  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.                                                 
                                                    {BK8|CH14 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                         
                                                    {BK8|CH14 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                            
                                                    {BK8|CH14 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                           
                                                                            
BK8|CH15                                                                    
  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.                                        
                                                     {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                             
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 10}
  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...."                                                
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 15}
  "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..."                       
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                        
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 25}
  "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...."                                        
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                     
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 35}
  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?"                                              
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 40}
  "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.                                                 
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 45}
  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      
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."                             
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 50}
  "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.                            
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 55}
  "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?"                                                 
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 60}
  "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.                                     
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 65}
  "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.                                                           
                                                    {BK8|CH15 ^paragraph 70}
  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.                                          
                                                                            
BK8|CH16                                                                    
  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."                     
                                                     {BK8|CH16 ^paragraph 5}
  "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 or of his and turned to Anatole with an          
ironic smile:                                                               
  "Do you know? You'd really better drop it all. There's still time!"       
                                                    {BK8|CH16 ^paragraph 10}
  "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!"                                       
                                                    {BK8|CH16 ^paragraph 15}
  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."                         
                                                    {BK8|CH16 ^paragraph 20}
  "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!"                       
                                                    {BK8|CH16 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                                             
                                                    {BK8|CH16 ^paragraph 30}
  "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."                                                               
                                                    {BK8|CH16 ^paragraph 35}
  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!"                                 
                                                    {BK8|CH16 ^paragraph 40}
  "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.        
                                                    {BK8|CH16 ^paragraph 45}
  "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."                                           
                                                    {BK8|CH16 ^paragraph 50}
  "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?"                         
                                                    {BK8|CH16 ^paragraph 55}
  "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."                
                                                                            
BK8|CH17                                                                    
  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.                                      
                                                     {BK8|CH17 ^paragraph 5}
  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."                                                            
                                                    {BK8|CH17 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                              
                                                    {BK8|CH17 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                             
                                                    {BK8|CH17 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                           
                                                    {BK8|CH17 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                    
                                                    {BK8|CH17 ^paragraph 30}
  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!"                 
                                                    {BK8|CH17 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                                        
                                                                            
BK8|CH18                                                                    
  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 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."                                                                
                                                     {BK8|CH18 ^paragraph 5}
  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?"                      
                                                    {BK8|CH18 ^paragraph 10}
  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 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.                                    
                                                    {BK8|CH18 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                      
                                                    {BK8|CH18 ^paragraph 20}
  "Well, let her sleep," said Marya Dmitrievna as she went 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."                    
                                                    {BK8|CH18 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                                                    
                                                                            
BK8|CH19                                                                    
  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.                                         
                                                     {BK8|CH19 ^paragraph 5}
  "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!"               
                                                    {BK8|CH19 ^paragraph 10}
  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."                                                             
                                                    {BK8|CH19 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                            
                                                    {BK8|CH19 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                                 
                                                    {BK8|CH19 ^paragraph 25}
  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!"                                  
                                                    {BK8|CH19 ^paragraph 30}
  "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."                                              
                                                    {BK8|CH19 ^paragraph 35}
  She was evidently unable to speak and made a sign with her hands          
that they should leave her alone.                                           
                                                                            
BK8|CH20                                                                    
  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.                                               
                                                     {BK8|CH20 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                             
                                                    {BK8|CH20 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.         
                                                    {BK8|CH20 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                   
                                                    {BK8|CH20 ^paragraph 20}
  "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?..."                                                       
                                                    {BK8|CH20 ^paragraph 25}
  "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."                   
                                                    {BK8|CH20 ^paragraph 30}
  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..."                                      
                                                    {BK8|CH20 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                                     
                                                                            
BK8|CH21                                                                    
  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.                                                                 
                                                     {BK8|CH21 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                        
                                                    {BK8|CH21 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                                                   
                                                    {BK8|CH21 ^paragraph 15}
  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:                                                                  
                                                    {BK8|CH21 ^paragraph 20}
  "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."                            
                                                    {BK8|CH21 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                    
                                                    {BK8|CH21 ^paragraph 30}
  "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."                                                              
                                                    {BK8|CH21 ^paragraph 35}
  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?"                                    
                                                    {BK8|CH21 ^paragraph 40}
  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.          
                                                                            
BK8|CH22                                                                    
  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.                             
                                                     {BK8|CH22 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                                   
                                                    {BK8|CH22 ^paragraph 10}
  "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...."          
                                                    {BK8|CH22 ^paragraph 15}
  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?"                                                              
                                                    {BK8|CH22 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                     
                                                    {BK8|CH22 ^paragraph 25}
  "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!"                        
                                                    {BK8|CH22 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                                   
                                                    {BK8|CH22 ^paragraph 35}
  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 18l2- 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.                 
                                                                            
BK9                                                                         
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                BOOK NINE: 1812                             
                                                                            
BK9|CH1                                                                     
  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 way 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.                                            
                                                      {BK9|CH1 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                                        
                                                     {BK9|CH1 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                               
                                                     {BK9|CH1 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  *"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 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?                      
                                                     {BK9|CH1 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                            
                                                                            
BK9|CH2                                                                     
  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.                                                               
-                                                                           
                                                      {BK9|CH2 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                       
                                                     {BK9|CH2 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                               
                                                     {BK9|CH2 ^paragraph 15}
  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.*                                              
-                                                                           
                                                     {BK9|CH2 ^paragraph 20}
  *Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad.                        
                                                                            
BK9|CH3                                                                     
  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.               
                                                      {BK9|CH3 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                      
                                                     {BK9|CH3 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                 
                                                     {BK9|CH3 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  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,                                                       
                                                     {BK9|CH3 ^paragraph 20}
  Yesterday I learned that, despite the loyalty 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               
                                                                            
BK9|CH4                                                                     
  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.                                                  
                                                      {BK9|CH4 ^paragraph 5}
  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.      
                                                     {BK9|CH4 ^paragraph 10}
  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, plunies, 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!"                                           
-                                                                           
                                                     {BK9|CH4 ^paragraph 15}
  *"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.                                                              
                                                     {BK9|CH4 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                                           
-                                                                           
                                                     {BK9|CH4 ^paragraph 25}
  *"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.                                                                    
                                                     {BK9|CH4 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                                             
                                                                            
BK9|CH5                                                                     
  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.                  
                                                      {BK9|CH5 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                                
                                                     {BK9|CH5 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                                                    
                                                     {BK9|CH5 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                              
                                                                            
BK9|CH6                                                                     
  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.                                                                   
                                                      {BK9|CH6 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                          
                                                     {BK9|CH6 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                               
                                                     {BK9|CH6 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                         
                                                     {BK9|CH6 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                              
                                                     {BK9|CH6 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                
                                                     {BK9|CH6 ^paragraph 30}
  "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..."       
                                                     {BK9|CH6 ^paragraph 35}
  "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:                                                                    
                                                     {BK9|CH6 ^paragraph 40}
  "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 hima pocket          
handkerchief. Napoleon, without giving them a glance, turned to             
Balashev:                                                                   
                                                     {BK9|CH6 ^paragraph 45}
  "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.                            
                                                                            
BK9|CH7                                                                     
  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.                                                           
                                                      {BK9|CH7 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                               
                                                     {BK9|CH7 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                          
                                                     {BK9|CH7 ^paragraph 15}
  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 and bowed his head in silence.           
                                                     {BK9|CH7 ^paragraph 20}
  "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         
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.                               
                                                     {BK9|CH7 ^paragraph 25}
  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...                                       
                                                                            
BK9|CH8                                                                     
  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 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,              
Madmoiselle Bourienne, and the architect; to the other Princess             
Mary, Dessalles, little Nicholas, and all the old nurses and maids.         
                                                      {BK9|CH8 ^paragraph 5}
  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?"                                                                  
                                                     {BK9|CH8 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                              
                                                     {BK9|CH8 ^paragraph 15}
  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...."               
                                                     {BK9|CH8 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                          
                                                     {BK9|CH8 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                            
                                                                            
BK9|CH9                                                                     
  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 and parties:                                
                                                      {BK9|CH9 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                          
                                                     {BK9|CH9 ^paragraph 10}
  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.       
                                                     {BK9|CH9 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                    
                                                                            
BK9|CH10                                                                    
  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.                                                          
                                                     {BK9|CH10 ^paragraph 5}
  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 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.                         
                                                    {BK9|CH10 ^paragraph 10}
  He passed into the next room, and the deep, querulous sounds of           
his voice were at once heard from there.                                    
                                                                            
BK9|CH11                                                                    
  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.                                       
                                                     {BK9|CH11 ^paragraph 5}
  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:                                           
                                                    {BK9|CH11 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.       
                                                    {BK9|CH11 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                            
                                                                            
BK9|CH12                                                                    
  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.                                           
                                                     {BK9|CH12 ^paragraph 5}
  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 18l2 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.                       
                                                    {BK9|CH12 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                                                     
                                                    {BK9|CH12 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                   
                                                    {BK9|CH12 ^paragraph 20}
  "Rostov, where are you?"                                                  
  "Here. What lightning!" they called to one another.                       
                                                                            
BK9|CH13                                                                    
  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.               
                                                     {BK9|CH13 ^paragraph 5}
  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.          
                                                    {BK9|CH13 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                     
                                                    {BK9|CH13 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.           
                                                    {BK9|CH13 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                          
                                                    {BK9|CH13 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                  
                                                                            
BK9|CH14                                                                    
  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 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.                                
                                                     {BK9|CH14 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                
                                                    {BK9|CH14 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.               
                                                    {BK9|CH14 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                      
                                                                            
BK9|CH15                                                                    
  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.                                                                    
                                                     {BK9|CH15 ^paragraph 5}
  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 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."                                                             
                                                    {BK9|CH15 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                     
                                                                            
BK9|CH16                                                                    
  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 of 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.            
                                                     {BK9|CH16 ^paragraph 5}
  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.         
                                                                            
BK9|CH17                                                                    
  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.      
                                                     {BK9|CH17 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                                       
                                                                            
BK9|CH18                                                                    
  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!"                      
                                                     {BK9|CH18 ^paragraph 5}
  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."                                     
                                                    {BK9|CH18 ^paragraph 10}
  "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!"                                                           
                                                    {BK9|CH18 ^paragraph 15}
  "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?                                                                      
                                                    {BK9|CH18 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                  
                                                                            
BK9|CH19                                                                    
  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:                   
-                                                                           
                                                     {BK9|CH19 ^paragraph 5}
  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:                          
                                                    {BK9|CH19 ^paragraph 10}
-                                                                           
        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                               
                                                    {BK9|CH19 ^paragraph 15}
               t    u    v    w    x    y                                   
              100  110  120  130  140  150                                  
                          z                                                 
                         160                                                
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK9|CH19 ^paragraph 20}
  Writing the words L'Empereur Napoleon in numbers, it appears that         
the sum of them is 666, and that Napoleon 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.                                               
                                                    {BK9|CH19 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                                       
                                                                            
BK9|CH20                                                                    
  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.              
                                                     {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                      
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                          
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                             
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 20}
  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."                                           
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 25}
  "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!"                                           
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 30}
  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..."                                                               
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 35}
  "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."              
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 40}
  "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."                                       
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 45}
  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,"                                      
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 50}
  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:                  
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 55}
  "We ourselves will not delay to appear among our people in that           
Capital and in others 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.                                             
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 60}
  "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...."                                            
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 65}
  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.                  
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 70}
  "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.               
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 75}
  "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."                                               
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 80}
  "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.         
                                                    {BK9|CH20 ^paragraph 85}
  "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.               
                                                                            
BK9|CH21                                                                    
  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.                                                             
                                                     {BK9|CH21 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                           
                                                    {BK9|CH21 ^paragraph 10}
  "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!"                    
                                                    {BK9|CH21 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                                
                                                    {BK9|CH21 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                  
                                                    {BK9|CH21 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                           
                                                                            
BK9|CH22                                                                    
  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.                                                                
                                                     {BK9|CH22 ^paragraph 5}
  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:                                                                      
                                                    {BK9|CH22 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                                                       
                                                    {BK9|CH22 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  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..."                                                 
                                                    {BK9|CH22 ^paragraph 20}
  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!"                                     
                                                    {BK9|CH22 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                                               
                                                    {BK9|CH22 ^paragraph 30}
  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!..."                                        
                                                                            
BK9|CH23                                                                    
  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.                               
                                                     {BK9|CH23 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                           
                                                    {BK9|CH23 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                                                       
                                                    {BK9|CH23 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                
                                                                            
BK10                                                                        
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                 BOOK TEN: 1812                             
                                                                            
BK10|CH1                                                                    
  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.                                      
                                                     {BK10|CH1 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                    
                                                    {BK10|CH1 ^paragraph 10}
  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 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.                                           
                                                    {BK10|CH1 ^paragraph 15}
  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 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.                                               
                                                    {BK10|CH1 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                        
                                                                            
BK10|CH2                                                                    
  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!"                                                       
                                                     {BK10|CH2 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                             
                                                    {BK10|CH2 ^paragraph 10}
  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 at 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?"                                                
                                                    {BK10|CH2 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                      
                                                    {BK10|CH2 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.         
                                                    {BK10|CH2 ^paragraph 25}
  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..."        
                                                    {BK10|CH2 ^paragraph 30}
  "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?"                                                                     
                                                    {BK10|CH2 ^paragraph 35}
  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...."                                               
                                                    {BK10|CH2 ^paragraph 40}
  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.            
                                                    {BK10|CH2 ^paragraph 45}
  "Oh, yes, he has been waiting to start for some time."                    
                                                                            
BK10|CH3                                                                    
  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.                
                                                     {BK10|CH3 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                         
                                                    {BK10|CH3 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                 
                                                    {BK10|CH3 ^paragraph 15}
  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."                                 
                                                    {BK10|CH3 ^paragraph 20}
  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!"                                                                     
                                                                            
BK10|CH4                                                                    
  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.                        
                                                     {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                        
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                             
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 15}
  "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!"                   
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 20}
  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!..."                                       
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                 
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 30}
  "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..."             
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 35}
  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.)                          
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 40}
-                                                                           
  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!..."                                                           
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 45}
  "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.                                                              
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 50}
  "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.                                               
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 55}
  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.                                            
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 60}
  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!"                              
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 65}
  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.                                                                   
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 70}
  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:                
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 75}
  "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:           
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 80}
  "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 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.                 
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 85}
  "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.                               
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 90}
  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."            
                                                    {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 95}
-                                                                           
  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."                 
                                                   {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 100}
  "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!"                          
                                                   {BK10|CH4 ^paragraph 105}
  "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.             
                                                                            
BK10|CH5                                                                    
  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.                                                                   
                                                     {BK10|CH5 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                               
                                                    {BK10|CH5 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                   
                                                    {BK10|CH5 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                         
                                                    {BK10|CH5 ^paragraph 20}
  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 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.                                                               
                                                    {BK10|CH5 ^paragraph 25}
  "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 himself with water in the barn.                
                                                    {BK10|CH5 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.)                       
                                                    {BK10|CH5 ^paragraph 35}
  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...                     
                                                                            
BK10|CH6                                                                    
  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 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.                                    
                                                     {BK10|CH6 ^paragraph 5}
  "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 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.                                                             
                                                    {BK10|CH6 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                                                      
                                                    {BK10|CH6 ^paragraph 15}
  "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."                   
                                                    {BK10|CH6 ^paragraph 20}
  "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!"                                                                      
                                                    {BK10|CH6 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                                
                                                                            
BK10|CH7                                                                    
  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."                                               
                                                     {BK10|CH7 ^paragraph 5}
-                                                                           
  "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?"                                                      
                                                    {BK10|CH7 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                                 
                                                    {BK10|CH7 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                 
                                                    {BK10|CH7 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                           
                                                    {BK10|CH7 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                             
                                                                            
BK10|CH8                                                                    
  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.                                    
                                                     {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 5}
  The doctor, who was fetched that same night, bled him and said            
that the prince had had seizure a 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.                                         
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                     
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                            
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                             
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                                
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 30}
  "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."                                                                
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 35}
  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?"                                                        
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 40}
  "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.                                  
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 45}
  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."                                                             
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 50}
  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.                    
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 55}
  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.                             
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 60}
  "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.           
                                                    {BK10|CH8 ^paragraph 65}
  "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.                            
                                                                            
BK10|CH9                                                                    
  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.         
                                                     {BK10|CH9 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                            
                                                    {BK10|CH9 ^paragraph 10}
  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 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.            
                                                    {BK10|CH9 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                          
                                                    {BK10|CH9 ^paragraph 20}
  "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..."                             
                                                    {BK10|CH9 ^paragraph 25}
  "'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.                                  
                                                    {BK10|CH9 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                                                
                                                                            
BK10|CH10                                                                   
  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.                         
                                                    {BK10|CH10 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                          
                                                   {BK10|CH10 ^paragraph 10}
  "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 and am sure that all due respect would be shown you."                  
  Princess Mary read the paper, and her face began to quiver with           
stifled sobs.                                                               
                                                   {BK10|CH10 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                
                                                   {BK10|CH10 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                                                         
                                                   {BK10|CH10 ^paragraph 25}
  "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 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."                                    
                                                   {BK10|CH10 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                 
                                                   {BK10|CH10 ^paragraph 35}
  "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."                                        
                                                   {BK10|CH10 ^paragraph 40}
  "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!"                               
                                                   {BK10|CH10 ^paragraph 45}
  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.                                                                   
                                                                            
BK10|CH11                                                                   
  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."                  
                                                    {BK10|CH11 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                             
                                                   {BK10|CH11 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.       
                                                   {BK10|CH11 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.          
                                                   {BK10|CH11 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                              
                                                   {BK10|CH11 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                         
                                                   {BK10|CH11 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                           
                                                   {BK10|CH11 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                                                      
                                                                            
BK10|CH12                                                                   
  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.                            
                                                    {BK10|CH12 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                                 
                                                                            
BK10|CH13                                                                   
  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.                            
                                                    {BK10|CH13 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                                   
                                                   {BK10|CH13 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                         
                                                   {BK10|CH13 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                           
                                                   {BK10|CH13 ^paragraph 20}
  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."             
                                                   {BK10|CH13 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                           
                                                   {BK10|CH13 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.      
                                                   {BK10|CH13 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                                                   
                                                   {BK10|CH13 ^paragraph 40}
  "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.                                                    
                                                   {BK10|CH13 ^paragraph 45}
  Rostov, knitting his brows, left the room with another low bow.           
                                                                            
BK10|CH14                                                                   
  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.                                                   
                                                    {BK10|CH14 ^paragraph 5}
  "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 youself! 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.       
                                                   {BK10|CH14 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                  
                                                   {BK10|CH14 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                              
                                                   {BK10|CH14 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                               
                                                   {BK10|CH14 ^paragraph 25}
  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.              
                                                   {BK10|CH14 ^paragraph 30}
  "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!"                                                         
                                                   {BK10|CH14 ^paragraph 35}
   "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.                  
                                                   {BK10|CH14 ^paragraph 40}
  "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.                         
                                                   {BK10|CH14 ^paragraph 45}
  "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 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.                   
                                                   {BK10|CH14 ^paragraph 50}
  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.                             
                                                                            
BK10|CH15                                                                   
  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.                   
                                                    {BK10|CH15 ^paragraph 5}
  "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 to 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!"                    
                                                   {BK10|CH15 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                    
                                                   {BK10|CH15 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                       
                                                   {BK10|CH15 ^paragraph 20}
  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."                                                                     
                                                   {BK10|CH15 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                       
                                                   {BK10|CH15 ^paragraph 30}
  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."      
                                                   {BK10|CH15 ^paragraph 35}
  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. Kutiizov'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 clever. ness 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.            
                                                   {BK10|CH15 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                                                           
                                                                            
BK10|CH16                                                                   
  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.                                                        
                                                    {BK10|CH16 ^paragraph 5}
  "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 longer fit for the         
staff," replied Prince Andrew with a smile which Kutuzov noticed.           
  Kutuzov glanced inquiringly at him.                                       
                                                   {BK10|CH16 ^paragraph 10}
  "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, 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 the but 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.                                            
                                                   {BK10|CH16 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  *"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.                                
                                                   {BK10|CH16 ^paragraph 20}
-                                                                           
  *"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."                                 
                                                   {BK10|CH16 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                                                   
                                                                            
BK10|CH17                                                                   
  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.                            
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 5}
  *"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?"                                      
                                                   {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 10}
  "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!"                                                
                                                   {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 15}
  "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."                               
                                                   {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 20}
  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?"                                               
                                                   {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 25}
  "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."                                                           
                                                   {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.              
                                                   {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                            
                                                   {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 40}
  "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."                                   
                                                   {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 45}
  "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 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."                                  
-                                                                           
                                                   {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 50}
  "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."                                   
                                                   {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 55}
  "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!"                                              
                                                   {BK10|CH17 ^paragraph 60}
  "But how could one say that in Russian?"                                  
                                                                            
BK10|CH18                                                                   
  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 that 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.           
                                                    {BK10|CH18 ^paragraph 5}
  "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."                                                          
                                                   {BK10|CH18 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                                                                    
                                                   {BK10|CH18 ^paragraph 15}
  "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!"                                                                       
                                                   {BK10|CH18 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                            
                                                   {BK10|CH18 ^paragraph 25}
-                                                                           
  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."                                               
                                                   {BK10|CH18 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                                            
                                                   {BK10|CH18 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                                                       
                                                   {BK10|CH18 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                                    
                                                                            
BK10|CH19                                                                   
  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 the generals who, of all the blind tools of            
history were the most enslaved and involuntary.                             
                                                    {BK10|CH19 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                          
                                                   {BK10|CH19 ^paragraph 10}
  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.       
                                                   {BK10|CH19 ^paragraph 15}
  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 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 rea 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.                                                                 
                                                                            
BK10|CH20                                                                   
  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:                                                           
                                                    {BK10|CH20 ^paragraph 5}
-                                                                           
     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.                                                                    
                                                   {BK10|CH20 ^paragraph 10}
  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.         
                                                   {BK10|CH20 ^paragraph 15}
  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...."                            
                                                   {BK10|CH20 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                                      
                                                   {BK10|CH20 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                              
                                                   {BK10|CH20 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                       
                                                   {BK10|CH20 ^paragraph 35}
  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.            
                                                                            
BK10|CH21                                                                   
  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.               
                                                    {BK10|CH21 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                               
                                                   {BK10|CH21 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                    
                                                   {BK10|CH21 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                             
                                                   {BK10|CH21 ^paragraph 20}
  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      
to speak of it.                                                             
  "Well, send number three company again," the officer replied              
hurriedly.                                                                  
  "And you, are you one of the doctors?"                                    
                                                   {BK10|CH21 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                                 
                                                   {BK10|CH21 ^paragraph 30}
  "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 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               
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.                             
                                                   {BK10|CH21 ^paragraph 35}
  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 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.                                      
                                                                            
BK10|CH22                                                                   
  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.                   
                                                    {BK10|CH22 ^paragraph 5}
  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?"                                                              
                                                   {BK10|CH22 ^paragraph 10}
  "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 the intentions of the French!"                            
  "You mean the left flank?" asked Kaysarov.                                
  "Yes, exactly; the left flank is now extremely strong."                   
                                                   {BK10|CH22 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                               
                                                   {BK10|CH22 ^paragraph 20}
  "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."                                                               
                                                   {BK10|CH22 ^paragraph 25}
  "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:                                                               
                                                   {BK10|CH22 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                                                       
                                                   {BK10|CH22 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                                                              
                                                   {BK10|CH22 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                                          
                                                   {BK10|CH22 ^paragraph 45}
  "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.                                                                       
                                                                            
BK10|CH23                                                                   
  CHAPTER XXIII                                                             
-                                                                           
  From Gorki, Bennigsen descended the highroad to the bridge which,         
when they had looked 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.                                                  
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK10|CH23 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                    
                                                   {BK10|CH23 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                    
                                                                            
BK10|CH24                                                                   
  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...."                                             
                                                    {BK10|CH24 ^paragraph 5}
  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.        
                                                   {BK10|CH24 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                  
                                                   {BK10|CH24 ^paragraph 15}
  "Yes, they have. Julie Drubetskaya told me so. I went to see them,        
but missed them. They have gone to your estate near Moscow."                
                                                                            
BK10|CH25                                                                   
  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 think of Kutuzov's appointment?"          
he asked.                                                                   
                                                    {BK10|CH25 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                      
                                                   {BK10|CH25 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                                                   
                                                   {BK10|CH25 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                         
                                                   {BK10|CH25 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                  
                                                   {BK10|CH25 ^paragraph 25}
  "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:                                            
                                                   {BK10|CH25 ^paragraph 30}
  "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."*                                                                   
                                                   {BK10|CH25 ^paragraph 35}
-                                                                           
  *"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.                            
                                                   {BK10|CH25 ^paragraph 40}
  "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 kind-hearted 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..."                  
                                                   {BK10|CH25 ^paragraph 45}
  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.                                        
                                                   {BK10|CH25 ^paragraph 50}
  "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.                                                         
                                                   {BK10|CH25 ^paragraph 55}
  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.                              
                                                                            
BK10|CH26                                                                   
  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.                                      
                                                    {BK10|CH26 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                    
                                                   {BK10|CH26 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                                                     
                                                   {BK10|CH26 ^paragraph 15}
  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 absentmindedly, 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."                                 
                                                   {BK10|CH26 ^paragraph 20}
  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."                    
                                                   {BK10|CH26 ^paragraph 25}
  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.          
                                                   {BK10|CH26 ^paragraph 30}
  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:                                                                     
-                                                                           
                                                   {BK10|CH26 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                     
                                                   {BK10|CH26 ^paragraph 40}
  "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.                                                                      
                                                                            
BK10|CH27                                                                   
  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.       
                                                    {BK10|CH27 ^paragraph 5}
  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:                                        
-                                                                           
                                                   {BK10|CH27 ^paragraph 10}
          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.                                                          
                                                   {BK10|CH27 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  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.                                                              
                                                   {BK10|CH27 ^paragraph 20}
  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,                                       
                                                   {BK10|CH27 ^paragraph 25}
     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.                                          
                                                   {BK10|CH27 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                                          
                                                                            
BK10|CH28                                                                   
  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.                                                          
                                                    {BK10|CH28 ^paragraph 5}
  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 oks 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.                                 
                                                   {BK10|CH28 ^paragraph 10}
  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.      
                                                                            
BK10|CH29                                                                   
  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 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 times 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.            
                                                    {BK10|CH29 ^paragraph 5}
  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."           
                                                   {BK10|CH29 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                        
                                                   {BK10|CH29 ^paragraph 15}
  "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; 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.                    
                                                   {BK10|CH29 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                    
                                                   {BK10|CH29 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                          
                                                   {BK10|CH29 ^paragraph 30}
-                                                                           
  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.       
                                                   {BK10|CH29 ^paragraph 35}
  Napoleon with his suite rode up to the Shevardino Redoubt where he        
dismounted. The game had begun.                                             
                                                                            
BK10|CH30                                                                   
  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."                                                                  
                                                    {BK10|CH30 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                              
                                                   {BK10|CH30 ^paragraph 10}
  These puffs of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of 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.                 
                                                   {BK10|CH30 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                   
                                                                            
BK10|CH31                                                                   
  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 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.                                                                      
                                                    {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                   
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                                  
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                               
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                  
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 25}
  "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."                                          
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                         
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 35}
  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."                                                                   
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                             
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 45}
  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.             
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 50}
  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.                                         
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 55}
  "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.                                              
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 60}
  "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.                         
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 65}
  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.                
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 70}
  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.                                                        
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 75}
  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.                                                    
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 80}
  "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.                                                                     
                                                   {BK10|CH31 ^paragraph 85}
  "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.                                      
                                                                            
BK10|CH32                                                                   
  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.)                              
                                                    {BK10|CH32 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                 
                                                                            
BK10|CH33                                                                   
  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.                               
                                                    {BK10|CH33 ^paragraph 5}
  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.               
                                                   {BK10|CH33 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                           
                                                                            
BK10|CH34                                                                   
  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!..."                     
                                                    {BK10|CH34 ^paragraph 5}
  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."                         
                                                   {BK10|CH34 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                  
                                                   {BK10|CH34 ^paragraph 15}
  "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."                                                         
                                                   {BK10|CH34 ^paragraph 20}
  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.       
                                                   {BK10|CH34 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                                            
                                                   {BK10|CH34 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                     
                                                   {BK10|CH34 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                 
                                                   {BK10|CH34 ^paragraph 40}
  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.         
                                                                            
BK10|CH35                                                                   
  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.                                    
                                                    {BK10|CH35 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                  
                                                   {BK10|CH35 ^paragraph 10}
  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.         
                                                   {BK10|CH35 ^paragraph 15}
  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 understand what was said to him. Wolzogen, noticing "the old      
gentleman's" agitation, said with a smile:                                  
                                                   {BK10|CH35 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                            
                                                   {BK10|CH35 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                    
                                                   {BK10|CH35 ^paragraph 30}
  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 that tomorrow we attack."      
                                                   {BK10|CH35 ^paragraph 35}
  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.      
                                                                            
BK10|CH36                                                                   
  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."               
                                                    {BK10|CH36 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                             
                                                   {BK10|CH36 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.         
                                                   {BK10|CH36 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                                    
                                                   {BK10|CH36 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                            
                                                   {BK10|CH36 ^paragraph 25}
-                                                                           
  The militiamen carried Prince Andrew to 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."                    
                                                                            
BK10|CH37                                                                   
  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.                                                               
                                                    {BK10|CH37 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                    
                                                   {BK10|CH37 ^paragraph 10}
  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 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.                                           
                                                   {BK10|CH37 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                               
                                                   {BK10|CH37 ^paragraph 20}
  "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!"            
                                                                            
BK10|CH38                                                                   
  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.                  
                                                    {BK10|CH38 ^paragraph 5}
  "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:                                                             
-                                                                           
                                                   {BK10|CH38 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                  
                                                   {BK10|CH38 ^paragraph 15}
  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.        
-                                                                           
                                                   {BK10|CH38 ^paragraph 20}
  "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 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.            
                                                                            
BK10|CH39                                                                   
  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.                                                                        
                                                    {BK10|CH39 ^paragraph 5}
  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 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 permitit.                                                         
  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.                                                              
                                                                            
BK11                                                                        
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                               BOOK ELEVEN: 1812                            
                                                                            
BK11|CH1                                                                    
  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.                                       
                                                     {BK11|CH1 ^paragraph 5}
  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.      
                                                    {BK11|CH1 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                 
                                                    {BK11|CH1 ^paragraph 15}
  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 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.                                       
                                                                            
BK11|CH2                                                                    
  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.                                  
                                                     {BK11|CH2 ^paragraph 5}
  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 all resemble the activity we imagine to         
ourselves when we sit at case 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.                                              
                                                                            
BK11|CH3                                                                    
  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 it        
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.                              
                                                     {BK11|CH3 ^paragraph 5}
  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.       
                                                                            
BK11|CH4                                                                    
  CHAPTERIV 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 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.               
                                                     {BK11|CH4 ^paragraph 5}
  "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, 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.                            
                                                    {BK11|CH4 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                     
                                                    {BK11|CH4 ^paragraph 15}
  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..."                                                
                                                                            
BK11|CH5                                                                    
  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.                                                      
                                                     {BK11|CH5 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                                    
                                                                            
BK11|CH6                                                                    
  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.                                    
                                                     {BK11|CH6 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.        
                                                    {BK11|CH6 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                        
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK11|CH6 ^paragraph 15}
  *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?                                                                   
                                                    {BK11|CH6 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                          
                                                                            
BK11|CH7                                                                    
  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, 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.          
                                                     {BK11|CH7 ^paragraph 5}
  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 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.                                                        
                                                    {BK11|CH7 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                                                 
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK11|CH7 ^paragraph 15}
  *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.             
                                                    {BK11|CH7 ^paragraph 20}
  "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 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.                                                             
                                                    {BK11|CH7 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                          
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK11|CH7 ^paragraph 30}
  "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."*                               
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK11|CH7 ^paragraph 35}
  *"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."                                
                                                    {BK11|CH7 ^paragraph 40}
-                                                                           
  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.                                            
                                                    {BK11|CH7 ^paragraph 45}
-                                                                           
  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.                                                                
                                                                            
BK11|CH8                                                                    
  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.                  
                                                     {BK11|CH8 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                   
                                                    {BK11|CH8 ^paragraph 10}
  "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 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?"                                         
                                                    {BK11|CH8 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.        
                                                    {BK11|CH8 ^paragraph 20}
  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?"                                                        
                                                    {BK11|CH8 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                   
                                                                            
BK11|CH9                                                                    
  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.               
                                                     {BK11|CH9 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                   
                                                    {BK11|CH9 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                        
                                                                            
BK11|CH10                                                                   
  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.                                      
                                                    {BK11|CH10 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                                      
                                                   {BK11|CH10 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.              
                                                   {BK11|CH10 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  "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..."                                            
                                                   {BK11|CH10 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                                       
                                                   {BK11|CH10 ^paragraph 25}
  "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!"                 
                                                   {BK11|CH10 ^paragraph 30}
   "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..."                                                  
                                                                            
BK11|CH11                                                                   
  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 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."                       
                                                    {BK11|CH11 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                      
                                                   {BK11|CH11 ^paragraph 10}
  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.      
                                                   {BK11|CH11 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                 
                                                                            
BK11|CH12                                                                   
  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 bear 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.                               
                                                    {BK11|CH12 ^paragraph 5}
  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 bad 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.                           
                                                                            
BK11|CH13                                                                   
  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 bad 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.        
                                                    {BK11|CH13 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                 
                                                   {BK11|CH13 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                     
                                                   {BK11|CH13 ^paragraph 15}
  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."       
                                                   {BK11|CH13 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                       
                                                   {BK11|CH13 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.           
                                                   {BK11|CH13 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                     
                                                   {BK11|CH13 ^paragraph 35}
  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.               
                                                                            
BK11|CH14                                                                   
  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."                                              
                                                    {BK11|CH14 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                        
                                                   {BK11|CH14 ^paragraph 10}
  "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 bolding 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.                                   
                                                   {BK11|CH14 ^paragraph 15}
  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."                            
                                                   {BK11|CH14 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                             
                                                   {BK11|CH14 ^paragraph 25}
  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'.                                                                    
                                                   {BK11|CH14 ^paragraph 30}
  This wounded man was Prince Andrew Bolkonski.                             
                                                                            
BK11|CH15                                                                   
  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.)                    
                                                    {BK11|CH15 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                            
                                                   {BK11|CH15 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.         
                                                   {BK11|CH15 ^paragraph 15}
  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."                                 
                                                   {BK11|CH15 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                          
                                                   {BK11|CH15 ^paragraph 25}
  Natasha stepped up to the window and pondered.                            
  "Papa! Here's Berg coming to see us," said she, looking out of the        
window.                                                                     
                                                                            
BK11|CH16                                                                   
  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.          
                                                    {BK11|CH16 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                     
                                                   {BK11|CH16 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                  
                                                   {BK11|CH16 ^paragraph 15}
  "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."                                                  
                                                   {BK11|CH16 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                 
                                                   {BK11|CH16 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                     
                                                   {BK11|CH16 ^paragraph 30}
  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?"           
                                                   {BK11|CH16 ^paragraph 35}
  "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!"                                             
                                                   {BK11|CH16 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                                  
                                                   {BK11|CH16 ^paragraph 45}
  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.                                  
                                                   {BK11|CH16 ^paragraph 50}
  "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.                                                      
                                                   {BK11|CH16 ^paragraph 55}
  "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.      
                                                                            
BK11|CH17                                                                   
  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?"                                         
                                                    {BK11|CH17 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                  
                                                   {BK11|CH17 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                  
                                                   {BK11|CH17 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                        
                                                   {BK11|CH17 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.)                                 
                                                   {BK11|CH17 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                   
                                                   {BK11|CH17 ^paragraph 30}
  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!"                                   
                                                   {BK11|CH17 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                                
                                                   {BK11|CH17 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                     
                                                   {BK11|CH17 ^paragraph 45}
  "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.              
Goodby!"                                                                    
                                                   {BK11|CH17 ^paragraph 50}
  "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...."                                                               
                                                   {BK11|CH17 ^paragraph 55}
  "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.                    
                                                                            
BK11|CH18                                                                   
  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.              
                                                    {BK11|CH18 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                  
                                                   {BK11|CH18 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                                                      
                                                   {BK11|CH18 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                 
                                                   {BK11|CH18 ^paragraph 20}
  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."        
                                                   {BK11|CH18 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                    
                                                                            
BK11|CH19                                                                   
  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.                                                                 
                                                    {BK11|CH19 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                     
-                                                                           
                                                   {BK11|CH19 ^paragraph 10}
  *"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.                        
                                                   {BK11|CH19 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  *"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.         
                                                   {BK11|CH19 ^paragraph 20}
  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."                                                
-                                                                           
                                                   {BK11|CH19 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                              
                                                   {BK11|CH19 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                          
                                                                            
BK11|CH20                                                                   
  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.                                
                                                    {BK11|CH20 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                         
                                                   {BK11|CH20 ^paragraph 10}
  The coup de theatre had not come off.                                     
                                                                            
BK11|CH21                                                                   
  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 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!"             
                                                    {BK11|CH21 ^paragraph 5}
  "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...."                                
                                                   {BK11|CH21 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                
                                                   {BK11|CH21 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                           
                                                   {BK11|CH21 ^paragraph 20}
  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.          
                                                                            
BK11|CH22                                                                   
  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.                                             
                                                    {BK11|CH22 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                
                                                   {BK11|CH22 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                               
                                                   {BK11|CH22 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                      
                                                   {BK11|CH22 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                   
                                                   {BK11|CH22 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                        
                                                   {BK11|CH22 ^paragraph 30}
  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.         
                                                                            
BK11|CH23                                                                   
  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.                                                    
                                                    {BK11|CH23 ^paragraph 5}
  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?"                                                                     
                                                   {BK11|CH23 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                        
                                                   {BK11|CH23 ^paragraph 15}
  "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."                                                        
                                                   {BK11|CH23 ^paragraph 20}
  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.          
                                                   {BK11|CH23 ^paragraph 25}
  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.               
                                                   {BK11|CH23 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                           
                                                   {BK11|CH23 ^paragraph 35}
  The superintendent of police, who had 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.                                                       
                                                   {BK11|CH23 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                                            
                                                                            
BK11|CH24                                                                   
  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 presence 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.           
                                                    {BK11|CH24 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                         
                                                   {BK11|CH24 ^paragraph 10}
  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?"                                                    
                                                   {BK11|CH24 ^paragraph 15}
  "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!"                                                          
                                                                            
BK11|CH25                                                                   
  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.                                     
                                                    {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 5}
  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.           
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                  
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                        
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 20}
  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.          
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 25}
  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.      
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 30}
  "He has betrayed his Tsar and his country, he had 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.               
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                                                  
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 40}
  "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.                       
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 45}
  "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.                                        
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 50}
  "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.                                                 
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 55}
  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.                                                          
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 60}
  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.                                        
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 65}
  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.                                 
                                                   {BK11|CH25 ^paragraph 70}
  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.               
                                                                            
BK11|CH26                                                                   
  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.                                      
                                                    {BK11|CH26 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                     
                                                   {BK11|CH26 ^paragraph 10}
  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 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.                                               
                                                   {BK11|CH26 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                           
                                                   {BK11|CH26 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                    
                                                   {BK11|CH26 ^paragraph 25}
-                                                                           
  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.                                  
                                                                            
BK11|CH27                                                                   
  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.                          
                                                    {BK11|CH27 ^paragraph 5}
  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 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.                                                      
                                                   {BK11|CH27 ^paragraph 10}
  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?"                       
                                                   {BK11|CH27 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                    
                                                   {BK11|CH27 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                               
                                                   {BK11|CH27 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                                        
                                                                            
BK11|CH28                                                                   
  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!"                                                   
                                                    {BK11|CH28 ^paragraph 5}
-                                                                           
  No one gave any reply.                                                    
  "Vous etes le bourgeois?"* the officer asked Gerasim.                     
-                                                                           
  *"Are you the master here?"                                               
                                                   {BK11|CH28 ^paragraph 10}
-                                                                           
  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!"                       
                                                   {BK11|CH28 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  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.           
                                                   {BK11|CH28 ^paragraph 20}
  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.       
                                                   {BK11|CH28 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                                                 
                                                   {BK11|CH28 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                                                    
                                                   {BK11|CH28 ^paragraph 35}
  "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?"                                                
                                                   {BK11|CH28 ^paragraph 40}
  "Yes, and some wine," answered the captain.                               
                                                                            
BK11|CH29                                                                   
  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?"                        
                                                    {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                               
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 10}
  "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..."                                             
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 15}
  "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."                                                               
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                   
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 25}
  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.          
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                          
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                               
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 40}
  "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.                                                                      
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 45}
  "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."                       
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 50}
  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.                                             
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 55}
  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.            
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 60}
  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.                                                         
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 65}
  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.                                                           
                                                   {BK11|CH29 ^paragraph 70}
  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.                                                    
                                                                            
BK11|CH30                                                                   
  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.                                                                    
                                                    {BK11|CH30 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                      
                                                   {BK11|CH30 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                      
                                                   {BK11|CH30 ^paragraph 15}
  "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 failing, farther and           
farther still.                                                              
  "God have mercy.... It's windy and dry..." said another voice.            
                                                   {BK11|CH30 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.           
                                                                            
BK11|CH31                                                                   
  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.                  
                                                    {BK11|CH31 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                      
                                                   {BK11|CH31 ^paragraph 10}
  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."                          
                                                   {BK11|CH31 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                                       
                                                   {BK11|CH31 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                         
                                                   {BK11|CH31 ^paragraph 25}
  After 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.                         
                                                   {BK11|CH31 ^paragraph 30}
  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 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.                                 
                                                   {BK11|CH31 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                                   
                                                                            
BK11|CH32                                                                   
  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 coach. man, 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."                                             
                                                    {BK11|CH32 ^paragraph 5}
  "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?"                                                              
                                                   {BK11|CH32 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."         
                                                   {BK11|CH32 ^paragraph 15}
  "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 semi-darkness 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.                                                              
                                                   {BK11|CH32 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                  
                                                   {BK11|CH32 ^paragraph 25}
  "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 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!"                                                               
                                                   {BK11|CH32 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                         
                                                   {BK11|CH32 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                    
                                                   {BK11|CH32 ^paragraph 40}
-                                                                           
  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.                                               
                                                                            
BK11|CH33                                                                   
  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.                                     
                                                    {BK11|CH33 ^paragraph 5}
  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 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.                                                                  
                                                   {BK11|CH33 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                        
                                                   {BK11|CH33 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.       
                                                   {BK11|CH33 ^paragraph 20}
  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!                                                         
-                                                                           
                                                   {BK11|CH33 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                             
                                                   {BK11|CH33 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                                                     
                                                   {BK11|CH33 ^paragraph 35}
  "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."             
                                                   {BK11|CH33 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                                                    
                                                                            
BK11|CH34                                                                   
  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.                                     
                                                    {BK11|CH34 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.      
                                                   {BK11|CH34 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                
                                                   {BK11|CH34 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                      
                                                   {BK11|CH34 ^paragraph 20}
-                                                                           
  *"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.                                                                 
                                                   {BK11|CH34 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                 
                                                   {BK11|CH34 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                                  
                                                   {BK11|CH34 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                                                   
                                                                            
BK12                                                                        
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                               BOOK TWELVE: 1812                            
                                                                            
BK12|CH1                                                                    
  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."                                                           
                                                     {BK12|CH1 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                    
                                                    {BK12|CH1 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                            
                                                    {BK12|CH1 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                              
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK12|CH1 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                  
                                                    {BK12|CH1 ^paragraph 25}
-                                                                           
  "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 blood-thirsty 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.                     
                                                    {BK12|CH1 ^paragraph 30}
  "You will see," said Anna Pavlovna, "that tomorrow, on the Emperor's      
birthday, we shall receive news. I have a favorable presentiment!"          
                                                                            
BK12|CH2                                                                    
  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."                                                        
                                                     {BK12|CH2 ^paragraph 5}
  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."                                                             
                                                    {BK12|CH2 ^paragraph 10}
  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:                                        
                                                    {BK12|CH2 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  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.                                                                   
                                                                            
BK12|CH3                                                                    
  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]                                                               
                                                     {BK12|CH3 ^paragraph 5}
-                                                                           
  *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:               
                                                    {BK12|CH3 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                  
                                                    {BK12|CH3 ^paragraph 15}
  "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?..."                                          
                                                    {BK12|CH3 ^paragraph 20}
  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!"                          
                                                    {BK12|CH3 ^paragraph 25}
  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."        
                                                    {BK12|CH3 ^paragraph 30}
  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!"                                 
                                                    {BK12|CH3 ^paragraph 35}
  With an inclination of the head the Emperor dismissed him.                
                                                                            
BK12|CH4                                                                    
  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           
ficeing 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.                                                  
                                                     {BK12|CH4 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                                        
                                                    {BK12|CH4 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                            
                                                    {BK12|CH4 ^paragraph 15}
  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."                                                      
                                                    {BK12|CH4 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                     
                                                                            
BK12|CH5                                                                    
  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.                                  
                                                     {BK12|CH5 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                            
                                                    {BK12|CH5 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                                           
                                                    {BK12|CH5 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                 
                                                    {BK12|CH5 ^paragraph 20}
  "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...."                       
                                                    {BK12|CH5 ^paragraph 25}
  "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 Soyna...?" 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.                                                                 
                                                    {BK12|CH5 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                         
                                                    {BK12|CH5 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                                                          
                                                                            
BK12|CH6                                                                    
  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.              
                                                     {BK12|CH6 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                
                                                    {BK12|CH6 ^paragraph 10}
  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 governeor'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.                                                           
                                                    {BK12|CH6 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                                     
                                                                            
BK12|CH7                                                                    
  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.                                             
                                                     {BK12|CH7 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                            
                                                    {BK12|CH7 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                                                
                                                    {BK12|CH7 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                 
                                                    {BK12|CH7 ^paragraph 20}
  "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            
                                                    {BK12|CH7 ^paragraph 25}
                                                   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.                
                                                                            
BK12|CH8                                                                    
  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.                                         
                                                     {BK12|CH8 ^paragraph 5}
  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 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.                                 
                                                    {BK12|CH8 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                            
                                                    {BK12|CH8 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                    
                                                    {BK12|CH8 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                                
                                                    {BK12|CH8 ^paragraph 25}
  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.        
                                                    {BK12|CH8 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                            
                                                                            
BK12|CH9                                                                    
  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.                                     
                                                     {BK12|CH9 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                           
                                                    {BK12|CH9 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                             
                                                                            
BK12|CH10                                                                   
  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:                                   
                                                    {BK12|CH10 ^paragraph 5}
  "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..."                   
                                                   {BK12|CH10 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                                                               
                                                   {BK12|CH10 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                                     
                                                   {BK12|CH10 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                                                     
                                                   {BK12|CH10 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                          
                                                   {BK12|CH10 ^paragraph 30}
  A system of some sort was killing him- Pierre- depriving him of           
life, of everything, annihilating him.                                      
                                                                            
BK12|CH11                                                                   
  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.               
                                                    {BK12|CH11 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                   
                                                   {BK12|CH11 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                          
                                                   {BK12|CH11 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                        
                                                                            
BK12|CH12                                                                   
  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.                                                                        
                                                    {BK12|CH12 ^paragraph 5}
  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:                                                                      
                                                   {BK12|CH12 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.         
                                                   {BK12|CH12 ^paragraph 15}
  "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."                                   
                                                   {BK12|CH12 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.             
                                                   {BK12|CH12 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                              
                                                   {BK12|CH12 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                           
                                                   {BK12|CH12 ^paragraph 35}
  "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!"                                                        
                                                   {BK12|CH12 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                                 
                                                   {BK12|CH12 ^paragraph 45}
  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?"                                     
                                                   {BK12|CH12 ^paragraph 50}
  "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.                           
                                                                            
BK12|CH13                                                                   
  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.                                                
                                                    {BK12|CH13 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                                      
                                                   {BK12|CH13 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                       
                                                                            
BK12|CH14                                                                   
  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.                                                   
                                                    {BK12|CH14 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                        
                                                   {BK12|CH14 ^paragraph 10}
  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."                                  
                                                   {BK12|CH14 ^paragraph 15}
  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."                   
                                                   {BK12|CH14 ^paragraph 20}
-                                                                           
 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.                                                                       
                                                   {BK12|CH14 ^paragraph 25}
  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."                 
                                                   {BK12|CH14 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                                         
                                                   {BK12|CH14 ^paragraph 35}
  "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 eyes would 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.                       
                                                   {BK12|CH14 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                 
                                                   {BK12|CH14 ^paragraph 45}
  "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..."                                   
                                                                            
BK12|CH15                                                                   
  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..."                                                                 
                                                    {BK12|CH15 ^paragraph 5}
  In the deep 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.                        
                                                   {BK12|CH15 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                                         
                                                   {BK12|CH15 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  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.                                                                        
                                                   {BK12|CH15 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                            
                                                   {BK12|CH15 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                               
                                                   {BK12|CH15 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                                               
                                                   {BK12|CH15 ^paragraph 35}
  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?"                                                       
                                                   {BK12|CH15 ^paragraph 40}
  "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.                                                                     
                                                   {BK12|CH15 ^paragraph 45}
-                                                                           
  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.                                               
                                                                            
BK12|CH16                                                                   
  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!"                                            
                                                    {BK12|CH16 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                                
                                                   {BK12|CH16 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                      
                                                   {BK12|CH16 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.      
                                                   {BK12|CH16 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                   
                                                   {BK12|CH16 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                         
                                                   {BK12|CH16 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.              
                                                   {BK12|CH16 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                            
                                                   {BK12|CH16 ^paragraph 40}
  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?..."                                  
                                                   {BK12|CH16 ^paragraph 45}
  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.                                                             
                                                                            
BK13                                                                        
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                              BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812                           
                                                                            
BK13|CH1                                                                    
  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 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 in activity 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.                                               
                                                                            
BK13|CH2                                                                    
  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.                                                   
                                                     {BK13|CH2 ^paragraph 5}
  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!                                                        
                                                    {BK13|CH2 ^paragraph 10}
                                                  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.            
                                                                            
BK13|CH3                                                                    
  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.                             
                                                     {BK13|CH3 ^paragraph 5}
-                                                                           
  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.                                     
                                                    {BK13|CH3 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                          
                                                                            
BK13|CH4                                                                    
  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.                                                         
                                                     {BK13|CH4 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                
                                                    {BK13|CH4 ^paragraph 10}
  "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?"                                                 
                                                    {BK13|CH4 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                    
                                                    {BK13|CH4 ^paragraph 20}
  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."                                                                  
                                                                            
BK13|CH5                                                                    
  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.                 
                                                                            
BK13|CH6                                                                    
  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!"                     
                                                     {BK13|CH6 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                               
                                                    {BK13|CH6 ^paragraph 10}
  "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!"                           
                                                    {BK13|CH6 ^paragraph 15}
  "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 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.       
                                                    {BK13|CH6 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                          
                                                                            
BK13|CH7                                                                    
  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.                                                                        
                                                     {BK13|CH7 ^paragraph 5}
  "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."                                                        
                                                    {BK13|CH7 ^paragraph 10}
  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.            
                                                    {BK13|CH7 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                           
                                                                            
BK13|CH8                                                                    
  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.              
                                                     {BK13|CH8 ^paragraph 5}
  His activity in Moscow was as amazing and as full of genius as            
elsewhere. Order after order 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.                                                                      
                                                                            
BK13|CH9                                                                    
  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:                                                        
                                                     {BK13|CH9 ^paragraph 5}
-                                                                           
                        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 youp 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!                                                                       
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK13|CH9 ^paragraph 10}
  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.            
                                                    {BK13|CH9 ^paragraph 15}
  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!                   
                                                    {BK13|CH9 ^paragraph 20}
-                                                                           
  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.                                             
                                                                            
BK13|CH10                                                                   
  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.                                                               
                                                    {BK13|CH10 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                    
                                                   {BK13|CH10 ^paragraph 10}
  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."           
                                                   {BK13|CH10 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                      
                                                   {BK13|CH10 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                                                         
                                                                            
BK13|CH11                                                                   
  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.                                                                    
                                                    {BK13|CH11 ^paragraph 5}
  On everything- far and near- lay the magic crystal glitter seen only      
at that time 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.                         
                                                   {BK13|CH11 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                       
                                                   {BK13|CH11 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                          
                                                   {BK13|CH11 ^paragraph 20}
  "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...."          
                                                   {BK13|CH11 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                            
                                                   {BK13|CH11 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.                                                         
                                                                            
BK13|CH12                                                                   
  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.             
                                                    {BK13|CH12 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                                   
                                                                            
BK13|CH13                                                                   
  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.          
                                                    {BK13|CH13 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.         
                                                   {BK13|CH13 ^paragraph 10}
  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.          
                                                   {BK13|CH13 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                    
                                                   {BK13|CH13 ^paragraph 20}
  "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 grown 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."                                                   
                                                   {BK13|CH13 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                
                                                                            
BK13|CH14                                                                   
  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.             
                                                    {BK13|CH14 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                    
                                                   {BK13|CH14 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                               
                                                   {BK13|CH14 ^paragraph 15}
  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 be 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.                                
                                                   {BK13|CH14 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                           
                                                                            
BK13|CH15                                                                   
  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.             
                                                    {BK13|CH15 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                 
                                                                            
BK13|CH16                                                                   
  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.             
                                                    {BK13|CH16 ^paragraph 5}
  "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."                                    
                                                   {BK13|CH16 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                     
                                                   {BK13|CH16 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                              
                                                   {BK13|CH16 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.        
                                                   {BK13|CH16 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                  
                                                                            
BK13|CH17                                                                   
  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.                                              
                                                    {BK13|CH17 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                         
                                                   {BK13|CH17 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                   
                                                   {BK13|CH17 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                         
                                                                            
BK13|CH18                                                                   
  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.                                       
                                                    {BK13|CH18 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                               
                                                   {BK13|CH18 ^paragraph 10}
  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.              
                                                                            
BK13|CH19                                                                   
  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.                                                              
                                                    {BK13|CH19 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                        
                                                   {BK13|CH19 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                         
                                                                            
BK14                                                                        
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                              BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812                           
                                                                            
BK14|CH1                                                                    
  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.                              
                                                     {BK14|CH1 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                              
                                                    {BK14|CH1 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                    
                                                                            
BK14|CH2                                                                    
  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.*                                   
-                                                                           
                                                     {BK14|CH2 ^paragraph 5}
  *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.                                                    
                                                    {BK14|CH2 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                          
                                                    {BK14|CH2 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                        
                                                                            
BK14|CH3                                                                    
  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.               
                                                     {BK14|CH3 ^paragraph 5}
  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 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.                                                             
                                                    {BK14|CH3 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                    
                                                                            
BK14|CH4                                                                    
  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.                                                   
                                                     {BK14|CH4 ^paragraph 5}
-                                                                           
  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.                                                                    
                                                    {BK14|CH4 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                   
                                                    {BK14|CH4 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                           
                                                    {BK14|CH4 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                             
                                                    {BK14|CH4 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                                           
                                                    {BK14|CH4 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                                              
                                                    {BK14|CH4 ^paragraph 35}
  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."                                                                 
                                                    {BK14|CH4 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                                                     
                                                                            
BK14|CH5                                                                    
  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.                                                     
                                                     {BK14|CH5 ^paragraph 5}
  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...."            
                                                    {BK14|CH5 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                   
                                                    {BK14|CH5 ^paragraph 15}
  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.'"                     
                                                    {BK14|CH5 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                        
                                                    {BK14|CH5 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                      
                                                                            
BK14|CH6                                                                    
  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.                  
                                                     {BK14|CH6 ^paragraph 5}
  "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?"                              
                                                    {BK14|CH6 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                
                                                    {BK14|CH6 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                             
                                                    {BK14|CH6 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                          
                                                    {BK14|CH6 ^paragraph 25}
  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."                                                    
                                                                            
BK14|CH7                                                                    
  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.                           
                                                     {BK14|CH7 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                
                                                    {BK14|CH7 ^paragraph 10}
  "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:                                         
                                                    {BK14|CH7 ^paragraph 15}
  "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:                      
                                                    {BK14|CH7 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                                   
                                                    {BK14|CH7 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                             
                                                    {BK14|CH7 ^paragraph 30}
  "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."                                                  
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK14|CH7 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                      
                                                    {BK14|CH7 ^paragraph 40}
  "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.                      
                                                                            
BK14|CH8                                                                    
  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.                                  
                                                     {BK14|CH8 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                           
                                                    {BK14|CH8 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                                     
                                                    {BK14|CH8 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                       
                                                    {BK14|CH8 ^paragraph 20}
  "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..."           
                                                                            
BK14|CH9                                                                    
  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?"                                                        
                                                     {BK14|CH9 ^paragraph 5}
-                                                                           
  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."                                           
                                                    {BK14|CH9 ^paragraph 10}
-                                                                           
  The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.                       
  "Mot d'ordre."*                                                           
-                                                                           
  *"Password."                                                              
                                                    {BK14|CH9 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  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?"                                       
                                                    {BK14|CH9 ^paragraph 20}
-                                                                           
  "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."                   
                                                    {BK14|CH9 ^paragraph 25}
-                                                                           
  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.                        
                                                    {BK14|CH9 ^paragraph 30}
  "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."                                                   
                                                    {BK14|CH9 ^paragraph 35}
-                                                                           
  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.            
                                                    {BK14|CH9 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                                
                                                    {BK14|CH9 ^paragraph 45}
  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.                                                  
                                                    {BK14|CH9 ^paragraph 50}
  "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 no 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!"                                                  
                                                    {BK14|CH9 ^paragraph 55}
  "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.                                      
                                                                            
BK14|CH10                                                                   
  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.                                                                      
                                                    {BK14|CH10 ^paragraph 5}
  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."                      
                                                   {BK14|CH10 ^paragraph 10}
  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."                   
                                                   {BK14|CH10 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                
                                                   {BK14|CH10 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.            
                                                   {BK14|CH10 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.              
                                                   {BK14|CH10 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                    
                                                   {BK14|CH10 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                                                    
                                                   {BK14|CH10 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                                                        
                                                   {BK14|CH10 ^paragraph 45}
  "And here's the commander," said Likhachev.                               
  Denisov came out of the watchman's hut and, having called Petya,          
gave orders to get ready.                                                   
                                                                            
BK14|CH11                                                                   
  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.                                                           
                                                    {BK14|CH11 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                 
                                                   {BK14|CH11 ^paragraph 10}
  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.       
                                                   {BK14|CH11 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                          
                                                   {BK14|CH11 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                            
                                                                            
BK14|CH12                                                                   
  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.                                                               
                                                    {BK14|CH12 ^paragraph 5}
  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.              
                                                   {BK14|CH12 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                
                                                                            
BK14|CH13                                                                   
  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.                                               
                                                    {BK14|CH13 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                      
                                                   {BK14|CH13 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                                                   
                                                                            
BK14|CH14                                                                   
  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.       
                                                    {BK14|CH14 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.           
                                                   {BK14|CH14 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                      
                                                                            
BK14|CH15                                                                   
  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.        
                                                    {BK14|CH15 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                        
                                                   {BK14|CH15 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                              
                                                   {BK14|CH15 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.       
                                                   {BK14|CH15 ^paragraph 20}
  "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!"                                                  
                                                   {BK14|CH15 ^paragraph 25}
-                                                                           
  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.                                                     
                                                                            
BK14|CH16                                                                   
  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 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.                                   
                                                    {BK14|CH16 ^paragraph 5}
-                                                                           
  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.                    
                                                                            
BK14|CH17                                                                   
  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.                       
                                                    {BK14|CH17 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                                     
                                                                            
BK14|CH18                                                                   
  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."                                                                   
                                                    {BK14|CH18 ^paragraph 5}
-                                                                           
  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.                                  
                                                   {BK14|CH18 ^paragraph 10}
-                                                                           
  *"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.                                                         
                                                   {BK14|CH18 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  *"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.                                 
                                                                            
BK14|CH19                                                                   
  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.                                           
                                                    {BK14|CH19 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                             
                                                   {BK14|CH19 ^paragraph 10}
  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.      
                                                   {BK14|CH19 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                  
                                                   {BK14|CH19 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                                      
                                                   {BK14|CH19 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                       
                                                                            
BK15                                                                        
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                            BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13                         
                                                                            
BK15|CH1                                                                    
  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.                                                               
                                                     {BK15|CH1 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                         
                                                    {BK15|CH1 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                   
                                                    {BK15|CH1 ^paragraph 15}
  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.        
                                                    {BK15|CH1 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                        
                                                                            
BK15|CH2                                                                    
  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.                                                              
                                                     {BK15|CH2 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                         
                                                    {BK15|CH2 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                 
                                                    {BK15|CH2 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.            
                                                    {BK15|CH2 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                                       
                                                                            
BK15|CH3                                                                    
  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 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.           
                                                     {BK15|CH3 ^paragraph 5}
  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.        
                                                    {BK15|CH3 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                   
                                                    {BK15|CH3 ^paragraph 15}
  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, sing, and              
listened attentively to herself.                                            
                                                    {BK15|CH3 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                
                                                                            
BK15|CH4                                                                    
  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.                                                                   
                                                     {BK15|CH4 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                                       
                                                    {BK15|CH4 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                
-                                                                           
                                                    {BK15|CH4 ^paragraph 15}
  "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 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 contempories, 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.                 
                                                                            
BK15|CH5                                                                    
  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.                                    
                                                     {BK15|CH5 ^paragraph 5}
  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 conciousness 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.                                           
                                                    {BK15|CH5 ^paragraph 10}
  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?             
                                                    {BK15|CH5 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                               
                                                                            
BK15|CH6                                                                    
  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.                                                            
                                                     {BK15|CH6 ^paragraph 5}
  "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."                                                            
                                                    {BK15|CH6 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                       
                                                    {BK15|CH6 ^paragraph 15}
  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!"                           
                                                    {BK15|CH6 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                         
                                                                            
BK15|CH7                                                                    
  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.                 
                                                     {BK15|CH7 ^paragraph 5}
  "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."                               
                                                    {BK15|CH7 ^paragraph 10}
  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 an 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.                                                         
                                                    {BK15|CH7 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                               
                                                    {BK15|CH7 ^paragraph 20}
  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.           
                                                                            
BK15|CH8                                                                    
  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.                                                    
                                                     {BK15|CH8 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                                             
                                                    {BK15|CH8 ^paragraph 10}
  "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..."                                    
                                                    {BK15|CH8 ^paragraph 15}
  "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."         
                                                    {BK15|CH8 ^paragraph 20}
  "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."                                 
                                                    {BK15|CH8 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.'"             
                                                    {BK15|CH8 ^paragraph 30}
  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."       
                                                    {BK15|CH8 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                                          
                                                    {BK15|CH8 ^paragraph 40}
  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."            
                                                    {BK15|CH8 ^paragraph 45}
  "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.                 
                                                    {BK15|CH8 ^paragraph 50}
  "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.                    
                                                                            
BK15|CH9                                                                    
  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.                                                               
                                                     {BK15|CH9 ^paragraph 5}
  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:           
                                                    {BK15|CH9 ^paragraph 10}
  "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..."*                                                        
                                                    {BK15|CH9 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  *"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.                                                                      
                                                    {BK15|CH9 ^paragraph 20}
  Morel, wrinkling up his face, laughed too.                                
  "Well, go on, go on!"                                                     
-                                                                           
      "Qui eut le triple talent,                                            
      De boire, de battre,                                                  
                                                    {BK15|CH9 ^paragraph 25}
      Et d'etre un vert galant."*                                           
-                                                                           
  *Who had a triple talent                                                  
   For drinking, for fighting,                                              
   And for being a gallant old boy...                                       
                                                    {BK15|CH9 ^paragraph 30}
-                                                                           
  "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."                                                                  
                                                    {BK15|CH9 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                           
                                                                            
BK15|CH10                                                                   
  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, 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.                                                                 
                                                    {BK15|CH10 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                                       
                                                   {BK15|CH10 ^paragraph 10}
  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."                     
                                                   {BK15|CH10 ^paragraph 15}
  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               
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.                                                                   
                                                   {BK15|CH10 ^paragraph 20}
  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:                                                     
                                                   {BK15|CH10 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                                
                                                                            
BK15|CH11                                                                   
  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.           
                                                    {BK15|CH11 ^paragraph 5}
  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 1812, besides its national significance dear to every             
Russian heart, was now to assume another, a European, significance.         
                                                   {BK15|CH11 ^paragraph 10}
  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.            
                                                                            
BK15|CH12                                                                   
  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!"                                                                  
                                                    {BK15|CH12 ^paragraph 5}
  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."                                                              
                                                                            
BK15|CH13                                                                   
  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.                   
                                                    {BK15|CH13 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                 
                                                   {BK15|CH13 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                      
                                                   {BK15|CH13 ^paragraph 15}
  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.           
                                                   {BK15|CH13 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                
                                                   {BK15|CH13 ^paragraph 25}
  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.         
                                                   {BK15|CH13 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                                            
                                                                            
BK15|CH14                                                                   
  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 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.                             
                                                    {BK15|CH14 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                        
                                                                            
BK15|CH15                                                                   
  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.                                              
                                                    {BK15|CH15 ^paragraph 5}
  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.           
                                                   {BK15|CH15 ^paragraph 10}
  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 of 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!"      
                                                   {BK15|CH15 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                  
                                                   {BK15|CH15 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                                                 
                                                                            
BK15|CH16                                                                   
  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.                                                     
                                                    {BK15|CH16 ^paragraph 5}
  "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."              
                                                   {BK15|CH16 ^paragraph 10}
  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.               
                                                   {BK15|CH16 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.        
                                                   {BK15|CH16 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                             
                                                   {BK15|CH16 ^paragraph 25}
  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."                                                               
                                                   {BK15|CH16 ^paragraph 30}
  Before Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: "This is the          
first time she has talked of him like that."                                
                                                                            
BK15|CH17                                                                   
  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?"                                      
                                                    {BK15|CH17 ^paragraph 5}
  "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!"                                              
                                                   {BK15|CH17 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                                  
                                                   {BK15|CH17 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                         
                                                   {BK15|CH17 ^paragraph 20}
  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:                                               
                                                   {BK15|CH17 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                                
                                                   {BK15|CH17 ^paragraph 30}
  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."               
                                                   {BK15|CH17 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                                
                                                   {BK15|CH17 ^paragraph 40}
  "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."                  
                                                   {BK15|CH17 ^paragraph 45}
  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?"                                                       
                                                   {BK15|CH17 ^paragraph 50}
  "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."                                                
                                                   {BK15|CH17 ^paragraph 55}
  "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.                                     
                                                                            
BK15|CH18                                                                   
  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.                                              
                                                    {BK15|CH18 ^paragraph 5}
  "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."                                                                      
                                                   {BK15|CH18 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                                       
                                                   {BK15|CH18 ^paragraph 15}
  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?"                                 
                                                   {BK15|CH18 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                          
                                                   {BK15|CH18 ^paragraph 25}
  "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 trifies 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.                   
                                                   {BK15|CH18 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                  
                                                   {BK15|CH18 ^paragraph 35}
  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.                   
                                                   {BK15|CH18 ^paragraph 40}
  "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..."                         
                                                   {BK15|CH18 ^paragraph 45}
  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...?"            
                                                   {BK15|CH18 ^paragraph 50}
  "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.                                     
                                                   {BK15|CH18 ^paragraph 55}
  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.                                                     
                                                                            
BK15|CH19                                                                   
  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.         
                                                    {BK15|CH19 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                            
                                                                            
BK15|CH20                                                                   
  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.                              
                                                    {BK15|CH20 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.         
                                                   {BK15|CH20 ^paragraph 10}
  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?"                                                           
                                                   {BK15|CH20 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                  
                                                   {BK15|CH20 ^paragraph 20}
  "But why go to Petersburg?" Natasha suddenly asked, and hastily           
replied to her own question. "But no, no, he must... Yes, Mary, He          
must...."                                                                   
                                                                            
EP1                                                                         
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                           FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20                        
                                                                            
EP1|CH1                                                                     
  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.                                                    
                                                      {EP1|CH1 ^paragraph 5}
  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?                                            
                                                     {EP1|CH1 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                             
                                                     {EP1|CH1 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                           
                                                                            
EP1|CH2                                                                     
  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 wag 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?                                       
                                                      {EP1|CH2 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                          
                                                     {EP1|CH2 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                          
                                                                            
EP1|CH3                                                                     
  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.          
                                                      {EP1|CH3 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                     
                                                     {EP1|CH3 ^paragraph 10}
  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 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.                                                  
                                                     {EP1|CH3 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                                   
                                                                            
EP1|CH4                                                                     
  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.                                                    
                                                      {EP1|CH4 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                            
                                                     {EP1|CH4 ^paragraph 10}
  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?                                     
                                                     {EP1|CH4 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                            
                                                                            
EP1|CH5                                                                     
  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.                                                  
                                                      {EP1|CH5 ^paragraph 5}
  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 reluctant 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.                                    
                                                     {EP1|CH5 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                   
                                                                            
EP1|CH6                                                                     
  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.                                         
                                                      {EP1|CH6 ^paragraph 5}
  "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."              
                                                     {EP1|CH6 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                                                      
                                                     {EP1|CH6 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                         
                                                     {EP1|CH6 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                         
                                                     {EP1|CH6 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                  
                                                     {EP1|CH6 ^paragraph 30}
  "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.               
                                                     {EP1|CH6 ^paragraph 35}
  "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."        
                                                     {EP1|CH6 ^paragraph 40}
  "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!"                                                                 
                                                     {EP1|CH6 ^paragraph 45}
  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.                                 
                                                                            
EP1|CH7                                                                     
  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.                                         
                                                      {EP1|CH7 ^paragraph 5}
  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.              
                                                     {EP1|CH7 ^paragraph 10}
  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!"                                                               
                                                                            
EP1|CH8                                                                     
  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?"                                
                                                      {EP1|CH8 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                          
                                                     {EP1|CH8 ^paragraph 10}
  The tears flowed faster still from the countess' eyes. She took           
his hand and kissed it.                                                     
  "Nicholas, when 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."                
                                                     {EP1|CH8 ^paragraph 15}
  "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."                           
                                                     {EP1|CH8 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                                      
                                                                            
EP1|CH9                                                                     
  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.           
                                                      {EP1|CH9 ^paragraph 5}
  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."                
                                                     {EP1|CH9 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                    
                                                     {EP1|CH9 ^paragraph 15}
  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 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?"                                                            
                                                     {EP1|CH9 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.       
                                                     {EP1|CH9 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                                     
                                                     {EP1|CH9 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                                                 
                                                     {EP1|CH9 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                                                                 
                                                     {EP1|CH9 ^paragraph 40}
  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.                                               
                                                     {EP1|CH9 ^paragraph 45}
  "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.               
                                                     {EP1|CH9 ^paragraph 50}
  "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.                                                    
                                                                            
EP1|CH10                                                                    
  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 of 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 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.                                             
                                                     {EP1|CH10 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                   
                                                    {EP1|CH10 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                  
                                                    {EP1|CH10 ^paragraph 15}
  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 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.                                          
                                                    {EP1|CH10 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                           
                                                                            
EP1|CH11                                                                    
  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.                                                               
                                                     {EP1|CH11 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                      
                                                    {EP1|CH11 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                         
                                                    {EP1|CH11 ^paragraph 15}
  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..."                                                           
                                                    {EP1|CH11 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                                             
                                                    {EP1|CH11 ^paragraph 25}
  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..."                                                      
                                                    {EP1|CH11 ^paragraph 30}
  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!"                            
                                                    {EP1|CH11 ^paragraph 35}
  "Only not for this..." Pierre suddenly exclaimed with a laugh, and        
shifting the baby he gave him to the nurse.                                 
                                                                            
EP1|CH12                                                                    
  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           
attend to the estate, and would 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.              
                                                     {EP1|CH12 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                               
                                                    {EP1|CH12 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                             
                                                    {EP1|CH12 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                                     
                                                    {EP1|CH12 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                                     
                                                    {EP1|CH12 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                           
                                                    {EP1|CH12 ^paragraph 30}
  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.              
                                                                            
EP1|CH13                                                                    
  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.                                                                
                                                     {EP1|CH13 ^paragraph 5}
  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."                                                                  
                                                    {EP1|CH13 ^paragraph 10}
  "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.                                    
                                                    {EP1|CH13 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                                                               
                                                    {EP1|CH13 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                     
                                                                            
EP1|CH14                                                                    
  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.                 
                                                     {EP1|CH14 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                  
                                                    {EP1|CH14 ^paragraph 10}
  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?"                                                         
                                                    {EP1|CH14 ^paragraph 15}
  "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.                           
                                                    {EP1|CH14 ^paragraph 20}
  "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.                         
                                                    {EP1|CH14 ^paragraph 25}
  "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?"                                                       
                                                    {EP1|CH14 ^paragraph 30}
  "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."                                     
                                                    {EP1|CH14 ^paragraph 35}
  "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!"*                                    
                                                    {EP1|CH14 ^paragraph 40}
-                                                                           
  *"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!"                                  
                                                    {EP1|CH14 ^paragraph 45}
  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.               
                                                    {EP1|CH14 ^paragraph 50}
  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.                                                          
                                                    {EP1|CH14 ^paragraph 55}
  "You ought not to have been here at all," he said.                        
                                                                            
EP1|CH15                                                                    
  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.                                                       
                                                     {EP1|CH15 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                            
                                                    {EP1|CH15 ^paragraph 10}
-                                                                           
  "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:                                           
                                                    {EP1|CH15 ^paragraph 15}
-                                                                           
  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.                               
                                                    {EP1|CH15 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                           
                                                    {EP1|CH15 ^paragraph 25}
  "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.                     
                                                    {EP1|CH15 ^paragraph 30}
  "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."           
                                                    {EP1|CH15 ^paragraph 35}
  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.        
                                                                            
EP1|CH16                                                                    
  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.             
                                                     {EP1|CH16 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                               
                                                    {EP1|CH16 ^paragraph 10}
  "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."                        
                                                    {EP1|CH16 ^paragraph 15}
  "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 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."                                   
                                                    {EP1|CH16 ^paragraph 20}
  "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!"                  
                                                    {EP1|CH16 ^paragraph 25}
  "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."                    
                                                    {EP1|CH16 ^paragraph 30}
  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."                                                      
                                                    {EP1|CH16 ^paragraph 35}
  "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.                         
                                                    {EP1|CH16 ^paragraph 40}
-                                                                           
  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.                          
                                                    {EP1|CH16 ^paragraph 45}
  "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...."                                                     
                                                                            
EP2                                                                         
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                SECOND EPILOGUE                             
                                                                            
EP2|CH1                                                                     
  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.                 
                                                      {EP2|CH1 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                               
                                                     {EP2|CH1 ^paragraph 10}
  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.       
                                                     {EP2|CH1 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                                      
                                                     {EP2|CH1 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                              
                                                                            
EP2|CH2                                                                     
  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.                                                    
                                                      {EP2|CH2 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                          
                                                     {EP2|CH2 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                                  
                                                                            
EP2|CH3                                                                     
  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.                                                              
                                                      {EP2|CH3 ^paragraph 5}
  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."                                                                   
                                                                            
EP2|CH4                                                                     
  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.                                   
                                                      {EP2|CH4 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                     
                                                     {EP2|CH4 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                  
                                                     {EP2|CH4 ^paragraph 15}
  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 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.                                                   
                                                     {EP2|CH4 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                                 
                                                     {EP2|CH4 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                                    
                                                     {EP2|CH4 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                     
                                                                            
EP2|CH5                                                                     
  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.                                                          
                                                      {EP2|CH5 ^paragraph 5}
  "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.                                              
                                                     {EP2|CH5 ^paragraph 10}
-                                                                           
  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.             
                                                     {EP2|CH5 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                              
                                                                            
EP2|CH6                                                                     
  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.                                        
                                                      {EP2|CH6 ^paragraph 5}
  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                                               
                                                     {EP2|CH6 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                 
                                                     {EP2|CH6 ^paragraph 15}
  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, 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.                                                     
                                                                            
EP2|CH7                                                                     
  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 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.                                    
                                                      {EP2|CH7 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                        
                                                     {EP2|CH7 ^paragraph 10}
  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.          
                                                     {EP2|CH7 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                         
                                                     {EP2|CH7 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                               
                                                                            
EP2|CH8                                                                     
  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.                                                                   
                                                      {EP2|CH8 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                                                      
                                                     {EP2|CH8 ^paragraph 10}
  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 and 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.                                                 
                                                     {EP2|CH8 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                                                                       
                                                     {EP2|CH8 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                              
                                                     {EP2|CH8 ^paragraph 25}
  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 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.                                               
                                                                            
EP2|CH9                                                                     
  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.                                                      
                                                      {EP2|CH9 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                     
                                                     {EP2|CH9 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                 
                                                     {EP2|CH9 ^paragraph 15}
  (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.                           
                                                     {EP2|CH9 ^paragraph 20}
  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.                                                                     
                                                     {EP2|CH9 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                  
                                                                            
EP2|CH10                                                                    
  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.                                                                 
                                                     {EP2|CH10 ^paragraph 5}
  (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.                                                  
                                                    {EP2|CH10 ^paragraph 10}
  (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.                 
                                                    {EP2|CH10 ^paragraph 15}
  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.                   
                                                    {EP2|CH10 ^paragraph 20}
  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.         
                                                    {EP2|CH10 ^paragraph 25}
  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.                                                             
                                                    {EP2|CH10 ^paragraph 30}
  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.                                               
                                                                            
EP2|CH11                                                                    
  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.                                       
                                                     {EP2|CH11 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                         
                                                                            
EP2|CH12                                                                    
  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.                                                      
                                                     {EP2|CH12 ^paragraph 5}
  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.                  
                                                    {EP2|CH12 ^paragraph 10}
  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.                                                 
-                                                                           
-                                                                           
                               -THE END-                                    
                                                                            
                                                                            

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