Tíkhon Shcherbáty was one of the most indispensable men in their band.

He was a peasant from Pokróvsk, near the river Gzhat. When Denísov had

come to Pokróvsk at the beginning of his operations and had as usual

summoned the village elder and asked him what he knew about the French,

the elder, as though shielding himself, had replied, as all village

elders did, that he had neither seen nor heard anything of them. But

when Denísov explained that his purpose was to kill the French, and

asked if no French had strayed that way, the elder replied that some

“more-orderers” had really been at their village, but that Tíkhon

Shcherbáty was the only man who dealt with such matters. Denísov had

Tíkhon called and, having praised him for his activity, said a few words

in the elder’s presence about loyalty to the Tsar and the country and

the hatred of the French that all sons of the fatherland should cherish.

“We don’t do the French any harm,” said Tíkhon, evidently frightened by

Denísov’s words. “We only fooled about with the lads for fun, you know!

We killed a score or so of ‘more-orderers,’ but we did no harm else....”

Next day when Denísov had left Pokróvsk, having quite forgotten about

this peasant, it was reported to him that Tíkhon had attached himself

to their party and asked to be allowed to remain with it. Denísov gave

orders to let him do so.

Tíkhon, who at first did rough work, laying campfires, fetching water,

flaying dead horses, and so on, soon showed a great liking and aptitude

for partisan warfare. At night he would go out for booty and always

brought back French clothing and weapons, and when told to would bring

in French captives also. Denísov then relieved him from drudgery and

began taking him with him when he went out on expeditions and had him

enrolled among the Cossacks.

Tíkhon did not like riding, and always went on foot, never lagging

behind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carried

rather as a joke), a pike and an ax, which latter he used as a wolf uses

its teeth, with equal ease picking fleas out of its fur or crunching

thick bones. Tíkhon with equal accuracy would split logs with blows at

arm’s length, or holding the head of the ax would cut thin little pegs

or carve spoons. In Denísov’s party he held a peculiar and exceptional

position. When anything particularly difficult or nasty had to be

done—to push a cart out of the mud with one’s shoulders, pull a horse

out of a swamp by its tail, skin it, slink in among the French, or walk

more than thirty miles in a day—everybody pointed laughingly at Tíkhon.

“It won’t hurt that devil—he’s as strong as a horse!” they said of him.

Once a Frenchman Tíkhon was trying to capture fired a pistol at him

and shot him in the fleshy part of the back. That wound (which Tíkhon

treated only with internal and external applications of vodka) was the

subject of the liveliest jokes by the whole detachment—jokes in which

Tíkhon readily joined.

“Hallo, mate! Never again? Gave you a twist?” the Cossacks would banter

him. And Tíkhon, purposely writhing and making faces, pretended to be

angry and swore at the French with the funniest curses. The only effect

of this incident on Tíkhon was that after being wounded he seldom

brought in prisoners.

He was the bravest and most useful man in the party. No one found more

opportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed more Frenchmen,

and consequently he was made the buffoon of all the Cossacks and hussars

and willingly accepted that role. Now he had been sent by Denísov

overnight to Shámshevo to capture a “tongue.” But whether because he

had not been content to take only one Frenchman or because he had slept

through the night, he had crept by day into some bushes right among the

French and, as Denísov had witnessed from above, had been detected by

them.

CHAPTER VI

After talking for some time with the esaul about next day’s attack,

which now, seeing how near they were to the French, he seemed to have

definitely decided on, Denísov turned his horse and rode back.

“Now, my lad, we’ll go and get dwy,” he said to Pétya.

As they approached the watchhouse Denísov stopped, peering into the

forest. Among the trees a man with long legs and long, swinging arms,

wearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazán hat, was approaching

with long, light steps. He had a musketoon over his shoulder and an ax

stuck in his girdle. When he espied Denísov he hastily threw something

into the bushes, removed his sodden hat by its floppy brim, and

approached his commander. It was Tíkhon. His wrinkled and pockmarked

face and narrow little eyes beamed with self-satisfied merriment. He

lifted his head high and gazed at Denísov as if repressing a laugh.

“Well, where did you disappear to?” inquired Denísov.

“Where did I disappear to? I went to get Frenchmen,” answered Tíkhon

boldly and hurriedly, in a husky but melodious bass voice.

“Why did you push yourself in there by daylight? You ass! Well, why

haven’t you taken one?”

“Oh, I took one all right,” said Tíkhon.

“Where is he?”

“You see, I took him first thing at dawn,” Tíkhon continued, spreading

out his flat feet with outturned toes in their bast shoes. “I took him

into the forest. Then I see he’s no good and think I’ll go and fetch a

likelier one.”

“You see?... What a wogue—it’s just as I thought,” said Denísov to the

esaul. “Why didn’t you bwing that one?”

“What was the good of bringing him?” Tíkhon interrupted hastily and

angrily—“that one wouldn’t have done for you. As if I don’t know what

sort you want!”

“What a bwute you are!... Well?”

“I went for another one,” Tíkhon continued, “and I crept like this

through the wood and lay down.” (He suddenly lay down on his stomach

with a supple movement to show how he had done it.) “One turned up and

I grabbed him, like this.” (He jumped up quickly and lightly.) “‘Come

along to the colonel,’ I said. He starts yelling, and suddenly there

were four of them. They rushed at me with their little swords. So I went

for them with my ax, this way: ‘What are you up to?’ says I. ‘Christ

be with you!’” shouted Tíkhon, waving his arms with an angry scowl and

throwing out his chest.

“Yes, we saw from the hill how you took to your heels through the

puddles!” said the esaul, screwing up his glittering eyes.

Pétya badly wanted to laugh, but noticed that they all refrained from

laughing. He turned his eyes rapidly from Tíkhon’s face to the esaul’s

and Denísov’s, unable to make out what it all meant.

“Don’t play the fool!” said Denísov, coughing angrily. “Why didn’t you

bwing the first one?”

Tíkhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other,

then suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming, foolish grin,

disclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that was why he was called

Shcherbáty—the gap-toothed). Denísov smiled, and Pétya burst into a peal

of merry laughter in which Tíkhon himself joined.

“Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing,” said Tíkhon. “The clothes

on him—poor stuff! How could I bring him? And so rude, your honor! Why,

he says: ‘I’m a general’s son myself, I won’t go!’ he says.”

“You are a bwute!” said Denísov. “I wanted to question...”

“But I questioned him,” said Tíkhon. “He said he didn’t know much.

‘There are a lot of us,’ he says, ‘but all poor stuff—only soldiers in

name,’ he says. ‘Shout loud at them,’ he says, ‘and you’ll take

them all,’” Tíkhon concluded, looking cheerfully and resolutely into

Denísov’s eyes.

“I’ll give you a hundwed sharp lashes—that’ll teach you to play the

fool!” said Denísov severely.

“But why are you angry?” remonstrated Tíkhon, “just as if I’d never seen

your Frenchmen! Only wait till it gets dark and I’ll fetch you any of

them you want—three if you like.”

“Well, let’s go,” said Denísov, and rode all the way to the watchhouse

in silence and frowning angrily.

Tíkhon followed behind and Pétya heard the Cossacks laughing with him

and at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into the bushes.

When the fit of laughter that had seized him at Tíkhon’s words and smile

had passed and Pétya realized for a moment that this Tíkhon had killed a

man, he felt uneasy. He looked round at the captive drummer boy and felt

a pang in his heart. But this uneasiness lasted only a moment. He felt

it necessary to hold his head higher, to brace himself, and to question

the esaul with an air of importance about tomorrow’s undertaking, that

he might not be unworthy of the company in which he found himself.

The officer who had been sent to inquire met Denísov on the way with the

news that Dólokhov was soon coming and that all was well with him.

Denísov at once cheered up and, calling Pétya to him, said: “Well, tell

me about yourself.”

CHAPTER VII

Pétya, having left his people after their departure from Moscow, joined

his regiment and was soon taken as orderly by a general commanding a

large guerrilla detachment. From the time he received his commission,

and especially since he had joined the active army and taken part in

the battle of Vyázma, Pétya had been in a constant state of blissful

excitement at being grown-up and in a perpetual ecstatic hurry not to

miss any chance to do something really heroic. He was highly delighted

with what he saw and experienced in the army, but at the same time

it always seemed to him that the really heroic exploits were being

performed just where he did not happen to be. And he was always in a

hurry to get where he was not.

When on the twenty-first of October his general expressed a wish to send

somebody to Denísov’s detachment, Pétya begged so piteously to be sent

that the general could not refuse. But when dispatching him he recalled

Pétya’s mad action at the battle of Vyázma, where instead of riding by

the road to the place to which he had been sent, he had galloped to the

advanced line under the fire of the French and had there twice fired

his pistol. So now the general explicitly forbade his taking part in any

action whatever of Denísov’s. That was why Pétya had blushed and grown

confused when Denísov asked him whether he could stay. Before they had

ridden to the outskirts of the forest Pétya had considered he must carry

out his instructions strictly and return at once. But when he saw the

French and saw Tíkhon and learned that there would certainly be an

attack that night, he decided, with the rapidity with which young people

change their views, that the general, whom he had greatly respected till

then, was a rubbishy German, that Denísov was a hero, the esaul a hero,

and Tíkhon a hero too, and that it would be shameful for him to leave

them at a moment of difficulty.

It was already growing dusk when Denísov, Pétya, and the esaul rode up

to the watchhouse. In the twilight saddled horses could be seen, and

Cossacks and hussars who had rigged up rough shelters in the glade and

were kindling glowing fires in a hollow of the forest where the French

could not see the smoke. In the passage of the small watchhouse a

Cossack with sleeves rolled up was chopping some mutton. In the room

three officers of Denísov’s band were converting a door into a tabletop.

Pétya took off his wet clothes, gave them to be dried, and at once began

helping the officers to fix up the dinner table.

In ten minutes the table was ready and a napkin spread on it. On the

table were vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, roast mutton, and salt.

Sitting at table with the officers and tearing the fat savory mutton

with his hands, down which the grease trickled, Pétya was in an ecstatic

childish state of love for all men, and consequently of confidence that

others loved him in the same way.

“So then what do you think, Vasíli Dmítrich?” said he to Denísov. “It’s

all right my staying a day with you?” And not waiting for a reply he

answered his own question: “You see I was told to find out—well, I am

finding out.... Only do let me into the very... into the chief... I

don’t want a reward.... But I want...”

Pétya clenched his teeth and looked around, throwing back his head and

flourishing his arms.

“Into the vewy chief...” Denísov repeated with a smile.

“Only, please let me command something, so that I may really command...”

Pétya went on. “What would it be to you?... Oh, you want a knife?” he

said, turning to an officer who wished to cut himself a piece of mutton.

And he handed him his clasp knife. The officer admired it.

“Please keep it. I have several like it,” said Pétya, blushing.

“Heavens! I was quite forgetting!” he suddenly cried. “I have some

raisins, fine ones; you know, seedless ones. We have a new sutler and

he has such capital things. I bought ten pounds. I am used to something

sweet. Would you like some?...” and Pétya ran out into the passage to

his Cossack and brought back some bags which contained about five pounds

of raisins. “Have some, gentlemen, have some!”

“You want a coffeepot, don’t you?” he asked the esaul. “I bought a

capital one from our sutler! He has splendid things. And he’s very

honest, that’s the chief thing. I’ll be sure to send it to you. Or

perhaps your flints are giving out, or are worn out—that happens

sometimes, you know. I have brought some with me, here they are”—and he

showed a bag—“a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please take as

many as you want, or all if you like....”

Then suddenly, dismayed lest he had said too much, Pétya stopped and

blushed.

He tried to remember whether he had not done anything else that was

foolish. And running over the events of the day he remembered the French

drummer boy. “It’s capital for us here, but what of him? Where have they

put him? Have they fed him? Haven’t they hurt his feelings?” he thought.

But having caught himself saying too much about the flints, he was now

afraid to speak out.

“I might ask,” he thought, “but they’ll say: ‘He’s a boy himself and so

he pities the boy.’ I’ll show them tomorrow whether I’m a boy. Will it

seem odd if I ask?” Pétya thought. “Well, never mind!” and immediately,

blushing and looking anxiously at the officers to see if they appeared

ironical, he said:

“May I call in that boy who was taken prisoner and give him something to

eat?... Perhaps...”

“Yes, he’s a poor little fellow,” said Denísov, who evidently saw

nothing shameful in this reminder. “Call him in. His name is Vincent

Bosse. Have him fetched.”

“I’ll call him,” said Pétya.

“Yes, yes, call him. A poor little fellow,” Denísov repeated.

Pétya was standing at the door when Denísov said this. He slipped in

between the officers, came close to Denísov, and said:

“Let me kiss you, dear old fellow! Oh, how fine, how splendid!”

And having kissed Denísov he ran out of the hut.

“Bosse! Vincent!” Pétya cried, stopping outside the door.

“Who do you want, sir?” asked a voice in the darkness.

Pétya replied that he wanted the French lad who had been captured that

day.

“Ah, Vesénny?” said a Cossack.

Vincent, the boy’s name, had already been changed by the Cossacks into

Vesénny (vernal) and into Vesénya by the peasants and soldiers. In both

these adaptations the reference to spring (vesná) matched the impression

made by the young lad.

“He is warming himself there by the bonfire. Ho, Vesénya!

Vesénya!—Vesénny!” laughing voices were heard calling to one another in

the darkness.

“He’s a smart lad,” said an hussar standing near Pétya. “We gave him

something to eat a while ago. He was awfully hungry!”

The sound of bare feet splashing through the mud was heard in the

darkness, and the drummer boy came to the door.

“Ah, c’est vous!” said Pétya. “Voulez-vous manger? N’ayez pas peur, on

ne vous fera pas de mal,” * he added shyly and affectionately, touching

the boy’s hand. “Entrez, entrez.” *(2)

* “Ah, it’s you! Do you want something to eat? Don’t be

afraid, they won’t hurt you.”

* (2) “Come in, come in.”

“Merci, monsieur,” * said the drummer boy in a trembling almost childish

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

* “Thank you, sir.”

There were many things Pétya wanted to say to the drummer boy, but did

not dare to. He stood irresolutely beside him in the passage. Then in

the darkness he took the boy’s hand and pressed it.

“Come in, come in!” he repeated in a gentle whisper. “Oh, what can I do

for him?” he thought, and opening the door he let the boy pass in first.

When the boy had entered the hut, Pétya sat down at a distance from

him, considering it beneath his dignity to pay attention to him. But

he fingered the money in his pocket and wondered whether it would seem

ridiculous to give some to the drummer boy.

CHAPTER VIII

The arrival of Dólokhov diverted Pétya’s attention from the drummer boy,

to whom Denísov had had some mutton and vodka given, and whom he had had

dressed in a Russian coat so that he might be kept with their band and

not sent away with the other prisoners. Pétya had heard in the army many

stories of Dólokhov’s extraordinary bravery and of his cruelty to the

French, so from the moment he entered the hut Pétya did not take his

eyes from him, but braced himself up more and more and held his head

high, that he might not be unworthy even of such company.

Dólokhov’s appearance amazed Pétya by its simplicity.

Denísov wore a Cossack coat, had a beard, had an icon of Nicholas the

Wonder-Worker on his breast, and his way of speaking and everything he

did indicated his unusual position. But Dólokhov, who in Moscow had worn

a Persian costume, had now the appearance of a most correct officer of

the Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a Guardsman’s padded coat with

an Order of St. George at his buttonhole and a plain forage cap set

straight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of

the room, and without greeting anyone went up to Denísov and began

questioning him about the matter in hand. Denísov told him of the

designs the large detachments had on the transport, of the message Pétya

had brought, and his own replies to both generals. Then he told him all

he knew of the French detachment.

“That’s so. But we must know what troops they are and their numbers,”

said Dólokhov. “It will be necessary to go there. We can’t start the

affair without knowing for certain how many there are. I like to work

accurately. Here now—wouldn’t one of these gentlemen like to ride over

to the French camp with me? I have brought a spare uniform.”

“I, I... I’ll go with you!” cried Pétya.

“There’s no need for you to go at all,” said Denísov, addressing

Dólokhov, “and as for him, I won’t let him go on any account.”

“I like that!” exclaimed Pétya. “Why shouldn’t I go?”

“Because it’s useless.”

“Well, you must excuse me, because... because... I shall go, and that’s

all. You’ll take me, won’t you?” he said, turning to Dólokhov.

“Why not?” Dólokhov answered absently, scrutinizing the face of the

French drummer boy. “Have you had that youngster with you long?” he

asked Denísov.

“He was taken today but he knows nothing. I’m keeping him with me.”

“Yes, and where do you put the others?” inquired Dólokhov.

“Where? I send them away and take a weceipt for them,” shouted Denísov,

suddenly flushing. “And I say boldly that I have not a single man’s life

on my conscience. Would it be difficult for you to send thirty or

thwee hundwed men to town under escort, instead of staining—I speak

bluntly—staining the honor of a soldier?”

“That kind of amiable talk would be suitable from this young count of

sixteen,” said Dólokhov with cold irony, “but it’s time for you to drop

it.”

“Why, I’ve not said anything! I only say that I’ll certainly go with

you,” said Pétya shyly.

“But for you and me, old fellow, it’s time to drop these amenities,”

continued Dólokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of

this subject which irritated Denísov. “Now, why have you kept this lad?”

he went on, swaying his head. “Because you are sorry for him! Don’t we

know those ‘receipts’ of yours? You send a hundred men away, and thirty

get there. The rest either starve or get killed. So isn’t it all the

same not to send them?”

The esaul, screwing up his light-colored eyes, nodded approvingly.

“That’s not the point. I’m not going to discuss the matter. I do not

wish to take it on my conscience. You say they’ll die. All wight. Only

not by my fault!”

Dólokhov began laughing.

“Who has told them not to capture me these twenty times over? But if

they did catch me they’d string me up to an aspen tree, and with all

your chivalry just the same.” He paused. “However, we must get to work.

Tell the Cossack to fetch my kit. I have two French uniforms in it.

Well, are you coming with me?” he asked Pétya.

“I? Yes, yes, certainly!” cried Pétya, blushing almost to tears and

glancing at Denísov.

While Dólokhov had been disputing with Denísov what should be done with

prisoners, Pétya had once more felt awkward and restless; but again he

had no time to grasp fully what they were talking about. “If grown-up,

distinguished men think so, it must be necessary and right,” thought he.

“But above all Denísov must not dare to imagine that I’ll obey him and

that he can order me about. I will certainly go to the French camp with

Dólokhov. If he can, so can I!”

And to all Denísov’s persuasions, Pétya replied that he too was

accustomed to do everything accurately and not just anyhow, and that he

never considered personal danger.

“For you’ll admit that if we don’t know for sure how many of them there

are... hundreds of lives may depend on it, while there are only two

of us. Besides, I want to go very much and certainly will go, so don’t

hinder me,” said he. “It will only make things worse....”

CHAPTER IX

Having put on French greatcoats and shakos, Pétya and Dólokhov rode to

the clearing from which Denísov had reconnoitered the French camp,

and emerging from the forest in pitch darkness they descended into the

hollow. On reaching the bottom, Dólokhov told the Cossacks accompanying

him to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along the road to the

bridge. Pétya, his heart in his mouth with excitement, rode by his side.

“If we’re caught, I won’t be taken alive! I have a pistol,” whispered

he.

“Don’t talk Russian,” said Dólokhov in a hurried whisper, and at that

very moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: “Qui vive?” *

and the click of a musket.

* “Who goes there?”

The blood rushed to Pétya’s face and he grasped his pistol.

“Lanciers du 6-me,” * replied Dólokhov, neither hastening nor slackening

his horse’s pace.

* “Lancers of the 6th Regiment.”

The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.

“Mot d’ordre.” *

* “Password.”

Dólokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk.

“Dites donc, le colonel Gérard est ici?” * he asked.

* “Tell me, is Colonel Gérard here?”

“Mot d’ordre,” repeated the sentinel, barring the way and not replying.

“Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le

mot d’ordre...” cried Dólokhov suddenly flaring up and riding straight

at the sentinel. “Je vous demande si le colonel est ici.” *

* “When an officer is making his round, sentinels don’t ask

him for the password.... I am asking you if the colonel is

here.”

And without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had stepped

aside, Dólokhov rode up the incline at a walk.

Noticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dólokhov stopped

him and inquired where the commander and officers were. The man,

a soldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came close up to

Dólokhov’s horse, touched it with his hand, and explained simply and in

a friendly way that the commander and the officers were higher up

the hill to the right in the courtyard of the farm, as he called the

landowner’s house.

Having ridden up the road, on both sides of which French talk could be

heard around the campfires, Dólokhov turned into the courtyard of the

landowner’s house. Having ridden in, he dismounted and approached a

big blazing campfire, around which sat several men talking noisily.

Something was boiling in a small cauldron at the edge of the fire and

a soldier in a peaked cap and blue overcoat, lit up by the fire, was

kneeling beside it stirring its contents with a ramrod.

“Oh, he’s a hard nut to crack,” said one of the officers who was sitting

in the shadow at the other side of the fire.

“He’ll make them get a move on, those fellows!” said another, laughing.

Both fell silent, peering out through the darkness at the sound of

Dólokhov’s and Pétya’s steps as they advanced to the fire leading their

horses.

“Bonjour, messieurs!” * said Dólokhov loudly and clearly.

* “Good day, gentlemen.”

There was a stir among the officers in the shadow beyond the fire,

and one tall, long-necked officer, walking round the fire, came up to

Dólokhov.

“Is that you, Clément?” he asked. “Where the devil...?” But, noticing

his mistake, he broke off short and, with a frown, greeted Dólokhov as a

stranger, asking what he could do for him.

Dólokhov said that he and his companion were trying to overtake their

regiment, and addressing the company in general asked whether they knew

anything of the 6th Regiment. None of them knew anything, and Pétya

thought the officers were beginning to look at him and Dólokhov with

hostility and suspicion. For some seconds all were silent.

“If you were counting on the evening soup, you have come too late,” said

a voice from behind the fire with a repressed laugh.

Dólokhov replied that they were not hungry and must push on farther that

night.

He handed the horses over to the soldier who was stirring the pot and

squatted down on his heels by the fire beside the officer with the long

neck. That officer did not take his eyes from Dólokhov and again asked

to what regiment he belonged. Dólokhov, as if he had not heard the

question, did not reply, but lighting a short French pipe which he took

from his pocket began asking the officer in how far the road before them

was safe from Cossacks.

“Those brigands are everywhere,” replied an officer from behind the

fire.

Dólokhov remarked that the Cossacks were a danger only to stragglers

such as his companion and himself, “but probably they would not dare to

attack large detachments?” he added inquiringly. No one replied.

“Well, now he’ll come away,” Pétya thought every moment as he stood by

the campfire listening to the talk.

But Dólokhov restarted the conversation which had dropped and began

putting direct questions as to how many men there were in the battalion,

how many battalions, and how many prisoners. Asking about the Russian

prisoners with that detachment, Dólokhov said:

“A horrid business dragging these corpses about with one! It would be

better to shoot such rabble,” and burst into loud laughter, so strange

that Pétya thought the French would immediately detect their disguise,

and involuntarily took a step back from the campfire.

No one replied a word to Dólokhov’s laughter, and a French officer whom

they could not see (he lay wrapped in a greatcoat) rose and whispered

something to a companion. Dólokhov got up and called to the soldier who

was holding their horses.

“Will they bring our horses or not?” thought Pétya, instinctively

drawing nearer to Dólokhov.

The horses were brought.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” said Dólokhov.

Pétya wished to say “Good night” but could not utter a word. The

officers were whispering together. Dólokhov was a long time mounting

his horse which would not stand still, then he rode out of the yard at a

footpace. Pétya rode beside him, longing to look round to see whether or

not the French were running after them, but not daring to.

Coming out onto the road Dólokhov did not ride back across the open

country, but through the village. At one spot he stopped and listened.

“Do you hear?” he asked. Pétya recognized the sound of Russian voices

and saw the dark figures of Russian prisoners round their campfires.

When they had descended to the bridge Pétya and Dólokhov rode past the

sentinel, who without saying a word paced morosely up and down it, then

they descended into the hollow where the Cossacks awaited them.

“Well now, good-by. Tell Denísov, ‘at the first shot at daybreak,’” said

Dólokhov and was about to ride away, but Pétya seized hold of him.

“Really!” he cried, “you are such a hero! Oh, how fine, how splendid!

How I love you!”

“All right, all right!” said Dólokhov. But Pétya did not let go of him

and Dólokhov saw through the gloom that Pétya was bending toward him and

wanted to kiss him. Dólokhov kissed him, laughed, turned his horse, and

vanished into the darkness.

CHAPTER X

Having returned to the watchman’s hut, Pétya found Denísov in the

passage. He was awaiting Pétya’s return in a state of agitation,

anxiety, and self-reproach for having let him go.

“Thank God!” he exclaimed. “Yes, thank God!” he repeated, listening to

Pétya’s rapturous account. “But, devil take you, I haven’t slept because

of you! Well, thank God. Now lie down. We can still get a nap before

morning.”

“But... no,” said Pétya, “I don’t want to sleep yet. Besides I know

myself, if I fall asleep it’s finished. And then I am used to not

sleeping before a battle.”

He sat awhile in the hut joyfully recalling the details of his

expedition and vividly picturing to himself what would happen next day.

Then, noticing that Denísov was asleep, he rose and went out of doors.

It was still quite dark outside. The rain was over, but drops were still

falling from the trees. Near the watchman’s hut the black shapes of the

Cossacks’ shanties and of horses tethered together could be seen. Behind

the hut the dark shapes of the two wagons with their horses beside them

were discernible, and in the hollow the dying campfire gleamed red.

Not all the Cossacks and hussars were asleep; here and there, amid the

sounds of falling drops and the munching of the horses near by, could be

heard low voices which seemed to be whispering.

Pétya came out, peered into the darkness, and went up to the wagons.

Someone was snoring under them, and around them stood saddled horses

munching their oats. In the dark Pétya recognized his own horse, which

he called “Karabákh” though it was of Ukranian breed, and went up to it.

“Well, Karabákh! We’ll do some service tomorrow,” said he, sniffing its

nostrils and kissing it.

“Why aren’t you asleep, sir?” said a Cossack who was sitting under a

wagon.

“No, ah... Likhachëv—isn’t that your name? Do you know I have only just

come back! We’ve been into the French camp.”

And Pétya gave the Cossack a detailed account not only of his ride but

also of his object, and why he considered it better to risk his life

than to act “just anyhow.”

“Well, you should get some sleep now,” said the Cossack.

“No, I am used to this,” said Pétya. “I say, aren’t the flints in your

pistols worn out? I brought some with me. Don’t you want any? You can

have some.”

The Cossack bent forward from under the wagon to get a closer look at

Pétya.

“Because I am accustomed to doing everything accurately,” said Pétya.

“Some fellows do things just anyhow, without preparation, and then

they’re sorry for it afterwards. I don’t like that.”

“Just so,” said the Cossack.

“Oh yes, another thing! Please, my dear fellow, will you sharpen my

saber for me? It’s got bl...” (Pétya feared to tell a lie, and the saber

never had been sharpened.) “Can you do it?”

“Of course I can.”

Likhachëv got up, rummaged in his pack, and soon Pétya heard the warlike

sound of steel on whetstone. He climbed onto the wagon and sat on its

edge. The Cossack was sharpening the saber under the wagon.

“I say! Are the lads asleep?” asked Pétya.

“Some are, and some aren’t—like us.”

“Well, and that boy?”

“Vesénny? Oh, he’s thrown himself down there in the passage. Fast asleep

after his fright. He was that glad!”

After that Pétya remained silent for a long time, listening to the

sounds. He heard footsteps in the darkness and a black figure appeared.

“What are you sharpening?” asked a man coming up to the wagon.

“Why, this gentleman’s saber.”

“That’s right,” said the man, whom Pétya took to be an hussar. “Was the

cup left here?”

“There, by the wheel!”

The hussar took the cup.

“It must be daylight soon,” said he, yawning, and went away.

Pétya ought to have known that he was in a forest with Denísov’s

guerrilla band, less than a mile from the road, sitting on a wagon

captured from the French beside which horses were tethered, that under

it Likhachëv was sitting sharpening a saber for him, that the big dark

blotch to the right was the watchman’s hut, and the red blotch below to

the left was the dying embers of a campfire, that the man who had come

for the cup was an hussar who wanted a drink; but he neither knew nor

waited to know anything of all this. He was in a fairy kingdom where

nothing resembled reality. The big dark blotch might really be the

watchman’s hut or it might be a cavern leading to the very depths of

the earth. Perhaps the red spot was a fire, or it might be the eye of an

enormous monster. Perhaps he was really sitting on a wagon, but it might

very well be that he was not sitting on a wagon but on a terribly high

tower from which, if he fell, he would have to fall for a whole day or a

whole month, or go on falling and never reach the bottom. Perhaps it

was just the Cossack, Likhachëv, who was sitting under the wagon, but it

might be the kindest, bravest, most wonderful, most splendid man in the

world, whom no one knew of. It might really have been that the hussar

came for water and went back into the hollow, but perhaps he had simply

vanished—disappeared altogether and dissolved into nothingness.

Nothing Pétya could have seen now would have surprised him. He was in a

fairy kingdom where everything was possible.

He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth.

It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly

sailing as if unveiling the stars. Sometimes it looked as if the clouds

were passing, and a clear black sky appeared. Sometimes it seemed as

if the black spaces were clouds. Sometimes the sky seemed to be rising

high, high overhead, and then it seemed to sink so low that one could

touch it with one’s hand.

Pétya’s eyes began to close and he swayed a little.

The trees were dripping. Quiet talking was heard. The horses neighed and

jostled one another. Someone snored.

“Ozheg-zheg, Ozheg-zheg...” hissed the saber against the whetstone,

and suddenly Pétya heard an harmonious orchestra playing some unknown,

sweetly solemn hymn. Pétya was as musical as Natásha and more so than

Nicholas, but had never learned music or thought about it, and so the

melody that unexpectedly came to his mind seemed to him particularly

fresh and attractive. The music became more and more audible. The melody

grew and passed from one instrument to another. And what was played was

a fugue—though Pétya had not the least conception of what a fugue is.

Each instrument—now resembling a violin and now a horn, but better

and clearer than violin or horn—played its own part, and before it had

finished the melody merged with another instrument that began almost the

same air, and then with a third and a fourth; and they all blended into

one and again became separate and again blended, now into solemn church

music, now into something dazzlingly brilliant and triumphant.

“Oh—why, that was in a dream!” Pétya said to himself, as he lurched

forward. “It’s in my ears. But perhaps it’s music of my own. Well, go

on, my music! Now!...”

He closed his eyes, and, from all sides as if from a distance, sounds

fluttered, grew into harmonies, separated, blended, and again all

mingled into the same sweet and solemn hymn. “Oh, this is delightful!

As much as I like and as I like!” said Pétya to himself. He tried to

conduct that enormous orchestra.

“Now softly, softly die away!” and the sounds obeyed him. “Now fuller,

more joyful. Still more and more joyful!” And from an unknown depth rose

increasingly triumphant sounds. “Now voices join in!” ordered Pétya. And

at first from afar he heard men’s voices and then women’s. The voices

grew in harmonious triumphant strength, and Pétya listened to their

surpassing beauty in awe and joy.

With a solemn triumphal march there mingled a song, the drip from the

trees, and the hissing of the saber, “Ozheg-zheg-zheg...” and again the

horses jostled one another and neighed, not disturbing the choir but

joining in it.

Pétya did not know how long this lasted: he enjoyed himself all the

time, wondered at his enjoyment and regretted that there was no one to

share it. He was awakened by Likhachëv’s kindly voice.

“It’s ready, your honor; you can split a Frenchman in half with it!”

Pétya woke up.

“It’s getting light, it’s really getting light!” he exclaimed.

The horses that had previously been invisible could now be seen to their

very tails, and a watery light showed itself through the bare branches.

Pétya shook himself, jumped up, took a ruble from his pocket and gave it

to Likhachëv; then he flourished the saber, tested it, and sheathed

it. The Cossacks were untying their horses and tightening their saddle

girths.

“And here’s the commander,” said Likhachëv.

Denísov came out of the watchman’s hut and, having called Pétya, gave

orders to get ready.

CHAPTER XI

The men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness, tightened

their saddle girths, and formed companies. Denísov stood by the

watchman’s hut giving final orders. The infantry of the detachment

passed along the road and quickly disappeared amid the trees in the mist

of early dawn, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. The esaul

gave some orders to his men. Pétya held his horse by the bridle,

impatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face, having been bathed

in cold water, was all aglow, and his eyes were particularly brilliant.

Cold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed rhythmically.

“Well, is ev’wything weady?” asked Denísov. “Bwing the horses.”

The horses were brought. Denísov was angry with the Cossack because the

saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted. Pétya put his

foot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if to nip his leg, but

Pétya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and,

turning to look at the hussars starting in the darkness behind him, rode

up to Denísov.

“Vasíli Dmítrich, entrust me with some commission! Please... for God’s

sake...!” said he.

Denísov seemed to have forgotten Pétya’s very existence. He turned to

glance at him.

“I ask one thing of you,” he said sternly, “to obey me and not shove

yourself forward anywhere.”

He did not say another word to Pétya but rode in silence all the way.

When they had come to the edge of the forest it was noticeably growing

light over the field. Denísov talked in whispers with the esaul and

the Cossacks rode past Pétya and Denísov. When they had all ridden by,

Denísov touched his horse and rode down the hill. Slipping onto their

haunches and sliding, the horses descended with their riders into the

ravine. Pétya rode beside Denísov, the pulsation of his body constantly

increasing. It was getting lighter and lighter, but the mist still hid

distant objects. Having reached the valley, Denísov looked back and

nodded to a Cossack beside him.

“The signal!” said he.

The Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. In an instant the tramp

of horses galloping forward was heard, shouts came from various sides,

and then more shots.

At the first sound of trampling hoofs and shouting, Pétya lashed his

horse and loosening his rein galloped forward, not heeding Denísov who

shouted at him. It seemed to Pétya that at the moment the shot was

fired it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge.

Cossacks were galloping along the road in front of him. On the bridge

he collided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, but he galloped on.

In front of him soldiers, probably Frenchmen, were running from right

to left across the road. One of them fell in the mud under his horse’s

feet.

Cossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with something. From the midst

of that crowd terrible screams arose. Pétya galloped up, and the

first thing he saw was the pale face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman,

clutching the handle of a lance that had been aimed at him.

“Hurrah!... Lads!... ours!” shouted Pétya, and giving rein to his

excited horse he galloped forward along the village street.

He could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hussars, and ragged

Russian prisoners, who had come running from both sides of the road,

were shouting something loudly and incoherently. A gallant-looking

Frenchman, in a blue overcoat, capless, and with a frowning red face,

had been defending himself against the hussars. When Pétya galloped

up the Frenchman had already fallen. “Too late again!” flashed through

Pétya’s mind and he galloped on to the place from which the rapid firing

could be heard. The shots came from the yard of the landowner’s house

he had visited the night before with Dólokhov. The French were making

a stand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly overgrown with

bushes and were firing at the Cossacks who crowded at the gateway.

Through the smoke, as he approached the gate, Pétya saw Dólokhov, whose

face was of a pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men. “Go round! Wait

for the infantry!” he exclaimed as Pétya rode up to him.

“Wait?... Hurrah-ah-ah!” shouted Pétya, and without pausing a moment

galloped to the place whence came the sounds of firing and where the

smoke was thickest.

A volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past, while others plashed

against something. The Cossacks and Dólokhov galloped after Pétya into

the gateway of the courtyard. In the dense wavering smoke some of the

French threw down their arms and ran out of the bushes to meet the

Cossacks, while others ran down the hill toward the pond. Pétya was

galloping along the courtyard, but instead of holding the reins he waved

both his arms about rapidly and strangely, slipping farther and farther

to one side in his saddle. His horse, having galloped up to a campfire

that was smoldering in the morning light, stopped suddenly, and Pétya

fell heavily on to the wet ground. The Cossacks saw that his arms and

legs jerked rapidly though his head was quite motionless. A bullet had

pierced his skull.

After speaking to the senior French officer, who came out of the house

with a white handkerchief tied to his sword and announced that

they surrendered, Dólokhov dismounted and went up to Pétya, who lay

motionless with outstretched arms.

“Done for!” he said with a frown, and went to the gate to meet Denísov

who was riding toward him.

“Killed?” cried Denísov, recognizing from a distance the unmistakably

lifeless attitude—very familiar to him—in which Pétya’s body was lying.

“Done for!” repeated Dólokhov as if the utterance of these words

afforded him pleasure, and he went quickly up to the prisoners, who

were surrounded by Cossacks who had hurried up. “We won’t take them!” he

called out to Denísov.

Denísov did not reply; he rode up to Pétya, dismounted, and with

trembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-bespattered

face which had already gone white.

“I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones... take them all!” he

recalled Pétya’s words. And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at the

sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denísov turned away, walked to

the wattle fence, and seized hold of it.

Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denísov and Dólokhov was Pierre

Bezúkhov.

CHAPTER XII

During the whole of their march from Moscow no fresh orders had been

issued by the French authorities concerning the party of prisoners

among whom was Pierre. On the twenty-second of October that party was

no longer with the same troops and baggage trains with which it had left

Moscow. Half the wagons laden with hardtack that had traveled the first

stages with them had been captured by Cossacks, the other half had gone

on ahead. Not one of those dismounted cavalrymen who had marched in

front of the prisoners was left; they had all disappeared. The artillery

the prisoners had seen in front of them during the first days was

now replaced by Marshal Junot’s enormous baggage train, convoyed by

Westphalians. Behind the prisoners came a cavalry baggage train.

From Vyázma onwards the French army, which had till then moved in three

columns, went on as a single group. The symptoms of disorder that Pierre

had noticed at their first halting place after leaving Moscow had now

reached the utmost limit.

The road along which they moved was bordered on both sides by dead

horses; ragged men who had fallen behind from various regiments

continually changed about, now joining the moving column, now again

lagging behind it.

Several times during the march false alarms had been given and the

soldiers of the escort had raised their muskets, fired, and run

headlong, crushing one another, but had afterwards reassembled and

abused each other for their causeless panic.

These three groups traveling together—the cavalry stores, the convoy of

prisoners, and Junot’s baggage train—still constituted a separate and

united whole, though each of the groups was rapidly melting away.

Of the artillery baggage train which had consisted of a hundred and

twenty wagons, not more than sixty now remained; the rest had been

captured or left behind. Some of Junot’s wagons also had been captured

or abandoned. Three wagons had been raided and robbed by stragglers

from Davout’s corps. From the talk of the Germans Pierre learned that

a larger guard had been allotted to that baggage train than to the

prisoners, and that one of their comrades, a German soldier, had been

shot by the marshal’s own order because a silver spoon belonging to the

marshal had been found in his possession.

The group of prisoners had melted away most of all. Of the three hundred

and thirty men who had set out from Moscow fewer than a hundred now

remained. The prisoners were more burdensome to the escort than even the

cavalry saddles or Junot’s baggage. They understood that the saddles and

Junot’s spoon might be of some use, but that cold and hungry soldiers

should have to stand and guard equally cold and hungry Russians who

froze and lagged behind on the road (in which case the order was to

shoot them) was not merely incomprehensible but revolting. And the

escort, as if afraid, in the grievous condition they themselves were in,

of giving way to the pity they felt for the prisoners and so rendering

their own plight still worse, treated them with particular moroseness

and severity.

At Dorogobúzh while the soldiers of the convoy, after locking the

prisoners in a stable, had gone off to pillage their own stores, several

of the soldier prisoners tunneled under the wall and ran away, but were

recaptured by the French and shot.

The arrangement adopted when they started, that the officer prisoners

should be kept separate from the rest, had long since been abandoned.

All who could walk went together, and after the third stage Pierre had

rejoined Karatáev and the gray-blue bandy-legged dog that had chosen

Karatáev for its master.

On the third day after leaving Moscow Karatáev again fell ill with the

fever he had suffered from in the hospital in Moscow, and as he grew

gradually weaker Pierre kept away from him. Pierre did not know why, but

since Karatáev had begun to grow weaker it had cost him an effort to

go near him. When he did so and heard the subdued moaning with which

Karatáev generally lay down at the halting places, and when he smelled

the odor emanating from him which was now stronger than before, Pierre

moved farther away and did not think about him.

While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect

but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for

happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple

human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from

superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had

learned still another new, consolatory truth—that nothing in this world

is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man

can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he

need be unhappy and lack freedom. He learned that suffering and freedom

have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the

person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as

he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled

while the other was warming; and that when he had put on tight dancing

shoes he had suffered just as he did now when he walked with bare feet

that were covered with sores—his footgear having long since fallen to

pieces. He discovered that when he had married his wife—of his own free

will as it had seemed to him—he had been no more free than now when they

locked him up at night in a stable. Of all that he himself subsequently

termed his sufferings, but which at the time he scarcely felt, the worst

was the state of his bare, raw, and scab-covered feet. (The horseflesh

was appetizing and nourishing, the saltpeter flavor of the gunpowder

they used instead of salt was even pleasant; there was no great cold,

it was always warm walking in the daytime, and at night there were the

campfires; the lice that devoured him warmed his body.) The one thing

that was at first hard to bear was his feet.

After the second day’s march Pierre, having examined his feet by the

campfire, thought it would be impossible to walk on them; but when

everybody got up he went along, limping, and, when he had warmed up,

walked without feeling the pain, though at night his feet were more

terrible to look at than before. However, he did not look at them now,

but thought of other things.

Only now did Pierre realize the full strength of life in man and the

saving power he has of transferring his attention from one thing

to another, which is like the safety valve of a boiler that allows

superfluous steam to blow off when the pressure exceeds a certain limit.

He did not see and did not hear how they shot the prisoners who lagged

behind, though more than a hundred perished in that way. He did not

think of Karatáev who grew weaker every day and evidently would soon

have to share that fate. Still less did Pierre think about himself. The

harder his position became and the more terrible the future, the more

independent of that position in which he found himself were the joyful

and comforting thoughts, memories, and imaginings that came to him.

CHAPTER XIII

At midday on the twenty-second of October Pierre was going uphill along

the muddy, slippery road, looking at his feet and at the roughness of

the way. Occasionally he glanced at the familiar crowd around him and

then again at his feet. The former and the latter were alike familiar

and his own. The blue-gray bandy legged dog ran merrily along the side

of the road, sometimes in proof of its agility and self-satisfaction

lifting one hind leg and hopping along on three, and then again going on

all four and rushing to bark at the crows that sat on the carrion. The

dog was merrier and sleeker than it had been in Moscow. All around lay

the flesh of different animals—from men to horses—in various stages of

decomposition; and as the wolves were kept off by the passing men the

dog could eat all it wanted.

It had been raining since morning and had seemed as if at any moment it

might cease and the sky clear, but after a short break it began raining

harder than before. The saturated road no longer absorbed the water,

which ran along the ruts in streams.

Pierre walked along, looking from side to side, counting his steps in

threes, and reckoning them off on his fingers. Mentally addressing the

rain, he repeated: “Now then, now then, go on! Pelt harder!”

It seemed to him that he was thinking of nothing, but far down and

deep within him his soul was occupied with something important and

comforting. This something was a most subtle spiritual deduction from a

conversation with Karatáev the day before.

At their yesterday’s halting place, feeling chilly by a dying campfire,

Pierre had got up and gone to the next one, which was burning better.

There Platón Karatáev was sitting covered up—head and all—with his

greatcoat as if it were a vestment, telling the soldiers in his

effective and pleasant though now feeble voice a story Pierre knew. It

was already past midnight, the hour when Karatáev was usually free of

his fever and particularly lively. When Pierre reached the fire and

heard Platón’s voice enfeebled by illness, and saw his pathetic face

brightly lit up by the blaze, he felt a painful prick at his heart. His

feeling of pity for this man frightened him and he wished to go away,

but there was no other fire, and Pierre sat down, trying not to look at

Platón.

“Well, how are you?” he asked.

“How am I? If we grumble at sickness, God won’t grant us death,” replied

Platón, and at once resumed the story he had begun.

“And so, brother,” he continued, with a smile on his pale emaciated face

and a particularly happy light in his eyes, “you see, brother...”

Pierre had long been familiar with that story. Karatáev had told it

to him alone some half-dozen times and always with a specially joyful

emotion. But well as he knew it, Pierre now listened to that tale as to

something new, and the quiet rapture Karatáev evidently felt as he told

it communicated itself also to Pierre. The story was of an old merchant

who lived a good and God-fearing life with his family, and who went once

to the Nízhni fair with a companion—a rich merchant.

Having put up at an inn they both went to sleep, and next morning his

companion was found robbed and with his throat cut. A bloodstained knife

was found under the old merchant’s pillow. He was tried, knouted, and

his nostrils having been torn off, “all in due form” as Karatáev put it,

he was sent to hard labor in Siberia.

“And so, brother” (it was at this point that Pierre came up), “ten years

or more passed by. The old man was living as a convict, submitting as

he should and doing no wrong. Only he prayed to God for death. Well, one

night the convicts were gathered just as we are, with the old man among

them. And they began telling what each was suffering for, and how they

had sinned against God. One told how he had taken a life, another had

taken two, a third had set a house on fire, while another had simply

been a vagrant and had done nothing. So they asked the old man: ‘What

are you being punished for, Daddy?’—‘I, my dear brothers,’ said he, ‘am

being punished for my own and other men’s sins. But I have not killed

anyone or taken anything that was not mine, but have only helped my

poorer brothers. I was a merchant, my dear brothers, and had much

property. ‘And he went on to tell them all about it in due order. ‘I

don’t grieve for myself,’ he says, ‘God, it seems, has chastened me.

Only I am sorry for my old wife and the children,’ and the old man began

to weep. Now it happened that in the group was the very man who had

killed the other merchant. ‘Where did it happen, Daddy?’ he said. ‘When,

and in what month?’ He asked all about it and his heart began to ache.

So he comes up to the old man like this, and falls down at his feet!

‘You are perishing because of me, Daddy,’ he says. ‘It’s quite true,

lads, that this man,’ he says, ‘is being tortured innocently and for

nothing! I,’ he says, ‘did that deed, and I put the knife under your

head while you were asleep. Forgive me, Daddy,’ he says, ‘for Christ’s

sake!’”

Karatáev paused, smiling joyously as he gazed into the fire, and he drew

the logs together.

“And the old man said, ‘God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His

sight. I suffer for my own sins,’ and he wept bitter tears. Well,

and what do you think, dear friends?” Karatáev continued, his face

brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now had

to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his story:

“What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the

authorities. ‘I have taken six lives,’ he says (he was a great sinner),

‘but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don’t let him suffer

because of me.’ So he confessed and it was all written down and the

papers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, and while

they were judging, what with one thing and another, filling in the

papers all in due form—the authorities I mean—time passed. The affair

reached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar’s decree came: to set the

merchant free and give him a compensation that had been awarded. The

paper arrived and they began to look for the old man. ‘Where is the old

man who has been suffering innocently and in vain? A paper has come from

the Tsar!’ so they began looking for him,” here Karatáev’s lower jaw

trembled, “but God had already forgiven him—he was dead! That’s how it

was, dear fellows!” Karatáev concluded and sat for a long time silent,

gazing before him with a smile.

And Pierre’s soul was dimly but joyfully filled not by the story itself

but by its mysterious significance: by the rapturous joy that lit up

Karatáev’s face as he told it, and the mystic significance of that joy.

CHAPTER XIV

“À vos places!” * suddenly cried a voice.

* “To your places.”

A pleasant feeling of excitement and an expectation of something

joyful and solemn was aroused among the soldiers of the convoy and the

prisoners. From all sides came shouts of command, and from the left came

smartly dressed cavalrymen on good horses, passing the prisoners at a

trot. The expression on all faces showed the tension people feel at the

approach of those in authority. The prisoners thronged together and were

pushed off the road. The convoy formed up.

“The Emperor! The Emperor! The Marshal! The Duke!” and hardly had the

sleek cavalry passed, before a carriage drawn by six gray horses rattled

by. Pierre caught a glimpse of a man in a three-cornered hat with a

tranquil look on his handsome, plump, white face. It was one of the

marshals. His eye fell on Pierre’s large and striking figure, and in

the expression with which he frowned and looked away Pierre thought he

detected sympathy and a desire to conceal that sympathy.

The general in charge of the stores galloped after the carriage with a

red and frightened face, whipping up his skinny horse. Several officers

formed a group and some soldiers crowded round them. Their faces all

looked excited and worried.

“What did he say? What did he say?” Pierre heard them ask.

While the marshal was passing, the prisoners had huddled together in a

crowd, and Pierre saw Karatáev whom he had not yet seen that morning.

He sat in his short overcoat leaning against a birch tree. On his face,

besides the look of joyful emotion it had worn yesterday while telling

the tale of the merchant who suffered innocently, there was now an

expression of quiet solemnity.

Karatáev looked at Pierre with his kindly round eyes now filled with

tears, evidently wishing him to come near that he might say something to

him. But Pierre was not sufficiently sure of himself. He made as if he

did not notice that look and moved hastily away.

When the prisoners again went forward Pierre looked round. Karatáev

was still sitting at the side of the road under the birch tree and two

Frenchmen were talking over his head. Pierre did not look round again

but went limping up the hill.

From behind, where Karatáev had been sitting, came the sound of a shot.

Pierre heard it plainly, but at that moment he remembered that he

had not yet finished reckoning up how many stages still remained to

Smolénsk—a calculation he had begun before the marshal went by. And he

again started reckoning. Two French soldiers ran past Pierre, one of

whom carried a lowered and smoking gun. They both looked pale, and

in the expression on their faces—one of them glanced timidly at

Pierre—there was something resembling what he had seen on the face of

the young soldier at the execution. Pierre looked at the soldier and

remembered that, two days before, that man had burned his shirt while

drying it at the fire and how they had laughed at him.

Behind him, where Karatáev had been sitting, the dog began to howl.

“What a stupid beast! Why is it howling?” thought Pierre.

His comrades, the prisoner soldiers walking beside him, avoided looking

back at the place where the shot had been fired and the dog was howling,

just as Pierre did, but there was a set look on all their faces.

CHAPTER XV

The stores, the prisoners, and the marshal’s baggage train stopped at

the village of Shámshevo. The men crowded together round the campfires.

Pierre went up to the fire, ate some roast horseflesh, lay down with his

back to the fire, and immediately fell asleep. He again slept as he had

done at Mozháysk after the battle of Borodinó.

Again real events mingled with dreams and again someone, he or another,

gave expression to his thoughts, and even to the same thoughts that had

been expressed in his dream at Mozháysk.

“Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that

movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness

of the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed

than all else is to love this life in one’s sufferings, in innocent

sufferings.”

“Karatáev!” came to Pierre’s mind.

And suddenly he saw vividly before him a long-forgotten, kindly old man

who had given him geography lessons in Switzerland. “Wait a bit,” said

the old man, and showed Pierre a globe. This globe was alive—a vibrating

ball without fixed dimensions. Its whole surface consisted of drops

closely pressed together, and all these drops moved and changed places,

sometimes several of them merging into one, sometimes one dividing

into many. Each drop tried to spread out and occupy as much space as

possible, but others striving to do the same compressed it, sometimes

destroyed it, and sometimes merged with it.

“That is life,” said the old teacher.

“How simple and clear it is,” thought Pierre. “How is it I did not know

it before?”

“God is in the midst, and each drop tries to expand so as to reflect

Him to the greatest extent. And it grows, merges, disappears from the

surface, sinks to the depths, and again emerges. There now, Karatáev

has spread out and disappeared. Do you understand, my child?” said the

teacher.

“Do you understand, damn you?” shouted a voice, and Pierre woke up.

He lifted himself and sat up. A Frenchman who had just pushed a Russian

soldier away was squatting by the fire, engaged in roasting a piece

of meat stuck on a ramrod. His sleeves were rolled up and his sinewy,

hairy, red hands with their short fingers deftly turned the ramrod. His

brown morose face with frowning brows was clearly visible by the glow of

the charcoal.

“It’s all the same to him,” he muttered, turning quickly to a soldier

who stood behind him. “Brigand! Get away!”

And twisting the ramrod he looked gloomily at Pierre, who turned

away and gazed into the darkness. A prisoner, the Russian soldier the

Frenchman had pushed away, was sitting near the fire patting something

with his hand. Looking more closely Pierre recognized the blue-gray dog,

sitting beside the soldier, wagging its tail.

“Ah, he’s come?” said Pierre. “And Plat—” he began, but did not finish.

Suddenly and simultaneously a crowd of memories awoke in his fancy—of

the look Platón had given him as he sat under the tree, of the shot

heard from that spot, of the dog’s howl, of the guilty faces of the two

Frenchmen as they ran past him, of the lowered and smoking gun, and of

Karatáev’s absence at this halt—and he was on the point of realizing

that Karatáev had been killed, but just at that instant, he knew not

why, the recollection came to his mind of a summer evening he had spent

with a beautiful Polish lady on the veranda of his house in Kiev. And

without linking up the events of the day or drawing a conclusion

from them, Pierre closed his eyes, seeing a vision of the country in

summertime mingled with memories of bathing and of the liquid, vibrating

globe, and he sank into water so that it closed over his head.

Before sunrise he was awakened by shouts and loud and rapid firing.

French soldiers were running past him.

“The Cossacks!” one of them shouted, and a moment later a crowd of

Russians surrounded Pierre.

For a long time he could not understand what was happening to him. All

around he heard his comrades sobbing with joy.

“Brothers! Dear fellows! Darlings!” old soldiers exclaimed, weeping, as

they embraced Cossacks and hussars.

The hussars and Cossacks crowded round the prisoners; one offered them

clothes, another boots, and a third bread. Pierre sobbed as he sat

among them and could not utter a word. He hugged the first soldier who

approached him, and kissed him, weeping.

Dólokhov stood at the gate of the ruined house, letting a crowd

of disarmed Frenchmen pass by. The French, excited by all that had

happened, were talking loudly among themselves, but as they passed

Dólokhov who gently switched his boots with his whip and watched them

with cold glassy eyes that boded no good, they became silent. On the

opposite side stood Dólokhov’s Cossack, counting the prisoners and

marking off each hundred with a chalk line on the gate.

“How many?” Dólokhov asked the Cossack.

“The second hundred,” replied the Cossack.

“Filez, filez!” * Dólokhov kept saying, having adopted this expression

from the French, and when his eyes met those of the prisoners they

flashed with a cruel light.

* “Get along, get along!”

Denísov, bareheaded and with a gloomy face, walked behind some Cossacks

who were carrying the body of Pétya Rostóv to a hole that had been dug

in the garden.

CHAPTER XVI

After the twenty-eighth of October when the frosts began, the flight of

the French assumed a still more tragic character, with men freezing,

or roasting themselves to death at the campfires, while carriages

with people dressed in furs continued to drive past, carrying away the

property that had been stolen by the Emperor, kings, and dukes; but

the process of the flight and disintegration of the French army went on

essentially as before.

From Moscow to Vyázma the French army of seventy-three thousand men not

reckoning the Guards (who did nothing during the whole war but pillage)

was reduced to thirty-six thousand, though not more than five thousand

had fallen in battle. From this beginning the succeeding terms of the

progression could be determined mathematically. The French army melted

away and perished at the same rate from Moscow to Vyázma, from Vyázma

to Smolénsk, from Smolénsk to the Berëzina, and from the Berëzina to

Vílna—independently of the greater or lesser intensity of the cold, the

pursuit, the barring of the way, or any other particular conditions.

Beyond Vyázma the French army instead of moving in three columns huddled

together into one mass, and so went on to the end. Berthier wrote to his

Emperor (we know how far commanding officers allow themselves to diverge

from the truth in describing the condition of an army) and this is what

he said:

I deem it my duty to report to Your Majesty the condition of the various

corps I have had occasion to observe during different stages of the last

two or three days’ march. They are almost disbanded. Scarcely a quarter

of the soldiers remain with the standards of their regiments, the others

go off by themselves in different directions hoping to find food and

escape discipline. In general they regard Smolénsk as the place where

they hope to recover. During the last few days many of the men have been

seen to throw away their cartridges and their arms. In such a state

of affairs, whatever your ultimate plans may be, the interest of Your

Majesty’s service demands that the army should be rallied at Smolénsk

and should first of all be freed from ineffectives, such as dismounted

cavalry, unnecessary baggage, and artillery material that is no longer

in proportion to the present forces. The soldiers, who are worn out with

hunger and fatigue, need these supplies as well as a few days’ rest.

Many have died these last days on the road or at the bivouacs. This

state of things is continually becoming worse and makes one fear that

unless a prompt remedy is applied the troops will no longer be under

control in case of an engagement.

November 9: twenty miles from Smolénsk.

After staggering into Smolénsk which seemed to them a promised land, the

French, searching for food, killed one another, sacked their own stores,

and when everything had been plundered fled farther.

They all went without knowing whither or why they were going. Still less

did that genius, Napoleon, know it, for no one issued any orders to

him. But still he and those about him retained their old habits: wrote

commands, letters, reports, and orders of the day; called one another

sire, mon cousin, prince d’Eckmühl, roi de Naples, and so on. But these

orders and reports were only on paper, nothing in them was acted upon

for they could not be carried out, and though they entitled one

another Majesties, Highnesses, or Cousins, they all felt that they were

miserable wretches who had done much evil for which they had now to

pay. And though they pretended to be concerned about the army, each

was thinking only of himself and of how to get away quickly and save

himself.

CHAPTER XVII

The movements of the Russian and French armies during the campaign

from Moscow back to the Niemen were like those in a game of Russian

blindman’s buff, in which two players are blindfolded and one of

them occasionally rings a little bell to inform the catcher of his

whereabouts. First he rings his bell fearlessly, but when he gets into

a tight place he runs away as quietly as he can, and often thinking to

escape runs straight into his opponent’s arms.

At first while they were still moving along the Kalúga road, Napoleon’s

armies made their presence known, but later when they reached the

Smolénsk road they ran holding the clapper of their bell tight—and often

thinking they were escaping ran right into the Russians.

Owing to the rapidity of the French flight and the Russian pursuit

and the consequent exhaustion of the horses, the chief means of

approximately ascertaining the enemy’s position—by cavalry scouting—was

not available. Besides, as a result of the frequent and rapid change of

position by each army, even what information was obtained could not be

delivered in time. If news was received one day that the enemy had been

in a certain position the day before, by the third day when something

could have been done, that army was already two days’ march farther on

and in quite another position.

One army fled and the other pursued. Beyond Smolénsk there were several

different roads available for the French, and one would have thought

that during their stay of four days they might have learned where

the enemy was, might have arranged some more advantageous plan and

undertaken something new. But after a four days’ halt the mob, with no

maneuvers or plans, again began running along the beaten track, neither

to the right nor to the left but along the old—the worst—road, through

Krásnoe and Orshá.

Expecting the enemy from behind and not in front, the French separated

in their flight and spread out over a distance of twenty-four hours. In

front of them all fled the Emperor, then the kings, then the dukes. The

Russian army, expecting Napoleon to take the road to the right beyond

the Dnieper—which was the only reasonable thing for him to do—themselves

turned to the right and came out onto the highroad at Krásnoe. And here

as in a game of blindman’s buff the French ran into our vanguard. Seeing

their enemy unexpectedly the French fell into confusion and stopped

short from the sudden fright, but then they resumed their flight,

abandoning their comrades who were farther behind. Then for three days

separate portions of the French army—first Murat’s (the vice-king’s),

then Davout’s, and then Ney’s—ran, as it were, the gauntlet of the

Russian army. They abandoned one another, abandoned all their heavy

baggage, their artillery, and half their men, and fled, getting past the

Russians by night by making semicircles to the right.

Ney, who came last, had been busying himself blowing up the walls of

Smolénsk which were in nobody’s way, because despite the unfortunate

plight of the French or because of it, they wished to punish the floor

against which they had hurt themselves. Ney, who had had a corps of ten

thousand men, reached Napoleon at Orshá with only one thousand men left,

having abandoned all the rest and all his cannon, and having crossed the

Dnieper at night by stealth at a wooded spot.

From Orshá they fled farther along the road to Vílna, still playing

at blindman’s buff with the pursuing army. At the Berëzina they again

became disorganized, many were drowned and many surrendered, but those

who got across the river fled farther. Their supreme chief donned a

fur coat and, having seated himself in a sleigh, galloped on alone,

abandoning his companions. The others who could do so drove away too,

leaving those who could not to surrender or die.

CHAPTER XVIII

This campaign consisted in a flight of the French during which they did

all they could to destroy themselves. From the time they turned onto

the Kalúga road to the day their leader fled from the army, none of the

movements of the crowd had any sense. So one might have thought that

regarding this period of the campaign the historians, who attributed

the actions of the mass to the will of one man, would have found it

impossible to make the story of the retreat fit their theory. But

no! Mountains of books have been written by the historians about this

campaign, and everywhere are described Napoleon’s arrangements, the

maneuvers, and his profound plans which guided the army, as well as the

military genius shown by his marshals.

The retreat from Málo-Yaroslávets when he had a free road into a

well-supplied district and the parallel road was open to him along

which Kutúzov afterwards pursued him—this unnecessary retreat along

a devastated road—is explained to us as being due to profound

considerations. Similarly profound considerations are given for

his retreat from Smolénsk to Orshá. Then his heroism at Krásnoe is

described, where he is reported to have been prepared to accept battle

and take personal command, and to have walked about with a birch stick

and said:

“J’ai assez fait l’empereur; il est temps de faire le général,” * but

nevertheless immediately ran away again, abandoning to its fate the

scattered fragments of the army he left behind.

* “I have acted the Emperor long enough; it is time to act

the general.”

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

of Ney—a greatness of soul consisting in this: that he made his way by

night around through the forest and across the Dnieper and escaped to

Orshá, abandoning standards, artillery, and nine tenths of his men.

And lastly, the final departure of the great Emperor from his heroic

army is presented to us by the historians as something great and

characteristic of genius. Even that final running away, described in

ordinary language as the lowest depth of baseness which every child

is taught to be ashamed of—even that act finds justification in the

historians’ language.

When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical

ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all

that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving

conception of “greatness.” “Greatness,” it seems, excludes the standards

of right and wrong. For the “great” man nothing is wrong, there is no

atrocity for which a “great” man can be blamed.

“C’est grand!” * say the historians, and there no longer exists either

good or evil but only “grand” and “not grand.” Grand is good, not

grand is bad. Grand is the characteristic, in their conception, of some

special animals called “heroes.” And Napoleon, escaping home in a warm

fur coat and leaving to perish those who were not merely his comrades

but were (in his opinion) men he had brought there, feels que c’est

grand, *(2) and his soul is tranquil.

* “It is great.”

* (2) That it is great.

“Du sublime (he saw something sublime in himself) au ridicule il n’y

a qu’un pas,” * said he. And the whole world for fifty years has been

repeating: “Sublime! Grand! Napoléon le Grand!” Du sublime au ridicule

il n’y a qu’un pas.

* “From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.”

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

the standard of right and wrong is merely to admit one’s own nothingness

and immeasurable meanness.

For us with the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, no human

actions are incommensurable. And there is no greatness where simplicity,

goodness, and truth are absent.

CHAPTER XIX

What Russian, reading the account of the last part of the campaign

of 1812, has not experienced an uncomfortable feeling of regret,

dissatisfaction, and perplexity? Who has not asked himself how it is

that the French were not all captured or destroyed when our three armies

surrounded them in superior numbers, when the disordered French, hungry

and freezing, surrendered in crowds, and when (as the historians relate)

the aim of the Russians was to stop the French, to cut them off, and

capture them all?

How was it that the Russian army, which when numerically weaker than the

French had given battle at Borodinó, did not achieve its purpose when it

had surrounded the French on three sides and when its aim was to capture

them? Can the French be so enormously superior to us that when we had

surrounded them with superior forces we could not beat them? How could

that happen?

History (or what is called by that name) replying to these questions

says that this occurred because Kutúzov and Tormásov and Chichagóv, and

this man and that man, did not execute such and such maneuvers....

But why did they not execute those maneuvers? And why if they were

guilty of not carrying out a prearranged plan were they not tried and

punished? But even if we admitted that Kutúzov, Chichagóv, and others

were the cause of the Russian failures, it is still incomprehensible

why, the position of the Russian army being what it was at Krásnoe and

at the Berëzina (in both cases we had superior forces), the French army

with its marshals, kings, and Emperor was not captured, if that was what

the Russians aimed at.

The explanation of this strange fact given by Russian military

historians (to the effect that Kutúzov hindered an attack) is unfounded,

for we know that he could not restrain the troops from attacking at

Vyázma and Tarútino.

Why was the Russian army—which with inferior forces had withstood the

enemy in full strength at Borodinó—defeated at Krásnoe and the Berëzina

by the disorganized crowds of the French when it was numerically

superior?

If the aim of the Russians consisted in cutting off and capturing

Napoleon and his marshals—and that aim was not merely frustrated but all

attempts to attain it were most shamefully baffled—then this last period

of the campaign is quite rightly considered by the French to be a

series of victories, and quite wrongly considered victorious by Russian

historians.

The Russian military historians in so far as they submit to claims

of logic must admit that conclusion, and in spite of their lyrical

rhapsodies about valor, devotion, and so forth, must reluctantly admit

that the French retreat from Moscow was a series of victories for

Napoleon and defeats for Kutúzov.

But putting national vanity entirely aside one feels that such a

conclusion involves a contradiction, since the series of French

victories brought the French complete destruction, while the series

of Russian defeats led to the total destruction of their enemy and the

liberation of their country.

The source of this contradiction lies in the fact that the historians

studying the events from the letters of the sovereigns and the generals,

from memoirs, reports, projects, and so forth, have attributed to this

last period of the war of 1812 an aim that never existed, namely that of

cutting off and capturing Napoleon with his marshals and his army.

There never was or could have been such an aim, for it would have been

senseless and its attainment quite impossible.

It would have been senseless, first because Napoleon’s disorganized

army was flying from Russia with all possible speed, that is to say, was

doing just what every Russian desired. So what was the use of performing

various operations on the French who were running away as fast as they

possibly could?

Secondly, it would have been senseless to block the passage of men whose

whole energy was directed to flight.

Thirdly, it would have been senseless to sacrifice one’s own troops in

order to destroy the French army, which without external interference

was destroying itself at such a rate that, though its path was not

blocked, it could not carry across the frontier more than it actually

did in December, namely a hundredth part of the original army.

Fourthly, it would have been senseless to wish to take captive the

Emperor, kings, and dukes—whose capture would have been in the highest

degree embarrassing for the Russians, as the most adroit diplomatists of

the time (Joseph de Maistre and others) recognized. Still more senseless

would have been the wish to capture army corps of the French, when our

own army had melted away to half before reaching Krásnoe and a whole

division would have been needed to convoy the corps of prisoners, and

when our men were not always getting full rations and the prisoners

already taken were perishing of hunger.

All the profound plans about cutting off and capturing Napoleon and his

army were like the plan of a market gardener who, when driving out of

his garden a cow that had trampled down the beds he had planted, should

run to the gate and hit the cow on the head. The only thing to be said

in excuse of that gardener would be that he was very angry. But not even

that could be said for those who drew up this project, for it was not

they who had suffered from the trampled beds.

But besides the fact that cutting off Napoleon with his army would have

been senseless, it was impossible.

It was impossible first because—as experience shows that a three-mile

movement of columns on a battlefield never coincides with the plans—the

probability of Chichagóv, Kutúzov, and Wittgenstein effecting a junction

on time at an appointed place was so remote as to be tantamount to

impossibility, as in fact thought Kutúzov, who when he received the plan

remarked that diversions planned over great distances do not yield the

desired results.

Secondly it was impossible, because to paralyze the momentum with which

Napoleon’s army was retiring, incomparably greater forces than the

Russians possessed would have been required.

Thirdly it was impossible, because the military term “to cut off” has no

meaning. One can cut off a slice of bread, but not an army. To cut off

an army—to bar its road—is quite impossible, for there is always plenty

of room to avoid capture and there is the night when nothing can be

seen, as the military scientists might convince themselves by the

example of Krásnoe and of the Berëzina. It is only possible to capture

prisoners if they agree to be captured, just as it is only possible

to catch a swallow if it settles on one’s hand. Men can only be taken

prisoners if they surrender according to the rules of strategy and

tactics, as the Germans did. But the French troops quite rightly did not

consider that this suited them, since death by hunger and cold awaited

them in flight or captivity alike.

Fourthly and chiefly it was impossible, because never since the world

began has a war been fought under such conditions as those that obtained

in 1812, and the Russian army in its pursuit of the French strained its

strength to the utmost and could not have done more without destroying

itself.

During the movement of the Russian army from Tarútino to Krásnoe it

lost fifty thousand sick or stragglers, that is a number equal to the

population of a large provincial town. Half the men fell out of the army

without a battle.

And it is of this period of the campaign—when the army lacked boots

and sheepskin coats, was short of provisions and without vodka, and

was camping out at night for months in the snow with fifteen degrees

of frost, when there were only seven or eight hours of daylight and

the rest was night in which the influence of discipline cannot be

maintained, when men were taken into that region of death where

discipline fails, not for a few hours only as in a battle, but for

months, where they were every moment fighting death from hunger and

cold, when half the army perished in a single month—it is of this period

of the campaign that the historians tell us how Milorádovich should have

made a flank march to such and such a place, Tormásov to another place,

and Chichagóv should have crossed (more than knee-deep in snow) to

somewhere else, and how so-and-so “routed” and “cut off” the French and

so on and so on.

The Russians, half of whom died, did all that could and should have been

done to attain an end worthy of the nation, and they are not to blame

because other Russians, sitting in warm rooms, proposed that they should

do what was impossible.

All that strange contradiction now difficult to understand between the

facts and the historical accounts only arises because the historians

dealing with the matter have written the history of the beautiful words

and sentiments of various generals, and not the history of the events.

To them the words of Milorádovich seem very interesting, and so do their

surmises and the rewards this or that general received; but the question

of those fifty thousand men who were left in hospitals and in graves

does not even interest them, for it does not come within the range of

their investigation.

Yet one need only discard the study of the reports and general plans and

consider the movement of those hundreds of thousands of men who took a

direct part in the events, and all the questions that seemed insoluble

easily and simply receive an immediate and certain solution.

The aim of cutting off Napoleon and his army never existed except in

the imaginations of a dozen people. It could not exist because it was

senseless and unattainable.

The people had a single aim: to free their land from invasion. That aim

was attained in the first place of itself, as the French ran away,

and so it was only necessary not to stop their flight. Secondly it was

attained by the guerrilla warfare which was destroying the French, and

thirdly by the fact that a large Russian army was following the French,

ready to use its strength in case their movement stopped.

The Russian army had to act like a whip to a running animal. And the

experienced driver knew it was better to hold the whip raised as a

menace than to strike the running animal on the head.

BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13

CHAPTER I

When seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror: substance

similar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a

beloved and intimate human being that is dying, besides this horror at

the extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which

like a physical wound is sometimes fatal and sometimes heals, but always

aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch.

After Prince Andrew’s death Natásha and Princess Mary alike felt this.

Drooping in spirit and closing their eyes before the menacing cloud of

death that overhung them, they dared not look life in the face. They

carefully guarded their open wounds from any rough and painful contact.

Everything: a carriage passing rapidly in the street, a summons to

dinner, the maid’s inquiry what dress to prepare, or worse still any

word of insincere or feeble sympathy, seemed an insult, painfully

irritated the wound, interrupting that necessary quiet in which

they both tried to listen to the stern and dreadful choir that still

resounded in their imagination, and hindered their gazing into those

mysterious limitless vistas that for an instant had opened out before

them.

Only when alone together were they free from such outrage and pain.

They spoke little even to one another, and when they did it was of very

unimportant matters.

Both avoided any allusion to the future. To admit the possibility of

a future seemed to them to insult his memory. Still more carefully did

they avoid anything relating to him who was dead. It seemed to them that

what they had lived through and experienced could not be expressed in

words, and that any reference to the details of his life infringed the

majesty and sacredness of the mystery that had been accomplished before

their eyes.

Continued abstention from speech, and constant avoidance of everything

that might lead up to the subject—this halting on all sides at the

boundary of what they might not mention—brought before their minds with

still greater purity and clearness what they were both feeling.

But pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.

Princess Mary, in her position as absolute and independent arbiter of

her own fate and guardian and instructor of her nephew, was the first to

be called back to life from that realm of sorrow in which she had dwelt

for the first fortnight. She received letters from her relations to

which she had to reply; the room in which little Nicholas had been put

was damp and he began to cough; Alpátych came to Yaroslávl with reports

on the state of their affairs and with advice and suggestions that they

should return to Moscow to the house on the Vozdvízhenka Street, which

had remained uninjured and needed only slight repairs. Life did not

stand still and it was necessary to live. Hard as it was for Princess

Mary to emerge from the realm of secluded contemplation in which she

had lived till then, and sorry and almost ashamed as she felt to leave

Natásha alone, yet the cares of life demanded her attention and she

involuntarily yielded to them. She went through the accounts with

Alpátych, conferred with Dessalles about her nephew, and gave orders and

made preparations for the journey to Moscow.

Natásha remained alone and, from the time Princess Mary began making

preparations for departure, held aloof from her too.

Princess Mary asked the countess to let Natásha go with her to Moscow,

and both parents gladly accepted this offer, for they saw their daughter

losing strength every day and thought that a change of scene and the

advice of Moscow doctors would be good for her.

“I am not going anywhere,” Natásha replied when this was proposed to

her. “Do please just leave me alone!” And she ran out of the room, with

difficulty refraining from tears of vexation and irritation rather than

of sorrow.

After she felt herself deserted by Princes Mary and alone in her grief,

Natásha spent most of the time in her room by herself, sitting huddled

up feet and all in the corner of the sofa, tearing and twisting

something with her slender nervous fingers and gazing intently and

fixedly at whatever her eyes chanced to fall on. This solitude exhausted

and tormented her but she was in absolute need of it. As soon as anyone

entered she got up quickly, changed her position and expression, and

picked up a book or some sewing, evidently waiting impatiently for the

intruder to go.

She felt all the time as if she might at any moment penetrate that

on which—with a terrible questioning too great for her strength—her

spiritual gaze was fixed.

One day toward the end of December Natásha, pale and thin, dressed in a

black woolen gown, her plaited hair negligently twisted into a knot, was

crouched feet and all in the corner of her sofa, nervously crumpling and

smoothing out the end of her sash while she looked at a corner of the

door.

She was gazing in the direction in which he had gone—to the other side

of life. And that other side of life, of which she had never before

thought and which had formerly seemed to her so far away and improbable,

was now nearer and more akin and more comprehensible than this side of

life, where everything was either emptiness and desolation or suffering

and indignity.

She was gazing where she knew him to be; but she could not imagine him

otherwise than as he had been here. She now saw him again as he had been

at Mytíshchi, at Tróitsa, and at Yaroslávl.

She saw his face, heard his voice, repeated his words and her own, and

sometimes devised other words they might have spoken.

There he is lying back in an armchair in his velvet cloak, leaning

his head on his thin pale hand. His chest is dreadfully hollow and his

shoulders raised. His lips are firmly closed, his eyes glitter, and a

wrinkle comes and goes on his pale forehead. One of his legs twitches

just perceptibly, but rapidly. Natásha knows that he is struggling with

terrible pain. “What is that pain like? Why does he have that pain? What

does he feel? How does it hurt him?” thought Natásha. He noticed her

watching him, raised his eyes, and began to speak seriously:

“One thing would be terrible,” said he: “to bind oneself forever to a

suffering man. It would be continual torture.” And he looked searchingly

at her. Natásha as usual answered before she had time to think what she

would say. She said: “This can’t go on—it won’t. You will get well—quite

well.”

She now saw him from the commencement of that scene and relived what she

had then felt. She recalled his long sad and severe look at those words

and understood the meaning of the rebuke and despair in that protracted

gaze.

“I agreed,” Natásha now said to herself, “that it would be dreadful if

he always continued to suffer. I said it then only because it would have

been dreadful for him, but he understood it differently. He thought it

would be dreadful for me. He then still wished to live and feared death.

And I said it so awkwardly and stupidly! I did not say what I meant.

I thought quite differently. Had I said what I thought, I should have

said: even if he had to go on dying, to die continually before my eyes,

I should have been happy compared with what I am now. Now there is

nothing... nobody. Did he know that? No, he did not and never will know

it. And now it will never, never be possible to put it right.” And

now he again seemed to be saying the same words to her, only in her

imagination Natásha this time gave him a different answer. She stopped

him and said: “Terrible for you, but not for me! You know that for me

there is nothing in life but you, and to suffer with you is the greatest

happiness for me,” and he took her hand and pressed it as he had

pressed it that terrible evening four days before his death. And in her

imagination she said other tender and loving words which she might have

said then but only spoke now: “I love thee!... thee! I love, love...”

she said, convulsively pressing her hands and setting her teeth with a

desperate effort....

She was overcome by sweet sorrow and tears were already rising in her

eyes; then she suddenly asked herself to whom she was saying this.

Again everything was shrouded in hard, dry perplexity, and again with a

strained frown she peered toward the world where he was. And now, now

it seemed to her she was penetrating the mystery.... But at the instant

when it seemed that the incomprehensible was revealing itself to her a

loud rattle of the door handle struck painfully on her ears. Dunyásha,

her maid, entered the room quickly and abruptly with a frightened look

on her face and showing no concern for her mistress.

“Come to your Papa at once, please!” said she with a strange, excited

look. “A misfortune... about Peter Ilýnich... a letter,” she finished

with a sob.

CHAPTER II

Besides a feeling of aloofness from everybody Natásha was feeling a

special estrangement from the members of her own family. All of

them—her father, mother, and Sónya—were so near to her, so familiar, so

commonplace, that all their words and feelings seemed an insult to the

world in which she had been living of late, and she felt not merely

indifferent to them but regarded them with hostility. She heard

Dunyásha’s words about Peter Ilýnich and a misfortune, but did not grasp

them.

“What misfortune? What misfortune can happen to them? They just live

their own old, quiet, and commonplace life,” thought Natásha.

As she entered the ballroom her father was hurriedly coming out of

her mother’s room. His face was puckered up and wet with tears. He

had evidently run out of that room to give vent to the sobs that were

choking him. When he saw Natásha he waved his arms despairingly and

burst into convulsively painful sobs that distorted his soft round face.

“Pe... Pétya... Go, go, she... is calling...” and weeping like a child

and quickly shuffling on his feeble legs to a chair, he almost fell into

it, covering his face with his hands.

Suddenly an electric shock seemed to run through Natásha’s whole being.

Terrible anguish struck her heart, she felt a dreadful ache as if

something was being torn inside her and she were dying. But the pain

was immediately followed by a feeling of release from the oppressive

constraint that had prevented her taking part in life. The sight of her

father, the terribly wild cries of her mother that she heard through the

door, made her immediately forget herself and her own grief.

She ran to her father, but he feebly waved his arm, pointing to her

mother’s door. Princess Mary, pale and with quivering chin, came out

from that room and taking Natásha by the arm said something to her.

Natásha neither saw nor heard her. She went in with rapid steps, pausing

at the door for an instant as if struggling with herself, and then ran

to her mother.

The countess was lying in an armchair in a strange and awkward position,

stretching out and beating her head against the wall. Sónya and the

maids were holding her arms.

“Natásha! Natásha!...” cried the countess. “It’s not true... it’s not

true... He’s lying... Natásha!” she shrieked, pushing those around her

away. “Go away, all of you; it’s not true! Killed!... ha, ha, ha!...

It’s not true!”

Natásha put one knee on the armchair, stooped over her mother, embraced

her, and with unexpected strength raised her, turned her face toward

herself, and clung to her.

“Mummy!... darling!... I am here, my dearest Mummy,” she kept on

whispering, not pausing an instant.

She did not let go of her mother but struggled tenderly with her,

demanded a pillow and hot water, and unfastened and tore open her

mother’s dress.

“My dearest darling... Mummy, my precious!...” she whispered

incessantly, kissing her head, her hands, her face, and feeling her own

irrepressible and streaming tears tickling her nose and cheeks.

The countess pressed her daughter’s hand, closed her eyes, and became

quiet for a moment. Suddenly she sat up with unaccustomed swiftness,

glanced vacantly around her, and seeing Natásha began to press her

daughter’s head with all her strength. Then she turned toward her

daughter’s face which was wincing with pain and gazed long at it.

“Natásha, you love me?” she said in a soft trustful whisper. “Natásha,

you would not deceive me? You’ll tell me the whole truth?”

Natásha looked at her with eyes full of tears and in her look there was

nothing but love and an entreaty for forgiveness.

“My darling Mummy!” she repeated, straining all the power of her love to

find some way of taking on herself the excess of grief that crushed her

mother.

And again in a futile struggle with reality her mother, refusing to

believe that she could live when her beloved boy was killed in the bloom

of life, escaped from reality into a world of delirium.

Natásha did not remember how that day passed nor that night, nor the

next day and night. She did not sleep and did not leave her mother. Her

persevering and patient love seemed completely to surround the countess

every moment, not explaining or consoling, but recalling her to life.

During the third night the countess kept very quiet for a few minutes,

and Natásha rested her head on the arm of her chair and closed her eyes,

but opened them again on hearing the bedstead creak. The countess was

sitting up in bed and speaking softly.

“How glad I am you have come. You are tired. Won’t you have some tea?”

Natásha went up to her. “You have improved in looks and grown more

manly,” continued the countess, taking her daughter’s hand.

“Mamma! What are you saying...”

“Natásha, he is no more, no more!”

And embracing her daughter, the countess began to weep for the first

time.

CHAPTER III

Princess Mary postponed her departure. Sónya and the count tried to

replace Natásha but could not. They saw that she alone was able to

restrain her mother from unreasoning despair. For three weeks Natásha

remained constantly at her mother’s side, sleeping on a lounge chair

in her room, making her eat and drink, and talking to her incessantly

because the mere sound of her tender, caressing tones soothed her

mother.

The mother’s wounded spirit could not heal. Pétya’s death had torn from

her half her life. When the news of Pétya’s death had come she had been

a fresh and vigorous woman of fifty, but a month later she left her room

a listless old woman taking no interest in life. But the same blow that

almost killed the countess, this second blow, restored Natásha to life.

A spiritual wound produced by a rending of the spiritual body is like

a physical wound and, strange as it may seem, just as a deep wound may

heal and its edges join, physical and spiritual wounds alike can yet

heal completely only as the result of a vital force from within.

Natásha’s wound healed in that way. She thought her life was ended,

but her love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that the essence of

life—love—was still active within her. Love awoke and so did life.

Prince Andrew’s last days had bound Princess Mary and Natásha together;

this new sorrow brought them still closer to one another. Princess Mary

put off her departure, and for three weeks looked after Natásha as if

she had been a sick child. The last weeks passed in her mother’s bedroom

had strained Natásha’s physical strength.

One afternoon noticing Natásha shivering with fever, Princess Mary took

her to her own room and made her lie down on the bed. Natásha lay down,

but when Princess Mary had drawn the blinds and was going away she

called her back.

“I don’t want to sleep, Mary, sit by me a little.”

“You are tired—try to sleep.”

“No, no. Why did you bring me away? She will be asking for me.”

“She is much better. She spoke so well today,” said Princess Mary.

Natásha lay on the bed and in the semidarkness of the room scanned

Princess Mary’s face.

“Is she like him?” thought Natásha. “Yes, like and yet not like. But she

is quite original, strange, new, and unknown. And she loves me. What

is in her heart? All that is good. But how? What is her mind like? What

does she think about me? Yes, she is splendid!”

“Mary,” she said timidly, drawing Princess Mary’s hand to herself,

“Mary, you mustn’t think me wicked. No? Mary darling, how I love you!

Let us be quite, quite friends.”

And Natásha, embracing her, began kissing her face and hands, making

Princess Mary feel shy but happy by this demonstration of her feelings.

From that day a tender and passionate friendship such as exists only

between women was established between Princess Mary and Natásha. They

were continually kissing and saying tender things to one another and

spent most of their time together. When one went out the other became

restless and hastened to rejoin her. Together they felt more in harmony

with one another than either of them felt with herself when alone. A

feeling stronger than friendship sprang up between them; an exclusive

feeling of life being possible only in each other’s presence.

Sometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes after they were already

in bed they would begin talking and go on till morning. They spoke most

of what was long past. Princess Mary spoke of her childhood, of her

mother, her father, and her daydreams; and Natásha, who with a passive

lack of understanding had formerly turned away from that life of

devotion, submission, and the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice, now

feeling herself bound to Princess Mary by affection, learned to love her

past too and to understand a side of life previously incomprehensible to

her. She did not think of applying submission and self-abnegation to her

own life, for she was accustomed to seek other joys, but she understood

and loved in another those previously incomprehensible virtues. For

Princess Mary, listening to Natásha’s tales of childhood and early

youth, there also opened out a new and hitherto uncomprehended side of

life: belief in life and its enjoyment.

Just as before, they never mentioned him so as not to lower (as they

thought) their exalted feelings by words; but this silence about him had

the effect of making them gradually begin to forget him without being

conscious of it.

Natásha had grown thin and pale and physically so weak that they all

talked about her health, and this pleased her. But sometimes she was

suddenly overcome by fear not only of death but of sickness, weakness,

and loss of good looks, and involuntarily she examined her bare arm

carefully, surprised at its thinness, and in the morning noticed her

drawn and, as it seemed to her, piteous face in her glass. It seemed to

her that things must be so, and yet it was dreadfully sad.

One day she went quickly upstairs and found herself out of breath.

Unconsciously she immediately invented a reason for going down, and

then, testing her strength, ran upstairs again, observing the result.

Another time when she called Dunyásha her voice trembled, so she called

again—though she could hear Dunyásha coming—called her in the deep chest

tones in which she had been wont to sing, and listened attentively to

herself.

She did not know and would not have believed it, but beneath the layer

of slime that covered her soul and seemed to her impenetrable, delicate

young shoots of grass were already sprouting, which taking root would so

cover with their living verdure the grief that weighed her down that

it would soon no longer be seen or noticed. The wound had begun to heal

from within.

At the end of January Princess Mary left for Moscow, and the count

insisted on Natásha’s going with her to consult the doctors.

CHAPTER IV

After the encounter at Vyázma, where Kutúzov had been unable to hold

back his troops in their anxiety to overwhelm and cut off the enemy and

so on, the farther movement of the fleeing French, and of the Russians

who pursued them, continued as far as Krásnoe without a battle. The

flight was so rapid that the Russian army pursuing the French could

not keep up with them; cavalry and artillery horses broke down, and the

information received of the movements of the French was never reliable.

The men in the Russian army were so worn out by this continuous marching

at the rate of twenty-seven miles a day that they could not go any

faster.

To realize the degree of exhaustion of the Russian army it is only

necessary to grasp clearly the meaning of the fact that, while not

losing more than five thousand killed and wounded after Tarútino and

less than a hundred prisoners, the Russian army which left that place a

hundred thousand strong reached Krásnoe with only fifty thousand.

The rapidity of the Russian pursuit was just as destructive to our army

as the flight of the French was to theirs. The only difference was that

the Russian army moved voluntarily, with no such threat of destruction

as hung over the French, and that the sick Frenchmen were left behind

in enemy hands while the sick Russians left behind were among their

own people. The chief cause of the wastage of Napoleon’s army was

the rapidity of its movement, and a convincing proof of this is the

corresponding decrease of the Russian army.

Kutúzov as far as was in his power, instead of trying to check the

movement of the French as was desired in Petersburg and by the Russian

army generals, directed his whole activity here, as he had done at

Tarútino and Vyázma, to hastening it on while easing the movement of our

army.

But besides this, since the exhaustion and enormous diminution of the

army caused by the rapidity of the advance had become evident, another

reason for slackening the pace and delaying presented itself to Kutúzov.

The aim of the Russian army was to pursue the French. The road the

French would take was unknown, and so the closer our troops trod on

their heels the greater distance they had to cover. Only by following

at some distance could one cut across the zigzag path of the French. All

the artful maneuvers suggested by our generals meant fresh movements of

the army and a lengthening of its marches, whereas the only reasonable

aim was to shorten those marches. To that end Kutúzov’s activity was

directed during the whole campaign from Moscow to Vílna—not casually or

intermittently but so consistently that he never once deviated from it.

Kutúzov felt and knew—not by reasoning or science but with the whole of

his Russian being—what every Russian soldier felt: that the French were

beaten, that the enemy was flying and must be driven out; but at the

same time he like the soldiers realized all the hardship of this march,

the rapidity of which was unparalleled for such a time of the year.

But to the generals, especially the foreign ones in the Russian army,

who wished to distinguish themselves, to astonish somebody, and for some

reason to capture a king or a duke—it seemed that now—when any battle

must be horrible and senseless—was the very time to fight and conquer

somebody. Kutúzov merely shrugged his shoulders when one after

another they presented projects of maneuvers to be made with those

soldiers—ill-shod, insufficiently clad, and half starved—who within a

month and without fighting a battle had dwindled to half their number,

and who at the best if the flight continued would have to go a greater

distance than they had already traversed, before they reached the

frontier.

This longing to distinguish themselves, to maneuver, to overthrow, and

to cut off showed itself particularly whenever the Russians stumbled on

the French army.

So it was at Krásnoe, where they expected to find one of the three

French columns and stumbled instead on Napoleon himself with sixteen

thousand men. Despite all Kutúzov’s efforts to avoid that ruinous

encounter and to preserve his troops, the massacre of the broken mob

of French soldiers by worn-out Russians continued at Krásnoe for three

days.

Toll wrote a disposition: “The first column will march to so and so,”

etc. And as usual nothing happened in accord with the disposition.

Prince Eugène of Württemberg fired from a hill over the French crowds

that were running past, and demanded reinforcements which did not

arrive. The French, avoiding the Russians, dispersed and hid themselves

in the forest by night, making their way round as best they could, and

continued their flight.

Milorádovich, who said he did not want to know anything about the

commissariat affairs of his detachment, and could never be found when

he was wanted—that chevalier sans peur et sans reproche * as he styled

himself—who was fond of parleys with the French, sent envoys demanding

their surrender, wasted time, and did not do what he was ordered to do.

* Knight without fear and without reproach.

“I give you that column, lads,” he said, riding up to the troops and

pointing out the French to the cavalry.

And the cavalry, with spurs and sabers urging on horses that could

scarcely move, trotted with much effort to the column presented

to them—that is to say, to a crowd of Frenchmen stark with cold,

frost-bitten, and starving—and the column that had been presented to

them threw down its arms and surrendered as it had long been anxious to

do.

At Krásnoe they took twenty-six thousand prisoners, several hundred

cannon, and a stick called a “marshal’s staff,” and disputed as to who

had distinguished himself and were pleased with their achievement—though

they much regretted not having taken Napoleon, or at least a marshal or

a hero of some sort, and reproached one another and especially Kutúzov

for having failed to do so.