These men, carried away by their passions, were but blind tools of the

most melancholy law of necessity, but considered themselves heroes and

imagined that they were accomplishing a most noble and honorable

deed. They blamed Kutúzov and said that from the very beginning of the

campaign he had prevented their vanquishing Napoleon, that he thought of

nothing but satisfying his passions and would not advance from the Linen

Factories because he was comfortable there, that at Krásnoe he checked

the advance because on learning that Napoleon was there he had quite

lost his head, and that it was probable that he had an understanding

with Napoleon and had been bribed by him, and so on, and so on.

Not only did his contemporaries, carried away by their passions, talk

in this way, but posterity and history have acclaimed Napoleon as grand,

while Kutúzov is described by foreigners as a crafty, dissolute, weak

old courtier, and by Russians as something indefinite—a sort of puppet

useful only because he had a Russian name.

CHAPTER V

In 1812 and 1813 Kutúzov was openly accused of blundering. The Emperor

was dissatisfied with him. And in a history recently written by order

of the Highest Authorities it is said that Kutúzov was a cunning court

liar, frightened of the name of Napoleon, and that by his blunders at

Krásnoe and the Berëzina he deprived the Russian army of the glory of

complete victory over the French. *

* History of the year 1812. The character of Kutúzov and

reflections on the unsatisfactory results of the battles at

Krásnoe, by Bogdánovich.

Such is the fate not of great men (grands hommes) whom the Russian mind

does not acknowledge, but of those rare and always solitary individuals

who, discerning the will of Providence, submit their personal will to

it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd punish such men for discerning

the higher laws.

For Russian historians, strange and terrible to say, Napoleon—that most

insignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even in exile, showed

human dignity—Napoleon is the object of adulation and enthusiasm; he

is grand. But Kutúzov—the man who from the beginning to the end of his

activity in 1812, never once swerving by word or deed from Borodinó to

Vílna, presented an example exceptional in history of self-sacrifice

and a present consciousness of the future importance of what was

happening—Kutúzov seems to them something indefinite and pitiful, and

when speaking of him and of the year 1812 they always seem a little

ashamed.

And yet it is difficult to imagine an historical character whose

activity was so unswervingly directed to a single aim; and it would be

difficult to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant with the

will of the whole people. Still more difficult would it be to find

an instance in history of the aim of an historical personage being so

completely accomplished as that to which all Kutúzov’s efforts were

directed in 1812.

Kutúzov never talked of “forty centuries looking down from the

Pyramids,” of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of

what he intended to accomplish or had accomplished; in general he

said nothing about himself, adopted no pose, always appeared to be

the simplest and most ordinary of men, and said the simplest and most

ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de

Staël, read novels, liked the society of pretty women, jested with

generals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted those who tried

to prove anything to him. When Count Rostopchín at the Yaúza bridge

galloped up to Kutúzov with personal reproaches for having caused the

destruction of Moscow, and said: “How was it you promised not to abandon

Moscow without a battle?” Kutúzov replied: “And I shall not abandon

Moscow without a battle,” though Moscow was then already abandoned. When

Arakchéev, coming to him from the Emperor, said that Ermólov ought to

be appointed chief of the artillery, Kutúzov replied: “Yes, I was

just saying so myself,” though a moment before he had said quite the

contrary. What did it matter to him—who then alone amid a senseless

crowd understood the whole tremendous significance of what was

happening—what did it matter to him whether Rostopchín attributed the

calamities of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could it matter to

him who was appointed chief of the artillery.

Not merely in these cases but continually did that old man—who by

experience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts and the

words serving as their expression are not what move people—use quite

meaningless words that happened to enter his head.

But that man, so heedless of his words, did not once during the whole

time of his activity utter one word inconsistent with the single aim

toward which he moved throughout the whole war. Obviously in spite of

himself, in very diverse circumstances, he repeatedly expressed his real

thoughts with the bitter conviction that he would not be understood.

Beginning with the battle of Borodinó, from which time his disagreement

with those about him began, he alone said that the battle of Borodinó

was a victory, and repeated this both verbally and in his dispatches

and reports up to the time of his death. He alone said that the loss of

Moscow is not the loss of Russia. In reply to Lauriston’s proposal of

peace, he said: There can be no peace, for such is the people’s will. He

alone during the retreat of the French said that all our maneuvers are

useless, everything is being accomplished of itself better than we could

desire; that the enemy must be offered “a golden bridge”; that neither

the Tarútino, the Vyázma, nor the Krásnoe battles were necessary; that

we must keep some force to reach the frontier with, and that he would

not sacrifice a single Russian for ten Frenchmen.

And this courtier, as he is described to us, who lies to Arakchéev

to please the Emperor, he alone—incurring thereby the Emperor’s

displeasure—said in Vílna that to carry the war beyond the frontier is

useless and harmful.

Nor do words alone prove that only he understood the meaning of the

events. His actions—without the smallest deviation—were all directed

to one and the same threefold end: (1) to brace all his strength for

conflict with the French, (2) to defeat them, and (3) to drive them out

of Russia, minimizing as far as possible the sufferings of our people

and of our army.

This procrastinator Kutúzov, whose motto was “Patience and Time,”

this enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodinó, investing the

preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity. This Kutúzov who before

the battle of Austerlitz began said that it would be lost, he alone, in

contradiction to everyone else, declared till his death that Borodinó

was a victory, despite the assurance of generals that the battle was

lost and despite the fact that for an army to have to retire after

winning a battle was unprecedented. He alone during the whole retreat

insisted that battles, which were useless then, should not be fought,

and that a new war should not be begun nor the frontiers of Russia

crossed.

It is easy now to understand the significance of these events—if only we

abstain from attributing to the activity of the mass aims that existed

only in the heads of a dozen individuals—for the events and results now

lie before us.

But how did that old man, alone, in opposition to the general opinion,

so truly discern the importance of the people’s view of the events that

in all his activity he was never once untrue to it?

The source of that extraordinary power of penetrating the meaning of the

events then occuring lay in the national feeling which he possessed in

full purity and strength.

Only the recognition of the fact that he possessed this feeling caused

the people in so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsar’s wish, to

select him—an old man in disfavor—to be their representative in the

national war. And only that feeling placed him on that highest human

pedestal from which he, the commander in chief, devoted all his powers

not to slaying and destroying men but to saving and showing pity on

them.

That simple, modest, and therefore truly great, figure could not be

cast in the false mold of a European hero—the supposed ruler of men—that

history has invented.

To a lackey no man can be great, for a lackey has his own conception of

greatness.

CHAPTER VI

The fifth of November was the first day of what is called the battle of

Krásnoe. Toward evening—after much disputing and many mistakes made by

generals who did not go to their proper places, and after adjutants had

been sent about with counterorders—when it had become plain that the

enemy was everywhere in flight and that there could and would be no

battle, Kutúzov left Krásnoe and went to Dóbroe whither his headquarters

had that day been transferred.

The day was clear and frosty. Kutúzov rode to Dóbroe on his plump little

white horse, followed by an enormous suite of discontented generals who

whispered among themselves behind his back. All along the road groups of

French prisoners captured that day (there were seven thousand of them)

were crowding to warm themselves at campfires. Near Dóbroe an immense

crowd of tattered prisoners, buzzing with talk and wrapped and bandaged

in anything they had been able to get hold of, were standing in the road

beside a long row of unharnessed French guns. At the approach of the

commander in chief the buzz of talk ceased and all eyes were fixed on

Kutúzov who, wearing a white cap with a red band and a padded overcoat

that bulged on his round shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his

white horse. One of the generals was reporting to him where the guns and

prisoners had been captured.

Kutúzov seemed preoccupied and did not listen to what the general was

saying. He screwed up his eyes with a dissatisfied look as he gazed

attentively and fixedly at these prisoners, who presented a specially

wretched appearance. Most of them were disfigured by frost-bitten noses

and cheeks, and nearly all had red, swollen and festering eyes.

One group of the French stood close to the road, and two of them, one of

whom had his face covered with sores, were tearing a piece of raw

flesh with their hands. There was something horrible and bestial in

the fleeting glance they threw at the riders and in the malevolent

expression with which, after a glance at Kutúzov, the soldier with the

sores immediately turned away and went on with what he was doing.

Kutúzov looked long and intently at these two soldiers. He puckered his

face, screwed up his eyes, and pensively swayed his head. At another

spot he noticed a Russian soldier laughingly patting a Frenchman on the

shoulder, saying something to him in a friendly manner, and Kutúzov with

the same expression on his face again swayed his head.

“What were you saying?” he asked the general, who continuing his report

directed the commander in chief’s attention to some standards captured

from the French and standing in front of the Preobrazhénsk regiment.

“Ah, the standards!” said Kutúzov, evidently detaching himself with

difficulty from the thoughts that preoccupied him.

He looked about him absently. Thousands of eyes were looking at him from

all sides awaiting a word from him.

He stopped in front of the Preobrazhénsk regiment, sighed deeply, and

closed his eyes. One of his suite beckoned to the soldiers carrying

the standards to advance and surround the commander in chief with them.

Kutúzov was silent for a few seconds and then, submitting with evident

reluctance to the duty imposed by his position, raised his head

and began to speak. A throng of officers surrounded him. He looked

attentively around at the circle of officers, recognizing several of

them.

“I thank you all!” he said, addressing the soldiers and then again the

officers. In the stillness around him his slowly uttered words were

distinctly heard. “I thank you all for your hard and faithful service.

The victory is complete and Russia will not forget you! Honor to you

forever.”

He paused and looked around.

“Lower its head, lower it!” he said to a soldier who had accidentally

lowered the French eagle he was holding before the Preobrazhénsk

standards. “Lower, lower, that’s it. Hurrah lads!” he added, addressing

the men with a rapid movement of his chin.

“Hur-r-rah!” roared thousands of voices.

While the soldiers were shouting Kutúzov leaned forward in his saddle

and bowed his head, and his eye lit up with a mild and apparently ironic

gleam.

“You see, brothers...” said he when the shouts had ceased... and all at

once his voice and the expression of his face changed. It was no longer

the commander in chief speaking but an ordinary old man who wanted to

tell his comrades something very important.

There was a stir among the throng of officers and in the ranks of the

soldiers, who moved that they might hear better what he was going to

say.

“You see, brothers, I know it’s hard for you, but it can’t be helped!

Bear up; it won’t be for long now! We’ll see our visitors off and then

we’ll rest. The Tsar won’t forget your service. It is hard for you, but

still you are at home while they—you see what they have come to,” said

he, pointing to the prisoners. “Worse off than our poorest beggars.

While they were strong we didn’t spare ourselves, but now we may even

pity them. They are human beings too. Isn’t it so, lads?”

He looked around, and in the direct, respectful, wondering gaze fixed

upon him he read sympathy with what he had said. His face grew brighter

and brighter with an old man’s mild smile, which drew the corners of his

lips and eyes into a cluster of wrinkles. He ceased speaking and bowed

his head as if in perplexity.

“But after all who asked them here? Serves them right, the bloody

bastards!” he cried, suddenly lifting his head.

And flourishing his whip he rode off at a gallop for the first time

during the whole campaign, and left the broken ranks of the soldiers

laughing joyfully and shouting “Hurrah!”

Kutúzov’s words were hardly understood by the troops. No one could have

repeated the field marshal’s address, begun solemnly and then changing

into an old man’s simplehearted talk; but the hearty sincerity of that

speech, the feeling of majestic triumph combined with pity for the foe

and consciousness of the justice of our cause, exactly expressed by that

old man’s good-natured expletives, was not merely understood but lay

in the soul of every soldier and found expression in their joyous and

long-sustained shouts. Afterwards when one of the generals addressed

Kutúzov asking whether he wished his calèche to be sent for, Kutúzov in

answering unexpectedly gave a sob, being evidently greatly moved.

CHAPTER VII

When the troops reached their night’s halting place on the eighth of

November, the last day of the Krásnoe battles, it was already growing

dusk. All day it had been calm and frosty with occasional lightly

falling snow and toward evening it began to clear. Through the falling

snow a purple-black and starry sky showed itself and the frost grew

keener.

An infantry regiment which had left Tarútino three thousand strong but

now numbered only nine hundred was one of the first to arrive that night

at its halting place—a village on the highroad. The quartermasters who

met the regiment announced that all the huts were full of sick and dead

Frenchmen, cavalrymen, and members of the staff. There was only one hut

available for the regimental commander.

The commander rode up to his hut. The regiment passed through the

village and stacked its arms in front of the last huts.

Like some huge many-limbed animal, the regiment began to prepare its

lair and its food. One part of it dispersed and waded knee-deep

through the snow into a birch forest to the right of the village, and

immediately the sound of axes and swords, the crashing of branches,

and merry voices could be heard from there. Another section amid the

regimental wagons and horses which were standing in a group was busy

getting out caldrons and rye biscuit, and feeding the horses. A third

section scattered through the village arranging quarters for the staff

officers, carrying out the French corpses that were in the huts, and

dragging away boards, dry wood, and thatch from the roofs, for the

campfires, or wattle fences to serve for shelter.

Some fifteen men with merry shouts were shaking down the high wattle

wall of a shed, the roof of which had already been removed.

“Now then, all together—shove!” cried the voices, and the huge surface

of the wall, sprinkled with snow and creaking with frost, was seen

swaying in the gloom of the night. The lower stakes cracked more and

more and at last the wall fell, and with it the men who had been pushing

it. Loud, coarse laughter and joyous shouts ensued.

“Now then, catch hold in twos! Hand up the lever! That’s it.... Where

are you shoving to?”

“Now, all together! But wait a moment, boys... With a song!”

All stood silent, and a soft, pleasant velvety voice began to sing. At

the end of the third verse as the last note died away, twenty voices

roared out at once: “Oo-oo-oo-oo! That’s it. All together! Heave away,

boys!...” but despite their united efforts the wattle hardly moved, and

in the silence that followed the heavy breathing of the men was audible.

“Here, you of the Sixth Company! Devils that you are! Lend a hand...

will you? You may want us one of these days.”

Some twenty men of the Sixth Company who were on their way into the

village joined the haulers, and the wattle wall, which was about

thirty-five feet long and seven feet high, moved forward along the

village street, swaying, pressing upon and cutting the shoulders of the

gasping men.

“Get along... Falling? What are you stopping for? There now....”

Merry senseless words of abuse flowed freely.

“What are you up to?” suddenly came the authoritative voice of a

sergeant major who came upon the men who were hauling their burden.

“There are gentry here; the general himself is in that hut, and you

foul-mouthed devils, you brutes, I’ll give it to you!” shouted he,

hitting the first man who came in his way a swinging blow on the back.

“Can’t you make less noise?”

The men became silent. The soldier who had been struck groaned and wiped

his face, which had been scratched till it bled by his falling against

the wattle.

“There, how that devil hits out! He’s made my face all bloody,” said he

in a frightened whisper when the sergeant major had passed on.

“Don’t you like it?” said a laughing voice, and moderating their tones

the men moved forward.

When they were out of the village they began talking again as loud as

before, interlarding their talk with the same aimless expletives.

In the hut which the men had passed, the chief officers had gathered and

were in animated talk over their tea about the events of the day and the

maneuvers suggested for tomorrow. It was proposed to make a flank march

to the left, cut off the Vice-King (Murat) and capture him.

By the time the soldiers had dragged the wattle fence to its place

the campfires were blazing on all sides ready for cooking, the wood

crackled, the snow was melting, and black shadows of soldiers flitted

to and fro all over the occupied space where the snow had been trodden

down.

Axes and choppers were plied all around. Everything was done without any

orders being given. Stores of wood were brought for the night, shelters

were rigged up for the officers, caldrons were being boiled, and muskets

and accouterments put in order.

The wattle wall the men had brought was set up in a semicircle by the

Eighth Company as a shelter from the north, propped up by musket rests,

and a campfire was built before it. They beat the tattoo, called the

roll, had supper, and settled down round the fires for the night—some

repairing their footgear, some smoking pipes, and some stripping

themselves naked to steam the lice out of their shirts.

CHAPTER VIII

One would have thought that under the almost incredibly wretched

conditions the Russian soldiers were in at that time—lacking warm boots

and sheepskin coats, without a roof over their heads, in the snow

with eighteen degrees of frost, and without even full rations (the

commissariat did not always keep up with the troops)—they would have

presented a very sad and depressing spectacle.

On the contrary, the army had never under the best material conditions

presented a more cheerful and animated aspect. This was because all who

began to grow depressed or who lost strength were sifted out of the army

day by day. All the physically or morally weak had long since been left

behind and only the flower of the army—physically and mentally—remained.

More men collected behind the wattle fence of the Eighth Company than

anywhere else. Two sergeants major were sitting with them and their

campfire blazed brighter than others. For leave to sit by their wattle

they demanded contributions of fuel.

“Eh, Makéev! What has become of you, you son of a bitch? Are you lost or

have the wolves eaten you? Fetch some more wood!” shouted a red-haired

and red-faced man, screwing up his eyes and blinking because of the

smoke but not moving back from the fire. “And you, Jackdaw, go and fetch

some wood!” said he to another soldier.

This red-haired man was neither a sergeant nor a corporal, but being

robust he ordered about those weaker than himself. The soldier

they called “Jackdaw,” a thin little fellow with a sharp nose, rose

obediently and was about to go but at that instant there came into

the light of the fire the slender, handsome figure of a young soldier

carrying a load of wood.

“Bring it here—that’s fine!”

They split up the wood, pressed it down on the fire, blew at it with

their mouths, and fanned it with the skirts of their greatcoats, making

the flames hiss and crackle. The men drew nearer and lit their pipes.

The handsome young soldier who had brought the wood, setting his arms

akimbo, began stamping his cold feet rapidly and deftly on the spot

where he stood.

“Mother! The dew is cold but clear.... It’s well that I’m a

musketeer...” he sang, pretending to hiccough after each syllable.

“Look out, your soles will fly off!” shouted the red-haired man,

noticing that the sole of the dancer’s boot was hanging loose. “What a

fellow you are for dancing!”

The dancer stopped, pulled off the loose piece of leather, and threw it

on the fire.

“Right enough, friend,” said he, and, having sat down, took out of his

knapsack a scrap of blue French cloth, and wrapped it round his foot.

“It’s the steam that spoils them,” he added, stretching out his feet

toward the fire.

“They’ll soon be issuing us new ones. They say that when we’ve finished

hammering them, we’re to receive double kits!”

“And that son of a bitch Petróv has lagged behind after all, it seems,”

said one sergeant major.

“I’ve had an eye on him this long while,” said the other.

“Well, he’s a poor sort of soldier....”

“But in the Third Company they say nine men were missing yesterday.”

“Yes, it’s all very well, but when a man’s feet are frozen how can he

walk?”

“Eh? Don’t talk nonsense!” said a sergeant major.

“Do you want to be doing the same?” said an old soldier, turning

reproachfully to the man who had spoken of frozen feet.

“Well, you know,” said the sharp-nosed man they called Jackdaw in a

squeaky and unsteady voice, raising himself at the other side of the

fire, “a plump man gets thin, but for a thin one it’s death. Take

me, now! I’ve got no strength left,” he added, with sudden resolution

turning to the sergeant major. “Tell them to send me to hospital; I’m

aching all over; anyway I shan’t be able to keep up.”

“That’ll do, that’ll do!” replied the sergeant major quietly.

The soldier said no more and the talk went on.

“What a lot of those Frenchies were taken today, and the fact is that

not one of them had what you might call real boots on,” said a soldier,

starting a new theme. “They were no more than make-believes.”

“The Cossacks have taken their boots. They were clearing the hut for the

colonel and carried them out. It was pitiful to see them, boys,” put in

the dancer. “As they turned them over one seemed still alive and, would

you believe it, he jabbered something in their lingo.”

“But they’re a clean folk, lads,” the first man went on; “he was

white—as white as birchbark—and some of them are such fine fellows, you

might think they were nobles.”

“Well, what do you think? They make soldiers of all classes there.”

“But they don’t understand our talk at all,” said the dancer with a

puzzled smile. “I asked him whose subject he was, and he jabbered in his

own way. A queer lot!”

“But it’s strange, friends,” continued the man who had wondered at their

whiteness, “the peasants at Mozháysk were saying that when they began

burying the dead—where the battle was you know—well, those dead had been

lying there for nearly a month, and says the peasant, ‘they lie as white

as paper, clean, and not as much smell as a puff of powder smoke.’”

“Was it from the cold?” asked someone.

“You’re a clever fellow! From the cold indeed! Why, it was hot. If it

had been from the cold, ours would not have rotted either. ‘But,’ he

says, ‘go up to ours and they are all rotten and maggoty. So,’ he says,

‘we tie our faces up with kerchiefs and turn our heads away as we drag

them off: we can hardly do it. But theirs,’ he says, ‘are white as paper

and not so much smell as a whiff of gunpowder.’”

All were silent.

“It must be from their food,” said the sergeant major. “They used to

gobble the same food as the gentry.”

No one contradicted him.

“That peasant near Mozháysk where the battle was said the men were all

called up from ten villages around and they carted for twenty days and

still didn’t finish carting the dead away. And as for the wolves, he

says...”

“That was a real battle,” said an old soldier. “It’s the only one worth

remembering; but since that... it’s only been tormenting folk.”

“And do you know, Daddy, the day before yesterday we ran at them and,

my word, they didn’t let us get near before they just threw down their

muskets and went on their knees. ‘Pardon!’ they say. That’s only one

case. They say Plátov took ‘Poleon himself twice. But he didn’t know

the right charm. He catches him and catches him—no good! He turns into

a bird in his hands and flies away. And there’s no way of killing him

either.”

“You’re a first-class liar, Kiselëv, when I come to look at you!”

“Liar, indeed! It’s the real truth.”

“If he fell into my hands, when I’d caught him I’d bury him in the

ground with an aspen stake to fix him down. What a lot of men he’s

ruined!”

“Well, anyhow we’re going to end it. He won’t come here again,” remarked

the old soldier, yawning.

The conversation flagged, and the soldiers began settling down to sleep.

“Look at the stars. It’s wonderful how they shine! You would think the

women had spread out their linen,” said one of the men, gazing with

admiration at the Milky Way.

“That’s a sign of a good harvest next year.”

“We shall want some more wood.”

“You warm your back and your belly gets frozen. That’s queer.”

“O Lord!”

“What are you pushing for? Is the fire only for you? Look how he’s

sprawling!”

In the silence that ensued, the snoring of those who had fallen asleep

could be heard. Others turned over and warmed themselves, now and again

exchanging a few words. From a campfire a hundred paces off came a sound

of general, merry laughter.

“Hark at them roaring there in the Fifth Company!” said one of the

soldiers, “and what a lot of them there are!”

One of the men got up and went over to the Fifth Company.

“They’re having such fun,” said he, coming back. “Two Frenchies have

turned up. One’s quite frozen and the other’s an awful swaggerer. He’s

singing songs....”

“Oh, I’ll go across and have a look....”

And several of the men went over to the Fifth Company.

CHAPTER IX

The Fifth company was bivouacking at the very edge of the forest. A huge

campfire was blazing brightly in the midst of the snow, lighting up the

branches of trees heavy with hoarfrost.

About midnight they heard the sound of steps in the snow of the forest,

and the crackling of dry branches.

“A bear, lads,” said one of the men.

They all raised their heads to listen, and out of the forest into the

bright firelight stepped two strangely clad human figures clinging to

one another.

These were two Frenchmen who had been hiding in the forest. They came up

to the fire, hoarsely uttering something in a language our soldiers did

not understand. One was taller than the other; he wore an officer’s hat

and seemed quite exhausted. On approaching the fire he had been going to

sit down, but fell. The other, a short sturdy soldier with a shawl

tied round his head, was stronger. He raised his companion and said

something, pointing to his mouth. The soldiers surrounded the Frenchmen,

spread a greatcoat on the ground for the sick man, and brought some

buckwheat porridge and vodka for both of them.

The exhausted French officer was Ramballe and the man with his head

wrapped in the shawl was Morel, his orderly.

When Morel had drunk some vodka and finished his bowl of porridge he

suddenly became unnaturally merry and chattered incessantly to the

soldiers, who could not understand him. Ramballe refused food and

resting his head on his elbow lay silent beside the campfire, looking at

the Russian soldiers with red and vacant eyes. Occasionally he emitted

a long-drawn groan and then again became silent. Morel, pointing to his

shoulders, tried to impress on the soldiers the fact that Ramballe was

an officer and ought to be warmed. A Russian officer who had come up

to the fire sent to ask his colonel whether he would not take a French

officer into his hut to warm him, and when the messenger returned and

said that the colonel wished the officer to be brought to him, Ramballe

was told to go. He rose and tried to walk, but staggered and would have

fallen had not a soldier standing by held him up.

“You won’t do it again, eh?” said one of the soldiers, winking and

turning mockingly to Ramballe.

“Oh, you fool! Why talk rubbish, lout that you are—a real peasant!” came

rebukes from all sides addressed to the jesting soldier.

They surrounded Ramballe, lifted him on the crossed arms of two

soldiers, and carried him to the hut. Ramballe put his arms around their

necks while they carried him and began wailing plaintively:

“Oh, you fine fellows, my kind, kind friends! These are men! Oh, my

brave, kind friends,” and he leaned his head against the shoulder of one

of the men like a child.

Meanwhile Morel was sitting in the best place by the fire, surrounded by

the soldiers.

Morel, a short sturdy Frenchman with inflamed and streaming eyes, was

wearing a woman’s cloak and had a shawl tied woman fashion round his

head over his cap. He was evidently tipsy, and was singing a French song

in a hoarse broken voice, with an arm thrown round the nearest soldier.

The soldiers simply held their sides as they watched him.

“Now then, now then, teach us how it goes! I’ll soon pick it up. How is

it?” said the man—a singer and a wag—whom Morel was embracing.

“Vive Henri Quatre! Vive ce roi valiant!” sang Morel, winking. “Ce

diable à quatre...” *

* “Long live Henry the Fourth, that valiant king! That rowdy

devil.”

“Vivarika! Vif-seruvaru! Sedyablyaka!” repeated the soldier, flourishing

his arm and really catching the tune.

“Bravo! Ha, ha, ha!” rose their rough, joyous laughter from all sides.

Morel, wrinkling up his face, laughed too.

“Well, go on, go on!”

“Qui eut le triple talent,

De boire, de battre,

Et d’être un vert galant.” *

* Who had a triple talent

For drinking, for fighting,

And for being a gallant old boy...

“It goes smoothly, too. Well, now, Zaletáev!”

“Ke...” Zaletáev, brought out with effort: “ke-e-e-e,” he drawled,

laboriously pursing his lips, “le-trip-ta-la-de-bu-de-ba, e

de-tra-va-ga-la” he sang.

“Fine! Just like the Frenchie! Oh, ho ho! Do you want some more to eat?”

“Give him some porridge: it takes a long time to get filled up after

starving.”

They gave him some more porridge and Morel with a laugh set to work on

his third bowl. All the young soldiers smiled gaily as they watched him.

The older men, who thought it undignified to amuse themselves with such

nonsense, continued to lie at the opposite side of the fire, but one

would occasionally raise himself on an elbow and glance at Morel with a

smile.

“They are men too,” said one of them as he wrapped himself up in his

coat. “Even wormwood grows on its own root.”

“O Lord, O Lord! How starry it is! Tremendous! That means a hard

frost....”

They all grew silent. The stars, as if knowing that no one was looking

at them, began to disport themselves in the dark sky: now flaring

up, now vanishing, now trembling, they were busy whispering something

gladsome and mysterious to one another.

CHAPTER X

The French army melted away at the uniform rate of a mathematical

progression; and that crossing of the Berëzina about which so much has

been written was only one intermediate stage in its destruction, and

not at all the decisive episode of the campaign. If so much has been

and still is written about the Berëzina, on the French side this is only

because at the broken bridge across that river the calamities their army

had been previously enduring were suddenly concentrated at one moment

into a tragic spectacle that remained in every memory, and on the

Russian side merely because in Petersburg—far from the seat of war—a

plan (again one of Pfuel’s) had been devised to catch Napoleon in a

strategic trap at the Berëzina River. Everyone assured himself that all

would happen according to plan, and therefore insisted that it was just

the crossing of the Berëzina that destroyed the French army. In reality

the results of the crossing were much less disastrous to the French—in

guns and men lost—than Krásnoe had been, as the figures show.

The sole importance of the crossing of the Berëzina lies in the fact

that it plainly and indubitably proved the fallacy of all the plans for

cutting off the enemy’s retreat and the soundness of the only possible

line of action—the one Kutúzov and the general mass of the army

demanded—namely, simply to follow the enemy up. The French crowd fled

at a continually increasing speed and all its energy was directed to

reaching its goal. It fled like a wounded animal and it was impossible

to block its path. This was shown not so much by the arrangements it

made for crossing as by what took place at the bridges. When the bridges

broke down, unarmed soldiers, people from Moscow and women with

children who were with the French transport, all—carried on by vis

inertiæ—pressed forward into boats and into the ice-covered water and

did not surrender.

That impulse was reasonable. The condition of fugitives and of pursuers

was equally bad. As long as they remained with their own people each

might hope for help from his fellows and the definite place he held

among them. But those who surrendered, while remaining in the same

pitiful plight, would be on a lower level to claim a share in the

necessities of life. The French did not need to be informed of the fact

that half the prisoners—with whom the Russians did not know what to

do—perished of cold and hunger despite their captors’ desire to save

them; they felt that it could not be otherwise. The most compassionate

Russian commanders, those favorable to the French—and even the Frenchmen

in the Russian service—could do nothing for the prisoners. The French

perished from the conditions to which the Russian army was itself

exposed. It was impossible to take bread and clothes from our hungry and

indispensable soldiers to give to the French who, though not harmful, or

hated, or guilty, were simply unnecessary. Some Russians even did that,

but they were exceptions.

Certain destruction lay behind the French but in front there was hope.

Their ships had been burned, there was no salvation save in collective

flight, and on that the whole strength of the French was concentrated.

The farther they fled the more wretched became the plight of the

remnant, especially after the Berëzina, on which (in consequence of the

Petersburg plan) special hopes had been placed by the Russians, and

the keener grew the passions of the Russian commanders, who blamed one

another and Kutúzov most of all. Anticipation that the failure of

the Petersburg Berëzina plan would be attributed to Kutúzov led

to dissatisfaction, contempt, and ridicule, more and more strongly

expressed. The ridicule and contempt were of course expressed in a

respectful form, making it impossible for him to ask wherein he was

to blame. They did not talk seriously to him; when reporting to him or

asking for his sanction they appeared to be fulfilling a regrettable

formality, but they winked behind his back and tried to mislead him at

every turn.

Because they could not understand him all these people assumed that

it was useless to talk to the old man; that he would never grasp the

profundity of their plans, that he would answer with his phrases (which

they thought were mere phrases) about a “golden bridge,” about the

impossibility of crossing the frontier with a crowd of tatterdemalions,

and so forth. They had heard all that before. And all he said—that it

was necessary to await provisions, or that the men had no boots—was so

simple, while what they proposed was so complicated and clever, that

it was evident that he was old and stupid and that they, though not in

power, were commanders of genius.

After the junction with the army of the brilliant admiral and Petersburg

hero Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff reached their

maximum. Kutúzov saw this and merely sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

Only once, after the affair of the Berëzina, did he get angry and write

to Bennigsen (who reported separately to the Emperor) the following

letter:

“On account of your spells of ill health, will your excellency please

be so good as to set off for Kalúga on receipt of this, and there await

further commands and appointments from His Imperial Majesty.”

But after Bennigsen’s departure, the Grand Duke Tsarévich Constantine

Pávlovich joined the army. He had taken part in the beginning of the

campaign but had subsequently been removed from the army by Kutúzov.

Now having come to the army, he informed Kutúzov of the Emperor’s

displeasure at the poor success of our forces and the slowness of their

advance. The Emperor intended to join the army personally in a few days’

time.

The old man, experienced in court as well as in military affairs—this

same Kutúzov who in August had been chosen commander in chief

against the sovereign’s wishes and who had removed the Grand Duke and

heir-apparent from the army—who on his own authority and contrary to the

Emperor’s will had decided on the abandonment of Moscow, now realized at

once that his day was over, that his part was played, and that the power

he was supposed to hold was no longer his. And he understood this not

merely from the attitude of the court. He saw on the one hand that the

military business in which he had played his part was ended and felt

that his mission was accomplished; and at the same time he began to

be conscious of the physical weariness of his aged body and of the

necessity of physical rest.

On the twenty-ninth of November Kutúzov entered Vílna—his “dear Vílna”

as he called it. Twice during his career Kutúzov had been governor of

Vílna. In that wealthy town, which had not been injured, he found old

friends and associations, besides the comforts of life of which he had

so long been deprived. And he suddenly turned from the cares of army

and state and, as far as the passions that seethed around him allowed,

immersed himself in the quiet life to which he had formerly been

accustomed, as if all that was taking place and all that had still to be

done in the realm of history did not concern him at all.

Chichagóv, one of the most zealous “cutters-off” and “breakers-up,” who

had first wanted to effect a diversion in Greece and then in Warsaw but

never wished to go where he was sent: Chichagóv, noted for the boldness

with which he spoke to the Emperor, and who considered Kutúzov to be

under an obligation to him because when he was sent to make peace

with Turkey in 1811 independently of Kutúzov, and found that peace had

already been concluded, he admitted to the Emperor that the merit of

securing that peace was really Kutúzov’s; this Chichagóv was the first

to meet Kutúzov at the castle where the latter was to stay. In undress

naval uniform, with a dirk, and holding his cap under his arm, he handed

Kutúzov a garrison report and the keys of the town. The contemptuously

respectful attitude of the younger men to the old man in his dotage was

expressed in the highest degree by the behavior of Chichagóv, who knew

of the accusations that were being directed against Kutúzov.

When speaking to Chichagóv, Kutúzov incidentally mentioned that the

vehicles packed with china that had been captured from him at Borísov

had been recovered and would be restored to him.

“You mean to imply that I have nothing to eat out of.... On the

contrary, I can supply you with everything even if you want to give

dinner parties,” warmly replied Chichagóv, who tried by every word he

spoke to prove his own rectitude and therefore imagined Kutúzov to be

animated by the same desire.

Kutúzov, shrugging his shoulders, replied with his subtle penetrating

smile: “I meant merely to say what I said.”

Contrary to the Emperor’s wish Kutúzov detained the greater part of the

army at Vílna. Those about him said that he became extraordinarily slack

and physically feeble during his stay in that town. He attended to army

affairs reluctantly, left everything to his generals, and while awaiting

the Emperor’s arrival led a dissipated life.

Having left Petersburg on the seventh of December with his suite—Count

Tolstóy, Prince Volkónski, Arakchéev, and others—the Emperor reached

Vílna on the eleventh, and in his traveling sleigh drove straight to

the castle. In spite of the severe frost some hundred generals and staff

officers in full parade uniform stood in front of the castle, as well as

a guard of honor of the Semënov regiment.

A courier who galloped to the castle in advance, in a troyka with three

foam-flecked horses, shouted “Coming!” and Konovnítsyn rushed into the

vestibule to inform Kutúzov, who was waiting in the hall porter’s little

lodge.

A minute later the old man’s large stout figure in full-dress uniform,

his chest covered with orders and a scarf drawn round his stomach,

waddled out into the porch. He put on his hat with its peaks to the

sides and, holding his gloves in his hand and walking with an effort

sideways down the steps to the level of the street, took in his hand the

report he had prepared for the Emperor.

There was running to and fro and whispering; another troyka flew

furiously up, and then all eyes were turned on an approaching sleigh

in which the figures of the Emperor and Volkónski could already be

descried.

From the habit of fifty years all this had a physically agitating effect

on the old general. He carefully and hastily felt himself all over,

readjusted his hat, and pulling himself together drew himself up and,

at the very moment when the Emperor, having alighted from the sleigh,

lifted his eyes to him, handed him the report and began speaking in his

smooth, ingratiating voice.

The Emperor with a rapid glance scanned Kutúzov from head to foot,

frowned for an instant, but immediately mastering himself went up to the

old man, extended his arms and embraced him. And this embrace too, owing

to a long-standing impression related to his innermost feelings, had its

usual effect on Kutúzov and he gave a sob.

The Emperor greeted the officers and the Semënov guard, and again

pressing the old man’s hand went with him into the castle.

When alone with the field marshal the Emperor expressed his

dissatisfaction at the slowness of the pursuit and at the mistakes made

at Krásnoe and the Berëzina, and informed him of his intentions for a

future campaign abroad. Kutúzov made no rejoinder or remark. The same

submissive, expressionless look with which he had listened to the

Emperor’s commands on the field of Austerlitz seven years before settled

on his face now.

When Kutúzov came out of the study and with lowered head was crossing

the ballroom with his heavy waddling gait, he was arrested by someone’s

voice saying:

“Your Serene Highness!”

Kutúzov raised his head and looked for a long while into the eyes of

Count Tolstóy, who stood before him holding a silver salver on which lay

a small object. Kutúzov seemed not to understand what was expected of

him.

Suddenly he seemed to remember; a scarcely perceptible smile flashed

across his puffy face, and bowing low and respectfully he took the

object that lay on the salver. It was the Order of St. George of the

First Class.

CHAPTER XI

Next day the field marshal gave a dinner and ball which the Emperor

honored by his presence. Kutúzov had received the Order of St. George

of the First Class and the Emperor showed him the highest honors, but

everyone knew of the imperial dissatisfaction with him. The proprieties

were observed and the Emperor was the first to set that example,

but everybody understood that the old man was blameworthy and

good-for-nothing. When Kutúzov, conforming to a custom of Catherine’s

day, ordered the standards that had been captured to be lowered at the

Emperor’s feet on his entering the ballroom, the Emperor made a wry face

and muttered something in which some people caught the words, “the old

comedian.”

The Emperor’s displeasure with Kutúzov was specially increased at Vílna

by the fact that Kutúzov evidently could not or would not understand the

importance of the coming campaign.

When on the following morning the Emperor said to the officers assembled

about him: “You have not only saved Russia, you have saved Europe!” they

all understood that the war was not ended.

Kutúzov alone would not see this and openly expressed his opinion that

no fresh war could improve the position or add to the glory of Russia,

but could only spoil and lower the glorious position that Russia had

gained. He tried to prove to the Emperor the impossibility of levying

fresh troops, spoke of the hardships already endured by the people, of

the possibility of failure and so forth.

This being the field marshal’s frame of mind he was naturally regarded

as merely a hindrance and obstacle to the impending war.

To avoid unpleasant encounters with the old man, the natural method was

to do what had been done with him at Austerlitz and with Barclay at

the beginning of the Russian campaign—to transfer the authority to the

Emperor himself, thus cutting the ground from under the commander in

chief’s feet without upsetting the old man by informing him of the

change.

With this object his staff was gradually reconstructed and its real

strength removed and transferred to the Emperor. Toll, Konovnítsyn, and

Ermólov received fresh appointments. Everyone spoke loudly of the field

marshal’s great weakness and failing health.

His health had to be bad for his place to be taken away and given to

another. And in fact his health was poor.

So naturally, simply, and gradually—just as he had come from Turkey to

the Treasury in Petersburg to recruit the militia, and then to the army

when he was needed there—now when his part was played out, Kutúzov’s

place was taken by a new and necessary performer.

The war of 1812, besides its national significance dear to every Russian

heart, was now to assume another, a European, significance.

The movement of peoples from west to east was to be succeeded by a

movement of peoples from east to west, and for this fresh war another

leader was necessary, having qualities and views differing from

Kutúzov’s and animated by different motives.

Alexander I was as necessary for the movement of the peoples from east

to west and for the refixing of national frontiers as Kutúzov had been

for the salvation and glory of Russia.

Kutúzov did not understand what Europe, the balance of power, or

Napoleon meant. He could not understand it. For the representative of

the Russian people, after the enemy had been destroyed and Russia had

been liberated and raised to the summit of her glory, there was nothing

left to do as a Russian. Nothing remained for the representative of the

national war but to die, and Kutúzov died.

CHAPTER XII

As generally happens, Pierre did not feel the full effects of the

physical privation and strain he had suffered as prisoner until after

they were over. After his liberation he reached Orël, and on the third

day there, when preparing to go to Kiev, he fell ill and was laid up

for three months. He had what the doctors termed “bilious fever.” But

despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him, and gave him

medicines to drink, he recovered.

Scarcely any impression was left on Pierre’s mind by all that happened

to him from the time of his rescue till his illness. He remembered

only the dull gray weather now rainy and now snowy, internal physical

distress, and pains in his feet and side. He remembered a general

impression of the misfortunes and sufferings of people and of being

worried by the curiosity of officers and generals who questioned him, he

also remembered his difficulty in procuring a conveyance and horses, and

above all he remembered his incapacity to think and feel all that time.

On the day of his rescue he had seen the body of Pétya Rostóv. That same

day he had learned that Prince Andrew, after surviving the battle of

Borodinó for more than a month had recently died in the Rostóvs’ house

at Yaroslávl, and Denísov who told him this news also mentioned Hélène’s

death, supposing that Pierre had heard of it long before. All this at

the time seemed merely strange to Pierre: he felt he could not grasp its

significance. Just then he was only anxious to get away as quickly as

possible from places where people were killing one another, to some

peaceful refuge where he could recover himself, rest, and think over

all the strange new facts he had learned; but on reaching Orël he

immediately fell ill. When he came to himself after his illness he saw

in attendance on him two of his servants, Terénty and Váska, who had

come from Moscow; and also his cousin the eldest princess, who had been

living on his estate at Eléts and hearing of his rescue and illness had

come to look after him.

It was only gradually during his convalescence that Pierre lost the

impressions he had become accustomed to during the last few months

and got used to the idea that no one would oblige him to go anywhere

tomorrow, that no one would deprive him of his warm bed, and that he

would be sure to get his dinner, tea, and supper. But for a long time in

his dreams he still saw himself in the conditions of captivity. In the

same way little by little he came to understand the news he had been

told after his rescue, about the death of Prince Andrew, the death of

his wife, and the destruction of the French.

A joyous feeling of freedom—that complete inalienable freedom natural

to man which he had first experienced at the first halt outside

Moscow—filled Pierre’s soul during his convalescence. He was surprised

to find that this inner freedom, which was independent of external

conditions, now had as it were an additional setting of external

liberty. He was alone in a strange town, without acquaintances. No one

demanded anything of him or sent him anywhere. He had all he wanted:

the thought of his wife which had been a continual torment to him was no

longer there, since she was no more.

“Oh, how good! How splendid!” said he to himself when a cleanly laid

table was moved up to him with savory beef tea, or when he lay down for

the night on a soft clean bed, or when he remembered that the French had

gone and that his wife was no more. “Oh, how good, how splendid!”

And by old habit he asked himself the question: “Well, and what then?

What am I going to do?” And he immediately gave himself the answer:

“Well, I shall live. Ah, how splendid!”

The very question that had formerly tormented him, the thing he had

continually sought to find—the aim of life—no longer existed for

him now. That search for the aim of life had not merely disappeared

temporarily—he felt that it no longer existed for him and could not

present itself again. And this very absence of an aim gave him the

complete, joyous sense of freedom which constituted his happiness at

this time.

He could not see an aim, for he now had faith—not faith in any kind of

rule, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest

God. Formerly he had sought Him in aims he set himself. That search for

an aim had been simply a search for God, and suddenly in his captivity

he had learned not by words or reasoning but by direct feeling what his

nurse had told him long ago: that God is here and everywhere. In his

captivity he had learned that in Karatáev God was greater, more infinite

and unfathomable than in the Architect of the Universe recognized by the

Freemasons. He felt like a man who after straining his eyes to see into

the far distance finds what he sought at his very feet. All his life

he had looked over the heads of the men around him, when he should have

merely looked in front of him without straining his eyes.

In the past he had never been able to find that great inscrutable

infinite something. He had only felt that it must exist somewhere and

had looked for it. In everything near and comprehensible he had seen

only what was limited, petty, commonplace, and senseless. He had

equipped himself with a mental telescope and looked into remote space,

where petty worldliness hiding itself in misty distance had seemed to

him great and infinite merely because it was not clearly seen. And such

had European life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, and philanthropy

seemed to him. But even then, at moments of weakness as he had accounted

them, his mind had penetrated to those distances and he had there seen

the same pettiness, worldliness, and senselessness. Now, however, he

had learned to see the great, eternal, and infinite in everything, and

therefore—to see it and enjoy its contemplation—he naturally threw away

the telescope through which he had till now gazed over men’s heads, and

gladly regarded the ever-changing, eternally great, unfathomable, and

infinite life around him. And the closer he looked the more tranquil and

happy he became. That dreadful question, “What for?” which had formerly

destroyed all his mental edifices, no longer existed for him. To that

question, “What for?” a simple answer was now always ready in his soul:

“Because there is a God, that God without whose will not one hair falls

from a man’s head.”

CHAPTER XIII

In external ways Pierre had hardly changed at all. In appearance he

was just what he used to be. As before he was absent-minded and seemed

occupied not with what was before his eyes but with something special

of his own. The difference between his former and present self was that

formerly when he did not grasp what lay before him or was said to

him, he had puckered his forehead painfully as if vainly seeking to

distinguish something at a distance. At present he still forgot what was

said to him and still did not see what was before his eyes, but he now

looked with a scarcely perceptible and seemingly ironic smile at what

was before him and listened to what was said, though evidently seeing

and hearing something quite different. Formerly he had appeared to be

a kindhearted but unhappy man, and so people had been inclined to avoid

him. Now a smile at the joy of life always played round his lips, and

sympathy for others shone in his eyes with a questioning look as to

whether they were as contented as he was, and people felt pleased by his

presence.

Previously he had talked a great deal, grew excited when he talked, and

seldom listened; now he was seldom carried away in conversation and

knew how to listen so that people readily told him their most intimate

secrets.

The princess, who had never liked Pierre and had been particularly

hostile to him since she had felt herself under obligations to him after

the old count’s death, now after staying a short time in Orël—where she

had come intending to show Pierre that in spite of his ingratitude she

considered it her duty to nurse him—felt to her surprise and vexation

that she had become fond of him. Pierre did not in any way seek her

approval, he merely studied her with interest. Formerly she had felt

that he regarded her with indifference and irony, and so had shrunk into

herself as she did with others and had shown him only the combative side

of her nature; but now he seemed to be trying to understand the most

intimate places of her heart, and, mistrustfully at first but afterwards

gratefully, she let him see the hidden, kindly sides of her character.

The most cunning man could not have crept into her confidence more

successfully, evoking memories of the best times of her youth and

showing sympathy with them. Yet Pierre’s cunning consisted simply in

finding pleasure in drawing out the human qualities of the embittered,

hard, and (in her own way) proud princess.

“Yes, he is a very, very kind man when he is not under the influence of

bad people but of people such as myself,” thought she.

His servants too—Terénty and Váska—in their own way noticed the change

that had taken place in Pierre. They considered that he had become much

“simpler.” Terénty, when he had helped him undress and wished him good

night, often lingered with his master’s boots in his hands and clothes

over his arm, to see whether he would not start a talk. And Pierre,

noticing that Terénty wanted a chat, generally kept him there.

“Well, tell me... now, how did you get food?” he would ask.

And Terénty would begin talking of the destruction of Moscow, and of

the old count, and would stand for a long time holding the clothes and

talking, or sometimes listening to Pierre’s stories, and then would go

out into the hall with a pleasant sense of intimacy with his master and

affection for him.

The doctor who attended Pierre and visited him every day, though he

considered it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man whose every moment

was of value to suffering humanity, would sit for hours with Pierre

telling him his favorite anecdotes and his observations on the

characters of his patients in general, and especially of the ladies.

“It’s a pleasure to talk to a man like that; he is not like our

provincials,” he would say.

There were several prisoners from the French army in Orël, and the

doctor brought one of them, a young Italian, to see Pierre.

This officer began visiting Pierre, and the princess used to make fun of

the tenderness the Italian expressed for him.

The Italian seemed happy only when he could come to see Pierre, talk

with him, tell him about his past, his life at home, and his love,

and pour out to him his indignation against the French and especially

against Napoleon.

“If all Russians are in the least like you, it is sacrilege to fight

such a nation,” he said to Pierre. “You, who have suffered so from the

French, do not even feel animosity toward them.”

Pierre had evoked the passionate affection of the Italian merely by

evoking the best side of his nature and taking a pleasure in so doing.

During the last days of Pierre’s stay in Orël his old Masonic

acquaintance Count Willarski, who had introduced him to the lodge in

1807, came to see him. Willarski was married to a Russian heiress who

had a large estate in Orël province, and he occupied a temporary post in

the commissariat department in that town.

Hearing that Bezúkhov was in Orël, Willarski, though they had never been

intimate, came to him with the professions of friendship and intimacy

that people who meet in a desert generally express for one another.

Willarski felt dull in Orël and was pleased to meet a man of his own

circle and, as he supposed, of similar interests.

But to his surprise Willarski soon noticed that Pierre had lagged much

behind the times, and had sunk, as he expressed it to himself, into

apathy and egotism.

“You are letting yourself go, my dear fellow,” he said.

But for all that Willarski found it pleasanter now than it had been

formerly to be with Pierre, and came to see him every day. To Pierre as

he looked at and listened to Willarski, it seemed strange to think that

he had been like that himself but a short time before.

Willarski was a married man with a family, busy with his family affairs,

his wife’s affairs, and his official duties. He regarded all these

occupations as hindrances to life, and considered that they were all

contemptible because their aim was the welfare of himself and his

family. Military, administrative, political, and Masonic interests

continually absorbed his attention. And Pierre, without trying to

change the other’s views and without condemning him, but with the quiet,

joyful, and amused smile now habitual to him, was interested in this

strange though very familiar phenomenon.

There was a new feature in Pierre’s relations with Willarski, with the

princess, with the doctor, and with all the people he now met, which

gained for him the general good will. This was his acknowledgment of

the impossibility of changing a man’s convictions by words, and his

recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing

things each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of

each individual which used to excite and irritate Pierre now became a

basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he took in, other

people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between

men’s opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased

him and drew from him an amused and gentle smile.

In practical matters Pierre unexpectedly felt within himself a center

of gravity he had previously lacked. Formerly all pecuniary questions,

especially requests for money to which, as an extremely wealthy man,

he was very exposed, produced in him a state of hopeless agitation and

perplexity. “To give or not to give?” he had asked himself. “I have

it and he needs it. But someone else needs it still more. Who needs it

most? And perhaps they are both impostors?” In the old days he had been

unable to find a way out of all these surmises and had given to all

who asked as long as he had anything to give. Formerly he had been in a

similar state of perplexity with regard to every question concerning his

property, when one person advised one thing and another something else.

Now to his surprise he found that he no longer felt either doubt or

perplexity about these questions. There was now within him a judge who

by some rule unknown to him decided what should or should not be done.

He was as indifferent as heretofore to money matters, but now he felt

certain of what ought and what ought not to be done. The first time he

had recourse to his new judge was when a French prisoner, a colonel,

came to him and, after talking a great deal about his exploits,

concluded by making what amounted to a demand that Pierre should give

him four thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre

refused without the least difficulty or effort, and was afterwards

surprised how simple and easy had been what used to appear so

insurmountably difficult. At the same time that he refused the colonel’s

demand he made up his mind that he must have recourse to artifice when

leaving Orël, to induce the Italian officer to accept some money of

which he was evidently in need. A further proof to Pierre of his own

more settled outlook on practical matters was furnished by his decision

with regard to his wife’s debts and to the rebuilding of his houses in

and near Moscow.

His head steward came to him at Orël and Pierre reckoned up with him his

diminished income. The burning of Moscow had cost him, according to the

head steward’s calculation, about two million rubles.

To console Pierre for these losses the head steward gave him an estimate

showing that despite these losses his income would not be diminished but

would even be increased if he refused to pay his wife’s debts which he

was under no obligation to meet, and did not rebuild his Moscow house

and the country house on his Moscow estate, which had cost him eighty

thousand rubles a year and brought in nothing.

“Yes, of course that’s true,” said Pierre with a cheerful smile. “I

don’t need all that at all. By being ruined I have become much richer.”

But in January Savélich came from Moscow and gave him an account of the

state of things there, and spoke of the estimate an architect had made

of the cost of rebuilding the town and country houses, speaking of this

as of a settled matter. About the same time he received letters from

Prince Vasíli and other Petersburg acquaintances speaking of his wife’s

debts. And Pierre decided that the steward’s proposals which had so

pleased him were wrong and that he must go to Petersburg and settle his

wife’s affairs and must rebuild in Moscow. Why this was necessary he

did not know, but he knew for certain that it was necessary. His income

would be reduced by three fourths, but he felt it must be done.

Willarski was going to Moscow and they agreed to travel together.

During the whole time of his convalescence in Orël Pierre had

experienced a feeling of joy, freedom, and life; but when during his

journey he found himself in the open world and saw hundreds of new

faces, that feeling was intensified. Throughout his journey he felt like

a schoolboy on holiday. Everyone—the stagecoach driver, the post-house

overseers, the peasants on the roads and in the villages—had a new

significance for him. The presence and remarks of Willarski who

continually deplored the ignorance and poverty of Russia and its

backwardness compared with Europe only heightened Pierre’s pleasure.

Where Willarski saw deadness Pierre saw an extraordinary strength and

vitality—the strength which in that vast space amid the snows maintained

the life of this original, peculiar, and unique people. He did not

contradict Willarski and even seemed to agree with him—an apparent

agreement being the simplest way to avoid discussions that could lead to

nothing—and he smiled joyfully as he listened to him.

CHAPTER XIV

It would be difficult to explain why and whither ants whose heap

has been destroyed are hurrying: some from the heap dragging bits of

rubbish, larvae, and corpses, others back to the heap, or why they

jostle, overtake one another, and fight, and it would be equally

difficult to explain what caused the Russians after the departure of the

French to throng to the place that had formerly been Moscow. But when

we watch the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity, energy, and

immense number of the delving insects prove that despite the destruction

of the heap, something indestructible, which though intangible is the

real strength of the colony, still exists; and similarly, though in

Moscow in the month of October there was no government and no churches,

shrines, riches, or houses—it was still the Moscow it had been in

August. All was destroyed, except something intangible yet powerful and

indestructible.

The motives of those who thronged from all sides to Moscow after it had

been cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal, and at first

for the most part savage and brutal. One motive only they all had in

common: a desire to get to the place that had been called Moscow, to

apply their activities there.

Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in a

fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on. By the autumn of 1813 the

number, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in

1812.

The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks of Wintzingerode’s

detachment, peasants from the adjacent villages, and residents who had

fled from Moscow and had been hiding in its vicinity. The Russians who

entered Moscow, finding it plundered, plundered it in their turn. They

continued what the French had begun. Trains of peasant carts came to

Moscow to carry off to the villages what had been abandoned in the

ruined houses and the streets. The Cossacks carried off what they could

to their camps, and the householders seized all they could find in other

houses and moved it to their own, pretending that it was their property.

But the first plunderers were followed by a second and a third

contingent, and with increasing numbers plundering became more and more

difficult and assumed more definite forms.

The French found Moscow abandoned but with all the organizations of

regular life, with diverse branches of commerce and craftsmanship, with

luxury, and governmental and religious institutions. These forms were

lifeless but still existed. There were bazaars, shops, warehouses,

market stalls, granaries—for the most part still stocked with goods—and

there were factories and workshops, palaces and wealthy houses filled

with luxuries, hospitals, prisons, government offices, churches, and

cathedrals. The longer the French remained the more these forms of town

life perished, until finally all was merged into one confused, lifeless

scene of plunder.

The more the plundering by the French continued, the more both the

wealth of Moscow and the strength of its plunderers was destroyed. But

plundering by the Russians, with which the reoccupation of the city

began, had an opposite effect: the longer it continued and the greater

the number of people taking part in it the more rapidly was the wealth

of the city and its regular life restored.

Besides the plunderers, very various people, some drawn by curiosity,

some by official duties, some by self-interest—house owners, clergy,

officials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and peasants—streamed into

Moscow as blood flows to the heart.

Within a week the peasants who came with empty carts to carry off

plunder were stopped by the authorities and made to cart the corpses

out of the town. Other peasants, having heard of their comrades’

discomfiture, came to town bringing rye, oats, and hay, and beat down

one another’s prices to below what they had been in former days. Gangs

of carpenters hoping for high pay arrived in Moscow every day, and on

all sides logs were being hewn, new houses built, and old, charred ones

repaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths. Cookshops and taverns were

opened in partially burned houses. The clergy resumed the services

in many churches that had not been burned. Donors contributed

Church property that had been stolen. Government clerks set up their

baize-covered tables and their pigeonholes of documents in small rooms.

The higher authorities and the police organized the distribution of

goods left behind by the French. The owners of houses in which much

property had been left, brought there from other houses, complained of

the injustice of taking everything to the Faceted Palace in the Krémlin;

others insisted that as the French had gathered things from different

houses into this or that house, it would be unfair to allow its owner to

keep all that was found there. They abused the police and bribed them,

made out estimates at ten times their value for government stores that

had perished in the fire, and demanded relief. And Count Rostopchín

wrote proclamations.

CHAPTER XV

At the end of January Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex of

his house which had not been burned. He called on Count Rostopchín and

on some acquaintances who were back in Moscow, and he intended to leave

for Petersburg two days later. Everybody was celebrating the victory,

everything was bubbling with life in the ruined but reviving city.

Everyone was pleased to see Pierre, everyone wished to meet him, and

everyone questioned him about what he had seen. Pierre felt particularly

well disposed toward them all, but was now instinctively on his

guard for fear of binding himself in any way. To all questions put to

him—whether important or quite trifling—such as: Where would he live?

Was he going to rebuild? When was he going to Petersburg and would he

mind taking a parcel for someone?—he replied: “Yes, perhaps,” or, “I

think so,” and so on.

He had heard that the Rostóvs were at Kostromá but the thought of

Natásha seldom occurred to him. If it did it was only as a pleasant

memory of the distant past. He felt himself not only free from social

obligations but also from that feeling which, it seemed to him, he had

aroused in himself.

On the third day after his arrival he heard from the Drubetskóys that

Princess Mary was in Moscow. The death, sufferings, and last days of

Prince Andrew had often occupied Pierre’s thoughts and now recurred to

him with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner that Princess Mary

was in Moscow and living in her house—which had not been burned—in

Vozdvízhenka Street, he drove that same evening to see her.

On his way to the house Pierre kept thinking of Prince Andrew, of their

friendship, of his various meetings with him, and especially of the last

one at Borodinó.

“Is it possible that he died in the bitter frame of mind he was then in?

Is it possible that the meaning of life was not disclosed to him

before he died?” thought Pierre. He recalled Karatáev and his death and

involuntarily began to compare these two men, so different, and yet so

similar in that they had both lived and both died and in the love he

felt for both of them.

Pierre drove up to the house of the old prince in a most serious mood.

The house had escaped the fire; it showed signs of damage but its

general aspect was unchanged. The old footman, who met Pierre with a

stern face as if wishing to make the visitor feel that the absence

of the old prince had not disturbed the order of things in the house,

informed him that the princess had gone to her own apartments, and that

she received on Sundays.

“Announce me. Perhaps she will see me,” said Pierre.

“Yes, sir,” said the man. “Please step into the portrait gallery.”

A few minutes later the footman returned with Dessalles, who brought

word from the princess that she would be very glad to see Pierre if he

would excuse her want of ceremony and come upstairs to her apartment.

In a rather low room lit by one candle sat the princess and with her

another person dressed in black. Pierre remembered that the princess

always had lady companions, but who they were and what they were like

he never knew or remembered. “This must be one of her companions,” he

thought, glancing at the lady in the black dress.

The princess rose quickly to meet him and held out her hand.

“Yes,” she said, looking at his altered face after he had kissed her

hand, “so this is how we meet again. He spoke of you even at the very

last,” she went on, turning her eyes from Pierre to her companion with a

shyness that surprised him for an instant.

“I was so glad to hear of your safety. It was the first piece of good

news we had received for a long time.”

Again the princess glanced round at her companion with even more

uneasiness in her manner and was about to add something, but Pierre

interrupted her.

“Just imagine—I knew nothing about him!” said he. “I thought he had been

killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only know that

he fell in with the Rostóvs.... What a strange coincidence!”

Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the

companion’s face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and,

as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion

in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not

hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary.

But when he mentioned the Rostóvs, Princess Mary’s face expressed still

greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre’s face to

that of the lady in the black dress and said:

“Do you really not recognize her?”

Pierre looked again at the companion’s pale, delicate face with its

black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long forgotten

and more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive eyes.

“But no, it can’t be!” he thought. “This stern, thin, pale face that

looks so much older! It cannot be she. It merely reminds me of her.”

But at that moment Princess Mary said, “Natásha!” And with difficulty,

effort, and stress, like the opening of a door grown rusty on its

hinges, a smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from

that opening door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre with

a happiness he had long forgotten and of which he had not even been

thinking—especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him, and

enveloped him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer possible,

it was Natásha and he loved her.

At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess Mary,

and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had been unaware.

He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He tried to hide his

agitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more clearly—clearer

than any words could have done—did he betray to himself, to her, and to

Princess Mary that he loved her.

“No, it’s only the unexpectedness of it,” thought Pierre. But as soon as

he tried to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess Mary he

again glanced at Natásha, and a still-deeper flush suffused his face and

a still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and fear seized his soul. He

became confused in his speech and stopped in the middle of what he was

saying.

Pierre had failed to notice Natásha because he did not at all expect to

see her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the change in

her since he last saw her was immense. She had grown thin and pale, but

that was not what made her unrecognizable; she was unrecognizable at the

moment he entered because on that face whose eyes had always shone with

a suppressed smile of the joy of life, now when he first entered and

glanced at her there was not the least shadow of a smile: only her eyes

were kindly attentive and sadly interrogative.

Pierre’s confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natásha’s part,

but only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her whole face.

CHAPTER XVI

“She has come to stay with me,” said Princess Mary. “The count and

countess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a dreadful

state; but it was necessary for Natásha herself to see a doctor. They

insisted on her coming with me.”

“Yes, is there a family free from sorrow now?” said Pierre, addressing

Natásha. “You know it happened the very day we were rescued. I saw him.

What a delightful boy he was!”

Natásha looked at him, and by way of answer to his words her eyes

widened and lit up.

“What can one say or think of as a consolation?” said Pierre. “Nothing!

Why had such a splendid boy, so full of life, to die?”

“Yes, in these days it would be hard to live without faith...” remarked

Princess Mary.

“Yes, yes, that is really true,” Pierre hastily interrupted her.

“Why is it true?” Natásha asked, looking attentively into Pierre’s eyes.

“How can you ask why?” said Princess Mary. “The thought alone of what

awaits...”

Natásha without waiting for Princess Mary to finish again looked

inquiringly at Pierre.

“And because,” Pierre continued, “only one who believes that there is a

God ruling us can bear a loss such as hers and... yours.”

Natásha had already opened her mouth to speak but suddenly stopped.

Pierre hurriedly turned away from her and again addressed Princess Mary,

asking about his friend’s last days.

Pierre’s confusion had now almost vanished, but at the same time he felt

that his freedom had also completely gone. He felt that there was now a

judge of his every word and action whose judgment mattered more to

him than that of all the rest of the world. As he spoke now he was

considering what impression his words would make on Natásha. He did

not purposely say things to please her, but whatever he was saying he

regarded from her standpoint.

Princess Mary—reluctantly as is usual in such cases—began telling of

the condition in which she had found Prince Andrew. But Pierre’s face

quivering with emotion, his questions and his eager restless expression,

gradually compelled her to go into details which she feared to recall

for her own sake.

“Yes, yes, and so...?” Pierre kept saying as he leaned toward her with

his whole body and eagerly listened to her story. “Yes, yes... so he

grew tranquil and softened? With all his soul he had always sought

one thing—to be perfectly good—so he could not be afraid of death. The

faults he had—if he had any—were not of his making. So he did soften?...

What a happy thing that he saw you again,” he added, suddenly turning to

Natásha and looking at her with eyes full of tears.

Natásha’s face twitched. She frowned and lowered her eyes for a moment.

She hesitated for an instant whether to speak or not.

“Yes, that was happiness,” she then said in her quiet voice with its

deep chest notes. “For me it certainly was happiness.” She paused. “And

he... he... he said he was wishing for it at the very moment I entered

the room....”

Natásha’s voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped hands on her

knees, and then controlling herself with an evident effort lifted her

head and began to speak rapidly.

“We knew nothing of it when we started from Moscow. I did not dare to

ask about him. Then suddenly Sónya told me he was traveling with us. I

had no idea and could not imagine what state he was in, all I wanted was

to see him and be with him,” she said, trembling, and breathing quickly.

And not letting them interrupt her she went on to tell what she had

never yet mentioned to anyone—all she had lived through during those

three weeks of their journey and life at Yaroslávl.

Pierre listened to her with lips parted and eyes fixed upon her full of

tears. As he listened he did not think of Prince Andrew, nor of death,

nor of what she was telling. He listened to her and felt only pity for

her, for what she was suffering now while she was speaking.

Princess Mary, frowning in her effort to hold back her tears, sat beside

Natásha, and heard for the first time the story of those last days of

her brother’s and Natásha’s love.

Evidently Natásha needed to tell that painful yet joyful tale.

She spoke, mingling most trifling details with the intimate secrets of

her soul, and it seemed as if she could never finish. Several times she

repeated the same thing twice.

Dessalles’ voice was heard outside the door asking whether little

Nicholas might come in to say good night.

“Well, that’s all—everything,” said Natásha.

She got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran to the door

which was hidden by curtains, struck her head against it, and rushed

from the room with a moan either of pain or sorrow.

Pierre gazed at the door through which she had disappeared and did not

understand why he suddenly felt all alone in the world.

Princess Mary roused him from his abstraction by drawing his attention

to her nephew who had entered the room.

At that moment of emotional tenderness young Nicholas’ face, which

resembled his father’s, affected Pierre so much that when he had kissed

the boy he got up quickly, took out his handkerchief, and went to the

window. He wished to take leave of Princess Mary, but she would not let

him go.

“No, Natásha and I sometimes don’t go to sleep till after two, so please

don’t go. I will order supper. Go downstairs, we will come immediately.”

Before Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: “This is the first

time she has talked of him like that.”

CHAPTER XVII

Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room; a few minutes

later he heard footsteps and Princess Mary entered with Natásha. Natásha

was calm, though a severe and grave expression had again settled on her

face. They all three of them now experienced that feeling of awkwardness

which usually follows after a serious and heartfelt talk. It is

impossible to go back to the same conversation, to talk of trifles is

awkward, and yet the desire to speak is there and silence seems like

affectation. They went silently to table. The footmen drew back the

chairs and pushed them up again. Pierre unfolded his cold table napkin

and, resolving to break the silence, looked at Natásha and at Princess

Mary. They had evidently both formed the same resolution; the eyes of

both shone with satisfaction and a confession that besides sorrow life

also has joy.

“Do you take vodka, Count?” asked Princess Mary, and those words

suddenly banished the shadows of the past. “Now tell us about yourself,”

said she. “One hears such improbable wonders about you.”

“Yes,” replied Pierre with the smile of mild irony now habitual to him.

“They even tell me wonders I myself never dreamed of! Mary Abrámovna

invited me to her house and kept telling me what had happened, or ought

to have happened, to me. Stepán Stepánych also instructed me how I ought

to tell of my experiences. In general I have noticed that it is very

easy to be an interesting man (I am an interesting man now); people

invite me out and tell me all about myself.”

Natásha smiled and was on the point of speaking.

“We have been told,” Princess Mary interrupted her, “that you lost two

millions in Moscow. Is that true?”

“But I am three times as rich as before,” returned Pierre.

Though the position was now altered by his decision to pay his wife’s

debts and to rebuild his houses, Pierre still maintained that he had

become three times as rich as before.

“What I have certainly gained is freedom,” he began seriously, but did

not continue, noticing that this theme was too egotistic.

“And are you building?”

“Yes. Savélich says I must!”

“Tell me, you did not know of the countess’ death when you decided to

remain in Moscow?” asked Princess Mary and immediately blushed, noticing

that her question, following his mention of freedom, ascribed to his

words a meaning he had perhaps not intended.

“No,” answered Pierre, evidently not considering awkward the meaning

Princess Mary had given to his words. “I heard of it in Orël and you

cannot imagine how it shocked me. We were not an exemplary couple,” he

added quickly, glancing at Natásha and noticing on her face curiosity as

to how he would speak of his wife, “but her death shocked me terribly.

When two people quarrel they are always both in fault, and one’s own

guilt suddenly becomes terribly serious when the other is no longer

alive. And then such a death... without friends and without consolation!

I am very, very sorry for her,” he concluded, and was pleased to notice

a look of glad approval on Natásha’s face.

“Yes, and so you are once more an eligible bachelor,” said Princess

Mary.

Pierre suddenly flushed crimson and for a long time tried not to look

at Natásha. When he ventured to glance her way again her face was cold,

stern, and he fancied even contemptuous.

“And did you really see and speak to Napoleon, as we have been told?”

said Princess Mary.

Pierre laughed.

“No, not once! Everybody seems to imagine that being taken prisoner

means being Napoleon’s guest. Not only did I never see him but I heard

nothing about him—I was in much lower company!”

Supper was over, and Pierre who at first declined to speak about his

captivity was gradually led on to do so.

“But it’s true that you remained in Moscow to kill Napoleon?” Natásha

asked with a slight smile. “I guessed it then when we met at the

Súkharev tower, do you remember?”

Pierre admitted that it was true, and from that was gradually led by

Princess Mary’s questions and especially by Natásha’s into giving a

detailed account of his adventures.

At first he spoke with the amused and mild irony now customary with

him toward everybody and especially toward himself, but when he came

to describe the horrors and sufferings he had witnessed he was

unconsciously carried away and began speaking with the suppressed

emotion of a man re-experiencing in recollection strong impressions he

has lived through.

Princess Mary with a gentle smile looked now at Pierre and now at

Natásha. In the whole narrative she saw only Pierre and his goodness.

Natásha, leaning on her elbow, the expression of her face constantly

changing with the narrative, watched Pierre with an attention that never

wandered—evidently herself experiencing all that he described. Not only

her look, but her exclamations and the brief questions she put, showed

Pierre that she understood just what he wished to convey. It was clear

that she understood not only what he said but also what he wished to,

but could not, express in words. The account Pierre gave of the incident

with the child and the woman for protecting whom he was arrested was

this: “It was an awful sight—children abandoned, some in the flames...

One was snatched out before my eyes... and there were women who had

their things snatched off and their earrings torn out...” he flushed and

grew confused. “Then a patrol arrived and all the men—all those who were

not looting, that is—were arrested, and I among them.”

“I am sure you’re not telling us everything; I am sure you did

something...” said Natásha and pausing added, “something fine?”

Pierre continued. When he spoke of the execution he wanted to pass

over the horrible details, but Natásha insisted that he should not omit

anything.

Pierre began to tell about Karatáev, but paused. By this time he had

risen from the table and was pacing the room, Natásha following him with

her eyes. Then he added:

“No, you can’t understand what I learned from that illiterate man—that

simple fellow.”

“Yes, yes, go on!” said Natásha. “Where is he?”

“They killed him almost before my eyes.”

And Pierre, his voice trembling continually, went on to tell of the last

days of their retreat, of Karatáev’s illness and his death.

He told of his adventures as he had never yet recalled them. He now, as

it were, saw a new meaning in all he had gone through. Now that he was

telling it all to Natásha he experienced that pleasure which a man has

when women listen to him—not clever women who when listening either try

to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity

offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their

own and promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their

little mental workshop—but the pleasure given by real women gifted with

a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself.

Natásha without knowing it was all attention: she did not lose a word,

no single quiver in Pierre’s voice, no look, no twitch of a muscle in

his face, nor a single gesture. She caught the unfinished word in its

flight and took it straight into her open heart, divining the secret

meaning of all Pierre’s mental travail.

Princess Mary understood his story and sympathized with him, but she

now saw something else that absorbed all her attention. She saw the

possibility of love and happiness between Natásha and Pierre, and the

first thought of this filled her heart with gladness.

It was three o’clock in the morning. The footmen came in with sad and

stern faces to change the candles, but no one noticed them.

Pierre finished his story. Natásha continued to look at him intently

with bright, attentive, and animated eyes, as if trying to understand

something more which he had perhaps left untold. Pierre in shamefaced

and happy confusion glanced occasionally at her, and tried to think what

to say next to introduce a fresh subject. Princess Mary was silent. It

occurred to none of them that it was three o’clock and time to go to

bed.

“People speak of misfortunes and sufferings,” remarked Pierre, “but if

at this moment I were asked: ‘Would you rather be what you were before

you were taken prisoner, or go through all this again?’ then for

heaven’s sake let me again have captivity and horseflesh! We imagine

that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is

only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is

happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you,” he added,

turning to Natásha.

“Yes, yes,” she said, answering something quite different. “I too should

wish nothing but to relive it all from the beginning.”

Pierre looked intently at her.

“Yes, and nothing more,” said Natásha.

“It’s not true, not true!” cried Pierre. “I am not to blame for being

alive and wishing to live—nor you either.”

Suddenly Natásha bent her head, covered her face with her hands, and

began to cry.

“What is it, Natásha?” said Princess Mary.

“Nothing, nothing.” She smiled at Pierre through her tears. “Good night!

It is time for bed.”

Pierre rose and took his leave.

Princess Mary and Natásha met as usual in the bedroom. They talked of

what Pierre had told them. Princess Mary did not express her opinion of

Pierre nor did Natásha speak of him.

“Well, good night, Mary!” said Natásha. “Do you know, I am often afraid

that by not speaking of him” (she meant Prince Andrew) “for fear of not

doing justice to our feelings, we forget him.”

Princess Mary sighed deeply and thereby acknowledged the justice of

Natásha’s remark, but she did not express agreement in words.

“Is it possible to forget?” said she.

“It did me so much good to tell all about it today. It was hard and

painful, but good, very good!” said Natásha. “I am sure he really loved

him. That is why I told him... Was it all right?” she added, suddenly

blushing.

“To tell Pierre? Oh, yes. What a splendid man he is!” said Princess

Mary.

“Do you know, Mary...” Natásha suddenly said with a mischievous smile

such as Princess Mary had not seen on her face for a long time, “he has

somehow grown so clean, smooth, and fresh—as if he had just come out of

a Russian bath; do you understand? Out of a moral bath. Isn’t it true?”

“Yes,” replied Princess Mary. “He has greatly improved.”

“With a short coat and his hair cropped; just as if, well, just as if he

had come straight from the bath... Papa used to...”

“I understand why he” (Prince Andrew) “liked no one so much as him,”

said Princess Mary.

“Yes, and yet he is quite different. They say men are friends when they

are quite different. That must be true. Really he is quite unlike him—in

everything.”

“Yes, but he’s wonderful.”

“Well, good night,” said Natásha.

And the same mischievous smile lingered for a long time on her face as

if it had been forgotten there.

CHAPTER XVIII

It was a long time before Pierre could fall asleep that night. He paced

up and down his room, now turning his thoughts on a difficult problem

and frowning, now suddenly shrugging his shoulders and wincing, and now

smiling happily.

He was thinking of Prince Andrew, of Natásha, and of their love, at one

moment jealous of her past, then reproaching himself for that feeling.

It was already six in the morning and he still paced up and down the

room.

“Well, what’s to be done if it cannot be avoided? What’s to be done?

Evidently it has to be so,” said he to himself, and hastily undressing

he got into bed, happy and agitated but free from hesitation or

indecision.

“Strange and impossible as such happiness seems, I must do everything

that she and I may be man and wife,” he told himself.

A few days previously Pierre had decided to go to Petersburg on the

Friday. When he awoke on the Thursday, Savélich came to ask him about

packing for the journey.

“What, to Petersburg? What is Petersburg? Who is there in Petersburg?”

he asked involuntarily, though only to himself. “Oh, yes, long ago

before this happened I did for some reason mean to go to Petersburg,”

he reflected. “Why? But perhaps I shall go. What a good fellow he is and

how attentive, and how he remembers everything,” he thought, looking at

Savélich’s old face, “and what a pleasant smile he has!”

“Well, Savélich, do you still not wish to accept your freedom?” Pierre

asked him.

“What’s the good of freedom to me, your excellency? We lived under the

late count—the kingdom of heaven be his!—and we have lived under you

too, without ever being wronged.”

“And your children?”

“The children will live just the same. With such masters one can live.”

“But what about my heirs?” said Pierre. “Supposing I suddenly marry...

it might happen,” he added with an involuntary smile.

“If I may take the liberty, your excellency, it would be a good thing.”

“How easy he thinks it,” thought Pierre. “He doesn’t know how terrible

it is and how dangerous. Too soon or too late... it is terrible!”

“So what are your orders? Are you starting tomorrow?” asked Savélich.

“No, I’ll put it off for a bit. I’ll tell you later. You must forgive

the trouble I have put you to,” said Pierre, and seeing Savélich smile,

he thought: “But how strange it is that he should not know that now

there is no Petersburg for me, and that that must be settled first of

all! But probably he knows it well enough and is only pretending. Shall

I have a talk with him and see what he thinks?” Pierre reflected. “No,

another time.”

At breakfast Pierre told the princess, his cousin, that he had been to

see Princess Mary the day before and had there met—“Whom do you think?

Natásha Rostóva!”

The princess seemed to see nothing more extraordinary in that than if he

had seen Anna Semënovna.

“Do you know her?” asked Pierre.

“I have seen the princess,” she replied. “I heard that they were

arranging a match for her with young Rostóv. It would be a very good

thing for the Rostóvs, they are said to be utterly ruined.”

“No; I mean do you know Natásha Rostóva?”

“I heard about that affair of hers at the time. It was a great pity.”

“No, she either doesn’t understand or is pretending,” thought Pierre.

“Better not say anything to her either.”

The princess too had prepared provisions for Pierre’s journey.

“How kind they all are,” thought Pierre. “What is surprising is that

they should trouble about these things now when it can no longer be of

interest to them. And all for me!”

On the same day the Chief of Police came to Pierre, inviting him to send

a representative to the Faceted Palace to recover things that were to be

returned to their owners that day.

“And this man too,” thought Pierre, looking into the face of the Chief

of Police. “What a fine, good-looking officer and how kind. Fancy

bothering about such trifles now! And they actually say he is not honest

and takes bribes. What nonsense! Besides, why shouldn’t he take bribes?

That’s the way he was brought up, and everybody does it. But what a

kind, pleasant face and how he smiles as he looks at me.”

Pierre went to Princess Mary’s to dinner.

As he drove through the streets past the houses that had been burned

down, he was surprised by the beauty of those ruins. The picturesqueness

of the chimney stacks and tumble-down walls of the burned-out quarters

of the town, stretching out and concealing one another, reminded him of

the Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabmen he met and their passengers,

the carpenters cutting the timber for new houses with axes, the women

hawkers, and the shopkeepers, all looked at him with cheerful beaming

eyes that seemed to say: “Ah, there he is! Let’s see what will come of

it!”

At the entrance to Princess Mary’s house Pierre felt doubtful whether

he had really been there the night before and really seen Natásha and

talked to her. “Perhaps I imagined it; perhaps I shall go in and find

no one there.” But he had hardly entered the room before he felt her

presence with his whole being by the loss of his sense of freedom. She

was in the same black dress with soft folds and her hair was done the

same way as the day before, yet she was quite different. Had she been

like this when he entered the day before he could not for a moment have

failed to recognize her.

She was as he had known her almost as a child and later on as Prince

Andrew’s fiancée. A bright questioning light shone in her eyes, and on

her face was a friendly and strangely roguish expression.

Pierre dined with them and would have spent the whole evening there, but

Princess Mary was going to vespers and Pierre left the house with her.

Next day he came early, dined, and stayed the whole evening. Though

Princess Mary and Natásha were evidently glad to see their visitor and

though all Pierre’s interest was now centered in that house, by the

evening they had talked over everything and the conversation passed from

one trivial topic to another and repeatedly broke off. He stayed so long

that Princess Mary and Natásha exchanged glances, evidently wondering

when he would go. Pierre noticed this but could not go. He felt uneasy

and embarrassed, but sat on because he simply could not get up and take

his leave.

Princess Mary, foreseeing no end to this, rose first, and complaining of

a headache began to say good night.

“So you are going to Petersburg tomorrow?” she asked.

“No, I am not going,” Pierre replied hastily, in a surprised tone and as

though offended. “Yes... no... to Petersburg? Tomorrow—but I won’t say

good-by yet. I will call round in case you have any commissions for me,”

said he, standing before Princess Mary and turning red, but not taking

his departure.

Natásha gave him her hand and went out. Princess Mary on the other hand

instead of going away sank into an armchair, and looked sternly and

intently at him with her deep, radiant eyes. The weariness she

had plainly shown before had now quite passed off. With a deep and

long-drawn sigh she seemed to be prepared for a lengthy talk.

When Natásha left the room Pierre’s confusion and awkwardness

immediately vanished and were replaced by eager excitement. He quickly

moved an armchair toward Princess Mary.

“Yes, I wanted to tell you,” said he, answering her look as if she had

spoken. “Princess, help me! What am I to do? Can I hope? Princess, my

dear friend, listen! I know it all. I know I am not worthy of her, I

know it’s impossible to speak of it now. But I want to be a brother to

her. No, not that, I don’t, I can’t...”

He paused and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands.

“Well,” he went on with an evident effort at self-control and coherence.

“I don’t know when I began to love her, but I have loved her and her

alone all my life, and I love her so that I cannot imagine life without

her. I cannot propose to her at present, but the thought that

perhaps she might someday be my wife and that I may be missing that

possibility... that possibility... is terrible. Tell me, can I hope?

Tell me what I am to do, dear princess!” he added after a pause, and

touched her hand as she did not reply.

“I am thinking of what you have told me,” answered Princess Mary.

“This is what I will say. You are right that to speak to her of love at

present...”

Princess Mary stopped. She was going to say that to speak of love was

impossible, but she stopped because she had seen by the sudden change

in Natásha two days before that she would not only not be hurt if Pierre

spoke of his love, but that it was the very thing she wished for.

“To speak to her now wouldn’t do,” said the princess all the same.

“But what am I to do?”

“Leave it to me,” said Princess Mary. “I know...”

Pierre was looking into Princess Mary’s eyes.

“Well?... Well?...” he said.

“I know that she loves... will love you,” Princess Mary corrected

herself.

Before her words were out, Pierre had sprung up and with a frightened

expression seized Princess Mary’s hand.

“What makes you think so? You think I may hope? You think...?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Princess Mary with a smile. “Write to her

parents, and leave it to me. I will tell her when I can. I wish it to

happen and my heart tells me it will.”

“No, it cannot be! How happy I am! But it can’t be.... How happy I am!

No, it can’t be!” Pierre kept saying as he kissed Princess Mary’s hands.

“Go to Petersburg, that will be best. And I will write to you,” she

said.

“To Petersburg? Go there? Very well, I’ll go. But I may come again

tomorrow?”

Next day Pierre came to say good-by. Natásha was less animated than

she had been the day before; but that day as he looked at her Pierre

sometimes felt as if he was vanishing and that neither he nor she

existed any longer, that nothing existed but happiness. “Is it possible?

No, it can’t be,” he told himself at every look, gesture, and word that

filled his soul with joy.

When on saying good-by he took her thin, slender hand, he could not help

holding it a little longer in his own.

“Is it possible that this hand, that face, those eyes, all this treasure

of feminine charm so strange to me now, is it possible that it will one

day be mine forever, as familiar to me as I am to myself?... No, that’s

impossible!...”

“Good-by, Count,” she said aloud. “I shall look forward very much to

your return,” she added in a whisper.

And these simple words, her look, and the expression on her face which

accompanied them, formed for two months the subject of inexhaustible

memories, interpretations, and happy meditations for Pierre. “‘I shall

look forward very much to your return....’ Yes, yes, how did she say it?

Yes, ‘I shall look forward very much to your return.’ Oh, how happy I

am! What is happening to me? How happy I am!” said Pierre to himself.

CHAPTER XIX

There was nothing in Pierre’s soul now at all like what had troubled it

during his courtship of Hélène.

He did not repeat to himself with a sickening feeling of shame the words

he had spoken, or say: “Oh, why did I not say that?” and, “Whatever made

me say ‘Je vous aime’?” On the contrary, he now repeated in imagination

every word that he or Natásha had spoken and pictured every detail of

her face and smile, and did not wish to diminish or add anything, but

only to repeat it again and again. There was now not a shadow of doubt

in his mind as to whether what he had undertaken was right or wrong.

Only one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind: “Wasn’t it all

a dream? Isn’t Princess Mary mistaken? Am I not too conceited and

self-confident? I believe all this—and suddenly Princess Mary will tell

her, and she will be sure to smile and say: ‘How strange! He must be

deluding himself. Doesn’t he know that he is a man, just a man, while

I...? I am something altogether different and higher.’”

That was the only doubt often troubling Pierre. He did not now make any

plans. The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable that if only

he could attain it, it would be the end of all things. Everything ended

with that.

A joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself incapable,

possessed him. The whole meaning of life—not for him alone but for the

whole world—seemed to him centered in his love and the possibility of

being loved by her. At times everybody seemed to him to be occupied with

one thing only—his future happiness. Sometimes it seemed to him that

other people were all as pleased as he was himself and merely tried to

hide that pleasure by pretending to be busy with other interests. In

every word and gesture he saw allusions to his happiness. He often

surprised those he met by his significantly happy looks and smiles which

seemed to express a secret understanding between him and them. And when

he realized that people might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied

them with his whole heart and felt a desire somehow to explain to them

that all that occupied them was a mere frivolous trifle unworthy of

attention.

When it was suggested to him that he should enter the civil service,

or when the war or any general political affairs were discussed on the

assumption that everybody’s welfare depended on this or that issue

of events, he would listen with a mild and pitying smile and surprise

people by his strange comments. But at this time he saw everybody—both

those who, as he imagined, understood the real meaning of life (that

is, what he was feeling) and those unfortunates who evidently did not

understand it—in the bright light of the emotion that shone within

himself, and at once without any effort saw in everyone he met

everything that was good and worthy of being loved.

When dealing with the affairs and papers of his dead wife, her memory

aroused in him no feeling but pity that she had not known the bliss he

now knew. Prince Vasíli, who having obtained a new post and some

fresh decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a

pathetic, kindly old man much to be pitied.

Often in afterlife Pierre recalled this period of blissful insanity. All

the views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained true

for him always. He not only did not renounce them subsequently, but when

he was in doubt or inwardly at variance, he referred to the views he had

held at this time of his madness and they always proved correct.

“I may have appeared strange and queer then,” he thought, “but I was

not so mad as I seemed. On the contrary I was then wiser and had

more insight than at any other time, and understood all that is worth

understanding in life, because... because I was happy.”

Pierre’s insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to

discover personal attributes which he termed “good qualities” in people

before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by

loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving

them.

CHAPTER XX

After Pierre’s departure that first evening, when Natásha had said to

Princess Mary with a gaily mocking smile: “He looks just, yes, just as

if he had come out of a Russian bath—in a short coat and with his hair

cropped,” something hidden and unknown to herself, but irrepressible,

awoke in Natásha’s soul.

Everything: her face, walk, look, and voice, was suddenly altered.

To her own surprise a power of life and hope of happiness rose to the

surface and demanded satisfaction. From that evening she seemed to have

forgotten all that had happened to her. She no longer complained of her

position, did not say a word about the past, and no longer feared to

make happy plans for the future. She spoke little of Pierre, but when

Princess Mary mentioned him a long-extinguished light once more kindled

in her eyes and her lips curved with a strange smile.

The change that took place in Natásha at first surprised Princess Mary;

but when she understood its meaning it grieved her. “Can she have loved

my brother so little as to be able to forget him so soon?” she thought

when she reflected on the change. But when she was with Natásha she was

not vexed with her and did not reproach her. The reawakened power

of life that had seized Natásha was so evidently irrepressible and

unexpected by her that in her presence Princess Mary felt that she had

no right to reproach her even in her heart.

Natásha gave herself up so fully and frankly to this new feeling that

she did not try to hide the fact that she was no longer sad, but bright

and cheerful.

When Princess Mary returned to her room after her nocturnal talk with

Pierre, Natásha met her on the threshold.

“He has spoken? Yes? He has spoken?” she repeated.

And a joyful yet pathetic expression which seemed to beg forgiveness for

her joy settled on Natásha’s face.

“I wanted to listen at the door, but I knew you would tell me.”

Understandable and touching as the look with which Natásha gazed at

her seemed to Princess Mary, and sorry as she was to see her agitation,

these words pained her for a moment. She remembered her brother and his

love.

“But what’s to be done? She can’t help it,” thought the princess.

And with a sad and rather stern look she told Natásha all that Pierre

had said. On hearing that he was going to Petersburg Natásha was

astounded.

“To Petersburg!” she repeated as if unable to understand.

But noticing the grieved expression on Princess Mary’s face she guessed

the reason of that sadness and suddenly began to cry.

“Mary,” said she, “tell me what I should do! I am afraid of being bad.

Whatever you tell me, I will do. Tell me....”

“You love him?”

“Yes,” whispered Natásha.

“Then why are you crying? I am happy for your sake,” said Princess Mary,

who because of those tears quite forgave Natásha’s joy.