves, saving their fatherland,
or weeping over its downfall. The tales and descriptions of that time
without exception speak only of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion,
despair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians. But it was not really so.
It appears so to us because we see only the general historic interest of
that time and do not see all the personal human interests that people
had. Yet in reality those personal interests of the moment so much
transcend the general interests that they always prevent the public
interest from being felt or even noticed. Most of the people at that time
paid no attention to the general progress of events but were guided only
by their private interests, and they were the very people whose
activities at that period were most useful.
Those who tried to understand the general course of events and to
take part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism were the most useless
members of society, they saw everything upside down, and all they did
for the common good turned out to be useless and foolish—like Pierre's
and Mamonov's regiments which looted Russian villages, and the lint
the young ladies prepared and that never reached the wounded, and so
on. Even those, fond of intellectual talk and of expressing their
feelings, who discussed Russia's position at the time involuntarily
introduced into their conversation either a shade of pretense and
falsehood or useless condemnation and anger directed against people
accused of actions no one could possibly be guilty of. In historic events
the rule forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is
specially applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who
plays a part in an historic event never understands its significance. If he
tries to realize it his efforts are fruitless.
The more closely a man was engaged in the events then taking place
in Russia the less did he realize their significance. In Petersburg and in
the provinces at a distance from Moscow, ladies, and gentlemen in
militia uniforms, wept for Russia and its ancient capital and talked of
self-sacrifice and so on; but in the army which retired beyond Moscow
there was little talk or thought of Moscow, and when they caught sight
of its burned ruins no one swore to be avenged on the French, but they
thought about their next pay, their next quarters, of Matreshka the
vivandiere, and like matters.
As the war had caught him in the service, Nicholas Rostov took a
close and prolonged part in the defense of his country, but did so
casually, without any aim at self-sacrifice, and he therefore looked at
what was going on in Russia without despair and without dismally
racking his brains over it. Had he been asked what he thought of the
state of Russia, he would have said that it was not his business to think
about it, that Kutuzov and others were there for that purpose, but that
he had heard that the regiments were to be made up to their full
strength, that fighting would probably go on for a long time yet, and
that things being so it was quite likely he might be in command of a
regiment in a couple of years' time.
As he looked at the matter in this way, he learned that he was being
sent to Voronezh to buy remounts for his division, not only without
regret at being prevented from taking part in the coming battle, but with
the greatest pleasure—which he did not conceal and which his
comrades fully understood.
A few days before the battle of Borodino, Nicholas received the
necessary money and warrants, and having sent some hussars on in
advance, he set out with post horses for Voronezh.
Only a man who has experienced it—that is, has passed some
months continuously in an atmosphere of campaigning and war—can
understand the delight Nicholas felt when he escaped from the region
covered by the army's foraging operations, provision trains, and
hospitals. When—free from soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a
camp—he saw villages with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen's
country houses, fields where cattle were grazing, posthouses with
stationmasters asleep in them, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for
the first time. What for a long while specially surprised and delighted
him were the women, young and healthy, without a dozen officers
making up to each of them; women, too, who were pleased and
flattered that a passing officer should joke with them.
In the highest spirits Nicholas arrived at night at a hotel in Voronezh,
ordered things he had long been deprived of in camp, and next day,
very clean-shaven and in a full-dress uniform he had not worn for a
long time, went to present himself to the authorities.
The commander of the militia was a civilian general, an old man who
was evidently pleased with his military designation and rank. He
received Nicholas brusquely (imagining this to be characteristically
military) and questioned him with an important air, as if considering
the general progress of affairs and approving and disapproving with full
right to do so. Nicholas was in such good spirits that this merely
amused him.
From the commander of the militia he drove to the governor. The
governor was a brisk little man, very simple and affable. He indicated
the stud farms at which Nicholas might procure horses, recommended
to him a horse dealer in the town and a landowner fourteen miles out of
town who had the best horses, and promised to assist him in every way.
"You are Count Ilya Rostov's son? My wife was a great friend of
your mother's. We are at home on Thursdays—today is Thursday, so
please come and see us quite informally," said the governor, taking
leave of him.
Immediately on leaving the governor's, Nicholas hired post horses
and, taking his squadron quartermaster with him, drove at a gallop to
the landowner, fourteen miles away, who had the stud. Everything
seemed to him pleasant and easy during that first part of his stay in
Voronezh and, as usually happens when a man is in a pleasant state of
mind, everything went well and easily.
The landowner to whom Nicholas went was a bachelor, an old
cavalryman, a horse fancier, a sportsman, the possessor of some
century-old brandy and some old Hungarian wine, who had a snuggery
where he smoked, and who owned some splendid horses.
In very few words Nicholas bought seventeen picked stallions for six
thousand rubles—to serve, as he said, as samples of his remounts. After
dining and taking rather too much of the Hungarian wine, Nicholas—
having exchanged kisses with the landowner, with whom he was
already on the friendliest terms—galloped back over abominable roads,
in the brightest frame of mind, continually urging on the driver so as to
be in time for the governor's party.
When he had changed, poured water over his head, and scented
himself, Nicholas arrived at the governor's rather late, but with the
phrase "better late than never" on his lips.
It was not a ball, nor had dancing been announced, but everyone
knew that Catherine Petrovna would play valses and the ecossaise on
the clavichord and that there would be dancing, and so everyone had
come as to a ball.
Provincial life in 1812 went on very much as usual, but with this
difference, that it was livelier in the towns in consequence of the arrival
of many wealthy families from Moscow, and as in everything that went
on in Russia at that time a special recklessness was noticeable, an "in
for a penny, in for a pound—who cares?" spirit, and the inevitable
small talk, instead of turning on the weather and mutual acquaintances,
now turned on Moscow, the army, and Napoleon.
The society gathered together at the governor's was the best in
Voronezh.
There were a great many ladies and some of Nicholas' Moscow
acquaintances, but there were no men who could at all vie with the
cavalier of St. George, the hussar remount officer, the good-natured and
well-bred Count Rostov. Among the men was an Italian prisoner, an
officer of the French army; and Nicholas felt that the presence of that
prisoner enhanced his own importance as a Russian hero. The Italian
was, as it were, a war trophy. Nicholas felt this, it seemed to him that
everyone regarded the Italian in the same light, and he treated him
cordially though with dignity and restraint.
As soon as Nicholas entered in his hussar uniform, diffusing around
him a fragrance of perfume and wine, and had uttered the words "better
late than never" and heard them repeated several times by others,
people clustered around him; all eyes turned on him, and he felt at once
that he had entered into his proper position in the province—that of a
universal favorite: a very pleasant position, and intoxicatingly so after
his long privations. At posting stations, at inns, and in the landowner's
snuggery, maidservants had been flattered by his notice, and here too at
the governor's party there were (as it seemed to Nicholas) an
inexhaustible number of pretty young women, married and unmarried,
impatiently awaiting his notice. The women and girls flirted with him
and, from the first day, the people concerned themselves to get this fine
young daredevil of an hussar married and settled down. Among these
was the governor's wife herself, who welcomed Rostov as a near
relative and called him "Nicholas."
Catherine Petrovna did actually play valses and the ecossaise, and
dancing began in which Nicholas still further captivated the provincial
society by his agility. His particularly free manner of dancing even
surprised them all. Nicholas was himself rather surprised at the way he
danced that evening. He had never danced like that in Moscow and
would even have considered such a very free and easy manner
improper and in bad form, but here he felt it incumbent on him to
astonish them all by something unusual, something they would have to
accept as the regular thing in the capital though new to them in the
provinces.
All the evening Nicholas paid attention to a blue-eyed, plump and
pleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials. With
the naive conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men's
wives were created for them, Rostov did not leave the lady's side and
treated her husband in a friendly and conspiratorial style, as if, without
speaking of it, they knew how capitally Nicholas and the lady would
get on together. The husband, however, did not seem to share that
conviction and tried to behave morosely with Rostov. But the latter's
good-natured naivete was so boundless that sometimes even he
involuntarily yielded to Nicholas' good humor. Toward the end of the
evening, however, as the wife's face grew more flushed and animated,
the husband's became more and more melancholy and solemn, as
though there were but a given amount of animation between them and
as the wife's share increased the husband's diminished.

CHAPTER V
Nicholas sat leaning slightly forward in an armchair, bending closely
over the blonde lady and paying her mythological compliments with a
smile that never left his face. Jauntily shifting the position of his legs in
their tight riding breeches, diffusing an odor of perfume, and admiring
his partner, himself, and the fine outlines of his legs in their well-fitting
Hessian boots, Nicholas told the blonde lady that he wished to run
away with a certain lady here in Voronezh.
"Which lady?"
"A charming lady, a divine one. Her eyes" (Nicholas looked at his
partner) "are blue, her mouth coral and ivory; her figure" (he glanced at
her shoulders) "like Diana's...."
The husband came up and sullenly asked his wife what she was
talking about.
"Ah, Nikita Ivanych!" cried Nicholas, rising politely, and as if
wishing Nikita Ivanych to share his joke, he began to tell him of his
intention to elope with a blonde lady.
The husband smiled gloomily, the wife gaily. The governor's good-
natured wife came up with a look of disapproval.
"Anna Ignatyevna wants to see you, Nicholas," said she,
pronouncing the name so that Nicholas at once understood that Anna
Ignatyevna was a very important person. "Come, Nicholas! You know
you let me call you so?"
"Oh, yes, Aunt. Who is she?"
 "Anna Ignatyevna Malvintseva. She has heard from her niece how
you rescued her... Can you guess?"
"I rescued such a lot of them!" said Nicholas.
"Her niece, Princess Bolkonskaya. She is here in Voronezh with her
aunt. Oho! How you blush. Why, are...?"
"Not a bit! Please don't, Aunt!"
"Very well, very well!... Oh, what a fellow you are!"
The governor's wife led him up to a tall and very stout old lady with
a blue headdress, who had just finished her game of cards with the most
important personages of the town. This was Malvintseva, Princess
Mary's aunt on her mother's side, a rich, childless widow who always
lived in Voronezh. When Rostov approached her she was standing
settling up for the game. She looked at him and, screwing up her eyes
sternly, continued to upbraid the general who had won from her.
"Very pleased, mon cher," she then said, holding out her hand to
Nicholas. "Pray come and see me."
After a few words about Princess Mary and her late father, whom
Malvintseva had evidently not liked, and having asked what Nicholas
knew of Prince Andrew, who also was evidently no favorite of hers, the
important old lady dismissed Nicholas after repeating her invitation to
come to see her.
Nicholas promised to come and blushed again as he bowed. At the
mention of Princess Mary he experienced a feeling of shyness and even
of fear, which he himself did not understand.
When he had parted from Malvintseva Nicholas wished to return to
the dancing, but the governor's little wife placed her plump hand on his
sleeve and, saying that she wanted to have a talk with him, led him to
her sitting room, from which those who were there immediately
withdrew so as not to be in her way.
"Do you know, dear boy," began the governor's wife with a serious
expression on her kind little face, "that really would be the match for
you: would you like me to arrange it?"
"Whom do you mean, Aunt?" asked Nicholas.
"I will make a match for you with the princess. Catherine Petrovna
speaks of Lily, but I say, no—the princess! Do you want me to do it? I
am sure your mother will be grateful to me. What a charming girl she
is, really! And she is not at all so plain, either."
 "Not at all," replied Nicholas as if offended at the idea. "As befits a
soldier, Aunt, I don't force myself on anyone or refuse anything," he
said before he had time to consider what he was saying.
"Well then, remember, this is not a joke!"
"Of course not!"
"Yes, yes," the governor's wife said as if talking to herself. "But, my
dear boy, among other things you are too attentive to the other, the
blonde. One is sorry for the husband, really...."
"Oh no, we are good friends with him," said Nicholas in the
simplicity of his heart; it did not enter his head that a pastime so
pleasant to himself might not be pleasant to someone else.
"But what nonsense I have been saying to the governor's wife!"
thought Nicholas suddenly at supper. "She will really begin to arrange a
match... and Sonya...?" And on taking leave of the governor's wife,
when she again smilingly said to him, "Well then, remember!" he drew
her aside.
"But see here, to tell the truth, Aunt..."
"What is it, my dear? Come, let's sit down here," said she.
Nicholas suddenly felt a desire and need to tell his most intimate
thoughts (which he would not have told to his mother, his sister, or his
friend) to this woman who was almost a stranger. When he afterwards
recalled that impulse to unsolicited and inexplicable frankness which
had very important results for him, it seemed to him—as it seems to
everyone in such cases—that it was merely some silly whim that seized
him: yet that burst of frankness, together with other trifling events, had
immense consequences for him and for all his family.
"You see, Aunt, Mamma has long wanted me to marry an heiress,
but the very idea of marrying for money is repugnant to me."
"Oh yes, I understand," said the governor's wife.
"But Princess Bolkonskaya—that's another matter. I will tell you the
truth. In the first place I like her very much, I feel drawn to her; and
then, after I met her under such circumstances—so strangely, the idea
often occurred to me: 'This is fate.' Especially if you remember that
Mamma had long been thinking of it; but I had never happened to meet
her before, somehow it had always happened that we did not meet. And
as long as my sister Natasha was engaged to her brother it was of
course out of the question for me to think of marrying her. And it must
needs happen that I should meet her just when Natasha's engagement
had been broken off... and then everything... So you see... I never told
this to anyone and never will, only to you."
The governor's wife pressed his elbow gratefully.
"You know Sonya, my cousin? I love her, and promised to marry
her, and will do so.... So you see there can be no question about-" said
Nicholas incoherently and blushing.
"My dear boy, what a way to look at it! You know Sonya has
nothing and you yourself say your Papa's affairs are in a very bad way.
And what about your mother? It would kill her, that's one thing. And
what sort of life would it be for Sonya—if she's a girl with a heart?
Your mother in despair, and you all ruined.... No, my dear, you and
Sonya ought to understand that."
Nicholas remained silent. It comforted him to hear these arguments.
"All the same, Aunt, it is impossible," he rejoined with a sigh, after a
short pause. "Besides, would the princess have me? And besides, she is
now in mourning. How can one think of it!"
"But you don't suppose I'm going to get you married at once? There
is always a right way of doing things," replied the governor's wife.
"What a matchmaker you are, Aunt..." said Nicholas, kissing her
plump little hand.

CHAPTER VI
On reaching Moscow after her meeting with Rostov, Princess Mary
had found her nephew there with his tutor, and a letter from Prince
Andrew giving her instructions how to get to her Aunt Malvintseva at
Voronezh. That feeling akin to temptation which had tormented her
during her father's illness, since his death, and especially since her
meeting with Rostov was smothered by arrangements for the journey,
anxiety about her brother, settling in a new house, meeting new people,
and attending to her nephew's education. She was sad. Now, after a
month passed in quiet surroundings, she felt more and more deeply the
loss of her father which was associated in her mind with the ruin of
Russia. She was agitated and incessantly tortured by the thought of the
dangers to which her brother, the only intimate person now remaining
to her, was exposed. She was worried too about her nephew's education
for which she had always felt herself incompetent, but in the depths of
her soul she felt at peace—a peace arising from consciousness of
having stifled those personal dreams and hopes that had been on the
point of awakening within her and were related to her meeting with
Rostov.
The day after her party the governor's wife came to see Malvintseva
and, after discussing her plan with the aunt, remarked that though under
present circumstances a formal betrothal was, of course, not to be
thought of, all the same the young people might be brought together
and could get to know one another. Malvintseva expressed approval,
and the governor's wife began to speak of Rostov in Mary's presence,
praising him and telling how he had blushed when Princess Mary's
name was mentioned. But Princess Mary experienced a painful rather
than a joyful feeling—her mental tranquillity was destroyed, and
desires, doubts, self-reproach, and hopes reawoke.
During the two days that elapsed before Rostov called, Princess
Mary continually thought of how she ought to behave to him. First she
decided not to come to the drawing room when he called to see her
aunt—that it would not be proper for her, in her deep mourning, to
receive visitors; then she thought this would be rude after what he had
done for her; then it occurred to her that her aunt and the governor's
wife had intentions concerning herself and Rostov—their looks and
words at times seemed to confirm this supposition—then she told
herself that only she, with her sinful nature, could think this of them:
they could not forget that situated as she was, while still wearing deep
mourning, such matchmaking would be an insult to her and to her
father's memory. Assuming that she did go down to see him, Princess
Mary imagined the words he would say to her and what she would say
to him, and these words sometimes seemed undeservedly cold and then
to mean too much. More than anything she feared lest the confusion she
felt might overwhelm her and betray her as soon as she saw him.
But when on Sunday after church the footman announced in the
drawing room that Count Rostov had called, the princess showed no
confusion, only a slight blush suffused her cheeks and her eyes lit up
with a new and radiant light.
"You have met him, Aunt?" said she in a calm voice, unable herself
to understand that she could be outwardly so calm and natural.
When Rostov entered the room, the princess dropped her eyes for an
instant, as if to give the visitor time to greet her aunt, and then just as
Nicholas turned to her she raised her head and met his look with
shining eyes. With a movement full of dignity and grace she half rose
with a smile of pleasure, held out her slender, delicate hand to him, and
began to speak in a voice in which for the first time new deep womanly
notes vibrated. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in the drawing
room, looked at Princess Mary in bewildered surprise. Herself a
consummate coquette, she could not have maneuvered better on
meeting a man she wished to attract.
"Either black is particularly becoming to her or she really has greatly
improved without my having noticed it. And above all, what tact and
grace!" thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.
Had Princess Mary been capable of reflection at that moment, she
would have been more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the
change that had taken place in herself. From the moment she
recognized that dear, loved face, a new life force took possession of her
and compelled her to speak and act apart from her own will. From the
time Rostov entered, her face became suddenly transformed. It was as
if a light had been kindled in a carved and painted lantern and the
intricate, skillful, artistic work on its sides, that previously seemed
dark, coarse, and meaningless, was suddenly shown up in unexpected
and striking beauty. For the first time all that pure, spiritual, inward
travail through which she had lived appeared on the surface. All her
inward labor, her dissatisfaction with herself, her sufferings, her
strivings after goodness, her meekness, love, and self-sacrifice—all this
now shone in those radiant eyes, in her delicate smile, and in every trait
of her gentle face.
Rostov saw all this as clearly as if he had known her whole life. He
felt that the being before him was quite different from, and better than,
anyone he had met before, and above all better than himself.
Their conversation was very simple and unimportant. They spoke of
the war, and like everyone else unconsciously exaggerated their sorrow
about it; they spoke of their last meeting—Nicholas trying to change
the subject—they talked of the governor's kind wife, of Nicholas'
relations, and of Princess Mary's.
She did not talk about her brother, diverting the conversation as soon
as her aunt mentioned Andrew. Evidently she could speak of Russia's
misfortunes with a certain artificiality, but her brother was too near her
heart and she neither could nor would speak lightly of him. Nicholas
noticed this, as he noticed every shade of Princess Mary's character
with an observation unusual to him, and everything confirmed his
conviction that she was a quite unusual and extraordinary being.
Nicholas blushed and was confused when people spoke to him about
the princess (as she did when he was mentioned) and even when he
thought of her, but in her presence he felt quite at ease, and said not at
all what he had prepared, but what, quite appropriately, occurred to him
at the moment.
When a pause occurred during his short visit, Nicholas, as is usual
when there are children, turned to Prince Andrew's little son, caressing
him and asking whether he would like to be an hussar. He took the boy
on his knee, played with him, and looked round at Princess Mary. With
a softened, happy, timid look she watched the boy she loved in the arms
of the man she loved. Nicholas also noticed that look and, as if
understanding it, flushed with pleasure and began to kiss the boy with
good natured playfulness.
As she was in mourning Princess Mary did not go out into society,
and Nicholas did not think it the proper thing to visit her again; but all
the same the governor's wife went on with her matchmaking, passing
on to Nicholas the flattering things Princess Mary said of him and vice
versa, and insisting on his declaring himself to Princess Mary. For this
purpose she arranged a meeting between the young people at the
bishop's house before Mass.
Though Rostov told the governor's wife that he would not make any
declaration to Princess Mary, he promised to go.
As at Tilsit Rostov had not allowed himself to doubt that what
everybody considered right was right, so now, after a short but sincere
struggle between his effort to arrange his life by his own sense of
justice, and in obedient submission to circumstances, he chose the latter
and yielded to the power he felt irresistibly carrying him he knew not
where. He knew that after his promise to Sonya it would be what he
deemed base to declare his feelings to Princess Mary. And he knew that
he would never act basely. But he also knew (or rather felt at the
bottom of his heart) that by resigning himself now to the force of
circumstances and to those who were guiding him, he was not only
doing nothing wrong, but was doing something very important—more
important than anything he had ever done in his life.
After meeting Princess Mary, though the course of his life went on
externally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him
and he often thought about her. But he never thought about her as he
had thought of all the young ladies without exception whom he had met
in society, nor as he had for a long time, and at one time rapturously,
thought about Sonya. He had pictured each of those young ladies as
almost all honest-hearted young men do, that is, as a possible wife,
adapting her in his imagination to all the conditions of married life: a
white dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, his wife's carriage, little
ones, Mamma and Papa, their relations to her, and so on—and these
pictures of the future had given him pleasure. But with Princess Mary,
to whom they were trying to get him engaged, he could never picture
anything of future married life. If he tried, his pictures seemed
incongruous and false. It made him afraid.
 CHAPTER VII
The dreadful news of the battle of Borodino, of our losses in killed
and wounded, and the still more terrible news of the loss of Moscow
reached Voronezh in the middle of September. Princess Mary, having
learned of her brother's wound only from the Gazette and having no
definite news of him, prepared (so Nicholas heard, he had not seen her
again himself) to set off in search of Prince Andrew.
When he received the news of the battle of Borodino and the
abandonment of Moscow, Rostov was not seized with despair, anger,
the desire for vengeance, or any feeling of that kind, but everything in
Voronezh suddenly seemed to him dull and tiresome, and he
experienced an indefinite feeling of shame and awkwardness. The
conversations he heard seemed to him insincere; he did not know how
to judge all these affairs and felt that only in the regiment would
everything again become clear to him. He made haste to finish buying
the horses, and often became unreasonably angry with his servant and
squadron quartermaster.
A few days before his departure a special thanksgiving, at which
Nicholas was present, was held in the cathedral for the Russian victory.
He stood a little behind the governor and held himself with military
decorum through the service, meditating on a great variety of subjects.
When the service was over the governor's wife beckoned him to her.
"Have you seen the princess?" she asked, indicating with a
movement of her head a lady standing on the opposite side, beyond the
choir.
Nicholas immediately recognized Princess Mary not so much by the
profile he saw under her bonnet as by the feeling of solicitude, timidity,
and pity that immediately overcame him. Princess Mary, evidently
engrossed by her thoughts, was crossing herself for the last time before
leaving the church.
Nicholas looked at her face with surprise. It was the same face he
had seen before, there was the same general expression of refined,
inner, spiritual labor, but now it was quite differently lit up. There was
a pathetic expression of sorrow, prayer, and hope in it. As had occurred
before when she was present, Nicholas went up to her without waiting
to be prompted by the governor's wife and not asking himself whether
or not it was right and proper to address her here in church, and told her
he had heard of her trouble and sympathized with his whole soul. As
soon as she heard his voice a vivid glow kindled in her face, lighting up
both her sorrow and her joy.
 "There is one thing I wanted to tell you, Princess," said Rostov. "It is
that if your brother, Prince Andrew Nikolievich, were not living, it
would have been at once announced in the Gazette, as he is a colonel."
The princess looked at him, not grasping what he was saying, but
cheered by the expression of regretful sympathy on his face.
"And I have known so many cases of a splinter wound" (the Gazette
said it was a shell) "either proving fatal at once or being very slight,"
continued Nicholas. "We must hope for the best, and I am sure..."
Princess Mary interrupted him.
"Oh, that would be so dread..." she began and, prevented by agitation
from finishing, she bent her head with a movement as graceful as
everything she did in his presence and, looking up at him gratefully,
went out, following her aunt.
That evening Nicholas did not go out, but stayed at home to settle
some accounts with the horse dealers. When he had finished that
business it was already too late to go anywhere but still too early to go
to bed, and for a long time he paced up and down the room, reflecting
on his life, a thing he rarely did.
Princess Mary had made an agreeable impression on him when he
had met her in Smolensk province. His having encountered her in such
exceptional circumstances, and his mother having at one time
mentioned her to him as a good match, had drawn his particular
attention to her. When he met her again in Voronezh the impression she
made on him was not merely pleasing but powerful. Nicholas had been
struck by the peculiar moral beauty he observed in her at this time. He
was, however, preparing to go away and it had not entered his head to
regret that he was thus depriving himself of chances of meeting her.
But that day's encounter in church had, he felt, sunk deeper than was
desirable for his peace of mind. That pale, sad, refined face, that radiant
look, those gentle graceful gestures, and especially the deep and tender
sorrow expressed in all her features agitated him and evoked his
sympathy. In men Rostov could not bear to see the expression of a
higher spiritual life (that was why he did not like Prince Andrew) and
he referred to it contemptuously as philosophy and dreaminess, but in
Princess Mary that very sorrow which revealed the depth of a whole
spiritual world foreign to him was an irresistible attraction.
"She must be a wonderful woman. A real angel!" he said to himself.
"Why am I not free? Why was I in such a hurry with Sonya?" And he
involuntarily compared the two: the lack of spirituality in the one and
the abundance of it in the other—a spirituality he himself lacked and
therefore valued most highly. He tried to picture what would happen
were he free. How he would propose to her and how she would become
his wife. But no, he could not imagine that. He felt awed, and no clear
picture presented itself to his mind. He had long ago pictured to himself
a future with Sonya, and that was all clear and simple just because it
had all been thought out and he knew all there was in Sonya, but it was
impossible to picture a future with Princess Mary, because he did not
understand her but simply loved her.
Reveries about Sonya had had something merry and playful in them,
but to dream of Princess Mary was always difficult and a little
frightening.
"How she prayed!" he thought. "It was plain that her whole soul was
in her prayer. Yes, that was the prayer that moves mountains, and I am
sure her prayer will be answered. Why don't I pray for what I want?" he
suddenly thought. "What do I want? To be free, released from Sonya...
She was right," he thought, remembering what the governor's wife had
said: "Nothing but misfortune can come of marrying Sonya. Muddles,
grief for Mamma... business difficulties... muddles, terrible muddles!
Besides, I don't love her—not as I should. O, God! release me from this
dreadful, inextricable position!" he suddenly began to pray. "Yes,
prayer can move mountains, but one must have faith and not pray as
Natasha and I used to as children, that the snow might turn into sugar—
and then run out into the yard to see whether it had done so. No, but I
am not praying for trifles now," he thought as he put his pipe down in a
corner, and folding his hands placed himself before the icon. Softened
by memories of Princess Mary he began to pray as he had not done for
a long time. Tears were in his eyes and in his throat when the door
opened and Lavrushka came in with some papers.
"Blockhead! Why do you come in without being called?" cried
Nicholas, quickly changing his attitude.
"From the governor," said Lavrushka in a sleepy voice. "A courier
has arrived and there's a letter for you."
"Well, all right, thanks. You can go!"
Nicholas took the two letters, one of which was from his mother and
the other from Sonya. He recognized them by the handwriting and
opened Sonya's first. He had read only a few lines when he turned pale
and his eyes opened wide with fear and joy.
"No, it's not possible!" he cried aloud.
Unable to sit still he paced up and down the room holding the letter
and reading it. He glanced through it, then read it again, and then again,
and standing still in the middle of the room he raised his shoulders,
stretching out his hands, with his mouth wide open and his eyes fixed.
What he had just been praying for with confidence that God would hear
him had come to pass; but Nicholas was as much astonished as if it
were something extraordinary and unexpected, and as if the very fact
that it had happened so quickly proved that it had not come from God
to whom he had prayed, but by some ordinary coincidence.
This unexpected and, as it seemed to Nicholas, quite voluntary letter
from Sonya freed him from the knot that fettered him and from which
there had seemed no escape. She wrote that the last unfortunate
events—the loss of almost the whole of the Rostovs' Moscow
property—and the countess' repeatedly expressed wish that Nicholas
should marry Princess Bolkonskaya, together with his silence and
coldness of late, had all combined to make her decide to release him
from his promise and set him completely free.
It would be too painful to me to think that I might be a cause of
sorrow or discord in the family that has been so good to me (she wrote),
and my love has no aim but the happiness of those I love; so, Nicholas,
I beg you to consider yourself free, and to be assured that, in spite of
everything, no one can love you more than does
Your Sonya
Both letters were written from Troitsa. The other, from the countess,
described their last days in Moscow, their departure, the fire, and the
destruction of all their property. In this letter the countess also
mentioned that Prince Andrew was among the wounded traveling with
them; his state was very critical, but the doctor said there was now
more hope. Sonya and Natasha were nursing him.
Next day Nicholas took his mother's letter and went to see Princess
Mary. Neither he nor she said a word about what "Natasha nursing
him" might mean, but thanks to this letter Nicholas suddenly became
almost as intimate with the princess as if they were relations.
The following day he saw Princess Mary off on her journey to
Yaroslavl, and a few days later left to rejoin his regiment.

CHAPTER VIII
Sonya's letter written from Troitsa, which had come as an answer to
Nicholas' prayer, was prompted by this: the thought of getting Nicholas
married to an heiress occupied the old countess' mind more and more.
She knew that Sonya was the chief obstacle to this happening, and
Sonya's life in the countess' house had grown harder and harder,
especially after they had received a letter from Nicholas telling of his
meeting with Princess Mary in Bogucharovo. The countess let no
occasion slip of making humiliating or cruel allusions to Sonya.
But a few days before they left Moscow, moved and excited by all
that was going on, she called Sonya to her and, instead of reproaching
and making demands on her, tearfully implored her to sacrifice herself
and repay all that the family had done for her by breaking off her
engagement with Nicholas.
"I shall not be at peace till you promise me this."
Sonya burst into hysterical tears and replied through her sobs that she
would do anything and was prepared for anything, but gave no actual
promise and could not bring herself to decide to do what was demanded
of her. She must sacrifice herself for the family that had reared and
brought her up. To sacrifice herself for others was Sonya's habit. Her
position in the house was such that only by sacrifice could she show her
worth, and she was accustomed to this and loved doing it. But in all her
former acts of self-sacrifice she had been happily conscious that they
raised her in her own esteem and in that of others, and so made her
more worthy of Nicholas whom she loved more than anything in the
world. But now they wanted her to sacrifice the very thing that
constituted the whole reward for her self-sacrifice and the whole
meaning of her life. And for the first time she felt bitterness against
those who had been her benefactors only to torture her the more
painfully; she felt jealous of Natasha who had never experienced
anything of this sort, had never needed to sacrifice herself, but made
others sacrifice themselves for her and yet was beloved by everybody.
And for the first time Sonya felt that out of her pure, quiet love for
Nicholas a passionate feeling was beginning to grow up which was
stronger than principle, virtue, or religion. Under the influence of this
feeling Sonya, whose life of dependence had taught her involuntarily to
be secretive, having answered the countess in vague general terms,
avoided talking with her and resolved to wait till she should see
Nicholas, not in order to set him free but on the contrary at that meeting
to bind him to her forever.
The bustle and terror of the Rostovs' last days in Moscow stifled the
gloomy thoughts that oppressed Sonya. She was glad to find escape
from them in practical activity. But when she heard of Prince Andrew's
presence in their house, despite her sincere pity for him and for
Natasha, she was seized by a joyful and superstitious feeling that God
did not intend her to be separated from Nicholas. She knew that
Natasha loved no one but Prince Andrew and had never ceased to love
him. She knew that being thrown together again under such terrible
circumstances they would again fall in love with one another, and that
Nicholas would then not be able to marry Princess Mary as they would
be within the prohibited degrees of affinity. Despite all the terror of
what had happened during those last days and during the first days of
their journey, this feeling that Providence was intervening in her
personal affairs cheered Sonya.
At the Troitsa monastery the Rostovs first broke their journey for a
whole day.
Three large rooms were assigned to them in the monastery hostelry,
one of which was occupied by Prince Andrew. The wounded man was
much better that day and Natasha was sitting with him. In the next
room sat the count and countess respectfully conversing with the prior,
who was calling on them as old acquaintances and benefactors of the
monastery. Sonya was there too, tormented by curiosity as to what
Prince Andrew and Natasha were talking about. She heard the sound of
their voices through the door. That door opened and Natasha came out,
looking excited. Not noticing the monk, who had risen to greet her and
was drawing back the wide sleeve on his right arm, she went up to
Sonya and took her hand.
"Natasha, what are you about? Come here!" said the countess.
Natasha went up to the monk for his blessing, and he advised her to
pray for aid to God and His saint.
As soon as the prior withdrew, Natasha took her friend by the hand
and went with her into the unoccupied room.
"Sonya, will he live?" she asked. "Sonya, how happy I am, and how
unhappy!... Sonya, dovey, everything is as it used to be. If only he
lives! He cannot... because... because... of" and Natasha burst into tears.
"Yes! I knew it! Thank God!" murmured Sonya. "He will live."
Sonya was not less agitated than her friend by the latter's fear and
grief and by her own personal feelings which she shared with no one.
Sobbing, she kissed and comforted Natasha. "If only he lives!" she
thought. Having wept, talked, and wiped away their tears, the two
friends went together to Prince Andrew's door. Natasha opened it
cautiously and glanced into the room, Sonya standing beside her at the
half-open door.
Prince Andrew was lying raised high on three pillows. His pale face
was calm, his eyes closed, and they could see his regular breathing.
"O, Natasha!" Sonya suddenly almost screamed, catching her
companion's arm and stepping back from the door.
"What? What is it?" asked Natasha.
"It's that, that..." said Sonya, with a white face and trembling lips.
 Natasha softly closed the door and went with Sonya to the window,
not yet understanding what the latter was telling her.
"You remember," said Sonya with a solemn and frightened
expression. "You remember when I looked in the mirror for you... at
Otradnoe at Christmas? Do you remember what I saw?"
"Yes, yes!" cried Natasha opening her eyes wide, and vaguely
recalling that Sonya had told her something about Prince Andrew
whom she had seen lying down.
"You remember?" Sonya went on. "I saw it then and told everybody,
you and Dunyasha. I saw him lying on a bed," said she, making a
gesture with her hand and a lifted finger at each detail, "and that he had
his eyes closed and was covered just with a pink quilt, and that his
hands were folded," she concluded, convincing herself that the details
she had just seen were exactly what she had seen in the mirror.
She had in fact seen nothing then but had mentioned the first thing
that came into her head, but what she had invented then seemed to her
now as real as any other recollection. She not only remembered what
she had then said—that he turned to look at her and smiled and was
covered with something red—but was firmly convinced that she had
then seen and said that he was covered with a pink quilt and that his
eyes were closed.
"Yes, yes, it really was pink!" cried Natasha, who now thought she
too remembered the word pink being used, and saw in this the most
extraordinary and mysterious part of the prediction.
"But what does it mean?" she added meditatively.
"Oh, I don't know, it is all so strange," replied Sonya, clutching at her
head.
A few minutes later Prince Andrew rang and Natasha went to him,
but Sonya, feeling unusually excited and touched, remained at the
window thinking about the strangeness of what had occurred.
They had an opportunity that day to send letters to the army, and the
countess was writing to her son.
"Sonya!" said the countess, raising her eyes from her letter as her
niece passed, "Sonya, won't you write to Nicholas?" She spoke in a
soft, tremulous voice, and in the weary eyes that looked over her
spectacles Sonya read all that the countess meant to convey with these
words. Those eyes expressed entreaty, shame at having to ask, fear of a
refusal, and readiness for relentless hatred in case of such refusal.
Sonya went up to the countess and, kneeling down, kissed her hand.
 "Yes, Mamma, I will write," said she.
Sonya was softened, excited, and touched by all that had occurred
that day, especially by the mysterious fulfillment she had just seen of
her vision. Now that she knew that the renewal of Natasha's relations
with Prince Andrew would prevent Nicholas from marrying Princess
Mary, she was joyfully conscious of a return of that self-sacrificing
spirit in which she was accustomed to live and loved to live. So with a
joyful consciousness of performing a magnanimous deed—interrupted
several times by the tears that dimmed her velvety black eyes—she
wrote that touching letter the arrival of which had so amazed Nicholas.

CHAPTER IX
The officer and soldiers who had arrested Pierre treated him with
hostility but yet with respect, in the guardhouse to which he was taken.
In their attitude toward him could still be felt both uncertainty as to
who he might be—perhaps a very important person—and hostility as a
result of their recent personal conflict with him.
But when the guard was relieved next morning, Pierre felt that for
the new guard—both officers and men—he was not as interesting as he
had been to his captors; and in fact the guard of the second day did not
recognize in this big, stout man in a peasant coat the vigorous person
who had fought so desperately with the marauder and the convoy and
had uttered those solemn words about saving a child; they saw in him
only No. 17 of the captured Russians, arrested and detained for some
reason by order of the Higher Command. If they noticed anything
remarkable about Pierre, it was only his unabashed, meditative
concentration and thoughtfulness, and the way he spoke French, which
struck them as surprisingly good. In spite of this he was placed that day
with the other arrested suspects, as the separate room he had occupied
was required by an officer.
All the Russians confined with Pierre were men of the lowest class
and, recognizing him as a gentleman, they all avoided him, more
especially as he spoke French. Pierre felt sad at hearing them making
fun of him.
That evening he learned that all these prisoners (he, probably, among
them) were to be tried for incendiarism. On the third day he was taken
with the others to a house where a French general with a white
mustache sat with two colonels and other Frenchmen with scarves on
their arms. With the precision and definiteness customary in addressing
prisoners, and which is supposed to preclude human frailty, Pierre like
the others was questioned as to who he was, where he had been, with
what object, and so on.
These questions, like questions put at trials generally, left the essence
of the matter aside, shut out the possibility of that essence's being
revealed, and were designed only to form a channel through which the
judges wished the answers of the accused to flow so as to lead to the
desired result, namely a conviction. As soon as Pierre began to say
anything that did not fit in with that aim, the channel was removed and
the water could flow to waste. Pierre felt, moreover, what the accused
always feel at their trial, perplexity as to why these questions were put
to him. He had a feeling that it was only out of condescension or a kind
of civility that this device of placing a channel was employed. He knew
he was in these men's power, that only by force had they brought him
there, that force alone gave them the right to demand answers to their
questions, and that the sole object of that assembly was to inculpate
him. And so, as they had the power and wish to inculpate him, this
expedient of an inquiry and trial seemed unnecessary. It was evident
that any answer would lead to conviction. When asked what he was
doing when he was arrested, Pierre replied in a rather tragic manner
that he was restoring to its parents a child he had saved from the
flames. Why had he fought the marauder? Pierre answered that he "was
protecting a woman," and that "to protect a woman who was being
insulted was the duty of every man; that..." They interrupted him, for
this was not to the point. Why was he in the yard of a burning house
where witnesses had seen him? He replied that he had gone out to see
what was happening in Moscow. Again they interrupted him: they had
not asked where he was going, but why he was found near the fire?
Who was he? they asked, repeating their first question, which he had
declined to answer. Again he replied that he could not answer it.
"Put that down, that's bad... very bad," sternly remarked the general
with the white mustache and red flushed face.
On the fourth day fires broke out on the Zubovski rampart.
Pierre and thirteen others were moved to the coach house of a
merchant's house near the Crimean bridge. On his way through the
streets Pierre felt stifled by the smoke which seemed to hang over the
whole city. Fires were visible on all sides. He did not then realize the
significance of the burning of Moscow, and looked at the fires with
horror.
He passed four days in the coach house near the Crimean bridge and
during that time learned, from the talk of the French soldiers, that all
those confined there were awaiting a decision which might come any
day from the marshal. What marshal this was, Pierre could not learn
from the soldiers. Evidently for them "the marshal" represented a very
high and rather mysterious power.
These first days, before the eighth of September when the prisoners
were had up for a second examination, were the hardest of all for
Pierre.

CHAPTER X
On the eighth of September an officer—a very important one judging
by the respect the guards showed him—entered the coach house where
the prisoners were. This officer, probably someone on the staff, was
holding a paper in his hand, and called over all the Russians there,
naming Pierre as "the man who does not give his name." Glancing
indolently and indifferently at all the prisoners, he ordered the officer in
charge to have them decently dressed and tidied up before taking them
to the marshal. An hour later a squad of soldiers arrived and Pierre with
thirteen others was led to the Virgin's Field. It was a fine day, sunny
after rain, and the air was unusually pure. The smoke did not hang low
as on the day when Pierre had been taken from the guardhouse on the
Zubovski rampart, but rose through the pure air in columns. No flames
were seen, but columns of smoke rose on all sides, and all Moscow as
far as Pierre could see was one vast charred ruin. On all sides there
were waste spaces with only stoves and chimney stacks still standing,
and here and there the blackened walls of some brick houses. Pierre
gazed at the ruins and did not recognize districts he had known well.
Here and there he could see churches that had not been burned. The
Kremlin, which was not destroyed, gleamed white in the distance with
its towers and the belfry of Ivan the Great. The domes of the New
Convent of the Virgin glittered brightly and its bells were ringing
particularly clearly. These bells reminded Pierre that it was Sunday and
the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin. But there seemed to be no one to
celebrate this holiday: everywhere were blackened ruins, and the few
Russians to be seen were tattered and frightened people who tried to
hide when they saw the French.
It was plain that the Russian nest was ruined and destroyed, but in
place of the Russian order of life that had been destroyed, Pierre
unconsciously felt that a quite different, firm, French order had been
established over this ruined nest. He felt this in the looks of the soldiers
who, marching in regular ranks briskly and gaily, were escorting him
and the other criminals; he felt it in the looks of an important French
official in a carriage and pair driven by a soldier, whom they met on the
way. He felt it in the merry sounds of regimental music he heard from
the left side of the field, and felt and realized it especially from the list
of prisoners the French officer had read out when he came that
morning. Pierre had been taken by one set of soldiers and led first to
one and then to another place with dozens of other men, and it seemed
that they might have forgotten him, or confused him with the others.
But no: the answers he had given when questioned had come back to
him in his designation as "the man who does not give his name," and
under that appellation, which to Pierre seemed terrible, they were now
leading him somewhere with unhesitating assurance on their faces that
he and all the other prisoners were exactly the ones they wanted and
that they were being taken to the proper place. Pierre felt himself to be
an insignificant chip fallen among the wheels of a machine whose
action he did not understand but which was working well.
He and the other prisoners were taken to the right side of the Virgin's
Field, to a large white house with an immense garden not far from the
convent. This was Prince Shcherbitov's house, where Pierre had often
been in other days, and which, as he learned from the talk of the
soldiers, was now occupied by the marshal, the Duke of Eckmuhl
(Davout).
They were taken to the entrance and led into the house one by one.
Pierre was the sixth to enter. He was conducted through a glass gallery,
an anteroom, and a hall, which were familiar to him, into a long low
study at the door of which stood an adjutant.
Davout, spectacles on nose, sat bent over a table at the further end of
the room. Pierre went close up to him, but Davout, evidently consulting
a paper that lay before him, did not look up. Without raising his eyes,
he said in a low voice:
"Who are you?"
Pierre was silent because he was incapable of uttering a word. To
him Davout was not merely a French general, but a man notorious for
his cruelty. Looking at his cold face, as he sat like a stern schoolmaster
who was prepared to wait awhile for an answer, Pierre felt that every
instant of delay might cost him his life; but he did not know what to
say. He did not venture to repeat what he had said at his first
examination, yet to disclose his rank and position was dangerous and
embarrassing. So he was silent. But before he had decided what to do,
Davout raised his head, pushed his spectacles back on his forehead,
screwed up his eyes, and looked intently at him.
"I know that man," he said in a cold, measured tone, evidently
calculated to frighten Pierre.
 The chill that had been running down Pierre's back now seized his
head as in a vise.
"You cannot know me, General, I have never seen you..."
"He is a Russian spy," Davout interrupted, addressing another
general who was present, but whom Pierre had not noticed.
Davout turned away. With an unexpected reverberation in his voice
Pierre rapidly began:
"No, monseigneur," he said, suddenly remembering that Davout was
a duke. "No, monseigneur, you cannot have known me. I am a militia
officer and have not quitted Moscow."
"Your name?" asked Davout.
"Bezukhov."
"What proof have I that you are not lying?"
"Monseigneur!" exclaimed Pierre, not in an offended but in a
pleading voice.
Davout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they
looked at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from
conditions of war and law, that look established human relations
between the two men. At that moment an immense number of things
passed dimly through both their minds, and they realized that they were
both children of humanity and were brothers.
At the first glance, when Davout had only raised his head from the
papers where human affairs and lives were indicated by numbers,
Pierre was merely a circumstance, and Davout could have shot him
without burdening his conscience with an evil deed, but now he saw in
him a human being. He reflected for a moment.
"How can you show me that you are telling the truth?" said Davout
coldly.
Pierre remembered Ramballe, and named him and his regiment and
the street where the house was.
"You are not what you say," returned Davout.
In a trembling, faltering voice Pierre began adducing proofs of the
truth of his statements.
But at that moment an adjutant entered and reported something to
Davout.
 Davout brightened up at the news the adjutant brought, and began
buttoning up his uniform. It seemed that he had quite forgotten Pierre.
When the adjutant reminded him of the prisoner, he jerked his head
in Pierre's direction with a frown and ordered him to be led away. But
where they were to take him Pierre did not know: back to the coach
house or to the place of execution his companions had pointed out to
him as they crossed the Virgin's Field.
He turned his head and saw that the adjutant was putting another
question to Davout.
"Yes, of course!" replied Davout, but what this "yes" meant, Pierre
did not know.
Pierre could not afterwards remember how he went, whether it was
far, or in which direction. His faculties were quite numbed, he was
stupefied, and noticing nothing around him went on moving his legs as
the others did till they all stopped and he stopped too. The only thought
in his mind at that time was: who was it that had really sentenced him
to death? Not the men on the commission that had first examined
him—not one of them wished to or, evidently, could have done it. It
was not Davout, who had looked at him in so human a way. In another
moment Davout would have realized that he was doing wrong, but just
then the adjutant had come in and interrupted him. The adjutant, also,
had evidently had no evil intent though he might have refrained from
coming in. Then who was executing him, killing him, depriving him of
life—him, Pierre, with all his memories, aspirations, hopes, and
thoughts? Who was doing this? And Pierre felt that it was no one.
It was a system—a concurrence of circumstances.
A system of some sort was killing him—Pierre—depriving him of
life, of everything, annihilating him.

CHAPTER XI
From Prince Shcherbatov's house the prisoners were led straight
down the Virgin's Field, to the left of the nunnery, as far as a kitchen
garden in which a post had been set up. Beyond that post a fresh pit had
been dug in the ground, and near the post and the pit a large crowd
stood in a semicircle. The crowd consisted of a few Russians and many
of Napoleon's soldiers who were not on duty—Germans, Italians, and
Frenchmen, in a variety of uniforms. To the right and left of the post
stood rows of French troops in blue uniforms with red epaulets and
high boots and shakos.
The prisoners were placed in a certain order, according to the list
(Pierre was sixth), and were led to the post. Several drums suddenly
began to beat on both sides of them, and at that sound Pierre felt as if
part of his soul had been torn away. He lost the power of thinking or
understanding. He could only hear and see. And he had only one
wish—that the frightful thing that had to happen should happen
quickly. Pierre looked round at his fellow prisoners and scrutinized
them.
The two first were convicts with shaven heads. One was tall and thin,
the other dark, shaggy, and sinewy, with a flat nose. The third was a
domestic serf, about forty-five years old, with grizzled hair and a
plump, well-nourished body. The fourth was a peasant, a very
handsome man with a broad, light-brown beard and black eyes. The
fifth was a factory hand, a thin, sallow-faced lad of eighteen in a loose
coat.
Pierre heard the French consulting whether to shoot them separately
or two at a time. "In couples," replied the officer in command in a calm
voice. There was a stir in the ranks of the soldiers and it was evident
that they were all hurrying—not as men hurry to do something they
understand, but as people hurry to finish a necessary but unpleasant and
incomprehensible task.
A French official wearing a scarf came up to the right of the row of
prisoners and read out the sentence in Russian and in French.
Then two pairs of Frenchmen approached the criminals and at the
officer's command took the two convicts who stood first in the row.
The convicts stopped when they reached the post and, while sacks were
being brought, looked dumbly around as a wounded beast looks at an
approaching huntsman. One crossed himself continually, the other
scratched his back and made a movement of the lips resembling a
smile. With hurried hands the soldiers blindfolded them, drawing the
sacks over their heads, and bound them to the post.
Twelve sharpshooters with muskets stepped out of the ranks with a
firm regular tread and halted eight paces from the post. Pierre turned
away to avoid seeing what was going to happen. Suddenly a crackling,
rolling noise was heard which seemed to him louder than the most
terrific thunder, and he looked round. There was some smoke, and the
Frenchmen were doing something near the pit, with pale faces and
trembling hands. Two more prisoners were led up. In the same way and
with similar looks, these two glanced vainly at the onlookers with only
a silent appeal for protection in their eyes, evidently unable to
understand or believe what was going to happen to them. They could
not believe it because they alone knew what their life meant to them,
and so they neither understood nor believed that it could be taken from
them.
Again Pierre did not wish to look and again turned away; but again
the sound as of a frightful explosion struck his ear, and at the same
moment he saw smoke, blood, and the pale, scared faces of the
Frenchmen who were again doing something by the post, their
trembling hands impeding one another. Pierre, breathing heavily,
looked around as if asking what it meant. The same question was
expressed in all the looks that met his.
On the faces of all the Russians and of the French soldiers and
officers without exception, he read the same dismay, horror, and
conflict that were in his own heart. "But who, after all, is doing this?
They are all suffering as I am. Who then is it? Who?" flashed for an
instant through his mind.
"Sharpshooters of the 86th, forward!" shouted someone. The fifth
prisoner, the one next to Pierre, was led away—alone. Pierre did not
understand that he was saved, that he and the rest had been brought
there only to witness the execution. With ever-growing horror, and no
sense of joy or relief, he gazed at what was taking place. The fifth man
was the factory lad in the loose cloak. The moment they laid hands on
him he sprang aside in terror and clutched at Pierre. (Pierre shuddered
and shook himself free.) The lad was unable to walk. They dragged him
along, holding him up under the arms, and he screamed. When they got
him to the post he grew quiet, as if he suddenly understood something.
Whether he understood that screaming was useless or whether he
thought it incredible that men should kill him, at any rate he took his
stand at the post, waiting to be blindfolded like the others, and like a
wounded animal looked around him with glittering eyes.
Pierre was no longer able to turn away and close his eyes. His
curiosity and agitation, like that of the whole crowd, reached the
highest pitch at this fifth murder. Like the others this fifth man seemed
calm; he wrapped his loose cloak closer and rubbed one bare foot with
the other.
When they began to blindfold him he himself adjusted the knot
which hurt the back of his head; then when they propped him against
the bloodstained post, he leaned back and, not being comfortable in that
position, straightened himself, adjusted his feet, and leaned back again
more comfortably. Pierre did not take his eyes from him and did not
miss his slightest movement.
Probably a word of command was given and was followed by the
reports of eight muskets; but try as he would Pierre could not
afterwards remember having heard the slightest sound of the shots. He
only saw how the workman suddenly sank down on the cords that held
him, how blood showed itself in two places, how the ropes slackened
under the weight of the hanging body, and how the workman sat down,
his head hanging unnaturally and one leg bent under him. Pierre ran up
to the post. No one hindered him. Pale, frightened people were doing
something around the workman. The lower jaw of an old Frenchman
with a thick mustache trembled as he untied the ropes. The body
collapsed. The soldiers dragged it awkwardly from the post and began
pushing it into the pit.
They all plainly and certainly knew that they were criminals who
must hide the traces of their guilt as quickly as possible.
Pierre glanced into the pit and saw that the factory lad was lying with
his knees close up to his head and one shoulder higher than the other.
That shoulder rose and fell rhythmically and convulsively, but
spadefuls of earth were already being thrown over the whole body. One
of the soldiers, evidently suffering, shouted gruffly and angrily at Pierre
to go back. But Pierre did not understand him and remained near the
post, and no one drove him away.
When the pit had been filled up a command was given. Pierre was
taken back to his place, and the rows of troops on both sides of the post
made a half turn and went past it at a measured pace. The twenty-four
sharpshooters with discharged muskets, standing in the center of the
circle, ran back to their places as the companies passed by.
Pierre gazed now with dazed eyes at these sharpshooters who ran in
couples out of the circle. All but one rejoined their companies. This
one, a young soldier, his face deadly pale, his shako pushed back, and
his musket resting on the ground, still stood near the pit at the spot
from which he had fired. He swayed like a drunken man, taking some
steps forward and back to save himself from falling. An old,
noncommissioned officer ran out of the ranks and taking him by the
elbow dragged him to his company. The crowd of Russians and
Frenchmen began to disperse. They all went away silently and with
drooping heads.
"That will teach them to start fires," said one of the Frenchmen.
Pierre glanced round at the speaker and saw that it was a soldier who
was trying to find some relief after what had been done, but was not
able to do so. Without finishing what he had begun to say he made a
hopeless movement with his arm and went away.
 CHAPTER XII
After the execution Pierre was separated from the rest of the
prisoners and placed alone in a small, ruined, and befouled church.
Toward evening a noncommissioned officer entered with two
soldiers and told him that he had been pardoned and would now go to
the barracks for the prisoners of war. Without understanding what was
said to him, Pierre got up and went with the soldiers. They took him to
the upper end of the field, where there were some sheds built of charred
planks, beams, and battens, and led him into one of them. In the
darkness some twenty different men surrounded Pierre. He looked at
them without understanding who they were, why they were there, or
what they wanted of him. He heard what they said, but did not
understand the meaning of the words and made no kind of deduction
from or application of them. He replied to questions they put to him,
but did not consider who was listening to his replies, nor how they
would understand them. He looked at their faces and figures, but they
all seemed to him equally meaningless.
From the moment Pierre had witnessed those terrible murders
committed by men who did not wish to commit them, it was as if the
mainspring of his life, on which everything depended and which made
everything appear alive, had suddenly been wrenched out and
everything had collapsed into a heap of meaningless rubbish. Though
he did not acknowledge it to himself, his faith in the right ordering of
the universe, in humanity, in his own soul, and in God, had been
destroyed. He had experienced this before, but never so strongly as
now. When similar doubts had assailed him before, they had been the
result of his own wrongdoing, and at the bottom of his heart he had felt
that relief from his despair and from those doubts was to be found
within himself. But now he felt that the universe had crumbled before
his eyes and only meaningless ruins remained, and this not by any fault
of his own. He felt that it was not in his power to regain faith in the
meaning of life.
Around him in the darkness men were standing and evidently
something about him interested them greatly. They were telling him
something and asking him something. Then they led him away
somewhere, and at last he found himself in a corner of the shed among
men who were laughing and talking on all sides.
"Well, then, mates... that very prince who..." some voice at the other
end of the shed was saying, with a strong emphasis on the word who.
Sitting silent and motionless on a heap of straw against the wall,
Pierre sometimes opened and sometimes closed his eyes. But as soon as
he closed them he saw before him the dreadful face of the factory lad—
especially dreadful because of its simplicity—and the faces of the
murderers, even more dreadful because of their disquiet. And he
opened his eyes again and stared vacantly into the darkness around
him.
Beside him in a stooping position sat a small man of whose presence
he was first made aware by a strong smell of perspiration which came
from him every time he moved. This man was doing something to his
legs in the darkness, and though Pierre could not see his face he felt
that the man continually glanced at him. On growing used to the
darkness Pierre saw that the man was taking off his leg bands, and the
way he did it aroused Pierre's interest.
Having unwound the string that tied the band on one leg, he carefully
coiled it up and immediately set to work on the other leg, glancing up at
Pierre. While one hand hung up the first string the other was already
unwinding the band on the second leg. In this way, having carefully
removed the leg bands by deft circular motions of his arm following
one another uninterruptedly, the man hung the leg bands up on some
pegs fixed above his head. Then he took out a knife, cut something,
closed the knife, placed it under the head of his bed, and, seating
himself comfortably, clasped his arms round his lifted knees and fixed
his eyes on Pierre. The latter was conscious of something pleasant,
comforting, and well rounded in these deft movements, in the man's
well-ordered arrangements in his corner, and even in his very smell,
and he looked at the man without taking his eyes from him.
"You've seen a lot of trouble, sir, eh?" the little man suddenly said.
And there was so much kindliness and simplicity in his singsong
voice that Pierre tried to reply, but his jaw trembled and he felt tears
rising to his eyes. The little fellow, giving Pierre no time to betray his
confusion, instantly continued in the same pleasant tones:
"Eh, lad, don't fret!" said he, in the tender singsong caressing voice
old Russian peasant women employ. "Don't fret, friend—'suffer an
hour, live for an age!' that's how it is, my dear fellow. And here we live,
thank heaven, without offense. Among these folk, too, there are good
men as well as bad," said he, and still speaking, he turned on his knees
with a supple movement, got up, coughed, and went off to another part
of the shed.
"Eh, you rascal!" Pierre heard the same kind voice saying at the other
end of the shed. "So you've come, you rascal? She remembers... Now,
now, that'll do!"
And the soldier, pushing away a little dog that was jumping up at
him, returned to his place and sat down. In his hands he had something
wrapped in a rag.
 "Here, eat a bit, sir," said he, resuming his former respectful tone as
he unwrapped and offered Pierre some baked potatoes. "We had soup
for dinner and the potatoes are grand!"
Pierre had not eaten all day and the smell of the potatoes seemed
extremely pleasant to him. He thanked the soldier and began to eat.
"Well, are they all right?" said the soldier with a smile. "You should
do like this."
He took a potato, drew out his clasp knife, cut the potato into two
equal halves on the palm of his hand, sprinkled some salt on it from the
rag, and handed it to Pierre.
"The potatoes are grand!" he said once more. "Eat some like that!"
Pierre thought he had never eaten anything that tasted better.
"Oh, I'm all right," said he, "but why did they shoot those poor
fellows? The last one was hardly twenty."
"Tss, tt...!" said the little man. "Ah, what a sin... what a sin!" he
added quickly, and as if his words were always waiting ready in his
mouth and flew out involuntarily he went on: "How was it, sir, that you
stayed in Moscow?"
"I didn't think they would come so soon. I stayed accidentally,"
replied Pierre.
"And how did they arrest you, dear lad? At your house?"
"No, I went to look at the fire, and they arrested me there, and tried
me as an incendiary."
"Where there's law there's injustice," put in the little man.
"And have you been here long?" Pierre asked as he munched the last
of the potato.
"I? It was last Sunday they took me, out of a hospital in Moscow."
"Why, are you a soldier then?"
"Yes, we are soldiers of the Apsheron regiment. I was dying of fever.
We weren't told anything. There were some twenty of us lying there.
We had no idea, never guessed at all."
"And do you feel sad here?" Pierre inquired.
"How can one help it, lad? My name is Platon, and the surname is
Karataev," he added, evidently wishing to make it easier for Pierre to
address him. "They call me 'little falcon' in the regiment. How is one to
help feeling sad? Moscow—she's the mother of cities. How can one see
all this and not feel sad? But 'the maggot gnaws the cabbage, yet dies
first'; that's what the old folks used to tell us," he added rapidly.
"What? What did you say?" asked Pierre.
"Who? I?" said Karataev. "I say things happen not as we plan but as
God judges," he replied, thinking that he was repeating what he had
said before, and immediately continued:
"Well, and you, have you a family estate, sir? And a house? So you
have abundance, then? And a housewife? And your old parents, are
they still living?" he asked.
And though it was too dark for Pierre to see, he felt that a suppressed
smile of kindliness puckered the soldier's lips as he put these questions.
He seemed grieved that Pierre had no parents, especially that he had no
mother.
"A wife for counsel, a mother-in-law for welcome, but there's none
as dear as one's own mother!" said he. "Well, and have you little ones?"
he went on asking.
Again Pierre's negative answer seemed to distress him, and he
hastened to add:
"Never mind! You're young folks yet, and please God may still have
some. The great thing is to live in harmony...."
"But it's all the same now," Pierre could not help saying.
"Ah, my dear fellow!" rejoined Karataev, "never decline a prison or a
beggar's sack!"
He seated himself more comfortably and coughed, evidently
preparing to tell a long story.
"Well, my dear fellow, I was still living at home," he began. "We had
a well-to-do homestead, plenty of land, we peasants lived well and our
house was one to thank God for. When Father and we went out mowing
there were seven of us. We lived well. We were real peasants. It so
happened..."
And Platon Karataev told a long story of how he had gone into
someone's copse to take wood, how he had been caught by the keeper,
had been tried, flogged, and sent to serve as a soldier.
"Well, lad," and a smile changed the tone of his voice "we thought it
was a misfortune but it turned out a blessing! If it had not been for my
sin, my brother would have had to go as a soldier. But he, my younger
brother, had five little ones, while I, you see, only left a wife behind.
We had a little girl, but God took her before I went as a soldier. I come
home on leave and I'll tell you how it was, I look and see that they are
living better than before. The yard full of cattle, the women at home,
two brothers away earning wages, and only Michael the youngest, at
home. Father, he says, 'All my children are the same to me: it hurts the
same whichever finger gets bitten. But if Platon hadn't been shaved for
a soldier, Michael would have had to go.' called us all to him and, will
you believe it, placed us in front of the icons. 'Michael,' he says, 'come
here and bow down to his feet; and you, young woman, you bow down
too; and you, grandchildren, also bow down before him! Do you
understand?' he says. That's how it is, dear fellow. Fate looks for a
head. But we are always judging, 'that's not well—that's not right!' Our
luck is like water in a dragnet: you pull at it and it bulges, but when
you've drawn it out it's empty! That's how it is."
And Platon shifted his seat on the straw.
After a short silence he rose.
"Well, I think you must be sleepy," said he, and began rapidly
crossing himself and repeating:
"Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus
Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ, have
mercy on us and save us!" he concluded, then bowed to the ground, got
up, sighed, and sat down again on his heap of straw. "That's the way.
Lay me down like a stone, O God, and raise me up like a loaf," he
muttered as he lay down, pulling his coat over him.
"What prayer was that you were saying?" asked Pierre.
"Eh?" murmured Platon, who had almost fallen asleep. "What was I
saying? I was praying. Don't you pray?"
"Yes, I do," said Pierre. "But what was that you said: Frola and
Lavra?"
"Well, of course," replied Platon quickly, "the horses' saints. One
must pity the animals too. Eh, the rascal! Now you've curled up and got
warm, you daughter of a bitch!" said Karataev, touching the dog that
lay at his feet, and again turning over he fell asleep immediately.
Sounds of crying and screaming came from somewhere in the
distance outside, and flames were visible through the cracks of the
shed, but inside it was quiet and dark. For a long time Pierre did not
sleep, but lay with eyes open in the darkness, listening to the regular
snoring of Platon who lay beside him, and he felt that the world that
had been shattered was once more stirring in his soul with a new beauty
and on new and unshakable foundations.
 CHAPTER XIII
Twenty-three soldiers, three officers, and two officials were confined
in the shed in which Pierre had been placed and where he remained for
four weeks.
When Pierre remembered them afterwards they all seemed misty
figures to him except Platon Karataev, who always remained in his
mind a most vivid and precious memory and the personification of
everything Russian, kindly, and round. When Pierre saw his neighbor
next morning at dawn the first impression of him, as of something
round, was fully confirmed: Platon's whole figure—in a French
overcoat girdled with a cord, a soldier's cap, and bast shoes—was
round. His head was quite round, his back, chest, shoulders, and even
his arms, which he held as if ever ready to embrace something, were
rounded, his pleasant smile and his large, gentle brown eyes were also
round.
Platon Karataev must have been fifty, judging by his stories of
campaigns he had been in, told as by an old soldier. He did not himself
know his age and was quite unable to determine it. But his brilliantly
white, strong teeth which showed in two unbroken semicircles when he
laughed—as he often did—were all sound and good, there was not a
gray hair in his beard or on his head, and his whole body gave an
impression of suppleness and especially of firmness and endurance.
His face, despite its fine, rounded wrinkles, had an expression of
innocence and youth, his voice was pleasant and musical. But the chief
peculiarity of his speech was its directness and appositeness. It was
evident that he never considered what he had said or was going to say,
and consequently the rapidity and justice of his intonation had an
irresistible persuasiveness.
His physical strength and agility during the first days of his
imprisonment were such that he seemed not to know what fatigue and
sickness meant. Every night before lying down, he said: "Lord, lay me
down as a stone and raise me up as a loaf!" and every morning on
getting up, he said: "I lay down and curled up, I get up and shake
myself." And indeed he only had to lie down, to fall asleep like a stone,
and he only had to shake himself, to be ready without a moment's delay
for some work, just as children are ready to play directly they awake.
He could do everything, not very well but not badly. He baked, cooked,
sewed, planed, and mended boots. He was always busy, and only at
night allowed himself conversation—of which he was fond—and
songs. He did not sing like a trained singer who knows he is listened to,
but like the birds, evidently giving vent to the sounds in the same way
that one stretches oneself or walks about to get rid of stiffness, and the
sounds were always high-pitched, mournful, delicate, and almost
feminine, and his face at such times was very serious.
Having been taken prisoner and allowed his beard to grow, he
seemed to have thrown off all that had been forced upon him—
everything military and alien to himself—and had returned to his
former peasant habits.
"A soldier on leave—a shirt outside breeches," he would say.
He did not like talking about his life as a soldier, though he did not
complain, and often mentioned that he had not been flogged once
during the whole of his army service. When he related anything it was
generally some old and evidently precious memory of his "Christian"
life, as he called his peasant existence. The proverbs, of which his talk
was full, were for the most part not the coarse and indecent saws
soldiers employ, but those folk sayings which taken without a context
seem so insignificant, but when used appositely suddenly acquire a
significance of profound wisdom.
He would often say the exact opposite of what he had said on a
previous occasion, yet both would be right. He liked to talk and he
talked well, adorning his speech with terms of endearment and with
folk sayings which Pierre thought he invented himself, but the chief
charm of his talk lay in the fact that the commonest events—sometimes
just such as Pierre had witnessed without taking notice of them—
assumed in Karataev's a character of solemn fitness. He liked to hear
the folk tales one of the soldiers used to tell of an evening (they were
always the same), but most of all he liked to hear stories of real life. He
would smile joyfully when listening to such stories, now and then
putting in a word or asking a question to make the moral beauty of
what he was told clear to himself. Karataev had no attachments,
friendships, or love, as Pierre understood them, but loved and lived
affectionately with everything life brought him in contact with,
particularly with man—not any particular man, but those with whom he
happened to be. He loved his dog, his comrades, the French, and Pierre
who was his neighbor, but Pierre felt that in spite of Karataev's
affectionate tenderness for him (by which he unconsciously gave
Pierre's spiritual life its due) he would not have grieved for a moment at
parting from him. And Pierre began to feel in the same way toward
Karataev.
To all the other prisoners Platon Karataev seemed a most ordinary
soldier. They called him "little falcon" or "Platosha," chaffed him good-
naturedly, and sent him on errands. But to Pierre he always remained
what he had seemed that first night: an unfathomable, rounded, eternal
personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth.
Platon Karataev knew nothing by heart except his prayers. When he
began to speak he seemed not to know how he would conclude.
Sometimes Pierre, struck by the meaning of his words, would ask
him to repeat them, but Platon could never recall what he had said a
moment before, just as he never could repeat to Pierre the words of his
favorite song: native and birch tree and my heart is sick occurred in it,
but when spoken and not sung, no meaning could be got out of it. He
did not, and could not, understand the meaning of words apart from
their context. Every word and action of his was the manifestation of an
activity unknown to him, which was his life. But his life, as he regarded
it, had no meaning as a separate thing. It had meaning only as part of a
whole of which he was always conscious. His words and actions
flowed from him as evenly, inevitably, and spontaneously as fragrance
exhales from a flower. He could not understand the value or
significance of any word or deed taken separately.

CHAPTER XIV
When Princess Mary heard from Nicholas that her brother was with
the Rostovs at Yaroslavl she at once prepared to go there, in spite of her
aunt's efforts to dissuade her—and not merely to go herself but to take
her nephew with her. Whether it were difficult or easy, possible or
impossible, she did not ask and did not want to know: it was her duty
not only herself to be near her brother who was perhaps dying, but to
do everything possible to take his son to him, and so she prepared to set
off. That she had not heard from Prince Andrew himself, Princess Mary
attributed to his being too weak to write or to his considering the long
journey too hard and too dangerous for her and his son.
In a few days Princess Mary was ready to start. Her equipages were
the huge family coach in which she had traveled to Voronezh, a
semiopen trap, and a baggage cart. With her traveled Mademoiselle
Bourienne, little Nicholas and his tutor, her old nurse, three maids,
Tikhon, and a young footman and courier her aunt had sent to
accompany her.
The usual route through Moscow could not be thought of, and the
roundabout way Princess Mary was obliged to take through Lipetsk,
Ryazan, Vladimir, and Shuya was very long and, as post horses were
not everywhere obtainable, very difficult, and near Ryazan where the
French were said to have shown themselves was even dangerous.
During this difficult journey Mademoiselle Bourienne, Dessalles,
and Princess Mary's servants were astonished at her energy and
firmness of spirit. She went to bed later and rose earlier than any of
them, and no difficulties daunted her. Thanks to her activity and
energy, which infected her fellow travelers, they approached Yaroslavl
by the end of the second week.
The last days of her stay in Voronezh had been the happiest of her
life. Her love for Rostov no longer tormented or agitated her. It filled
her whole soul, had become an integral part of herself, and she no
longer struggled against it. Latterly she had become convinced that she
loved and was beloved, though she never said this definitely to herself
in words. She had become convinced of it at her last interview with
Nicholas, when he had come to tell her that her brother was with the
Rostovs. Not by a single word had Nicholas alluded to the fact that
Prince Andrew's relations with Natasha might, if he recovered, be
renewed, but Princess Mary saw by his face that he knew and thought
of this.
Yet in spite of that, his relation to her—considerate, delicate, and
loving—not only remained unchanged, but it sometimes seemed to
Princess Mary that he was even glad that the family connection
between them allowed him to express his friendship more freely. She
knew that she loved for the first and only time in her life and felt that
she was beloved, and was happy in regard to it.
But this happiness on one side of her spiritual nature did not prevent
her feeling grief for her brother with full force; on the contrary, that
spiritual tranquility on the one side made it the more possible for her to
give full play to her feeling for her brother. That feeling was so strong
at the moment of leaving Voronezh that those who saw her off, as they
looked at her careworn, despairing face, felt sure she would fall ill on
the journey. But the very difficulties and preoccupations of the journey,
which she took so actively in hand, saved her for a while from her grief
and gave her strength.
As always happens when traveling, Princess Mary thought only of
the journey itself, forgetting its object. But as she approached Yaroslavl
the thought of what might await her there—not after many days, but
that very evening—again presented itself to her and her agitation
increased to its utmost limit.
The courier who had been sent on in advance to find out where the
Rostovs were staying in Yaroslavl, and in what condition Prince
Andrew was, when he met the big coach just entering the town gates
was appalled by the terrible pallor of the princess' face that looked out
at him from the window.
"I have found out everything, your excellency: the Rostovs are
staying at the merchant Bronnikov's house, in the Square not far from
here, right above the Volga," said the courier.
Princess Mary looked at him with frightened inquiry, not
understanding why he did not reply to what she chiefly wanted to
know: how was her brother? Mademoiselle Bourienne put that question
for her.
"How is the prince?" she asked.
"His excellency is staying in the same house with them."
"Then he is alive," thought Princess Mary, and asked in a low voice:
"How is he?"
"The servants say he is still the same."
What "still the same" might mean Princess Mary did not ask, but
with an unnoticed glance at little seven-year-old Nicholas, who was
sitting in front of her looking with pleasure at the town, she bowed her
head and did not raise it again till the heavy coach, rumbling, shaking
and swaying, came to a stop. The carriage steps clattered as they were
let down.
The carriage door was opened. On the left there was water—a great
river—and on the right a porch. There were people at the entrance:
servants, and a rosy girl with a large plait of black hair, smiling as it
seemed to Princess Mary in an unpleasantly affected way. (This was
Sonya.) Princess Mary ran up the steps. "This way, this way!" said the
girl, with the same artificial smile, and the princess found herself in the
hall facing an elderly woman of Oriental type, who came rapidly to
meet her with a look of emotion. This was the countess. She embraced
Princess Mary and kissed her.
"Mon enfant!" she muttered, "je vous aime et vous connais depuis
longtemps." *

* "My child! I love you and have known you a

long time."

Despite her excitement, Princess Mary realized that

this was the
countess and that it was necessary to say something
to her. Hardly
knowing how she did it, she contrived to utter a few
polite phrases in
 French in the same tone as those that had been
addressed to her, and
asked: "How is he?"

"The doctor says that he is not in danger," said the countess, but as
she spoke she raised her eyes with a sigh, and her gesture conveyed a
contradiction of her words.
"Where is he? Can I see him—can I?" asked the princess.
"One moment, Princess, one moment, my dear! Is this his son?" said
the countess, turning to little Nicholas who was coming in with
Dessalles. "There will be room for everybody, this is a big house. Oh,
what a lovely boy!"
The countess took Princess Mary into the drawing room, where
Sonya was talking to Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess caressed
the boy, and the old count came in and welcomed the princess. He had
changed very much since Princess Mary had last seen him. Then he had
been a brisk, cheerful, self-assured old man; now he seemed a pitiful,
bewildered person. While talking to Princess Mary he continually
looked round as if asking everyone whether he was doing the right
thing. After the destruction of Moscow and of his property, thrown out
of his accustomed groove he seemed to have lost the sense of his own
significance and to feel that there was no longer a place for him in life.
In spite of her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible, and
her vexation that at the moment when all she wanted was to see him
they should be trying to entertain her and pretending to admire her
nephew, the princess noticed all that was going on around her and felt
the necessity of submitting, for a time, to this new order of things
which she had entered. She knew it to be necessary, and though it was
hard for her she was not vexed with these people.
"This is my niece," said the count, introducing Sonya—"You don't
know her, Princess?"
Princess Mary turned to Sonya and, trying to stifle the hostile feeling
that arose in her toward the girl, she kissed her. But she felt oppressed
by the fact that the mood of everyone around her was so far from what
was in her own heart.
"Where is he?" she asked again, addressing them all.
"He is downstairs. Natasha is with him," answered Sonya, flushing.
"We have sent to ask. I think you must be tired, Princess."
Tears of vexation showed themselves in Princess Mary's eyes. She
turned away and was about to ask the countess again how to go to him,
when light, impetuous, and seemingly buoyant steps were heard at the
door. The princess looked round and saw Natasha coming in, almost
running—that Natasha whom she had liked so little at their meeting in
Moscow long since.
But hardly had the princess looked at Natasha's face before she
realized that here was a real comrade in her grief, and consequently a
friend. She ran to meet her, embraced her, and began to cry on her
shoulder.
As soon as Natasha, sitting at the head of Prince Andrew's bed, heard
of Princess Mary's arrival, she softly left his room and hastened to her
with those swift steps that had sounded buoyant to Princess Mary.
There was only one expression on her agitated face when she ran
into the drawing room—that of love—boundless love for him, for her,
and for all that was near to the man she loved; and of pity, suffering for
others, and passionate desire to give herself entirely to helping them. It
was plain that at that moment there was in Natasha's heart no thought
of herself or of her own relations with Prince Andrew.
Princess Mary, with her acute sensibility, understood all this at the
first glance at Natasha's face, and wept on her shoulder with sorrowful
pleasure.
"Come, come to him, Mary," said Natasha, leading her into the other
room.
Princess Mary raised her head, dried her eyes, and turned to Natasha.
She felt that from her she would be able to understand and learn
everything.
"How..." she began her question but stopped short.
She felt that it was impossible to ask, or to answer, in words.
Natasha's face and eyes would have to tell her all more clearly and
profoundly.
Natasha was gazing at her, but seemed afraid and in doubt whether to
say all she knew or not; she seemed to feel that before those luminous
eyes which penetrated into the very depths of her heart, it was
impossible not to tell the whole truth which she saw. And suddenly,
Natasha's lips twitched, ugly wrinkles gathered round her mouth, and
covering her face with her hands she burst into sobs.
Princess Mary understood.
But she still hoped, and asked, in words she herself did not trust:
"But how is his wound? What is his general condition?"
"You, you... will see," was all Natasha could say.
 They sat a little while downstairs near his room till they had left off
crying and were able to go to him with calm faces.
"How has his whole illness gone? Is it long since he grew worse?
When did this happen?" Princess Mary inquired.
Natasha told her that at first there had been danger from his feverish
condition and the pain he suffered, but at Troitsa that had passed and
the doctor had only been afraid of gangrene. That danger had also
passed. When they reached Yaroslavl the wound had begun to fester
(Natasha knew all about such things as festering) and the doctor had
said that the festering might take a normal course. Then fever set in, but
the doctor had said the fever was not very serious.
"But two days ago this suddenly happened," said Natasha, struggling
with her sobs. "I don't know why, but you will see what he is like."
"Is he weaker? Thinner?" asked the princess.
"No, it's not that, but worse. You will see. O, Mary, he is too good,
he cannot, cannot live, because..."

CHAPTER XV
When Natasha opened Prince Andrew's door with a familiar
movement and let Princess Mary pass into the room before her, the
princess felt the sobs in her throat. Hard as she had tried to prepare
herself, and now tried to remain tranquil, she knew that she would be
unable to look at him without tears.
The princess understood what Natasha had meant by the words: "two
days ago this suddenly happened." She understood those words to mean
that he had suddenly softened and that this softening and gentleness
were signs of approaching death. As she stepped to the door she already
saw in imagination Andrew's face as she remembered it in childhood, a
gentle, mild, sympathetic face which he had rarely shown, and which
therefore affected her very strongly. She was sure he would speak soft,
tender words to her such as her father had uttered before his death, and
that she would not be able to bear it and would burst into sobs in his
presence. Yet sooner or later it had to be, and she went in. The sobs
rose higher and higher in her throat as she more and more clearly
distinguished his form and her shortsighted eyes tried to make out his
features, and then she saw his face and met his gaze.
 He was lying in a squirrel-fur dressing gown on a divan, surrounded
by pillows. He was thin and pale. In one thin, translucently white hand
he held a handkerchief, while with the other he stroked the delicate
mustache he had grown, moving his fingers slowly. His eyes gazed at
them as they entered.
On seeing his face and meeting his eyes Princess Mary's pace
suddenly slackened, she felt her tears dry up and her sobs ceased. She
suddenly felt guilty and grew timid on catching the expression of his
face and eyes.
"But in what am I to blame?" she asked herself. And his cold, stern
look replied: "Because you are alive and thinking of the living, while
I..."
In the deep gaze that seemed to look not outwards but inwards there
was an almost hostile expression as he slowly regarded his sister and
Natasha.
He kissed his sister, holding her hand in his as was their wont.
"How are you, Mary? How did you manage to get here?" said he in a
voice as calm and aloof as his look.
Had he screamed in agony, that scream would not have struck such
horror into Princess Mary's heart as the tone of his voice.
"And have you brought little Nicholas?" he asked in the same slow,
quiet manner and with an obvious effort to remember.
"How are you now?" said Princess Mary, herself surprised at what
she was saying.
"That, my dear, you must ask the doctor," he replied, and again
making an evident effort to be affectionate, he said with his lips only
(his words clearly did not correspond to his thoughts):
"Merci, chere amie, d'etre venue." *

* "Thank you for coming, my dear."

Princess Mary pressed his hand. The pressure made him wince just
perceptibly. He was silent, and she did not know what to say. She now
understood what had happened to him two days before. In his words,
his tone, and especially in that calm, almost antagonistic look could be
felt an estrangement from everything belonging to this world, terrible in
one who is alive. Evidently only with an effort did he understand
anything living; but it was obvious that he failed to understand, not
because he lacked the power to do so but because he understood
something else—something the living did not and could not
understand—and which wholly occupied his mind.
"There, you see how strangely fate has brought us together," said he,
breaking the silence and pointing to Natasha. "She looks after me all
the time."
Princess Mary heard him and did not understand how he could say
such a thing. He, the sensitive, tender Prince Andrew, how could he say
that, before her whom he loved and who loved him? Had he expected
to live he could not have said those words in that offensively cold tone.
If he had not known that he was dying, how could he have failed to pity
her and how could he speak like that in her presence? The only
explanation was that he was indifferent, because something else, much
more important, had been revealed to him.
The conversation was cold and disconnected and continually broke
off.
"Mary came by way of Ryazan," said Natasha.
Prince Andrew did not notice that she called his sister Mary, and
only after calling her so in his presence did Natasha notice it herself.
"Really?" he asked.
"They told her that all Moscow has been burned down, and that..."
Natasha stopped. It was impossible to talk. It was plain that he was
making an effort to listen, but could not do so.
"Yes, they say it's burned," he said. "It's a great pity," and he gazed
straight before him, absently stroking his mustache with his fingers.
"And so you have met Count Nicholas, Mary?" Prince Andrew
suddenly said, evidently wishing to speak pleasantly to them. "He
wrote here that he took a great liking to you," he went on simply and
calmly, evidently unable to understand all the complex significance his
words had for living people. "If you liked him too, it would be a good
thing for you to get married," he added rather more quickly, as if
pleased at having found words he had long been seeking.
Princess Mary heard his words but they had no meaning for her,
except as a proof of how far away he now was from everything living.
"Why talk of me?" she said quietly and glanced at Natasha.
Natasha, who felt her glance, did not look at her. All three were
again silent.
 "Andrew, would you like..." Princess Mary suddenly said in a
trembling voice, "would you like to see little Nicholas? He is always
talking about you!"
Prince Andrew smiled just perceptibly and for the first time, but
Princess Mary, who knew his face so well, saw with horror that he did
not smile with pleasure or affection for his son, but with quiet, gentle
irony because he thought she was trying what she believed to be the last
means of arousing him.
"Yes, I shall be very glad to see him. Is he quite well?"
When little Nicholas was brought into Prince Andrew's room he
looked at his father with frightened eyes, but did not cry, because no
one else was crying. Prince Andrew kissed him and evidently did not
know what to say to him.
When Nicholas had been led away, Princess Mary again went up to
her brother, kissed him, and unable to restrain her tears any longer
began to cry.
He looked at her attentively.
"Is it about Nicholas?" he asked.
Princess Mary nodded her head, weeping.
"Mary, you know the Gosp..." but he broke off.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing. You mustn't cry here," he said, looking at her with the
same cold expression.
When Princess Mary began to cry, he understood that she was crying
at the thought that little Nicholas would be left without a father. With a
great effort he tried to return to life and to see things from their point of
view.
"Yes, to them it must seem sad!" he thought. "But how simple it is.
"The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father
feedeth them," he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Mary;
"but no, they will take it their own way, they won't understand! They
can't understand that all those feelings they prize so—all our feelings,
all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary. We
cannot understand one another," and he remained silent.
Prince Andrew's little son was seven. He could scarcely read, and
knew nothing. After that day he lived through many things, gaining
knowledge, observation, and experience, but had he possessed all the
faculties he afterwards acquired, he could not have had a better or more
profound understanding of the meaning of the scene he had witnessed
between his father, Mary, and Natasha, than he had then. He
understood it completely, and, leaving the room without crying, went
silently up to Natasha who had come out with him and looked shyly at
her with his beautiful, thoughtful eyes, then his uplifted, rosy upper lip
trembled and leaning his head against her he began to cry.
After that he avoided Dessalles and the countess who caressed him
and either sat alone or came timidly to Princess Mary, or to Natasha of
whom he seemed even fonder than of his aunt, and clung to them
quietly and shyly.
When Princess Mary had left Prince Andrew she fully understood
what Natasha's face had told her. She did not speak any more to
Natasha of hopes of saving his life. She took turns with her beside his
sofa, and did not cry any more, but prayed continually, turning in soul
to that Eternal and Unfathomable, whose presence above the dying man
was now so evident.

CHAPTER XVI
Not only did Prince Andrew know he would die, but he felt that he
was dying and was already half dead. He was conscious of an aloofness
from everything earthly and a strange and joyous lightness of existence.
Without haste or agitation he awaited what was coming. That
inexorable, eternal, distant, and unknown the presence of which he had
felt continually all his life—was now near to him and, by the strange
lightness he experienced, almost comprehensible and palpable...

Formerly he had feared the end. He had twice

experienced that terribly
tormenting fear of death—the end—but now he no
longer understood that
fear.

He had felt it for the first time when the shell

spun like a top
before him, and he looked at the fallow field, the
bushes, and the sky,
and knew that he was face to face with death. When
he came to himself
after being wounded and the flower of eternal,
unfettered love had
 instantly unfolded itself in his soul as if freed
from the bondage of
life that had restrained it, he no longer feared
death and ceased to
think about it.

During the hours of solitude, suffering, and partial delirium he spent

after he was wounded, the more deeply he penetrated into the new
principle of eternal love revealed to him, the more he unconsciously
detached himself from earthly life. To love everything and everybody
and always to sacrifice oneself for love meant not to love anyone, not
to live this earthly life. And the more imbued he became with that
principle of love, the more he renounced life and the more completely
he destroyed that dreadful barrier which—in the absence of such
love—stands between life and death. When during those first days he
remembered that he would have to die, he said to himself: "Well, what
of it? So much the better!"
But after the night in Mytishchi when, half delirious, he had seen her
for whom he longed appear before him and, having pressed her hand to
his lips, had shed gentle, happy tears, love for a particular woman again
crept unobserved into his heart and once more bound him to life. And
joyful and agitating thoughts began to occupy his mind. Recalling the
moment at the ambulance station when he had seen Kuragin, he could
not now regain the feeling he then had, but was tormented by the
question whether Kuragin was alive. And he dared not inquire.
His illness pursued its normal physical course, but what Natasha
referred to when she said: "This suddenly happened," had occurred two
days before Princess Mary arrived. It was the last spiritual struggle
between life and death, in which death gained the victory. It was the
unexpected realization of the fact that he still valued life as presented to
him in the form of his love for Natasha, and a last, though ultimately
vanquished, attack of terror before the unknown.
It was evening. As usual after dinner he was slightly feverish, and his
thoughts were preternaturally clear. Sonya was sitting by the table. He
began to doze. Suddenly a feeling of happiness seized him.
"Ah, she has come!" thought he.
And so it was: in Sonya's place sat Natasha who had just come in
noiselessly.
Since she had begun looking after him, he had always experienced
this physical consciousness of her nearness. She was sitting in an
armchair placed sideways, screening the light of the candle from him,
and was knitting a stocking. She had learned to knit stockings since
Prince Andrew had casually mentioned that no one nursed the sick so
well as old nurses who knit stockings, and that there is something
soothing in the knitting of stockings. The needles clicked lightly in her
slender, rapidly moving hands, and he could clearly see the thoughtful
profile of her drooping face. She moved, and the ball rolled off her
knees. She started, glanced round at him, and screening the candle with
her hand stooped carefully with a supple and exact movement, picked
up the ball, and regained her former position.
He looked at her without moving and saw that she wanted to draw a
deep breath after stooping, but refrained from doing so and breathed
cautiously.
At the Troitsa monastery they had spoken of the past, and he had told
her that if he lived he would always thank God for his wound which
had brought them together again, but after that they never spoke of the
future.
"Can it or can it not be?" he now thought as he looked at her and
listened to the light click of the steel needles. "Can fate have brought
me to her so strangely only for me to die?... Is it possible that the truth
of life has been revealed to me only to show me that I have spent my
life in falsity? I love her more than anything in the world! But what am
I to do if I love her?" he thought, and he involuntarily groaned, from a
habit acquired during his sufferings.
On hearing that sound Natasha put down the stocking, leaned nearer
to him, and suddenly, noticing his shining eyes, stepped lightly up to
him and bent over him.
"You are not asleep?"
"No, I have been looking at you a long time. I felt you come in. No
one else gives me that sense of soft tranquillity that you do... that light.
I want to weep for joy."
Natasha drew closer to him. Her face shone with rapturous joy.
"Natasha, I love you too much! More than anything in the world."
"And I!"—She turned away for an instant. "Why too much?" she
asked.
"Why too much?... Well, what do you, what do you feel in your soul,
your whole soul—shall I live? What do you think?"
"I am sure of it, sure!" Natasha almost shouted, taking hold of both
his hands with a passionate movement.
He remained silent awhile.
"How good it would be!" and taking her hand he kissed it.
 Natasha felt happy and agitated, but at once remembered that this
would not do and that he had to be quiet.
"But you have not slept," she said, repressing her joy. "Try to sleep...
please!"
He pressed her hand and released it, and she went back to the candle
and sat down again in her former position. Twice she turned and looked
at him, and her eyes met his beaming at her. She set herself a task on
her stocking and resolved not to turn round till it was finished.
Soon he really shut his eyes and fell asleep. He did not sleep long
and suddenly awoke with a start and in a cold perspiration.
As he fell asleep he had still been thinking of the subject that now
always occupied his mind—about life and death, and chiefly about
death. He felt himself nearer to it.
"Love? What is love?" he thought.
"Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I
understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only
because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die
means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal
source." These thoughts seemed to him comforting. But they were only
thoughts. Something was lacking in them, they were not clear, they
were too one-sidedly personal and brain-spun. And there was the
former agitation and obscurity. He fell asleep.
He dreamed that he was lying in the room he really was in, but that
he was quite well and unwounded. Many various, indifferent, and
insignificant people appeared before him. He talked to them and
discussed something trivial. They were preparing to go away
somewhere. Prince Andrew dimly realized that all this was trivial and
that he had more important cares, but he continued to speak, surprising
them by empty witticisms. Gradually, unnoticed, all these persons
began to disappear and a single question, that of the closed door,
superseded all else. He rose and went to the door to bolt and lock it.
Everything depended on whether he was, or was not, in time to lock it.
He went, and tried to hurry, but his legs refused to move and he knew
he would not be in time to lock the door though he painfully strained all
his powers. He was seized by an agonizing fear. And that fear was the
fear of death. It stood behind the door. But just when he was clumsily
creeping toward the door, that dreadful something on the other side was
already pressing against it and forcing its way in. Something not
human—death—was breaking in through that door, and had to be kept
out. He seized the door, making a final effort to hold it back—to lock it
was no longer possible—but his efforts were weak and clumsy and the
door, pushed from behind by that terror, opened and closed again.
 Once again it pushed from outside. His last superhuman efforts were
vain and both halves of the door noiselessly opened. It entered, and it
was death, and Prince Andrew died.
But at the instant he died, Prince Andrew remembered that he was
asleep, and at the very instant he died, having made an effort, he
awoke.
"Yes, it was death! I died—and woke up. Yes, death is an
awakening!" And all at once it grew light in his soul and the veil that
had till then concealed the unknown was lifted from his spiritual vision.
He felt as if powers till then confined within him had been liberated,
and that strange lightness did not again leave him.
When, waking in a cold perspiration, he moved on the divan,
Natasha went up and asked him what was the matter. He did not answer
and looked at her strangely, not understanding.
That was what had happened to him two days before Princess Mary's
arrival. From that day, as the doctor expressed it, the wasting fever
assumed a malignant character, but what the doctor said did not interest
Natasha, she saw the terrible moral symptoms which to her were more
convincing.
From that day an awakening from life came to Prince Andrew
together with his awakening from sleep. And compared to the duration
of life it did not seem to him slower than an awakening from sleep
compared to the duration of a dream.
There was nothing terrible or violent in this comparatively slow
awakening.
His last days and hours passed in an ordinary and simple way. Both
Princess Mary and Natasha, who did not leave him, felt this. They did
not weep or shudder and during these last days they themselves felt that
they were not attending on him (he was no longer there, he had left
them) but on what reminded them most closely of him—his body. Both
felt this so strongly that the outward and terrible side of death did not
affect them and they did not feel it necessary to foment their grief.
Neither in his presence nor out of it did they weep, nor did they ever
talk to one another about him. They felt that they could not express in
words what they understood.
They both saw that he was sinking slowly and quietly, deeper and
deeper, away from them, and they both knew that this had to be so and
that it was right.
He confessed, and received communion: everyone came to take
leave of him. When they brought his son to him, he pressed his lips to
the boy's and turned away, not because he felt it hard and sad (Princess
Mary and Natasha understood that) but simply because he thought it
was all that was required of him, but when they told him to bless the
boy, he did what was demanded and looked round as if asking whether
there was anything else he should do.
When the last convulsions of the body, which the spirit was leaving,
occurred, Princess Mary and Natasha were present.
"Is it over?" said Princess Mary when his body had for a few minutes
lain motionless, growing cold before them. Natasha went up, looked at
the dead eyes, and hastened to close them. She closed them but did not
kiss them, but clung to that which reminded her most nearly of him—
his body.
"Where has he gone? Where is he now?..."
When the body, washed and dressed, lay in the coffin on a table,
everyone came to take leave of him and they all wept.
Little Nicholas cried because his heart was rent by painful perplexity.
The countess and Sonya cried from pity for Natasha and because he
was no more. The old count cried because he felt that before long, he,
too, must take the same terrible step.
Natasha and Princess Mary also wept now, but not because of their
own personal grief; they wept with a reverent and softening emotion
which had taken possession of their souls at the consciousness of the
simple and solemn mystery of death that had been accomplished in
their presence.

BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812

CHAPTER I
Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness,
but the desire to find those causes is implanted in man's soul. And
without considering the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions
any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, he
snatches at the first approximation to a cause that seems to him
intelligible and says: "This is the cause!" In historical events (where the
actions of men are the subject of observation) the first and most
primitive approximation to present itself was the will of the gods and,
after that, the will of those who stood in the most prominent position—
the heroes of history. But we need only penetrate to the essence of any
historic event—which lies in the activity of the general mass of men
who take part in it—to be convinced that the will of the historic hero
does not control the actions of the mass but is itself continually
controlled. It may seem to be a matter of indifference whether we
understand the meaning of historical events this way or that; yet there is
the same difference between a man who says that the people of the
West moved on the East because Napoleon wished it and a man who
says that this happened because it had to happen, as there is between
those who declared that the earth was stationary and that the planets
moved round it and those who admitted that they did not know what
upheld the earth, but knew there were laws directing its movement and
that of the other planets. There is, and can be, no cause of an historical
event except the one cause of all causes. But there are laws directing
events, and some of these laws are known to us while we are conscious
of others we cannot comprehend. The discovery of these laws is only
possible when we have quite abandoned the attempt to find the cause in
the will of some one man, just as the discovery of the laws of the
motion of the planets was possible only when men abandoned the
conception of the fixity of the earth.
The historians consider that, next to the battle of Borodino and the
occupation of Moscow by the enemy and its destruction by fire, the
most important episode of the war of 1812 was the movement of the
Russian army from the Ryazana to the Kaluga road and to the Tarutino
camp—the so-called flank march across the Krasnaya Pakhra River.
They ascribe the glory of that achievement of genius to different men
and dispute as to whom the honor is due. Even foreign historians,
including the French, acknowledge the genius of the Russian
commanders when they speak of that flank march. But it is hard to
understand why military writers, and following them others, consider
this flank march to be the profound conception of some one man who
saved Russia and destroyed Napoleon. In the first place it is hard to
understand where the profundity and genius of this movement lay, for
not much mental effort was needed to see that the best position for an
army when it is not being attacked is where there are most provisions;
and even a dull boy of thirteen could have guessed that the best position
for an army after its retreat from Moscow in 1812 was on the Kaluga
road. So it is impossible to understand by what reasoning the historians
reach the conclusion that this maneuver was a profound one. And it is
even more difficult to understand just why they think that this
maneuver was calculated to save Russia and destroy the French; for this
flank march, had it been preceded, accompanied, or followed by other
circumstances, might have proved ruinous to the Russians and salutary
for the French. If the position of the Russian army really began to
improve from the time of that march, it does not at all follow that the
march was the cause of it.
That flank march might not only have failed to give any advantage to
the Russian army, but might in other circumstances have led to its
destruction. What would have happened had Moscow not burned
down? If Murat had not lost sight of the Russians? If Napoleon had not
remained inactive? If the Russian army at Krasnaya Pakhra had given
battle as Bennigsen and Barclay advised? What would have happened
had the French attacked the Russians while they were marching beyond
the Pakhra? What would have happened if on approaching Tarutino,
Napoleon had attacked the Russians with but a tenth of the energy he
had shown when he attacked them at Smolensk? What would have
happened had the French moved on Petersburg?... In any of these
eventualities the flank march that brought salvation might have proved
disastrous.
The third and most incomprehensible thing is that people studying
history deliberately avoid seeing that this flank march cannot be
attributed to any one man, that no one ever foresaw it, and that in
reality, like the retreat from Fili, it did not suggest itself to anyone in its
entirety, but resulted—moment by moment, step by step, event by
event—from an endless number of most diverse circumstances and was
only seen in its entirety when it had been accomplished and belonged to
the past.
At the council at Fili the prevailing thought in the minds of the
Russian commanders was the one naturally suggesting itself, namely, a
direct retreat by the Nizhni road. In proof of this there is the fact that
the majority of the council voted for such a retreat, and above all there
is the well-known conversation after the council, between the
commander in chief and Lanskoy, who was in charge of the
commissariat department. Lanskoy informed the commander in chief
that the army supplies were for the most part stored along the Oka in
the Tula and Ryazan provinces, and that if they retreated on Nizhni the
army would be separated from its supplies by the broad river Oka,
which cannot be crossed early in winter. This was the first indication of
the necessity of deviating from what had previously seemed the most
natural course—a direct retreat on Nizhni-Novgorod. The army turned
more to the south, along the Ryazan road and nearer to its supplies.
Subsequently the inactivity of the French (who even lost sight of the
Russian army), concern for the safety of the arsenal at Tula, and
especially the advantages of drawing nearer to its supplies caused the
army to turn still further south to the Tula road. Having crossed over,
by a forced march, to the Tula road beyond the Pakhra, the Russian
commanders intended to remain at Podolsk and had no thought of the
Tarutino position; but innumerable circumstances and the reappearance
of French troops who had for a time lost touch with the Russians, and
projects of giving battle, and above all the abundance of provisions in
Kaluga province, obliged our army to turn still more to the south and to
cross from the Tula to the Kaluga road and go to Tarutino, which was
between the roads along which those supplies lay. Just as it is
impossible to say when it was decided to abandon Moscow, so it is
impossible to say precisely when, or by whom, it was decided to move
to Tarutino. Only when the army had got there, as the result of
innumerable and varying forces, did people begin to assure themselves
that they had desired this movement and long ago foreseen its result.

CHAPTER II
The famous flank movement merely consisted in this: after the
advance of the French had ceased, the Russian army, which had been
continually retreating straight back from the invaders, deviated from
that direct course and, not finding itself pursued, was naturally drawn
toward the district where supplies were abundant.
If instead of imagining to ourselves commanders of genius leading
the Russian army, we picture that army without any leaders, it could
not have done anything but make a return movement toward Moscow,
describing an arc in the direction where most provisions were to be
found and where the country was richest.
That movement from the Nizhni to the Ryazan, Tula, and Kaluga
roads was so natural that even the Russian marauders moved in that
direction, and demands were sent from Petersburg for Kutuzov to take
his army that way. At Tarutino Kutuzov received what was almost a
reprimand from the Emperor for having moved his army along the
Ryazan road, and the Emperor's letter indicated to him the very position
he had already occupied near Kaluga.
Having rolled like a ball in the direction of the impetus given by the
whole campaign and by the battle of Borodino, the Russian army—
when the strength of that impetus was exhausted and no fresh push was
received—assumed the position natural to it.
Kutuzov's merit lay, not in any strategic maneuver of genius, as it is
called, but in the fact that he alone understood the significance of what
had happened. He alone then understood the meaning of the French
army's inactivity, he alone continued to assert that the battle of
Borodino had been a victory, he alone—who as commander in chief
might have been expected to be eager to attack—employed his whole
strength to restrain the Russian army from useless engagements.
The beast wounded at Borodino was lying where the fleeing hunter
had left him; but whether he was still alive, whether he was strong and
merely lying low, the hunter did not know. Suddenly the beast was
heard to moan.
The moan of that wounded beast (the French army) which betrayed
its calamitous condition was the sending of Lauriston to Kutuzov's
camp with overtures for peace.
Napoleon, with his usual assurance that whatever entered his head
was right, wrote to Kutuzov the first words that occurred to him,
though they were meaningless.
MONSIEUR LE PRINCE KOUTOUZOV: I am sending one of my
adjutants-general to discuss several interesting questions with you. I
beg your Highness to credit what he says to you, especially when he
expresses the sentiment of esteem and special regard I have long
entertained for your person. This letter having no other object, I pray
God, monsieur le Prince Koutouzov, to keep you in His holy and
gracious protection!
NAPOLEON
MOSCOW, OCTOBER 30, 1812
Kutuzov replied: "I should be cursed by posterity were I looked on as
the initiator of a settlement of any sort. Such is the present spirit of my
nation." But he continued to exert all his powers to restrain his troops
from attacking.
During the month that the French troops were pillaging in Moscow
and the Russian troops were quietly encamped at Tarutino, a change
had taken place in the relative strength of the two armies—both in spirit
and in number—as a result of which the superiority had passed to the
Russian side. Though the condition and numbers of the French army
were unknown to the Russians, as soon as that change occurred the
need of attacking at once showed itself by countless signs. These signs
were: Lauriston's mission; the abundance of provisions at Tarutino; the
reports coming in from all sides of the inactivity and disorder of the
French; the flow of recruits to our regiments; the fine weather; the long
rest the Russian soldiers had enjoyed, and the impatience to do what
they had been assembled for, which usually shows itself in an army that
has been resting; curiosity as to what the French army, so long lost
sight of, was doing; the boldness with which our outposts now scouted
close up to the French stationed at Tarutino; the news of easy successes
gained by peasants and guerrilla troops over the French, the envy
aroused by this; the desire for revenge that lay in the heart of every
Russian as long as the French were in Moscow, and (above all) a dim
consciousness in every soldier's mind that the relative strength of the
armies had changed and that the advantage was now on our side. There
was a substantial change in the relative strength, and an advance had
become inevitable. And at once, as a clock begins to strike and chime
as soon as the minute hand has completed a full circle, this change was
shown by an increased activity, whirring, and chiming in the higher
spheres.

CHAPTER III
The Russian army was commanded by Kutuzov and his staff, and
also by the Emperor from Petersburg. Before the news of the
abandonment of Moscow had been received in Petersburg, a detailed
plan of the whole campaign had been drawn up and sent to Kutuzov for
his guidance. Though this plan had been drawn up on the supposition
that Moscow was still in our hands, it was approved by the staff and
accepted as a basis for action. Kutuzov only replied that movements
arranged from a distance were always difficult to execute. So fresh
instructions were sent for the solution of difficulties that might be
encountered, as well as fresh people who were to watch Kutuzov's
actions and report upon them.
Besides this, the whole staff of the Russian army was now
reorganized. The posts left vacant by Bagration, who had been killed,
and by Barclay, who had gone away in dudgeon, had to be filled. Very
serious consideration was given to the question whether it would be
better to put A in B's place and B in D's, or on the contrary to put D in
A's place, and so on—as if anything more than A's or B's satisfaction
depended on this.
As a result of the hostility between Kutuzov and Bennigsen, his
Chief of Staff, the presence of confidential representatives of the
Emperor, and these transfers, a more than usually complicated play of
parties was going on among the staff of the army. A was undermining
B, D was undermining C, and so on in all possible combinations and
permutations. In all these plottings the subject of intrigue was generally
the conduct of the war, which all these men believed they were
directing; but this affair of the war went on independently of them, as it
had to go: that is, never in the way people devised, but flowing always
from the essential attitude of the masses. Only in the highest spheres
did all these schemes, crossings, and interminglings appear to be a true
reflection of what had to happen.
 Prince Michael Ilarionovich! (wrote the Emperor on the second of
October in a letter that reached Kutuzov after the battle at Tarutino)
Since September 2 Moscow has been in the hands of the enemy. Your
last reports were written on the twentieth, and during all this time not
only has no action been taken against the enemy or for the relief of the
ancient capital, but according to your last report you have even
retreated farther. Serpukhov is already occupied by an enemy
detachment and Tula with its famous arsenal so indispensable to the
army, is in danger. From General Wintzingerode's reports, I see that an
enemy corps of ten thousand men is moving on the Petersburg road.
Another corps of several thousand men is moving on Dmitrov. A third
has advanced along the Vladimir road, and a fourth, rather considerable
detachment is stationed between Ruza and Mozhaysk. Napoleon
himself was in Moscow as late as the twenty-fifth. In view of all this
information, when the enemy has scattered his forces in large
detachments, and with Napoleon and his Guards in Moscow, is it
possible that the enemy's forces confronting you are so considerable as
not to allow of your taking the offensive? On the contrary, he is
probably pursuing you with detachments, or at most with an army corps
much weaker than the army entrusted to you. It would seem that,
availing yourself of these circumstances, you might advantageously
attack a weaker one and annihilate him, or at least oblige him to retreat,
retaining in our hands an important part of the provinces now occupied
by the enemy, and thereby averting danger from Tula and other towns
in the interior. You will be responsible if the enemy is able to direct a
force of any size against Petersburg to threaten this capital in which it
has not been possible to retain many troops; for with the army entrusted
to you, and acting with resolution and energy, you have ample means to
avert this fresh calamity. Remember that you have still to answer to our
offended country for the loss of Moscow. You have experienced my
readiness to reward you. That readiness will not weaken in me, but I
and Russia have a right to expect from you all the zeal, firmness, and
success which your intellect, military talent, and the courage of the
troops you command justify us in expecting.
But by the time this letter, which proved that the real relation of the
forces had already made itself felt in Petersburg, was dispatched,
Kutuzov had found himself unable any longer to restrain the army he
commanded from attacking and a battle had taken place.
On the second of October a Cossack, Shapovalov, who was out
scouting, killed one hare and wounded another. Following the wounded
hare he made his way far into the forest and came upon the left flank of
Murat's army, encamped there without any precautions. The Cossack
laughingly told his comrades how he had almost fallen into the hands
of the French. A cornet, hearing the story, informed his commander.
 The Cossack was sent for and questioned. The Cossack officers
wished to take advantage of this chance to capture some horses, but one
of the superior officers, who was acquainted with the higher authorities,
reported the incident to a general on the staff. The state of things on the
staff had of late been exceedingly strained. Ermolov had been to see
Bennigsen a few days previously and had entreated him to use his
influence with the commander in chief to induce him to take the
offensive.
"If I did not know you I should think you did not want what you are
asking for. I need only advise anything and his Highness is sure to do
the opposite," replied Bennigsen.
The Cossack's report, confirmed by horse patrols who were sent out,
was the final proof that events had matured. The tightly coiled spring
was released, the clock began to whirr and the chimes to play. Despite
all his supposed power, his intellect, his experience, and his knowledge
of men, Kutuzov—having taken into consideration the Cossack's
report, a note from Bennigsen who sent personal reports to the
Emperor, the wishes he supposed the Emperor to hold, and the fact that
all the generals expressed the same wish—could no longer check the
inevitable movement, and gave the order to do what he regarded as
useless and harmful—gave his approval, that is, to the accomplished
fact.

CHAPTER IV
Bennigsen's note and the Cossack's information that the left flank of
the French was unguarded were merely final indications that it was
necessary to order an attack, and it was fixed for the fifth of October.
On the morning of the fourth of October Kutuzov signed the
dispositions. Toll read them to Ermolov, asking him to attend to the
further arrangements.
"All right—all right. I haven't time just now," replied Ermolov, and
left the hut.
The dispositions drawn up by Toll were very good. As in the
Austerlitz dispositions, it was written—though not in German this time:
"The First Column will march here and here," "the Second Column
will march there and there," and so on; and on paper, all these columns
arrived at their places at the appointed time and destroyed the enemy.
Everything had been admirably thought out as is usual in dispositions,
and as is always the case, not a single column reached its place at the
appointed time.
When the necessary number of copies of the dispositions had been
prepared, an officer was summoned and sent to deliver them to
Ermolov to deal with. A young officer of the Horse Guards, Kutuzov's
orderly, pleased at the importance of the mission entrusted to him, went
to Ermolov's quarters.
"Gone away," said Ermolov's orderly.
The officer of the Horse Guards went to a general with whom
Ermolov was often to be found.
"No, and the general's out too."
The officer, mounting his horse, rode off to someone else.
"No, he's gone out."
"If only they don't make me responsible for this delay! What a
nuisance it is!" thought the officer, and he rode round the whole camp.
One man said he had seen Ermolov ride past with some other generals,
others said he must have returned home. The officer searched till six
o'clock in the evening without even stopping to eat. Ermolov was
nowhere to be found and no one knew where he was. The officer
snatched a little food at a comrade's, and rode again to the vanguard to
find Miloradovich. Miloradovich too was away, but here he was told
that he had gone to a ball at General Kikin's and that Ermolov was
probably there too.
"But where is it?"
"Why, there, over at Echkino," said a Cossack officer, pointing to a
country house in the far distance.
"What, outside our line?"
"They've put two regiments as outposts, and they're having such a
spree there, it's awful! Two bands and three sets of singers!"
The officer rode out beyond our lines to Echkino. While still at a
distance he heard as he rode the merry sounds of a soldier's dance song
proceeding from the house.
"In the meadows... in the meadows!" he heard, accompanied by
whistling and the sound of a torban, drowned every now and then by
shouts. These sounds made his spirits rise, but at the same time he was
afraid that he would be blamed for not having executed sooner the
important order entrusted to him. It was already past eight o'clock. He
dismounted and went up into the porch of a large country house which
had remained intact between the Russian and French forces. In the
refreshment room and the hall, footmen were bustling about with wine
and viands. Groups of singers stood outside the windows. The officer
was admitted and immediately saw all the chief generals of the army
together, and among them Ermolov's big imposing figure. They all had
their coats unbuttoned and were standing in a semicircle with flushed
and animated faces, laughing loudly. In the middle of the room a short
handsome general with a red face was dancing the trepak with much
spirit and agility.
"Ha, ha, ha! Bravo, Nicholas Ivanych! Ha, ha, ha!"
The officer felt that by arriving with important orders at such a
moment he was doubly to blame, and he would have preferred to wait;
but one of the generals espied him and, hearing what he had come
about, informed Ermolov.
Ermolov came forward with a frown on his face and, hearing what
the officer had to say, took the papers from him without a word.
"You think he went off just by chance?" said a comrade, who was on
the staff that evening, to the officer of the Horse Guards, referring to
Ermolov. "It was a trick. It was done on purpose to get Konovnitsyn
into trouble. You'll see what a mess there'll be tomorrow."

CHAPTER V
Next day the decrepit Kutuzov, having given orders to be called
early, said his prayers, dressed, and, with an unpleasant consciousness
of having to direct a battle he did not approve of, got into his caleche
and drove from Letashovka (a village three and a half miles from
Tarutino) to the place where the attacking columns were to meet. He sat
in the caleche, dozing and waking up by turns, and listening for any
sound of firing on the right as an indication that the action had begun.
But all was still quiet. A damp dull autumn morning was just dawning.
On approaching Tarutino Kutuzov noticed cavalrymen leading their
horses to water across the road along which he was driving. Kutuzov
looked at them searchingly, stopped his carriage, and inquired what
regiment they belonged to. They belonged to a column that should have
been far in front and in ambush long before then. "It may be a mistake,"
thought the old commander in chief. But a little further on he saw
infantry regiments with their arms piled and the soldiers, only partly
dressed, eating their rye porridge and carrying fuel. He sent for an
officer. The officer reported that no order to advance had been
received.
"How! Not rec..." Kutuzov began, but checked himself immediately
and sent for a senior officer. Getting out of his caleche, he waited with
drooping head and breathing heavily, pacing silently up and down.
When Eykhen, the officer of the general staff whom he had summoned,
appeared, Kutuzov went purple in the face, not because that officer was
to blame for the mistake, but because he was an object of sufficient
importance for him to vent his wrath on. Trembling and panting the old
man fell into that state of fury in which he sometimes used to roll on
the ground, and he fell upon Eykhen, threatening him with his hands,
shouting and loading him with gross abuse. Another man, Captain
Brozin, who happened to turn up and who was not at all to blame,
suffered the same fate.
"What sort of another blackguard are you? I'll have you shot!
Scoundrels!" yelled Kutuzov in a hoarse voice, waving his arms and
reeling.
He was suffering physically. He, the commander in chief, a Serene
Highness who everybody said possessed powers such as no man had
ever had in Russia, to be placed in this position—made the
laughingstock of the whole army! "I needn't have been in such a hurry
to pray about today, or have kept awake thinking everything over all
night," thought he to himself. "When I was a chit of an officer no one
would have dared to mock me so... and now!" He was in a state of
physical suffering as if from corporal punishment, and could not avoid
expressing it by cries of anger and distress. But his strength soon began
to fail him, and looking about him, conscious of having said much that
was amiss, he again got into his caleche and drove back in silence.
His wrath, once expended, did not return, and blinking feebly he
listened to excuses and self-justifications (Ermolov did not come to see
him till the next day) and to the insistence of Bennigsen, Konovnitsyn,
and Toll that the movement that had miscarried should be executed
next day. And once more Kutuzov had to consent.

CHAPTER VI
Next day the troops assembled in their appointed places in the
evening and advanced during the night. It was an autumn night with
dark purple clouds, but no rain. The ground was damp but not muddy,
and the troops advanced noiselessly, only occasionally a jingling of the
artillery could be faintly heard. The men were forbidden to talk out
loud, to smoke their pipes, or to strike a light, and they tried to prevent
their horses neighing. The secrecy of the undertaking heightened its
charm and they marched gaily. Some columns, supposing they had
reached their destination, halted, piled arms, and settled down on the
cold ground, but the majority marched all night and arrived at places
where they evidently should not have been.
Only Count Orlov-Denisov with his Cossacks (the least important
detachment of all) got to his appointed place at the right time. This
detachment halted at the outskirts of a forest, on the path leading from
the village of Stromilova to Dmitrovsk.
Toward dawn, Count Orlov-Denisov, who had dozed off, was
awakened by a deserter from the French army being brought to him.
This was a Polish sergeant of Poniatowski's corps, who explained in
Polish that he had come over because he had been slighted in the
service: that he ought long ago to have been made an officer, that he
was braver than any of them, and so he had left them and wished to pay
them out. He said that Murat was spending the night less than a mile
from where they were, and that if they would let him have a convoy of
a hundred men he would capture him alive. Count Orlov-Denisov
consulted his fellow officers.
The offer was too tempting to be refused. Everyone volunteered to
go and everybody advised making the attempt. After much disputing
and arguing, Major-General Grekov with two Cossack regiments
decided to go with the Polish sergeant.
"Now, remember," said Count Orlov-Denisov to the sergeant at
parting, "if you have been lying I'll have you hanged like a dog; but if
it's true you shall have a hundred gold pieces!"
Without replying, the sergeant, with a resolute air, mounted and rode
away with Grekov whose men had quickly assembled. They
disappeared into the forest, and Count Orlov-Denisov, having seen
Grekov off, returned, shivering from the freshness of the early dawn
and excited by what he had undertaken on his own responsibility, and
began looking at the enemy camp, now just visible in the deceptive
light of dawn and the dying campfires. Our columns ought to have
begun to appear on an open declivity to his right. He looked in that
direction, but though the columns would have been visible quite far off,
they were not to be seen. It seemed to the count that things were
beginning to stir in the French camp, and his keen-sighted adjutant
confirmed this.
"Oh, it is really too late," said Count Orlov, looking at the camp.
 As often happens when someone we have trusted is no longer before
our eyes, it suddenly seemed quite clear and obvious to him that the
sergeant was an impostor, that he had lied, and that the whole Russian
attack would be ruined by the absence of those two regiments, which he
would lead away heaven only knew where. How could one capture a
commander in chief from among such a mass of troops!
"I am sure that rascal was lying," said the count.
"They can still be called back," said one of his suite, who like Count
Orlov felt distrustful of the adventure when he looked at the enemy's
camp.
"Eh? Really... what do you think? Should we let them go on or not?"
"Will you have them fetched back?"
"Fetch them back, fetch them back!" said Count Orlov with sudden
determination, looking at his watch. "It will be too late. It is quite
light."
And the adjutant galloped through the forest after Grekov. When
Grekov returned, Count Orlov-Denisov, excited both by the abandoned
attempt and by vainly awaiting the infantry columns that still did not
appear, as well as by the proximity of the enemy, resolved to advance.
All his men felt the same excitement.
"Mount!" he commanded in a whisper. The men took their places
and crossed themselves.... "Forward, with God's aid!"
"Hurrah-ah-ah!" reverberated in the forest, and the Cossack
companies, trailing their lances and advancing one after another as if
poured out of a sack, dashed gaily across the brook toward the camp.
One desperate, frightened yell from the first French soldier who saw
the Cossacks, and all who were in the camp, undressed and only just
waking up, ran off in all directions, abandoning cannons, muskets, and
horses.
Had the Cossacks pursued the French, without heeding what was
behind and around them, they would have captured Murat and
everything there. That was what the officers desired. But it was
impossible to make the Cossacks budge when once they had got booty
and prisoners. None of them listened to orders. Fifteen hundred
prisoners and thirty-eight guns were taken on the spot, besides
standards and (what seemed most important to the Cossacks) horses,
saddles, horsecloths, and the like. All this had to be dealt with, the
prisoners and guns secured, the booty divided—not without some
shouting and even a little fighting among themselves—and it was on
this that the Cossacks all busied themselves.
 The French, not being farther pursued, began to recover themselves:
they formed into detachments and began firing. Orlov-Denisov, still
waiting for the other columns to arrive, advanced no further.
Meantime, according to the dispositions which said that "the First
Column will march" and so on, the infantry of the belated columns,
commanded by Bennigsen and directed by Toll, had started in due
order and, as always happens, had got somewhere, but not to their
appointed places. As always happens the men, starting cheerfully,
began to halt; murmurs were heard, there was a sense of confusion, and
finally a backward movement. Adjutants and generals galloped about,
shouted, grew angry, quarreled, said they had come quite wrong and
were late, gave vent to a little abuse, and at last gave it all up and went
forward, simply to get somewhere. "We shall get somewhere or other!"
And they did indeed get somewhere, though not to their right places; a
few eventually even got to their right place, but too late to be of any use
and only in time to be fired at. Toll, who in this battle played the part of
Weyrother at Austerlitz, galloped assiduously from place to place,
finding everything upside down everywhere. Thus he stumbled on
Bagovut's corps in a wood when it was already broad daylight, though
the corps should long before have joined Orlov-Denisov. Excited and
vexed by the failure and supposing that someone must be responsible
for it, Toll galloped up to the commander of the corps and began
upbraiding him severely, saying that he ought to be shot. General
Bagovut, a fighting old soldier of placid temperament, being also upset
by all the delay, confusion, and cross-purposes, fell into a rage to
everybody's surprise and quite contrary to his usual character and said
disagreeable things to Toll.
"I prefer not to take lessons from anyone, but I can die with my men
as well as anybody," he said, and advanced with a single division.
Coming out onto a field under the enemy's fire, this brave general
went straight ahead, leading his men under fire, without considering in
his agitation whether going into action now, with a single division,
would be of any use or no. Danger, cannon balls, and bullets were just
what he needed in his angry mood. One of the first bullets killed him,
and other bullets killed many of his men. And his division remained
under fire for some time quite uselessly.

CHAPTER VII
 Meanwhile another column was to have attacked the French from the
front, but Kutuzov accompanied that column. He well knew that
nothing but confusion would come of this battle undertaken against his
will, and as far as was in his power held the troops back. He did not
advance.
He rode silently on his small gray horse, indolently answering
suggestions that they should attack.
"The word attack is always on your tongue, but you don't see that we
are unable to execute complicated maneuvers," said he to Miloradovich
who asked permission to advance.
"We couldn't take Murat prisoner this morning or get to the place in
time, and nothing can be done now!" he replied to someone else.
When Kutuzov was informed that at the French rear—where
according to the reports of the Cossacks there had previously been
nobody—there were now two battalions of Poles, he gave a sidelong
glance at Ermolov who was behind him and to whom he had not
spoken since the previous day.
"You see! They are asking to attack and making plans of all kinds,
but as soon as one gets to business nothing is ready, and the enemy,
forewarned, takes measures accordingly."
Ermolov screwed up his eyes and smiled faintly on hearing these
words. He understood that for him the storm had blown over, and that
Kutuzov would content himself with that hint.
"He's having a little fun at my expense," said Ermolov softly,
nudging with his knee Raevski who was at his side.
Soon after this, Ermolov moved up to Kutuzov and respectfully
remarked:
"It is not too late yet, your Highness—the enemy has not gone
away—if you were to order an attack! If not, the Guards will not so
much as see a little smoke."
Kutuzov did not reply, but when they reported to him that Murat's
troops were in retreat he ordered an advance, though at every hundred
paces he halted for three quarters of an hour.
The whole battle consisted in what Orlov-Denisov's Cossacks had
done: the rest of the army merely lost some hundreds of men uselessly.
In consequence of this battle Kutuzov received a diamond
decoration, and Bennigsen some diamonds and a hundred thousand
rubles, others also received pleasant recognitions corresponding to their
various grades, and following the battle fresh changes were made in the
staff.
"That's how everything is done with us, all topsy-turvy!" said the
Russian officers and generals after the Tarutino battle, letting it be
understood that some fool there is doing things all wrong but that we
ourselves should not have done so, just as people speak today. But
people who talk like that either do not know what they are talking about
or deliberately deceive themselves. No battle—Tarutino, Borodino, or
Austerlitz—takes place as those who planned it anticipated. That is an
essential condition.
A countless number of free forces (for nowhere is man freer than
during a battle, where it is a question of life and death) influence the
course taken by the fight, and that course never can be known in
advance and never coincides with the direction of any one force.
If many simultaneously and variously directed forces act on a given
body, the direction of its motion cannot coincide with any one of those
forces, but will always be a mean—what in mechanics is represented
by the diagonal of a parallelogram of forces.
If in the descriptions given by historians, especially French ones, we
find their wars and battles carried out in accordance with previously
formed plans, the only conclusion to be drawn is that those descriptions
are false.
The battle of Tarutino obviously did not attain the aim Toll had in
view—to lead the troops into action in the order prescribed by the
dispositions; nor that which Count Orlov-Denisov may have had in
view—to take Murat prisoner; nor the result of immediately destroying
the whole corps, which Bennigsen and others may have had in view;
nor the aim of the officer who wished to go into action to distinguish
himself; nor that of the Cossack who wanted more booty than he got,
and so on. But if the aim of the battle was what actually resulted and
what all the Russians of that day desired—to drive the French out of
Russia and destroy their army—it is quite clear that the battle of
Tarutino, just because of its incongruities, was exactly what was
wanted at that stage of the campaign. It would be difficult and even
impossible to imagine any result more opportune than the actual
outcome of this battle. With a minimum of effort and insignificant
losses, despite the greatest confusion, the most important results of the
whole campaign were attained: the transition from retreat to advance,
an exposure of the weakness of the French, and the administration of
that shock which Napoleon's army had only awaited to begin its flight.
 CHAPTER VIII
Napoleon enters Moscow after the brilliant victory de la Moskowa;
there can be no doubt about the victory for the battlefield remains in the
hands of the French. The Russians retreat and abandon their ancient
capital. Moscow, abounding in provisions, arms, munitions, and
incalculable wealth, is in Napoleon's hands. The Russian army, only
half the strength of the French, does not make a single attempt to attack
for a whole month. Napoleon's position is most brilliant. He can either
fall on the Russian army with double its strength and destroy it;
negotiate an advantageous peace, or in case of a refusal make a
menacing move on Petersburg, or even, in the case of a reverse, return
to Smolensk or Vilna; or remain in Moscow; in short, no special genius
would seem to be required to retain the brilliant position the French
held at that time. For that, only very simple and easy steps were
necessary: not to allow the troops to loot, to prepare winter clothing—
of which there was sufficient in Moscow for the whole army—and
methodically to collect the provisions, of which (according to the
French historians) there were enough in Moscow to supply the whole
army for six months. Yet Napoleon, that greatest of all geniuses, who
the historians declare had control of the army, took none of these steps.
He not merely did nothing of the kind, but on the contrary he used
his power to select the most foolish and ruinous of all the courses open
to him. Of all that Napoleon might have done: wintering in Moscow,
advancing on Petersburg or on Nizhni-Novgorod, or retiring by a more
northerly or more southerly route (say by the road Kutuzov afterwards
took), nothing more stupid or disastrous can be imagined than what he
actually did. He remained in Moscow till October, letting the troops
plunder the city; then, hesitating whether to leave a garrison behind
him, he quitted Moscow, approached Kutuzov without joining battle,
turned to the right and reached Malo-Yaroslavets, again without
attempting to break through and take the road Kutuzov took, but
retiring instead to Mozhaysk along the devastated Smolensk road.
Nothing more stupid than that could have been devised, or more
disastrous for the army, as the sequel showed. Had Napoleon's aim
been to destroy his army, the most skillful strategist could hardly have
devised any series of actions that would so completely have
accomplished that purpose, independently of anything the Russian
army might do.
Napoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed
his army because he wished to, or because he was very stupid, would
be as unjust as to say that he had brought his troops to Moscow because
he wished to and because he was very clever and a genius.
 In both cases his personal activity, having no more force than the
personal activity of any soldier, merely coincided with the laws that
guided the event.
The historians quite falsely represent Napoleon's faculties as having
weakened in Moscow, and do so only because the results did not justify
his actions. He employed all his ability and strength to do the best he
could for himself and his army, as he had done previously and as he did
subsequently in 1813. His activity at that time was no less astounding
than it was in Egypt, in Italy, in Austria, and in Prussia. We do not
know for certain in how far his genius was genuine in Egypt—where
forty centuries looked down upon his grandeur—for his great exploits
there are all told us by Frenchmen. We cannot accurately estimate his
genius in Austria or Prussia, for we have to draw our information from
French or German sources, and the incomprehensible surrender of
whole corps without fighting and of fortresses without a siege must
incline Germans to recognize his genius as the only explanation of the
war carried on in Germany. But we, thank God, have no need to
recognize his genius in order to hide our shame. We have paid for the
right to look at the matter plainly and simply, and we will not abandon
that right.
His activity in Moscow was as amazing and as full of genius as
elsewhere. Order after order and plan after plan were issued by him
from the time he entered Moscow till the time he left it. The absence of
citizens and of a deputation, and even the burning of Moscow, did not
disconcert him. He did not lose sight either of the welfare of his army
or of the doings of the enemy, or of the welfare of the people of Russia,
or of the direction of affairs in Paris, or of diplomatic considerations
concerning the terms of the anticipated peace.

CHAPTER IX
With regard to military matters, Napoleon immediately on his entry
into Moscow gave General Sabastiani strict orders to observe the
movements of the Russian army, sent army corps out along the
different roads, and charged Murat to find Kutuzov. Then he gave
careful directions about the fortification of the Kremlin, and drew up a
brilliant plan for a future campaign over the whole map of Russia.
With regard to diplomatic questions, Napoleon summoned Captain
Yakovlev, who had been robbed and was in rags and did not know how
to get out of Moscow, minutely explained to him his whole policy and
his magnanimity, and having written a letter to the Emperor Alexander
in which he considered it his duty to inform his Friend and Brother that
Rostopchin had managed affairs badly in Moscow, he dispatched
Yakovlev to Petersburg.
Having similarly explained his views and his magnanimity to
Tutolmin, he dispatched that old man also to Petersburg to negotiate.
With regard to legal matters, immediately after the fires he gave
orders to find and execute the incendiaries. And the scoundrel
Rostopchin was punished by an order to burn down his houses.
With regard to administrative matters, Moscow was granted a
constitution. A municipality was established and the following
announcement issued:
INHABITANTS OF MOSCOW!
Your misfortunes are cruel, but His Majesty the Emperor and King
desires to arrest their course. Terrible examples have taught you how he
punishes disobedience and crime. Strict measures have been taken to
put an end to disorder and to re-establish public security. A paternal
administration, chosen from among yourselves, will form your
municipality or city government. It will take care of you, of your needs,
and of your welfare. Its members will be distinguished by a red ribbon
worn across the shoulder, and the mayor of the city will wear a white
belt as well. But when not on duty they will only wear a red ribbon
round the left arm.
The city police is established on its former footing, and better order
already prevails in consequence of its activity. The government has
appointed two commissaries general, or chiefs of police, and twenty
commissaries or captains of wards have been appointed to the different
wards of the city. You will recognize them by the white ribbon they
will wear on the left arm. Several churches of different denominations
are open, and divine service is performed in them unhindered. Your
fellow citizens are returning every day to their homes and orders have
been given that they should find in them the help and protection due to
their misfortunes. These are the measures the government has adopted
to re-establish order and relieve your condition. But to achieve this aim
it is necessary that you should add your efforts and should, if possible,
forget the misfortunes you have suffered, should entertain the hope of a
less cruel fate, should be certain that inevitable and ignominious death
awaits those who make any attempt on your persons or on what
remains of your property, and finally that you should not doubt that
these will be safeguarded, since such is the will of the greatest and most
just of monarchs. Soldiers and citizens, of whatever nation you may be,
re-establish public confidence, the source of the welfare of a state, live
like brothers, render mutual aid and protection one to another, unite to
defeat the intentions of the evil-minded, obey the military and civil
authorities, and your tears will soon cease to flow!
With regard to supplies for the army, Napoleon decreed that all the
troops in turn should enter Moscow a la maraude * to obtain provisions
for themselves, so that the army might have its future provided for.

* As looters.

With regard to religion, Napoleon ordered the priests to be brought

back and services to be again performed in the churches.
With regard to commerce and to provisioning the army, the
following was placarded everywhere:
PROCLAMATION!
You, peaceful inhabitants of Moscow, artisans and workmen whom
misfortune has driven from the city, and you scattered tillers of the soil,
still kept out in the fields by groundless fear, listen! Tranquillity is
returning to this capital and order is being restored in it. Your fellow
countrymen are emerging boldly from their hiding places on finding
that they are respected. Any violence to them or to their property is
promptly punished. His Majesty the Emperor and King protects them,
and considers no one among you his enemy except those who disobey
his orders. He desires to end your misfortunes and restore you to your
homes and families. Respond, therefore, to his benevolent intentions
and come to us without fear. Inhabitants, return with confidence to your
abodes! You will soon find means of satisfying your needs. Craftsmen
and industrious artisans, return to your work, your houses, your shops,
where the protection of guards awaits you! You shall receive proper
pay for your work. And lastly you too, peasants, come from the forests
where you are hiding in terror, return to your huts without fear, in full
assurance that you will find protection! Markets are established in the
city where peasants can bring their surplus supplies and the products of
the soil. The government has taken the following steps to ensure
freedom of sale for them: (1) From today, peasants, husbandmen, and
those living in the neighborhood of Moscow may without any danger
bring their supplies of all kinds to two appointed markets, of which one
is on the Mokhovaya Street and the other at the Provision Market. (2)
Such supplies will be bought from them at such prices as seller and
buyer may agree on, and if a seller is unable to obtain a fair price he
will be free to take his goods back to his village and no one may hinder
him under any pretense. (3) Sunday and Wednesday of each week are
appointed as the chief market days and to that end a sufficient number
of troops will be stationed along the highroads on Tuesdays and
Saturdays at such distances from the town as to protect the carts. (4)
Similar measures will be taken that peasants with their carts and horses
may meet with no hindrance on their return journey. (5) Steps will
immediately be taken to re-establish ordinary trading.
Inhabitants of the city and villages, and you, workingmen and
artisans, to whatever nation you belong, you are called on to carry out
the paternal intentions of His Majesty the Emperor and King and to co-
operate with him for the public welfare! Lay your respect and
confidence at his feet and do not delay to unite with us!
With the object of raising the spirits of the troops and of the people,
reviews were constantly held and rewards distributed. The Emperor
rode through the streets to comfort the inhabitants, and, despite his
preoccupation with state affairs, himself visited the theaters that were
established by his order.
In regard to philanthropy, the greatest virtue of crowned heads,
Napoleon also did all in his power. He caused the words Maison de ma
Mere to be inscribed on the charitable institutions, thereby combining
tender filial affection with the majestic benevolence of a monarch. He
visited the Foundling Hospital and, allowing the orphans saved by him
to kiss his white hands, graciously conversed with Tutolmin. Then, as
Thiers eloquently recounts, he ordered his soldiers to be paid in forged
Russian money which he had prepared: "Raising the use of these means
by an act worthy of himself and of the French army, he let relief be
distributed to those who had been burned out. But as food was too
precious to be given to foreigners, who were for the most part enemies,
Napoleon preferred to supply them with money with which to purchase
food from outside, and had paper rubles distributed to them."
With reference to army discipline, orders were continually being
issued to inflict severe punishment for the nonperformance of military
duties and to suppress robbery.

CHAPTER X
But strange to say, all these measures, efforts, and plans—which
were not at all worse than others issued in similar circumstances—did
not affect the essence of the matter but, like the hands of a clock
detached from the mechanism, swung about in an arbitrary and aimless
way without engaging the cogwheels.
With reference to the military side—the plan of campaign—that
work of genius of which Thiers remarks that, "His genius never devised
anything more profound, more skillful, or more admirable," and enters
into a polemic with M. Fain to prove that this work of genius must be
referred not to the fourth but to the fifteenth of October—that plan
never was or could be executed, for it was quite out of touch with the
facts of the case. The fortifying of the Kremlin, for which la Mosquee
(as Napoleon termed the church of Basil the Beatified) was to have
been razed to the ground, proved quite useless. The mining of the
Kremlin only helped toward fulfilling Napoleon's wish that it should be
blown up when he left Moscow—as a child wants the floor on which he
has hurt himself to be beaten. The pursuit of the Russian army, about
which Napoleon was so concerned, produced an unheard-of result. The
French generals lost touch with the Russian army of sixty thousand
men, and according to Thiers it was only eventually found, like a lost
pin, by the skill—and apparently the genius—of Murat.
With reference to diplomacy, all Napoleon's arguments as to his
magnanimity and justice, both to Tutolmin and to Yakovlev (whose
chief concern was to obtain a greatcoat and a conveyance), proved
useless; Alexander did not receive these envoys and did not reply to
their embassage.
With regard to legal matters, after the execution of the supposed
incendiaries the rest of Moscow burned down.
With regard to administrative matters, the establishment of a
municipality did not stop the robberies and was only of use to certain
people who formed part of that municipality and under pretext of
preserving order looted Moscow or saved their own property from
being looted.
With regard to religion, as to which in Egypt matters had so easily
been settled by Napoleon's visit to a mosque, no results were achieved.
Two or three priests who were found in Moscow did try to carry out
Napoleon's wish, but one of them was slapped in the face by a French
soldier while conducting service, and a French official reported of
another that: "The priest whom I found and invited to say Mass cleaned
and locked up the church. That night the doors were again broken open,
the padlocks smashed, the books mutilated, and other disorders
perpetrated."
With reference to commerce, the proclamation to industrious
workmen and to peasants evoked no response. There were no
industrious workmen, and the peasants caught the commissaries who
ventured too far out of town with the proclamation and killed them.
As to the theaters for the entertainment of the people and the troops,
these did not meet with success either. The theaters set up in the
Kremlin and in Posnyakov's house were closed again at once because
the actors and actresses were robbed.
 Even philanthropy did not have the desired effect. The genuine as
well as the false paper money which flooded Moscow lost its value.
The French, collecting booty, cared only for gold. Not only was the
paper money valueless which Napoleon so graciously distributed to the
unfortunate, but even silver lost its value in relation to gold.
But the most amazing example of the ineffectiveness of the orders
given by the authorities at that time was Napoleon's attempt to stop the
looting and re-establish discipline.
This is what the army authorities were reporting:
"Looting continues in the city despite the decrees against it. Order is
not yet restored and not a single merchant is carrying on trade in a
lawful manner. The sutlers alone venture to trade, and they sell stolen
goods."
"The neighborhood of my ward continues to be pillaged by soldiers
of the 3rd Corps who, not satisfied with taking from the unfortunate
inhabitants hiding in the cellars the little they have left, even have the
ferocity to wound them with their sabers, as I have repeatedly
witnessed."
"Nothing new, except that the soldiers are robbing and pillaging—
October 9."
"Robbery and pillaging continue. There is a band of thieves in our
district who ought to be arrested by a strong force—October 11."
"The Emperor is extremely displeased that despite the strict orders to
stop pillage, parties of marauding Guards are continually seen returning
to the Kremlin. Among the Old Guard disorder and pillage were
renewed more violently than ever yesterday evening, last night, and
today. The Emperor sees with regret that the picked soldiers appointed
to guard his person, who should set an example of discipline, carry
disobedience to such a point that they break into the cellars and stores
containing army supplies. Others have disgraced themselves to the
extent of disobeying sentinels and officers, and have abused and beaten
them."
"The Grand Marshal of the palace," wrote the governor, "complains
bitterly that in spite of repeated orders, the soldiers continue to commit
nuisances in all the courtyards and even under the very windows of the
Emperor."
That army, like a herd of cattle run wild and trampling underfoot the
provender which might have saved it from starvation, disintegrated and
perished with each additional day it remained in Moscow. But it did not
go away.
 It began to run away only when suddenly seized by a panic caused
by the capture of transport trains on the Smolensk road, and by the
battle of Tarutino. The news of that battle of Tarutino, unexpectedly
received by Napoleon at a review, evoked in him a desire to punish the
Russians (Thiers says), and he issued the order for departure which the
whole army was demanding.
Fleeing from Moscow the soldiers took with them everything they
had stolen. Napoleon, too, carried away his own personal tresor, but on
seeing the baggage trains that impeded the army, he was (Thiers says)
horror-struck. And yet with his experience of war he did not order all
the superfluous vehicles to be burned, as he had done with those of a
certain marshal when approaching Moscow. He gazed at the caleches
and carriages in which soldiers were riding and remarked that it was a
very good thing, as those vehicles could be used to carry provisions, the
sick, and the wounded.
The plight of the whole army resembled that of a wounded animal
which feels it is perishing and does not know what it is doing. To study
the skillful tactics and aims of Napoleon and his army from the time it
entered Moscow till it was destroyed is like studying the dying leaps
and shudders of a mortally wounded animal. Very often a wounded
animal, hearing a rustle, rushes straight at the hunter's gun, runs
forward and back again, and hastens its own end. Napoleon, under
pressure from his whole army, did the same thing. The rustle of the
battle of Tarutino frightened the beast, and it rushed forward onto the
hunter's gun, reached him, turned back, and finally—like any wild
beast—ran back along the most disadvantageous and dangerous path,
where the old scent was familiar.
During the whole of that period Napoleon, who seems to us to have
been the leader of all these movements—as the figurehead of a ship
may seem to a savage to guide the vessel—acted like a child who,
holding a couple of strings inside a carriage, thinks he is driving it.

CHAPTER XI
Early in the morning of the sixth of October Pierre went out of the
shed, and on returning stopped by the door to play with a little blue-
gray dog, with a long body and short bandy legs, that jumped about
him. This little dog lived in their shed, sleeping beside Karataev at
night; it sometimes made excursions into the town but always returned
again. Probably it had never had an owner, and it still belonged to
nobody and had no name. The French called it Azor; the soldier who
told stories called it Femgalka; Karataev and others called it Gray, or
sometimes Flabby. Its lack of a master, a name, or even of a breed or
any definite color did not seem to trouble the blue-gray dog in the least.
Its furry tail stood up firm and round as a plume, its bandy legs served
it so well that it would often gracefully lift a hind leg and run very
easily and quickly on three legs, as if disdaining to use all four.
Everything pleased it. Now it would roll on its back, yelping with
delight, now bask in the sun with a thoughtful air of importance, and
now frolic about playing with a chip of wood or a straw.
Pierre's attire by now consisted of a dirty torn shirt (the only remnant
of his former clothing), a pair of soldier's trousers which by Karataev's
advice he tied with string round the ankles for warmth, and a peasant
coat and cap. Physically he had changed much during this time. He no
longer seemed stout, though he still had the appearance of solidity and
strength hereditary in his family. A beard and mustache covered the
lower part of his face, and a tangle of hair, infested with lice, curled
round his head like a cap. The look of his eyes was resolute, calm, and
animatedly alert, as never before. The former slackness which had
shown itself even in his eyes was now replaced by an energetic
readiness for action and resistance. His feet were bare.
Pierre first looked down the field across which vehicles and
horsemen were passing that morning, then into the distance across the
river, then at the dog who was pretending to be in earnest about biting
him, and then at his bare feet which he placed with pleasure in various
positions, moving his dirty thick big toes. Every time he looked at his
bare feet a smile of animated self-satisfaction flitted across his face.
The sight of them reminded him of all he had experienced and learned
during these weeks and this recollection was pleasant to him.
For some days the weather had been calm and clear with slight frosts
in the mornings—what is called an "old wives' summer."
In the sunshine the air was warm, and that warmth was particularly
pleasant with the invigorating freshness of the morning frost still in the
air.
On everything—far and near—lay the magic crystal glitter seen only
at that time of autumn. The Sparrow Hills were visible in the distance,
with the village, the church, and the large white house. The bare trees,
the sand, the bricks and roofs of the houses, the green church spire, and
the corners of the white house in the distance, all stood out in the
transparent air in most delicate outline and with unnatural clearness.
Near by could be seen the familiar ruins of a half-burned mansion
occupied by the French, with lilac bushes still showing dark green
beside the fence. And even that ruined and befouled house—which in
dull weather was repulsively ugly—seemed quietly beautiful now, in
the clear, motionless brilliance.
A French corporal, with coat unbuttoned in a homely way, a skullcap
on his head, and a short pipe in his mouth, came from behind a corner
of the shed and approached Pierre with a friendly wink.
"What sunshine, Monsieur Kiril!" (Their name for Pierre.) "Eh? Just
like spring!"
And the corporal leaned against the door and offered Pierre his pipe,
though whenever he offered it Pierre always declined it.
"To be on the march in such weather..." he began.
Pierre inquired what was being said about leaving, and the corporal
told him that nearly all the troops were starting and there ought to be an
order about the prisoners that day. Sokolov, one of the soldiers in the
shed with Pierre, was dying, and Pierre told the corporal that something
should be done about him. The corporal replied that Pierre need not
worry about that as they had an ambulance and a permanent hospital
and arrangements would be made for the sick, and that in general
everything that could happen had been foreseen by the authorities.
"Besides, Monsieur Kiril, you have only to say a word to the captain,
you know. He is a man who never forgets anything. Speak to the
captain when he makes his round, he will do anything for you."
(The captain of whom the corporal spoke often had long chats with
Pierre and showed him all sorts of favors.)
"'You see, St. Thomas,' he said to me the other day. 'Monsieur Kiril
is a man of education, who speaks French. He is a Russian seigneur
who has had misfortunes, but he is a man. He knows what's what.... If
he wants anything and asks me, he won't get a refusal. When one has
studied, you see, one likes education and well-bred people.' It is for
your sake I mention it, Monsieur Kiril. The other day if it had not been
for you that affair would have ended ill."
And after chatting a while longer, the corporal went away. (The
affair he had alluded to had happened a few days before—a fight
between the prisoners and the French soldiers, in which Pierre had
succeeded in pacifying his comrades.) Some of the prisoners who had
heard Pierre talking to the corporal immediately asked what the
Frenchman had said. While Pierre was repeating what he had been told
about the army leaving Moscow, a thin, sallow, tattered French soldier
came up to the door of the shed. Rapidly and timidly raising his fingers
to his forehead by way of greeting, he asked Pierre whether the soldier
Platoche to whom he had given a shirt to sew was in that shed.
 A week before the French had had boot leather and linen issued to
them, which they had given out to the prisoners to make up into boots
and shirts for them.
"Ready, ready, dear fellow!" said Karataev, coming out with a neatly
folded shirt.
Karataev, on account of the warm weather and for convenience at
work, was wearing only trousers and a tattered shirt as black as soot.
His hair was bound round, workman fashion, with a wisp of lime-tree
bast, and his round face seemed rounder and pleasanter than ever.
"A promise is own brother to performance! I said Friday and here it
is, ready," said Platon, smiling and unfolding the shirt he had sewn.
The Frenchman glanced around uneasily and then, as if overcoming
his hesitation, rapidly threw off his uniform and put on the shirt. He
had a long, greasy, flowered silk waistcoat next to his sallow, thin bare
body, but no shirt. He was evidently afraid the prisoners looking on
would laugh at him, and thrust his head into the shirt hurriedly. None of
the prisoners said a word.
"See, it fits well!" Platon kept repeating, pulling the shirt straight.
The Frenchman, having pushed his head and hands through, without
raising his eyes, looked down at the shirt and examined the seams.
"You see, dear man, this is not a sewing shop, and I had no proper
tools; and, as they say, one needs a tool even to kill a louse," said
Platon with one of his round smiles, obviously pleased with his work.
"It's good, quite good, thank you," said the Frenchman, in French,
"but there must be some linen left over.
"It will fit better still when it sets to your body," said Karataev, still
admiring his handiwork. "You'll be nice and comfortable...."
"Thanks, thanks, old fellow.... But the bits left over?" said the
Frenchman again and smiled. He took out an assignation ruble note and
gave it to Karataev. "But give me the pieces that are over."
Pierre saw that Platon did not want to understand what the
Frenchman was saying, and he looked on without interfering. Karataev
thanked the Frenchman for the money and went on admiring his own
work. The Frenchman insisted on having the pieces returned that were
left over and asked Pierre to translate what he said.
"What does he want the bits for?" said Karataev. "They'd make fine
leg bands for us. Well, never mind."
 And Karataev, with a suddenly changed and saddened expression,
took a small bundle of scraps from inside his shirt and gave it to the
Frenchman without looking at him. "Oh dear!" muttered Karataev and
went away. The Frenchman looked at the linen, considered for a
moment, then looked inquiringly at Pierre and, as if Pierre's look had
told him something, suddenly blushed and shouted in a squeaky voice:
"Platoche! Eh, Platoche! Keep them yourself!" And handing back the
odd bits he turned and went out.
"There, look at that," said Karataev, swaying his head. "People said
they were not Christians, but they too have souls. It's what the old folk
used to say: 'A sweating hand's an open hand, a dry hand's close.' He's
naked, but yet he's given it back."
Karataev smiled thoughtfully and was silent awhile looking at the
pieces.
"But they'll make grand leg bands, dear friend," he said, and went
back into the shed.

CHAPTER XII
Four weeks had passed since Pierre had been taken prisoner and
though the French had offered to move him from the men's to the
officers' shed, he had stayed in the shed where he was first put.
In burned and devastated Moscow Pierre experienced almost the
extreme limits of privation a man can endure; but thanks to his physical
strength and health, of which he had till then been unconscious, and
thanks especially to the fact that the privations came so gradually that it
was impossible to say when they began, he endured his position not
only lightly but joyfully. And just at this time he obtained the
tranquillity and ease of mind he had formerly striven in vain to reach.
He had long sought in different ways that tranquillity of mind, that
inner harmony which had so impressed him in the soldiers at the battle
of Borodino. He had sought it in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the
dissipations of town life, in wine, in heroic feats of self-sacrifice, and in
romantic love for Natasha; he had sought it by reasoning—and all these
quests and experiments had failed him. And now without thinking
about it he had found that peace and inner harmony only through the
horror of death, through privation, and through what he recognized in
Karataev.
 Those dreadful moments he had lived through at the executions had
as it were forever washed away from his imagination and memory the
agitating thoughts and feelings that had formerly seemed so important.
It did not now occur to him to think of Russia, or the war, or politics, or
Napoleon. It was plain to him that all these things were no business of
his, and that he was not called on to judge concerning them and
therefore could not do so. "Russia and summer weather are not bound
together," he thought, repeating words of Karataev's which he found
strangely consoling. His intention of killing Napoleon and his
calculations of the cabalistic number of the beast of the Apocalypse
now seemed to him meaningless and even ridiculous. His anger with
his wife and anxiety that his name should not be smirched now seemed
not merely trivial but even amusing. What concern was it of his that
somewhere or other that woman was leading the life she preferred?
What did it matter to anybody, and especially to him, whether or not
they found out that their prisoner's name was Count Bezukhov?
He now often remembered his conversation with Prince Andrew and
quite agreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrew's thoughts
somewhat differently. Prince Andrew had thought and said that
happiness could only be negative, but had said it with a shade of
bitterness and irony as though he was really saying that all desire for
positive happiness is implanted in us merely to torment us and never be
satisfied. But Pierre believed it without any mental reservation. The
absence of suffering, the satisfaction of one's needs and consequent
freedom in the choice of one's occupation, that is, of one's way of life,
now seemed to Pierre to be indubitably man's highest happiness. Here
and now for the first time he fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating
when he wanted to eat, drinking when he wanted to drink, sleeping
when he wanted to sleep, of warmth when he was cold, of talking to a
fellow man when he wished to talk and to hear a human voice. The
satisfaction of one's needs—good food, cleanliness, and freedom—now
that he was deprived of all this, seemed to Pierre to constitute perfect
happiness; and the choice of occupation, that is, of his way of life—
now that that was so restricted—seemed to him such an easy matter
that he forgot that a superfluity of the comforts of life destroys all joy
in satisfying one's needs, while great freedom in the choice of
occupation—such freedom as his wealth, his education, and his social
position had given him in his own life—is just what makes the choice
of occupation insolubly difficult and destroys the desire and possibility
of having an occupation.
All Pierre's daydreams now turned on the time when he would be
free. Yet subsequently, and for the rest of his life, he thought and spoke
with enthusiasm of that month of captivity, of those irrecoverable,
strong, joyful sensations, and chiefly of the complete peace of mind and
inner freedom which he experienced only during those weeks.
 When on the first day he got up early, went out of the shed at dawn,
and saw the cupolas and crosses of the New Convent of the Virgin still
dark at first, the hoarfrost on the dusty grass, the Sparrow Hills, and the
wooded banks above the winding river vanishing in the purple distance,
when he felt the contact of the fresh air and heard the noise of the
crows flying from Moscow across the field, and when afterwards light
gleamed from the east and the sun's rim appeared solemnly from
behind a cloud, and the cupolas and crosses, the hoarfrost, the distance
and the river, all began to sparkle in the glad light—Pierre felt a new
joy and strength in life such as he had never before known. And this not
only stayed with him during the whole of his imprisonment, but even
grew in strength as the hardships of his position increased.
That feeling of alertness and of readiness for anything was still
further strengthened in him by the high opinion his fellow prisoners
formed of him soon after his arrival at the shed. With his knowledge of
languages, the respect shown him by the French, his simplicity, his
readiness to give anything asked of him (he received the allowance of
three rubles a week made to officers); with his strength, which he
showed to the soldiers by pressing nails into the walls of the hut; his
gentleness to his companions, and his capacity for sitting still and
thinking without doing anything (which seemed to them
incomprehensible), he appeared to them a rather mysterious and
superior being. The very qualities that had been a hindrance, if not
actually harmful, to him in the world he had lived in—his strength, his
disdain for the comforts of life, his absent-mindedness and simplicity—
here among these people gave him almost the status of a hero. And
Pierre felt that their opinion placed responsibilities upon him.

CHAPTER XIII
The French evacuation began on the night between the sixth and
seventh of October: kitchens and sheds were dismantled, carts loaded,
and troops and baggage trains started.
At seven in the morning a French convoy in marching trim, wearing
shakos and carrying muskets, knapsacks, and enormous sacks, stood in
front of the sheds, and animated French talk mingled with curses
sounded all along the lines.
In the shed everyone was ready, dressed, belted, shod, and only
awaited the order to start. The sick soldier, Sokolov, pale and thin with
dark shadows round his eyes, alone sat in his place barefoot and not
dressed. His eyes, prominent from the emaciation of his face, gazed
inquiringly at his comrades who were paying no attention to him, and
he moaned regularly and quietly. It was evidently not so much his
sufferings that caused him to moan (he had dysentery) as his fear and
grief at being left alone.
Pierre, girt with a rope round his waist and wearing shoes Karataev
had made for him from some leather a French soldier had torn off a tea
chest and brought to have his boots mended with, went up to the sick
man and squatted down beside him.
"You know, Sokolov, they are not all going away! They have a
hospital here. You may be better off than we others," said Pierre.
"O Lord! Oh, it will be the death of me! O Lord!" moaned the man in
a louder voice.
"I'll go and ask them again directly," said Pierre, rising and going to
the door of the shed.
Just as Pierre reached the door, the corporal who had offered him a
pipe the day before came up to it with two soldiers. The corporal and
soldiers were in marching kit with knapsacks and shakos that had metal
straps, and these changed their familiar faces.
The corporal came, according to orders, to shut the door. The
prisoners had to be counted before being let out.
"Corporal, what will they do with the sick man?..." Pierre began.
But even as he spoke he began to doubt whether this was the
corporal he knew or a stranger, so unlike himself did the corporal seem
at that moment. Moreover, just as Pierre was speaking a sharp rattle of
drums was suddenly heard from both sides. The corporal frowned at
Pierre's words and, uttering some meaningless oaths, slammed the door.
The shed became semidark, and the sharp rattle of the drums on two
sides drowned the sick man's groans.
"There it is!... It again!..." said Pierre to himself, and an involuntary
shudder ran down his spine. In the corporal's changed face, in the sound
of his voice, in the stirring and deafening noise of the drums, he
recognized that mysterious, callous force which compelled people
against their will to kill their fellow men—that force the effect of which
he had witnessed during the executions. To fear or to try to escape that
force, to address entreaties or exhortations to those who served as its
tools, was useless. Pierre knew this now. One had to wait and endure.
He did not again go to the sick man, nor turn to look at him, but stood
frowning by the door of the hut.
 When that door was opened and the prisoners, crowding against one
another like a flock of sheep, squeezed into the exit, Pierre pushed his
way forward and approached that very captain who as the corporal had
assured him was ready to do anything for him. The captain was also in
marching kit, and on his cold face appeared that same it which Pierre
had recognized in the corporal's words and in the roll of the drums.
"Pass on, pass on!" the captain reiterated, frowning sternly, and
looking at the prisoners who thronged past him.
Pierre went up to him, though he knew his attempt would be vain.
"What now?" the officer asked with a cold look as if not recognizing
Pierre.
Pierre told him about the sick man.
"He'll manage to walk, devil take him!" said the captain. "Pass on,
pass on!" he continued without looking at Pierre.
"But he is dying," Pierre again began.
"Be so good..." shouted the captain, frowning angrily.
"Dram-da-da-dam, dam-dam..." rattled the drums, and Pierre
understood that this mysterious force completely controlled these men
and that it was now useless to say any more.
The officer prisoners were separated from the soldiers and told to
march in front. There were about thirty officers, with Pierre among
them, and about three hundred men.
The officers, who had come from the other sheds, were all strangers
to Pierre and much better dressed than he. They looked at him and at
his shoes mistrustfully, as at an alien. Not far from him walked a fat
major with a sallow, bloated, angry face, who was wearing a Kazan
dressing gown tied round with a towel, and who evidently enjoyed the
respect of his fellow prisoners. He kept one hand, in which he clasped
his tobacco pouch, inside the bosom of his dressing gown and held the
stem of his pipe firmly with the other. Panting and puffing, the major
grumbled and growled at everybody because he thought he was being
pushed and that they were all hurrying when they had nowhere to hurry
to and were all surprised at something when there was nothing to be
surprised at. Another, a thin little officer, was speaking to everyone,
conjecturing where they were now being taken and how far they would
get that day. An official in felt boots and wearing a commissariat
uniform ran round from side to side and gazed at the ruins of Moscow,
loudly announcing his observations as to what had been burned down
and what this or that part of the city was that they could see. A third
officer, who by his accent was a Pole, disputed with the commissariat
officer, arguing that he was mistaken in his identification of the
different wards of Moscow.
"What are you disputing about?" said the major angrily. "What does
it matter whether it is St. Nicholas or St. Blasius? You see it's burned
down, and there's an end of it.... What are you pushing for? Isn't the
road wide enough?" said he, turning to a man behind him who was not
pushing him at all.
"Oh, oh, oh! What have they done?" the prisoners on one side and
another were heard saying as they gazed on the charred ruins. "All
beyond the river, and Zubova, and in the Kremlin.... Just look! There's
not half of it left. Yes, I told you—the whole quarter beyond the river,
and so it is."
"Well, you know it's burned, so what's the use of talking?" said the
major.
As they passed near a church in the Khamovniki (one of the few
unburned quarters of Moscow) the whole mass of prisoners suddenly
started to one side and exclamations of horror and disgust were heard.
"Ah, the villains! What heathens! Yes; dead, dead, so he is... And
smeared with something!"
Pierre too drew near the church where the thing was that evoked
these exclamations, and dimly made out something leaning against the
palings surrounding the church. From the words of his comrades who
saw better than he did, he found that this was the body of a man, set
upright against the palings with its face smeared with soot.
"Go on! What the devil... Go on! Thirty thousand devils!..." the
convoy guards began cursing and the French soldiers, with fresh
virulence, drove away with their swords the crowd of prisoners who
were gazing at the dead man.

CHAPTER XIV
Through the cross streets of the Khamovniki quarter the prisoners
marched, followed only by their escort and the vehicles and wagons
belonging to that escort, but when they reached the supply stores they
came among a huge and closely packed train of artillery mingled with
private vehicles.
 At the bridge they all halted, waiting for those in front to get across.
From the bridge they had a view of endless lines of moving baggage
trains before and behind them. To the right, where the Kaluga road
turns near Neskuchny, endless rows of troops and carts stretched away
into the distance. These were troops of Beauharnais' corps which had
started before any of the others. Behind, along the riverside and across
the Stone Bridge, were Ney's troops and transport.
Davout's troops, in whose charge were the prisoners, were crossing
the Crimean bridge and some were already debouching into the Kaluga
road. But the baggage trains stretched out so that the last of
Beauharnais' train had not yet got out of Moscow and reached the
Kaluga road when the vanguard of Ney's army was already emerging
from the Great Ordynka Street.
When they had crossed the Crimean bridge the prisoners moved a
few steps forward, halted, and again moved on, and from all sides
vehicles and men crowded closer and closer together. They advanced
the few hundred paces that separated the bridge from the Kaluga road,
taking more than an hour to do so, and came out upon the square where
the streets of the Transmoskva ward and the Kaluga road converge, and
the prisoners jammed close together had to stand for some hours at that
crossway. From all sides, like the roar of the sea, were heard the rattle
of wheels, the tramp of feet, and incessant shouts of anger and abuse.
Pierre stood pressed against the wall of a charred house, listening to
that noise which mingled in his imagination with the roll of the drums.
To get a better view, several officer prisoners climbed onto the wall
of the half-burned house against which Pierre was leaning.
"What crowds! Just look at the crowds!... They've loaded goods even
on the cannon! Look there, those are furs!" they exclaimed. "Just see
what the blackguards have looted.... There! See what that one has
behind in the cart.... Why, those are settings taken from some icons, by
heaven!... Oh, the rascals!... See how that fellow has loaded himself up,
he can hardly walk! Good lord, they've even grabbed those chaises!...
See that fellow there sitting on the trunks.... Heavens! They're
fighting."
"That's right, hit him on the snout—on his snout! Like this, we shan't
get away before evening. Look, look there.... Why, that must be
Napoleon's own. See what horses! And the monograms with a crown!
It's like a portable house.... That fellow's dropped his sack and doesn't
see it. Fighting again... A woman with a baby, and not bad-looking
either! Yes, I dare say, that's the way they'll let you pass... Just look,
there's no end to it. Russian wenches, by heaven, so they are! In
carriages—see how comfortably they've settled themselves!"
 Again, as at the church in Khamovniki, a wave of general curiosity
bore all the prisoners forward onto the road, and Pierre, thanks to his
stature, saw over the heads of the others what so attracted their
curiosity. In three carriages involved among the munition carts, closely
squeezed together, sat women with rouged faces, dressed in glaring
colors, who were shouting something in shrill voices.
From the moment Pierre had recognized the appearance of the
mysterious force nothing had seemed to him strange or dreadful:
neither the corpse smeared with soot for fun nor these women hurrying
away nor the burned ruins of Moscow. All that he now witnessed
scarcely made an impression on him—as if his soul, making ready for a
hard struggle, refused to receive impressions that might weaken it.
The women's vehicles drove by. Behind them came more carts,
soldiers, wagons, soldiers, gun carriages, carriages, soldiers,
ammunition carts, more soldiers, and now and then women.
Pierre did not see the people as individuals but saw their movement.
All these people and horses seemed driven forward by some invisible
power. During the hour Pierre watched them they all came flowing
from the different streets with one and the same desire to get on
quickly; they all jostled one another, began to grow angry and to fight,
white teeth gleamed, brows frowned, ever the same words of abuse
flew from side to side, and all the faces bore the same swaggeringly
resolute and coldly cruel expression that had struck Pierre that morning
on the corporal's face when the drums were beating.
It was not till nearly evening that the officer commanding the escort
collected his men and with shouts and quarrels forced his way in
among the baggage trains, and the prisoners, hemmed in on all sides,
emerged onto the Kaluga road.
They marched very quickly, without resting, and halted only when
the sun began to set. The baggage carts drew up close together and the
men began to prepare for their night's rest. They all appeared angry and
dissatisfied. For a long time, oaths, angry shouts, and fighting could be
heard from all sides. A carriage that followed the escort ran into one of
the carts and knocked a hole in it with its pole. Several soldiers ran
toward the cart from different sides: some beat the carriage horses on
their heads, turning them aside, others fought among themselves, and
Pierre saw that one German was badly wounded on the head by a
sword.
It seemed that all these men, now that they had stopped amid fields
in the chill dusk of the autumn evening, experienced one and the same
feeling of unpleasant awakening from the hurry and eagerness to push
on that had seized them at the start. Once at a standstill they all seemed
to understand that they did not yet know where they were going, and
that much that was painful and difficult awaited them on this journey.
During this halt the escort treated the prisoners even worse than they
had done at the start. It was here that the prisoners for the first time
received horseflesh for their meat ration.
From the officer down to the lowest soldier they showed what
seemed like personal spite against each of the prisoners, in unexpected
contrast to their former friendly relations.
This spite increased still more when, on calling over the roll of
prisoners, it was found that in the bustle of leaving Moscow one
Russian soldier, who had pretended to suffer from colic, had escaped.
Pierre saw a Frenchman beat a Russian soldier cruelly for straying too
far from the road, and heard his friend the captain reprimand and
threaten to court-martial a noncommissioned officer on account of the
escape of the Russian. To the noncommissioned officer's excuse that
the prisoner was ill and could not walk, the officer replied that the order
was to shoot those who lagged behind. Pierre felt that that fatal force
which had crushed him during the executions, but which he had not felt
during his imprisonment, now again controlled his existence. It was
terrible, but he felt that in proportion to the efforts of that fatal force to
crush him, there grew and strengthened in his soul a power of life
independent of it.
He ate his supper of buckwheat soup with horseflesh and chatted
with his comrades.
Neither Pierre nor any of the others spoke of what they had seen in
Moscow, or of the roughness of their treatment by the French, or of the
order to shoot them which had been announced to them. As if in
reaction against the worsening of their position they were all
particularly animated and gay. They spoke of personal reminiscences,
of amusing scenes they had witnessed during the campaign, and
avoided all talk of their present situation.
The sun had set long since. Bright stars shone out here and there in
the sky. A red glow as of a conflagration spread above the horizon from
the rising full moon, and that vast red ball swayed strangely in the gray
haze. It grew light. The evening was ending, but the night had not yet
come. Pierre got up and left his new companions, crossing between the
campfires to the other side of the road where he had been told the
common soldier prisoners were stationed. He wanted to talk to them.
On the road he was stopped by a French sentinel who ordered him
back.
Pierre turned back, not to his companions by the campfire, but to an
unharnessed cart where there was nobody. Tucking his legs under him
and dropping his head he sat down on the cold ground by the wheel of
the cart and remained motionless a long while sunk in thought.
Suddenly he burst out into a fit of his broad, good-natured laughter, so
loud that men from various sides turned with surprise to see what this
strange and evidently solitary laughter could mean.
"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Pierre. And he said aloud to himself: "The
soldier did not let me pass. They took me and shut me up. They hold
me captive. What, me? Me? My immortal soul? Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-
ha!..." and he laughed till tears started to his eyes.
A man got up and came to see what this queer big fellow was
laughing at all by himself. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, went farther
away from the inquisitive man, and looked around him.
The huge, endless bivouac that had previously resounded with the
crackling of campfires and the voices of many men had grown quiet,
the red campfires were growing paler and dying down. High up in the
light sky hung the full moon. Forests and fields beyond the camp,
unseen before, were now visible in the distance. And farther still,
beyond those forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitless
distance lured one to itself. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the
twinkling stars in its faraway depths. "And all that is me, all that is
within me, and it is all I!" thought Pierre. "And they caught all that and
put it into a shed boarded up with planks!" He smiled, and went and lay
down to sleep beside his companions.

CHAPTER XV
In the early days of October another envoy came to Kutuzov with a
letter from Napoleon proposing peace and falsely dated from Moscow,
though Napoleon was already not far from Kutuzov on the old Kaluga
road. Kutuzov replied to this letter as he had done to the one formerly
brought by Lauriston, saying that there could be no question of peace.
Soon after that a report was received from Dorokhov's guerrilla
detachment operating to the left of Tarutino that troops of Broussier's
division had been seen at Forminsk and that being separated from the
rest of the French army they might easily be destroyed. The soldiers
and officers again demanded action. Generals on the staff, excited by
the memory of the easy victory at Tarutino, urged Kutuzov to carry out
Dorokhov's suggestion. Kutuzov did not consider any offensive
necessary. The result was a compromise which was inevitable: a small
detachment was sent to Forminsk to attack Broussier.
 By a strange coincidence, this task, which turned out to be a most
difficult and important one, was entrusted to Dokhturov—that same
modest little Dokhturov whom no one had described to us as drawing
up plans of battles, dashing about in front of regiments, showering
crosses on batteries, and so on, and who was thought to be and was
spoken of as undecided and undiscerning—but whom we find
commanding wherever the position was most difficult all through the
Russo-French wars from Austerlitz to the year 1813. At Austerlitz he
remained last at the Augezd dam, rallying the regiments, saving what
was possible when all were flying and perishing and not a single
general was left in the rear guard. Ill with fever he went to Smolensk
with twenty thousand men to defend the town against Napoleon's whole
army. In Smolensk, at the Malakhov Gate, he had hardly dozed off in a
paroxysm of fever before he was awakened by the bombardment of the
town—and Smolensk held out all day long. At the battle of Borodino,
when Bagration was killed and nine tenths of the men of our left flank
had fallen and the full force of the French artillery fire was directed
against it, the man sent there was this same irresolute and undiscerning
Dokhturov—Kutuzov hastening to rectify a mistake he had made by
sending someone else there first. And the quiet little Dokhturov rode
thither, and Borodino became the greatest glory of the Russian army.
Many heroes have been described to us in verse and prose, but of
Dokhturov scarcely a word has been said.
It was Dokhturov again whom they sent to Forminsk and from there
to Malo-Yaroslavets, the place where the last battle with the French
was fought and where the obvious disintegration of the French army
began; and we are told of many geniuses and heroes of that period of
the campaign, but of Dokhturov nothing or very little is said and that
dubiously. And this silence about Dokhturov is the clearest testimony
to his merit.
It is natural for a man who does not understand the workings of a
machine to imagine that a shaving that has fallen into it by chance and
is interfering with its action and tossing about in it is its most important
part. The man who does not understand the construction of the machine
cannot conceive that the small connecting cogwheel which revolves
quietly is one of the most essential parts of the machine, and not the
shaving which merely harms and hinders the working.
On the tenth of October when Dokhturov had gone halfway to
Forminsk and stopped at the village of Aristovo, preparing faithfully to
execute the orders he had received, the whole French army having, in
its convulsive movement, reached Murat's position apparently in order
to give battle—suddenly without any reason turned off to the left onto
the new Kaluga road and began to enter Forminsk, where only
Broussier had been till then. At that time Dokhturov had under his
command, besides Dorokhov's detachment, the two small guerrilla
detachments of Figner and Seslavin.
On the evening of October 11 Seslavin came to the Aristovo
headquarters with a French guardsman he had captured. The prisoner
said that the troops that had entered Forminsk that day were the
vanguard of the whole army, that Napoleon was there and the whole
army had left Moscow four days previously. That same evening a
house serf who had come from Borovsk said he had seen an immense
army entering the town. Some Cossacks of Dokhturov's detachment
reported having sighted the French Guards marching along the road to
Borovsk. From all these reports it was evident that where they had
expected to meet a single division there was now the whole French
army marching from Moscow in an unexpected direction—along the
Kaluga road. Dokhturov was unwilling to undertake any action, as it
was not clear to him now what he ought to do. He had been ordered to
attack Forminsk. But only Broussier had been there at that time and
now the whole French army was there. Ermolov wished to act on his
own judgment, but Dokhturov insisted that he must have Kutuzov's
instructions. So it was decided to send a dispatch to the staff.
For this purpose a capable officer, Bolkhovitinov, was chosen, who
was to explain the whole affair by word of mouth, besides delivering a
written report. Toward midnight Bolkhovitinov, having received the
dispatch and verbal instructions, galloped off to the General Staff
accompanied by a Cossack with spare horses.

CHAPTER XVI
It was a warm, dark, autumn night. It had been raining for four days.
Having changed horses twice and galloped twenty miles in an hour and
a half over a sticky, muddy road, Bolkhovitinov reached Litashevka
after one o'clock at night. Dismounting at a cottage on whose wattle
fence hung a signboard, GENERAL STAFF, and throwing down his
reins, he entered a dark passage.
"The general on duty, quick! It's very important!" said he to someone
who had risen and was sniffing in the dark passage.
"He has been very unwell since the evening and this is the third night
he has not slept," said the orderly pleadingly in a whisper. "You should
wake the captain first."
 "But this is very important, from General Dokhturov," said
Bolkhovitinov, entering the open door which he had found by feeling in
the dark.
The orderly had gone in before him and began waking somebody.
"Your honor, your honor! A courier."
"What? What's that? From whom?" came a sleepy voice.
"From Dokhturov and from Alexey Petrovich. Napoleon is at
Forminsk," said Bolkhovitinov, unable to see in the dark who was
speaking but guessing by the voice that it was not Konovnitsyn.
The man who had wakened yawned and stretched himself.
"I don't like waking him," he said, fumbling for something. "He is
very ill. Perhaps this is only a rumor."
"Here is the dispatch," said Bolkhovitinov. "My orders are to give it
at once to the general on duty."
"Wait a moment, I'll light a candle. You damned rascal, where do
you always hide it?" said the voice of the man who was stretching
himself, to the orderly. (This was Shcherbinin, Konovnitsyn's adjutant.)
"I've found it, I've found it!" he added.
The orderly was striking a light and Shcherbinin was fumbling for
something on the candlestick.
"Oh, the nasty beasts!" said he with disgust.
By the light of the sparks Bolkhovitinov saw Shcherbinin's youthful
face as he held the candle, and the face of another man who was still
asleep. This was Konovnitsyn.
When the flame of the sulphur splinters kindled by the tinder burned
up, first blue and then red, Shcherbinin lit the tallow candle, from the
candlestick of which the cockroaches that had been gnawing it were
running away, and looked at the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was
bespattered all over with mud and had smeared his face by wiping it
with his sleeve.
"Who gave the report?" inquired Shcherbinin, taking the envelope.
"The news is reliable," said Bolkhovitinov. "Prisoners, Cossacks, and
the scouts all say the same thing."
"There's nothing to be done, we'll have to wake him," said
Shcherbinin, rising and going up to the man in the nightcap who lay
covered by a greatcoat. "Peter Petrovich!" said he. (Konovnitsyn did
not stir.) "To the General Staff!" he said with a smile, knowing that
those words would be sure to arouse him.
And in fact the head in the nightcap was lifted at once. On
Konovnitsyn's handsome, resolute face with cheeks flushed by fever,
there still remained for an instant a faraway dreamy expression remote
from present affairs, but then he suddenly started and his face assumed
its habitual calm and firm appearance.
"Well, what is it? From whom?" he asked immediately but without
hurry, blinking at the light.
While listening to the officer's report Konovnitsyn broke the seal and
read the dispatch. Hardly had he done so before he lowered his legs in
their woolen stockings to the earthen floor and began putting on his
boots. Then he took off his nightcap, combed his hair over his temples,
and donned his cap.
"Did you get here quickly? Let us go to his Highness."
Konovnitsyn had understood at once that the news brought was of
great importance and that no time must be lost. He did not consider or
ask himself whether the news was good or bad. That did not interest
him. He regarded the whole business of the war not with his
intelligence or his reason but by something else. There was within him
a deep unexpressed conviction that all would be well, but that one must
not trust to this and still less speak about it, but must only attend to
one's own work. And he did his work, giving his whole strength to the
task.
Peter Petrovich Konovnitsyn, like Dokhturov, seems to have been
included merely for propriety's sake in the list of the so-called heroes of
1812—the Barclays, Raevskis, Ermolovs, Platovs, and Miloradoviches.
Like Dokhturov he had the reputation of being a man of very limited
capacity and information, and like Dokhturov he never made plans of
battle but was always found where the situation was most difficult.
Since his appointment as general on duty he had always slept with his
door open, giving orders that every messenger should be allowed to
wake him up. In battle he was always under fire, so that Kutuzov
reproved him for it and feared to send him to the front, and like
Dokhturov he was one of those unnoticed cogwheels that, without
clatter or noise, constitute the most essential part of the machine.
Coming out of the hut into the damp, dark night Konovnitsyn
frowned—partly from an increased pain in his head and partly at the
unpleasant thought that occurred to him, of how all that nest of
influential men on the staff would be stirred up by this news, especially
Bennigsen, who ever since Tarutino had been at daggers drawn with
Kutuzov; and how they would make suggestions, quarrel, issue orders,
and rescind them. And this premonition was disagreeable to him though
he knew it could not be helped.
And in fact Toll, to whom he went to communicate the news,
immediately began to expound his plans to a general sharing his
quarters, until Konovnitsyn, who listened in weary silence, reminded
him that they must go to see his Highness.

CHAPTER XVII
Kutuzov like all old people did not sleep much at night. He often fell
asleep unexpectedly in the daytime, but at night, lying on his bed
without undressing, he generally remained awake thinking.
So he lay now on his bed, supporting his large, heavy, scarred head
on his plump hand, with his one eye open, meditating and peering into
the darkness.
Since Bennigsen, who corresponded with the Emperor and had more
influence than anyone else on the staff, had begun to avoid him,
Kutuzov was more at ease as to the possibility of himself and his troops
being obliged to take part in useless aggressive movements. The lesson
of the Tarutino battle and of the day before it, which Kutuzov
remembered with pain, must, he thought, have some effect on others
too.
"They must understand that we can only lose by taking the offensive.
Patience and time are my warriors, my champions," thought Kutuzov.
He knew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will
fall of itself when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree
is harmed, and your teeth are set on edge. Like an experienced
sportsman he knew that the beast was wounded, and wounded as only
the whole strength of Russia could have wounded it, but whether it was
mortally wounded or not was still an undecided question. Now by the
fact of Lauriston and Barthelemi having been sent, and by the reports of
the guerrillas, Kutuzov was almost sure that the wound was mortal. But
he needed further proofs and it was necessary to wait.
"They want to run to see how they have wounded it. Wait and we
shall see! Continual maneuvers, continual advances!" thought he.
"What for? Only to distinguish themselves! As if fighting were fun.
They are like children from whom one can't get any sensible account of
what has happened because they all want to show how well they can
fight. But that's not what is needed now.
 "And what ingenious maneuvers they all propose to me! It seems to
them that when they have thought of two or three contingencies" (he
remembered the general plan sent him from Petersburg) "they have
foreseen everything. But the contingencies are endless."
The undecided question as to whether the wound inflicted at
Borodino was mortal or not had hung over Kutuzov's head for a whole
month. On the one hand the French had occupied Moscow. On the
other Kutuzov felt assured with all his being that the terrible blow into
which he and all the Russians had put their whole strength must have
been mortal. But in any case proofs were needed; he had waited a
whole month for them and grew more impatient the longer he waited.
Lying on his bed during those sleepless nights he did just what he
reproached those younger generals for doing. He imagined all sorts of
possible contingencies, just like the younger men, but with this
difference, that he saw thousands of contingencies instead of two or
three and based nothing on them. The longer he thought the more
contingencies presented themselves. He imagined all sorts of
movements of the Napoleonic army as a whole or in sections—against
Petersburg, or against him, or to outflank him. He thought too of the
possibility (which he feared most of all) that Napoleon might fight him
with his own weapon and remain in Moscow awaiting him. Kutuzov
even imagined that Napoleon's army might turn back through Medyn
and Yukhnov, but the one thing he could not foresee was what
happened—the insane, convulsive stampede of Napoleon's army during
its first eleven days after leaving Moscow: a stampede which made
possible what Kutuzov had not yet even dared to think of—the
complete extermination of the French. Dorokhov's report about
Broussier's division, the guerrillas' reports of distress in Napoleon's
army, rumors of preparations for leaving Moscow, all confirmed the
supposition that the French army was beaten and preparing for flight.
But these were only suppositions, which seemed important to the
younger men but not to Kutuzov. With his sixty years' experience he
knew what value to attach to rumors, knew how apt people who desire
anything are to group all news so that it appears to confirm what they
desire, and he knew how readily in such cases they omit all that makes
for the contrary. And the more he desired it the less he allowed himself
to believe it. This question absorbed all his mental powers. All else was
to him only life's customary routine. To such customary routine
belonged his conversations with the staff, the letters he wrote from
Tarutino to Madame de Stael, the reading of novels, the distribution of
awards, his correspondence with Petersburg, and so on. But the
destruction of the French, which he alone foresaw, was his heart's one
desire.
On the night of the eleventh of October he lay leaning on his arm and
thinking of that.
 There was a stir in the next room and he heard the steps of Toll,
Konovnitsyn, and Bolkhovitinov.
"Eh, who's there? Come in, come in! What news?" the field marshal
called out to them.
While a footman was lighting a candle, Toll communicated the
substance of the news.
"Who brought it?" asked Kutuzov with a look which, when the
candle was lit, struck Toll by its cold severity.
"There can be no doubt about it, your Highness."
"Call him in, call him here."
Kutuzov sat up with one leg hanging down from the bed and his big
paunch resting against the other which was doubled under him. He
screwed up his seeing eye to scrutinize the messenger more carefully,
as if wishing to read in his face what preoccupied his own mind.
"Tell me, tell me, friend," said he to Bolkhovitinov in his low, aged
voice, as he pulled together the shirt which gaped open on his chest,
"come nearer—nearer. What news have you brought me? Eh? That
Napoleon has left Moscow? Are you sure? Eh?"
Bolkhovitinov gave a detailed account from the beginning of all he
had been told to report.
"Speak quicker, quicker! Don't torture me!" Kutuzov interrupted
him.
Bolkhovitinov told him everything and was then silent, awaiting
instructions. Toll was beginning to say something but Kutuzov checked
him. He tried to say something, but his face suddenly puckered and
wrinkled; he waved his arm at Toll and turned to the opposite side of
the room, to the corner darkened by the icons that hung there.
"O Lord, my Creator, Thou has heard our prayer..." said he in a
tremulous voice with folded hands. "Russia is saved. I thank Thee, O
Lord!" and he wept.

CHAPTER XVIII
From the time he received this news to the end of the campaign all
Kutuzov's activity was directed toward restraining his troops, by
authority, by guile, and by entreaty, from useless attacks, maneuvers, or
encounters with the perishing enemy. Dokhturov went to Malo-
Yaroslavets, but Kutuzov lingered with the main army and gave orders
for the evacuation of Kaluga—a retreat beyond which town seemed to
him quite possible.
Everywhere Kutuzov retreated, but the enemy without waiting for
his retreat fled in the opposite direction.
Napoleon's historians describe to us his skilled maneuvers at
Tarutino and Malo-Yaroslavets, and make conjectures as to what would
have happened had Napoleon been in time to penetrate into the rich
southern provinces.
But not to speak of the fact that nothing prevented him from
advancing into those southern provinces (for the Russian army did not
bar his way), the historians forget that nothing could have saved his
army, for then already it bore within itself the germs of inevitable ruin.
How could that army—which had found abundant supplies in Moscow
and had trampled them underfoot instead of keeping them, and on
arriving at Smolensk had looted provisions instead of storing them—
how could that army recuperate in Kaluga province, which was
inhabited by Russians such as those who lived in Moscow, and where
fire had the same property of consuming what was set ablaze?
That army could not recover anywhere. Since the battle of Borodino
and the pillage of Moscow it had borne within itself, as it were, the
chemical elements of dissolution.
The members of what had once been an army—Napoleon himself
and all his soldiers fled—without knowing whither, each concerned
only to make his escape as quickly as possible from this position, of the
hopelessness of which they were all more or less vaguely conscious.
So it came about that at the council at Malo-Yaroslavets, when the
generals pretending to confer together expressed various opinions, all
mouths were closed by the opinion uttered by the simple-minded
soldier Mouton who, speaking last, said what they all felt: that the one
thing needful was to get away as quickly as possible; and no one, not
even Napoleon, could say anything against that truth which they all
recognized.
But though they all realized that it was necessary to get away, there
still remained a feeling of shame at admitting that they must flee. An
external shock was needed to overcome that shame, and this shock
came in due time. It was what the French called "le hourra de
l'Empereur."
 The day after the council at Malo-Yaroslavets Napoleon rode out
early in the morning amid the lines of his army with his suite of
marshals and an escort, on the pretext of inspecting the army and the
scene of the previous and of the impending battle. Some Cossacks on
the prowl for booty fell in with the Emperor and very nearly captured
him. If the Cossacks did not capture Napoleon then, what saved him
was the very thing that was destroying the French army, the booty on
which the Cossacks fell. Here as at Tarutino they went after plunder,
leaving the men. Disregarding Napoleon they rushed after the plunder
and Napoleon managed to escape.
When les enfants du Don might so easily have taken the Emperor
himself in the midst of his army, it was clear that there was nothing for
it but to fly as fast as possible along the nearest, familiar road.
Napoleon with his forty-year-old stomach understood that hint, not
feeling his former agility and boldness, and under the influence of the
fright the Cossacks had given him he at once agreed with Mouton and
issued orders—as the historians tell us—to retreat by the Smolensk
road.
That Napoleon agreed with Mouton, and that the army retreated,
does not prove that Napoleon caused it to retreat, but that the forces
which influenced the whole army and directed it along the Mozhaysk
(that is, the Smolensk) road acted simultaneously on him also.

CHAPTER XIX
A man in motion always devises an aim for that motion. To be able
to go a thousand miles he must imagine that something good awaits
him at the end of those thousand miles. One must have the prospect of a
promised land to have the strength to move.
The promised land for the French during their advance had been
Moscow, during their retreat it was their native land. But that native
land was too far off, and for a man going a thousand miles it is
absolutely necessary to set aside his final goal and to say to himself:
"Today I shall get to a place twenty-five miles off where I shall rest and
spend the night," and during the first day's journey that resting place
eclipses his ultimate goal and attracts all his hopes and desires. And the
impulses felt by a single person are always magnified in a crowd.
For the French retreating along the old Smolensk road, the final
goal—their native land—was too remote, and their immediate goal was
Smolensk, toward which all their desires and hopes, enormously
intensified in the mass, urged them on. It was not that they knew that
much food and fresh troops awaited them in Smolensk, nor that they
were told so (on the contrary their superior officers, and Napoleon
himself, knew that provisions were scarce there), but because this alone
could give them strength to move on and endure their present
privations. So both those who knew and those who did not know
deceived themselves, and pushed on to Smolensk as to a promised land.
Coming out onto the highroad the French fled with surprising energy
and unheard-of rapidity toward the goal they had fixed on. Besides the
common impulse which bound the whole crowd of French into one
mass and supplied them with a certain energy, there was another cause
binding them together—their great numbers. As with the physical law
of gravity, their enormous mass drew the individual human atoms to
itself. In their hundreds of thousands they moved like a whole nation.
Each of them desired nothing more than to give himself up as a
prisoner to escape from all this horror and misery; but on the one hand
the force of this common attraction to Smolensk, their goal, drew each
of them in the same direction; on the other hand an army corps could
not surrender to a company, and though the French availed themselves
of every convenient opportunity to detach themselves and to surrender
on the slightest decent pretext, such pretexts did not always occur.
Their very numbers and their crowded and swift movement deprived
them of that possibility and rendered it not only difficult but impossible
for the Russians to stop this movement, to which the French were
directing all their energies. Beyond a certain limit no mechanical
disruption of the body could hasten the process of decomposition.
A lump of snow cannot be melted instantaneously. There is a certain
limit of time in less than which no amount of heat can melt the snow.
On the contrary the greater the heat the more solidified the remaining
snow becomes.
Of the Russian commanders Kutuzov alone understood this. When
the flight of the French army along the Smolensk road became well
defined, what Konovnitsyn had foreseen on the night of the eleventh of
October began to occur. The superior officers all wanted to distinguish
themselves, to cut off, to seize, to capture, and to overthrow the French,
and all clamored for action.
Kutuzov alone used all his power (and such power is very limited in
the case of any commander in chief) to prevent an attack.
He could not tell them what we say now: "Why fight, why block the
road, losing our own men and inhumanly slaughtering unfortunate
wretches? What is the use of that, when a third of their army has melted
away on the road from Moscow to Vyazma without any battle?" But
drawing from his aged wisdom what they could understand, he told
them of the golden bridge, and they laughed at and slandered him,
flinging themselves on, rending and exulting over the dying beast.
Ermolov, Miloradovich, Platov, and others in proximity to the
French near Vyazma could not resist their desire to cut off and break up
two French corps, and by way of reporting their intention to Kutuzov
they sent him a blank sheet of paper in an envelope.
And try as Kutuzov might to restrain the troops, our men attacked,
trying to bar the road. Infantry regiments, we are told, advanced to the
attack with music and with drums beating, and killed and lost
thousands of men.
But they did not cut off or overthrow anybody and the French army,
closing up more firmly at the danger, continued, while steadily melting
away, to pursue its fatal path to Smolensk.

BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812

CHAPTER I
The Battle of Borodino, with the occupation of Moscow that
followed it and the flight of the French without further conflicts, is one
of the most instructive phenomena in history.
All historians agree that the external activity of states and nations in
their conflicts with one another is expressed in wars, and that as a direct
result of greater or less success in war the political strength of states
and nations increases or decreases.
Strange as may be the historical account of how some king or
emperor, having quarreled with another, collects an army, fights his
enemy's army, gains a victory by killing three, five, or ten thousand
men, and subjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of several millions,
all the facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm the truth of the
statement that the greater or lesser success of one army against another
is the cause, or at least an essential indication, of an increase or
decrease in the strength of the nation—even though it is unintelligible
why the defeat of an army—a hundredth part of a nation—should
oblige that whole nation to submit. An army gains a victory, and at
once the rights of the conquering nation have increased to the detriment
of the defeated. An army has suffered defeat, and at once a people loses
its rights in proportion to the severity of the reverse, and if its army
suffers a complete defeat the nation is quite subjugated.
So according to history it has been found from the most ancient
times, and so it is to our own day. All Napoleon's wars serve to confirm
this rule. In proportion to the defeat of the Austrian army Austria loses
its rights, and the rights and the strength of France increase. The
victories of the French at Jena and Auerstadt destroy the independent
existence of Prussia.
But then, in 1812, the French gain a victory near Moscow. Moscow
is taken and after that, with no further battles, it is not Russia that
ceases to exist, but the French army of six hundred thousand, and then
Napoleonic France itself. To strain the facts to fit the rules of history: to
say that the field of battle at Borodino remained in the hands of the
Russians, or that after Moscow there were other battles that destroyed
Napoleon's army, is impossible.
After the French victory at Borodino there was no general
engagement nor any that were at all serious, yet the French army ceased
to exist. What does this mean? If it were an example taken from the
history of China, we might say that it was not an historic phenomenon
(which is the historians' usual expedient when anything does not fit
their standards); if the matter concerned some brief conflict in which
only a small number of troops took part, we might treat it as an
exception; but this event occurred before our fathers' eyes, and for them
it was a question of the life or death of their fatherland, and it happened
in the greatest of all known wars.
The period of the campaign of 1812 from the battle of Borodino to
the expulsion of the French proved that the winning of a battle does not
produce a conquest and is not even an invariable indication of
conquest; it proved that the force which decides the fate of peoples lies
not in the conquerors, nor even in armies and battles, but in something
else.
The French historians, describing the condition of the French army
before it left Moscow, affirm that all was in order in the Grand Army,
except the cavalry, the artillery, and the transport—there was no forage
for the horses or the cattle. That was a misfortune no one could remedy,
for the peasants of the district burned their hay rather than let the
French have it.
The victory gained did not bring the usual results because the
peasants Karp and Vlas (who after the French had evacuated Moscow
drove in their carts to pillage the town, and in general personally failed
to manifest any heroic feelings), and the whole innumerable multitude
of such peasants, did not bring their hay to Moscow for the high price
offered them, but burned it instead.
Let us imagine two men who have come out to fight a duel with
rapiers according to all the rules of the art of fencing. The fencing has
gone on for some time; suddenly one of the combatants, feeling himself
wounded and understanding that the matter is no joke but concerns his
life, throws down his rapier, and seizing the first cudgel that comes to
hand begins to brandish it. Then let us imagine that the combatant who
so sensibly employed the best and simplest means to attain his end was
at the same time influenced by traditions of chivalry and, desiring to
conceal the facts of the case, insisted that he had gained his victory
with the rapier according to all the rules of art. One can imagine what
confusion and obscurity would result from such an account of the duel.
The fencer who demanded a contest according to the rules of fencing
was the French army; his opponent who threw away the rapier and
snatched up the cudgel was the Russian people; those who try to
explain the matter according to the rules of fencing are the historians
who have described the event.
After the burning of Smolensk a war began which did not follow any
previous traditions of war. The burning of towns and villages, the
retreats after battles, the blow dealt at Borodino and the renewed
retreat, the burning of Moscow, the capture of marauders, the seizure of
transports, and the guerrilla war were all departures from the rules.
Napoleon felt this, and from the time he took up the correct fencing
attitude in Moscow and instead of his opponent's rapier saw a cudgel
raised above his head, he did not cease to complain to Kutuzov and to
the Emperor Alexander that the war was being carried on contrary to all
the rules—as if there were any rules for killing people. In spite of the
complaints of the French as to the nonobservance of the rules, in spite
of the fact that to some highly placed Russians it seemed rather
disgraceful to fight with a cudgel and they wanted to assume a pose en
quarte or en tierce according to all the rules, and to make an adroit
thrust en prime, and so on—the cudgel of the people's war was lifted
with all its menacing and majestic strength, and without consulting
anyone's tastes or rules and regardless of anything else, it rose and fell
with stupid simplicity, but consistently, and belabored the French till
the whole invasion had perished.
And it is well for a people who do not—as the French did in 1813—
salute according to all the rules of art, and, presenting the hilt of their
rapier gracefully and politely, hand it to their magnanimous conqueror,
but at the moment of trial, without asking what rules others have
adopted in similar cases, simply and easily pick up the first cudgel that
comes to hand and strike with it till the feeling of resentment and
revenge in their soul yields to a feeling of contempt and compassion.

CHAPTER II
One of the most obvious and advantageous departures from the so-
called laws of war is the action of scattered groups against men pressed
together in a mass. Such action always occurs in wars that take on a
national character. In such actions, instead of two crowds opposing
each other, the men disperse, attack singly, run away when attacked by
stronger forces, but again attack when opportunity offers. This was
done by the guerrillas in Spain, by the mountain tribes in the Caucasus,
and by the Russians in 1812.
People have called this kind of war "guerrilla warfare" and assume
that by so calling it they have explained its meaning. But such a war
does not fit in under any rule and is directly opposed to a well-known
rule of tactics which is accepted as infallible. That rule says that an
attacker should concentrate his forces in order to be stronger than his
opponent at the moment of conflict.
Guerrilla war (always successful, as history shows) directly infringes
that rule.
This contradiction arises from the fact that military science assumes
the strength of an army to be identical with its numbers. Military
science says that the more troops the greater the strength. Les gros
bataillons ont toujours raison. *

* Large battalions are always victorious.

For military science to say this is like defining momentum in

mechanics by reference to the mass only: stating that momenta are
equal or unequal to each other simply because the masses involved are
equal or unequal.
Momentum (quantity of motion) is the product of mass and velocity.
In military affairs the strength of an army is the product of its mass
and some unknown x.
Military science, seeing in history innumerable instances of the fact
that the size of any army does not coincide with its strength and that
small detachments defeat larger ones, obscurely admits the existence of
this unknown factor and tries to discover it—now in a geometric
formation, now in the equipment employed, now, and most usually, in
the genius of the commanders. But the assignment of these various
meanings to the factor does not yield results which accord with the
historic facts.
Yet it is only necessary to abandon the false view (adopted to gratify
the "heroes") of the efficacy of the directions issued in wartime by
commanders, in order to find this unknown quantity.
That unknown quantity is the spirit of the army, that is to say, the
greater or lesser readiness to fight and face danger felt by all the men
composing an army, quite independently of whether they are, or are
not, fighting under the command of a genius, in two—or three-line
formation, with cudgels or with rifles that repeat thirty times a minute.
Men who want to fight will always put themselves in the most
advantageous conditions for fighting.
The spirit of an army is the factor which multiplied by the mass gives
the resulting force. To define and express the significance of this
unknown factor—the spirit of an army—is a problem for science.
This problem is only solvable if we cease arbitrarily to substitute for
the unknown x itself the conditions under which that force becomes
apparent—such as the commands of the general, the equipment
employed, and so on—mistaking these for the real significance of the
factor, and if we recognize this unknown quantity in its entirety as
being the greater or lesser desire to fight and to face danger. Only then,
expressing known historic facts by equations and comparing the
relative significance of this factor, can we hope to define the unknown.
Ten men, battalions, or divisions, fighting fifteen men, battalions, or
divisions, conquer—that is, kill or take captive—all the others, while
themselves losing four, so that on the one side four and on the other
fifteen were lost. Consequently the four were equal to the fifteen, and
therefore 4x = 15y. Consequently x/y = 15/4. This equation does not
give us the value of the unknown factor but gives us a ratio between
two unknowns. And by bringing variously selected historic units
(battles, campaigns, periods of war) into such equations, a series of
numbers could be obtained in which certain laws should exist and
might be discovered.
The tactical rule that an army should act in masses when attacking,
and in smaller groups in retreat, unconsciously confirms the truth that
the strength of an army depends on its spirit. To lead men forward
under fire more discipline (obtainable only by movement in masses) is
needed than is needed to resist attacks. But this rule which leaves out of
account the spirit of the army continually proves incorrect and is in
particularly striking contrast to the facts when some strong rise or fall
in the spirit of the troops occurs, as in all national wars.
The French, retreating in 1812—though according to tactics they
should have separated into detachments to defend themselves—
congregated into a mass because the spirit of the army had so fallen that
only the mass held the army together. The Russians, on the contrary,
ought according to tactics to have attacked in mass, but in fact they
split up into small units, because their spirit had so risen that separate
individuals, without orders, dealt blows at the French without needing
any compulsion to induce them to expose themselves to hardships and
dangers.

CHAPTER III
The so-called partisan war began with the entry of the French into
Smolensk.
Before partisan warfare had been officially recognized by the
government, thousands of enemy stragglers, marauders, and foragers
had been destroyed by the Cossacks and the peasants, who killed them
off as instinctively as dogs worry a stray mad dog to death. Denis
Davydov, with his Russian instinct, was the first to recognize the value
of this terrible cudgel which regardless of the rules of military science
destroyed the French, and to him belongs the credit for taking the first
step toward regularizing this method of warfare.
On August 24 Davydov's first partisan detachment was formed and
then others were recognized. The further the campaign progressed the
more numerous these detachments became.
The irregulars destroyed the great army piecemeal. They gathered
the fallen leaves that dropped of themselves from that withered tree—
the French army—and sometimes shook that tree itself. By October,
when the French were fleeing toward Smolensk, there were hundreds of
such companies, of various sizes and characters. There were some that
adopted all the army methods and had infantry, artillery, staffs, and the
comforts of life. Others consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There
were also small scratch groups of foot and horse, and groups of
peasants and landowners that remained unknown. A sacristan
commanded one party which captured several hundred prisoners in the
course of a month; and there was Vasilisa, the wife of a village elder,
who slew hundreds of the French.
 The partisan warfare flamed up most fiercely in the latter days of
October. Its first period had passed: when the partisans themselves,
amazed at their own boldness, feared every minute to be surrounded
and captured by the French, and hid in the forests without unsaddling,
hardly daring to dismount and always expecting to be pursued. By the
end of October this kind of warfare had taken definite shape: it had
become clear to all what could be ventured against the French and what
could not. Now only the commanders of detachments with staffs, and
moving according to rules at a distance from the French, still regarded
many things as impossible. The small bands that had started their
activities long before and had already observed the French closely
considered things possible which the commanders of the big
detachments did not dare to contemplate. The Cossacks and peasants
who crept in among the French now considered everything possible.
On October 22, Denisov (who was one of the irregulars) was with his
group at the height of the guerrilla enthusiasm. Since early morning he
and his party had been on the move. All day long he had been watching
from the forest that skirted the highroad a large French convoy of
cavalry baggage and Russian prisoners separated from the rest of the
army, which—as was learned from spies and prisoners—was moving
under a strong escort to Smolensk. Besides Denisov and Dolokhov
(who also led a small party and moved in Denisov's vicinity), the
commanders of some large divisions with staffs also knew of this
convoy and, as Denisov expressed it, were sharpening their teeth for it.
Two of the commanders of large parties—one a Pole and the other a
German—sent invitations to Denisov almost simultaneously,
requesting him to join up with their divisions to attack the convoy.
"No, bwother, I have gwown mustaches myself," said Denisov on
reading these documents, and he wrote to the German that, despite his
heartfelt desire to serve under so valiant and renowned a general, he
had to forgo that pleasure because he was already under the command
of the Polish general. To the Polish general he replied to the same
effect, informing him that he was already under the command of the
German.
Having arranged matters thus, Denisov and Dolokhov intended,
without reporting matters to the higher command, to attack and seize
that convoy with their own small forces. On October 22 it was moving
from the village of Mikulino to that of Shamshevo. To the left of the
road between Mikulino and Shamshevo there were large forests,
extending in some places up to the road itself though in others a mile or
more back from it. Through these forests Denisov and his party rode all
day, sometimes keeping well back in them and sometimes coming to
the very edge, but never losing sight of the moving French. That
morning, Cossacks of Denisov's party had seized and carried off into
the forest two wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had stuck in
the mud not far from Mikulino where the forest ran close to the road.
Since then, and until evening, the party had watched the movements of
the French without attacking. It was necessary to let the French reach
Shamshevo quietly without alarming them and then, after joining
Dolokhov who was to come that evening to a consultation at a
watchman's hut in the forest less than a mile from Shamshevo, to
surprise the French at dawn, falling like an avalanche on their heads
from two sides, and rout and capture them all at one blow.
In their rear, more than a mile from Mikulino where the forest came
right up to the road, six Cossacks were posted to report if any fresh
columns of French should show themselves.
Beyond Shamshevo, Dolokhov was to observe the road in the same
way, to find out at what distance there were other French troops. They
reckoned that the convoy had fifteen hundred men. Denisov had two
hundred, and Dolokhov might have as many more, but the disparity of
numbers did not deter Denisov. All that he now wanted to know was
what troops these were and to learn that he had to capture a "tongue"—
that is, a man from the enemy column. That morning's attack on the
wagons had been made so hastily that the Frenchmen with the wagons
had all been killed; only a little drummer boy had been taken alive, and
as he was a straggler he could tell them nothing definite about the
troops in that column.
Denisov considered it dangerous to make a second attack for fear of
putting the whole column on the alert, so he sent Tikhon Shcherbaty, a
peasant of his party, to Shamshevo to try and seize at least one of the
French quartermasters who had been sent on in advance.

CHAPTER IV
It was a warm rainy autumn day. The sky and the horizon were both
the color of muddy water. At times a sort of mist descended, and then
suddenly heavy slanting rain came down.
Denisov in a felt cloak and a sheepskin cap from which the rain ran
down was riding a thin thoroughbred horse with sunken sides. Like his
horse, which turned its head and laid its ears back, he shrank from the
driving rain and gazed anxiously before him. His thin face with its
short, thick black beard looked angry.
Beside Denisov rode an esaul, * Denisov's fellow worker, also in felt
cloak and sheepskin cap, and riding a large sleek Don horse.
 * A captain of Cossacks.

Esaul Lovayski the Third was a tall man as straight as an arrow,

pale-faced, fair-haired, with narrow light eyes and with calm self-
satisfaction in his face and bearing. Though it was impossible to say in
what the peculiarity of the horse and rider lay, yet at first glance at the
esaul and Denisov one saw that the latter was wet and uncomfortable
and was a man mounted on a horse, while looking at the esaul one saw
that he was as comfortable and as much at ease as always and that he
was not a man who had mounted a horse, but a man who was one with
his horse, a being consequently possessed of twofold strength.
A little ahead of them walked a peasant guide, wet to the skin and
wearing a gray peasant coat and a white knitted cap.
A little behind, on a poor, small, lean Kirghiz mount with an
enormous tail and mane and a bleeding mouth, rode a young officer in
a blue French overcoat.
Beside him rode an hussar, with a boy in a tattered French uniform
and blue cap behind him on the crupper of his horse. The boy held on
to the hussar with cold, red hands, and raising his eyebrows gazed
about him with surprise. This was the French drummer boy captured
that morning.
Behind them along the narrow, sodden, cutup forest road came
hussars in threes and fours, and then Cossacks: some in felt cloaks,
some in French greatcoats, and some with horsecloths over their heads.
The horses, being drenched by the rain, all looked black whether
chestnut or bay. Their necks, with their wet, close-clinging manes,
looked strangely thin. Steam rose from them. Clothes, saddles, reins,
were all wet, slippery, and sodden, like the ground and the fallen leaves
that strewed the road. The men sat huddled up trying not to stir, so as to
warm the water that had trickled to their bodies and not admit the fresh
cold water that was leaking in under their seats, their knees, and at the
back of their necks. In the midst of the outspread line of Cossacks two
wagons, drawn by French horses and by saddled Cossack horses that
had been hitched on in front, rumbled over the tree stumps and
branches and splashed through the water that lay in the ruts.
Denisov's horse swerved aside to avoid a pool in the track and
bumped his rider's knee against a tree.
"Oh, the devil!" exclaimed Denisov angrily, and showing his teeth he
struck his horse three times with his whip, splashing himself and his
comrades with mud.
 Denisov was out of sorts both because of the rain and also from
hunger (none of them had eaten anything since morning), and yet more
because he still had no news from Dolokhov and the man sent to
capture a "tongue" had not returned.
"There'll hardly be another such chance to fall on a transport as
today. It's too risky to attack them by oneself, and if we put it off till
another day one of the big guerrilla detachments will snatch the prey
from under our noses," thought Denisov, continually peering forward,
hoping to see a messenger from Dolokhov.
On coming to a path in the forest along which he could see far to the
right, Denisov stopped.
"There's someone coming," said he.
The esaul looked in the direction Denisov indicated.
"There are two, an officer and a Cossack. But it is not presupposable
that it is the lieutenant colonel himself," said the esaul, who was fond
of using words the Cossacks did not know.
The approaching riders having descended a decline were no longer
visible, but they reappeared a few minutes later. In front, at a weary
gallop and using his leather whip, rode an officer, disheveled and
drenched, whose trousers had worked up to above his knees. Behind
him, standing in the stirrups, trotted a Cossack. The officer, a very
young lad with a broad rosy face and keen merry eyes, galloped up to
Denisov and handed him a sodden envelope.
"From the general," said the officer. "Please excuse its not being
quite dry."
Denisov, frowning, took the envelope and opened it.
"There, they kept telling us: 'It's dangerous, it's dangerous,'" said the
officer, addressing the esaul while Denisov was reading the dispatch.
"But Komarov and I"—he pointed to the Cossack—"were prepared.
We have each of us two pistols.... But what's this?" he asked, noticing
the French drummer boy. "A prisoner? You've already been in action?
May I speak to him?"
"Wostov! Petya!" exclaimed Denisov, having run through the
dispatch. "Why didn't you say who you were?" and turning with a smile
he held out his hand to the lad.
The officer was Petya Rostov.
All the way Petya had been preparing himself to behave with
Denisov as befitted a grownup man and an officer—without hinting at
their previous acquaintance. But as soon as Denisov smiled at him
Petya brightened up, blushed with pleasure, forgot the official manner
he had been rehearsing, and began telling him how he had already been
in a battle near Vyazma and how a certain hussar had distinguished
himself there.
"Well, I am glad to see you," Denisov interrupted him, and his face
again assumed its anxious expression.
"Michael Feoklitych," said he to the esaul, "this is again fwom that
German, you know. He"—he indicated Petya—"is serving under him."
And Denisov told the esaul that the dispatch just delivered was a
repetition of the German general's demand that he should join forces
with him for an attack on the transport.
"If we don't take it tomowwow, he'll snatch it fwom under our
noses," he added.
While Denisov was talking to the esaul, Petya—abashed by
Denisov's cold tone and supposing that it was due to the condition of
his trousers—furtively tried to pull them down under his greatcoat so
that no one should notice it, while maintaining as martial an air as
possible.
"Will there be any orders, your honor?" he asked Denisov, holding
his hand at the salute and resuming the game of adjutant and general for
which he had prepared himself, "or shall I remain with your honor?"
"Orders?" Denisov repeated thoughtfully. "But can you stay till
tomowwow?"
"Oh, please... May I stay with you?" cried Petya.
"But, just what did the genewal tell you? To weturn at once?" asked
Denisov.
Petya blushed.
"He gave me no instructions. I think I could?" he returned,
inquiringly.
"Well, all wight," said Denisov.
And turning to his men he directed a party to go on to the halting
place arranged near the watchman's hut in the forest, and told the
officer on the Kirghiz horse (who performed the duties of an adjutant)
to go and find out where Dolokhov was and whether he would come
that evening. Denisov himself intended going with the esaul and Petya
to the edge of the forest where it reached out to Shamshevo, to have a
look at the part of the French bivouac they were to attack next day.
 "Well, old fellow," said he to the peasant guide, "lead us to
Shamshevo."
Denisov, Petya, and the esaul, accompanied by some Cossacks and
the hussar who had the prisoner, rode to the left across a ravine to the
edge of the forest.

CHAPTER V
The rain had stopped, and only the mist was falling and drops from
the trees. Denisov, the esaul, and Petya rode silently, following the
peasant in the knitted cap who, stepping lightly with outturned toes and
moving noiselessly in his bast shoes over the roots and wet leaves,
silently led them to the edge of the forest.
He ascended an incline, stopped, looked about him, and advanced to
where the screen of trees was less dense. On reaching a large oak tree
that had not yet shed its leaves, he stopped and beckoned mysteriously
to them with his hand.
Denisov and Petya rode up to him. From the spot where the peasant
was standing they could see the French. Immediately beyond the forest,
on a downward slope, lay a field of spring rye. To the right, beyond a
steep ravine, was a small village and a landowner's house with a broken
roof. In the village, in the house, in the garden, by the well, by the
pond, over all the rising ground, and all along the road uphill from the
bridge leading to the village, not more than five hundred yards away,
crowds of men could be seen through the shimmering mist. Their un-
Russian shouting at their horses which were straining uphill with the
carts, and their calls to one another, could be clearly heard.
"Bwing the prisoner here," said Denisov in a low voice, not taking
his eyes off the French.
A Cossack dismounted, lifted the boy down, and took him to
Denisov. Pointing to the French troops, Denisov asked him what these
and those of them were. The boy, thrusting his cold hands into his
pockets and lifting his eyebrows, looked at Denisov in affright, but in
spite of an evident desire to say all he knew gave confused answers,
merely assenting to everything Denisov asked him. Denisov turned
away from him frowning and addressed the esaul, conveying his own
conjectures to him.
 Petya, rapidly turning his head, looked now at the drummer boy, now
at Denisov, now at the esaul, and now at the French in the village and
along the road, trying not to miss anything of importance.
"Whether Dolokhov comes or not, we must seize it, eh?" said
Denisov with a merry sparkle in his eyes.
"It is a very suitable spot," said the esaul.
"We'll send the infantwy down by the swamps," Denisov continued.
"They'll cweep up to the garden; you'll wide up fwom there with the
Cossacks"—he pointed to a spot in the forest beyond the village—"and
I with my hussars fwom here. And at the signal shot..."
"The hollow is impassable—there's a swamp there," said the esaul.
"The horses would sink. We must ride round more to the left...."
While they were talking in undertones the crack of a shot sounded
from the low ground by the pond, a puff of white smoke appeared, then
another, and the sound of hundreds of seemingly merry French voices
shouting together came up from the slope. For a moment Denisov and
the esaul drew back. They were so near that they thought they were the
cause of the firing and shouting. But the firing and shouting did not
relate to them. Down below, a man wearing something red was running
through the marsh. The French were evidently firing and shouting at
him.
"Why, that's our Tikhon," said the esaul.
"So it is! It is!"
"The wascal!" said Denisov.
"He'll get away!" said the esaul, screwing up his eyes.
The man whom they called Tikhon, having run to the stream,
plunged in so that the water splashed in the air, and, having disappeared
for an instant, scrambled out on all fours, all black with the wet, and ran
on. The French who had been pursuing him stopped.
"Smart, that!" said the esaul.
"What a beast!" said Denisov with his former look of vexation.
"What has he been doing all this time?"
"Who is he?" asked Petya.
"He's our plastun. I sent him to capture a 'tongue.'"
"Oh, yes," said Petya, nodding at the first words Denisov uttered as if
he understood it all, though he really did not understand anything of it.
 Tikhon Shcherbaty was one of the most indispensable men in their
band. He was a peasant from Pokrovsk, near the river Gzhat. When
Denisov had come to Pokrovsk at the beginning of his operations and
had as usual summoned the village elder and asked him what he knew
about the French, the elder, as though shielding himself, had replied, as
all village elders did, that he had neither seen nor heard anything of
them. But when Denisov explained that his purpose was to kill the
French, and asked if no French had strayed that way, the elder replied
that some "more-orderers" had really been at their village, but that
Tikhon Shcherbaty was the only man who dealt with such matters.
Denisov had Tikhon called and, having praised him for his activity,
said a few words in the elder's presence about loyalty to the Tsar and
the country and the hatred of the French that all sons of the fatherland
should cherish.
"We don't do the French any harm," said Tikhon, evidently
frightened by Denisov's words. "We only fooled about with the lads for
fun, you know! We killed a score or so of 'more-orderers,' but we did
no harm else..."
Next day when Denisov had left Pokrovsk, having quite forgotten
about this peasant, it was reported to him that Tikhon had attached
himself to their party and asked to be allowed to remain with it.
Denisov gave orders to let him do so.
Tikhon, who at first did rough work, laying campfires, fetching
water, flaying dead horses, and so on, soon showed a great liking and
aptitude for partisan warfare. At night he would go out for booty and
always brought back French clothing and weapons, and when told to
would bring in French captives also. Denisov then relieved him from
drudgery and began taking him with him when he went out on
expeditions and had him enrolled among the Cossacks.
Tikhon did not like riding, and always went on foot, never lagging
behind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carried
rather as a joke), a pike and an ax, which latter he used as a wolf uses
its teeth, with equal case picking fleas out of its fur or crunching thick
bones. Tikhon with equal accuracy would split logs with blows at arm's
length, or holding the head of the ax would cut thin little pegs or carve
spoons. In Denisov's party he held a peculiar and exceptional position.
When anything particularly difficult or nasty had to be done—to push a
cart out of the mud with one's shoulders, pull a horse out of a swamp by
its tail, skin it, slink in among the French, or walk more than thirty
miles in a day—everybody pointed laughingly at Tikhon.
"It won't hurt that devil—he's as strong as a horse!" they said of him.
Once a Frenchman Tikhon was trying to capture fired a pistol at him
and shot him in the fleshy part of the back. That wound (which Tikhon
treated only with internal and external applications of vodka) was the
subject of the liveliest jokes by the whole detachment—jokes in which
Tikhon readily joined.
"Hallo, mate! Never again? Gave you a twist?" the Cossacks would
banter him. And Tikhon, purposely writhing and making faces,
pretended to be angry and swore at the French with the funniest curses.
The only effect of this incident on Tikhon was that after being wounded
he seldom brought in prisoners.
He was the bravest and most useful man in the party. No one found
more opportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed more
Frenchmen, and consequently he was made the buffoon of all the
Cossacks and hussars and willingly accepted that role. Now he had
been sent by Denisov overnight to Shamshevo to capture a "tongue."
But whether because he had not been content to take only one
Frenchman or because he had slept through the night, he had crept by
day into some bushes right among the French and, as Denisov had
witnessed from above, had been detected by them.

CHAPTER VI
After talking for some time with the esaul about next day's attack,
which now, seeing how near they were to the French, he seemed to
have definitely decided on, Denisov turned his horse and rode back.
"Now, my lad, we'll go and get dwy," he said to Petya.
As they approached the watchhouse Denisov stopped, peering into
the forest. Among the trees a man with long legs and long, swinging
arms, wearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazan hat, was
approaching with long, light steps. He had a musketoon over his
shoulder and an ax stuck in his girdle. When he espied Denisov he
hastily threw something into the bushes, removed his sodden hat by its
floppy brim, and approached his commander. It was Tikhon. His
wrinkled and pockmarked face and narrow little eyes beamed with self-
satisfied merriment. He lifted his head high and gazed at Denisov as if
repressing a laugh.
"Well, where did you disappear to?" inquired Denisov.
"Where did I disappear to? I went to get Frenchmen," answered
Tikhon boldly and hurriedly, in a husky but melodious bass voice.
 "Why did you push yourself in there by daylight? You ass! Well,
why haven't you taken one?"
"Oh, I took one all right," said Tikhon.
"Where is he?"
"You see, I took him first thing at dawn," Tikhon continued,
spreading out his flat feet with outturned toes in their bast shoes. "I
took him into the forest. Then I see he's no good and think I'll go and
fetch a likelier one."
"You see?... What a wogue—it's just as I thought," said Denisov to
the esaul. "Why didn't you bwing that one?"
"What was the good of bringing him?" Tikhon interrupted hastily
and angrily—"that one wouldn't have done for you. As if I don't know
what sort you want!"
"What a bwute you are!... Well?"
"I went for another one," Tikhon continued, "and I crept like this
through the wood and lay down." (He suddenly lay down on his
stomach with a supple movement to show how he had done it.) "One
turned up and I grabbed him, like this." (He jumped up quickly and
lightly.) "'Come along to the colonel,' I said. He starts yelling, and
suddenly there were four of them. They rushed at me with their little
swords. So I went for them with my ax, this way: 'What are you up to?'
says I. 'Christ be with you!'" shouted Tikhon, waving his arms with an
angry scowl and throwing out his chest.
"Yes, we saw from the hill how you took to your heels through the
puddles!" said the esaul, screwing up his glittering eyes.
Petya badly wanted to laugh, but noticed that they all refrained from
laughing. He turned his eyes rapidly from Tikhon's face to the esaul's
and Denisov's, unable to make out what it all meant.
"Don't play the fool!" said Denisov, coughing angrily. "Why didn't
you bwing the first one?"
Tikhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other,
then suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming, foolish grin,
disclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that was why he was called
Shcherbaty—the gap-toothed). Denisov smiled, and Petya burst into a
peal of merry laughter in which Tikhon himself joined.
"Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing," said Tikhon. "The
clothes on him—poor stuff! How could I bring him? And so rude, your
honor! Why, he says: 'I'm a general's son myself, I won't go!' he says."
 "You are a bwute!" said Denisov. "I wanted to question..."
"But I questioned him," said Tikhon. "He said he didn't know much.
'There are a lot of us,' he says, 'but all poor stuff—only soldiers in
name,' he says. 'Shout loud at them,' he says, 'and you'll take them all,'"
Tikhon concluded, looking cheerfully and resolutely into Denisov's
eyes.
"I'll give you a hundwed sharp lashes—that'll teach you to play the
fool!" said Denisov severely.
"But why are you angry?" remonstrated Tikhon, "just as if I'd never
seen your Frenchmen! Only wait till it gets dark and I'll fetch you any
of them you want—three if you like."
"Well, let's go," said Denisov, and rode all the way to the
watchhouse in silence and frowning angrily.
Tikhon followed behind and Petya heard the Cossacks laughing with
him and at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into the
bushes.
When the fit of laughter that had seized him at Tikhon's words and
smile had passed and Petya realized for a moment that this Tikhon had
killed a man, he felt uneasy. He looked round at the captive drummer
boy and felt a pang in his heart. But this uneasiness lasted only a
moment. He felt it necessary to hold his head higher, to brace himself,
and to question the esaul with an air of importance about tomorrow's
undertaking, that he might not be unworthy of the company in which he
found himself.
The officer who had been sent to inquire met Denisov on the way
with the news that Dolokhov was soon coming and that all was well
with him.
Denisov at once cheered up and, calling Petya to him, said: "Well,
tell me about yourself."

CHAPTER VII
Petya, having left his people after their departure from Moscow,
joined his regiment and was soon taken as orderly by a general
commanding a large guerrilla detachment. From the time he received
his commission, and especially since he had joined the active army and
taken part in the battle of Vyazma, Petya had been in a constant state of
blissful excitement at being grown-up and in a perpetual ecstatic hurry
not to miss any chance to do something really heroic. He was highly
delighted with what he saw and experienced in the army, but at the
same time it always seemed to him that the really heroic exploits were
being performed just where he did not happen to be. And he was
always in a hurry to get where he was not.
When on the twenty-first of October his general expressed a wish to
send somebody to Denisov's detachment, Petya begged so piteously to
be sent that the general could not refuse. But when dispatching him he
recalled Petya's mad action at the battle of Vyazma, where instead of
riding by the road to the place to which he had been sent, he had
galloped to the advanced line under the fire of the French and had there
twice fired his pistol. So now the general explicitly forbade his taking
part in any action whatever of Denisov's. That was why Petya had
blushed and grown confused when Denisov asked him whether he
could stay. Before they had ridden to the outskirts of the forest Petya
had considered he must carry out his instructions strictly and return at
once. But when he saw the French and saw Tikhon and learned that
there would certainly be an attack that night, he decided, with the
rapidity with which young people change their views, that the general,
whom he had greatly respected till then, was a rubbishy German, that
Denisov was a hero, the esaul a hero, and Tikhon a hero too, and that it
would be shameful for him to leave them at a moment of difficulty.
It was already growing dusk when Denisov, Petya, and the esaul rode
up to the watchhouse. In the twilight saddled horses could be seen, and
Cossacks and hussars who had rigged up rough shelters in the glade
and were kindling glowing fires in a hollow of the forest where the
French could not see the smoke. In the passage of the small watchhouse
a Cossack with sleeves rolled up was chopping some mutton. In the
room three officers of Denisov's band were converting a door into a
tabletop. Petya took off his wet clothes, gave them to be dried, and at
once began helping the officers to fix up the dinner table.
In ten minutes the table was ready and a napkin spread on it. On the
table were vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, roast mutton, and salt.
Sitting at table with the officers and tearing the fat savory mutton
with his hands, down which the grease trickled, Petya was in an ecstatic
childish state of love for all men, and consequently of confidence that
others loved him in the same way.
"So then what do you think, Vasili Dmitrich?" said he to Denisov.
"It's all right my staying a day with you?" And not waiting for a reply
he answered his own question: "You see I was told to find out—well, I
am finding out.... Only do let me into the very... into the chief... I don't
want a reward... But I want..."
 Petya clenched his teeth and looked around, throwing back his head
and flourishing his arms.
"Into the vewy chief..." Denisov repeated with a smile.
"Only, please let me command something, so that I may really
command..." Petya went on. "What would it be to you?... Oh, you want
a knife?" he said, turning to an officer who wished to cut himself a
piece of mutton.
And he handed him his clasp knife. The officer admired it.
"Please keep it. I have several like it," said Petya, blushing.
"Heavens! I was quite forgetting!" he suddenly cried. "I have some
raisins, fine ones; you know, seedless ones. We have a new sutler and
he has such capital things. I bought ten pounds. I am used to something
sweet. Would you like some?..." and Petya ran out into the passage to
his Cossack and brought back some bags which contained about five
pounds of raisins. "Have some, gentlemen, have some!"
"You want a coffeepot, don't you?" he asked the esaul. "I bought a
capital one from our sutler! He has splendid things. And he's very
honest, that's the chief thing. I'll be sure to send it to you. Or perhaps
your flints are giving out, or are worn out—that happens sometimes,
you know. I have brought some with me, here they are"—and he
showed a bag—"a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please
take as many as you want, or all if you like...."
Then suddenly, dismayed lest he had said too much, Petya stopped
and blushed.
He tried to remember whether he had not done anything else that was
foolish. And running over the events of the day he remembered the
French drummer boy. "It's capital for us here, but what of him? Where
have they put him? Have they fed him? Haven't they hurt his feelings?"
he thought. But having caught himself saying too much about the flints,
he was now afraid to speak out.
"I might ask," he thought, "but they'll say: 'He's a boy himself and so
he pities the boy.' I'll show them tomorrow whether I'm a boy. Will it
seem odd if I ask?" Petya thought. "Well, never mind!" and
immediately, blushing and looking anxiously at the officers to see if
they appeared ironical, he said:
"May I call in that boy who was taken prisoner and give him
something to eat?... Perhaps..."
"Yes, he's a poor little fellow," said Denisov, who evidently saw
nothing shameful in this reminder. "Call him in. His name is Vincent
Bosse. Have him fetched."
 "I'll call him," said Petya.
"Yes, yes, call him. A poor little fellow," Denisov repeated.
Petya was standing at the door when Denisov said this. He slipped in
between the officers, came close to Denisov, and said:
"Let me kiss you, dear old fellow! Oh, how fine, how splendid!"
And having kissed Denisov he ran out of the hut.
"Bosse! Vincent!" Petya cried, stopping outside the door.
"Who do you want, sir?" asked a voice in the darkness.
Petya replied that he wanted the French lad who had been captured
that day.
"Ah, Vesenny?" said a Cossack.
Vincent, the boy's name, had already been changed by the Cossacks
into Vesenny (vernal) and into Vesenya by the peasants and soldiers. In
both these adaptations the reference to spring (vesna) matched the
impression made by the young lad.
"He is warming himself there by the bonfire. Ho, Vesenya!
Vesenya!—Vesenny!" laughing voices were heard calling to one
another in the darkness.
"He's a smart lad," said an hussar standing near Petya. "We gave him
something to eat a while ago. He was awfully hungry!"
The sound of bare feet splashing through the mud was heard in the
darkness, and the drummer boy came to the door.
"Ah, c'est vous!" said Petya. "Voulez-vous manger? N'ayez pas peur,
on ne vous fera pas de mal," * he added shyly and affectionately,
touching the boy's hand. "Entrez, entrez." *(2)

* "Ah, it's you! Do you want something to eat?

Don't be
afraid, they won't hurt you."

* (2) "Come in, come in."

"Merci, monsieur," * said the drummer boy in a trembling almost

childish voice, and he began scraping his dirty feet on the threshold.

* "Thank you, sir."

 There were many things Petya wanted to say to the drummer boy,
but did not dare to. He stood irresolutely beside him in the passage.
Then in the darkness he took the boy's hand and pressed it.
"Come in, come in!" he repeated in a gentle whisper. "Oh, what can I
do for him?" he thought, and opening the door he let the boy pass in
first.
When the boy had entered the hut, Petya sat down at a distance from
him, considering it beneath his dignity to pay attention to him. But he
fingered the money in his pocket and wondered whether it would seem
ridiculous to give some to the drummer boy.

CHAPTER VIII
The arrival of Dolokhov diverted Petya's attention from the drummer
boy, to whom Denisov had had some mutton and vodka given, and
whom he had had dressed in a Russian coat so that he might be kept
with their band and not sent away with the other prisoners. Petya had
heard in the army many stories of Dolokhov's extraordinary bravery
and of his cruelty to the French, so from the moment he entered the hut
Petya did not take his eyes from him, but braced himself up more and
more and held his head high, that he might not be unworthy even of
such company.
Dolokhov's appearance amazed Petya by its simplicity.
Denisov wore a Cossack coat, had a beard, had an icon of Nicholas
the Wonder-Worker on his breast, and his way of speaking and
everything he did indicated his unusual position. But Dolokhov, who in
Moscow had worn a Persian costume, had now the appearance of a
most correct officer of the Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a
Guardsman's padded coat with an Order of St. George at his buttonhole
and a plain forage cap set straight on his head. He took off his wet felt
cloak in a corner of the room, and without greeting anyone went up to
Denisov and began questioning him about the matter in hand. Denisov
told him of the designs the large detachments had on the transport, of
the message Petya had brought, and his own replies to both generals.
Then he told him all he knew of the French detachment.
"That's so. But we must know what troops they are and their
numbers," said Dolokhov. "It will be necessary to go there. We can't
start the affair without knowing for certain how many there are. I like
to work accurately. Here now—wouldn't one of these gentlemen like to
ride over to the French camp with me? I have brought a spare uniform."
"I, I... I'll go with you!" cried Petya.
"There's no need for you to go at all," said Denisov, addressing
Dolokhov, "and as for him, I won't let him go on any account."
"I like that!" exclaimed Petya. "Why shouldn't I go?"
"Because it's useless."
"Well, you must excuse me, because... because... I shall go, and
that's all. You'll take me, won't you?" he said, turning to Dolokhov.
"Why not?" Dolokhov answered absently, scrutinizing the face of the
French drummer boy. "Have you had that youngster with you long?" he
asked Denisov.
"He was taken today but he knows nothing. I'm keeping him with
me."
"Yes, and where do you put the others?" inquired Dolokhov.
"Where? I send them away and take a weceipt for them," shouted
Denisov, suddenly flushing. "And I say boldly that I have not a single
man's life on my conscience. Would it be difficult for you to send thirty
or thwee hundwed men to town under escort, instead of staining—I
speak bluntly—staining the honor of a soldier?"
"That kind of amiable talk would be suitable from this young count
of sixteen," said Dolokhov with cold irony, "but it's time for you to
drop it."
"Why, I've not said anything! I only say that I'll certainly go with
you," said Petya shyly.
"But for you and me, old fellow, it's time to drop these amenities,"
continued Dolokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of
this subject which irritated Denisov. "Now, why have you kept this
lad?" he went on, swaying his head. "Because you are sorry for him!
Don't we know those 'receipts' of yours? You send a hundred men
away, and thirty get there. The rest either starve or get killed. So isn't it
all the same not to send them?"
The esaul, screwing up his light-colored eyes, nodded approvingly.
"That's not the point. I'm not going to discuss the matter. I do not
wish to take it on my conscience. You say they'll die. All wight. Only
not by my fault!"
Dolokhov began laughing.
 "Who has told them not to capture me these twenty times over? But
if they did catch me they'd string me up to an aspen tree, and with all
your chivalry just the same." He paused. "However, we must get to
work. Tell the Cossack to fetch my kit. I have two French uniforms in
it. Well, are you coming with me?" he asked Petya.
"I? Yes, yes, certainly!" cried Petya, blushing almost to tears and
glancing at Denisov.
While Dolokhov had been disputing with Denisov what should be
done with prisoners, Petya had once more felt awkward and restless;
but again he had no time to grasp fully what they were talking about.
"If grown-up, distinguished men think so, it must be necessary and
right," thought he. "But above all Denisov must not dare to imagine
that I'll obey him and that he can order me about. I will certainly go to
the French camp with Dolokhov. If he can, so can I!"
And to all Denisov's persuasions, Petya replied that he too was
accustomed to do everything accurately and not just anyhow, and that
he never considered personal danger.
"For you'll admit that if we don't know for sure how many of them
there are... hundreds of lives may depend on it, while there are only two
of us. Besides, I want to go very much and certainly will go, so don't
hinder me," said he. "It will only make things worse..."

CHAPTER IX
Having put on French greatcoats and shakos, Petya and Dolokhov
rode to the clearing from which Denisov had reconnoitered the French
camp, and emerging from the forest in pitch darkness they descended
into the hollow. On reaching the bottom, Dolokhov told the Cossacks
accompanying him to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along
the road to the bridge. Petya, his heart in his mouth with excitement,
rode by his side.
"If we're caught, I won't be taken alive! I have a pistol," whispered
he.
"Don't talk Russian," said Dolokhov in a hurried whisper, and at that
very moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: "Qui
vive?" * and the click of a musket.

* "Who goes there?"

 The blood rushed to Petya's face and he grasped his pistol.
"Lanciers du 6-me," * replied Dolokhov, neither hastening nor
slackening his horse's pace.

* "Lancers of the 6th Regiment."

The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.

"Mot d'ordre." *

* "Password."

Dolokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk.

"Dites donc, le colonel Gerard est ici?" * he asked.

* "Tell me, is Colonel Gerard here?"

"Mot d'ordre," repeated the sentinel, barring the way and not
replying.
"Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le
mot d'ordre..." cried Dolokhov suddenly flaring up and riding straight
at the sentinel. "Je vous demande si le colonel est ici." *

* "When an officer is making his round,

sentinels don't ask
him for the password.... I am asking you if the
colonel is
here."

And without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had
stepped aside, Dolokhov rode up the incline at a walk.
Noticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dolokhov
stopped him and inquired where the commander and officers were. The
man, a soldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came close up to
Dolokhov's horse, touched it with his hand, and explained simply and
in a friendly way that the commander and the officers were higher up
the hill to the right in the courtyard of the farm, as he called the
landowner's house.
Having ridden up the road, on both sides of which French talk could
be heard around the campfires, Dolokhov turned into the courtyard of
the landowner's house. Having ridden in, he dismounted and
approached a big blazing campfire, around which sat several men
talking noisily. Something was boiling in a small cauldron at the edge
of the fire and a soldier in a peaked cap and blue overcoat, lit up by the
fire, was kneeling beside it stirring its contents with a ramrod.
"Oh, he's a hard nut to crack," said one of the officers who was
sitting in the shadow at the other side of the fire.
"He'll make them get a move on, those fellows!" said another,
laughing.
Both fell silent, peering out through the darkness at the sound of
Dolokhov's and Petya's steps as they advanced to the fire leading their
horses.
"Bonjour, messieurs!" * said Dolokhov loudly and clearly.

* "Good day, gentlemen."

There was a stir among the officers in the shadow beyond the fire,
and one tall, long-necked officer, walking round the fire, came up to
Dolokhov.
"Is that you, Clement?" he asked. "Where the devil...?" But, noticing
his mistake, he broke off short and, with a frown, greeted Dolokhov as
a stranger, asking what he could do for him.
Dolokhov said that he and his companion were trying to overtake
their regiment, and addressing the company in general asked whether
they knew anything of the 6th Regiment. None of them knew anything,
and Petya thought the officers were beginning to look at him and
Dolokhov with hostility and suspicion. For some seconds all were
silent.
"If you were counting on the evening soup, you have come too late,"
said a voice from behind the fire with a repressed laugh.
Dolokhov replied that they were not hungry and must push on farther
that night.
He handed the horses over to the soldier who was stirring the pot and
squatted down on his heels by the fire beside the officer with the long
neck. That officer did not take his eyes from Dolokhov and again asked
to what regiment he belonged. Dolokhov, as if he had not heard the
question, did not reply, but lighting a short French pipe which he took
from his pocket began asking the officer in how far the road before
them was safe from Cossacks.
"Those brigands are everywhere," replied an officer from behind the
fire.
 Dolokhov remarked that the Cossacks were a danger only to
stragglers such as his companion and himself, "but probably they
would not dare to attack large detachments?" he added inquiringly. No
one replied.
"Well, now he'll come away," Petya thought every moment as he
stood by the campfire listening to the talk.
But Dolokhov restarted the conversation which had dropped and
began putting direct questions as to how many men there were in the
battalion, how many battalions, and how many prisoners. Asking about
the Russian prisoners with that detachment, Dolokhov said:
"A horrid business dragging these corpses about with one! It would
be better to shoot such rabble," and burst into loud laughter, so strange
that Petya thought the French would immediately detect their disguise,
and involuntarily took a step back from the campfire.
No one replied a word to Dolokhov's laughter, and a French officer
whom they could not see (he lay wrapped in a greatcoat) rose and
whispered something to a companion. Dolokhov got up and called to
the soldier who was holding their horses.
"Will they bring our horses or not?" thought Petya, instinctively
drawing nearer to Dolokhov.
The horses were brought.
"Good evening, gentlemen," said Dolokhov.
Petya wished to say "Good night" but could not utter a word. The
officers were whispering together. Dolokhov was a long time mounting
his horse which would not stand still, then he rode out of the yard at a
footpace. Petya rode beside him, longing to look round to see whether
or not the French were running after them, but not daring to.
Coming out onto the road Dolokhov did not ride back across the
open country, but through the village. At one spot he stopped and
listened. "Do you hear?" he asked. Petya recognized the sound of
Russian voices and saw the dark figures of Russian prisoners round
their campfires. When they had descended to the bridge Petya and
Dolokhov rode past the sentinel, who without saying a word paced
morosely up and down it, then they descended into the hollow where
the Cossacks awaited them.
"Well now, good-by. Tell Denisov, 'at the first shot at daybreak,'"
said Dolokhov and was about to ride away, but Petya seized hold of
him.
 "Really!" he cried, "you are such a hero! Oh, how fine, how
splendid! How I love you!"
"All right, all right!" said Dolokhov. But Petya did not let go of him
and Dolokhov saw through the gloom that Petya was bending toward
him and wanted to kiss him. Dolokhov kissed him, laughed, turned his
horse, and vanished into the darkness.

CHAPTER X
Having returned to the watchman's hut, Petya found Denisov in the
passage. He was awaiting Petya's return in a state of agitation, anxiety,
and self-reproach for having let him go.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "Yes, thank God!" he repeated,
listening to Petya's rapturous account. "But, devil take you, I haven't
slept because of you! Well, thank God. Now lie down. We can still get
a nap before morning."
"But... no," said Petya, "I don't want to sleep yet. Besides I know
myself, if I fall asleep it's finished. And then I am used to not sleeping
before a battle."
He sat awhile in the hut joyfully recalling the details of his
expedition and vividly picturing to himself what would happen next
day.
Then, noticing that Denisov was asleep, he rose and went out of
doors.
It was still quite dark outside. The rain was over, but drops were still
falling from the trees. Near the watchman's hut the black shapes of the
Cossacks' shanties and of horses tethered together could be seen.
Behind the hut the dark shapes of the two wagons with their horses
beside them were discernible, and in the hollow the dying campfire
gleamed red. Not all the Cossacks and hussars were asleep; here and
there, amid the sounds of falling drops and the munching of the horses
near by, could be heard low voices which seemed to be whispering.
Petya came out, peered into the darkness, and went up to the wagons.
Someone was snoring under them, and around them stood saddled
horses munching their oats. In the dark Petya recognized his own horse,
which he called "Karabakh" though it was of Ukranian breed, and went
up to it.
 "Well, Karabakh! We'll do some service tomorrow," said he, sniffing
its nostrils and kissing it.
"Why aren't you asleep, sir?" said a Cossack who was sitting under a
wagon.
"No, ah... Likhachev—isn't that your name? Do you know I have
only just come back! We've been into the French camp."
And Petya gave the Cossack a detailed account not only of his ride
but also of his object, and why he considered it better to risk his life
than to act "just anyhow."
"Well, you should get some sleep now," said the Cossack.
"No, I am used to this," said Petya. "I say, aren't the flints in your
pistols worn out? I brought some with me. Don't you want any? You
can have some."
The Cossack bent forward from under the wagon to get a closer look
at Petya.
"Because I am accustomed to doing everything accurately," said
Petya. "Some fellows do things just anyhow, without preparation, and
then they're sorry for it afterwards. I don't like that."
"Just so," said the Cossack.
"Oh yes, another thing! Please, my dear fellow, will you sharpen my
saber for me? It's got bl..." (Petya feared to tell a lie, and the saber
never had been sharpened.) "Can you do it?"
"Of course I can."
Likhachev got up, rummaged in his pack, and soon Petya heard the
warlike sound of steel on whetstone. He climbed onto the wagon and
sat on its edge. The Cossack was sharpening the saber under the wagon.
"I say! Are the lads asleep?" asked Petya.
"Some are, and some aren't—like us."
"Well, and that boy?"
"Vesenny? Oh, he's thrown himself down there in the passage. Fast
asleep after his fright. He was that glad!"
After that Petya remained silent for a long time, listening to the
sounds. He heard footsteps in the darkness and a black figure appeared.
"What are you sharpening?" asked a man coming up to the wagon.
"Why, this gentleman's saber."
 "That's right," said the man, whom Petya took to be an hussar. "Was
the cup left here?"
"There, by the wheel!"
The hussar took the cup.
"It must be daylight soon," said he, yawning, and went away.
Petya ought to have known that he was in a forest with Denisov's
guerrilla band, less than a mile from the road, sitting on a wagon
captured from the French beside which horses were tethered, that under
it Likhachev was sitting sharpening a saber for him, that the big dark
blotch to the right was the watchman's hut, and the red blotch below to
the left was the dying embers of a campfire, that the man who had
come for the cup was an hussar who wanted a drink; but he neither
knew nor waited to know anything of all this. He was in a fairy
kingdom where nothing resembled reality. The big dark blotch might
really be the watchman's hut or it might be a cavern leading to the very
depths of the earth. Perhaps the red spot was a fire, or it might be the
eye of an enormous monster. Perhaps he was really sitting on a wagon,
but it might very well be that he was not sitting on a wagon but on a
terribly high tower from which, if he fell, he would have to fall for a
whole day or a whole month, or go on falling and never reach the
bottom. Perhaps it was just the Cossack, Likhachev, who was sitting
under the wagon, but it might be the kindest, bravest, most wonderful,
most splendid man in the world, whom no one knew of. It might really
have been that the hussar came for water and went back into the
hollow, but perhaps he had simply vanished—disappeared altogether
and dissolved into nothingness.
Nothing Petya could have seen now would have surprised him. He
was in a fairy kingdom where everything was possible.
He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth.
It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly
sailing as if unveiling the stars. Sometimes it looked as if the clouds
were passing, and a clear black sky appeared. Sometimes it seemed as
if the black spaces were clouds. Sometimes the sky seemed to be rising
high, high overhead, and then it seemed to sink so low that one could
touch it with one's hand.
Petya's eyes began to close and he swayed a little.
The trees were dripping. Quiet talking was heard. The horses
neighed and jostled one another. Someone snored.
"Ozheg-zheg, Ozheg-zheg..." hissed the saber against the whetstone,
and suddenly Petya heard an harmonious orchestra playing some
unknown, sweetly solemn hymn. Petya was as musical as Natasha and
more so than Nicholas, but had never learned music or thought about it,
and so the melody that unexpectedly came to his mind seemed to him
particularly fresh and attractive. The music became more and more
audible. The melody grew and passed from one instrument to another.
And what was played was a fugue—though Petya had not the least
conception of what a fugue is. Each instrument—now resembling a
violin and now a horn, but better and clearer than violin or horn—
played its own part, and before it had finished the melody merged with
another instrument that began almost the same air, and then with a third
and a fourth; and they all blended into one and again became separate
and again blended, now into solemn church music, now into something
dazzlingly brilliant and triumphant.
"Oh—why, that was in a dream!" Petya said to himself, as he lurched
forward. "It's in my ears. But perhaps it's music of my own. Well, go
on, my music! Now!..."
He closed his eyes, and, from all sides as if from a distance, sounds
fluttered, grew into harmonies, separated, blended, and again all
mingled into the same sweet and solemn hymn. "Oh, this is delightful!
As much as I like and as I like!" said Petya to himself. He tried to
conduct that enormous orchestra.
"Now softly, softly die away!" and the sounds obeyed him. "Now
fuller, more joyful. Still more and more joyful!" And from an unknown
depth rose increasingly triumphant sounds. "Now voices join in!"
ordered Petya. And at first from afar he heard men's voices and then
women's. The voices grew in harmonious triumphant strength, and
Petya listened to their surpassing beauty in awe and joy.
With a solemn triumphal march there mingled a song, the drip from
the trees, and the hissing of the saber, "Ozheg-zheg-zheg..." and again
the horses jostled one another and neighed, not disturbing the choir but
joining in it.
Petya did not know how long this lasted: he enjoyed himself all the
time, wondered at his enjoyment and regretted that there was no one to
share it. He was awakened by Likhachev's kindly voice.
"It's ready, your honor; you can split a Frenchman in half with it!"
Petya woke up.
"It's getting light, it's really getting light!" he exclaimed.
The horses that had previously been invisible could now be seen to
their very tails, and a watery light showed itself through the bare
branches. Petya shook himself, jumped up, took a ruble from his pocket
and gave it to Likhachev; then he flourished the saber, tested it, and
sheathed it. The Cossacks were untying their horses and tightening their
saddle girths.
"And here's the commander," said Likhachev.
Denisov came out of the watchman's hut and, having called Petya,
gave orders to get ready.

CHAPTER XI
The men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness,
tightened their saddle girths, and formed companies. Denisov stood by
the watchman's hut giving final orders. The infantry of the detachment
passed along the road and quickly disappeared amid the trees in the
mist of early dawn, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. The
esaul gave some orders to his men. Petya held his horse by the bridle,
impatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face, having been bathed
in cold water, was all aglow, and his eyes were particularly brilliant.
Cold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed
rhythmically.
"Well, is ev'wything weady?" asked Denisov. "Bwing the horses."
The horses were brought. Denisov was angry with the Cossack
because the saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted.
Petya put his foot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if to nip his
leg, but Petya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own
weight and, turning to look at the hussars starting in the darkness
behind him, rode up to Denisov.
"Vasili Dmitrich, entrust me with some commission! Please... for
God's sake...!" said he.
Denisov seemed to have forgotten Petya's very existence. He turned
to glance at him.
"I ask one thing of you," he said sternly, "to obey me and not shove
yourself forward anywhere."
He did not say another word to Petya but rode in silence all the way.
When they had come to the edge of the forest it was noticeably growing
light over the field. Denisov talked in whispers with the esaul and the
Cossacks rode past Petya and Denisov. When they had all ridden by,
Denisov touched his horse and rode down the hill. Slipping onto their
haunches and sliding, the horses descended with their riders into the
ravine. Petya rode beside Denisov, the pulsation of his body constantly
increasing. It was getting lighter and lighter, but the mist still hid
distant objects. Having reached the valley, Denisov looked back and
nodded to a Cossack beside him.
"The signal!" said he.
The Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. In an instant the
tramp of horses galloping forward was heard, shouts came from various
sides, and then more shots.
At the first sound of trampling hoofs and shouting, Petya lashed his
horse and loosening his rein galloped forward, not heeding Denisov
who shouted at him. It seemed to Petya that at the moment the shot was
fired it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge.
Cossacks were galloping along the road in front of him. On the bridge
he collided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, but he galloped on.
In front of him soldiers, probably Frenchmen, were running from right
to left across the road. One of them fell in the mud under his horse's
feet.
Cossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with something. From the
midst of that crowd terrible screams arose. Petya galloped up, and the
first thing he saw was the pale face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman,
clutching the handle of a lance that had been aimed at him.
"Hurrah!... Lads!... ours!" shouted Petya, and giving rein to his
excited horse he galloped forward along the village street.
He could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hussars, and ragged
Russian prisoners, who had come running from both sides of the road,
were shouting something loudly and incoherently. A gallant-looking
Frenchman, in a blue overcoat, capless, and with a frowning red face,
had been defending himself against the hussars. When Petya galloped
up the Frenchman had already fallen. "Too late again!" flashed through
Petya's mind and he galloped on to the place from which the rapid
firing could be heard. The shots came from the yard of the landowner's
house he had visited the night before with Dolokhov. The French were
making a stand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly
overgrown with bushes and were firing at the Cossacks who crowded at
the gateway. Through the smoke, as he approached the gate, Petya saw
Dolokhov, whose face was of a pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men.
"Go round! Wait for the infantry!" he exclaimed as Petya rode up to
him.
"Wait?... Hurrah-ah-ah!" shouted Petya, and without pausing a
moment galloped to the place whence came the sounds of firing and
where the smoke was thickest.
 A volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past, while others
plashed against something. The Cossacks and Dolokhov galloped after
Petya into the gateway of the courtyard. In the dense wavering smoke
some of the French threw down their arms and ran out of the bushes to
meet the Cossacks, while others ran down the hill toward the pond.
Petya was galloping along the courtyard, but instead of holding the
reins he waved both his arms about rapidly and strangely, slipping
farther and farther to one side in his saddle. His horse, having galloped
up to a campfire that was smoldering in the morning light, stopped
suddenly, and Petya fell heavily on to the wet ground. The Cossacks
saw that his arms and legs jerked rapidly though his head was quite
motionless. A bullet had pierced his skull.
After speaking to the senior French officer, who came out of the
house with a white handkerchief tied to his sword and announced that
they surrendered, Dolokhov dismounted and went up to Petya, who lay
motionless with outstretched arms.
"Done for!" he said with a frown, and went to the gate to meet
Denisov who was riding toward him.
"Killed?" cried Denisov, recognizing from a distance the
unmistakably lifeless attitude—very familiar to him—in which Petya's
body was lying.
"Done for!" repeated Dolokhov as if the utterance of these words
afforded him pleasure, and he went quickly up to the prisoners, who
were surrounded by Cossacks who had hurried up. "We won't take
them!" he called out to Denisov.
Denisov did not reply; he rode up to Petya, dismounted, and with
trembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-
bespattered face which had already gone white.
"I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones... take them all!"
he recalled Petya's words. And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at
the sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denisov turned away,
walked to the wattle fence, and seized hold of it.
Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denisov and Dolokhov was
Pierre Bezukhov.

CHAPTER XII
 During the whole of their march from Moscow no fresh orders had
been issued by the French authorities concerning the party of prisoners
among whom was Pierre. On the twenty-second of October that party
was no longer with the same troops and baggage trains with which it
had left Moscow. Half the wagons laden with hardtack that had
traveled the first stages with them had been captured by Cossacks, the
other half had gone on ahead. Not one of those dismounted cavalrymen
who had marched in front of the prisoners was left; they had all
disappeared. The artillery the prisoners had seen in front of them during
the first days was now replaced by Marshal Junot's enormous baggage
train, convoyed by Westphalians. Behind the prisoners came a cavalry
baggage train.
From Vyazma onwards the French army, which had till then moved
in three columns, went on as a single group. The symptoms of disorder
that Pierre had noticed at their first halting place after leaving Moscow
had now reached the utmost limit.
The road along which they moved was bordered on both sides by
dead horses; ragged men who had fallen behind from various regiments
continually changed about, now joining the moving column, now again
lagging behind it.
Several times during the march false alarms had been given and the
soldiers of the escort had raised their muskets, fired, and run headlong,
crushing one another, but had afterwards reassembled and abused each
other for their causeless panic.
These three groups traveling together—the cavalry stores, the
convoy of prisoners, and Junot's baggage train—still constituted a
separate and united whole, though each of the groups was rapidly
melting away.
Of the artillery baggage train which had consisted of a hundred and
twenty wagons, not more than sixty now remained; the rest had been
captured or left behind. Some of Junot's wagons also had been captured
or abandoned. Three wagons had been raided and robbed by stragglers
from Davout's corps. From the talk of the Germans Pierre learned that a
larger guard had been allotted to that baggage train than to the
prisoners, and that one of their comrades, a German soldier, had been
shot by the marshal's own order because a silver spoon belonging to the
marshal had been found in his possession.
The group of prisoners had melted away most of all. Of the three
hundred and thirty men who had set out from Moscow fewer than a
hundred now remained. The prisoners were more burdensome to the
escort than even the cavalry saddles or Junot's baggage. They
understood that the saddles and Junot's spoon might be of some use, but
that cold and hungry soldiers should have to stand and guard equally
cold and hungry Russians who froze and lagged behind on the road (in
which case the order was to shoot them) was not merely
incomprehensible but revolting. And the escort, as if afraid, in the
grievous condition they themselves were in, of giving way to the pity
they felt for the prisoners and so rendering their own plight still worse,
treated them with particular moroseness and severity.
At Dorogobuzh while the soldiers of the convoy, after locking the
prisoners in a stable, had gone off to pillage their own stores, several of
the soldier prisoners tunneled under the wall and ran away, but were
recaptured by the French and shot.
The arrangement adopted when they started, that the officer
prisoners should be kept separate from the rest, had long since been
abandoned. All who could walk went together, and after the third stage
Pierre had rejoined Karataev and the gray-blue bandy-legged dog that
had chosen Karataev for its master.
On the third day after leaving Moscow Karataev again fell ill with
the fever he had suffered from in the hospital in Moscow, and as he
grew gradually weaker Pierre kept away from him. Pierre did not know
why, but since Karataev had begun to grow weaker it had cost him an
effort to go near him. When he did so and heard the subdued moaning
with which Karataev generally lay down at the halting places, and
when he smelled the odor emanating from him which was now stronger
than before, Pierre moved farther away and did not think about him.
While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect
but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for
happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple
human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but
from superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march
he had learned still another new, consolatory truth—that nothing in this
world is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which
man can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he
need be unhappy and lack freedom. He learned that suffering and
freedom have their limits and that those limits are very near together;
that the person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as
keenly as he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side
growing chilled while the other was warming; and that when he had put
on tight dancing shoes he had suffered just as he did now when he
walked with bare feet that were covered with sores—his footgear
having long since fallen to pieces. He discovered that when he had
married his wife—of his own free will as it had seemed to him—he had
been no more free than now when they locked him up at night in a
stable. Of all that he himself subsequently termed his sufferings, but
which at the time he scarcely felt, the worst was the state of his bare,
raw, and scab-covered feet. (The horseflesh was appetizing and
nourishing, the saltpeter flavor of the gunpowder they used instead of
salt was even pleasant; there was no great cold, it was always warm
walking in the daytime, and at night there were the campfires; the lice
that devoured him warmed his body.) The one thing that was at first
hard to bear was his feet.
After the second day's march Pierre, having examined his feet by the
campfire, thought it would be impossible to walk on them; but when
everybody got up he went along, limping, and, when he had warmed
up, walked without feeling the pain, though at night his feet were more
terrible to look at than before. However, he did not look at them now,
but thought of other things.
Only now did Pierre realize the full strength of life in man and the
saving power he has of transferring his attention from one thing to
another, which is like the safety valve of a boiler that allows
superfluous steam to blow off when the pressure exceeds a certain
limit.
He did not see and did not hear how they shot the prisoners who
lagged behind, though more than a hundred perished in that way. He
did not think of Karataev who grew weaker every day and evidently
would soon have to share that fate. Still less did Pierre think about
himself. The harder his position became and the more terrible the
future, the more independent of that position in which he found himself
were the joyful and comforting thoughts, memories, and imaginings
that came to him.

CHAPTER XIII
At midday on the twenty-second of October Pierre was going uphill
along the muddy, slippery road, looking at his feet and at the roughness
of the way. Occasionally he glanced at the familiar crowd around him
and then again at his feet. The former and the latter were alike familiar
and his own. The blue-gray bandy legged dog ran merrily along the
side of the road, sometimes in proof of its agility and self-satisfaction
lifting one hind leg and hopping along on three, and then again going
on all four and rushing to bark at the crows that sat on the carrion. The
dog was merrier and sleeker than it had been in Moscow. All around
lay the flesh of different animals—from men to horses—in various
stages of decomposition; and as the wolves were kept off by the
passing men the dog could eat all it wanted.
 It had been raining since morning and had seemed as if at any
moment it might cease and the sky clear, but after a short break it began
raining harder than before. The saturated road no longer absorbed the
water, which ran along the ruts in streams.
Pierre walked along, looking from side to side, counting his steps in
threes, and reckoning them off on his fingers. Mentally addressing the
rain, he repeated: "Now then, now then, go on! Pelt harder!"
It seemed to him that he was thinking of nothing, but far down and
deep within him his soul was occupied with something important and
comforting. This something was a most subtle spiritual deduction from
a conversation with Karataev the day before.
At their yesterday's halting place, feeling chilly by a dying campfire,
Pierre had got up and gone to the next one, which was burning better.
There Platon Karataev was sitting covered up—head and all—with his
greatcoat as if it were a vestment, telling the soldiers in his effective
and pleasant though now feeble voice a story Pierre knew. It was
already past midnight, the hour when Karataev was usually free of his
fever and particularly lively. When Pierre reached the fire and heard
Platon's voice enfeebled by illness, and saw his pathetic face brightly lit
up by the blaze, he felt a painful prick at his heart. His feeling of pity
for this man frightened him and he wished to go away, but there was no
other fire, and Pierre sat down, trying not to look at Platon.
"Well, how are you?" he asked.
"How am I? If we grumble at sickness, God won't grant us death,"
replied Platon, and at once resumed the story he had begun.
"And so, brother," he continued, with a smile on his pale emaciated
face and a particularly happy light in his eyes, "you see, brother..."
Pierre had long been familiar with that story. Karataev had told it to
him alone some half-dozen times and always with a specially joyful
emotion. But well as he knew it, Pierre now listened to that tale as to
something new, and the quiet rapture Karataev evidently felt as he told
it communicated itself also to Pierre. The story was of an old merchant
who lived a good and God-fearing life with his family, and who went
once to the Nizhni fair with a companion—a rich merchant.
Having put up at an inn they both went to sleep, and next morning
his companion was found robbed and with his throat cut. A
bloodstained knife was found under the old merchant's pillow. He was
tried, knouted, and his nostrils having been torn off, "all in due form"
as Karataev put it, he was sent to hard labor in Siberia.
"And so, brother" (it was at this point that Pierre came up), "ten
years or more passed by. The old man was living as a convict,
submitting as he should and doing no wrong. Only he prayed to God
for death. Well, one night the convicts were gathered just as we are,
with the old man among them. And they began telling what each was
suffering for, and how they had sinned against God. One told how he
had taken a life, another had taken two, a third had set a house on fire,
while another had simply been a vagrant and had done nothing. So they
asked the old man: 'What are you being punished for, Daddy?'—'I, my
dear brothers,' said he, 'am being punished for my own and other men's
sins. But I have not killed anyone or taken anything that was not mine,
but have only helped my poorer brothers. I was a merchant, my dear
brothers, and had much property. 'And he went on to tell them all about
it in due order. 'I don't grieve for myself,' he says, 'God, it seems, has
chastened me. Only I am sorry for my old wife and the children,' and
the old man began to weep. Now it happened that in the group was the
very man who had killed the other merchant. 'Where did it happen,
Daddy?' he said. 'When, and in what month?' He asked all about it and
his heart began to ache. So he comes up to the old man like this, and
falls down at his feet! 'You are perishing because of me, Daddy,' he
says. 'It's quite true, lads, that this man,' he says, 'is being tortured
innocently and for nothing! I,' he says, 'did that deed, and I put the
knife under your head while you were asleep. Forgive me, Daddy,' he
says, 'for Christ's sake!'"
Karataev paused, smiling joyously as he gazed into the fire, and he
drew the logs together.
"And the old man said, 'God will forgive you, we are all sinners in
His sight. I suffer for my own sins,' and he wept bitter tears. Well, and
what do you think, dear friends?" Karataev continued, his face
brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now
had to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his
story: "What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to
the authorities. 'I have taken six lives,' he says (he was a great sinner),
'but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don't let him suffer
because of me.' So he confessed and it was all written down and the
papers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, and while
they were judging, what with one thing and another, filling in the
papers all in due form—the authorities I mean—time passed. The affair
reached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar's decree came: to set the
merchant free and give him a compensation that had been awarded. The
paper arrived and they began to look for the old man. 'Where is the old
man who has been suffering innocently and in vain? A paper has come
from the Tsar!' so they began looking for him," here Karataev's lower
jaw trembled, "but God had already forgiven him—he was dead! That's
how it was, dear fellows!" Karataev concluded and sat for a long time
silent, gazing before him with a smile.
 And Pierre's soul was dimly but joyfully filled not by the story itself
but by its mysterious significance: by the rapturous joy that lit up
Karataev's face as he told it, and the mystic significance of that joy.

CHAPTER XIV
"A vos places!" * suddenly cried a voice.

* "To your places."

A pleasant feeling of excitement and an expectation of something

joyful and solemn was aroused among the soldiers of the convoy and
the prisoners. From all sides came shouts of command, and from the
left came smartly dressed cavalrymen on good horses, passing the
prisoners at a trot. The expression on all faces showed the tension
people feel at the approach of those in authority. The prisoners
thronged together and were pushed off the road. The convoy formed
up.
"The Emperor! The Emperor! The Marshal! The Duke!" and hardly
had the sleek cavalry passed, before a carriage drawn by six gray horses
rattled by. Pierre caught a glimpse of a man in a three-cornered hat with
a tranquil look on his handsome, plump, white face. It was one of the
marshals. His eye fell on Pierre's large and striking figure, and in the
expression with which he frowned and looked away Pierre thought he
detected sympathy and a desire to conceal that sympathy.
The general in charge of the stores galloped after the carriage with a
red and frightened face, whipping up his skinny horse. Several officers
formed a group and some soldiers crowded round them. Their faces all
looked excited and worried.
"What did he say? What did he say?" Pierre heard them ask.
While the marshal was passing, the prisoners had huddled together in
a crowd, and Pierre saw Karataev whom he had not yet seen that
morning. He sat in his short overcoat leaning against a birch tree. On
his face, besides the look of joyful emotion it had worn yesterday while
telling the tale of the merchant who suffered innocently, there was now
an expression of quiet solemnity.
Karataev looked at Pierre with his kindly round eyes now filled with
tears, evidently wishing him to come near that he might say something
to him. But Pierre was not sufficiently sure of himself. He made as if he
did not notice that look and moved hastily away.
When the prisoners again went forward Pierre looked round.
Karataev was still sitting at the side of the road under the birch tree and
two Frenchmen were talking over his head. Pierre did not look round
again but went limping up the hill.
From behind, where Karataev had been sitting, came the sound of a
shot. Pierre heard it plainly, but at that moment he remembered that he
had not yet finished reckoning up how many stages still remained to
Smolensk—a calculation he had begun before the marshal went by.
And he again started reckoning. Two French soldiers ran past Pierre,
one of whom carried a lowered and smoking gun. They both looked
pale, and in the expression on their faces—one of them glanced timidly
at Pierre—there was something resembling what he had seen on the
face of the young soldier at the execution. Pierre looked at the soldier
and remembered that, two days before, that man had burned his shirt
while drying it at the fire and how they had laughed at him.
Behind him, where Karataev had been sitting, the dog began to howl.
"What a stupid beast! Why is it howling?" thought Pierre.
His comrades, the prisoner soldiers walking beside him, avoided
looking back at the place where the shot had been fired and the dog was
howling, just as Pierre did, but there was a set look on all their faces.

CHAPTER XV
The stores, the prisoners, and the marshal's baggage train stopped at
the village of Shamshevo. The men crowded together round the
campfires. Pierre went up to the fire, ate some roast horseflesh, lay
down with his back to the fire, and immediately fell asleep. He again
slept as he had done at Mozhaysk after the battle of Borodino.
Again real events mingled with dreams and again someone, he or
another, gave expression to his thoughts, and even to the same thoughts
that had been expressed in his dream at Mozhaysk.
"Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and
that movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in
consciousness of the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and
more blessed than all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in
innocent sufferings."
 "Karataev!" came to Pierre's mind.
And suddenly he saw vividly before him a long-forgotten, kindly old
man who had given him geography lessons in Switzerland. "Wait a
bit," said the old man, and showed Pierre a globe. This globe was
alive—a vibrating ball without fixed dimensions. Its whole surface
consisted of drops closely pressed together, and all these drops moved
and changed places, sometimes several of them merging into one,
sometimes one dividing into many. Each drop tried to spread out and
occupy as much space as possible, but others striving to do the same
compressed it, sometimes destroyed it, and sometimes merged with it.
"That is life," said the old teacher.
"How simple and clear it is," thought Pierre. "How is it I did not
know it before?"
"God is in the midst, and each drop tries to expand so as to reflect
Him to the greatest extent. And it grows, merges, disappears from the
surface, sinks to the depths, and again emerges. There now, Karataev
has spread out and disappeared. Do you understand, my child?" said the
teacher.
"Do you understand, damn you?" shouted a voice, and Pierre woke
up.
He lifted himself and sat up. A Frenchman who had just pushed a
Russian soldier away was squatting by the fire, engaged in roasting a
piece of meat stuck on a ramrod. His sleeves were rolled up and his
sinewy, hairy, red hands with their short fingers deftly turned the
ramrod. His brown morose face with frowning brows was clearly
visible by the glow of the charcoal.
"It's all the same to him," he muttered, turning quickly to a soldier
who stood behind him. "Brigand! Get away!"
And twisting the ramrod he looked gloomily at Pierre, who turned
away and gazed into the darkness. A prisoner, the Russian soldier the
Frenchman had pushed away, was sitting near the fire patting
something with his hand. Looking more closely Pierre recognized the
blue-gray dog, sitting beside the soldier, wagging its tail.
"Ah, he's come?" said Pierre. "And Plat-" he began, but did not
finish.
Suddenly and simultaneously a crowd of memories awoke in his
fancy—of the look Platon had given him as he sat under the tree, of the
shot heard from that spot, of the dog's howl, of the guilty faces of the
two Frenchmen as they ran past him, of the lowered and smoking gun,
and of Karataev's absence at this halt—and he was on the point of
realizing that Karataev had been killed, but just at that instant, he knew
not why, the recollection came to his mind of a summer evening he had
spent with a beautiful Polish lady on the veranda of his house in Kiev.
And without linking up the events of the day or drawing a conclusion
from them, Pierre closed his eyes, seeing a vision of the country in
summertime mingled with memories of bathing and of the liquid,
vibrating globe, and he sank into water so that it closed over his head.
Before sunrise he was awakened by shouts and loud and rapid firing.
French soldiers were running past him.
"The Cossacks!" one of them shouted, and a moment later a crowd of
Russians surrounded Pierre.
For a long time he could not understand what was happening to him.
All around he heard his comrades sobbing with joy.
"Brothers! Dear fellows! Darlings!" old soldiers exclaimed, weeping,
as they embraced Cossacks and hussars.
The hussars and Cossacks crowded round the prisoners; one offered
them clothes, another boots, and a third bread. Pierre sobbed as he sat
among them and could not utter a word. He hugged the first soldier
who approached him, and kissed him, weeping.
Dolokhov stood at the gate of the ruined house, letting a crowd of
disarmed Frenchmen pass by. The French, excited by all that had
happened, were talking loudly among themselves, but as they passed
Dolokhov who gently switched his boots with his whip and watched
them with cold glassy eyes that boded no good, they became silent. On
the opposite side stood Dolokhov's Cossack, counting the prisoners and
marking off each hundred with a chalk line on the gate.
"How many?" Dolokhov asked the Cossack.
"The second hundred," replied the Cossack.
"Filez, filez!" * Dolokhov kept saying, having adopted this
expression from the French, and when his eyes met those of the
prisoners they flashed with a cruel light.

* "Get along, get along!"

Denisov, bareheaded and with a gloomy face, walked behind some

Cossacks who were carrying the body of Petya Rostov to a hole that
had been dug in the garden.
 CHAPTER XVI
After the twenty-eighth of October when the frosts began, the flight
of the French assumed a still more tragic character, with men freezing,
or roasting themselves to death at the campfires, while carriages with
people dressed in furs continued to drive past, carrying away the
property that had been stolen by the Emperor, kings, and dukes; but the
process of the flight and disintegration of the French army went on
essentially as before.
From Moscow to Vyazma the French army of seventy-three
thousand men not reckoning the Guards (who did nothing during the
whole war but pillage) was reduced to thirty-six thousand, though not
more than five thousand had fallen in battle. From this beginning the
succeeding terms of the progression could be determined
mathematically. The French army melted away and perished at the
same rate from Moscow to Vyazma, from Vyazma to Smolensk, from
Smolensk to the Berezina, and from the Berezina to Vilna—
independently of the greater or lesser intensity of the cold, the pursuit,
the barring of the way, or any other particular conditions. Beyond
Vyazma the French army instead of moving in three columns huddled
together into one mass, and so went on to the end. Berthier wrote to his
Emperor (we know how far commanding officers allow themselves to
diverge from the truth in describing the condition of an army) and this
is what he said:
I deem it my duty to report to Your Majesty the condition of the
various corps I have had occasion to observe during different stages of
the last two or three days' march. They are almost disbanded. Scarcely
a quarter of the soldiers remain with the standards of their regiments,
the others go off by themselves in different directions hoping to find
food and escape discipline. In general they regard Smolensk as the
place where they hope to recover. During the last few days many of the
men have been seen to throw away their cartridges and their arms. In
such a state of affairs, whatever your ultimate plans may be, the interest
of Your Majesty's service demands that the army should be rallied at
Smolensk and should first of all be freed from ineffectives, such as
dismounted cavalry, unnecessary baggage, and artillery material that is
no longer in proportion to the present forces. The soldiers, who are
worn out with hunger and fatigue, need these supplies as well as a few
days' rest. Many have died these last days on the road or at the
bivouacs. This state of things is continually becoming worse and makes
one fear that unless a prompt remedy is applied the troops will no
longer be under control in case of an engagement.
November 9: twenty miles from Smolensk.
 After staggering into Smolensk which seemed to them a promised
land, the French, searching for food, killed one another, sacked their
own stores, and when everything had been plundered fled farther.
They all went without knowing whither or why they were going. Still
less did that genius, Napoleon, know it, for no one issued any orders to
him. But still he and those about him retained their old habits: wrote
commands, letters, reports, and orders of the day; called one another
sire, mon cousin, prince d'Eckmuhl, roi de Naples, and so on. But these
orders and reports were only on paper, nothing in them was acted upon
for they could not be carried out, and though they entitled one another
Majesties, Highnesses, or Cousins, they all felt that they were miserable
wretches who had done much evil for which they had now to pay. And
though they pretended to be concerned about the army, each was
thinking only of himself and of how to get away quickly and save
himself.

CHAPTER XVII
The movements of the Russian and French armies during the
campaign from Moscow back to the Niemen were like those in a game
of Russian blindman's bluff, in which two players are blindfolded and
one of them occasionally rings a little bell to inform the catcher of his
whereabouts. First he rings his bell fearlessly, but when he gets into a
tight place he runs away as quietly as he can, and often thinking to
escape runs straight into his opponent's arms.
At first while they were still moving along the Kaluga road,
Napoleon's armies made their presence known, but later when they
reached the Smolensk road they ran holding the clapper of their bell
tight—and often thinking they were escaping ran right into the
Russians.
Owing to the rapidity of the French flight and the Russian pursuit
and the consequent exhaustion of the horses, the chief means of
approximately ascertaining the enemy's position—by cavalry
scouting—was not available. Besides, as a result of the frequent and
rapid change of position by each army, even what information was
obtained could not be delivered in time. If news was received one day
that the enemy had been in a certain position the day before, by the
third day when something could have been done, that army was already
two days' march farther on and in quite another position.
 One army fled and the other pursued. Beyond Smolensk there were
several different roads available for the French, and one would have
thought that during their stay of four days they might have learned
where the enemy was, might have arranged some more advantageous
plan and undertaken something new. But after a four days' halt the
mob, with no maneuvers or plans, again began running along the beaten
track, neither to the right nor to the left but along the old—the worst—
road, through Krasnoe and Orsha.
Expecting the enemy from behind and not in front, the French
separated in their flight and spread out over a distance of twenty-four
hours. In front of them all fled the Emperor, then the kings, then the
dukes. The Russian army, expecting Napoleon to take the road to the
right beyond the Dnieper—which was the only reasonable thing for
him to do—themselves turned to the right and came out onto the
highroad at Krasnoe. And here as in a game of blindman's buff the
French ran into our vanguard. Seeing their enemy unexpectedly the
French fell into confusion and stopped short from the sudden fright, but
then they resumed their flight, abandoning their comrades who were
farther behind. Then for three days separate portions of the French
army—first Murat's (the vice-king's), then Davout's, and then Ney's—
ran, as it were, the gauntlet of the Russian army. They abandoned one
another, abandoned all their heavy baggage, their artillery, and half
their men, and fled, getting past the Russians by night by making
semicircles to the right.
Ney, who came last, had been busying himself blowing up the walls
of Smolensk which were in nobody's way, because despite the
unfortunate plight of the French or because of it, they wished to punish
the floor against which they had hurt themselves. Ney, who had had a
corps of ten thousand men, reached Napoleon at Orsha with only one
thousand men left, having abandoned all the rest and all his cannon,
and having crossed the Dnieper at night by stealth at a wooded spot.
From Orsha they fled farther along the road to Vilna, still playing at
blindman's buff with the pursuing army. At the Berezina they again
became disorganized, many were drowned and many surrendered, but
those who got across the river fled farther. Their supreme chief donned
a fur coat and, having seated himself in a sleigh, galloped on alone,
abandoning his companions. The others who could do so drove away
too, leaving those who could not to surrender or die.

CHAPTER XVIII
 This campaign consisted in a flight of the French during which they
did all they could to destroy themselves. From the time they turned
onto the Kaluga road to the day their leader fled from the army, none of
the movements of the crowd had any sense. So one might have thought
that regarding this period of the campaign the historians, who attributed
the actions of the mass to the will of one man, would have found it
impossible to make the story of the retreat fit their theory. But no!
Mountains of books have been written by the historians about this
campaign, and everywhere are described Napoleon's arrangements, the
maneuvers, and his profound plans which guided the army, as well as
the military genius shown by his marshals.
The retreat from Malo-Yaroslavets when he had a free road into a
well-supplied district and the parallel road was open to him along
which Kutuzov afterwards pursued him—this unnecessary retreat along
a devastated road—is explained to us as being due to profound
considerations. Similarly profound considerations are given for his
retreat from Smolensk to Orsha. Then his heroism at Krasnoe is
described, where he is reported to have been prepared to accept battle
and take personal command, and to have walked about with a birch
stick and said:
"J'ai assez fait l'empereur; il est temps de faire le general," * but
nevertheless immediately ran away again, abandoning to its fate the
scattered fragments of the army he left behind.

* "I have acted the Emperor long enough; it is

time to act
the general."

Then we are told of the greatness of soul of the marshals, especially

of Ney—a greatness of soul consisting in this: that he made his way by
night around through the forest and across the Dnieper and escaped to
Orsha, abandoning standards, artillery, and nine tenths of his men.
And lastly, the final departure of the great Emperor from his heroic
army is presented to us by the historians as something great and
characteristic of genius. Even that final running away, described in
ordinary language as the lowest depth of baseness which every child is
taught to be ashamed of—even that act finds justification in the
historians' language.
When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical
ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that
humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving
conception of "greatness." "Greatness," it seems, excludes the standards
of right and wrong. For the "great" man nothing is wrong, there is no
atrocity for which a "great" man can be blamed.
 "C'est grand!" * say the historians, and there no longer exists either
good or evil but only "grand" and "not grand." Grand is good, not grand
is bad. Grand is the characteristic, in their conception, of some special
animals called "heroes." And Napoleon, escaping home in a warm fur
coat and leaving to perish those who were not merely his comrades but
were (in his opinion) men he had brought there, feels que c'est grand,
*(2) and his soul is tranquil.

* "It is great."

* (2) That it is great.

"Du sublime (he saw something sublime in himself) au ridicule il n'y

a qu'un pas," * said he. And the whole world for fifty years has been
repeating: "Sublime! Grand! Napoleon le Grand!" Du sublime au
ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas.

* "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a

step."

And it occurs to no one that to admit a greatness not commensurable

with the standard of right and wrong is merely to admit one's own
nothingness and immeasurable meanness.
For us with the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, no
human actions are incommensurable. And there is no greatness where
simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent.

CHAPTER XIX
What Russian, reading the account of the last part of the campaign of
1812, has not experienced an uncomfortable feeling of regret,
dissatisfaction, and perplexity? Who has not asked himself how it is
that the French were not all captured or destroyed when our three
armies surrounded them in superior numbers, when the disordered
French, hungry and freezing, surrendered in crowds, and when (as the
historians relate) the aim of the Russians was to stop the French, to cut
them off, and capture them all?
How was it that the Russian army, which when numerically weaker
than the French had given battle at Borodino, did not achieve its
purpose when it had surrounded the French on three sides and when its
aim was to capture them? Can the French be so enormously superior to
us that when we had surrounded them with superior forces we could
not beat them? How could that happen?
History (or what is called by that name) replying to these questions
says that this occurred because Kutuzov and Tormasov and Chichagov,
and this man and that man, did not execute such and such maneuvers...
But why did they not execute those maneuvers? And why if they
were guilty of not carrying out a prearranged plan were they not tried
and punished? But even if we admitted that Kutuzov, Chichagov, and
others were the cause of the Russian failures, it is still
incomprehensible why, the position of the Russian army being what it
was at Krasnoe and at the Berezina (in both cases we had superior
forces), the French army with its marshals, kings, and Emperor was not
captured, if that was what the Russians aimed at.
The explanation of this strange fact given by Russian military
historians (to the effect that Kutuzov hindered an attack) is unfounded,
for we know that he could not restrain the troops from attacking at
Vyazma and Tarutino.
Why was the Russian army—which with inferior forces had
withstood the enemy in full strength at Borodino—defeated at Krasnoe
and the Berezina by the disorganized crowds of the French when it was
numerically superior?
If the aim of the Russians consisted in cutting off and capturing
Napoleon and his marshals—and that aim was not merely frustrated but
all attempts to attain it were most shamefully baffled—then this last
period of the campaign is quite rightly considered by the French to be a
series of victories, and quite wrongly considered victorious by Russian
historians.
The Russian military historians in so far as they submit to claims of
logic must admit that conclusion, and in spite of their lyrical rhapsodies
about valor, devotion, and so forth, must reluctantly admit that the
French retreat from Moscow was a series of victories for Napoleon and
defeats for Kutuzov.
But putting national vanity entirely aside one feels that such a
conclusion involves a contradiction, since the series of French victories
brought the French complete destruction, while the series of Russian
defeats led to the total destruction of their enemy and the liberation of
their country.
The source of this contradiction lies in the fact that the historians
studying the events from the letters of the sovereigns and the generals,
from memoirs, reports, projects, and so forth, have attributed to this last
period of the war of 1812 an aim that never existed, namely that of
cutting off and capturing Napoleon with his marshals and his army.
There never was or could have been such an aim, for it would have
been senseless and its attainment quite impossible.
It would have been senseless, first because Napoleon's disorganized
army was flying from Russia with all possible speed, that is to say, was
doing just what every Russian desired. So what was the use of
performing various operations on the French who were running away
as fast as they possibly could?
Secondly, it would have been senseless to block the passage of men
whose whole energy was directed to flight.
Thirdly, it would have been senseless to sacrifice one's own troops in
order to destroy the French army, which without external interference
was destroying itself at such a rate that, though its path was not
blocked, it could not carry across the frontier more than it actually did
in December, namely a hundredth part of the original army.
Fourthly, it would have been senseless to wish to take captive the
Emperor, kings, and dukes—whose capture would have been in the
highest degree embarrassing for the Russians, as the most adroit
diplomatists of the time (Joseph de Maistre and others) recognized. Still
more senseless would have been the wish to capture army corps of the
French, when our own army had melted away to half before reaching
Krasnoe and a whole division would have been needed to convoy the
corps of prisoners, and when our men were not always getting full
rations and the prisoners already taken were perishing of hunger.
All the profound plans about cutting off and capturing Napoleon and
his army were like the plan of a market gardener who, when driving out
of his garden a cow that had trampled down the beds he had planted,
should run to the gate and hit the cow on the head. The only thing to be
said in excuse of that gardener would be that he was very angry. But
not even that could be said for those who drew up this project, for it
was not they who had suffered from the trampled beds.
But besides the fact that cutting off Napoleon with his army would
have been senseless, it was impossible.
It was impossible first because—as experience shows that a three-
mile movement of columns on a battlefield never coincides with the
plans—the probability of Chichagov, Kutuzov, and Wittgenstein
effecting a junction on time at an appointed place was so remote as to
be tantamount to impossibility, as in fact thought Kutuzov, who when
he received the plan remarked that diversions planned over great
distances do not yield the desired results.
 Secondly it was impossible, because to paralyze the momentum with
which Napoleon's army was retiring, incomparably greater forces than
the Russians possessed would have been required.
Thirdly it was impossible, because the military term "to cut off" has
no meaning. One can cut off a slice of bread, but not an army. To cut
off an army—to bar its road—is quite impossible, for there is always
plenty of room to avoid capture and there is the night when nothing can
be seen, as the military scientists might convince themselves by the
example of Krasnoe and of the Berezina. It is only possible to capture
prisoners if they agree to be captured, just as it is only possible to catch
a swallow if it settles on one's hand. Men can only be taken prisoners if
they surrender according to the rules of strategy and tactics, as the
Germans did. But the French troops quite rightly did not consider that
this suited them, since death by hunger and cold awaited them in flight
or captivity alike.
Fourthly and chiefly it was impossible, because never since the
world began has a war been fought under such conditions as those that
obtained in 1812, and the Russian army in its pursuit of the French
strained its strength to the utmost and could not have done more
without destroying itself.
During the movement of the Russian army from Tarutino to Krasnoe
it lost fifty thousand sick or stragglers, that is a number equal to the
population of a large provincial town. Half the men fell out of the army
without a battle.
And it is of this period of the campaign—when the army lacked
boots and sheepskin coats, was short of provisions and without vodka,
and was camping out at night for months in the snow with fifteen
degrees of frost, when there were only seven or eight hours of daylight
and the rest was night in which the influence of discipline cannot be
maintained, when men were taken into that region of death where
discipline fails, not for a few hours only as in a battle, but for months,
where they were every moment fighting death from hunger and cold,
when half the army perished in a single month—it is of this period of
the campaign that the historians tell us how Miloradovich should have
made a flank march to such and such a place, Tormasov to another
place, and Chichagov should have crossed (more than knee-deep in
snow) to somewhere else, and how so-and-so "routed" and "cut off" the
French and so on and so on.
The Russians, half of whom died, did all that could and should have
been done to attain an end worthy of the nation, and they are not to
blame because other Russians, sitting in warm rooms, proposed that
they should do what was impossible.
 All that strange contradiction now difficult to understand between
the facts and the historical accounts only arises because the historians
dealing with the matter have written the history of the beautiful words
and sentiments of various generals, and not the history of the events.
To them the words of Miloradovich seem very interesting, and so do
their surmises and the rewards this or that general received; but the
question of those fifty thousand men who were left in hospitals and in
graves does not even interest them, for it does not come within the
range of their investigation.
Yet one need only discard the study of the reports and general plans
and consider the movement of those hundreds of thousands of men who
took a direct part in the events, and all the questions that seemed
insoluble easily and simply receive an immediate and certain solution.
The aim of cutting off Napoleon and his army never existed except
in the imaginations of a dozen people. It could not exist because it was
senseless and unattainable.
The people had a single aim: to free their land from invasion. That
aim was attained in the first place of itself, as the French ran away, and
so it was only necessary not to stop their flight. Secondly it was
attained by the guerrilla warfare which was destroying the French, and
thirdly by the fact that a large Russian army was following the French,
ready to use its strength in case their movement stopped.
The Russian army had to act like a whip to a running animal. And
the experienced driver knew it was better to hold the whip raised as a
menace than to strike the running animal on the head.

BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13

CHAPTER I
When seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror: substance
similar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a beloved
and intimate human being that is dying, besides this horror at the
extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which like a
physical wound is sometimes fatal and sometimes heals, but always
aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch.
After Prince Andrew's death Natasha and Princess Mary alike felt
this. Drooping in spirit and closing their eyes before the menacing
cloud of death that overhung them, they dared not look life in the face.
They carefully guarded their open wounds from any rough and painful
contact. Everything: a carriage passing rapidly in the street, a summons
to dinner, the maid's inquiry what dress to prepare, or worse still any
word of insincere or feeble sympathy, seemed an insult, painfully
irritated the wound, interrupting that necessary quiet in which they both
tried to listen to the stern and dreadful choir that still resounded in their
imagination, and hindered their gazing into those mysterious limitless
vistas that for an instant had opened out before them.
Only when alone together were they free from such outrage and pain.
They spoke little even to one another, and when they did it was of very
unimportant matters.
Both avoided any allusion to the future. To admit the possibility of a
future seemed to them to insult his memory. Still more carefully did
they avoid anything relating to him who was dead. It seemed to them
that what they had lived through and experienced could not be
expressed in words, and that any reference to the details of his life
infringed the majesty and sacredness of the mystery that had been
accomplished before their eyes.
Continued abstention from speech, and constant avoidance of
everything that might lead up to the subject—this halting on all sides at
the boundary of what they might not mention—brought before their
minds with still greater purity and clearness what they were both
feeling.
But pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete
joy. Princess Mary, in her position as absolute and independent arbiter
of her own fate and guardian and instructor of her nephew, was the first
to be called back to life from that realm of sorrow in which she had
dwelt for the first fortnight. She received letters from her relations to
which she had to reply; the room in which little Nicholas had been put
was damp and he began to cough; Alpatych came to Yaroslavl with
reports on the state of their affairs and with advice and suggestions that
they should return to Moscow to the house on the Vozdvizhenka Street,
which had remained uninjured and needed only slight repairs. Life did
not stand still and it was necessary to live. Hard as it was for Princess
Mary to emerge from the realm of secluded contemplation in which she
had lived till then, and sorry and almost ashamed as she felt to leave
Natasha alone, yet the cares of life demanded her attention and she
involuntarily yielded to them. She went through the accounts with
Alpatych, conferred with Dessalles about her nephew, and gave orders
and made preparations for the journey to Moscow.
Natasha remained alone and, from the time Princess Mary began
making preparations for departure, held aloof from her too.
Princess Mary asked the countess to let Natasha go with her to
Moscow, and both parents gladly accepted this offer, for they saw their
daughter losing strength every day and thought that a change of scene
and the advice of Moscow doctors would be good for her.
"I am not going anywhere," Natasha replied when this was proposed
to her. "Do please just leave me alone!" And she ran out of the room,
with difficulty refraining from tears of vexation and irritation rather
than of sorrow.
After she felt herself deserted by Princes Mary and alone in her grief,
Natasha spent most of the time in her room by herself, sitting huddled
up feet and all in the corner of the sofa, tearing and twisting something
with her slender nervous fingers and gazing intently and fixedly at
whatever her eyes chanced to fall on. This solitude exhausted and
tormented her but she was in absolute need of it. As soon as anyone
entered she got up quickly, changed her position and expression, and
picked up a book or some sewing, evidently waiting impatiently for the
intruder to go.
She felt all the time as if she might at any moment penetrate that on
which—with a terrible questioning too great for her strength—her
spiritual gaze was fixed.
One day toward the end of December Natasha, pale and thin, dressed
in a black woolen gown, her plaited hair negligently twisted into a knot,
was crouched feet and all in the corner of her sofa, nervously crumpling
and smoothing out the end of her sash while she looked at a corner of
the door.
She was gazing in the direction in which he had gone—to the other
side of life. And that other side of life, of which she had never before
thought and which had formerly seemed to her so far away and
improbable, was now nearer and more akin and more comprehensible
than this side of life, where everything was either emptiness and
desolation or suffering and indignity.
She was gazing where she knew him to be; but she could not imagine
him otherwise than as he had been here. She now saw him again as he
had been at Mytishchi, at Troitsa, and at Yaroslavl.
She saw his face, heard his voice, repeated his words and her own,
and sometimes devised other words they might have spoken.
 There he is lying back in an armchair in his velvet cloak, leaning his
head on his thin pale hand. His chest is dreadfully hollow and his
shoulders raised. His lips are firmly closed, his eyes glitter, and a
wrinkle comes and goes on his pale forehead. One of his legs twitches
just perceptibly, but rapidly. Natasha knows that he is struggling with
terrible pain. "What is that pain like? Why does he have that pain?
What does he feel? How does it hurt him?" thought Natasha. He
noticed her watching him, raised his eyes, and began to speak seriously:
"One thing would be terrible," said he: "to bind oneself forever to a
suffering man. It would be continual torture." And he looked
searchingly at her. Natasha as usual answered before she had time to
think what she would say. She said: "This can't go on—it won't. You
will get well—quite well."
She now saw him from the commencement of that scene and relived
what she had then felt. She recalled his long sad and severe look at
those words and understood the meaning of the rebuke and despair in
that protracted gaze.
"I agreed," Natasha now said to herself, "that it would be dreadful if
he always continued to suffer. I said it then only because it would have
been dreadful for him, but he understood it differently. He thought it
would be dreadful for me. He then still wished to live and feared death.
And I said it so awkwardly and stupidly! I did not say what I meant. I
thought quite differently. Had I said what I thought, I should have said:
even if he had to go on dying, to die continually before my eyes, I
should have been happy compared with what I am now. Now there is
nothing... nobody. Did he know that? No, he did not and never will
know it. And now it will never, never be possible to put it right." And
now he again seemed to be saying the same words to her, only in her
imagination Natasha this time gave him a different answer. She stopped
him and said: "Terrible for you, but not for me! You know that for me
there is nothing in life but you, and to suffer with you is the greatest
happiness for me," and he took her hand and pressed it as he had
pressed it that terrible evening four days before his death. And in her
imagination she said other tender and loving words which she might
have said then but only spoke now: "I love thee!... thee! I love, love..."
she said, convulsively pressing her hands and setting her teeth with a
desperate effort...
She was overcome by sweet sorrow and tears were already rising in
her eyes; then she suddenly asked herself to whom she was saying this.
Again everything was shrouded in hard, dry perplexity, and again with
a strained frown she peered toward the world where he was. And now,
now it seemed to her she was penetrating the mystery.... But at the
instant when it seemed that the incomprehensible was revealing itself to
her a loud rattle of the door handle struck painfully on her ears.
Dunyasha, her maid, entered the room quickly and abruptly with a
frightened look on her face and showing no concern for her mistress.
"Come to your Papa at once, please!" said she with a strange, excited
look. "A misfortune... about Peter Ilynich... a letter," she finished with a
sob.

CHAPTER II
Besides a feeling of aloofness from everybody Natasha was feeling a
special estrangement from the members of her own family. All of
them—her father, mother, and Sonya—were so near to her, so familiar,
so commonplace, that all their words and feelings seemed an insult to
the world in which she had been living of late, and she felt not merely
indifferent to them but regarded them with hostility. She heard
Dunyasha's words about Peter Ilynich and a misfortune, but did not
grasp them.
"What misfortune? What misfortune can happen to them? They just
live their own old, quiet, and commonplace life," thought Natasha.
As she entered the ballroom her father was hurriedly coming out of
her mother's room. His face was puckered up and wet with tears. He
had evidently run out of that room to give vent to the sobs that were
choking him. When he saw Natasha he waved his arms despairingly
and burst into convulsively painful sobs that distorted his soft round
face.
"Pe... Petya... Go, go, she... is calling..." and weeping like a child and
quickly shuffling on his feeble legs to a chair, he almost fell into it,
covering his face with his hands.
Suddenly an electric shock seemed to run through Natasha's whole
being. Terrible anguish struck her heart, she felt a dreadful ache as if
something was being torn inside her and she were dying. But the pain
was immediately followed by a feeling of release from the oppressive
constraint that had prevented her taking part in life. The sight of her
father, the terribly wild cries of her mother that she heard through the
door, made her immediately forget herself and her own grief.
She ran to her father, but he feebly waved his arm, pointing to her
mother's door. Princess Mary, pale and with quivering chin, came out
from that room and taking Natasha by the arm said something to her.
Natasha neither saw nor heard her. She went in with rapid steps,
pausing at the door for an instant as if struggling with herself, and then
ran to her mother.
The countess was lying in an armchair in a strange and awkward
position, stretching out and beating her head against the wall. Sonya
and the maids were holding her arms.
"Natasha! Natasha!..." cried the countess. "It's not true... it's not
true... He's lying... Natasha!" she shrieked, pushing those around her
away. "Go away, all of you; it's not true! Killed!... ha, ha, ha!... It's not
true!"
Natasha put one knee on the armchair, stooped over her mother,
embraced her, and with unexpected strength raised her, turned her face
toward herself, and clung to her.
"Mummy!... darling!... I am here, my dearest Mummy," she kept on
whispering, not pausing an instant.
She did not let go of her mother but struggled tenderly with her,
demanded a pillow and hot water, and unfastened and tore open her
mother's dress.
"My dearest darling... Mummy, my precious!..." she whispered
incessantly, kissing her head, her hands, her face, and feeling her own
irrepressible and streaming tears tickling her nose and cheeks.
The countess pressed her daughter's hand, closed her eyes, and
became quiet for a moment. Suddenly she sat up with unaccustomed
swiftness, glanced vacantly around her, and seeing Natasha began to
press her daughter's head with all her strength. Then she turned toward
her daughter's face which was wincing with pain and gazed long at it.
"Natasha, you love me?" she said in a soft trustful whisper. "Natasha,
you would not deceive me? You'll tell me the whole truth?"
Natasha looked at her with eyes full of tears and in her look there
was nothing but love and an entreaty for forgiveness.
"My darling Mummy!" she repeated, straining all the power of her
love to find some way of taking on herself the excess of grief that
crushed her mother.
And again in a futile struggle with reality her mother, refusing to
believe that she could live when her beloved boy was killed in the
bloom of life, escaped from reality into a world of delirium.
Natasha did not remember how that day passed nor that night, nor
the next day and night. She did not sleep and did not leave her mother.
Her persevering and patient love seemed completely to surround the
countess every moment, not explaining or consoling, but recalling her
to life.
During the third night the countess kept very quiet for a few minutes,
and Natasha rested her head on the arm of her chair and closed her
eyes, but opened them again on hearing the bedstead creak. The
countess was sitting up in bed and speaking softly.
"How glad I am you have come. You are tired. Won't you have some
tea?" Natasha went up to her. "You have improved in looks and grown
more manly," continued the countess, taking her daughter's hand.
"Mamma! What are you saying..."
"Natasha, he is no more, no more!"
And embracing her daughter, the countess began to weep for the first
time.

CHAPTER III
Princess Mary postponed her departure. Sonya and the count tried to
replace Natasha but could not. They saw that she alone was able to
restrain her mother from unreasoning despair. For three weeks Natasha
remained constantly at her mother's side, sleeping on a lounge chair in
her room, making her eat and drink, and talking to her incessantly
because the mere sound of her tender, caressing tones soothed her
mother.
The mother's wounded spirit could not heal. Petya's death had torn
from her half her life. When the news of Petya's death had come she
had been a fresh and vigorous woman of fifty, but a month later she left
her room a listless old woman taking no interest in life. But the same
blow that almost killed the countess, this second blow, restored Natasha
to life.
A spiritual wound produced by a rending of the spiritual body is like
a physical wound and, strange as it may seem, just as a deep wound
may heal and its edges join, physical and spiritual wounds alike can yet
heal completely only as the result of a vital force from within.
Natasha's wound healed in that way. She thought her life was ended,
but her love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that the essence
of life—love—was still active within her. Love awoke and so did life.
 Prince Andrew's last days had bound Princess Mary and Natasha
together; this new sorrow brought them still closer to one another.
Princess Mary put off her departure, and for three weeks looked after
Natasha as if she had been a sick child. The last weeks passed in her
mother's bedroom had strained Natasha's physical strength.
One afternoon noticing Natasha shivering with fever, Princess Mary
took her to her own room and made her lie down on the bed. Natasha
lay down, but when Princess Mary had drawn the blinds and was going
away she called her back.
"I don't want to sleep, Mary, sit by me a little."
"You are tired—try to sleep."
"No, no. Why did you bring me away? She will be asking for me."
"She is much better. She spoke so well today," said Princess Mary.
Natasha lay on the bed and in the semidarkness of the room scanned
Princess Mary's face.
"Is she like him?" thought Natasha. "Yes, like and yet not like. But
she is quite original, strange, new, and unknown. And she loves me.
What is in her heart? All that is good. But how? What is her mind like?
What does she think about me? Yes, she is splendid!"
"Mary," she said timidly, drawing Princess Mary's hand to herself,
"Mary, you mustn't think me wicked. No? Mary darling, how I love
you! Let us be quite, quite friends."
And Natasha, embracing her, began kissing her face and hands,
making Princess Mary feel shy but happy by this demonstration of her
feelings.
From that day a tender and passionate friendship such as exists only
between women was established between Princess Mary and Natasha.
They were continually kissing and saying tender things to one another
and spent most of their time together. When one went out the other
became restless and hastened to rejoin her. Together they felt more in
harmony with one another than either of them felt with herself when
alone. A feeling stronger than friendship sprang up between them; an
exclusive feeling of life being possible only in each other's presence.
Sometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes after they were
already in bed they would begin talking and go on till morning. They
spoke most of what was long past. Princess Mary spoke of her
childhood, of her mother, her father, and her daydreams; and Natasha,
who with a passive lack of understanding had formerly turned away
from that life of devotion, submission, and the poetry of Christian self-
sacrifice, now feeling herself bound to Princess Mary by affection,
learned to love her past too and to understand a side of life previously
incomprehensible to her. She did not think of applying submission and
self-abnegation to her own life, for she was accustomed to seek other
joys, but she understood and loved in another those previously
incomprehensible virtues. For Princess Mary, listening to Natasha's
tales of childhood and early youth, there also opened out a new and
hitherto uncomprehended side of life: belief in life and its enjoyment.
Just as before, they never mentioned him so as not to lower (as they
thought) their exalted feelings by words; but this silence about him had
the effect of making them gradually begin to forget him without being
conscious of it.
Natasha had grown thin and pale and physically so weak that they all
talked about her health, and this pleased her. But sometimes she was
suddenly overcome by fear not only of death but of sickness, weakness,
and loss of good looks, and involuntarily she examined her bare arm
carefully, surprised at its thinness, and in the morning noticed her
drawn and, as it seemed to her, piteous face in her glass. It seemed to
her that things must be so, and yet it was dreadfully sad.
One day she went quickly upstairs and found herself out of breath.
Unconsciously she immediately invented a reason for going down, and
then, testing her strength, ran upstairs again, observing the result.
Another time when she called Dunyasha her voice trembled, so she
called again—though she could hear Dunyasha coming—called her in
the deep chest tones in which she had been wont to sing, and listened
attentively to herself.
She did not know and would not have believed it, but beneath the
layer of slime that covered her soul and seemed to her impenetrable,
delicate young shoots of grass were already sprouting, which taking
root would so cover with their living verdure the grief that weighed her
down that it would soon no longer be seen or noticed. The wound had
begun to heal from within.
At the end of January Princess Mary left for Moscow, and the count
insisted on Natasha's going with her to consult the doctors.

CHAPTER IV
 After the encounter at Vyazma, where Kutuzov had been unable to
hold back his troops in their anxiety to overwhelm and cut off the
enemy and so on, the farther movement of the fleeing French, and of
the Russians who pursued them, continued as far as Krasnoe without a
battle. The flight was so rapid that the Russian army pursuing the
French could not keep up with them; cavalry and artillery horses broke
down, and the information received of the movements of the French
was never reliable.
The men in the Russian army were so worn out by this continuous
marching at the rate of twenty-seven miles a day that they could not go
any faster.
To realize the degree of exhaustion of the Russian army it is only
necessary to grasp clearly the meaning of the fact that, while not losing
more than five thousand killed and wounded after Tarutino and less
than a hundred prisoners, the Russian army which left that place a
hundred thousand strong reached Krasnoe with only fifty thousand.
The rapidity of the Russian pursuit was just as destructive to our
army as the flight of the French was to theirs. The only difference was
that the Russian army moved voluntarily, with no such threat of
destruction as hung over the French, and that the sick Frenchmen were
left behind in enemy hands while the sick Russians left behind were
among their own people. The chief cause of the wastage of Napoleon's
army was the rapidity of its movement, and a convincing proof of this
is the corresponding decrease of the Russian army.
Kutuzov as far as was in his power, instead of trying to check the
movement of the French as was desired in Petersburg and by the
Russian army generals, directed his whole activity here, as he had done
at Tarutino and Vyazma, to hastening it on while easing the movement
of our army.
But besides this, since the exhaustion and enormous diminution of
the army caused by the rapidity of the advance had become evident,
another reason for slackening the pace and delaying presented itself to
Kutuzov. The aim of the Russian army was to pursue the French. The
road the French would take was unknown, and so the closer our troops
trod on their heels the greater distance they had to cover. Only by
following at some distance could one cut across the zigzag path of the
French. All the artful maneuvers suggested by our generals meant fresh
movements of the army and a lengthening of its marches, whereas the
only reasonable aim was to shorten those marches. To that end
Kutuzov's activity was directed during the whole campaign from
Moscow to Vilna—not casually or intermittently but so consistently
that he never once deviated from it.
 Kutuzov felt and knew—not by reasoning or science but with the
whole of his Russian being—what every Russian soldier felt: that the
French were beaten, that the enemy was flying and must be driven out;
but at the same time he like the soldiers realized all the hardship of this
march, the rapidity of which was unparalleled for such a time of the
year.
But to the generals, especially the foreign ones in the Russian army,
who wished to distinguish themselves, to astonish somebody, and for
some reason to capture a king or a duke—it seemed that now—when
any battle must be horrible and senseless—was the very time to fight
and conquer somebody. Kutuzov merely shrugged his shoulders when
one after another they presented projects of maneuvers to be made with
those soldiers—ill-shod, insufficiently clad, and half starved—who
within a month and without fighting a battle had dwindled to half their
number, and who at the best if the flight continued would have to go a
greater distance than they had already traversed, before they reached
the frontier.
This longing to distinguish themselves, to maneuver, to overthrow,
and to cut off showed itself particularly whenever the Russians
stumbled on the French army.
So it was at Krasnoe, where they expected to find one of the three
French columns and stumbled instead on Napoleon himself with
sixteen thousand men. Despite all Kutuzov's efforts to avoid that
ruinous encounter and to preserve his troops, the massacre of the
broken mob of French soldiers by worn-out Russians continued at
Krasnoe for three days.
Toll wrote a disposition: "The first column will march to so and so,"
etc. And as usual nothing happened in accord with the disposition.
Prince Eugene of Wurttemberg fired from a hill over the French crowds
that were running past, and demanded reinforcements which did not
arrive. The French, avoiding the Russians, dispersed and hid
themselves in the forest by night, making their way round as best they
could, and continued their flight.
Miloradovich, who said he did not want to know anything about the
commissariat affairs of his detachment, and could never be found when
he was wanted—that chevalier sans peur et sans reproche * as he styled
himself—who was fond of parleys with the French, sent envoys
demanding their surrender, wasted time, and did not do what he was
ordered to do.

* Knight without fear and without reproach.

 "I give you that column, lads," he said, riding up to the troops and
pointing out the French to the cavalry.
And the cavalry, with spurs and sabers urging on horses that could
scarcely move, trotted with much effort to the column presented to
them—that is to say, to a crowd of Frenchmen stark with cold, frost-
bitten, and starving—and the column that had been presented to them
threw down its arms and surrendered as it had long been anxious to do.
At Krasnoe they took twenty-six thousand prisoners, several hundred
cannon, and a stick called a "marshal's staff," and disputed as to who
had distinguished himself and were pleased with their achievement—
though they much regretted not having taken Napoleon, or at least a
marshal or a hero of some sort, and reproached one another and
especially Kutuzov for having failed to do so.
These men, carried away by their passions, were but blind tools of
the most melancholy law of necessity, but considered themselves
heroes and imagined that they were accomplishing a most noble and
honorable deed. They blamed Kutuzov and said that from the very
beginning of the campaign he had prevented their vanquishing
Napoleon, that he thought of nothing but satisfying his passions and
would not advance from the Linen Factories because he was
comfortable there, that at Krasnoe he checked the advance because on
learning that Napoleon was there he had quite lost his head, and that it
was probable that he had an understanding with Napoleon and had been
bribed by him, and so on, and so on.
Not only did his contemporaries, carried away by their passions, talk
in this way, but posterity and history have acclaimed Napoleon as
grand, while Kutuzov is described by foreigners as a crafty, dissolute,
weak old courtier, and by Russians as something indefinite—a sort of
puppet useful only because he had a Russian name.

CHAPTER V
In 1812 and 1813 Kutuzov was openly accused of blundering. The
Emperor was dissatisfied with him. And in a history recently written by
order of the Highest Authorities it is said that Kutuzov was a cunning
court liar, frightened of the name of Napoleon, and that by his blunders
at Krasnoe and the Berezina he deprived the Russian army of the glory
of complete victory over the French. *
 * History of the year 1812. The character of
Kutuzov and
reflections on the unsatisfactory results of
the battles at
Krasnoe, by Bogdanovich.

Such is the fate not of great men (grands hommes) whom the
Russian mind does not acknowledge, but of those rare and always
solitary individuals who, discerning the will of Providence, submit their
personal will to it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd punish such
men for discerning the higher laws.
For Russian historians, strange and terrible to say, Napoleon—that
most insignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even in exile,
showed human dignity—Napoleon is the object of adulation and
enthusiasm; he is grand. But Kutuzov—the man who from the
beginning to the end of his activity in 1812, never once swerving by
word or deed from Borodino to Vilna, presented an example
exceptional in history of self-sacrifice and a present consciousness of
the future importance of what was happening—Kutuzov seems to them
something indefinite and pitiful, and when speaking of him and of the
year 1812 they always seem a little ashamed.
And yet it is difficult to imagine an historical character whose
activity was so unswervingly directed to a single aim; and it would be
difficult to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant with the
will of the whole people. Still more difficult would it be to find an
instance in history of the aim of an historical personage being so
completely accomplished as that to which all Kutuzov's efforts were
directed in 1812.
Kutuzov never talked of "forty centuries looking down from the
Pyramids," of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of what he
intended to accomplish or had accomplished; in general he said nothing
about himself, adopted no prose, always appeared to be the simplest
and most ordinary of men, and said the simplest and most ordinary
things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de Stael, read
novels, liked the society of pretty women, jested with generals, officers,
and soldiers, and never contradicted those who tried to prove anything
to him. When Count Rostopchin at the Yauza bridge galloped up to
Kutuzov with personal reproaches for having caused the destruction of
Moscow, and said: "How was it you promised not to abandon Moscow
without a battle?" Kutuzov replied: "And I shall not abandon Moscow
without a battle," though Moscow was then already abandoned. When
Arakcheev, coming to him from the Emperor, said that Ermolov ought
to be appointed chief of the artillery, Kutuzov replied: "Yes, I was just
saying so myself," though a moment before he had said quite the
contrary. What did it matter to him—who then alone amid a senseless
crowd understood the whole tremendous significance of what was
happening—what did it matter to him whether Rostopchin attributed
the calamities of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could it matter
to him who was appointed chief of the artillery.
Not merely in these cases but continually did that old man—who by
experience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts and the
words serving as their expression are not what move people—use quite
meaningless words that happened to enter his head.
But that man, so heedless of his words, did not once during the
whole time of his activity utter one word inconsistent with the single
aim toward which he moved throughout the whole war. Obviously in
spite of himself, in very diverse circumstances, he repeatedly expressed
his real thoughts with the bitter conviction that he would not be
understood. Beginning with the battle of Borodino, from which time his
disagreement with those about him began, he alone said that the battle
of Borodino was a victory, and repeated this both verbally and in his
dispatches and reports up to the time of his death. He alone said that the
loss of Moscow is not the loss of Russia. In reply to Lauriston's
proposal of peace, he said: There can be no peace, for such is the
people's will. He alone during the retreat of the French said that all our
maneuvers are useless, everything is being accomplished of itself better
than we could desire; that the enemy must be offered "a golden bridge";
that neither the Tarutino, the Vyazma, nor the Krasnoe battles were
necessary; that we must keep some force to reach the frontier with, and
that he would not sacrifice a single Russian for ten Frenchmen.
And this courtier, as he is described to us, who lies to Arakcheev to
please the Emperor, he alone—incurring thereby the Emperor's
displeasure—said in Vilna that to carry the war beyond the frontier is
useless and harmful.
Nor do words alone prove that only he understood the meaning of
the events. His actions—without the smallest deviation—were all
directed to one and the same threefold end: (1) to brace all his strength
for conflict with the French, (2) to defeat them, and (3) to drive them
out of Russia, minimizing as far as possible the sufferings of our people
and of our army.
This procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was "Patience and Time,"
this enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodino, investing the
preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity. This Kutuzov who
before the battle of Austerlitz began said that it would be lost, he alone,
in contradiction to everyone else, declared till his death that Borodino
was a victory, despite the assurance of generals that the battle was lost
and despite the fact that for an army to have to retire after winning a
battle was unprecedented. He alone during the whole retreat insisted
that battles, which were useless then, should not be fought, and that a
new war should not be begun nor the frontiers of Russia crossed.
It is easy now to understand the significance of these events—if only
we abstain from attributing to the activity of the mass aims that existed
only in the heads of a dozen individuals—for the events and results
now lie before us.
But how did that old man, alone, in opposition to the general
opinion, so truly discern the importance of the people's view of the
events that in all his activity he was never once untrue to it?
The source of that extraordinary power of penetrating the meaning of
the events then occuring lay in the national feeling which he possessed
in full purity and strength.
Only the recognition of the fact that he possessed this feeling caused
the people in so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsar's wish, to select
him—an old man in disfavor—to be their representative in the national
war. And only that feeling placed him on that highest human pedestal
from which he, the commander in chief, devoted all his powers not to
slaying and destroying men but to saving and showing pity on them.
That simple, modest, and therefore truly great, figure could not be
cast in the false mold of a European hero—the supposed ruler of men—
that history has invented.
To a lackey no man can be great, for a lackey has his own conception
of greatness.

CHAPTER VI
The fifth of November was the first day of what is called the battle of
Krasnoe. Toward evening—after much disputing and many mistakes
made by generals who did not go to their proper places, and after
adjutants had been sent about with counterorders—when it had become
plain that the enemy was everywhere in flight and that there could and
would be no battle, Kutuzov left Krasnoe and went to Dobroe whither
his headquarters had that day been transferred.
The day was clear and frosty. Kutuzov rode to Dobroe on his plump
little white horse, followed by an enormous suite of discontented
generals who whispered among themselves behind his back. All along
the road groups of French prisoners captured that day (there were seven
thousand of them) were crowding to warm themselves at campfires.
Near Dobroe an immense crowd of tattered prisoners, buzzing with talk
and wrapped and bandaged in anything they had been able to get hold
of, were standing in the road beside a long row of unharnessed French
guns. At the approach of the commander in chief the buzz of talk
ceased and all eyes were fixed on Kutuzov who, wearing a white cap
with a red band and a padded overcoat that bulged on his round
shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his white horse. One of the
generals was reporting to him where the guns and prisoners had been
captured.
Kutuzov seemed preoccupied and did not listen to what the general
was saying. He screwed up his eyes with a dissatisfied look as he gazed
attentively and fixedly at these prisoners, who presented a specially
wretched appearance. Most of them were disfigured by frost-bitten
noses and cheeks, and nearly all had red, swollen and festering eyes.
One group of the French stood close to the road, and two of them,
one of whom had his face covered with sores, were tearing a piece of
raw flesh with their hands. There was something horrible and bestial in
the fleeting glance they threw at the riders and in the malevolent
expression with which, after a glance at Kutuzov, the soldier with the
sores immediately turned away and went on with what he was doing.
Kutuzov looked long and intently at these two soldiers. He puckered
his face, screwed up his eyes, and pensively swayed his head. At
another spot he noticed a Russian soldier laughingly patting a
Frenchman on the shoulder, saying something to him in a friendly
manner, and Kutuzov with the same expression on his face again
swayed his head.
"What were you saying?" he asked the general, who continuing his
report directed the commander in chief's attention to some standards
captured from the French and standing in front of the Preobrazhensk
regiment.
"Ah, the standards!" said Kutuzov, evidently detaching himself with
difficulty from the thoughts that preoccupied him.
He looked about him absently. Thousands of eyes were looking at
him from all sides awaiting a word from him.
He stopped in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment, sighed deeply,
and closed his eyes. One of his suite beckoned to the soldiers carrying
the standards to advance and surround the commander in chief with
them. Kutuzov was silent for a few seconds and then, submitting with
evident reluctance to the duty imposed by his position, raised his head
and began to speak. A throng of officers surrounded him. He looked
attentively around at the circle of officers, recognizing several of them.
 "I thank you all!" he said, addressing the soldiers and then again the
officers. In the stillness around him his slowly uttered words were
distinctly heard. "I thank you all for your hard and faithful service. The
victory is complete and Russia will not forget you! Honor to you
forever."
He paused and looked around.
"Lower its head, lower it!" he said to a soldier who had accidentally
lowered the French eagle he was holding before the Preobrazhensk
standards. "Lower, lower, that's it. Hurrah lads!" he added, addressing
the men with a rapid movement of his chin.
"Hur-r-rah!" roared thousands of voices.
While the soldiers were shouting Kutuzov leaned forward in his
saddle and bowed his head, and his eye lit up with a mild and
apparently ironic gleam.
"You see, brothers..." said he when the shouts had ceased... and all at
once his voice and the expression of his face changed. It was no longer
the commander in chief speaking but an ordinary old man who wanted
to tell his comrades something very important.
There was a stir among the throng of officers and in the ranks of the
soldiers, who moved that they might hear better what he was going to
say.
"You see, brothers, I know it's hard for you, but it can't be helped!
Bear up; it won't be for long now! We'll see our visitors off and then
we'll rest. The Tsar won't forget your service. It is hard for you, but still
you are at home while they—you see what they have come to," said he,
pointing to the prisoners. "Worse off than our poorest beggars. While
they were strong we didn't spare ourselves, but now we may even pity
them. They are human beings too. Isn't it so, lads?"
He looked around, and in the direct, respectful, wondering gaze fixed
upon him he read sympathy with what he had said. His face grew
brighter and brighter with an old man's mild smile, which drew the
corners of his lips and eyes into a cluster of wrinkles. He ceased
speaking and bowed his head as if in perplexity.
"But after all who asked them here? Serves them right, the bloody
bastards!" he cried, suddenly lifting his head.
And flourishing his whip he rode off at a gallop for the first time
during the whole campaign, and left the broken ranks of the soldiers
laughing joyfully and shouting "Hurrah!"
 Kutuzov's words were hardly understood by the troops. No one could
have repeated the field marshal's address, begun solemnly and then
changing into an old man's simplehearted talk; but the hearty sincerity
of that speech, the feeling of majestic triumph combined with pity for
the foe and consciousness of the justice of our cause, exactly expressed
by that old man's good-natured expletives, was not merely understood
but lay in the soul of every soldier and found expression in their joyous
and long-sustained shouts. Afterwards when one of the generals
addressed Kutuzov asking whether he wished his caleche to be sent for,
Kutuzov in answering unexpectedly gave a sob, being evidently greatly
moved.

CHAPTER VII
When the troops reached their night's halting place on the eighth of
November, the last day of the Krasnoe battles, it was already growing
dusk. All day it had been calm and frosty with occasional lightly falling
snow and toward evening it began to clear. Through the falling snow a
purple-black and starry sky showed itself and the frost grew keener.
An infantry regiment which had left Tarutino three thousand strong
but now numbered only nine hundred was one of the first to arrive that
night at its halting place—a village on the highroad. The quartermasters
who met the regiment announced that all the huts were full of sick and
dead Frenchmen, cavalrymen, and members of the staff. There was
only one hut available for the regimental commander.
The commander rode up to his hut. The regiment passed through the
village and stacked its arms in front of the last huts.
Like some huge many-limbed animal, the regiment began to prepare
its lair and its food. One part of it dispersed and waded knee-deep
through the snow into a birch forest to the right of the village, and
immediately the sound of axes and swords, the crashing of branches,
and merry voices could be heard from there. Another section amid the
regimental wagons and horses which were standing in a group was
busy getting out caldrons and rye biscuit, and feeding the horses. A
third section scattered through the village arranging quarters for the
staff officers, carrying out the French corpses that were in the huts, and
dragging away boards, dry wood, and thatch from the roofs, for the
campfires, or wattle fences to serve for shelter.
Some fifteen men with merry shouts were shaking down the high
wattle wall of a shed, the roof of which had already been removed.
 "Now then, all together—shove!" cried the voices, and the huge
surface of the wall, sprinkled with snow and creaking with frost, was
seen swaying in the gloom of the night. The lower stakes cracked more
and more and at last the wall fell, and with it the men who had been
pushing it. Loud, coarse laughter and joyous shouts ensued.
"Now then, catch hold in twos! Hand up the lever! That's it... Where
are you shoving to?"
"Now, all together! But wait a moment, boys... With a song!"
All stood silent, and a soft, pleasant velvety voice began to sing. At
the end of the third verse as the last note died away, twenty voices
roared out at once: "Oo-oo-oo-oo! That's it. All together! Heave away,
boys!..." but despite their united efforts the wattle hardly moved, and in
the silence that followed the heavy breathing of the men was audible.
"Here, you of the Sixth Company! Devils that you are! Lend a
hand... will you? You may want us one of these days."
Some twenty men of the Sixth Company who were on their way into
the village joined the haulers, and the wattle wall, which was about
thirty-five feet long and seven feet high, moved forward along the
village street, swaying, pressing upon and cutting the shoulders of the
gasping men.
"Get along... Falling? What are you stopping for? There now..."
Merry senseless words of abuse flowed freely.
"What are you up to?" suddenly came the authoritative voice of a
sergeant major who came upon the men who were hauling their burden.
"There are gentry here; the general himself is in that hut, and you foul-
mouthed devils, you brutes, I'll give it to you!" shouted he, hitting the
first man who came in his way a swinging blow on the back. "Can't you
make less noise?"
The men became silent. The soldier who had been struck groaned
and wiped his face, which had been scratched till it bled by his falling
against the wattle.
"There, how that devil hits out! He's made my face all bloody," said
he in a frightened whisper when the sergeant major had passed on.
"Don't you like it?" said a laughing voice, and moderating their tones
the men moved forward.
When they were out of the village they began talking again as loud
as before, interlarding their talk with the same aimless expletives.
 In the hut which the men had passed, the chief officers had gathered
and were in animated talk over their tea about the events of the day and
the maneuvers suggested for tomorrow. It was proposed to make a
flank march to the left, cut off the Vice-King (Murat) and capture him.
By the time the soldiers had dragged the wattle fence to its place the
campfires were blazing on all sides ready for cooking, the wood
crackled, the snow was melting, and black shadows of soldiers flitted to
and fro all over the occupied space where the snow had been trodden
down.
Axes and choppers were plied all around. Everything was done
without any orders being given. Stores of wood were brought for the
night, shelters were rigged up for the officers, caldrons were being
boiled, and muskets and accouterments put in order.
The wattle wall the men had brought was set up in a semicircle by
the Eighth Company as a shelter from the north, propped up by musket
rests, and a campfire was built before it. They beat the tattoo, called the
roll, had supper, and settled down round the fires for the night—some
repairing their footgear, some smoking pipes, and some stripping
themselves naked to steam the lice out of their shirts.

CHAPTER VIII
One would have thought that under the almost incredibly wretched
conditions the Russian soldiers were in at that time—lacking warm
boots and sheepskin coats, without a roof over their heads, in the snow
with eighteen degrees of frost, and without even full rations (the
commissariat did not always keep up with the troops)—they would
have presented a very sad and depressing spectacle.
On the contrary, the army had never under the best material
conditions presented a more cheerful and animated aspect. This was
because all who began to grow depressed or who lost strength were
sifted out of the army day by day. All the physically or morally weak
had long since been left behind and only the flower of the army—
physically and mentally—remained.
More men collected behind the wattle fence of the Eighth Company
than anywhere else. Two sergeants major were sitting with them and
their campfire blazed brighter than others. For leave to sit by their
wattle they demanded contributions of fuel.
 "Eh, Makeev! What has become of you, you son of a bitch? Are you
lost or have the wolves eaten you? Fetch some more wood!" shouted a
red-haired and red-faced man, screwing up his eyes and blinking
because of the smoke but not moving back from the fire. "And you,
Jackdaw, go and fetch some wood!" said he to another soldier.
This red-haired man was neither a sergeant nor a corporal, but being
robust he ordered about those weaker than himself. The soldier they
called "Jackdaw," a thin little fellow with a sharp nose, rose obediently
and was about to go but at that instant there came into the light of the
fire the slender, handsome figure of a young soldier carrying a load of
wood.
"Bring it here—that's fine!"
They split up the wood, pressed it down on the fire, blew at it with
their mouths, and fanned it with the skirts of their greatcoats, making
the flames hiss and crackle. The men drew nearer and lit their pipes.
The handsome young soldier who had brought the wood, setting his
arms akimbo, began stamping his cold feet rapidly and deftly on the
spot where he stood.
"Mother! The dew is cold but clear.... It's well that I'm a
musketeer..." he sang, pretending to hiccough after each syllable.
"Look out, your soles will fly off!" shouted the red-haired man,
noticing that the sole of the dancer's boot was hanging loose. "What a
fellow you are for dancing!"
The dancer stopped, pulled off the loose piece of leather, and threw it
on the fire.
"Right enough, friend," said he, and, having sat down, took out of his
knapsack a scrap of blue French cloth, and wrapped it round his foot.
"It's the steam that spoils them," he added, stretching out his feet
toward the fire.
"They'll soon be issuing us new ones. They say that when we've
finished hammering them, we're to receive double kits!"
"And that son of a bitch Petrov has lagged behind after all, it seems,"
said one sergeant major.
"I've had an eye on him this long while," said the other.
"Well, he's a poor sort of soldier..."
"But in the Third Company they say nine men were missing
yesterday."
 "Yes, it's all very well, but when a man's feet are frozen how can he
walk?"
"Eh? Don't talk nonsense!" said a sergeant major.
"Do you want to be doing the same?" said an old soldier, turning
reproachfully to the man who had spoken of frozen feet.
"Well, you know," said the sharp-nosed man they called Jackdaw in
a squeaky and unsteady voice, raising himself at the other side of the
fire, "a plump man gets thin, but for a thin one it's death. Take me,
now! I've got no strength left," he added, with sudden resolution
turning to the sergeant major. "Tell them to send me to hospital; I'm
aching all over; anyway I shan't be able to keep up."
"That'll do, that'll do!" replied the sergeant major quietly.
The soldier said no more and the talk went on.
"What a lot of those Frenchies were taken today, and the fact is that
not one of them had what you might call real boots on," said a soldier,
starting a new theme. "They were no more than make-believes."
"The Cossacks have taken their boots. They were clearing the hut for
the colonel and carried them out. It was pitiful to see them, boys," put
in the dancer. "As they turned them over one seemed still alive and,
would you believe it, he jabbered something in their lingo."
"But they're a clean folk, lads," the first man went on; "he was
white—as white as birchbark—and some of them are such fine fellows,
you might think they were nobles."
"Well, what do you think? They make soldiers of all classes there."
"But they don't understand our talk at all," said the dancer with a
puzzled smile. "I asked him whose subject he was, and he jabbered in
his own way. A queer lot!"
"But it's strange, friends," continued the man who had wondered at
their whiteness, "the peasants at Mozhaysk were saying that when they
began burying the dead—where the battle was you know—well, those
dead had been lying there for nearly a month, and says the peasant,
'they lie as white as paper, clean, and not as much smell as a puff of
powder smoke.'"
"Was it from the cold?" asked someone.
"You're a clever fellow! From the cold indeed! Why, it was hot. If it
had been from the cold, ours would not have rotted either. 'But,' he
says, 'go up to ours and they are all rotten and maggoty. So,' he says,
'we tie our faces up with kerchiefs and turn our heads away as we drag
them off: we can hardly do it. But theirs,' he says, 'are white as paper
and not so much smell as a whiff of gunpowder.'"
All were silent.
"It must be from their food," said the sergeant major. "They used to
gobble the same food as the gentry."
No one contradicted him.
"That peasant near Mozhaysk where the battle was said the men
were all called up from ten villages around and they carted for twenty
days and still didn't finish carting the dead away. And as for the
wolves, he says..."
"That was a real battle," said an old soldier. "It's the only one worth
remembering; but since that... it's only been tormenting folk."
"And do you know, Daddy, the day before yesterday we ran at them
and, my word, they didn't let us get near before they just threw down
their muskets and went on their knees. 'Pardon!' they say. That's only
one case. They say Platov took 'Poleon himself twice. But he didn't
know the right charm. He catches him and catches him—no good! He
turns into a bird in his hands and flies away. And there's no way of
killing him either."
"You're a first-class liar, Kiselev, when I come to look at you!"
"Liar, indeed! It's the real truth."
"If he fell into my hands, when I'd caught him I'd bury him in the
ground with an aspen stake to fix him down. What a lot of men he's
ruined!"
"Well, anyhow we're going to end it. He won't come here again,"
remarked the old soldier, yawning.
The conversation flagged, and the soldiers began settling down to
sleep.
"Look at the stars. It's wonderful how they shine! You would think
the women had spread out their linen," said one of the men, gazing with
admiration at the Milky Way.
"That's a sign of a good harvest next year."
"We shall want some more wood."
"You warm your back and your belly gets frozen. That's queer."
"O Lord!"
 "What are you pushing for? Is the fire only for you? Look how he's
sprawling!"
In the silence that ensued, the snoring of those who had fallen asleep
could be heard. Others turned over and warmed themselves, now and
again exchanging a few words. From a campfire a hundred paces off
came a sound of general, merry laughter.
"Hark at them roaring there in the Fifth Company!" said one of the
soldiers, "and what a lot of them there are!"
One of the men got up and went over to the Fifth Company.
"They're having such fun," said he, coming back. "Two Frenchies
have turned up. One's quite frozen and the other's an awful swaggerer.
He's singing songs...."
"Oh, I'll go across and have a look...."
And several of the men went over to the Fifth Company.

CHAPTER IX
The fifth company was bivouacking at the very edge of the forest. A
huge campfire was blazing brightly in the midst of the snow, lighting
up the branches of trees heavy with hoarfrost.
About midnight they heard the sound of steps in the snow of the
forest, and the crackling of dry branches.
"A bear, lads," said one of the men.
They all raised their heads to listen, and out of the forest into the
bright firelight stepped two strangely clad human figures clinging to
one another.
These were two Frenchmen who had been hiding in the forest. They
came up to the fire, hoarsely uttering something in a language our
soldiers did not understand. One was taller than the other; he wore an
officer's hat and seemed quite exhausted. On approaching the fire he
had been going to sit down, but fell. The other, a short sturdy soldier
with a shawl tied round his head, was stronger. He raised his
companion and said something, pointing to his mouth. The soldiers
surrounded the Frenchmen, spread a greatcoat on the ground for the
sick man, and brought some buckwheat porridge and vodka for both of
them.
 The exhausted French officer was Ramballe and the man with his
head wrapped in the shawl was Morel, his orderly.
When Morel had drunk some vodka and finished his bowl of
porridge he suddenly became unnaturally merry and chattered
incessantly to the soldiers, who could not understand him. Ramballe
refused food and resting his head on his elbow lay silent beside the
campfire, looking at the Russian soldiers with red and vacant eyes.
Occasionally he emitted a long-drawn groan and then again became
silent. Morel, pointing to his shoulders, tried to impress on the soldiers
the fact that Ramballe was an officer and ought to be warmed. A
Russian officer who had come up to the fire sent to ask his colonel
whether he would not take a French officer into his hut to warm him,
and when the messenger returned and said that the colonel wished the
officer to be brought to him, Ramballe was told to go. He rose and tried
to walk, but staggered and would have fallen had not a soldier standing
by held him up.
"You won't do it again, eh?" said one of the soldiers, winking and
turning mockingly to Ramballe.
"Oh, you fool! Why talk rubbish, lout that you are—a real peasant!"
came rebukes from all sides addressed to the jesting soldier.
They surrounded Ramballe, lifted him on the crossed arms of two
soldiers, and carried him to the hut. Ramballe put his arms around their
necks while they carried him and began wailing plaintively:
"Oh, you fine fellows, my kind, kind friends! These are men! Oh, my
brave, kind friends," and he leaned his head against the shoulder of one
of the men like a child.
Meanwhile Morel was sitting in the best place by the fire,
surrounded by the soldiers.
Morel, a short sturdy Frenchman with inflamed and streaming eyes,
was wearing a woman's cloak and had a shawl tied woman fashion
round his head over his cap. He was evidently tipsy, and was singing a
French song in a hoarse broken voice, with an arm thrown round the
nearest soldier. The soldiers simply held their sides as they watched
him.
"Now then, now then, teach us how it goes! I'll soon pick it up. How
is it?" said the man—a singer and a wag—whom Morel was embracing.
"Vive Henri Quatre! Vive ce roi valiant!" sang Morel, winking. "Ce
diable a quatre..." *
 * "Long live Henry the Fourth, that valiant
king! That rowdy
devil."

"Vivarika! Vif-seruvaru! Sedyablyaka!" repeated the soldier,

flourishing his arm and really catching the tune.
"Bravo! Ha, ha, ha!" rose their rough, joyous laughter from all sides.
Morel, wrinkling up his face, laughed too.
"Well, go on, go on!"

"Qui eut le triple talent,

De boire, de battre,
Et d'etre un vert galant." *

* Who had a triple talent

For drinking, for fighting,
And for being a gallant old boy...

"It goes smoothly, too. Well, now, Zaletaev!"

"Ke..." Zaletaev, brought out with effort: "ke-e-e-e," he drawled,
laboriously pursing his lips, "le-trip-ta-la-de-bu-de-ba, e de-tra-va-ga-
la" he sang.
"Fine! Just like the Frenchie! Oh, ho ho! Do you want some more to
eat?"
"Give him some porridge: it takes a long time to get filled up after
starving."
They gave him some more porridge and Morel with a laugh set to
work on his third bowl. All the young soldiers smiled gaily as they
watched him. The older men, who thought it undignified to amuse
themselves with such nonsense, continued to lie at the opposite side of
the fire, but one would occasionally raise himself on an elbow and
glance at Morel with a smile.
"They are men too," said one of them as he wrapped himself up in
his coat. "Even wormwood grows on its own root."
"O Lord, O Lord! How starry it is! Tremendous! That means a hard
frost...."
They all grew silent. The stars, as if knowing that no one was
looking at them, began to disport themselves in the dark sky: now
flaring up, now vanishing, now trembling, they were busy whispering
something gladsome and mysterious to one another.
 CHAPTER X
The French army melted away at the uniform rate of a mathematical
progression; and that crossing of the Berezina about which so much has
been written was only one intermediate stage in its destruction, and not
at all the decisive episode of the campaign. If so much has been and
still is written about the Berezina, on the French side this is only
because at the broken bridge across that river the calamities their army
had been previously enduring were suddenly concentrated at one
moment into a tragic spectacle that remained in every memory, and on
the Russian side merely because in Petersburg—far from the seat of
war—a plan (again one of Pfuel's) had been devised to catch Napoleon
in a strategic trap at the Berezina River. Everyone assured himself that
all would happen according to plan, and therefore insisted that it was
just the crossing of the Berezina that destroyed the French army. In
reality the results of the crossing were much less disastrous to the
French—in guns and men lost—than Krasnoe had been, as the figures
show.
The sole importance of the crossing of the Berezina lies in the fact
that it plainly and indubitably proved the fallacy of all the plans for
cutting off the enemy's retreat and the soundness of the only possible
line of action—the one Kutuzov and the general mass of the army
demanded—namely, simply to follow the enemy up. The French crowd
fled at a continually increasing speed and all its energy was directed to
reaching its goal. It fled like a wounded animal and it was impossible to
block its path. This was shown not so much by the arrangements it
made for crossing as by what took place at the bridges. When the
bridges broke down, unarmed soldiers, people from Moscow and
women with children who were with the French transport, all—carried
on by vis inertiae—pressed forward into boats and into the ice-covered
water and did not, surrender.
That impulse was reasonable. The condition of fugitives and of
pursuers was equally bad. As long as they remained with their own
people each might hope for help from his fellows and the definite place
he held among them. But those who surrendered, while remaining in
the same pitiful plight, would be on a lower level to claim a share in the
necessities of life. The French did not need to be informed of the fact
that half the prisoners—with whom the Russians did not know what to
do—perished of cold and hunger despite their captors' desire to save
them; they felt that it could not be otherwise. The most compassionate
Russian commanders, those favorable to the French—and even the
Frenchmen in the Russian service—could do nothing for the prisoners.
The French perished from the conditions to which the Russian army
was itself exposed. It was impossible to take bread and clothes from our
hungry and indispensable soldiers to give to the French who, though
not harmful, or hated, or guilty, were simply unnecessary. Some
Russians even did that, but they were exceptions.
Certain destruction lay behind the French but in front there was
hope. Their ships had been burned, there was no salvation save in
collective flight, and on that the whole strength of the French was
concentrated.
The farther they fled the more wretched became the plight of the
remnant, especially after the Berezina, on which (in consequence of the
Petersburg plan) special hopes had been placed by the Russians, and
the keener grew the passions of the Russian commanders, who blamed
one another and Kutuzov most of all. Anticipation that the failure of the
Petersburg Berezina plan would be attributed to Kutuzov led to
dissatisfaction, contempt, and ridicule, more and more strongly
expressed. The ridicule and contempt were of course expressed in a
respectful form, making it impossible for him to ask wherein he was to
blame. They did not talk seriously to him; when reporting to him or
asking for his sanction they appeared to be fulfilling a regrettable
formality, but they winked behind his back and tried to mislead him at
every turn.
Because they could not understand him all these people assumed that
it was useless to talk to the old man; that he would never grasp the
profundity of their plans, that he would answer with his phrases (which
they thought were mere phrases) about a "golden bridge," about the
impossibility of crossing the frontier with a crowd of tatterdemalions,
and so forth. They had heard all that before. And all he said—that it
was necessary to await provisions, or that the men had no boots—was
so simple, while what they proposed was so complicated and clever,
that it was evident that he was old and stupid and that they, though not
in power, were commanders of genius.
After the junction with the army of the brilliant admiral and
Petersburg hero Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff
reached their maximum. Kutuzov saw this and merely sighed and
shrugged his shoulders. Only once, after the affair of the Berezina, did
he get angry and write to Bennigsen (who reported separately to the
Emperor) the following letter:
"On account of your spells of ill health, will your excellency please
be so good as to set off for Kaluga on receipt of this, and there await
further commands and appointments from His Imperial Majesty."
 But after Bennigsen's departure, the Grand Duke Tsarevich
Constantine Pavlovich joined the army. He had taken part in the
beginning of the campaign but had subsequently been removed from
the army by Kutuzov. Now having come to the army, he informed
Kutuzov of the Emperor's displeasure at the poor success of our forces
and the slowness of their advance. The Emperor intended to join the
army personally in a few days' time.
The old man, experienced in court as well as in military affairs—this
same Kutuzov who in August had been chosen commander in chief
against the sovereign's wishes and who had removed the Grand Duke
and heir—apparent from the army—who on his own authority and
contrary to the Emperor's will had decided on the abandonment of
Moscow, now realized at once that his day was over, that his part was
played, and that the power he was supposed to hold was no longer his.
And he understood this not merely from the attitude of the court. He
saw on the one hand that the military business in which he had played
his part was ended and felt that his mission was accomplished; and at
the same time he began to be conscious of the physical weariness of his
aged body and of the necessity of physical rest.
On the twenty-ninth of November Kutuzov entered Vilna—his "dear
Vilna" as he called it. Twice during his career Kutuzov had been
governor of Vilna. In that wealthy town, which had not been injured, he
found old friends and associations, besides the comforts of life of
which he had so long been deprived. And he suddenly turned from the
cares of army and state and, as far as the passions that seethed around
him allowed, immersed himself in the quiet life to which he had
formerly been accustomed, as if all that was taking place and all that
had still to be done in the realm of history did not concern him at all.
Chichagov, one of the most zealous "cutters-off" and "breakers-up,"
who had first wanted to effect a diversion in Greece and then in
Warsaw but never wished to go where he was sent: Chichagov, noted
for the boldness with which he spoke to the Emperor, and who
considered Kutuzov to be under an obligation to him because when he
was sent to make peace with Turkey in 1811 independently of Kutuzov,
and found that peace had already been concluded, he admitted to the
Emperor that the merit of securing that peace was really Kutuzov's; this
Chichagov was the first to meet Kutuzov at the castle where the latter
was to stay. In undress naval uniform, with a dirk, and holding his cap
under his arm, he handed Kutuzov a garrison report and the keys of the
town. The contemptuously respectful attitude of the younger men to the
old man in his dotage was expressed in the highest degree by the
behavior of Chichagov, who knew of the accusations that were being
directed against Kutuzov.
 When speaking to Chichagov, Kutuzov incidentally mentioned that
the vehicles packed with china that had been captured from him at
Borisov had been recovered and would be restored to him.
"You mean to imply that I have nothing to eat out of.... On the
contrary, I can supply you with everything even if you want to give
dinner parties," warmly replied Chichagov, who tried by every word he
spoke to prove his own rectitude and therefore imagined Kutuzov to be
animated by the same desire.
Kutuzov, shrugging his shoulders, replied with his subtle penetrating
smile: "I meant merely to say what I said."
Contrary to the Emperor's wish Kutuzov detained the greater part of
the army at Vilna. Those about him said that he became extraordinarily
slack and physically feeble during his stay in that town. He attended to
army affairs reluctantly, left everything to his generals, and while
awaiting the Emperor's arrival led a dissipated life.
Having left Petersburg on the seventh of December with his suite—
Count Tolstoy, Prince Volkonski, Arakcheev, and others—the Emperor
reached Vilna on the eleventh, and in his traveling sleigh drove straight
to the castle. In spite of the severe frost some hundred generals and
staff officers in full parade uniform stood in front of the castle, as well
as a guard of honor of the Semenov regiment.
A courier who galloped to the castle in advance, in a troyka with
three foam-flecked horses, shouted "Coming!" and Konovnitsyn rushed
into the vestibule to inform Kutuzov, who was waiting in the hall
porter's little lodge.
A minute later the old man's large stout figure in full-dress uniform,
his chest covered with orders and a scarf drawn round his stomach,
waddled out into the porch. He put on his hat with its peaks to the sides
and, holding his gloves in his hand and walking with an effort sideways
down the steps to the level of the street, took in his hand the report he
had prepared for the Emperor.
There was running to and fro and whispering; another troyka flew
furiously up, and then all eyes were turned on an approaching sleigh in
which the figures of the Emperor and Volkonski could already be
descried.
From the habit of fifty years all this had a physically agitating effect
on the old general. He carefully and hastily felt himself all over,
readjusted his hat, and pulling himself together drew himself up and, at
the very moment when the Emperor, having alighted from the sleigh,
lifted his eyes to him, handed him the report and began speaking in his
smooth, ingratiating voice.
 The Emperor with a rapid glance scanned Kutuzov from head to
foot, frowned for an instant, but immediately mastering himself went
up to the old man, extended his arms and embraced him. And this
embrace too, owing to a long-standing impression related to his
innermost feelings, had its usual effect on Kutuzov and he gave a sob.
The Emperor greeted the officers and the Semenov guard, and again
pressing the old man's hand went with him into the castle.
When alone with the field marshal the Emperor expressed his
dissatisfaction at the slowness of the pursuit and at the mistakes made
at Krasnoe and the Berezina, and informed him of his intentions for a
future campaign abroad. Kutuzov made no rejoinder or remark. The
same submissive, expressionless look with which he had listened to the
Emperor's commands on the field of Austerlitz seven years before
settled on his face now.
When Kutuzov came out of the study and with lowered head was
crossing the ballroom with his heavy waddling gait, he was arrested by
someone's voice saying:
"Your Serene Highness!"
Kutuzov raised his head and looked for a long while into the eyes of
Count Tolstoy, who stood before him holding a silver salver on which
lay a small object. Kutuzov seemed not to understand what was
expected of him.
Suddenly he seemed to remember; a scarcely perceptible smile
flashed across his puffy face, and bowing low and respectfully he took
the object that lay on the salver. It was the Order of St. George of the
First Class.

CHAPTER XI
Next day the field marshal gave a dinner and ball which the Emperor
honored by his presence. Kutuzov had received the Order of St. George
of the First Class and the Emperor showed him the highest honors, but
everyone knew of the imperial dissatisfaction with him. The proprieties
were observed and the Emperor was the first to set that example, but
everybody understood that the old man was blameworthy and good-for-
nothing. When Kutuzov, conforming to a custom of Catherine's day,
ordered the standards that had been captured to be lowered at the
Emperor's feet on his entering the ballroom, the Emperor made a wry
face and muttered something in which some people caught the words,
"the old comedian."
The Emperor's displeasure with Kutuzov was specially increased at
Vilna by the fact that Kutuzov evidently could not or would not
understand the importance of the coming campaign.
When on the following morning the Emperor said to the officers
assembled about him: "You have not only saved Russia, you have
saved Europe!" they all understood that the war was not ended.
Kutuzov alone would not see this and openly expressed his opinion
that no fresh war could improve the position or add to the glory of
Russia, but could only spoil and lower the glorious position that Russia
had gained. He tried to prove to the Emperor the impossibility of
levying fresh troops, spoke of the hardships already endured by the
people, of the possibility of failure and so forth.
This being the field marshal's frame of mind he was naturally
regarded as merely a hindrance and obstacle to the impending war.
To avoid unpleasant encounters with the old man, the natural method
was to do what had been done with him at Austerlitz and with Barclay
at the beginning of the Russian campaign—to transfer the authority to
the Emperor himself, thus cutting the ground from under the
commander in chief's feet without upsetting the old man by informing
him of the change.
With this object his staff was gradually reconstructed and its real
strength removed and transferred to the Emperor. Toll, Konovnitsyn,
and Ermolov received fresh appointments. Everyone spoke loudly of
the field marshal's great weakness and failing health.
His health had to be bad for his place to be taken away and given to
another. And in fact his health was poor.
So naturally, simply, and gradually—just as he had come from
Turkey to the Treasury in Petersburg to recruit the militia, and then to
the army when he was needed there—now when his part was played
out, Kutuzov's place was taken by a new and necessary performer.
The war of 1812, besides its national significance dear to every
Russian heart, was now to assume another, a European, significance.
The movement of peoples from west to east was to be succeeded by
a movement of peoples from east to west, and for this fresh war another
leader was necessary, having qualities and views differing from
Kutuzov's and animated by different motives.
 Alexander I was as necessary for the movement of the peoples from
east to west and for the refixing of national frontiers as Kutuzov had
been for the salvation and glory of Russia.
Kutuzov did not understand what Europe, the balance of power, or
Napoleon meant. He could not understand it. For the representative of
the Russian people, after the enemy had been destroyed and Russia had
been liberated and raised to the summit of her glory, there was nothing
left to do as a Russian. Nothing remained for the representative of the
national war but to die, and Kutuzov died.

CHAPTER XII
As generally happens, Pierre did not feel the full effects of the
physical privation and strain he had suffered as prisoner until after they
were over. After his liberation he reached Orel, and on the third day
there, when preparing to go to Kiev, he fell ill and was laid up for three
months. He had what the doctors termed "bilious fever." But despite the
fact that the doctors treated him, bled him, and gave him medicines to
drink, he recovered.
Scarcely any impression was left on Pierre's mind by all that
happened to him from the time of his rescue till his illness. He
remembered only the dull gray weather now rainy and now snowy,
internal physical distress, and pains in his feet and side. He
remembered a general impression of the misfortunes and sufferings of
people and of being worried by the curiosity of officers and generals
who questioned him, he also remembered his difficulty in procuring a
conveyance and horses, and above all he remembered his incapacity to
think and feel all that time. On the day of his rescue he had seen the
body of Petya Rostov. That same day he had learned that Prince
Andrew, after surviving the battle of Borodino for more than a month
had recently died in the Rostovs' house at Yaroslavl, and Denisov who
told him this news also mentioned Helene's death, supposing that Pierre
had heard of it long before. All this at the time seemed merely strange
to Pierre: he felt he could not grasp its significance. Just then he was
only anxious to get away as quickly as possible from places where
people were killing one another, to some peaceful refuge where he
could recover himself, rest, and think over all the strange new facts he
had learned; but on reaching Orel he immediately fell ill. When he
came to himself after his illness he saw in attendance on him two of his
servants, Terenty and Vaska, who had come from Moscow; and also his
cousin the eldest princess, who had been living on his estate at Elets
and hearing of his rescue and illness had come to look after him.
It was only gradually during his convalescence that Pierre lost the
impressions he had become accustomed to during the last few months
and got used to the idea that no one would oblige him to go anywhere
tomorrow, that no one would deprive him of his warm bed, and that he
would be sure to get his dinner, tea, and supper. But for a long time in
his dreams he still saw himself in the conditions of captivity. In the
same way little by little he came to understand the news he had been
told after his rescue, about the death of Prince Andrew, the death of his
wife, and the destruction of the French.
A joyous feeling of freedom—that complete inalienable freedom
natural to man which he had first experienced at the first halt outside
Moscow—filled Pierre's soul during his convalescence. He was
surprised to find that this inner freedom, which was independent of
external conditions, now had as it were an additional setting of external
liberty. He was alone in a strange town, without acquaintances. No one
demanded anything of him or sent him anywhere. He had all he
wanted: the thought of his wife which had been a continual torment to
him was no longer there, since she was no more.
"Oh, how good! How splendid!" said he to himself when a cleanly
laid table was moved up to him with savory beef tea, or when he lay
down for the night on a soft clean bed, or when he remembered that the
French had gone and that his wife was no more. "Oh, how good, how
splendid!"
And by old habit he asked himself the question: "Well, and what
then? What am I going to do?" And he immediately gave himself the
answer: "Well, I shall live. Ah, how splendid!"
The very question that had formerly tormented him, the thing he had
continually sought to find—the aim of life—no longer existed for him
now. That search for the aim of life had not merely disappeared
temporarily—he felt that it no longer existed for him and could not
present itself again. And this very absence of an aim gave him the
complete, joyous sense of freedom which constituted his happiness at
this time.
He could not see an aim, for he now had faith—not faith in any kind
of rule, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest
God. Formerly he had sought Him in aims he set himself. That search
for an aim had been simply a search for God, and suddenly in his
captivity he had learned not by words or reasoning but by direct feeling
what his nurse had told him long ago: that God is here and everywhere.
In his captivity he had learned that in Karataev God was greater, more
infinite and unfathomable than in the Architect of the Universe
recognized by the Freemasons. He felt like a man who after straining
his eyes to see into the far distance finds what he sought at his very
feet. All his life he had looked over the heads of the men around him,
when he should have merely looked in front of him without straining
his eyes.
In the past he had never been able to find that great inscrutable
infinite something. He had only felt that it must exist somewhere and
had looked for it. In everything near and comprehensible he had only
what was limited, petty, commonplace, and senseless. He had equipped
himself with a mental telescope and looked into remote space, where
petty worldliness hiding itself in misty distance had seemed to him
great and infinite merely because it was not clearly seen. And such had
European life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, and philanthropy
seemed to him. But even then, at moments of weakness as he had
accounted them, his mind had penetrated to those distances and he had
there seen the same pettiness, worldliness, and senselessness. Now,
however, he had learned to see the great, eternal, and infinite in
everything, and therefore—to see it and enjoy its contemplation—he
naturally threw away the telescope through which he had till now gazed
over men's heads, and gladly regarded the ever-changing, eternally
great, unfathomable, and infinite life around him. And the closer he
looked the more tranquil and happy he became. That dreadful question,
"What for?" which had formerly destroyed all his mental edifices, no
longer existed for him. To that question, "What for?" a simple answer
was now always ready in his soul: "Because there is a God, that God
without whose will not one hair falls from a man's head."

CHAPTER XIII
In external ways Pierre had hardly changed at all. In appearance he
was just what he used to be. As before he was absent-minded and
seemed occupied not with what was before his eyes but with something
special of his own. The difference between his former and present self
was that formerly when he did not grasp what lay before him or was
said to him, he had puckered his forehead painfully as if vainly seeking
to distinguish something at a distance. At present he still forgot what
was said to him and still did not see what was before his eyes, but he
now looked with a scarcely perceptible and seemingly ironic smile at
what was before him and listened to what was said, though evidently
seeing and hearing something quite different. Formerly he had
appeared to be a kindhearted but unhappy man, and so people had been
inclined to avoid him. Now a smile at the joy of life always played
round his lips, and sympathy for others, shone in his eyes with a
questioning look as to whether they were as contented as he was, and
people felt pleased by his presence.
Previously he had talked a great deal, grew excited when he talked,
and seldom listened; now he was seldom carried away in conversation
and knew how to listen so that people readily told him their most
intimate secrets.
The princess, who had never liked Pierre and had been particularly
hostile to him since she had felt herself under obligations to him after
the old count's death, now after staying a short time in Orel—where she
had come intending to show Pierre that in spite of his ingratitude she
considered it her duty to nurse him—felt to her surprise and vexation
that she had become fond of him. Pierre did not in any way seek her
approval, he merely studied her with interest. Formerly she had felt that
he regarded her with indifference and irony, and so had shrunk into
herself as she did with others and had shown him only the combative
side of her nature; but now he seemed to be trying to understand the
most intimate places of her heart, and, mistrustfully at first but
afterwards gratefully, she let him see the hidden, kindly sides of her
character.
The most cunning man could not have crept into her confidence
more successfully, evoking memories of the best times of her youth and
showing sympathy with them. Yet Pierre's cunning consisted simply in
finding pleasure in drawing out the human qualities of the embittered,
hard, and (in her own way) proud princess.
"Yes, he is a very, very kind man when he is not under the influence
of bad people but of people such as myself," thought she.
His servants too—Terenty and Vaska—in their own way noticed the
change that had taken place in Pierre. They considered that he had
become much "simpler." Terenty, when he had helped him undress and
wished him good night, often lingered with his master's boots in his
hands and clothes over his arm, to see whether he would not start a talk.
And Pierre, noticing that Terenty wanted a chat, generally kept him
there.
"Well, tell me... now, how did you get food?" he would ask.
And Terenty would begin talking of the destruction of Moscow, and
of the old count, and would stand for a long time holding the clothes
and talking, or sometimes listening to Pierre's stories, and then would
go out into the hall with a pleasant sense of intimacy with his master
and affection for him.
 The doctor who attended Pierre and visited him every day, though he
considered it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man whose every
moment was of value to suffering humanity, would sit for hours with
Pierre telling him his favorite anecdotes and his observations on the
characters of his patients in general, and especially of the ladies.
"It's a pleasure to talk to a man like that; he is not like our
provincials," he would say.
There were several prisoners from the French army in Orel, and the
doctor brought one of them, a young Italian, to see Pierre.
This officer began visiting Pierre, and the princess used to make fun
of the tenderness the Italian expressed for him.
The Italian seemed happy only when he could come to see Pierre,
talk with him, tell him about his past, his life at home, and his love, and
pour out to him his indignation against the French and especially
against Napoleon.
"If all Russians are in the least like you, it is sacrilege to fight such a
nation," he said to Pierre. "You, who have suffered so from the French,
do not even feel animosity toward them."
Pierre had evoked the passionate affection of the Italian merely by
evoking the best side of his nature and taking a pleasure in so doing.
During the last days of Pierre's stay in Orel his old Masonic
acquaintance Count Willarski, who had introduced him to the lodge in
1807, came to see him. Willarski was married to a Russian heiress who
had a large estate in Orel province, and he occupied a temporary post in
the commissariat department in that town.
Hearing that Bezukhov was in Orel, Willarski, though they had never
been intimate, came to him with the professions of friendship and
intimacy that people who meet in a desert generally express for one
another. Willarski felt dull in Orel and was pleased to meet a man of his
own circle and, as he supposed, of similar interests.
But to his surprise Willarski soon noticed that Pierre had lagged
much behind the times, and had sunk, as he expressed it to himself, into
apathy and egotism.
"You are letting yourself go, my dear fellow," he said.
But for all that Willarski found it pleasanter now than it had been
formerly to be with Pierre, and came to see him every day. To Pierre as
he looked at and listened to Willarski, it seemed strange to think that he
had been like that himself but a short time before.
 Willarski was a married man with a family, busy with his family
affairs, his wife's affairs, and his official duties. He regarded all these
occupations as hindrances to life, and considered that they were all
contemptible because their aim was the welfare of himself and his
family. Military, administrative, political, and Masonic interests
continually absorbed his attention. And Pierre, without trying to change
the other's views and without condemning him, but with the quiet,
joyful, and amused smile now habitual to him, was interested in this
strange though very familiar phenomenon.
There was a new feature in Pierre's relations with Willarski, with the
princess, with the doctor, and with all the people he now met, which
gained for him the general good will. This was his acknowledgment of
the impossibility of changing a man's convictions by words, and his
recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing
things each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of
each individual which used to excite and irritate Pierre now became a
basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he took in, other
people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between
men's opinions and their lives, and between one man and another,
pleased him and drew from him an amused and gentle smile.
In practical matters Pierre unexpectedly felt within himself a center
of gravity he had previously lacked. Formerly all pecuniary questions,
especially requests for money to which, as an extremely wealthy man,
he was very exposed, produced in him a state of hopeless agitation and
perplexity. "To give or not to give?" he had asked himself. "I have it
and he needs it. But someone else needs it still more. Who needs it
most? And perhaps they are both impostors?" In the old days he had
been unable to find a way out of all these surmises and had given to all
who asked as long as he had anything to give. Formerly he had been in
a similar state of perplexity with regard to every question concerning
his property, when one person advised one thing and another something
else.
Now to his surprise he found that he no longer felt either doubt or
perplexity about these questions. There was now within him a judge
who by some rule unknown to him decided what should or should not
be done.
He was as indifferent as heretofore to money matters, but now he felt
certain of what ought and what ought not to be done. The first time he
had recourse to his new judge was when a French prisoner, a colonel,
came to him and, after talking a great deal about his exploits, concluded
by making what amounted to a demand that Pierre should give him four
thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre refused without
the least difficulty or effort, and was afterwards surprised how simple
and easy had been what used to appear so insurmountably difficult. At
the same time that he refused the colonel's demand he made up his
mind that he must have recourse to artifice when leaving Orel, to
induce the Italian officer to accept some money of which he was
evidently in need. A further proof to Pierre of his own more settled
outlook on practical matters was furnished by his decision with regard
to his wife's debts and to the rebuilding of his houses in and near
Moscow.
His head steward came to him at Orel and Pierre reckoned up with
him his diminished income. The burning of Moscow had cost him,
according to the head steward's calculation, about two million rubles.
To console Pierre for these losses the head steward gave him an
estimate showing that despite these losses his income would not be
diminished but would even be increased if he refused to pay his wife's
debts which he was under no obligation to meet, and did not rebuild his
Moscow house and the country house on his Moscow estate, which had
cost him eighty thousand rubles a year and brought in nothing.
"Yes, of course that's true," said Pierre with a cheerful smile. "I don't
need all that at all. By being ruined I have become much richer."
But in January Savelich came from Moscow and gave him an
account of the state of things there, and spoke of the estimate an
architect had made of the cost of rebuilding the town and country
houses, speaking of this as of a settled matter. About the same time he
received letters from Prince Vasili and other Petersburg acquaintances
speaking of his wife's debts. And Pierre decided that the steward's
proposals which had so pleased him were wrong and that he must go to
Petersburg and settle his wife's affairs and must rebuild in Moscow.
Why this was necessary he did not know, but he knew for certain that it
was necessary. His income would be reduced by three fourths, but he
felt it must be done.
Willarski was going to Moscow and they agreed to travel together.
During the whole time of his convalescence in Orel Pierre had
experienced a feeling of joy, freedom, and life; but when during his
journey he found himself in the open world and saw hundreds of new
faces, that feeling was intensified. Throughout his journey he felt like a
schoolboy on holiday. Everyone—the stagecoach driver, the post-house
overseers, the peasants on the roads and in the villages—had a new
significance for him. The presence and remarks of Willarski who
continually deplored the ignorance and poverty of Russia and its
backwardness compared with Europe only heightened Pierre's pleasure.
Where Willarski saw deadness Pierre saw an extraordinary strength and
vitality—the strength which in that vast space amid the snows
maintained the life of this original, peculiar, and unique people. He did
not contradict Willarski and even seemed to agree with him—an
apparent agreement being the simplest way to avoid discussions that
could lead to nothing—and he smiled joyfully as he listened to him.

CHAPTER XIV
It would be difficult to explain why and whither ants whose heap has
been destroyed are hurrying: some from the heap dragging bits of
rubbish, larvae, and corpses, others back to the heap, or why they jostle,
overtake one another, and fight, and it would be equally difficult to
explain what caused the Russians after the departure of the French to
throng to the place that had formerly been Moscow. But when we
watch the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity, energy, and
immense number of the delving insects prove that despite the
destruction of the heap, something indestructible, which though
intangible is the real strength of the colony, still exists; and similarly,
though in Moscow in the month of October there was no government
and no churches, shrines, riches, or houses—it was still the Moscow it
had been in August. All was destroyed, except something intangible yet
powerful and indestructible.
The motives of those who thronged from all sides to Moscow after it
had been cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal, and at
first for the most part savage and brutal. One motive only they all had
in common: a desire to get to the place that had been called Moscow, to
apply their activities there.
Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in a
fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on. By the autumn of 1813 the
number, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in
1812.
The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks of
Wintzingerode's detachment, peasants from the adjacent villages, and
residents who had fled from Moscow and had been hiding in its
vicinity. The Russians who entered Moscow, finding it plundered,
plundered it in their turn. They continued what the French had begun.
Trains of peasant carts came to Moscow to carry off to the villages
what had been abandoned in the ruined houses and the streets. The
Cossacks carried off what they could to their camps, and the
householders seized all they could find in other houses and moved it to
their own, pretending that it was their property.
 But the first plunderers were followed by a second and a third
contingent, and with increasing numbers plundering became more and
more difficult and assumed more definite forms.
The French found Moscow abandoned but with all the organizations
of regular life, with diverse branches of commerce and craftsmanship,
with luxury, and governmental and religious institutions. These forms
were lifeless but still existed. There were bazaars, shops, warehouses,
market stalls, granaries—for the most part still stocked with goods—
and there were factories and workshops, palaces and wealthy houses
filled with luxuries, hospitals, prisons, government offices, churches,
and cathedrals. The longer the French remained the more these forms
of town life perished, until finally all was merged into one confused,
lifeless scene of plunder.
The more the plundering by the French continued, the more both the
wealth of Moscow and the strength of its plunderers was destroyed. But
plundering by the Russians, with which the reoccupation of the city
began, had an opposite effect: the longer it continued and the greater
the number of people taking part in it the more rapidly was the wealth
of the city and its regular life restored.
Besides the plunderers, very various people, some drawn by
curiosity, some by official duties, some by self-interest—house owners,
clergy, officials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and peasants—
streamed into Moscow as blood flows to the heart.
Within a week the peasants who came with empty carts to carry off
plunder were stopped by the authorities and made to cart the corpses
out of the town. Other peasants, having heard of their comrades'
discomfiture, came to town bringing rye, oats, and hay, and beat down
one another's prices to below what they had been in former days. Gangs
of carpenters hoping for high pay arrived in Moscow every day, and on
all sides logs were being hewn, new houses built, and old, charred ones
repaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths. Cookshops and taverns
were opened in partially burned houses. The clergy resumed the
services in many churches that had not been burned. Donors
contributed Church property that had been stolen. Government clerks
set up their baize-covered tables and their pigeonholes of documents in
small rooms. The higher authorities and the police organized the
distribution of goods left behind by the French. The owners of houses
in which much property had been left, brought there from other houses,
complained of the injustice of taking everything to the Faceted Palace
in the Kremlin; others insisted that as the French had gathered things
from different houses into this or that house, it would be unfair to allow
its owner to keep all that was found there. They abused the police and
bribed them, made out estimates at ten times their value for government
stores that had perished in the fire, and demanded relief. And Count
Rostopchin wrote proclamations.

CHAPTER XV
At the end of January Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex
of his house which had not been burned. He called on Count
Rostopchin and on some acquaintances who were back in Moscow, and
he intended to leave for Petersburg two days later. Everybody was
celebrating the victory, everything was bubbling with life in the ruined
but reviving city. Everyone was pleased to see Pierre, everyone wished
to meet him, and everyone questioned him about what he had seen.
Pierre felt particularly well disposed toward them all, but was now
instinctively on his guard for fear of binding himself in any way. To all
questions put to him—whether important or quite trifling—such as:
Where would he live? Was he going to rebuild? When was he going to
Petersburg and would he mind taking a parcel for someone?—he
replied: "Yes, perhaps," or, "I think so," and so on.
He had heard that the Rostovs were at Kostroma but the thought of
Natasha seldom occurred to him. If it did it was only as a pleasant
memory of the distant past. He felt himself not only free from social
obligations but also from that feeling which, it seemed to him, he had
aroused in himself.
On the third day after his arrival he heard from the Drubetskoys that
Princess Mary was in Moscow. The death, sufferings, and last days of
Prince Andrew had often occupied Pierre's thoughts and now recurred
to him with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner that Princess Mary
was in Moscow and living in her house—which had not been burned—
in Vozdvizhenka Street, he drove that same evening to see her.
On his way to the house Pierre kept thinking of Prince Andrew, of
their friendship, of his various meetings with him, and especially of the
last one at Borodino.
"Is it possible that he died in the bitter frame of mind he was then in?
Is it possible that the meaning of life was not disclosed to him before he
died?" thought Pierre. He recalled Karataev and his death and
involuntarily began to compare these two men, so different, and yet so
similar in that they had both lived and both died and in the love he felt
for both of them.
 Pierre drove up to the house of the old prince in a most serious
mood. The house had escaped the fire; it showed signs of damage but
its general aspect was unchanged. The old footman, who met Pierre
with a stern face as if wishing to make the visitor feel that the absence
of the old prince had not disturbed the order of things in the house,
informed him that the princess had gone to her own apartments, and
that she received on Sundays.
"Announce me. Perhaps she will see me," said Pierre.
"Yes, sir," said the man. "Please step into the portrait gallery."
A few minutes later the footman returned with Dessalles, who
brought word from the princess that she would be very glad to see
Pierre if he would excuse her want of ceremony and come upstairs to
her apartment.
In a rather low room lit by one candle sat the princess and with her
another person dressed in black. Pierre remembered that the princess
always had lady companions, but who they were and what they were
like he never knew or remembered. "This must be one of her
companions," he thought, glancing at the lady in the black dress.
The princess rose quickly to meet him and held out her hand.
"Yes," she said, looking at his altered face after he had kissed her
hand, "so this is how we meet again. He spoke of you even at the very
last," she went on, turning her eyes from Pierre to her companion with
a shyness that surprised him for an instant.
"I was so glad to hear of your safety. It was the first piece of good
news we had received for a long time."
Again the princess glanced round at her companion with even more
uneasiness in her manner and was about to add something, but Pierre
interrupted her.
"Just imagine—I knew nothing about him!" said he. "I thought he
had been killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only
know that he fell in with the Rostovs.... What a strange coincidence!"
Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the
companion's face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and,
as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion
in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not
hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary.
But when he mentioned the Rostovs, Princess Mary's face expressed
still greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre's
face to that of the lady in the black dress and said:
 "Do you really not recognize her?"
Pierre looked again at the companion's pale, delicate face with its
black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long
forgotten and more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive eyes.
"But no, it can't be!" he thought. "This stern, thin, pale face that
looks so much older! It cannot be she. It merely reminds me of her."
But at that moment Princess Mary said, "Natasha!" And with difficulty,
effort, and stress, like the opening of a door grown rusty on its hinges, a
smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from that
opening door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre with a
happiness he had long forgotten and of which he had not even been
thinking—especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him, and
enveloped him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer
possible, it was Natasha and he loved her.
At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess
Mary, and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had been
unaware. He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He tried to hide
his agitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more clearly—clearer
than any words could have done—did he betray to himself, to her, and
to Princess Mary that he loved her.
"No, it's only the unexpectedness of it," thought Pierre. But as soon
as he tried to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess
Mary he again glanced at Natasha, and a still-deeper flush suffused his
face and a still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and fear seized his
soul. He became confused in his speech and stopped in the middle of
what he was saying.
Pierre had failed to notice Natasha because he did not at all expect to
see her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the change in
her since he last saw her was immense. She had grown thin and pale,
but that was not what made her unrecognizable; she was
unrecognizable at the moment he entered because on that face whose
eyes had always shone with a suppressed smile of the joy of life, now
when he first entered and glanced at her there was not the least shadow
of a smile: only her eyes were kindly attentive and sadly interrogative.
Pierre's confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natasha's
part, but only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her whole face.

CHAPTER XVI
 "She has come to stay with me," said Princess Mary. "The count and
countess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a dreadful state;
but it was necessary for Natasha herself to see a doctor. They insisted
on her coming with me."
"Yes, is there a family free from sorrow now?" said Pierre,
addressing Natasha. "You know it happened the very day we were
rescued. I saw him. What a delightful boy he was!"
Natasha looked at him, and by way of answer to his words her eyes
widened and lit up.
"What can one say or think of as a consolation?" said Pierre.
"Nothing! Why had such a splendid boy, so full of life, to die?"
"Yes, in these days it would be hard to live without faith..." remarked
Princess Mary.
"Yes, yes, that is really true," Pierre hastily interrupted her.
"Why is it true?" Natasha asked, looking attentively into Pierre's
eyes.
"How can you ask why?" said Princess Mary. "The thought alone of
what awaits..."
Natasha without waiting for Princess Mary to finish again looked
inquiringly at Pierre.
"And because," Pierre continued, "only one who believes that there
is a God ruling us can bear a loss such as hers and... yours."
Natasha had already opened her mouth to speak but suddenly
stopped. Pierre hurriedly turned away from her and again addressed
Princess Mary, asking about his friend's last days.
Pierre's confusion had now almost vanished, but at the same time he
felt that his freedom had also completely gone. He felt that there was
now a judge of his every word and action whose judgment mattered
more to him than that of all the rest of the world. As he spoke now he
was considering what impression his words would make on Natasha.
He did not purposely say things to please her, but whatever he was
saying he regarded from her standpoint.
Princess Mary—reluctantly as is usual in such cases—began telling
of the condition in which she had found Prince Andrew. But Pierre's
face quivering with emotion, his questions and his eager restless
expression, gradually compelled her to go into details which she feared
to recall for her own sake.
 "Yes, yes, and so...?" Pierre kept saying as he leaned toward her with
his whole body and eagerly listened to her story. "Yes, yes... so he grew
tranquil and softened? With all his soul he had always sought one
thing—to be perfectly good—so he could not be afraid of death. The
faults he had—if he had any—were not of his making. So he did
soften?... What a happy thing that he saw you again," he added,
suddenly turning to Natasha and looking at her with eyes full of tears.
Natasha's face twitched. She frowned and lowered her eyes for a
moment. She hesitated for an instant whether to speak or not.
"Yes, that was happiness," she then said in her quiet voice with its
deep chest notes. "For me it certainly was happiness." She paused.
"And he... he... he said he was wishing for it at the very moment I
entered the room...."
Natasha's voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped hands on her
knees, and then controlling herself with an evident effort lifted her head
and began to speak rapidly.
"We knew nothing of it when we started from Moscow. I did not
dare to ask about him. Then suddenly Sonya told me he was traveling
with us. I had no idea and could not imagine what state he was in, all I
wanted was to see him and be with him," she said, trembling, and
breathing quickly.
And not letting them interrupt her she went on to tell what she had
never yet mentioned to anyone—all she had lived through during those
three weeks of their journey and life at Yaroslavl.
Pierre listened to her with lips parted and eyes fixed upon her full of
tears. As he listened he did not think of Prince Andrew, nor of death,
nor of what she was telling. He listened to her and felt only pity for her,
for what she was suffering now while she was speaking.
Princess Mary, frowning in her effort to hold back her tears, sat
beside Natasha, and heard for the first time the story of those last days
of her brother's and Natasha's love.
Evidently Natasha needed to tell that painful yet joyful tale.
She spoke, mingling most trifling details with the intimate secrets of
her soul, and it seemed as if she could never finish. Several times she
repeated the same thing twice.
Dessalles' voice was heard outside the door asking whether little
Nicholas might come in to say good night.
"Well, that's all—everything," said Natasha.
 She got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran to the door
which was hidden by curtains, struck her head against it, and rushed
from the room with a moan either of pain or sorrow.
Pierre gazed at the door through which she had disappeared and did
not understand why he suddenly felt all alone in the world.
Princess Mary roused him from his abstraction by drawing his
attention to her nephew who had entered the room.
At that moment of emotional tenderness young Nicholas' face, which
resembled his father's, affected Pierre so much that when he had kissed
the boy he got up quickly, took out his handkerchief, and went to the
window. He wished to take leave of Princess Mary, but she would not
let him go.
"No, Natasha and I sometimes don't go to sleep till after two, so
please don't go. I will order supper. Go downstairs, we will come
immediately."
Before Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: "This is the first
time she has talked of him like that."

CHAPTER XVII
Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room; a few
minutes later he heard footsteps and Princess Mary entered with
Natasha. Natasha was calm, though a severe and grave expression had
again settled on her face. They all three of them now experienced that
feeling of awkwardness which usually follows after a serious and
heartfelt talk. It is impossible to go back to the same conversation, to
talk of trifles is awkward, and yet the desire to speak is there and
silence seems like affectation. They went silently to table. The footmen
drew back the chairs and pushed them up again. Pierre unfolded his
cold table napkin and, resolving to break the silence, looked at Natasha
and at Princess Mary. They had evidently both formed the same
resolution; the eyes of both shone with satisfaction and a confession
that besides sorrow life also has joy.
"Do you take vodka, Count?" asked Princess Mary, and those words
suddenly banished the shadows of the past. "Now tell us about
yourself," said she. "One hears such improbable wonders about you."
"Yes," replied Pierre with the smile of mild irony now habitual to
him. "They even tell me wonders I myself never dreamed of! Mary
Abramovna invited me to her house and kept telling me what had
happened, or ought to have happened, to me. Stepan Stepanych also
instructed me how I ought to tell of my experiences. In general I have
noticed that it is very easy to be an interesting man (I am an interesting
man now); people invite me out and tell me all about myself."
Natasha smiled and was on the point of speaking.
"We have been told," Princess Mary interrupted her, "that you lost
two millions in Moscow. Is that true?"
"But I am three times as rich as before," returned Pierre.
Though the position was now altered by his decision to pay his wife's
debts and to rebuild his houses, Pierre still maintained that he had
become three times as rich as before.
"What I have certainly gained is freedom," he began seriously, but
did not continue, noticing that this theme was too egotistic.
"And are you building?"
"Yes. Savelich says I must!"
"Tell me, you did not know of the countess' death when you decided
to remain in Moscow?" asked Princess Mary and immediately blushed,
noticing that her question, following his mention of freedom, ascribed
to his words a meaning he had perhaps not intended.
"No," answered Pierre, evidently not considering awkward the
meaning Princess Mary had given to his words. "I heard of it in Orel
and you cannot imagine how it shocked me. We were not an exemplary
couple," he added quickly, glancing at Natasha and noticing on her face
curiosity as to how he would speak of his wife, "but her death shocked
me terribly. When two people quarrel they are always both in fault, and
one's own guilt suddenly becomes terribly serious when the other is no
longer alive. And then such a death... without friends and without
consolation! I am very, very sorry for her," he concluded, and was
pleased to notice a look of glad approval on Natasha's face.
"Yes, and so you are once more an eligible bachelor," said Princess
Mary.
Pierre suddenly flushed crimson and for a long time tried not to look
at Natasha. When he ventured to glance her way again her face was
cold, stern, and he fancied even contemptuous.
"And did you really see and speak to Napoleon, as we have been
told?" said Princess Mary.
Pierre laughed.
 "No, not once! Everybody seems to imagine that being taken
prisoner means being Napoleon's guest. Not only did I never see him
but I heard nothing about him—I was in much lower company!"
Supper was over, and Pierre who at first declined to speak about his
captivity was gradually led on to do so.
"But it's true that you remained in Moscow to kill Napoleon?"
Natasha asked with a slight smile. "I guessed it then when we met at
the Sukharev tower, do you remember?"
Pierre admitted that it was true, and from that was gradually led by
Princess Mary's questions and especially by Natasha's into giving a
detailed account of his adventures.
At first he spoke with the amused and mild irony now customary
with him toward everybody and especially toward himself, but when he
came to describe the horrors and sufferings he had witnessed he was
unconsciously carried away and began speaking with the suppressed
emotion of a man re-experiencing in recollection strong impressions he
has lived through.
Princess Mary with a gentle smile looked now at Pierre and now at
Natasha. In the whole narrative she saw only Pierre and his goodness.
Natasha, leaning on her elbow, the expression of her face constantly
changing with the narrative, watched Pierre with an attention that never
wandered—evidently herself experiencing all that he described. Not
only her look, but her exclamations and the brief questions she put,
showed Pierre that she understood just what he wished to convey. It
was clear that she understood not only what he said but also what he
wished to, but could not, express in words. The account Pierre gave of
the incident with the child and the woman for protecting whom he was
arrested was this: "It was an awful sight—children abandoned, some in
the flames... One was snatched out before my eyes... and there were
women who had their things snatched off and their earrings torn out..."
he flushed and grew confused. "Then a patrol arrived and all the men—
all those who were not looting, that is—were arrested, and I among
them."
"I am sure you're not telling us everything; I am sure you did
something..." said Natasha and pausing added, "something fine?"
Pierre continued. When he spoke of the execution he wanted to pass
over the horrible details, but Natasha insisted that he should not omit
anything.
Pierre began to tell about Karataev, but paused. By this time he had
risen from the table and was pacing the room, Natasha following him
with her eyes. Then he added:
 "No, you can't understand what I learned from that illiterate man—
that simple fellow."
"Yes, yes, go on!" said Natasha. "Where is he?"
"They killed him almost before my eyes."
And Pierre, his voice trembling continually, went on to tell of the last
days of their retreat, of Karataev's illness and his death.
He told of his adventures as he had never yet recalled them. He now,
as it were, saw a new meaning in all he had gone through. Now that he
was telling it all to Natasha he experienced that pleasure which a man
has when women listen to him—not clever women who when listening
either try to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when
opportunity offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought
of their own and promptly contribute their own clever comments
prepared in their little mental workshop—but the pleasure given by real
women gifted with a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man
shows of himself. Natasha without knowing it was all attention: she did
not lose a word, no single quiver in Pierre's voice, no look, no twitch of
a muscle in his face, nor a single gesture. She caught the unfinished
word in its flight and took it straight into her open heart, divining the
secret meaning of all Pierre's mental travail.
Princess Mary understood his story and sympathized with him, but
she now saw something else that absorbed all her attention. She saw the
possibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre, and the
first thought of this filled her heart with gladness.
It was three o'clock in the morning. The footmen came in with sad
and stern faces to change the candles, but no one noticed them.
Pierre finished his story. Natasha continued to look at him intently
with bright, attentive, and animated eyes, as if trying to understand
something more which he had perhaps left untold. Pierre in shamefaced
and happy confusion glanced occasionally at her, and tried to think
what to say next to introduce a fresh subject. Princess Mary was silent.
It occurred to none of them that it was three o'clock and time to go to
bed.
"People speak of misfortunes and sufferings," remarked Pierre, "but
if at this moment I were asked: 'Would you rather be what you were
before you were taken prisoner, or go through all this again?' then for
heaven's sake let me again have captivity and horseflesh! We imagine
that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only
then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is
happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you," he added,
turning to Natasha.
 "Yes, yes," she said, answering something quite different. "I too
should wish nothing but to relive it all from the beginning."
Pierre looked intently at her.
"Yes, and nothing more," said Natasha.
"It's not true, not true!" cried Pierre. "I am not to blame for being
alive and wishing to live—nor you either."
Suddenly Natasha bent her head, covered her face with her hands,
and began to cry.
"What is it, Natasha?" said Princess Mary.
"Nothing, nothing." She smiled at Pierre through her tears. "Good
night! It is time for bed."
Pierre rose and took his leave.
Princess Mary and Natasha met as usual in the bedroom. They talked
of what Pierre had told them. Princess Mary did not express her opinion
of Pierre nor did Natasha speak of him.
"Well, good night, Mary!" said Natasha. "Do you know, I am often
afraid that by not speaking of him" (she meant Prince Andrew) "for
fear of not doing justice to our feelings, we forget him."
Princess Mary sighed deeply and thereby acknowledged the justice
of Natasha's remark, but she did not express agreement in words.
"Is it possible to forget?" said she.
"It did me so much good to tell all about it today. It was hard and
painful, but good, very good!" said Natasha. "I am sure he really loved
him. That is why I told him... Was it all right?" she added, suddenly
blushing.
"To tell Pierre? Oh, yes. What a splendid man he is!" said Princess
Mary.
"Do you know, Mary..." Natasha suddenly said with a mischievous
smile such as Princess Mary had not seen on her face for a long time,
"he has somehow grown so clean, smooth, and fresh—as if he had just
come out of a Russian bath; do you understand? Out of a moral bath.
Isn't it true?"
"Yes," replied Princess Mary. "He has greatly improved."
"With a short coat and his hair cropped; just as if, well, just as if he
had come straight from the bath... Papa used to..."
 "I understand why he" (Prince Andrew) "liked no one so much as
him," said Princess Mary.
"Yes, and yet he is quite different. They say men are friends when
they are quite different. That must be true. Really he is quite unlike
him—in everything."
"Yes, but he's wonderful."
"Well, good night," said Natasha.
And the same mischievous smile lingered for a long time on her face
as if it had been forgotten there.

CHAPTER XVIII
It was a long time before Pierre could fall asleep that night. He paced
up and down his room, now turning his thoughts on a difficult problem
and frowning, now suddenly shrugging his shoulders and wincing, and
now smiling happily.
He was thinking of Prince Andrew, of Natasha, and of their love, at
one moment jealous of her past, then reproaching himself for that
feeling. It was already six in the morning and he still paced up and
down the room.
"Well, what's to be done if it cannot be avoided? What's to be done?
Evidently it has to be so," said he to himself, and hastily undressing he
got into bed, happy and agitated but free from hesitation or indecision.
"Strange and impossible as such happiness seems, I must do
everything that she and I may be man and wife," he told himself.
A few days previously Pierre had decided to go to Petersburg on the
Friday. When he awoke on the Thursday, Savelich came to ask him
about packing for the journey.
"What, to Petersburg? What is Petersburg? Who is there in
Petersburg?" he asked involuntarily, though only to himself. "Oh, yes,
long ago before this happened I did for some reason mean to go to
Petersburg," he reflected. "Why? But perhaps I shall go. What a good
fellow he is and how attentive, and how he remembers everything," he
thought, looking at Savelich's old face, "and what a pleasant smile he
has!"
 "Well, Savelich, do you still not wish to accept your freedom?"
Pierre asked him.
"What's the good of freedom to me, your excellency? We lived under
the late count—the kingdom of heaven be his!—and we have lived
under you too, without ever being wronged."
"And your children?"
"The children will live just the same. With such masters one can
live."
"But what about my heirs?" said Pierre. "Supposing I suddenly
marry... it might happen," he added with an involuntary smile.
"If I may take the liberty, your excellency, it would be a good thing."
"How easy he thinks it," thought Pierre. "He doesn't know how
terrible it is and how dangerous. Too soon or too late... it is terrible!"
"So what are your orders? Are you starting tomorrow?" asked
Savelich.
"No, I'll put it off for a bit. I'll tell you later. You must forgive the
trouble I have put you to," said Pierre, and seeing Savelich smile, he
thought: "But how strange it is that he should not know that now there
is no Petersburg for me, and that that must be settled first of all! But
probably he knows it well enough and is only pretending. Shall I have a
talk with him and see what he thinks?" Pierre reflected. "No, another
time."
At breakfast Pierre told the princess, his cousin, that he had been to
see Princess Mary the day before and had there met—"Whom do you
think? Natasha Rostova!"
The princess seemed to see nothing more extraordinary in that than if
he had seen Anna Semenovna.
"Do you know her?" asked Pierre.
"I have seen the princess," she replied. "I heard that they were
arranging a match for her with young Rostov. It would be a very good
thing for the Rostovs, they are said to be utterly ruined."
"No; I mean do you know Natasha Rostova?"
"I heard about that affair of hers at the time. It was a great pity."
"No, she either doesn't understand or is pretending," thought Pierre.
"Better not say anything to her either."
The princess too had prepared provisions for Pierre's journey.
 "How kind they all are," thought Pierre. "What is surprising is that
they should trouble about these things now when it can no longer be of
interest to them. And all for me!"
On the same day the Chief of Police came to Pierre, inviting him to
send a representative to the Faceted Palace to recover things that were
to be returned to their owners that day.
"And this man too," thought Pierre, looking into the face of the Chief
of Police. "What a fine, good-looking officer and how kind. Fancy
bothering about such trifles now! And they actually say he is not honest
and takes bribes. What nonsense! Besides, why shouldn't he take
bribes? That's the way he was brought up, and everybody does it. But
what a kind, pleasant face and how he smiles as he looks at me."
Pierre went to Princess Mary's to dinner.
As he drove through the streets past the houses that had been burned
down, he was surprised by the beauty of those ruins. The
picturesqueness of the chimney stacks and tumble-down walls of the
burned-out quarters of the town, stretching out and concealing one
another, reminded him of the Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabmen he
met and their passengers, the carpenters cutting the timber for new
houses with axes, the women hawkers, and the shopkeepers, all looked
at him with cheerful beaming eyes that seemed to say: "Ah, there he is!
Let's see what will come of it!"
At the entrance to Princess Mary's house Pierre felt doubtful whether
he had really been there the night before and really seen Natasha and
talked to her. "Perhaps I imagined it; perhaps I shall go in and find no
one there." But he had hardly entered the room before he felt her
presence with his whole being by the loss of his sense of freedom. She
was in the same black dress with soft folds and her hair was done the
same way as the day before, yet she was quite different. Had she been
like this when he entered the day before he could not for a moment
have failed to recognize her.
She was as he had known her almost as a child and later on as Prince
Andrew's fiancee. A bright questioning light shone in her eyes, and on
her face was a friendly and strangely roguish expression.
Pierre dined with them and would have spent the whole evening
there, but Princess Mary was going to vespers and Pierre left the house
with her.
Next day he came early, dined, and stayed the whole evening.
Though Princess Mary and Natasha were evidently glad to see their
visitor and though all Pierre's interest was now centered in that house,
by the evening they had talked over everything and the conversation
passed from one trivial topic to another and repeatedly broke off. He
stayed so long that Princess Mary and Natasha exchanged glances,
evidently wondering when he would go. Pierre noticed this but could
not go. He felt uneasy and embarrassed, but sat on because he simply
could not get up and take his leave.
Princess Mary, foreseeing no end to this, rose first, and complaining
of a headache began to say good night.
"So you are going to Petersburg tomorrow?" she asked.
"No, I am not going," Pierre replied hastily, in a surprised tone and
as though offended. "Yes... no... to Petersburg? Tomorrow—but I won't
say good-by yet. I will call round in case you have any commissions for
me," said he, standing before Princess Mary and turning red, but not
taking his departure.
Natasha gave him her hand and went out. Princess Mary on the other
hand instead of going away sank into an armchair, and looked sternly
and intently at him with her deep, radiant eyes. The weariness she had
plainly shown before had now quite passed off. With a deep and long-
drawn sigh she seemed to be prepared for a lengthy talk.
When Natasha left the room Pierre's confusion and awkwardness
immediately vanished and were replaced by eager excitement. He
quickly moved an armchair toward Princess Mary.
"Yes, I wanted to tell you," said he, answering her look as if she had
spoken. "Princess, help me! What am I to do? Can I hope? Princess, my
dear friend, listen! I know it all. I know I am not worthy of her, I know
it's impossible to speak of it now. But I want to be a brother to her. No,
not that, I don't, I can't..."
He paused and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands.
"Well," he went on with an evident effort at self-control and
coherence. "I don't know when I began to love her, but I have loved her
and her alone all my life, and I love her so that I cannot imagine life
without her. I cannot propose to her at present, but the thought that
perhaps she might someday be my wife and that I may be missing that
possibility... that possibility... is terrible. Tell me, can I hope? Tell me
what I am to do, dear princess!" he added after a pause, and touched her
hand as she did not reply.
"I am thinking of what you have told me," answered Princess Mary.
"This is what I will say. You are right that to speak to her of love at
present..."
Princess Mary stopped. She was going to say that to speak of love
was impossible, but she stopped because she had seen by the sudden
change in Natasha two days before that she would not only not be hurt
if Pierre spoke of his love, but that it was the very thing she wished for.
"To speak to her now wouldn't do," said the princess all the same.
"But what am I to do?"
"Leave it to me," said Princess Mary. "I know..."
Pierre was looking into Princess Mary's eyes.
"Well?... Well?..." he said.
"I know that she loves... will love you," Princess Mary corrected
herself.
Before her words were out, Pierre had sprung up and with a
frightened expression seized Princess Mary's hand.
"What makes you think so? You think I may hope? You think...?"
"Yes, I think so," said Princess Mary with a smile. "Write to her
parents, and leave it to me. I will tell her when I can. I wish it to happen
and my heart tells me it will."
"No, it cannot be! How happy I am! But it can't be.... How happy I
am! No, it can't be!" Pierre kept saying as he kissed Princess Mary's
hands.
"Go to Petersburg, that will be best. And I will write to you," she
said.
"To Petersburg? Go there? Very well, I'll go. But I may come again
tomorrow?"
Next day Pierre came to say good-by. Natasha was less animated
than she had been the day before; but that day as he looked at her Pierre
sometimes felt as if he was vanishing and that neither he nor she
existed any longer, that nothing existed but happiness. "Is it possible?
No, it can't be," he told himself at every look, gesture, and word that
filled his soul with joy.
When on saying good-by he took her thin, slender hand, he could not
help holding it a little longer in his own.
"Is it possible that this hand, that face, those eyes, all this treasure of
feminine charm so strange to me now, is it possible that it will one day
be mine forever, as familiar to me as I am to myself?... No, that's
impossible!..."
"Good-by, Count," she said aloud. "I shall look forward very much
to your return," she added in a whisper.
 And these simple words, her look, and the expression on her face
which accompanied them, formed for two months the subject of
inexhaustible memories, interpretations, and happy meditations for
Pierre. "'I shall look forward very much to your return....' Yes, yes, how
did she say it? Yes, 'I shall look forward very much to your return.' Oh,
how happy I am! What is happening to me? How happy I am!" said
Pierre to himself.

CHAPTER XIX
There was nothing in Pierre's soul now at all like what had troubled
it during his courtship of Helene.
He did not repeat to himself with a sickening feeling of shame the
words he had spoken, or say: "Oh, why did I not say that?" and,
"Whatever made me say 'Je vous aime'?" On the contrary, he now
repeated in imagination every word that he or Natasha had spoken and
pictured every detail of her face and smile, and did not wish to diminish
or add anything, but only to repeat it again and again. There was now
not a shadow of doubt in his mind as to whether what he had
undertaken was right or wrong. Only one terrible doubt sometimes
crossed his mind: "Wasn't it all a dream? Isn't Princess Mary mistaken?
Am I not too conceited and self-confident? I believe all this—and
suddenly Princess Mary will tell her, and she will be sure to smile and
say: 'How strange! He must be deluding himself. Doesn't he know that
he is a man, just a man, while I...? I am something altogether different
and higher.'"
That was the only doubt often troubling Pierre. He did not now make
any plans. The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable that if
only he could attain it, it would be the end of all things. Everything
ended with that.
A joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself
incapable, possessed him. The whole meaning of life—not for him
alone but for the whole world—seemed to him centered in his love and
the possibility of being loved by her. At times everybody seemed to
him to be occupied with one thing only—his future happiness.
Sometimes it seemed to him that other people were all as pleased as he
was himself and merely tried to hide that pleasure by pretending to be
busy with other interests. In every word and gesture he saw allusions to
his happiness. He often surprised those he met by his significantly
happy looks and smiles which seemed to express a secret understanding
between him and them. And when he realized that people might not be
aware of his happiness, he pitied them with his whole heart and felt a
desire somehow to explain to them that all that occupied them was a
mere frivolous trifle unworthy of attention.
When it was suggested to him that he should enter the civil service,
or when the war or any general political affairs were discussed on the
assumption that everybody's welfare depended on this or that issue of
events, he would listen with a mild and pitying smile and surprise
people by his strange comments. But at this time he saw everybody—
both those who, as he imagined, understood the real meaning of life
(that is, what he was feeling) and those unfortunates who evidently did
not understand it—in the bright light of the emotion that shone within
himself, and at once without any effort saw in everyone he met
everything that was good and worthy of being loved.
When dealing with the affairs and papers of his dead wife, her
memory aroused in him no feeling but pity that she had not known the
bliss he now knew. Prince Vasili, who having obtained a new post and
some fresh decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to
him a pathetic, kindly old man much to be pitied.
Often in afterlife Pierre recalled this period of blissful insanity. All
the views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained
true for him always. He not only did not renounce them subsequently,
but when he was in doubt or inwardly at variance, he referred to the
views he had held at this time of his madness and they always proved
correct.
"I may have appeared strange and queer then," he thought, "but I was
not so mad as I seemed. On the contrary I was then wiser and had more
insight than at any other time, and understood all that is worth
understanding in life, because... because I was happy."
Pierre's insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to
discover personal attributes which he termed "good qualities" in people
before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by
loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for
loving them.

CHAPTER XX
After Pierre's departure that first evening, when Natasha had said to
Princess Mary with a gaily mocking smile: "He looks just, yes, just as
if he had come out of a Russian bath—in a short coat and with his hair
cropped," something hidden and unknown to herself, but irrepressible,
awoke in Natasha's soul.
Everything: her face, walk, look, and voice, was suddenly altered. To
her own surprise a power of life and hope of happiness rose to the
surface and demanded satisfaction. From that evening she seemed to
have forgotten all that had happened to her. She no longer complained
of her position, did not say a word about the past, and no longer feared
to make happy plans for the future. She spoke little of Pierre, but when
Princess Mary mentioned him a long-extinguished light once more
kindled in her eyes and her lips curved with a strange smile.

The change that took place in Natasha at first

surprised Princess Mary;
but when she understood its meaning it grieved her.
"Can she have loved
my brother so little as to be able to forget him so
soon?" she thought
when she reflected on the change. But when she was
with Natasha she was
not vexed with her and did not reproach her. The
reawakened power
of life that had seized Natasha was so evidently
irrepressible and
unexpected by her that in her presence Princess Mary
felt that she had
no right to reproach her even in her heart.

Natasha gave herself up so fully and frankly to

this new feeling
that she did not try to hide the fact that she was
no longer sad, but
bright and cheerful.

When Princess Mary returned to her room after her nocturnal talk
with Pierre, Natasha met her on the threshold.
"He has spoken? Yes? He has spoken?" she repeated.
And a joyful yet pathetic expression which seemed to beg
forgiveness for her joy settled on Natasha's face.
"I wanted to listen at the door, but I knew you would tell me."
Understandable and touching as the look with which Natasha gazed
at her seemed to Princess Mary, and sorry as she was to see her
agitation, these words pained her for a moment. She remembered her
brother and his love.
 "But what's to be done? She can't help it," thought the princess.
And with a sad and rather stern look she told Natasha all that Pierre
had said. On hearing that he was going to Petersburg Natasha was
astounded.
"To Petersburg!" she repeated as if unable to understand.
But noticing the grieved expression on Princess Mary's face she
guessed the reason of that sadness and suddenly began to cry.
"Mary," said she, "tell me what I should do! I am afraid of being bad.
Whatever you tell me, I will do. Tell me...."
"You love him?"
"Yes," whispered Natasha.
"Then why are you crying? I am happy for your sake," said Princess
Mary, who because of those tears quite forgave Natasha's joy.
"It won't be just yet—someday. Think what fun it will be when I am
his wife and you marry Nicholas!"
"Natasha, I have asked you not to speak of that. Let us talk about
you."
They were silent awhile.
"But why go to Petersburg?" Natasha suddenly asked, and hastily
replied to her own question. "But no, no, he must... Yes, Mary, He
must...."

FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20

CHAPTER I
Seven years had passed. The storm-tossed sea of European history
had subsided within its shores and seemed to have become calm. But
the mysterious forces that move humanity (mysterious because the laws
of their motion are unknown to us) continued to operate.
 Though the surface of the sea of history seemed motionless, the
movement of humanity went on as unceasingly as the flow of time.
Various groups of people formed and dissolved, the coming formation
and dissolution of kingdoms and displacement of peoples was in course
of preparation.
The sea of history was not driven spasmodically from shore to shore
as previously. It was seething in its depths. Historic figures were not
borne by the waves from one shore to another as before. They now
seemed to rotate on one spot. The historical figures at the head of
armies, who formerly reflected the movement of the masses by
ordering wars, campaigns, and battles, now reflected the restless
movement by political and diplomatic combinations, laws, and treaties.
The historians call this activity of the historical figures "the
reaction."
In dealing with this period they sternly condemn the historical
personages who, in their opinion, caused what they describe as the
reaction. All the well-known people of that period, from Alexander and
Napoleon to Madame de Stael, Photius, Schelling, Fichte,
Chateaubriand, and the rest, pass before their stern judgment seat and
are acquitted or condemned according to whether they conduced to
progress or to reaction.
According to their accounts a reaction took place at that time in
Russia also, and the chief culprit was Alexander I, the same man who
according to them was the chief cause of the liberal movement at the
commencement of his reign, being the savior of Russia.
There is no one in Russian literature now, from schoolboy essayist to
learned historian, who does not throw his little stone at Alexander for
things he did wrong at this period of his reign.
"He ought to have acted in this way and in that way. In this case he
did well and in that case badly. He behaved admirably at the beginning
of his reign and during 1812, but acted badly by giving a constitution to
Poland, forming the Holy Alliance, entrusting power to Arakcheev,
favoring Golitsyn and mysticism, and afterwards Shishkov and Photius.
He also acted badly by concerning himself with the active army and
disbanding the Semenov regiment."
It would take a dozen pages to enumerate all the reproaches the
historians address to him, based on their knowledge of what is good for
humanity.
What do these reproaches mean?
Do not the very actions for which the historians praise Alexander I
(the liberal attempts at the beginning of his reign, his struggle with
Napoleon, the firmness he displayed in 1812 and the campaign of
1813) flow from the same sources—the circumstances of his birth,
education, and life—that made his personality what it was and from
which the actions for which they blame him (the Holy Alliance, the
restoration of Poland, and the reaction of 1820 and later) also flowed?
In what does the substance of those reproaches lie?
It lies in the fact that an historic character like Alexander I, standing
on the highest possible pinnacle of human power with the blinding light
of history focused upon him; a character exposed to those strongest of
all influences: the intrigues, flattery, and self-deception inseparable
from power; a character who at every moment of his life felt a
responsibility for all that was happening in Europe; and not a fictitious
but a live character who like every man had his personal habits,
passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth—that this
character—though not lacking in virtue (the historians do not accuse
him of that)—had not the same conception of the welfare of humanity
fifty years ago as a present-day professor who from his youth upwards
has been occupied with learning: that is, with books and lectures and
with taking notes from them.
But even if we assume that fifty years ago Alexander I was mistaken
in his view of what was good for the people, we must inevitably
assume that the historian who judges Alexander will also after the lapse
of some time turn out to be mistaken in his view of what is good for
humanity. This assumption is all the more natural and inevitable
because, watching the movement of history, we see that every year and
with each new writer, opinion as to what is good for mankind changes;
so that what once seemed good, ten years later seems bad, and vice
versa. And what is more, we find at one and the same time quite
contradictory views as to what is bad and what is good in history: some
people regard giving a constitution to Poland and forming the Holy
Alliance as praiseworthy in Alexander, while others regard it as
blameworthy.
The activity of Alexander or of Napoleon cannot be called useful or
harmful, for it is impossible to say for what it was useful or harmful. If
that activity displeases somebody, this is only because it does not agree
with his limited understanding of what is good. Whether the
preservation of my father's house in Moscow, or the glory of the
Russian arms, or the prosperity of the Petersburg and other universities,
or the freedom of Poland or the greatness of Russia, or the balance of
power in Europe, or a certain kind of European culture called
"progress" appear to me to be good or bad, I must admit that besides
these things the action of every historic character has other more
general purposes inaccessible to me.
 But let us assume that what is called science can harmonize all
contradictions and possesses an unchanging standard of good and bad
by which to try historic characters and events; let us say that Alexander
could have done everything differently; let us say that with guidance
from those who blame him and who profess to know the ultimate aim
of the movement of humanity, he might have arranged matters
according to the program his present accusers would have given him—
of nationality, freedom, equality, and progress (these, I think, cover the
ground). Let us assume that this program was possible and had then
been formulated, and that Alexander had acted on it. What would then
have become of the activity of all those who opposed the tendency that
then prevailed in the government—an activity that in the opinion of the
historians was good and beneficent? Their activity would not have
existed: there would have been no life, there would have been nothing.
If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of
life is destroyed.

CHAPTER II
If we assume as the historians do that great men lead humanity to the
attainment of certain ends—the greatness of Russia or of France, the
balance of power in Europe, the diffusion of the ideas of the
Revolution, general progress, or anything else—then it is impossible to
explain the facts of history without introducing the conceptions of
chance and genius.
If the aim of the European wars at the beginning of the nineteenth
century had been the aggrandizement of Russia, that aim might have
been accomplished without all the preceding wars and without the
invasion. If the aim was the aggrandizement of France, that might have
been attained without the Revolution and without the Empire. If the
aim was the dissemination of ideas, the printing press could have
accomplished that much better than warfare. If the aim was the
progress of civilization, it is easy to see that there are other ways of
diffusing civilization more expedient than by the destruction of wealth
and of human lives.
Why did it happen in this and not in some other way?
Because it happened so! "Chance created the situation; genius
utilized it," says history.
But what is chance? What is genius?
 The words chance and genius do not denote any really existing thing
and therefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a certain
stage of understanding of phenomena. I do not know why a certain
event occurs; I think that I cannot know it; so I do not try to know it
and I talk about chance. I see a force producing effects beyond the
scope of ordinary human agencies; I do not understand why this occurs
and I talk of genius.
To a herd of rams, the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a
special enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the others
must seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing
conjunction of genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances that
this ram, who instead of getting into the general fold every evening
goes into a special enclosure where there are oats—that this very ram,
swelling with fat, is killed for meat.
But the rams need only cease to suppose that all that happens to them
happens solely for the attainment of their sheepish aims; they need only
admit that what happens to them may also have purposes beyond their
ken, and they will at once perceive a unity and coherence in what
happened to the ram that was fattened. Even if they do not know for
what purpose they are fattened, they will at least know that all that
happened to the ram did not happen accidentally, and will no longer
need the conceptions of chance or genius.
Only by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately
intelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our
ken, may we discern the sequence of experiences in the lives of historic
characters and perceive the cause of the effect they produce
(incommensurable with ordinary human capabilities), and then the
words chance and genius become superfluous.
We need only confess that we do not know the purpose of the
European convulsions and that we know only the facts—that is, the
murders, first in France, then in Italy, in Africa, in Prussia, in Austria,
in Spain, and in Russia—and that the movements from the west to the
east and from the east to the west form the essence and purpose of these
events, and not only shall we have no need to see exceptional ability
and genius in Napoleon and Alexander, but we shall be unable to
consider them to be anything but like other men, and we shall not be
obliged to have recourse to chance for an explanation of those small
events which made these people what they were, but it will be clear that
all those small events were inevitable.
By discarding a claim to knowledge of the ultimate purpose, we shall
clearly perceive that just as one cannot imagine a blossom or seed for
any single plant better suited to it than those it produces, so it is
impossible to imagine any two people more completely adapted down
to the smallest detail for the purpose they had to fulfill, than Napoleon
and Alexander with all their antecedents.

CHAPTER III
The fundamental and essential significance of the European events of
the beginning of the nineteenth century lies in the movement of the
mass of the European peoples from west to east and afterwards from
east to west. The commencement of that movement was the movement
from west to east. For the peoples of the west to be able to make their
warlike movement to Moscow it was necessary: (1) that they should
form themselves into a military group of a size able to endure a
collision with the warlike military group of the east, (2) that they
should abandon all established traditions and customs, and (3) that
during their military movement they should have at their head a man
who could justify to himself and to them the deceptions, robberies, and
murders which would have to be committed during that movement.
And beginning with the French Revolution the old inadequately large
group was destroyed, as well as the old habits and traditions, and step
by step a group was formed of larger dimensions with new customs and
traditions, and a man was produced who would stand at the head of the
coming movement and bear the responsibility for all that had to be
done.
A man without convictions, without habits, without traditions,
without a name, and not even a Frenchman, emerges—by what seem
the strangest chances—from among all the seething French parties, and
without joining any one of them is borne forward to a prominent
position.
The ignorance of his colleagues, the weakness and insignificance of
his opponents, the frankness of his falsehoods, and the dazzling and
self-confident limitations of this man raise him to the head of the army.
The brilliant qualities of the soldiers of the army sent to Italy, his
opponents' reluctance to fight, and his own childish audacity and self-
confidence secure him military fame. Innumerable so called chances
accompany him everywhere. The disfavor into which he falls with the
rulers of France turns to his advantage. His attempts to avoid his
predestined path are unsuccessful: he is not received into the Russian
service, and the appointment he seeks in Turkey comes to nothing.
During the war in Italy he is several times on the verge of destruction
and each time is saved in an unexpected manner. Owing to various
diplomatic considerations the Russian armies—just those which might
have destroyed his prestige—do not appear upon the scene till he is no
longer there.
On his return from Italy he finds the government in Paris in a process
of dissolution in which all those who are in it are inevitably wiped out
and destroyed. And by chance an escape from this dangerous position
presents itself in the form of an aimless and senseless expedition to
Africa. Again so-called chance accompanies him. Impregnable Malta
surrenders without a shot; his most reckless schemes are crowned with
success. The enemy's fleet, which subsequently did not let a single boat
pass, allows his entire army to elude it. In Africa a whole series of
outrages are committed against the almost unarmed inhabitants. And
the men who commit these crimes, especially their leader, assure
themselves that this is admirable, this is glory—it resembles Caesar and
Alexander the Great and is therefore good.
This ideal of glory and grandeur—which consists not merely in
considering nothing wrong that one does but in priding oneself on
every crime one commits, ascribing to it an incomprehensible
supernatural significance—that ideal, destined to guide this man and
his associates, had scope for its development in Africa. Whatever he
does succeeds. The plague does not touch him. The cruelty of
murdering prisoners is not imputed to him as a fault. His childishly
rash, uncalled-for, and ignoble departure from Africa, leaving his
comrades in distress, is set down to his credit, and again the enemy's
fleet twice lets him slip past. When, intoxicated by the crimes he has
committed so successfully, he reaches Paris, the dissolution of the
republican government, which a year earlier might have ruined him,
has reached its extreme limit, and his presence there now as a
newcomer free from party entanglements can only serve to exalt him—
and though he himself has no plan, he is quite ready for his new role.
He had no plan, he was afraid of everything, but the parties snatched
at him and demanded his participation.
He alone—with his ideal of glory and grandeur developed in Italy
and Egypt, his insane self-adulation, his boldness in crime and
frankness in lying—he alone could justify what had to be done.
He is needed for the place that awaits him, and so almost apart from
his will and despite his indecision, his lack of a plan, and all his
mistakes, he is drawn into a conspiracy that aims at seizing power and
the conspiracy is crowned with success.
He is pushed into a meeting of the legislature. In alarm he wishes to
flee, considering himself lost. He pretends to fall into a swoon and says
senseless things that should have ruined him. But the once proud and
shrewd rulers of France, feeling that their part is played out, are even
more bewildered than he, and do not say the words they should have
said to destroy him and retain their power.
Chance, millions of chances, give him power, and all men as if by
agreement co-operate to confirm that power. Chance forms the
characters of the rulers of France, who submit to him; chance forms the
character of Paul I of Russia who recognizes his government; chance
contrives a plot against him which not only fails to harm him but
confirms his power. Chance puts the Duc d'Enghien in his hands and
unexpectedly causes him to kill him—thereby convincing the mob
more forcibly than in any other way that he had the right, since he had
the might. Chance contrives that though he directs all his efforts to
prepare an expedition against England (which would inevitably have
ruined him) he never carries out that intention, but unexpectedly falls
upon Mack and the Austrians, who surrender without a battle. Chance
and genius give him the victory at Austerlitz; and by chance all men,
not only the French but all Europe—except England which does not
take part in the events about to happen—despite their former horror and
detestation of his crimes, now recognize his authority, the title he has
given himself, and his ideal of grandeur and glory, which seems
excellent and reasonable to them all.
As if measuring themselves and preparing for the coming movement,
the western forces push toward the east several times in 1805, 1806,
1807, and 1809, gaining strength and growing. In 1811 the group of
people that had formed in France unites into one group with the peoples
of Central Europe. The strength of the justification of the man who
stands at the head of the movement grows with the increased size of the
group. During the ten-year preparatory period this man had formed
relations with all the crowned heads of Europe. The discredited rulers
of the world can oppose no reasonable ideal to the insensate
Napoleonic ideal of glory and grandeur. One after another they hasten
to display their insignificance before him. The King of Prussia sends
his wife to seek the great man's mercy; the Emperor of Austria
considers it a favor that this man receives a daughter of the Caesars into
his bed; the Pope, the guardian of all that the nations hold sacred,
utilizes religion for the aggrandizement of the great man. It is not
Napoleon who prepares himself for the accomplishment of his role, so
much as all those round him who prepare him to take on himself the
whole responsibility for what is happening and has to happen. There is
no step, no crime or petty fraud he commits, which in the mouths of
those around him is not at once represented as a great deed. The most
suitable fete the Germans can devise for him is a celebration of Jena
and Auerstadt. Not only is he great, but so are his ancestors, his
brothers, his stepsons, and his brothers-in-law. Everything is done to
deprive him of the remains of his reason and to prepare him for his
terrible part. And when he is ready so too are the forces.
 The invasion pushes eastward and reaches its final goal—Moscow.
That city is taken; the Russian army suffers heavier losses than the
opposing armies had suffered in the former war from Austerlitz to
Wagram. But suddenly instead of those chances and that genius which
hitherto had so consistently led him by an uninterrupted series of
successes to the predestined goal, an innumerable sequence of inverse
chances occur—from the cold in his head at Borodino to the sparks
which set Moscow on fire, and the frosts—and instead of genius,
stupidity and immeasurable baseness become evident.
The invaders flee, turn back, flee again, and all the chances are now
not for Napoleon but always against him.
A countermovement is then accomplished from east to west with a
remarkable resemblance to the preceding movement from west to east.
Attempted drives from east to west—similar to the contrary movements
of 1805, 1807, and 1809—precede the great westward movement; there
is the same coalescence into a group of enormous dimensions; the same
adhesion of the people of Central Europe to the movement; the same
hesitation midway, and the same increasing rapidity as the goal is
approached.
Paris, the ultimate goal, is reached. The Napoleonic government and
army are destroyed. Napoleon himself is no longer of any account; all
his actions are evidently pitiful and mean, but again an inexplicable
chance occurs. The allies detest Napoleon whom they regard as the
cause of their sufferings. Deprived of power and authority, his crimes
and his craft exposed, he should have appeared to them what he
appeared ten years previously and one year later—an outlawed brigand.
But by some strange chance no one perceives this. His part is not yet
ended. The man who ten years before and a year later was considered
an outlawed brigand is sent to an island two days' sail from France,
which for some reason is presented to him as his dominion, and guards
are given to him and millions of money are paid him.

CHAPTER IV
The flood of nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The
waves of the great movement abate, and on the calm surface eddies are
formed in which float the diplomatists, who imagine that they have
caused the floods to abate.
But the smooth sea again suddenly becomes disturbed. The
diplomatists think that their disagreements are the cause of this fresh
pressure of natural forces; they anticipate war between their sovereigns;
the position seems to them insoluble. But the wave they feel to be
rising does not come from the quarter they expect. It rises again from
the same point as before—Paris. The last backwash of the movement
from the west occurs: a backwash which serves to solve the apparently
insuperable diplomatic difficulties and ends the military movement of
that period of history.
The man who had devastated France returns to France alone, without
any conspiracy and without soldiers. Any guard might arrest him, but
by strange chance no one does so and all rapturously greet the man they
cursed the day before and will curse again a month later.
This man is still needed to justify the final collective act.
That act is performed.
The last role is played. The actor is bidden to disrobe and wash off
his powder and paint: he will not be wanted any more.
And some years pass during which he plays a pitiful comedy to
himself in solitude on his island, justifying his actions by intrigues and
lies when the justification is no longer needed, and displaying to the
whole world what it was that people had mistaken for strength as long
as an unseen hand directed his actions.
The manager having brought the drama to a close and stripped the
actor shows him to us.
"See what you believed in! This is he! Do you now see that it was
not he but I who moved you?"
But dazed by the force of the movement, it was long before people
understood this.
Still greater coherence and inevitability is seen in the life of
Alexander I, the man who stood at the head of the countermovement
from east to west.
What was needed for him who, overshadowing others, stood at the
head of that movement from east to west?
What was needed was a sense of justice and a sympathy with
European affairs, but a remote sympathy not dulled by petty interests; a
moral superiority over those sovereigns of the day who co-operated
with him; a mild and attractive personality; and a personal grievance
against Napoleon. And all this was found in Alexander I; all this had
been prepared by innumerable so-called chances in his life: his
education, his early liberalism, the advisers who surrounded him, and
by Austerlitz, and Tilsit, and Erfurt.
 During the national war he was inactive because he was not needed.
But as soon as the necessity for a general European war presented itself
he appeared in his place at the given moment and, uniting the nations of
Europe, led them to the goal.
The goal is reached. After the final war of 1815 Alexander possesses
all possible power. How does he use it?
Alexander I—the pacifier of Europe, the man who from his early
years had striven only for his people's welfare, the originator of the
liberal innovations in his fatherland—now that he seemed to possess
the utmost power and therefore to have the possibility of bringing about
the welfare of his peoples—at the time when Napoleon in exile was
drawing up childish and mendacious plans of how he would have made
mankind happy had he retained power—Alexander I, having fulfilled
his mission and feeling the hand of God upon him, suddenly recognizes
the insignificance of that supposed power, turns away from it, and gives
it into the hands of contemptible men whom he despises, saying only:
"Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy Name!... I too am a man like
the rest of you. Let me live like a man and think of my soul and of
God."
As the sun and each atom of ether is a sphere complete in itself, and
yet at the same time only a part of a whole too immense for man to
comprehend, so each individual has within himself his own aims and
yet has them to serve a general purpose incomprehensible to man.
A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid
of bees and declares that bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the
bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and says it exists to suck the
fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from
flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey.
Another beekeeper who has studied the life of the hive more closely
says that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the young bees and rear a
queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices that
the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil fertilizes the
latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee's existence. Another,
observing the migration of plants, notices that the bee helps in this
work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the bee. But the
ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first, the second, or
any of the processes the human mind can discern. The higher the
human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes, the more
obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our
comprehension.
All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to
other manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic
characters and nations.
 CHAPTER V
Natasha's wedding to Bezukhov, which took place in 1813, was the
last happy event in the family of the old Rostovs. Count Ilya Rostov
died that same year and, as always happens, after the father's death the
family group broke up.
The events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and the
flight from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natasha's despair, Petya's
death, and the old countess' grief fell blow after blow on the old count's
head. He seemed to be unable to understand the meaning of all these
events, and bowed his old head in a spiritual sense as if expecting and
inviting further blows which would finish him. He seemed now
frightened and distraught and now unnaturally animated and
enterprising.
The arrangements for Natasha's marriage occupied him for a while.
He ordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear cheerful,
but his cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to be: on the contrary
it evoked the compassion of those who knew and liked him.
When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to
complain of depression. A few days later he fell ill and took to his bed.
He realized from the first that he would not get up again, despite the
doctor's encouragement. The countess passed a fortnight in an armchair
by his pillow without undressing. Every time she gave him his
medicine he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. On his last day,
sobbing, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for having
dissipated their property—that being the chief fault of which he was
conscious. After receiving communion and unction he quietly died; and
next day a throng of acquaintances who came to pay their last respects
to the deceased filled the house rented by the Rostovs. All these
acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house and had
so often laughed at him, now said, with a common feeling of self-
reproach and emotion, as if justifying themselves: "Well, whatever he
may have been he was a most worthy man. You don't meet such men
nowadays.... And which of us has not weaknesses of his own?"
It was just when the count's affairs had become so involved that it
was impossible to say what would happen if he lived another year that
he unexpectedly died.
Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when the news of his
father's death reached him. He at once resigned his commission, and
without waiting for it to be accepted took leave of absence and went to
Moscow. The state of the count's affairs became quite obvious a month
after his death, surprising everyone by the immense total of small debts
the existence of which no one had suspected. The debts amounted to
double the value of the property.
Friends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance. But
he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father's memory, which he
held sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing and accepted the
inheritance together with the obligation to pay the debts.
The creditors who had so long been silent, restrained by a vague but
powerful influence exerted on them while he lived by the count's
careless good nature, all proceeded to enforce their claims at once. As
always happens in such cases rivalry sprang up as to which should get
paid first, and those who like Mitenka held promissory notes given
them as presents now became the most exacting of the creditors.
Nicholas was allowed no respite and no peace, and those who had
seemed to pity the old man—the cause of their losses (if they were
losses)—now remorselessly pursued the young heir who had
voluntarily undertaken the debts and was obviously not guilty of
contracting them.
Not one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate was sold by
auction for half its value, and half the debts still remained unpaid.
Nicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles offered him by his brother-in-
law Bezukhov to pay off debts he regarded as genuinely due for value
received. And to avoid being imprisoned for the remainder, as the
creditors threatened, he re-entered the government service.
He could not rejoin the army where he would have been made
colonel at the next vacancy, for his mother now clung to him as her one
hold on life; and so despite his reluctance to remain in Moscow among
people who had known him before, and despite his abhorrence of the
civil service, he accepted a post in Moscow in that service, doffed the
uniform of which he was so fond, and moved with his mother and
Sonya to a small house on the Sivtsev Vrazhek.
Natasha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time and had no
clear idea of Nicholas' circumstances. Having borrowed money from
his brother-in-law, Nicholas tried to hide his wretched condition from
him. His position was the more difficult because with his salary of
twelve hundred rubles he had not only to keep himself, his mother, and
Sonya, but had to shield his mother from knowledge of their poverty.
The countess could not conceive of life without the luxurious
conditions she had been used to from childhood and, unable to realize
how hard it was for her son, kept demanding now a carriage (which
they did not keep) to send for a friend, now some expensive article of
food for herself, or wine for her son, or money to buy a present as a
surprise for Natasha or Sonya, or for Nicholas himself.
Sonya kept house, attended on her aunt, read to her, put up with her
whims and secret ill-will, and helped Nicholas to conceal their poverty
from the old countess. Nicholas felt himself irredeemably indebted to
Sonya for all she was doing for his mother and greatly admired her
patience and devotion, but tried to keep aloof from her.
He seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect, and
because there was nothing to reproach her with. She had all that people
are valued for, but little that could have made him love her. He felt that
the more he valued her the less he loved her. He had taken her at her
word when she wrote giving him his freedom and now behaved as if all
that had passed between them had been long forgotten and could never
in any case be renewed.
Nicholas' position became worse and worse. The idea of putting
something aside out of his salary proved a dream. Not only did he not
save anything, but to comply with his mother's demands he even
incurred some small debts. He could see no way out of this situation.
The idea of marrying some rich woman, which was suggested to him
by his female relations, was repugnant to him. The other way out—his
mother's death—never entered his head. He wished for nothing and
hoped for nothing, and deep in his heart experienced a gloomy and
stern satisfaction in an uncomplaining endurance of his position. He
tried to avoid his old acquaintances with their commiseration and
offensive offers of assistance; he avoided all distraction and recreation,
and even at home did nothing but play cards with his mother, pace
silently up and down the room, and smoke one pipe after another. He
seemed carefully to cherish within himself the gloomy mood which
alone enabled him to endure his position.

CHAPTER VI
At the beginning of winter Princess Mary came to Moscow. From
reports current in town she learned how the Rostovs were situated, and
how "the son has sacrificed himself for his mother," as people were
saying.
"I never expected anything else of him," said Princess Mary to
herself, feeling a joyous sense of her love for him. Remembering her
friendly relations with all the Rostovs which had made her almost a
member of the family, she thought it her duty to go to see them. But
remembering her relations with Nicholas in Voronezh she was shy
about doing so. Making a great effort she did however go to call on
them a few weeks after her arrival in Moscow.
Nicholas was the first to meet her, as the countess' room could only
be reached through his. But instead of being greeted with pleasure as
she had expected, at his first glance at her his face assumed a cold, stiff,
proud expression she had not seen on it before. He inquired about her
health, led the way to his mother, and having sat there for five minutes
left the room.
When the princess came out of the countess' room Nicholas met her
again, and with marked solemnity and stiffness accompanied her to the
anteroom. To her remarks about his mother's health he made no reply.
"What's that to you? Leave me in peace," his looks seemed to say.
"Why does she come prowling here? What does she want? I can't
bear these ladies and all these civilities!" said he aloud in Sonya's
presence, evidently unable to repress his vexation, after the princess'
carriage had disappeared.
"Oh, Nicholas, how can you talk like that?" cried Sonya, hardly able
to conceal her delight. "She is so kind and Mamma is so fond of her!"
Nicholas did not reply and tried to avoid speaking of the princess any
more. But after her visit the old countess spoke of her several times a
day.
She sang her praises, insisted that her son must call on her, expressed
a wish to see her often, but yet always became ill-humored when she
began to talk about her.
Nicholas tried to keep silence when his mother spoke of the princess,
but his silence irritated her.
"She is a very admirable and excellent young woman," said she, "and
you must go and call on her. You would at least be seeing somebody,
and I think it must be dull for you only seeing us."
"But I don't in the least want to, Mamma."
"You used to want to, and now you don't. Really I don't understand
you, my dear. One day you are dull, and the next you refuse to see
anyone."
"But I never said I was dull."
"Why, you said yourself you don't want even to see her. She is a very
admirable young woman and you always liked her, but now suddenly
you have got some notion or other in your head. You hide everything
from me."
 "Not at all, Mamma."
"If I were asking you to do something disagreeable now—but I only
ask you to return a call. One would think mere politeness required it....
Well, I have asked you, and now I won't interfere any more since you
have secrets from your mother."
"Well, then, I'll go if you wish it."
"It doesn't matter to me. I only wish it for your sake."
Nicholas sighed, bit his mustache, and laid out the cards for a
patience, trying to divert his mother's attention to another topic.
The same conversation was repeated next day and the day after, and
the day after that.
After her visit to the Rostovs and her unexpectedly chilly reception
by Nicholas, Princess Mary confessed to herself that she had been right
in not wishing to be the first to call.
"I expected nothing else," she told herself, calling her pride to her
aid. "I have nothing to do with him and I only wanted to see the old
lady, who was always kind to me and to whom I am under many
obligations."
But she could not pacify herself with these reflections; a feeling akin
to remorse troubled her when she thought of her visit. Though she had
firmly resolved not to call on the Rostovs again and to forget the whole
matter, she felt herself all the time in an awkward position. And when
she asked herself what distressed her, she had to admit that it was her
relation to Rostov. His cold, polite manner did not express his feeling
for her (she knew that) but it concealed something, and until she could
discover what that something was, she felt that she could not be at ease.
One day in midwinter when sitting in the schoolroom attending to
her nephew's lessons, she was informed that Rostov had called. With a
firm resolution not to betray herself and not show her agitation, she sent
for Mademoiselle Bourienne and went with her to the drawing room.
Her first glance at Nicholas' face told her that he had only come to
fulfill the demands of politeness, and she firmly resolved to maintain
the tone in which he addressed her.
They spoke of the countess' health, of their mutual friends, of the
latest war news, and when the ten minutes required by propriety had
elapsed after which a visitor may rise, Nicholas got up to say good-by.
With Mademoiselle Bourienne's help the princess had maintained the
conversation very well, but at the very last moment, just when he rose,
she was so tired of talking of what did not interest her, and her mind
was so full of the question why she alone was granted so little
happiness in life, that in a fit of absent-mindedness she sat still, her
luminous eyes gazing fixedly before her, not noticing that he had risen.
Nicholas glanced at her and, wishing to appear not to notice her
abstraction, made some remark to Mademoiselle Bourienne and then
again looked at the princess. She still sat motionless with a look of
suffering on her gentle face. He suddenly felt sorry for her and was
vaguely conscious that he might be the cause of the sadness her face
expressed. He wished to help her and say something pleasant, but could
think of nothing to say.
"Good-by, Princess!" said he.
She started, flushed, and sighed deeply.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said as if waking up. "Are you going
already, Count? Well then, good-by! Oh, but the cushion for the
countess!"
"Wait a moment, I'll fetch it," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, and she
left the room.
They both sat silent, with an occasional glance at one another.
"Yes, Princess," said Nicholas at last with a sad smile, "it doesn't
seem long ago since we first met at Bogucharovo, but how much water
has flowed since then! In what distress we all seemed to be then, yet I
would give much to bring back that time... but there's no bringing it
back."
Princess Mary gazed intently into his eyes with her own luminous
ones as he said this. She seemed to be trying to fathom the hidden
meaning of his words which would explain his feeling for her.
"Yes, yes," said she, "but you have no reason to regret the past,
Count. As I understand your present life, I think you will always recall
it with satisfaction, because the self-sacrifice that fills it now..."
"I cannot accept your praise," he interrupted her hurriedly. "On the
contrary I continually reproach myself.... But this is not at all an
interesting or cheerful subject."
His face again resumed its former stiff and cold expression. But the
princess had caught a glimpse of the man she had known and loved,
and it was to him that she now spoke.
"I thought you would allow me to tell you this," she said. "I had
come so near to you... and to all your family that I thought you would
not consider my sympathy misplaced, but I was mistaken," and
suddenly her voice trembled. "I don't know why," she continued,
recovering herself, "but you used to be different, and..."
"There are a thousand reasons why," laying special emphasis on the
why. "Thank you, Princess," he added softly. "Sometimes it is hard."
"So that's why! That's why!" a voice whispered in Princess Mary's
soul. "No, it was not only that gay, kind, and frank look, not only that
handsome exterior, that I loved in him. I divined his noble, resolute,
self-sacrificing spirit too," she said to herself. "Yes, he is poor now and
I am rich.... Yes, that's the only reason.... Yes, were it not for that..."
And remembering his former tenderness, and looking now at his kind,
sorrowful face, she suddenly understood the cause of his coldness.
"But why, Count, why?" she almost cried, unconsciously moving
closer to him. "Why? Tell me. You must tell me!"
He was silent.
"I don't understand your why, Count," she continued, "but it's hard
for me... I confess it. For some reason you wish to deprive me of our
former friendship. And that hurts me." There were tears in her eyes and
in her voice. "I have had so little happiness in life that every loss is hard
for me to bear.... Excuse me, good-by!" and suddenly she began to cry
and was hurrying from the room.
"Princess, for God's sake!" he exclaimed, trying to stop her.
"Princess!"
She turned round. For a few seconds they gazed silently into one
another's eyes—and what had seemed impossible and remote suddenly
became possible, inevitable, and very near.

CHAPTER VII
In the winter of 1813 Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved to
Bald Hills with his wife, his mother, and Sonya.
Within four years he had paid off all his remaining debts without
selling any of his wife's property, and having received a small
inheritance on the death of a cousin he paid his debt to Pierre as well.
In another three years, by 1820, he had so managed his affairs that he
was able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and was negotiating
to buy back Otradnoe—that being his pet dream.
 Having started farming from necessity, he soon grew so devoted to it
that it became his favorite and almost his sole occupation. Nicholas was
a plain farmer: he did not like innovations, especially the English ones
then coming into vogue. He laughed at theoretical treatises on estate
management, disliked factories, the raising of expensive products, and
the buying of expensive seed corn, and did not make a hobby of any
particular part of the work on his estate. He always had before his
mind's eye the estate as a whole and not any particular part of it. The
chief thing in his eyes was not the nitrogen in the soil, nor the oxygen
in the air, nor manures, nor special plows, but that most important agent
by which nitrogen, oxygen, manure, and plow were made effective—
the peasant laborer. When Nicholas first began farming and began to
understand its different branches, it was the serf who especially
attracted his attention. The peasant seemed to him not merely a tool,
but also a judge of farming and an end in himself. At first he watched
the serfs, trying to understand their aims and what they considered
good and bad, and only pretended to direct them and give orders while
in reality learning from them their methods, their manner of speech,
and their judgment of what was good and bad. Only when he had
understood the peasants' tastes and aspirations, had learned to talk their
language, to grasp the hidden meaning of their words, and felt akin to
them did he begin boldly to manage his serfs, that is, to perform toward
them the duties demanded of him. And Nicholas' management
produced very brilliant results.
Guided by some gift of insight, on taking up the management of the
estates he at once unerringly appointed as bailiff, village elder, and
delegate, the very men the serfs would themselves have chosen had
they had the right to choose, and these posts never changed hands.
Before analyzing the properties of manure, before entering into the
debit and credit (as he ironically called it), he found out how many
cattle the peasants had and increased the number by all possible means.
He kept the peasant families together in the largest groups possible, not
allowing the family groups to divide into separate households. He was
hard alike on the lazy, the depraved, and the weak, and tried to get them
expelled from the commune.
He was as careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants' hay and
corn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops sown and
harvested so early and so well, or got so good a return, as did Nicholas.
He disliked having anything to do with the domestic serfs—the
"drones" as he called them—and everyone said he spoiled them by his
laxity. When a decision had to be taken regarding a domestic serf,
especially if one had to be punished, he always felt undecided and
consulted everybody in the house; but when it was possible to have a
domestic serf conscripted instead of a land worker he did so without the
least hesitation. He never felt any hesitation in dealing with the
peasants. He knew that his every decision would be approved by them
all with very few exceptions.
He did not allow himself either to be hard on or punish a man, or to
make things easy for or reward anyone, merely because he felt inclined
to do so. He could not have said by what standard he judged what he
should or should not do, but the standard was quite firm and definite in
his own mind.
Often, speaking with vexation of some failure or irregularity, he
would say: "What can one do with our Russian peasants?" and
imagined that he could not bear them.
Yet he loved "our Russian peasants" and their way of life with his
whole soul, and for that very reason had understood and assimilated the
one way and manner of farming which produced good results.
Countess Mary was jealous of this passion of her husband's and
regretted that she could not share it; but she could not understand the
joys and vexations he derived from that world, to her so remote and
alien. She could not understand why he was so particularly animated
and happy when, after getting up at daybreak and spending the whole
morning in the fields or on the threshing floor, he returned from the
sowing or mowing or reaping to have tea with her. She did not
understand why he spoke with such admiration and delight of the
farming of the thrifty and well-to-do peasant Matthew Ermishin, who
with his family had carted corn all night; or of the fact that his
(Nicholas') sheaves were already stacked before anyone else had his
harvest in. She did not understand why he stepped out from the window
to the veranda and smiled under his mustache and winked so joyfully,
when warm steady rain began to fall on the dry and thirsty shoots of the
young oats, or why when the wind carried away a threatening cloud
during the hay harvest he would return from the barn, flushed,
sunburned, and perspiring, with a smell of wormwood and gentian in
his hair and, gleefully rubbing his hands, would say: "Well, one more
day and my grain and the peasants' will all be under cover."
Still less did she understand why he, kindhearted and always ready to
anticipate her wishes, should become almost desperate when she
brought him a petition from some peasant men or women who had
appealed to her to be excused some work; why he, that kind Nicholas,
should obstinately refuse her, angrily asking her not to interfere in what
was not her business. She felt he had a world apart, which he loved
passionately and which had laws she had not fathomed.
Sometimes when, trying to understand him, she spoke of the good
work he was doing for his serfs, he would be vexed and reply: "Not in
the least; it never entered my head and I wouldn't do that for their good!
That's all poetry and old wives' talk—all that doing good to one's
neighbor! What I want is that our children should not have to go
begging. I must put our affairs in order while I am alive, that's all. And
to do that, order and strictness are essential.... That's all about it!" said
he, clenching his vigorous fist. "And fairness, of course," he added, "for
if the peasant is naked and hungry and has only one miserable horse, he
can do no good either for himself or for me."
And all Nicholas did was fruitful—probably just because he refused
to allow himself to think that he was doing good to others for virtue's
sake. His means increased rapidly; serfs from neighboring estates came
to beg him to buy them, and long after his death the memory of his
administration was devoutly preserved among the serfs. "He was a
master... the peasants' affairs first and then his own. Of course he was
not to be trifled with either—in a word, he was a real master!"

CHAPTER VIII
One matter connected with his management sometimes worried
Nicholas, and that was his quick temper together with his old hussar
habit of making free use of his fists. At first he saw nothing
reprehensible in this, but in the second year of his marriage his view of
that form of punishment suddenly changed.
Once in summer he had sent for the village elder from Bogucharovo,
a man who had succeeded to the post when Dron died and who was
accused of dishonesty and various irregularities. Nicholas went out into
the porch to question him, and immediately after the elder had given a
few replies the sound of cries and blows were heard. On returning to
lunch Nicholas went up to his wife, who sat with her head bent low
over her embroidery frame, and as usual began to tell her what he had
been doing that morning. Among other things he spoke of the
Bogucharovo elder. Countess Mary turned red and then pale, but
continued to sit with head bowed and lips compressed and gave her
husband no reply.
"Such an insolent scoundrel!" he cried, growing hot again at the
mere recollection of him. "If he had told me he was drunk and did not
see... But what is the matter with you, Mary?" he suddenly asked.
Countess Mary raised her head and tried to speak, but hastily looked
down again and her lips puckered.
"Why, whatever is the matter, my dearest?"
 The looks of the plain Countess Mary always improved when she
was in tears. She never cried from pain or vexation, but always from
sorrow or pity, and when she wept her radiant eyes acquired an
irresistible charm.
The moment Nicholas took her hand she could no longer restrain
herself and began to cry.
"Nicholas, I saw it... he was to blame, but why do you... Nicholas!"
and she covered her face with her hands.
Nicholas said nothing. He flushed crimson, left her side, and paced
up and down the room. He understood what she was weeping about,
but could not in his heart at once agree with her that what he had
regarded from childhood as quite an everyday event was wrong. "Is it
just sentimentality, old wives' tales, or is she right?" he asked himself.
Before he had solved that point he glanced again at her face filled with
love and pain, and he suddenly realized that she was right and that he
had long been sinning against himself.
"Mary," he said softly, going up to her, "it will never happen again; I
give you my word. Never," he repeated in a trembling voice like a boy
asking for forgiveness.
The tears flowed faster still from the countess' eyes. She took his
hand and kissed it.
"Nicholas, when did you break your cameo?" she asked to change
the subject, looking at his finger on which he wore a ring with a cameo
of Laocoon's head.
"Today—it was the same affair. Oh, Mary, don't remind me of it!"
and again he flushed. "I give you my word of honor it shan't occur
again, and let this always be a reminder to me," and he pointed to the
broken ring.
After that, when in discussions with his village elders or stewards the
blood rushed to his face and his fists began to clench, Nicholas would
turn the broken ring on his finger and would drop his eyes before the
man who was making him angry. But he did forget himself once or
twice within a twelvemonth, and then he would go and confess to his
wife, and would again promise that this should really be the very last
time.
"Mary, you must despise me!" he would say. "I deserve it."
"You should go, go away at once, if you don't feel strong enough to
control yourself," she would reply sadly, trying to comfort her husband.
 Among the gentry of the province Nicholas was respected but not
liked. He did not concern himself with the interests of his own class,
and consequently some thought him proud and others thought him
stupid. The whole summer, from spring sowing to harvest, he was busy
with the work on his farm. In autumn he gave himself up to hunting
with the same business like seriousness—leaving home for a month, or
even two, with his hunt. In winter he visited his other villages or spent
his time reading. The books he read were chiefly historical, and on
these he spent a certain sum every year. He was collecting, as he said, a
serious library, and he made it a rule to read through all the books he
bought. He would sit in his study with a grave air, reading—a task he
first imposed upon himself as a duty, but which afterwards became a
habit affording him a special kind of pleasure and a consciousness of
being occupied with serious matters. In winter, except for business
excursions, he spent most of his time at home making himself one with
his family and entering into all the details of his children's relations
with their mother. The harmony between him and his wife grew closer
and closer and he daily discovered fresh spiritual treasures in her.
From the time of his marriage Sonya had lived in his house. Before
that, Nicholas had told his wife all that had passed between himself and
Sonya, blaming himself and commending her. He had asked Princess
Mary to be gentle and kind to his cousin. She thoroughly realized the
wrong he had done Sonya, felt herself to blame toward her, and
imagined that her wealth had influenced Nicholas' choice. She could
not find fault with Sonya in any way and tried to be fond of her, but
often felt ill-will toward her which she could not overcome.
Once she had a talk with her friend Natasha about Sonya and about
her own injustice toward her.
"You know," said Natasha, "you have read the Gospels a great
deal—there is a passage in them that just fits Sonya."
"What?" asked Countess Mary, surprised.
"'To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be
taken away.' You remember? She is one that hath not; why, I don't
know. Perhaps she lacks egotism, I don't know, but from her is taken
away, and everything has been taken away. Sometimes I am dreadfully
sorry for her. Formerly I very much wanted Nicholas to marry her, but I
always had a sort of presentiment that it would not come off. She is a
sterile flower, you know—like some strawberry blossoms. Sometimes I
am sorry for her, and sometimes I think she doesn't feel it as you or I
would."
Though Countess Mary told Natasha that those words in the Gospel
must be understood differently, yet looking at Sonya she agreed with
Natasha's explanation. It really seemed that Sonya did not feel her
position trying, and had grown quite reconciled to her lot as a sterile
flower. She seemed to be fond not so much of individuals as of the
family as a whole. Like a cat, she had attached herself not to the people
but to the home. She waited on the old countess, petted and spoiled the
children, was always ready to render the small services for which she
had a gift, and all this was unconsciously accepted from her with
insufficient gratitude.
The country seat at Bald Hills had been rebuilt, though not on the
same scale as under the old prince.
The buildings, begun under straitened circumstances, were more than
simple. The immense house on the old stone foundations was of wood,
plastered only inside. It had bare deal floors and was furnished with
very simple hard sofas, armchairs, tables, and chairs made by their own
serf carpenters out of their own birchwood. The house was spacious
and had rooms for the house serfs and apartments for visitors. Whole
families of the Rostovs' and Bolkonskis' relations sometimes came to
Bald Hills with sixteen horses and dozens of servants and stayed for
months. Besides that, four times a year, on the name days and birthdays
of the hosts, as many as a hundred visitors would gather there for a day
or two. The rest of the year life pursued its unbroken routine with its
ordinary occupations, and its breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and suppers,
provided out of the produce of the estate.

CHAPTER IX
It was the eve of St. Nicholas, the fifth of December, 1820. Natasha
had been staying at her brother's with her husband and children since
early autumn. Pierre had gone to Petersburg on business of his own for
three weeks as he said, but had remained there nearly seven weeks and
was expected back every minute.
Besides the Bezukhov family, Nicholas' old friend the retired
General Vasili Dmitrich Denisov was staying with the Rostovs this
fifth of December.
On the sixth, which was his name day when the house would be full
of visitors, Nicholas knew he would have to exchange his Tartar tunic
for a tail coat, and put on narrow boots with pointed toes, and drive to
the new church he had built, and then receive visitors who would come
to congratulate him, offer them refreshments, and talk about the
elections of the nobility; but he considered himself entitled to spend the
eve of that day in his usual way. He examined the bailiff's accounts of
the village in Ryazan which belonged to his wife's nephew, wrote two
business letters, and walked over to the granaries, cattle yards and
stables before dinner. Having taken precautions against the general
drunkenness to be expected on the morrow because it was a great
saint's day, he returned to dinner, and without having time for a private
talk with his wife sat down at the long table laid for twenty persons, at
which the whole household had assembled. At that table were his
mother, his mother's old lady companion Belova, his wife, their three
children with their governess and tutor, his wife's nephew with his
tutor, Sonya, Denisov, Natasha, her three children, their governess, and
old Michael Ivanovich, the late prince's architect, who was living on in
retirement at Bald Hills.
Countess Mary sat at the other end of the table. When her husband
took his place she concluded, from the rapid manner in which after
taking up his table napkin he pushed back the tumbler and wineglass
standing before him, that he was out of humor, as was sometimes the
case when he came in to dinner straight from the farm—especially
before the soup. Countess Mary well knew that mood of his, and when
she herself was in a good frame of mind quietly waited till he had had
his soup and then began to talk to him and make him admit that there
was no cause for his ill-humor. But today she quite forgot that and was
hurt that he should be angry with her without any reason, and she felt
unhappy. She asked him where he had been. He replied. She again
inquired whether everything was going well on the farm. Her unnatural
tone made him wince unpleasantly and he replied hastily.
"Then I'm not mistaken," thought Countess Mary. "Why is he cross
with me?" She concluded from his tone that he was vexed with her and
wished to end the conversation. She knew her remarks sounded
unnatural, but could not refrain from asking some more questions.
Thanks to Denisov the conversation at table soon became general
and lively, and she did not talk to her husband. When they left the table
and went as usual to thank the old countess, Countess Mary held out
her hand and kissed her husband, and asked him why he was angry
with her.
"You always have such strange fancies! I didn't even think of being
angry," he replied.
But the word always seemed to her to imply: "Yes, I am angry but I
won't tell you why."
Nicholas and his wife lived together so happily that even Sonya and
the old countess, who felt jealous and would have liked them to
disagree, could find nothing to reproach them with; but even they had
their moments of antagonism. Occasionally, and it was always just after
they had been happiest together, they suddenly had a feeling of
estrangement and hostility, which occurred most frequently during
Countess Mary's pregnancies, and this was such a time.
"Well, messieurs et mesdames," said Nicholas loudly and with
apparent cheerfulness (it seemed to Countess Mary that he did it on
purpose to vex her), "I have been on my feet since six this morning.
Tomorrow I shall have to suffer, so today I'll go and rest."
And without a word to his wife he went to the little sitting room and
lay down on the sofa.
"That's always the way," thought Countess Mary. "He talks to
everyone except me. I see... I see that I am repulsive to him, especially
when I am in this condition." She looked down at her expanded figure
and in the glass at her pale, sallow, emaciated face in which her eyes
now looked larger than ever.
And everything annoyed her—Denisov's shouting and laughter,
Natasha's talk, and especially a quick glance Sonya gave her.
Sonya was always the first excuse Countess Mary found for feeling
irritated.
Having sat awhile with her visitors without understanding anything
of what they were saying, she softly left the room and went to the
nursery.
The children were playing at "going to Moscow" in a carriage made
of chairs and invited her to go with them. She sat down and played with
them a little, but the thought of her husband and his unreasonable
crossness worried her. She got up and, walking on tiptoe with
difficulty, went to the small sitting room.
"Perhaps he is not asleep; I'll have an explanation with him," she said
to herself. Little Andrew, her eldest boy, imitating his mother, followed
her on tiptoe. She did not notice him.
"Mary, dear, I think he is asleep—he was so tired," said Sonya,
meeting her in the large sitting room (it seemed to Countess Mary that
she crossed her path everywhere). "Andrew may wake him."
Countess Mary looked round, saw little Andrew following her, felt
that Sonya was right, and for that very reason flushed and with evident
difficulty refrained from saying something harsh. She made no reply,
but to avoid obeying Sonya beckoned to Andrew to follow her quietly
and went to the door. Sonya went away by another door. From the
room in which Nicholas was sleeping came the sound of his even
breathing, every slightest tone of which was familiar to his wife. As she
listened to it she saw before her his smooth handsome forehead, his
mustache, and his whole face, as she had so often seen it in the stillness
of the night when he slept. Nicholas suddenly moved and cleared his
throat. And at that moment little Andrew shouted from outside the
door: "Papa! Mamma's standing here!" Countess Mary turned pale with
fright and made signs to the boy. He grew silent, and quiet ensued for a
moment, terrible to Countess Mary. She knew how Nicholas disliked
being waked. Then through the door she heard Nicholas clearing his
throat again and stirring, and his voice said crossly:
"I can't get a moment's peace.... Mary, is that you? Why did you
bring him here?"
"I only came in to look and did not notice... forgive me..."
Nicholas coughed and said no more. Countess Mary moved away
from the door and took the boy back to the nursery. Five minutes later
little black-eyed three-year-old Natasha, her father's pet, having learned
from her brother that Papa was asleep and Mamma was in the sitting
room, ran to her father unobserved by her mother. The dark-eyed little
girl boldly opened the creaking door, went up to the sofa with energetic
steps of her sturdy little legs, and having examined the position of her
father, who was asleep with his back to her, rose on tiptoe and kissed
the hand which lay under his head. Nicholas turned with a tender smile
on his face.
"Natasha, Natasha!" came Countess Mary's frightened whisper from
the door. "Papa wants to sleep."
"No, Mamma, he doesn't want to sleep," said little Natasha with
conviction. "He's laughing."
Nicholas lowered his legs, rose, and took his daughter in his arms.
"Come in, Mary," he said to his wife.
She went in and sat down by her husband.
"I did not notice him following me," she said timidly. "I just looked
in."
Holding his little girl with one arm, Nicholas glanced at his wife and,
seeing her guilty expression, put his other arm around her and kissed
her hair.
"May I kiss Mamma?" he asked Natasha.
Natasha smiled bashfully.
"Again!" she commanded, pointing with a peremptory gesture to the
spot where Nicholas had placed the kiss.
 "I don't know why you think I am cross," said Nicholas, replying to
the question he knew was in his wife's mind.
"You have no idea how unhappy, how lonely, I feel when you are
like that. It always seems to me..."
"Mary, don't talk nonsense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
he said gaily.
"It seems to be that you can't love me, that I am so plain... always...
and now... in this cond..."
"Oh, how absurd you are! It is not beauty that endears, it's love that
makes us see beauty. It is only Malvinas and women of that kind who
are loved for their beauty. But do I love my wife? I don't love her, but...
I don't know how to put it. Without you, or when something comes
between us like this, I seem lost and can't do anything. Now do I love
my finger? I don't love it, but just try to cut it off!"
"I'm not like that myself, but I understand. So you're not angry with
me?"
"Awfully angry!" he said, smiling and getting up. And smoothing his
hair he began to pace the room.
"Do you know, Mary, what I've been thinking?" he began,
immediately thinking aloud in his wife's presence now that they had
made it up.
He did not ask if she was ready to listen to him. He did not care. A
thought had occurred to him and so it belonged to her also. And he told
her of his intention to persuade Pierre to stay with them till spring.
Countess Mary listened till he had finished, made some remark, and
in her turn began thinking aloud. Her thoughts were about the children.
"You can see the woman in her already," she said in French, pointing
to little Natasha. "You reproach us women with being illogical. Here is
our logic. I say: 'Papa wants to sleep!' but she says, 'No, he's laughing.'
And she was right," said Countess Mary with a happy smile.
"Yes, yes." And Nicholas, taking his little daughter in his strong
hand, lifted her high, placed her on his shoulder, held her by the legs,
and paced the room with her. There was an expression of carefree
happiness on the faces of both father and daughter.
"But you know you may be unfair. You are too fond of this one," his
wife whispered in French.
"Yes, but what am I to do?... I try not to show..."
 At that moment they heard the sound of the door pulley and footsteps
in the hall and anteroom, as if someone had arrived.
"Somebody has come."
"I am sure it is Pierre. I will go and see," said Countess Mary and left
the room.
In her absence Nicholas allowed himself to give his little daughter a
gallop round the room. Out of breath, he took the laughing child
quickly from his shoulder and pressed her to his heart. His capers
reminded him of dancing, and looking at the child's round happy little
face he thought of what she would be like when he was an old man,
taking her into society and dancing the mazurka with her as his old
father had danced Daniel Cooper with his daughter.
"It is he, it is he, Nicholas!" said Countess Mary, re-entering the
room a few minutes later. "Now our Natasha has come to life. You
should have seen her ecstasy, and how he caught it for having stayed
away so long. Well, come along now, quick, quick! It's time you two
were parted," she added, looking smilingly at the little girl who clung to
her father.
Nicholas went out holding the child by the hand.
Countess Mary remained in the sitting room.
"I should never, never have believed that one could be so happy,"
she whispered to herself. A smile lit up her face but at the same time
she sighed, and her deep eyes expressed a quiet sadness as though she
felt, through her happiness, that there is another sort of happiness
unattainable in this life and of which she involuntarily thought at that
instant.

CHAPTER X
Natasha had married in the early spring of 1813, and in 1820 already
had three daughters besides a son for whom she had longed and whom
she was now nursing. She had grown stouter and broader, so that it was
difficult to recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively
Natasha of former days. Her features were more defined and had a
calm, soft, and serene expression. In her face there was none of the
ever-glowing animation that had formerly burned there and constituted
its charm. Now her face and body were often all that one saw, and her
soul was not visible at all. All that struck the eye was a strong,
handsome, and fertile woman. The old fire very rarely kindled in her
face now. That happened only when, as was the case that day, her
husband returned home, or a sick child was convalescent, or when she
and Countess Mary spoke of Prince Andrew (she never mentioned him
to her husband, who she imagined was jealous of Prince Andrew's
memory), or on the rare occasions when something happened to induce
her to sing, a practice she had quite abandoned since her marriage. At
the rare moments when the old fire did kindle in her handsome, fully
developed body she was even more attractive than in former days.
Since their marriage Natasha and her husband had lived in Moscow,
in Petersburg, on their estate near Moscow, or with her mother, that is
to say, in Nicholas' house. The young Countess Bezukhova was not
often seen in society, and those who met her there were not pleased
with her and found her neither attractive nor amiable. Not that Natasha
liked solitude—she did not know whether she liked it or not, she even
thought that she did not—but with her pregnancies, her confinements,
the nursing of her children, and sharing every moment of her husband's
life, she had demands on her time which could be satisfied only by
renouncing society. All who had known Natasha before her marriage
wondered at the change in her as at something extraordinary. Only the
old countess with her maternal instinct had realized that all Natasha's
outbursts had been due to her need of children and a husband—as she
herself had once exclaimed at Otradnoe not so much in fun as in
earnest—and her mother was now surprised at the surprise expressed
by those who had never understood Natasha, and she kept saying that
she had always known that Natasha would make an exemplary wife and
mother.
"Only she lets her love of her husband and children overflow all
bounds," said the countess, "so that it even becomes absurd."
Natasha did not follow the golden rule advocated by clever folk,
especially by the French, which says that a girl should not let herself go
when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be
even more careful of her appearance than when she was unmarried, and
should fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her
husband. Natasha on the contrary had at once abandoned all her
witchery, of which her singing had been an unusually powerful part.
She gave it up just because it was so powerfully seductive. She took no
pains with her manners or with delicacy of speech, or with her toilet, or
to show herself to her husband in her most becoming attitudes, or to
avoid inconveniencing him by being too exacting. She acted in
contradiction to all those rules. She felt that the allurements instinct had
formerly taught her to use would now be merely ridiculous in the eyes
of her husband, to whom she had from the first moment given herself
up entirely—that is, with her whole soul, leaving no corner of it hidden
from him. She felt that her unity with her husband was not maintained
by the poetic feelings that had attracted him to her, but by something
else—indefinite but firm as the bond between her own body and soul.
To fluff out her curls, put on fashionable dresses, and sing romantic
songs to fascinate her husband would have seemed as strange as to
adorn herself to attract herself. To adorn herself for others might
perhaps have been agreeable—she did not know—but she had no time
at all for it. The chief reason for devoting no time either to singing, to
dress, or to choosing her words was that she really had no time to spare
for these things.
We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed
in a subject however trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so
trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one's entire
attention is devoted to it.
The subject which wholly engrossed Natasha's attention was her
family: that is, her husband whom she had to keep so that he should
belong entirely to her and to the home, and the children whom she had
to bear, bring into the world, nurse, and bring up.
And the deeper she penetrated, not with her mind only but with her
whole soul, her whole being, into the subject that absorbed her, the
larger did that subject grow and the weaker and more inadequate did
her powers appear, so that she concentrated them wholly on that one
thing and yet was unable to accomplish all that she considered
necessary.
There were then as now conversations and discussions about
women's rights, the relations of husband and wife and their freedom
and rights, though these themes were not yet termed questions as they
are now; but these topics were not merely uninteresting to Natasha, she
positively did not understand them.
These questions, then as now, existed only for those who see nothing
in marriage but the pleasure married people get from one another, that
is, only the beginnings of marriage and not its whole significance,
which lies in the family.
Discussions and questions of that kind, which are like the question of
how to get the greatest gratification from one's dinner, did not then and
do not now exist for those for whom the purpose of a dinner is the
nourishment it affords; and the purpose of marriage is the family.
If the purpose of dinner is to nourish the body, a man who eats two
dinners at once may perhaps get more enjoyment but will not attain his
purpose, for his stomach will not digest the two dinners.
 If the purpose of marriage is the family, the person who wishes to
have many wives or husbands may perhaps obtain much pleasure, but
in that case will not have a family.
If the purpose of food is nourishment and the purpose of marriage is
the family, the whole question resolves itself into not eating more than
one can digest, and not having more wives or husbands than are needed
for the family—that is, one wife or one husband. Natasha needed a
husband. A husband was given her and he gave her a family. And she
not only saw no need of any other or better husband, but as all the
powers of her soul were intent on serving that husband and family, she
could not imagine and saw no interest in imagining how it would be if
things were different.
Natasha did not care for society in general, but prized the more the
society of her relatives—Countess Mary, and her brother, her mother,
and Sonya. She valued the company of those to whom she could come
striding disheveled from the nursery in her dressing gown, and with
joyful face show a yellow instead of a green stain on baby's napkin, and
from whom she could hear reassuring words to the effect that baby was
much better.
To such an extent had Natasha let herself go that the way she dressed
and did her hair, her ill-chosen words, and her jealousy—she was
jealous of Sonya, of the governess, and of every woman, pretty or
plain—were habitual subjects of jest to those about her. The general
opinion was that Pierre was under his wife's thumb, which was really
true. From the very first days of their married life Natasha had
announced her demands. Pierre was greatly surprised by his wife's
view, to him a perfectly novel one, that every moment of his life
belonged to her and to the family. His wife's demands astonished him,
but they also flattered him, and he submitted to them.
Pierre's subjection consisted in the fact that he not only dared not flirt
with, but dared not even speak smilingly to, any other woman; did not
dare dine at the Club as a pastime, did not dare spend money on a
whim, and did not dare absent himself for any length of time, except on
business—in which his wife included his intellectual pursuits, which
she did not in the least understand but to which she attributed great
importance. To make up for this, at home Pierre had the right to
regulate his life and that of the whole family exactly as he chose. At
home Natasha placed herself in the position of a slave to her husband,
and the whole household went on tiptoe when he was occupied—that
is, was reading or writing in his study. Pierre had but to show a
partiality for anything to get just what he liked done always. He had
only to express a wish and Natasha would jump up and run to fulfill it.
 The entire household was governed according to Pierre's supposed
orders, that is, by his wishes which Natasha tried to guess. Their way of
life and place of residence, their acquaintances and ties, Natasha's
occupations, the children's upbringing, were all selected not merely
with regard to Pierre's expressed wishes, but to what Natasha from the
thoughts he expressed in conversation supposed his wishes to be. And
she deduced the essentials of his wishes quite correctly, and having
once arrived at them clung to them tenaciously. When Pierre himself
wanted to change his mind she would fight him with his own weapons.
Thus in a time of trouble ever memorable to him after the birth of
their first child who was delicate, when they had to change the wet
nurse three times and Natasha fell ill from despair, Pierre one day told
her of Rousseau's view, with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet
nurse is unnatural and harmful. When her next baby was born, despite
the opposition of her mother, the doctors, and even of her husband
himself—who were all vigorously opposed to her nursing her baby
herself, a thing then unheard of and considered injurious—she insisted
on having her own way, and after that nursed all her babies herself.
It very often happened that in a moment of irritation husband and
wife would have a dispute, but long afterwards Pierre to his surprise
and delight would find in his wife's ideas and actions the very thought
against which she had argued, but divested of everything superfluous
that in the excitement of the dispute he had added when expressing his
opinion.
After seven years of marriage Pierre had the joyous and firm
consciousness that he was not a bad man, and he felt this because he
saw himself reflected in his wife. He felt the good and bad within
himself inextricably mingled and overlapping. But only what was really
good in him was reflected in his wife, all that was not quite good was
rejected. And this was not the result of logical reasoning but was a
direct and mysterious reflection.

CHAPTER XI
Two months previously when Pierre was already staying with the
Rostovs he had received a letter from Prince Theodore, asking him to
come to Petersburg to confer on some important questions that were
being discussed there by a society of which Pierre was one of the
principal founders.
 On reading that letter (she always read her husband's letters) Natasha
herself suggested that he should go to Petersburg, though she would
feel his absence very acutely. She attributed immense importance to all
her husband's intellectual and abstract interests though she did not
understand them, and she always dreaded being a hindrance to him in
such matters. To Pierre's timid look of inquiry after reading the letter
she replied by asking him to go, but to fix a definite date for his return.
He was given four weeks' leave of absence.
Ever since that leave of absence had expired, more than a fortnight
before, Natasha had been in a constant state of alarm, depression, and
irritability.
Denisov, now a general on the retired list and much dissatisfied with
the present state of affairs, had arrived during that fortnight. He looked
at Natasha with sorrow and surprise as at a bad likeness of a person
once dear. A dull, dejected look, random replies, and talk about the
nursery was all he saw and heard from his former enchantress.
Natasha was sad and irritable all that time, especially when her
mother, her brother, Sonya, or Countess Mary in their efforts to console
her tried to excuse Pierre and suggested reasons for his delay in
returning.
"It's all nonsense, all rubbish—those discussions which lead to
nothing and all those idiotic societies!" Natasha declared of the very
affairs in the immense importance of which she firmly believed.
And she would go to the nursery to nurse Petya, her only boy. No
one else could tell her anything so comforting or so reasonable as this
little three-month-old creature when he lay at her breast and she was
conscious of the movement of his lips and the snuffling of his little
nose. That creature said: "You are angry, you are jealous, you would
like to pay him out, you are afraid—but here am I! And I am he..." and
that was unanswerable. It was more than true.
During that fortnight of anxiety Natasha resorted to the baby for
comfort so often, and fussed over him so much, that she overfed him
and he fell ill. She was terrified by his illness, and yet that was just
what she needed. While attending to him she bore the anxiety about her
husband more easily.
She was nursing her boy when the sound of Pierre's sleigh was heard
at the front door, and the old nurse—knowing how to please her
mistress—entered the room inaudibly but hurriedly and with a beaming
face.
"Has he come?" Natasha asked quickly in a whisper, afraid to move
lest she should rouse the dozing baby.
 "He's come, ma'am," whispered the nurse.
The blood rushed to Natasha's face and her feet involuntarily moved,
but she could not jump up and run out. The baby again opened his eyes
and looked at her. "You're here?" he seemed to be saying, and again
lazily smacked his lips.
Cautiously withdrawing her breast, Natasha rocked him a little,
handed him to the nurse, and went with rapid steps toward the door.
But at the door she stopped as if her conscience reproached her for
having in her joy left the child too soon, and she glanced round. The
nurse with raised elbows was lifting the infant over the rail of his cot.
"Go, ma'am! Don't worry, go!" she whispered, smiling, with the kind
of familiarity that grows up between a nurse and her mistress.
Natasha ran with light footsteps to the anteroom.
Denisov, who had come out of the study into the dancing room with
his pipe, now for the first time recognized the old Natasha. A flood of
brilliant, joyful light poured from her transfigured face.
"He's come!" she exclaimed as she ran past, and Denisov felt that he
too was delighted that Pierre, whom he did not much care for, had
returned.
On reaching the vestibule Natasha saw a tall figure in a fur coat
unwinding his scarf. "It's he! It's really he! He has come!" she said to
herself, and rushing at him embraced him, pressed his head to her
breast, and then pushed him back and gazed at his ruddy, happy face,
covered with hoarfrost. "Yes, it is he, happy and contented..."
Then all at once she remembered the tortures of suspense she had
experienced for the last fortnight, and the joy that had lit up her face
vanished; she frowned and overwhelmed Pierre with a torrent of
reproaches and angry words.
"Yes, it's all very well for you. You are pleased, you've had a good
time.... But what about me? You might at least have shown
consideration for the children. I am nursing and my milk was spoiled....
Petya was at death's door. But you were enjoying yourself. Yes,
enjoying..."
Pierre knew he was not to blame, for he could not have come sooner;
he knew this outburst was unseemly and would blow over in a minute
or two; above all he knew that he himself was bright and happy. He
wanted to smile but dared not even think of doing so. He made a
piteous, frightened face and bent down.
"I could not, on my honor. But how is Petya?"
 "All right now. Come along! I wonder you're not ashamed! If only
you could see what I was like without you, how I suffered!"
"You are well?"
"Come, come!" she said, not letting go of his arm. And they went to
their rooms.
When Nicholas and his wife came to look for Pierre he was in the
nursery holding his baby son, who was again awake, on his huge right
palm and dandling him. A blissful bright smile was fixed on the baby's
broad face with its toothless open mouth. The storm was long since
over and there was bright, joyous sunshine on Natasha's face as she
gazed tenderly at her husband and child.
"And have you talked everything well over with Prince Theodore?"
she asked.
"Yes, capitally."
"You see, he holds it up." (She meant the baby's head.) "But how he
did frighten me... You've seen the princess? Is it true she's in love with
that..."
"Yes, just fancy..."
At that moment Nicholas and Countess Mary came in. Pierre with
the baby on his hand stooped, kissed them, and replied to their
inquiries. But in spite of much that was interesting and had to be
discussed, the baby with the little cap on its unsteady head evidently
absorbed all his attention.
"How sweet!" said Countess Mary, looking at and playing with the
baby. "Now, Nicholas," she added, turning to her husband, "I can't
understand how it is you don't see the charm of these delicious
marvels."
"I don't and can't," replied Nicholas, looking coldly at the baby. "A
lump of flesh. Come along, Pierre!"
"And yet he's such an affectionate father," said Countess Mary,
vindicating her husband, "but only after they are a year old or so..."
"Now, Pierre nurses them splendidly," said Natasha. "He says his
hand is just made for a baby's seat. Just look!"
"Only not for this..." Pierre suddenly exclaimed with a laugh, and
shifting the baby he gave him to the nurse.
 CHAPTER XII
As in every large household, there were at Bald Hills several
perfectly distinct worlds which merged into one harmonious whole,
though each retained its own peculiarities and made concessions to the
others. Every event, joyful or sad, that took place in that house was
important to all these worlds, but each had its own special reasons to
rejoice or grieve over that occurrence independently of the others.
For instance, Pierre's return was a joyful and important event and
they all felt it to be so.
The servants—the most reliable judges of their masters because they
judge not by their conversation or expressions of feeling but by their
acts and way of life—were glad of Pierre's return because they knew
that when he was there Count Nicholas would cease going every day to
attend to the estate, and would be in better spirits and temper, and also
because they would all receive handsome presents for the holidays.
The children and their governesses were glad of Pierre's return
because no one else drew them into the social life of the household as
he did. He alone could play on the clavichord that ecossaise (his only
piece) to which, as he said, all possible dances could be danced, and
they felt sure he had brought presents for them all.
Young Nicholas, now a slim lad of fifteen, delicate and intelligent,
with curly light-brown hair and beautiful eyes, was delighted because
Uncle Pierre as he called him was the object of his rapturous and
passionate affection. No one had instilled into him this love for Pierre
whom he saw only occasionally. Countess Mary who had brought him
up had done her utmost to make him love her husband as she loved
him, and little Nicholas did love his uncle, but loved him with just a
shade of contempt. Pierre, however, he adored. He did not want to be
an hussar or a Knight of St. George like his uncle Nicholas; he wanted
to be learned, wise, and kind like Pierre. In Pierre's presence his face
always shone with pleasure and he flushed and was breathless when
Pierre spoke to him. He did not miss a single word he uttered, and
would afterwards, with Dessalles or by himself, recall and reconsider
the meaning of everything Pierre had said. Pierre's past life and his
unhappiness prior to 1812 (of which young Nicholas had formed a
vague poetic picture from some words he had overheard), his
adventures in Moscow, his captivity, Platon Karataev (of whom he had
heard from Pierre), his love for Natasha (of whom the lad was also
particularly fond), and especially Pierre's friendship with the father
whom Nicholas could not remember—all this made Pierre in his eyes a
hero and a saint.
From broken remarks about Natasha and his father, from the emotion
with which Pierre spoke of that dead father, and from the careful,
reverent tenderness with which Natasha spoke of him, the boy, who
was only just beginning to guess what love is, derived the notion that
his father had loved Natasha and when dying had left her to his friend.
But the father whom the boy did not remember appeared to him a
divinity who could not be pictured, and of whom he never thought
without a swelling heart and tears of sadness and rapture. So the boy
also was happy that Pierre had arrived.
The guests welcomed Pierre because he always helped to enliven and
unite any company he was in.
The grown-up members of the family, not to mention his wife, were
pleased to have back a friend whose presence made life run more
smoothly and peacefully.
The old ladies were pleased with the presents he brought them, and
especially that Natasha would now be herself again.
Pierre felt the different outlooks of these various worlds and made
haste to satisfy all their expectations.
Though the most absent-minded and forgetful of men, Pierre, with
the aid of a list his wife drew up, had now bought everything, not
forgetting his mother—and brother-in-law's commissions, nor the dress
material for a present to Belova, nor toys for his wife's nephews. In the
early days of his marriage it had seemed strange to him that his wife
should expect him not to forget to procure all the things he undertook to
buy, and he had been taken aback by her serious annoyance when on
his first trip he forgot everything. But in time he grew used to this
demand. Knowing that Natasha asked nothing for herself, and gave him
commissions for others only when he himself had offered to undertake
them, he now found an unexpected and childlike pleasure in this
purchase of presents for everyone in the house, and never forgot
anything. If he now incurred Natasha's censure it was only for buying
too many and too expensive things. To her other defects (as most
people thought them, but which to Pierre were qualities) of untidiness
and neglect of herself, she now added stinginess.
From the time that Pierre began life as a family man on a footing
entailing heavy expenditure, he had noticed to his surprise that he spent
only half as much as before, and that his affairs—which had been in
disorder of late, chiefly because of his first wife's debts—had begun to
improve.
 Life was cheaper because it was circumscribed: that most expensive
luxury, the kind of life that can be changed at any moment, was no
longer his nor did he wish for it. He felt that his way of life had now
been settled once for all till death and that to change it was not in his
power, and so that way of life proved economical.
With a merry, smiling face Pierre was sorting his purchases.
"What do you think of this?" said he, unrolling a piece of stuff like a
shopman.
Natasha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest daughter on
her lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband to the
things he showed her.
"That's for Belova? Excellent!" She felt the quality of the material.
"It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?"
Pierre told her the price.
"Too dear!" Natasha remarked. "How pleased the children will be
and Mamma too! Only you need not have bought me this," she added,
unable to suppress a smile as she gazed admiringly at a gold comb set
with pearls, of a kind then just coming into fashion.
"Adele tempted me: she kept on telling me to buy it," returned
Pierre.
"When am I to wear it?" and Natasha stuck it in her coil of hair.
"When I take little Masha into society? Perhaps they will be
fashionable again by then. Well, let's go now."
And collecting the presents they went first to the nursery and then to
the old countess' rooms.
The countess was sitting with her companion Belova, playing grand-
patience as usual, when Pierre and Natasha came into the drawing room
with parcels under their arms.
The countess was now over sixty, was quite gray, and wore a cap
with a frill that surrounded her face. Her face had shriveled, her upper
lip had sunk in, and her eyes were dim.
After the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession, she
felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and left without
aim or object for her existence. She ate, drank, slept, or kept awake, but
did not live. Life gave her no new impressions. She wanted nothing
from life but tranquillity, and that tranquillity only death could give her.
But until death came she had to go on living, that is, to use her vital
forces. A peculiarity one sees in very young children and very old
people was particularly evident in her. Her life had no external aims—
only a need to exercise her various functions and inclinations was
apparent. She had to eat, sleep, think, speak, weep, work, give vent to
her anger, and so on, merely because she had a stomach, a brain,
muscles, nerves, and a liver. She did these things not under any external
impulse as people in the full vigor of life do, when behind the purpose
for which they strive that of exercising their functions remains
unnoticed. She talked only because she physically needed to exercise
her tongue and lungs. She cried as a child does, because her nose had to
be cleared, and so on. What for people in their full vigor is an aim was
for her evidently merely a pretext.
Thus in the morning—especially if she had eaten anything rich the
day before—she felt a need of being angry and would choose as the
handiest pretext Belova's deafness.
She would begin to say something to her in a low tone from the other
end of the room.
"It seems a little warmer today, my dear," she would murmur.
And when Belova replied: "Oh yes, they've come," she would mutter
angrily: "O Lord! How stupid and deaf she is!"
Another pretext would be her snuff, which would seem too dry or too
damp or not rubbed fine enough. After these fits of irritability her face
would grow yellow, and her maids knew by infallible symptoms when
Belova would again be deaf, the snuff damp, and the countess' face
yellow. Just as she needed to work off her spleen so she had sometimes
to exercise her still-existing faculty of thinking—and the pretext for
that was a game of patience. When she needed to cry, the deceased
count would be the pretext. When she wanted to be agitated, Nicholas
and his health would be the pretext, and when she felt a need to speak
spitefully, the pretext would be Countess Mary. When her vocal organs
needed exercise, which was usually toward seven o'clock when she had
had an after-dinner rest in a darkened room, the pretext would be the
retelling of the same stories over and over again to the same audience.
The old lady's condition was understood by the whole household
though no one ever spoke of it, and they all made every possible effort
to satisfy her needs. Only by a rare glance exchanged with a sad smile
between Nicholas, Pierre, Natasha, and Countess Mary was the
common understanding of her condition expressed.
But those glances expressed something more: they said that she had
played her part in life, that what they now saw was not her whole self,
that we must all become like her, and that they were glad to yield to
her, to restrain themselves for this once precious being formerly as full
of life as themselves, but now so much to be pitied. "Memento mori,"
said these glances.
 Only the really heartless, the stupid ones of that household, and the
little children failed to understand this and avoided her.

CHAPTER XIII
When Pierre and his wife entered the drawing room the countess was
in one of her customary states in which she needed the mental exertion
of playing patience, and so—though by force of habit she greeted him
with the words she always used when Pierre or her son returned after an
absence: "High time, my dear, high time! We were all weary of waiting
for you. Well, thank God!" and received her presents with another
customary remark: "It's not the gift that's precious, my dear, but that
you give it to me, an old woman..."—yet it was evident that she was not
pleased by Pierre's arrival at that moment when it diverted her attention
from the unfinished game.
She finished her game of patience and only then examined the
presents. They consisted of a box for cards, of splendid workmanship, a
bright-blue Sevres tea cup with shepherdesses depicted on it and with a
lid, and a gold snuffbox with the count's portrait on the lid which Pierre
had had done by a miniaturist in Petersburg. The countess had long
wished for such a box, but as she did not want to cry just then she
glanced indifferently at the portrait and gave her attention chiefly to the
box for cards.
"Thank you, my dear, you have cheered me up," said she as she
always did. "But best of all you have brought yourself back—for I
never saw anything like it, you ought to give your wife a scolding!
What are we to do with her? She is like a mad woman when you are
away. Doesn't see anything, doesn't remember anything," she went on,
repeating her usual phrases. "Look, Anna Timofeevna," she added to
her companion, "see what a box for cards my son has brought us!"
Belova admired the presents and was delighted with her dress
material.
Though Pierre, Natasha, Nicholas, Countess Mary, and Denisov had
much to talk about that they could not discuss before the old
countess—not that anything was hidden from her, but because she had
dropped so far behindhand in many things that had they begun to
converse in her presence they would have had to answer inopportune
questions and to repeat what they had already told her many times: that
so-and-so was dead and so-and-so was married, which she would again
be unable to remember—yet they sat at tea round the samovar in the
drawing room from habit, and Pierre answered the countess' questions
as to whether Prince Vasili had aged and whether Countess Mary
Alexeevna had sent greetings and still thought of them, and other
matters that interested no one and to which she herself was indifferent.
Conversation of this kind, interesting to no one yet unavoidable,
continued all through teatime. All the grown-up members of the family
were assembled near the round tea table at which Sonya presided
beside the samovar. The children with their tutors and governesses had
had tea and their voices were audible from the next room. At tea all sat
in their accustomed places: Nicholas beside the stove at a small table
where his tea was handed to him; Milka, the old gray borzoi bitch
(daughter of the first Milka), with a quite gray face and large black eyes
that seemed more prominent than ever, lay on the armchair beside him;
Denisov, whose curly hair, mustache, and whiskers had turned half
gray, sat beside countess Mary with his general's tunic unbuttoned;
Pierre sat between his wife and the old countess. He spoke of what he
knew might interest the old lady and that she could understand. He told
her of external social events and of the people who had formed the
circle of her contemporaries and had once been a real, living, and
distinct group, but who were now for the most part scattered about the
world and like herself were garnering the last ears of the harvests they
had sown in earlier years. But to the old countess those contemporaries
of hers seemed to be the only serious and real society. Natasha saw by
Pierre's animation that his visit had been interesting and that he had
much to tell them but dare not say it before the old countess. Denisov,
not being a member of the family, did not understand Pierre's caution
and being, as a malcontent, much interested in what was occurring in
Petersburg, kept urging Pierre to tell them about what had happened in
the Semenovsk regiment, then about Arakcheev, and then about the
Bible Society. Once or twice Pierre was carried away and began to
speak of these things, but Nicholas and Natasha always brought him
back to the health of Prince Ivan and Countess Mary Alexeevna.
"Well, and all this idiocy—Gossner and Tatawinova?" Denisov
asked. "Is that weally still going on?"

"Going on?" Pierre exclaimed. "Why more than ever!

The Bible Society is
the whole government now!"

"What is that, mon cher ami?" asked the countess,

who had
finished her tea and evidently needed a pretext for
being angry
after her meal. "What are you saying about the
government? I don't
understand."
 "Well, you know, Maman," Nicholas interposed, knowing how to
translate things into his mother's language, "Prince Alexander Golitsyn
has founded a society and in consequence has great influence, they
say."
"Arakcheev and Golitsyn," incautiously remarked Pierre, "are now
the whole government! And what a government! They see treason
everywhere and are afraid of everything."
"Well, and how is Prince Alexander to blame? He is a most
estimable man. I used to meet him at Mary Antonovna's," said the
countess in an offended tone; and still more offended that they all
remained silent, she went on: "Nowadays everyone finds fault. A
Gospel Society! Well, and what harm is there in that?" and she rose
(everybody else got up too) and with a severe expression sailed back to
her table in the sitting room.
The melancholy silence that followed was broken by the sounds of
the children's voices and laughter from the next room. Evidently some
jolly excitement was going on there.
"Finished, finished!" little Natasha's gleeful yell rose above them all.
Pierre exchanged glances with Countess Mary and Nicholas
(Natasha he never lost sight of) and smiled happily.
"That's delightful music!" said he.
"It means that Anna Makarovna has finished her stocking," said
Countess Mary.
"Oh, I'll go and see," said Pierre, jumping up. "You know," he added,
stopping at the door, "why I'm especially fond of that music? It is
always the first thing that tells me all is well. When I was driving here
today, the nearer I got to the house the more anxious I grew. As I
entered the anteroom I heard Andrusha's peals of laughter and that
meant that all was well."
"I know! I know that feeling," said Nicholas. "But I mustn't go
there—those stockings are to be a surprise for me."
Pierre went to the children, and the shouting and laughter grew still
louder.
"Come, Anna Makarovna," Pierre's voice was heard saying, "come
here into the middle of the room and at the word of command, 'One,
two,' and when I say 'three'... You stand here, and you in my arms—
well now! One, two!..." said Pierre, and a silence followed: "three!" and
a rapturously breathless cry of children's voices filled the room. "Two,
two!" they shouted.
 This meant two stockings, which by a secret process known only to
herself Anna Makarovna used to knit at the same time on the same
needles, and which, when they were ready, she always triumphantly
drew, one out of the other, in the children's presence.

CHAPTER XIV
Soon after this the children came in to say good night. They kissed
everyone, the tutors and governesses made their bows, and they went
out. Only young Nicholas and his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered
to the boy to come downstairs.
"No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me stay," replied
Nicholas Bolkonski also in a whisper.
"Ma tante, please let me stay," said he, going up to his aunt.
His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess Mary
glanced at him and turned to Pierre.
"When you are here he can't tear himself away," she said.
"I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles. Good night!"
said Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned to young
Nicholas with a smile. "You and I haven't seen anything of one another
yet... How like he is growing, Mary!" he added, addressing Countess
Mary.
"Like my father?" asked the boy, flushing crimson and looking up at
Pierre with bright, ecstatic eyes.
Pierre nodded, and went on with what he had been saying when the
children had interrupted. Countess Mary sat down doing woolwork;
Natasha did not take her eyes off her husband. Nicholas and Denisov
rose, asked for their pipes, smoked, went to fetch more tea from
Sonya—who sat weary but resolute at the samovar—and questioned
Pierre. The curly-headed, delicate boy sat with shining eyes unnoticed
in a corner, starting every now and then and muttering something to
himself, and evidently experiencing a new and powerful emotion as he
turned his curly head, with his thin neck exposed by his turn-down
collar, toward the place where Pierre sat.
The conversation turned on the contemporary gossip about those in
power, in which most people see the chief interest of home politics.
Denisov, dissatisfied with the government on account of his own
disappointments in the service, heard with pleasure of the things done
in Petersburg which seemed to him stupid, and made forcible and sharp
comments on what Pierre told them.
"One used to have to be a German—now one must dance with
Tatawinova and Madame Kwudener, and wead Ecka'tshausen and the
bwethwen. Oh, they should let that fine fellow Bonaparte lose—he'd
knock all this nonsense out of them! Fancy giving the command of the
Semenov wegiment to a fellow like that Schwa'tz!" he cried.
Nicholas, though free from Denisov's readiness to find fault with
everything, also thought that discussion of the government was a very
serious and weighty matter, and the fact that A had been appointed
Minister of This and B Governor General of That, and that the Emperor
had said so-and-so and this minister so-and-so, seemed to him very
important. And so he thought it necessary to take an interest in these
things and to question Pierre. The questions put by these two kept the
conversation from changing its ordinary character of gossip about the
higher government circles.
But Natasha, knowing all her husband's ways and ideas, saw that he
had long been wishing but had been unable to divert the conversation to
another channel and express his own deeply felt idea for the sake of
which he had gone to Petersburg to consult with his new friend Prince
Theodore, and she helped him by asking how his affairs with Prince
Theodore had gone.
"What was it about?" asked Nicholas.
"Always the same thing," said Pierre, looking round at his listeners.
"Everybody sees that things are going so badly that they cannot be
allowed to go on so and that it is the duty of all decent men to
counteract it as far as they can."
"What can decent men do?" Nicholas inquired, frowning slightly.
"What can be done?"
"Why, this..."
"Come into my study," said Nicholas.
Natasha, who had long expected to be fetched to nurse her baby, now
heard the nurse calling her and went to the nursery. Countess Mary
followed her. The men went into the study and little Nicholas
Bolkonski followed them unnoticed by his uncle and sat down at the
writing table in a shady corner by the window.
"Well, what would you do?" asked Denisov.
"Always some fantastic schemes," said Nicholas.
 "Why this," began Pierre, not sitting down but pacing the room,
sometimes stopping short, gesticulating, and lisping: "the position in
Petersburg is this: the Emperor does not look into anything. He has
abandoned himself altogether to this mysticism" (Pierre could not
tolerate mysticism in anyone now). "He seeks only for peace, and only
these people sans foi ni loi * can give it him—people who recklessly
hack at and strangle everything—Magnitski, Arakcheev, and tutti
quanti.... You will agree that if you did not look after your estates
yourself but only wanted a quiet life, the harsher your steward was the
more readily your object might be attained," he said to Nicholas.

* Without faith or law.

"Well, what does that lead up to?" said Nicholas.

"Well, everything is going to ruin! Robbery in the law courts, in the
army nothing but flogging, drilling, and Military Settlements; the
people are tortured, enlightenment is suppressed. All that is young and
honest is crushed! Everyone sees that this cannot go on. Everything is
strained to such a degree that it will certainly break," said Pierre (as
those who examine the actions of any government have always said
since governments began). "I told them just one thing in Petersburg."
"Told whom?"
"Well, you know whom," said Pierre, with a meaning glance from
under his brows. "Prince Theodore and all those. To encourage culture
and philanthropy is all very well of course. The aim is excellent but in
the present circumstances something else is needed."
At that moment Nicholas noticed the presence of his nephew. His
face darkened and he went up to the boy.
"Why are you here?"
"Why? Let him be," said Pierre, taking Nicholas by the arm and
continuing. "That is not enough, I told them. Something else is needed.
When you stand expecting the overstrained string to snap at any
moment, when everyone is expecting the inevitable catastrophe, as
many as possible must join hands as closely as they can to withstand
the general calamity. Everything that is young and strong is being
enticed away and depraved. One is lured by women, another by honors,
a third by ambition or money, and they go over to that camp. No
independent men, such as you or I, are left. What I say is widen the
scope of our society, let the mot d'ordre be not virtue alone but
independence and action as well!"
 Nicholas, who had left his nephew, irritably pushed up an armchair,
sat down in it, and listened to Pierre, coughing discontentedly and
frowning more and more.
"But action with what aim?" he cried. "And what position will you
adopt toward the government?"
"Why, the position of assistants. The society need not be secret if the
government allows it. Not merely is it not hostile to government, but it
is a society of true conservatives—a society of gentlemen in the full
meaning of that word. It is only to prevent some Pugachev or other
from killing my children and yours, and Arakcheev from sending me
off to some Military Settlement. We join hands only for the public
welfare and the general safety."
"Yes, but it's a secret society and therefore a hostile and harmful one
which can only cause harm."
"Why? Did the Tugendbund which saved Europe" (they did not then
venture to suggest that Russia had saved Europe) "do any harm? The
Tugendbund is an alliance of virtue: it is love, mutual help... it is what
Christ preached on the Cross."
Natasha, who had come in during the conversation, looked joyfully
at her husband. It was not what he was saying that pleased her—that
did not even interest her, for it seemed to her that was all extremely
simple and that she had known it a long time (it seemed so to her
because she knew that it sprang from Pierre's whole soul), but it was his
animated and enthusiastic appearance that made her glad.
The boy with the thin neck stretching out from the turn-down
collar—whom everyone had forgotten—gazed at Pierre with even
greater and more rapturous joy. Every word of Pierre's burned into his
heart, and with a nervous movement of his fingers he unconsciously
broke the sealing wax and quill pens his hands came upon on his
uncle's table.
"It is not at all what you suppose; but that is what the German
Tugendbund was, and what I am proposing."
"No, my fwiend! The Tugendbund is all vewy well for the sausage
eaters, but I don't understand it and can't even pwonounce it,"
interposed Denisov in a loud and resolute voice. "I agwee that
evewything here is wotten and howwible, but the Tugendbund I don't
understand. If we're not satisfied, let us have a bunt of our own. That's
all wight. Je suis vot'e homme!" *

* "I'm your man."

 Pierre smiled, Natasha began to laugh, but Nicholas knitted his
brows still more and began proving to Pierre that there was no prospect
of any great change and that all the danger he spoke of existed only in
his imagination. Pierre maintained the contrary, and as his mental
faculties were greater and more resourceful, Nicholas felt himself
cornered. This made him still angrier, for he was fully convinced, not
by reasoning but by something within him stronger than reason, of the
justice of his opinion.
"I will tell you this," he said, rising and trying with nervously
twitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner, but finally abandoning
the attempt. "I can't prove it to you. You say that everything here is
rotten and that an overthrow is coming: I don't see it. But you also say
that our oath of allegiance is a conditional matter, and to that I reply:
'You are my best friend, as you know, but if you formed a secret
society and began working against the government—be it what it
may—I know it is my duty to obey the government. And if Arakcheev
ordered me to lead a squadron against you and cut you down, I should
not hesitate an instant, but should do it.' And you may argue about that
as you like!"
An awkward silence followed these words. Natasha was the first to
speak, defending her husband and attacking her brother. Her defense
was weak and inapt but she attained her object. The conversation was
resumed, and no longer in the unpleasantly hostile tone of Nicholas' last
remark.
When they all got up to go in to supper, little Nicholas Bolkonski
went up to Pierre, pale and with shining, radiant eyes.
"Uncle Pierre, you... no... If Papa were alive... would he agree with
you?" he asked.
And Pierre suddenly realized what a special, independent, complex,
and powerful process of thought and feeling must have been going on
in this boy during that conversation, and remembering all he had said
he regretted that the lad should have heard him. He had, however, to
give him an answer.
"Yes, I think so," he said reluctantly, and left the study.
The lad looked down and seemed now for the first time to notice
what he had done to the things on the table. He flushed and went up to
Nicholas.
"Uncle, forgive me, I did that... unintentionally," he said, pointing to
the broken sealing wax and pens.
Nicholas started angrily.
 "All right, all right," he said, throwing the bits under the table.
And evidently suppressing his vexation with difficulty, he turned
away from the boy.
"You ought not to have been here at all," he said.

CHAPTER XV
The conversation at supper was not about politics or societies, but
turned on the subject Nicholas liked best—recollections of 1812.
Denisov started these and Pierre was particularly agreeable and
amusing about them. The family separated on the most friendly terms.
After supper Nicholas, having undressed in his study and given
instructions to the steward who had been waiting for him, went to the
bedroom in his dressing gown, where he found his wife still at her
table, writing.
"What are you writing, Mary?" Nicholas asked.
Countess Mary blushed. She was afraid that what she was writing
would not be understood or approved by her husband.
She had wanted to conceal what she was writing from him, but at the
same time was glad he had surprised her at it and that she would now
have to tell him.
"A diary, Nicholas," she replied, handing him a blue exercise book
filled with her firm, bold writing.
"A diary?" Nicholas repeated with a shade of irony, and he took up
the book.
It was in French.
December 4. Today when Andrusha (her eldest boy) woke up he did
not wish to dress and Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. He was
naughty and obstinate. I tried threats, but he only grew angrier. Then I
took the matter in hand: I left him alone and began with nurse's help to
get the other children up, telling him that I did not love him. For a long
time he was silent, as if astonished, then he jumped out of bed, ran to
me in his shirt, and sobbed so that I could not calm him for a long time.
It was plain that what troubled him most was that he had grieved me.
Afterwards in the evening when I gave him his ticket, he again began
crying piteously and kissing me. One can do anything with him by
tenderness.
"What is a 'ticket'?" Nicholas inquired.
"I have begun giving the elder ones marks every evening, showing
how they have behaved."
Nicholas looked into the radiant eyes that were gazing at him, and
continued to turn over the pages and read. In the diary was set down
everything in the children's lives that seemed noteworthy to their
mother as showing their characters or suggesting general reflections on
educational methods. They were for the most part quite insignificant
trifles, but did not seem so to the mother or to the father either, now
that he read this diary about his children for the first time.
Under the date "5" was entered:
Mitya was naughty at table. Papa said he was to have no pudding. He
had none, but looked so unhappily and greedily at the others while they
were eating! I think that punishment by depriving children of sweets
only develops their greediness. Must tell Nicholas this.
Nicholas put down the book and looked at his wife. The radiant eyes
gazed at him questioningly: would he approve or disapprove of her
diary? There could be no doubt not only of his approval but also of his
admiration for his wife.
Perhaps it need not be done so pedantically, thought Nicholas, or
even done at all, but this untiring, continual spiritual effort of which the
sole aim was the children's moral welfare delighted him. Had Nicholas
been able to analyze his feelings he would have found that his steady,
tender, and proud love of his wife rested on his feeling of wonder at her
spirituality and at the lofty moral world, almost beyond his reach, in
which she had her being.
He was proud of her intelligence and goodness, recognized his own
insignificance beside her in the spiritual world, and rejoiced all the
more that she with such a soul not only belonged to him but was part of
himself.
"I quite, quite approve, my dearest!" said he with a significant look,
and after a short pause he added: "And I behaved badly today. You
weren't in the study. We began disputing—Pierre and I—and I lost my
temper. But he is impossible: such a child! I don't know what would
become of him if Natasha didn't keep him in hand.... Have you any idea
why he went to Petersburg? They have formed..."
"Yes, I know," said Countess Mary. "Natasha told me."
 "Well, then, you know," Nicholas went on, growing hot at the mere
recollection of their discussion, "he wanted to convince me that it is
every honest man's duty to go against the government, and that the oath
of allegiance and duty... I am sorry you weren't there. They all fell on
me—Denisov and Natasha... Natasha is absurd. How she rules over
him! And yet there need only be a discussion and she has no words of
her own but only repeats his sayings..." added Nicholas, yielding to that
irresistible inclination which tempts us to judge those nearest and
dearest to us. He forgot that what he was saying about Natasha could
have been applied word for word to himself in relation to his wife.
"Yes, I have noticed that," said Countess Mary.
"When I told him that duty and the oath were above everything, he
started proving goodness knows what! A pity you were not there—
what would you have said?"
"As I see it you were quite right, and I told Natasha so. Pierre says
everybody is suffering, tortured, and being corrupted, and that it is our
duty to help our neighbor. Of course he is right there," said Countess
Mary, "but he forgets that we have other duties nearer to us, duties
indicated to us by God Himself, and that though we might expose
ourselves to risks we must not risk our children."
"Yes, that's it! That's just what I said to him," put in Nicholas, who
fancied he really had said it. "But they insisted on their own view: love
of one's neighbor and Christianity—and all this in the presence of
young Nicholas, who had gone into my study and broke all my things."
"Ah, Nicholas, do you know I am often troubled about little
Nicholas," said Countess Mary. "He is such an exceptional boy. I am
afraid I neglect him in favor of my own: we all have children and
relations while he has no one. He is constantly alone with his thoughts."
"Well, I don't think you need reproach yourself on his account. All
that the fondest mother could do for her son you have done and are
doing for him, and of course I am glad of it. He is a fine lad, a fine lad!
This evening he listened to Pierre in a sort of trance, and fancy—as we
were going in to supper I looked and he had broken everything on my
table to bits, and he told me of it himself at once! I never knew him to
tell an untruth. A fine lad, a fine lad!" repeated Nicholas, who at heart
was not fond of Nicholas Bolkonski but was always anxious to
recognize that he was a fine lad.
"Still, I am not the same as his own mother," said Countess Mary. "I
feel I am not the same and it troubles me. A wonderful boy, but I am
dreadfully afraid for him. It would be good for him to have
companions."
 "Well it won't be for long. Next summer I'll take him to Petersburg,"
said Nicholas. "Yes, Pierre always was a dreamer and always will be,"
he continued, returning to the talk in the study which had evidently
disturbed him. "Well, what business is it of mine what goes on there—
whether Arakcheev is bad, and all that? What business was it of mine
when I married and was so deep in debt that I was threatened with
prison, and had a mother who could not see or understand it? And then
there are you and the children and our affairs. Is it for my own pleasure
that I am at the farm or in the office from morning to night? No, but I
know I must work to comfort my mother, to repay you, and not to leave
the children such beggars as I was."
Countess Mary wanted to tell him that man does not live by bread
alone and that he attached too much importance to these matters. But
she knew she must not say this and that it would be useless to do so.
She only took his hand and kissed it. He took this as a sign of approval
and a confirmation of his thoughts, and after a few minutes' reflection
continued to think aloud.
"You know, Mary, today Elias Mitrofanych" (this was his overseer)
"came back from the Tambov estate and told me they are already
offering eighty thousand rubles for the forest."
And with an eager face Nicholas began to speak of the possibility of
repurchasing Otradnoe before long, and added: "Another ten years of
life and I shall leave the children... in an excellent position."
Countess Mary listened to her husband and understood all that he
told her. She knew that when he thought aloud in this way he would
sometimes ask her what he had been saying, and be vexed if he noticed
that she had been thinking about something else. But she had to force
herself to attend, for what he was saying did not interest her at all. She
looked at him and did not think, but felt, about something different. She
felt a submissive tender love for this man who would never understand
all that she understood, and this seemed to make her love for him still
stronger and added a touch of passionate tenderness. Besides this
feeling which absorbed her altogether and hindered her from following
the details of her husband's plans, thoughts that had no connection with
what he was saying flitted through her mind. She thought of her
nephew. Her husband's account of the boy's agitation while Pierre was
speaking struck her forcibly, and various traits of his gentle, sensitive
character recurred to her mind; and while thinking of her nephew she
thought also of her own children. She did not compare them with him,
but compared her feeling for them with her feeling for him, and felt
with regret that there was something lacking in her feeling for young
Nicholas.
 Sometimes it seemed to her that this difference arose from the
difference in their ages, but she felt herself to blame toward him and
promised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the impossible—in
this life to love her husband, her children, little Nicholas, and all her
neighbors, as Christ loved mankind. Countess Mary's soul always
strove toward the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could
therefore never be at peace. A stern expression of the lofty, secret
suffering of a soul burdened by the body appeared on her face.
Nicholas gazed at her. "O God! What will become of us if she dies, as I
always fear when her face is like that?" thought he, and placing himself
before the icon he began to say his evening prayers.

CHAPTER XVI
Natasha and Pierre, left alone, also began to talk as only a husband
and wife can talk, that is, with extraordinary clearness and rapidity,
understanding and expressing each other's thoughts in ways contrary to
all rules of logic, without premises, deductions, or conclusions, and in a
quite peculiar way. Natasha was so used to this kind of talk with her
husband that for her it was the surest sign of something being wrong
between them if Pierre followed a line of logical reasoning. When he
began proving anything, or talking argumentatively and calmly and she,
led on by his example, began to do the same, she knew that they were
on the verge of a quarrel.
From the moment they were alone and Natasha came up to him with
wide-open happy eyes, and quickly seizing his head pressed it to her
bosom, saying: "Now you are all mine, mine! You won't escape!"—
from that moment this conversation began, contrary to all the laws of
logic and contrary to them because quite different subjects were talked
about at one and the same time. This simultaneous discussion of many
topics did not prevent a clear understanding but on the contrary was the
surest sign that they fully understood one another.
Just as in a dream when all is uncertain, unreasoning, and
contradictory, except the feeling that guides the dream, so in this
intercourse contrary to all laws of reason, the words themselves were
not consecutive and clear but only the feeling that prompted them.
Natasha spoke to Pierre about her brother's life and doings, of how
she had suffered and lacked life during his own absence, and of how
she was fonder than ever of Mary, and how Mary was in every way
better than herself. In saying this Natasha was sincere in
acknowledging Mary's superiority, but at the same time by saying it she
made a demand on Pierre that he should, all the same, prefer her to
Mary and to all other women, and that now, especially after having
seen many women in Petersburg, he should tell her so afresh.
Pierre, answering Natasha's words, told her how intolerable it had
been for him to meet ladies at dinners and balls in Petersburg.
"I have quite lost the knack of talking to ladies," he said. "It was
simply dull. Besides, I was very busy."
Natasha looked intently at him and went on:
"Mary is so splendid," she said. "How she understands children! It is
as if she saw straight into their souls. Yesterday, for instance, Mitya
was naughty..."
"How like his father he is," Pierre interjected.
Natasha knew why he mentioned Mitya's likeness to Nicholas: the
recollection of his dispute with his brother-in-law was unpleasant and
he wanted to know what Natasha thought of it.
"Nicholas has the weakness of never agreeing with anything not
generally accepted. But I understand that you value what opens up a
fresh line," said she, repeating words Pierre had once uttered.
"No, the chief point is that to Nicholas ideas and discussions are an
amusement—almost a pastime," said Pierre. "For instance, he is
collecting a library and has made it a rule not to buy a new book till he
has read what he had already bought—Sismondi and Rousseau and
Montesquieu," he added with a smile. "You know how much I..." he
began to soften down what he had said; but Natasha interrupted him to
show that this was unnecessary.
"So you say ideas are an amusement to him...."
"Yes, and for me nothing else is serious. All the time in Petersburg I
saw everyone as in a dream. When I am taken up by a thought, all else
is mere amusement."
"Ah, I'm so sorry I wasn't there when you met the children," said
Natasha. "Which was most delighted? Lisa, I'm sure."
"Yes," Pierre replied, and went on with what was in his mind.
"Nicholas says we ought not to think. But I can't help it. Besides, when
I was in Petersburg I felt (I can say this to you) that the whole affair
would go to pieces without me—everyone was pulling his own way.
But I succeeded in uniting them all; and then my idea is so clear and
simple. You see, I don't say that we ought to oppose this and that. We
may be mistaken. What I say is: 'Join hands, you who love the right,
and let there be but one banner—that of active virtue.' Prince Sergey is
a fine fellow and clever."
Natasha would have had no doubt as to the greatness of Pierre's idea,
but one thing disconcerted her. "Can a man so important and necessary
to society be also my husband? How did this happen?" She wished to
express this doubt to him. "Now who could decide whether he is really
cleverer than all the others?" she asked herself, and passed in review all
those whom Pierre most respected. Judging by what he had said there
was no one he had respected so highly as Platon Karataev.
"Do you know what I am thinking about?" she asked. "About Platon
Karataev. Would he have approved of you now, do you think?"
Pierre was not at all surprised at this question. He understood his
wife's line of thought.
"Platon Karataev?" he repeated, and pondered, evidently sincerely
trying to imagine Karataev's opinion on the subject. "He would not
have understood... yet perhaps he would."
"I love you awfully!" Natasha suddenly said. "Awfully, awfully!"
"No, he would not have approved," said Pierre, after reflection.
"What he would have approved of is our family life. He was always so
anxious to find seemliness, happiness, and peace in everything, and I
should have been proud to let him see us. There now—you talk of my
absence, but you wouldn't believe what a special feeling I have for you
after a separation...."
"Yes, I should think..." Natasha began.
"No, it's not that. I never leave off loving you. And one couldn't love
more, but this is something special.... Yes, of course-" he did not finish
because their eyes meeting said the rest.
"What nonsense it is," Natasha suddenly exclaimed, "about
honeymoons, and that the greatest happiness is at first! On the contrary,
now is the best of all. If only you did not go away! Do you remember
how we quarreled? And it was always my fault. Always mine. And
what we quarreled about—I don't even remember!"
"Always about the same thing," said Pierre with a smile. "Jealo..."
"Don't say it! I can't bear it!" Natasha cried, and her eyes glittered
coldly and vindictively. "Did you see her?" she added, after a pause.
"No, and if I had I shouldn't have recognized her."
They were silent for a while.
 "Oh, do you know? While you were talking in the study I was
looking at you," Natasha began, evidently anxious to disperse the cloud
that had come over them. "You are as like him as two peas—like the
boy." (She meant her little son.) "Oh, it's time to go to him.... The
milk's come.... But I'm sorry to leave you."
They were silent for a few seconds. Then suddenly turning to one
another at the same time they both began to speak. Pierre began with
self-satisfaction and enthusiasm, Natasha with a quiet, happy smile.
Having interrupted one another they both stopped to let the other
continue.
"No. What did you say? Go on, go on."
"No, you go on, I was talking nonsense," said Natasha.
Pierre finished what he had begun. It was the sequel to his
complacent reflections on his success in Petersburg. At that moment it
seemed to him that he was chosen to give a new direction to the whole
of Russian society and to the whole world.
"I only wished to say that ideas that have great results are always
simple ones. My whole idea is that if vicious people are united and
constitute a power, then honest folk must do the same. Now that's
simple enough."
"Yes."
"And what were you going to say?"
"I? Only nonsense."
"But all the same?"
"Oh nothing, only a trifle," said Natasha, smilingly still more
brightly. "I only wanted to tell you about Petya: today nurse was
coming to take him from me, and he laughed, shut his eyes, and clung
to me. I'm sure he thought he was hiding. Awfully sweet! There, now
he's crying. Well, good-by!" and she left the room.
Meanwhile downstairs in young Nicholas Bolkonski's bedroom a
little lamp was burning as usual. (The boy was afraid of the dark and
they could not cure him of it.) Dessalles slept propped up on four
pillows and his Roman nose emitted sounds of rhythmic snoring. Little
Nicholas, who had just waked up in a cold perspiration, sat up in bed
and gazed before him with wide-open eyes. He had awaked from a
terrible dream. He had dreamed that he and Uncle Pierre, wearing
helmets such as were depicted in his Plutarch, were leading a huge
army. The army was made up of white slanting lines that filled the air
like the cobwebs that float about in autumn and which Dessalles called
les fils de la Vierge. In front was Glory, which was similar to those
threads but rather thicker. He and Pierre were borne along lightly and
joyously, nearer and nearer to their goal. Suddenly the threads that
moved them began to slacken and become entangled and it grew
difficult to move. And Uncle Nicholas stood before them in a stern and
threatening attitude.
"Have you done this?" he said, pointing to some broken sealing wax
and pens. "I loved you, but I have orders from Arakcheev and will kill
the first of you who moves forward." Little Nicholas turned to look at
Pierre but Pierre was no longer there. In his place was his father—
Prince Andrew—and his father had neither shape nor form, but he
existed, and when little Nicholas perceived him he grew faint with
love: he felt himself powerless, limp, and formless. His father caressed
and pitied him. But Uncle Nicholas came nearer and nearer to them.
Terror seized young Nicholas and he awoke.
"My father!" he thought. (Though there were two good portraits of
Prince Andrew in the house, Nicholas never imagined him in human
form.) "My father has been with me and caressed me. He approved of
me and of Uncle Pierre. Whatever he may tell me, I will do it. Mucius
Scaevola burned his hand. Why should not the same sort of thing
happen to me? I know they want me to learn. And I will learn. But
someday I shall have finished learning, and then I will do something. I
only pray God that something may happen to me such as happened to
Plutarch's men, and I will act as they did. I will do better. Everyone
shall know me, love me, and be delighted with me!" And suddenly his
bosom heaved with sobs and he began to cry.
"Are you ill?" he heard Dessalles' voice asking.
"No," answered Nicholas, and lay back on his pillow.
"He is good and kind and I am fond of him!" he thought of Dessalles.
"But Uncle Pierre! Oh, what a wonderful man he is! And my father?
Oh, Father, Father! Yes, I will do something with which even he would
be satisfied...."

SECOND EPILOGUE
 CHAPTER I
History is the life of nations and of humanity. To seize and put into
words, to describe directly the life of humanity or even of a single
nation, appears impossible.
The ancient historians all employed one and the same method to
describe and seize the apparently elusive—the life of a people. They
described the activity of individuals who ruled the people, and regarded
the activity of those men as representing the activity of the whole
nation.
The question: how did individuals make nations act as they wished
and by what was the will of these individuals themselves guided? the
ancients met by recognizing a divinity which subjected the nations to
the will of a chosen man, and guided the will of that chosen man so as
to accomplish ends that were predestined.
For the ancients these questions were solved by a belief in the direct
participation of the Deity in human affairs.
Modern history, in theory, rejects both these principles.
It would seem that having rejected the belief of the ancients in man's
subjection to the Deity and in a predetermined aim toward which
nations are led, modern history should study not the manifestations of
power but the causes that produce it. But modern history has not done
this. Having in theory rejected the view held by the ancients, it still
follows them in practice.
Instead of men endowed with divine authority and directly guided by
the will of God, modern history has given us either heroes endowed
with extraordinary, superhuman capacities, or simply men of very
various kinds, from monarchs to journalists, who lead the masses.
Instead of the former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or
Roman nations, which ancient historians regarded as representing the
progress of humanity, modern history has postulated its own aims—the
welfare of the French, German, or English people, or, in its highest
abstraction, the welfare and civilization of humanity in general, by
which is usually meant that of the peoples occupying a small
northwesterly portion of a large continent.
Modern history has rejected the beliefs of the ancients without
replacing them by a new conception, and the logic of the situation has
obliged the historians, after they had apparently rejected the divine
authority of the kings and the "fate" of the ancients, to reach the same
conclusion by another road, that is, to recognize (1) nations guided by
individual men, and (2) the existence of a known aim to which these
nations and humanity at large are tending.
At the basis of the works of all the modern historians from Gibbon to
Buckle, despite their seeming disagreements and the apparent novelty
of their outlooks, lie those two old, unavoidable assumptions.
In the first place the historian describes the activity of individuals
who in his opinion have directed humanity (one historian considers
only monarchs, generals, and ministers as being such men, while
another includes also orators, learned men, reformers, philosophers,
and poets). Secondly, it is assumed that the goal toward which
humanity is being led is known to the historians: to one of them this
goal is the greatness of the Roman, Spanish, or French realm; to
another it is liberty, equality, and a certain kind of civilization of a
small corner of the world called Europe.
In 1789 a ferment arises in Paris; it grows, spreads, and is expressed
by a movement of peoples from west to east. Several times it moves
eastward and collides with a countermovement from the east westward.
In 1812 it reaches its extreme limit, Moscow, and then, with
remarkable symmetry, a countermovement occurs from east to west,
attracting to it, as the first movement had done, the nations of middle
Europe. The counter movement reaches the starting point of the first
movement in the west—Paris—and subsides.
During that twenty-year period an immense number of fields were
left untilled, houses were burned, trade changed its direction, millions
of men migrated, were impoverished, or were enriched, and millions of
Christian men professing the law of love of their fellows slew one
another.
What does all this mean? Why did it happen? What made those
people burn houses and slay their fellow men? What were the causes of
these events? What force made men act so? These are the instinctive,
plain, and most legitimate questions humanity asks itself when it
encounters the monuments and tradition of that period.
For a reply to these questions the common sense of mankind turns to
the science of history, whose aim is to enable nations and humanity to
know themselves.
If history had retained the conception of the ancients it would have
said that God, to reward or punish his people, gave Napoleon power
and directed his will to the fulfillment of the divine ends, and that reply,
would have been clear and complete. One might believe or disbelieve
in the divine significance of Napoleon, but for anyone believing in it
there would have been nothing unintelligible in the history of that
period, nor would there have been any contradictions.
 But modern history cannot give that reply. Science does not admit
the conception of the ancients as to the direct participation of the Deity
in human affairs, and therefore history ought to give other answers.
Modern history replying to these questions says: you want to know
what this movement means, what caused it, and what force produced
these events? Then listen:
"Louis XIV was a very proud and self-confident man; he had such
and such mistresses and such and such ministers and he ruled France
badly. His descendants were weak men and they too ruled France
badly. And they had such and such favorites and such and such
mistresses. Moreover, certain men wrote some books at that time. At
the end of the eighteenth century there were a couple of dozen men in
Paris who began to talk about all men being free and equal. This caused
people all over France to begin to slash at and drown one another. They
killed the king and many other people. At that time there was in France
a man of genius—Napoleon. He conquered everybody everywhere—
that is, he killed many people because he was a great genius. And for
some reason he went to kill Africans, and killed them so well and was
so cunning and wise that when he returned to France he ordered
everybody to obey him, and they all obeyed him. Having become an
Emperor he again went out to kill people in Italy, Austria, and Prussia.
And there too he killed a great many. In Russia there was an Emperor,
Alexander, who decided to restore order in Europe and therefore fought
against Napoleon. In 1807 he suddenly made friends with him, but in
1811 they again quarreled and again began killing many people.
Napoleon led six hundred thousand men into Russia and captured
Moscow; then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and the Emperor
Alexander, helped by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to
arm against the disturber of its peace. All Napoleon's allies suddenly
became his enemies and their forces advanced against the fresh forces
he raised. The Allies defeated Napoleon, entered Paris, forced
Napoleon to abdicate, and sent him to the island of Elba, not depriving
him of the title of Emperor and showing him every respect, though five
years before and one year later they all regarded him as an outlaw and a
brigand. Then Louis XVIII, who till then had been the laughingstock
both of the French and the Allies, began to reign. And Napoleon,
shedding tears before his Old Guards, renounced the throne and went
into exile. Then the skillful statesmen and diplomatists (especially
Talleyrand, who managed to sit down in a particular chair before
anyone else and thereby extended the frontiers of France) talked in
Vienna and by these conversations made the nations happy or unhappy.
Suddenly the diplomatists and monarchs nearly quarreled and were on
the point of again ordering their armies to kill one another, but just then
Napoleon arrived in France with a battalion, and the French, who had
been hating him, immediately all submitted to him. But the Allied
monarchs were angry at this and went to fight the French once more.
And they defeated the genius Napoleon and, suddenly recognizing him
as a brigand, sent him to the island of St. Helena. And the exile,
separated from the beloved France so dear to his heart, died a lingering
death on that rock and bequeathed his great deeds to posterity. But in
Europe a reaction occurred and the sovereigns once again all began to
oppress their subjects."
It would be a mistake to think that this is ironic—a caricature of the
historical accounts. On the contrary it is a very mild expression of the
contradictory replies, not meeting the questions, which all the historians
give, from the compilers of memoirs and the histories of separate states
to the writers of general histories and the new histories of the culture of
that period.
The strangeness and absurdity of these replies arise from the fact that
modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one has asked.
If the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of
humanity and of the peoples, the first question—in the absence of a
reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible—is: what is the
power that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies
either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very
proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books.
All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not
what was asked. All that would be interesting if we recognized a divine
power based on itself and always consistently directing its nations
through Napoleons, Louis-es, and writers; but we do not acknowledge
such a power, and therefore before speaking about Napoleons, Louis-
es, and authors, we ought to be shown the connection existing between
these men and the movement of the nations.
If instead of a divine power some other force has appeared, it should
be explained in what this new force consists, for the whole interest of
history lies precisely in that force.
History seems to assume that this force is self-evident and known to
everyone. But in spite of every desire to regard it as known, anyone
reading many historical works cannot help doubting whether this new
force, so variously understood by the historians themselves, is really
quite well known to everybody.

CHAPTER II
 What force moves the nations?
Biographical historians and historians of separate nations understand
this force as a power inherent in heroes and rulers. In their narration
events occur solely by the will of a Napoleon, and Alexander, or in
general of the persons they describe. The answers given by this kind of
historian to the question of what force causes events to happen are
satisfactory only as long as there is but one historian to each event. As
soon as historians of different nationalities and tendencies begin to
describe the same event, the replies they give immediately lose all
meaning, for this force is understood by them all not only differently
but often in quite contradictory ways. One historian says that an event
was produced by Napoleon's power, another that it was produced by
Alexander's, a third that it was due to the power of some other person.
Besides this, historians of that kind contradict each other even in their
statement as to the force on which the authority of some particular
person was based. Thiers, a Bonapartist, says that Napoleon's power
was based on his virtue and genius. Lanfrey, a Republican, says it was
based on his trickery and deception of the people. So the historians of
this class, by mutually destroying one another's positions, destroy the
understanding of the force which produces events, and furnish no reply
to history's essential question.
Writers of universal history who deal with all the nations seem to
recognize how erroneous is the specialist historians' view of the force
which produces events. They do not recognize it as a power inherent in
heroes and rulers, but as the resultant of a multiplicity of variously
directed forces. In describing a war or the subjugation of a people, a
general historian looks for the cause of the event not in the power of
one man, but in the interaction of many persons connected with the
event.
According to this view the power of historical personages,
represented as the product of many forces, can no longer, it would
seem, be regarded as a force that itself produces events. Yet in most
cases universal historians still employ the conception of power as a
force that itself produces events, and treat it as their cause. In their
exposition, an historic character is first the product of his time, and his
power only the resultant of various forces, and then his power is itself a
force producing events. Gervinus, Schlosser, and others, for instance, at
one time prove Napoleon to be a product of the Revolution, of the ideas
of 1789 and so forth, and at another plainly say that the campaign of
1812 and other things they do not like were simply the product of
Napoleon's misdirected will, and that the very ideas of 1789 were
arrested in their development by Napoleon's caprice. The ideas of the
Revolution and the general temper of the age produced Napoleon's
power. But Napoleon's power suppressed the ideas of the Revolution
and the general temper of the age.
 This curious contradiction is not accidental. Not only does it occur at
every step, but the universal historians' accounts are all made up of a
chain of such contradictions. This contradiction occurs because after
entering the field of analysis the universal historians stop halfway.
To find component forces equal to the composite or resultant force,
the sum of the components must equal the resultant. This condition is
never observed by the universal historians, and so to explain the
resultant forces they are obliged to admit, in addition to the insufficient
components, another unexplained force affecting the resultant action.
Specialist historians describing the campaign of 1813 or the
restoration of the Bourbons plainly assert that these events were
produced by the will of Alexander. But the universal historian
Gervinus, refuting this opinion of the specialist historian, tries to prove
that the campaign of 1813 and the restoration of the Bourbons were due
to other things beside Alexander's will—such as the activity of Stein,
Metternich, Madame de Stael, Talleyrand, Fichte Chateaubriand, and
others. The historian evidently decomposes Alexander's power into the
components: Talleyrand, Chateaubriand, and the rest—but the sum of
the components, that is, the interactions of Chateaubriand, Talleyrand,
Madame de Stael, and the others, evidently does not equal the resultant,
namely the phenomenon of millions of Frenchmen submitting to the
Bourbons. That Chateaubriand, Madame de Stael, and others spoke
certain words to one another only affected their mutual relations but
does not account for the submission of millions. And therefore to
explain how from these relations of theirs the submission of millions of
people resulted—that is, how component forces equal to one A gave a
resultant equal to a thousand times A—the historian is again obliged to
fall back on power—the force he had denied—and to recognize it as the
resultant of the forces, that is, he has to admit an unexplained force
acting on the resultant. And that is just what the universal historians do,
and consequently they not only contradict the specialist historians but
contradict themselves.
Peasants having no clear idea of the cause of rain, say, according to
whether they want rain or fine weather: "The wind has blown the
clouds away," or, "The wind has brought up the clouds." And in the
same way the universal historians sometimes, when it pleases them and
fits in with their theory, say that power is the result of events, and
sometimes, when they want to prove something else, say that power
produces events.
A third class of historians—the so-called historians of culture—
following the path laid down by the universal historians who
sometimes accept writers and ladies as forces producing events—again
take that force to be something quite different. They see it in what is
called culture—in mental activity.
 The historians of culture are quite consistent in regard to their
progenitors, the writers of universal histories, for if historical events
may be explained by the fact that certain persons treated one another in
such and such ways, why not explain them by the fact that such and
such people wrote such and such books? Of the immense number of
indications accompanying every vital phenomenon, these historians
select the indication of intellectual activity and say that this indication
is the cause. But despite their endeavors to prove that the cause of
events lies in intellectual activity, only by a great stretch can one admit
that there is any connection between intellectual activity and the
movement of peoples, and in no case can one admit that intellectual
activity controls people's actions, for that view is not confirmed by such
facts as the very cruel murders of the French Revolution resulting from
the doctrine of the equality of man, or the very cruel wars and
executions resulting from the preaching of love.
But even admitting as correct all the cunningly devised arguments
with which these histories are filled—admitting that nations are
governed by some undefined force called an idea—history's essential
question still remains unanswered, and to the former power of
monarchs and to the influence of advisers and other people introduced
by the universal historians, another, newer force—the idea—is added,
the connection of which with the masses needs explanation. It is
possible to understand that Napoleon had power and so events
occurred; with some effort one may even conceive that Napoleon
together with other influences was the cause of an event; but how a
book, Le Contrat social, had the effect of making Frenchmen begin to
drown one another cannot be understood without an explanation of the
causal nexus of this new force with the event.
Undoubtedly some relation exists between all who live
contemporaneously, and so it is possible to find some connection
between the intellectual activity of men and their historical movements,
just as such a connection may be found between the movements of
humanity and commerce, handicraft, gardening, or anything else you
please. But why intellectual activity is considered by the historians of
culture to be the cause or expression of the whole historical movement
is hard to understand. Only the following considerations can have led
the historians to such a conclusion: (1) that history is written by learned
men, and so it is natural and agreeable for them to think that the activity
of their class supplies the basis of the movement of all humanity, just as
a similar belief is natural and agreeable to traders, agriculturists, and
soldiers (if they do not express it, that is merely because traders and
soldiers do not write history), and (2) that spiritual activity,
enlightenment, civilization, culture, ideas, are all indistinct, indefinite
conceptions under whose banner it is very easy to use words having a
still less definite meaning, and which can therefore be readily
introduced into any theory.
But not to speak of the intrinsic quality of histories of this kind
(which may possibly even be of use to someone for something) the
histories of culture, to which all general histories tend more and more
to approximate, are significant from the fact that after seriously and
minutely examining various religious, philosophic, and political
doctrines as causes of events, as soon as they have to describe an actual
historic event such as the campaign of 1812 for instance, they
involuntarily describe it as resulting from an exercise of power—and
say plainly that that was the result of Napoleon's will. Speaking so, the
historians of culture involuntarily contradict themselves, and show that
the new force they have devised does not account for what happens in
history, and that history can only be explained by introducing a power
which they apparently do not recognize.

CHAPTER III
A locomotive is moving. Someone asks: "What moves it?" A peasant
says the devil moves it. Another man says the locomotive moves
because its wheels go round. A third asserts that the cause of its
movement lies in the smoke which the wind carries away.
The peasant is irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation.
To refute him someone would have to prove to him that there is no
devil, or another peasant would have to explain to him that it is not the
devil but a German, who moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result
of the contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. But the man
who says that the movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself,
for having once begun to analyze he ought to go on and explain further
why the wheels go round; and till he has reached the ultimate cause of
the movement of the locomotive in the pressure of steam in the boiler,
he has no right to stop in his search for the cause. The man who
explains the movement of the locomotive by the smoke that is carried
back has noticed that the wheels do not supply an explanation and has
taken the first sign that occurs to him and in his turn has offered that as
an explanation.
The only conception that can explain the movement of the
locomotive is that of a force commensurate with the movement
observed.
 The only conception that can explain the movement of the peoples is
that of some force commensurate with the whole movement of the
peoples.
Yet to supply this conception various historians take forces of
different kinds, all of which are incommensurate with the movement
observed. Some see it as a force directly inherent in heroes, as the
peasant sees the devil in the locomotive; others as a force resulting
from several other forces, like the movement of the wheels; others
again as an intellectual influence, like the smoke that is blown away.
So long as histories are written of separate individuals, whether
Caesars, Alexanders, Luthers, or Voltaires, and not the histories of all,
absolutely all those who take part in an event, it is quite impossible to
describe the movement of humanity without the conception of a force
compelling men to direct their activity toward a certain end. And the
only such conception known to historians is that of power.
This conception is the one handle by means of which the material of
history, as at present expounded, can be dealt with, and anyone who
breaks that handle off, as Buckle did, without finding some other
method of treating historical material, merely deprives himself of the
one possible way of dealing with it. The necessity of the conception of
power as an explanation of historical events is best demonstrated by the
universal historians and historians of culture themselves, for they
professedly reject that conception but inevitably have recourse to it at
every step.
In dealing with humanity's inquiry, the science of history up to now
is like money in circulation—paper money and coin. The biographies
and special national histories are like paper money. They can be used
and can circulate and fulfill their purpose without harm to anyone and
even advantageously, as long as no one asks what is the security behind
them. You need only forget to ask how the will of heroes produces
events, and such histories as Thiers' will be interesting and instructive
and may perhaps even possess a tinge of poetry. But just as doubts of
the real value of paper money arise either because, being easy to make,
too much of it gets made or because people try to exchange it for gold,
so also doubts concerning the real value of such histories arise either
because too many of them are written or because in his simplicity of
heart someone inquires: by what force did Napoleon do this?—that is,
wants to exchange the current paper money for the real gold of actual
comprehension.
The writers of universal histories and of the history of culture are
like people who, recognizing the defects of paper money, decide to
substitute for it money made of metal that has not the specific gravity
of gold. It may indeed make jingling coin, but will do no more than
that. Paper money may deceive the ignorant, but nobody is deceived by
tokens of base metal that have no value but merely jingle. As gold is
gold only if it is serviceable not merely for exchange but also for use,
so universal historians will be valuable only when they can reply to
history's essential question: what is power? The universal historians
give contradictory replies to that question, while the historians of
culture evade it and answer something quite different. And as counters
of imitation gold can be used only among a group of people who agree
to accept them as gold, or among those who do not know the nature of
gold, so universal historians and historians of culture, not answering
humanity's essential question, serve as currency for some purposes of
their own, only in universities and among the mass of readers who have
a taste for what they call "serious reading."

CHAPTER IV
Having abandoned the conception of the ancients as to the divine
subjection of the will of a nation to some chosen man and the
subjection of that man's will to the Deity, history cannot without
contradictions take a single step till it has chosen one of two things:
either a return to the former belief in the direct intervention of the Deity
in human affairs or a definite explanation of the meaning of the force
producing historical events and termed "power."
A return to the first is impossible, the belief has been destroyed; and
so it is essential to explain what is meant by power.
Napoleon ordered an army to be raised and go to war. We are so
accustomed to that idea and have become so used to it that the question:
why did six hundred thousand men go to fight when Napoleon uttered
certain words, seems to us senseless. He had the power and so what he
ordered was done.
This reply is quite satisfactory if we believe that the power was given
him by God. But as soon as we do not admit that, it becomes essential
to determine what is this power of one man over others.
It cannot be the direct physical power of a strong man over a weak
one—a domination based on the application or threat of physical force,
like the power of Hercules; nor can it be based on the effect of moral
force, as in their simplicity some historians think who say that the
leading figures in history are heroes, that is, men gifted with a special
strength of soul and mind called genius. This power cannot be based on
the predominance of moral strength, for, not to mention heroes such as
Napoleon about whose moral qualities opinions differ widely, history
shows us that neither a Louis XI nor a Metternich, who ruled over
millions of people, had any particular moral qualities, but on the
contrary were generally morally weaker than any of the millions they
ruled over.
If the source of power lies neither in the physical nor in the moral
qualities of him who possesses it, it must evidently be looked for
elsewhere—in the relation to the people of the man who wields the
power.
And that is how power is understood by the science of jurisprudence,
that exchange bank of history which offers to exchange history's
understanding of power for true gold.
Power is the collective will of the people transferred, by expressed or
tacit consent, to their chosen rulers.
In the domain of jurisprudence, which consists of discussions of how
a state and power might be arranged were it possible for all that to be
arranged, it is all very clear; but when applied to history that definition
of power needs explanation.
The science of jurisprudence regards the state and power as the
ancients regarded fire—namely, as something existing absolutely. But
for history, the state and power are merely phenomena, just as for
modern physics fire is not an element but a phenomenon.
From this fundamental difference between the view held by history
and that held by jurisprudence, it follows that jurisprudence can tell
minutely how in its opinion power should be constituted and what
power—existing immutably outside time—is, but to history's questions
about the meaning of the mutations of power in time it can answer
nothing.
If power be the collective will of the people transferred to their ruler,
was Pugachev a representative of the will of the people? If not, then
why was Napoleon I? Why was Napoleon III a criminal when he was
taken prisoner at Boulogne, and why, later on, were those criminals
whom he arrested?
Do palace revolutions—in which sometimes only two or three people
take part—transfer the will of the people to a new ruler? In
international relations, is the will of the people also transferred to their
conqueror? Was the will of the Confederation of the Rhine transferred
to Napoleon in 1806? Was the will of the Russian people transferred to
Napoleon in 1809, when our army in alliance with the French went to
fight the Austrians?
To these questions three answers are possible:
 Either to assume (1) that the will of the people is always
unconditionally transferred to the ruler or rulers they have chosen, and
that therefore every emergence of a new power, every struggle against
the power once appointed, should be absolutely regarded as an
infringement of the real power; or (2) that the will of the people is
transferred to the rulers conditionally, under definite and known
conditions, and to show that all limitations, conflicts, and even
destructions of power result from a nonobservance by the rulers of the
conditions under which their power was entrusted to them; or (3) that
the will of the people is delegated to the rulers conditionally, but that
the conditions are unknown and indefinite, and that the appearance of
several authorities, their struggles and their falls, result solely from the
greater or lesser fulfillment by the rulers of these unknown conditions
on which the will of the people is transferred from some people to
others.
And these are the three ways in which the historians do explain the
relation of the people to their rulers.
Some historians—those biographical and specialist historians already
referred to—in their simplicity failing to understand the question of the
meaning of power, seem to consider that the collective will of the
people is unconditionally transferred to historical persons, and therefore
when describing some single state they assume that particular power to
be the one absolute and real power, and that any other force opposing
this is not a power but a violation of power—mere violence.
Their theory, suitable for primitive and peaceful periods of history,
has the inconvenience—in application to complex and stormy periods
in the life of nations during which various powers arise simultaneously
and struggle with one another—that a Legitimist historian will prove
that the National Convention, the Directory, and Bonaparte were mere
infringers of the true power, while a Republican and a Bonapartist will
prove: the one that the Convention and the other that the Empire was
the real power, and that all the others were violations of power.
Evidently the explanations furnished by these historians being mutually
contradictory can only satisfy young children.
Recognizing the falsity of this view of history, another set of
historians say that power rests on a conditional delegation of the will of
the people to their rulers, and that historical leaders have power only
conditionally on carrying out the program that the will of the people
has by tacit agreement prescribed to them. But what this program
consists in these historians do not say, or if they do they continually
contradict one another.
Each historian, according to his view of what constitutes a nation's
progress, looks for these conditions in the greatness, wealth, freedom,
or enlightenment of citizens of France or some other country. But not to
mention the historians' contradictions as to the nature of this program—
or even admitting that some one general program of these conditions
exists—the facts of history almost always contradict that theory. If the
conditions under which power is entrusted consist in the wealth,
freedom, and enlightenment of the people, how is it that Louis XIV and
Ivan the Terrible end their reigns tranquilly, while Louis XVI and
Charles I are executed by their people? To this question historians reply
that Louis XIV's activity, contrary to the program, reacted on Louis
XVI. But why did it not react on Louis XIV or on Louis XV—why
should it react just on Louis XVI? And what is the time limit for such
reactions? To these questions there are and can be no answers. Equally
little does this view explain why for several centuries the collective will
is not withdrawn from certain rulers and their heirs, and then suddenly
during a period of fifty years is transferred to the Convention, to the
Directory, to Napoleon, to Alexander, to Louis XVIII, to Napoleon
again, to Charles X, to Louis Philippe, to a Republican government,
and to Napoleon III. When explaining these rapid transfers of the
people's will from one individual to another, especially in view of
international relations, conquests, and alliances, the historians are
obliged to admit that some of these transfers are not normal delegations
of the people's will but are accidents dependent on cunning, on
mistakes, on craft, or on the weakness of a diplomatist, a ruler, or a
party leader. So that the greater part of the events of history—civil
wars, revolutions, and conquests—are presented by these historians not
as the results of free transferences of the people's will, but as results of
the ill-directed will of one or more individuals, that is, once again, as
usurpations of power. And so these historians also see and admit
historical events which are exceptions to the theory.
These historians resemble a botanist who, having noticed that some
plants grow from seeds producing two cotyledons, should insist that all
that grows does so by sprouting into two leaves, and that the palm, the
mushroom, and even the oak, which blossom into full growth and no
longer resemble two leaves, are deviations from the theory.
Historians of the third class assume that the will of the people is
transferred to historic personages conditionally, but that the conditions
are unknown to us. They say that historical personages have power
only because they fulfill the will of the people which has been
delegated to them.
But in that case, if the force that moves nations lies not in the historic
leaders but in the nations themselves, what significance have those
leaders?
The leaders, these historians tell us, express the will of the people:
the activity of the leaders represents the activity of the people.
 But in that case the question arises whether all the activity of the
leaders serves as an expression of the people's will or only some part of
it. If the whole activity of the leaders serves as the expression of the
people's will, as some historians suppose, then all the details of the
court scandals contained in the biographies of a Napoleon or a
Catherine serve to express the life of the nation, which is evident
nonsense; but if it is only some particular side of the activity of an
historical leader which serves to express the people's life, as other so-
called "philosophical" historians believe, then to determine which side
of the activity of a leader expresses the nation's life, we have first of all
to know in what the nation's life consists.
Met by this difficulty historians of that class devise some most
obscure, impalpable, and general abstraction which can cover all
conceivable occurrences, and declare this abstraction to be the aim of
humanity's movement. The most usual generalizations adopted by
almost all the historians are: freedom, equality, enlightenment,
progress, civilization, and culture. Postulating some generalization as
the goal of the movement of humanity, the historians study the men of
whom the greatest number of monuments have remained: kings,
ministers, generals, authors, reformers, popes, and journalists, to the
extent to which in their opinion these persons have promoted or
hindered that abstraction. But as it is in no way proved that the aim of
humanity does consist in freedom, equality, enlightenment, or
civilization, and as the connection of the people with the rulers and
enlighteners of humanity is only based on the arbitrary assumption that
the collective will of the people is always transferred to the men whom
we have noticed, it happens that the activity of the millions who
migrate, burn houses, abandon agriculture, and destroy one another
never is expressed in the account of the activity of some dozen people
who did not burn houses, practice agriculture, or slay their fellow
creatures.
History proves this at every turn. Is the ferment of the peoples of the
west at the end of the eighteenth century and their drive eastward
explained by the activity of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, their mistresses
and ministers, and by the lives of Napoleon, Rousseau, Diderot,
Beaumarchais, and others?
Is the movement of the Russian people eastward to Kazan and
Siberia expressed by details of the morbid character of Ivan the Terrible
and by his correspondence with Kurbski?
Is the movement of the peoples at the time of the Crusades explained
by the life and activity of the Godfreys and the Louis-es and their
ladies? For us that movement of the peoples from west to east, without
leaders, with a crowd of vagrants, and with Peter the Hermit, remains
incomprehensible. And yet more incomprehensible is the cessation of
that movement when a rational and sacred aim for the Crusade—the
deliverance of Jerusalem—had been clearly defined by historic leaders.
Popes, kings, and knights incited the peoples to free the Holy Land; but
the people did not go, for the unknown cause which had previously
impelled them to go no longer existed. The history of the Godfreys and
the Minnesingers can evidently not cover the life of the peoples. And
the history of the Godfreys and the Minnesingers has remained the
history of Godfreys and Minnesingers, but the history of the life of the
peoples and their impulses has remained unknown.
Still less does the history of authors and reformers explain to us the
life of the peoples.
The history of culture explains to us the impulses and conditions of
life and thought of a writer or a reformer. We learn that Luther had a
hot temper and said such and such things; we learn that Rousseau was
suspicious and wrote such and such books; but we do not learn why
after the Reformation the peoples massacred one another, nor why
during the French Revolution they guillotined one another.
If we unite both these kinds of history, as is done by the newest
historians, we shall have the history of monarchs and writers, but not
the history of the life of the peoples.

CHAPTER V
The life of the nations is not contained in the lives of a few men, for
the connection between those men and the nations has not been found.
The theory that this connection is based on the transference of the
collective will of a people to certain historical personages is an
hypothesis unconfirmed by the experience of history.
The theory of the transference of the collective will of the people to
historic persons may perhaps explain much in the domain of
jurisprudence and be essential for its purposes, but in its application to
history, as soon as revolutions, conquests, or civil wars occur—that is,
as soon as history begins—that theory explains nothing.
The theory seems irrefutable just because the act of transference of
the people's will cannot be verified, for it never occurred.
Whatever happens and whoever may stand at the head of affairs, the
theory can always say that such and such a person took the lead
because the collective will was transferred to him.
 The replies this theory gives to historical questions are like the
replies of a man who, watching the movements of a herd of cattle and
paying no attention to the varying quality of the pasturage in different
parts of the field, or to the driving of the herdsman, should attribute the
direction the herd takes to what animal happens to be at its head.
"The herd goes in that direction because the animal in front leads it
and the collective will of all the other animals is vested in that leader."
This is what historians of the first class say—those who assume the
unconditional transference of the people's will.
"If the animals leading the herd change, this happens because the
collective will of all the animals is transferred from one leader to
another, according to whether the animal is or is not leading them in the
direction selected by the whole herd." Such is the reply historians who
assume that the collective will of the people is delegated to rulers under
conditions which they regard as known. (With this method of
observation it often happens that the observer, influenced by the
direction he himself prefers, regards those as leaders who, owing to the
people's change of direction, are no longer in front, but on one side, or
even in the rear.)
"If the animals in front are continually changing and the direction of
the whole herd is constantly altered, this is because in order to follow a
given direction the animals transfer their will to the animals that have
attracted our attention, and to study the movements of the herd we must
watch the movements of all the prominent animals moving on all sides
of the herd." So say the third class of historians who regard all
historical persons, from monarchs to journalists, as the expression of
their age.
The theory of the transference of the will of the people to historic
persons is merely a paraphrase—a restatement of the question in other
words.
What causes historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the
collective will of the people transferred to one person. Under what
condition is the will of the people delegated to one person? On
condition that that person expresses the will of the whole people. That
is, power is power: in other words, power is a word the meaning of
which we do not understand.
If the realm of human knowledge were confined to abstract
reasoning, then having subjected to criticism the explanation of
"power" that juridical science gives us, humanity would conclude that
power is merely a word and has no real existence. But to understand
phenomena man has, besides abstract reasoning, experience by which
he verifies his reflections. And experience tells us that power is not
merely a word but an actually existing phenomenon.
 Not to speak of the fact that no description of the collective activity
of men can do without the conception of power, the existence of power
is proved both by history and by observing contemporary events.
Whenever an event occurs a man appears or men appear, by whose
will the event seems to have taken place. Napoleon III issues a decree
and the French go to Mexico. The King of Prussia and Bismarck issue
decrees and an army enters Bohemia. Napoleon I issues a decree and an
army enters Russia. Alexander I gives a command and the French
submit to the Bourbons. Experience shows us that whatever event
occurs it is always related to the will of one or of several men who have
decreed it.
The historians, in accord with the old habit of acknowledging divine
intervention in human affairs, want to see the cause of events in the
expression of the will of someone endowed with power, but that
supposition is not confirmed either by reason or by experience.
On the one side reflection shows that the expression of a man's
will—his words—are only part of the general activity expressed in an
event, as for instance in a war or a revolution, and so without assuming
an incomprehensible, supernatural force—a miracle—one cannot admit
that words can be the immediate cause of the movements of millions of
men. On the other hand, even if we admitted that words could be the
cause of events, history shows that the expression of the will of
historical personages does not in most cases produce any effect, that is
to say, their commands are often not executed, and sometimes the very
opposite of what they order occurs.
Without admitting divine intervention in the affairs of humanity we
cannot regard "power" as the cause of events.
Power, from the standpoint of experience, is merely the relation that
exists between the expression of someone's will and the execution of
that will by others.
To explain the conditions of that relationship we must first establish
a conception of the expression of will, referring it to man and not to the
Deity.
If the Deity issues a command, expresses His will, as ancient history
tells us, the expression of that will is independent of time and is not
caused by anything, for the Divinity is not controlled by an event. But
speaking of commands that are the expression of the will of men acting
in time and in relation to one another, to explain the connection of
commands with events we must restore: (1) the condition of all that
takes place: the continuity of movement in time both of the events and
of the person who commands, and (2) the inevitability of the
connection between the person commanding and those who execute his
command.

CHAPTER VI
Only the expression of the will of the Deity, not dependent on time,
can relate to a whole series of events occurring over a period of years
or centuries, and only the Deity, independent of everything, can by His
sole will determine the direction of humanity's movement; but man acts
in time and himself takes part in what occurs.
Reinstating the first condition omitted, that of time, we see that no
command can be executed without some preceding order having been
given rendering the execution of the last command possible.
No command ever appears spontaneously, or itself covers a whole
series of occurrences; but each command follows from another, and
never refers to a whole series of events but always to one moment only
of an event.
When, for instance, we say that Napoleon ordered armies to go to
war, we combine in one simultaneous expression a whole series of
consecutive commands dependent one on another. Napoleon could not
have commanded an invasion of Russia and never did so. Today he
ordered such and such papers to be written to Vienna, to Berlin, and to
Petersburg; tomorrow such and such decrees and orders to the army,
the fleet, the commissariat, and so on and so on—millions of
commands, which formed a whole series corresponding to a series of
events which brought the French armies into Russia.
If throughout his reign Napoleon gave commands concerning an
invasion of England and expended on no other undertaking so much
time and effort, and yet during his whole reign never once attempted to
execute that design but undertook an expedition into Russia, with
which country he considered it desirable to be in alliance (a conviction
he repeatedly expressed)—this came about because his commands did
not correspond to the course of events in the first case, but did so
correspond in the latter.
For an order to be certainly executed, it is necessary that a man
should order what can be executed. But to know what can and what
cannot be executed is impossible, not only in the case of Napoleon's
invasion of Russia in which millions participated, but even in the
simplest event, for in either case millions of obstacles may arise to
prevent its execution. Every order executed is always one of an
immense number unexecuted. All the impossible orders inconsistent
with the course of events remain unexecuted. Only the possible ones
get linked up with a consecutive series of commands corresponding to a
series of events, and are executed.
Our false conception that an event is caused by a command which
precedes it is due to the fact that when the event has taken place and out
of thousands of others those few commands which were consistent with
that event have been executed, we forget about the others that were not
executed because they could not be. Apart from that, the chief source of
our error in this matter is due to the fact that in the historical accounts a
whole series of innumerable, diverse, and petty events, such for
instance as all those which led the French armies to Russia, is
generalized into one event in accord with the result produced by that
series of events, and corresponding with this generalization the whole
series of commands is also generalized into a single expression of will.
We say that Napoleon wished to invade Russia and invaded it. In
reality in all Napoleon's activity we never find anything resembling an
expression of that wish, but find a series of orders, or expressions of his
will, very variously and indefinitely directed. Amid a long series of
unexecuted orders of Napoleon's one series, for the campaign of 1812,
was carried out—not because those orders differed in any way from the
other, unexecuted orders but because they coincided with the course of
events that led the French army into Russia; just as in stencil work this
or that figure comes out not because the color was laid on from this
side or in that way, but because it was laid on from all sides over the
figure cut in the stencil.
So that examining the relation in time of the commands to the events,
we find that a command can never be the cause of the event, but that a
certain definite dependence exists between the two.
To understand in what this dependence consists it is necessary to
reinstate another omitted condition of every command proceeding not
from the Deity but from a man, which is, that the man who gives the
command himself takes part in the event.
This relation of the commander to those he commands is just what is
called power. This relation consists in the following:
For common action people always unite in certain combinations, in
which regardless of the difference of the aims set for the common
action, the relation between those taking part in it is always the same.
Men uniting in these combinations always assume such relations
toward one another that the larger number take a more direct share, and
the smaller number a less direct share, in the collective action for which
they have combined.
Of all the combinations in which men unite for collective action one
of the most striking and definite examples is an army.
Every army is composed of lower grades of the service—the rank
and file—of whom there are always the greatest number; of the next
higher military rank—corporals and noncommissioned officers of
whom there are fewer, and of still-higher officers of whom there are
still fewer, and so on to the highest military command which is
concentrated in one person.
A military organization may be quite correctly compared to a cone,
of which the base with the largest diameter consists of the rank and file;
the next higher and smaller section of the cone consists of the next
higher grades of the army, and so on to the apex, the point of which
will represent the commander in chief.
The soldiers, of whom there are the most, form the lower section of
the cone and its base. The soldier himself does the stabbing, hacking,
burning, and pillaging, and always receives orders for these actions
from men above him; he himself never gives an order. The
noncommissioned officers (of whom there are fewer) perform the
action itself less frequently than the soldiers, but they already give
commands. An officer still less often acts directly himself, but
commands still more frequently. A general does nothing but command
the troops, indicates the objective, and hardly ever uses a weapon
himself. The commander in chief never takes direct part in the action
itself, but only gives general orders concerning the movement of the
mass of the troops. A similar relation of people to one another is seen in
every combination of men for common activity—in agriculture, trade,
and every administration.
And so without particularly analyzing all the contiguous sections of a
cone and of the ranks of an army, or the ranks and positions in any
administrative or public business whatever from the lowest to the
highest, we see a law by which men, to take associated action, combine
in such relations that the more directly they participate in performing
the action the less they can command and the more numerous they are,
while the less their direct participation in the action itself, the more they
command and the fewer of them there are; rising in this way from the
lowest ranks to the man at the top, who takes the least direct share in
the action and directs his activity chiefly to commanding.
This relation of the men who command to those they command is
what constitutes the essence of the conception called power.
 Having restored the condition of time under which all events occur,
we find that a command is executed only when it is related to a
corresponding series of events. Restoring the essential condition of
relation between those who command and those who execute, we find
that by the very nature of the case those who command take the
smallest part in the action itself and that their activity is exclusively
directed to commanding.

CHAPTER VII
When an event is taking place people express their opinions and
wishes about it, and as the event results from the collective activity of
many people, some one of the opinions or wishes expressed is sure to
be fulfilled if but approximately. When one of the opinions expressed is
fulfilled, that opinion gets connected with the event as a command
preceding it.
Men are hauling a log. Each of them expresses his opinion as to how
and where to haul it. They haul the log away, and it happens that this is
done as one of them said. He ordered it. There we have command and
power in their primary form. The man who worked most with his hands
could not think so much about what he was doing, or reflect on or
command what would result from the common activity; while the man
who commanded more would evidently work less with his hands on
account of his greater verbal activity.
When some larger concourse of men direct their activity to a
common aim there is a yet sharper division of those who, because their
activity is given to directing and commanding, take less part in the
direct work.
When a man works alone he always has a certain set of reflections
which as it seems to him directed his past activity, justify his present
activity, and guide him in planning his future actions. Just the same is
done by a concourse of people, allowing those who do not take a direct
part in the activity to devise considerations, justifications, and surmises
concerning their collective activity.
For reasons known or unknown to us the French began to drown and
kill one another. And corresponding to the event its justification
appears in people's belief that this was necessary for the welfare of
France, for liberty, and for equality. People ceased to kill one another,
and this event was accompanied by its justification in the necessity for
a centralization of power, resistance to Europe, and so on. Men went
from the west to the east killing their fellow men, and the event was
accompanied by phrases about the glory of France, the baseness of
England, and so on. History shows us that these justifications of the
events have no common sense and are all contradictory, as in the case
of killing a man as the result of recognizing his rights, and the killing of
millions in Russia for the humiliation of England. But these
justifications have a very necessary significance in their own day.
These justifications release those who produce the events from moral
responsibility. These temporary aims are like the broom fixed in front
of a locomotive to clear the snow from the rails in front: they clear
men's moral responsibilities from their path.
Without such justification there would be no reply to the simplest
question that presents itself when examining each historical event. How
is it that millions of men commit collective crimes—make war, commit
murder, and so on?
With the present complex forms of political and social life in Europe
can any event that is not prescribed, decreed, or ordered by monarchs,
ministers, parliaments, or newspapers be imagined? Is there any
collective action which cannot find its justification in political unity, in
patriotism, in the balance of power, or in civilization? So that every
event that occurs inevitably coincides with some expressed wish and,
receiving a justification, presents itself as the result of the will of one
man or of several men.
In whatever direction a ship moves, the flow of the waves it cuts will
always be noticeable ahead of it. To those on board the ship the
movement of those waves will be the only perceptible motion.
Only by watching closely moment by moment the movement of that
flow and comparing it with the movement of the ship do we convince
ourselves that every bit of it is occasioned by the forward movement of
the ship, and that we were led into error by the fact that we ourselves
were imperceptibly moving.
We see the same if we watch moment by moment the movement of
historical characters (that is, re-establish the inevitable condition of all
that occurs—the continuity of movement in time) and do not lose sight
of the essential connection of historical persons with the masses.
When the ship moves in one direction there is one and the same
wave ahead of it, when it turns frequently the wave ahead of it also
turns frequently. But wherever it may turn there always will be the
wave anticipating its movement.
Whatever happens it always appears that just that event was foreseen
and decreed. Wherever the ship may go, the rush of water which
neither directs nor increases its movement foams ahead of it, and at a
distance seems to us not merely to move of itself but to govern the
ship's movement also.
Examining only those expressions of the will of historical persons
which, as commands, were related to events, historians have assumed
that the events depended on those commands. But examining the events
themselves and the connection in which the historical persons stood to
the people, we have found that they and their orders were dependent on
events. The incontestable proof of this deduction is that, however many
commands were issued, the event does not take place unless there are
other causes for it, but as soon as an event occurs—be it what it may—
then out of all the continually expressed wishes of different people
some will always be found which by their meaning and their time of
utterance are related as commands to the events.
Arriving at this conclusion we can reply directly and positively to
these two essential questions of history:
(1) What is power?
(2) What force produces the movement of the nations?
(1) Power is the relation of a given person to other individuals, in
which the more this person expresses opinions, predictions, and
justifications of the collective action that is performed, the less is his
participation in that action.
(2) The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by
intellectual activity, nor even by a combination of the two as historians
have supposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in
the events, and who always combine in such a way that those taking the
largest direct share in the event take on themselves the least
responsibility and vice versa.
Morally the wielder of power appears to cause the event; physically
it is those who submit to the power. But as the moral activity is
inconceivable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in
the one nor in the other but in the union of the two.
Or in other words, the conception of a cause is inapplicable to the
phenomena we are examining.
In the last analysis we reach the circle of infinity—that final limit to
which in every domain of thought man's reason arrives if it is not
playing with the subject. Electricity produces heat, heat produces
electricity. Atoms attract each other and atoms repel one another.
Speaking of the interaction of heat and electricity and of atoms, we
cannot say why this occurs, and we say that it is so because it is
inconceivable otherwise, because it must be so and that it is a law. The
same applies to historical events. Why war and revolution occur we do
not know. We only know that to produce the one or the other action,
people combine in a certain formation in which they all take part, and
we say that this is so because it is unthinkable otherwise, or in other
words that it is a law.

CHAPTER VIII
If history dealt only with external phenomena, the establishment of
this simple and obvious law would suffice and we should have finished
our argument. But the law of history relates to man. A particle of matter
cannot tell us that it does not feel the law of attraction or repulsion and
that that law is untrue, but man, who is the subject of history, says
plainly: I am free and am therefore not subject to the law.
The presence of the problem of man's free will, though unexpressed,
is felt at every step of history.
All seriously thinking historians have involuntarily encountered this
question. All the contradictions and obscurities of history and the false
path historical science has followed are due solely to the lack of a
solution of that question.
If the will of every man were free, that is, if each man could act as he
pleased, all history would be a series of disconnected incidents.
If in a thousand years even one man in a million could act freely, that
is, as he chose, it is evident that one single free act of that man's in
violation of the laws governing human action would destroy the
possibility of the existence of any laws for the whole of humanity.
If there be a single law governing the actions of men, free will
cannot exist, for then man's will is subject to that law.
In this contradiction lies the problem of free will, which from most
ancient times has occupied the best human minds and from most
ancient times has been presented in its whole tremendous significance.
The problem is that regarding man as a subject of observation from
whatever point of view—theological, historical, ethical, or
philosophic—we find a general law of necessity to which he (like all
that exists) is subject. But regarding him from within ourselves as what
we are conscious of, we feel ourselves to be free.
 This consciousness is a source of self-cognition quite apart from and
independent of reason. Through his reason man observes himself, but
only through consciousness does he know himself.
Apart from consciousness of self no observation or application of
reason is conceivable.
To understand, observe, and draw conclusions, man must first of all
be conscious of himself as living. A man is only conscious of himself
as a living being by the fact that he wills, that is, is conscious of his
volition. But his will—which forms the essence of his life—man
recognizes (and can but recognize) as free.
If, observing himself, man sees that his will is always directed by
one and the same law (whether he observes the necessity of taking
food, using his brain, or anything else) he cannot recognize this never-
varying direction of his will otherwise than as a limitation of it. Were it
not free it could not be limited. A man's will seems to him to be limited
just because he is not conscious of it except as free.
You say: I am not free. But I have lifted my hand and let it fall.
Everyone understands that this illogical reply is an irrefutable
demonstration of freedom.
That reply is the expression of a consciousness that is not subject to
reason.
If the consciousness of freedom were not a separate and independent
source of self-consciousness it would be subject to reasoning and to
experience, but in fact such subjection does not exist and is
inconceivable.
A series of experiments and arguments proves to every man that he,
as an object of observation, is subject to certain laws, and man submits
to them and never resists the laws of gravity or impermeability once he
has become acquainted with them. But the same series of experiments
and arguments proves to him that the complete freedom of which he is
conscious in himself is impossible, and that his every action depends on
his organization, his character, and the motives acting upon him; yet
man never submits to the deductions of these experiments and
arguments. Having learned from experiment and argument that a stone
falls downwards, a man indubitably believes this and always expects
the law that he has learned to be fulfilled.
But learning just as certainly that his will is subject to laws, he does
not and cannot believe this.
However often experiment and reasoning may show a man that
under the same conditions and with the same character he will do the
same thing as before, yet when under the same conditions and with the
same character he approaches for the thousandth time the action that
always ends in the same way, he feels as certainly convinced as before
the experiment that he can act as he pleases. Every man, savage or
sage, however incontestably reason and experiment may prove to him
that it is impossible to imagine two different courses of action in
precisely the same conditions, feels that without this irrational
conception (which constitutes the essence of freedom) he cannot
imagine life. He feels that however impossible it may be, it is so, for
without this conception of freedom not only would he be unable to
understand life, but he would be unable to live for a single moment.
He could not live, because all man's efforts, all his impulses to life,
are only efforts to increase freedom. Wealth and poverty, fame and
obscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and
disease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger,
virtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom.
A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived
of life.
If the conception of freedom appears to reason to be a senseless
contradiction like the possibility of performing two actions at one and
the same instant of time, or of an effect without a cause, that only
proves that consciousness is not subject to reason.
This unshakable, irrefutable consciousness of freedom, uncontrolled
by experiment or argument, recognized by all thinkers and felt by
everyone without exception, this consciousness without which no
conception of man is possible constitutes the other side of the question.
Man is the creation of an all-powerful, all-good, and all-seeing God.
What is sin, the conception of which arises from the consciousness of
man's freedom? That is a question for theology.
The actions of men are subject to general immutable laws expressed
in statistics. What is man's responsibility to society, the conception of
which results from the conception of freedom? That is a question for
jurisprudence.
Man's actions proceed from his innate character and the motives
acting upon him. What is conscience and the perception of right and
wrong in actions that follows from the consciousness of freedom? That
is a question for ethics.
Man in connection with the general life of humanity appears subject
to laws which determine that life. But the same man apart from that
connection appears to be free. How should the past life of nations and
of humanity be regarded—as the result of the free, or as the result of
the constrained, activity of man? That is a question for history.
 Only in our self-confident day of the popularization of knowledge—
thanks to that most powerful engine of ignorance, the diffusion of
printed matter—has the question of the freedom of will been put on a
level on which the question itself cannot exist. In our time the majority
of so-called advanced people—that is, the crowd of ignoramuses—have
taken the work of the naturalists who deal with one side of the question
for a solution of the whole problem.
They say and write and print that the soul and freedom do not exist,
for the life of man is expressed by muscular movements and muscular
movements are conditioned by the activity of the nerves; the soul and
free will do not exist because at an unknown period of time we sprang
from the apes. They say this, not at all suspecting that thousands of
years ago that same law of necessity which with such ardor they are
now trying to prove by physiology and comparative zoology was not
merely acknowledged by all the religions and all the thinkers, but has
never been denied. They do not see that the role of the natural sciences
in this matter is merely to serve as an instrument for the illumination of
one side of it. For the fact that, from the point of view of observation,
reason and the will are merely secretions of the brain, and that man
following the general law may have developed from lower animals at
some unknown period of time, only explains from a fresh side the truth
admitted thousands of years ago by all the religious and philosophic
theories—that from the point of view of reason man is subject to the
law of necessity; but it does not advance by a hair's breadth the solution
of the question, which has another, opposite, side, based on the
consciousness of freedom.
If men descended from the apes at an unknown period of time, that is
as comprehensible as that they were made from a handful of earth at a
certain period of time (in the first case the unknown quantity is the
time, in the second case it is the origin); and the question of how man's
consciousness of freedom is to be reconciled with the law of necessity
to which he is subject cannot be solved by comparative physiology and
zoology, for in a frog, a rabbit, or an ape, we can observe only the
muscular nervous activity, but in man we observe consciousness as
well as the muscular and nervous activity.
The naturalists and their followers, thinking they can solve this
question, are like plasterers set to plaster one side of the walls of a
church who, availing themselves of the absence of the chief
superintendent of the work, should in an access of zeal plaster over the
windows, icons, woodwork, and still unbuttressed walls, and should be
delighted that from their point of view as plasterers, everything is now
so smooth and regular.
 CHAPTER IX
For the solution of the question of free will or inevitability, history
has this advantage over other branches of knowledge in which the
question is dealt with, that for history this question does not refer to the
essence of man's free will but its manifestation in the past and under
certain conditions.
In regard to this question, history stands to the other sciences as
experimental science stands to abstract science.
The subject for history is not man's will itself but our presentation of
it.
And so for history, the insoluble mystery presented by the
incompatibility of free will and inevitability does not exist as it does for
theology, ethics, and philosophy. History surveys a presentation of
man's life in which the union of these two contradictions has already
taken place.
In actual life each historic event, each human action, is very clearly
and definitely understood without any sense of contradiction, although
each event presents itself as partly free and partly compulsory.
To solve the question of how freedom and necessity are combined
and what constitutes the essence of these two conceptions, the
philosophy of history can and should follow a path contrary to that
taken by other sciences. Instead of first defining the conceptions of
freedom and inevitability in themselves, and then ranging the
phenomena of life under those definitions, history should deduce a
definition of the conception of freedom and inevitability themselves
from the immense quantity of phenomena of which it is cognizant and
that always appear dependent on these two elements.
Whatever presentation of the activity of many men or of an
individual we may consider, we always regard it as the result partly of
man's free will and partly of the law of inevitability.
Whether we speak of the migration of the peoples and the incursions
of the barbarians, or of the decrees of Napoleon III, or of someone's
action an hour ago in choosing one direction out of several for his walk,
we are unconscious of any contradiction. The degree of freedom and
inevitability governing the actions of these people is clearly defined for
us.
 Our conception of the degree of freedom often varies according to
differences in the point of view from which we regard the event, but
every human action appears to us as a certain combination of freedom
and inevitability. In every action we examine we see a certain measure
of freedom and a certain measure of inevitability. And always the more
freedom we see in any action the less inevitability do we perceive, and
the more inevitability the less freedom.
The proportion of freedom to inevitability decreases and increases
according to the point of view from which the action is regarded, but
their relation is always one of inverse proportion.
A sinking man who clutches at another and drowns him; or a hungry
mother exhausted by feeding her baby, who steals some food; or a man
trained to discipline who on duty at the word of command kills a
defenseless man—seem less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to
the law of necessity, to one who knows the circumstances in which
these people were placed, and more free to one who does not know that
the man was himself drowning, that the mother was hungry, that the
soldier was in the ranks, and so on. Similarly a man who committed a
murder twenty years ago and has since lived peaceably and harmlessly
in society seems less guilty and his action more due to the law of
inevitability, to someone who considers his action after twenty years
have elapsed than to one who examined it the day after it was
committed. And in the same way every action of an insane, intoxicated,
or highly excited man appears less free and more inevitable to one who
knows the mental condition of him who committed the action, and
seems more free and less inevitable to one who does not know it. In all
these cases the conception of freedom is increased or diminished and
the conception of compulsion is correspondingly decreased or
increased, according to the point of view from which the action is
regarded. So that the greater the conception of necessity the smaller the
conception of freedom and vice versa.
Religion, the common sense of mankind, the science of
jurisprudence, and history itself understand alike this relation between
necessity and freedom.
All cases without exception in which our conception of freedom and
necessity is increased and diminished depend on three considerations:
(1) The relation to the external world of the man who commits the
deeds.
(2) His relation to time.
(3) His relation to the causes leading to the action.
 The first consideration is the clearness of our perception of the man's
relation to the external world and the greater or lesser clearness of our
understanding of the definite position occupied by the man in relation
to everything coexisting with him. This is what makes it evident that a
drowning man is less free and more subject to necessity than one
standing on dry ground, and that makes the actions of a man closely
connected with others in a thickly populated district, or of one bound
by family, official, or business duties, seem certainly less free and more
subject to necessity than those of a man living in solitude and
seclusion.
If we consider a man alone, apart from his relation to everything
around him, each action of his seems to us free. But if we see his
relation to anything around him, if we see his connection with anything
whatever—with a man who speaks to him, a book he reads, the work
on which he is engaged, even with the air he breathes or the light that
falls on the things about him—we see that each of these circumstances
has an influence on him and controls at least some side of his activity.
And the more we perceive of these influences the more our conception
of his freedom diminishes and the more our conception of the necessity
that weighs on him increases.
The second consideration is the more or less evident time relation of
the man to the world and the clearness of our perception of the place
the man's action occupies in time. That is the ground which makes the
fall of the first man, resulting in the production of the human race,
appear evidently less free than a man's entry into marriage today. It is
the reason why the life and activity of people who lived centuries ago
and are connected with me in time cannot seem to me as free as the life
of a contemporary, the consequences of which are still unknown to me.
The degree of our conception of freedom or inevitability depends in
this respect on the greater or lesser lapse of time between the
performance of the action and our judgment of it.
If I examine an act I performed a moment ago in approximately the
same circumstances as those I am in now, my action appears to me
undoubtedly free. But if I examine an act performed a month ago, then
being in different circumstances, I cannot help recognizing that if that
act had not been committed much that resulted from it—good,
agreeable, and even essential—would not have taken place. If I reflect
on an action still more remote, ten years ago or more, then the
consequences of my action are still plainer to me and I find it hard to
imagine what would have happened had that action not been
performed. The farther I go back in memory, or what is the same thing
the farther I go forward in my judgment, the more doubtful becomes
my belief in the freedom of my action.
 In history we find a very similar progress of conviction concerning
the part played by free will in the general affairs of humanity. A
contemporary event seems to us to be indubitably the doing of all the
known participants, but with a more remote event we already see its
inevitable results which prevent our considering anything else possible.
And the farther we go back in examining events the less arbitrary do
they appear.
The Austro-Prussian war appears to us undoubtedly the result of the
crafty conduct of Bismarck, and so on. The Napoleonic wars still seem
to us, though already questionably, to be the outcome of their heroes'
will. But in the Crusades we already see an event occupying its definite
place in history and without which we cannot imagine the modern
history of Europe, though to the chroniclers of the Crusades that event
appeared as merely due to the will of certain people. In regard to the
migration of the peoples it does not enter anyone's head today to
suppose that the renovation of the European world depended on Attila's
caprice. The farther back in history the object of our observation lies,
the more doubtful does the free will of those concerned in the event
become and the more manifest the law of inevitability.
The third consideration is the degree to which we apprehend that
endless chain of causation inevitably demanded by reason, in which
each phenomenon comprehended, and therefore man's every action,
must have its definite place as a result of what has gone before and as a
cause of what will follow.
The better we are acquainted with the physiological, psychological,
and historical laws deduced by observation and by which man is
controlled, and the more correctly we perceive the physiological,
psychological, and historical causes of the action, and the simpler the
action we are observing and the less complex the character and mind of
the man in question, the more subject to inevitability and the less free
do our actions and those of others appear.
When we do not at all understand the cause of an action, whether a
crime, a good action, or even one that is simply nonmoral, we ascribe a
greater amount of freedom to it. In the case of a crime we most urgently
demand the punishment for such an act; in the case of a virtuous act we
rate its merit most highly. In an indifferent case we recognize in it more
individuality, originality, and independence. But if even one of the
innumerable causes of the act is known to us we recognize a certain
element of necessity and are less insistent on punishment for the crime,
or the acknowledgment of the merit of the virtuous act, or the freedom
of the apparently original action. That a criminal was reared among
male factors mitigates his fault in our eyes. The self-sacrifice of a father
or mother, or self-sacrifice with the possibility of a reward, is more
comprehensible than gratuitous self-sacrifice, and therefore seems less
deserving of sympathy and less the result of free will. The founder of a
sect or party, or an inventor, impresses us less when we know how or
by what the way was prepared for his activity. If we have a large range
of examples, if our observation is constantly directed to seeking the
correlation of cause and effect in people's actions, their actions appear
to us more under compulsion and less free the more correctly we
connect the effects with the causes. If we examined simple actions and
had a vast number of such actions under observation, our conception of
their inevitability would be still greater. The dishonest conduct of the
son of a dishonest father, the misconduct of a woman who had fallen
into bad company, a drunkard's relapse into drunkenness, and so on are
actions that seem to us less free the better we understand their cause. If
the man whose actions we are considering is on a very low stage of
mental development, like a child, a madman, or a simpleton—then,
knowing the causes of the act and the simplicity of the character and
intelligence in question, we see so large an element of necessity and so
little free will that as soon as we know the cause prompting the action
we can foretell the result.
On these three considerations alone is based the conception of
irresponsibility for crimes and the extenuating circumstances admitted
by all legislative codes. The responsibility appears greater or less
according to our greater or lesser knowledge of the circumstances in
which the man was placed whose action is being judged, and according
to the greater or lesser interval of time between the commission of the
action and its investigation, and according to the greater or lesser
understanding of the causes that led to the action.

CHAPTER X
Thus our conception of free will and inevitability gradually
diminishes or increases according to the greater or lesser connection
with the external world, the greater or lesser remoteness of time, and
the greater or lesser dependence on the causes in relation to which we
contemplate a man's life.
So that if we examine the case of a man whose connection with the
external world is well known, where the time between the action and its
examination is great, and where the causes of the action are most
accessible, we get the conception of a maximum of inevitability and a
minimum of free will. If we examine a man little dependent on external
conditions, whose action was performed very recently, and the causes
of whose action are beyond our ken, we get the conception of a
minimum of inevitability and a maximum of freedom.
In neither case—however we may change our point of view,
however plain we may make to ourselves the connection between the
man and the external world, however inaccessible it may be to us,
however long or short the period of time, however intelligible or
incomprehensible the causes of the action may be—can we ever
conceive either complete freedom or complete necessity.
(1) To whatever degree we may imagine a man to be exempt from
the influence of the external world, we never get a conception of
freedom in space. Every human action is inevitably conditioned by
what surrounds him and by his own body. I lift my arm and let it fall.
My action seems to me free; but asking myself whether I could raise
my arm in every direction, I see that I raised it in the direction in which
there was least obstruction to that action either from things around me
or from the construction of my own body. I chose one out of all the
possible directions because in it there were fewest obstacles. For my
action to be free it was necessary that it should encounter no obstacles.
To conceive of a man being free we must imagine him outside space,
which is evidently impossible.
(2) However much we approximate the time of judgment to the time
of the deed, we never get a conception of freedom in time. For if I
examine an action committed a second ago I must still recognize it as
not being free, for it is irrevocably linked to the moment at which it was
committed. Can I lift my arm? I lift it, but ask myself: could I have
abstained from lifting my arm at the moment that has already passed?
To convince myself of this I do not lift it the next moment. But I am
not now abstaining from doing so at the first moment when I asked the
question. Time has gone by which I could not detain, the arm I then
lifted is no longer the same as the arm I now refrain from lifting, nor is
the air in which I lifted it the same that now surrounds me. The moment
in which the first movement was made is irrevocable, and at that
moment I could make only one movement, and whatever movement I
made would be the only one. That I did not lift my arm a moment later
does not prove that I could have abstained from lifting it then. And
since I could make only one movement at that single moment of time, it
could not have been any other. To imagine it as free, it is necessary to
imagine it in the present, on the boundary between the past and the
future—that is, outside time, which is impossible.
(3) However much the difficulty of understanding the causes may be
increased, we never reach a conception of complete freedom, that is, an
absence of cause. However inaccessible to us may be the cause of the
expression of will in any action, our own or another's, the first demand
of reason is the assumption of and search for a cause, for without a
cause no phenomenon is conceivable. I raise my arm to perform an
action independently of any cause, but my wish to perform an action
without a cause is the cause of my action.
But even if—imagining a man quite exempt from all influences,
examining only his momentary action in the present, unevoked by any
cause—we were to admit so infinitely small a remainder of inevitability
as equaled zero, we should even then not have arrived at the conception
of complete freedom in man, for a being uninfluenced by the external
world, standing outside of time and independent of cause, is no longer a
man.
In the same way we can never imagine the action of a man quite
devoid of freedom and entirely subject to the law of inevitability.
(1) However we may increase our knowledge of the conditions of
space in which man is situated, that knowledge can never be complete,
for the number of those conditions is as infinite as the infinity of space.
And therefore so long as not all the conditions influencing men are
defined, there is no complete inevitability but a certain measure of
freedom remains.
(2) However we may prolong the period of time between the action
we are examining and the judgment upon it, that period will be finite,
while time is infinite, and so in this respect too there can never be
absolute inevitability.
(3) However accessible may be the chain of causation of any action,
we shall never know the whole chain since it is endless, and so again
we never reach absolute inevitability.
But besides this, even if, admitting the remaining minimum of
freedom to equal zero, we assumed in some given case—as for instance
in that of a dying man, an unborn babe, or an idiot—complete absence
of freedom, by so doing we should destroy the very conception of man
in the case we are examining, for as soon as there is no freedom there is
also no man. And so the conception of the action of a man subject
solely to the law of inevitability without any element of freedom is just
as impossible as the conception of a man's completely free action.
And so to imagine the action of a man entirely subject to the law of
inevitability without any freedom, we must assume the knowledge of
an infinite number of space relations, an infinitely long period of time,
and an infinite series of causes.
To imagine a man perfectly free and not subject to the law of
inevitability, we must imagine him all alone, beyond space, beyond
time, and free from dependence on cause.
 In the first case, if inevitability were possible without freedom we
should have reached a definition of inevitability by the laws of
inevitability itself, that is, a mere form without content.
In the second case, if freedom were possible without inevitability we
should have arrived at unconditioned freedom beyond space, time, and
cause, which by the fact of its being unconditioned and unlimited
would be nothing, or mere content without form.
We should in fact have reached those two fundamentals of which
man's whole outlook on the universe is constructed—the
incomprehensible essence of life, and the laws defining that essence.
Reason says: (1) space with all the forms of matter that give it
visibility is infinite, and cannot be imagined otherwise. (2) Time is
infinite motion without a moment of rest and is unthinkable otherwise.
(3) The connection between cause and effect has no beginning and can
have no end.
Consciousness says: (1) I alone am, and all that exists is but me,
consequently I include space. (2) I measure flowing time by the fixed
moment of the present in which alone I am conscious of myself as
living, consequently I am outside time. (3) I am beyond cause, for I feel
myself to be the cause of every manifestation of my life.
Reason gives expression to the laws of inevitability. Consciousness
gives expression to the essence of freedom.
Freedom not limited by anything is the essence of life, in man's
consciousness. Inevitability without content is man's reason in its three
forms.
Freedom is the thing examined. Inevitability is what examines.
Freedom is the content. Inevitability is the form.
Only by separating the two sources of cognition, related to one
another as form to content, do we get the mutually exclusive and
separately incomprehensible conceptions of freedom and inevitability.
Only by uniting them do we get a clear conception of man's life.
Apart from these two concepts which in their union mutually define
one another as form and content, no conception of life is possible.
All that we know of the life of man is merely a certain relation of
free will to inevitability, that is, of consciousness to the laws of reason.
All that we know of the external world of nature is only a certain
relation of the forces of nature to inevitability, or of the essence of life
to the laws of reason.
 The great natural forces lie outside us and we are not conscious of
them; we call those forces gravitation, inertia, electricity, animal force,
and so on, but we are conscious of the force of life in man and we call
that freedom.
But just as the force of gravitation, incomprehensible in itself but felt
by every man, is understood by us only to the extent to which we know
the laws of inevitability to which it is subject (from the first knowledge
that all bodies have weight, up to Newton's law), so too the force of
free will, incomprehensible in itself but of which everyone is
conscious, is intelligible to us only in as far as we know the laws of
inevitability to which it is subject (from the fact that every man dies, up
to the knowledge of the most complex economic and historic laws).
All knowledge is merely a bringing of this essence of life under the
laws of reason.
Man's free will differs from every other force in that man is directly
conscious of it, but in the eyes of reason it in no way differs from any
other force. The forces of gravitation, electricity, or chemical affinity
are only distinguished from one another in that they are differently
defined by reason. Just so the force of man's free will is distinguished
by reason from the other forces of nature only by the definition reason
gives it. Freedom, apart from necessity, that is, apart from the laws of
reason that define it, differs in no way from gravitation, or heat, or the
force that makes things grow; for reason, it is only a momentary
undefinable sensation of life.
And as the undefinable essence of the force moving the heavenly
bodies, the undefinable essence of the forces of heat and electricity, or
of chemical affinity, or of the vital force, forms the content of
astronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and so on, just in the
same way does the force of free will form the content of history. But
just as the subject of every science is the manifestation of this unknown
essence of life while that essence itself can only be the subject of
metaphysics, even the manifestation of the force of free will in human
beings in space, in time, and in dependence on cause forms the subject
of history, while free will itself is the subject of metaphysics.
In the experimental sciences what we know we call the laws of
inevitability, what is unknown to us we call vital force. Vital force is
only an expression for the unknown remainder over and above what we
know of the essence of life.
So also in history what is known to us we call laws of inevitability,
what is unknown we call free will. Free will is for history only an
expression for the unknown remainder of what we know about the laws
of human life.
 CHAPTER XI
History examines the manifestations of man's free will in connection
with the external world in time and in dependence on cause, that is, it
defines this freedom by the laws of reason, and so history is a science
only in so far as this free will is defined by those laws.
The recognition of man's free will as something capable of
influencing historical events, that is, as not subject to laws, is the same
for history as the recognition of a free force moving the heavenly
bodies would be for astronomy.
That assumption would destroy the possibility of the existence of
laws, that is, of any science whatever. If there is even a single body
moving freely, then the laws of Kepler and Newton are negatived and
no conception of the movement of the heavenly bodies any longer
exists. If any single action is due to free will, then not a single historical
law can exist, nor any conception of historical events.
For history, lines exist of the movement of human wills, one end of
which is hidden in the unknown but at the other end of which a
consciousness of man's will in the present moves in space, time, and
dependence on cause.
The more this field of motion spreads out before our eyes, the more
evident are the laws of that movement. To discover and define those
laws is the problem of history.
From the standpoint from which the science of history now regards
its subject on the path it now follows, seeking the causes of events in
man's freewill, a scientific enunciation of those laws is impossible, for
however man's free will may be restricted, as soon as we recognize it as
a force not subject to law, the existence of law becomes impossible.
Only by reducing this element of free will to the infinitesimal, that is,
by regarding it as an infinitely small quantity, can we convince
ourselves of the absolute inaccessibility of the causes, and then instead
of seeking causes, history will take the discovery of laws as its
problem.
The search for these laws has long been begun and the new methods
of thought which history must adopt are being worked out
simultaneously with the self-destruction toward which—ever dissecting
and dissecting the causes of phenomena—the old method of history is
moving.
All human sciences have traveled along that path. Arriving at
infinitesimals, mathematics, the most exact of sciences, abandons the
process of analysis and enters on the new process of the integration of
unknown, infinitely small, quantities. Abandoning the conception of
cause, mathematics seeks law, that is, the property common to all
unknown, infinitely small, elements.
In another form but along the same path of reflection the other
sciences have proceeded. When Newton enunciated the law of gravity
he did not say that the sun or the earth had a property of attraction; he
said that all bodies from the largest to the smallest have the property of
attracting one another, that is, leaving aside the question of the cause of
the movement of the bodies, he expressed the property common to all
bodies from the infinitely large to the infinitely small. The same is done
by the natural sciences: leaving aside the question of cause, they seek
for laws. History stands on the same path. And if history has for its
object the study of the movement of the nations and of humanity and
not the narration of episodes in the lives of individuals, it too, setting
aside the conception of cause, should seek the laws common to all the
inseparably interconnected infinitesimal elements of free will.

CHAPTER XII
From the time the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the
mere recognition of the fact that it was not the sun but the earth that
moves sufficed to destroy the whole cosmography of the ancients. By
disproving that law it might have been possible to retain the old
conception of the movements of the bodies, but without disproving it, it
would seem impossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. But
even after the discovery of the law of Copernicus the Ptolemaic worlds
were still studied for a long time.
From the time the first person said and proved that the number of
births or of crimes is subject to mathematical laws, and that this or that
mode of government is determined by certain geographical and
economic conditions, and that certain relations of population to soil
produce migrations of peoples, the foundations on which history had
been built were destroyed in their essence.
By refuting these new laws the former view of history might have
been retained; but without refuting them it would seem impossible to
continue studying historic events as the results of man's free will. For if
a certain mode of government was established or certain migrations of
peoples took place in consequence of such and such geographic,
ethnographic, or economic conditions, then the free will of those
individuals who appear to us to have established that mode of
government or occasioned the migrations can no longer be regarded as
the cause.
And yet the former history continues to be studied side by side with
the laws of statistics, geography, political economy, comparative
philology, and geology, which directly contradict its assumptions.
The struggle between the old views and the new was long and
stubbornly fought out in physical philosophy. Theology stood on guard
for the old views and accused the new of violating revelation. But when
truth conquered, theology established itself just as firmly on the new
foundation.
Just as prolonged and stubborn is the struggle now proceeding
between the old and the new conception of history, and theology in the
same way stands on guard for the old view, and accuses the new view
of subverting revelation.
In the one case as in the other, on both sides the struggle provokes
passion and stifles truth. On the one hand there is fear and regret for the
loss of the whole edifice constructed through the ages, on the other is
the passion for destruction.
To the men who fought against the rising truths of physical
philosophy, it seemed that if they admitted that truth it would destroy
faith in God, in the creation of the firmament, and in the miracle of
Joshua the son of Nun. To the defenders of the laws of Copernicus and
Newton, to Voltaire for example, it seemed that the laws of astronomy
destroyed religion, and he utilized the law of gravitation as a weapon
against religion.
Just so it now seems as if we have only to admit the law of
inevitability, to destroy the conception of the soul, of good and evil,
and all the institutions of state and church that have been built up on
those conceptions.
So too, like Voltaire in his time, uninvited defenders of the law of
inevitability today use that law as a weapon against religion, though the
law of inevitability in history, like the law of Copernicus in astronomy,
far from destroying, even strengthens the foundation on which the
institutions of state and church are erected.
As in the question of astronomy then, so in the question of history
now, the whole difference of opinion is based on the recognition or
nonrecognition of something absolute, serving as the measure of visible
phenomena. In astronomy it was the immovability of the earth, in
history it is the independence of personality—free will.
As with astronomy the difficulty of recognizing the motion of the
earth lay in abandoning the immediate sensation of the earth's fixity
and of the motion of the planets, so in history the difficulty of
recognizing the subjection of personality to the laws of space, time, and
cause lies in renouncing the direct feeling of the independence of one's
own personality. But as in astronomy the new view said: "It is true that
we do not feel the movement of the earth, but by admitting its
immobility we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting its motion (which
we do not feel) we arrive at laws," so also in history the new view says:
"It is true that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by
admitting our free will we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our
dependence on the external world, on time, and on cause, we arrive at
laws."
In the first case it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of an
unreal immobility in space and to recognize a motion we did not feel;
in the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that
does not exist, and to recognize a dependence of which we are not
conscious.

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