“Yes, my dear Monsieur Pierre, I owe you a fine votive candle for

saving me from that maniac.... You see, I have bullets enough in my

body already. Here is one I got at Wagram” (he touched his side) “and a

second at Smolénsk”—he showed a scar on his cheek—“and this leg which as

you see does not want to march, I got that on the seventh at the great

battle of la Moskowa. Sacré Dieu! It was splendid! That deluge of fire

was worth seeing. It was a tough job you set us there, my word! You may

be proud of it! And on my honor, in spite of the cough I caught there, I

should be ready to begin again. I pity those who did not see it.”

“I was there,” said Pierre.

“Bah, really? So much the better! You are certainly brave foes. The

great redoubt held out well, by my pipe!” continued the Frenchman. “And

you made us pay dear for it. I was at it three times—sure as I sit here.

Three times we reached the guns and three times we were thrown back

like cardboard figures. Oh, it was beautiful, Monsieur Pierre! Your

grenadiers were splendid, by heaven! I saw them close up their ranks six

times in succession and march as if on parade. Fine fellows! Our King of

Naples, who knows what’s what, cried ‘Bravo!’ Ha, ha! So you are one of

us soldiers!” he added, smiling, after a momentary pause. “So much

the better, so much the better, Monsieur Pierre! Terrible in battle...

gallant... with the fair” (he winked and smiled), “that’s what the

French are, Monsieur Pierre, aren’t they?”

The captain was so naïvely and good-humoredly gay, so real, and so

pleased with himself that Pierre almost winked back as he looked merrily

at him. Probably the word “gallant” turned the captain’s thoughts to the

state of Moscow.

“Apropos, tell me please, is it true that the women have all left

Moscow? What a queer idea! What had they to be afraid of?”

“Would not the French ladies leave Paris if the Russians entered it?”

asked Pierre.

“Ha, ha, ha!” The Frenchman emitted a merry, sanguine chuckle, patting

Pierre on the shoulder. “What a thing to say!” he exclaimed. “Paris?...

But Paris, Paris...”

“Paris—the capital of the world,” Pierre finished his remark for him.

The captain looked at Pierre. He had a habit of stopping short in the

middle of his talk and gazing intently with his laughing, kindly eyes.

“Well, if you hadn’t told me you were Russian, I should have wagered

that you were Parisian! You have that... I don’t know what, that...” and

having uttered this compliment, he again gazed at him in silence.

“I have been in Paris. I spent years there,” said Pierre.

“Oh yes, one sees that plainly. Paris!... A man who doesn’t know Paris

is a savage. You can tell a Parisian two leagues off. Paris is Talma, la

Duchénois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards,” and noticing that

his conclusion was weaker than what had gone before, he added quickly:

“There is only one Paris in the world. You have been to Paris and have

remained Russian. Well, I don’t esteem you the less for it.”

Under the influence of the wine he had drunk, and after the days he had

spent alone with his depressing thoughts, Pierre involuntarily enjoyed

talking with this cheerful and good-natured man.

“To return to your ladies—I hear they are lovely. What a wretched idea

to go and bury themselves in the steppes when the French army is in

Moscow. What a chance those girls have missed! Your peasants, now—that’s

another thing; but you civilized people, you ought to know us better

than that. We took Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, Warsaw, all

the world’s capitals.... We are feared, but we are loved. We are nice to

know. And then the Emperor...” he began, but Pierre interrupted him.

“The Emperor,” Pierre repeated, and his face suddenly became sad and

embarrassed, “is the Emperor...?”

“The Emperor? He is generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius—that’s

what the Emperor is! It is I, Ramballe, who tell you so.... I assure you

I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an emigrant count.... But

that man has vanquished me. He has taken hold of me. I could not resist

the sight of the grandeur and glory with which he has covered France.

When I understood what he wanted—when I saw that he was preparing a bed

of laurels for us, you know, I said to myself: ‘That is a monarch,’ and

I devoted myself to him! So there! Oh yes, mon cher, he is the greatest

man of the ages past or future.”

“Is he in Moscow?” Pierre stammered with a guilty look.

The Frenchman looked at his guilty face and smiled.

“No, he will make his entry tomorrow,” he replied, and continued his

talk.

Their conversation was interrupted by the cries of several voices at

the gate and by Morel, who came to say that some Württemberg hussars had

come and wanted to put up their horses in the yard where the captain’s

horses were. This difficulty had arisen chiefly because the hussars did

not understand what was said to them in French.

The captain had their senior sergeant called in, and in a stern voice

asked him to what regiment he belonged, who was his commanding officer,

and by what right he allowed himself to claim quarters that were already

occupied. The German who knew little French, answered the two first

questions by giving the names of his regiment and of his commanding

officer, but in reply to the third question which he did not understand

said, introducing broken French into his own German, that he was the

quartermaster of the regiment and his commander had ordered him to

occupy all the houses one after another. Pierre, who knew German,

translated what the German said to the captain and gave the captain’s

reply to the Württemberg hussar in German. When he had understood what

was said to him, the German submitted and took his men elsewhere. The

captain went out into the porch and gave some orders in a loud voice.

When he returned to the room Pierre was sitting in the same place as

before, with his head in his hands. His face expressed suffering. He

really was suffering at that moment. When the captain went out and he

was left alone, suddenly he came to himself and realized the position

he was in. It was not that Moscow had been taken or that the happy

conquerors were masters in it and were patronizing him. Painful as

that was it was not that which tormented Pierre at the moment. He was

tormented by the consciousness of his own weakness. The few glasses of

wine he had drunk and the conversation with this good-natured man had

destroyed the mood of concentrated gloom in which he had spent the last

few days and which was essential for the execution of his design. The

pistol, dagger, and peasant coat were ready. Napoleon was to enter the

town next day. Pierre still considered that it would be a useful and

worthy action to slay the evildoer, but now he felt that he would not

do it. He did not know why, but he felt a foreboding that he would not

carry out his intention. He struggled against the confession of his

weakness but dimly felt that he could not overcome it and that his

former gloomy frame of mind, concerning vengeance, killing, and

self-sacrifice, had been dispersed like dust by contact with the first

man he met.

The captain returned to the room, limping slightly and whistling a tune.

The Frenchman’s chatter which had previously amused Pierre now repelled

him. The tune he was whistling, his gait, and the gesture with which

he twirled his mustache, all now seemed offensive. “I will go away

immediately. I won’t say another word to him,” thought Pierre. He

thought this, but still sat in the same place. A strange feeling of

weakness tied him to the spot; he wished to get up and go away, but

could not do so.

The captain, on the other hand, seemed very cheerful. He paced up and

down the room twice. His eyes shone and his mustache twitched as if he

were smiling to himself at some amusing thought.

“The colonel of those Württembergers is delightful,” he suddenly said.

“He’s a German, but a nice fellow all the same.... But he’s a German.”

He sat down facing Pierre. “By the way, you know German, then?”

Pierre looked at him in silence.

“What is the German for ‘shelter’?”

“Shelter?” Pierre repeated. “The German for shelter is Unterkunft.”

“How do you say it?” the captain asked quickly and doubtfully.

“Unterkunft,” Pierre repeated.

“Onterkoff,” said the captain and looked at Pierre for some seconds with

laughing eyes. “These Germans are first-rate fools, don’t you think so,

Monsieur Pierre?” he concluded.

“Well, let’s have another bottle of this Moscow Bordeaux, shall we?

Morel will warm us up another little bottle. Morel!” he called out

gaily.

Morel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at Pierre

by the candlelight and was evidently struck by the troubled expression

on his companion’s face. Ramballe, with genuine distress and sympathy in

his face, went up to Pierre and bent over him.

“There now, we’re sad,” said he, touching Pierre’s hand. “Have I

upset you? No, really, have you anything against me?” he asked Pierre.

“Perhaps it’s the state of affairs?”

Pierre did not answer, but looked cordially into the Frenchman’s eyes

whose expression of sympathy was pleasing to him.

“Honestly, without speaking of what I owe you, I feel friendship for

you. Can I do anything for you? Dispose of me. It is for life and death.

I say it with my hand on my heart!” said he, striking his chest.

“Thank you,” said Pierre.

The captain gazed intently at him as he had done when he learned that

“shelter” was Unterkunft in German, and his face suddenly brightened.

“Well, in that case, I drink to our friendship!” he cried gaily, filling

two glasses with wine.

Pierre took one of the glasses and emptied it. Ramballe emptied his too,

again pressed Pierre’s hand, and leaned his elbows on the table in a

pensive attitude.

“Yes, my dear friend,” he began, “such is fortune’s caprice. Who would

have said that I should be a soldier and a captain of dragoons in the

service of Bonaparte, as we used to call him? Yet here I am in Moscow

with him. I must tell you, mon cher,” he continued in the sad and

measured tones of a man who intends to tell a long story, “that our name

is one of the most ancient in France.”

And with a Frenchman’s easy and naïve frankness the captain told Pierre

the story of his ancestors, his childhood, youth, and manhood, and all

about his relations and his financial and family affairs, “ma pauvre

mère” playing of course an important part in the story.

“But all that is only life’s setting, the real thing is love—love! Am I

not right, Monsieur Pierre?” said he, growing animated. “Another glass?”

Pierre again emptied his glass and poured himself out a third.

“Oh, women, women!” and the captain, looking with glistening eyes at

Pierre, began talking of love and of his love affairs.

There were very many of these, as one could easily believe, looking

at the officer’s handsome, self-satisfied face, and noting the eager

enthusiasm with which he spoke of women. Though all Ramballe’s love

stories had the sensual character which Frenchmen regard as the special

charm and poetry of love, yet he told his story with such sincere

conviction that he alone had experienced and known all the charm of love

and he described women so alluringly that Pierre listened to him with

curiosity.

It was plain that l’amour which the Frenchman was so fond of was not

that low and simple kind that Pierre had once felt for his wife, nor

was it the romantic love stimulated by himself that he experienced for

Natásha. (Ramballe despised both these kinds of love equally: the one

he considered the “love of clodhoppers” and the other the “love

of simpletons.”) L’amour which the Frenchman worshiped consisted

principally in the unnaturalness of his relation to the woman and in a

combination of incongruities giving the chief charm to the feeling.

Thus the captain touchingly recounted the story of his love for a

fascinating marquise of thirty-five and at the same time for a charming,

innocent child of seventeen, daughter of the bewitching marquise. The

conflict of magnanimity between the mother and the daughter, ending in

the mother’s sacrificing herself and offering her daughter in marriage

to her lover, even now agitated the captain, though it was the memory of

a distant past. Then he recounted an episode in which the husband played

the part of the lover, and he—the lover—assumed the role of the husband,

as well as several droll incidents from his recollections of Germany,

where “shelter” is called Unterkunft and where the husbands eat

sauerkraut and the young girls are “too blonde.”

Finally, the latest episode in Poland still fresh in the captain’s

memory, and which he narrated with rapid gestures and glowing face, was

of how he had saved the life of a Pole (in general, the saving of

life continually occurred in the captain’s stories) and the Pole had

entrusted to him his enchanting wife (parisienne de cœur) while himself

entering the French service. The captain was happy, the enchanting

Polish lady wished to elope with him, but, prompted by magnanimity, the

captain restored the wife to the husband, saying as he did so: “I have

saved your life, and I save your honor!” Having repeated these words the

captain wiped his eyes and gave himself a shake, as if driving away the

weakness which assailed him at this touching recollection.

Listening to the captain’s tales, Pierre—as often happens late in the

evening and under the influence of wine—followed all that was told him,

understood it all, and at the same time followed a train of personal

memories which, he knew not why, suddenly arose in his mind. While

listening to these love stories his own love for Natásha unexpectedly

rose to his mind, and going over the pictures of that love in his

imagination he mentally compared them with Ramballe’s tales. Listening

to the story of the struggle between love and duty, Pierre saw before

his eyes every minutest detail of his last meeting with the object of

his love at the Súkharev water tower. At the time of that meeting it had

not produced an effect upon him—he had not even once recalled it. But

now it seemed to him that that meeting had had in it something very

important and poetic.

“Peter Kirílovich, come here! We have recognized you,” he now seemed

to hear the words she had uttered and to see before him her eyes, her

smile, her traveling hood, and a stray lock of her hair... and there

seemed to him something pathetic and touching in all this.

Having finished his tale about the enchanting Polish lady, the captain

asked Pierre if he had ever experienced a similar impulse to sacrifice

himself for love and a feeling of envy of the legitimate husband.

Challenged by this question Pierre raised his head and felt a need to

express the thoughts that filled his mind. He began to explain that he

understood love for a woman somewhat differently. He said that in all

his life he had loved and still loved only one woman, and that she could

never be his.

“Tiens!” said the captain.

Pierre then explained that he had loved this woman from his earliest

years, but that he had not dared to think of her because she was too

young, and because he had been an illegitimate son without a name.

Afterwards when he had received a name and wealth he dared not think of

her because he loved her too well, placing her far above everything in

the world, and especially therefore above himself.

When he had reached this point, Pierre asked the captain whether he

understood that.

The captain made a gesture signifying that even if he did not understand

it he begged Pierre to continue.

“Platónic love, clouds...” he muttered.

Whether it was the wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or the

thought that this man did not, and never would, know any of those who

played a part in his story, or whether it was all these things together,

something loosened Pierre’s tongue. Speaking thickly and with a faraway

look in his shining eyes, he told the whole story of his life: his

marriage, Natásha’s love for his best friend, her betrayal of him, and

all his own simple relations with her. Urged on by Ramballe’s questions

he also told what he had at first concealed—his own position and even

his name.

More than anything else in Pierre’s story the captain was impressed by

the fact that Pierre was very rich, had two mansions in Moscow, and that

he had abandoned everything and not left the city, but remained there

concealing his name and station.

When it was late at night they went out together into the street. The

night was warm and light. To the left of the house on the Pokróvka a

fire glowed—the first of those that were beginning in Moscow. To the

right and high up in the sky was the sickle of the waning moon and

opposite to it hung that bright comet which was connected in Pierre’s

heart with his love. At the gate stood Gerásim, the cook, and two

Frenchmen. Their laughter and their mutually incomprehensible remarks in

two languages could be heard. They were looking at the glow seen in the

town.

There was nothing terrible in the one small, distant fire in the immense

city.

Gazing at the high starry sky, at the moon, at the comet, and at the

glow from the fire, Pierre experienced a joyful emotion. “There now,

how good it is, what more does one need?” thought he. And suddenly

remembering his intention he grew dizzy and felt so faint that he leaned

against the fence to save himself from falling.

Without taking leave of his new friend, Pierre left the gate with

unsteady steps and returning to his room lay down on the sofa and

immediately fell asleep.

CHAPTER XXX

The glow of the first fire that began on the second of September was

watched from the various roads by the fugitive Muscovites and by the

retreating troops, with many different feelings.

The Rostóv party spent the night at Mytíshchi, fourteen miles from

Moscow. They had started so late on the first of September, the road

had been so blocked by vehicles and troops, so many things had been

forgotten for which servants were sent back, that they had decided to

spend that night at a place three miles out of Moscow. The next morning

they woke late and were again delayed so often that they only got as far

as Great Mytíshchi. At ten o’clock that evening the Rostóv family and

the wounded traveling with them were all distributed in the yards and

huts of that large village. The Rostóvs’ servants and coachmen and the

orderlies of the wounded officers, after attending to their masters, had

supper, fed the horses, and came out into the porches.

In a neighboring hut lay Raévski’s adjutant with a fractured wrist. The

awful pain he suffered made him moan incessantly and piteously, and his

moaning sounded terrible in the darkness of the autumn night. He had

spent the first night in the same yard as the Rostóvs. The countess said

she had been unable to close her eyes on account of his moaning, and at

Mytíshchi she moved into a worse hut simply to be farther away from the

wounded man.

In the darkness of the night one of the servants noticed, above the high

body of a coach standing before the porch, the small glow of another

fire. One glow had long been visible and everybody knew that it was

Little Mytíshchi burning—set on fire by Mamónov’s Cossacks.

“But look here, brothers, there’s another fire!” remarked an orderly.

All turned their attention to the glow.

“But they told us Little Mytíshchi had been set on fire by Mamónov’s

Cossacks.”

“But that’s not Mytíshchi, it’s farther away.”

“Look, it must be in Moscow!”

Two of the gazers went round to the other side of the coach and sat down

on its steps.

“It’s more to the left, why, Little Mytíshchi is over there, and this is

right on the other side.”

Several men joined the first two.

“See how it’s flaring,” said one. “That’s a fire in Moscow: either in

the Sushchévski or the Rogózhski quarter.”

No one replied to this remark and for some time they all gazed silently

at the spreading flames of the second fire in the distance.

Old Daniel Teréntich, the count’s valet (as he was called), came up to

the group and shouted at Míshka.

“What are you staring at, you good-for-nothing?... The count will be

calling and there’s nobody there; go and gather the clothes together.”

“I only ran out to get some water,” said Míshka.

“But what do you think, Daniel Teréntich? Doesn’t it look as if that

glow were in Moscow?” remarked one of the footmen.

Daniel Teréntich made no reply, and again for a long time they were all

silent. The glow spread, rising and falling, farther and farther still.

“God have mercy.... It’s windy and dry...” said another voice.

“Just look! See what it’s doing now. O Lord! You can even see the crows

flying. Lord have mercy on us sinners!”

“They’ll put it out, no fear!”

“Who’s to put it out?” Daniel Teréntich, who had hitherto been silent,

was heard to say. His voice was calm and deliberate. “Moscow it is,

brothers,” said he. “Mother Moscow, the white...” his voice faltered,

and he gave way to an old man’s sob.

And it was as if they had all only waited for this to realize the

significance for them of the glow they were watching. Sighs were heard,

words of prayer, and the sobbing of the count’s old valet.

CHAPTER XXXI

The valet, returning to the cottage, informed the count that Moscow was

burning. The count donned his dressing gown and went out to look. Sónya

and Madame Schoss, who had not yet undressed, went out with him. Only

Natásha and the countess remained in the room. Pétya was no longer

with the family, he had gone on with his regiment which was making for

Tróitsa.

The countess, on hearing that Moscow was on fire, began to cry. Natásha,

pale, with a fixed look, was sitting on the bench under the icons just

where she had sat down on arriving and paid no attention to her father’s

words. She was listening to the ceaseless moaning of the adjutant, three

houses off.

“Oh, how terrible,” said Sónya returning from the yard chilled and

frightened. “I believe the whole of Moscow will burn, there’s an awful

glow! Natásha, do look! You can see it from the window,” she said to her

cousin, evidently wishing to distract her mind.

But Natásha looked at her as if not understanding what was said to her

and again fixed her eyes on the corner of the stove. She had been in

this condition of stupor since the morning, when Sónya, to the surprise

and annoyance of the countess, had for some unaccountable reason found

it necessary to tell Natásha of Prince Andrew’s wound and of his being

with their party. The countess had seldom been so angry with anyone as

she was with Sónya. Sónya had cried and begged to be forgiven and now,

as if trying to atone for her fault, paid unceasing attention to her

cousin.

“Look, Natásha, how dreadfully it is burning!” said she.

“What’s burning?” asked Natásha. “Oh, yes, Moscow.”

And as if in order not to offend Sónya and to get rid of her, she turned

her face to the window, looked out in such a way that it was evident

that she could not see anything, and again settled down in her former

attitude.

“But you didn’t see it!”

“Yes, really I did,” Natásha replied in a voice that pleaded to be left

in peace.

Both the countess and Sónya understood that, naturally, neither Moscow

nor the burning of Moscow nor anything else could seem of importance to

Natásha.

The count returned and lay down behind the partition. The countess went

up to her daughter and touched her head with the back of her hand as she

was wont to do when Natásha was ill, then touched her forehead with her

lips as if to feel whether she was feverish, and finally kissed her.

“You are cold. You are trembling all over. You’d better lie down,” said

the countess.

“Lie down? All right, I will. I’ll lie down at once,” said Natásha.

When Natásha had been told that morning that Prince Andrew was seriously

wounded and was traveling with their party, she had at first asked many

questions: Where was he going? How was he wounded? Was it serious? And

could she see him? But after she had been told that she could not see

him, that he was seriously wounded but that his life was not in danger,

she ceased to ask questions or to speak at all, evidently disbelieving

what they told her, and convinced that say what she might she would

still be told the same. All the way she had sat motionless in a corner

of the coach with wide open eyes, and the expression in them which the

countess knew so well and feared so much, and now she sat in the same

way on the bench where she had seated herself on arriving. She was

planning something and either deciding or had already decided something

in her mind. The countess knew this, but what it might be she did not

know, and this alarmed and tormented her.

“Natásha, undress, darling; lie down on my bed.”

A bed had been made on a bedstead for the countess only. Madame Schoss

and the two girls were to sleep on some hay on the floor.

“No, Mamma, I will lie down here on the floor,” Natásha replied

irritably and she went to the window and opened it. Through the open

window the moans of the adjutant could be heard more distinctly. She put

her head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw her slim neck

shaking with sobs and throbbing against the window frame. Natásha knew

it was not Prince Andrew who was moaning. She knew Prince Andrew was in

the same yard as themselves and in a part of the hut across the passage;

but this dreadful incessant moaning made her sob. The countess exchanged

a look with Sónya.

“Lie down, darling; lie down, my pet,” said the countess, softly

touching Natásha’s shoulders. “Come, lie down.”

“Oh, yes... I’ll lie down at once,” said Natásha, and began hurriedly

undressing, tugging at the tapes of her petticoat.

When she had thrown off her dress and put on a dressing jacket, she sat

down with her foot under her on the bed that had been made up on the

floor, jerked her thin and rather short plait of hair to the front,

and began replaiting it. Her long, thin, practiced fingers rapidly

unplaited, replaited, and tied up her plait. Her head moved from side

to side from habit, but her eyes, feverishly wide, looked fixedly before

her. When her toilet for the night was finished she sank gently onto the

sheet spread over the hay on the side nearest the door.

“Natásha, you’d better lie in the middle,” said Sónya.

“I’ll stay here,” muttered Natásha. “Do lie down,” she added crossly,

and buried her face in the pillow.

The countess, Madame Schoss, and Sónya undressed hastily and lay down.

The small lamp in front of the icons was the only light left in

the room. But in the yard there was a light from the fire at Little

Mytíshchi a mile and a half away, and through the night came the noise

of people shouting at a tavern Mamónov’s Cossacks had set up across the

street, and the adjutant’s unceasing moans could still be heard.

For a long time Natásha listened attentively to the sounds that reached

her from inside and outside the room and did not move. First she heard

her mother praying and sighing and the creaking of her bed under

her, then Madame Schoss’ familiar whistling snore and Sónya’s gentle

breathing. Then the countess called to Natásha. Natásha did not answer.

“I think she’s asleep, Mamma,” said Sónya softly.

After a short silence the countess spoke again but this time no one

replied.

Soon after that Natásha heard her mother’s even breathing. Natásha did

not move, though her little bare foot, thrust out from under the quilt,

was growing cold on the bare floor.

As if to celebrate a victory over everybody, a cricket chirped in a

crack in the wall. A cock crowed far off and another replied near

by. The shouting in the tavern had died down; only the moaning of the

adjutant was heard. Natásha sat up.

“Sónya, are you asleep? Mamma?” she whispered.

No one replied. Natásha rose slowly and carefully, crossed herself, and

stepped cautiously on the cold and dirty floor with her slim, supple,

bare feet. The boards of the floor creaked. Stepping cautiously from one

foot to the other she ran like a kitten the few steps to the door and

grasped the cold door handle.

It seemed to her that something heavy was beating rhythmically against

all the walls of the room: it was her own heart, sinking with alarm and

terror and overflowing with love.

She opened the door and stepped across the threshold and onto the cold,

damp earthen floor of the passage. The cold she felt refreshed her. With

her bare feet she touched a sleeping man, stepped over him, and opened

the door into the part of the hut where Prince Andrew lay. It was dark

in there. In the farthest corner, on a bench beside a bed on which

something was lying, stood a tallow candle with a long, thick, and

smoldering wick.

From the moment she had been told that morning of Prince Andrew’s wound

and his presence there, Natásha had resolved to see him. She did not

know why she had to, she knew the meeting would be painful, but felt the

more convinced that it was necessary.

All day she had lived only in hope of seeing him that night. But now

that the moment had come she was filled with dread of what she might

see. How was he maimed? What was left of him? Was he like that incessant

moaning of the adjutant’s? Yes, he was altogether like that. In her

imagination he was that terrible moaning personified. When she saw an

indistinct shape in the corner, and mistook his knees raised under the

quilt for his shoulders, she imagined a horrible body there, and stood

still in terror. But an irresistible impulse drew her forward. She

cautiously took one step and then another, and found herself in the

middle of a small room containing baggage. Another man—Timókhin—was

lying in a corner on the benches beneath the icons, and two others—the

doctor and a valet—lay on the floor.

The valet sat up and whispered something. Timókhin, kept awake by the

pain in his wounded leg, gazed with wide-open eyes at this strange

apparition of a girl in a white chemise, dressing jacket, and nightcap.

The valet’s sleepy, frightened exclamation, “What do you want? What’s

the matter?” made Natásha approach more swiftly to what was lying in the

corner. Horribly unlike a man as that body looked, she must see him.

She passed the valet, the snuff fell from the candle wick, and she saw

Prince Andrew clearly with his arms outside the quilt, and such as she

had always seen him.

He was the same as ever, but the feverish color of his face, his

glittering eyes rapturously turned toward her, and especially his neck,

delicate as a child’s, revealed by the turn-down collar of his shirt,

gave him a peculiarly innocent, childlike look, such as she had never

seen on him before. She went up to him and with a swift, flexible,

youthful movement dropped on her knees.

He smiled and held out his hand to her.

CHAPTER XXXII

Seven days had passed since Prince Andrew found himself in the

ambulance station on the field of Borodinó. His feverish state and the

inflammation of his bowels, which were injured, were in the doctor’s

opinion sure to carry him off. But on the seventh day he ate with

pleasure a piece of bread with some tea, and the doctor noticed that his

temperature was lower. He had regained consciousness that morning.

The first night after they left Moscow had been fairly warm and he had

remained in the calèche, but at Mytíshchi the wounded man himself asked

to be taken out and given some tea. The pain caused by his removal into

the hut had made him groan aloud and again lose consciousness. When he

had been placed on his camp bed he lay for a long time motionless with

closed eyes. Then he opened them and whispered softly: “And the tea?”

His remembering such a small detail of everyday life astonished

the doctor. He felt Prince Andrew’s pulse, and to his surprise and

dissatisfaction found it had improved. He was dissatisfied because he

knew by experience that if his patient did not die now, he would do so

a little later with greater suffering. Timókhin, the red-nosed major of

Prince Andrew’s regiment, had joined him in Moscow and was being

taken along with him, having been wounded in the leg at the battle of

Borodinó. They were accompanied by a doctor, Prince Andrew’s valet, his

coachman, and two orderlies.

They gave Prince Andrew some tea. He drank it eagerly, looking with

feverish eyes at the door in front of him as if trying to understand and

remember something.

“I don’t want any more. Is Timókhin here?” he asked.

Timókhin crept along the bench to him.

“I am here, your excellency.”

“How’s your wound?”

“Mine, sir? All right. But how about you?”

Prince Andrew again pondered as if trying to remember something.

“Couldn’t one get a book?” he asked.

“What book?”

“The Gospels. I haven’t one.”

The doctor promised to procure it for him and began to ask how he

was feeling. Prince Andrew answered all his questions reluctantly but

reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under him as he was

uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak

with which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome smell of

mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful

place. The doctor was very much displeased about something and made a

change in the dressings, turning the wounded man over so that he groaned

again and grew unconscious and delirious from the agony. He kept asking

them to get him the book and put it under him.

“What trouble would it be to you?” he said. “I have not got one. Please

get it for me and put it under for a moment,” he pleaded in a piteous

voice.

The doctor went into the passage to wash his hands.

“You fellows have no conscience,” said he to the valet who was pouring

water over his hands. “For just one moment I didn’t look after you...

It’s such pain, you know, that I wonder how he can bear it.”

“By the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought we had put something under him!”

said the valet.

The first time Prince Andrew understood where he was and what was the

matter with him and remembered being wounded and how was when he asked

to be carried into the hut after his calèche had stopped at Mytíshchi.

After growing confused from pain while being carried into the hut he

again regained consciousness, and while drinking tea once more recalled

all that had happened to him, and above all vividly remembered the

moment at the ambulance station when, at the sight of the sufferings of

a man he disliked, those new thoughts had come to him which promised him

happiness. And those thoughts, though now vague and indefinite, again

possessed his soul. He remembered that he had now a new source of

happiness and that this happiness had something to do with the Gospels.

That was why he asked for a copy of them. The uncomfortable position in

which they had put him and turned him over again confused his thoughts,

and when he came to himself a third time it was in the complete

stillness of the night. Everybody near him was sleeping. A cricket

chirped from across the passage; someone was shouting and singing in

the street; cockroaches rustled on the table, on the icons, and on

the walls, and a big fly flopped at the head of the bed and around the

candle beside him, the wick of which was charred and had shaped itself

like a mushroom.

His mind was not in a normal state. A healthy man usually thinks of,

feels, and remembers innumerable things simultaneously, but has the

power and will to select one sequence of thoughts or events on which to

fix his whole attention. A healthy man can tear himself away from the

deepest reflections to say a civil word to someone who comes in and can

then return again to his own thoughts. But Prince Andrew’s mind was not

in a normal state in that respect. All the powers of his mind were more

active and clearer than ever, but they acted apart from his will. Most

diverse thoughts and images occupied him simultaneously. At times his

brain suddenly began to work with a vigor, clearness, and depth it had

never reached when he was in health, but suddenly in the midst of its

work it would turn to some unexpected idea and he had not the strength

to turn it back again.

“Yes, a new happiness was revealed to me of which man cannot be

deprived,” he thought as he lay in the semidarkness of the quiet hut,

gazing fixedly before him with feverish wide open eyes. “A happiness

lying beyond material forces, outside the material influences that act

on man—a happiness of the soul alone, the happiness of loving. Every man

can understand it, but to conceive it and enjoin it was possible only

for God. But how did God enjoin that law? And why was the Son...?”

And suddenly the sequence of these thoughts broke off, and Prince Andrew

heard (without knowing whether it was a delusion or reality) a

soft whispering voice incessantly and rhythmically repeating

“piti-piti-piti,” and then “titi,” and then again “piti-piti-piti,” and

“ti-ti” once more. At the same time he felt that above his face, above

the very middle of it, some strange airy structure was being erected out

of slender needles or splinters, to the sound of this whispered music.

He felt that he had to balance carefully (though it was difficult) so

that this airy structure should not collapse; but nevertheless it kept

collapsing and again slowly rising to the sound of whispered rhythmic

music—“it stretches, stretches, spreading out and stretching,” said

Prince Andrew to himself. While listening to this whispering and feeling

the sensation of this drawing out and the construction of this edifice

of needles, he also saw by glimpses a red halo round the candle, and

heard the rustle of the cockroaches and the buzzing of the fly that

flopped against his pillow and his face. Each time the fly touched his

face it gave him a burning sensation and yet to his surprise it did not

destroy the structure, though it knocked against the very region of his

face where it was rising. But besides this there was something else of

importance. It was something white by the door—the statue of a sphinx,

which also oppressed him.

“But perhaps that’s my shirt on the table,” he thought, “and that’s my

legs, and that is the door, but why is it always stretching and drawing

itself out, and ‘piti-piti-piti’ and ‘ti-ti’ and ‘piti-piti-piti’...?

That’s enough, please leave off!” Prince Andrew painfully entreated

someone. And suddenly thoughts and feelings again swam to the surface of

his mind with peculiar clearness and force.

“Yes—love,” he thought again quite clearly. “But not love which loves

for something, for some quality, for some purpose, or for some reason,

but the love which I—while dying—first experienced when I saw my enemy

and yet loved him. I experienced that feeling of love which is the very

essence of the soul and does not require an object. Now again I feel

that bliss. To love one’s neighbors, to love one’s enemies, to love

everything, to love God in all His manifestations. It is possible to

love someone dear to you with human love, but an enemy can only be loved

by divine love. That is why I experienced such joy when I felt that I

loved that man. What has become of him? Is he alive?...

“When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but

divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can

destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul. Yet how many people have

I hated in my life? And of them all, I loved and hated none as I did

her.” And he vividly pictured to himself Natásha, not as he had done in

the past with nothing but her charms which gave him delight, but for

the first time picturing to himself her soul. And he understood her

feelings, her sufferings, shame, and remorse. He now understood for the

first time all the cruelty of his rejection of her, the cruelty of his

rupture with her. “If only it were possible for me to see her once more!

Just once, looking into those eyes to say...”

“Piti-piti-piti and ti-ti and piti-piti-piti boom!” flopped the fly....

And his attention was suddenly carried into another world, a world of

reality and delirium in which something particular was happening. In

that world some structure was still being erected and did not fall,

something was still stretching out, and the candle with its red halo

was still burning, and the same shirtlike sphinx lay near the door; but

besides all this something creaked, there was a whiff of fresh air, and

a new white sphinx appeared, standing at the door. And that sphinx had

the pale face and shining eyes of the very Natásha of whom he had just

been thinking.

“Oh, how oppressive this continual delirium is,” thought Prince Andrew,

trying to drive that face from his imagination. But the face remained

before him with the force of reality and drew nearer. Prince Andrew

wished to return to that former world of pure thought, but he could not,

and delirium drew him back into its domain. The soft whispering voice

continued its rhythmic murmur, something oppressed him and stretched

out, and the strange face was before him. Prince Andrew collected all

his strength in an effort to recover his senses, he moved a little, and

suddenly there was a ringing in his ears, a dimness in his eyes, and

like a man plunged into water he lost consciousness. When he came to

himself, Natásha, that same living Natásha whom of all people he most

longed to love with this new pure divine love that had been revealed to

him, was kneeling before him. He realized that it was the real living

Natásha, and he was not surprised but quietly happy. Natásha, motionless

on her knees (she was unable to stir), with frightened eyes riveted on

him, was restraining her sobs. Her face was pale and rigid. Only in the

lower part of it something quivered.

Prince Andrew sighed with relief, smiled, and held out his hand.

“You?” he said. “How fortunate!”

With a rapid but careful movement Natásha drew nearer to him on her

knees and, taking his hand carefully, bent her face over it and began

kissing it, just touching it lightly with her lips.

“Forgive me!” she whispered, raising her head and glancing at him.

“Forgive me!”

“I love you,” said Prince Andrew.

“Forgive...!”

“Forgive what?” he asked.

“Forgive me for what I ha-ve do-ne!” faltered Natásha in a scarcely

audible, broken whisper, and began kissing his hand more rapidly, just

touching it with her lips.

“I love you more, better than before,” said Prince Andrew, lifting her

face with his hand so as to look into her eyes.

Those eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at him timidly,

compassionately, and with joyous love. Natásha’s thin pale face, with

its swollen lips, was more than plain—it was dreadful. But Prince Andrew

did not see that, he saw her shining eyes which were beautiful. They

heard the sound of voices behind them.

Peter the valet, who was now wide awake, had roused the doctor.

Timókhin, who had not slept at all because of the pain in his leg, had

long been watching all that was going on, carefully covering his bare

body with the sheet as he huddled up on his bench.

“What’s this?” said the doctor, rising from his bed. “Please go away,

madam!”

At that moment a maid sent by the countess, who had noticed her

daughter’s absence, knocked at the door.

Like a somnambulist aroused from her sleep Natásha went out of the room

and, returning to her hut, fell sobbing on her bed.

From that time, during all the rest of the Rostóvs’ journey, at every

halting place and wherever they spent a night, Natásha never left the

wounded Bolkónski, and the doctor had to admit that he had not expected

from a young girl either such firmness or such skill in nursing a

wounded man.

Dreadful as the countess imagined it would be should Prince Andrew die

in her daughter’s arms during the journey—as, judging by what the doctor

said, it seemed might easily happen—she could not oppose Natásha. Though

with the intimacy now established between the wounded man and Natásha

the thought occurred that should he recover their former engagement

would be renewed, no one—least of all Natásha and Prince Andrew—spoke of

this: the unsettled question of life and death, which hung not only over

Bolkónski but over all Russia, shut out all other considerations.

CHAPTER XXXIII

On the third of September Pierre awoke late. His head was aching, the

clothes in which he had slept without undressing felt uncomfortable on

his body, and his mind had a dim consciousness of something shameful

he had done the day before. That something shameful was his yesterday’s

conversation with Captain Ramballe.

It was eleven by the clock, but it seemed peculiarly dark out of doors.

Pierre rose, rubbed his eyes, and seeing the pistol with an engraved

stock which Gerásim had replaced on the writing table, he remembered

where he was and what lay before him that very day.

“Am I not too late?” he thought. “No, probably he won’t make his entry

into Moscow before noon.”

Pierre did not allow himself to reflect on what lay before him, but

hastened to act.

After arranging his clothes, he took the pistol and was about to go out.

But it then occurred to him for the first time that he certainly could

not carry the weapon in his hand through the streets. It was difficult

to hide such a big pistol even under his wide coat. He could not

carry it unnoticed in his belt or under his arm. Besides, it had been

discharged, and he had not had time to reload it. “No matter, the dagger

will do,” he said to himself, though when planning his design he had

more than once come to the conclusion that the chief mistake made by the

student in 1809 had been to try to kill Napoleon with a dagger. But as

his chief aim consisted not in carrying out his design, but in proving

to himself that he would not abandon his intention and was doing all he

could to achieve it, Pierre hastily took the blunt jagged dagger in a

green sheath which he had bought at the Súkharev market with the pistol,

and hid it under his waistcoat.

Having tied a girdle over his coat and pulled his cap low on his head,

Pierre went down the corridor, trying to avoid making a noise or meeting

the captain, and passed out into the street.

The conflagration, at which he had looked with so much indifference the

evening before, had greatly increased during the night. Moscow was on

fire in several places. The buildings in Carriage Row, across the river,

in the Bazaar and the Povarskóy, as well as the barges on the Moskvá

River and the timber yards by the Dorogomílov Bridge, were all ablaze.

Pierre’s way led through side streets to the Povarskóy and from there

to the church of St. Nicholas on the Arbát, where he had long before

decided that the deed should be done. The gates of most of the houses

were locked and the shutters up. The streets and lanes were deserted.

The air was full of smoke and the smell of burning. Now and then he met

Russians with anxious and timid faces, and Frenchmen with an air not of

the city but of the camp, walking in the middle of the streets. Both

the Russians and the French looked at Pierre with surprise. Besides his

height and stoutness, and the strange morose look of suffering in his

face and whole figure, the Russians stared at Pierre because they could

not make out to what class he could belong. The French followed him with

astonishment in their eyes chiefly because Pierre, unlike all the

other Russians who gazed at the French with fear and curiosity, paid no

attention to them. At the gate of one house three Frenchmen, who were

explaining something to some Russians who did not understand them,

stopped Pierre asking if he did not know French.

Pierre shook his head and went on. In another side street a sentinel

standing beside a green caisson shouted at him, but only when the shout

was threateningly repeated and he heard the click of the man’s musket as

he raised it did Pierre understand that he had to pass on the other side

of the street. He heard nothing and saw nothing of what went on around

him. He carried his resolution within himself in terror and haste, like

something dreadful and alien to him, for, after the previous night’s

experience, he was afraid of losing it. But he was not destined to bring

his mood safely to his destination. And even had he not been hindered by

anything on the way, his intention could not now have been carried out,

for Napoleon had passed the Arbát more than four hours previously on his

way from the Dorogomílov suburb to the Krémlin, and was now sitting in

a very gloomy frame of mind in a royal study in the Krémlin, giving

detailed and exact orders as to measures to be taken immediately

to extinguish the fire, to prevent looting, and to reassure the

inhabitants. But Pierre did not know this; he was entirely absorbed

in what lay before him, and was tortured—as those are who obstinately

undertake a task that is impossible for them not because of its

difficulty but because of its incompatibility with their natures—by the

fear of weakening at the decisive moment and so losing his self-esteem.

Though he heard and saw nothing around him he found his way by instinct

and did not go wrong in the side streets that led to the Povarskóy.

As Pierre approached that street the smoke became denser and denser—he

even felt the heat of the fire. Occasionally curly tongues of flame rose

from under the roofs of the houses. He met more people in the streets

and they were more excited. But Pierre, though he felt that something

unusual was happening around him, did not realize that he was

approaching the fire. As he was going along a footpath across a

wide-open space adjoining the Povarskóy on one side and the gardens

of Prince Gruzínski’s house on the other, Pierre suddenly heard the

desperate weeping of a woman close to him. He stopped as if awakening

from a dream and lifted his head.

By the side of the path, on the dusty dry grass, all sorts of household

goods lay in a heap: featherbeds, a samovar, icons, and trunks. On the

ground, beside the trunks, sat a thin woman no longer young, with long,

prominent upper teeth, and wearing a black cloak and cap. This woman,

swaying to and fro and muttering something, was choking with sobs. Two

girls of about ten and twelve, dressed in dirty short frocks and cloaks,

were staring at their mother with a look of stupefaction on their pale

frightened faces. The youngest child, a boy of about seven, who wore an

overcoat and an immense cap evidently not his own, was crying in his

old nurse’s arms. A dirty, barefooted maid was sitting on a trunk,

and, having undone her pale-colored plait, was pulling it straight

and sniffing at her singed hair. The woman’s husband, a short,

round-shouldered man in the undress uniform of a civilian official, with

sausage-shaped whiskers and showing under his square-set cap the hair

smoothly brushed forward over his temples, with expressionless face was

moving the trunks, which were placed one on another, and was dragging

some garments from under them.

As soon as she saw Pierre, the woman almost threw herself at his feet.

“Dear people, good Christians, save me, help me, dear friends... help

us, somebody,” she muttered between her sobs. “My girl... My daughter!

My youngest daughter is left behind. She’s burned! Ooh! Was it for this

I nursed you.... Ooh!”

“Don’t, Mary Nikoláevna!” said her husband to her in a low voice,

evidently only to justify himself before the stranger. “Sister must have

taken her, or else where can she be?” he added.

“Monster! Villain!” shouted the woman angrily, suddenly ceasing to weep.

“You have no heart, you don’t feel for your own child! Another man would

have rescued her from the fire. But this is a monster and neither a

man nor a father! You, honored sir, are a noble man,” she went on,

addressing Pierre rapidly between her sobs. “The fire broke out

alongside, and blew our way, the maid called out ‘Fire!’ and we rushed

to collect our things. We ran out just as we were.... This is what we

have brought away.... The icons, and my dowry bed, all the rest is lost.

We seized the children. But not Katie! Ooh! O Lord!...” and again she

began to sob. “My child, my dear one! Burned, burned!”

“But where was she left?” asked Pierre.

From the expression of his animated face the woman saw that this man

might help her.

“Oh, dear sir!” she cried, seizing him by the legs. “My benefactor, set

my heart at ease.... Aníska, go, you horrid girl, show him the way!” she

cried to the maid, angrily opening her mouth and still farther exposing

her long teeth.

“Show me the way, show me, I... I’ll do it,” gasped Pierre rapidly.

The dirty maidservant stepped from behind the trunk, put up her plait,

sighed, and went on her short, bare feet along the path. Pierre felt

as if he had come back to life after a heavy swoon. He held his head

higher, his eyes shone with the light of life, and with swift steps

he followed the maid, overtook her, and came out on the Povarskóy. The

whole street was full of clouds of black smoke. Tongues of flame here

and there broke through that cloud. A great number of people crowded in

front of the conflagration. In the middle of the street stood a French

general saying something to those around him. Pierre, accompanied by the

maid, was advancing to the spot where the general stood, but the French

soldiers stopped him.

“On ne passe pas!” * cried a voice.

* “You can’t pass!”

“This way, uncle,” cried the girl. “We’ll pass through the side street,

by the Nikúlins’!”

Pierre turned back, giving a spring now and then to keep up with her.

She ran across the street, turned down a side street to the left, and,

passing three houses, turned into a yard on the right.

“It’s here, close by,” said she and, running across the yard, opened a

gate in a wooden fence and, stopping, pointed out to him a small wooden

wing of the house, which was burning brightly and fiercely. One of its

sides had fallen in, another was on fire, and bright flames issued from

the openings of the windows and from under the roof.

As Pierre passed through the fence gate, he was enveloped by hot air and

involuntarily stopped.

“Which is it? Which is your house?” he asked.

“Ooh!” wailed the girl, pointing to the wing. “That’s it, that was our

lodging. You’ve burned to death, our treasure, Katie, my precious little

missy! Ooh!” lamented Aníska, who at the sight of the fire felt that she

too must give expression to her feelings.

Pierre rushed to the wing, but the heat was so great that he

involuntarily passed round in a curve and came upon the large house

that was as yet burning only at one end, just below the roof, and around

which swarmed a crowd of Frenchmen. At first Pierre did not realize

what these men, who were dragging something out, were about; but seeing

before him a Frenchman hitting a peasant with a blunt saber and trying

to take from him a fox-fur coat, he vaguely understood that looting was

going on there, but he had no time to dwell on that idea.

The sounds of crackling and the din of falling walls and ceilings, the

whistle and hiss of the flames, the excited shouts of the people, and

the sight of the swaying smoke, now gathering into thick black clouds

and now soaring up with glittering sparks, with here and there dense

sheaves of flame (now red and now like golden fish scales creeping along

the walls), and the heat and smoke and rapidity of motion, produced

on Pierre the usual animating effects of a conflagration. It had a

peculiarly strong effect on him because at the sight of the fire he felt

himself suddenly freed from the ideas that had weighed him down. He felt

young, bright, adroit, and resolute. He ran round to the other side of

the lodge and was about to dash into that part of it which was still

standing, when just above his head he heard several voices shouting

and then a cracking sound and the ring of something heavy falling close

beside him.

Pierre looked up and saw at a window of the large house some Frenchmen

who had just thrown out the drawer of a chest, filled with metal

articles. Other French soldiers standing below went up to the drawer.

“What does this fellow want?” shouted one of them referring to Pierre.

“There’s a child in that house. Haven’t you seen a child?” cried Pierre.

“What’s he talking about? Get along!” said several voices, and one of

the soldiers, evidently afraid that Pierre might want to take from

them some of the plate and bronzes that were in the drawer, moved

threateningly toward him.

“A child?” shouted a Frenchman from above. “I did hear something

squealing in the garden. Perhaps it’s his brat that the fellow is

looking for. After all, one must be human, you know....”

“Where is it? Where?” said Pierre.

“There! There!” shouted the Frenchman at the window, pointing to the

garden at the back of the house. “Wait a bit—I’m coming down.”

And a minute or two later the Frenchman, a black-eyed fellow with a spot

on his cheek, in shirt sleeves, really did jump out of a window on the

ground floor, and clapping Pierre on the shoulder ran with him into the

garden.

“Hurry up, you others!” he called out to his comrades. “It’s getting

hot.”

When they reached a gravel path behind the house the Frenchman pulled

Pierre by the arm and pointed to a round, graveled space where a

three-year-old girl in a pink dress was lying under a seat.

“There is your child! Oh, a girl, so much the better!” said the

Frenchman. “Good-by, Fatty. We must be human, we are all mortal you

know!” and the Frenchman with the spot on his cheek ran back to his

comrades.

Breathless with joy, Pierre ran to the little girl and was going to take

her in his arms. But seeing a stranger the sickly, scrofulous-looking

child, unattractively like her mother, began to yell and run away.

Pierre, however, seized her and lifted her in his arms. She screamed

desperately and angrily and tried with her little hands to pull Pierre’s

hands away and to bite them with her slobbering mouth. Pierre was seized

by a sense of horror and repulsion such as he had experienced when

touching some nasty little animal. But he made an effort not to throw

the child down and ran with her to the large house. It was now, however,

impossible to get back the way he had come; the maid, Aníska, was no

longer there, and Pierre with a feeling of pity and disgust pressed the

wet, painfully sobbing child to himself as tenderly as he could and ran

with her through the garden seeking another way out.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Having run through different yards and side streets, Pierre got back

with his little burden to the Gruzínski garden at the corner of the

Povarskóy. He did not at first recognize the place from which he had set

out to look for the child, so crowded was it now with people and goods

that had been dragged out of the houses. Besides Russian families who

had taken refuge here from the fire with their belongings, there were

several French soldiers in a variety of clothing. Pierre took no notice

of them. He hurried to find the family of that civil servant in order to

restore the daughter to her mother and go to save someone else. Pierre

felt that he had still much to do and to do quickly. Glowing with the

heat and from running, he felt at that moment more strongly than ever

the sense of youth, animation, and determination that had come on him

when he ran to save the child. She had now become quiet and, clinging

with her little hands to Pierre’s coat, sat on his arm gazing about

her like some little wild animal. He glanced at her occasionally with a

slight smile. He fancied he saw something pathetically innocent in that

frightened, sickly little face.

He did not find the civil servant or his wife where he had left them. He

walked among the crowd with rapid steps, scanning the various faces he

met. Involuntarily he noticed a Georgian or Armenian family

consisting of a very handsome old man of Oriental type, wearing a new,

cloth-covered, sheepskin coat and new boots, an old woman of similar

type, and a young woman. That very young woman seemed to Pierre the

perfection of Oriental beauty, with her sharply outlined, arched,

black eyebrows and the extraordinarily soft, bright color of her long,

beautiful, expressionless face. Amid the scattered property and the

crowd on the open space, she, in her rich satin cloak with a bright

lilac shawl on her head, suggested a delicate exotic plant thrown out

onto the snow. She was sitting on some bundles a little behind the old

woman, and looked from under her long lashes with motionless, large,

almond-shaped eyes at the ground before her. Evidently she was aware

of her beauty and fearful because of it. Her face struck Pierre and,

hurrying along by the fence, he turned several times to look at her.

When he had reached the fence, still without finding those he sought, he

stopped and looked about him.

With the child in his arms his figure was now more conspicuous than

before, and a group of Russians, both men and women, gathered about him.

“Have you lost anyone, my dear fellow? You’re of the gentry yourself,

aren’t you? Whose child is it?” they asked him.

Pierre replied that the child belonged to a woman in a black coat who

had been sitting there with her other children, and he asked whether

anyone knew where she had gone.

“Why, that must be the Anférovs,” said an old deacon, addressing a

pockmarked peasant woman. “Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy!” he added

in his customary bass.

“The Anférovs? No,” said the woman. “They left in the morning. That must

be either Mary Nikoláevna’s or the Ivánovs’!”

“He says ‘a woman,’ and Mary Nikoláevna is a lady,” remarked a house

serf.

“Do you know her? She’s thin, with long teeth,” said Pierre.

“That’s Mary Nikoláevna! They went inside the garden when these wolves

swooped down,” said the woman, pointing to the French soldiers.

“O Lord, have mercy!” added the deacon.

“Go over that way, they’re there. It’s she! She kept on lamenting and

crying,” continued the woman. “It’s she. Here, this way!”

But Pierre was not listening to the woman. He had for some seconds been

intently watching what was going on a few steps away. He was looking at

the Armenian family and at two French soldiers who had gone up to them.

One of these, a nimble little man, was wearing a blue coat tied round

the waist with a rope. He had a nightcap on his head and his feet were

bare. The other, whose appearance particularly struck Pierre, was a

long, lank, round-shouldered, fair-haired man, slow in his movements

and with an idiotic expression of face. He wore a woman’s loose gown

of frieze, blue trousers, and large torn Hessian boots. The little

barefooted Frenchman in the blue coat went up to the Armenians and,

saying something, immediately seized the old man by his legs and the old

man at once began pulling off his boots. The other in the frieze gown

stopped in front of the beautiful Armenian girl and with his hands in

his pockets stood staring at her, motionless and silent.

“Here, take the child!” said Pierre peremptorily and hurriedly to the

woman, handing the little girl to her. “Give her back to them, give her

back!” he almost shouted, putting the child, who began screaming, on the

ground, and again looking at the Frenchman and the Armenian family.

The old man was already sitting barefoot. The little Frenchman had

secured his second boot and was slapping one boot against the other.

The old man was saying something in a voice broken by sobs, but Pierre

caught but a glimpse of this, his whole attention was directed to the

Frenchman in the frieze gown who meanwhile, swaying slowly from side to

side, had drawn nearer to the young woman and taking his hands from his

pockets had seized her by the neck.

The beautiful Armenian still sat motionless and in the same attitude,

with her long lashes drooping as if she did not see or feel what the

soldier was doing to her.

While Pierre was running the few steps that separated him from the

Frenchman, the tall marauder in the frieze gown was already tearing

from her neck the necklace the young Armenian was wearing, and the young

woman, clutching at her neck, screamed piercingly.

“Let that woman alone!” exclaimed Pierre hoarsely in a furious voice,

seizing the soldier by his round shoulders and throwing him aside.

The soldier fell, got up, and ran away. But his comrade, throwing down

the boots and drawing his sword, moved threateningly toward Pierre.

“Voyons, pas de bêtises!” * he cried.

* “Look here, no nonsense!”

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

his strength increased tenfold. He rushed at the barefooted Frenchman

and, before the latter had time to draw his sword, knocked him off his

feet and hammered him with his fists. Shouts of approval were heard

from the crowd around, and at the same moment a mounted patrol of French

Uhlans appeared from round the corner. The Uhlans came up at a trot to

Pierre and the Frenchman and surrounded them. Pierre remembered nothing

of what happened after that. He only remembered beating someone and

being beaten and finally feeling that his hands were bound and that a

crowd of French soldiers stood around him and were searching him.

“Lieutenant, he has a dagger,” were the first words Pierre understood.

“Ah, a weapon?” said the officer and turned to the barefooted soldier

who had been arrested with Pierre. “All right, you can tell all about it

at the court-martial.” Then he turned to Pierre. “Do you speak French?”

Pierre looked around him with bloodshot eyes and did not reply. His

face probably looked very terrible, for the officer said something in

a whisper and four more Uhlans left the ranks and placed themselves on

both sides of Pierre.

“Do you speak French?” the officer asked again, keeping at a distance

from Pierre. “Call the interpreter.”

A little man in Russian civilian clothes rode out from the ranks, and

by his clothes and manner of speaking Pierre at once knew him to be a

French salesman from one of the Moscow shops.

“He does not look like a common man,” said the interpreter, after a

searching look at Pierre.

“Ah, he looks very much like an incendiary,” remarked the officer. “And

ask him who he is,” he added.

“Who are you?” asked the interpreter in poor Russian. “You must answer

the chief.”

“I will not tell you who I am. I am your prisoner—take me!” Pierre

suddenly replied in French.

“Ah, ah!” muttered the officer with a frown. “Well then, march!”

A crowd had collected round the Uhlans. Nearest to Pierre stood the

pockmarked peasant woman with the little girl, and when the patrol

started she moved forward.

“Where are they taking you to, you poor dear?” said she. “And the little

girl, the little girl, what am I to do with her if she’s not theirs?”

said the woman.

“What does that woman want?” asked the officer.

Pierre was as if intoxicated. His elation increased at the sight of the

little girl he had saved.

“What does she want?” he murmured. “She is bringing me my daughter whom

I have just saved from the flames,” said he. “Good-by!” And without

knowing how this aimless lie had escaped him, he went along with

resolute and triumphant steps between the French soldiers.

The French patrol was one of those sent out through the various

streets of Moscow by Durosnel’s order to put a stop to the pillage,

and especially to catch the incendiaries who, according to the general

opinion which had that day originated among the higher French officers,

were the cause of the conflagrations. After marching through a number

of streets the patrol arrested five more Russian suspects: a small

shopkeeper, two seminary students, a peasant, and a house serf, besides

several looters. But of all these various suspected characters, Pierre

was considered to be the most suspicious of all. When they had all been

brought for the night to a large house on the Zúbov Rampart that was

being used as a guardhouse, Pierre was placed apart under strict guard.

BOOK TWELVE: 1812

CHAPTER I

In Petersburg at that time a complicated struggle was being carried on

with greater heat than ever in the highest circles, between the parties

of Rumyántsev, the French, Márya Fëdorovna, the Tsarévich, and others,

drowned as usual by the buzzing of the court drones. But the calm,

luxurious life of Petersburg, concerned only about phantoms and

reflections of real life, went on in its old way and made it hard,

except by a great effort, to realize the danger and the difficult

position of the Russian people. There were the same receptions and

balls, the same French theater, the same court interests and service

interests and intrigues as usual. Only in the very highest circles were

attempts made to keep in mind the difficulties of the actual position.

Stories were whispered of how differently the two Empresses behaved

in these difficult circumstances. The Empress Márya, concerned for

the welfare of the charitable and educational institutions under her

patronage, had given directions that they should all be removed to

Kazán, and the things belonging to these institutions had already been

packed up. The Empress Elisabeth, however, when asked what instructions

she would be pleased to give—with her characteristic Russian patriotism

had replied that she could give no directions about state institutions

for that was the affair of the sovereign, but as far as she personally

was concerned she would be the last to quit Petersburg.

At Anna Pávlovna’s on the twenty-sixth of August, the very day of the

battle of Borodinó, there was a soiree, the chief feature of which was

to be the reading of a letter from His Lordship the Bishop when sending

the Emperor an icon of the Venerable Sergius. It was regarded as a model

of ecclesiastical, patriotic eloquence. Prince Vasíli himself, famed for

his elocution, was to read it. (He used to read at the Empress’.) The

art of his reading was supposed to lie in rolling out the words, quite

independently of their meaning, in a loud and singsong voice alternating

between a despairing wail and a tender murmur, so that the wail fell

quite at random on one word and the murmur on another. This reading,

as was always the case at Anna Pávlovna’s soirees, had a political

significance. That evening she expected several important personages who

had to be made ashamed of their visits to the French theater and aroused

to a patriotic temper. A good many people had already arrived, but Anna

Pávlovna, not yet seeing all those whom she wanted in her drawing room,

did not let the reading begin but wound up the springs of a general

conversation.

The news of the day in Petersburg was the illness of Countess Bezúkhova.

She had fallen ill unexpectedly a few days previously, had missed

several gatherings of which she was usually the ornament, and was said

to be receiving no one, and instead of the celebrated Petersburg doctors

who usually attended her had entrusted herself to some Italian doctor

who was treating her in some new and unusual way.

They all knew very well that the enchanting countess’ illness arose from

an inconvenience resulting from marrying two husbands at the same time,

and that the Italian’s cure consisted in removing such inconvenience;

but in Anna Pávlovna’s presence no one dared to think of this or even

appear to know it.

“They say the poor countess is very ill. The doctor says it is angina

pectoris.”

“Angina? Oh, that’s a terrible illness!”

“They say that the rivals are reconciled, thanks to the angina...” and

the word angina was repeated with great satisfaction.

“The count is pathetic, they say. He cried like a child when the doctor

told him the case was dangerous.”

“Oh, it would be a terrible loss, she is an enchanting woman.”

“You are speaking of the poor countess?” said Anna Pávlovna, coming

up just then. “I sent to ask for news, and hear that she is a little

better. Oh, she is certainly the most charming woman in the world,” she

went on, with a smile at her own enthusiasm. “We belong to different

camps, but that does not prevent my esteeming her as she deserves. She

is very unfortunate!” added Anna Pávlovna.

Supposing that by these words Anna Pávlovna was somewhat lifting the

veil from the secret of the countess’ malady, an unwary young man

ventured to express surprise that well-known doctors had not been called

in and that the countess was being attended by a charlatan who might

employ dangerous remedies.

“Your information may be better than mine,” Anna Pávlovna suddenly and

venomously retorted on the inexperienced young man, “but I know on good

authority that this doctor is a very learned and able man. He is private

physician to the Queen of Spain.”

And having thus demolished the young man, Anna Pávlovna turned to

another group where Bilíbin was talking about the Austrians: having

wrinkled up his face he was evidently preparing to smooth it out again

and utter one of his mots.

“I think it is delightful,” he said, referring to a diplomatic note that

had been sent to Vienna with some Austrian banners captured from the

French by Wittgenstein, “the hero of Petropol” as he was then called in

Petersburg.

“What? What’s that?” asked Anna Pávlovna, securing silence for the mot,

which she had heard before.

And Bilíbin repeated the actual words of the diplomatic dispatch, which

he had himself composed.

“The Emperor returns these Austrian banners,” said Bilíbin, “friendly

banners gone astray and found on a wrong path,” and his brow became

smooth again.

“Charming, charming!” observed Prince Vasíli.

“The path to Warsaw, perhaps,” Prince Hippolyte remarked loudly and

unexpectedly. Everybody looked at him, understanding what he meant.

Prince Hippolyte himself glanced around with amused surprise. He knew no

more than the others what his words meant. During his diplomatic career

he had more than once noticed that such utterances were received as very

witty, and at every opportunity he uttered in that way the first words

that entered his head. “It may turn out very well,” he thought, “but

if not, they’ll know how to arrange matters.” And really, during the

awkward silence that ensued, that insufficiently patriotic person

entered whom Anna Pávlovna had been waiting for and wished to convert,

and she, smiling and shaking a finger at Hippolyte, invited Prince

Vasíli to the table and bringing him two candles and the manuscript

begged him to begin. Everyone became silent.

“Most Gracious Sovereign and Emperor!” Prince Vasíli sternly declaimed,

looking round at his audience as if to inquire whether anyone had

anything to say to the contrary. But no one said anything. “Moscow, our

ancient capital, the New Jerusalem, receives her Christ”—he placed a

sudden emphasis on the word her—“as a mother receives her zealous sons

into her arms, and through the gathering mists, foreseeing the brilliant

glory of thy rule, sings in exultation, ‘Hosanna, blessed is he that

cometh!’”

Prince Vasíli pronounced these last words in a tearful voice.

Bilíbin attentively examined his nails, and many of those present

appeared intimidated, as if asking in what they were to blame. Anna

Pávlovna whispered the next words in advance, like an old woman

muttering the prayer at Communion: “Let the bold and insolent

Goliath...” she whispered.

Prince Vasíli continued.

“Let the bold and insolent Goliath from the borders of France encompass

the realms of Russia with death-bearing terrors; humble Faith, the sling

of the Russian David, shall suddenly smite his head in his bloodthirsty

pride. This icon of the Venerable Sergius, the servant of God and

zealous champion of old of our country’s weal, is offered to Your

Imperial Majesty. I grieve that my waning strength prevents rejoicing

in the sight of your most gracious presence. I raise fervent prayers to

Heaven that the Almighty may exalt the race of the just, and mercifully

fulfill the desires of Your Majesty.”

“What force! What a style!” was uttered in approval both of reader and

of author.

Animated by that address Anna Pávlovna’s guests talked for a long time

of the state of the fatherland and offered various conjectures as to the

result of the battle to be fought in a few days.

“You will see,” said Anna Pávlovna, “that tomorrow, on the Emperor’s

birthday, we shall receive news. I have a favorable presentiment!”

CHAPTER II

Anna Pávlovna’s presentiment was in fact fulfilled. Next day during the

service at the palace church in honor of the Emperor’s birthday, Prince

Volkónski was called out of the church and received a dispatch from

Prince Kutúzov. It was Kutúzov’s report, written from Tatárinova on the

day of the battle. Kutúzov wrote that the Russians had not retreated a

step, that the French losses were much heavier than ours, and that he

was writing in haste from the field of battle before collecting full

information. It followed that there must have been a victory. And at

once, without leaving the church, thanks were rendered to the Creator

for His help and for the victory.

Anna Pávlovna’s presentiment was justified, and all that morning a

joyously festive mood reigned in the city. Everyone believed the victory

to have been complete, and some even spoke of Napoleon’s having been

captured, of his deposition, and of the choice of a new ruler for

France.

It is very difficult for events to be reflected in their real strength

and completeness amid the conditions of court life and far from the

scene of action. General events involuntarily group themselves around

some particular incident. So now the courtiers’ pleasure was based as

much on the fact that the news had arrived on the Emperor’s birthday as

on the fact of the victory itself. It was like a successfully arranged

surprise. Mention was made in Kutúzov’s report of the Russian losses,

among which figured the names of Túchkov, Bagratión, and Kutáysov. In

the Petersburg world this sad side of the affair again involuntarily

centered round a single incident: Kutáysov’s death. Everybody knew

him, the Emperor liked him, and he was young and interesting. That day

everyone met with the words:

“What a wonderful coincidence! Just during the service. But what a loss

Kutáysov is! How sorry I am!”

“What did I tell about Kutúzov?” Prince Vasíli now said with a

prophet’s pride. “I always said he was the only man capable of defeating

Napoleon.”

But next day no news arrived from the army and the public mood grew

anxious. The courtiers suffered because of the suffering the suspense

occasioned the Emperor.

“Fancy the Emperor’s position!” said they, and instead of extolling

Kutúzov as they had done the day before, they condemned him as the cause

of the Emperor’s anxiety. That day Prince Vasíli no longer boasted of

his protégé Kutúzov, but remained silent when the commander in chief was

mentioned. Moreover, toward evening, as if everything conspired to make

Petersburg society anxious and uneasy, a terrible piece of news was

added. Countess Hélène Bezúkhova had suddenly died of that terrible

malady it had been so agreeable to mention. Officially, at large

gatherings, everyone said that Countess Bezúkhova had died of a

terrible attack of angina pectoris, but in intimate circles details

were mentioned of how the private physician of the Queen of Spain had

prescribed small doses of a certain drug to produce a certain effect;

but Hélène, tortured by the fact that the old count suspected her and

that her husband to whom she had written (that wretched, profligate

Pierre) had not replied, had suddenly taken a very large dose of the

drug, and had died in agony before assistance could be rendered her.

It was said that Prince Vasíli and the old count had turned upon the

Italian, but the latter had produced such letters from the unfortunate

deceased that they had immediately let the matter drop.

Talk in general centered round three melancholy facts: the Emperor’s

lack of news, the loss of Kutáysov, and the death of Hélène.

On the third day after Kutúzov’s report a country gentleman arrived from

Moscow, and news of the surrender of Moscow to the French spread through

the whole town. This was terrible! What a position for the Emperor to

be in! Kutúzov was a traitor, and Prince Vasíli during the visits of

condolence paid to him on the occasion of his daughter’s death said of

Kutúzov, whom he had formerly praised (it was excusable for him in his

grief to forget what he had said), that it was impossible to expect

anything else from a blind and depraved old man.

“I only wonder that the fate of Russia could have been entrusted to such

a man.”

As long as this news remained unofficial it was possible to doubt it,

but the next day the following communication was received from Count

Rostopchín:

Prince Kutúzov’s adjutant has brought me a letter in which he demands

police officers to guide the army to the Ryazán road. He writes that

he is regretfully abandoning Moscow. Sire! Kutúzov’s action decides the

fate of the capital and of your empire! Russia will shudder to learn of

the abandonment of the city in which her greatness is centered and in

which lie the ashes of your ancestors! I shall follow the army. I have

had everything removed, and it only remains for me to weep over the fate

of my fatherland.

On receiving this dispatch the Emperor sent Prince Volkónski to Kutúzov

with the following rescript:

Prince Michael Ilariónovich! Since the twenty-ninth of August I have

received no communication from you, yet on the first of September I

received from the commander in chief of Moscow, via Yaroslávl, the sad

news that you, with the army, have decided to abandon Moscow. You can

yourself imagine the effect this news has had on me, and your silence

increases my astonishment. I am sending this by Adjutant-General Prince

Volkónski, to hear from you the situation of the army and the reasons

that have induced you to take this melancholy decision.

CHAPTER III

Nine days after the abandonment of Moscow, a messenger from Kutúzov

reached Petersburg with the official announcement of that event. This

messenger was Michaud, a Frenchman who did not know Russian, but who was

quoique étranger, russe de cœur et d’âme, * as he said of himself.

* Though a foreigner, Russian in heart and soul.

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

on Stone Island. Michaud, who had never seen Moscow before the campaign

and who did not know Russian, yet felt deeply moved (as he wrote) when

he appeared before notre très gracieux souverain * with the news of the

burning of Moscow, dont les flammes éclairaient sa route. *(2)

* Our most gracious sovereign.

* (2) Whose flames illumined his route.

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

that which caused Russians to grieve, he had such a sad face when shown

into the Emperor’s study that the latter at once asked:

“Have you brought me sad news, Colonel?”

“Very sad, sire,” replied Michaud, lowering his eyes with a sigh. “The

abandonment of Moscow.”

“Have they surrendered my ancient capital without a battle?” asked the

Emperor quickly, his face suddenly flushing.

Michaud respectfully delivered the message Kutúzov had entrusted to him,

which was that it had been impossible to fight before Moscow, and that

as the only remaining choice was between losing the army as well as

Moscow, or losing Moscow alone, the field marshal had to choose the

latter.

The Emperor listened in silence, not looking at Michaud.

“Has the enemy entered the city?” he asked.

“Yes, sire, and Moscow is now in ashes. I left it all in flames,”

replied Michaud in a decided tone, but glancing at the Emperor he was

frightened by what he had done.

The Emperor began to breathe heavily and rapidly, his lower lip

trembled, and tears instantly appeared in his fine blue eyes.

But this lasted only a moment. He suddenly frowned, as if blaming

himself for his weakness, and raising his head addressed Michaud in a

firm voice:

“I see, Colonel, from all that is happening, that Providence requires

great sacrifices of us... I am ready to submit myself in all things to

His will; but tell me, Michaud, how did you leave the army when it

saw my ancient capital abandoned without a battle? Did you not notice

discouragement?...”

Seeing that his most gracious ruler was calm once more, Michaud also

grew calm, but was not immediately ready to reply to the Emperor’s

direct and relevant question which required a direct answer.

“Sire, will you allow me to speak frankly as befits a loyal soldier?” he

asked to gain time.

“Colonel, I always require it,” replied the Emperor. “Conceal nothing

from me, I wish to know absolutely how things are.”

“Sire!” said Michaud with a subtle, scarcely perceptible smile on his

lips, having now prepared a well-phrased reply, “sire, I left the

whole army, from its chiefs to the lowest soldier, without exception in

desperate and agonized terror...”

“How is that?” the Emperor interrupted him, frowning sternly. “Would

misfortune make my Russians lose heart?... Never!”

Michaud had only waited for this to bring out the phrase he had

prepared.

“Sire,” he said, with respectful playfulness, “they are only afraid lest

Your Majesty, in the goodness of your heart, should allow yourself to be

persuaded to make peace. They are burning for the combat,” declared this

representative of the Russian nation, “and to prove to Your Majesty by

the sacrifice of their lives how devoted they are....”

“Ah!” said the Emperor reassured, and with a kindly gleam in his eyes,

he patted Michaud on the shoulder. “You set me at ease, Colonel.”

He bent his head and was silent for some time.

“Well, then, go back to the army,” he said, drawing himself up to his

full height and addressing Michaud with a gracious and majestic gesture,

“and tell our brave men and all my good subjects wherever you go that

when I have not a soldier left I shall put myself at the head of my

beloved nobility and my good peasants and so use the last resources of

my empire. It still offers me more than my enemies suppose,” said the

Emperor growing more and more animated; “but should it ever be ordained

by Divine Providence,” he continued, raising to heaven his fine eyes

shining with emotion, “that my dynasty should cease to reign on the

throne of my ancestors, then after exhausting all the means at my

command, I shall let my beard grow to here” (he pointed halfway down his

chest) “and go and eat potatoes with the meanest of my peasants, rather

than sign the disgrace of my country and of my beloved people whose

sacrifices I know how to appreciate.”

Having uttered these words in an agitated voice the Emperor suddenly

turned away as if to hide from Michaud the tears that rose to his eyes,

and went to the further end of his study. Having stood there a few

moments, he strode back to Michaud and pressed his arm below the elbow

with a vigorous movement. The Emperor’s mild and handsome face was

flushed and his eyes gleamed with resolution and anger.

“Colonel Michaud, do not forget what I say to you here, perhaps we may

recall it with pleasure someday... Napoleon or I,” said the Emperor,

touching his breast. “We can no longer both reign together. I have

learned to know him, and he will not deceive me any more....”

And the Emperor paused, with a frown.

When he heard these words and saw the expression of firm resolution in

the Emperor’s eyes, Michaud—quoique étranger, russe de cœur et d’âme,—at

that solemn moment felt himself enraptured by all that he had heard (as

he used afterwards to say), and gave expression to his own feelings and

those of the Russian people whose representative he considered himself

to be, in the following words:

“Sire!” said he, “Your Majesty is at this moment signing the glory of

the nation and the salvation of Europe!”

With an inclination of the head the Emperor dismissed him.

CHAPTER IV

It is natural for us who were not living in those days to imagine that

when half Russia had been conquered and the inhabitants were fleeing to

distant provinces, and one levy after another was being raised for the

defense of the fatherland, all Russians from the greatest to the least

were solely engaged in sacrificing themselves, saving their fatherland,

or weeping over its downfall. The tales and descriptions of that time

without exception speak only of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion,

despair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians. But it was not really

so. It appears so to us because we see only the general historic

interest of that time and do not see all the personal human interests

that people had. Yet in reality those personal interests of the moment

so much transcend the general interests that they always prevent the

public interest from being felt or even noticed. Most of the people at

that time paid no attention to the general progress of events but were

guided only by their private interests, and they were the very people

whose activities at that period were most useful.

Those who tried to understand the general course of events and to take

part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism were the most useless members

of society, they saw everything upside down, and all they did for the

common good turned out to be useless and foolish—like Pierre’s and

Mamónov’s regiments which looted Russian villages, and the lint the

young ladies prepared and that never reached the wounded, and so on.

Even those, fond of intellectual talk and of expressing their feelings,

who discussed Russia’s position at the time involuntarily introduced

into their conversation either a shade of pretense and falsehood or

useless condemnation and anger directed against people accused of

actions no one could possibly be guilty of. In historic events the rule

forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially

applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part

in an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to

realize it his efforts are fruitless.

The more closely a man was engaged in the events then taking place in

Russia the less did he realize their significance. In Petersburg and

in the provinces at a distance from Moscow, ladies, and gentlemen in

militia uniforms, wept for Russia and its ancient capital and talked of

self-sacrifice and so on; but in the army which retired beyond Moscow

there was little talk or thought of Moscow, and when they caught sight

of its burned ruins no one swore to be avenged on the French, but they

thought about their next pay, their next quarters, of Matrëshka the

vivandière, and like matters.

As the war had caught him in the service, Nicholas Rostóv took a close

and prolonged part in the defense of his country, but did so casually,

without any aim at self-sacrifice, and he therefore looked at what was

going on in Russia without despair and without dismally racking his

brains over it. Had he been asked what he thought of the state of

Russia, he would have said that it was not his business to think about

it, that Kutúzov and others were there for that purpose, but that he had

heard that the regiments were to be made up to their full strength, that

fighting would probably go on for a long time yet, and that things being

so it was quite likely he might be in command of a regiment in a couple

of years’ time.

As he looked at the matter in this way, he learned that he was being

sent to Vorónezh to buy remounts for his division, not only without

regret at being prevented from taking part in the coming battle, but

with the greatest pleasure—which he did not conceal and which his

comrades fully understood.

A few days before the battle of Borodinó, Nicholas received the

necessary money and warrants, and having sent some hussars on in

advance, he set out with post horses for Vorónezh.

Only a man who has experienced it—that is, has passed some months

continuously in an atmosphere of campaigning and war—can understand the

delight Nicholas felt when he escaped from the region covered by the

army’s foraging operations, provision trains, and hospitals. When—free

from soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a camp—he saw villages

with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen’s country houses, fields

where cattle were grazing, posthouses with stationmasters asleep in

them, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time. What for

a long while specially surprised and delighted him were the women, young

and healthy, without a dozen officers making up to each of them; women,

too, who were pleased and flattered that a passing officer should joke

with them.

In the highest spirits Nicholas arrived at night at a hotel in Vorónezh,

ordered things he had long been deprived of in camp, and next day, very

clean-shaven and in a full-dress uniform he had not worn for a long

time, went to present himself to the authorities.

The commander of the militia was a civilian general, an old man who was

evidently pleased with his military designation and rank. He received

Nicholas brusquely (imagining this to be characteristically military)

and questioned him with an important air, as if considering the general

progress of affairs and approving and disapproving with full right to do

so. Nicholas was in such good spirits that this merely amused him.

From the commander of the militia he drove to the governor. The governor

was a brisk little man, very simple and affable. He indicated the stud

farms at which Nicholas might procure horses, recommended to him a horse

dealer in the town and a landowner fourteen miles out of town who had

the best horses, and promised to assist him in every way.

“You are Count Ilyá Rostóv’s son? My wife was a great friend of your

mother’s. We are at home on Thursdays—today is Thursday, so please come

and see us quite informally,” said the governor, taking leave of him.

Immediately on leaving the governor’s, Nicholas hired post horses and,

taking his squadron quartermaster with him, drove at a gallop to the

landowner, fourteen miles away, who had the stud. Everything seemed to

him pleasant and easy during that first part of his stay in Vorónezh

and, as usually happens when a man is in a pleasant state of mind,

everything went well and easily.

The landowner to whom Nicholas went was a bachelor, an old cavalryman, a

horse fancier, a sportsman, the possessor of some century-old brandy

and some old Hungarian wine, who had a snuggery where he smoked, and who

owned some splendid horses.

In very few words Nicholas bought seventeen picked stallions for six

thousand rubles—to serve, as he said, as samples of his remounts. After

dining and taking rather too much of the Hungarian wine, Nicholas—having

exchanged kisses with the landowner, with whom he was already on the

friendliest terms—galloped back over abominable roads, in the brightest

frame of mind, continually urging on the driver so as to be in time for

the governor’s party.

When he had changed, poured water over his head, and scented himself,

Nicholas arrived at the governor’s rather late, but with the phrase

“better late than never” on his lips.

It was not a ball, nor had dancing been announced, but everyone knew

that Catherine Petróvna would play valses and the écossaise on the

clavichord and that there would be dancing, and so everyone had come as

to a ball.

Provincial life in 1812 went on very much as usual, but with this

difference, that it was livelier in the towns in consequence of the

arrival of many wealthy families from Moscow, and as in everything that

went on in Russia at that time a special recklessness was noticeable, an

“in for a penny, in for a pound—who cares?” spirit, and the inevitable

small talk, instead of turning on the weather and mutual acquaintances,

now turned on Moscow, the army, and Napoleon.

The society gathered together at the governor’s was the best in

Vorónezh.

There were a great many ladies and some of Nicholas’ Moscow

acquaintances, but there were no men who could at all vie with the

cavalier of St. George, the hussar remount officer, the good-natured

and well-bred Count Rostóv. Among the men was an Italian prisoner, an

officer of the French army; and Nicholas felt that the presence of that

prisoner enhanced his own importance as a Russian hero. The Italian

was, as it were, a war trophy. Nicholas felt this, it seemed to him

that everyone regarded the Italian in the same light, and he treated him

cordially though with dignity and restraint.

As soon as Nicholas entered in his hussar uniform, diffusing around him

a fragrance of perfume and wine, and had uttered the words “better late

than never” and heard them repeated several times by others, people

clustered around him; all eyes turned on him, and he felt at once

that he had entered into his proper position in the province—that of

a universal favorite: a very pleasant position, and intoxicatingly so

after his long privations. At posting stations, at inns, and in the

landowner’s snuggery, maidservants had been flattered by his notice, and

here too at the governor’s party there were (as it seemed to Nicholas)

an inexhaustible number of pretty young women, married and unmarried,

impatiently awaiting his notice. The women and girls flirted with him

and, from the first day, the people concerned themselves to get this

fine young daredevil of an hussar married and settled down. Among these

was the governor’s wife herself, who welcomed Rostóv as a near relative

and called him “Nicholas.”

Catherine Petróvna did actually play valses and the écossaise, and

dancing began in which Nicholas still further captivated the provincial

society by his agility. His particularly free manner of dancing even

surprised them all. Nicholas was himself rather surprised at the way he

danced that evening. He had never danced like that in Moscow and would

even have considered such a very free and easy manner improper and in

bad form, but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by

something unusual, something they would have to accept as the regular

thing in the capital though new to them in the provinces.

All the evening Nicholas paid attention to a blue-eyed, plump and

pleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials.

With the naïve conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men’s

wives were created for them, Rostóv did not leave the lady’s side and

treated her husband in a friendly and conspiratorial style, as if,

without speaking of it, they knew how capitally Nicholas and the lady

would get on together. The husband, however, did not seem to share that

conviction and tried to behave morosely with Rostóv. But the

latter’s good-natured naïveté was so boundless that sometimes even he

involuntarily yielded to Nicholas’ good humor. Toward the end of the

evening, however, as the wife’s face grew more flushed and animated, the

husband’s became more and more melancholy and solemn, as though there

were but a given amount of animation between them and as the wife’s

share increased the husband’s diminished.

CHAPTER V

Nicholas sat leaning slightly forward in an armchair, bending closely

over the blonde lady and paying her mythological compliments with a

smile that never left his face. Jauntily shifting the position of his

legs in their tight riding breeches, diffusing an odor of perfume, and

admiring his partner, himself, and the fine outlines of his legs in

their well-fitting Hessian boots, Nicholas told the blonde lady that he

wished to run away with a certain lady here in Vorónezh.

“Which lady?”

“A charming lady, a divine one. Her eyes” (Nicholas looked at his

partner) “are blue, her mouth coral and ivory; her figure” (he glanced

at her shoulders) “like Diana’s....”

The husband came up and sullenly asked his wife what she was talking

about.

“Ah, Nikíta Iványch!” cried Nicholas, rising politely, and as if wishing

Nikíta Iványch to share his joke, he began to tell him of his intention

to elope with a blonde lady.

The husband smiled gloomily, the wife gaily. The governor’s good-natured

wife came up with a look of disapproval.

“Anna Ignátyevna wants to see you, Nicholas,” said she, pronouncing the

name so that Nicholas at once understood that Anna Ignátyevna was a very

important person. “Come, Nicholas! You know you let me call you so?”

“Oh, yes, Aunt. Who is she?”

“Anna Ignátyevna Malvíntseva. She has heard from her niece how you

rescued her.... Can you guess?”

“I rescued such a lot of them!” said Nicholas.

“Her niece, Princess Bolkónskaya. She is here in Vorónezh with her aunt.

Oho! How you blush. Why, are...?”

“Not a bit! Please don’t, Aunt!”

“Very well, very well!... Oh, what a fellow you are!”

The governor’s wife led him up to a tall and very stout old lady with

a blue headdress, who had just finished her game of cards with the most

important personages of the town. This was Malvíntseva, Princess Mary’s

aunt on her mother’s side, a rich, childless widow who always lived in

Vorónezh. When Rostóv approached her she was standing settling up for

the game. She looked at him and, screwing up her eyes sternly, continued

to upbraid the general who had won from her.

“Very pleased, mon cher,” she then said, holding out her hand to

Nicholas. “Pray come and see me.”

After a few words about Princess Mary and her late father, whom

Malvíntseva had evidently not liked, and having asked what Nicholas

knew of Prince Andrew, who also was evidently no favorite of hers, the

important old lady dismissed Nicholas after repeating her invitation to

come to see her.

Nicholas promised to come and blushed again as he bowed. At the mention

of Princess Mary he experienced a feeling of shyness and even of fear,

which he himself did not understand.

When he had parted from Malvíntseva Nicholas wished to return to the

dancing, but the governor’s little wife placed her plump hand on his

sleeve and, saying that she wanted to have a talk with him, led him to

her sitting room, from which those who were there immediately withdrew

so as not to be in her way.

“Do you know, dear boy,” began the governor’s wife with a serious

expression on her kind little face, “that really would be the match for

you: would you like me to arrange it?”

“Whom do you mean, Aunt?” asked Nicholas.

“I will make a match for you with the princess. Catherine Petróvna

speaks of Lily, but I say, no—the princess! Do you want me to do it? I

am sure your mother will be grateful to me. What a charming girl she is,

really! And she is not at all so plain, either.”

“Not at all,” replied Nicholas as if offended at the idea. “As befits

a soldier, Aunt, I don’t force myself on anyone or refuse anything,” he

said before he had time to consider what he was saying.

“Well then, remember, this is not a joke!”

“Of course not!”

“Yes, yes,” the governor’s wife said as if talking to herself. “But,

my dear boy, among other things you are too attentive to the other, the

blonde. One is sorry for the husband, really....”

“Oh no, we are good friends with him,” said Nicholas in the simplicity

of his heart; it did not enter his head that a pastime so pleasant to

himself might not be pleasant to someone else.

“But what nonsense I have been saying to the governor’s wife!” thought

Nicholas suddenly at supper. “She will really begin to arrange a

match... and Sónya...?” And on taking leave of the governor’s wife,

when she again smilingly said to him, “Well then, remember!” he drew her

aside.

“But see here, to tell the truth, Aunt...”

“What is it, my dear? Come, let’s sit down here,” said she.

Nicholas suddenly felt a desire and need to tell his most intimate

thoughts (which he would not have told to his mother, his sister, or

his friend) to this woman who was almost a stranger. When he afterwards

recalled that impulse to unsolicited and inexplicable frankness which

had very important results for him, it seemed to him—as it seems to

everyone in such cases—that it was merely some silly whim that seized

him: yet that burst of frankness, together with other trifling events,

had immense consequences for him and for all his family.

“You see, Aunt, Mamma has long wanted me to marry an heiress, but the

very idea of marrying for money is repugnant to me.”

“Oh yes, I understand,” said the governor’s wife.

“But Princess Bolkónskaya—that’s another matter. I will tell you the

truth. In the first place I like her very much, I feel drawn to her; and

then, after I met her under such circumstances—so strangely, the idea

often occurred to me: ‘This is fate.’ Especially if you remember that

Mamma had long been thinking of it; but I had never happened to meet her

before, somehow it had always happened that we did not meet. And as long

as my sister Natásha was engaged to her brother it was of course out of

the question for me to think of marrying her. And it must needs happen

that I should meet her just when Natásha’s engagement had been broken

off... and then everything... So you see... I never told this to anyone

and never will, only to you.”

The governor’s wife pressed his elbow gratefully.

“You know Sónya, my cousin? I love her, and promised to marry her, and

will do so.... So you see there can be no question about—” said Nicholas

incoherently and blushing.

“My dear boy, what a way to look at it! You know Sónya has nothing and

you yourself say your Papa’s affairs are in a very bad way. And what

about your mother? It would kill her, that’s one thing. And what sort of

life would it be for Sónya—if she’s a girl with a heart? Your mother

in despair, and you all ruined.... No, my dear, you and Sónya ought to

understand that.”

Nicholas remained silent. It comforted him to hear these arguments.

“All the same, Aunt, it is impossible,” he rejoined with a sigh, after

a short pause. “Besides, would the princess have me? And besides, she is

now in mourning. How can one think of it!”

“But you don’t suppose I’m going to get you married at once? There is

always a right way of doing things,” replied the governor’s wife.

“What a matchmaker you are, Aunt...” said Nicholas, kissing her plump

little hand.

CHAPTER VI

On reaching Moscow after her meeting with Rostóv, Princess Mary had

found her nephew there with his tutor, and a letter from Prince Andrew

giving her instructions how to get to her Aunt Malvíntseva at Vorónezh.

That feeling akin to temptation which had tormented her during her

father’s illness, since his death, and especially since her meeting with

Rostóv was smothered by arrangements for the journey, anxiety about her

brother, settling in a new house, meeting new people, and attending to

her nephew’s education. She was sad. Now, after a month passed in quiet

surroundings, she felt more and more deeply the loss of her father which

was associated in her mind with the ruin of Russia. She was agitated and

incessantly tortured by the thought of the dangers to which her brother,

the only intimate person now remaining to her, was exposed. She was

worried too about her nephew’s education for which she had always felt

herself incompetent, but in the depths of her soul she felt at peace—a

peace arising from consciousness of having stifled those personal dreams

and hopes that had been on the point of awakening within her and were

related to her meeting with Rostóv.

The day after her party the governor’s wife came to see Malvíntseva

and, after discussing her plan with the aunt, remarked that though

under present circumstances a formal betrothal was, of course, not to be

thought of, all the same the young people might be brought together and

could get to know one another. Malvíntseva expressed approval, and the

governor’s wife began to speak of Rostóv in Mary’s presence, praising

him and telling how he had blushed when Princess Mary’s name was

mentioned. But Princess Mary experienced a painful rather than a joyful

feeling—her mental tranquillity was destroyed, and desires, doubts,

self-reproach, and hopes reawoke.

During the two days that elapsed before Rostóv called, Princess Mary

continually thought of how she ought to behave to him. First she decided

not to come to the drawing room when he called to see her aunt—that it

would not be proper for her, in her deep mourning, to receive visitors;

then she thought this would be rude after what he had done for her; then

it occurred to her that her aunt and the governor’s wife had intentions

concerning herself and Rostóv—their looks and words at times seemed to

confirm this supposition—then she told herself that only she, with her

sinful nature, could think this of them: they could not forget that

situated as she was, while still wearing deep mourning, such matchmaking

would be an insult to her and to her father’s memory. Assuming that she

did go down to see him, Princess Mary imagined the words he would say

to her and what she would say to him, and these words sometimes seemed

undeservedly cold and then to mean too much. More than anything she

feared lest the confusion she felt might overwhelm her and betray her as

soon as she saw him.

But when on Sunday after church the footman announced in the drawing

room that Count Rostóv had called, the princess showed no confusion,

only a slight blush suffused her cheeks and her eyes lit up with a new

and radiant light.

“You have met him, Aunt?” said she in a calm voice, unable herself to

understand that she could be outwardly so calm and natural.

When Rostóv entered the room, the princess dropped her eyes for an

instant, as if to give the visitor time to greet her aunt, and then

just as Nicholas turned to her she raised her head and met his look with

shining eyes. With a movement full of dignity and grace she half rose

with a smile of pleasure, held out her slender, delicate hand to him,

and began to speak in a voice in which for the first time new deep

womanly notes vibrated. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in the drawing

room, looked at Princess Mary in bewildered surprise. Herself a

consummate coquette, she could not have maneuvered better on meeting a

man she wished to attract.

“Either black is particularly becoming to her or she really has greatly

improved without my having noticed it. And above all, what tact and

grace!” thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.

Had Princess Mary been capable of reflection at that moment, she would

have been more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the change that

had taken place in herself. From the moment she recognized that dear,

loved face, a new life force took possession of her and compelled her to

speak and act apart from her own will. From the time Rostóv entered, her

face became suddenly transformed. It was as if a light had been kindled

in a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skillful, artistic

work on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless,

was suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty. For the first

time all that pure, spiritual, inward travail through which she had

lived appeared on the surface. All her inward labor, her dissatisfaction

with herself, her sufferings, her strivings after goodness, her

meekness, love, and self-sacrifice—all this now shone in those radiant

eyes, in her delicate smile, and in every trait of her gentle face.

Rostóv saw all this as clearly as if he had known her whole life. He

felt that the being before him was quite different from, and better

than, anyone he had met before, and above all better than himself.

Their conversation was very simple and unimportant. They spoke of the

war, and like everyone else unconsciously exaggerated their sorrow

about it; they spoke of their last meeting—Nicholas trying to change the

subject—they talked of the governor’s kind wife, of Nicholas’ relations,

and of Princess Mary’s.

She did not talk about her brother, diverting the conversation as soon

as her aunt mentioned Andrew. Evidently she could speak of Russia’s

misfortunes with a certain artificiality, but her brother was too near

her heart and she neither could nor would speak lightly of him. Nicholas

noticed this, as he noticed every shade of Princess Mary’s character

with an observation unusual to him, and everything confirmed his

conviction that she was a quite unusual and extraordinary being.

Nicholas blushed and was confused when people spoke to him about the

princess (as she did when he was mentioned) and even when he thought of

her, but in her presence he felt quite at ease, and said not at all what

he had prepared, but what, quite appropriately, occurred to him at the

moment.

When a pause occurred during his short visit, Nicholas, as is usual when

there are children, turned to Prince Andrew’s little son, caressing him

and asking whether he would like to be an hussar. He took the boy on

his knee, played with him, and looked round at Princess Mary. With a

softened, happy, timid look she watched the boy she loved in the arms

of the man she loved. Nicholas also noticed that look and, as if

understanding it, flushed with pleasure and began to kiss the boy with

good natured playfulness.

As she was in mourning Princess Mary did not go out into society, and

Nicholas did not think it the proper thing to visit her again; but all

the same the governor’s wife went on with her matchmaking, passing on to

Nicholas the flattering things Princess Mary said of him and vice

versa, and insisting on his declaring himself to Princess Mary. For this

purpose she arranged a meeting between the young people at the bishop’s

house before Mass.

Though Rostóv told the governor’s wife that he would not make any

declaration to Princess Mary, he promised to go.

As at Tilsit Rostóv had not allowed himself to doubt that what everybody

considered right was right, so now, after a short but sincere struggle

between his effort to arrange his life by his own sense of justice, and

in obedient submission to circumstances, he chose the latter and yielded

to the power he felt irresistibly carrying him he knew not where. He

knew that after his promise to Sónya it would be what he deemed base to

declare his feelings to Princess Mary. And he knew that he would never

act basely. But he also knew (or rather felt at the bottom of his heart)

that by resigning himself now to the force of circumstances and to those

who were guiding him, he was not only doing nothing wrong, but was doing

something very important—more important than anything he had ever done

in his life.

After meeting Princess Mary, though the course of his life went on

externally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him

and he often thought about her. But he never thought about her as he

had thought of all the young ladies without exception whom he had met

in society, nor as he had for a long time, and at one time rapturously,

thought about Sónya. He had pictured each of those young ladies as

almost all honest-hearted young men do, that is, as a possible wife,

adapting her in his imagination to all the conditions of married life:

a white dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, his wife’s carriage,

little ones, Mamma and Papa, their relations to her, and so on—and these

pictures of the future had given him pleasure. But with Princess Mary,

to whom they were trying to get him engaged, he could never picture

anything of future married life. If he tried, his pictures seemed

incongruous and false. It made him afraid.

CHAPTER VII

The dreadful news of the battle of Borodinó, of our losses in killed and

wounded, and the still more terrible news of the loss of Moscow reached

Vorónezh in the middle of September. Princess Mary, having learned of

her brother’s wound only from the Gazette and having no definite news of

him, prepared (so Nicholas heard, he had not seen her again himself) to

set off in search of Prince Andrew.

When he received the news of the battle of Borodinó and the abandonment

of Moscow, Rostóv was not seized with despair, anger, the desire for

vengeance, or any feeling of that kind, but everything in Vorónezh

suddenly seemed to him dull and tiresome, and he experienced an

indefinite feeling of shame and awkwardness. The conversations he heard

seemed to him insincere; he did not know how to judge all these affairs

and felt that only in the regiment would everything again become clear

to him. He made haste to finish buying the horses, and often became

unreasonably angry with his servant and squadron quartermaster.

A few days before his departure a special thanksgiving, at which

Nicholas was present, was held in the cathedral for the Russian victory.

He stood a little behind the governor and held himself with military

decorum through the service, meditating on a great variety of subjects.

When the service was over the governor’s wife beckoned him to her.

“Have you seen the princess?” she asked, indicating with a movement of

her head a lady standing on the opposite side, beyond the choir.

Nicholas immediately recognized Princess Mary not so much by the profile

he saw under her bonnet as by the feeling of solicitude, timidity, and

pity that immediately overcame him. Princess Mary, evidently engrossed

by her thoughts, was crossing herself for the last time before leaving

the church.