APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/authors/tolstoy/war_peace/W_P_BK15

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                          BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13


CHAPTER I


When seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror:
substance similar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it
is a beloved and intimate human being that is dying, besides this
horror at the extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual
wound, which like a physical wound is sometimes fatal and sometimes
heals, but always aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch.

After Prince Andrew's death Natasha and Princess Mary alike felt
this. Drooping in spirit and closing their eyes before the menacing
cloud of death that overhung them, they dared not look life in the
face. They carefully guarded their open wounds from any rough and
painful contact. Everything: a carriage passing rapidly in the street,
a summons to dinner, the maid's inquiry what dress to prepare, or
worse still any word of insincere or feeble sympathy, seemed an
insult, painfully irritated the wound, interrupting that necessary
quiet in which they both tried to listen to the stern and dreadful
choir that still resounded in their imagination, and hindered their
gazing into those mysterious limitless vistas that for an instant
had opened out before them.

Only when alone together were they free from such outrage and
pain. They spoke little even to one another, and when they did it
was of very unimportant matters.

Both avoided any allusion to the future. To admit the possibility of
a future seemed to them to insult his memory. Still more carefully did
they avoid anything relating to him who was dead. It seemed to them
that what they had lived through and experienced could not be
expressed in words, and that any reference to the details of his
life infringed the majesty and sacredness of the mystery that had been
accomplished before their eyes.

Continued abstention from speech, and constant avoidance of
everything that might lead up to the subject- this halting on all
sides at the boundary of what they might not mention- brought before
their minds with still greater purity and clearness what they were
both feeling.

But pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete
joy. Princess Mary, in her position as absolute and independent
arbiter of her own fate and guardian and instructor of her nephew, was
the first to be called back to life from that realm of sorrow in which
she had dwelt for the first fortnight. She received letters from her
relations to which she had to reply; the room in which little Nicholas
had been put was damp and he began to cough; Alpatych came to
Yaroslavl with reports on the state of their affairs and with advice
and suggestions that they should return to Moscow to the house on
the Vozdvizhenka Street, which had remained uninjured and needed
only slight repairs. Life did not stand still and it was necessary
to live. Hard as it was for Princess Mary to emerge from the realm
of secluded contemplation in which she had lived till then, and
sorry and almost ashamed as she felt to leave Natasha alone, yet the
cares of life demanded her attention and she involuntarily yielded
to them. She went through the accounts with Alpatych, conferred with
Dessalles about her nephew, and gave orders and made preparations
for the journey to Moscow.

Natasha remained alone and, from the time Princess Mary began making
preparations for departure, held aloof from her too.

Princess Mary asked the countess to let Natasha go with her to
Moscow, and both parents gladly accepted this offer, for they saw
their daughter losing strength every day and thought that a change
of scene and the advice of Moscow doctors would be good for her.

"I am not going anywhere," Natasha replied when this was proposed to
her. "Do please just leave me alone!" And she ran out of the room,
with difficulty refraining from tears of vexation and irritation
rather than of sorrow.

After she felt herself deserted by Princes Mary and alone in her
grief, Natasha spent most of the time in her room by herself,
sitting huddled up feet and all in the corner of the sofa, tearing and
twisting something with her slender nervous fingers and gazing
intently and fixedly at whatever her eyes chanced to fall on. This
solitude exhausted and tormented her but she was in absolute need of
it. As soon as anyone entered she got up quickly, changed her position
and expression, and picked up a book or some sewing, evidently waiting
impatiently for the intruder to go.

She felt all the time as if she might at any moment penetrate that
on which- with a terrible questioning too great for her strength-
her spiritual gaze was fixed.

One day toward the end of December Natasha, pale and thin, dressed
in a black woolen gown, her plaited hair negligently twisted into a
knot, was crouched feet and all in the corner of her sofa, nervously
crumpling and smoothing out the end of her sash while she looked at
a corner of the door.

She was gazing in the direction in which he had gone- to the other
side of life. And that other side of life, of which she had never
before thought and which had formerly seemed to her so far away and
improbable, was now nearer and more akin and more comprehensible
than this side of life, where everything was either emptiness and
desolation or suffering and indignity.

She was gazing where she knew him to be; but she could not imagine
him otherwise than as he had been here. She now saw him again as he
had been at Mytishchi, at Troitsa, and at Yaroslavl.

She saw his face, heard his voice, repeated his words and her own,
and sometimes devised other words they might have spoken.

There he is lying back in an armchair in his velvet cloak, leaning
his head on his thin pale hand. His chest is dreadfully hollow and his
shoulders raised. His lips are firmly closed, his eyes glitter, and
a wrinkle comes and goes on his pale forehead. One of his legs
twitches just perceptibly, but rapidly. Natasha knows that he is
struggling with terrible pain. "What is that pain like? Why does he
have that pain? What does he feel? How does it hurt him?" thought
Natasha. He noticed her watching him, raised his eyes, and began to
speak seriously:

"One thing would be terrible," said he: "to bind oneself forever
to a suffering man. It would be continual torture." And he looked
searchingly at her. Natasha as usual answered before she had time to
think what she would say. She said: "This can't go on- it won't. You
will get well- quite well."

She now saw him from the commencement of that scene and relived what
she had then felt. She recalled his long sad and severe look at
those words and understood the meaning of the rebuke and despair in
that protracted gaze.

"I agreed," Natasha now said to herself, "that it would be
dreadful if he always continued to suffer. I said it then only because
it would have been dreadful for him, but he understood it differently.
He thought it would be dreadful for me. He then still wished to live
and feared death. And I said it so awkwardly and stupidly! I did not
say what I meant. I thought quite differently. Had I said what I
thought, I should have said: even if he had to go on dying, to die
continually before my eyes, I should have been happy compared with
what I am now. Now there is nothing... nobody. Did he know that? No,
he did not and never will know it. And now it will never, never be
possible to put it right." And now he again seemed to be saying the
same words to her, only in her imagination Natasha this time gave
him a different answer. She stopped him and said: "Terrible for you,
but not for me! You know that for me there is nothing in life but you,
and to suffer with you is the greatest happiness for me," and he
took her hand and pressed it as he had pressed it that terrible
evening four days before his death. And in her imagination she said
other tender and loving words which she might have said then but
only spoke now: "I love thee!... thee! I love, love..." she said,
convulsively pressing her hands and setting her teeth with a desperate
effort...

She was overcome by sweet sorrow and tears were already rising in
her eyes; then she suddenly asked herself to whom she was saying this.
Again everything was shrouded in hard, dry perplexity, and again
with a strained frown she peered toward the world where he was. And
now, now it seemed to her she was penetrating the mystery.... But at
the instant when it seemed that the incomprehensible was revealing
itself to her a loud rattle of the door handle struck painfully on her
ears. Dunyasha, her maid, entered the room quickly and abruptly with a
frightened look on her face and showing no concern for her mistress.

"Come to your Papa at once, please!" said she with a strange,
excited look. "A misfortune... about Peter Ilynich... a letter," she
finished with a sob.


CHAPTER II


Besides a feeling of aloofness from everybody Natasha was feeling
a special estrangement from the members of her own family. All of
them- her father, mother, and Sonya- were so near to her, so familiar,
so commonplace, that all their words and feelings seemed an insult
to the world in which she had been living of late, and she felt not
merely indifferent to them but regarded them with hostility. She heard
Dunyasha's words about Peter Ilynich and a misfortune, but did not
grasp them.

"What misfortune? What misfortune can happen to them? They just live
their own old, quiet, and commonplace life," thought Natasha.

As she entered the ballroom her father was hurriedly coming out of
her mother's room. His face was puckered up and wet with tears. He had
evidently run out of that room to give vent to the sobs that were
choking him. When he saw Natasha he waved his arms despairingly and
burst into convulsively painful sobs that distorted his soft round
face.

"Pe... Petya... Go, go, she... is calling..." and weeping like a
child and quickly shuffling on his feeble legs to a chair, he almost
fell into it, covering his face with his hands.

Suddenly an electric shock seemed to run through Natasha's whole
being. Terrible anguish struck her heart, she felt a dreadful ache
as if something was being torn inside her and she were dying. But
the pain was immediately followed by a feeling of release from the
oppressive constraint that had prevented her taking part in life.
The sight of her father, the terribly wild cries of her mother that
she heard through the door, made her immediately forget herself and
her own grief.

She ran to her father, but he feebly waved his arm, pointing to
her mother's door. Princess Mary, pale and with quivering chin, came
out from that room and taking Natasha by the arm said something to
her. Natasha neither saw nor heard her. She went in with rapid
steps, pausing at the door for an instant as if struggling with
herself, and then ran to her mother.

The countess was lying in an armchair in a strange and awkward
position, stretching out and beating her head against the wall.
Sonya and the maids were holding her arms.

"Natasha! Natasha!..." cried the countess. "It's not true... it's
not true... He's lying... Natasha!" she shrieked, pushing those around
her away. "Go away, all of you; it's not true! Killed!... ha, ha,
ha!... It's not true!"

Natasha put one knee on the armchair, stooped over her mother,
embraced her, and with unexpected strength raised her, turned her face
toward herself, and clung to her.

"Mummy!... darling!... I am here, my dearest Mummy," she kept on
whispering, not pausing an instant.

She did not let go of her mother but struggled tenderly with her,
demanded a pillow and hot water, and unfastened and tore open her
mother's dress.

"My dearest darling... Mummy, my precious!..." she whispered
incessantly, kissing her head, her hands, her face, and feeling her
own irrepressible and streaming tears tickling her nose and cheeks.

The countess pressed her daughter's hand, closed her eyes, and
became quiet for a moment. Suddenly she sat up with unaccustomed
swiftness, glanced vacantly around her, and seeing Natasha began to
press her daughter's head with all her strength. Then she turned
toward her daughter's face which was wincing with pain and gazed
long at it.

"Natasha, you love me?" she said in a soft trustful whisper.
"Natasha, you would not deceive me? You'll tell me the whole truth?"

Natasha looked at her with eyes full of tears and in her look
there was nothing but love and an entreaty for forgiveness.

"My darling Mummy!" she repeated, straining all the power of her
love to find some way of taking on herself the excess of grief that
crushed her mother.

And again in a futile struggle with reality her mother, refusing
to believe that she could live when her beloved boy was killed in
the bloom of life, escaped from reality into a world of delirium.

Natasha did not remember how that day passed nor that night, nor the
next day and night. She did not sleep and did not leave her mother.
Her persevering and patient love seemed completely to surround the
countess every moment, not explaining or consoling, but recalling
her to life.

During the third night the countess kept very quiet for a few
minutes, and Natasha rested her head on the arm of her chair and
closed her eyes, but opened them again on hearing the bedstead
creak. The countess was sitting up in bed and speaking softly.

"How glad I am you have come. You are tired. Won't you have some
tea?" Natasha went up to her. "You have improved in looks and grown
more manly," continued the countess, taking her daughter's hand.

"Mamma! What are you saying..."

"Natasha, he is no more, no more!"

And embracing her daughter, the countess began to weep for the first
time.


CHAPTER III


Princess Mary postponed her departure. Sonya and the count tried
to replace Natasha but could not. They saw that she alone was able
to restrain her mother from unreasoning despair. For three weeks
Natasha remained constantly at her mother's side, sleeping on a lounge
chair in her room, making her eat and drink, and talking to her
incessantly because the mere sound of her tender, caressing tones
soothed her mother.

The mother's wounded spirit could not could not heal. Petya's
death had torn from her half her life. When the news of Petya's
death had come she had been a fresh and vigorous woman of fifty, but a
month later she left her room a listless old woman taking no
interest in life. But the same blow that almost killed the countess,
this second blow, restored Natasha to life.

A spiritual wound produced by a rending of the spiritual body is
like a physical wound and, strange as it may seem, just as a deep
wound may heal and its edges join, physical and spiritual wounds alike
can yet heal completely only as the result of a vital force from
within.

Natasha's wound healed in that way. She thought her life was
ended, but her love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that the
essence of life- love- was still active within her. Love awoke and
so did life.

Prince Andrew's last days had bound Princess Mary and Natasha
together; this new sorrow brought them still closer to one another.
Princess Mary put off her departure, and for three weeks looked
after Natasha as if she had been a sick child. The last weeks passed
in her mother's bedroom had strained Natasha's physical strength.

One afternoon noticing Natasha shivering with fever, Princess Mary
took her to her own room and made her lie down on the bed. Natasha lay
down, but when Princess Mary had drawn the blinds and was going away
she called her back.

"I don't want to sleep, Mary, sit by me a little."

"You are tired- try to sleep."

"No, no. Why did you bring me away? She will be asking for me."

"She is much better. She spoke so well today," said Princess Mary.

Natasha lay on the bed and in the semidarkness of the room scanned
Princess Mary's face.

"Is she like him?" thought Natasha. "Yes, like and yet not like. But
she is quite original, strange, new, and unknown. And she loves me.
What is in her heart? All that is good. But how? What is her mind
like? What does she think about me? Yes, she is splendid!"

"Mary," she said timidly, drawing Princess Mary's hand to herself,
"Mary, you mustn't think me wicked. No? Mary darling, how I love
you! Let us be quite, quite friends."

And Natasha, embracing her, began kissing her face and hands, making
Princess Mary feel shy but happy by this demonstration of her
feelings.

From that day a tender and passionate friendship such as exists only
between women was established between Princess Mary and Natasha.
They were continually kissing and saying tender things to one
another and spent most of their time together. When one went out the
other became restless and hastened to rejoin her. Together they felt
more in harmony with one another than either of them felt with herself
when alone. A feeling stronger than friendship sprang up between them;
an exclusive feeling of life being possible only in each other's
presence.

Sometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes after they were
already in bed they would begin talking and go on till morning. They
spoke most of what was long past. Princess Mary spoke of her
childhood, of her mother, her father, and her daydreams; and
Natasha, who with a passive lack of understanding had formerly
turned away from that life of devotion, submission, and the poetry
of Christian self-sacrifice, now feeling herself bound to Princess
Mary by affection, learned to love her past too and to understand a
side of life previously incomprehensible to her. She did not think
of applying submission and self-abnegation to her own life, for she
was accustomed to seek other joys, but she understood and loved in
another those previously incomprehensible virtues. For Princess
Mary, listening to Natasha's tales of childhood and early youth, there
also opened out a new and hitherto uncomprehended side of life: belief
in life and its enjoyment.

Just as before, they never mentioned him so as not to lower (as they
thought) their exalted feelings by words; but this silence about him
had the effect of making them gradually begin to forget him without
being conscious of it.

Natasha had grown thin and pale and physically so weak that they all
talked about her health, and this pleased her. But sometimes she was
suddenly overcome by fear not only of death but of sickness, weakness,
and loss of good looks, and involuntarily she examined her bare arm
carefully, surprised at its thinness, and in the morning noticed her
drawn and, as it seemed to her, piteous face in her glass. It seemed
to her that things must be so, and yet it was dreadfully sad.

One day she went quickly upstairs and found herself out of breath.
Unconsciously she immediately invented a reason for going down, and
then, testing her strength, ran upstairs again, observing the result.

Another time when she called Dunyasha her voice trembled, so she
called again- though she could hear Dunyasha coming- called her in the
deep chest tones in which she had been wont to sing, sing, and
listened attentively to herself.

She did not know and would not have believed it, but beneath the
layer of slime that covered her soul and seemed to her impenetrable,
delicate young shoots of grass were already sprouting, which taking
root would so cover with their living verdure the grief that weighed
her down that it would soon no longer be seen or noticed. The wound
had begun to heal from within.

At the end of January Princess Mary left for Moscow, and the count
insisted on Natasha's going with her to consult the doctors.


CHAPTER IV


After the encounter at Vyazma, where Kutuzov had been unable to hold
back his troops in their anxiety to overwhelm and cut off the enemy
and so on, the farther movement of the fleeing French, and of the
Russians who pursued them, continued as far as Krasnoe without a
battle. The flight was so rapid that the Russian army pursuing the
French could not keep up with them; cavalry and artillery horses broke
down, and the information received of the movements of the French
was never reliable.

The men in the Russian army were so worn out by this continuous
marching at the rate of twenty-seven miles a day that they could not
go any faster.

To realize the degree of exhaustion of the Russian army it is only
necessary to grasp clearly the meaning of the fact that, while not
losing more than five thousand killed and wounded after Tarutino and
less than a hundred prisoners, the Russian army which left that
place a hundred thousand strong reached Krasnoe with only fifty
thousand.

The rapidity of the Russian pursuit was just as destructive to our
army as the flight of the French was to theirs. The only difference
was that the Russian army moved voluntarily, with no such threat of
destruction as hung over the French, and that the sick Frenchmen
were left behind in enemy hands while the sick Russians left behind
were among their own people. The chief cause of the wastage of
Napoleon's army was the rapidity of its movement, and a convincing
proof of this is the corresponding decrease of the Russian army.

Kutuzov as far as was in his power, instead of trying to check the
movement of the French as was desired in Petersburg and by the Russian
army generals, directed his whole activity here, as he had done at
Tarutino and Vyazma, to hastening it on while easing the movement of
our army.

But besides this, since the exhaustion and enormous diminution of
the army caused by the rapidity of the advance had become evident,
another reason for slackening the pace and delaying presented itself
to Kutuzov. The aim of the Russian army was to pursue the French.
The road the French would take was unknown, and so the closer our
troops trod on their heels the greater distance they had to cover.
Only by following at some distance could one cut across the zigzag
path of the French. All the artful maneuvers suggested by our generals
meant fresh movements of the army and a lengthening of its marches,
whereas the only reasonable aim was to shorten those marches. To
that end Kutuzov's activity was directed during the whole campaign
from Moscow to Vilna- not casually or intermittently but so
consistently that he never once deviated from it.

Kutuzov felt and knew- not by reasoning or science but with the
whole of his Russian being- what every Russian soldier felt: that
the French were beaten, that the enemy was flying and must be driven
out; but at the same time he like the soldiers realized all the
hardship of this march, the rapidity of which was unparalleled for
such a time of the year.

But to the generals, especially the foreign ones in the Russian
army, who wished to distinguish themselves, to astonish somebody,
and for some reason to capture a king or a duke- it seemed that now-
when any battle must be horrible and senseless- was the very time to
fight and conquer somebody. Kutuzov merely shrugged his shoulders when
one after another they presented projects of maneuvers to be made with
those soldiers- ill-shod, insufficiently clad, and half starved- who
within a month and without fighting a battle had dwindled to half
their number, and who at the best if the flight continued would have
to go a greater distance than they had already traversed, before
they reached the frontier.

This longing to distinguish themselves, to maneuver, to overthrow,
and to cut off showed itself particularly whenever the Russians
stumbled on the French army.

So it was at Krasnoe, where they expected to find one of the three
French columns and stumbled instead on Napoleon himself with sixteen
thousand men. Despite all Kutuzov's efforts to avoid that ruinous
encounter and to preserve his troops, the massacre of the broken mob
of French soldiers by worn-out Russians continued at Krasnoe for three
days.

Toll wrote a disposition: "The first column will march to so and
so," etc. And as usual nothing happened in accord with the
disposition. Prince Eugene of Wurttemberg fired from a hill over the
French crowds that were running past, and demanded reinforcements
which did not arrive. The French, avoiding the Russians, dispersed and
hid themselves in the forest by night, making their way round as
best they could, and continued their flight.

Miloradovich, who said he did not want to know anything about the
commissariat affairs of his detachment, and could never be found
when he was wanted- that chevalier sans peur et sans reproche* as he
styled himself- who was fond of parleys with the French, sent envoys
demanding their surrender, wasted time, and did not do what he was
ordered to do.


*Knight without fear and without reproach.


"I give you that column, lads," he said, riding up to the troops and
pointing out the French to the cavalry.

And the cavalry, with spurs and sabers urging on horses that could
scarcely move, trotted with much effort to the column presented to
them- that is to say, to a crowd of Frenchmen stark with cold,
frost-bitten, and starving- and the column that had been presented
to them threw down its arms and surrendered as it had long been
anxious to do.

At Krasnoe they took twenty-six thousand prisoners, several
hundred cannon, and a stick called a "marshal's staff," and disputed
as to who had distinguished himself and were pleased with their
achievement- though they much regretted not having taken Napoleon,
or at least a marshal or a hero of some sort, and reproached one
another and especially Kutuzov for having failed to do so.

These men, carried away by their passions, were but blind tools of
the most melancholy law of necessity, but considered themselves heroes
and imagined that they were accomplishing a most noble and honorable
deed. They blamed Kutuzov and said that from the very beginning of the
campaign he had prevented their vanquishing Napoleon, that he
thought nothing but satisfying his passions and would not advance from
the Linen Factories because he was comfortable there, that at
Krasnoe he checked the advance because on learning that Napoleon was
there he had quite lost his head, and that it was probable that he had
an understanding with Napoleon and had been bribed by him, and so
on, and so on.

Not only did his contempories, carried away by their passions,
talk in this way, but posterity and history have acclaimed Napoleon as
grand, while Kutuzov is described by foreigners as a crafty,
dissolute, weak old courtier, and by Russians as something indefinite-
a sort of puppet useful only because he had a Russian name.


CHAPTER V


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


*History of the year 1812. The character of Kutuzov and
reflections on the unsatisfactory results of the battles at Krasnoe,
by Bogdanovich.


Such is the fate not of great men (grands hommes) whom the Russian
mind does not acknowledge, but of those rare and always solitary
individuals who, discerning the will of Providence, submit their
personal will to it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd punish
such men for discerning the higher laws.

For Russian historians, strange and terrible to say, Napoleon-
that most insignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even in
exile, showed human dignity- Napoleon is the object of adulation and
enthusiasm; he is grand. But Kutuzov- the man who from the beginning
to the end of his activity in 1812, never once swerving by word or
deed from Borodino to Vilna, presented an example exceptional in
history of self-sacrifice and a present conciousness of the future
importance of what was happening- Kutuzov seems to them something
indefinite and pitiful, and when speaking of him and of the year
1812 they always seem a little ashamed.

And yet it is difficult to imagine an historical character whose
activity was so unswervingly directed to a single aim; and it would be
difficult to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant with the
will of the whole people. Still more difficult would it be to find
an instance in history of the aim of an historical personage being
so completely accomplished as that to which all Kutuzov's efforts were
directed in 1812.

Kutuzov never talked of "forty centuries looking down from the
Pyramids," of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of what
he intended to accomplish or had accomplished; in general he said
nothing about himself, adopted no prose, always appeared to be the
simplest and most ordinary of men, and said the simplest and most
ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de
Stael, read novels, liked the society of pretty women, jested with
generals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted those who
tried to prove anything to him. When Count Rostopchin at the Yauza
bridge galloped up to Kutuzov with personal reproaches for having
caused the destruction of Moscow, and said: "How was it you promised
not to abandon Moscow without a battle?" Kutuzov replied: "And I shall
not abandon Moscow without a battle," though Moscow was then already
abandoned. When Arakcheev, coming to him from the Emperor, said that
Ermolov ought to be appointed chief of the artillery, Kutuzov replied:
"Yes, I was just saying so myself," though a moment before he had said
quite the contrary. What did it matter to him- who then alone amid a
senseless crowd understood the whole tremendous significance of what
was happening- what did it matter to him whether Rostopchin attributed
the calamities of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could it
matter to him who was appointed chief of the artillery.

Not merely in these cases but continually did that old man- who by
experience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts and the
words serving as their expression are not what move people- use
quite meaningless words that happened to enter his head.

But that man, so heedless of his words, did not once during the
whole time of his activity utter one word inconsistent with the single
aim toward which he moved throughout the whole war. Obviously in spite
of himself, in very diverse circumstances, he repeatedly expressed his
real thoughts with the bitter conviction that he would not be
understood. Beginning with the battle of Borodino, from which time his
disagreement with those about him began, he alone said that the battle
of Borodino was a victory, and repeated this both verbally and in
his dispatches and reports up to the time of his death. He alone
said that the loss of Moscow is not the loss of Russia. In reply to
Lauriston's proposal of peace, he said: There can be no peace, for
such is the people's will. He alone during the retreat of the French
said that all our maneuvers are useless, everything is being
accomplished of itself better than we could desire; that the enemy
must be offered "a golden bridge"; that neither the Tarutino, the
Vyazma, nor the Krasnoe battles were necessary; that we must keep some
force to reach the frontier with, and that he would not sacrifice a
single Russian for ten Frenchmen.

And this courtier, as he is described to us, who lies to Arakcheev
to please the Emperor, he alone- incurring thereby the Emperor's
displeasure- said in Vilna that to carry the war beyond the frontier
is useless and harmful.

Nor do words alone prove that only he understood the meaning of
the events. His actions- without the smallest deviation- were all
directed to one and the same threefold end: (1) to brace all his
strength for conflict with the French, (2) to defeat them, and (3)
to drive them out of Russia, minimizing as far as possible the
sufferings of our people and of our army.

This procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was "Patience and Time,"
this enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodino, investing
the preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity. This Kutuzov
who before the battle of Austerlitz began said that it would be
lost, he alone, in contradiction to everyone else, declared till his
death that Borodino was a victory, despite the assurance of generals
that the battle was lost and despite the fact that for an army to have
to retire after winning a battle was unprecedented. He alone during
the whole retreat insisted that battles, which were useless then,
should not be fought, and that a new war should not be begun nor the
frontiers of Russia crossed.

It is easy now to understand the significance of these events- if
only we abstain from attributing to the activity of the mass aims that
existed only in the heads of a dozen individuals- for the events and
results now lie before us.

But how did that old man, alone, in opposition to the general
opinion, so truly discern the importance of the people's view of the
events that in all his activity he was never once untrue to it?

The source of that extraordinary power of penetrating the meaning of
the events then occuring lay in the national feeling which he
possessed in full purity and strength.

Only the recognition of the fact that he possessed this feeling
caused the people in so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsar's wish,
to select him- an old man in disfavor- to be their representative in
the national war. And only that feeling placed him on that highest
human pedestal from which he, the commander in chief, devoted all
his powers not to slaying and destroying men but to saving and showing
pity on them.

That simple, modest, and therefore truly great, figure could not
be cast in the false mold of a European hero- the supposed ruler of
men- that history has invented.

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


CHAPTER VI


The fifth of November was the first day of what is called the battle
of Krasnoe. Toward evening- after much disputing and many mistakes
made by generals who did not go to their proper places, and after
adjutants had been sent about with counterorders- when it had become
plain that the enemy was everywhere in flight and that there could and
would be no battle, Kutuzov left Krasnoe and went to Dobroe whither
his headquarters had that day been transferred.

The day was clear and frosty. Kutuzov rode to Dobroe on his plump
little white horse, followed by an enormous suite of discontented
generals who whispered among themselves behind his back. All along the
road groups of French prisoners captured that day (there were seven
thousand of them) were crowding to warm themselves at campfires.
Near Dobroe an immense crowd of tattered prisoners, buzzing with
talk and wrapped and bandaged in anything they had been able to get
hold of, were standing in the road beside a long row of unharnessed
French guns. At the approach of the commander in chief the buzz of
talk ceased and all eyes were fixed on Kutuzov who, wearing a white
cap with a red band and a padded overcoat that bulged on his round
shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his white horse. One of
the generals was reporting to him where the guns and prisoners had
been captured.

Kutuzov seemed preoccupied and did not listen to what the general
was saying. He screwed up his eyes with a dissatisfied look as he
gazed attentively and fixedly at these prisoners, who presented a
specially wretched appearance. Most of them were disfigured by
frost-bitten noses and cheeks, and nearly all had red, swollen and
festering eyes.

One group of the French stood close to the road, and two of them,
one of whom had his face covered with sores, were tearing a piece of
raw flesh with their hands. There was something horrible and bestial
in the fleeting glance they threw at the riders and in the
malevolent expression with which, after a glance at Kutuzov, the
soldier with the sores immediately turned away and went on with what
he was doing.

Kutuzov looked long and intently at these two soldiers. He
puckered his face, screwed up his eyes, and pensively swayed his head.
At another spot he noticed a Russian soldier laughingly patting a
Frenchman on the shoulder, saying something to him in a friendly
manner, and Kutuzov with the same expression on his face again
swayed his head.

"What were you saying?" he asked the general, who continuing his
report directed the commander in chief's attention to some standards
captured from the French and standing in front of the Preobrazhensk
regiment.

"Ah, the standards!" said Kutuzov, evidently detaching himself
with difficulty from the thoughts that preoccupied him.

He looked about him absently. Thousands of eyes were looking at
him from all sides awaiting a word from him.

He stopped in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment, sighed deeply,
and closed his eyes. One of his suite beckoned to the soldiers
carrying the standards to advance and surround the commander in
chief with them. Kutuzov was silent for a few seconds and then,
submitting with evident reluctance to the duty imposed by his
position, raised his head and began to speak. A throng of officers
surrounded him. He looked attentively around at the circle of
officers, recognizing several of them.

"I thank you all!" he said, addressing the soldiers and then again
the officers. In the stillness around him his slowly uttered words
were distinctly heard. "I thank you all for your hard and faithful
service. The victory is complete and Russia will not forget you! Honor
to you forever."

He paused and looked around.

"Lower its head, lower it!" he said to a soldier who had
accidentally lowered the French eagle he was holding before the
Preobrazhensk standards. "Lower, lower, that's it. Hurrah lads!" he
added, addressing the men with a rapid movement of his chin.

"Hur-r-rah!" roared thousands of voices.

While the soldiers were shouting Kutuzov leaned forward in his
saddle and bowed his head, and his eye lit up with a mild and
apparently ironic gleam.

"You see, brothers..." said he when the shouts had ceased... and all
at once his voice and the expression of his face changed. It was no
longer the commander in chief speaking but an ordinary old man who
wanted to tell his comrades something very important.

There was a stir among the throng of officers and in the ranks of
the soldiers, who moved that they might hear better what he was
going to say.

"You see, brothers, I know it's hard for you, but it can't be
helped! Bear up; it won't be for long now! We'll see our visitors
off and then we'll rest. The Tsar won't forget your service. It is
hard for you, but still you are at home while they- you see what
they have come to," said he, pointing to the prisoners. "Worse off
than our poorest beggars. While they were strong we didn't spare
ourselves, but now we may even pity them. They are human beings too.
Isn't it so, lads?"

He looked around, and in the direct, respectful, wondering gaze
fixed upon him he read sympathy with what he had said. His face grew
brighter and brighter with an old man's mild smile, which drew the
corners of his lips and eyes into a cluster of wrinkles. He ceased
speaking and bowed his head as if in perplexity.

"But after all who asked them here? Serves them right, the bloody
bastards!" he cried, suddenly lifting his head.

And flourishing his whip he rode off at a gallop for the first
time during the whole campaign, and left the broken ranks of the
soldiers laughing joyfully and shouting "Hurrah!"

Kutuzov's words were hardly understood by the troops. No one could
have repeated the field marshal's address, begun solemnly and then
changing into an old man's simplehearted talk; but the hearty
sincerity of that speech, the feeling of majestic triumph combined
with pity for the foe and consciousness of the justice of our cause,
exactly expressed by that old man's good-natured expletives, was not
merely understood but lay in the soul of every soldier and found
expression in their joyous and long-sustained shouts. Afterwards
when one of the generals addressed Kutuzov asking whether he wished
his caleche to be sent for, Kutuzov in answering unexpectedly gave a
sob, being evidently greatly moved.


CHAPTER VII


When the troops reached their night's halting place on the eighth of
November, the last day of the Krasnoe battles, it was already
growing dusk. All day it had been calm and frosty with occasional
lightly falling snow and toward evening it began to clear. Through the
falling snow a purple-black and starry sky showed itself and the frost
grew keener.

An infantry regiment which had left Tarutino three thousand strong
but now numbered only nine hundred was one of the first to arrive that
night at its halting place- a village on the highroad. The
quartermasters who met the regiment announced that all the huts were
full of sick and dead Frenchmen, cavalrymen, and members of the staff.
There was only one hut available for the regimental commander.

The commander rode up to his hut. The regiment passed through the
village and stacked its arms in front of the last huts.

Like some huge many-limbed animal, the regiment began to prepare its
lair and its food. One part of it dispersed and waded knee-deep
through the snow into a birch forest to the right of the village,
and immediately the sound of axes and swords, the crashing of
branches, and merry voices could be heard from there. Another
section amid the regimental wagons and horses which were standing in a
group was busy getting out caldrons and rye biscuit, and feeding the
horses. A third section scattered through the village arranging
quarters for the staff officers, carrying out the French corpses
that were in the huts, and dragging away boards, dry wood, and
thatch from the roofs, for the campfires, or wattle fences to serve
for shelter.

Some fifteen men with merry shouts were shaking down the high wattle
wall of a shed, the roof of which had already been removed.

"Now then, all together- shove!" cried the voices, and the huge
surface of the wall, sprinkled with snow and creaking with frost,
was seen swaying in the gloom of the night. The lower stakes cracked
more and more and at last the wall fell, and with it the men who had
been pushing it. Loud, coarse laughter and joyous shouts ensued.

"Now then, catch hold in twos! Hand up the lever! That's it... Where
are you shoving to?"

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

All stood silent, and a soft, pleasant velvety voice began to
sing. At the end of the third verse as the last note died away, twenty
voices roared out at once: "Oo-oo-oo-oo! That's it. All together!
Heave away, boys!..." but despite their united efforts the wattle
hardly moved, and in the silence that followed the heavy breathing
of the men was audible.

"Here, you of the Sixth Company! Devils that you are! Lend a hand...
will you? You may want us one of these days."

Some twenty men of the Sixth Company who were on their way into
the village joined the haulers, and the wattle wall, which was about
thirty-five feet long an seven feet high, moved forward along the
village street, swaying, pressing upon and cutting the shoulders of
the gasping men.

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

Merry senseless words of abuse flowed freely.

"What are you up to?" suddenly came the authoritative voice of a
sergeant major who came upon the men who were hauling their burden.
"There are gentry here; the general himself is in that hut, and you
foul-mouthed devils, you brutes, I'll give it to you!" shouted he,
hitting the first man who came in his way a swinging blow on the back.
"Can't you make less noise?"

The men became silent. The soldier who had been struck groaned and
wiped his face, which had been scratched till it bled by his falling
against the wattle.

"There, how that devil hits out! He's made my face all bloody," said
he in a frightened whisper when the sergeant major had passed on.

"Don't you like it?" said a laughing voice, and moderating their
tones the men moved forward.

When they were out of the village they began talking again as loud
as before, interlarding their talk with the same aimless expletives.

In the hut which the men had passed, the chief officers had gathered
and were in animated talk over their tea about the events of the day
and the maneuvers suggested for tomorrow. It was proposed to make a
flank march to the left, cut off the Vice-King (Murat) and capture
him.

By the time the soldiers had dragged the wattle fence to its place
the campfires were blazing on all sides ready for cooking, the wood
crackled, the snow was melting, and black shadows of soldiers
flitted to and fro all over the occupied space where the snow had been
trodden down.

Axes and choppers were plied all around. Everything was done without
any orders being given. Stores of wood were brought for the night,
shelters were rigged up for the officers, caldrons were being
boiled, and muskets and accouterments put in order.

The wattle wall the men had brought was set up in a semicircle by
the Eighth Company as a shelter from the north, propped up by musket
rests, and a campfire was built before it. They beat the tattoo,
called the roll, had supper, and settled down round the fires for
the night- some repairing their footgear, some smoking pipes, and some
stripping themselves naked to steam the lice out of their shirts.


CHAPTER VIII


One would have thought that under the almost incredibly wretched
conditions the Russian soldiers were in at that time- lacking warm
boots and sheepskin coats, without a roof over their heads, in the
snow with eighteen degrees of frost, and without even full rations
(the commissariat did not always keep up with the troops)- they
would have presented a very sad and depressing spectacle.

On the contrary, the army had never under the best material
conditions presented a more cheerful and animated aspect. This was
because all who began to grow depressed or who lost strength were
sifted out of the army day by day. All the physically or morally
weak had long since been left behind and only the flower of the
army- physically and mentally- remained.

More men collected behind the wattle fence of the Eighth Company
than anywhere else. Two sergeants major were sitting with them and
their campfire blazed brighter than others. For leave to sit by
their wattle they demanded contributions of fuel.

"Eh, Makeev! What has become of you, you son of a bitch? Are you
lost or have the wolves eaten you? Fetch some more wood!" shouted a
red-haired and red-faced man, screwing up his eyes and blinking
because of the smoke but not moving back from the fire. "And you,
Jackdaw, go and fetch some wood!" said he to another soldier.

This red-haired man was neither a sergeant nor a corporal, but being
robust he ordered about those weaker than himself. The soldier they
called "Jackdaw," a thin little fellow with a sharp nose, rose
obediently and was about to go but at that instant there came into the
light of the fire the slender, handsome figure of a young soldier
carrying a load of wood.

"Bring it here- that's fine!"

They split up the wood, pressed it down on the fire, blew at it with
their mouths, and fanned it with the skirts of their greatcoats,
making the flames hiss and crackle. The men drew nearer and lit
their pipes. The handsome young soldier who had brought the wood,
setting his arms akimbo, began stamping his cold feet rapidly and
deftly on the spot where he stood.

"Mother! The dew is cold but clear.... It's well that I'm a
musketeer..." he sang, pretending to hiccough after each syllable.

"Look out, your soles will fly off!" shouted the red-haired man,
noticing that the sole of the dancer's boot was hanging loose. "What a
fellow you are for dancing!"

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

"Right enough, friend," said he, and, having sat down, took out of
his knapsack a scrap of blue French cloth, and wrapped it round his
foot. "It's the steam that spoils them," he added, stretching out
his feet toward the fire.

"They'll soon be issuing us new ones. They say that when we've
finished hammering them, we're to receive double kits!"

"And that son of a bitch Petrov has lagged behind after all, it
seems," said one sergeant major.

"I've had an eye on him this long while," said the other.

"Well, he's a poor sort of soldier..."

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

"Yes, it's all very well, but when a man's feet are frozen how can
he walk?"

"Eh? Don't talk nonsense!" said a sergeant major.

"Do you want to be doing the same?" said an old soldier, turning
reproachfully to the man who had spoken of frozen feet.

"Well, you know," said the sharp-nosed man they called Jackdaw in
a squeaky and unsteady voice, raising himself at the other side of the
fire, "a plump man gets thin, but for a thin one it's death. Take
me, now! I've got no strength left," he added, with sudden
resolution turning to the sergeant major. "Tell them to send me to
hospital; I'm aching all over; anyway I shan't be able to keep up."

"That'll do, that'll do!" replied the sergeant major quietly.

The soldier said no more and the talk went on.

"What a lot of those Frenchies were taken today, and the fact is
that not one of them had what you might call real boots on," said a
soldier, starting a new theme. "They were no more than make-believes."

"The Cossacks have taken their boots. They were clearing the hut for
the colonel and carried them out. It was pitiful to see them, boys,"
put in the dancer. "As they turned them over one seemed still alive
and, would you believe it, he jabbered something in their lingo."

"But they're a clean folk, lads," the first man went on; "he was
white- as white as birchbark- and some of them are such fine
fellows, you might think they were nobles."

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

"But they don't understand our talk at all," said the dancer with
a puzzled smile. "I asked him whose subject he was, and he jabbered in
his own way. A queer lot!"

"But it's strange, friends," continued the man who had wondered at
their whiteness, "the peasants at Mozhaysk were saying that when
they began burying the dead- where the battle was you know- well,
those dead had been lying there for nearly a month, and says the
peasant, 'they lie as white as paper, clean, and not as much smell
as a puff of powder smoke.'"

"Was it from the cold?" asked someone.

"You're a clever fellow! From the cold indeed! Why, it was hot. If
it had been from the cold, ours would not have rotted either. 'But,'
he says, 'go up to ours and they are all rotten and maggoty. So,' he
says, 'we tie our faces up with kerchiefs and turn our heads away as
we drag them off: we can hardly do it. But theirs,' he says, 'are
white as paper and not so much smell as a whiff of gunpowder.'"

All were silent.

"It must be from their food," said the sergeant major. "They used to
gobble the same food as the gentry."

No one contradicted him.

"That peasant near Mozhaysk where the battle was said the men were
all called up from ten villages around and they carted for twenty days
and still didn't finish carting the dead away. And as for the
wolves, he says..."

"That was a real battle," said an old soldier. "It's the only one
worth remembering; but since that... it's only been tormenting folk."

"And do you know, Daddy, the day before yesterday we ran at them
and, my word, they didn't let us get near before they just threw
down their muskets and went on their knees. 'Pardon!' they say. That's
only one case. They say Platov took 'Poleon himself twice. But he
didn't know the right charm. He catches him and catches him- no
good! He turns into a bird in his hands and flies away. And there's no
way of killing him either."

"You're a first-class liar, Kiselev, when I come to look at you!"

"Liar, indeed! It's the real truth."

"If he fell into my hands, when I'd caught him I'd bury him in the
ground with an aspen stake to fix him down. What a lot of men he's
ruined!"

"Well, anyhow we're going to end it. He won't come here again,"
remarked the old soldier, yawning.

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

"Look at the stars. It's wonderful how they shine! You would think
the women had spread out their linen," said one of the men, gazing
with admiration at the Milky Way.

"That's a sign of a good harvest next year."

"We shall want some more wood."

"You warm your back and your belly gets frozen. That's queer."

"O Lord!"

"What are you pushing for? Is the fire only for you? Look how he's
sprawling!"

In the silence that ensued, the snoring of those who had fallen
asleep could be heard. Others turned over and warmed themselves, now
and again exchanging a few words. From a campfire a hundred paces
off came a sound of general, merry laughter.

"Hark at them roaring there in the Fifth Company!" said one of the
soldiers, and what a lot of them there are!"

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

"They're having such fun," said he, coming back. "Two Frenchies have
turned up. One's quite frozen and the other's an awful swaggerer. He's
singing songs...."

"Oh, I'll go across and have a look...."

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


CHAPTER IX


The fifth company was bivouacking at the very edge of the forest.
A huge campfire was blazing brightly in the midst of the snow,
lighting up the branches of trees heavy with hoarfrost.

About midnight they heard the sound of steps in the snow of the
forest, and the crackling of dry branches.

"A bear, lads," said one of the men.

They all raised their heads to listen, and out of the forest into
the bright firelight stepped two strangely clad human figures clinging
to one another.

These were two Frenchmen who had been hiding in the forest. They
came up to the fire, hoarsely uttering something in a language our
soldiers did not understand. One was taller than the other; he wore an
officer's hat and seemed quite exhausted. On approaching the fire he
had been going to sit down, but fell. The other, a short sturdy
soldier with a shawl tied round his head, was stronger. He raised
his companion and said something, pointing to his mouth. The
soldiers surrounded the Frenchmen, spread a greatcoat on the ground
for the sick man, and brought some buckwheat porridge and vodka for
both of them.

The exhausted French officer was Ramballe and the man with his
head wrapped in the shawl was Morel, his orderly.

When Morel had drunk some vodka and finished his bowl of porridge he
suddenly became unnaturally merry and chattered incessantly to the
soldiers, who could not understand him. Ramballe refused food and
resting his head on his elbow lay silent beside the campfire,
looking at the Russian soldiers with red and vacant eyes. Occasionally
he emitted a long-drawn groan and then again became silent. Morel,
pointing to his shoulders, tried to impress on the soldiers the fact
that Ramballe was an officer and ought to be warmed. A Russian officer
who had come up to the fire sent to ask his colonel whether he would
not take a French officer into his hut to warm him, and when the
messenger returned and said that the colonel wished the officer to
be brought to him, Ramballe was told to go. He rose and tried to walk,
but staggered and would have fallen had not a soldier standing by held
him up.

"You won't do it again, eh?" said one of the soldiers, winking and
turning mockingly to Ramballe.

"Oh, you fool! Why talk rubbish, lout that you are- a real peasant!"
came rebukes from all sides addressed to the jesting soldier.

They surrounded Ramballe, lifted him on the crossed arms of two
soldiers, and carried him to the hut. Ramballe put his arms around
their necks while they carried him and began wailing plaintively:

"Oh, you fine fellows, my kind, kind friends! These are men! Oh,
my brave, kind friends," and he leaned his head against the shoulder
of one of the men like a child.

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

Morel, a short sturdy Frenchman with inflamed and streaming eyes,
was wearing a woman's cloak and had a shawl tied woman fashion round
his head over his cap. He was evidently tipsy, and was singing a
French song in a hoarse broken voice, with an arm thrown round the
nearest soldier. The soldiers simply held their sides as they
watched him.

"Now then, now then, teach us how it goes! I'll soon pick it up. How
is it?" said the man- a singer and a wag- whom Morel was embracing.

"Vive Henri Quatre! Vive ce roi valiant!" sang Morel, winking. "Ce
diable a quatre..."*


*"Long live Henry the Fourth, that valiant king! That rowdy devil."


"Vivarika! Vif-seruvaru! Sedyablyaka!" repeated the soldier,
flourishing his arm and really catching the tune.

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

Morel, wrinkling up his face, laughed too.

"Well, go on, go on!"

    "Qui eut le triple talent,
    De boire, de battre,
    Et d'etre un vert galant."*

*Who had a triple talent
 For drinking, for fighting,
 And for being a gallant old boy...

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

"Ke..." Zaletaev, brought out with effort: "ke-e-e-e," he drawled,
laboriously pursing his lips, "le-trip-ta-la-de-bu-de-ba, e
de-tra-va-ga-la " he sang.

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

"Give him some porridge: it takes a long time to get filled up after
starving."

They gave him some more porridge and Morel with a laugh set to
work on his third bowl. All the young soldiers smiled gaily as they
watched him. The older men, who thought it undignified to amuse
themselves with such nonsense, continued to lie at the opposite side
of the fire, but one would occasionally raise himself on an elbow
and glance at Morel with a smile.

"They are men too," said one of them as he wrapped himself up in his
coat. "Even wormwood grows on its own root."

"O Lord, O Lord! How starry it is! Tremendous! That means a hard
frost...."

They all grew silent. The stars, as if knowing that no one was
looking at them, began to disport themselves in the dark sky: now
flaring up, now vanishing, now trembling, they were busy whispering
something gladsome and mysterious to one another.


CHAPTER X


The French army melted away at the uniform rate of a mathematical
progression; and that crossing of the Berezina about which so much has
been written was only one intermediate stage in its destruction, and
not at all the decisive episode of the campaign. If so much has been
and still is written about the Berezina, on the French side this is
only because at the broken bridge across that river the calamities
their army had been previously enduring were suddenly concentrated
at one moment into a tragic spectacle that remained in every memory,
and on the Russian side merely because in Petersburg- far from the
seat of war- a plan (again one of Pfuel's) had been devised to catch
Napoleon in a strategic trap at the Berezina River. Everyone assured
himself that all would happen according to plan, and therefore
insisted that it was just the crossing of the Berezina that
destroyed the French army. In reality the results of the crossing were
much less disastrous to the French- in guns and men lost- than Krasnoe
had been, as the figures show.

The sole importance of the crossing of the Berezina lies in the fact
that it plainly and indubitably proved the fallacy of all the plans
for cutting off the enemy's retreat and the soundness of the only
possible line of action- the one Kutuzov and the general mass of the
army demanded- namely, simply to follow the enemy up. The French crowd
fled at a continually increasing speed and all its energy was directed
to reaching its goal. It fled like a wounded animal and it was
impossible to block its path. This was shown not so much by the
arrangements it made for crossing as by what took place at the
bridges. When the bridges broke down, unarmed soldiers, people from
Moscow and women with children who were with the French transport,
all- carried on by vis inertiae- pressed forward into boats and into
the ice-covered water and did not, surrender.

That impulse was reasonable. The condition of fugitives and of
pursuers was equally bad. As long as they remained with their own
people each might hope for help from his fellows and the definite
place he held among them. But those who surrendered, while remaining
in the same pitiful plight, would be on a lower level to claim a share
in the necessities of life. The French did not need to be informed
of the fact that half the prisoners- with whom the Russians did not
know what to do- perished of cold and hunger despite their captors'
desire to save them; they felt that it could not be otherwise. The
most compassionate Russian commanders, those favorable to the
French- and even the Frenchmen in the Russian service- could do
nothing for the prisoners. The French perished from the conditions
to which the Russian army was itself exposed. It was impossible to
take bread and clothes from our hungry and indispensable soldiers to
give to the French who, though not harmful, or hated, or guilty,
were simply unnecessary. Some Russians even did that, but they were
exceptions.

Certain destruction lay behind the French but in front there was
hope. Their ships had been burned, there was no salvation save in
collective flight, and on that the whole strength of the French was
concentrated.

The farther they fled the more wretched became the plight of the
remnant, especially after the Berezina, on which (in consequence of
the Petersburg plan) special hopes had been placed by the Russians,
and the keener grew the passions of the Russian commanders, blamed one
another and Kutuzov most of all. Anticipation that the failure of
the Petersburg Berezina plan would be attributed to Kutuzov led to
dissatisfaction, contempt, and ridicule, more and more strongly
expressed. The ridicule and contempt were of course expressed in a
respectful form, making it impossible for him to ask wherein he was to
blame. They did not talk seriously to him; when reporting to him or
asking for his sanction they appeared to be fulfilling a regrettable
formality, but they winked behind his back and tried to mislead him at
every turn.

Because they could not understand him all these people assumed
that it was useless to talk to the old man; that he would never
grasp the profundity of their plans, that he would answer with his
phrases (which they thought were mere phrases) about a "golden
bridge," about the impossibility of crossing the frontier with a crowd
of tatterdemalions, and so forth. They had heard all that before.
And all he said- that it was necessary to await provisions, or that
the men had no boots- was so simple, while what they proposed was so
complicated and clever, that it was evident that he was old and stupid
and that they, though not in power, were commanders of genius.

After the junction with the army of the brilliant admiral and
Petersburg hero Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff
reached their maximum. Kutuzov saw this and merely sighed and shrugged
his shoulders. Only once, after the affair of the Berezina, did he get
angry and write to Bennigsen (who reported separately to the
Emperor) the following letter:

"On account of your spells of ill health, will your excellency
please be so good as to set off for Kaluga on receipt of this, and
there await further commands and appointments from His Imperial
Majesty."

But after Bennigsen's departure, the Grand Duke Tsarevich
Constantine Pavlovich joined the army. He had taken part in the
beginning of the campaign but had subsequently been removed from the
army by Kutuzov. Now having come to the army, he informed Kutuzov of
the Emperor's displeasure at the poor success of our forces and the
slowness of their advance. The Emperor intended to join the army
personally in a few days' time.

The old man, experienced in court as well as in military affairs-
this same Kutuzov who in August had been chosen commander in chief
against the sovereign's wishes and who had removed the Grand Duke
and heir- apparent from the army- who on his own authority and
contrary to the Emperor's will had decided on the abandonment of
Moscow, now realized at once that his day was over, that his part
was played, and that the power he was supposed to hold was no longer
his. And he understood this not merely from the attitude of the court.
He saw on the one hand that the military business in which he had
played his part was ended and felt that his mission was
accomplished; and at the same time he began to be conscious of the
physical weariness of his aged body and of the necessity of physical
rest.

On the twenty-ninth of November Kutuzov entered Vilna- his "dear
Vilna" as he called it. Twice during his career Kutuzov had been
governor of Vilna. In that wealthy town, which had not been injured,
he found old friends and associations, besides the comforts of life of
which he had so long been deprived. And he suddenly turned from the
cares of army and state and, as far as the passions that seethed
around him allowed, immersed himself in the quiet life to which he had
formerly been accustomed, as if all that was taking place and all that
had still to be done in the realm of history did not concern him at
all.

Chichagov, one of the most zealous "cutters-off" and
"breakers-up," who had first wanted to effect a diversion in Greece
and then in Warsaw but never wished to go where he was sent:
Chichagov, noted for the boldness with which he spoke to the
Emperor, and who considered Kutuzov to be under an obligation to him
because when he was sent to make peace with Turkey in 1811
independently of Kutuzov, and found that peace had already been
concluded, he admitted to the Emperor that the merit of securing
that peace was really Kutuzov's; this Chichagov was the first to
meet Kutuzov at the castle where the latter was to stay. In undress
naval uniform, with a dirk, and holding his cap under his arm, he
handed Kutuzov a garrison report and the keys of the town. The
contemptuously respectful attitude of the younger men to the old man
in his dotage was expressed in the highest degree by the behavior of
Chichagov, who knew of the accusations that were being directed
against Kutuzov.

When speaking to Chichagov, Kutuzov incidentally mentioned that
the vehicles packed with china that had been captured from him at
Borisov had been recovered and would be restored to him.

"You mean to imply that I have nothing to eat out of.... On the
contrary, I can supply you with everything even if you want to give
dinner parties," warmly replied Chichagov, who tried by every word
he spoke to prove his own rectitude and therefore imagined Kutuzov
to be animated by the same desire.

Kutuzov, shrugging his shoulders, replied with his subtle
penetrating smile: "I meant merely to say what I said."

Contrary to the Emperor's wish Kutuzov detained the greater part
of the army at Vilna. Those about him said that he became
extraordinarily slack and physically feeble during his stay in that
town. He attended to army affairs reluctantly, left everything to
his generals, and while awaiting the Emperor's arrival led a
dissipated life.

Having left Petersburg on the seventh of December with his suite-
Count Tolstoy, Prince Volkonski, Arakcheev, and others- the Emperor
reached Vilna on the eleventh, and in his traveling sleigh drove
straight to the castle. In spite of the severe frost some hundred
generals and staff officers in full parade uniform stood in front of
the castle, as well as a guard of honor of the Semenov regiment.

A courier who galloped to the castle in advance, in a troyka with
three foam-flecked horses, shouted "Coming!" and Konovnitsyn rushed
into the vestibule to inform Kutuzov, who was waiting in the hall
porter's little lodge.

A minute later the old man's large stout figure in full-dress
uniform, his chest covered with orders and a scarf drawn round his
stomach, waddled out into the porch. He put on his hat with its
peaks to the sides and, holding his gloves in his hand and walking
with an effort sideways down the steps to the level of the street,
took in his hand the report he had prepared for the Emperor.

There was running to and fro and whispering; another troyka
furiously up, and then all eyes were turned on an approaching sleigh
in which the figures of the Emperor and Volkonski could already be
descried.

From the habit of fifty years all this had a physically agitating
effect on the old general. He carefully and hastily felt himself all
over, readjusted his hat, and pulling himself together drew himself up
and, at the very moment when the Emperor, having alighted from the
sleigh, lifted his eyes to him, handed him the report and began
speaking in his smooth, ingratiating voice.

The Emperor with a rapid glance scanned Kutuzov from head to foot,
frowned for an instant, but immediately mastering himself went up to
the old man, extended his arms and embraced him. And this embrace too,
owing to a long-standing impression related to his innermost feelings,
had its usual effect on Kutuzov and he gave a sob.

The Emperor greeted the officers and the Semenov guard, and again
pressing the old man's hand went with him into the castle.

When alone with the field marshal the Emperor expressed his
dissatisfaction at the slowness of the pursuit and at the mistakes
made at Krasnoe and the Berezina, and informed him of his intentions
for a future campaign abroad. Kutuzov made no rejoinder or remark. The
same submissive, expressionless look with which he had listened to the
Emperor's commands on the field of Austerlitz seven years before
settled on his face now.

When Kutuzov came out of the study and with lowered head was
crossing the ballroom with his heavy waddling gait, he was arrested by
someone's voice saying:

"Your Serene Highness!"

Kutuzov raised his head and looked for a long while into the eyes of
Count Tolstoy, who stood before him holding a silver salver on which
lay a small object. Kutuzov seemed not to understand what was expected
of him.

Suddenly he seemed to remember; a scarcely perceptible smile flashed
across his puffy face, and bowing low and respectfully he took the
object that lay on the salver. It was the Order of St. George of the
First Class.


CHAPTER XI


Next day the field marshal gave a dinner and ball which the
Emperor honored by his presence. Kutuzov had received the Order of St.
George of the First Class and the Emperor showed him the highest
honors, but everyone knew of the imperial dissatisfaction with him.
The proprieties were observed and the Emperor was the first to set
that example, but everybody understood that the old man was
blameworthy and good-for-nothing. When Kutuzov, conforming to a custom
of Catherine's day, ordered the standards that had been captured to be
lowered at the Emperor's feet on his entering the ballroom, the
Emperor made a wry face and muttered something in which some people
caught the words, "the old comedian."

The Emperor's displeasure with Kutuzov was specially increased at
Vilna by the fact that Kutuzov evidently could not or would not
understand the importance of the coming campaign.

When on the following morning the Emperor said to the officers
assembled about him: "You have not only saved Russia, you have saved
Europe!" they all understood that the war was not ended.

Kutuzov alone would not see this and openly expressed his opinion
that no fresh war could improve the position or add to the glory of
Russia, but could only spoil and lower the glorious position that
Russia had gained. He tried to prove to the Emperor the
impossibility of levying fresh troops, spoke of the hardships
already endured by the people, of the possibility of failure and so
forth.

This being the field marshal's frame of mind he was naturally
regarded as merely a hindrance and obstacle to the impending war.

To avoid unpleasant encounters with the old man, the natural
method was to do what had been done with him at Austerlitz and with
Barclay at the beginning of the Russian campaign- to transfer the
authority to the Emperor himself, thus cutting the ground from under
the commander in chief's feet without upsetting the old man by
informing him of the change.

With this object his staff was gradually reconstructed and its
real strength removed and transferred to the Emperor. Toll,
Konovnitsyn, and Ermolov received fresh appointments. Everyone spoke
loudly of the field marshal's great weakness and failing health.

His health had to be bad for his place to be taken away and given to
another. And in fact his health was poor.

So naturally, simply, and gradually- just as he had come from Turkey
to the Treasury in Petersburg to recruit the militia, and then to
the army when he was needed there- now when his part was played out,
Kutuzov's place was taken by a new and necessary performer.

The war 1812, besides its national significance dear to every
Russian heart, was now to assume another, a European, significance.

The movement of peoples from west to east was to be succeeded by a
movement of peoples from east to west, and for this fresh war
another leader was necessary, having qualities and views differing
from Kutuzov's and animated by different motives.

Alexander I was as necessary for the movement of the peoples from
east to west and for the refixing of national frontiers as Kutuzov had
been for the salvation and glory of Russia.

Kutuzov did not understand what Europe, the balance of power, or
Napoleon meant. He could not understand it. For the representative
of the Russian people, after the enemy had been destroyed and Russia
had been liberated and raised to the summit of her glory, there was
nothing left to do as a Russian. Nothing remained for the
representative of the national war but to die, and Kutuzov died.


CHAPTER XII


As generally happens, Pierre did not feel the full effects of the
physical privation and strain he had suffered as prisoner until
after they were over. After his liberation he reached Orel, and on the
third day there, when preparing to go to Kiev, he fell ill and was
laid up for three months. He had what the doctors termed "bilious
fever." But despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him,
and gave him medicines to drink, he recovered.

Scarcely any impression was left on Pierre's mind by all that
happened to him from the time of his rescue till his illness. He
remembered only the dull gray weather now rainy and now snowy,
internal physical distress, and pains in his feet and side. He
remembered a general impression of the misfortunes and sufferings of
people and of being worried by the curiosity of officers and
generals who questioned him, he also remembered his difficulty in
procuring a conveyance and horses, and above all he remembered his
incapacity to think and feel all that time. On the day of his rescue
he had seen the body of Petya Rostov. That same day he had learned
that Prince Andrew, after surviving the battle of Borodino for more
than a month had recently died in the Rostovs' house at Yaroslavl, and
Denisov who told him this news also mentioned Helene's death,
supposing that Pierre had heard of it long before. All this at the
time seemed merely strange to Pierre: he felt he could not grasp its
significance. Just then he was only anxious to get away as quickly
as possible from places where people were killing one another, to some
peaceful refuge where he could recover himself, rest, and think over
all the strange new facts he had learned; but on reaching Orel he
immediately fell ill. When he came to himself after his illness he saw
in attendance on him two of his servants, Terenty and Vaska, who had
come from Moscow; and also his cousin the eldest princess, who had
been living on his estate at Elets and hearing of his rescue and
illness had come to look after him.

It was only gradually during his convalescence that Pierre lost
the impressions he had become accustomed to during the last few months
and got used to the idea that no one would oblige him to go anywhere
tomorrow, that no one would deprive him of his warm bed, and that he
would be sure to get his dinner, tea, and supper. But for a long
time in his dreams he still saw himself in the conditions of
captivity. In the same way little by little he came to understand
the news he had been told after his rescue, about the death of
Prince Andrew, the death of his wife, and the destruction of the
French.

A joyous feeling of freedom- that complete inalienable freedom
natural to man which he had first experienced at the first halt
outside Moscow- filled Pierre's soul during his convalescence. He
was surprised to find that this inner freedom, which was independent
of external conditions, now had as it were an additional setting of
external liberty. He was alone in a strange town, without
acquaintances. No one demanded anything of him or sent him anywhere.
He had all he wanted: the thought of his wife which had been a
continual torment to him was no longer there, since she was no more.

"Oh, how good! How splendid!" said he to himself when a cleanly laid
table was moved up to him with savory beef tea, or when he lay down
for the night on a soft clean bed, or when he remembered that the
French had gone and that his wife was no more. "Oh, how good, how
splendid!"

And by old habit he asked himself the question: "Well, and what
then? What am I going to do?" And he immediately gave himself the
answer: "Well, I shall live. Ah, how splendid!"

The very question that had formerly tormented him, the thing he
had continually sought to find- the aim of life- no longer existed for
him now. That search for the aim of life had not merely disappeared
temporarily- he felt that it no longer existed for him and could not
present itself again. And this very absence of an aim gave him the
complete, joyous sense of freedom which constituted his happiness at
this time.

He could not see an aim, for he now had faith- not faith in any kind
of rule, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living,
ever-manifest God. Formerly he had sought Him in aims he set
himself. That search for an aim had been simply a search for God,
and suddenly in his captivity he had learned not by words or reasoning
but by direct feeling what his nurse had told him long ago: that God
is here and everywhere. In his captivity he had learned that in
Karataev God was greater, more infinite and unfathomable than in the
Architect of the Universe recognized by the Freemasons. He felt like a
man who after straining his eyes to see into the far distance finds
what he sought at his very feet. All his life he had looked over the
heads of the men around him, when he should have merely looked in
front of him without straining his eyes.

In the past he had never been able to find that great inscrutable
infinite something. He had only felt that it must exist somewhere
and had looked for it. In everything near and comprehensible he had
only what was limited, petty, commonplace, and senseless. He had
equipped himself with a mental telescope and looked into remote space,
where petty worldliness hiding itself in misty distance had seemed
to him great and infinite merely because it was not clearly seen.
And such had European life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, and
philanthropy seemed to him. But even then, at moments of weakness as
he had accounted them, his mind had penetrated to those distances
and he had there seen the same pettiness, worldliness, and
senselessness. Now, however, he had learned to see the great, eternal,
and infinite in everything, and therefore- to see it and enjoy its
contemplation- he naturally threw away the telescope through which
he had till now gazed over men's heads, and gladly regarded the
ever-changing, eternally great, unfathomable, and infinite life around
him. And the closer he looked the more tranquil and happy he became.
That dreadful question, "What for?" which had formerly destroyed all
his mental edifices, no longer existed for him. To that question,
"What for?" a simple answer was now always ready in his soul: "Because
there is a God, that God without whose will not one hair falls from
a man's head."


CHAPTER XIII


In external ways Pierre had hardly changed at all. In appearance
he was just what he used to be. As before he was absent-minded and
seemed occupied not with what was before his eyes but with something
special of his own. The difference between his former and present self
was that formerly when he did not grasp what lay before him or was
said to him, he had puckered his forehead painfully as if vainly
seeking to distinguish something at a distance. At present he still
forgot what was said to him and still did not see what was before
his eyes, but he now looked with a scarcely perceptible and
seemingly ironic smile at what was before him and listened to what was
said, though evidently seeing and hearing something quite different.
Formerly he had appeared to be a kindhearted but unhappy man, and so
people had been inclined to avoid him. Now a smile at the joy of
life always played round his lips, and sympathy for others, shone in
his eyes with a questioning look as to whether they were as
contented as he was, and people felt pleased by his presence.

Previously he had talked a great deal, grew excited when he
talked, and seldom listened; now he was seldom carried away in
conversation and knew how to listen so that people readily told him
their most intimate secrets.

The princess, who had never liked Pierre and had been particularly
hostile to him since she had felt herself under obligations to him
after the old count's death, now after staying a short time in Orel-
where she had come intending to show Pierre that in spite of his
ingratitude she considered it her duty to nurse him- felt to her
surprise and vexation that she had become fond of him. Pierre did
not in any way seek her approval, he merely studied her with interest.
Formerly she had felt that he regarded her with indifference and
irony, and so had shrunk into herself as she did with others and had
shown him only the combative side of her nature; but now he seemed
to be trying to understand the most intimate places of her heart, and,
mistrustfully at first but afterwards gratefully, she let him see
the hidden, kindly sides of her character.

The most cunning man could not have crept into her confidence more
successfully, evoking memories of the best times of her youth and
showing sympathy with them. Yet Pierre's cunning consisted simply in
finding pleasure in drawing out the human qualities of the embittered,
hard, and (in her own way) proud princess.

"Yes, he is a very, very kind man when he is not under the influence
of bad people but of people such as myself," thought she.

His servants too- Terenty and Vaska- in their own way noticed the
change that had taken place in Pierre. They considered that he had
become much "simpler." Terenty, when he had helped him undress and
wished him good night, often lingered with his master's boots in his
hands and clothes over his arm, to see whether he would not start a
talk. And Pierre, noticing that Terenty wanted a chat, generally
kept him there.

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

And Terenty would begin talking of the destruction of Moscow, and of
the old count, and would stand for a long time holding the clothes and
talking, or sometimes listening to Pierre's stories, and then would go
out into the hall with a pleasant sense of intimacy with his master
and affection for him.

The doctor who attended Pierre and visited him every day, though
he considered it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man whose every
moment was of value to suffering humanity, would sit for hours with
Pierre telling him his favorite anecdotes and his observations on
the characters of his patients in general, and especially of the
ladies.

"It's a pleasure to talk to a man like that; he is not like our
provincials," he would say.

There were several prisoners from the French army in Orel, and the
doctor brought one of them, a young Italian, to see Pierre.

This officer began visiting Pierre, and the princess used to make
fun of the tenderness the Italian expressed for him.

The Italian seemed happy only when he could come to see Pierre, talk
with him, tell him about his past, his life at home, and his love, and
pour out to him his indignation against the French and especially
against Napoleon.

"If all Russians are in the least like you, it is sacrilege to fight
such a nation," he said to Pierre. "You, who have suffered so from the
French, do not even feel animosity toward them."

Pierre had evoked the passionate affection of the Italian merely
by evoking the best side of his nature and taking a pleasure in so
doing.

During the last days of Pierre's stay in Orel his old Masonic
acquaintance Count Willarski, who had introduced him to the lodge in
1807, came to see him. Willarski was married to a Russian heiress
who had a large estate in Orel province, and he occupied a temporary
post in the commissariat department in that town.

Hearing that Bezukhov was in Orel, Willarski, though they had
never been intimate, came to him with the professions of friendship
and intimacy that people who meet in a desert generally express for
one another. Willarski felt dull in Orel and was pleased to meet a man
of his own circle and, as he supposed, of similar interests.

But to his surprise Willarski soon noticed that Pierre had lagged
much behind the times, and had sunk, as he expressed it to himself,
into apathy and egotism.

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

But for all that Willarski found it pleasanter now than it had
been formerly to be with Pierre, and came to see him every day. To
Pierre as he looked at and listened to Willarski, it seemed strange to
think that he had been like that himself but a short time before.

Willarski was a married man with a family, busy with his family
affairs, his wife's affairs, and his official duties. He regarded
all these occupations as hindrances to life, and considered that
they were all contemptible because their aim was the welfare of
himself and his family. Military, administrative, political, and
Masonic interests continually absorbed his attention. And Pierre,
without trying to change the other's views and without condemning him,
but with the quiet, joyful, and amused smile now habitual to him,
was interested in this strange though very familiar phenomenon.

There was a new feature in Pierre's relations with Willarski, with
the princess, with the doctor, and with all the people he now met,
which gained for him the general good will. This was his
acknowledgment of the impossibility of changing a man's convictions by
words, and his recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking,
feeling, and seeing things each from his own point of view. This
legitimate peculiarity of each individual which used to excite and
irritate Pierre now became a basis of the sympathy he felt for, and
the interest he took in, other people. The difference, and sometimes
complete contradiction, between men's opinions and their lives, and
between one man and another, pleased him and drew from him an amused
and gentle smile.

In practical matters Pierre unexpectedly felt within himself a
center of gravity he had previously lacked. Formerly all pecuniary
questions, especially requests for money to which, as an extremely
wealthy man, he was very exposed, produced in him a state of
hopeless agitation and perplexity. "To give or not to give?" he had
asked himself. "I have it and he needs it. But someone else needs it
still more. Who needs it most? And perhaps they are both impostors?"
In the old days he had been unable to find a way out of all these
surmises and had given to all who asked as long as he had anything
to give. Formerly he had been in a similar state of perplexity with
regard to every question concerning his property, when one person
advised one thing and another something else.

Now to his surprise he found that he no longer felt either doubt
or perplexity about these questions. There was now within him a
judge who by some rule unknown to him decided what should or should
not be done.

He was as indifferent as heretofore to money matters, but now he
felt certain of what ought and what ought not to be done. The first
time he had recourse to his new judge was when a French prisoner, a
colonel, came to him and, after talking a great deal about his
exploits, concluded by making what amounted to a demand that Pierre
should give him four thousand francs to send to his wife and children.
Pierre refused without the least difficulty or effort, and was
afterwards surprised how simple and easy had been what used to
appear so insurmountably difficult. At the same time that he refused
the colonel's demand he made up his mind that he must have recourse to
artifice when leaving Orel, to induce the Italian officer to accept
some money of which he was evidently in need. A further proof to
Pierre of his own more settled outlook on practical matters was
furnished by his decision with regard to his wife's debts and to the
rebuilding of his houses in and near Moscow.

His head steward came to him at Orel and Pierre reckoned up with him
his diminished income. The burning of Moscow had cost him, according
to the head steward's calculation, about two million rubles.

To console Pierre for these losses the head steward gave him an
estimate showing that despite these losses his income would not be
diminished but would even be increased if he refused to pay his wife's
debts which he was under no obligation to meet, and did not rebuild
his Moscow house and the country house on his Moscow estate, which had
cost him eighty thousand rubles a year and brought in nothing.

"Yes, of course that's true," said Pierre with a cheerful smile.
"I don't need all that at all. By being ruined I have become much
richer."

But in January Savelich came from Moscow and gave him an account
of the state of things there, and spoke of the estimate an architect
had made of the cost of rebuilding the town and country houses,
speaking of this as of a settled matter. About the same time he
received letters from Prince Vasili and other Petersburg acquaintances
speaking of his wife's debts. And Pierre decided that the steward's
proposals which had so pleased him were wrong and that he must go to
Petersburg and settle his wife's affairs and must rebuild in Moscow.
Why this was necessary he did not know, but he knew for certain that
it was necessary. His income would be reduced by three fourths, but he
felt it must be done.

Willarski was going to Moscow and they agreed to travel together.

During the whole time of his convalescence in Orel Pierre had
experienced a feeling of joy, freedom, and life; but when during his
journey he found himself in the open world and saw hundreds of new
faces, that feeling was intensified. Throughout his journey he felt
like a schoolboy on holiday. Everyone- the stagecoach driver, the
post-house overseers, the peasants on the roads and in the villages-
had a new significance for him. The presence and remarks of
Willarski who continually deplored the ignorance and poverty of Russia
and its backwardness compared with Europe only heightened Pierre's
pleasure. Where Willarski saw deadness Pierre saw an extraordinary
strength and vitality- the strength which in that vast space amid
the snows maintained the life of this original, peculiar, and unique
people. He did not contradict Willarski and even seemed to agree
with him- an apparent agreement being the simplest way to avoid
discussions that could lead to nothing- and he smiled joyfully as he
listened to him.


CHAPTER XIV


It would be difficult to explain why and whither ants whose heap has
been destroyed are hurrying: some from the heap dragging bits of
rubbish, larvae, and corpses, others back to the heap, or why they
jostle, overtake one another, and fight, and it would be equally
difficult to explain what caused the Russians after the departure of
the French to throng to the place that had formerly been Moscow. But
when we watch the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity,
energy, and immense number of the delving insects prove that despite
the destruction of the heap, something indestructible, which though
intangible is the real strength of the colony, still exists; and
similarly, though in Moscow in the month of October there was no
government no churches, shrines, riches, or houses- it was still the
Moscow it had been in August. All was destroyed, except something
intangible yet powerful and indestructible.

The motives of those who thronged from all sides to Moscow after
it had been cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal, and
at first for the most part savage and brutal. One motive only they all
had in common: a desire to get to the place that had been called
Moscow, to apply their activities there.

Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in
a fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on. By the autumn of 1813 the
number, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in
1812.

The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks of
Wintzingerode's detachment, peasants from the adjacent villages, and
residents who had fled from Moscow and had been hiding in its
vicinity. The Russians who entered Moscow, finding it plundered,
plundered it in their turn. They continued what the French had
begun. Trains of peasant carts came to Moscow to carry off to the
villages what had been abandoned in the ruined houses and the streets.
The Cossacks carried off what they could to their camps, and the
householders seized all they could find in other houses and moved it
to their own, pretending that it was their property.

But the first plunderers were followed by a second and a third
contingent, and with increasing numbers plundering became more and
more difficult and assumed more definite forms.

The French found Moscow abandoned but with all the organizations
of regular life, with diverse branches of commerce and
craftsmanship, with luxury, and governmental and religious
institutions. These forms were lifeless but still existed. There
were bazaars, shops, warehouses, market stalls, granaries- for the
most part still stocked with goods- and there were factories and
workshops, palaces and wealthy houses filled with luxuries, hospitals,
prisons, government offices, churches, and cathedrals. The longer
the French remained the more these forms of town life perished,
until finally all was merged into one confused, lifeless scene of
plunder.

The more the plundering by the French continued, the more both the
wealth of Moscow and the strength of its plunderers was destroyed. But
plundering by the Russians, with which the reoccupation of the city
began, had an opposite effect: the longer it continued and the greater
the number of people taking part in it the more rapidly was the wealth
of the city and its regular life restored.

Besides the plunderers, very various people, some drawn by
curiosity, some by official duties, some by self-interest- house
owners, clergy, officials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and
peasants- streamed into Moscow as blood flows to the heart.

Within a week the peasants who came with empty carts to carry off
plunder were stopped by the authorities and made to cart the corpses
out of the town. Other peasants, having heard of their comrades'
discomfiture, came to town bringing rye, oats, and hay, and beat
down one another's prices to below what they had been in former
days. Gangs of carpenters hoping for high pay arrived in Moscow
every day, and on all sides logs were being hewn, new houses built,
and old, charred ones repaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths.
Cookshops and taverns were opened in partially burned houses. The
clergy resumed the services in many churches that had not been burned.
Donors contributed Church property that had been stolen. Government
clerks set up their baize-covered tables and their pigeonholes of
documents in small rooms. The higher authorities and the police
organized the distribution of goods left behind by the French. The
owners of houses in which much property had been left, brought there
from other houses, complained of the injustice of taking everything to
the Faceted Palace in the Kremlin; others insisted that as the
French had gathered things from different houses into this or that
house, it would be unfair to allow its owner to keep all that was
found there. They abused the police and bribed them, made out
estimates at ten times their value for government stores that had
perished in the fire, and demanded relief. And Count Rostopchin
wrote proclamations.


CHAPTER XV


At the end of January Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex
of his house which had not been burned. He called on Count
Rostopchin and on some acquaintances who were back in Moscow, and he
intended to leave for Petersburg two days later. Everybody was
celebrating the victory, everything was bubbling with life in the
ruined but reviving city. Everyone was pleased to see Pierre, everyone
wished to meet him, and everyone questioned him about what he had
seen. Pierre felt particularly well disposed toward them all, but
was now instinctively on his guard for fear of binding himself in
any way. To all questions put to him- whether important or quite
trifling- such as: Where would he live? Was he going to rebuild?
When was he going to Petersburg and would he mind taking a parcel
for someone?- he replied: "Yes, perhaps," or, "I think so," and so on.

He had heard that the Rostovs were at Kostroma but the thought of
Natasha seldom occurred to him. If it did it was only as a pleasant
memory of the distant past. He felt himself not only free from
social obligations but also from that feeling which, it seemed to him,
he had aroused in himself.

On the third day after his arrival he heard from the Drubetskoys
that Princess Mary was in Moscow. The death, sufferings, and last days
of Prince Andrew had often occupied Pierre's thoughts and now recurred
to him with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner that Princess Mary
was in Moscow and living in her house- which had not been burned- in
Vozdvizhenka Street, he drove that same evening to see her.

On his way to the house Pierre kept thinking of Prince Andrew, of
their friendship, of his various meetings with him, and especially
of the last one at Borodino.

"Is it possible that he died in the bitter frame of mind he was then
in? Is it possible that the meaning of life was not disclosed to him
before he died?" thought Pierre. He recalled Karataev and his death
and involuntarily began to compare these two men, so different, and
yet so similar in that they had both lived and both died and in the
love he felt for both of them.

Pierre drove up to the house of the old prince in a most serious
mood. The house had escaped the fire; it showed signs of damage but
its general aspect was unchanged. The old footman, who met Pierre with
a stern face as if wishing to make the visitor feel that the absence
of the old prince had not disturbed the order of things in the
house, informed him that the princess had gone to her own
apartments, and that she received on Sundays.

"Announce me. Perhaps she will see me," said Pierre.

"Yes, sir," said the man. "Please step into the portrait gallery."

A few minutes later the footman returned with Dessalles, who brought
word from the princess that she would be very glad to see Pierre if he
would excuse her want of ceremony and come upstairs to her apartment.

In a rather low room lit by one candle sat the princess and with her
another person dressed in black. Pierre remembered that the princess
always had lady companions, but who they were and what they were
like he never knew or remembered. "This must be one of her
companions," he thought, glancing at the lady in the black dress.

The princess rose quickly to meet him and held out her hand.

"Yes," she said, looking at his altered face after he had kissed her
hand, "so this is how we meet again. He of spoke of you even at the
very last," she went on, turning her eyes from Pierre to her companion
with a shyness that surprised him for an instant.

"I was so glad to hear of your safety. It was the first piece of
good news we had received for a long time."

Again the princess glanced round at her companion with even more
uneasiness in her manner and was about to add something, but Pierre
interrupted her.

"Just imagine- I knew nothing about him!" said he. "I thought he had
been killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only
know that he fell in with the Rostovs.... What a strange coincidence!"

Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the
companion's face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and,
as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion
in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would
not hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary.

But when he mentioned the Rostovs, Princess Mary's face expressed
still greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre's
face to that of the lady in the black dress and said:

"Do you really not recognize her?"

Pierre looked again at the companion's pale, delicate face with
its black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long
forgotten and more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive
eyes.

"But no, it can't be!" he thought. "This stern, thin, pale face that
looks so much older! It cannot be she. It merely reminds me of her."
But at that moment Princess Mary said, "Natasha!" And with difficulty,
effort, and stress, like the opening of a door grown rusty on its
hinges, a smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from
that opening door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre
with a happiness he had long forgotten and of which he had not even
been thinking- especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him,
and enveloped him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer
possible, it was Natasha and he loved her.

At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess
Mary, and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had
been unaware. He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He
tried to hide his agitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more
clearly- clearer than any words could have done- did he betray to
himself, to her, and to Princess Mary that he loved her.

"No, it's only the unexpectedness of it," thought Pierre. But as
soon as he tried to continue the conversation he had begun with
Princess Mary he again glanced at Natasha, and a still-deeper flush
suffused his face and a still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and
fear seized his soul. He became confused in his speech and stopped
in the middle of what he was saying.

Pierre had failed to notice Natasha because he did not at all expect
to see her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the
change in her since he last saw her was immense. She had grown thin
and pale, but that was not what made her unrecognizable; she was
unrecognizable at the moment he entered because on that face whose
eyes had always shone with a suppressed smile of the joy of life,
now when he first entered and glanced at her there was not the least
shadow of a smile: only her eyes were kindly attentive and sadly
interrogative.

Pierre's confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natasha's
part, but only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her
whole face.


CHAPTER XVI


"She has come to stay with me," said Princess Mary. "The count and
countess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a dreadful
state; but it was necessary for Natasha herself to see a doctor.
They insisted on her coming with me."

"Yes, is there a family free from sorrow now?" said Pierre,
addressing Natasha. "You know it happened the very day we were
rescued. I saw him. What a delightful boy he was!"

Natasha looked at him, and by way of answer to his words her eyes
widened and lit up.

"What can one say or think of as a consolation?" said Pierre.
"Nothing! Why had such a splendid boy, so full of life, to die?"

"Yes, in these days it would be hard to live without faith..."
remarked Princess Mary.

"Yes, yes, that is really true," Pierre hastily interrupted her.

"Why is it true?" Natasha asked, looking attentively into Pierre's
eyes.

"How can you ask why?" said Princess Mary. "The thought alone of
what awaits..."

Natasha without waiting for Princess Mary to finish again looked
inquiringly at Pierre.

"And because," Pierre continued, "only one who believes that there
is a God ruling us can bear a loss such as hers and... yours."

Natasha had already opened her mouth to speak but suddenly
stopped. Pierre hurriedly turned away from her and again addressed
Princess Mary, asking about his friend's last days.

Pierre's confusion had now almost vanished, but at the same time
he felt that his freedom had also completely gone. He felt that
there was now a judge of his every word and action whose judgment
mattered more to him than that of all the rest of the world. As he
spoke now he was considering what impression his words would make on
Natasha. He did not purposely say things to please her, but whatever
he was saying he regarded from her standpoint.

Princess Mary- reluctantly as is usual in such cases- began
telling of the condition in which she had found Prince Andrew. But
Pierre's face quivering with emotion, his questions and his eager
restless expression, gradually compelled her to go into details
which she feared to recall for her own sake.

"Yes, yes, and so...? " Pierre kept saying as he leaned toward her
with his whole body and eagerly listened to her story. "Yes, yes... so
he grew tranquil and softened? With all his soul he had always
sought one thing- to be perfectly good- so he could not be afraid of
death. The faults he had- if he had any- were not of his making. So he
did soften?... What a happy thing that he saw you again," he added,
suddenly turning to Natasha and looking at her with eyes full of
tears.

Natasha's face twitched. She frowned and lowered her eyes for a
moment. She hesitated for an instant whether to speak or not.

"Yes, that was happiness," she then said in her quiet voice with its
deep chest notes. "For me it certainly was happiness." She paused.
"And he... he... he said he was wishing for it at the very moment I
entered the room...."

Natasha's voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped hands on her
knees, and then controlling herself with an evident effort lifted
her head and began to speak rapidly.

"We knew nothing of it when we started from Moscow. I did not dare
to ask about him. Then suddenly Sonya told me he was traveling with
us. I had no idea and could not imagine what state he was in, all I
wanted was to see him and be with him," she said, trembling, and
breathing quickly.

And not letting them interrupt her she went on to tell what she
had never yet mentioned to anyone- all she had lived through during
those three weeks of their journey and life at Yaroslavl.

Pierre listened to her with lips parted and eyes fixed upon her full
of tears. As he listened he did not think of Prince Andrew, nor of
death, nor of what she was telling. He listened to her and felt only
pity for her, for what she was suffering now while she was speaking.

Princess Mary, frowning in her effort to hold back her tears, sat
beside Natasha, and heard for the first time the story of those last
days of her brother's and Natasha's love.

Evidently Natasha needed to tell that painful yet joyful tale.

She spoke, mingling most trifling details with the intimate
secrets of her soul, and it seemed as if she could never finish.
Several times she repeated the same thing twice.

Dessalles' voice was heard outside the door asking whether little
Nicholas might come in to say good night.

"Well, that's all- everything," said Natasha.

She got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran to the
door which was hidden by curtains, struck her head against it, and
rushed from the room with a moan either of pain or sorrow.

Pierre gazed at the door through which she had disappeared and did
not understand why he suddenly felt all alone in the world.

Princess Mary roused him from his abstraction by drawing his
attention to her nephew who had entered the room.

At that moment of emotional tenderness young Nicholas' face, which
resembled his father's, affected Pierre so much that when he had
kissed the boy he got up quickly, took out his handkerchief, and
went to the window. He wished to take leave of Princess Mary, but
she would not let him go.

"No, Natasha and I sometimes don't go to sleep till after two, so
please don't go. I will order supper. Go downstairs, we will come
immediately."

Before Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: "This is the
first time she has talked of him like that."


CHAPTER XVII


Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room; a few
minutes later he heard footsteps and Princess Mary entered with
Natasha. Natasha was calm, though a severe and grave expression had
again settled on her face. They all three of them now experienced that
feeling of awkwardness which usually follows after a serious and
heartfelt talk. It is impossible to go back to the same
conversation, to talk of trifles is awkward, and yet the desire to
speak is there and silence seems like affectation. They went
silently to table. The footmen drew back the chairs and pushed them up
again. Pierre unfolded his cold table napkin and, resolving to break
the silence, looked at Natasha and at Princess Mary. They had
evidently both formed the same resolution; the eyes of both shone with
satisfaction and a confession that besides sorrow life also has joy.

"Do you take vodka, Count?" asked Princess Mary, and those words
suddenly banished the shadows of the past. "Now tell us about
yourself," said she. "One hears such improbable wonders about you."

"Yes," replied Pierre with the smile of mild irony now habitual to
him. "They even tell me wonders I myself never dreamed of! Mary
Abramovna invited me to her house and kept telling me what had
happened, or ought to have happened, to me. Stepan Stepanych also
instructed me how I ought to tell of my experiences. In general I have
noticed that it is very easy to be an interesting man (I am an
interesting man now); people invite me out and tell me all about
myself."

Natasha smiled and was on the point of speaking.

"We have been told," Princess Mary interrupted her, "that you lost
two millions in Moscow. Is that true?"

"But I am three times as rich as before," returned Pierre.

Though the position was now altered by his decision to pay his
wife's debts and to rebuild his houses, Pierre still maintained that
he had become three times as rich as before.

"What I have certainly gained is freedom," he began seriously, but
did not continue, noticing that this theme was too egotistic.

"And are you building?"

"Yes. Savelich says I must!"

"Tell me, you did not know of the countess' death when you decided
to remain in Moscow?" asked Princess Mary and immediately blushed,
noticing that her question, following his mention of freedom, ascribed
to his words a meaning he had perhaps not intended.

"No," answered Pierre, evidently not considering awkward the meaning
Princess Mary had given to his words. "I heard of it in Orel and you
cannot imagine how it shocked me. We were not an exemplary couple," he
added quickly, glancing at Natasha and noticing on her face
curiosity as to how he would speak of his wife, "but her death shocked
me terribly. When two people quarrel they are always both in fault,
and one's own guilt suddenly becomes terribly serious when the other
is no longer alive. And then such a death... without friends and
without consolation! I am very, very sorry for her," he concluded, and
was pleased to notice a look of glad approval on Natasha's face.

"Yes, and so you are once more an eligible bachelor," said
Princess Mary.

Pierre suddenly flushed crimson and for a long time tried not to
look at Natasha. When he ventured to glance her way again her face was
cold, stern, and he fancied even contemptuous.

"And did you really see and speak to Napoleon, as we have been
told?" said Princess Mary.

Pierre laughed.

"No, not once! Everybody seems to imagine that being taken
prisoner means being Napoleon's guest. Not only did I never see him
but I heard nothing about him- I was in much lower company!"

Supper was over, and Pierre who at first declined to speak about his
captivity was gradually led on to do so.

"But it's true that you remained in Moscow to kill Napoleon?"
Natasha asked with a slight smile. "I guessed it then when we met at
the Sukharev tower, do you remember?"

Pierre admitted that it was true, and from that was gradually led by
Princess Mary's questions and especially by Natasha's into giving a
detailed account of his adventures.

At first he spoke with the amused and mild irony now customary
with him toward everybody and especially toward himself, but when he
came to describe the horrors and sufferings he had witnessed he was
unconsciously carried away and began speaking with the suppressed
emotion of a man re-experiencing in recollection strong impressions he
has lived through.

Princess Mary with a gentle smile looked now at Pierre and now at
Natasha. In the whole narrative she saw only Pierre and his
goodness. Natasha, leaning on her elbow, the expression of her face
constantly changing with the narrative, watched Pierre with an
attention that never wandered- evidently herself experiencing all that
he described. Not only her look, but her exclamations and the brief
questions she put, showed Pierre that she understood just what he
wished to convey. It was clear that she understood not only what he
said but also what he wished to, but could not, express in words.
The account Pierre gave of the incident with the child and the woman
for protecting whom he was arrested was this: "It was an awful
sight- children abandoned, some in the flames... One was snatched
out before my eyes... and there were women who had their things
snatched off and their earrings torn out..." he flushed and grew
confused. "Then a patrol arrived and all the men- all those who were
not looting, that is- were arrested, and I among them."

"I am sure you're not telling us everything; I am sure you did
something..." said Natasha and pausing added, "something fine?"

Pierre continued. When he spoke of the execution he wanted to pass
over the horrible details, but Natasha insisted that he should not
omit anything.

Pierre began to tell about Karataev, but paused. By this time he had
risen from the table and was pacing the room, Natasha following him
with her eyes. Then he added:

"No, you can't understand what I learned from that illiterate man-
that simple fellow."

"Yes, yes, go on!" said Natasha. "Where is he?"

"They killed him almost before my eyes."

And Pierre, his voice trembling continually, went on to tell of
the last days of their retreat, of Karataev's illness and his death.

He told of his adventures as he had never yet recalled them. He now,
as it were, saw a new meaning in all he had gone through. Now that
he was telling it all to Natasha he experienced that pleasure which
a man has when women listen to him- not clever women who when
listening either try to remember what they hear to enrich their
minds and when opportunity offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt
it to some thought of their own and promptly contribute their own
clever comments prepared in their little mental workshop- but the
pleasure given by real women gifted with a capacity to select and
absorb the very best a man shows of himself. Natasha without knowing
it was all attention: she did not lose a word, no single quiver in
Pierre's voice, no look, no twitch of a muscle in his face, nor a
single gesture. She caught the unfinished word in its flight and
took it straight into her open heart, divining the secret meaning of
all Pierre's mental travail.

Princess Mary understood his story and sympathized with him, but she
now saw something else that absorbed all her attention. She saw the
possibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre, and
the first thought of this filled her heart with gladness.

It was three o'clock in the morning. The footmen came in with sad
and stern faces to change the candles, but no one noticed them.

Pierre finished his story. Natasha continued to look at him intently
with bright, attentive, and animated eyes, as if trying to
understand something more which he had perhaps left untold. Pierre
in shamefaced and happy confusion glanced occasionally at her, and
tried to think what to say next to introduce a fresh subject. Princess
Mary was silent. It occurred to none of them that it was three o'clock
and time to go to bed.

"People speak of misfortunes and sufferings," remarked Pierre,
"but if at this moment I were asked: 'Would you rather be what you
were before you were taken prisoner, or go through all this again?'
then for heaven's sake let me again have captivity and horseflesh!
We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is
lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins. While
there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us. I say
this to you," he added, turning to Natasha.

"Yes, yes," she said, answering something quite different. "I too
should wish nothing but to relive it all from the beginning."

Pierre looked intently at her.

"Yes, and nothing more." said Natasha.

"It's not true, not true!" cried Pierre. "I am not to blame for
being alive and wishing to live- nor you either."

Suddenly Natasha bent her head, covered her face with her hands, and
began to cry.

"What is it, Natasha?" said Princess Mary.

"Nothing, nothing." She smiled at Pierre through her tears. "Good
night! It is time for bed."

Pierre rose and took his leave.


Princess Mary and Natasha met as usual in the bedroom. They talked
of what Pierre had told them. Princess Mary did not express her
opinion of Pierre nor did Natasha speak of him.

"Well, good night, Mary!" said Natasha. "Do you know, I am often
afraid that by not speaking of him" (she meant Prince Andrew) "for
fear of not doing justice to our feelings, we forget him."

Princess Mary sighed deeply and thereby acknowledged the justice
of Natasha's remark, but she did not express agreement in words.

"Is it possible to forget?" said she.

"It did me so much good to tell all about it today. It was hard
and painful, but good, very good!" said Natasha. "I am sure he
really loved him. That is why I told him... Was it all right?" she
added, suddenly blushing.

"To tell Pierre? Oh, yes. What a splendid man he is!" said
Princess Mary.

"Do you know, Mary..." Natasha suddenly said with a mischievous
smile such as Princess Mary had not seen on her face for a long
time, "he has somehow grown so clean, smooth, and fresh- as if he
had just come out of a Russian bath; do you understand? Out of a moral
bath. Isn't it true?"

"Yes," replied Princess Mary. "He has greatly improved."

"With a short coat and his hair cropped; just as if, well, just as
if he had come straight from the bath... Papa used to..."

"I understand why he" (Prince Andrew) "liked no one so much as him,"
said Princess Mary.

"Yes, and yet he is quite different. They say men are friends when
they are quite different. That must be true. Really he is quite unlike
him- in everything."

"Yes, but he's wonderful."

"Well, good night," said Natasha.

And the same mischievous smile lingered for a long time on her
face as if it had been forgotten there.


CHAPTER XVIII


It was a long time before Pierre could fall asleep that night. He
paced up and down his room, now turning his thoughts on a difficult
problem and frowning, now suddenly shrugging his shoulders and
wincing, and now smiling happily.

He was thinking of Prince Andrew, of Natasha, and of their love,
at one moment jealous of her past, then reproaching himself for that
feeling. It was already six in the morning and he still paced up and
down the room.

"Well, what's to be done if it cannot be avoided? What's to be done?
Evidently it has to be so," said he to himself, and hastily undressing
he got into bed, happy and agitated but free from hesitation or
indecision.

"Strange and impossible as such happiness seems, I must do
everything that she and I may be man and wife," he told himself.

A few days previously Pierre had decided to go to Petersburg on
the Friday. When he awoke on the Thursday, Savelich came to ask him
about packing for the journey.

"What, to Petersburg? What is Petersburg? Who is there in
Petersburg?" he asked involuntarily, though only to himself. "Oh, yes,
long ago before this happened I did for some reason mean to go to
Petersburg," he reflected. "Why? But perhaps I shall go. What a good
fellow he is and how attentive, and how he remembers everything," he
thought, looking at Savelich's old face, "and what a pleasant smile he
has!"

"Well, Savelich, do you still not wish to accept your freedom?"
Pierre asked him.

"What's the good of freedom to me, your excellency? We lived under
the late count- the kingdom of heaven be his!- and we have lived under
you too, without ever being wronged."

"And your children?"

"The children will live just the same. With such masters one can
live."

"But what about my heirs?" said Pierre. "Supposing I suddenly
marry... it might happen," he added with an involuntary smile.

"If I may take the liberty, your excellency, it would be a good
thing."

"How easy he thinks it," thought Pierre. "He doesn't know how
terrible it is and how dangerous. Too soon or too late... it is
terrible!"

"So what are your orders? Are you starting tomorrow?" asked
Savelich.

"No, I'll put it off for a bit. I'll tell you later. You must
forgive the trouble I have put you to," said Pierre, and seeing
Savelich smile, he thought: "But how strange it is that he should
not know that now there is no Petersburg for me, and that that must be
settled first of all! But probably he knows it well enough and is only
pretending. Shall I have a talk with him and see what he thinks?"
Pierre reflected. "No, another time."

At breakfast Pierre told the princess, his cousin, that he had
been to see Princess Mary the day before and had there met- "Whom do
you think? Natasha Rostova!"

The princess seemed to see nothing more extraordinary in that than
if he had seen Anna Semenovna.

"Do you know her?" asked Pierre.

"I have seen the princess," she replied. "I heard that they were
arranging a match for her with young Rostov. It would be a very good
thing for the Rostovs, they are said to be utterly ruined."

"No; I mean do you know Natasha Rostova?"

"I heard about that affair of hers at the time. It was a great
pity."

"No, she either doesn't understand or is pretending," thought
Pierre. "Better not say anything to her either."

The princess too had prepared provisions for Pierre's journey.

"How kind they all are," thought Pierre. "What is surprising is that
they should trouble about these things now when it can no longer be of
interest to them. And all for me!"

On the same day the Chief of Police came to Pierre, inviting him
to send a representative to the Faceted Palace to recover things
that were to be returned to their owners that day.

"And this man too," thought Pierre, looking into the face of the
Chief of Police. "What a fine, good-looking officer and how kind.
Fancy bothering about such trifies now! And they actually say he is
not honest and takes bribes. What nonsense! Besides, why shouldn't
he take bribes? That's the way he was brought up, and everybody does
it. But what a kind, pleasant face and how he smiles as he looks at
me."

Pierre went to Princess Mary's to dinner.

As he drove through the streets past the houses that had been burned
down, he was surprised by the beauty of those ruins. The
picturesqueness of the chimney stacks and tumble-down walls of the
burned-out quarters of the town, stretching out and concealing one
another, reminded him of the Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabmen he
met and their passengers, the carpenters cutting the timber for new
houses with axes, the women hawkers, and the shopkeepers, all looked
at him with cheerful beaming eyes that seemed to say: "Ah, there he
is! Let's see what will come of it!"

At the entrance to Princess Mary's house Pierre felt doubtful
whether he had really been there the night before and really seen
Natasha and talked to her. "Perhaps I imagined it; perhaps I shall
go in and find no one there." But he had hardly entered the room
before he felt her presence with his whole being by the loss of his
sense of freedom. She was in the same black dress with soft folds
and her hair was done the same way as the day before, yet she was
quite different. Had she been like this when he entered the day before
he could not for a moment have failed to recognize her.

She was as he had known her almost as a child and later on as Prince
Andrew's fiancee. A bright questioning light shone in her eyes, and on
her face was a friendly and strangely roguish expression.

Pierre dined with them and would have spent the whole evening there,
but Princess Mary was going to vespers and Pierre left the house
with her.

Next day he came early, dined, and stayed the whole evening.
Though Princess Mary and Natasha were evidently glad to see their
visitor and though all Pierre's interest was now centered in that
house, by the evening they had talked over everything and the
conversation passed from one trivial topic to another and repeatedly
broke off. He stayed so long that Princess Mary and Natasha
exchanged glances, evidently wondering when he would go. Pierre
noticed this but could not go. He felt uneasy and embarrassed, but sat
on because he simply could not get up and take his leave.

Princess Mary, foreseeing no end to this, rose first, and
complaining of a headache began to say good night.

"So you are going to Petersburg tomorrow?" she asked.

"No, I am not going," Pierre replied hastily, in a surprised tone
and as though offended. "Yes... no... to Petersburg? Tomorrow- but I
won't say good-by yet. I will call round in case you have any
commissions for me," said he, standing before Princess Mary and
turning red, but not taking his departure.

Natasha gave him her hand and went out. Princess Mary on the other
hand instead of going away sank into an armchair, and looked sternly
and intently at him with her deep, radiant eyes. The weariness she had
plainly shown before had now quite passed off. With a deep and
long-drawn sigh she seemed to be prepared for a lengthy talk.

When Natasha left the room Pierre's confusion and awkwardness
immediately vanished and were replaced by eager excitement. He quickly
moved an armchair toward Princess Mary.

"Yes, I wanted to tell you," said he, answering her look as if she
had spoken. "Princess, help me! What am I to do? Can I hope? Princess,
my dear friend, listen! I know it all. I know I am not worthy of
her, I know it's impossible to speak of it now. But I want to be a
brother to her. No, not that, I don't, I can't..."

He paused and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands.

"Well," he went on with an evident effort at self-control and
coherence. "I don't know when I began to love her, but I have loved
her and her alone all my life, and I love her so that I cannot imagine
life without her. I cannot propose to her at present, but the
thought that perhaps she might someday be my wife and that I may be
missing that possibility... that possibility... is terrible. Tell
me, can I hope? Tell me what I am to do, dear princess!" he added
after a pause, and touched her hand as she did not reply.

"I am thinking of what you have told me," answered Princess Mary.
"This is what I will say. You are right that to speak to her of love
at present..."

Princess Mary stopped. She was going to say that to speak of love
was impossible, but she stopped because she had seen by the sudden
change in Natasha two days before that she would not only not be
hurt if Pierre spoke of his love, but that it was the very thing she
wished for.

"To speak to her now wouldn't do," said the princess all the same.

"But what am I to do?

"Leave it to me," said Princess Mary. "I know..."

Pierre was looking into Princess Mary's eyes.

"Well?... Well?..." he said.

"I know that she loves... will love you," Princess Mary corrected
herself.

Before her words were out, Pierre had sprung up and with a
frightened expression seized Princess Mary's hand.

"What makes you think so? You think I may hope? You think...?"

"Yes, I think so," said Princess Mary with a smile. "Write to her
parents, and leave it to me. I will tell her when I can. I wish it
to happen and my heart tells me it will."

"No, it cannot be! How happy I am! But it can't be.... How happy I
am! No, it can't be!" Pierre kept saying as he kissed Princess
Mary's hands.

"Go to Petersburg, that will be best. And I will write to you,"
she said.

"To Petersburg? Go there? Very well, I'll go. But I may come again
tomorrow?"

Next day Pierre came to say good-by. Natasha was less animated
than she had been the day before; but that day as he looked at her
Pierre sometimes felt as if he was vanishing and that neither he nor
she existed any longer, that nothing existed but happiness. "Is it
possible? No, it can't be," he told himself at every look, gesture,
and word that filled his soul with joy.

When on saying good-by he took her thin, slender hand, he could
not help holding it a little longer in his own.

"Is it possible that this hand, that face, those eyes, all this
treasure of feminine charm so strange to me now, is it possible that
it will one day be mine forever, as familiar to me as I am to
myself?... No, that's impossible!..."

"Good-by, Count," she said aloud. "I shall look forward very much to
your return," she added in a whisper.

And these simple words, her look, and the expression on her face
which accompanied them, formed for two months the subject of
inexhaustible memories, interpretations, and happy meditations for
Pierre. "'I shall look forward very much to your return....' Yes, yes,
how did she say it? Yes, 'I shall look forward very much to your
return.' Oh, how happy I am! What is happening to me? How happy I am!"
said Pierre to himself.


CHAPTER XIX


There was nothing in Pierre's soul now at all like what had troubled
it during his courtship of Helene.

He did not repeat to himself with a sickening feeling of shame the
words he had spoken, or say: "Oh, why did I not say that?" and,
"Whatever made me say 'Je vous aime'?" On the contrary, he now
repeated in imagination every word that he or Natasha had spoken and
pictured every detail of her face and smile, and did not wish to
diminish or add anything, but only to repeat it again and again. There
was now not a shadow of doubt in his mind as to whether what he had
undertaken was right or wrong. Only one terrible doubt sometimes
crossed his mind: "Wasn't it all a dream? Isn't Princess Mary
mistaken? Am I not too conceited and self-confident? I believe all
this- and suddenly Princess Mary will tell her, and she will be sure
to smile and say: 'How strange! He must be deluding himself. Doesn't
he know that he is a man, just a man, while I...? I am something
altogether different and higher.'"

That was the only doubt often troubling Pierre. He did not now
make any plans. The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable
that if only he could attain it, it would be the end of all things.
Everything ended with that.

A joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself
incapable, possessed him. The whole meaning of life- not for him alone
but for the whole world- seemed to him centered in his love and the
possibility of being loved by her. At times everybody seemed to him to
be occupied with one thing only- his future happiness. Sometimes it
seemed to him that other people were all as pleased as he was
himself and merely tried to hide that pleasure by pretending to be
busy with other interests. In every word and gesture he saw
allusions to his happiness. He often surprised those he met by his
significantly happy looks and smiles which seemed to express a
secret understanding between him and them. And when he realized that
people might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied them with his
whole heart and felt a desire somehow to explain to them that all that
occupied them was a mere frivolous trifle unworthy of attention.

When it was suggested to him that he should enter the civil service,
or when the war or any general political affairs were discussed on the
assumption that everybody's welfare depended on this or that issue
of events, he would listen with a mild and pitying smile and
surprise people by his strange comments. But at this time he saw
everybody- both those who, as he imagined, understood the real meaning
of life (that is, what he was feeling) and those unfortunates who
evidently did not understand it- in the bright light of the emotion
that shone within himself, and at once without any effort saw in
everyone he met everything that was good and worthy of being loved.

When dealing with the affairs and papers of his dead wife, her
memory aroused in him no feeling but pity that she had not known the
bliss he now knew. Prince Vasili, who having obtained a new post and
some fresh decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed
to him a pathetic, kindly old man much to be pitied.

Often in afterlife Pierre recalled this period of blissful insanity.
All the views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained
true for him always. He not only did not renounce them subsequently,
but when he was in doubt or inwardly at variance, he referred to the
views he had held at this time of his madness and they always proved
correct.

"I may have appeared strange and queer then," he thought, "but I was
not so mad as I seemed. On the contrary I was then wiser and had
more insight than at any other time, and understood all that is
worth understanding in life, because... because I was happy."

Pierre's insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to
discover personal attributes which he termed "good qualities" in
people before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love,
and by loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes
for loving them.


CHAPTER XX


After Pierre's departure that first evening, when Natasha had said
to Princess Mary with a gaily mocking smile: "He looks just, yes, just
as if he had come out of a Russian bath- in a short coat and with
his hair cropped," something hidden and unknown to herself, but
irrepressible, awoke in Natasha's soul.

Everything: her face, walk, look, and voice, was suddenly altered.
To her own surprise a power of life and hope of happiness rose to
the surface and demanded satisfaction. From that evening she seemed to
have forgotten all that had happened to her. She no longer
complained of her position, did not say a word about the past, and
no longer feared to make happy plans for the future. She spoke
little of Pierre, but when Princess Mary mentioned him a
long-extinguished light once more kindled in her eyes and her lips
curved with a strange smile.

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

 Natasha gave herself up so fully and frankly to this new feeling
that she did not try to hide the fact that she was no longer sad,
but bright and cheerful.

When Princess Mary returned to her room after her nocturnal talk
with Pierre, Natasha met her on the threshold.

"He has spoken? Yes? He has spoken?" she repeated.

And a joyful yet pathetic expression which seemed to beg forgiveness
for her joy settled on Natasha's face.

"I wanted to listen at the door, but I knew you would tell me."

Understandable and touching as the look with which Natasha gazed
at her seemed to Princess Mary, and sorry as she was to see her
agitation, these words pained her for a moment. She remembered her
brother and his love.

"But what's to be done? She can't help it," thought the princess.

And with a sad and rather stern look she told Natasha all that
Pierre had said. On hearing that he was going to Petersburg Natasha
was astounded.

"To Petersburg!" she repeated as if unable to understand.

But noticing the grieved expression on Princess Mary's face she
guessed the reason of that sadness and suddenly began to cry.

"Mary," said she, "tell me what I should do! I am afraid of being
bad. Whatever you tell me, I will do. Tell me...."

"You love him?"

"Yes," whispered Natasha.

"Then why are you crying? I am happy for your sake," said Princess
Mary, who because of those tears quite forgave Natasha's joy.

"It won't be just yet- someday. Think what fun it will be when I
am his wife and you marry Nicholas!"

"Natasha, I have asked you not to speak of that. Let us talk about
you."

They were silent awhile.

"But why go to Petersburg?" Natasha suddenly asked, and hastily
replied to her own question. "But no, no, he must... Yes, Mary, He
must...."